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Ph: (617) 247-1933 581 Boylston Street, Boston MA 02116
HomeSalesRentalsContactLogin phone(617) 247-1933
2353 Mass Ave
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Originally constructed in 1973, this condominium has been regularly updated and maintained for a thoroughly modern experience. Outfitted with elevators, it is professionally managed by talented staff members. Filled with modern conveniences, this condominium is placed at 2353 Mass Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
At this complex, residents will discover on-street, permit parking. Every resident can enjoy having access to a common laundry room and bicycle storage. Placed close to Porter Square and Davis Square, the property is near the Minuteman bike path. It is also close to the T Station's red line, shopping options and restaurant venues.
Within the units, residents will encounter large living rooms and dining rooms. The kitchens and bathrooms have been updated with modern design concepts and amenities. Using the sliding glass door, residents can easily access their private balcony. This spacious balcony is perfect for enjoying the summer sun or watching the sun set after a long day at work. Boasting of generous closet space, these units include spacious bedrooms.
Many of the units are designed with track lighting in the kitchens and sleek hardwood flooring. Kitchens in the renovated units include tile backsplashes, maple cabinetry and granite counters. Stainless steel appliances like refrigerators, microwaves, dishwashers and stoves can be found in the kitchens. Outfitted with deep hall closets, select units offer tiled bathrooms. Meanwhile, wall air conditioning units help to cool off the units during the hot months.
The common laundry room and bike storage can be found on the first floor. Many of the units include exclusive, deeded garage space. Select units also offer extra storage space within the basement. Depending on the unit, the private balcony also offers treetop views of the surrounding area or views of Cambridge. Within this brick building, residents can enjoy ample sunlight and large closets. Expansive living rooms offer plenty of space for entertaining.
Designed to be cable-ready, these units are only a few blocks away from Davis Station. Boasting of pet-friendly options, the units are protected through an intercom system.
2353 Mass Avenue offers easy access to Harvard University and Alewife Brook Parkway. Commuters can readily access Routes 2, 90, 93, 38, 38, 95, 16 and 28. The Logan and Hanscom are just a short drive away. Meanwhile, the 77 bus stops right in front of the complex.
Located across the Charles River from Boston, Cambridge originally began as a working-class town. Since its earlier beginnings, it has grown to include world-class universities, quiet residential streets and intellectual cafes. Named after the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, this city is known as the home of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University.
In 1630, Cambridge was chosen as the site of a settlement because it would be easy to defend against enemy ships. Within a year, the first homes were built in the area as a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1636, the Newe College was started. Later renamed Harvard College, this college was built because it was near a popular preacher of the time period.
For years, Cambridge was primarily an agricultural village. In 1775. George Washington arrived and began commanding the American soldiers based at the Cambridge Common. Around this time, most of the Tory homes and estates were confiscated.
While it may have originally been agricultural, Cambridge quickly grew between 1890 and 1840. By the middle of the 19th century, it was at the center of the literary revolution. Top poets and writers lived in the area. In addition to being a literary center, the construction of new turnpikes allowed the city's commerce to advance. By the 1920s, this city was a nexus of industry in New England. After the Great Depression and World War II, Cambridge's industries declined. Instead, a new intellectual character began to grow.
High-technology start-ups arrived in the 1980s. Many of these technology companies can still be found around Kendall Square. With its blend of top amenities and desirable location, Cambridge has enjoyed a revitalization in recent decades.
Today, residents can enjoy easy transportation options and top schools. While the Massachusetts Turnpike does not go through the city, it can be reached through an exit near Allston. The MBTA offers mass transit options like buses and rail lines. Meanwhile, bicyclists can enjoy multiple bike paths. Other than the one by the Charles River, residents can also check out the Minuteman Bikeway and the Somerville Community Path. Bike lanes are also available on many streets.
Placed near the Concord Turnpike and Route 3, this complex has a convenient location at 28 Foch Street. These condos are known for being exceptionally exclusive with just two units available for residents. Designed with an exceptional attention to detail, this property boasts of large windows and plenty of natural light. Whether residents want spacious units or comfortable features, they can find the amenities they need at this beautiful condominium.
Amenities at the Condominium
This complex is placed at the intersection of Route 16 and Route 3. Within this convenient home, residents will find two different units. Each of these units is equipped with plenty of extra storage space. Designed with sleek hardwood flooring, these units are outfitted with gorgeous skylights and large windows. While the exact amenities and size vary between the two unit, both condos boast of gorgeous architecture and high-end finishes.
This lovely unit includes four rooms. Residents will find two bedrooms and one bathroom within the condo. Encompassing a total of 628 square feet, this condo boasts of a cozy, charming breakfast nook. Equipped with an eat-in kitchen, this unit is outfitted with appliances like a refrigerator and a stove. In the tiled bathroom, residents will discover lovely recessed lighting. Throughout this beautiful unit, residents will discover beautiful hardwood flooring.
This unit is slightly larger than the other one at the property. It includes a total of six rooms and 772 square feet of living space. Within this condo, residents will find two bathrooms and two bedrooms. In the eat-in kitchen, residents will discover a dishwasher, refrigerator and gas stove. Residents can enjoy having plenty of natural lighting and ample floor space within the large living rooms. In the updated bathrooms, residents will discover beautiful recessed lighting.
Features to Fall in Love With
Like most condominium properties, residents at 28 Foch Street pay a monthly association fee. This fee includes the cost of the building's maintenance and master insurance. As an added benefit, the association fee covers the cost of sewer and water.
When residents live at this property, they can enjoy having easy access to a number of desirable amenities. This property is equipped with on-site laundry facilities, so residents never have to leave home to finish their chores. There is ample space for parking around the complex as well as a paved driveway.
After a long day, residents can unwind within these spacious units. During warmer weather, the fenced-in yard is the perfect place to relax. Since these units are pet-friendly, the yard is also a great amenity for pet owners.
As an added convenience, there is extra space available for storage. The complex includes a basement and an attic that can be used for storing extra items. Located close to the Metro Bay Transportation Authority, this convenient property offers all of the amenities that residents need to enjoy life in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Because of their amenities and location, these units tend to go quickly once they appear on the marketplace. To find out why these condos are so desirable, schedule a condo tour right away.
BostonCityProperties.com
581 Boylston St, Boston MA 02116
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© Boston City Properties, Inc. 2019
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A dozen new moons of Jupiter discovered, including one “oddball”
Washington, DC—Twelve new moons orbiting Jupiter have been found—11 “normal” outer moons, and one that they’re calling an “oddball.” This brings Jupiter’s total number of known moons to a whopping 79—the most of any planet in our Solar System.
A team led by Carnegie’s Scott S. Sheppard first spotted the moons in the spring of 2017 while they were looking for very distant Solar System objects as part of the hunt for a possible massive planet far beyond Pluto.
In 2014, this same team found the object with the most-distant known orbit in our Solar System and was the first to realize that an unknown massive planet at the fringes of our Solar System, far beyond Pluto, could explain the similarity of the orbits of several small extremely distant objects. This putative planet is now sometimes popularly called Planet X or Planet Nine. University of Hawaii’s Dave Tholen and Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo are also part of the planet search team.
“Jupiter just happened to be in the sky near the search fields where we were looking for extremely distant Solar System objects, so we were serendipitously able to look for new moons around Jupiter while at the same time looking for planets at the fringes of our Solar System,” said Sheppard.
Gareth Williams at the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center used the team’s observations to calculate orbits for the newly found moons.
“It takes several observations to confirm an object actually orbits around Jupiter,” Williams said. “So, the whole process took a year.”
Nine of the new moons are part of a distant outer swarm of moons that orbit it in the retrograde, or opposite direction of Jupiter’s spin rotation. These distant retrograde moons are grouped into at least three distinct orbital groupings and are thought to be the remnants of three once-larger parent bodies that broke apart during collisions with asteroids, comets, or other moons. The newly discovered retrograde moons take about two years to orbit Jupiter.
Two of the new discoveries are part of a closer, inner group of moons that orbit in the prograde, or same direction as the planet’s rotation. These inner prograde moons all have similar orbital distances and angles of inclinations around Jupiter and so are thought to also be fragments of a larger moon that was broken apart. These two newly discovered moons take a little less than a year to travel around Jupiter.
“Our other discovery is a real oddball and has an orbit like no other known Jovian moon,” Sheppard explained. “It’s also likely Jupiter’s smallest known moon, being less than one kilometer in diameter”.
This new “oddball” moon is more distant and more inclined than the prograde group of moons and takes about one and a half years to orbit Jupiter. So, unlike the closer-in prograde group of moons, this new oddball prograde moon has an orbit that crosses the outer retrograde moons.
As a result, head-on collisions are much more likely to occur between the “oddball” prograde and the retrograde moons, which are moving in opposite directions.
“This is an unstable situation,” said Sheppard. “Head-on collisions would quickly break apart and grind the objects down to dust.”
It’s possible the various orbital moon groupings we see today were formed in the distant past through this exact mechanism.
The team think this small “oddball” prograde moon could be the last-remaining remnant of a once-larger prograde-orbiting moon that formed some of the retrograde moon groupings during past head-on collisions. The name Valetudo has been proposed for it, after the Roman god Jupiter’s great-granddaughter, the goddess of health and hygiene.
Elucidating the complex influences that shaped a moon’s orbital history can teach scientists about our Solar System’s early years.
For example, the discovery that the smallest moons in Jupiter’s various orbital groups are still abundant suggests the collisions that created them occurred after the era of planet formation, when the Sun was still surrounded by a rotating disk of gas and dust from which the planets were born.
Because of their sizes—one to three kilometers—these moons are more influenced by surrounding gas and dust. If these raw materials had still been present when Jupiter’s first generation of moons collided to form its current clustered groupings of moons, the drag exerted by any remaining gas and dust on the smaller moons would have been sufficient to cause them to spiral inwards toward Jupiter. Their existence shows that they were likely formed after this gas and dust dissipated.
The initial discovery of most of the new moons were made on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American in Chile and operated by the National Optical Astronomical Observatory of the United States. The telescope recently was upgraded with the Dark Energy Camera, making it a powerful tool for surveying the night sky for faint objects. Several telescopes were used to confirm the finds, including the 6.5-meter Magellan telescope at Carnegie’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile; the 4-meter Discovery Channel Telescope at Lowell Observatory Arizona (thanks to Audrey Thirouin, Nick Moskovitz and Maxime Devogele); the 8-meter Subaru Telescope and the Univserity of Hawaii 2.2 meter telescope (thanks to Dave Tholen and Dora Fohring at the University of Hawaii); and 8-meter Gemini Telescope in Hawaii (thanks to Director’s Discretionary Time to recover Valetudo). Bob Jacobson and Marina Brozovic at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed the calculated orbit of the unusual oddball moon in 2017 in order to double check its location prediction during the 2018 recovery observations in order to make sure the new interesting moon was not lost.
Caption: Recovery images of Valetudo from the Magellan telescope in May 2018. The moon can be seen moving relative to the steady state background of distant stars. Jupiter is not in the field but off to the upper left.
This research was partially funded by a NASA Planetary Astronomy grant and includes data gathered with the 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes. This project used data obtained with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which was constructed by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaborating institutions. Observations were partly obtained at CTIO, NOAO, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, under contract with the NSF.
Scott Sheppard
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Man who ate $120,000 banana at art show says 'I'm not sorry'
By Angela Moore
Reuters December 10, 2019
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A performance artist who ate a banana taped to a wall that was an artwork valued at $120,000 said his actions were not vandalism and he does not regret his snack at Art Basel in Miami Beach, Florida.
"I decided in the morning. But I was not too hungry. So I spent another two hours to the Basel and I eat it," performance artist David Datuna, who was born in Georgia, the former Soviet republic, told reporters in New York on Monday.
Artist Maurizio Cattelan's piece - a banana duct-taped to a wall and called "Comedian" - sold for $120,000.
Datuna joined the crowd taking selfies with the banana on Saturday and then pulled off the tape and ate the banana in a video widely shared on social media.
"First of all, I very respect this artist. For me, he is one of the top artists in the world," Datuna said. "And I think this is the first one in art history when one artist eat concept for another artist. People ask me, you eat banana? Physically is was banana, but banana is just a tool. So usually I eat the concept of the art."
He added that the artwork tasted good.
"So it's not like, again, vandalism. It was art performance from me. And absolutely, I'm not sorry," he said. "I call performance 'Hungry Artist'. Yeah, because I was hungry and I just eat it."
Representatives of Art Basel were not immediately available to comment. The identity of the buyer was never disclosed by the gallery.
Cattelan previously created an 18-carat gold toilet that New York's Guggenheim Museum offered to lend to U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018. The $5 million toilet was stolen from Britain's Blenheim Palace in September.
(Reporting by Angela Moore; Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Dan Grebler)
‘A Soldier’s Play’ Broadway Review: Stars David Alan Grier & Blair Underwood Earn Stripes In Charles Fuller’s Potent 1981 Masterpiece
‘A Soldier’s Play’ Broadway Review: Blair Underwood and David Alan Grier Stand and Salute
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All posts tagged "official video"
Home / Posts tagged "official video"
The Dirty Nil release new music video for “Pain of Infinity”
By Nicole Wolfe on February 16, 2019
Hamilton-based, The Dirty Nil have released the official video for “Pain of Infinity” from their latest album, Master Volume. The video was directed by Mitch Barnes and...
SATE releases new single, “Dirty Little Lie”
By Nicole Wolfe on January 27, 2019
SATE has released “Dirty Little Lie”, a song about control, either succumbing to it or taking it back. It begs the question of the listener...
Return For Refund releases official video for “Lift You Up”
By Nicole Wolfe on May 8, 2017
Return For Refund have released the official video for their single, “Lift You Up”, the title track from their debut album. The song has been...
New video released by Lori Cullen (duet with Ron Sexsmith)
By Nicole Wolfe on November 15, 2016
Toronto songstress, Lori Cullen, has released the official video for “Off Somewhere”, a duet with Ron Sexsmith, from her upcoming ablum Sexsmith Swinghammer Songs (True North Records)....
New video released by Repartee
By Nicole Wolfe on June 8, 2016
On the heels of finishing their cross-Canada tour in support of their debut album, All Lit Up (released April 29 via Sleepless Records), Repartee, an indie...
New video released by Leondro
By Nicole Wolfe on May 19, 2016
Toronto rapper, Leondro, has just released the Official video for “Super Big”, which is a beautiful tribute to his mother, highlighting the sacrifices she has...
New Video released by From The Ruins
From the Ruins, an alternative rock band from Barrie, ON, has recently released the Official Video for their single, “Voices”. This song is a story...
New video released by Friends of Foes
By Nicole Wolfe on March 8, 2016
Friends of Foes, an Indie/Alt Pop band from Saskatoon, SK has just released the official video for their song, “Monarch”, which features live footage from...
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From the seminar room library to the modern University Library - the development of the HSG Library from 1898 to today.
1898 Founding of the Trade Academy at Notkerstrasse 22 in the town of St.Gallen.
The collections, previously maintained in various seminar rooms, are moved to a central location and made available to students.
1963 New construction of the University on the Rosenberg. The Library is given space in the two top floors and later becomes the central main Library.
1974 The Department of Linguistics and Literature is divested due to lack of space. The growing collection soon fills the open stacks as well as the cellar storage archives.
1980 In the early 80s, a concept for the new Library is developed. Plans are made for 350,000 books, 15 employees and 3,000 students.
1985 Approval of the new building by popular vote on the second attempt.
1986 Evaluation of automation: selection of the Dobis/Libis library system.
1987 Introduction of the user catalogue module (OPAC) / cataloguing / purchasing. The card catalogue is transferred to microfiche.
1989 Move to the new Library: all collections are gathered and made available to users in the open stacks area.
Introduction of electronic borrowing, online database services and expansion of the library network with institute libraries and external libraries.
1994 Re-cataloguing of all items older than 1987 is started.
1999 Introduction of the ALEPH library system. The IDS St. Gallen is part of the IDS (Informationsverbund Deutschschweiz, consisting of the Basel, Bern, Lucerne and Zurich university libraries as well as the Zurich ETH library).
2000 The HSG lists all licensed e-journals in the EZB (electronic journal library).
2001 Opening of the lower level as an open stacks area.
2003 Introduction of link resolver software SFX (ExLibris).
2004 ICapture is used to scan the contents pages of all new acquisitions. These will be included in any full text search and they will also be shown in the catalogue title display.
2005 Establishing the University Archives Office.
2007 More than 70,000 e-books are available in the library catalogue.
2008 Introduction of the MediaScout room information system.
About 170,000 books published before 1987 are moved to a storage facility on Schuppistrasse in St.Gallen. The facility is managed in co-operation with the Canton Library and the St.Gallen State Archive. A daily courier service is initiated between the storage facility, the University Library and the St.Gallen Canton Library.
2009 Re-cataloguing work is completed. All available documents are listed in the Library catalogue.
2010 Introduction of RFID for self-service borrowing. Renovation of the information area.
2011 Dr. Xaver Baumgartner retires as Library Director after 25 successful years. Mag. Edeltraud Haas MSc is appointed as new Library Director.
Metasearch (EBSCO Discovery Service, EDS) offers a single access point for searching in many different databases (incl. the Library Catalogue).
2012 After a re-organization, the Library is divided into the following units: Director and Assistant Director, Acquisition and Finance, Information Resources, Circulation/Study Facilities.
700 Meters of shelf space becomes available after relocating 25,000 volumes of journals issues published before 1985 in a depot. All journals issues published in 1985 and later can be found in the basement. Our Economics collection is newly organized on the ground floor. Additional study space (8 units) could be created.
2013 Starting in April 2013, opening hours from Monday to Friday are extended until 23.00 hrs. During 10 weeks in the summer, opening hours are reduced (Mon – Fri: 9.00 - 20.00, Sat: 9.00 – 13.00). For the first time the Library is open on Sundays in June during the exam preparation period.
Our collection of Law books is reorganized on the first floor. The subject areas of Geography, Mathematics, Information Technology, Engineering and Sports, are moved to the basement. All available shelf space in the Library and in the depot is now in use.
In November 2013, nineteen new and quiet study places are offered to master’s students working on their theses. Library staff is relocated to the basement of the building.
2014 The Library took steps to institutionalize innovation management by setting up an ideas and discussion forum for staff and a speaking wall for user feedback.
This year also saw the implementation of our new opening hours. These had been discussed with the Student Union and were tested in 2013. New opening hours: during exam preparation periods in January and July the Library will be open until 11.00 pm and on Sundays from 11.00 am until 4.00 pm; During the regular semester: until 10.00 pm; During Summer Break: until 8.00 pm and on Saturdays from 8.00 am to 2.00 pm.
The plan for a document management and filing system was approved by the President’s Board of the University. It has, therefore, become mandatory for processing HSG administrative records and it should be implemented according to the DRMS framework.
2015 The General Meeting of the European Business School Librarians’ Group (EBSLG) was successfully hosted at the University from 8th – 11th of June. More than 50 participants and sponsors attended the meeting.
After evaluating student feedback on our speaking wall and recommendations from an integration seminar, it was decided to allow students to take bags and briefcases into the Library. After a brief test period, this measure came into effect in the summer of 2015.
In September 2015 the study space available to master students was increased. Master students now have 30 places available to them in the Library (before 22) and these have all been refurbished with new ergonomic furniture.
To prepare for the introduction of the new international RDA (= Resource Description and Access) cataloguing and indexing system, the separate bibliographical databases of the PHS and FHS libraries as well as our own institutional libraries, were integrated into the main Library database. At the same time, the number of independent and still active institutional libraries could be reduced to 7.
2016 Journals have been rearranged to save space. The subject areas on the first floor were moved to the basement. It was possible to create space for new documents until 2019 as well as for 40 new work spaces.
The project proposal for storing around 320,000 documents in the Kooperative Speicherbibliothek Schweiz in Büron/LU has been approved by the project board and the president’s board.
The emergency concept for our collection has been completed and introduced into our operations. After the reorganization of the university administration and the vice-president’s boards the university archive is now integrated into the university’s General Counsel.
2017 36 additional state of the art study desks have been put up on the upper floor of the library. The existing study desks have been optimised with flexible blinds and plug sockets. The library’s maximum holding capacity in regards to safety, infrastructure and climate has been reached with 550 study desks. Two additional seminary rooms have been transformed into study zones in times of extensive use during the exam preparation period. The extension will be continued in coming exam preparation periods due to excellent usage.
From the end of August to mid December 2017, 140,000 documents were moved from the depot at Schuppisstrasse 16 / St. Gallen to the Cooperative Storage Library Switzerland. The depot has been returned to the Hochbauamt of the Canton of St. Gallen after 10 years of service.
Writing consultation and the night of academic writing competence have been added to the library’s offering of consultation services.
The virtual bookshelf for the textbook collection provides an overview of physical and electronic textbooks. E-books can be accessed directly using a QR code.
2018 At the end of May 2018 the last documents were moved to the Cooperative Storage Library Switzerland. Thereby the project is completed. 250,000 documents pre-dating 1995 have been moved off-site. Calculating with a stable rate of new acquisitions, roughly 10,000 printed publications a year, the library now has reserve space for the upcoming ten years. The following stock taking of our complete collection was for the first time ever done in individual stages, necessitating only four days of completely closing the library. In consequence, we were able to re-arrange shelves, integrate the textbook collection into our main collection and present bestsellers and non-books more visually pleasing in the information area. Our 550 study desks were re-arranged and optimised with visual covers and plug sockets, following recommendations of a MA dissertation at the HTW Chur.
Our e-BookShelf is now presenting all our electronic books.
Experts have been designated for the project and realization of SLSP. The change project «Let’s Talk about SLSP» is keeping staff informed and engaged.
The Library in figures
Items 30,000 90,000
Employees 2 7 20 37 38 (28.2 FTE)
History of the HSG
Art at the HSG
HSG Library on Flickr
Video: 25 years of our library building
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Twisted legislation on ‘care home’ costs
More twisted legislation on pensioners is threatened. ‘A commission of experts appointed by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is considering a cap [on care home fees].’ (Daily Mail, 19 May 2011)
Pensioners who are committed to ‘care homes’ have to pay the fees if they can afford to do so. If necessary, they have to sell their homes and deplete their assets in other ways, which deprives their children of their inheritances. But we know that nobody cares about that. Inheritance is a nasty idea, as is heredity. If anyone minds at all about forced sales of homes, there is probably some other reason behind it.
Perhaps people will come to realise that care homes are a bad idea and instead will form cooperative associations to maintain their freedom, and independence from state-provided benefits. This would be a good development from my point of view, but is to be avoided in the view of those who espouse the oppressive ideology.
The state wants to be as greedy as it can get away with, so it needs to consider what a majority of people brought up in the modern world will tolerate.
Yesterday [the] chairman [of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support], economist Andrew Dilnot, said: ‘My impression is that what people want most is a resolution. There’s a pretty widespread feeling that it’s not unreasonable that people have to pay something, but they don’t want to face losing everything.’ (ibid.)
So now it seems it is proposed that those who fall into the clutches of the oppressive state should be subsidised by taxing those who make adequate arrangements for themselves.
It was first proposed that on reaching pensionable age everybody should pay a lump sum into a fund to finance those who did eventually go into a ‘care home’. This proposal was not passed, but could always be revived.
Now it is proposed that the cost of incarceration in a ‘care home’ should be capped, so that not so many homes will have to be sold. Those who go into ‘care homes’ would be subsidised by those who manage to stay out of them.
An alternative to the lump sum confiscation from all on reaching pensionable age, which has also been proposed, is an additional lump sum ‘death duty’ to be paid out of the estates of those who die (after reaching pensionable age, or before as well?) to pay for the costs of care home incarceration, whether or not the deceased had himself ever been subjected to a ‘care home’.
The Daily Mail understands that capping fees at £50,000 is the favoured option of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support, appointed by the Government after the election. ... The other options being considered were a person paying a percentage of care costs, with the state picking up the rest; and the state paying a certain amount, above which the person pays. (ibid.)
Perhaps once again the driving force is the dislike of penalising a population with, on average, lower IQs, and of leaving a population with higher IQs unscathed. Is it not likely to be the case that those who are fit enough and/or resourceful enough, and/or sufficiently provided with devoted relatives, to avoid going into a ‘care home’ at all, constitute a population with an average IQ above that of the population of those whose health is suspect and who are too passive, or ‘past it’, to fix themselves up with adequate arrangements at home?
So it cannot (the argument goes) be fair that those who are robust enough to escape the ‘care homes’ should pay less towards the cost of them than those who are forced to rely on them. There is no suggestion that the cost reduction granted to ‘care home’ occupants will be financed by reducing state spending in other areas, e.g. overseas aid. It is therefore bound to come out of higher taxes, even if this is hidden, as many new taxes now are.
When I reached the age at which I started to receive a state pension – which was already somewhat ‘withered on the vine’ – I was not forced to contribute a lump sum towards my future possible incarceration in a ‘care home’ and would have been appalled if I had been, as I would never submit to any such fate, and was still trying to build up capital towards the start of an adequate academic career, of which I had been deprived by being exposed to state-funded ‘education’.
My parents’ lives had also been severely damaged by the ruin of my life, and my father had been an invalid ever since. I had no salary and no eligibility for ‘social security’, and suffered very much myself from lack of basic ancillary staff. Nevertheless I would not consider my parents being forced into ‘care homes’ and promised them that, whatever happened, I would find ways of providing for their needs at home.
It would certainly not have seemed ‘fair’ to me if their estates had each been reduced on death by a lump sum to pay for the ‘care’ which they might have, but had not, received.
Right and wrong ways of reacting to slander
What none of my college or other ‘friends’ have done for me, and are still not doing.
In the first place, they could have come to work for me themselves, even if only in vacations from their salaried jobs. Whether they did so themselves or not, they could have encouraged their sons and daughters, and any other younger friends and relatives, to come and work in their vacations, and encouraged them also to think in terms of making a permanent career with me.
Even if they had never given me any help throughout their working lives, one might have expected that when they retired they might feel they had more freedom to do so.
They could have moved nearby, and perhaps bought houses with spare rooms which could be used by my struggling organisation as storage rooms or office rooms. Or if they did not want to move nearby, they might have been suffiently well off(since at least some of them would have inheritances to add to their own savings) to buy second or holiday homes in or near Cuddesdon.
They would not need to live in these houses themselves for us to derive some benefit from them as extra space. If they did live in them, occasionally or continuously, they could also come and do voluntary work for us, and/or act as ‘supporters’ in fund-raising activities and appeals to specific potential donors. Or, of course, they could contribute financial support themselves, and leave money or assets in their wills.
Especially those who have no children to leave it to, and I know of several who do not, and especially those who failed to oppose the slanderous gossip that always arose around me.
‘Someone says her father is pushing her?’ anyone should have said on hearing it. ‘It is no business of ours. One should not pass on slander that may be untrue. Whether true or not, slanders of that kind can be extremely damaging and do untold harm to the lives of those who are gossiped about. Personally, I will not indulge in considering such things for a moment.’
Those who failed to stand up for me and my parents in this way should now realise how wrong they were not to do so, and should feel all the more moral obligation to make reparation to me now, since I am still struggling to restore myself to a tolerable and productive position in life.
The Wardenship of New College
Three years ago my colleague Dr Charles McCreery, as an alumnus of New College, nominated me for the position of Warden of New College. His application was not accepted and I was not on the list of nominees circulated for voting.
This is the letter from someone at New College, turning down the nomination. Charles did not make any reply at the time because we thought the effort would be wasted on a single person, and we should reply only in the form of an open letter which could go on my blog.
Dear Dr McCreery,
Thank you for your letter about your colleague Dr Celia Green. You were unable to find the further details of the Wardenship on the College website because they were removed when the deadline for applications passed on 11 January. From the information you've provided, it appears that Dr Green is 72 years old, putting her above the statutory retirement age for the post, which is 70. I'm afraid this means we will not be able to consider her.
It is only now, three years later, that I am managing to put a reply to this on the blog, which in itself shows how bad is our position in exile from society, and how effectively we are stifled and censored, although there are many areas to which we could and should be able to contribute.
The fact is that a rule about retirement age cannot be held to apply to someone who has been wrongfully deprived of even starting on a career. If an egregious injustice has been committed, then it may be necessary to break an artificial rule in rectifying it.
No rules were broken in ruining my career because there are no explicit rules about an obligation to provide a person in the ‘educational’ system with qualifications appropriate for the sort of career to which they are suited and which they need to have; their need to get started on it being made more urgent, and not less, by the passage of time. There are no explicit rules which the educational system breaks in not allowing them to obtain qualifications suitable to their ability, and, one may think, this is because the educational system has the express underlying purpose of destroying the lives of those with the greatest ability. Even if one does not think this, it indicates that the educational system is extremely dangerous.
Herded into mega care homes
Why should the state provide ‘care homes’ anyway? Because it is nowadays theoretically responsible for keeping everybody physically alive, and if they cannot keep themselves alive they must be incarcerated, so that they will die under ‘medical’ supervision.
How did the situation ever arise that the state is responsible in this way? When pensions were first proposed they were supposed to be like commercial pensions, based on what a person paid in, and there was no guarantee that they would provide for them in any particular comfort indefinitely.
Then the Welfare State came in, with benefits to this and that acceptable purpose and, of course, the NHS! So any physical ailment can be tackled with some semblance of ‘treatment’.
But suppose one does not want the state to provide support, incarceration, treatment etc. as it sees fit? Can’t one just opt out, and say, ‘I do not want anything to do with the NHS or state pensions, so I prefer not to pay NI contributions’?
Well, no, you can’t say that. The Welfare State has bought you, and now owns you body and soul.
Quoting ‘research’ into the number of people who live with or without ‘help’, John Bond, professor of gerontology and health services research at Newcastle University (i.e. a professor of ideology, paid out of money confiscated from taxpayers) says:
‘It seems many people are able to manage living on their own with physical disease, but if they develop dementia they are a greater risk to themselves and the community.’ (Daily Mail, 11 May 2011)
They are certainly likely to prefer living on their own, in their own homes, so it seems we have to invoke ‘risk’, to justify incarcerating them. They might wish to decide for themselves what risks to take, so we invoke ‘risk to the community’. What risk to the community is an old person suffering from Alzheimer’s likely to be?
There was a time, before the Oppressive State came in, when you had to commit some specific offence in order to be incarcerated, and you did not have to worry about somebody’s subjective opinion about how likely you were to commit it.
The Dilnot Commission, set up by the Government to investigate a funding system for elderly care and support, is due to report this summer. Martin Green, of the English Community Care Association, says homes already supply the most cost-effective way of providing care. ‘It would be more viable to have bigger care homes in the future ...’ (ibid.)
Well, yes, if the government thinks it is its business to provide for people, no doubt it is cheaper to herd them together like battery hens.
Sight has long ago been lost of the idea that a pension should be adequate to provide a person with a live-in housekeeper if they want or need one, and that earlier in life people should be given the option of paying into a scheme that is designed to provide this.
And what is this sinister suggestion about a ‘funding system’ for care homes? Those who submit to entering them pay fees, provided by the sale of their homes or other assets. Those who manage to keep out of them do not pay fees, and should not pay ‘funding’ for those who do not preserve their liberty.
We invite those who are approaching an age at which they may need help to come and live in, or as near as possible to, Cuddesdon. If they were to do some voluntary work for our independent university, we would help them to organise support for their requirements on a cooperative basis, to enable them to live without exposing themselves to the hazards of collectivist help from Council or state.
Remedies, feeble and/or dangerous
In You Magazine, discussing flashback memories that may or may not be veridical, Zelda West-Meads says ‘I’m not a doctor so I don’t know what part, if any, the drugs play in your flashbacks.’ What makes her think that she would know, or might know, if she were a doctor? What makes her think doctors know anything much about the drugs which they are able to prescribe (and often force on victims against their will)? The fact is, West-Meads does not know, and even if she knew quite a lot about the drug in question and the individual in question, she still would not know whether in this particular case it was producing veridical flashbacks.
Then West-Meads tells her correspondent, ‘Please get professional help – you could contact the British Psychological Society ... for private counselling.’ That is a very dangerous thing to suggest. Why ever should ‘professional’ psychologists or doctors be regarded as likely to tell a victim anything that is helpful rather than damaging? Many who seek ‘professional’ help become drugged zombies, dependent for life on socially authorised oppressors.
Then again, in the Mail on Sunday, Lisa Buckingham refers to the practice now adopted by some local authorities, of forcing individuals to pay for planning permission by exploiting legislation which was never meant for this purpose. She also criticises the goings-on of the FSA (Financial Services Authority), suggesting that ‘what is needed is an independent investigation of the FSA’s role.’ No, it isn’t. What is needed is abolition of the FSA and of all planning by ‘local authorities’. (In fact, abolition of local authorities altogether would be a good idea.) How could an investigation be ‘independent’? Everyone concerned would be accepting the usual unexamined assumptions, as Lisa Buckingham does.
‘Of course,’ she says, ‘we need to continue to build houses for poorer people to live in.’ No, we don’t, in a collectivist sense. An individual might wish to, using his own money, but once you start letting social entities, such as Councils, do what they see fit with money confiscated from individuals, there is no end in sight.
Forcing a supermarket giant or huge construction company to build affordable housing, roads or schools in return for planning permission is an accepted part of local authority funding.
Using these same tactics on individuals building a summer house, or small developers putting up a couple of executive homes, amounts to little more than bullying exploitation.
A subjective sense that, beyond a certain arbitrary point, oppression becomes ‘bullying exploitation’ does nothing to halt the downfall of civilisation.
And why should forcing supermarkets to spend their shareholders’ money on affordable housing not also be regarded as ‘bullying exploitation’? It is adding another tax to those already being paid by the company and by its shareholders when they receive dividends.
Maybe some of the shareholders, like me, need to build up capital to work towards remedying the damage done to their lives by an ‘education’ over which they had no control. And perhaps, like me, they would not be eligible for affordable housing, however poor they were.
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L'Engle, Madeleine.
A wrinkle in time / Madeleine L'Engle.
1st Square Fish ed.
New York : Square Fish, c2007.
Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg's father, who has disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government.
John Newbery Medal Winner, 1963
Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg's father, who has disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government, in a re-release of the classic story. A Newbery Medal Book. Simultaneous. 500,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)
Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg's father, who has disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government. - (Baker & Taylor)
Madeleine L'Engle's ground-breaking science fiction and fantasy classic, soon to be a major motion picture.
It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.
"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."
A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.
A Wrinkle in Time is the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal. It is the first book in The Time Quintet, which consists of A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time.
A Wrinkle in Time is soon to be a movie from Disney, directed by Ava DuVernay, starring Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling.
Praise for A Wrinkle in Time:
“A Wrinkle in Time is one of my favorite books of all time. I've read it so often, I know it by heart. Meg Murry was my hero growing up. I wanted glasses and braces and my parents to stick me in an attic bedroom. And I so wanted to save Charles Wallace from IT.” —Meg Cabot
“A book that every young person should read, a book that provides a road map for seeking knowledge and compassion even at the worst of times, a book to make the world a better place.” —Cory Doctorow
“[L'Engle's] work is one of the things that made me a writer, a science fiction and fantasy fan, an avid reader. Hers were the first books I read that mixed math and magic, the quest and the quantum.” —Scott Westerfeld
“A Wrinkle in Time taught me that you can tackle even the deepest and most slippery concepts of physics and philosophy in fiction for young readers. It's a great lesson for all writers, and a tough tesseract to follow.” —David Lubar
“A coming of age fantasy story that sympathizes with typical teen girl awkwardness and insecurity, highlighting courage, resourcefulness and the importance of famiyl ties as key to overcoming them.” —Carol Platt Liebau, author, in the New York Post
“An exhilarating experience.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This imaginative book will be read for a long time into the future.” —Children's Literature
Books by Madeleine L'Engle
A Wrinkle in Time Quintet
A Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Many Waters
An Acceptable Time
A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Madeleine L'Engle; adapted & illustrated by Hope Larson: A graphic novel adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's ground-breaking science fiction and fantasy classic.
Intergalactic P.S. 3 by Madeleine L'Engle; illustrated by Hope Larson: Visit the world of A Wrinkle in Time in this standalone story!
The Austin Family Chronicles
Meet the Austins (Volume 1)
The Moon by Night (Volume 2)
The Young Unicorns (Volume 3)
A Ring of Endless Light (Volume 4) A Newbery Honor book!
Troubling a Star (Volume 5)
The Polly O'Keefe books
The Arm of the Starfish
Dragons in the Waters
A House Like a Lotus
The Joys of Love
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) was born in New York City and attended Smith College. She wrote more than 60 books, the most famous of which is A Wrinkle In Time (1962), winner of the Newbery Award in 1963. L'Engle continued the story of the Murry family from A Wrinkle In Time with seven other novels (five of which are available as A Wrinkle In Time Quintent from Square Fish). She also wrote the famous series featuring the Austin family, beginning with the novel Meet The Austins (1960). L'Engle revisited the Austins four more times over the next three decades, concluding with Troubling a Star in 1994. The story of the Austins had some autobiographical elements, mirroring Madeleine's life and the life of her family. Madeleine L'Engle's last book, The Joys of Love, is a romantic, coming-of-age story she wrote back in the 1940s, and is being published by FSG. - (McMillan Palgrave)
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One Small Step For Haters
Yesterday, I heard white Republicans say they didn’t find anything remotely racist about Donald Trump’s “Go back where they came from” statement. Part of their defense was that they have black friends so they, like Trump, can’t be racist.
I propose a challenge for these non-racist white Republicans with “black friends.” Go up to one of your “black friends” and say, “Go back to where you came from.” Let me know how that works out. Let me know if they remain your friends. Let me know if you acquire any injuries and the hospital where you’ll be staying where I don’t send flowers.
Now, you may not find Trump’s comments racist, but federal law does. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has written specific rules to protect people from discrimination from racist assholes like Trump supporters. On its website (scroll to Harassment Based on National Origin), the commission says, “Examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets, such as making fun of a person’s foreign accent or comments like, ‘Go back to where you came from.’ whether made by supervisors or co-workers.”
Since members of Congress are Donald Trump’s coworkers, he broke the law by telling four of them to “go back where they came from.” Hmmm…since Trump’s tweetstorms are part of his official duty, maybe his racism is an impeachable offense. How ’bout that.
The United States House of Representatives also finds Trump’s comments racist. Yesterday, the House passed a resolution condemning Trump’s remarks as racist. Every Democrat, a diverse caucus, voted in favor. With the exception of four, the mostly white male Republican caucus voted against. Republicans in Congress, just like Trump cultists, support racism.
If you’re curious about which elected Republicans have publicly criticized Trump’s racist tweet, or done so while also attacking Trump’s Democratic ethnic female targets, have remained quiet, or have defended his racism, The Washington Post has created a handy graphic to keep track. My representative, Rob Wittman, voted in favor of Trump’s racism yet has remained silent on the issue.
At this point, if you’re still supporting Donald Trump, it’s not despite the racism, it’s because of the racism. Congratulations.
Some of my clients may be wishing that I’d move on from this subject and do something nice, maybe something on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing which is this weekend. But then again, most of my clients should know how I work by now. I don’t do a lot of nice cartoons. This is about as close as I can get to nice.
Honestly, I’m kinda getting tired of this subject too. But what can I do about it? The president is a racist. I’m not a Republican which means I can’t ignore it.
Be Complicit
What kind of person would want to be part of something that disparages, slanders, and disrespects Dear Leader and his sycophantic followers? Hopefully, you.
Making a contribution supports my work and keeps the cartoons, columns, and videos coming. My income is from newspapers that subscribe to my work and small contributors. George Soros hasn’t sent me a million dollar check in weeks. Making a contribution of any amount, or buying a print for $40.00, makes you part of this specific resistance, and a member of Team Claytoonz (we’re still working on the name). You are complicit, an accomplice, and in cahoots (and whatever gangster terms we can think of) with this political satire pointing out that the stupid emperor has no clothes. Contributions can be made through PayPal, checks, and wads of cash exchanged in back alleys.
Whether you can help support, can’t, or just choose not to, please continue to enjoy and keep reading my work. Thank you!!!
You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.
Watch Me Draw.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Apollo 11, Cartoons, Clay Jones, claytoonz, Editorial cartoons, Go Back To Where You Came From, MAGA, Moon, Moon Landing, NASA, Political Cartoons, racism, Racists, Trump on July 17, 2019 by clayjonz. 10 Comments
Junior Birther
Donald Trump is a racist and people who deny that are probably racists themselves.
Trump’s cultists are always asking while never listening to the answers; What makes you think Donald Trump is a racist? For the benefit of those idiots, here we go.
Donald Trump discriminated against black tenants and was sued by Nixon’s Justice Department for refusing to rent to black tenants in 1973. He lied to black tenants about apartments being unavailable. He is old school racist. Part of Trump’s defense of this was that the government was trying to get him to rent to welfare recipients. There’s no better defense of being a racist than a racist defense. Racist, racist, racist.
A former employee of one of Trump’s casinos, before he bankrupted them because he’s a shitty businessman, claims that during the 1980s, whenever Trump and wife number two Ivana came to the casino, that the bosses would “order all black people off the floor” and make them hide in the back…but not in any apartments he was trying to rent.
In 1989, four black teenagers and one Latino teenager, the “Central Park Five,” were accused of attacking and raping a jogger in New York City. Trump ran ads in local papers demanding, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE.” After they spent seven to 13 years in prison, the convictions were vacated based on DNA evidence clearing them and the city paid $41 million in settlement to the teens. In 2016, Trump said he still believes they’re guilty. I don’t care what the Mueller Report says, I still think he committed treason with Russia.
In 1991, the president of Trump Plaza Casino in Atlantic City (which is bankrupt now because Donald Trump is a shitty businessman. Did I already mention that?), John O’Donnell, quoted Trump’s criticism of a black accountant. He claims Trump said, “black counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. Laziness is a trait in blacks.” Trump denied ever saying it but in an interview with Playboy in 1997 said, “the stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.” You know, about his comments before he bankrupted his casinos because he’s a shitty businessman.
In congressional testimony in 1993, Trump said some Native American reservations operating casinos shouldn’t be allowed because “they don’t look like Indians to me.” In 2000, he ran a series of ads claiming a tribe had a “record of criminal activity that is well documented.” He’s a racist who projects. He didn’t want competition for his casinos because it was bad enough he was a shitty businessman on his way to bankrupting those casinos.
In 2005, Trump pitched to NBC The Apprentice: White People vs. Black People. He’s using the same concept today in politics.
He opposed the “Ground Zero Mosque” in 2010. He told David Letterman, “Somebody’s blowing us up.” But, nobody had to blow up Trump’s casinos because he bankrupted them because he’s a shitty businessman.
He launched his presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants “rapists and murderers.” He said, “they’re bringing crime and they’re bringing drugs.” He made that announcement at Trump Tower instead of one of his casinos because he bankrupted them because he’s a shitty businessman. Was that one too many? Overkill? I’ll stop now. Promise.
He called for a ban on all Muslims. This was before he targeted specific nations. He started with “all Muslims.” He also called for surveillance on all mosques in this country.
He said a judge wasn’t qualified to oversee the Trump University lawsuit because of his Mexican heritage and membership in a Latino lawyers association. Paul Ryan, who later endorsed Trump and became his butt boy said that’s “the textbook definition of a racist comment.” Of course, that Trump University is now defunct because it was a scam and Donald Trump is a shitty businessman (What? It wasn’t a casino).
He tweeted a picture of Hillary Clinton with a pile of money and a Star of David.
He’s repeatedly called Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas.”
He’s carried on attacks against black NFL players for protesting police violence and racism. Trump once tried to purchase an NFL team but they wouldn’t let him in the club because he’s a con artist and a shitty…OK.
He said people who came to the U.S. “all have AIDS.” He said people from Nigeria would “never go back to those huts” once they saw America. He referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.”
Who can forget that Trump defended the Nazis who marched in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil” and also killed a woman?
And then there’s birtherism. Trump was perhaps the biggest advocate for the conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States. He even claimed he sent investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama’s birth certificate. He even argued that Obama wasn’t a good enough student to have gotten into Columbia or Harvard Law School. But, Obama never once bankrupted a casino because he’s a shitty businessman (You knew it was coming).
Donald Trump is a racist. He’s also spawned a racist and he couldn’t have picked a better name for his racist spawn than Donald Trump Jr. Bernie Sanders tweeted, “Trump Jr. is a racist too. Shocker.”
Last week, racists picked up the birther mantle and started using it against California Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The senator’s father is from Jamaica and her mother is from India. Harris identifies as black. If you look at her, you too would probably describe her as black.
Some critics on social media claim she’s unfairly portraying herself as African American. Others have taken it further and claimed she’s not black enough and not even an American.
One racist goober tweeted that she’s not “an American black.” Guess which high-profile racist retweeted that? Yup. Trump Jr. picked up his daddy’s racist birther campaign and added to the tweet, “Is this true? Wow.” Yeah, wow what a racist. He later deleted the tweet, most likely because it reveals he’s a racist.
First off, “is this true?” How in any way can it be “true” that she’s not a black American? She’s black, right? She’s an American, right? Yes and yes. Second, why take issue with her describing herself as “African” American or simply just a “black” American? If this makes a difference to you, you’re probably a racist. By the way, your dad paints himself orange.
Some of these idiots are even referring to her as an “anchor baby” because she was born to immigrants, in California, by the way. If that’s the case, wouldn’t Donald Trump Sr. also be an anchor baby since his mom was an immigrant and his father was born in Germany (he wasn’t actually born in Germany but the irony of Trump lying about that is so rich)? Maybe someone should ask Trumpy Jr. where his grandfather was born. By the way, Grandpappy Fred was also a racist. He was so racist that Woodie Guthrie wrote a song about this. It goes like this, “This land is your land, this land is our land, Fred Trump is a racist, he doesn’t want black people on this land.” It was a hit.
I’m waiting for them to accuse Harris of being born in Uganda. Maybe they’ll confuse Senator Kamala Harris with that old wrestler from back in the 80s/90s, Kamala the Ugandan Giant, except he was actually born in Mississippi (I found that out when I met him at a photo op at an elementary school in Mississippi back in the 90s. Nice guy. He never bankrupted any casinos).
Black, African American, or Jamaican-Indian American, whatever…Kamala Harris is an American. She’s just as much of an American as I am (born in Texas, thank you), Donald Trump Sr. and Donald Trump Jr. Cory Booker tweeted, “Kamala Harris doesn’t have shit to prove.”
He’s right. Senator Harris does not have shit to prove to Trump, Don Jr., the assorted birther racists on social media, to you or to me. But Donald Trump and dumbfuck Jr, they need to prove they’re not racists.
To convince me they’re not racists, I’m going to need to see a certificate.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Birtherism, Birthers, Cartoons, Clay Jones, claytoonz, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr, Editorial cartoons, Kamala Harris, Political Cartoons, racism, Racists on July 1, 2019 by clayjonz. 42 Comments
Focus On Hate And Fear
Donald Trump is hoping his racist ad accusing Democrats of allowing a Mexican to murder two cops will distract voters from the fact that a Republican president incited a white supremacist to murder eleven American Jews.
Trump’s main concern with the synagogue murders and the mailing of pipe bombs by a lunatic in a van covered with pro-Trump stickers is that it hurt Republicans’ “momentum” going into the election. In an attempt to recover, Trump has returned to lying, fear mongering, and tearing at racial divides with demagoguery.
A web video produced for the Trump campaign features Luis Bracamontes, a Mexican man who had previously been deported but returned to the United States and was convicted in February in the slaying of two California deputies. The video blames Democrats for allowing him into the country to murder. The video shows a grinning Bracamontes saying, “I’m going to kill more cops soon,” and a caption flashes on the screen reading, “Democrats let him into our country. Democrats let him stay.”
Since this a product of the Trump campaign, it’s a lie. Bracamontes came into the country during the George W. Bush administration.
The ad recalls the racist Willie Horton ad supporters of George H.W. Bush ran in 1988 that was devastating to the Michael Dukakis campaign. The ad showed a nasty stereotype of a dangerous black criminal, the likes of which a President Dukakis would allow to rape your wife, daughter, and probably clog your toilet. It was so racist that most Republicans said, “what’s so racist about it?”
The Bush campaign attempted to distance itself from the ad. In contrast, the racist web video about scary Mexicans was produced by the Trump campaign. It makes you pine for the days of yesteryear when Republicans at least pretended they weren’t racist troglodytes like Steve King.
Iowa Representative King is a white supremacist who gets real testy and will blow his lid when confronted with questions about it. On Thursday, King kicked out a constituent and college student who dared to ask him how his views on immigrants are different from the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter (Spoiler: They’re not). He kicked the student out of the room after accusing him of being an “ambusher.”
King is so racist that the racist GOP rebuked him this week. Land O’ Lakes and Intel have both said they’ll no longer support him financially. You don’t want him using your butter when he’s buttering up to Nazis.
King visited a far-right party with ties to Nazis during a trip to Austria. In the past, he’s retweeted Nazis. He once attacked immigrants by saying, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
Last month, King endorsed a Toronto mayoral candidate who appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast around the Charlottesville rally and later publicly recited the world’s most popular white supremacist slogan that I had just had to look up. The slogan is, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” I counted and, yep. Fourteen words.
Steve King and Donald Trump are nationalists. They’re also white nationalists. They bolster themselves by striking fear into their base by lying about minorities. The America white nationalists desire is not the future most of us want for our children. We want a future that is better for all our children. King and Trump only care about the future of white children.
As for the short-term future, you can expect more lies, hatred, and racism over the next few days before Tuesday. Don’t stand downwind.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Cartoons, Clay Jones, claytoonz, Editorial cartoons, Fear, Hate, Immigration, Midterm Elections, Political Cartoons, Racists, Steve King, Trump, White Nationalists, White Supremacists on November 2, 2018 by clayjonz. Leave a comment
It’s The Great Racist Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
There’s something seriously wrong in this nation when the guy throwing about the word “socialism” to scare people define himself as a nationalist.
In the past, Trump said he didn’t want to use the word “nationalist” as he thought the “Trump brand” was a stronger label. Voting for a label instead of a leader is scary by itself, but this is how Trump sees himself, even after becoming president.
But, last night in Houston at one of his hate rallies, with extra hate because Ted Cruz was there, he finally defined himself as a nationalist. And to think, we had tiki torch Nazis marching in the streets before this. Steve Bannon is so happy.
Today, Trump said it’s not a code for “white” nationalist, and that he’s unfamiliar with that term and “nationalist” is a word that hasn’t been used much. Really?
It’s not just a word, but an ideology that’s been used by every dictator, strongman, and authoritarian throughout history, with the first coming to mind being Adolf Hitler. It’s always accompanied by a fear campaign of “us vs. them.” In Trump’s case, brown people.
At this point I have to wonder, when do these people just openly admit they’re Nazis?
Personally, I’d rather be a socialist than a nationalist.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Cartoons, Clay Jones, claytoonz, Editorial cartoons, Great Pumpkin, Halloween, KKK, Nationalism, Political Cartoons, racism, Racists, Trump, White Nationalism on October 23, 2018 by clayjonz. 2 Comments
Buh Bye, Bannon
The narcissistic uncontrollable racist has been kicked out of the White House. No, not that one. Calm down. The other racists in the White House. OK, one of the other racists in the White House. Steve Bannon is out.
Anthony Scaramucci said in an interview that he didn’t realize was an interview, that Steve Bannon was “sucking his own cock.” Of course, Bannon doesn’t have the physical or flexible capabilities to do that (I doubt he can bend over to tie his own shoes), but he was fully able to fuck himself.
So, how did Steve Bannon fuck himself? In a White House with a higher turnover rate than Gatehouse Media (newspaper people will get that reference), Bannon upstaged the boss. You don’t upstage the boss when he’s a narcissistic man-baby.
Bannon gave an interview, that he also didn’t realize was an interview, which he initiated with The American Prospect, a progressive publication. In that interview, Bannon said there was no military option to dealing with North Korea. That undercuts what the administration has been saying over the past two weeks.
Bannon also gave comments hoping to use the tragedy in Charlottesville to push his Alt-Right agenda. That would get you fired from any administration except the Trump administration.
What really screwed Bannon were his comments on who HE could replace in the administration, other departments, and taking credit for Trump’s “accomplishments,” whatever the hell those are. You can’t upstage the boss, and you especially can’t make comments alluding to being his puppet master. We all know Putin’s the puppet master.
The White House describes Bannon’s departure as a “mutual decision.” Yeah, if you believe that then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. But be warned, there’s a lot of Jews in Brooklyn.
After Trump’s comments on Charlottesville where he equated peace activists with Nazis, he’s losing support in Washington. Republicans have come out against him with three…oh my god, threeo, mentioning him by name. The military has made statements disagreeing with his comments on race. He’s even losing business at his ridiculous golf resorts over the comments. Thankfully for Trump, he still has the racist base of dumbasses to rely on. But, does he?
There are reports that Bannon will now be pissing in the White House instead of pissing out. A source close to Bannon told one outlet to prepare for “Bannon the Barbarian.” Breitbart’s editor tweeted out that this is “war.” He ever hash-tagged “war,” which is serious.
There were signs that Trump was getting tired of Bannon. New Chief of Staff, General John Kelly doesn’t like the lunacy that Bannon’s backstabbing brings. Trump referred to him earlier in the week as “Mr. Bannon,” which is something he likes to do when he pretends he hardly knows someone, like Paul Manafort or Carter Page.
One problem still exists and that’s the fact Donald Trump is still in the White House. Bannon may have encouraged Trump’s racism, but Trump is old-school racist. He was piloting the birther campaign long before he brought Steve Bannon aboard his hate train. Trump will continue to enable and connect with Nazis without Bannon.
Now all the racist heavy lifting will be left to Trump, Stephen Miller, and Sebastian Gorka. Though it may be a challenge, I believe in them. They can do it!
I want to thank everyone who has donated in the past. Your support helps me continue creating cartoons and columns with a little less stress in my life. Between competing syndicates with much larger resources, timid editors, and Trump supporters who attempt to intimidate the editors who do publish anything that criticizes their idol, it’s a challenge to make a career out of this. So your support (if you can) is appreciated. Want to help me continue to create cartoons and keep doing what I’m doing (pissing off conservatives)? Look to the right of this page and make a donation through PayPal. Every $40 donation will receive a signed print. All donations will receive my eternal gratitude.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Bannon, Bannon Out, Cartoons, Clay Jones, claytoonz, Editorial cartoons, Political Cartoons, Racists, Steve Bannon, Trump, TrumpAltRight, You're Fired on August 18, 2017 by clayjonz. 2 Comments
President Drops An N-Bomb
Posted in Uncategorized, Image format and tagged Immigration, LGBT, N-Word, Obama, Racists, Voter Suppression on June 24, 2015 by clayjonz. Leave a comment
The Crazies’ Fight Against Racism
Race issues, inequality, discrimination, profiling, police harassment, racial slurs, must all be a new thing in this country that’s only been here for about seven years. I mean, that’s the impression one gets if you listen to conservatives blame Obama for anything racial.
Anytime the president responds to a race issue, like the weekly cop shooting of an unarmed black man, conservatives say he’s “race baiting.” Race baiting is when you’re stirring up trouble by talking about race. In the Civil Rights Era they called them “agitators.”
The conservative and ultra right wing response to race issues is (are you ready?) to never talk about it. That must be it. The only time they actually confront it is when they accuse a liberal of race baiting.
When a cop shoots an unarmed black man, they either don’t say anything or they get upset only when the cop is facing charges. Think about it. They never talk about race unless it’s time to defend racists and to call someone a thug.
Hmmm. Maybe that’s real “Thuganomics.”
I really get tired of white people only talking about race when cops are arrested or there’s a riot. If you’re not black how can you say there isn’t a problem? How can you say racism doesn’t exist in American anymore (and yes, many actually say that)? I hear them say all the time that they don’t understand. If you don’t understand then maybe you should stop talking about it.
By the way, the quote in the cartoon is actually from Obama’s speech on Monday.
Last week Michelle Obama was the commencement speaker at Tuskegee University where she talked about how she and Obama are treated differently for being black. She brought up a New Yorker magazine cover that depicted her with a machine gun and a huge afro doing the “terrorist fist jab” with the president.
Conservatives are upset. They’re calling her a racist for talking about race. They say she’s full of it, she’s lying and she’s not being treated unfairly. If you see these stories at World Net Daily, the Daily Caller and Breitbart and scroll down to the comments you’ll see readers call her “Moochelle” and a “tranny” and then make comments about her rear end. But yeah, she’s lying about the way she’s treated.
Actually the comments get uglier and racier.
Yesterday someone I know posted a link on Facebook for his “black” friend who he says lives in the realm of “whitey is a racist.” Well buddy, if you’re his only “white” friend who refers to him as your “black” friend, I can totally understand why he thinks whitey is a racist.
I mentioned before how a lot of conservatives don’t get irony or hypocrisy. They’re also about as good as realizing they don’t have a sense of humor about as much as they realize they’re racist.
Maybe I should have made the Obama in this cartoon Michelle.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged My Brother's Keepers, Obama, Racim, Racists on May 5, 2015 by clayjonz. Leave a comment
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Tours | Greece | Athens | Athens City Tours | Athens National Garden tour: the early years
Athens National Garden tour: the early years
An inspiring self-guided audio walking tour in the Athens National Garden with credible & original stories written by top local professionals. Take your tour now & enjoy it instantly on your smartphone device.
The most beautiful garden of the kingdom is none other than the National Garden, an oasis in the heart of Athens that was created in the 1840s on the initiative of Queen Amalia. Her passion for gardening transformed 40 acres of rocky and arid wasteland into a botanical garden rich in native and exotic flowers and trees. This tour is dedicated to the garden’s creators, the main sights and its current inhabitants, from the tree of heaven to the lowly cousins of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Today the Garden has seven kilometers of trails, six ponds, and contains about 520 species of plants (¾ of which are of foreign origin) with 7000 trees and 40,000 shrubs. The average temperature is usually 3-5 degrees lower than the surrounding urban environment so it is the ideal place to be on a hot summer day.
The garden occupies an area rich in antiquities and points of interest. The tour begins at the main entrance on Amalias Avenue, where you can enjoy the magnificent desert fan palms, planted by Amalia herself in December 1847. It is the only group of palm trees from her time that survive, which is rather sad when one considers Amalia’s desire to be known as “the queen of palm trees”. But there are many remnants of her time spread all over the place, including Amalia’s seat atop a rock near the temple of Olympian Zeus, one of her favourite spots from where she had an unimpeded view of the Acropolis and the Aegean Sea. There is also the Roman mosaic to the east of the parliament building, discovered during the garden’s construction and used for dinners and dance parties.
There are numerous antiquities strategically placed in the garden, including an impressive section of the architrave from Hadrian’s reservoir on Mount Lycabettus that mysteriously ended up in Amalia’s garden. Nearby is the Children’s Library building, erected in 1847 as a surprise for King Otto. In a letter to her father Amalia notes that the projecting roof reminded one of a “Swiss house,” which is a fairly accurate description. And one should not fail to visit the first large greenhouse in Greece, located in the Garden. It is slightly sunken into the ground, has a roof of metal connectors and reinforced glass and protected the young and sensitive plants until they were ready to be transplanted outside.
#family #history #nature
A grumpy man with a PhD. He is fascinated by words; when he sees them forming beautiful sentences he feels like an apprentice wizard who just produced fancy potions out of cauldrons full of frog legs and tears of bats. In his spare time he roams about town or watches anything produced and narrated by Sir David Attenborough, an inexhaustible source of similes. In Canada, he learned to love the cold, but he is much happier working in Athens.
See all by Leonidas Argyros
National Garden, Athens
Amalias 1, Athina 105 57 (Metro Station Syntagma, exit towards Ethnikos Kipos)
Daily from sunrise to sunset
By clicking "Add to cart", you are purchasing this tour in English. This tour is also available in the following languages: Ελληνικά.
11 stops, 100 stories
Colosseum: Skip The Line e-Ticket and Audio Tour on Your Smartphone
Skip-The-Line e-Ticket for the Vatican Museums with an Audio Tour
Acropolis Hill: e-Ticket and Audio Tour
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From: Conspirators' Hierachy: The Story of The Committee of 300
1. To establish a One World Government/New World Order with a unified church and monetary system under their direction. The One World Government began to set up its church in the 1920:s and 30:s, for they realized the need for a religious belief inherent in mankind must have an outlet and, therefore, set up a "church" body to channel that belief in the direction they desired.
[See RoundOp Alpha for some misanthropic participants' names, such as Cameron, Bergoglio.]
2. To bring about the utter destruction of all national identity and national pride, which was a primary consideration if the concept of a One World Government was to work.
[Every regime occupying Parliament since the League of Nations has been complicit. A major reason to abandon the I-JEU]
3. To engineer and bring about the destruction of religion, and more especially, the Christian Religion, with the one exception, their own creation, as mentioned above.
[Is Jesus one facet of the psyop? Zionazi -mason controlled Vatican at the forefront, Pope Francis publicly announced himself to be the devil.]
4. To establish the ability to control of each and every person through means of mind control and what Zbignew Brzezinski called technotronics, which would create human-like robots and a system of terror which would make Felix Dzerzinhski's Red Terror look like children at play.
[9-11, Sandy Hook, 7-7 etc.]
5. To bring about the end to all industrialization and to end the production of nuclear generated electric power in what they call "the post-industrial zero-growth society". Excepted are the computer- and service industries. US industries that remain will be exported to countries such as Mexico where abundant slave labor is available. As we saw in 1993, this has become a fact through the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. Unemployables in the US, in the wake of industrial destruction, will either become opium-heroin and/or cocaine addicts, or become statistics in the elimination of the "excess population" process we know of today as Global 2000.
[One of the reasons for the AGW by CO2 deception.]
6. To encourage, and eventually legalize the use of drugs and make pornography an "art-form", which will be widely accepted and, eventually, become quite commonplace.
[Reason for protecting Afghanistan poppy crops. ]
7. To bring about depopulation of large cities according to the trial run carried out by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. It is interesting to note that Pol Pot's genocidal plans were drawn up in the US by one of the Club of Rome's research foundations, and overseen by Thomas Enders, a high-ranking State Department official. It is also interesting that the committee is currently seeking to reinstate the Pol Pot butchers in Cambodia.
[The pursuit of nuclear war for example.]
8. To suppress all scientific development except for those deemed beneficial by the Illuminati. Especially targeted is nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Particularly hated are the fusion experiments currently being scorned and ridiculed by the Illuminati and its jackals of the press. Development of the fusion torch would blow the Illuminati's conception of "limited natural resources" right out of the window. A fusion torch, properly used, could create unlimited and as yet untapped natural resources, even from the most ordinary substances. Fusion torch uses are legion, and would benefit mankind in a manner which, as yet, is not even remotely comprehended by the public.
[Hence the ITER fiasco created by the I-JEU. Tesla showed the ground and air are full of harvestable energy. ]
9. To cause. by means of A) limited wars in the advanced countries, B) by means of starvation and diseases in the Third World countries, the death of three billion people by the year 2050, people they call "useless eaters". The Committee of 300 (Illuminati) commissioned Cyrus Vance to write a paper on this subject of how to bring about such genocide. The paper was produced under the title "Global 2000 Report" and was accepted and approved for action by former President James Earl Carter, and Edwin Muskie, then Secretary of States, for and on behalf of the US Government. Under the terms of the Global 2000 Report, the population of the US is to be reduced by 100 million by the year of 2050.
[A) =MIIC's DoD, Pentagon-NATOCIA, war on terror hoax. B) =UN, WHO, pharms corps, big agri and drug control agencies. 5G. Bill Gates]
10. To weaken the moral fiber of the nation and to demoralize workers in the labor class by creating mass unemployment. As jobs dwindle due to the post industrial zero growth policies introduced by the Club of Rome, the report envisages demoralized and discouraged workers resorting to alcohol and drugs. The youth of the land will be encouraged by means of rock music and drugs to rebel against the status quo, thus undermining and eventually destroying the family unit. In this regard, the Committee commissioned Tavistock Institute to prepare a blueprint as to how this could be achieved. Tavistock directed Stanford Research to undertake the work under the direction of Professor Willis Harmon. This work later became known as the "Aquarian Conspiracy".
[Via complicit political parties, media, homo-paedo priests.]
11. To keep people everywhere from deciding their own destinies by means of one created crisis after another and then "managing" such crises. This will confuse and demoralize the population to the extent where faced with too many choices, apathy on a massive scale will result. In the case of the US, an agency for Crisis Management is already in place. It is called the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), whose existence I first enclosed in 1980.
[Via complicit political parties and media.]
12. To introduce new cults and continue to boost those already functioning which include rock music gangsters such as the Rolling Stones (a gangster group much favored by European Black Nobility), and all of the Tavistock-created rock groups which began with the Beatles.
[Imagine that. Via music and movie corps.]
13. To continue to build up the cult of Christian Fundamentalism begun by the British East India Company's servant Darby, which will be misused to strengthen the Zionist State of Israel by identifying with the Jews through the myth of "God's chosen people", and by donating very substantial amounts of money to what they mistakenly believe is a religious cause in the furtherance of Christianity.
[Homosexuality, paedophilia, masonry and blackmail.]
14. To press for the spread of religious cults such as the Moslem Brotherhood, Moslem Fundamentalism, the Sikhs, and to carry out mind control experiments of the Jim Jones and "Son of Sam" type. It is worth noting that the late Khomeini was a creation of British Military Intelligence Div. 6, MI6. This detailed work spelled out the step-by-step process which the US Government implemented to put Khomeini in power.
[MI6, behind the LIFG latterly known as FSA, NATO's footsoldiers.]
15. To export "religious liberation" ideas around the world so as to undermine all existing religions, but more especially the Christian religion. This began with the "Jesuit Liberation Theology", that brought an end to the Somoza Family rule in Nicaragua, and which today is destroying El Salvador, now 25 years into a "civil war". Costa Rica and Honduras are also embroiled in revolutionary activities, instigated by the Jesuits. One very active entity engaged in the so-called liberation theology, is the Communist-oriented Mary Knoll Mission. This accounts for the extensive media attention to the murder of four of Mary Knoll's so-called nuns in El Salvador a few years ago. The four nuns were Communist subversive agents and their activities were widely documented by the Government of El Salvador. The US press and the new media refused to give any space or coverage to the mass of documentation possessed by the Salvadorian Government, which proved what the Mary Knoll Mission nuns were doing in the country. Mary Knoll is in service in many countries, and placed a leading role in bringing Communism to Rhodesia, Moçambique, Angola and South Africa.
16. To cause a total collapse of the world's economies and engender total political chaos.
[Central banks and complicit regimes of course.]
17. To take control of all foreign and domestic policies of the US.
["Jewish" zionist lobbies.]
18. To give the fullest support to supranational institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of International Settlements, the World Court and, as far as possible, make local institutions less effective, by gradually phasing them out or bringing them under the mantle of the UN.
[Zionazi controlled UN,IMF, World Bank etc.]
19. To penetrate and subvert all governments, and work from within them to destroy the sovereign integrity of the nations represented by them.
[E.g. I-J EU, Common Purpose, Masonry.]
20. To organize a world-wide terrorist apparatus [Al-queda, ISIS, ISIL, etc.] and to negotiate with terrorists whenever terrorist activities take place. It will be recalled that it was Bettino Craxi, who persuaded the Italian and US Governments to negotiate with the Red Brigades kidnappers of Prime Minister Moro and General Dozier. As an aside, Dozier was placed under strict orders not to talk what happened to him. Should he ever break that silence, he will no doubt be made "a horrible example of", in the manner in which Henry Kissinger dealt with Aldo Moro, Ali Bhutto and General Zia ul Haq.
[Via united secret services run from Buck Hse, Tel Aviv and Switzerland.]
21. To take control of education in America with the intent and purpose of utterly and completely destroying it. By 1993, the full force effect of this policy is becoming apparent, and will be even more destructive as primary and secondary schools begin to teach "Outcome Based Education" (OBE).
[Happening in GB right now.]
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/johncolemangoalsofIlluminati.shtml
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Zio-Jesuit-Illuminati-300-Pilgrims gang objectives.
21 Goals of the Illuminati and The Committee of 300
By Dr. John Coleman.(Written ca. 1993)
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/johncolemangoalsofIlluminati.shtml#top
21 Goals of the Illuminati and The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman (ca. 1993)
Tags: cameron, cp, nwo, owg, zionist-illuminati-jesuits
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The story of Cox Enterprises is one of hard work, respect for employees, entrepreneurship and making bold decisions. It’s also about staying true to values that have endured for more than a century. Cox Enterprises was founded in 1898 by James M. Cox. At the age of 28, he purchased the Dayton Evening News (now the Dayton Daily News). He later served as Ohio’s governor and was the 1920 Democratic nominee for president with Franklin D. Roosevelt as his vice presidential running mate. After Governor Cox lost the election, he decided to focus on expanding his business across industries and locations.
Today, Cox Enterprises is a global company with approximately 55,000 employees and $21 billion in revenue. Cox remains a values-driven private corporation that can invest in long-term growth and is proud of its four-generation family leadership. Through our major divisions—Cox Communications and Cox Automotive —we lead in the communications and automotive industries. Our widely recognized national brands include Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book and Cox Homelife.
As our company grows, we continue to foster a culture that puts people first and upholds fundamental values such as honesty, integrity and accountability. Our values and Code of Conduct ensure that our commitment to operating with the highest ethical standards will never change.
These are the values that guide us in every decision we make:
Our employees & commitment to diversity
Our employees are our most important resource. We invite and encourage entrepreneurship and initiative. We recognize and reward achievement.
We are committed to having a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We embrace and foster an environment that builds on the unique talents that come from people with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives.
New technology & business opportunities
We embrace new technology to give our customers the variety and quality of services they demand.
We invest in new business opportunities, balancing initiative and risk, to enhance our growth.
Our customers are our lifeblood. We build strong relationships with customers to meet and exceed their needs with high-quality products and services.
A better community & a better world
We believe it’s good business to be good citizens of the communities we serve through volunteerism and financial support.
We are committed to helping shape a better world through both responsible company and individual actions.
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A New Clip And Poster Arrive For Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha
One of the director’s most well received films is finally getting its theatrical debut on May 17, and in honor of the release of Noah Baumbach’s latest film, a few things from the picture, entitled Frances Ha, have arrived online.
Bowing to massive approval at this past year’s TIFF, Baumbach’s film has been nabbed by IFC, and stars Greta Gerwig as a dancer in Brooklyn trying to get her life on track after her graduation. Shot in black and white, a clip and poster have arrived for the film, which itself is one of this year’s most anticipated films.
The clip mentioned is relatively short, clocking in at less than 30 seconds, but it’s a beautifully shot segment, and the poster that follows it is a breathtaking piece of artwork. The film being so well received makes it an interesting IFC release, as it’s hard to imagine anyone but Criterion jumping on this film for a home video release. Yes, that’s months and months down the line, but we here at The CriterionCast are nothing if not Criterion prognosticators with a penchant for making assumptions. That’s just what we do.
We will certainly have more surrounding this picture as it arrives.
Source EW / The Playlist
New Poster And Clip Arrive For Festival-Favorite Documentary Salero [Exclusive]
Continuing a much talked about run on the festival circuit, a new...
Watch The Trailer For Steven Soderbergh’s New Cinemax Series: The Knick
New Trailer Debuts For Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring
Magnolia Picks Up David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche
Wacky New Years Drawing Hints At The Criterion Collection’s 2018 Line-Up
James Interviews Van Gore Co-Director Keith Hodder
First Trailer Arrives For The Coen Brothers’ New Film Inside Llewyn Davis
The Anne Bancroft Collection (Blu-ray) $79.97 $59.37
La Verite (Blu-ray) $22.99
Fritz Lang’s Indian Epic (Blu-ray) $33.49
Millennium Actress (Blu-ray) $26.99 $19.99
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Hobnails and Hemp Rope: On Recreating a Historic 1916 Ascent
Posted in Backcountry, Heritage, Interview, Outdoors, Photography | Film
HOBNAILS AND HEMP ROPE:
ON RECREATING A
HISTORIC 1916 ASCENT
Interview by Tera Swanson
In 1916, Conrad Kain led the first ascent of Bugaboo Spire – the hardest technical route in the world at that time. This summer, a team of climbers set out to recreate that experience using period gear – hobnailed boots, a hemp rope and a 100-year-old camp stove – and captured it on film. Tera Swanson interviews expedition photographer and project publicist, Ivan Petrov, about the challenges of the centennial climb, and how it compares to Kain’s original ascent.
After years of developing the idea for this unique expedition and many months of logistical planning, the team arrives to Bugaboo Provincial Park in British Columbia’s Purcell Mountain, dressed to the latest 1916 fashion. Photo by Ivan Petrov.
Q+A WITH IVAN PETROV
Tera Swanson/ For anyone who might not be familiar with the area, what is the Bugaboo Spire?
Ivan Petrov/ The Bugaboo Spire is a big granite spire rising out of glaciers in Bugaboo Provincial Park in British Columbia. It’s just under 3,200 metres tall, and that area is commonly known as the Bugaboos. It’s a very distinct area with these prominent and striking peaks with sheer cliffs. It’s a very popular area even worldwide for mountain climbers and mountaineers.
The Spire is one of these mountains. Why we chose the Bugaboo Spire specifically for our climb was because it was the first spire that was ever climbed there in 1916, and the person who led the first ascent was Conrad Kain.
So we were interested in recreating and trying to experience what it would have been like to do that 100 years ago.
TS/ What was the extent in difficulty of the climb when Kain first completed it?
IP/ One hundred years ago, it would have been considered the most technical mountain climb that anyone can attempt or achieve. And Kain actually set a pretty high plank with his climb of the Bugaboo Spire, because I believe it was only 25 or 35 years later that the neighbouring spire was climbed. So it was a pretty impressive feat that he accomplished at that time. And it’s certainly become known in Canadian and world mountaineering history as one of the defining moments of mountain climbing.
TS/ What is the Bugaboo Spire Centennial Project?
IP/ The Bugaboo Spire Centennial Climb Project was envisioned by a member of the Toronto section of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC), Bryan Thompson, and it’s really a passion project – done more out of personal interest and curiosity and for the love of the mountains. He assembled a very strong and passionate team of fellow climbers, mostly from the Toronto section of the ACC but also from Ottawa, myself, and another from the Vancouver section.
The goal of the project was to recreate this climb that was done in 1916 on the centennial anniversary, coming as close as we could to experiencing the original clothes and equipment they used, even the kind of tent they used and the kind of food they would have eaten 100 years ago. Eventually, we got an idea that it would be interesting to share this experience as wide as we can with other Canadians, and not just climbers. We thought making a short documentary film about it would be the perfect way to go, so the project became a bit more complicated. We were able to find a filmmaker, we were able to successfully document the experience, and we were able to reach the summit.
Overlooking the striking Snowpatch Spire on a picture-perfect day, Garry Reiss assumes the role of Conrad Kain by leading the team on its first of the two summit bids on Bugaboo Spire. Photo by Ivan Petrov.
TS/ Can you touch more on the amount of preparation that went into the film?
IP/ We spent quite a lot of time trying to find as close to 1916 period gear and clothing as we could, that included trips to pawn shops and second-hand stores, army supply stores, and online searches. We had to get an extra piece of equipment that Kain would not have had 100 years ago, which was an old kerosene stove. They would have used a campfire to cook their food, but because park regulations would not have allowed us to have a real campfire, we decided to find a 100-year-old camping stove instead.
Bryan, who was the leader for the expedition, is also a part-time professional chef, so he was very interested in doing more in-depth research into the foods they ate, and tried to recreate a complete experience on the mountain for us. The food was an additional weight to our packs, we had fresh pheasants with us, a goat stew, and a few additional items of food like a few cans of condensed milk that we got to cook on the mountain.
And then, of course, there was some training and trying on the custom-made pairs of hobnail boots, similar to those that Kain would have worn, those were made in New Zealand and shipped to us ahead of our expedition. We spent some time trying them on and getting used to them. Also the typical conditioning and training, we tried to do as much rock climbing and hiking and running and biking ahead of the trip as we could to get us in shape.
Garry Reiss and the rest of the team had to learn how to handle and trust their hobnail boots on a mountain that is considered a very serious mountaineering objective even by today’s standards. Photo by Ivan Petrov.
TS/ Walk me through the crux of the climb – what was going through your mind?
IP/ On the higher pitches of the climb, including the crux on the climb called the Gendarme, which is basically a very sheer slab of granite that you have to carefully make your way across using friction on your feet and whatever marginal handholds you can see. Our team found it was impossible to do that in hobnail boots, so for the higher elevation we used modern climbing shoes and put on helmets to make sure we all came out of this adventure alive.
Kain obviously wouldn’t have had a helmet 100 years ago, we’re still not 100 per cent whether he would have used hobnail boots on higher elevations or some kind of additional footwear that has more friction on it. A few years later more modern-looking climbing shoes started to appear, and a lot of people wore them, but we don’t know if Kain used them.
A few of us decided not to go beyond the crux of the climb as it was just getting too difficult, we found it was beyond some of our abilities, and it also meant that we would’ve had to spend way more time to get all of us across to a summit. We really couldn’t afford that much time.
TS/ In what other ways did your experience of the climb compare to Kain’s account of the first ascent?
IP/ One major difference, of course, would be the fact that Kain did not know what was around the corner; he was charting new territory. It took him several hours to navigate the crux of the climb, while we 100 years later have the luxury of studying the route in detail with photographs and descriptions of many other climbers that came before us. We had much more information to work with, and we knew what we were getting ourselves into.
Another difference was that Kain and his party had way more experience with the old equipment and the hobnail boots. For us it was pretty much a novelty, we had to figure out how to best place our feet, how to get comfortable with the different feel of these boots, and make sure we didn’t injure ourselves on the climb.
As the evening sets in, Bryan Thompson peeks out from the modest comforts of the canvas tent to keep an eye on a century-old kerosene stove and a pot of highly anticipated goat stew. Photo by Ivan Petrov.
TS/ When all was said and done, what did you take away from this experience?
IP/ It was a very challenging – logistically challenging and physically challenging – expedition. There was also the other challenge of us photographing the climb and making a film about it which required additional camera equipment and video equipment, the added weight and planning involved in that.
For me as a photographer, which was my main role during this expedition, I’d say it really allowed me to take my photography work to new heights. I was able to do the kind of photography work that I enjoy most which is photographing natural landscapes and people who are interacting with those landscapes in unique ways.
TS/ If we were to take a project like this on again, would you do anything differently?
IP/ I probably would not try to recreate the exact same climb again. There are so many climbs and unclimbed peaks out there – one can easily find another just as interesting project anywhere else in Canada or in the world for that matter. One idea that we already have is to potentially do a similar recreation of the first ascent of Mount Logan, which is Canada’s highest mountain. That climb was done in 1925, so we still have a few years ahead of us to wrap our minds around it and see if that might be our next big project.
FILM PREVIEW + TALKS
Join the Bugaboo Centennial Climb Project team for the Official Launch of the Photography Exhibit and Film Preview:
November 24th, 7pm, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies
Film previews are also scheduled for:
November 26 at Map Town in Calgary
November 27 at Alpine Club of Canada Winter Open House in Canmore
November 29 as part of Jumbo Wild Conservation Society’s AGM in Invermere
December 11 Life@Altitude celebrating International Mountain Day at artsPlace, Canmore.
More information can be found on the Facebook event page.
Follow Hobnails and Hemp Rope on Instagram at @hobnailsandhemp and Facebook and Twitter.
Tera Swanson is a freelance writer and graduate from Mount Royal University’s Journalism undergraduate program. Whether laced into hiking boots or clipped into skis, her favourite way to explore the mountains is on her own two feet. She’s always up for anything that will end in the telling of a good story; be it through photography, from pen to paper, or over a locally brewed amber ale.
Alpine Club of Canada
Bugaboo Spire Centennial Project
Conrad Kain
Conrad Kain Centennial Society
Hobnails and Hemp Rope
The views and opinions expressed in the articles on CrowfootMedia.com are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the editor, the editorial team or the publishers.
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[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Genres and Media in Cultural Studies (8)
Digital Media and Communication (8)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Communication Science (8)
Communication Theory (8)
Mass Communication (8)
Public and Political Communication (8)
Communication Theory x
Communication Science x
Mass Communication x
Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Communicatio
The Journal of Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania
The Beautiful Stranger – Szekler Teenagers’ Role Models
Orsolya Gergely
The social learning theory emphasizes that model giving or guiding has always been one of the most powerful means for transmitting values, for demonstrating and accentuating the expected attitudes, habits, thinking, and behaviour (Bandura, 1986; Crosswhite et. al., 2003). Studies have shown that a role model could motivate a teenager’s sporting habits and performance in a positive way. They also found that the top athletes, those celebrities who appear frequently in the media, can become role models. Do Szekler teenagers have role models? Do they choose their role model from their physical environment or the international popular media stars or mediatized persons become their idolized model? We wanted to find out who those teenagers are from our region who choose as their role model a star, a famous person, a media celebrity – a well-known person but still a stranger for the teenagers of Szeklerland. If so, who are their icons and role models? Who are those people that have an exemplary behaviour in their eyes? To whom they would like to compare themselves when they grow up? And what are those characteristics which have decisive roles in choosing as role model a person they have never met before? The analysis is based on three important surveys conducted among teenagers from Romania (Covasna, Harghita, and Mureş counties). The surveys took place in the springs of 2012, 2014, and 2016. About two thousand pupils in the 7th and 11th grades were involved each time. On the basis of variables, such as age, gender, and type of residency, we will present general profiles and general types of Szekler teenagers regarding the role models of their choice.
in Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Communicatio
Digital Immigrants – Strangers
György Molnár, Zoltán Szűts and Katalin Nagy
In social context, a stranger can be identified as one who is excluded from a group. This group can sometimes have only a few members, while in other cases it can consist of a whole nation or of an entire society. From a digital perspective, there are two kinds of citizens: first, those who are members of the digital information society. They are able to take part in social and public communication on several levels. Their habits often make life easier, and the pace they live their lives at is faster than of those before them. They are the digital natives. Second, there are those who designed the digital world, but ironically they are the ones who do not really understand how it works in practice. They are the digital immigrants, the strangers. In our study, our key point is that digital immigrants, who have been in this world longer than the so-called digital natives, are perceived as strangers as they are in many ways excluded from today’s digital information society. The rituals of their daily interaction, routine, and media consumption as well as information gathering differ from those who are “full members” of the information society.
Holocaust Representation and Graphical Strangeness in Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: “Funny Animals,” Constellations, and Traumatic Memory
Ana-Maria Gavrilă
Art Spiegelman’s MAUS, a Pulitzer-prize-winning two-volume graphic novel, zooms into wartime Poland, interweaving young Vladek’s – the author’s father – experiences of World War II and the present day through uncanny visual and verbal representational strategies characteristic of the comics medium. “I’m literally giving a form to my father’s words and narrative”, Spiegelman remarks on MAUS, “and that form for me has to do with panel size, panel rhythms, and visual structures of the page”. The risky artistic strategies and the “strangeness” of its form, to use Harold Bloom’s term, are essential to how the author represents the horrors of the Holocaust: by means of anthropomorphic caricatures and stereotypes depicting Germans as cats, Jewish people as mice, Poles as pigs, and so on. Readings of MAUS often focus on the cultural connotations in the context of postmodernism and in the Holocaust literature tradition, diminishing the importance of its hybrid narrative form in portraying honest, even devastating events. Using this idea as a point of departure, along with a theoretical approach to traumatic memory and the oppressed survivor’s story, I will cover three main topics: the “bleeding” and re-building of history, in an excruciating obsession to save his father’s – a survivor of Auschwitz – story for posterity and to mend their alienating relationship and inability to relate; the connection between past and present, the traumatic subject, and the vulnerability it assumes in drawing and writing about life during the Holocaust as well as the unusual visual and narrative structure of the text. The key element of my study, as I analyse a range of sections of the book, focuses on the profound and astonishing strangeness of the work itself, which consequently assured MAUS a canonical status in the comics’ tradition.
Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Elements in Detecting (Hungarian) Fake News
Ágnes Veszelszki
Fake news texts often show clear signs of the deceptive nature; still, they are shared by many users on Facebook. What could be the reason for this? The paper tries to answer the question by collecting the linguistic and non-linguistic characteristics of fake news. Linguistic characteristics include among others the exaggerating, sensational title, the eye-catching, tabloid-style text, the correct or incorrect use of terms, and the fake URLs imitating real websites; non-linguistic characteristics are expressive pictures often featuring celebrities, the use of all caps, excessive punctuation, and spelling mistakes. The corpus was compiled using snowball sampling: manipulative news not originating from big news portals were collected from the social networking website Facebook. The aim of the study is to identify the characteristics of Hungarian fake news in comparison to the English ones and to elaborate a system of aspects which help identify fake news.
Ryan Holiday: Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
Andrea Molnár
Strangers in Digiland
Rozália Klára Bakó and Gyöngyvér Erika Tőkés
With the growing importance of digital practices in young children’s everyday routines, parents and educators often face frustration and confusion. They find it difficult to guide children when it comes to playing and learning online. This research note proposes an insight into parents’ and educators’ concerns related to children’s and their own digital literacy, based on two exploratory qualitative inquiries carried out from March 2015 to August 2017 among 30 children aged 4 to 8 from Romania, their parents and educators. The research project Digital and Multimodal Practices of Young Children from Romania (2015–2016) and its continuation The Role of Digital Competence in the Everyday Lives of Children Aged 4–8 (2017–2018, ongoing) are part of a broader effort within the Europe-wide COST network IS1410 – The Digital and Multimodal Practices of Young Children (2014–2018). Parents and educators are disconnected from young children’s universe, our research has found. The factors enabling adults’ access to “Digiland” and ways of coping with the steep learning curve of digital literacy are explored through parents’ and teachers’ narratives, guided observation of children’s digital practices, and expert testimonies.
Strangers of Popular Culture – The Verbal and Pictorial Aesthetics of Mythological Metal Music
János Fejes
Extreme metal music is held to be a destructive genre of popular culture, treated as a pariah for many. Being a seriously misunderstood genre, I would like to highlight that metal music is a result of conscious work process that cannot only be noticed on the level of the music but on the level of verbal and pictorial expressions too. In my paper, I would like to show the working mechanisms of the so-called “(neo)pagan/mythological metal” movement, focusing on the rhetoric side of its mentioned expressions, searching for the ways these bands rewrite ancient myths and legends.
For my research, I will use three main threads: 1) history of religion (looking for the connections of the reception of ancient topics in contemporary society, e.g. New Age Cults and New Religious Movements); 2) reception theory, as the thoughts of Northrop Frye, Wolfgang Iser (1972), and John Fiske (2011) all should help to understand the general processes behind reading and producing texts; 3) subculture studies – e.g. the works of Richard Schusterman and Deena Weinstein (2002) to have a deeper insight to the genres standing on the edge of mass and high culture.
After a general introduction, I would like to demonstrate the above mentioned through some case studies. The chosen mythological cultures are going to be the world of the ancient Middle East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Old Testament), the classical Roman world, and the Viking Era, also showing some Hungarian and Romanian examples in the last section. In each section, the following issues should be examined: band and stage names connected to the topic, album titles, lyrics, and album covers. All these together will show us many clear patterns from romantic nostalgia to allegoric concepts, all revolving around the essence of metal music: being a Stranger in a familiar society.
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From river catchement areas to the sea : a comparative and integrated approach to the ecology of mediterranean coastal zones for sustainable management
Result in Brief
MED-CORE
Grant agreement ID: ICA3-CT-2002-10003
FP5-INCO 2
Target systems are sand beaches and their ecosystems. The research will extend to adjacent systems influencing and/or being influenced by the defined system, contributing to coastal equilibrium. The project aims at: definition of guidelines and ecological criteria for preservation of environmental quality through the identification of functional links between elements of coastal ecosystems and influencing zones in the Mediterranean; development of early warning indicators of degradation and long-term indicators of sustainability of coastal ecosystems; preparation of a manual regarding the application of ecological indicators of coastal quality, to be used by environmental managers and decision-makers . A transdisciplinary characterisation will be conducted at chosen sites, which share common problems of the Region, and the analysis of the property of different ecological indicators, from landscape to species and genetic levels, will be made.
FP5-INCO 2 - Programme for research, technological development and demonstration on "Confirming the international role of Community research,1998-2002"
CSC - Cost-sharing contracts
Via Romana 17/19
AGENCE DE PROTECTION ET D'AMENAGEMENT DU LITTORAL
CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT FOR THE ARAB REGION AND EUROPE
ERBORISTERIA BENCIVENNI
INSTITUTE OF MARINE RESEARCH
THE UNIVERSITY OF PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES
UNIVERSITE MOHAMMED V
UNIVERSITE TUNIS II EL MANAR
UNIVERSITY OF ROME "LA SAPIENZA"
This project is featured in...
RESEARCH*EU MAGAZINE
Results Supplement No. 008
Issue 8, October 2008
Issue 6, July 2008
A baseline study on socioeconomic, physical and biological conditions in Rosetta, Egypt
Socioeconomic baseline study: The purpose of such baseline study was to provide an assessment of socioeconomic conditions in Rosetta area (Egyptian site). Such a baseline assessment will contribute largely to develop conceptual and operational guidelines for attaining sustainable development. The Study provided a comprehensive profile about the Egyptian study site including: - A background information about the Egyptian site in terms of demographic characteristics, economic structure and land use. - A description of the field work conducted in Rosetta area to collect detailed, updated and accurate data on socioeconomic conditions in the area. - Areas of concern and main issues in the area. Physical baseline study: The main objective of physical baseline study was to assess the environmental conditions prevailing in the area, in terms of air and water quality. Biological baseline study: Such a study aimed at assessing the diversity and distribution of macrobenthos and fish in Egyptian site. The study was based on data collected through five bi-monthly sampling journey from October 2003 to July 2004. The study indicated that the most productive sites are located far away the Rosetta estuary (Edku and Abu Qir sites) which showed a high degree of similarity in terms of macrobenthic community.
Logo of the consortium
A logo has been designed in the occasion of the final conference of the MEDCORE project and the exhibition DOMESTIC MEDITERRANEAN (result 38306). It reminds to a hieroglyphic and represents a stylised "Phoenician eye" that is often painted on fisher boats around the Mediterranean. For fishermen it has clearly an apotropaic meaning. Our "eye" sails like a small boat on a wave, meaning "adventure", the adventure of working together in a project. MEDCORE scientists are exploring the Mediterranean with a curious eye. This attitude derives from an ancient tradition, dating back to the ancient Egyptians, Poenicians, Ulixes, the Alexandrines, the Arabs...). The logo has been retained for the following project WADI, changing colours with the different events.
GIS and database combination of habitats and species
IMBC got in hold of Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) Browse Images for MEDCORE study sites in Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt for the period 1999-2002 (one or two images for most months in the time-series). Image browses have been distributed among MEDCORE partners in CD-ROMs. As noted in the distribution CD-ROM, browse images were in reduced resolution. This was found necessary in order to get in hold of a long time-series of images for most study sites as well as to allow partners to produce indices of environmental changes in land types and coastline migration.
Technical protocols tuned to local needs to estimate macro and meiofauna diversity in the intertidal zone of the beach
Two technical protocols are included in this deliverable for the benthic fauna: the first refers to the benthic macrofauna and the second to the benthic meiofauna. All organisms that can be retained in a 0.5 mm sieve are included in the first category, as far as the Mediterranean habitats are concerned; organisms with maximum dimension between 60µm and 0.5 mm are included in what is called the "meiofaunal fraction (/component)". In this deliverable the equipement and the sampling process to be followed for both components are provided in order to disseminate an accurate and state-of-the-art protocol. Both components are cited among the corner stones of the biodiversity research in benthic marine ecosystems. Details on the measurement of the potentially associated environmental variables are also included in the protocols.Both protocols are provided in an easy and simple manner so that even non-trained personnel can use it with little chance of mistakes.
Databases on Macrobentic and Meiobenthic diversity of the Mediterranean sandy beaches
Databases on the macrobenthic assemblages of the inter- and subtidal Mediterranean habitats will soon be freely available from the Project web site. These databases (in the form of .xls files) are also included in the Final Report of the Project. Quantitative data (systematic, intensive) are coming from 2 Mediterranean localities (Crete, Greece and MAREMMA, Italy) and qualitative data on the macrobenthic assemblages of the sandy beach habitat have been collected from the relevant literature, for approximatelly 100 studied sandy beaches. Extensive data on the associated environmetal variables have been collected from 3 Mediterranean localities (Crete, MAREMMA and Tabarka (Tunisia)). Graphical, uni- and multivariate mathematical approaches have been applied in order to observe (bio)diversity patterns in the Mediterranean sandy beach environment. Result are available through a series of scientific documents.
Proceedings volume of the MEDCORE final conference
From the presentation of the volume by the editor Felicita Scapini,The Mediterranean coastal areas from watershed to the sea: interactions and changes, in press 2006, Firenze University Press : "The MEDCORE project funded by the EC, ICA-3-CT2002-10003, was carried out from 2002 to 2005 by a consortium of researchers from nine European and Mediterranean partner countries. It focused on a number of selected coastal areas, with particular attention to the interactions and links between elements. Multidisciplinary research and integration of expertise characterised our approach. The international conference, Florence on 10th-14th November 2005, aimed at presenting the main scientific achievements of the project, at extending the collaboration to other interested students and researchers and starting new scientific interactions. Despite the variation of the presentations, we wanted to collect them in a volume to show that interactive research is possible and to build a baseline for an innovative interdisciplinary perspective. Some of the articles of this volume have already started an effort in this sense, other can be used for further developments towards interdisciplinary research. Before starting any interaction, it is important to come together and to know what the colleagues do and what are their approaches and achievements. A cross-reading of the articles will represent a starting point towards integration. The Mediterranean coastal zone can be considered a centre of interactions at different levels. Sea and land ecosystems here are in contact, coasts extend as a continuous line around a common sea that has represented a space for trades and wars along with the human history, the rivers link the inland and coastal zones and have been the main ROADS of interchanges and development. We have found difficult to define the spatial and temporal scales of our research because each subject of study has its scale. The times of humans, animals, plants and micro-organisms are not the same, depending on the life span of individuals, the turn-over of generations, the historical events and the geological changes. Also their spatial influences vary and the texture can be very different, from the whole Mediterranean Basin, to defined zones and habitats, to particular spots. But all contribute to the sustainability of the ecosystems the more the interactions, the higher the sustainability. Beaches are paradigmatic, as they link terrestrial and marine environments, and are threatened both by land and sea impacts. Their economic importance is evident along with their fragility as ecosystems. Interactions between elements in a system are only in minimal part competition and struggle for life or negative impacts, as is often expressed when human culture and nature are considered, but they are mainly conjunctions and in some cases cooperation. An interaction or conjunction is always found when spatial and temporal scales of different elements overlap. It would be interesting to explore the outcome of these conjunctions in view of the sustainability of the coastal systems across the Mediterranean. In this perspective, there is no contrast between nature and culture, and conservation of natural elements should be compatible with human uses, environmental management and development. The layout of this volume has derived from the above said. We followed a SCALE logic, from the general to the particular, from the macro-scale to the micro-scale. Consequently, history and geography come first, socio-economy and management follow, then the river basin with the diversity of habitats it offers along its course, the extended dune and beach environments and the coastal waters. Temporally we analysed pre-historical and historical times, generations and seasons, from the long term to the medium and the short ones. Overlaps between compartments and phenomena are frequent and most of the authors have stressed them. In some articles, on the other hand such relations were not stressed, whenever they are present. We hope that this volume will offer new inputs and ideas to interested students and researchers, to foster attention in the links between ecosystems compartments and, methodologically, between disciplines. MEDCORE Proceedings should represent a starting point towards further integration. We invite both the authors and readers to suggest further developments to enhance an integrated sustainable development of Mediterranean coastal zones, which is pressingly needed in this region that has experienced rapid global and GLOCAL developments. The Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze has sponsored the printing of 500 volumes, which will be distributed freely upon request and put in the internet as a PDF file by the Firenze University Press. Each of the 30 articles published was subjected to peer review by two independent experts.
Decision support system for coastal management
In the context of the MEDCORE project, a variety of issues concerning habitatęs analysis, degradation problems and management problems in Mediterranean coastal areas were described and in some areas as in MAREMMA park ended up with the formulation of the most critical concerns over the sustainable management of the area. A set of issues for this area derived by using Soft System Analysis. These issues were considered appropriate to be transformed into criteria for performing a multi-criteria evaluation of the MAREMMA park by relevant stakeholders. The aim of applying this methodology was not only to analyze the specifics of the particular case study but also to propose a structured approach useful for environmental decision makers who face continuously integration problems, posed by multiple interests over multiple environmental issues.
Statistical methods to analyse angular data
The problem was to estimate the effects of multiple environmental variables on orientation in tests conducted under natural conditions. The statistical analysis of the effects of factors on the circular response was carried out by assuming a Projected Normal distribution of the directions, instead of the usual von Mises. We used a regression model proposed by Presnell et al. (Presnell B, Morrison S P, Littel R C, J. Amer. Stat. Ass. 93, 443: 1068-1067, 1998) which they call Projected Multivariate Linear Model (PMLM).We chose to use this model as other previously proposed methods suffered from difficulties in the computation of parameters estimates (probably this is one of the causes that regression methods are so little used in the analysis of directional data). This is a parametric model which assumes that the directions in every combination of the factors are distributed as Projected Normals, i.e. like the projections onto the unit circle of a bivariate standard normal distribution. Any von Mises distribution is closely approximated by a projected normal with the same circular mean and mean resultant vector. The Projected Normal Distribution can be parameterized with the mean vector of the bivariate normal distribution. This is called Projected Normal Parameter (PNP) for convenience. This is to be intended as a latent point of the plane whose polar co-ordinates indicate (a) the mean direction (the angle made by the vector) and (b) the concentration around this direction (the length of the vector), the further the point from the origin the more concentrated the response. The model then assumes that the position of the mean of the bivariate normal is a function of the explanatory variables. Both the mean direction and the mean resultant length depend on the explanatory variables (predictors). When all the explanatory variables are qualitative (i.e. factors) the model is analogous to a multiway analysis of variance model with or without interactions. A model with the full set of interactions specifies a different Projected Normal for each combination of the levels of the factors. This model obviously can have a huge number of parameters (two for each cell) and thus simpler models can be advantageous if they do not deviate significantly from it. The additive analysis of variance model predicts that the PNPs (the mean vectors of the bivariate normal) follow a simple "parallelogram rule", i.e. the points corresponding to each combination of levels of two factors must form a parallelogram. The models are fitted by maximum likelihood using the EM algorithm. With this approach several multifactor analysis of variance models can be fitted to the data. One of the advantages of the method proposed is the possibility of exploring many models including a large number of main effects and interactions. This involves a model selection stage in the analysis, in which several models are compared. All tests are based on the likelihood ratio statistic, with the relevant null asymptotic chi square distribution. However, the choice of a final parsimonious model is based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC). On the basis of this criterion which is a kind of penalized likelihood by which non nested models can also be compared, the best models are those with the lowest AIC. There is no generally accepted measure of the overall fit of regression models for circular data. In this case the problem is complicated by the fact that the model allows varying concentrations. Note that the amount of unexplained variability can also be appraised from the estimated mean resultant vectors within the groups. The analysis of residuals should help in checking the model, and in detecting systematic as well isolated departures from the model. Two important checks should concern the assumption (a) of the Projected Normal Distribution for the directions and (b) the additivity of the analysis of variance model. This could be the object of a future methodological study.
Ecological indicators in coastal and estuarine environmental quality assessment. A user friendly guide for practitioners
Experience demonstrates that none of the available measures on biological effects of pollution should be considered ideal. The use of a single approach does not seem appropriate due to the complexity inherent in assessing the environmental quality of a system. Rather, this should be evaluated by combining a suite of indices providing complementary information. Having this in mind, a decision tree was built in this work with the aim of helping managers and authorities of coastal areas in selecting the most suitable ecological indicators taking into account the type of disturbance and the data available. Such decision tree includes numerous indices based on benthic invertebrate fauna information, because in the case of coastal and transitional waters ecosystems there is a clear preference for benthic communities, which integrate environmental conditions and changes in an a very effective way if we want to monitor long-term responses and site-specific impacts. The development of this guide was based not only on theoretical approaches, but also on results from its application using data bases corresponding to different geographical areas (the Mondego estuary, in the North-Western Coast of Portugal, and Mar Menor, Escombreras basin, and Cabo Tiñoso in the South-Eastern coast of Spain). Some recommendations are provided with regard to the most adequate application of the indices, as for example, in what situations it is not advisable the use of some of them, depending on the type of disturbance or the level of taxonomic identification of the organisms.
Traditional medicine in Morocco: Italian translation of the book
The book written by the Moroccan medician Mustafa Akmisse explores the traditional medicine in Morocco and the use of medicinal plants, animals and minerals. A comparison with similar traditions around the Mediterranean was interesting in the aims of the MEDCORE project. We submitted the idea to an Italian editor and translated the Moroccan book into Italian. Particularly interesting is the lexicon at the end of the volume. The names of minerals, plants and animals are reported in Italian and dialectal Arabic. Dr. Daniela Bencivenni, anthropologist and expert in medicinal plants, wrote the presentation of the volume, with a mention of the project MEDCORE and the importance of Mediterranean collaboration in view of retrieving and conserving the Mediterranean traditional heritage.
Recommendations for forestry in coastal zones
Pinus pinea woods stretch over a large area along the coasts of Italy, mostly, in Tuscany and Lazio. These woods derive from afforestations done during the XX century, even if the cultivation of pine was practised long time before with different criteria, to create a shelterbelt protecting the interior settlements and farmland from sea winds, to fix coastal dunes and to produce the seed (pinolo) highly appreciated for nutrition. Through time their aesthetic value was more and more appreciated so that they became a relevant part of the landscape important also for recreational activities. During the last decades some relevant environmental processes developed and influenced to pinewoods. The most relevant locally is the coast erosion, a phenomenon taking place in several sandy coasts of the Mediterranean. Current data show that about 25 % of European coastlines experiences erosion (EEA, 2006); of course as recently remarked by the EEA (2006), erosion is a natural process which allows accretion in other parts of the coastline and it is not negative per se, but becomes a risk for settlements and human population. In 10 out of 12 countries where over-exploitation of groundwater are reported, saltwater intrusion results (EEA, 2006). Besides large areas of the Mediterranean coastline in Italy, Spain and Turkey are reported to be affected by saltwater intrusion (EEA, 2003 c.f. EEA 2006). The salinity of the water table is, apparently, influenced by this event, but in the same direction, that is an increase in water table salinity, act the reduction of precipitations (especially during the winter period) and the increased water consumption for domestic and agricultural purposes. Water table salinisation is hindering sap flow and therefore stresses pines physiology. This fact increases also the susceptibility of trees to insect attacks (mainly Tomicus destruens) which kill the pines. The results of our research show quite clearly, within an important pinewood of the Southern coast of Tuscany, the Pineta di Alberese, included in the Regional Nature Park of Maremma, the relevant environmental factors (precipitation, water table level , variations, salinity) and the connections with pines sap flow. The situation of the Pineta di Alberese is representative of most coastal pinewoods as far as the environment (climate, soils, water table), the traditional production (pine cones have a substantial economic role; timber production and grazing are rarely relevant), soil protection and shelterbelt function. From the economic point of view the recreation use is the most important, since pinewoods are highly appreciated not only as a camping ground but also as a typical landscape element. It is therefore extremely important to increase the stability of these woods. The problems should be faced in various ways: reducing coast erosion, reducing the water consumption by agriculture, gardening and other civil uses, reducing water consumption by forest vegetation. Our research has shown that thinnings of young stands and reduction of shrub density can improve the water budget of the tree layer. The impact of heavy machinery in forestry operations should be monitored to prevent soil compaction. Obviously these silvicultural measures should be adopted only when other characteristics and functions of woods (soil protection, biodiversity, fire danger etc.) have been taken into account. References: EEA, 2003. Europe's water: An indicator-based assessment. Topic report No 1/2003. EEA, 2006. The changing faces of Europe's coastal areas. Topic report No 6/2006.
Protocol for environmental education on sandy beaches: a test for the primary school
The results obtained within the MEDCORE project about sandy shore ecosystems were used for environmental education at primary school level, in order to disseminate an updated scientific information starting from local level. The final aim was to give local people a tool to improve the understanding of their own environment. Such kind of knowledge and interest about the resources and the problems related to a given scenario, is needed to achieve the responsible use of sandy beach resources. We involved schoolchildren because, as a matter of fact, they can experience at the same time the traditional knowledge of the relatives continuously updated through time (local experience), and the standardised school programs (general experience). The local public school "El Jomhouria" (i.e. The Republic) in Nefza was involved in the dissemination project. Researchers and teachers planned the following jointed activity and set up a test. This was submitted to the children before and after the planned activity. The aim of such activity was to identify key concepts related to the beach-dune ecosystem, to analyse their perception and finally to discuss and integrate the emerging information with that coming from scientific knowledge. Indirectly, observations in nature were possible on the beach-dune ecosystem. Topics of the activity were: Definition of the beach-dune environment (abiotic and biotic); Relationships between ecological components of the beach-dune system; Internal and external features acting on a beach; Human behaviour on a beach and different human impacts.
Popular brochure domestic Mediterranean
The printed brochure presented the MEDCORE project to the public and was distributed (1000 copies) at the end of the MEDCORE project, at the same time of the final international conference of the project Mediterranean coastal areas from watershed to the sea: interactions and changes, to advertise the exhibition (see the result: exhibition Domestic Mediterranean). The brochure is the result of a group-work and was ideated by the young Italian researchers who participated in the project, helped by the designers of a small local enterprise Agilelogica, who also designed a logo for the event. This has been retained as logo of the consortium(result 38589). The front and back image of the brochure represents the whole Mediterranean, with no indications of national borders (the Mediterranean as an unit); the word Mediterranean is written by hand, as a travel notation, and in Arabic. The title DOMESTIC MEDITERRANEAN focuses on the fact that we consider the Mediterranean as home, where we live and have our roots, not an exotic country. The subtitle SCIENCE AS A LINK BETWEEN CULTURES repeats a sentence expressed by the Italian Ambassador to our research group in occasion of an international meeting in Tunis at the beginning of 2002. The second subtitle IMAGES FROM FIELDWORK stresses on the fact that we have been worked together on the field. In the back page the project is explained in few words: MEDCORE PROJECT aims at preserving the natural resources of Mediterranean coastal areas by contributing to their sustainable management. Some of these resources, as marine waters, fisheries, fresh waters, coastal forests, agriculture, habitat and species diversity, recreational areas, are very important at the national and international levels. Baseline scientific surveys on selected coastal sites, in Italy, Spain, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, were conducted aiming at a better understanding of existing linkages of the various components, to promote the common Mediterranean culture and rediscover its value. Other texts inside the brochure are: THE EXPOSITION tells the story through images of an international experience of scientific research conducted in countries around the Mediterranean, in the framework of a project funded by the European Union (programme INCO-MED) titled: From river basin to the sea, a comparative and integrated study of the ecosystems of the coastal zones of the Mediterranean for a sustainable management. Scientific collaboration can become means of interaction between people to rediscover values in a Mediterranean that too often forgets its own common origins and history. SCIENCE AS A LINK. Art and science are always been cooperating, resisting to political events, by integrating knowledge, learning new values and recovering the idea of a geographic and cultural unit. COASTAL ENVIRONMENT. Thanks to its geographic position, the Mediterranean was in the past the place where cultures arose, and has been the place where cultures and trades met, an unifying element of peoples who live on its coasts.PEOPLE AND CULTURE. Going through markets in small and big towns, we experience difference cultures and traditions, but also recognise the common footprint of people, who have been living beside each other in a continuum of known characters. These texts comment pictures taken by the partners at Oued Laou and Chauen (Morocco), Rosetta (Egypt), Tabarka (Tunisia). There is also a picture of the participants drinking water during a pause under olive trees in the Maremma Regional Park (Italy).
Protocol for assessment of seagrass health and coastal water quality
Seagrasses are very sensitive to anthropogenic disturbances, and this property makes this organism much suitable as environmental quality bioindicators. In the framework of MEDCORE, a series of seagrass health descriptors was tested on different areas (see result 38309). Based on these data, we developped a multivariate method to combine the different descriptors into a single index expressing seagrass health and indicating coastal water status. This methodology, which was partially developped on a national basis but was widely tested in the trans-national framework of MEDCORE, is aimed at the diagnose of the coastal water status, and is compliant with the requirements of the Water Framework Directive of the UE.
Bio-assays of beach degradation based on behavioural variation
Bioassays to monitor environmental changes are based on the fact that organisms interact holistically with their environment, and any change in one or more environmental parameters (even unknown) can in principle be detected by observing changes in the organism. Bioassays can be used as early warning indicators of impacts and changes and are very sensitive. Some environmental changes cannot be detected instrumentally unless very sensitive (and generally costly) instruments are used, and some relevant variables can be overlooked by human observers. Organisms can be extremely sensitive, they integrate trends of changes and respond to several factors as an unit, which separately could be not detected. Another good reason to use bioassays in monitoring programmes is that we humans are organisms, and it is likely that an impact negative to an animal would be negative also to humans. Exploiting sympathy towards animals, the public can easily be convinced of the importance of the adoption of measures to protect environment against impacts. For this reason, campaigns to protect some flag animals have helped to protect important habitats. This is the case of marine turtles for beaches. But, when beaches start degrading, turtles simply do not come to these beaches, which are then considered dead habitats. This is by no means true. Beach ecosystems are valuable in themselves and all possible measures should be undertaken to preserve beaches and warn against their degradation. We have proposed simple bioassays based on behavioural variation of very common animals, the talitrid sandhoppers, small crustaceans living on sand beaches. These are abundant in most temperate beaches, with a number of related species. They are strictly adapted to the beach environment, rather robust and capable to rapidly re-colonise impacted beaches. We developed bioassays based on behavioural variation, which can be easily and rapidly estimated with simple tests on the beach self. Orientation to the shoreline is a quantitative behaviour, easily to analyse and interpret (results 38301 and 38224). At one of the study sites of the MEDCORE project, in southern Tuscany, Italy, we tested the possibility of applying a bioassay based on orientation of sandhoppers to monitor beach erosion/accretion trend. Beach profiling is the usual method to monitor beach erosion, but it shouldnt be used as a snapshot monitoring because it is strongly dependent on seasonal, climatic and tidal changes. Our hypothesis was that animals living on a beach know its trend of change and will orient accordingly. We tested this hypothesis by comparing four points distant one kilometer from each other on a beach subject to erosion near the river mouth and accretion at the opposite side. Comparing the distributions of orientation of sandhoppers tested in the four points at the same time by different teams, we could determine which was the equilibrium point of the shoreline. In fact the orientation of sandhoppers at that point was perfectly adapted to the orientation of the shoreline, while at the eroded and the accreting point we found higher scatter in orientation. At another study site, on the north-western Mediterranean coast of Morocco, we found differences in orientation depending on the different uses of the beach: at one point there was no human impact except trampling in summer, while at the other site constructions directly impacted the beach. The application of this bioassay in monitoring beach degradation in long term monitoring, seems too simple when it is proposed to coastal managers. However it is based on a sound scientific background (see the documentation). We are further testing the method to compare beaches subject to different impacts on other coasts (eastern and southern Atlantic, Pacific, Baltic), with the collaboration of different teams of ecologists and geo-morphologists. We look forward to enhance the awareness of coastal mangers towards the organisms living on beaches and the importance of monitoring impacts.
Exhibition domestic Mediterranean
We prepared an exhibition entitled Domestic Mediterranean for the public beyond scientists. The target public were the visitors to the museums of Florence, namely the Natural History Museum where the exhibition was shown first. This public was composed by citizen, schools and numerous international tourists from Europe, Japan, south and north America. Therefore we decided to explain the panels both in Italian and English and to use images as much as possible. The exhibition is composed of 16 plastic PVC panels of 2.2 X 1.2 m, which describe the project, its rationale and achievements using images, simple sentences, reminding and focusing key ideas and results. The exhibition was integrated by a photo-show and background music. It was presented in Florence (in Italian and English, November 2005 and January 2006). It was advertised at the MEDCORE international conference and with posters and brochure (result 38306) exposed at the different departments of the University of Florence, in schools, in regional and city offices, in the city daily paper La Nazione. In December 2005, a similar exhibition was prepared in Tunis by the APAL, adapted to the Tunisian environment and focused on littoral environments, which are the mandate of this governmental institution. The panels were written in French and Arabic. The panels written in Italian and English, have been sent to Malta (July 2006), where authorities will be officially invited. Adaptations to other countries will follow suit. The exhibition or the PDF files are available at request; compressed images of the panels are shown in the web site of MEDCORE. The aim of the exhibition was to pass the message on to the public of laymen in a direct way. The Mediterranean is presented as an historical and cultural unit, coasts are described as a continuous line linking countries and people, with shared common issues and values worth of conservation. It is stressed that the natural and cultural heritage belong to people, women and children participating as actors in the conservation of such heritage. They know the important links to the environment, and we should learn from them how to manage it in a sustainable manner. The exhibition is a thematic journey, and each panel is numbered to invite visitors to follow the route indicated; key words are focused and explained in each panel; images from different Mediterranean countries are mixed in the same panels, to stress the common heritage. Contents and keywords of the panels: (1) Introduction (Domestic Mediterranean); (2) Names of the Mediterranean (in Hebrew, Persian, Latin, Arabic); (3) Sabir (the ancient trade language); (4) Projects (MECO, Mediterranean Coastal Ecosystems; MEDCORE, Mediterranean Coastal River Ecosystems; WADI, Water demand Integration); (5) Actors (science as a meeting point, our portraits, our institutions); (6) Places (the diversity of the project study sites from watershed to the sea, in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Italy); (7) Activities (learn, plan, communicate, images from fieldwork); (8) Water (a seed for life, a resource to be managed and distributed); (9) Sand (a flow from the mountains to the beach and sea); (10) Beach (a link, a crossing point, a window to the sea, a sacred place, our traces on sand disappear); (11) Diversity (richness, variation, health); (12) Local knowledge (awareness, continuity, sustainability); (13) Cultural heritage (to understand places and people); (14) Environmental management (comparison, integration, sustainability); (15) Environmental education, Children (curiosity, play, attention); (16) Woman (house, subsistence agriculture, the use of the environment, knowledge from grandmothers to mothers to daughters). It is planned to make a booklet of the panels and a sponsor is searched for.
Artistic poster of the project and shopper with the logo of the project
As logo of the MEDCORE project we asked an artist, Luigi Scapini, who has designed several sets of tarot cards, to explain the rationale and contents of the project in a picture. He painted a river mouth generating a beach, shown in the front of the picture. In the back, he represented hills and mountains (the inland); on the right side of the river, there is a port city (the human settlement); on the left, there are some ruins (the past heritage) and a small fisher village (the cultural tradition); two boats are sailing in the river (man explores the wide world using the river as a road); the natural components are represented by the beach where two marine turtles are landing, a lagoon with pink flamingos, typical Mediterranean plants, birds and fish. It is worth noting that most of the elements represented in this picture are symbols of link, e.g. the migratory birds, fish and turtles, boats and the river self. The sky above the landscape is charged of clouds, preparing a waterfall (benefit) or a storm (risk). This picture has been used in all the presentations of the project at the general meetings, in the poster of the final conference, in the cover pages of the Abstract volume and Proceedingsof the conference, in the home page of the web site. It was also printed on the cotton shopper that was distributed at the final international conference. The shopper was made of a natural material (cotton) by a small local enterprise.
Descriptors of behavioural variation affected by coastal state
Animal behavioural adaptations to environment are diversified according to variation in ecological features. We estimated behavioural adaptations in small, common animals (crustacean amphipods) living on beaches and at the edges of humid coastal environments (lagoons, river mouths, canals, entrance of a cave, etc.). We choose measurable descriptors, easy to record and to control, such as orientation on dry or wet substrates and activity rhythms under laboratory control conditions. Orientation would help the animals to rapidly find the optimal conditions when displaced, e.g. the shoreline when displaced on the dry upper beach. As a result of circadian rhythmicity the animals are active at night avoiding harsh conditions of dryness and high temperatures. The rationale behind this study is that 1) each population is adapted to the environment where it lives; 2) behavioural adaptations are more precise in harsh habitats where they have a higher survival value than in habitats where animals can easily find what they need (e.g. a animals living on a beach are subject to higher selective pressure with respect to similar animals from a constantly humid zone), and 3) new colonising populations or populations living in rapidly changing environments would show less precise adaptations (behavioural flexibility) with respect to animals from more stable environments. To test these hypotheses we tested orientation and activity rhythms in different populations from different habitats at the study sites of the project. Orientation and activity are measurable behaviours and the tests are easy to perform and replicate. Orientation is expressed as a direction (angle to the north or with respect to an expected direction, such as the direction of the sea on a beach). Distributions of angles can be analysed using the statistics of circular distributions. Current software packages of statistics do not contain the statistics of circular distributions, and we prepared ad hoc software running in S-Plus environment, available at request (result 38224). Time series of the locomotor activity permit to estimate the period (circadian, e.g. around 24 hours, or circatidal, around 12 hours), the signal to noise ratio and the phase. We used ad hoc software also in this case, prepared by D. Green, School of Bioscience, University of Birmingham. For each population we calculated mean values and the variation of the behaviour within the sample; we compared samples from different seasons, from different populations and different species. We performed a regression analysis of orientation with the environmental and intrinsic (depending on the animals) conditions (see the result: 38224 for details). The background information for each study site gathered from other work packages helped the interpretation of the behavioural tests, and, conversely, we learned from the behavioural adaptations of the animals how suitable these sites were to them and estimated the impacts. In principle, the behaviour expressed by an animal integrates past experience on the environment where it lives, and an estimate of behaviour would be more informative than snapshots estimates of environmental variables. We used always the same techniques and protocols to build a data base, which would be useful for comparative studies of coastal areas in the Mediterranean coasts and the European Atlantic and Baltic ones, where the same species live. The survey has been extended to other related species south-American coasts, in Chile and Uruguay. This geographic extension will permit an evolutionary approach. Data bases of behavioural variation of beach arthropods are being prepared for wide dissemination in the web. The dissemination of the results has been made in scientific conferences by the authors of the experiments, in scientific journals with impact factor, in university texts on ethology and in the web www.meco.unifi.it and www.medcore.unifi.it . The potential use of this knowledge is in basic biological research with high euristic potential, as biodiversity is here analysed at different levels, individual, intra-population, inter-population, geographic). Moreover the question of genetic versus environmental adaptation is still an open question in ethology and evolutionary science. Students of all ages (from elementary to adult education) are generally interested in behavioural studies, and this represents a very good example of connecting behaviour with the environment. From ethical point of view, such behavioural experiments do not disturb the small common animals observed. The attention of the students and public will be focused on the importance of the conservation of habitat diversity. Behavioural studies start from the point of view of the animals, integrated in their habitats.
Socioeconomic conditions in coastal areas: A comparative analysis
Coastal areas, at the global level, hold a major proportion of population and economic activities, which depend mostly on the environment and its natural resources such as agriculture, fishing, tourism and industry. Such conditions reflect the importance of coastal areas and their natural resources to the welfare of the communities living in these areas. Human activities, meanwhile, usually involve a wide range of negative impacts on the environment, especially if these activities were either unplanned or exceeded the carrying capacity of the environment. This meant increasing the pressures on the environment and natural resources and thus threatening the chances of attaining sustainable development in these areas. Such conditions, accordingly, require proper management of the coastal areas that integrates human activities within a coherent setting of planning policies that address environmental carrying capacity. For such management to be effective, proper and in-depth study of various socioeconomic, as well as environmental conditions, prevailing in coastal areas need to be undertaken in an integrated manner. It is usually argued that great similarities do exist between different coastal areas of the Mediterranean region, not only in terms of environmental conditions, but also socioeconomic conditions. Such similarities, and despite possible differences, have promoted calls for developing a common guidelines for coastal zone management in the region. This paper intends to conduct a comparative analysis of socioeconomic conditions in two southern Mediterranean sites; namely Rosetta area (Egypt) and Oued Laou area (Morocco). This analysis intends to pinpoint the main similarities as well as differences between both sites, in order to assess the potential for setting broad guidelines to attain sustainable development in the Mediterranean region in general. The work conducted in the two sites, which involved significant field work, showed that great similarities in terms of socioeconomic conditions in the two sites do exist. The study also found that deteriorating environmental conditions have adversely affected those communities, especially the poor, and the vicious circle between environmental deterioration and poverty does exist. Such conditions, meanwhile, require substantial development efforts that take into account environmental consideration.
Abstract volume of the MEDCORE project international conference
At the end of the MEDCORE project we organised an international conference: The Mediterranean coastal areas from watershed to the sea: interactions and changes, Florence 10-14 November 2006. From the presentation of the Abstract Volume by Felicita Scapini: Integration in the Mediterranean is a challenge. The same waters wash different countries and continents, and the coasts are a continuous line linking a great diversity of cultures, people, environments and organisms. Also science can represent a link, and common research projects are the first step towards integration. This conference is characterised by disciplinary diversity: history, geography, socio-economy and ecology. We thank the delegates for their efforts towards a common language, beyond cultural and disciplinary specificity. The aim of this conference is to integrate and disseminate scientific results at the advantage of the people living in Mediterranean coastal areas, to preserve the natural heritage for the future generations. In the framework of the INCO-MED EU Programme, we have conducted environmental research since 1998, and established a network of researchers across the Mediterranean. Other researchers have joined this conference as well as environmental managers, who share the interest of understanding and protecting the Mediterranean ecosystems. The venue of this conference, Florence, is more or less central in the Mediterranean basin, and its monuments are signs of a long history of interactions. The University of Florence that hosts this pan-Mediterranean conference, has a strong experience of international collaboration and has started several joint projects with other universities of Mediterranean partner countries to foster high formation and research. The abstracts of spoken and poster presentations were printed in a small handy volume by the Firenze Universiy Press, 2005, of 109 pages, with the picture-logo of the project by the artist Luigi Scapini in the cover (result 38303). In the first pages the sponsor and patronising institutions are indicated (the logos are found in the back cover), the scientific and organising committees, the programme of the conference, the index of the volume, the list of authors with addresses and e-mails. The abstracts of oral and poster contributions are in English or French, of one to two pages each. In the appendix, two longer articles were printed, which describe the two places visited during the field excursion: the Biogenetic Nature Reserve of Montefalcone, and the Fucecchio Marshes, both in Tuscany, Italy. The number of abstracts published is 70 (55 thereof from the MEDCORE project), in alphabetic order to be easily found. The authors are 120 from 16 countries. In the programme of the conference the contributions were distributed to different sessions, with topics from general to particular: The general framework, Socioeconomic aspects, Changes in habitats and landscapes, Marine ecology aspects, Sandy beach environment, Genetic aspects and behavioural adaptation, and Diversity in the catchment areas. We printed 300 volumes to distribute during the conference. More at available at request. A PDF file of the volume is freely available in the internet: http://eprints.unifi.it/archive/00001115/.
Book: The Maremma regional park a guide to know and understand
One of the study sites of the MEDCORE project has been the Maremma Regional Park, a protected coastal area established in 1976 for its natural and cultural value. Since then thousands of visitors went to the park and tens of researchers conducted their studies in the area. Some specific documentation has been distributed and sold in the visitors centre of the Park, but a comprehensive guide was missing, which would drive attention to the integration between compartments, to the existing issues, changes and management. We decided to fill this gap and produce a guide for the public at an intermediate level between scientific and a popular book. The book would be written in Italian in a scientifically correct language but not technical, and have colour attractive pictures. The book is subdivided in four sections and chapters covering a large range of topics, that were not covered by the existing information on the park. Several authors contributed to the book and presented first hand research and results from the MEDCORE project and other related local projects. The volume is ready for printing in Italian and we look for sponsors to prepare translations in English and German, as the international tourists visiting the park would be interested in it. Considering that the target readers are mainly tourists visiting or planning to visit the park, school classes and students, the book will be sold by the Parco at the Centro Visite; therefore the costs for printing will be paid by the Parco and the Publisher. It was agreed that people who have paid for a book are more likely to read it than to read a book received for free. The EU and the MEDCORE will be acknowledged for the support to the research. Contents of the Book: Introduction; Part 1. The geographic context (presentation of the area, geography, geomorphology, hydrography, climate, the cartographic image through time, the dynamics of the Ombrone River mouth and the coast, the rocky shore, the caves, the vegetal lanscape); Part II. Animal biodiversity (mammals, marsh birds, butterflies, coleopterans and isopods in the different habitats of the park, animals in the canals, arthropods in the underground waters); Part III. From land to sea (sedimentological dynamics and coastal dune development, beach-dune system, genetic diversity of beach sandhoppers, sandhoppers on the move from land to sea, wrack on the beach, small animals in the intertidal zone, life in sand and its ecological role, underwater seagrass meadows); Part IV. The links between man and the park, history and traditions (the history of the area; a literary description when it was a marsh in 800; the rural buildings and architecture at the time of land reclamation; the endemic cattle, cows and horses; fish for poor people in the past; the traditional uses of plants); Part V. The Maremma Regional park and its management between present and future (management and production of the pine tree woods and the maquis; tourists and visitors of the park; the management of multidisciplinary problems in the coastal park).
Children book on seagrass meadows
This small book, which is in fact a story for children, is aimed at increasing social awareness regarding seagrass meadows. It is a translation of a former version in Catalan language, adapted to the social conditions of the North-African countries through a collaboration with the University of Tunis. Fully illustrated, this book gives a comprehensive overview of seagrass ecosystems, the goods and services they provide and some ideas about their conservation. Although written for children, the book is equally intended for an adult reader. It is innovative in the sense that this kind of approach is relatively rare in the Maghreb countries. Ca. 2000 books have been printed, which will be distributed through Tunisia (and maybe other North-African countries) with the help of other project partners.
Web site of the MEDCORE project
The project web site is a key instrument to inform the public worldwide on the project and to keep in touch the partners. It is continuously updated with information on: activities of the partners, methodologies of research developed during the project, results, events (programmes and photo galleries) and a complete list of publications derived from the project, including presentations in conferences, master and PhD thesis. The information is in English with sections in French, when the information concerns French speaking non-European countries. It is foreseen to add information also in other Mediterranean languages to reach a wider audience of stakeholders. The design of the page is as essential as possible to permit an easy connection and navigation throughout the different pages. There are links to the web sites of connected projects: http://www.meco.unifi.it and http://www.wadi.unifi.it that are also continuously updated. This shows the history of the research carried on by the consortium of partners. An important section of the medcore web site refers to the final international conference held in Novembre 2005, showing the contributions presented by the participants also from outside the project. This creates a link with the exterior. The exhibition "Domestic Mediterranean" showed at the end of the project to the public in Florence, and presently (July 2006) in Malta, is shown in the web site as a permanent virtual exhibition. A web site of the project has also been activated in Egypt by the CEDARE partner at the address http://medcore.cedare.int This web site contains general and specific information on the study sites and the researches carried out by the partners.
List of guidelines for sustainable development of Rosetta area
Rosetta area is one of the Egyptian regions, which has its own character. The area has great potentials for tourism activities, especial economic structure, prevailed by high level of poverty, low levels of public participation. All of these conditions affect adversely the socioeconomic conditions of the residents and threaten consequently the environmental quality. Therefore, there is an urgent need to build on a set of guidelines for sustainable development of the area. The development of the area should have long term horizon, so that any development plan should be multi-focus integrating various interests and perspectives. Also, the development plan should be based on participatory approach, according to which, all stakeholders should be incorporated in all stages of development; planning, decision making and implementation processes. Such a participatory approach could ensure that the development efforts will reflect the actual requirements of the residents and meet their needs. Also, it could ensure strong support of the residents for the development efforts and consequently the success of these efforts. Based on the above mentioned notion, a number of guidelines for the sustainable development of the area were developed. Stakeholders of the area were consulted on these guidelines. The feed back of the participants in the consultation were significant in finalizing the guidelines.
A manual for socioeconomic study
MEDCORE project involves assessment of the prevailing environmental and socioeconomic conditions in order to develop a sustainability strategy for the coastal areas of the Mediterranean. Accordingly, socioeconomic conditions represent an integrated part of such a study, which aim ultimately to attaining sustainable development. Accordingly, this manual was developed to coordinate and integrate the socioeconomic work to be conducted by various partners under the umbrella of this project. The purpose of this manual is to provide conceptual and practical guidelines on how to conduct a reliable assessment of the socioeconomic conditions, in the various study sites within MEDCORE project, in consistent format. This not to mean that such an assessment would be carried out in uniform manners at all study sites, which have different socioeconomic characteristics. Rather, this consistent format is intended for conducting comparative analysis of various study sites and consequently establishes a set of general guidelines for sustainable development in the coastal areas of the Mediterranean. However, the manual by no means represents a comprehensive collection of various aspects of the topic. Rather, this manual has been prepared as guidelines to be used by Medcore project partners in conducting socioeconomic studies in their study sites. Manual contents: - Introduction - Objective of the manual - Socioeconomic assessment - Work plan.
Data bases on animal biodiversity in Mediterranean beaches
Changes in abundance, species richness, evenness and diversity of terrestrial beach invertebrates were assessed at increasing distance from the delta of the Ombrone river along the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy. During the study it was pointed out that the composition of the arthropod population changed according to its distance from the river mouth and that the increase in diversity was related to the increase of habitat diversity. Eroded areas, close to the river delta, were generally characterised by a small number of species and of individuals per species. Human disturbance (trampling) had also been considered as an important influencing factor and this was confirmed by seasonal comparisons. The analysis of beach morphology and of the chemical and physical characteristics of the substrate had also given important indications of the parameters implicated in the phenomenon. A further step in the knowledge of how terrestrial beach arthropod communities changed in relation to their position occupied in space with respects to the mouth of a river is represented by a recent research conducted along a sandy beach ecosystems of Morocco. In this case species richness, abundance and diversity were studied on both sides of the Oued Laou river mouth and comparisons were made. Also the physical characteristics of the environment and the chemical and physical characteristics of the substrate were also assessed in order to find relationships with the biotic components of the system. The main questions addressed were: - Are the physical and chemical characteristics of the substrate the same on the stretch of coast to the left and right of a river mouth? - Does beach morphology change according to the side of the river bank? - If so are arthropod populations the same or do they change in relation to the side of the river mouth inhabited? - How is species richness, diversity and abundance influenced by the environmental conditions found on the two sides of the river? The recorded data give some interesting indications of the species distribution on the two sides of the Oued Laou river mouth. It is clear that the stations on the left side of the river mouth both supported a lower number of species and of individuals compared to the ones on the right side. This was particularly evident for the crustacean species. The analysis of the sand parameters showed that finer sand was found at on the right side of the river whereas less compact sand and higher pH values were found on the left. Trends in beach slope were different on the two sides of the river mouth: a greater slope was found farther away from the mouth on the right side and closer to the river mouth on the left side. Regression analysis showed that negative correlations were always found between species abundance and environmental parameters, such as salinity and pH, indicating their importance in regulating species distribution. Comparisons with the results obtained at the Maremma Regional Park showed substantial differences. At the Maremma beach the erosion process taking place at the river mouth had a great influence over species richness and abundance, whereas at Oued Laou being a more stable beach other environmental factors (presence/absence of a beach dune, more/less stable vegetation, low/high human impact) probably dominated the scenario. The higher alfa value found at the Maremma beach was probably in relation to the presence of a well developed and stable dune that in the case of Oued Laou was almost entirely absent or reduced as a relict presence.
Descriptors of seagrass health
A series of descriptors of seagrass health have been developped and tested. Those descriptors are based on the seagrass Posidonia oceanica and its associated ecosystem, and are useful for: (a) baseline surveys of marine coastal areas; (b) assessment of ecological status of coastal waters. On the one hand, awarenmess on seagrass ecosystems has been increasing. The central role of seagrass ecosystems as providers of a high number of good and services, aside with their generalised decline, have attracted the attention of managers and stakeholders. The list of descriptors we propose can be of great help whenever a diagnose of seagrass helath is needed. On the other hand, the high sensitivity of seagrasses to environmental disturbances make these plants of great help as bioindicators of coastal waters ecological status. Our set of descriptors can therefore also be useful in surveys and monitoring of coastal water quality.
Medcore: A view from the Barcelona team experience
The product is a short video, in which the general aims of MEDCORE are explained for a very general audience in a very visual language. The purpose is not to present the main scientific goals/achievements of the projects, but to give the impression of a much broad objective to bring people from around the Mediterranean together, to create and/or strength links.
Poverty levels and environmental quality in Rosetta, Egypt
Poverty can be seen as a process of exclusion from access to certain basic physical or economic, human and social assets. The interrelationship between poverty and environment is becoming undeniable, where dealing with environmental degradation in a given society necessarily requires considering poverty levels in such society. Such a interrelationship, between environment and poverty, is more apparent in fragile ecosystems such as coastal areas, where people depend largely on the environment and its natural resources in earning their living. This means that in-depth examination of socioeconomic conditions and consequently determination of the main factors underlying poverty and existing environmental conditions may assist in breaking the vicious circle between poverty and environmental degradation. This paper examines the interrelationships between environmental quality and poverty levels prevailing in Rosetta area. In order to attain such an objective, the poverty levels in the area are assessed to identify prevailing poverty levels among different groups. Thereafter, environmental issues of concern in the area are determined and their linkages with poverty levels are examined. The study showed that there was a high level of poverty in Rosetta area. Yet, no significant relationship between poverty and some social and demographic characteristics, such as educational levels, household size and age of household heads, was found to exist. Meanwhile, linkages between poverty and environmental conditions found to exist. Such linkages, it could be argued, were highly apparent when dealing with irresponsible activities, which increase the pressure on the environment and natural resources. Breaking such linkages, or the vicious circle, between poverty and environment degradation, a comprehensive approach is needed. Such an approach would require the development of a plan to deal with economic, social and environmental aspects in integrated manner.
Data base on genetic diversity of key species
The amphipod Talitrus saltator was selected within the MEDCORE project as one the key species, suitable for monitoring ecological changes in the supralittoral environment Both temporal and spatial genetic variation within Talitrus saltator was analyzed by our team in Rome. On the average the degree of allozyme heterozygosity detected was not very high, in agreement with the results already obtained for this species. Nevertheless the values of the observed heterozygosity (Ho) vary broadly not only among populations collected from different sites but also among samples collected along the Uccellina beach. U01 was characterized by the lowest value among the Uccellina samples, similar to the values found in KAM, KAV and ROG. It is important to highlight that during recent field surveys at U01 (May 2003) we could not find any talitrid, probably because of the strong local erosion of the coast, which in turn might have had a dramatic effect on the persistence of the local subpopulation. As a matter of fact genetic variability can be reduced as a result of bottleneck. A reduction in the effective size of a natural population is often associated with higher risk of local extinction. Different factors, i.e anthropic pressure, could have similar effects on the genetic variability of populations. In this respect, it is important to note that KAM, KAV and ROG were collected from beaches highly impacted by tourism. U92 and U04 show comparable mean level of Ho; these two values are the highest observed among T.saltator populations. Overall, the allozyme data collected for this part of the MEDCORE project are in good agreement with previous results obtained on T.saltator in our lab (De Matthaeis et al., 2000a, 2000b; Ketmaier et al., 2003, 2005a). In particular, new and previous data all suggest the presence of a stable dune belt and/or the lack of human activities on the beaches being major factors affecting the pattern of genetic variability of talitrid populations.
Stakeholders' consultation on baseline studies and developed guidelines for sustainable development of Rosetta area
A stakeholder consultation was conducted in order to verify the issues identified through the baseline studies and to allow for participation of stakeholders in drawing the guidelines for sustainable development of the area. The overall objective of the meeting was to verify the outcome of baseline studies and evaluate the developed guidelines for sustainable development of Rosetta area. For that purpose, a number of theses were identified and discussed in the consultation process including:: - Special characters of Rosetta area. - Main issues in the area and the most affected groups. - Real requirements and needs of the residents. - Main stakeholders and their roles. - Sustainable development of Rosetta area in terms of objectives and tools. Despite the variety of stakeholders groups, which include for example, farmers, fishermen, local authority officials and the residents, the university students of the area residents were identified as a target stakeholder. It is thought that such a group represents a reasonable proportion of the population. They are also highly educated with somewhat high levels of awareness of the prevailing conditions in the area as their family heads and relatives are part of the main stakeholders' groups identified before. Moreover, they have an interest in the future of the area. Therefore, a number of university students living in Rosetta area were invited to participate in a meeting in order to discuss the prospects of attaining sustainable development in Rosetta area. A number of considerations were taken into account, to ensure the success of the consultation, the mediator acted only as a facilitator among different and opposite view points and didn't gave or support any side. At the beginning the mediator assured that there is no right or wrong answer to the questions during the discussion. Also, all the statements, comment and answers given by participants discussed in details. Generally, the consultation showed that issues such as high levels of poverty prevailing in the area would strongly support the argument that attaining sustainability in this area and similar ones in the Mediterranean regions is questionable. Therefore, concerted and well-organized efforts at regional level, especially in the light of the similarities found in environmental and socioeconomic conditions need to be undertaken to provide technical and financial support at the local level to promote sustainable development. Such support has to provide institutional support to local authorities, while promoting the role of public participation and efforts of the NGOs.
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News Space 08 August 2017
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What science can learn from a total solar eclipse
160 seconds is a long time in heliophysics
The Sun’s corona visible during a total solar eclipse in 1991.
Roger Ressmeyer / Corbis / Getty
On August 21, when the first total eclipse of the Sun to hit the continental United States in 38 years cuts a swath of darkness across the heart of the country, tens of millions will flock into its 110-kilometre-wide path to view the event.
Among the throng will be scientists, seeking to use the 160 seconds in which the Sun is obscured by the Moon to make discoveries about everything from atmospheric dynamics to the prospects for life on Mars.
One of the most exciting experiments, says Catherine Lanier, associate director for NASA’s Space Grant program at Oregon State University (which happens to be situated within the path of totality), will be an effort to study the eclipse from balloons launched to altitudes of 30,000 metres (100,000 feet) at 55 points along the path of totality.
The results will not only provide dramatic live-stream videos (via NASA TV) but will be the first time an eclipse has ever been watched from this angle, with 360-degree cameras studying what is happening in the sky, on the ground and in the clouds.
How to see the August 2017 solar eclipse
Other researchers will use weather balloons to record atmospheric data. “It’s trying to learn about how the atmosphere responds,” Lanier says.
Some of the NASA balloons will carry bacteria strains comparable to ones that might survive on Mars.
The temperature and pressure conditions at 25,900 metres (85,000 feet) are similar to those on the surface of Mars, explains Alex Young, of the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland: “Flying the bacteria to the edge of space provides a unique opportunity to examine how bacteria are able to survive in harsh Martian conditions.”
Another team, financed by spaceweather.com, will also be launching balloons, using the eclipse as an opportunity to measure high-elevation cosmic rays.
Using high-elevation balloons to monitor radiation levels at the edge of space, these researchers have recorded a 10% increase in cosmic-ray counts since late 2014. All of the measurements have been taken from one location, above California, so they want to know what is happening over the rest of the country: “The solar eclipse gives us a chance to find out.”
Measuring cosmic rays during the eclipse also enables them to eliminate the Sun as the source, because the Moon will block its radiation during the eclipse.
Other astronomers will use the eclipse as an opportunity to turn their instruments on Mercury, whose proximity to the Sun makes it hard to observe. This is a rare chance to use infrared instruments to make thermal maps of Mercury’s surface temperature, particularly on its night side.
“How the temperature changes across the surface gives us information about the thermophysical properties of Mercury’s soil down to depths of about a few centimetres, something that has never been measured before,” says Constantine Tsang, a planetary scientist from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado.
The most important part of any total solar eclipse, though, is the chance to view the Sun’s corona — the ghostly glow around it that is otherwise too dim to be seen against the daytime sky.
Even though astronomers now have a lot of space-based instruments to study the corona, observing it from the Earth — especially from high-flying airplanes — provides opportunities that can’t be done from space.
Airborne cameras can provide higher-resolution high-speed images than space-based instruments, says Amir Caspi, a plasma physicist from SwRI.
Eclipse science may also include a healthy dose of social psychology, because the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the solar corona is why millions of Americans will brave horrendous traffic jams —forecast to be the worst in history — to flock to the path of totality.
“It’s the most beautiful natural phenomena most people can witness,” says Randal Millstein, an astronomer at Oregon State University. “It’s an experience that’s been shared by human beings for as long as we’ve looked up at the sky.”
Seeing an eclipse, he says, is a bond that extends across the eons, and is emotionally and psychologically deep: “You’ll find people who will cry. Others will laugh. Some will sing. Some will fall back on the ground. It’s that kind of experience.”
Explore #eclipse #heliophysics
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Richard A. Lovett is a Portland, Oregon-based science writer and science fiction author. He is a frequent contributor to COSMOS.
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Wheat Cents
United States Penny (one-cent)
Share to Earn
Brilliant Uncirculated PenniesCopper PenniesNickels
March 2017 Eliminate U.S. Penny/Cent Bill Proposed to Senate
By coincollectingenterprises April 4, 2017 April 6th, 2017 No Comments
Penny elimination legislation is being proposed again this year. The bill is being labeled as, ‘Currency Optimization, Innovation, and National Savings Act of 2017’ by John McCain, R-Arizona and Mike Enzi, R-Wymoming.
Eliminate Penny Goal:
Stop all production of the one-cent penny coin for ten years. During this time period, a study is to be conducted to see if the penny should be completely eliminated and removed from circulation as a coin denomination.
Furthermore, composition change for the U.S. nickel, five-cent coin. The change is to become 80% copper and 20 percent nickel. Currently, the nickel is 75% copper, 25% nickel.
In addition, elimination of the one dollar note to be replaced by the $1 coin.
Similar legislation has been proposed in the past without much success. $1 coins ultimately failed and were not accepted by the public as desired legal tender. People did not like carrying around bulky coins. Finally, production of the $1 presidential dollar coins was suspended because of that disinterest.
Are you planning on picking up 2017 pennies?
The documentation reads as follows:
Senate Legislative Counsel
1 Title: To save taxpayers money by improving the manufacturing and distribution of coins and
2 notes, and for other purposes.
5 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in
6 Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
8 This Act may be cited as the “Currency Optimization, Innovation, and National Savings Act of
9 2017”.
SEC. 2. SAVING TAXPAYERS MONEY BY SUSPENDING
11 PRODUCTION OF THE PENNY.
12 (a) Policy of the United States.—It is the policy of the United States that—
13 (1) sufficient one-cent coins have already been minted to meet demand;
14 (2) taxpayers have been and would continue to lose money producing the one-cent coin;
16 (3) further production of the one-cent coin is not necessary for the next decade.
17 (b) Temporary Suspension of Production of the One-cent Coin.—Except as provided in
18 subsection (c) and notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of the Treasury
19 shall cease production of any new one-cent coins for the 10-year period beginning on the date of
20 enactment of this Act.
21 (c) Exception.—
22 (1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of the Treasury shall continue to produce one-cent coins
23 as appropriate solely to meet the needs of numismatic collectors of that denomination.
24 (2) SALE.—The one-cent coins produced under paragraph (1) shall be sold in accordance
25 with other general provisions governing collectible coins (as opposed to circulating coins).
26 (3) NET RECEIPTS.—The net receipts from the sale of one-cent coins produced under this
27 exception shall equal the total cost of production, including variable costs and the
28 appropriate share of fix costs of production, as determined by the Secretary of the Treasury.
29 (d) GAO Study.—Not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the
30 Comptroller General of the United States shall—
31 (1) study the effect of the suspension of production of the one-cent coin; and
32 (2) submit to Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and
33 Urban Affairs of the Senate of the Senate and the Committee on the Budget and the
34 Committee on Financial Services of the House of Representatives a report—
35 (A) on whether production should remain suspended or should be reinstated; and
36 (B) that considers—
37 (i) the net savings to taxpayers from suspension of production;
1 (ii) whether public demand for one-cent coins was able to be continuously met
2 during the period of suspension;
3 (iii) whether public demand for one-cent coins would likely continue to be met
4 in the future without new production;
5 (iv) whether the one-cent denomination of coin should be permanently ended as
6 was the case with the one-half cent coin; and
7 (v) any other factors that are relevant.
8 (e) No Effect on Legal Tender.—Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, one-cent
9 coins are legal tender in the United States for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes,
10 and duties, regardless of the date of minting or issue.
SEC. 3. SAVING TAXPAYERS MONEY BY CHANGING
12 THE COMPOSITION OF THE NICKEL.
13 (a) New Composition Required.—Section 5112 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by
14 adding at the end the following:
15 “(w) Composition of Circulating Coins.—
16 “(1) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Director of the
17 United States Mint shall modify the composition of the five-cent coin in accordance with a
18 study and analysis conducted by the United States Mint to a variant of cupronickel
19 composition equal to 80 percent copper and 20 percent nickel.
20 “(2) EFFECT.—This subsection shall remain in effect as long as the Director of the United
21 States Mint verifies that the modification described in paragraph (1) will—
22 “(A) reduce costs to the taxpayer;
23 “(B) is found to be seamless through test by most coin-acceptors; and
24 “(C) will have no impact on the public or on stakeholders.
25 “(3) INCREASE IN COPPER CONTENT.—The Director of the United States Mint may
26 increase the percentage of copper and decrease the percentage of nickel in the five-cent coin
27 if—
28 “(A) the Director of the United States Mint submits to Congress a study on such a
29 modification;
30 “(B) the Director of the United States Mint makes the findings described in
31 paragraph (2); and
32 “(C) the 90-day period beginning on the date on which the study is submitted under
33 subparagraph (A) has expired.”.
SEC. 4. SAVING TAXPAYERS MONEY BY REPLACING $1
35 NOTES WITH $1 COINS.
36 (a) In General.—It is the policy of the United States that $1 coins should replace $1 Federal
37 reserve notes as the only $1 monetary unit issued and circulated by the Board of Governors of
1 the Federal Reserve System.
2 (b) Final Date for Placing $1 Notes Into Circulation.—Beginning on the date that is 2 years
3 after the date of enactment of this Act, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
4 may not issue $1 Federal reserve notes.
5 (c) Transition Period.—Before the date described in subsection (b), the Board of Governors of
6 the Federal Reserve System shall ensure adequate supplies of $1 coins to meet the demand of
7 such coins on and after such date.
8 (d) Removal and Destruction of $1 Federal Reserve Notes.—The Board of Governors of the
9 Federal Reserve System shall ensure that all $1 Federal reserve notes removed from circulation
10 in accordance with the date described in subsection (b) have been destroyed.
11 (e) Exception.—Notwithstanding subsections (b) and (c), the Board of Governors of the
12 Federal Reserve System shall produce such Federal reserve notes of $1 denomination as the
13 Board of Governors determines from time to time are appropriate solely to meet the needs of
14 numismatic collectors of that denomination. Such collectible versions of $1 Federal reserve notes
15 shall be sold in accordance with other general provisions governing collectible versions of notes.
16 (f) No Effect on Legal Tender.—Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, $1
17 Federal reserve notes are legal tender in the United States for all debts, public and private, public
18 charges, taxes, and duties, regardless of the date of printing or issue.
Will the 2017 pennies be the very last year for the U.S. one-cent coin?
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First Degree Assault (18-3-202)
(1) A person commits the crime of assault in the first degree if:
(a) With intent to cause serious bodily injury to another person, he causes serious bodily injury to any person by means of a deadly weapon; or
(b) With intent to disfigure another person seriously and permanently, or to destroy, amputate, or disable permanently a member or organ of his body, he causes such an injury to any person; or
(c) Under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, he knowingly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes serious bodily injury to any person; or
(d) Repealed.
(e) With intent to cause serious bodily injury upon the person of a peace officer or firefighter, he or she threatens with a deadly weapon a peace officer or firefighter engaged in the performance of his or her duties, and the offender knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a peace officer or firefighter acting in the performance of his or her duties; or
(e.5) With intent to cause serious bodily injury upon the person of a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction or an officer of said court, he threatens with a deadly weapon a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction or an officer of said court, and the offender knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction or an officer of said court; or
(f) While lawfully confined or in custody as a result of being charged with or convicted of a crime or as a result of being charged as a delinquent child or adjudicated as a delinquent child and with intent to cause serious bodily injury to a person employed by or under contract with a detention facility, as defined in section 18-8-203 (3), or to a person employed by the division in the department of human services responsible for youth services and who is a youth services counselor or is in the youth services worker classification series, he or she threatens with a deadly weapon such a person engaged in the performance of his or her duties and the offender knows or reasonably should know that the victim is such a person engaged in the performance of his or her duties while employed by or under contract with a detention facility or while employed by the division in the department of human services responsible for youth services. A sentence imposed pursuant to this paragraph (f) shall be served in the department of corrections and shall run consecutively with any sentences being served by the offender. A person who participates in a work release program, a furlough, or any other similar authorized supervised or unsupervised absence from a detention facility, as defined in section 18-8-203 (3), and who is required to report back to the detention facility at a specified time shall be deemed to be in custody.
(2) (a) If assault in the first degree is committed under circumstances where the act causing the injury is performed upon a sudden heat of passion, caused by a serious and highly provoking act of the intended victim, affecting the person causing the injury sufficiently to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person, and without an interval between the provocation and the injury sufficient for the voice of reason and humanity to be heard, it is a class 5 felony.
(b) If assault in the first degree is committed without the circumstances provided in paragraph (a) of this subsection (2), it is a class 3 felony.
(c) If a defendant is convicted of assault in the first degree pursuant to subsection (1) of this section, the court shall sentence the defendant in accordance with the provisions of section 18-1.3-406.
Second Degree Assault (18-3-203)
(1) A person commits the crime of assault in the second degree if:
(a) Repealed.
(b) With intent to cause bodily injury to another person, he or she causes such injury to any person by means of a deadly weapon; or
(c) With intent to prevent one whom he or she knows, or should know, to be a peace officer or firefighter from performing a lawful duty, he or she intentionally causes bodily injury to any person; or
(d) He recklessly causes serious bodily injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon; or
(e) For a purpose other than lawful medical or therapeutic treatment, he intentionally causes stupor, unconsciousness, or other physical or mental impairment or injury to another person by administering to him, without his consent, a drug, substance, or preparation capable of producing the intended harm; or
(f) While lawfully confined or in custody, he or she knowingly and violently applies physical force against the person of a peace officer or firefighter engaged in the performance of his or her duties, or a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction, or an officer of said court, or, while lawfully confined or in custody as a result of being charged with or convicted of a crime or as a result of being charged as a delinquent child or adjudicated as a delinquent child, he or she knowingly and violently applies physical force against a person engaged in the performance of his or her duties while employed by or under contract with a detention facility, as defined in section 18-8-203 (3), or while employed by the division in the department of human services responsible for youth services and who is a youth services counselor or is in the youth services worker classification series, and the person committing the offense knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a peace officer or firefighter engaged in the performance of his or her duties, or a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction, or an officer of said court, or a person engaged in the performance of his or her duties while employed by or under contract with a detention facility or while employed by the division in the department of human services responsible for youth services. A sentence imposed pursuant to this paragraph (f) shall be served in the department of corrections and shall run consecutively with any sentences being served by the offender; except that, if the offense is committed against a person employed by the division in the department of human services responsible for youth services, the court may grant probation or a suspended sentence in whole or in part, and such sentence may run concurrently or consecutively with any sentences being served. A person who participates in a work release program, a furlough, or any other similar authorized supervised or unsupervised absence from a detention facility, as defined in section 18-8-203 (3), and who is required to report back to the detention facility at a specified time shall be deemed to be in custody.
(f.5) (I) While lawfully confined in a detention facility within this state, a person with intent to infect, injure, harm, harass, annoy, threaten, or alarm a person in a detention facility whom the actor knows or reasonably should know to be an employee of a detention facility, causes such employee to come into contact with blood, seminal fluid, urine, feces, saliva, mucus, vomit, or any toxic, caustic, or hazardous material by any means, including but not limited to throwing, tossing, or expelling such fluid or material.
(II) (A) Any adult or juvenile who is bound over for trial for the offense described in subparagraph (I) of this paragraph
(f.5) subsequent to a preliminary hearing or after having waived the right to a preliminary hearing, any person who is indicted for or is convicted of any such offense, or any person who is determined to have provided blood, seminal fluid, urine, feces, saliva, mucus, or vomit to a person bound over for trial for, indicted for, or convicted of such an offense shall be ordered by the court to submit to a medical test for communicable diseases and to supply blood, feces, urine, saliva, or other bodily fluid required for the test. The results of such test shall be reported to the court or the court’s designee, who shall then disclose the results to any victim of the offense who requests such disclosure. Review and disclosure of medical test results by the court shall be closed and confidential, and any transaction records relating thereto shall also be closed and confidential. If a person subject to a medical test for communicable diseases pursuant this sub-subparagraph (A) voluntarily submits to a medical test for communicable diseases, the fact of such person’s voluntary submission shall be admissible in mitigation of sentence if the person is convicted of the charged offense.
(B) In addition to any other penalty provided by law, the court may order any person who is convicted of the offense described in subparagraph (I) of this paragraph (f.5) to meet all or any portion of the financial obligations of medical tests performed on and treatment prescribed for the victim or victims of the offense.
(C) At the time of sentencing, the court may order that an offender described in sub-subparagraph (B) of this subparagraph (II) be put on a period of probation for the purpose of paying the testing and treatment costs of the victim or victims; except that the period of probation, when added to any time served, shall not exceed the maximum sentence that can be imposed for the offense.
(III) (A) As used in this paragraph (f.5), “detention facility” means any building, structure, enclosure, vehicle, institution, or place, whether permanent or temporary, fixed or mobile, where persons are or may be lawfully held in custody or confinement under the authority of the state of Colorado or any political subdivision of the state of Colorado.
(B) As used in this paragraph (f.5), “employee of a detention facility” includes employees of the department of corrections, employees of any agency or person operating a detention facility, law enforcement personnel, and any other persons who are present in or in the vicinity of a detention facility and are performing services for a detention facility. “Employee of a detention facility” does not include a person lawfully confined in a detention facility.
(g) With intent to cause bodily injury to another person, he causes serious bodily injury to that person or another.
(2) (a) If assault in the second degree is committed under circumstances where the act causing the injury is performed upon a sudden heat of passion, caused by a serious and highly provoking act of the intended victim, affecting the person causing the injury sufficiently to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person, and without an interval between the provocation and the injury sufficient for the voice of reason and humanity to be heard, it is a class 6 felony.
Assault in the Third Degree (18-3-204)
A person commits the crime of assault in the third degree if the person knowingly or recklessly causes bodily injury to another person or with criminal negligence the person causes bodily injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon. Assault in the third degree is a class 1 misdemeanor and is an extraordinary risk crime that is subject to the modified sentencing range specified in section 18-1.3-501 (3).
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Subject is exactly "Painting"
London Bridge from the River Thames
Painting on the fore-edge of vol. 1 of "Osmond: a tale" by Mary Ann Kelty of London Bridge from the River Thames with the dome of St. Paul's in the background.
View of the Town of Bedford, England
One side of a double painting on the fore-edge of "The select works of John Bunyan" by George Cheever. When the leaves are fanned one way, a view of the town of Bedford, England from the north is displayed, when fanned the other way, a view of…
Old Burying Ground at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Painting on the fore-edge of "Poems" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of the old burying ground at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts with portrait of Longfellow.
Single-Masted Ship on the River Thames with the Tower of London in the Distance
Painting on the fore-edge of vol. 2 of "Osmond: a tale" by Mary Ann Kelty of a single-masted ship on the River Thames with the Tower of London in the middle distance.
Bridge in the Town of Bedford, England
One side of a double painting on the fore-edge of "The select works of John Bunyan" by George Cheever. When the leaves are fanned one way, a view of Bedford bridge is displayed, when fanned the other way, a view of the town of Bedford, England from…
Lakeside Scene of a Walled Town from the Water
Painting on the fore-edge of "Les enfants de l'amour" by Eugene Sue of a lakeside scene of a walled town from the water with several boats resting on shore at low tide. Artist Retsof or Foster is unknown.
John Gilpin Riding His Horse Through Edmonton
Painting on the fore-edge of "The poetical works of William Cowper." Image is based on "The Diverting History of John Gilpin," a comic ballad by Cowper, about a man who lost control of his horse.
English Country Scene
Painting on the fore-edge of "The golden treasury of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English language" by Francis Turner Palgrave of a country scene with workers on ladders in trees, a country house, and the tower of a castle in the…
Man with Crossbow
Painting on the fore-edge of "Portrait intime de Balzac" by Edmond Werdet of a man aiming a crossbow, another looking on, and a third restraining a hunting dog.
Portrait of Charles Dickens as an Older Man with Vignettes from Novels
One side of a double painting on the fore-edge of "Our mutual friend" by Charles Dickens. When the leaves are fanned one way, a portrait of the author as an older man with vignettes from David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol is displayed, when…
Portrait of Charles Dickens as a Young Man with Vignettes from Novels
One side of a double painting on the fore-edge of "Our mutual friend" by Charles Dickens. A portrait of the author as a young man with vignettes from The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist is displayed on one half of the pages, and a portrait of the…
American Indian on Horseback
Vertical painting on the fore-edge of "The poetical works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" of an American Indian with a lance on horseback.
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The National Triathlon Show 2016
Lee Valley VeloPark, Stratford
The UK's No 1 Triathlon Show
In these heady modern times, it's not enough to excel in one area. We've got to be versatile to get ahead. Which is why triathletes are so awesome: these guys can run, swim and cycle. But, no matter how much natural talent they possess, it always helps to have all bases covered. At The National Triathlon Show 2016 over 100 of the leading triathlon brands present the sport's best technology and gear to trial and buy. A must attend for budding and veteran triathletes alike. Due to capacity restrictions the ticket you are purchasing is for a specific session. Sessions last 2 ½ or 3 hours. Please arrive at the designated session start time to ensure maximum opportunity to experience the show. See session times below. Friday 8 April: - 5:00pm to 8:00pm Saturday 9 April: - 9:30am to 12:00pm - 12:15pm to 2.45pm - 3:00pm to 5.30pm Sunday 10 April: - 9:30am to 12:00pm - 12:15pm to 2.45pm - 3:00pm to 5.30pm
Exclusive tickets to Lady Gala Bingo with prosecco
Friday 31 January, 8:00 PM + 6 more
Get Tickets £7
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Posts Tagged ‘Pan American Union Building’
Amerigo Vespucci Statue
Posted: July 6, 2015 in Artwork, Historic Figures
Tags: America, Americus, Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus, Foggy Bottom, Gerardus Mercator, Lisabetta Mini, Martin Waldseemüller, Medici family, Ognissanti, Pan American Union Building, Ser Nastagio Anastasio, the New World, The Organization of American States
With the holiday weekend celebrating America’s birthday now over, I decided on this lunchtime bike ride to visit a statue of our country’s namesake. So during this ride I visited the grounds of the Pan American Union Building, which serves as The Headquarters for the Organization of American States, located on 17th Street between C Street and Constitution Avenue (MAP) in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of northwest D.C. One of the sculptures there is of an early Italian explorer named Amerigo Vespucci, who is the namesake of the continents of North and South America, and subsequently the United States of America.
The stone sculpture depicts a bust of Amerigo wearing a sea-farer hat of his era, and stands on a circular stone pedestal base with a relief of the globe inscribed on it. The base also contains an inscription which reads, “Amerigo Vespucci, 1454 – 1512.”
Amerigo Vespucci was born on March 9, 1454, in Ognissanti, Florence, Italy, the third son of Ser Nastagio Anastasio and Lisabetta Mini, members of a prominent Florentine family comprised of statesmen, philosophers, and clergy, which intermarried with the renowned Medici family who ruled Italy for more than 300 years. After being educated by his uncle, Amerigo worked for the Medicis as a banker, and later as a supervisor of their ship-outfitting business in Seville, Spain, where he moved in 1492. Amerigo’s position allowed him to see great explorers’ ships being prepared before they sailed off in search of new discoveries. In fact, Amerigo’s business helped outfit one of Christopher Columbus’ voyages, giving him the opportunity to talk with the explorer with whom he would one day be compared.
Fascinated with books and maps since he was young, his meeting with Columbus further fueled a fire burning inside him for travel and exploration. The fact that his business was struggling helped Amerigo, already in his forties, decide to leave the business behind and set out on his own voyage to see the “New World” while he still could.
Although historians are unsure of exactly how many voyages he embarked on, through his travels Amerigo was the first to be able to demonstrate that South America and the West Indies did not represent Asia’s eastern outskirts as initially conjectured from Columbus’ voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate and previously unknown landmass. Based on the work of a German clergyman and amateur cartographer named Martin Waldseemüller, he labeled a portion of what is today Brazil as “America”, deriving its name from Americus, the Latin version of his name. Later, in 1538, a mapmaker named Gerardus Mercator applied the name “America” to all of the northern and southern landmasses of the New World. The continents have been known as such ever since.
So here in the District of Columbia, a name which references Christopher Columbus and was chosen at a time when many people were still upset that we hadn’t actually named our new nation Columbia, I visited the statue of Amerigo Vespucci. And although he never visited here on any of his voyages, Amerigo’s name is forever associated with our 239-year old country.
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The Human Lifespan Could Continue to Grow Forever
Written by Jamie Ludwig
Centenarian birthdays used to be so rare that they were covered in newspapers and radio. In the future, those celebrations may be far more common. In our favor? Modern medicine and technology, and a relatively peaceful climate in much of the world. The population of people age 100 and over has been steadily growing, convincing many scientists that there may not be a maximum age for humans after all.
What Was "Old" Yesterday is "Middle Aged" Today
In the year 1900, the average life expectancy for men was 46.3 years. Women were slightly more lucky, with an average life expectancy of 48.3 years. By the end of the century, the life expectancy had grown significantly, averaging about 75 years for men, and just shy of 80 years for women.
Based on those numbers, it should be no surprise that in the year 1900, centenarians were quite rare. Now, the United Nations estimates there could be upwards of 3.5 million centenarians and supercentenarians by 2050. If that number doesn't blow your mind already, a team of Dutch researchers led by Jan Vijg used mathematical models to predict that by 2070, the average human lifespan could increase to 125 years, causing controversy in the scientific community when they released a paper detailing their study in October 2016.
An Age-Old Argument, or an Old Age Argument?
Contrary to what you might think, the work of Vijg and his team wasn't contested because the number was too staggering, but because, they argued, it is too early to determine the full potential for the average human lifespan to continue to increase over time. To date, at least five other studies have been published that dispute their claims.
Danish demographer James Vaupel, who co-founded the International Database on Longevity, argued Vijg and his team used outdated research, and therefore, their results had no true merit. Scientists at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark also voiced rebuttal arguments.
Still, other scientists maintain that humans have just about maxed out their lifespan now, and that the number of people around age 110 is too small to draw evidence to the contrary. Whatever the true answer may be, scientists of this generation and the next will have many more years to talk it out than their counterparts from a century ago, and possibly even more than they even expected.
Biotechnology Will Stop Aging
– Big Think
Can We Stop Aging?
– The Good Stuff
Written by Jamie Ludwig September 6, 2017
Scientists Slowed Aging In Fruit Flies. Are Humans Next?
It's Impossible To Stop Morning Breath
Humans Human Biology
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DeAnne Brining, RN, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
2428 K. St.
deannebtherapy@hotmail.com
About DeAnne
Office Information & FAQs
I am fortunate to have a career path that has taken me through a wide variety of fulfilling experiences. I have extensive mental health experience working with individuals, couples, and families, and I have worked with all levels of mental health. I currently have a private practice in downtown Sacramento providing psychotherapy to individuals, couples & families, as well as working with young women and girls who have been victims of sex-trafficking.
For many years I have provided therapeutic clinical services to adolescents and young women who were victims of sex-trafficking. It has been a privilege to have worked alongside them on their journey of finding their way and to become healthy and whole. I am dedicated to fighting the issue of human sex-trafficking and believe that as a society we must all come together to fight this epidemic, as well as provide care and services to those affected by this trauma. Currently, I work in the Oak Park community in Sacramento through the organization, City of Refuge, providing individual and group therapy to young women who have been victims of sex-trafficking.
I also provide education and training for clinicians, school employees, the community, and those who work with this population. To bring the issue to light is to bring healing and aid to the victims of sex-trafficking. Education and information are crucial to creating and supporting programs that provide therapeutic services and housing assistance where young women can heal and find hope for their future.
I am also a Registered Nurse, graduating in 1983 with my Bachelor’s degree in Nursing. I have worked on many units including maternity, oncology, NICU, pediatrics, and a psychiatric unit. In 1993 I obtained my Sign Language Interpreting Certificate and worked in the Deaf Community assisting with interpreting.
Due to my love for education, I have provided supervision for interns who are working towards their hours to become licensed therapists. And in 2005 I had an opportunity to provide instruction within the psychiatric rotation for Sacramento City College nursing students.
In addition to my current private practice, my therapy career has included:
Psychiatric counselor at the Sacramento Juvenile Hall
Group home residents and foster families
Lodi School District: school mental health services
Adolescents within the juvenile justice system
Police and fire department personnel dealing with various work-related stressors
Degrees:
MA in Marriage and Family Therapy, University of San Francisco, 1997
Bachelor of Science, Nursing, Stanislaus State University, 1983
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, CA
Licensed Registered Nurse, CA
CAMFT- California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
Copyright © 2020 · DeAnne Brining, RN, LMFT · Website Customizations by Cascade Valley Designs
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by Debra Manskey in Movie Review, Writing Tags: Adam Driver, Amazon Prime, political thriller, The Report
Written and directed by Scott Z. Burns
Adam Driver is hot property at the moment, with Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019) still playing in cinemas, Marriage Story (2019) on Netflix and The Report (2019) available on Amazon Prime. He is undoubtedly a powerful screen presence and an actor that’s always worth watching.
In The Report he certainly has his work cut out for him, carrying a film that is both an important story and a complex one but is very ably supported by a fine cast, including Annette Bening, John Hamm, Corey Stoll and Tim Blake Nelson. Driver plays Daniel Jones, an FBI operative, who leads an investigation into the heinous Enhanced Interrogation program, established by the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11. There are scenes of torture and they’re intense and at times, harrowing but the majority of the film takes place in the sterile, closeted offices of the FBI, CIA and Senator Feinstein. The idealism of Driver’s Daniel Jones turns to frustration and simmering anger as almost everyone attempts to cover up or shut down his investigation.
Based on a true story, I understand Scott Z. Burns wanting to honor the incredible dogged determination of the real life Jones and Adam Driver brings commitment and sincerity to his portrayal, supported by a top notch cast. I love a good political thriller, but I felt throughout the whole film, this piece is just missing the mark and I think it is in the script and editing where the problems lay. At very nearly two hours, this isn’t a really long movie by today’s standards but by the end it felt like much more, which is disappointing in so many ways.
The Report is currently playing on Amazon Prime Australia. An interesting premise and worth watching if just for Adam Driver – but not as good as it could be.
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Ask Ken
Work With Ken
Q&A with Ken: Expert advice for all your questions about love, dating and sex [E016]
by Ken Page | Apr 26, 2019 | Podcast | 0 comments
What do you do if you keep ending up in relationships with people who don’t treat you right? How do you change that pattern once and for all? And how do you handle it if a relationship starts out great but after a few years just doesn’t seem like such a great match any more? And last but not least, how can you make your sex life more healing, deeper, and more exciting?
Listeners bring their most important questions about love, sex, dating and relationships to Ken–and get his personal direct advice in Q&A with Ken podcasts.
Once a month, Ken answers your personal questions about love, dating, sex and more. Today’s powerful questions are:
Work Privately With Ken
Personal Coaching & Mentorship With Ken
I’m gathering a very small hand-picked group of caring, committed people who want to find lasting love with the best support possible.
Everyone seriously interested in this program will get a free 45 minute one-on-one personal coaching session with Ken.
I’m Tired Of Choosing The Wrong People. Help!
What if your relationship started out great but doesn’t feel right for you now?
How can you keep the excitement of early sex alive?
Episode Table Of Contents
Question #1: I’m Tired Of Choosing The Wrong People. Help!
Question #2: What if your relationship started out great but doesn’t feel right for you now?
Question #3: How can you keep the excitement of early sex alive?
Introducing our Q & A with Ken Sessions
Welcome to the Deeper Dating question and answer episode where I answer your most personal, pressing questions about love, sex, and intimacy, and I do it in such a way that each one of you can apply these insights to the particulars of your own love life.
So stay tuned to the Deeper Dating podcast.
Hello and welcome to the Deeper Dating Podcast. I’m Ken Page and every week I’m going to bring you the greatest insights, the most powerful practices and the most essential findings that I know for everyone who wants to find love and keep it flourishing and heal their lives in the present. Because the skills of dating are nothing more than the skills of love. And the skills of love are the greatest skills of all for a happy life.
If you interested in applying these ideas and the Deeper Dating Approach to your own intimacy journey, you can learn more about by classes and courses and upcoming intensives at deeperdatingpodcast.com. And by the way, if you like what you’re hearing here it would be a tremendous gift if you subscribed on iTunes and left me a review. So thanks so much for that.
I also want to say, last piece of housekeeping before we begin, that everything I share on this podcast is educational in nature. It’s not medical or psychiatric advice or treatment of any emotional, physical or psychological condition. And if you’re experiencing any serious psychological or psychiatric conditions, please seek professional help. And if it feels like a true emergency, please get emergency help right now. Your life is too precious to put at risk.
Photographer: Rex Pickar | Source: Unsplash
So today is our Q&A episode. And our first question is from Danielle.
Danielle: Hi Ken, thank you so much for doing this podcast. They are just absolutely priceless for me right now. I’m going through a breakup. It’s going on for almost a year now. I’m 52, I’ve not really been able to sustain any kind of relationship. I’ve done a lot of work on myself but I end up finding men who my friends teased me are basically projects. I’ve only recently realized that very infrequently did they really care about how I felt. I think, in fact I’ve never ended it with anybody in a relationship with me because I spent all my time doing everything I could to make them happy. Which is a total re-creation of my childhood for sure. But my question is, how do I stop attracting these projects?
I’m losing hope. I’m 52. I don’t want to be single the rest of my life. I really long for a deep connection with someone but I am only meeting people who are really not good for me, who have not done any work at all, who are angry, and bitter, and blaming, and they accuse me of things. And I end up almost becoming their therapist while we’re together and I just can’t do it anymore. I don’t want this kind of relationship anymore. I want something so much more. So if you can make some suggestions for me, I would really deeply appreciate it and again I’m so very grateful for your podcast. My name is Danielle, thank you.
Attractions of Deprivation
Hi, Danielle, thanks for sharing with such vulnerability and bringing up such rich and important issues.
First, what I want to say to you is you have hit a bottom, you have reached a point where you’re not only saying I can’t do these kind of bad relationships anymore, you’re reaching a point where your intention is so clear that you want something better, something real, something lasting, something healthy, something that sits well with your soul, like the real deal and I hear your intention in that. And I think that’s wonderful.
You’ve also said a lot about yourself in this, and you’ve said a lot about the kind of people that you have been seeing and dating and in relationships with. And what you said about these kind of guys is that they are not generous, that they take from you, that your tendency to give matches their tendency to take and not only take blame and become really unkind. You have articulated what I call attractions of deprivation, which is good, because it’s like, when you would go to the post office and see the picture of the bad guys that you had to keep your eye out for, the more clear the patterns and the nuances of your attractions of deprivation are to you, the more clear, you’re going to be on catching them early on, and I hear you say, you don’t want those kind of relationships anymore.
The Four Step Process
So I want to walk you through the journey to be able to change your patterns. And I want to do this for everyone who’s listening as well. I’m going to take you through the journey that I teach in my book, and I teach in my intensive. And it’s a four step process. But we’re going to be talking about the first two steps. The first one is what are your Core Gifts? Because in every situation like this, it is so important to start out, recognizing the parts of yourself that have gotten stepped on in past relationships. Naming them, seeing their worth, seeing the gold in them so that you can dignify them, because that is the beginning of the unspooling of this whole kind of pattern.
So that’s what we’re going to start and I’m going to ask questions of everybody who’s listening that you can think about, kind of fill in the blanks questions to help you think about each of these points to help you transform your intimacy journey in some pretty wonderful, solid, healthy, good ways.
First Step: Naming Your Core Gifts
Name your Core Gifts
The first step, and it’s the first step that I spend huge amounts of time with in my classes and in my book, is the naming of your Core Gifts. So what I want to say to you, Danielle, is that you’ve described a situation that could be considered kind of codependent, you give and give and you’re like the therapist for these people and they take and take and then they blame you and hurt you for not giving well enough or not giving enough etc. That would be what would be called codependency. But what I want to say about codependency is codependency has gotten a really bad rap, and I think that people frame the generosity, which I believe is the Core Gift at the heart of codependency.
People frame that generosity in a pathologizing way like you shouldn’t be so generous. That’s not true. You’re generousness, your generosity is holy, it’s you, it is a Core Gift.
Recognize Your Fabulous Generosity
The issue is that if you don’t know how to honor it as a commodity that’s rare in this world, and precious, something beautiful, something that you should love – if you don’t know that you will keep drawing people like this into your life. The place where you give without awareness of boundaries is exactly the place where you will draw people who take without awareness of boundaries.
So the first step is to recognize this fabulous generosity. Don’t think that’s something to be ashamed of, because it’s not, it is your treasure. When you know that, when you dignify that quality, when you begin to name it, honor it, and think who in my life values it and gives the same back, that’s your tribe, that’s going to be the kind of guy you want to date, that’s going to be the kind of friends you want to have. Because if you try to dampen or put down your generosity, this wonderful, wonderful gift, so that you’re more kind of appropriate or not codependent, you will be robbing your soul of oxygen, robbing your being of oxygen.
You need to be able to be that generous, generous person who has so much to give. But you need to learn to listen to the part of you that says, “I don’t feel so good, because I’m not getting, I’m being deprived I’m not being given to.”
Look for guys who also have an innate quality of generosity
So what I want to say to you first is to honor your generosity, it’s gold, there’s no two ways about that. But from now on, what you want to look for is only guys who also have an innate quality of generosity, that’s it, period, the end. And that’s how we begin to learn to date differently. So for everyone who’s listening, what I want to say to you is to think about what are the parts of you that in past relationships that you feel were stepped on, milked, taken advantage of – take a minute and just think of one or two of those qualities.
Those are Core Gift places. Unfortunately, because we get treated that way, we learn to be ashamed of those parts instead of championing them and dignifying them and making much, much better choices until we treasure those parts of ourselves. Your loyalty, maybe some of you that has been stepped on, your generosity, your truth telling whatever those qualities are, the first stage is to name them and to honor them.
Second Step: Look At Your Attractions
The second stage is to look at your attractions. And what I would say is Danielle, it’s like a mold. If you put a plaster mold around something, it takes the opposite shape, it takes the opposite shape, whatever it is, that you are taking a mold of. If you are taking a mold of something that is convex, like bulging outwards, the mold will be concave, it’ll be bulging inward. The powerful, powerful thing here is those core gift attributes of all of us, the way we treat them, defines who we are attracted to, and who’s attracted to us, but particularly who were attracted to in very deep ways. So there is a process here where your generosity has been enslaved, has been colonized, has been milked, has been taken advantage of. And then you’ve been stepped on.
As you begin to treasure that quality, watch what happens. And I say this to everyone with whatever qualities you identified, it’s really true. As you begin to dignify those qualities, little by little, your sexual and romantic attractions are going to change, Danielle, you’re going to start losing your taste for those guys. But slowly, not quickly. It’s like a stepping stone process, don’t think it’s going to end immediately.
But as Marianne Williamson said, and I love this quote, “the problem is not that you’re attracted to guys who don’t treat you right, the problem is you give them your number.” So I think that’s a really, really key point.
In this second stage, we learn to only choose people with whom these qualities feel safe and valued, period, the end, nobody else. When we make that choice, everything begins to change.
Create Change
So Danielle, you want to make that change, those are some of the steps that you do that with an easy one of you who’s listening. Now think about the qualities, the attributes that you described, what if you made a pact with yourself, that from now on, you’re going to only look for, and only to continue to pursue people with whom those parts of you feel safe, seen and valued and reciprocated?
The last thing I want to say is that to create change, like we’re talking about, which is characterological, deep and profound change is conceptual, it sounds easy. In its macro level, it’s very simple but when it comes to the nitty gritty of dating, and meeting people, and early dating, and later dating, and all of that, we still get stuck in our own patterns, no matter how fabulous the idea and I think these are life changing. The important ideas that really work, no matter how well they work, if you don’t have a support team, it’s going to be too difficult to make these changes on your own in almost every case.
So Danielle, what I encourage you to do is, if you’re reading the book, Deeper Dating, get a learning partner, because it’s a course in a book to help you with making this huge change.
Get involved in support groups
Or you might want to be in one of my groups or my intensive, or there might be another teacher whose work really resonates with you, who has a community of learning. Follow those people, get involved in getting that kind of support, because it’s really essential. We’re like rubber bands left to our own devices, we shrink to our most comfortable small state, we need to be held out in a consistent way to something bigger and better if we’re really going to create characterological change.
Therefore, what I want to say is, even if it’s none of the things I mentioned, even if it’s just a wise and caring friend, with whom you say, this is my intention, I don’t want to date guys who take advantage of my generosity. In fact, I only want to take guys who are innately generous themselves. And I want to be able to feel good about these parts of myself and give them freely and with joy, because that’s how I’m built. And I can only do that with someone who does the same.
Everyone who’s listening, think about the qualities you mentioned, how could you do the same with those qualities, because for you to be happy, you need to be able to express those parts of yourself, not hold them back in a stingy way because the world doesn’t get them. You want those precious people who do get those qualities. So that’s my last piece that I want to say – get support because it’s too hard to make these kind of changes on our own. Thank you, Danielle.
Photographer: Everton Vila | Source: Unsplash
Here’s the next message from an anonymous caller.
Anonymous Caller: Hi Ken, I’m a few years into a relationship that I thought was originally one of inspiration. I assumed that my deep wounding was my shame around my health. This man loves to love in a big way and care for me which drew me in, originally. But I’m not all that inspired by him. His politics are different and that’s a turn off to me. And he’s not really my type in a lot of ways. He’s a big talker but not terribly ambitious or successful. He’s only 62 and wants to retire and work part-time but doesn’t really have the financial means to do that. So I think that is also stressing me out.
So my question is, I’m wondering if maybe that was not my wounding, perhaps? Or did I just not pick up the right guy or get more specific about who I wanted to be involved with? And the other option is that I have a history of being very critical and being the person who leads relationships and so I’m open to that also being an option too. So I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.
Well, this is such an important question in so many ways and has a universal quality. A few pieces here. One piece is, what do you do in a relationship that started out really nice, feeling really new, really healthy, and then you find that you’re just not happy in it, or maybe you’re happy in some ways, but troubled and unhappy in other ways?
Another part of this is, what if you’re struggling with, “Is this me? Am I being too critical? Am I being too sensitive?” versus, “These things bother me. I feel troubled by this and that feels real”, that kind of complexity about which side should you land on?
I’d like everybody to take a minute to think about that. Have you ever been in that kind of situation in a relationship, both of those pieces where a relationship seemed really good at the beginning, but then you began to experience dissatisfaction that felt significant?
The other question, that struggle between am I being too sensitive, am I being too critical, or is this a valid concern?
Notice what it is that’s bothering you
I want to share a few thoughts about what to do in this kind of situation, a few steps, and there are four steps that we’re going to go through that are very empowering and very healing.
First step, notice what it is that’s bothering you and don’t begin by thinking, “Am I being too critical?” Begin by holding your criticism, the things that bother you, let’s say, better than criticism, in a way that doesn’t chain you to those feelings. Assume that if these things are bothering you, maybe you’re skewing them in a negative direction, maybe you’re misinterpreting some things, but there probably really is something here to bother you. The first step really is to honor that because if you squelch that, a few things will happen. You will shame yourself for your own gut and intuition. The other thing that will happen is you’ll become angry, and many of us who have had a history of seeing things, especially in our family that no one wanted us to talk about, become, what I call, angry truth tellers.
Start out by validating the truth
The truth burns inside us, and we feel we need to say something, but it’s laced with a kind of anger because it’s been suppressed for so long. We want to honor the truth, and I encourage you to honor the truth of those things, those exact things that bother you, which, to me, all make sense. They all seem valid.
For each one of you who’s listening, if you’re in a situation like this, start out right now by validating the truth. It makes sense that I feel this way because … It’s rational that I feel this way because … When you do that, that inner child space will begin to calm down because it won’t be told that it’s being crazy. Again, when we try to outsmart our intuition, it either goes into hiding and bites us in the butt or it becomes strident in a way that is alienating or both. Step one, honor the validity of what’s bothering you.
Look for the gifts
Step two, look for the gifts. For you, I would encourage you to look for your gifts in this. You are talking about a quality of ambition inside of you, a kind of financial responsibility. I’m assuming and imagining that those are parts of who you are, honoring those, honoring the fact that you have allowed yourself to be cared for in this relationship, which is a wonderful thing because receiving is a huge and deep intimacy capacity and an essential one, and also see the gift in your truth telling, in the awareness that you have and the validity of your intuition, and then see the gifts in your partner.
You have described somebody who’s absolutely, unequivocally got a big heart and is caring and loving and has cared for you. Those are beautiful things. Allow yourself to list those qualities in your head. That’s a great act today, a wonderful thing to do, so allow yourself to do that. Everybody, think of a person with whom you’re having a dilemma like this, and allow yourself to just list in your head their deepest qualities.
Stop trying to work it out in your own head
When you’ve done all of that, there is a completely essential next step, and that is to stop only trying to work it out in your own head. Now it’s time to work it out in the relationship because relationships are dynamic things, and we are dynamic beings, so we change, and the glory of relationships is that we change because of the relationships. If you’re trying to work this all out in your head, it will become stagnant, it will become convoluted, it’ll be like an ingrown toenail of your brain and your thinking and your heart. It is meant to have oxygen for a few reasons.
1. You got to hear what your partner thinks because your partner might have opposite concerns that will blow your mind, like, “Wow, I didn’t realize I was doing this.”
2. Your partner needs to hear what hurts you, what’s not meeting your needs, what concerns you.
Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it mean
Of course, the rule is say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it mean. Take some time to think about why this matters to you. Maybe you came from a family where there was lack of financial responsibility, and so it’s a tender spot for you, a vulnerable spot. Maybe it’s because you’re concerned that you might have to be taking care of him and you don’t want to be doing that. You want someone who can take care of themselves. See what it is, but see if you can frame things in an “I” way, huge rule feedback. We often think that the “you” is more powerful, but let me tell you the “I” is more powerful.
Someone hears, “You’re not being responsible,” and they shut down. They circle their wagons. No one wants to hear that. It’s a horrible feeling, and you circle your wagons and you shut down around it. Even though it feels like a powerful thing to say to someone, what you get is a defensive block from the other person, whereas, if you said, “I feel scared that I’m gonna need to support you,” for example, that’ll go in, they’ll hear that. ‘I statements” actually have a tremendous amount of power, but the main point here is do not try to work this out in your head.
Give yourself, your partner, and the relationship the gift of letting this become an evolving process because you and your partner need to be talking about this stuff in such a way that you create a shared language around your conflicts, and that’s a good and wonderful thing to do. Big, big piece here is don’t think you need to work it out just in your head.
Has there been enough healing in you?
The final thing I want to say, and this is just a question, is you spoke about your woundedness, wound of shame, around health conditions that you have, and I’m wondering if there’s been enough healing in you, emotionally, spiritually, partly even because of your partner, where that now is less of an issue, where you don’t need someone who is going to take care of you because you feel more healed and more ready to take care of yourself. If that’s so, you are changing.
Your partner might be someone who gets their greatest sense of empowerment by giving. If so, they might feel dis-empowered, your partner might feel dis-empowered, as well. This could be a sea change period in the relationship, and, too often, people end relationships because they say, “We both changed,” without having done the rich, ongoing, complicated, struggling, but wonderful work of changing together.
Those are my thoughts. Good luck in taking these steps, and each one of you, good luck, in taking these steps. The first, honoring your experience, noticing the gifts in you and your partner, and then trying to work it out gradually, caringly, kindly, in real time.
Photographer: Val Vesa | Source: Unsplash
The next question is from Steve.
Steve: Firstly, I want to say that I’m a big fan of yours, Ken and I’ve enjoyed your insights and wisdom over the years.
My new wife and I, we’ve known each other for about six months, and we have an absolutely fabulous sexual relationship, but just recently I’ve started noticing that we are beginning to get a little bit used to each other. Do you have any tips for maintaining that spontaneity and excitement that we had for the past six months or at least keeping it as alive and prolonging it for as long as possible. Or do you think that it’s inevitable that it will fade and we’ll just have to resign ourselves to it being less inspiring and important in our lives? Thank you, Ken.
There is a calming down that happens after a while
Steve, this is a great and important question. We’re going to talk about this now, and I hope that some of the information is helpful to anybody in a new relationship, or also there are some very important universal pieces to this as well.
Steve, from what I understood, you have known your wife for only six months, and in that time, you’ve gotten married. This is a really, really new relationship, and you guys haven’t stopped moving yet. Getting to know each other, knowing each other, getting married, joining your lives together, in half a year, that’s a lot. It’s going to be exciting and thrilling, and those kind of thrills can create sex that is incandescent. That’s fabulous, and may you continue to have that kind of sex, but there is a calming down that happens after a while, and that calming down requires the development of different sexual circuitry, and we’re going to talk about that.
There are three questions that each of us can ask ourselves, and they’re three fabulous questions about sex to help deepen our sex life, make it more exciting, and also make it more healing in very profound ways.
Question #1: What makes you feel safe in sex, and what makes you feel unsafe in sex?
The first question is this. What makes you feel safe in sex, and what makes you feel unsafe in sex? This is a really important question and something very deep to think about. We often don’t think of safety in terms of sex, and I don’t just mean unsafe sex or sex that can hurt you. I mean a deep sense of emotional safety. That’s a really important thing, and when this wild thrill of newness calms down, you might notice more ways in which you and your partner either feel safe or unsafe. That’s a rich question for everybody to think about.
Question #2: What moves you and touches you in sex?
The second question is, and this is a deep one, what moves you and touches you in sex? In this calming down that happens, we touch a deeper level of being, and in that deeper level of being, we can deepen and enrich and widen our sex life by thinking what kind of pacing, what kind of ways of being touched, what kind of ways of touching each other, what kind of ways of holding each other make me go into that place where there’s this dropping down into a deep sense of bonding, intimacy, being moved, maybe being moved to tears? That happens sometimes in sex.
What enables me to go into that deeper, deeper space? That’s a rich and important question that is huge, and what happens is sometimes, because you both are still getting to know each other in many ways, there sometimes needs to be a period of re-calibration. When you make a deeper commitment often, the sex doesn’t match up with the emotions right away. The emotions are scared all of a sudden as things become more real, to connect with this wild sex.
There’s a process of re-calibration where we often feel a sense of sexual discomfort or lack of turn-on, and it’s often because our heart is trying to catch up with our genitals. These are some rich things to think about when it comes to the issue of enriching your sex life, not just making it more exciting or keeping the excitement up, but bringing the depth up to match the excitement.
Question #3: What really turns you on?
The third question is what really turns you on? That’s a rich and important question, too, for you and your wife to be able to speak about together. What are the secret things that really turn you both on? That’s a gift also to be able to talk about.
What I think you might want to think of this as, Steve, is an enriching and maturing part of your sexual and intimate relationship with your wife.
That’s all the time we have for questions. I hope these answers were helpful and supportive and help each one of you think about your own intimacy journey, and I look forward to seeing you next week on the Deeper Dating Podcast.
Four Signs That Healthy Love Is On Its Way [EP051]
Why We Get Attracted To The Wrong People [EP035]
Chip Conley: How To Infuse Your Life With Generosity, Adventure and Love [EP033]
What’s The Most Important Personality Trait For A Happy And Fulfilled Life? [EP037]
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE HERE:
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5 Keys To "Deeper Dating"
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Thank You, President Obama
On a day like today, when our democracy is teetering on an uncertain cliff and despair is the mood for so many, I wanted to try and hold on to some positivity.
Because as depressing as I find today’s events to be, I have to try and find the learning moment for my girls. They will be watching the swearing-in ceremony this morning — at least Alexia will. When she asked me about it, I told her that the transition of power is a key part of the process of democracy. I told her I expect her to watch the ceremony with her classmates and be respectful. No booing, no thumbs down. When she asked why, I told her it’s because accepting the results of our elections, whether you agree or not, is part of what makes America great. Because how one accepts defeat says as much about a person as how they celebrate victory.
I’ve written before about how much Alexia likes President Obama. This time I wanted to write a Thank You note to a president who shouldered an unimaginable burden — even for a President — and who did it for eight years with class, grace and dignity. So Thank you, Mr. President, for among other things:
Understanding that Love Trumps All. By supporting marriage equality, you helped ensure same-sex couples could enjoy the same rights everyone else has.
For essentially saving the American auto industry. Oh, and for also helping to end the Great Recession and creating millions of new jobs.
For killing Osama Bin Laden.
For doing what no other president before you had attempted to do — create a more equitable health care system for millions of Americans who otherwise couldn’t afford decent health care coverage. Was the ACA perfect? Of course not. It was deeply flawed, but it was something. For millions of Americans, it gave them a blanket of protection. And just as important, Obama tried. And for that, he ultimately succeeded.
You can read more about what he accomplished during his eight years in office here. You may not like what he did, but there is no debating he was able to take significant actions, both economic and socially, during his two terms.
But what I really want to say ‘Thank You’ for most of all is for the way he carried himself while in office. He was not a perfect president; there is no such thing. Washington is a city and system of compromise, and no one person can effect change on his or her own. What President Obama did was survive intense scrutiny and did so with unparalleled dignity. Look at the personal, hateful attacks he endured while in office. The racist birther movement being just one horrific example. But when they went low, he went high.
Obama, as much as any president in recent history, understood that the presidency isn’t so much a real job. It’s an ideal, a beacon for other Americans to look to and strive to reach.
Being president is about setting a standard for others to follow and emulate. And with it comes immense power that must be handled with great responsibility. Our president shouldn’t fall victim to petty, knee-jerk reactions. He or she should be above that, able to see beyond the immediate and to the future. That person needs to realize the importance any word, tweet, text or gesture a President makes carries with it massive ramifications.
Whether you voted for him or not, there is no way any sane-thinking person could have ever doubted Barack Obama’s ability to see the big picture. Or his grace under pressure. Because he understood what being President truly meant. I can’t help thinking of one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen lyrics, from “Growin Up“:
” I strolled all alone into a fallout zone, and came out with my soul untouched.”
Thank you, President Obama.
January 20, 2017 January 20, 2017 Dad Encyclopediathis & that
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Pro Dj Wear
DJ H Vidal biography
When it comes to working the wheels of steel, nobody does it better than DJ H. Vidal. DJ H. Vidal has been rocking the ones and twos for several decades. His unique style of blending vocals from hot new records with blazing instrumentals from the past has blessed audiences from Philadelphia to Tampa to Canada.
As a youngster growing up in Reading, Pennsylvania, H. Vidal listened to the music that his mother would play throughout the house. As a result, he was raised on a steady musical diet of classic funk and soul. Groups like the Bar Kays, the Fatback Band, Parlament/Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire and Mandrill were staples on his mom’s turntable. And the precocious little tyke was soaking it all in growing up.
The same thing happened when he heard his first rap record King Tim III by the Fatback Band, which, by the way, was actually the first hip hop record ever released, beating the Sugar hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” by about two weeks. Like his mom’s penchant for 70s funk and soul, H. Vidal was hooked on the music of his generation, making records by stalwart hip hop acts like LL Cool Jay, The Fat Boys, The Skinny Boys, Treacherous 3 and RunDMC a mainstay in his musical buffet. But as much as he loved rap music, oddly enough his first active participation in hip hop culture wasn’t music, but dance.
From there H. Vidal got into beat boxing thanks to his love for the music of groups like the Fat Boys, the Skinny Boys and Dougie Fresh. His passion for making percussive sounds and music with his mouth lead him to battling other beat boxers from around his way. But it was one fateful day in 1986, when H. Vidal went to a party at Philly’s fabled Fair Mount Park, where he saw the legendary DJ Jazzy Jeff rock the turntables and his life was forever changed. “I saw DJ Jazzy Jeff DJ,” recalls Vidal. “I was done after that. I had to have it. Nothing else mattered, that was it.”
That Christmas he convinced his grandmother to buy him some DJ equipment. She bought him two belt-driven turntables, a mixer with no cross fader, a pair of speakers and four records. Although he didn’t have the proper equipment to start with, H. Vidal still managed to hone his DJing skills by studying some the City’s great DJs; among them were DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Tat Money, DJ Cash Money, DJ Johnny V and DJ Ran, whom he credits as being one of his main influences. “Definitely DJ Ran [is] like a major influence as far as my style, how I mix, how I scratch, how I rock clubs, he’s a major, major influence.”
After honing his skills on the wheels of steel, H.Vidal started throwing parties in his grandmother’s attic. A few years later, his parties and mix tapes had H. Vidal’s name started to spread like wildfire in and around the Philadelphia area. Soon, his reputation as a DJ landed him a spot as a guest mixer on Philly’s number one station Power 99’s holiday mix, a post he held for four years until a close friend recommended him for a position as a mixer at a new station called Power 94.3 in Charleston, South Carolina.
“I got hired basically as our station just went on the air,” says Vidal. “They didn’t have no mixer, no DJs, no nothing. They could have hired anybody. They could’ve have hired somebody from down here. But my friend who I grew up with already had a job there and he told me to send a package down here. I sent him all my mixes from what I did in Philly. I also sent him like a little bio and a picture and I got a call right away to come to Charleston for an interview. I jumped in my little Plymouth Lazer and drove all the way down to Charleston. I came down there with some T-shirts with my name on it and the station’s name on it and gave it to the program director. I went out and spent my money and got some t-shirts made. I sort of forced myself on them because I wasn’t taking no for an answer.”
Although hired as the station’s mix show DJ, doing the 5 o’clock drive time mix H. Vidal quickly became the station’s rising star. In addition to doing his regular drive time mix he was picked to helm the station’s ten to twelve weekend mix plus held down a regular air shift at Power 94.3. Bear in mind that all of this happened to him within the short span of two years. To say the least H. Vidal is one busy DJ, no wonder his organization the Tech.nitions nominated him for their coveted Rookie of the Year Award. In September of 2004, Clear Channel moved H. Vidal to 95.7 the Beat in sunny Tampa Florida, where he held down an on-air shift as well as mixes. Within five short months he became the number one jock in his time slot, and is also sydicated on z92.3 in Killeen, Texas from 7pm to midnight where he is also number one in his time slot. And if that’s not impressive enough H. Vidal has also done tour dates with comedian Dave Chapelle and has been picked to be Bubba Sparrxxx official tour DJ. H. Vidal credits his success as a DJ to his experience as a radio, club and mix tape DJ which gives him the ability to read and audience and adapt to different crowds.
“A DJ is somebody who should have a good ear for music,” says H. Vidal. “They should know what to play, when to play a record and know how to play a record also being able to interact with people. You gotta be able to mix good music. You gotta be a people person to be a good DJ. I’m gonna do whatever it takes. I’m gonna go above and beyond to make sure that you have a good time.”
-Charlie Braxton
Wedding Bookings
There are some events in life that are special no matter who you are – your first date, your first kiss, your first love, the day you pledged yourself to another for the rest of your life. Since 1994, DJ H VIDAL has been privileged to be an integral part of over 2,500 wedding days, but we know that the most important one is yours.
Part of what makes DJ H VIDAL unique is the personal attention that each and every client receives both before and during the reception. Upon booking, our event coordinator will see to it that you will receive a comprehensive wedding reception worksheet that covers every facet of your event. This detailed worksheet will cover preparation before the arrival of your guests all the way until the bar closes at the end of the night. Our philosophy is that by planning ahead, we’ll enable you to relax and enjoy a personalized, worry – free reception.
Of course music is at the core of what we do, and our sizable music library enables Inline image 1us to make sure you and your guests have a great evening full of fun and excitement creating memories that will last a life time. We will not only tailor our performance to your specifications, but we will also read and respond to the needs of your guests. In addition to being the entertainment, your DJ will also work as a coordinator to help make sure everyone knows what’s going to happen next and to keep the reception running smoothly.
Every couple, every marriage is different, and YOUR reception should reflect YOU. When you hire DJ H VIDAL, you get more than just a great DJ at a reasonable price, you also get the peace of mind that will allow you to fully enjoy the most important day of your life.
So, put it all together; customized activities and music to your taste, a planner to help you avoid potential wedding disasters, a DJ/ entertainer/ coordinator all in one and your family and friends helping you celebrate.
For information or pricing click here
© Copyright 2018 DJ H Vidal | Website by LMG Web Design
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Big Tobacco in the dock as America prepares for biggest ever law suit
In a detailed analysis of the legal outlook, the Independent reports the tobacco industry will face its biggest legal challenge yet next month, when it will finally appear in the dock to fight a $280bn claim from the US Government for deceiving the public over the health risks of smoking for more than 50 years.It is the largest suit ever launched by the Department of Justice and promises to reveal whether scientific research on nicotine was withheld, destroyed and ignored by a number of companies in a conspiracy designed to keep “profits above the public health”, dating back to 1954.
The secrets of the tobacco industry have already been the subject of an Oscar-nominated Hollywood blockbuster. When Jeffrey Wigand, who was head of research and development at Brown & Williamson, British American Tobacco’s former US subsidiary, described cigarettes as the “delivery device for nicotine” to the US media, the tobacco industry was almost choked by the biggest public health lawsuit to date. His revelations that tobacco companies knew nicotine was addictive and that carcinogenic material was knowingly added to cigarettes were made public by the American investigative journalist Lowell Bergman, whose work inspired the film The Insider, starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe. Mr Wigand’s testimony helped bring about a $206bn settlement between the tobacco industry and 46 US states for the costs of treating sick smokers.
On 13 September, the sequel to that settlement will open to the public, with a federal trial set to take place in Washington DC that has taken five years to bring to court. A number of major cigarette companies, including BAT, are on trial on “fraud and deceit” charges that were originally designed to fight the mafia. Along with BAT stands Philip Morris, R J Reynolds, Lorillard and Liggett, which represent the best-known brands in cigarettes such as Marlboro, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall and Camel.
Source: The Independent, 13 August 2004
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Dangers of Mephedrone
The Government’s official drug advisers will recommend later this month that the “legal high” mephedrone should be banned because of the potential serious risks to public health. But the drug – a legal stimulant sold as plant food and known as miaow-miaow – will not be formally banned until at least the summer as further consultation is needed on whether it should be a Class A, B or C drug.
Pressure on the Government to outlaw mephedrone intensified yesterday when a post-mortem examination on John Sterling Smith, 46, of Hove, East Sussex, showed he died from mephedrone poisoning. His family said they were stunned and called for a ban. Results of toxicology tests released last night blamed mephedrone for his fatal cardiac arrest. A Sussex Police spokeswoman said that Mr Smith collapsed at a party in Hove in the early hours of February 7. “Two men, aged 35 and 40, both from Brighton, were arrested on suspicion of supplying Class A drugs and released on police bail until May 5 pending further inquiries,” she said.
Headteachers called yesterday for action on the drug, which has been linked with at least five deaths. Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, from Scunthorpe, died after taking mephedrone, which can be bought for £4 and is also known as “M-cat”. Both teenagers had been drinking alcohol and police said last night that they may have taken the heroin substitute methadone too. There have been two other deaths in Britain linked to mephedrone, which is illegal in countries including Norway, Germany and Finland.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs at present lacks sufficient members to make a formal recommendation, but the appointments process is being brought forward to next week to get over the legal problem. A spokesman said: “The council has been looking at the dangers of mephedrone and related cathinone compounds, as a priority. The ACMD held an evidence-gathering meeting on February 22 and continues to carefully work on considerations with a view to providing advice to ministers on March 29.”
Alan Campbell, a junior Home Office minister, said: “We are determined to act swiftly but it is important we consider independent expert advice to stop organised criminals exploiting loopholes by simply switching to a different but similar compound.” The Home Office denied that the sacking of Professor David Nutt, former chairman of the council, and subsequent resignations of key members of the organisation had led to “inordinate” delays in considering a ban.
Professor Nutt warned yesterday against a hasty reaction, saying a ban had to be based on “sound science”.
Tim Hollis, the Association of Police Chief Constables’ spokesman on drugs, said a ban would enable police to act against those possessing and supplying the drug. He spoke as Mike Stewart, head of Westlands School in Torquay, Devon, said teachers were in the absurd position of having to hand back packages of the drug seized in lessons. Side-effects of mephadrone include high blood pressure, a burning throat, nose bleeds and purple joints.
Source: Times online 18th March 2010
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1/3/04 - SAUDI RELIGIOUS REPRESSION - 2004-01-05
People can be denied their right to religious freedom in a variety of ways. One way is for a government to favor a dominant religion and suppress other faiths. Countries where this is the case, says John Hanford, U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, include Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Iran.
In Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest Report on International Religious Freedom, “Islam is the official religion, and the law requires that all citizens be Muslims. The government prohibits the public practice of non-Muslim religions. The [Saudi] government recognizes the right of non-Muslims to worship in private; however, it does not always respect this right in practice, and does not define this right in law.”
In addition to Saudi Arabia’s ban on all public worship by Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other non-Muslims, as Ambassador Hanford points out, “There is discrimination against Shia, Ismaili Muslims, and other Muslims who don’t subscribe to the official brand of Islam that is adhered to by the [Saudi] government.”
In accordance with U.S. law, the government has designated several “countries of particular concern” in regard to their denial of religious freedom. The list from last year includes China, Burma, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Ambassador Hanford says that U.S. officials have considered adding Saudi Arabia to the list:
“Saudi Arabia has been very close to the threshold. In terms of restrictions of religious freedom, there are few countries that are more restrictive in terms of their laws. There are other countries that are much harsher in terms of the ways that they manifest their laws, in terms of arresting and torture and murdering people. The government of Saudi Arabia has begun to implement some measures to address this problem, and we will be in the process of trying to assess how far those are along before we make that final decision.”
The idea, of course, is not simply to put countries on a list but to encourage them to respect religious freedom. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it, “Everyone has the right. . .in public or private, to manifest his religion in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.” People in Saudi Arabia -- no less than people everywhere else -- should be allowed to practice their religion freely.
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Trump's proposed regulations limiting benefits for immigrants could hurt many US-born children
Fear causing parents to pull their children from health and nutrition programs
Zaidee Stavely
Courtesy of Eisner Health
Dr. Yolanda Rebollo reads with a tiny patient at Eisner Health, a community clinic in Los Angeles. Clinic staff are concerned that some patients (not the baby pictured) are not enrolling in food stamps or Medi-Cal.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrant parents in California may disenroll their children from health insurance, food stamps and other federally subsidized programs because they fear that receiving these benefits will make it impossible for them to become permanent residents in the United States.
Their fears have been triggered by new regulations proposed by the Trump administration that expand the number of benefits that immigration officers can take into account in deciding whether to deny an immigrant permanent residence in the United States. Federal law allows immigration officials to deny green cards to immigrants if authorities decide they are likely to become a “public charge” — someone who relies excessively on government benefits to survive.
The draft regulations are currently open for public comments until Dec. 10th.
Administrators at community clinics, school-based health centers and agencies serving children say some parents in California are already choosing not to enroll or withdrawing their children from health and nutrition programs.
A parent asked First 5 Alameda, an agency that supports families with small children, to stop seeking early intervention services from a local school district for their toddler with autism. A teenage mother in the Central Valley asked to withdraw from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) one month before giving birth. A grandmother in San Francisco asked North East Medical Services, a federally funded community clinic, to purge her grandchildren’s medical records.
“It’s causing fear, it’s causing confusion and it’s really impacting kids,” said Mayra Alvarez, president of The Children’s Partnership, a nonprofit children’s advocacy organization.
Who would be affected?
A coalition of immigrant rights organizations created this storyboard showing who would be subject to scrutiny under the proposed changes.
The Trump administration says it is simply enacting the will of Congress when it enacted the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which includes the “public charge” provision.
“This proposed rule will implement a law passed by Congress intended to promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” said Department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in announcing the draft regulations last month.
Under current longstanding policies, receipt of so-called “cash benefits” can be taken into account when immigration authorities decide whether to declare someone a “public charge,” and use that as a basis to approve or deny a green-card application. Cash benefits include Supplemental Security Income (SSI), for low-income elderly and disabled people and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), for low-income families with children.
The Trump administration is proposing regulations that would also for the first time include the receipt of some so-called “non-cash benefits” as a basis to deny green cards. Non-cash benefits allow people to get health care, food, medicine and housing without receiving the money directly.
The administration is proposing to target the following benefits in the proposed regulation:
Medicaid (known in California as Medi-Cal);
Food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (CalFresh in California);
Medicare Part D prescription drug program for seniors;
Housing assistance (such as Section 8 rent vouchers).
Numerous health and immigrant rights advocates oppose the changes, arguing that if immigrant families disenroll from health insurance, for example, they may forego preventive care, develop more serious health problems and end up in an emergency room, at a greater cost to taxpayers.
Courtesy of California WIC Association
Families wait at a WIC clinic in Central California. The California WIC Association has heard reports from some agencies that mothers (not those pictured) have asked to disenroll from the nutrition program.
The regulations would only apply to applicants for green cards. Undocumented immigrants are already barred from receiving the benefits the Trump administration is targeting.
Under the proposed regulations, benefits used by U.S. citizen children would not be taken into account in deciding whether to grant their parents permanent residence. Even so, the fear generated by the regulations could cause many immigrants to disenroll their children from receiving benefits.
That is what happened in 1996, after Congress placed strict limits on immigrants receiving benefits during the five years after they were granted green cards. The overall use of benefits by immigrants’ family members dropped precipitously, despite still being eligible to receive them. One study found that 25 percent of children with a foreign-born parent disenrolled from Medicaid.
Based on that drop in coverage, the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health policy organization, estimated the number of children who might disenroll from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, if between 15 and 35 percent of immigrant parents were to withdraw their children.
The Kaiser Family Foundation: impact on immigrants and Medicaid
The California Health Care Foundation: impact on children in California needing care
The Children’s Partnership: impact on children in California by county
In California, this would mean between 269,000 and 628,000 children could be withdrawn from the programs, both known as Medi-Cal in the state, according to analysis by The Children’s Partnership. Between 113,000 and 311,000 children could be withdrawn from food stamps, known as CalFresh. The vast majority of these children are U.S. citizens.
In a study released this week, researchers at the Boston Medical Center found a 10 percent drop in immigrant families enrolled in food stamps in the first half of 2018. Researchers speculated that the drop might be attributable at least in part to concerns triggered by the proposed regulations.
Fears about the impact of the new regulations have already prompted Maria, an immigrant from Mexico who requested that her last name not be used, to cancel her 5-year-old daughter’s enrollment in Medi-Cal. She also declined to enroll in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) for herself and her three-month-old baby. This program provides formula, lactation support and healthy foods for low-income mothers and their babies.
Maria’s baby, a U.S. citizen, began losing weight after she was born in July and her pediatrician recommended that Maria feed her formula in addition to breastfeeding. She also suggested Maria apply to enroll in the WIC program to help her pay for formula and buy groceries.
Maria knew how much the program could help, as she had benefited from it when her 5-year-old daughter was born. But this time, she didn’t apply because she was afraid it could affect her green card application.
“I am afraid that I won’t get my residency and I won’t be able to stay in this country permanently,” said Maria, who lives in Sacramento. “I can’t leave this country. My husband is here, my first daughter is here, my second daughter is here, so my life is going to be here. I fear that at some point, they will change something else and I will be deported.”
Maria is married to a U.S. citizen and she has had a green card since January. Because she received her green card through marriage, it is conditional for two years. Next year, she will have to apply again to make her status permanent, by proving that her marriage is a legitimate one.
Even if the draft regulations proposed by the Trump administration are finalized, some immigration experts say permanent residents applying to remove the conditions on their green cards — like Maria — would not be subject to new scrutiny. Furthermore, even if Maria were subject to the regulations, the Women, Infants and Children program is not included in the benefits that could be counted against her nor are any benefits used by Maria’s children. Still, earlier versions reported in the press stated they might. All the uncertainty has made Maria uneasy.
“It’s confusing, and it makes me feel not really comfortable to apply,” Maria said. “How can I be sure it’s not going to be a problem for me?”
Maria’s fears are echoed in the accounts of staff at clinics and other agencies that serve low-income immigrant families.
“It’s kind of the same story over and over. Either they saw on the news that they were going to be penalized for using the program, or their immigration lawyer told them they’d be penalized,” said Sarah Diaz, policy and media coordinator for the California WIC Association, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization. “We’ve heard that people have asked to return their WIC vouchers [for groceries] or their breast pumps and be purged from the computer system entirely.”
Health educator Magdalena Estrada teaches a prenatal class at Eisner Health in Los Angeles. Clinic staff say many patients (not those pictured) have been hesitant to enroll in food and nutrition programs.
Children’s advocates fear that a significant withdrawal from healthcare and nutrition programs would also have an impact on a child’s ability to succeed in school.
Adding to multiple studies that show that medical insurance and access to food improve school performance, researchers at the University of Missouri found in June that children who lost benefits from the Women, Infants and Children program prior to attending kindergarten had lower reading scores compared to their peers.
Administrators of school-based health centers say they will provide services even if students don’t have health insurance. But some health providers worry about what will happen if uninsured students need care for health problems that school clinics can’t address.
“They’re not going to consider going to get glasses if the child needs them. Or if they need a visit with the dentist, they will not go because they don’t have coverage,” said Maria Sanchez, program manager for San Ysidro Health, which has two mobile clinics near the Mexican border.
“When we hear about families being nervous about services, it really concerns us about the future for their kids,” said Page Tomblin, senior policy administrator of First 5 Alameda County, a public agency promoting early childhood education programs.
Zaidee Stavely covers bilingual education, early education and immigration as it relates to schools.
Follow @zstavely
Policy & FinanceStudent HealthStudent WellbeingFeaturedImmigrantsimmigration policyNutritionSchool-Based Health CentersStudent Health
el 1 year ago1 year ago
Just to be clear, I think it's quite evident that the people in the Trump Administration making these proposals fully understand that they will harm children, including US citizen children, and consider that desirable. I also think that the people mentioned in the article withdrawing from benefits are probably reading the situation intelligently - ie the implication that they are being unnecessarily fearful is I believe in error. People have come to understand that if anyone … Read More
Just to be clear, I think it’s quite evident that the people in the Trump Administration making these proposals fully understand that they will harm children, including US citizen children, and consider that desirable.
I also think that the people mentioned in the article withdrawing from benefits are probably reading the situation intelligently – ie the implication that they are being unnecessarily fearful is I believe in error. People have come to understand that if anyone in the household is receiving benefits that this can be a problem, even if for example it’s an uncle or cousin temporarily assisting with a child or disabled relative.
That these policies are mean, spiteful, costly, and counterproductive seems evident. And then we’ll wonder why the kids who didn’t get glasses when they needed them are unable to score well on their 10th grade exams, and we’ll blame the high school teachers.
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June 7, 2019 Education News
Ask a teacher: Why is the Equality Act critical for LGBTQ educators and students?
By Amanda Menas
On May 17, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBTQ+ educators, students, and allies nationwide briefly celebrated the step forward, as the bill moved on to the Senate.
Kelly Holstine, Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year, says the Act would help protect her rights. Holstine is a gender-nonconforming, out, lesbian educator who teaches at Takota Learning Center in Shakopee.
In April, Holstine declined an invitation to join other state teachers of the year at the White House, because Holstine believes the current administration’s policies hurt students who frequently face discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
Minnesota Teacher of the Year Kelly Holstine.
“Passing the Equality Act would send a clear message that LGBTQ students and staff deserve to exist and function safely in our society and that they matter,” Holstine told EducationVotes.
“LGBTQ students and educators could feel more valued versus experiencing feelings of alienation, isolation, and discrimination. Feelings of acceptance could also decrease the suicide rate for our community,” says Holstine.
A survey of LGBTQ+ youth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that up to 35 percent of respondents had experienced bullying or harassment based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. More than thirty percent reported that they had attempted suicide in the previous year alone. Holstine advocated for immediate action.
“It’s not enough to tell our kids that it gets better. We need to show them that we will make it better now,” said Holstine, who believes the Equality Act will help do just that.
NEA sent a letter to the Hill in support of the bill on May 15 that stated, “Discrimination against LGBTQ+ citizens violates our core American values of equality and fairness. The Equality Act is an important step in our nation’s continuing march toward fairness for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Currently, under most federal and state laws, LGBTQ+ discrimination is not explicitly banned in K-12 schools. Only 15 states and D.C. have protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Wisconsin and New Mexico have protections only for sexual orientation.
For students, the bill enforces protections established under the Obama administration that require schools to honor transgender students’ preferred pronouns and allow them access to restrooms and gender-segregated activities including sports. The bill also enforces anti-bullying policies.
For educators, the bill will ensure safeguards against job discrimination. As LGBTQ+ educators are a main source of support and encouragement for LGBTQ+ students, the bill helps ensure safer school environments.
Holstine says the bill will allow her to focus on teaching “instead of always wondering what kind of genderphobia and homophobia I will have to deal with next.”
At this time, the GOP-held Senate has not scheduled a floor vote on the Equality Act. Some opponents, including President Donald Trump, argue that the act takes away rights of parents to have conversations with their students regarding gender identity and sexual orientation.
One response to “Ask a teacher: Why is the Equality Act critical for LGBTQ educators and students?”
Carissa Griffith GRIFFITH says:
EVERYBODY SHOULD FEEL SAFE, NO MATTER WHERE THEY ARE, AND NO MATTER THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATION, OR SEXUAL IDENTITY!!!!!!!!
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Controlled foreign company regimes
Rethinking International Tax Law
In recent years, the international tax planning strategies of multinationals have become a source of – often heated – debate. This course provides learners with the tools to become fully informed participants in the debate by explaining the foundations and practice of international tax law as well as addressing current developments and the ethical aspects of tax planning.
Tax Planning, International Taxation, Transfer Pricing, Base Erosion And Profit Shifting (BEPS)
This is a great, in depth introduction to international tax law. A perfect starter course if you have a very basic understanding of tax law to begin with and are interested in building on that.
One of the most toughest course on Coursera and it was a great challenge completing it. I hope the Course is updated with new lectures and it will be a pleasure watching the videos again.
Principles of international taxation & tax treaties
In this third module, we will continue to analyze our tax planning base case. To that end, in module 2, we studied the typical design of corporate tax law systems. In this module, we will look at international aspects of corporate tax law systems (CFC, qualification mismatches). We will also get to the core of international tax law and study double tax treaties.
Controlled foreign company regimes5:56
Prof. Dr. Sjoerd Douma
Seleccionar un idiomaChino (simplificado)Inglés (English)
Hello, and welcome to the first video of the third module of our course, rethinking international tax law. During this module, we will study the international aspects of corporate tax law systems, and we'll also focus on the mechanisms of international tax law. We will address questions such as, what international tax principles do countries apply when allocating corporate taxing rights? What happens if these principles collide? What is the role of tax treaties in this respect? While developments have recently taken place in the field of international tax. We will begin this module, however, by examining in videos 1 and 2, two features of corporate income tax systems that typically manifest themselves in an international environment. In this first video, we will focus on a measure, which a significant number of particularly, high tax countries have adopted into their domestic corporate income tax systems. The measure specifically targets the transfer of mobile activities, for example, financing and licensing to low tax countries. To understand the measure, I note first that the corporate income tax law systems of most countries around the world, do not tax the profits of a subsidiary of a company within its jurisdiction, until the income is distributed by the subsidiary to the parent company as a dividend. Taking this system into account, companies, in particular, companies from, or doing business in, high-tax jurisdictions, started setting up subsidiaries in other low tax countries. And transferred mobile activities to those low-tax jurisdictions to avoid or defer, having to pay corporate income tax in high-tax jurisdictions. In particular, these companies have been set up in tax haven, where, as we saw last module in video 3, not many requirements are imposed for attributing income to that country. As a result, income from, in particular, mobile activities, dividends, interests, royalties, we'll shift this to low-tax jurisdictions, effectively avoiding corporate income tax until the subsidiary paid a dividend to the parent company, if ever. To counter such practices, many countries, in particular, large countries with a big internal market, such as the US and Japan introduced so-called controlled foreign company, or for short, CFC regimes. Under these controlled foreign company regimes, countries attempt to prevent erosion of the domestic tax bases of parent companies, and to discourage companies from shifting income to low-tax jurisdictions. They do so, by triggering current taxation at parent company level, when income that is covered by the measure is realized in low-tax jurisdictions. Controlled foreign company regimes, vary greatly from country to country, but all seek to do away with the deferral of income earned by a subsidiary in a low-tax jurisdiction. In particular, a mobile activities, where these activities could also have generated tax income for parent company, or in another high tax country. Typically, controlled foreign company rules apply under the following circumstances. A parent company has control over a subsidiary. For example, by directly or indirectly holding a percentage of the shares of, of the subsidiary. The subsidiary, with respect to which to control foreign company regime applies, is established in a specifically designated country, a tax haven, for example, or subject to a low effective tax rate. And the subsidiary generates largely passive income, dividend, interest royalties, for example. Over the years, controlled foreign company regimes of many countries have become particularly complex, to the point where they do not always function effectively. Specifically in relation to the US, the controlled foreign company regime is ineffective. Here, I'm talking about the so-called Subpart F rules, in combination with the US foreign entity qualification measures called check-the-box rules, which we will discuss in the next video. As a result, tax spending structures for US multinationals, as we saw Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks in module 1, despite having considerable low tax income outside the US, will not be affected by controlled foreign companies rules. I note that strengthening countries control foreign companies regimes is high on the list of priorities of the OECD, as part of the project on base erosion and profit shifting, or BEPS. We will discuss the BEPS project in more detail, in video 6 of this module. Returning back to the tax planning based case structure. You will note that one of the key features, number 4, is no current taxation of the low tax profits at the level of the ultimate parent. Applying what we've learned in this video, we can understand now, why the absence or inefficient functioning of a control foreign company regime, facilitates a tax planning structure. In particular, the planning strategy is to accumulate income into Intermediate Sub 2 in Low tax Country C can only be effective without a controlled foreign company regime in place at Parent Co level. In the next video, we will assess another international ta, tax law aspect of corporate tax law systems, namely, hybrid mismatches.
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Visual Studio 11's Agile IDE
Microsoft's Build conference wasn't just focused on Windows 8. Agile software development and ALM also earned their place in the spotlight.
By David Ramel
Microsoft's use of the "eat your own dog food" mantra is alive and well, as demonstrated at this year's Microsoft Build conference. Agile methodology was a popular theme.
Although there was significant focus on Windows 8 at the conference, software development methodology and application lifecycle management (ALM) were featured on the second day of the conference at the keynote address.
Microsoft's Jason Zander explained distributed team project management with Visual Studio 11 and Team Foundation Server 11. He showed how team members can grab source code, edit it, and run updates and builds. Zander, corporate vice president of Visual Studio, said:
One of the things we've done with Visual Studio 11 and for our ALM support is we've done a significant amount of agile work. I'm actually using scrum across Visual Studio, our own team when we do this work, so we've actually been using this ourselves internally, it's been awesome.
Zander that same day introduced the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview on his blog, where he also explored some of the agile aspects of the IDE:
As development teams become more flexible and agile, they demand adaptive tools that still ensure a high commitment to quality. The Exploratory Testing feature is an adaptive tool for agile testing that enables you to test without performing formal test planning.
He went on to explain how Exploratory Testing helps developers quickly find actional bugs, create test cases, and manage testing sessions.
This wasn't the only part of the Buld conference that was focused on agile. Program managers Aaron Bjork and Peter Provost's held a different session, Working on an agile team with Visual Studio 11 and Team Foundation Server. Bjork works on Team Foundation Server; he said he focuses on project management features and "all things agile." Provost, who works on Visual Studio Ultimate, said, "I've been focusing for the last year or two on agile developer tooling, with a particular focus on unit testing." He then echoed Bjork's phrasing, saying: "All things agile are where we like to keep our attention focused."
The pair spent an hour discussing new features and products as they can be used by an agile team. The process involved four stages: prioritize, plan, execute, and respond. For more details, you can watch the presentation on Microsoft's Channel 9. Also, the two announced that the "ALM Hands-On Labs" are available for download.
David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.
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Tag Archives: bloggers
Influence and Butterflies
Seems like “influence” is a key theme in social media, these days. An example among several others:
Influenceur, autorité, passeur de culture ou l’un de ces singes exubérants | Mario tout de go.
In that post, Mario Asselin brings together a number of notions which are at the centre of current discussions about social media. The core notion seems to be that “influence” replaces “authority” as a quality or skill some people have, more than others. Some people are “influencers” and, as such, they have a specific power over others. Such a notion seems to be widely held in social media and numerous services exist which are based on the notion that “influence” can be measured.
I don’t disagree. There’s something important, online, which can be called “influence” and which can be measured. To a large extent, it’s related to a large number of other concepts such as fame and readership, popularity and network centrality. There are significant differences between all of those concepts but they’re still related. They still depict “social power” which isn’t coercive but is the basis of an obvious stratification.
In some contexts, this is what people mean by “social capital.” I originally thought people meant something closer to Bourdieu but a fellow social scientist made me realise that people are probably using Putnam’s concept instead. I recently learnt that George W. Bush himself used “political capital” in a sense which is fairly similar to what most people seem to mean by “social capital.” Even in that context, “capital” is more specific than “influence.” But the core notion is the same.
To put it bluntly:
Some people are more “important” than others.
Social marketers are especially interested in such a notion. Marketing as a whole is about influence. Social marketing, because it allows for social groups to be relatively amorphous, opposes influence to authority. But influence maintains a connection with “top-down” approaches to marketing.
My own point would be that there’s another kind of influence which is difficult to pinpoint but which is highly significant in social networks: the social butterfly effect.
Yep, I’m still at it after more than three years. It’s even more relevant now than it was then. And I’m now able to describe it more clearly and define it more precisely.
The social butterfly effect is a social network analogue to the Edward Lorenz’s well-known “butterfly effect. ” As any analogy, this connection is partial but telling. Like Lorenz’s phrase, “social butterfly effect” is more meaningful than precise. One thing which makes the phrase more important for me is the connection with the notion of a “social butterfly,” which is both a characteristic I have been said to have and a concept I deem important in social science.
I define social butterflies as people who connect to diverse network clusters. Community enthusiast Christine Prefontaine defined social butterflies within (clustered) networks, but I think it’s useful to separate out network clusters. A social butterfly’s network is rather sparse as, on the whole, a small number of people in it have direct connections with one another. But given the topography of most social groups, there likely are clusters within that network. The social butterfly connects these clusters. When the social butterfly is the only node which can connect these clusters directly, her/his “influence” can be as strong as that of a central node in one of these clusters since s/he may be able to bring some new element from one cluster to another.
I like the notion of “repercussion” because it has an auditory sense and it resonates with all sorts of notions I think important without being too buzzwordy. For instance, as expressions like “ripple effect” and “domino effect” are frequently used, they sound like clichés. Obviously, so does “butterfly effect” but I like puns too much to abandon it. From a social perspective, the behaviour of a social butterfly has important “repercussions” in diverse social groups.
Since I define myself as a social butterfly, this all sounds self-serving. And I do pride myself in being a “connector.” Not only in generational terms (I dislike some generational metaphors). But in social terms. I’m rarely, if ever, central to any group. But I’m also especially good at serving as a contact between people from different groups.
Yay, me! 🙂
My thinking about the social butterfly effect isn’t an attempt to put myself on some kind of pedestal. Social butterflies typically don’t have much “power” or “prestige.” Our status is fluid/precarious. I enjoy being a social butterfly but I don’t think we’re better or even more important than anybody else. But I do think that social marketers and other people concerned with “influence” should take us into account.
I say all of this as a social scientist. Some parts of my description are personalized but I’m thinking about a broad stance “from society’s perspective.” In diverse contexts, including this blog, I have been using “sociocentric” in at least three distinct senses: class-based ethnocentrism, a special form of “altrocentrism,” and this “society-centred perspective.” These meanings are distinct enough that they imply homonyms. Social network analysis is typically “egocentric” (“ego-centred”) in that each individual is the centre of her/his own network. This “egocentricity” is both a characteristic of social networks in opposition to other social groups and a methodological issue. It specifically doesn’t imply egotism but it does imply a move away from pre-established social categories. In this sense, social network analysis isn’t “society-centred” and it’s one reason I put so much emphasis on social networks.
In the context of discussions of influence, however, there is a “society-centredness” which needs to be taken into account. The type of “influence” social marketers and others are so interested in relies on defined “spaces.” In some ways, if “so-and-so is influential,” s/he has influence within a specific space, sphere, or context, the boundaries of which may be difficult to define. For marketers, this can bring about the notion of a “market,” including in its regional and demographic senses. This seems to be the main reason for the importance of clusters but it also sounds like a way to recuperate older marketing concepts which seem outdated online.
A related point is the “vertical” dimension of this notion of “influence.” Whether or not it can be measured accurately, it implies some sort of scale. Some people are at the top of the scale, they’re influencers. Those at the bottom are the masses, since we take for granted that pyramids are the main models for social structure. To those of us who favour egalitarianism, there’s something unpalatable about this.
And I would say that online contacts tend toward some form of egalitarianism. To go back to one of my favourite buzzphrases, the notion of attention relates to reciprocity:
It’s an attention economy: you need to pay attention to get attention.
This is one thing journalism tends to “forget.” Relationships between journalists and “people” are asymmetrical. Before writing this post, I read Brian Storm’s commencement speech for the Mizzou J-School. While it does contain some interesting tidbits about the future of journalism, it positions journalists (in this case, recent graduates from an allegedly prestigious school of journalism) away from the masses. To oversimplify, journalists are constructed as those who capture people’s attention by the quality of their work, not by any two-way relationship. Though they rarely discuss this, journalists, especially those in mainstream media, typically perceive themselves as influencers.
Attention often has a temporal dimension which relates to journalism’s obsession with time. Journalists work in time-sensitive contexts, news are timely, audiences spend time with journalistic contents, and journalists fight for this audience time as a scarce resource, especially in connection to radio and television. Much of this likely has to do with the fact that journalism is intimately tied to advertising.
As I write this post, I hear on a radio talk show a short discussion about media coverage of Africa. The topic wakes up the africanist in me. The time devoted to Africa in almost any media outside of Africa is not only very limited but spent on very specific issues having to do with Africa. In mainstream media, Africa only “matters” when major problems occur. Even though most parts of Africa are peaceful and there many fabulously interesting things occuring throughout the continent, Africa is the “forgotten” continent.
A connection I perceive is that, regardless of any other factor, Africans are taken to not be “influential.” What makes this notion especially strange to an africanist is that influence tends to be a very important matter throughout the continent. Most Africans I know or have heard about have displayed a very nuanced and acute sense of “influence” to the extent that “power” often seems less relevant when working in Africa than different elements of influence. I know full well that, to outsiders to African studies, these claims may sound far-fetched. But there’s a lot to be said about the importance of social networks in Africa and this could help refine a number of notions that I have tagged in this post.
5 Comments | tags: ADHD, Africa, amateurs, attention, attention economy, attraction, authority, bloggers, blogosphere, branding, brands, Brian Storm, buzzphrases, Buzzwords, capital, celebrities, centrism, clueful, Clueing, confidence, cultural capital, culture, distributed authority, distributed trust, egocentric, expertise, experts, fame, fans, filters, gatekeepers, glamour, goodwill, groupthink, hegemony, hierarchy, importance, influence, information economy, Institutions, J-Schools, journalism, journalists, knowledge management, knowledge people, knowledge workers, landminds, landmines, lead, leaders, legitimacy, mainstream, mainstream media, Mario Asselin, media outlets, MediaStorm, memes, memetic marketplace, microblogging, mindshare, Mizzou, moral enterpreneurs, name, network centrality, network effect, network graph, non-deterministic, non-linear, notoriety, personal brands, political capital, popularity, professionals, puce à l'oreille, qualitative analysis, ranking, ranks, rating, recognition, relevance, renommée, renown, repercussions, reputation, scale, social butterflies, social butterfly effect, social capital, social marketing, social media, social network analysis, social networks, social science, sociocentric, sphere, stars, statistics, stratification, tagfest, tags, talent, transmission, trends, trendsetters, trendsetting, trust, Twinfluence, Twitority, Twitter, Twitter Grader, viral marketing, voice | posted in A, acquaintances, advertising, advice, advocacy, Africa, arrogance, audience, cluefulness, Clueing, comment-fishing, cultural awareness, cultural capital, cultural diversity, diversity, Empowerment, ethnocentrism, expertise, friendship, globalisation, grassroots, groupthink, hegemony, humanism, individualism, information, innovation, Institutions, journalism, knowledge, knowledge management, knowledge people, localization, location-specific, market economy, marketing, mass media, memes, metaphors, mindshare, moral enterpreneurs, nationalism, networking, new media, news, online communities, openness, Places, prestige, public, rants, readership, shameless plug, soapbox, social butterflies, social butterfly effect, social capital, social networking, social networks, sociocentrism, sophistication, success in life, tagging, tags, trends, trusting people, tv, U.S. exceptionalism, U.S. media, voice, wishful thinking
New/Old Media: NYT Groks It
As an obvious example of “Old Media” in the U.S., The New York Times is easy to criticize. But the paper and the media company have also been showing signs that maybe, just maybe, they are home to people who do understand what is happening online, these days.
Back in September 2007, for instance, the NYT decided to make its content freely available. While The Times wasn’t the first newspaper to free its content, the fact that the “newspaper of record” for the United States went from a closed model (TimesSelect) to an open one was quite consequential. In fact, this NYT move probably had an impact on the Wall Street Journal which might be heading in a similar direction.
The Times‘s website also seems to have progressively improved on the blogging efforts by some of its journalists, including composer and Apple-savvy columnist David Pogue.
Maybe this one is just my personal perception but I did start to read NYT bloggers on a more regular basis, recently. And this helped me notice that the Times wasn’t as “stuffy and old” as its avid readers make it to be.
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Possibly the silliest detail which has been helping me change my perception of the New York Times was the fact that it added a button for a “Single Page” format for its articles. A single page format is much more manageable for both blogging and archiving purposes than the multiple page format inherited from print publications. Most online publications have a “printer-friendly” button which often achieves the same goal as the NYT’s “single page” button yet, quite frequently, the printer format makes a print dialogue appear or is missing important elements like pictures. Not only is the NYT’s “Single Page” button a technical improvement over these “printer-friendly” formats but it also seems to imply that people at the Times do understand something about their online readers.
This “Single Page” button is in a box, with other “article tools” called “Print,” “Reprints,” and “Share.” The “sharing” features are somewhat limited but well-integrated. They do make it easy for some social networkers and bloggers to link to New York Times content.
FWIW, my perception of this grande dame of print publications is greatly influenced by my perception of the newspaper’s blog-friendliness.
Speaking of blog-friendly… The major news item making the New York Times Company seem even more sympathetic to bloggers is the fact that it has contributed to a round of funding which provided WordPress.com’s parent company Automattic with 29.5 M$.
Unsurprisingly, Automattic’s founder Matt Mullenweg blogged about the funding round. Candidly recounting the history of his company, Mullenweg whets our appetites for what may be coming next in WordPress and in other Automattic projects:
Automattic is now positioned to execute on our vision of a better web not just in blogging, but expanding our investment in anti-spam, identity, wikis, forums, and more — small, open source pieces, loosely joined with the same approach and philosophy that has brought us this far.
While some of these comments sound more like a generic mission statement than like a clear plan for online development, they may give us a glimpse of what will be happening at that company in the near future.
After all, chances are that integrating technologies will be one of the Next Big Things. In fact, some other people have seen the “social networking” potential of WordPress.com, though this potential is conceived through a perspective different from my original comments about WordPress.com’s network effect. Guess I’ll have to write a wishlist for WordPress.com features (including support for ubiquitous social networking, podcasting, and learning management).Still, what the funding announcement means to me has more to do with the integration of “Old Media” (print publications like The New York Times) and “New Media” (online services like WordPress and WordPress.com). As luck would have it, I’m not the only blogger who thinks about the positive effects this Old/New Media integration may have.
As an aside, to this Austinite and long-time sax player, Matt Mullenweg’s Texas and saxophone connections are particularly endearing. Good thing I’m not an investor because I would probably follow my gut feeling and invest in Automattic for such irrational reasons.
Ah, well…
Leave a comment | tags: Austin, Automattic, bloggers, Blogging, blogging platforms, convergence, David Pogue, Houston, integrating technologies, iTunes U, journalists, Matt Mullenweg, Mullenweg, new media, New York Times, next big things, Old Media, OpenSocial, podcasting, saxophone, technology integration, venture capital, Web 2.1, Web 3.0, WordPress, WordPress.com | posted in journalism, New York Times, ramblings, wishful thinking, wishlists, WordPress, WordPress.com
Social Beer
As a reply to Liz Losh’s generous blogpost on my passion for beer and coffee culture(s).
virtualpolitik: Strange Brew
My tone is clearly much less formal than Losh’s. Hope it still fits and doesn’t bring down the quality standards expected from her blog.
Quoth Losh’s post:
Doesn’t consigning brewing of coffee and beer in private homes eliminate third spaces for social interactions with a cross-section of people and opportunities for discussions and debates? Isn’t it like putting yourself in a cul-de-sac with a garage door facing the street in that you aren’t participating with neighborhood businesses? Enkerli strongly disagreed, since beer-making involves large quantities, parties, and collective beer making sessions. He thought that it was a powerfully social activity and one that was often situated in specific neighborhoods.
Probably overstated my disagreement about eliminating third spaces. Was mostly trying to describe what I had observed from the beer and coffee world(s). Basically, wanted to emphasise that making coffee or beer at home is just one of several activities done by members of those networks. And those activities often push people to go and consume beer or coffee outside the home.
Actually, discussing this is helpful to me because it reinforces the point that what I’m observing has more to do with “craft beer culture” (or “culinary coffee culture”) than with homebrewing (or making coffee at home).
Haven’t tried to find out whether or not homebrewing and home coffee making might prevent meaningful interactions between coffee/beer geeks and “the rest of the (local) community.” Really, that’s not my type of work. My impression is that those DIY activities might have those “decreased participation” effects in some contexts but such effects haven’t been apparent to me on any occasion during the last few years of observing and participating in beer and coffee geekery.
To be clearer, and specifically focusing on (beer) homebrewers. Making beer at home has become a fairly common activity in North America since the 1980s (when the legal status of homebrewing in the United States was finally cleared up). But my focus isn’t beer making as an activity. It’s a social network which revolves around “handcrafted” beer. This is one network I have been connecting with for several years, now. And, IMHO, it’s the core of the so-called “craft beer revolution.”
Many people brew beer at home for purely financial reasons. While these are technically “home brewers,” they are not taking part in the social and cultural dynamics that I aim to eventually describe academically. In fact, while those “thrifty brewers” are known to the “beergeek” crowd, they are considered as complete outsiders to the “craft beer revolution.” Typically, those who brew for financial reasons use cans of hopped malt extract and dextrose powder to make beer. On the homebrewing side of the craft beer movement, all-grain brewing (making beer from scratch, with the malted barley, hops, yeast, and water) is the normative method.
I guess we could use terms like “casual,” “dedicated,” “careless,” “serious,” “extract,” and “advanced” to make distinctions between those types of “homebrewers.” But we’re talking about such different worlds here that emphasising these distinctions seems irrelevant. So, when I talk about “homebrewers,” I almost always mean “serious, dedicated, advanced brewers who care more about beer quality than about costs.”
(It’s quite interesting that, in OZ, the term “homebrewer” refers to people who make beer at home to save money while “craftbrewer” refers specifically to people who brew beer for “serious” reasons.)
The homebrewers I tend to talk about aren’t casual brewers, they often spend rather large amounts of money on beer and brewing equipment, they frequently send their beers to large competitions, and typically belong to brewing associations (“brewclubs”). In the United States, many of them are card-carrying members of the American Homebrewers Association. AHA membership gives them access to a rather “serious” technical magazine on brewing techniques (Zymurgy) and discounts at local brewpubs all over the United States (and some parts of Canada).
The typical brewclub has monthly meetings as well as a number of beer-related events. In large urban areas, brewclubs can have a very elaborate structure, with annual fees, bulk purchasing accounts, etc.
The keen observer with an eye toward folklore might notice that these sound like the “quilting bees” which were served as a way for North American women to unite and eventually form “grassroots movements.” Given Losh’s political bent, I feel compelled to note this similarity, even though I care fairly little about political involvement on the part of homebrewers.
Interesting that Losh should say that I teach “folklore and ethnomusicology” at Concordia. While I do teach a course in the anthropology of music which is, in fact, labeled “ethnomusicology,” the courses I’ve been teaching at different institutions in the past five years were all in anthropology. However, I did serve as an associate instructor for a large course in folkloristics at Indiana University for three semesters during part of my Ph.D. coursework at that institution. And I do consider “folklore” to be among my fields of specialisation. Of course, Losh probably got her notion about my teaching from the fact that I’m finishing a Ph.D. at Indiana University’s Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. 😉
Some brewclubs also serve as “beer appreciation” groups, similar to wine-tasting (and emphasizing the fact that beer is chemically more complex than wine). While beer-tasting can be a solitary activity, sampling beer with fellow homebrewers (and beergeeks) is common practise for serious beer-lovers. Perhaps more importantly, homebrewers frequently use a set of guidelines while tasting beer. These guidelines, from the Beer Judge Certification Program, often serve as a shared knowledge base for “beer literacy.” The BJCP’s main purpose is to train judges for homebrewing competitions. When I eventually do publish some academic work on craft beer culture, I’ll need to have a rather large section on the BJCP, competitions, and so on. Among homebrewers, I’m known as a vocal opponent to the BJCP guidelines. I do recognise, however, that they serve important functions in the context. (I simply happen to think that there is more to beer than evaluating it through set standards and I see the effects of the BJCP guidelines as broadening the gap between actual beer appreciation and the general public.)
One thing which was already clear to me when I gave a talk on craft beer culture at an surprisingly pleasant food and culture conference, is that craft beer culture is geek culture. As geek ethnographer Jenny Cool was present during the conversation which triggered Losh’s reaction (Cool and Losh are friends), I actually wanted to steer the conversation toward the issue of geek sociability, using homebrewers as an example.
Homebrewing is social because geeking out is social
(To simplify things a whole lot, someone could say that “geeks” are something of the “somewhat sociable” equivalent of “nerds.” To caricature, the type of sociability involved is that of the stereotypical “basement hacker.” Some of “them” might in fact be antisocial human beings. But “they” become less unfriendly with like-minded people. Especially when “they” feel there is “smartness parity” in terms of intellectual prowess. Going on a limb, someone could say that what has been happening in the last thirty years, thanks to computer-mediated communication, is a steady increase in the opportunities for “basement hacker-type nerds” to interact with one another. These interactions might occasionally lead to meaningful social relationships. In the context of increased social capital given to computer-savvy people, geekness becomes almost cool and geeks are “more social” (according to a broader social group) than the “nerds” who had been stigmatised for so long.)
Homebrewing as an activity was facilitated by changes in its legal status (and by the alcohol regulations in general). Beer geekery is embedded in the increased prominence of online communication. Pre-Internet beer people were pretty much just “beer nerds.” Today’s beergeeks are almost all Internet-savvy and many beer-related activities happen through mailing-lists and websites. (Usenet newsgroups used to be fairly important but, since 1994 or so, mailing-lists and websites have pretty much taken over.)
As is the case with many other groups, online interactions give way to face-to-face interactions, friendships, and elaborate support systems. Meeting at brewpubs to sample beer and “talk shop,” beergeeks are bonding. And this type of bonding often creates strong… bonds. I personally have a large number of anecdotes which reveal the strength of the bonds among beergeeks. And, as a social scientist, I’m fascinated by the phenomenon.
Going back to Losh’s points(!), I might say that beergeeks are connecting more with broader social groups than the homebrewers she seems to have had in mind. Using the “think global, drink local” motto, beergeeks (including homebrewers) are situating themselves in complex social systems. They/we talk about important social and political issue.
And we do drink good beer.
Leave a comment | tags: alcohol regulations, American Homebrewers Association, antisocial, Australia, Basic Brewing Radio, beerosphere, BJCP, bloggers, blogging replies, brewpubs, casual brewers, Coffee, craft beer, Craft Beer Radio, craft beer revolution, craftbrewer, DIY, extract brewers, folklore, folkloristics, food and culture, geekery, geekness, glocalisation, glocalization, grassroots movement, handcrafted, homebrewers, homemade, informality, Jenny Cool, Jimmy Carter, Liz Losh, Montreal, neighborhoods, neighbors, neighbourhoods, neighbours, nerds, online communication, participatory culture, Post-Prohibition, quilting bees, sociability, thrifty brewers, Zymurgy | posted in Beer, beer geeks, brewclubs, geek crowd, geek culture, geekness, geeks, homebrewing
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2010 July Signature Music & Entertainment Memorabilia AuctionAuction #7020
Lucille Ball and Gary Morton Photo with President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan....
Lucille Ball and Gary Morton Photo with President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan. Attractive color photo of the Mortons and the Reagans -- President Reagan next to Lucy, Nancy Reagan next to Gary, and the First Lady of Comedy and First Lady of the United States next to each other. Photo, which appears to have been taken in the early 1980s, measures 5.5" x 7.5", and is matted into a 9.5" x 11.5" wooden frame. Excellent condition. This lot will be accompanied by a letter of provenance from Susie Morton as the widow of Gary Morton, Ms. Ball's second husband. The lot is not offered by the estate of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Requires third party shipping.
Just received the catalog. Incredible! Never seen such a catalog and have been collecting since 1974. Congratulations!
Philipp K.,
Marina Del Ray, CA
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Environment Arizona
• alerts on new threats to Arizona's environment
• opportunities to join other Arizonans on urgent actions
Bret Fanshaw,
U.S. House Approves Reckless Fracking Bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. – By a vote of 235-187, the U.S. House of Representatives today approved its latest giveaway to the oil and gas industry: a bill to boost ‘fracking,’ the dirty process of drilling that has contaminated water supplies from Pennsylvania to New Mexico and is making families near drilling sites sick from air pollution.
The bill, H.R. 2728, sponsored by Rep. Flores (R-TX), would roll back the federal government’s ability to protect federal lands and the communities that rely on them from fracking, deferring to a patchwork of state rules and guidelines no matter how weak or inadequate they may be.
The bill would also delay EPA’s congressionally mandated study on fracking’s impacts on groundwater, keeping important data about water contamination from families living near fracking sites.
Environment Arizona’s State Advocate, Bret Fanshaw, issued the following statement in response:
“Fracking is already wreaking havoc on our environment and health across the country. America’s public lands – including the White River National Forest in Colorado and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico - should be protected for all Americans to enjoy. However, this reckless bill puts our special places and the communities that rely on them for drinking water and recreation at risk from fracking.
“We are dismayed that Arizona’s U.S. Representatives Ann Kirkpatrick, Trent Franks, Paul Gosar, David Schweikert and Matt Salmon voted in favor of this reckless bill. The Obama administration has thankfully indicated opposition to the bill, and we urge our U.S. Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake to reject this and any other giveaways to the oil and gas industry. Congress should instead act to stop fracking and protect our public lands, water, and health.”
130 N. Central Ave., Ste. 202
Environment Arizona is part of The Public Interest Network, which operates and supports organizations committed to a shared vision of a better world and a strategic approach to getting things done.
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By constantly encouraging students to explore the questions raised in a text—instead of searching for its ‘messages’—we will help them learn to be sensitive, perceptive readers.
A great work of literature, as evocative as a tree or as the world itself, invites us to respond with our minds and our hearts, but it does not prescribe those responses. It invites us to explore, to reflect, to read and re-read. It does not say to us, ‘This is life’ or ‘This is the world’ or ‘This is what people are like’. Instead it shows us life, the world, and people, from a certain angle (or, more often, from a variety of angles) and asks: what do you think? what are you feeling now?
Unfortunately, many students learn in school that stories, plays, and poems are cryptic messages meant to be deciphered. As I wrote in one of my examiner’s reports* a while back,
Most students have been taught that literature is filled with hidden messages and meanings cleverly disguised with symbols, metaphors, and other ‘literary devices’. Their job is to decode the messages and file them under various standard headings such as ‘existentialist’, ‘nihilist’, and ‘archetypal’. Every realization is an ‘epiphany’; everyone who thinks is ‘Apollonian’; everyone who feels is ‘Dionysian’; every unusual event is an example of ‘Magical Realism’. One candidate actually made this theory of literary criticism the opening sentence of her essay: “It is important to understand the intentions of authors as most of the time they are trying to convey hidden messages.”
Not surprisingly under such circumstances, most students simply retail ideas that their teachers or other sources have fed them. When the same interpretation of a work is repeated by student after student, it’s clear that they are repeating what they have been taught.
In my own school days I learned to hate poetry because each poem was presented as a riddle to be solved. I remember wishing I could confront these poets in person. “Dammit,” I would say, “if you have something important to say, then why don’t you come right out and say it?! My teachers, evidently, were not particularly bad or out of the ordinary in this respect, as one can infer from Billy Collins’s wonderful “Introduction to Poetry”:
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.**
To be sure, it is perfectly possible to tell a story, or write a play or poem, with the intention of sending a message or making an argument. Most such works quickly fall by the wayside and are easily dismissed. Perhaps they have some historical significance, but they are not taken seriously as works of art.
Equally clear is the case that certain stories written for children and adolescents are written with the intention of teaching their readers to be kind to others, or to avoid illegal drugs and unwanted pregnancies. Again these are not serious works of art.
Some children’s stories, of course, do achieve a standard recognizable as art, and they illustrate my argument here quite well. What is the ‘message’, for instance, of A.A. Milne’s ‘Pooh’ stories, or of Arnold Lobel’s ‘Frog and Toad’ stories? Like all good stories, these tales for children create an imaginary world that raises questions: Who are we? Where are we? What are we doing here, and what should we be doing? These are the questions raised again and again by literature and by other forms of art. What distinguishes literature from propaganda or moralizing tales? For one thing, the questions remain open: it is up to the readers or audience to answer them.
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina makes an interesting example. From the epigraph alone (“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay”) one could infer what the historical record shows: Tolstoy began his tale with the moralistic idea of showing us that Anna was a sinful woman deservedly punished by God. But along the way, a funny thing happened: Tolstoy seems himself to have fallen in love with Anna, at least temporarily, and at least enough to bring his moral certitude into doubt. Indeed, his alter-ego protagonist, Levin, visits Anna when she and Vronsky are living at Vronsky’s country estate. Levin, prepared to meet an immoral woman, finds her delightful and charming. Only when he gets home to his wife is his newly-sympathetic view of Anna brought down to earth with a bump. Anna does suffer a famously terrible end, but as readers we are not at all certain that she deserves her fate. As critics have often remarked, Tolstoy the artist wins out over Tolstoy the Christian moralist. The story that Tolstoy apparently set out to write would perhaps have ‘sent a message’; but if it had finished up that way, it would not be regarded today as one of the greatest novels ever written. The novel does not leave us with a message; instead it leaves us pondering a multitude of questions.
I am not arguing, of course, that an author’s tone—his or her attitude toward characters and events—cannot be inferred. It’s clear that Tolstoy sympathizes more with certain characters than with others, but these sympathies and antipathies are not ‘messages’ that close off alternatives. On the contrary, when Tolstoy treats Oblonsky with comical delight, we wonder: why he should remain beloved by all—including the author—when his sister Anna (who is guilty of the same ‘sin’) becomes a pariah doomed to a tragic death?
Shakespeare remains the supreme example in our literature of an author who does not send messages. His plays are filled with ideas, with characters and events that raise questions, but at no time can we imagine Shakespeare sitting down to write, thinking, “Ah, now I will write a play with the message, ‘if you need to take revenge, act quickly!’ “
The search for messages in literature usually includes the notion that the author intended to send those messages, and that we can figure out the author’s intentions. Literary criticism has demolished this idea over the past century, and yet it persists. But why? It seems to be part of the moralistic theory of literature, going back to the Middle Ages, in which art is supposed to improve or uplift society. A story in which evil triumphs would corrupt the morals of the people. Therefore authors, by this account, should tell tales in which good is rewarded and evil punished. Clearly the morally uplifting message lies at the heart of such stories, and the intention of the author is to send that message. That this theory of literature persists can be seen in the familiar attempts to ban a book from the school curriculum or library.
But the search for the author’s intention is even more elusive and pointless than the search for the story’s message. Even if the author were present, and we could ask her—”What was your intention in writing this story?”—we still would not know. Perhaps the author would lie to us, or would just make something up, not knowing herself what her intention was; or would tell us, “I had no intention; I just wrote the story”. Or what if, like Tolstoy, she began with an intention that the story does not fulfill, or only partially fulfills? Let’s take Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant of Venice’, for example. What if Shakespeare were here to answer: “Did you intend for us to sympathize with Shylock or despise him?” Would the answer, whatever it might be, help us to read, view, and respond to the play? No. Whatever Shakespeare intended or did not intend, we have to make up our own minds.
We have to read the text, think about it, discuss it, and make up our own minds. There is no ‘right answer’. Adolescents, however, tend to think very concretely: they want right answers. Years ago I used to teach Dante’s Inferno and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales back-to-back, and almost universally the students loved Dante and hated Chaucer. Why? In Dante ‘bad guys’ are punished in ways that are not only vivid and ghastly, but just. In Chaucer, on the other hand, we don’t know where we are morally. Everything is deeply ironic. The goodness of the good guys is doubtful; the bad guys seem to be both admired and worthy of forgiveness. Chaucer, in other words, is much more like the real world.
Because adolescents tend to think in concrete, black-and-white terms, it’s even more important for us to avoid binary, reductive discussions of literature. We need to expand their comfort zones, help them relax with the idea that there is no ‘answer’ in literature, and give them the analytical tools to observe the details of a text, see how they form patterns, and explore the possibilities that they offer.
*As an examiner for the International Baccalaureate Organization, I mark World Literature essays for English A1.
**http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html
Author EricPosted on April 26, 2010 April 27, 2010 Categories Teaching
10 thoughts on “Sending the Right Message About Literature”
Andreas Kalt says:
Well said! Thanks for this – I have been trying to work my own way out of the “narrow approach” to reading literature ever since I’ve finished school. And your approach is exactly the one I’m trying to take when reading literature with my own students now.
I’m forwarded your text to my colleagues – hoping for a lively discussion. Again, thank you for writing it.
Thanks, Andreas. Perhaps with the help of the new viral communication technologies we can get the word out on this and actually make a difference. It breaks my heart to see students lose marks on their World Lit essays because they have been steered in the wrong direction by their teachers.
Awesome read! Agree wholeheartedly!
Tilo Vieser says:
My impression is that “modern” teachers do not teach the “narrow approach”, but that – I can only talk for Germany of course – nowadays we aim at making sure that literature is not interpreted in one but in multiple ways.
Yet, I have often experienced that students are confused by multiple interpretations of the same text. What I am aiming at as a teacher is that students learn to appreciate the diversity of understanding texts, in contrast to seeing the different interpretations as rivals. For me it is important to point out that multiple interpretations go hand in hand and complement each other.
However, I do not object to teaching students how to analyze literary texts and deal with literary categories and devices. I still see them as keys to understanding how literature works. And I often engage in discussions with my students on the question of why it makes sense to approach literature not only with the heart but also with the mind – of course we never analyze for the sake of analysis, but always have a look at the question where content and form build a unit and enhance each other. These discussions can lead to a deeper appreciation of literary works in students, since they often regard especially poetry as products of chance rather than attempts to express highly complex thoughts and emotions in a very condense form (btw. a “poem” is called “Gedicht” in German – with “dicht” meaning as much “dense”).
They often ask: “How do we know what the author wanted to express?” And the only relevant answer should be: “That doesn’t matter. You are the reader, you understand the text the way you understand it, you construct the meaning, and this is as close as you can get to the ‘author’s intention'”.
Nevertheless I dissent with you on the point that literature that contains a moral, social or whatever message can’t be ageless and thus cannot be called great works of art. I would like to name a few: George Orwell – 1984, the Bible, Lessing – Nathan the Wise. Still, I agree with you that reading those works only as bearers of messages is not doing them justice, nor can we assume that the message we read into it equals the author’s intention. The interesting question that can be directed at literary texts is what meaning it can take on in different situations, at different times.
Thanks for starting the discussion.
Hi Tilo! I think we agree about everything. 🙂
And although I knew that ‘poem’ in German is ‘Gedicht’, I didn’t know that ‘Gedicht’ means ‘dense’; or could we say ‘compressed’? It reminds me of a remark by Ezra Pound: “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.”
Thanks for your thoughts.
you are perfectly right “compressed” also works, I had the feeling that “dense” sounds more natural, while “compressed” sounds technical to me, so I opted for “dense” in this context. But you are the native speaker …
I very much like the Ezra Pound quote, this is exactly the way I have always felt about literature.
Meera Sampath says:
That’s a very interesting and thought provoking write up. It reminds me of a quote which I repeat to my students: Literature travels, not carrying its meaning but in search of it.
Julien Seraphine says:
Hemingway’s comment that “when I want to send a message, I go to the post office” speaks in support of your view. To see the consequences of crafting a novel around a message one need only read a book of Ayn Rand. Michaux summarizes well the danger: “Poetry is a present from Nature, a grace —not a work. The mere ambition to write a poem kills it… Purposefulness is the death of art.” True, I’d say, of more than just poetry.
Your post is good, though I was surprised to find amidst such a clear-sighted criticism of frivolous modern trends your use of the female pronoun en lieu of the standard masculine. I must admit, I don’t see the advantage. To suddenly inject “her” into a paragraph that has used Tolstoy as its example satisfies the modern obsession with equality, but only at the cost of clarity. The “his or her” usage a few paragraphs earlier is even worse. Such an ugly, cumbrous, fumbling formulation. Concision is the writer’s virtue!
Now I see that the first link under your Recommendations section is Strunk’s Elements of Style. Excellent! But then what explains this “his or her” business?!
Hi Julien,
Thanks for your careful, attentive, and appreciative comments!
The grammatical morass of personal pronouns in English has only grown worse in the six or seven years since I wrote this post. “His or her” is, as you suggest, clunky and ugly. I usually advise my students to write around such problems by using plural nouns and “they”; sometimes, however, this isn’t possible. As for using “she” or “her” instead of “he” or “him,” I did do this for a while as a way of alerting readers to the inherent bias of using male pronouns to refer to everyone. So it was a deliberate deviation from standard usage. Logically, of course, it is no worse than the standard usage.
Now, in the age of gender-as-a-spectrum, we are faced with mainstream publications announcing that they will use “they” as a singular, gender-free pronoun. To which I can only say, paraphrasing Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and they are us.”
With my best wishes,
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Potassium cyanide
additional toxicological information
migrated information: read-across based on grouping of substances (category approach)
other: see 'Remark'
Experimental data was reviewed by the ECETOC Task Force, author of the JACC Report No. 53, “Cyanides of Hydrogen, Sodium and Potassium, and Acetone Cyanohydrin (CAS No. 74-90-8, 143-33-9, 151-50-8 and 75-86-5)”, 2007. The report is a weight of evidence approach to an extensive body of literature, much of which was undertaken prior to development of guidelines. The report was peer reviewed by the scientific non-governmental organization (NGO), which judged the data to be reliable with restrictions.
review article or handbook
Potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide can be considered as a chemical category, along with hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and acetone cyanohydrin (ACH, also known as 2-hydroxy-2-methylpropanenitrile), based on structural similarity, similar physico-chemical properties and common breakdown/metabolic products in physical and biological systems. Particular attention is paid to the dissociation constant of HCN. In the vast majority of physiologic conditions, the cyanide salts will dissolve in water to form hydrogen cyanide. The physico-chemical hazards and toxicity result from the activity of this common proximal toxicant, HCN.An ECETOC Task Force, in the 2007 ECETOC Joint Assessment of Commodity Chemicals ( JACC ) Report No. 53, “Cyanides of Hydrogen, Sodium and Potassium, and Acetone Cyanohydrin (CAS No. 74-90-8, 143-33-9, 151-50-8 and 75-86-5)” supports the development of this chemical category. Hydrogen cyanide (Index No.006-006-00-X) and salts of hydrogen cyanides (Index No.006-007-00-5) are both listed in Annex VI,Table 3.1 of Regulation (EC) No. 1272/2008, entry 006-007-00-5, and are restricted in comparable ways taking into account physical characteristics. Thus, the assignment of potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide to a chemical category does not result in a less protective regulatory status.
Cyanide poisoning is caused by complex formation with the iron in cytochrome oxidase which is
present in tissues at cellular level. The complex formation inhibits oxygen from receiving electrons from the cytochrome oxidase and a so-called intracellular or cytotoxic anoxia occurs, i.e. oxygen is present but cannot be utilised by the cell. Because neurons and cardiac myocytes are highly dependent on aerobic metabolism they are extremely sensitive to the deprivation of oxygen. If aerobic metabolism fails due to the inactivated cytochrome oxidase by cyanide, the neuron immediately loses its capacity to conduct nervous pulses properly and the brain fails to function with consequent loss of consciousness. If this stage continues for some minutes, the damage becomes irreversible and the neurons die. For these reasons, prolonged hypoxia, regardless of its cause, often results in injury to the brain. Toxicants that inhibit aerobic cell respiration like HCN and hydrogen sulphide have the same effect (Anthony and Graham, 1991).
Molecular mechanism of action: Hypoxic anoxia
Over the last 6 decades, a number of authors have worked on the identification of the molecular
mode of action of cyanide poisoning. In this evaluation emphasis is placed on the more recent work, in particular of the group of Isom (Isom et al, 1975, 1982) on the molecular basis of sublethal cyanide intoxication that has been conducted using model cell cultures of neuronal cells (e.g. undifferentiated or differentiated rat phaeochromocytome PC12 cells, cerebellar granular cells), rodent brain slices and in vivo experiments.
The role of cytochrome oxidase inhibition and depletion of ATP energy equivalents has been
identified relatively early (Albaum et al, 1946; Johnson et al, 1987a). Brain and liver are the main
target organs for cytochrome c inhibition and ATP depletion (Isom et al, 1982). This leads to an
inhibition of oxidative glucose metabolism in favour of anaerobic pathways, such as the pentosephosphate shunt and non-enzymatic pyruvate formation, and results in an increased formation of NADPH and lactate (Figure 26) (Isom et al, 1975).
At the cellular level, ATP depletion leads to an inhibition of Ca2+ and Ca2+/Mg2+ dependent K-Na-ATPases that regulate, inter alia, cytosolic levels of calcium ions. A dose-dependent increase in cytosolic calcium levels occurs with a certain time delay indicating a metabolic process rather than a direct interaction with ion channels. Most of the effects that follow can, at least partially, be suppressed by calcium antagonists.
More recent studies have shown that cyanide may increase intracellular calcium levels by two
additional mechanisms. Initially, intracellular calcium may be mobilised by a reaction activated
by phospholipase C, leading to formation of polyphosphoinosite hydrolysis and inositol triphosphate (IP3). Low levels of cyanide very rapidly resulted in elevated IP3 levels in a cell culture system. IP3 is known to mobilise Ca2+ from intracellular storage compartments (Yang et al, 1996). A delayed calcium influx might be mediated by the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor channel. Initial mobilisation of intracellular calcium in brain cells leads to an increased release of glutamic acid, an excitatory central neurotransmitter. Increased calcium influx through glutamate gated NMDA-receptor channels leads to a prolonged release of glutamic acid. High concentrations of glutamic acid can, in turn, induce neuronal degeneration due to excessive calcium influx. NMDA-mediated calcium influx is also triggered via IP3 and a receptor-mediated phospholipase C (Patel et al, 1991; Yang et al, 1996). Increase of cytosolic calcium triggers a number of other processes that have been observed
following cyanide exposure.
1. Formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and NO is mediated by an activation of phosphokinase C (PKC). PKC activates phospholipase A2 (PLA2) and NO synthetase. The latter leads to an increased NO formation. PLA2 activates the arachidonic acid cascade and both cyclo-oxygenase (in particular cyclo-oxygenase-2) and lipoxygenase are activated, leading to increased levels of ROS (Gunasekar et al, 1998) in the endoplasmic reticulum (Kanthasamy et al, 1997). The elevated ROS and NO levels can explain the increased lipid peroxidation that was observed by several authors following cyanide treatment (Johnson et al, 1987a; Ardelt et al, 1989, 1994) in particular in the endoplasmic reticulum membranes (Ardelt et al, 1994). The elevated ROS and NO levels also underlie formation of Malone dialdehyde resulting in cytotoxicity and apoptotic cell death (Mills et al, 1996).
2. Differentiated neuronal cells have been demonstrated to be more sensitive to ROS-induced apoptotic cell death following cyanide exposure than undifferentiated neuronal cells (Mills et al, 1996).
3. Cyanide-mediated elevated intracellular calcium levels lead to an activation of brain xanthine oxidase, thereby inducing an inhibition of antioxidative enzymes such as catalase, GSH dependent peroxidase and GSH reductase, and consequently depletion of reduced glutathione (GSH) (Ardelt et al, 1989). This implies that the cells’ ability to neutralise increased levels of ROS is also impaired adding to the effect of lipid peroxidation as described under 1.
4. Elevated intracellular calcium levels also cause the increased release of excitatory neurotransmitters like dopamine and noradrenaline from granular stores within neuronal cells in brain and periphery (Kanthasamy et al, 1991a). Adrenal catecholamine secretion may also be enhanced as a secondary effect (Borowitz et al, 1988). This contributes to an increased energy demand of the organism that aggravates the consequences of cyanide-induced ATP reduction and leads to a spread of the cytotoxic effect to other energy demanding organs, such as the heart which are less sensitive to the primary effect of cyanides.
Thiocyanate mediated
The secondary mechanism of action relevant to repeated exposure to cyanide is formation of the primary metabolite thiocyanate. The main target for thiocyanate is the thyroid gland. Thiocyanate is a competitive inhibitor of the iodine uptake by the thyroid, causing depletion of iodine in the thyroid depending on the ratio of thiocyanate and iodine levels in blood. Reduced intra-thyroidal iodine levels result in reduced thyroid hormone synthesis, excretion and blood levels, in particular tri-iodothyronin (T3) and serum thyroxin (T4). The lower T3 and T4 levels, in turn, up-regulate the hypothalamus, increasing secretion of thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH). This leads to an increased secretion of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) by the pituitary and an increase in hormone producing cells of the thyroid that may result in hyperthyroidism (goitre) formation.
Hydrogen cyanide (Index No.006-006-00-X) and salts of hydrogen cyanides (Index No.006-007-00-5) are both listed in Annex VI, Table 3.1 of Regulation (EC) No. 1272/2008, entry 006-007-00-5, and are restricted in comparable ways taking into account physical characteristics. Thus, the assignment of potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide to a chemical category does not result in a less protective regulatory status.
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Maine4[remove]
State Senate4[remove]
State4
Election Type
Special4[remove]
in All Fields Candidate
You searched for: Election Type Special Remove constraint Election Type: Special Office State Senate Remove constraint Office: State Senate State Maine Remove constraint State: Maine
1. Maine 1820 State Senate, Kennebec County, Special
2. Maine 1824 State Senate, Cumberland County, Special
3. Maine 1824 State Senate, Lincoln County, Special
4. Maine 1824 State Senate, Somerset County, Special
Written by Joshua M. Smith
U.S. Merchant Marine Academy
The pursuit of statehood dominated Maine politics between 1787 and 1820, when it finally achieved statehood separate from Massachusetts. Until 1820, the District of Maine simply comprised the eastern counties of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and thus shared all its political characteristics (see Massachusetts entry). There were significant efforts at statehood in 1788–1789, 1792, 1803, 1816, but the district's populous coastal communities proved unwilling to sever their connections with the Commonwealth.
After 1803 the statehood issue increasingly became identified with Jeffersonianism. Backcountry residents became increasingly restive, in no small part because of antipathy to absentee proprietors who owned vast swathes of Maine's undeveloped hinterland. The situation remained volatile until the issue became politicized by Jeffersonian leaders who saw a chance to land a major blow against the Boston-based Federalist elite. The dominant figure in the struggle for statehood was William King, a wealthy merchant who based his political career on the grievances of squatters and religious dissenters such as himself. In a timely defection, in 1803 he became a Republican, portending the district's conversion; in 1805 the District of Maine voted for a Jeffersonian gubernatorial candidate, and a majority of its voters never supported Federalism thereafter.
The War of 1812 proved a catalyst for statehood. Militarily abandoned by Massachusetts, Mainers increasingly realized that only statehood would endow them with a political voice. Yet an 1816 statehood effort failed. Stung by the defeat, King realized that Maine's coastal communities would not break with old Massachusetts as a consequence of a peculiarity in federal navigation laws. Utilizing his political connections in Washington, King helped refashion national maritime policies in such a way that separation did not threaten the shipping trades so essential to Maine's coastal communities. With this obstacle removed, in July 1819 an election based on separation passed in all nine Maine counties; by October, representatives held a constitutional convention.
Maine's constitution departed significantly from that of Massachusetts and can be seen as a triumph of Jeffersonian principles. It guaranteed freedom of both speech and press; absolute freedom of religion; and universal male suffrage for those over twenty-one, with no property qualifications whatever and no racial restrictions. Maine's legislature was bicameral, featuring a House of Representatives and a Senate, with November elections every two years for both houses. Unlike Massachusetts, which, to ensure the dominance of Suffolk County, based the number of senators on each county’s wealth, Maine apportioned senators on the basis of population.
The new state's executive powers were somewhat altered from those of old Massachusetts, which arguably had the strongest governorship in the nation, but they nonetheless remained strong. Governors were not required to be Christians, and they served a four-year term. There was no lieutenant governor; the president of the Senate was designated the successor to any governor incapacitated. The combined Senate and House elected a seven-member council to assist the governor.
Congress approved Maine's statehood in 1820 as part of the "Missouri Compromise." Given his prominence in the statehood movement, it is appropriate that King became Maine's first governor.
Banks, Ronald F. Maine Becomes a State: The Movement to Separate Maine from Massachusetts, 1785–1820. Middletown, CT: Published for the Maine Historical Society by Wesleyan University Press, 1970.
Formisano, Ronald P. The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s–1840s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Goodman, Paul. The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts; Politics in a Young Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Leamon, James S. Revolution Downeast: The War for American Independence in Maine. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993.
Marini, Stephen A. Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Taylor, Alan. Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760–1820. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia.
Williamson, William D. The History of the State of Maine: From Its First Discovery, A.D. 1602, to the Separation, A.D. 1820, Inclusive. Hallowell, ME: Glazier, Masters and Co., 1832.
The upper house of the State Legislature. Until 1792, the upper house in Delaware was the Council. Until 1819, the upper house in Connecticut was the Council of Assistants. By 1825, all of the states had an upper house called the State Senate except New Jersey, whose upper house was the Legislative Council and Vermont, which had a unicameral legislature.
1787 - 1825: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia
Office Scope: State
Role Scope: State (Connecticut) / County / District / City / Parish
American Antiquarian Society Digital Collections and Archives at Tufts University Terms and Conditions
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While many see Southampton as a university town or a gateway to the Isle of Wight, this Hampshire hub is also a destination in its own right. It's seen plenty of maritime action over the years, including the departure of the ill-fated Titanic, whose tragic story is recounted at the SeaCity Museum.
There's more, though. At the Southampton City Art Gallery, you can browse its impressive collection of modern British works. Or, you can get up close to vintage Spitfires at the Solent Sky Museum. After an afternoon of sightseeing, you can dive into one of the airy restaurants for a bite to eat or catch one of the city's shows.
Southampton – hetkel kuum
10 Best Things to Do in Southampton
Southampton is a lively, modern city with a strong connection to the sea. It’s been a major seaport for the UK for centuries and is still known as the cruise ship capital of Europe. Away from the quays, it has plenty of places to shop, eat, and party, as well as a fascinating history to explore. There are even quite a few parks where you can relax and get a breath of fresh air.
The best of what Southampton has to offer is clustered around the cruise terminals and quays, where the Itchen and Test rivers meet. It may be the oldest part of the city, dating back to around the Norman Conquest of 1066, but it remains the most exciting. We’ve picked out some of the highlights to help direct your exploration, so you can make the most of your time here.
What are the best things to do in Southampton?
Browse Southampton by category
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The 61st Rationalization, #52 Tessio’s Excuse (“It’s Just Business”)
October 15, 2015 / Jack Marshall
I realized, in reading the rationalizations being given by defenders of the decision of the New Jersey aunt of recent controversy to sue her young nephew for accidentally injuring her wrist when the boy was eight all boil down to a familiar rationalization repeated often in a classic film and its sequel. Somehow that rationalization missed inclusion on the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations list. (There are 60 rationalizations now, with some labeled as sub-categories.) After today, that will no longer be the case. Presenting…
#52 Tessio’s Excuse, or “It’s Just Business”
Near the end of “The Godfather,” longtime Don Corleone loyalist Sal Tessio (played by the immortal Abe Vigoda) is caught attempting to ally with a rival family in an attempt to kill the new Don, Michael Corleone. As he is taken to the car for his final ride, Tessio turns to consiglieri Tom Hagen and says…
“Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.”
Ah. It wasn’t personal, you see, this attempted assassination. That makes it all right.
It is true that in leadership positions, duties to stakeholders may require ugly trade-offs and collateral harm to innocent people, but rationalization #52 makes such decisions too easy—they should be hard—by pretending that caring isn’t a core ethical value. If Winston Churchill, allowing Coventry to be firebombed in WWII in order to protect that secret that the Allies had broken the Enigma Code, had later explained that “it wasn’t personal,” the comment would have been viewed as callous, and rightly so. When the lives, fates and welfare of human beings are judged not sufficiently important to choose not to harm them, not a high enough priority to choose them over “business,” then that is a “personal’ decision, in part. The decision-maker didn’t care enough about the people to choose another course.
In Tessio’s case, he chose to betray an ally, friend and leader for his own benefit. Such conduct has to be personal. The assertion that only the abstract, not the personal, is a consideration is sociopathic. He knows that a person will be killed, that his loved ones will be hurt. waving aside these relevant factors in the ethical balancing process will lead inevitably to a pure “ends justify the means” philosophy: money means more than human beings, success means more than human beings, advancement means more than human beings. For the human beings sacrificed, the message is that the impersonal actor doesn’t give a damn.
The excuse is usually a valid one when professionals behave professionally. A lawyer is bound to seek her clients’ legal objectives, and is required not to have any regard for the opposing party’s needs and interests at all. It really isn’t personal. Nor is a general who must kill civilians to defend a city acting out of personal animus. If a CEO or manager is ethical, he or she will fire a best friend from the staff in a budget squeeze if the friend is the least profitable staffer. When the harm done is voluntary and unethical, however, and not dictated by a prior duty or legitimate orders, it may breach both the ethical principles of reciprocity and the categorical imperative. When people are harmed, they really don’t care whether the motive was personal dislike or lack of caring, so why assume that the “it was just business” makes the damaging conduct feel better? Meanwhile, saying that you harmed another person to accomplish a personal or professional objective is an admission that one has used a human being to accomplish an end without the individual’s consent.
There is an ethical obligation for all of us to balance the harm our conduct does to other human beings with that conduct’s other benefits. Tessio’s Excuse isn’t a justification. It’s a confession.
Arts & Entertainment, Business & Commercial, Character, Religion and Philosophy
"The Godfather", caring, categorical imperative, collateral damage, Golden Rule, Kantian ethics, rationalizations, sociopaths, Tessio's excuse
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39 thoughts on “The 61st Rationalization, #52 Tessio’s Excuse (“It’s Just Business”)”
Cousin to the Saint’s Excuse (13)
Distant Cousin of Ethical Vigilantism (17), I Had no Choice (25), and The Revolutionary’s Excuse (28)
Also, in this instance, the Aunt is abusing the hell out of #36 Victim Blindness & #42 If They Don’t Care, Why Should Anyone Else
Maybe second cousin? The key word in 13 is Saint, being on the side of the Angels. Both do invoke “the ends justify the means.”
I had assumed it was already in the list. I think a very good case can be made for “The Godfather” being the Great American Novel.
A modest proposal: Lawyers stop using the term “legal ethics.” Legal ethics are simply practice rules for lawyers. Calling these rules (they’re called E.R.s for a reason) is misleading. Calling these rules “ethical” lends them a confusing veneer of nobility and importance they don’t deserve. Making this distinction has certainly cleared up the confusion in my mind.
Ugh. Just wrong, BIll. What defines a profession is a different priority of values. “Do not interfere” is the top value for starship captains, not police officers. “First do no harm” is an impossible value for lawyers, as I explained in a post. Since clients must trust lawyers to keep their confidences or they can’t get the assistant they need, keeping confidences is a core ethical value, far different from all put a few other professions. The ethics rules are not really rules. They define the legal culture’s values as they have evolved over century.
To me, the word “ethics” has an aspirational component which I find entirely lacking in legal ethics. They’re just practice guidelines anaolgous to rules of the road and would be better denominated as such.
You need to read the rules, and the introduction that places them in context. Here—http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/model_rules_of_professional_conduct_table_of_contents.html
P.M.Lawrence
Tessio turns to consiglieri Tom Hagen and says… “Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.” Ah. It wasn’t personal, you see, this attempted assassination. That makes it all right.
I believe this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what that was about. First, recall how often people in the west – in this context, in the U.S.A. – ask “why do they hate us?” when they hear of violence directed towards them, unthinkingly supposing that nobody could hurt unless they hated. But that only applies to people who have internalised a certain ethos that humanises the other. That is rare in other cultures and even in some of our own subcultures, e.g. the “knockout game” isn’t motivated by hatred but by a sense of fun untempered by any sense of connection. (Even where there is such a sense of connection, as far back as Roman times the ancients had noticed that hatred often arose against those who had already been hurt, to excuse the hurt among those who otherwise would not hurt, rather than already being in place as a motive for hurting.) The important thing to realise is that demonising the other in order to be easy when attacking him is only necessary when he has previously been humanised, and that that humanising rather than the demonising is in fact the artificial thing that does not ordinarily arise within most cultures. I could cite examples from Ireland during the Troubles nearly a century ago, like the late Earl of Arran’s story of the young lady whose turn it was to drive, but I fear that I would only have to drive the moral of those home too, explaining the explanation too as it were.
So, no, that message quoted – as used in that film – is not a justification or rationalisation at all, just a reminder from one member of a subculture to another of the nature of the kind of world in which they lived and moved and had their being. He – as shown in that film – just wanted not to be misunderstood. The takeaway for the audience should be not a justification but the amorality of it all, the coldness of the banality of evil: not malice but casual and brutal indifference.
In Tessio’s case, he chose to betray an ally, friend and leader for his own benefit. Such conduct has to be personal.
Well, no. That’s the point: that the personal no more exists genuinely in that sphere than it did as between Wormwood and Screwtape in C.S.Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, as brought at the end of that book. There is no “waving aside these relevant factors [that a person will be killed, that his loved ones will be hurt]”, rather those factors never were in play to be waved aside.
Tessio’s Excuse isn’t a justification. It’s a confession.
Well, yes. Did the book or the film ever represnt it as anything else, or is that just you reading into the text a person of similar fundamental values to yours, i.e. someone agreeing with your premises but with a poorer commitment to their outworkings? There is a difference in premises.
In all this, I am analysing the fictitious Tessio, not the aunt who triggered the essay. I have not enough to hand to make her out.
You’ve actually done a really good job explaining exactly why this IS a rationalization, while invoking a few of your own. Though emotion is often found in hate, it is not a required component. If you “like” someone, but you “like” something enough to harm the person for it, the phrase “I like you”, is, quite simply a lie, self-delusion, or the liking of some aspect of the person, while hating the rest.
In the end, it is elevating a non-ethical consideration, in Tessio’s case, it elevates his stature in the crime world while further securing his hold over his territory above his supposed “liking” of his friend. His phrase boils down to, “this conduct is excused, because I don’t really wish harm to this person, it’s just necessary to advance my cause”. And that’s a rationalization.
Your concluding paragraphs also allude to further rationalizations.
Boils down to “I didn’t know the rules, so they don’t apply to me” or “I didn’t agree to the rules, so they don’t apply to me”. Which is further rationalization.
To be clear, C.S.Lewis’ discussion applies GREAT to spiritual matters as it relates to the Doctrine of Original Sin and Total Depravity: that is to say mankind CANNOT do *real* good, because we’ve completely lost the ability to do so, all our actions ultimately derive from some aspect of selfishness because *true* personal motivations deriving entirely from complete communion with God are BROKEN by the Fall.
But, when applied to actually judging man’s behavior in man-made systems that *we must have*, it ultimately becomes a rationalization. It says “This bad I do isn’t my fault, it’s because I don’t even possess the requisite motivation & attitude to do it’s opposite good”. Unfortunately, though that be the case, that Spiritually we can’t, Physically, we must try, and the lack of trying is an ethical failure in itself.
His phrase boils down to, “this conduct is excused, because I don’t really wish harm to this person, it’s just necessary to advance my cause”. And that’s a rationalization.
Sigh (again).
Readers, although “this conduct is excused, because I don’t really wish harm to this person, it’s just necessary to advance my cause” is indeed a rationalisation, that’s NOT what he said. It’s what Texagg04 wilfully, recklessly or negligently substituted, inserting his own set of tools for grasping the universe – despite all the effort I went to to point out that something else was going on.
The same applies to the following misrepresentation:-
No, it does not boil down to that, even though it would if it proceeded from a moral being acting immorally. That’s why I used the example of Wormwood and Screwtape, to show or remind readers of how these issues look from a perpective that does not build in norms often found in modern western civilisation. Texagg04 has just ferried in his own viewpoint and is charging me with not putting my money where his mouth is.
I didn’t expect you to fall back on Moral Relativism, had I anticipated such, then I would have argued against that from the get go. I made the presumption, that based on your apparent affinity to C.S. Lewis, you would also be familiar with the arguments made in earliest chapters of Mere Christianity, in which he demonstrates there must be an OBJECTIVE Right or an Objective Morality, or for our cases here, an Objective Ethic, by which ALL others can be judged.
In short, moral relativism (a topic Jack has discussed in depth on this forum) doesn’t justify the conduct in the Godfather either.
Take your analysis one step further back (where I’ve been the entire time), and your argument again becomes (for the third time) one that states “I didn’t agree-to/know the rules, so they don’t apply to me”. I know you think that sounds facile, but your dismission doesn’t help you out — it really is what your argument boils down to.
Repeating “well other cultures think differently and have a different set of values than you” doesn’t undermine me one iota, either their arrangement of values cleaves more closely to the Objective or mine does…they aren’t equal. Though you’ll make the same relativistic attack on me, I will state that it is safe to assume that the Ethic that excuses the murder of another human to advance himself within his culture is probably further from the Objective than the Ethic that says such is wrong.
Now, before you go back to repeating debunked arguments, since you seem keen on spiritual arguments, though they aren’t necessary for this discussion, consider Romans 1:19-20.
Fascinating. But also making the rationalization about The Godfather, which it isn’t. As in other rationalizations on the list, the source of the title is a recognizable hook to hang the description on, and shouldn’t be regarded as much more than that. The Godfather is about a specific subculture, and Tessio’s conduct makes ethical sense within that culture’s warped sensibilities. That’s a running technique in film and book: the characters repeat that line, and the audience is repelled by it. The point of rationalization articulation is to help people realize when they are think that way—in this case, like a mobster.
You’re making the same mistake as Texagg04, only more politely. Yes, the film (and book) is using a tension between two different perspectives, the typical viewer/reader and the character as portrayed, and yes from the viewer’s perspective it looks like a rationalisation when he projects some of himself on the character – but the character as such isn’t bringing that to the party. As someone once said to a worried mother of an autistic child in whom she kept reading certain things, “there’s no ‘there’ there”. So – within the character – it isn’t a rationalisation, what you see is what you get (just there, in the face of death).
I once read one of Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula pastiche/hommages in which the protagonist is working as an assassin for Cesare Borgia, only to turn against him when asked to steal – something which strikes the (anti)hero as thoroughly dishonourable. It was only a few pages later that it occurred to me that Saberhagen had meant that to jar modern readers with cognitive dissonance, but it had simply not had that effect on me because of certain curiosities of my personal experience, family background, and broader education; it actually seemed very reasonable to me. So I don’t come to this with the usual prejudices but with different ones. If I exist – and I can assure you my position isn’t one that I worked myself into but which I work to manage in a different world – yet more remote positions become much more plausible.
Oh, and since I don’t come from the usual norms, the book/film’s tensions don’t move me to the usual synthesis of viewer/reader and character.
And you’re repeating the same mistake you’ve yet again, only more verbosely.
Now point out how I’ve been less polite or retract the statement.
Very interesting analysis. A similar take on this was from Hyman Roth:
That kid’s name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn’t even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn’t angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we’ve chosen; I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!
So, Roth accepts Tessio’s excuse.
“So, no, that message quoted – as used in that film – is not a justification or rationalisation at all, just a reminder from one member of a subculture to another of the nature of the kind of world in which they lived and moved and had their being.”
I don’t see any reason why the line can’t be all three. It’s good fiction writing.
P.M. doesn’t realize just how well he showed this to be a rationalization while claiming it isn’t one.
Texagg04 doesn’t realise how deeply he is begging the question, building in his own assumptions about moral beings when considering amorality. An amoral person isn’t rationalising his amorality at all, even when he is making the same statements about his actions, and the actions are the same, as a moral being – and even though those same statements, from the moral being acting immorally, would indeed be rationalisations.
The very conclusion that all that is rationalisation is building in the wrong premise, that a moral being acting immorally is under consideration.
So you reiterate an “I didn’t know the rules so my conduct is ok” rationalization
Ah… pigeon chess strikes again. I would call you a liar if I thought you knew what you were talking about and so knew it was false.
Readers, look at what I wrote and at what he wrote, and you will see that he is claiming I “reiterated” something that I not only never wrote even once but also specifically denied either writing or implying.
Dismissive attitudes and snark don’t help you. I’ve demonstrated your errors, you’ve doubled down on them via Moral Relativism. You’re wrong.
Don Quixote was pretty much misunderstood as well, I suppose.
I think one of Puzo’s main points was that the Mafia guys actually have a very strict code of conduct. I think the goodfellas consider themselves extremely moral. Better than the Irish cops, certainly (to use a rationalization).
And of course it’s a rationalization. Does anyone think Tessio actually believed it as he was saying it? Look at Vigoda’s face. He’s a dead man walking and knows it.
Of course he (the character) believed it. Are you under the impression that his knowledge of his fate had anything to do with what he was going to say, to make him say something to excuse himself? If anything, the whole idea of a dying declaration lends it weight. He wasn’t saying it as a way to get off the hook, precisely because he knew he was on it good and hard.
You may argue that he was sincerely rationalising. But why, when his world didn’t adhere to those values?
You should remember the distinction between legal ethics and ethics more broadly understood. The Mafia as portrayed had Mafia ethics, which included “it’s just business” as one of its outworkings. It’s incompatible with norms that humanise the other (the message of the Parable of the Good Samaritan).
And either “norms that humanise the other” more accurately reflects the Objective or “Mafia ethics” does. Which is it? This is just more moral relativism.
The line could be any of the three, in the sense that the viewer constructs the film, and so the viewer could choose to construct a film in which all or most of the characters were fallen moral beings rather than amoral ones. But it could not be all three at the same time within the same viewer, and it cannot be a rationalising thing within a character understood as amoral.
Uncle!
LoSonnambulo
I don’t want to give too much away, but one of the interesting changes from the book to the movie script is that in the book Michael (and impliedly Vito) agrees with the argument presented in this post.
I’ve never read the book, and wasn’t aware of that. As is often the case (I wrote about this in the Atticus Finch post) the two versions of the story are in different universes, and are not fungible.
I believe Tessio made a plea to Hagen, immediately before his “just business” line. Something like, “Tom, can you get me off the hook – for old times’ sake?” And Hagen promptly answered, “Can’t do it, Sal.” (I have watched the movie too many times – but I will watch it many more times.) I just thought it odd, to see a doomed man make a plea like that, as if there was any mercy to be gifted in a world of such ruthless, merciless business.
“Hey, I took a shot.”
Later, literally.
Which reminds me why I think The Godfather is so essential to understanding American culture. America is not a Christian culture. Forget all the talk about morality and humaneness and C. S. Lewis. America’s pagan in the Classical Greek mythological sense. The top people in the culture act like Classical Greek gods and Titans and the media (er the Chorus) sing(s) their praises. How else to explain People Magazine or the Clintons or nearly every single person in Hollywood and the entertainment business? Success and wealth and power and good looks are all that matter. The business of America is business. And “it’s only business” brilliant, illuminating twist on that old saw.
johnburger2013
Now, this was an amazing comment thread. I tip my hat to PM Lawrence, TexAgg04, Other Bill,luckyesteeyoreman, LoSonnambulo, JutGory, and Jack. Any thread that interweaves The New Testament, CS Lews, Puzzo, Borgia, Dracula, the Classic Greeks, and the Mafia is wonderful. Very interesting comments, arguments, points-counterpoints, and rebuttals. I learned a lot from this discussion. That is why I like this blog.
jvb
I don’t think this got added to the list yet…
Celebrities seem to pass away in threes. Abe rounded out this last burst.
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Joe Wright's '50 Shades'?
By Sarah Caldwell
May 10, 2013 at 07:50 PM EDT
Alex Bailey
Fifty Shades of Grey (Book)
Rumors surrounding the film adaptation of the bestselling bathtub novel Fifty Shades of Grey have been frequent, titillating, and circulated around the internet more than actual porn (just kidding, not possible). People went blind with excitement trying to cast Christian Grey. Ian Somerhalder, Alex Pettyfer, Stephen Amell? Rumors of Emma Watson being cast as Ana were intriguing, but ultimately disappointing. The most recent report says the movie might have found its director: Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice, Anna Karenina)
So what might a Wright 50 Shades look like? We have some predictions:
1. The build-up: This will be the hottest part. Elizabeth and Darcy couldn’t even touch in Pride & Prejudice, but the electricity in this scene in the rain could light Manhattan. Wright knows how to film longing, and although that’s not what sold the books, it could keep viewers plenty satisfied in the movie. We expect tons of under the table hand holding, wry smiles that could kill, and eye-seduction so intense you’ll be curling your toes in anticipation of…
2. The sex: A big worry about the Fifty Shades movie is that reading the novel in the privacy of your own laundry room is one thing, but going out to a theater is another. Some of these debates come off as a little sexist to me — in an equal world we would all have to delete our browser history every once in a while. Will 50 Shades get an NC-17 rating? Maybe. But you better believe Wright can make it steamy, sexy, and rated R if he has to. You could probably watch the Atonement sex scene at work without once seeing something that will make someone call HR, but you’d still feeling uncomfortable the whole time, worried that your office mates know exactly what you are doing. It’s incredibly titillating without being raunchy. So maybe Wright could find a way to make the sex kinky, but still R-rated, with lots of sound effects, dark shadows, close-ups on legs and jawlines, whips that hit, but not too hard. Now is that what fans want? Well, we’ll leave that to you and your browser history. We still sort of assume Wright wouldn’t sign on to direct a straight porn.
3. The contract: Wright has achieved varying degrees of success adapting literary classics. While he’s done great work with some (Pride & Prejudice), he’s watered down other incredibly layered masterpieces (Anna Karenina). So what will he do with a novel that’s basically as deep as a “Holy Cow!”? Well, he’ll probably add something else, right? Maybe as we pan across Anastasia’s face, we see a this-whole-contract-is-really-just-a-reinforcement-gender-stereotypes-disguised-as-a-dominant-and-submissive-relationship-but-what-it-really-is-is-just-a-desire-to-go-back-to-the-a-time-when-women-didn’t-have-to-work-and-could-stay-home-and-have-their-husband-buy-stuff-for-them-constantly-but-now-that-we’re-in-the-21st-century-and-we’ve-all-held-money-and-seen-episodes-of-Mad-Men-maybe-this-isn’t-the-way-we-want-to-live-but-also-the-job-market-is-really-hard-now-and-gym-memberships-are-so-expensive-and-like-dieting-would-be-easier-if-you-had-someone-to-prepare-your-food-for-you-and-maybe-it-would-all-be-better-if-you-had-a-Christian-Grey-who-could-take-care-of-you-but-wait-you-definitely-took-too-many-feminism-classe- in-college-and-your-mother-and-grandmother-fought-too-hard-for-your-right-to-have-a-career-but-anyway-lets-just-get-back-to-the-spanking-and-forget-about-this glance.
Or maybe he’ll just go all blindfolds, silver ties, handcuffs, and red rooms of pain and throw caution to the wind. Most importantly though, if Wright actually does direct this movie, when will the Keira Knightley rumors start?
Emma Watson responds to ’50 Shades of Grey’ rumors
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Casting Net: Billy Crudup in talks for Catholic Church drama Spotlight
By Jake Perlman
August 27, 2014 at 11:53 PM EDT
Larry Busacca/Getty Images
• Tony winner Billy Crudup may be taking a step in the Spotlight. The Watchmen star is in talks to join the ensemble drama based on the Catholic Church cover-up of pedophiliac priests in Massachusetts and The Boston Globe investigation that followed. Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber and Stanley Tucci will all star in the film from director Tom McCarthy (Win Win) and written by Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate). Crudup would play the lead attorney for the victims, Eric MacLeish. [THR]
• Max Minghella (The Social Network) and Callum Keith Rennie (Californiacation) are going Into the Forest. The two actors join Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood in the adaptation of the novel by Jean Hegland about two sisters living in a forest home while society begins to crumble around them. Mansfield Park director Patricia Rozema is directing the thriller from her own screenplay. [Variety]
• Jack Kilmer, who made his feature debut alongside his father Val in Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto, will portray a young, vulnerable student in The Stanford Prison Experiment. Billy Crudup is starring as Dr. Philip Zimbardo, who conducted the infamous college research back in 1971. Kilmer will play Jim, a student classified as a prisoner in the experiment. In addition to Crudup, Kilmer joins Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) and Michael Angarano (The Knick) in the film directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez (C.O.G) and written by Tim Talbott (South Park). [Deadline]
• Outlander star Graham McTavish has joined Disney’s The Finest Hours with Chris Pine and Casey Affleck. McTavish will play Frank Fauteux, a long time veteran of the Coast Guard in the 1952-set film about a daring rescue off the coast of Cape Cod. Million Dollar Arm’s Craig Gillespie will direct again for Disney, using a script adapted by Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson from the novel by Casey Sherman and Michael J Tougias. [Deadline]
PREVIOUSLY: Jamie Dornan to star in ‘The 9th Life of Louis Drax’, Steve Carell replaces Zach Galifianakis in ‘Freeheld’
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Pitch: Meet MLB's first female pitcher
'Ginny’s still figuring out who she is, just like I am,' says star Kylie Bunbury
By Natalie Abrams
September 08, 2016 at 12:00 PM EDT
“Okay, so Zack Morris is going to be slapping my ass. Interesting,” remembers Kylie Bunbury of her first chemistry read with costar Mark-Paul Gosselaar. “He was so polite and asked me if he could, and I said yes. And then I got to slap his as well! So it was a win-win.”
Though Bunbury makes it sound like a glamorous job perk, for her character Ginny Baker on Fox’s new drama Pitch — the first female Major League baseball player — it’s only one of many indignities she’ll have to suffer on her way to success as a new pitcher for the San Diego Padres.
When Ginny shows up at the clubhouse on her first day, every little girl in America, not to mention the team’s fictional owner (Bob Balaban) and her tenacious agent (Ali Larter), are rooting for her to win big. (Even Hillary Clinton sends good-luck flowers!) Ginny is an overnight sensation before she’s thrown a pitch. Unfortunately, Ginny’s teammates, including captain Mike Lawson (Gosselaar), aren’t keen on a girl coming in to take their job. And a nagging question looms large: Is she just a sideshow gimmick to help the flagging team sell tickets? Add to that living up to the astronomically high expectations of a father (Michael Beach) who takes stage parenting to new heights, and Ginny’s job becomes a helluva lot bigger than just playing ball.
To read more from our Fall TV Preview, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday, or buy it here – and subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.
But Ginny isn’t the only one feeling the pressure of being in the spotlight. In fact, one could compare Pitch’s launch to the overwhelming excitement of bases loaded, two outs, with the team’s last hope stepping up to the plate. And heading the lineup is a rookie: first-time lead Bunbury, until now best known for her secondary turn on CBS’ Under the Dome. Despite few credits to her name, the actress was cast before Pitch was picked up to pilot, both because she impressed the powers that be and because they wanted to give her enough time to learn how to throw a ball before cameras rolled.
“I mean, I feel a lot of pressure, but I’m not focusing on it,” Bunbury says. “I’m just trying to focus on my work, just trying to be the best actress I can be and be the best person I can be, and that’s my focus right now. That’s all you can do is stay present, stay grateful. Balance is key for me — balancing the work, my training, the press, my friends and family, and then doing things for myself alone, so that’s meditating, I go into nature a lot, I just bought a saxophone, so I’m trying to learn how to play that.”
But the self-deprecating, lighthearted 27-year-old is not taking her call up from the minor leagues nonchalantly, parsing her words carefully and pausing to find the best answer when asked about how she relates to her character. “Ginny’s still figuring out who she is, just like I am. She knows how to handle the ballplayer element, she knows how to handle herself around the guys. But normal, typical social things, she doesn’t.”
Preseason, the former teen model who grew up in Minnesota playing soccer and basketball, had two and a half months to learn how to pitch, throwing three days a week while also boxing and doing full-body workouts. “I had never thrown a baseball before,” Bunbury admits. Now she’s focusing on batting, watching tons of MLB Network — “Learning through osmosis,” she quips — and training alongside costars Mo McRae and Gosselaar (who actually got to gain a bit of weight for his role). “We’re definitely pushing each other,” Bunbury says. “We really have that team dynamic; a little bit of competition.”
Despite the (literal) pains the show goes to make the world of baseball come to life, Bunbury insists, “Baseball is just the backdrop of this show. The show is about, from my character, figuring out who she is. It’s a coming of age story for Ginny, and it’s about working really hard to attain a dream. It’s about the human experience and real things that are going on. You’re getting to see real human beings going through real life things that everyone can relate to, and then we just so happen to be ball players.”
Pitch debuts Thursday, Sept. 22 at 9 p.m. ET on Fox.
S1 E10 Recap
Pitch finale recap: Season 1, Episode 10
By Megan Angelo
S1 E9 Recap
Pitch recap: Season 1, Episode 9
By Nivea Serrao
Pitch premiere recap: Season 1, Episode 1
Fox’s 2016 drama Pitch features Kylie Bunbury as Ginny Baker, the first female player to join Major League Baseball. Dan Fogelman and Rick Singer created the series, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Ali Larter, and Mark Consuelos also star.
By Natalie Abrams @NatalieAbrams
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exposingthelieofislam
The truth about the origins and spread of islam- how the jews developed the program of islam to invade and destroy the East
***This is the story of the prelude to the “islamic conquests”***
The quran and deluded followers of islam claim that this “religion” spread due to the followers of Muhammad traveling the east and spreading the word, acquiring new converts as they went by performing miracles, trading goods etc. This is a very fanciful story, and one which is NOT corroborated by actual historical events. The truth paints a very different picture and we are taken back to the Ancient Pagan Tribes and Civilizations of Arabia and the Middle East, who were brutally attacked and besieged for centuries by violent psychotic bandits who were the true founders of what we now know as islam. These attacks left trails of blood across the globe and ended in the destruction of Ancient Gentile culture and the enslavement of our People which is still effective to this day.
There never was any “prophet Muhammad” who led the Arabian people in efforts to convert the tribes to islam. Muhammad never existed, but was fabricated AFTER the conquests had taken place in order to be used as a tool, no different than the christian “jesus”. http://exposingthelieofislam.weebly.com/muhammad-never-existed.html
So who did orchestrate the spread of this vile program? Who was this program meant to benefit? The following article will illustrate how it was in fact the jews who instigated and developed this program as a means of judaising the Pagan Eastern World, eliminating the original Pagan religion and practices, removing the power from the hands of the Gentile Pagan ruling class and developing a new system of ruler ship that placed all of the power and wealth in the hands of a new ruling class who had a jewish blood line.
Afterall, Muhammad himself was described as being of jewish decent, having jewish ancestry and even taking jewish wives and thus birthing jewish children. http://exposingthelieofislam.weebly.com/muhammad–the-jewish-prophet.html Whereas this character of Muhammad never existed himself, this is symbolic for how the jews placed their own in positions of power in the newly developed islamic world. This was either done by the ousting of a Gentile leader/ruler via the use of physical force and replacing them with someone of jewish descent or by using their women to infiltrate the Gentile bloodlines. The latter has long been a common tactic and is still used even today. The jews often use their females to infiltrate by siccing them onto powerful and influential Gentile men. Once they have managed to worm their way in, they take full control over that persons life, decisions and actions and can easily manipulate events according to their own agenda. As well as this control aspect, any future offspring produced will be considered jewish and carry jewish genes. Thus there is total judaising of everything.
The jews brag about this tactic in their story of “Esther”, the jewish whore who was sent to seduce the Persian King. As the story goes, the Persians were involved in constant battles with the jews and were attempting to exile them from Persia altogether, the jews needed a means of taking control of the Persian Kingdom and undermining the Persian King and Persian Gentile rulership. Using deceit and treachery (disgusing herself to appear more Gentile, taking a Persian name and getting rid of the Kings first Persian Gentile wife), “Esther” got the King to fall in love with and marry her, making her Queen. On guidance from her jewish brothers, she carefully gained the Kings trust and instructed the King to make all of the moves which would benefit the jewish people, and all of the moves which would inevitably lead to the destruction of his own Gentile People. She ensured that he had all of the Gentile Persian leaders who had once been his most trusted council, beheaded and publically shamed by using lies and fabrications to turn the King against them. “Esther” brags of planting seeds of doubt in the Kings mind, leading him to believe that his own People were his enemies. This is the age old tactic of divide and conquer. She separated the King from his most important support system, isolating him and taking control. Once the Gentile leadership has been slaughtered, Esther invites her own jewish people to take their places. By the time the King finds out who Esther really is and how he has been deceived, it is already too late.
Now, this is a fictitious story, however, the tactics behind it are very real, and were used ad nauseam by the jews of the time to infiltrate the Gentile Royal bloodlines and essentially destroy them. The story of “Esther” is a bragging of how they used these tactics to achieve their own end.
This is the same sort of tactics as were used by the jewish Rothschild family to infiltrate the British Royal Family. They began with financial manipulation, and then intermarriage. Nowadays, the “Royal Family” is 100% jewish, even practicing jewish traditions during wedding ceremonies and so on. Once the jewish gene has been inserted into the bloodline via the jewess, it is maintained by instilling laws that state the male offspring must take a jew as a bride. Remember, the child is considered legally jewish according to jewish law if the mother is a jew. This is why the marriage between William and Kate Middleton was necessary. Kate Middleton has a jewish mother, who was born Carol Goldsmith. Both of her grandparents were of jewish descent.
Here is an interesting excerpt:
“It was a Rothschild plan to marry superfluous daughters into the families of influential Gentiles; in this case of the Rothschild unions with Baron Battersea and the son of the fourth Earl of Hardwicke, the marriages were sterile, but a daughter of Mayer Amschel Rothschild married the fifth Earl of Rosebery, so that there is Rothschild blood in the present earl, one of whose sisters married the present Marquis of Crewe, himself with Villa Real blood: thus after many days, the blood of the Villa real Jewess mingles with that of the Rothschild in the issue of this marriage of “British Aristocrats”.
This custom of mating with Jewesses now become a common one; the instinct of the Aryan has been broken down by continued propaganda, and H. Belloc in his BOOK on The Jews writes of the Jewish penetration of our great aristocratic families: “With the opening of the twentieth century, those of the great territorial English families in which there was no Jewish blood were the exception.” -From “JEWISH INROADS INTO BRITISH ROYALTY UP TO THE YEAR 1937”
However, this is another story for another time altogether. The point here is to note the tactics which are used in order to infiltrate. This is how the infiltration of the Gentile Eastern and Arabian cultures began, and it was this careful infiltration into Gentile Society that aided in the creation and spread of islam, which is, in truth, judaism at its core. Now, we will look at how this began.
Actual historical records show that the creation of islam as it stands today, the writing of the quran and the invention of the fictitious Muhammad actually came AFTER the events now called the islamic conquests, and not before as mainstream media and muslims will have you believe. The conquests and destruction of the East took place before islam was actually created as a means of further destroying the original Pagan religion, cultures and knowledge and further weakening and enslaving the Gentile People. The purpose of the conquests, exactly like the Inquisition that took place in the West, was to eliminate the Pagan Gentile Royalty, slaughter the Pagan Priesthood and destroy Pagan Spiritual Knowledge, thus enslaving the Pagan Gentile People who were left totally cut off from their original identities, their original leaders, their original Gods and their original sources of Empowerment. They were reduced to mere slaves working for a foreign master. The program of islam was installed after this in order to ensure the continuance of this enslavement.
There in fact was never any mention anywhere of any established religion called islam, or any prophet by the name of Muhammad, during the times at which the violent conquests were taking place and there is no evidence for it having existed yet at that point in time. These religious aspects were created and fed into the records years later. This is no different than how the so-called biographies of Muhammad only appeared over 100 years after he was supposed to have died. During the time he was meant to have lived, not a word was breathed about him despite the presence of many Ancient historians whom were very accustomed to recording important events and stories. Very suspicious, to say the least.
So how would the conquests and the spread of islam have benefited the jews? Other than islam being a jewish program that worships a jewish god/agenda (Please see the rest of the exposingthelieofislam.weebly.com site), as for the actual events as historically recorded, it has been proven that the major conquests took place with a great deal of jewish aid and worked in favor of the jews.
At this point in time, much of the Pagan Eastern world was attempting to banish the jews from their midst due to centuries of ongoing problems with them. Thievery, ritual murder and other attocities were common in societies where the jews decided to settle, and were the reasosns many Ancient Gentile societies either banished or attempted to banish them. Ancient Rome, Persia and Egypt declared laws at one stage or another expelling the jews for these very reasosns.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130814124112/http://gblt.webs.com/Jewish_Ritual_Murder.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/dawn666blacksun/Jew_Problem.html
So in order to solve the problem of constantly being banished or suppressed from the Gentile societies which they invaded, and in order to take control for themselves so that they would be free to carry out their acts undisturbed, the jews needed to divise a plan to help them infiltrate the top levels of the Gentile societies and place themselves within all of the major positions of power. What better way of doing this than enforcing their own customs, beliefs and practices upon the people of these societies, establishing their own religion as the major religion, their own “priesthood” as the ruling class and essentially forcing their own alien culture onto the Gentile Peoples of the region and forcing them to worship their own “god” and their own prophets. If they could judaise everything, they would hold the reigns of control. Islam was the perfect means of doing this, and as has been stated, islam is merely judaism in a different form.
“PROTOCOL No. 14
When we come into our kingdom it will be undesirable for us that there should exist any other religion than ours of the One God with whom our destiny is bound up by our position as the Chosen People and through whom our same destiny is united with the destinies of the world. We must therefore sweep away all other forms of belief. If this gives birth to the atheists whom we see to-day, it will not, being only a transitional stage, interfere with our views, but will serve as a warning for those generations which will hearken to our preaching of the religion of Moses, that, by its stable and thoroughly elaborated system has brought all the peoples of the world into subjection to us.”- The words of the jews themselves.
*Note- “Moses” is called Musa in the Quran where he is decleraed one of the prophets. The Quran is jewish through and through!!!
But this had to be done slowly and carefully and before this could be achieved successfully, the Gentile Societies would have to be infiltrated, weakened and undermined first.
To do this, the jews would first have to integrate themselves into the local Gentile cultures, adapting to their customs and ways of life. Once they had been fully integrated and had gained the trust of these people, they would begin to inflict their own culture, bizarre anti-life practices and beliefs and their own religion upon them.
This is destruction of a People from the inside out. It is an extremely effective means of weakening a group before engaging in outright warfare against them. First, they will rot the structure from within, so that it crumbles easily when they choose to attack. The best infiltrator first disguises themselves as that which they intend to destroy so that they may gain access to the very core of their object of attack. This is the same as was done with the Gentile Secret Societies, which were originally PAGAN in nature. This has been discussed in depth on the JoS website.
http://dawn666blacksun.angelfire.com/Ku_Klux_Klan.html
http://dawn666blacksun.angelfire.com/Illuminati.htm
http://dawn666blacksun.angelfire.com/NEW_WORLD_ORDER.html
The following excerpt isinteresting regarding how the jews worked to integrate themselves into the Arab societies before they began the judaisation of these societies:
“Syed Abu-Ala’ Maududi in his “The Meaning of the Qur’an” points out that the Jews of the Hejaz “In the matter of language, dress, civilization and way of life, they had completely adopted Arabism, even their names had become Arabian … They even inter-married with the Arabs…..This intermarriage between Jews and Arabs, for example between the families of Quraish and Jewish women is well documented. “.” – From “The Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614CE compared with Islamic conquest of 638CE. Its Messianic nature and the role of the Jewish Exilarch”, by Ben Abrahamson and Joseph Katz.
(Note that the above is written by jews who are fully aware of the jewish origins of islam.)
Once again, we see how the jews used their women to infiltrate Arabian Gentile society, attaching themselves to the Arabian royalty. By first adapting to the culture, they were able to infiltrate on a deep level.
So lets look at how the foundation for islam was first laid. It began with this jewish infiltration of the Arabian culture. It was documented that after adopting the Arabian culture and intermarrying with the influential Arabian men, the jewish women would force their unwitting Arabian husbands to adopt judaism and jewish practices.
This began to lead to the development of a bizarre amalgamation of judaic practices with traditional Arabian practices and resulted in an Arabian form of judaism beginning to rise. This mixing of practices and what resulted is what would later be officially developed into islam. This mirrors exactly how the jews laid the foundation for christianity in Alexandria when they developed a Hellenized form of judaism.
High Priest Don Danko wrote on this extensively, and the creation of islam in many ways overlaps with the events surrounding the creation of christianity:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/JoSNewsletter/conversations/topics/482
“This is why Christianity as noted by scholars is so identical to the Egyptian Pagan religions. This is the major template the Jews stole and corrupted it from. Even lifting the title for their fictional Godman from one of the major Pagan deities.” – High Priest Don Danko.
The exact same thing was done with the Ancient Arabian Pagan religion. The jews siply lifted the name and identity of a Pagan Arabian God, known as Sin the Moon God, whose title in the Ancient Arabian world was “Al’Ilah”, meaning “Supreme Deity amongst all the Deities”. Note the similarity between Allah and Al’Ilah. Islam shares much in common with the Pagan Arabian religion, for example the symbol of the Crescent Moon and Star, the Lunar basis for the calendar, etc because the jews literally stole and corrupted the Arabian religion of the area as a template for their depraved program of islam.
Looking again to the jewish infiltration of Arabia -“Michael Lecker of Hebrew University in his article “A note on early marriage links between Qurashis and Jewish women”, in. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (1987),” says that there are three choices:
1. The women gave up Judaism and embraced paganism. 2. The women didn’t care about intermarriage with non-Jews 3. The men embraced Judaism
Due to various supporting evidence he gives, Dr. Lecker discounts the first two and is left with possibility of the third choice.” I.e., the only option was for the men to convert to judaism.
Please note from the above how the jews themselves are FULLY AWARE that islam is a facade and was created by them. They openly admit this and admit to purposefully deceiving the Gentile People and destroying our origianl and True Culture.
Now let us look at some of the historical events that led to the jews inventing islam as their final attempt to take control of the Eastern World.
As mentioned above, incessant problems with the jews were a common theme in Ancient Gentile societies which were desperately seeking means of ridding themselves of these jewish parasites.
During the time of the First Century C.E., Ancient Egypt, Cyprus and Cyrene had laws in place controlling the jews among them and protecting the native Gentile Populations from these unwanted tribes of blood thirsty criminal bandits. However, the jews organised a violent uprising in an attempt to take power from the Gentile People and carry out destruction of the Pagan Gentile religious centers. This was later termed the “kitos war” by the jews and was literally a massacre of the Pagan Gentile Peoples of these regions and a rampage of destruction against Gentile Pagan sacred sites and artifacts. The mass murder spree was orchestrated by a jew by the name of “Lukas” who had proclaimed himself as king of the jewish tribes.
“Their revolt started in Cyrene, where one Lukuas -sometimes called Andreas- ordered the Jews to destroy the pagan temples of Apollo, Artemis, Hecate, Demeter, Isis and Pluto, and to assail the worshippers.” -From Wars between the Jews and Romans: the revolt against Trajan (115-117 CE)
Thousands upon thousands of Gentile Pagan men, women and children were brutally murdered and Sacred Temples such as the Temples of Hecate and Isis were stormed and destroyed. The jewish murderers then proceeded to drink the blood and eat the flesh of their Gentile Pagan victims.
YES. You read that correctly. They engaged in cannibalistic ritualized mutilation of the bodies of the innocent Gentiles which they brutally killed. Here is a quote from an Ancient Roman Historian recounting the aftermath of this horrific jewish-orchestrated massacre:
“In Cyrene, the Jews massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawed asunder, according to a precedent to which David had given sanction of his examples. The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails like a girdle around their bodies”- Dion Cassius I
This is sick, twisted and depraved in the very worst sense and clearly illustatres the sadistic nature of these parasites to civilisation. Here is another very telling quote relating to this massacre:
“Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which Jews committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwell in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of legions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of Roman government, but also of humankind.” – By Edward Gibbon
***Note- “dwell in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives”. The jews have been famous since time immemorial for biting the hand which feeds them. They will settle amongst a people, pretend to be a friendly prsesence, leech off of their lands, their labour and their goods, and suddenly without warning they will attack and destroy the very people from whom they were feeding. Many times throughout the pages of their bible they brag of this very behaviour. They would settle amongst a Gentile nation, and once they had fed off of and exhausted their resources, they would massacre them, steal their remaining goods and rape their women before moving on to the next unsuspecting group of Gentile People to begin their cycle of parasitic leeching all over again. This is even evident today in how they are currently massacaring the Palestinian People, whose land and farms they stole and falsely proclaimed to be their own. Nothing has changed over the last 10 000 years with this race of beings, and nothing ever will. They are natural born parasites who evetually destroy the People to which they attach themselves. They can never be trusted.
Getting back to the massacre which took place in the Ancient East. Despite the fact that they had massacred thousands of Gentile People, their attempt to take control was quashed by the armies of the Pagan Roman Emperor Trajan, who was later succeeded by Emperor Hadrian. Another quote by Dion Cassius:
“‘Meanwhile the Jews in the region of Cyrene had put one Andreas at their head and were destroying both the Romans and the Greeks. They would cook their flesh, make belts for themselves of their entrails, anoint themselves with their blood, and wear their skins for clothing. Many they sawed in two, from the head downwards. Others they would give to wild beasts and force still others to fight as gladiators. In all, consequently, two hundred and twenty thousand perished. In Egypt, also, they performed many similar deeds, and in Cyprus under the leadership of Artemio. There, likewise, two hundred and forty thousand perished. For this reason no Jew may set foot in that land, but even if one of them is driven upon the island by force of the wind, he is put to death. Various persons took part in subduing these Jews, one being Lusius, who was sent by Trajan.”
After this, the jews were exiled from the Roman Empire which at the time included Egypt, Cyprus and Cyrene and heavy sanctions were placed upon them, many laws forbidding jewish religious practices and so forth. Angered, they began to organize another uprising in the region which is today called Palestine. It was this uprising that would lead to huge amounts of jewish “refugees” flooding Arabia and Babylon. This uprising was known as the Bar kokhba revolt and was organised by a jewish leader Simon Ben kosiba, whom was regarded by the jews at the time to be a jewish “messiah” and prince who would lead them in a victorious slaughter and take over of the Gentile Pagan People. This “jewish prince” was aided by a rabbi Akiva. Persia at the time had a significant jewish population, as the jews had invaded it in much the same way they invaded Alexandria, and the jews took advantage of Persian military personnel to carry out this revolt against the Pagan Roman Empire.
This revolt was said to have been even more violent than the previous massacre and was reported by many Ancient Roman Historians as being a horriffic sight which they wished only to forget.
Emperor Hadrain managed to once again quash the revolt, and ensure that sanctions against jews within the Roman Empire were kept in place. Large amounts of the jewish murderers and plunderers fled back to Persia and to Arabia and Babylon to escape justice and to continue planning a means of taking control of the East. This is how the official development of islam began.
Some of the jewish immigrants to Arabia established their own tribal groups known in later islamic literature as the Bani Al-Nadir and the Bani Quraizah. That these were jewish tribes from the start comprised of those whom had taken part in the bloody Bar khokba revolt and NOT native Arab tribes is well-documented. It was stated that these tribes were comprised of the jewish cohen priests.
“Maududi says that the Bani Al-Nadir and Bani Quraizah were tribes made up of Cohenim. It is known that the Bani al Nadir and the Bani Quraizah were the clients of the Aus, and the Bani Qainuqa were the clients of the Khazraj.”
They at first integrated with and adopted Arabian culture mixed in with their own judaic beliefs and practices. It was said that they adopted islam easily because of their judaic origins and the heavy similarities between judaism and islam. Of course- islam was created by them using the stolen and corrupted Pagan Arabian template. It was these immigrant jewish tribes that began the creation of islam in this very manner. The Aus and Khazraj are referred to in the quran as the “uncles of islam”.
“The third wave of immigrants were mostly refugees and soldiers from Bar Kochba’s revolt –fighters trained in the art of war and zealously nationalistic – sought refugee in Arabia.This last wave of immigrants included people who are known in Islamic literature as the Aus andthe Khazraj.” – The Persian Conquest of Jerusalem.
These crypto-jewish Arabian tribes began to seize control via various war efforts, spreading their version of Arabian judaism (islam) as they went. The instillation of this Arabian judaism was brought into fruition when a marriage between an Arab leader and a jewish princess lead to the birth of the jewish-Arabian warlord “Dhu-Nuwas”. Dhu Nuwas means “lord of the sidelock”, referring to a jewish custom in which a rabbi wears a sidelock hairstyle. Through violent war efforts, Dhu-Nuwas managed to establish Arabian judaism quite firmly.
“In 518, when Ethiopian troops landed in Himyar, Dhu-Nuw,as’s forces soundly defeated the invaders. Flushed with success, he now saw himself as the champion of Arabian Jewry. It has been suggested by some scholars that Dhu-Nuwas’s ultimate objective was the creation of a Jewish empire stretching from Eretz Israel to Himyar.” – From Yosef Dhu Nuwas, a Sadducean King with Sidelocks
Although Dhu Nuwas was eventually defeated, Pagan Arabia had been weakened, and the foundation was set for the judaising of Arabia. Jews had already infiltrated Arabia at all levels of society, from the leadership to the religious centers. This, in truth, is how islam was born. The jews pushed this Arabian-judaism on the population of Arabia. This is what they developed into islam, as we noted above in stating that the jews liften the Pagan Arabian religious elements such as “Al’Ilah” and the Lunar Calendar, and simply combined them with jewish religious practices and the jewish prophets, stories and the jewish “god”. This can clearly be seen in the glaring similarities between judaism and islam:
http://exposingthelieofislam.weebly.com/judaism-christianity-and-islam-the-false-trinity–fighting-amongst-these-programs-is-all-a-facade.html
Many historians also noted how the conquests which led to the spread of this new Arabian judaism later called islam was largely supported and funded by the jews who pushed the concept of a “messiah” destined to lead them in the efforts to instate this new religion. The “prophet Muhammad” was invented as a jewish messiah and symbol of these conquests that brainwashed fools could rally around, however, he never existed as a real person.
http://exposingthelieofislam.weebly.com/muhammad-never-existed.html
http://exposingthelieofislam.weebly.com/muhammad–the-jewish-prophet.html
Once Pagan Arabia had been weakened and the foundations had been laid, the conquests began which would establish the new religion of islam as the primary religion of the Eastern World.
Conquestor Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khattab was even said so have received a great deal of aid from the jews. A group of extremely wealthy jewish bankers funded military campaigns with the use of taxe,s which swept through the East, slaughtering thousands upon thousands of Pagan Gentiles and destroying thousands of Pagan sacred sites. Those individuals who had been judaised, brainwashed or simply bought out joined the armies of the conquests. Following these military conquests which left the land absolutely ravaged and weakened to the point at which the Pagan Gentiles were no longer able to fight back, islam was developed and put in place, the quran was written, and islam (Arabian-judaism) was enforced upon the region.
A much more in depth article on the islamic conquests will be written shortly, displaying the severe brutality which they engaged in. This truly was a shocking string of events that saw so much blood shed throughout the Eastern World that places that still stand today are named with words that bare translations such as “Death Mountain”. The purpose of this article was to expose the jewish origins and foundations of islam, and how it was the jews that developed this program and funded its spread.
“ISIS” and related terroroist groups created and run by jews!
A- Introduction to Exposing Islam
Exposing Spiritual corruption in islam- stolen Spiritual Allegories in the quran
Iblis and the Djinn: The Original Gods!
Islam: Doctrine of submission and slavery
islamic symbols STOLEN from Ancient Paganism
judaism, christianity and islam: the False Trinity- fighting amongst these programs is all a facade
July Sigil
Muhammad never existed
Muhammad- the jewish prophet
Paedophilia and rape: rife and accepted within islam
The Kaaba originally a PAGAN Temple!!!
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Governor Ron DeSantis Announces FIS Will Build New World Headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Reappoints Gary Lubi to the Daytona State College District Board of Trustees
Governor Ron DeSantis Appoints Two to the Florida Children and Youth Cabinet
Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the appointments of Carlos de la Cruz and Jason Barrett to the Children and Youth Cabinet.
“I am honored that these two outstanding individuals have agreed to serve and contribute their expertise and experience to helping improve the lives of Florida’s children,” said First Lady Casey DeSantis, who serves as chair of the Cabinet. “Investing in Florida’s future begins with investing in Florida’s children, and I am confident that this Cabinet will provide meaningful leadership on the important issues facing our kids today.”
Carlos de la Cruz Jr.
De la Cruz, of Key Biscayne, is an executive and shareholder for De la Cruz Companies. Currently, he is a trustee and past chairman of Ransom Everglades School and is immediate past chairman of the Board of Our Kids of Miami-Dade and Monroe, a community-based care provider for foster children with over 4,500 children. He is also treasurer of the Everglades Foundation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Boston College and his master’s in business administration from the University of Miami. De la Cruz is appointed to a four-year term.
Jason Barrett
Barrett, of St. Augustine Beach, is the chief executive officer of Flagler Health+. Currently, he is a board member for the Boys and Girls Club of Northeast Florida and a board member and past chairman of the St. Johns County Economic Development Council. He is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and is the St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce Member of the Year Award Recipient for 2016. He earned his bachelor’s degree in health and his master’s in business administration from the University of North Florida, along with his master’s in systems and engineering from Texas Tech University. Barrett is appointed to a four-year term.
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5 Times Artists Have Changed the World
Discover, Features
October 13, 2015 by Ian Temple
A West Side Story Companion
This article was excerpted from our new course with Carnegie Hall. Sign up for free today!
We often forget when we’re bobbing our head to a song we love or admiring some splash of color on a canvas, just how powerful art and music truly are. As one of the most profound expressions of humanity we’re capable of, art has the power to open minds, to encourage empathy, to breed understanding, to force questions on the unquestioning. It’s toppled dictators and inspired revolutions, raised voices and saved lives, given power to the powerless, and purpose to the lifeless. We here at Soundfly love music for so many reasons, but we know in our hearts that music and art will always be with us because they allow us to express ourselves in the deepest ways — ways that can move the world forward toward the place of our hopes and dreams.
Sounds heavy, eh? Well, it is. But luckily, there are so many examples throughout history of artists using their art to push humanity forward that we can learn from, whether the cave paintings that first brought people together around belief systems or the hippies sitting in a circle singing Lennon and McCartney’s “All You Need Is Love”. These are some of our favorite works of art that have effectively raised social issues and, we believe, moved the dial forward for humanity. Add yours in the comments below!
West Side Story was one of the first musicals to deal with serious issues such as gang violence, discrimination, immigration, and murder. By raising these issues in a medium where people don’t expect to encounter them, it forced audiences to confront their own biases and humanity — making it one of the most enduring musicals of all time. Musician and cultural diplomat Charles Burchell talks about some of the lessons he’s taken away from the authors of West Side Story about how to create change through art in a compelling way.
+ Watch more of our free course on West Side Story here, made in partnership with Carnegie Hall!
Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly
Charles talks about this in the last video. Lamar’s most recent album To Pimp a Butterfly, besides featuring some amazing collaborators and being very enjoyable to listen to, delves into the way that racism manifests itself even when you’re successful, among many other issues. Lamar is consistently one of the edgiest and most conscientious rappers out there today, and still knows how to make a hit. Check out Genius’s annotated version of the song “King Kunta” for some of the references in his music, and how he balances the idea of feeling like a king but being treated like a slave.
Pablo Picasso’s Guernica
One of the most well-known works of social commentary art of all time, Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica brought to light the brutality and absurdity of war in a way that has provoked visceral reactions for decades. The scene is based on a journalist’s first-hand account of the bombing of Guernica by Fascist troops, which took place during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. The way it’s painted with sharp, violent shapes in positions of pain or protest create a powerful image of the horrors of war — and the fact that it’s a painting allows it to cross cultural and linguistic divides. The mural itself traveled around the world as part of the World’s Fair, carrying the message to a wide, global audience — and showing that who sees an artwork is just as important as the artwork itself.
Keith Haring, The Normal Heart, and the AIDS Epidemic
In the early 1980s, a new illness began spreading among the gay community in the United States. Today, we know this illness as HIV/AIDS, and we know all too well about the horrors it can cause, but at the time, there was very little known about it. It was a scary time, and because of the association with the homosexual community, many people were afraid to talk about it for fear of stigmatization. A number of artists and activists, however, did speak up, helping spread awareness about AIDS, fight stigmatization, and encourage more funding for life-saving drugs.
In 1985, The Normal Heart opened on Broadway, a play by activist Larry Kramer about the rise of the AIDS epidemic. The play pulled back the curtain on people living with HIV, making the issues more relatable and immediate.
Keith Haring was a public mural artist at the time, who was also gay. His artwork took on major issues such as sexuality, life and death, and of course, the AIDS epidemic. They were displayed in public places on street corners, walls and public buildings, breaking down the barriers between high and low art. His painting Silence = Death and others confronted people every day with the effects of their actions and the need to fight stigma and disease.
Larry Kramer and Keith Haring, among others, were able to raise awareness about AIDS in a way that led to dramatic changes, including better public information about the disease and more funding for treatment. By the early 1990s, AIDS drugs were widely available in the US, making it so that AIDS was no longer a death sentence. Their art also challenged people to question their own discrimination of gay and lesbian individuals, which has contributed to the incredible progress we see today.
Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”
Based on a poem and song by Abel Meeropol, “Strange Fruit,” which recounts the experience of seeing lynchings in the American South, is one of the most chilling songs of all time. Billie Holiday started performing the song in 1939 but had a very difficult time getting a record label to publish it or a producer to record it given its serious and haunting nature. When she finally did record it though, it became one of the best-known songs of a generation and helped fuel the anger of the Civil Rights Movement.
Bonus: Our Challenge…
Learn more about the history, legacy, and artistry of West Side Story in our free course “The Somewhere Project: A West Side Story Companion” and take up the challenge to create your own work of social commentary art today…
There is a ton of amazing art out there tackling social issues. Do you have any favorites? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below.
Feed your musical curiosity with Soundfly Weekly.
Tags: billie holiday, carnegie hall, guernica, keith haring, kendrick lamar, larry kramer, music for social change, pablo picasso, social commentary art, social justice, the normal heart, the somewhere project, to pimp a butterfly, West Side Story
Ian Temple
Ian is a pianist, entrepreneur and professional musician. He started Soundfly to help people really find what gets them most excited musically and pursue it. He's toured all over the world with his experimental trio Sontag Shogun. Check out his most recent course Building Blocks of Piano or follow him on Twitter at @ianrtemple.
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Get to Know Your New Soundfly Pro: Holt Menzies January 16, 2020
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HomeForeign PolicyChina Suspends U.S. Military Visits to Hong Kong
China Suspends U.S. Military Visits to Hong Kong
December 2, 2019 Focus Washington Foreign Policy
China said on Monday U.S. military ships and aircraft won’t be allowed to visit Hong Kong, and also announced sanctions against several U.S. non-government organizations for encouraging protesters to “engage in extremist, violent and criminal acts,” Reuters informs.
The measures were announced by China’s Foreign Ministry in response to U.S. legislation passed last week supporting anti-government protesters. It said it had suspended taking requests for U.S. military visits indefinitely, and warned of further action to come.
“We urge the U.S. to correct the mistakes and stop interfering in our internal affairs. China will take further steps if necessary to uphold Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity and China’s sovereignty,” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily news briefing in Beijing.
China last week promised it would issue “firm counter measures” after U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act,” which supports anti-government protesters in Hong Kong and threatens China with potential sanctions.
There are fears that the row over Hong Kong could impact efforts by Beijing and Washington to reach preliminary deal that could de-escalate a prolonged trade war between the two countries.
The U.S.-headquartered NGOs targeted by Beijing include the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House.
“They shoulder some responsibility for the chaos in Hong Kong and they should be sanctioned and pay the price,” said Hua.
In more normal times, several U.S. naval ships visit Hong Kong annually, a rest-and-recreation tradition that dates back to the pre-1997 colonial era which Beijing allowed to continue after the handover from British to Chinese rule.
Trump Off to London for NATO Summit
White House Won’t Participate in Wednesday’s Trump Impeachment Hearing
House Armed Services Panel Wants 12 Aircraft Carriers
June 21, 2017 Focus Washington Administration
The Defense panel wants the Navy to maintain 12 instead of 11 aircraft carriers and acquire the vessels at a more rapid pace, committee aides said Tuesday. The Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces calls for […]
Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns
June 21, 2017 Focus Washington Technology
Uber founder Travis Kalanick has resigned as chief executive after pressure from shareholders. His resignation comes following a review of practices at the company and scandals including complaints of sexual harassment. Last week he said […]
Trump Sparks Rush of NAFTA Lobbying
June 21, 2017 Focus Washington Business
Lobbyists are preparing for the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a sweeping trade pact of critical importance to the United States, Canada and Mexico. Officials from the three nations are set […]
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(Redirected from Canadian people)
This article is about the ethnic group known as the Canadians and their descendants worldwide. For information on the population of Canada, see Demographics of Canada.
"Canadian" redirects here. For other uses, see Canadian (disambiguation).
Canadians (French: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Canadian.
National flag of Canada
Canada: 37,314,442 by the Q1 of 2019[1]
Regions with significant populations
1,062,640[2]
73,000[2]
9,816[6]
Primarily English and French
Numerous indigenous languages are also recognized
Various other languages
Primarily Christian (Protestantism and Catholicism)
Various other religions
Canada is a multilingual and multicultural society home to people of groups of many different ethnic, religious, and national origins, with the majority of the population made up of Old World immigrants and their descendants. Following the initial period of French and then the much larger British colonization, different waves (or peaks) of immigration and settlement of non-indigenous peoples took place over the course of nearly two centuries and continue today. Elements of Indigenous, French, British, and more recent immigrant customs, languages, and religions have combined to form the culture of Canada, and thus a Canadian identity. Canada has also been strongly influenced by its linguistic, geographic, and economic neighbour—the United States.
Canadian independence from the United Kingdom grew gradually over the course of many years since the formation of the Canadian Confederation in 1867. World War I and World War II in particular, gave rise to a desire among Canadians to have their country recognized as a fully-fledged sovereign state with a distinct citizenship. Legislative independence was established with the passage of the Statute of Westminster 1931, the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1946 took effect on January 1, 1947, and full sovereignty was achieved with the patriation of the constitution in 1982. Canada's nationality law closely mirrored that of the United Kingdom. Legislation since the mid-20th century represents Canadians' commitment to multilateralism and socioeconomic development.
1.1 Immigration
1.2 Citizenship and diaspora
1.3 Ethnic ancestry
2.2 Languages
See also: Population of Canada and Demographics of Canada
As of 2010, Canadians make up only 0.5% of the world's total population,[7] having relied upon immigration for population growth and social development.[8] Approximately 41% of current Canadians are first- or second-generation immigrants,[9] and 20% of Canadian residents in the 2000s were not born in the country.[10] Statistics Canada projects that, by 2031, nearly one-half of Canadians above the age of 15 will be foreign-born or have one foreign-born parent.[11] Indigenous peoples, according to the 2011 Canadian Census, numbered at 1,400,685 or 4.3% of the country's 33,476,688 population.[12]
Main article: Immigration to Canada
While the first contact with Europeans and indigenous peoples in Canada had occurred a century or more before, the first group of permanent settlers were the French, who founded the New France settlements, in present-day Quebec and Ontario; and Acadia, in present-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, during the early part of the 17th century.[13][14]
Approximately 100 Irish-born families would settle the Saint Lawrence Valley by 1700, assimilating into the Canadien population and culture.[15][16] During the 18th and 19th century; immigration westward (to the area known as Rupert's Land) was carried out by "Voyageurs"; French settlers working for the North West Company; and by British settlers (English and Scottish) representing the Hudson's Bay Company, coupled with independent entrepreneurial woodsman called "Coureur des bois".[17] This arrival of newcomers led to the creation of the Métis, an ethnic group of mixed European and First Nations parentage.[18]
The British conquest of New France was preceded by a small number of Germans and Swedes who settled alongside the Scottish in Port Royal, Nova Scotia,[19] while some Irish immigrated to the Colony of Newfoundland.[20] In the wake of the British Conquest of 1760 and the Expulsion of the Acadians, many families from the British colonies in New England moved over into Nova Scotia and other colonies in Canada, where the British made farmland available to British settlers on easy terms. More settlers arrived during and after the American Revolutionary War, when approximately 60,000 United Empire Loyalists fled to British North America, a large portion of whom settled in New Brunswick.[21] After the War of 1812, British (including British army regulars), Scottish, and Irish immigration was encouraged throughout Rupert's Land, Upper Canada and Lower Canada.[22]
Between 1815 and 1850, some 800,000 immigrants came to the colonies of British North America, mainly from the British Isles as part of the Great Migration of Canada.[23] These new arrivals included some Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances to Nova Scotia.[24] The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s significantly increased the pace of Irish immigration to Prince Edward Island and the Province of Canada, with over 35,000 distressed individuals landing in Toronto in 1847 and 1848.[25][26] Descendants of Francophone and Anglophone northern Europeans who arrived in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries are often referred to as Old Stock Canadians.[27][28]
Beginning in the late 1850s, the immigration of Chinese into the Colony of Vancouver Island and Colony of British Columbia peaked with the onset of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.[29] The Chinese Immigration Act eventually placed a head tax on all Chinese immigrants, in hopes of discouraging Chinese immigration after completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway.[30]
Permanent Residents admitted in 2017,
by top 10 source countries[31]
1 India 51,651 18
2 Philippines 40,857 14.3
3 China 30,279 10.6
4 Syria 12,044 4.2
5 United States of America 9,100 3.2
6 Pakistan 7,656 2.7
7 France 6,600 2.3
8 Nigeria 5,459 1.9
9 United Kingdom 5,293 1.8
10 Iraq 4,740 1.7
Top 10 Total 173,679 60.6
Other 112,800 39.4
Total 286,479 100
The population of Canada has consistently risen, doubling approximately every 40 years, since the establishment of the Canadian Confederation in 1867.[32] In the mid-to-late 19th century, Canada had a policy of assisting immigrants from Europe, including an estimated 100,000 unwanted "Home Children" from Britain.[33] Block settlement communities were established throughout western Canada between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some were planned and others were spontaneously created by the settlers themselves.[34] Canada was now receiving a large number of European immigrants, predominantly Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, Dutch, Poles, and Ukrainians.[35] Legislative restrictions on immigration (such as the Continuous journey regulation and Chinese Immigration Act) that had favoured British and other European immigrants were amended in the 1960s, opening the doors to immigrants from all parts of the world.[36] While the 1950s had still seen high levels of immigration by Europeans, by the 1970s immigrants were increasingly Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Jamaican, and Haitian.[37] During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Canada received many American Vietnam War draft dissenters.[38] Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Canada's growing Pacific trade brought with it a large influx of South Asians, who tended to settle in British Columbia.[39] Immigrants of all backgrounds tend to settle in the major urban centres.[40][41] The Canadian public, as well as the major political parties, are tolerant of immigrants.[42]
The majority of illegal immigrants come from the southern provinces of the People's Republic of China, with Asia as a whole, Eastern Europe, Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East.[43] Estimates of numbers of illegal immigrants range between 35,000 and 120,000.[44]
Citizenship and diaspora
Main article: Canadian nationality law
Members of the first official Canadian Citizenship ceremony held at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, January 3, 1947
Canadian citizenship is typically obtained by birth in Canada or by birth or adoption abroad when at least one biological parent or adoptive parent is a Canadian citizen who was born in Canada or naturalized in Canada (and did not receive citizenship by being born outside of Canada to a Canadian citizen).[45] It can also be granted to a permanent resident who lives in Canada for three out of four years and meets specific requirements.[46] Canada established its own nationality law in 1946, with the enactment of the Canadian Citizenship Act which took effect on January 1, 1947.[47] The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was passed by the Parliament of Canada in 2001 as Bill C-11, which replaced the Immigration Act of 1976 as the primary federal legislation regulating immigration.[48] Prior to the conferring of legal status on Canadian citizenship, Canada's naturalization laws consisted of a multitude of Acts beginning with the Immigration Act of 1910.[49]
According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, there are three main classifications for immigrants: Family class (persons closely related to Canadian residents), Economic class (admitted on the basis of a point system that accounts for age, health and labour-market skills required for cost effectively inducting the immigrants into Canada's labour market) and Refugee class (those seeking protection by applying to remain in the country by way of the Canadian immigration and refugee law).[50] In 2008, there were 65,567 immigrants in the family class, 21,860 refugees, and 149,072 economic immigrants amongst the 247,243 total immigrants to the country.[9] Canada resettles over one in 10 of the world's refugees[51] and has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates in the world.[52]
As of a 2010 report by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, there were 2.8 million Canadian citizens abroad.[53] This represents about 8% of the total Canadian population. Of those living abroad, the United States, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, China, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, and Australia have the largest Canadian diaspora. Canadians in the United States constitute the greatest single expatriate community at over 1 million in 2009, representing 35.8% of all Canadians abroad.[54] Under current Canadian law, Canada does not restrict dual citizenship, but Passport Canada encourages its citizens to travel abroad on their Canadian passport so that they can access Canadian consular services.[55]
Ethnic ancestry
Main article: Ethnic origins of people in Canada
Counting both single and multiple responses, the most commonly identified ethnic origins were (2016)
Ethnic origin[56]
Canadian[a]
32.32% 11,135,965
18.34% 6,320,085
9.64% 3,322,405
First Nations[b]
According to the 2016 census, the country's largest self-reported ethnic origin is Canadian (accounting for 32% of the population),[a] followed by English (18.3%), Scottish (13.9%), French (13.6%), Irish (13.4%), German (9.6%), Chinese (5.1%), Italian (4.6%), First Nations (4.4%), Indian (4.0%), and Ukrainian (3.9%).[57] There are 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands, encompassing a total of 1,525,565 people.[58] Canada's indigenous population is growing at almost twice the national rate, and four percent of Canada's population claimed an indigenous identity in 2006. Another 22.3 percent of the population belonged to a non-indigenous visible minority.[59] In 2016, the largest visible minority groups were South Asian (5.6%), Chinese (5.1%), and Black (3.5%).[59] Between 2011 and 2016, the visible minority population rose by 18.4 percent.[59] In 1961, less than two percent of Canada's population (about 300,000 people) were members of visible minority groups.[60] Indigenous peoples are not considered a visible minority under the Employment Equity Act,[61] and this is the definition that Statistics Canada also uses.
Main article: Culture of Canada
A 1911 political cartoon on Canada's bicultural identity showing a flag combining symbols of Britain, France and Canada; titled "The next favor. 'A flag to suit the minority.'"
Canadian culture is primarily a Western culture, with influences by First Nations and other cultures. It is a product of its ethnicities, languages, religions, political, and legal system(s). Canada has been shaped by waves of migration that have combined to form a unique blend of art, cuisine, literature, humour, and music.[62] Today, Canada has a diverse makeup of nationalities and constitutional protection for policies that promote multiculturalism rather than cultural assimilation.[63] In Quebec, cultural identity is strong, and many French-speaking commentators speak of a Quebec culture distinct from English Canadian culture.[64] However, as a whole, Canada is a cultural mosaic: a collection of several regional, indigenous, and ethnic subcultures.[65][66]
Canadian government policies such as official bilingualism; publicly funded health care; higher and more progressive taxation; outlawing capital punishment; strong efforts to eliminate poverty; strict gun control; the legalizing of same-sex marriage, pregnancy terminations, euthanasia and cannabis are social indicators of Canada's political and cultural values.[67][68] American media and entertainment are popular, if not dominant, in English Canada; conversely, many Canadian cultural products and entertainers are successful in the United States and worldwide.[69] The Government of Canada has also influenced culture with programs, laws, and institutions. It has created Crown corporations to promote Canadian culture through media and has also tried to protect Canadian culture by setting legal minimums on Canadian content.[70]
Monument to Multiculturalism by Francesco Pirelli in Toronto; four identical sculptures are located in Buffalo City, Changchun, Sarajevo, and Sydney
Canadian culture has historically been influenced by European culture and traditions, especially British and French, and by its own indigenous cultures. Most of Canada's territory was inhabited and developed later than other European colonies in the Americas, with the result that themes and symbols of pioneers, trappers, and traders were important in the early development of the Canadian identity.[71] First Nations played a critical part in the development of European colonies in Canada, particularly for their role in assisting exploration of the continent during the North American fur trade.[72] The British conquest of New France in the mid-1700s brought a large Francophone population under British Imperial rule, creating a need for compromise and accommodation.[73] The new British rulers left alone much of the religious, political, and social culture of the French-speaking habitants, guaranteeing through the Quebec Act of 1774 the right of the Canadiens to practise the Catholic faith and to use French civil law (now Quebec law).[74]
The Constitution Act, 1867 was designed to meet the growing calls of Canadians for autonomy from British rule, while avoiding the overly strong decentralization that contributed to the Civil War in the United States.[75] The compromises made by the Fathers of Confederation set Canadians on a path to bilingualism, and this in turn contributed to an acceptance of diversity.[76][77]
The Canadian Forces and overall civilian participation in the First World War and Second World War helped to foster Canadian nationalism,[78][79] however, in 1917 and 1944, conscription crisis' highlighted the considerable rift along ethnic lines between Anglophones and Francophones.[80] As a result of the First and Second World Wars, the Government of Canada became more assertive and less deferential to British authority.[81] With the gradual loosening of political ties to the United Kingdom and the modernization of Canadian immigration policies, 20th-century immigrants with African, Caribbean and Asian nationalities have added to the Canadian identity and its culture.[82] The multiple-origins immigration pattern continues today, with the arrival of large numbers of immigrants from non-British or non-French backgrounds.[83]
Multiculturalism in Canada was adopted as the official policy of the government during the premiership of Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s and 1980s.[84] The Canadian government has often been described as the instigator of multicultural ideology, because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration.[85] Multiculturalism is administered by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and reflected in the law through the Canadian Multiculturalism Act[86] and section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[87]
Main article: Religion in Canada
Religion in Canada (2011 National Household Survey)[88]
Catholic (38.7%)
Other Christian (28.6%)
Non-religious (23.9%)
Islam (3.2%)
Hinduism (1.5%)
Sikhism (1.4%)
Buddhism (1.1%)
Judaism (1.0%)
Other religions (0.6%)
Canada as a nation is religiously diverse, encompassing a wide range of groups, beliefs and customs.[89] The preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms references "God", and the monarch carries the title of "Defender of the Faith".[90] However, Canada has no official religion, and support for religious pluralism (Freedom of religion in Canada) is an important part of Canada's political culture.[91][92] With the role of Christianity in decline, it having once been central and integral to Canadian culture and daily life,[93] commentators have suggested that Canada has come to enter a post-Christian period in a secular state,[94][95] with irreligion on the rise.[96] The majority of Canadians consider religion to be unimportant in their daily lives, but still believe in God.[97] The practice of religion is now generally considered a private matter throughout society and within the state.[98]
The 2011 Canadian census reported that 67.3% of Canadians identify as being Christians; of this number, Catholics make up the largest group, accounting for 38.7 percent of the population.[88] The largest Protestant denomination is the United Church of Canada (accounting for 6.1% of Canadians); followed by Anglicans (5.0%), and Baptists (1.9%).[88] About 23.9% of Canadians declare no religious affiliation, including agnostics, atheists, humanists, and other groups.[88] The remaining are affiliated with non-Christian religions, the largest of which is Islam (3.2%), followed by Hinduism (1.5%), Sikhism (1.4%), Buddhism (1.1%), and Judaism (1.0%).[88]
Before the arrival of European colonists and explorers, First Nations followed a wide array of mostly animistic religions.[99] During the colonial period, the French settled along the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, specifically Latin Rite Roman Catholics, including a number of Jesuits dedicated to converting indigenous peoples; an effort that eventually proved successful.[100] The first large Protestant communities were formed in the Maritimes after the British conquest of New France, followed by American Protestant settlers displaced by the American Revolution.[101] The late nineteenth century saw the beginning of a substantive shift in Canadian immigration patterns. Large numbers of Irish and southern European immigrants were creating new Roman Catholic communities in English Canada.[20] The settlement of the west brought significant Eastern Orthodox immigrants from Eastern Europe and Mormon and Pentecostal immigrants from the United States.[102]
The earliest documentation of Jewish presence in Canada occurs in the 1754 British Army records from the French and Indian War.[103] In 1760, General Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst attacked and won Montreal for the British. In his regiment there were several Jews, including four among his officer corps, most notably Lieutenant Aaron Hart who is considered the father of Canadian Jewry.[103] The Islamic, Jains, Sikh, Hindu, and Buddhist communities—although small—are as old as the nation itself. The 1871 Canadian Census (first "Canadian" national census) indicated thirteen Muslims among the populace,[104] with approximately 5000 Sikh by 1908.[105] The first Canadian mosque was constructed in Edmonton, in 1938, when there were approximately 700 Muslims in Canada.[106] Buddhism first arrived in Canada when Japanese immigrated during the late 19th century.[107] The first Japanese Buddhist temple in Canada was built in Vancouver in 1905.[108] The influx of immigrants in the late 20th century, with Sri Lankan, Japanese, Indian and Southeast Asian customs, has contributed to the recent expansion of the Jain, Sikh, Hindu, and Buddhist communities.[109]
Main article: Languages of Canada
Approximately 98% of Canadians can speak English or French (2006)[110]
English - 56.9%
English and French (Bilingual) - 16.1%
French - 21.3%
Sparsely populated area ( <' 0.4 persons per km2)
A multitude of languages are used by Canadians, with English and French (the official languages) being the mother tongues of approximately 56% and 21% of Canadians, respectively.[111] As of the 2016 Census, just over 7.3 million Canadians listed a non-official language as their mother tongue. Some of the most common non-official first languages include Chinese (1,227,680 first-language speakers), Punjabi (501,680), Spanish (458,850), Tagalog (431,385), Arabic (419,895), German (384,040), and Italian (375,645).[111] Less than one percent of Canadians (just over 250,000 individuals) can speak an indigenous language. About half this number (129,865) reported using an indigenous language on a daily basis.[112] Additionally, Canadians speak several sign languages; the number of speakers is unknown of the most spoken ones, American Sign Language (ASL) and Quebec Sign Language (LSQ),[113] as it is of Maritime Sign Language and Plains Sign Talk.[114] There are only 47 speakers of the Inuit sign language Inuiuuk.[115]
English and French are recognized by the Constitution of Canada as official languages.[116] All federal government laws are thus enacted in both English and French, with government services available in both languages.[116] Two of Canada's territories give official status to indigenous languages. In Nunavut, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun are official languages, alongside the national languages of English and French, and Inuktitut is a common vehicular language in territorial government.[117] In the Northwest Territories, the Official Languages Act declares that there are eleven different languages: Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich'in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey, and Tłįchǫ.[118] Multicultural media are widely accessible across the country and offer specialty television channels, newspapers, and other publications in many minority languages.[119]
In Canada, as elsewhere in the world of European colonies, the frontier of European exploration and settlement tended to be a linguistically diverse and fluid place, as cultures using different languages met and interacted. The need for a common means of communication between the indigenous inhabitants and new arrivals for the purposes of trade, and (in some cases) intermarriage, led to the development of Mixed languages.[120] Languages like Michif, Chinook Jargon, and Bungi creole tended to be highly localized and were often spoken by only a small number of individuals who were frequently capable of speaking another language.[121] Plains Sign Talk—which functioned originally as a trade language used to communicate internationally and across linguistic borders—reached across Canada, the United States, and into Mexico.[122]
List of Canadians
Persons of National Historic Significance
List of Prime Ministers of Canada
^ a b All citizens of Canada are classified as "Canadians" as defined by Canada's nationality laws. However, "Canadian" as an ethnic group has since 1996 been added to census questionnaires for possible ancestral origin or descent. "Canadian" was included as an example on the English questionnaire and "Canadien" as an example on the French questionnaire. "The majority of respondents to this selection are from the eastern part of the country that was first settled. Respondents generally are visibly European (Anglophones and Francophones), however no-longer self identify with their ethnic ancestral origins. This response is attributed to a multitude or generational distance from ancestral lineage.
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Source 2: Barry Edmonston; Eric Fong (2011). The Changing Canadian Population. McGill-Queen's Press. pp. 294–296. ISBN 978-0-7735-3793-4.
^ The category "North American Indian" includes respondents who indicated that their ethnic origins were from a Canadian First Nation, or another non-Canadian North American aboriginal group (excluding Inuit and Métis).
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Waugh, Earle Howard; Abu-Laban, Sharon McIrvin & Qureshi, Regula (1991). Muslim families in North America. U Alberta. ISBN 978-0-88864-225-7.
Wayland, Shara V. (1997). "Immigration, Multiculturalism and National Identity in Canada". International Journal on Minority and Group Rights. Dept of Political Science, U Toronto. 5 (1): 33–58. doi:10.1163/15718119720907408.
White, Richard & Findlay, John M., eds. (1999). Power and Place in the North American West. UWP. ISBN 978-0-295-97773-7.
Wilkinson, Paul F. (1980). In celebration of play: an integrated approach to play and child development. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-41078-0.
Winford, Donald (2003). An Introduction to Contact Linguistics. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-631-21250-8.
Wurm, Stephen Adolphe; Muhlhausler, Peter & Tyron, Darrell T., eds. (1996). Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. de Gruyter / Mouton. ISBN 978-3-11-013417-9.
Yamagishi, N. Rochelle (2010). Japanese Canadian Journey: The Nakagama Story. Trafford Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4269-8148-7.
Zimmerman, Karla (2008). Canada (tenth ed.). Lonely Planet. ISBN 978-1-74104-571-0.
Main article: Bibliography of Canada
Beaty, Bart; Briton, Derek; Filax, Gloria (2010). How Canadians Communicate III: Contexts of Canadian Popular Culture. Athabasca University Press. ISBN 978-1-897425-59-6.
Bumsted, J. M. (2003). Canada's diverse peoples: a reference sourcebook. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-672-9.
Carment, David; Bercuson, David (2008). The World in Canada: Diaspora, Demography, and Domestic Politics. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. ISBN 978-0-7735-7455-7.
Cohen, Andrew (2008). The Unfinished Canadian: The People We Are. McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-2286-9.
Gillmor, Don; Turgeon, Pierre (2002). CBC (ed.). Canada: A People's History. 1. McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-3324-7.
Gillmor, Don; Turgeon, Pierre; Michaud, Achille (2002). CBC (ed.). Canada: A People's History. 2. McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-3336-0.
Kearney, Mark; Ray, Randy (2009). The Big Book of Canadian Trivia. Dundurn. ISBN 978-1-77070-614-9.
Kelley, Ninette; Trebilcock, M. J. (2010). The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-9536-7.
Resnick, Philip (2005). The European Roots of Canadian Identity. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-55111-705-8.
Richard, Madeline A. (1992). Ethnic Groups and Marital Choices: Ethnic History and Marital Assimilation in Canada, 1871 and 1971. UBC Press. ISBN 978-0-7748-0431-8.
Simpson, Jeffrey (2000). Star-Spangled Canadians: Canadians Living the American Dream. Harper-Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-255767-2.
Studin, Irvin (2006). What Is a Canadian?: Forty-Three Thought-Provoking Responses. McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-8321-1.
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Dervish movement (Somali)
(Redirected from Dervish state)
The Somali Dervish movement (Somali: Halgankii Daraawiishta) was an armed resistance to the colonial powers – particularly the British – in the Horn of Africa, between 1899 and 1920.[2][3] It was led by the Salihiyya Sufi Muslim poet and militant leader Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, also known as Sayyid Mohamed, who aimed for the removal of the colonial state and foreign infidels, the defeat of the Ethiopian forces supporting the colonial powers, and the creation of a Muslim state.[2][3] Hassan established a ruling council called the Khususi consisting of Islamic clan leaders and elders, added an adviser from the Ottoman Empire named Muhammad Ali and thus created a multiclan nationalist liberation movement in what later emerged as Somalia.[3][2][4]
Somali Dervish movement
Halgankii Daraawiishta
Taleh
Islam with Sufi-orientation
Mullah, Sayid[1]
Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
Today part of
The Dervish movement attracted between 5,000 and 6,000 youth from different clans over 1899 and 1900, acquired firearms and then attacked the Ethiopian army in the Jigjiga region. The Ethiopian army retreated giving the Dervishes their first success.[5][note 1] The Dervish movement then declared the British colonial administration as their enemy. To end the movement, the British pursued a divide and rule strategy and sought the competing clans as coalition partners against the Dervish movement. The British provided these clans with firearms and supplies, triggering inter-clan warfare. The British also launched punitive attacks between 1900 and 1904 to root out the Dervish army.[2][3] The Dervish movement suffered losses in the field, regrouped into smaller units and resorted to militant guerrilla warfare. Hasan and his loyalist Dervishes moved into the Italian controlled Somaliland in 1905, where Hasan signed the Illig treaty and thereafter strengthened his movement.[2] In 1908, the Dervishes entered the British region again and began inflicting major losses to the colonial powers in the interior regions of the Horn of Africa. The British retreated to the coastal regions, leaving the interior regions to the chaotic clan warfare. The World War I shifted the attention of the colonial forces elsewhere and upon its end, in 1920, the British launched a massive land, air and sea attack on the Taleh forts strongholds of the Dervish movement.[3][5] This decimated the Dervishes, though their leader Mohammed Abdullah Hassan survived the British attack. His death in 1921 due to malaria or influenza ended the Dervish movement.[2][3][7]
The Dervish movement temporarily created a mobile Somali "proto-state" in early 20th-century with fluid boundaries and fluctuating population.[8] It was one of the bloodiest and longest militant movements in sub-Saharan Africa during the colonial era, one that overlapped with the World War I. The battles between various sides – particularly those between the Dervish and the British and between the clans – over two decades killed nearly a third of northern Somalia's population and ravaged the local economy.[7][9][10] Scholars variously interpret the emergence and demise of the militant Dervish movement in Somalia. Some consider the "Sufi Islamic" ideology as the driver, others consider economic crisis to the nomadic lifestyle triggered by the occupation and "colonial predation" ideology as the trigger for the Dervish movement, while post-modernists state that both religion and nationalism created the Dervish movement.[3]
1 Origins
3 Wars against the British Empire and Ethiopia
4 Modern legacy
OriginsEdit
See also: Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, leader of the Dervish movement.
According to Abdullah A. Mohamoud, the traditional society of Somalia followed a decentralized structure and a nomadic lifestyle dependent on livestock and pastureland. It was also predominantly Muslim.[2][3] As the European colonial powers expanded their reach in the Horn of Africa, they in cooperation with the Ethiopian army and emperor Menelik, partitioned Somalia and created a centralized form of government. This upset the Somali traditional lifestock and pastureland-based livelihood. The colonial powers were also Christians, states Mohamoud, which created additional suspicions amongst the religious elite of the Somalis.[3] The Ethiopian troops were already a bane for the Somalis as they were the traditional raiders and plunderers of their grazing herds. The arrival of the colonial powers and the consequent partitioning of the land affected the Somalis where Sufi poets such as Faarax Nuur wrote about the traumatic circumstances inflicted on the Somalis by the British, Ethiopians and the Italians.[11] The Dervish movement originated in these circumstances, as a resistance against the colonial designs.[3]
The Dervish movement was led by a Sufi poet and religious nationalist leader named Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, also known as Sayid Maxamad Cabdulle Xasan.[2] According to Said M. Mohamed, he was born in Sacmadeeqo sometime between 1856 and 1864 to a father who was a religious teacher.[2] He studied in Somali Islamic seminaries and later went on Hajj to Mecca where he met Shaykh Muhammad Salah of the Salihiya Islamic Tariqah, which states The Encyclopedia Britannica was a "militant, reformist, and puritanical Sufi order".[12][2] The preachings of Salah to Hasan had roots in Saudi Wahhabism, and it considered it a religious duty "to wage a holy war (jihad) against all other forms of Islam, the Western and Christian presence in the Muslim world, and a religious revival", state Richard Shultz and Andrea Dew.[7] When Hasan returned to the Horn of Africa, the Somali tradition states that he saw Somali children being converted to Christianity by missionaries in the British colony. Hasan began preaching against this religious conversion and the British colonization. He was opposed by the British powers who called him the 'mad mullah', and his Sufi teachings were also opposed by the rival Qadiriya Tariqah – another traditional Sufi group of the region, states Said M. Mohamed.[2][13] Another version of the early events link the illegal sale of a gun to Hasan by a corrupt Somali officer in 1899, who reported his gun as stolen rather than purchased by Hasan.[14] The British demanded the gun's return, while Hasan replied that the British should leave the country, a sentiment he had previously claimed in 1897 when he declared himself "the leader of a sovereign nation".[14] Hasan expanded his arguments against the colonial rule by preaching, the "British infidels have destroyed our [Islamic] religion and made our children their children", states Raphael Njoku.[14]
Hasan left the urban settlement and moved to preach in the countryside. His influence spread in the rural parts and many elders, as well as youth, became his followers. Hasan converted the influenced youth from different clans into a Muslim brotherhood,[12] rallying to protect Islam from the forces of colonialism.[15] These formed the Hasan's armed resistance group to confront the colonial powers, and came to be known as Dervishes or Daraawiish, states Said M. Mohamed.[2]
StateEdit
Taleh, the Dervish capital.
The Dervish movement temporarily created a Somali "proto-state", according to Markus Hoehne.[8] It was a mobile state with fluid boundaries and fluctuating population given the guerilla style militant approach of Dervishes and their practice of retreating to sparsely inhabited hinterland whenever the colonial forces with superior firearms overwhelmed them. At the head of this state was the Sufi leader Hasan with the power of final decision. Hasan surrounded himself with a group of commanders for the militant operations supported by the khusuusi or the Dervish council. Islamic judges settled disputes and enforced the Islamic law in this Dervish state. According to Robert Hess, two of Hasan's chief advisors were Sultan Nur – previously Habr Yunis chief, and Haji Sudi Shabeel also known as Ahmad Warsama from Adan Madoba Habr Toljaala who was fluent in English.[16][17] The regions controlled by the Sufi leader, states Hoehne, mostly belonged to the Dhulbahante and Ogadeen clans, but also a few others such as the Isaaq clans.[8] The fluctuating population of the Dervish often mainly consisted of "the close patrilineal relatives and wives of the followers of Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hasan", states Hoehne.[8] Between 1900 and 1913, they operated from temporary local centers such as Aynabo and Illig in northern Somalia.[8]
Dervish Khususi, Haji Sudi on the left with his brother in-law Duale Idres. Aden, 1892.
The Dervishes wore white turban and its army utilized horses for movement. They assassinated opposing clan leaders.[8] Dervish soldiers used the dhaanto and geeraar traditional dance-song to raise their esprit de corps and sometimes sang it on horseback.[18] Hasan commanded the Dervish movement soldiers in a martial manner, ensuring that they were religiously committed, powered up for warfare and men of character sworn with an oath of allegiance.[7] To ensure unity among his troops, instead of letting them identify themselves by their different tribes, he made them identify themselves uniformly as Dervish.[19] The movement obtained firearms from Sultan Boqor Osman Mahmud of Majerteen Sultanate, as well as the Ottoman Empire and Sudan.[14] The Dervish fought many battles starting in 1899 against the Ethiopian troops.[7] In 1904, the Dervishes were almost annihilated in Jidbaley. Hasan retreated into the Italian Somaliland and entered into a treaty with them, who accepted the control of Eyl port by the Dervishes. This port served as the Dervish headquarters between 1905 and 1909.[8] During this period, Hasan rebuilt the Dervish movement army, the Dervishes raided and plundered their neighboring clans, and in 1909 assassinated their archrival Sufi leader Uways al-Barawi and burnt his settlement, according to Mohamed Mukhtar.[20]
In 1913, after the British withdrawal to the coast, the Dervishes created a walled town with fourteen fortresses in Taleh by importing masons from Yemen. This served as their headquarters.[21][22] The main fortress, Silsilat, included conical tower granaries that opened only at the top, wells with sulfurous water, cattle watering stations, a guard tower, walled garden, and tombs. It became the residence of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, his wives and family.[21] The Taleh structures also included the Hed Kaldig (literally, "place of blood"), where those whom Hasan disliked were executed with or without torture and their bodies left to the hyenas.[21] According to Muktar, Hasan's execution orders also targeted dozens of his former friends and allies.[20] The town of Taleh was mostly destroyed after a British aerial bombardment in early February 1920, though Hasan had already left his compound by then.[21][23]
The Dervish movement aimed to remove the colonial powers and restore the "Islamic system of government with Islamic education as its foundation", according to Mohamed-Rahis Hasan and Salada Robleh.[24]
Wars against the British Empire and EthiopiaEdit
See also: Somaliland Campaign
In August 1898, the Dervish army occupied Burao, an important centre of British Somaliland, giving Muhammad Abdullah Hassan control over the city's watering places. Hassan also succeeded in making peace between the local clans and initiated a large assembly, where the population was urged to join the war against the British. His forces were supplied with the simple uniforms consisting of "a white cotton outer garment (worn by most Somali men of the time anyway), a white turban, a tasbih (or rosary), and a rifle."[25]
The historic Daarta Sayyidka Dervish fort in Eyl, Puntland.
In March 1900, Hassan along with his dervish forces attacked an Ethiopian outpost near Jijiga. Capt. Malcolm McNeill who commanded the Somali field Force against Hassan reported that the dervish were completely defeated, and that they have suffered a heavy loss amounting to 2,800 killed, according to the Ethiopians.[26] Similar raids by the dervish would continue despite the losses across the Somali peninsula until 1920. McNeill notes that by June 1900, Hassan made his position even stronger than before his March 1900 defeat and had “practically dominated the whole of the southern portion of our Protectorate”.[26]
The British administration started to coordinate with the Italians and Ethiopians , and by 1901 a joint Anglo-Ethiopian force began to coordinate plans to eradicate the jihadists or limit their reach farther west to the Ogaden or borderland of northern Kenya. Lack of supplies and access to fresh drinking water in the large expanse of flat land made this a challenging feat for the British and their allies. In contrast, Hassan and his dervishes adapted harsh conditions of the land by eating carcasses of beasts and drinking water from the dead bellies of animals.[26] Despite possessing superior weapons, including Maxim machine guns, until 1905, the Anglo-Ethiopian forces were still struggling to gain hold on the dervish movement.
Britain launched at least two major assaults aimed at either killing or capturing Hassan between 1913 and 1920. Though they almost succeeded, Hassan proved elusive. Finally, the British Cabinet approved of air operations against the Dervish movement. It is said that the challenge of the Dervishes presented the British with a suitable environment to trial its new doctrine of war, which stressed "the use of aircraft as the primary arm, usually supplemented by ground forces, according to particular requirements."[27]
In the 1920 campaign by the British, 12 Airco DH.9A aircraft were used to support the local British forces. Within a month, the British had occupied the capital of the Dervish State and Hassan had retreated to the west.[27]
Modern legacyEdit
Logo of the Puntland Dervish Force, named in honor of the Dervishes
The Dervish legacy in Somalia has been influential. It was the "most important revivalist Islamic movements" in Somalia, state Hasan and Robleh.[28] The movement and particularly its leader has been controversial in Somalia. Some cherish it as the founder of modern Somali nationalism, while some others view it as an ambitious Muslim brotherhood militancy that destroyed Somalia's opportunity to move towards modernization and progress in favor of a puritanical Islamic state embedded with Islamic education – ideas enshrined in the contemporary constitution of Somalia.[28] Yet others such as Aidid consider the Dervish legacy was one of cruelty and violence against those Somalis who disagreed with or refused to submit to Hasan. These Somalis were "declared Kufr" and Dervish soldiers were ordered by Hasan to "kill them, their children and women and snatch all their property", according to Shultz and Dew.[7][29] Another legacy that came out of the prolonged struggle and savage violence between the colonial powers and the Dervish movement, states Mohamoud, has been the arming of the Somali clans followed by decades of destructive clan-driven militarism, violent turmoil, and high human costs well after the demise of the Dervish movement.[3][30]
Hasan and his Dervish movement have inspired a nationalistic following in contemporary Somalia.[31][32] The military government of Somalia led by Mohamed Siad Barre, for example, erected statues visible between Makka Al Mukarama and Shabelle Roads in the heart of Mogadishu. These were for three major Somali History icons: Mohammed Abdullah Hassan of the Dervish movement, Stone Thrower and Hawo Tako. The castles and fortresses built by the Dervishes were included in a list of Somalia's national treasures. The Dervish period spawned many war poets and peace poets involved in a struggle known as the Literary war which had a profound effect on Somali poetry and Literature, with Mohammed Abdullah Hassan featuring as the most prominent poet of that Age.[33][full citation needed] Many of these poems continue to be taught in Somali schools and have been recited by several Presidents of Somalia in speeches as well as in poetry competitions. In Somali Studies, the Dervish period is an important chapter in Somalia's history and its brief period of European hegemony, the latter of which inspired the resistance movement. Due to their goal of creating a unified Somali State or Greater Somalia transcending regional and clan divisions, many scholars regard the Dervishes as the ideological architects of Somalia[34][full citation needed] and Muhammad Abdullah Hassan himself as the "Father of the Nation".[35][full citation needed]
Hasna Doreh
Nur Ahmed Aman
Haji Sudi
History of Somalia
Somali aristocratic and court titles
^ The term Dervish, states Abdullah A. Mohamoud citing Beachey, has origins in the Turkish dervi or Persian darvesh. It means "ardent fighters for Islam" with an austere lifestyle.[6]
^ ʻAbdi ʻAbdulqadir Sheik-ʻAbdi (1993). Divine madness: Moḥammed ʻAbdulle Ḥassan (1856-1920). Zed Books. p. 67. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong; Mr. Steven J. Niven (2012). Dictionary of African Biography. Oxford University Press. pp. 35–37. ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k Abdullah A. Mohamoud (2006). State Collapse and Post-conflict Development in Africa: The Case of Somalia (1960-2001). Purdue University Press. pp. 60–61, 70–72 with footnotes. ISBN 978-1-55753-413-2.
^ Mukhtar, Mohamed (2003). Historical Dictionary of Somalia. p. 27.
^ a b Abdi Ismail Samatar (1989). The State and Rural Transformation in Northern Somalia, 1884-1986. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN 978-0-299-11994-2.
^ Abdullah A. Mohamoud (2006). State Collapse and Post-conflict Development in Africa: The Case of Somalia (1960-2001). Purdue University Press. p. 71 with footnote 81. ISBN 978-1-55753-413-2.
^ a b c d e f Richard H. Shultz; Andrea J. Dew (2009). Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat. Columbia University Press. pp. 67–68. ISBN 978-0-231-12983-1.
^ a b c d e f g Markus V. Hoehne (2016). John M Mackenzie (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Empire. John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe069. ISBN 978-11184-406-43.
^ Michel Ben Arrous; Lazare Ki-Zerbo (2009). African Studies in Geography from Below. African Books. p. 166. ISBN 978-2-86978-231-0.
^ Robert L. Hess (1964). "The 'Mad Mullah' and Northern Somalia". The Journal of African History. Cambridge University Press. 5 (3): 415–433. doi:10.1017/S0021853700005107. JSTOR 179976.
^ Abdullah A. Mohamoud (2006). State Collapse and Post-conflict Development in Africa: The Case of Somalia (1960-2001). Purdue University Press. pp. 70 with footnote 79. ISBN 978-1-55753-413-2.
^ a b Sayyid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan, Encyclopedia Britannica
^ David Motadel (2014). Islam and the European Empires. Oxford University Press. pp. 17–18 with footnotes 49–50, 165–166. ISBN 978-0-19-966831-1.
^ a b c d Raphael Chijioke Njoku (2013). The History of Somalia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 75–76. ISBN 978-0-313-37857-7.
^ Benjamin Hopkins (2014). David Motadel (ed.). Islam and the European Empires. Oxford University Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 978-0-19-966831-1. , Quote: "Men of religious learning and authority were well-positioned in these societies [Somaliland, Sudan, Northwest Frontier of British India] to straddle the disparate and often conflicting interests of local peoples. The protection of Islam became their rallying cry, providing a coherent narrative of and justification for resistance against the forces of colonialism, as well as a unifying force which superseded particularist tribal identities."
^ Robert L. Hess (1968). Norman Robert Bennett (ed.). Leadership in Eastern Africa: Six Political Biographies. Boston University Press. p. 103.
^ R. W. Beachey (1990). The warrior mullah: the Horn aflame, 1892-1920. Bellew. pp. 37–44. ISBN 978-0-947792-43-5.
^ Johnson, John William (1996). Heelloy: Modern Poetry and Songs of the Somali. Indiana University Press. p. 31. ISBN 1874209812.
^ Saadia Touval (1963). Somali nationalism: international politics and the drive for unity in the Horn of Africa. Harvard University Press. pp. 57–59.
^ a b Mohamed Haji Mukhtar (2003). Historical Dictionary of Somalia. Scarecrow Press. pp. 196–197. ISBN 978-0-8108-6604-1.
^ a b c d W. A. MacFadyen (1931), Taleh, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 78, No. 2, pp. 125–128
^ Robert L. Hess (1968). Norman Robert Bennett (ed.). Leadership in Eastern Africa: Six Political Biographies. Boston University Press. pp. 90–97.
^ Michael Napier (2018). The Royal Air Force: A Centenary of Operations. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 33–34. ISBN 978-1-4728-2539-1.
^ Hasan, Mohamed-Rashid S., and Salada M. Robleh (2004), "Islamic revival and education in Somalia", Educational Strategies Among Muslims in the Context of Globalization: Some National Case Studies, Volume 3, BRILL Academic, page 147
^ Martin, B. G. (2003-02-13). Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521534512.
^ a b c Njoku, Raphael Chijioke (2013). The History of Somalia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313378577.
^ a b Njoku, Raphael Chijioke (2013). The History of Somalia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313378577.
^ a b Hasan, Mohamed-Rashid S., and Salada M. Robleh (2004), "Islamic revival and education in Somalia", Educational Strategies Among Muslims in the Context of Globalization: Some National Case Studies, Volume 3, BRILL Academic, pages 143, 146-148, 150-152
^ Kimberly A. Huisman (2011). Kimberly A. Huisman; Mazie Hough; et al. (eds.). Somalis in Maine: Crossing Cultural Currents. North Atlantic Books. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-1-55643-926-1.
^ Rebecca Richards (2016). Understanding Statebuilding: Traditional Governance and the Modern State in Somaliland. Routledge. pp. 76–77. ISBN 978-1-317-00466-0.
^ Lotje de Vries; Pierre Englebert; Mareike Schomerus (2018). Secessionism in African Politics: Aspiration, Grievance, Performance, Disenchantment. Springer International. pp. 96–97. ISBN 978-3-319-90206-7.
^ Said S. Samatar (1982). Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism: The Case of Sayid Mahammad 'Abdille Hasan. Cambridge University Press. pp. 20–24, 72–73. ISBN 978-0-521-23833-5.
^ SOMALIA: A Nation's Literary Death Tops Its Political Demise by Said S Samatar
^ Pg 393 – Literatures in African Languages: Theoretical Issues and Sample Surveys By B. W. Andrzejewski, S. Pilaszewicz, W. Tyloch
^ Pg 187 – The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa: the diplomacy of intervention and Disengagement By Robert G. Patman
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Denmark in World War II
(Redirected from German occupation of Denmark)
Headquarters of the Schalburg Corps, a Danish SS unit, after 1943. The occupied building is the lodge of the Danish Order of Freemasons located on Blegdamsvej, Copenhagen.
At the outset of World War II, Denmark declared itself neutral. For most of the war, the country was a protectorate, then an occupied territory of Germany. The decision to occupy Denmark was taken in Berlin on 17 December 1939.[1] On 9 April 1940, Germany occupied Denmark in Operation Weserübung and the king and government functioned as normal in a de facto protectorate over the country until 29 August 1943, when Germany placed Denmark under direct military occupation, which lasted until the Allied victory on 5 May 1945. Contrary to the situation in other countries under German occupation, most Danish institutions continued to function relatively normally until 1945. Both the Danish government and king remained in the country in an uneasy relationship between a democratic and a totalitarian system until the Danish government stepped down in a protest against the German demands to institute the death penalty for sabotage.
Just over 3,000 Danes died as a direct result of the occupation.[2] (A further 2,000 volunteers of Free Corps Denmark and Waffen SS, of which most originated from the German minority of southern Denmark, died fighting on the German side on the Eastern Front[3] while 1,072 merchant sailors died in Allied service.[4]) Overall this represents a very low mortality rate when compared to other occupied countries and most belligerent countries. (See: World War II casualties.)
An effective resistance movement developed by the end of the war, and most Danish Jews were rescued in 1943 when German authorities ordered their internment as part of the Holocaust.
1 Invasion
1.1 Faroe Islands
1.3 Greenland
2 Protectorate Government 1940–43
2.1 Collaborators
2.1.1 Free Corps Denmark
2.2 Anti-Comintern pact
2.3 The 1942 telegram crisis
3 Increasing resistance after the August 1943 crisis
4.1 Post-war currency reform
5 Hardship and the end of the war
6 German refugees
10.1 in Danish
InvasionEdit
Danish soldiers man an anti-aircraft gun, 1940. All wear the distinctive Danish helmet.
Main article: German invasion of Denmark (1940)
The occupation of Denmark was initially not an important objective for the German government. The decision to occupy its small northern neighbour was taken to facilitate a planned invasion of the strategically more important Norway, and as a precaution against the expected British response. German military planners believed that a base in the northern part of Jutland, specifically the airfield of Aalborg, would be essential to operations in Norway, and they began planning the occupation of parts of Denmark. However, as late as February 1940 no firm decision to occupy Denmark had been made.[5] The issue was finally settled when Adolf Hitler personally crossed out the words die Nordspitze Jütlands ("the Northern tip of Jutland") and replaced them with Dä, a German abbreviation for Denmark.
Although the Danish territory of South Jutland was home to a significant German minority, and the province had been regained from Germany as a result of a plebiscite resulting from the Versailles Treaty, Germany was in no apparent hurry to reclaim it. In a much more vague and longer-term way, some Nazis hoped to incorporate Denmark into a greater "Nordic Union" at some stage, but these plans never materialized. Officially Germany claimed to be protecting Denmark from a British invasion.[6]
At 4:15 on the morning of 9 April 1940, German forces crossed the border into neutral Denmark. In a coordinated operation, German ships began disembarking troops at the docks in Copenhagen. Although outnumbered and poorly equipped, soldiers in several parts of the country offered resistance; most notably the Royal Guard in Copenhagen and units in South Jutland. At the same time as the border crossing, German planes dropped the notorious OPROP! leaflets over Copenhagen calling for Danes to accept the German occupation peacefully, and claiming that Germany had occupied Denmark in order to protect it against Great Britain and France. Colonel Lunding from the Danish army's intelligence office later confirmed that Danish intelligence knew the attack would be coming on either 8 or 9 April and had warned the government accordingly. The Danish ambassador to Germany, Herluf Zahle, issued a similar warning which was also ignored.
A group of Danish soldiers on the morning of the German invasion, 9 April 1940. Two of these men were killed later that day.[7]
As a result of the rapid turn of events, the Danish government did not have enough time to officially declare war on Germany. Denmark was in an untenable position in any event, however. Its territory and population were too small to hold out against Germany for any sustained period. Its flat land would have resulted in it being easily overrun by German panzers; Jutland, for instance, was immediately adjacent to Schleswig-Holstein to the south and was thus wide open to a panzer attack from there. Unlike Norway, Denmark had no mountain ranges from which a drawn-out resistance could be mounted.[8]
Danish Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning addresses the Rigsdagen in Christiansborg Palace on the day of the invasion
Sixteen Danish soldiers died in the invasion, but after two hours the Danish government surrendered, believing that resistance was useless and hoping to work out an advantageous agreement with Germany. The flat territory of Jutland was a perfect area for the German army to operate in, and the surprise attack on Copenhagen had made any attempt to defend Zealand impossible. The Germans had also been quick to establish control over the bridge across the Little Belt, thus gaining access to the island of Funen. Believing that further resistance would only result in the futile loss of still more Danish lives, the Danish cabinet ultimately decided to bow to the German pressure "under protest".[5] The German forces were technologically sophisticated and numerous; the Danish forces comparatively tiny and used obsolete equipment; partially a result of a pre-war policy of trying to avoid antagonizing Germany by supplying the army with modern equipment.[citation needed] Even stiff resistance from the Danes would not have lasted long. Questions have been raised around the apparent fact that the German forces did not seem to expect any resistance, invading with unarmored ships and vehicles.[9]
Faroe IslandsEdit
Main article: British occupation of the Faroe Islands
After the occupation of Denmark, British forces from 12 April 1940 made a pre-emptive bloodless invasion of the Faroe Islands to prevent their occupation by German troops. Britain took over the areas where Denmark previously had given support, and the islands now became dependent on the United Kingdom, which began to participate in fishing production and supplied the islands with important goods.
The British fortified positions in strategically important places. Sunde and fjords were mined, and at the island of Vágar, British engineers built a military aviation base. Up to 8,000 British soldiers were stationed in the Faroe Islands, which at that time had 30,000 inhabitants.
The Faroe Islands were repeatedly attacked by German aircraft, but with minimal damage. However, 25 Faroese ships were lost and 132 sailors died, corresponding to approx. 0.4% of the then Faroese population.
IcelandEdit
Main article: Iceland in World War II
From 1918 until 1944 Iceland was self-governing, but the Danish king (King Christian X) was Head of State of both Denmark and Iceland. The United Kingdom occupied Iceland (to pre-empt a German occupation) on 10 May 1940, turning it over to the then neutral United States in July 1941, before that country entered the war in December 1941. Officially remaining neutral throughout World War II, Iceland became a fully independent republic on 17 June 1944.
GreenlandEdit
See also: History of Greenland § Strategic importance, and Greenland in World War II
On 9 April 1941, the Danish envoy to the United States, Henrik Kauffmann, signed a treaty with the U.S., authorizing it to defend Greenland and construct military stations there. Kauffmann was supported in this decision by the Danish diplomats in the United States and the local authorities in Greenland. Signing this treaty "in the name of the King" was a clear violation of his diplomatic powers, but Kauffmann argued that he would not receive orders from an occupied Copenhagen.
Protectorate Government 1940–43Edit
Erik Scavenius, Danish PM 1942–43 with Werner Best, the German plenipotentiary in Denmark.
DNSAP's parade at Rådhuspladsen 17 November 1940. The parade was held in connection with DNSAP's attempt to seize power
DNSAP's district office on Gammel Kongevej in Copenhagen Between 1940 and 1942 Frederiksberg
Danish Police officers stand in front of the Communist Party headquarters
Members of Free Corps Denmark leaving for the Eastern Front from Hellerup Station in Copenhagen
Historically, Denmark had a large amount of interaction with Germany. In 1920 the country had regained possession of the northern part of Schleswig after losing the provinces during the Second Schleswig War in 1864. The Danish people were divided about what the best policy toward Germany might be. Few were ardent Nazis; some explored the economic possibilities of providing the German occupiers with supplies and goods; others eventually formed resistance groups towards the latter part of the war.[citation needed] The majority of Danes, however, were unwillingly compliant towards the Germans[citation needed]. Due to the relative ease of the occupation and copious amount of dairy products, Denmark earned the nickname the Cream Front (German: Sahnefront).[10]
As a result of the cooperative attitude of the Danish authorities, German officials claimed that they would "respect Danish sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as neutrality."[6] The German authorities were inclined towards lenient terms with Denmark for several reasons: their only strong interest in Denmark, that of surplus agricultural products, would be supplied by price policy on food rather than by control and restriction (some German records indicate that the German administration had not fully realized this potential before the occupation took place, which can be doubted);[11] there was serious concern that the Danish economy was so dependent upon trade with Britain that the occupation would create an economic collapse, and Danish officials capitalized on that fear to get early concessions for a reasonable form of cooperation;[12] they also hoped to score propaganda points by making Denmark, in Hitler's words, "a model protectorate";[13] on top of these more practical goals, Nazi race ideology held that Danes were "fellow Nordic Aryans," and could therefore to some extent be trusted to handle their domestic affairs.
These factors combined to allow Denmark a very favourable relationship with Nazi Germany. The government remained somewhat intact, and the parliament continued to function more or less as it had before. They were able to maintain much of their former control over domestic policy.[14] The police and judicial system remained in Danish hands, and unlike most occupied countries, King Christian X remained in the country as Danish head of state. The German Reich was formally represented by a Reichsbevollmächtigter ('Reich Plenipotentiary'), i.e. a diplomat accredited to the Sovereign, a post awarded to Cecil von Renthe-Fink, the German ambassador, and then in November 1942 to the lawyer and SS general Werner Best.
Danish public opinion generally backed the new government, particularly after the fall of France in June 1940.[15] There was a general feeling that the unpleasant reality of German occupation must be confronted in the most realistic way possible, given the international situation. Politicians realized that they would have to try hard to maintain Denmark's privileged position by presenting a united front to the German authorities, so all of the mainstream democratic parties formed a new government together. Parliament and the government agreed to work closely together.[5] Though the effect of this was close to the creation of a one-party state, it remained a representative government.
The Danish government was dominated by Social Democrats, including the pre-war prime minister Thorvald Stauning, who had been strongly opposed to the Nazi party.[citation needed] Stauning himself was deeply depressed by the prospects for Europe under Nazism.[citation needed] Nonetheless, his party pursued a strategy of cooperation, hoping to maintain democracy and Danish control in Denmark for as long as possible. There were many issues that they had to work out with Germany in the months after the occupation. In an effort to keep the Germans satisfied, they compromised Danish democracy and society in several fundamental ways:
Newspaper articles and news reports "which might jeopardize German-Danish relations" were outlawed, in violation of the Danish constitutional prohibition against censorship.[16]
On 22 June 1941 while Germany commenced its attack on the Soviet Union the German authorities in Denmark demanded that Danish communists should be arrested. The Danish government complied and using secret registers, the Danish police in the following days arrested 339 communists. Of these 246, including the three communist members of the Danish parliament, were imprisoned in the Horserød camp, in violation of the Danish constitution. On 22 August 1941, the Danish parliament (without its communist members) passed the Communist Law, outlawing the communist party and communist activities, in another violation of the Danish constitution. In 1943 about half of them were transferred to Stutthof concentration camp, where 22 of them died.
Following Germany's assault on the Soviet Union, Denmark joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, together with the fellow Nordic state of Finland. As a result, many communists were found among the first members of the Danish resistance movement.
Industrial production and trade was, partly due to geopolitical reality and economic necessity, redirected toward Germany. An overriding concern was a German fear of creating a burden if the Danish economy collapsed as it did after World War I. This sensitivity to Denmark's heavy reliance on foreign trade informed the German decision before the occupation to allow the Danes passage through their blockade.[17] Denmark had traditionally been a major trading partner of both Britain and Germany. Many government officials saw expanded trade with Germany as vital to maintaining social order in Denmark.[16] Increased unemployment and poverty was feared to lead to more of open revolt within the country, since Danes tended to blame all negative developments on the Germans. It was feared that any revolt would result in a crackdown by the German authorities.[15]
The Danish army was largely demobilized, although some units remained until August 1943. The army was allowed to maintain 2,200 men, as well as 1,100 auxiliary troops.[18] Much of the fleet remained in port, but in Danish hands. In at least two towns, the army created secret weapons caches on 10 April 1940.[19] On 23 April 1940,[20] members of the Danish military intelligence established contacts with their British counterparts through the British diplomatic mission in Stockholm, and began dispatching intelligence reports to them by Autumn 1940. This traffic became regular and continued until the Germans dissolved the Danish army in 1943.[20] Following the liberation of Denmark, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery described the intelligence gathered in Denmark as "second to none".[21]
In return for these concessions, the Danish cabinet rejected German demands for legislation discriminating against Denmark's Jewish minority. Demands to introduce the death penalty were likewise rebuffed, and so were German demands to allow German military courts jurisdiction over Danish citizens. Denmark also rejected demands for the transfer of Danish army units to German military use.
A member of Danmarks Nationalsocialistiske Ungdom (Danish Nazi youth movement) in 1941
Stauning remained prime minister until his death in 1942, as head of a coalition cabinet encompassing all major political parties (the exceptions being the tiny Nazi party, and the Communist Party, which was outlawed in 1941 as discussed). Vilhelm Buhl replaced him briefly, only to be replaced by foreign minister Erik Scavenius, who had been the main link to the Nazi authorities throughout the war. Scavenius was a diplomat, not an elected politician, and had an elitist approach to government.[16] He was afraid that emotional public opinion would destabilize his attempts to build a compromise between Danish sovereignty and the realities of German occupation. Scavenius felt strongly that he was Denmark's most ardent defender. After the war there was much recrimination over his stance, particularly from members of the active resistance, who felt that he had hindered the cause of resistance and threatened Denmark's national honour. He felt that these people were vain, seeking to build their own reputations or political careers through emotionalism.
Members of the Free Corps Denmark, carrying the Danish flag, 1941
The Danish authorities were able to use their more cooperative stance to win important concessions for the country. They continually refused to enter a customs and currency union with Germany. Danes were concerned both about the negative economic effects of the German proposals, as well as the political ones. German officials did not want to risk their special relationship with Denmark by forcing an agreement on them, as they had done in other countries. The Danish government was also able to stall negotiations over the return of South Jutland to Germany, ban "closed-rank uniformed marches" that would have made nationalist German or Danish Nazi agitation more possible, keep National Socialists out of the government, and hold a relatively free election, with decidedly anti-Nazi results, in the middle of the war.[16] Danish military officials also had access to sensitive German information, which they delivered to the Allies under government cover.[22] The economic consequences of the occupation were also mitigated by German-Danish cooperation. Inflation rose sharply in the first year of the war, as the German Army spent a large amount of German military currency in Denmark, most importantly on military installations and troop deployments. Due to the Occupation, the National Bank of Denmark was compelled to exchange German currency for Danish notes, effectively granting the Germans a gigantic unsecured loan with only vague promises that the money would eventually be paid, something which never happened. The Danish government was later able to renegotiate the Germans' arbitrary exchange rate between the German military currency and the Danish krone to reduce this problem.[14]
The success most often alluded to in regard to the Danish policy toward Germany is the protection of the Jewish minority in Denmark. Throughout the years of its hold on power, the government consistently refused to accept German demands regarding the Jews.[23] The authorities would not enact special laws concerning Jews, and their civil rights remained equal with those of the rest of the population. German authorities became increasingly exasperated with this position but concluded that any attempt to remove or mistreat Jews would be "politically unacceptable."[24] Even the Gestapo officer Dr. Werner Best, plenipotentiary in Denmark from November 1942, believed that any attempt to remove the Jews would be enormously disruptive to the relationship between the two governments and recommended against any action concerning the Jews of Denmark.
King Christian X remained in Denmark throughout the war, a symbol of courage much appreciated by his subjects.
CollaboratorsEdit
Main articles: National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, HIPO Corps, Schalburg Corps, and Peter group
Footage from a Waffen-SS memorial service held near Birkerød in 1944. Among the attendees were Dr. Werner Best and the Free Corps Denmark commander and Schalburg Corps founder, Knud Børge Martinsen.
Free Corps DenmarkEdit
Main article: Free Corps Denmark
On 29 June 1941, days after the invasion of the USSR, Free Corps Denmark (Danish: Frikorps Danmark) was founded as a corps of Danish volunteers to fight against the Soviet Union. Free Corps Denmark was set up at the initiative of the SS and DNSAP who approached Lieutenant-Colonel C.P. Kryssing of the Danish army shortly after the invasion of the USSR had begun. The Nazi paper Fædrelandet proclaimed the creation of the corps on 29 June 1941.[25]
Soldiers from the Free Corps Denmark marching out of the KB Hallen in connection with DNSAP's spring appeal d. 26 April 1942
According to Danish law, it was not illegal to join a foreign army, but active recruiting on Danish soil was illegal. The SS disregarded this law and began recruiting efforts – predominantly recruiting Danish Nazis and members of the German-speaking minority.[25] The Danish government discovered this and decided to concentrate on persuading the Germans not to recruit underage boys. General Prior wanted to sack Kryssing and his designated second-in-command but decided to consult the cabinet. It agreed that Kryssing should be sacked in its meeting on 2 July 1941, but this decision was later withdrawn when Erik Scavenius—who had not attended the original meeting—returned from negotiations and announced that he had reached an agreement with Renthe-Fink that soldiers wishing to join this corps could be given leave until further notice. The government issued an announcement stating that "Lieut. Colonel C.P. Kryssing, Chief of the 5th Artillery reg., Holbæk, has with the consent of the Royal Danish Government assumed command over 'Free Corps Denmark'". The Danish text only explicitly said that the government recognized that Kryssing had been given a new command; it did not sanction the creation of the corps, which had already happened without its creators asking the government's consent.[25] In July 1941 Heinrich Himmler complained that Denmark was unofficially trying to stop recruitment, since the word ran in the army that anyone joining would be committing treason. The government later instructed the army and navy not to obstruct applications from soldiers wishing to leave active duty and join the corps.
A 1998 study showed that the average recruit to Free Corps Denmark was a Nazi, a member of the German minority in Denmark, or both, and that recruitment was very broad socially.[25] Historian Bo Lidegaard notes: "The relationship between the population and the corps was freezing cold, and legionnaires on leave time and again came into fights, with civilians meeting the corps' volunteers with massive contempt." Lidegaard gives the following figures for 1941: 6,000 Danish citizens had signed up to German army duty; 1,500 of these belonged to the German minority in Denmark.[25]
Administrative map of the Kingdom of Denmark during the German occupation
During the German occupation, King Christian X, seen here on the occasion of his birthday in 1940, was a powerful symbol of national sovereignty. Note that he is not accompanied by a guard.
Anti-Comintern pactEdit
On 20 November 1941, 5 months after the invasion of the USSR, the Danish government received a German "invitation" to join the Anti-Comintern pact. Finland accepted reluctantly on 25 November and stated that it presumed that Denmark would also attend the ceremony (effectively conditioning its own attendance). Erik Scavenius argued that Denmark should sign the pact but the Cabinet ministers refused, stating that this would violate the policy of neutrality.[26] Scavenius reported this decision to Renthe-Fink. Fink replied on 21 November that "Germany would be unable to comprehend" a Danish rejection and demanded this decision be reversed before the end of the day. He assured Scavenius that the pact contained neither "political or other obligations" (i.e., going to war with the USSR). At a cabinet meeting the same day, it was suggested to seek a written confirmation of this promise in an addendum to the protocol. Stauning agreed on these terms, since it would effectively make the signing meaningless. The Danish foreign office drew up a list of four terms that stated that Denmark only committed itself to "police action" in Denmark and that the nation remained neutral. The German foreign ministry agreed to the terms, provided that the protocol was not made public, which was the intent of the Danish foreign ministry.
As Berlin grew tired of waiting, Joachim von Ribbentrop called Copenhagen on 23 November threatening to "cancel the peaceful occupation" unless Denmark complied. On 23 November, the Wehrmacht in Denmark was put on alert and Renthe-Fink met Stauning and Foreign Minister Munch at 10 AM stating that there would be no room for "parliamentary excuses". If the German demands were not met Germany "would no longer be committed by the promises given on 9 April 1940" (the threat of a state of war, a Nazi government, and territorial dismemberment). In a Cabinet meeting at 2 PM that day, Stauning, Scavenius, Munch and two additional ministers advocated accession; seven ministers opposed. In a meeting the same day in the Nine Man committee, three more ministers caved in, most notably Vilhelm Buhl, stating "Cooperation is the last shred of our defence". Prime Minister Stauning's notes from the day stated: The objective is a political positioning. But this was established by the occupation. The danger of saying no—I would not like to see a Terboven here. Sign with addendum—that modifies the pact.[26]
Scavenius boarded a train and headed for Berlin, where he arrived on Monday 24 November. The next crisis came when he was met by Renthe-Fink, who informed him that Ribbentrop had informed Fink that there had been a "misunderstanding" regarding the four clauses and that clause 2 would be deleted. This had specified that Denmark only had police-like obligations. Scavenius had a strict mandate not to change a sentence and stated that he would be unable to return to Copenhagen with a different content from the one agreed upon, but that he was willing to reopen negotiations to clarify the matter further. This reply enraged Ribbentrop (and rumours claim that he was considering ordering the SS to arrest Scavenius). The task fell to German diplomat Ernst von Weizsäcker to patch up a compromise. He watered down the wording but left the content pretty intact. Nonetheless, for Scavenius it was a strong setback that the four clauses would now only get the status of a unilateral Danish declaration (Aktennotitz) with a comment on it by Fink that its content "no doubt" was in compliance with the pact. Furthermore, he was instructed to give a public speech while abstaining from mentioning the four clauses but only making general statements about Denmark's status as a neutral nation. Scavenius signed the pact. At the following reception, the Italian ambassador described Scavenius as "a fish dragged on land ... a small old gentleman in a suit asking himself how on earth he got to this place". Lidegaard comments that the old man remained defiant: during a conversation with Ribbentrop in which the latter complained about the "barbarous cannibalism" of Russian POWs, Scavenius rhetorically asked if that statement meant that Germany didn't feed her prisoners.[26]
When news of the signing reached Denmark, it left the population outraged, and rumours immediately spread about what Denmark had now committed itself to. The cabinet sent a car to pick up Scavenius at the ferry, to avoid his riding the train alone to Copenhagen. At the same time a large demonstration gathered outside of Parliament, which led the Minister of Justice, Eigil Thune Jacobsen, to remark that he didn't like to see Danish police beating up students singing patriotic songs. When Scavenius had returned to Copenhagen, he asked the cabinet to debate once and for all where the red lines existed in Danish relations with Germany. This debate concluded that three red lines existed:
No legislation discriminating against Jews,
Denmark should never join the Axis Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan,
No unit of the Danish army should ever fight against foreign forces.
To the surprise of many, Scavenius accepted these instructions without hesitation.[26]
The 1942 telegram crisisEdit
Main article: Telegram Crisis
In October 1942, Adolf Hitler transmitted a long, flattering birthday telegram to King Christian. The King replied with a simple "Spreche Meinen besten Dank aus. Chr. Rex" ("Giving my best thanks. King Christian") sending the Führer into a state of rage at this deliberate slight, and seriously damaging Danish relations with Germany. Hitler immediately recalled his ambassador and expelled the Danish ambassador from Germany. The plenipotentiary, Renthe-Fink was replaced by Werner Best and orders to crack down in Denmark were issued. Hitler also demanded that Erik Scavenius become prime minister, and all remaining Danish troops were ordered out of Jutland.
Increasing resistance after the August 1943 crisisEdit
Denmark Fights for Freedom, film about the Danish resistance movement from 1944
As the war dragged on, the Danish population became increasingly hostile to the Germans. Soldiers stationed in Denmark had found most of the population cold and distant from the beginning of the occupation, but their willingness to cooperate had made the relationship workable. The government had attempted to discourage sabotage and violent resistance to the occupation, but by the autumn of 1942 the numbers of violent acts of resistance were increasing steadily to the point that Germany declared Denmark "enemy territory" for the first time.[16] After the battles of Stalingrad and El-Alamein the incidents of resistance, violent and symbolic, increased rapidly.
In March 1943 the Germans allowed a general election to be held. The voter turnout was 89.5%, the highest in any Danish parliamentary election, and 94% cast their ballots for one of the democratic parties behind the cooperation policy while 2.2% voted for the anti-cooperation Dansk Samling.[27] 2.1% voted for the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, almost corresponding to the 1.8% the party had received in the 1939 elections. The election, discontent, and a growing feeling of optimism that Germany would be defeated led to widespread strikes and civil disturbances in the summer of 1943. The Danish government refused to deal with the situation in a way that would satisfy the Germans, who presented an ultimatum to the government, including the following demands, on 28 August 1943: A ban on people assembling in public, outlawing strikes, the introduction of a curfew, censorship should be conducted with German assistance, special (German military) courts should be introduced, and the death penalty should be introduced in cases of sabotage. In addition, the city of Odense was ordered to pay a fine of 1 million kroner for the death of a German soldier killed in that city and hostages were to be held as security.[28]
The Danish government refused, so on 29 August 1943 the Germans officially dissolved the Danish government and instituted martial law. The Danish cabinet handed in its resignation, although since King Christian never officially accepted it, the government remained functioning de jure until the end of the war. In reality—largely due to the initiative of the permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs Nils Svenningsen[29]—all day-to-day business had been handed over to the Permanent Secretaries, each effectively running his own ministry. The Germans administered the rest of the country, and the Danish Parliament did not convene for the remainder of the occupation. As the ministry of foreign affairs was responsible for all negotiations with the Germans, Nils Svenningsen had a leading position in the government.[30]
Barricades erected during a general strike, Nørrebro, Copenhagen, July 1944
In anticipation of Operation Safari, the Danish Navy had instructed its captains to resist any German attempts to assume control over their vessels. The navy managed to scuttle 32 of its larger ships, while Germany succeeded in seizing 14 of the larger and 50 of the smaller vessels (patruljekuttere or "patrol cutters"). The Germans later succeeded in raising and refitting 15 of the sunken ships. During the scuttling of the Danish fleet, a number of vessels were ordered to attempt an escape to Swedish waters, and 13 vessels succeeded in this attempt, four of which were the larger ships; two of the larger vessels had remained at safe harbour in Greenland.[31][32] The coastal defence ship HDMS Niels Juel attempted to break out of the Isefjord, but was attacked by Stukas and forced to run aground. By the autumn of 1944, the ships in Sweden officially formed a Danish naval flotilla in exile.[33] In 1943, Swedish authorities allowed 500 Danish soldiers in Sweden to train themselves as "police troops". By the autumn of 1944, Sweden raised this number to 4,800 and recognized the entire unit as a Danish brigade in exile.[34] Danish collaboration continued on an administrative level, with the Danish bureaucracy functioning under German command.
In September 1943, a variety of resistance groups grouped together in the Danish Freedom Council, which coordinated resistance activities. A high-profile resister was former government minister John Christmas Møller, who had fled to England in 1942 and became a widely popular commentator because of his broadcasts to the nation over the BBC.
Danish SS soldiers held up by resistance fighters and disarmed in Copenhagen, 1945
After the fall of the government, Denmark was exposed to the full extent of occupational rule. In October the Germans decided to remove all Jews from Denmark, but thanks to an information leak from German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and swift action by Danish civilians, the vast majority of the Danish Jews were transported to safety in neutral Sweden by means of fishing boats and motorboats. The entire evacuation lasted two months and one man helped ferry more than 1,400 Jews to safety.[35] Unencumbered by government opposition, sabotage increased greatly in frequency and severity, though it was rarely of very serious concern to the Germans. Nonetheless, the Danish resistance movement had some successes, such as on D-Day when the train network in Denmark was disrupted for days, delaying the arrival of German reinforcements in Normandy. An underground government was established, and the illegal press flourished. Allied governments, which had been sceptical about the country's commitment to fight Germany, began recognizing Denmark as a full ally.[16]
The permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs, Nils Svenningsen, in January 1944 suggested establishment of a Danish camp, in order to avoid deportations to Germany.[36] Werner Best accepted this suggestion, but on condition that this camp was built close to the German border. Frøslev Prison Camp was set up in August 1944. The building of the camp was for the sole purpose of keeping Danish Jews and other prisoners within Denmark's borders.[37]
Returning prisoners from the Stutthof concentration camp, Copenhagen, June 1945
The Gestapo had limited trust in the Danish police, which had a total 10,000 members.[38] 1,960 of these were arrested and deported to Germany on 19 September 1944.
EconomyEdit
Denmark faced some serious economic problems during the war. The Danish economy was fundamentally hurt by the rising cost of raw material imports such as coal and oil. Furthermore, Denmark lost its main trading partner at that point, the UK. During years of occupation the Danish economy was more and more aligned on meeting German demands, which mainly meant agrarian products. The Danish authorities took an active part in the development and even initiated negotiations on a customs union. Those negotiations failed on the question whether the Danish krone should be abolished.[39]
The blockade against Germany affected Denmark too with unfortunate results. Since the country has virtually no natural resources of its own it was very vulnerable to these price shocks and shortages. The government had foreseen the possibility of coal and oil shortages and had stockpiled some before the war, which, combined with rationing, prevented some of the worst potential problems from coming to the country. The disruptions to the European trading network were also damaging to the economy, but all things considered, Denmark did quite well compared to other countries during the war.
The country, at least certain sections of it, did so well that it has been open to the accusation of profiteering from the war. After the war there was some effort to find and punish profiteers, but the consequences and scope of these trials were far less severe than in many other countries, largely a reflection of the general acceptance of the realistic need for cooperation with Germany. On the whole, though the country fared relatively well, this is only a relative measure. Phil Giltner has worked out that Germany had a "debt" of roughly 6.9 billion kroner to Denmark as a whole.[14] This means that they had taken far more out of the Danish economy than they had put in, aside from the negative side effects of the war on trade.
Post-war currency reformEdit
The Danish National Bank estimates that the occupation had resulted in the printing press increasing the currency supply from the pre-war figure of 400 million kroner to 1,600 million, much of which ended up in the hands of war profiteers. In July 1945, two months after the liberation of Denmark, the Danish Parliament passed an emergency law initiating a currency reform, making all old banknotes void. A small number of employees at the National Bank had clandestinely begun the production of new banknotes in late 1943. The production of new notes happened without the knowledge of the German forces located at the bank, and by the spring of 1945 the bank's stock of notes was sufficient to initiate the exchange.[40] The law required was passed hastily on Friday 20 July and published the same day; it also closed all shops for the weekend. By Monday 23 July, all old notes were officially outlawed as legal tender and any note not declared in a bank by 30 July would lose its value. This law allowed any Dane to exchange a total of 100 kroner to new notes, no questions asked. An amount up to 500 kroner would be exchanged, provided the owner signed a written statement explaining its origins. Any amount above this level would be deposited in an escrow account and only released or exchanged following scrutiny by tax officials examining the validity of the person's statement about the origins of this wealth. All existing bank accounts were also scrutinized. Multiple exchanges of cash by the same person were avoided by the requirement that currency would only be exchanged to anybody also handing in a specified ration stamp, previously issued in a different context, which had not yet been authorized for use.[41] The exchange resulted in a significant drop in the currency supply, and around 20% of the 3,000 million kroner property declared had not previously been registered by the tax authorities.[40] Estimates vary for the amounts of currency simply destroyed by its owners. All banknotes issued since the changeover date remain valid indefinitely; earlier ones are not valid.
Hardship and the end of the warEdit
Closed on account of happiness. Two Danish resistance fighters are guarding a shop while the owner is celebrating the liberation of Denmark on 5 May 1945. The man on the left is wearing a captured German Stahlhelm, the one on the right is holding a Sten gun
Most of Denmark was liberated from German rule in May 1945 by British forces commanded by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery; the easternmost island of Bornholm was liberated by Soviet forces, who remained there for almost a year.
Danish resistance fighters battling German soldiers 5 May 1945. Flakhaven, Odense
Although Denmark was spared many of the difficulties other areas of Europe suffered, its population still experienced hardships, particularly after the Germans took charge in 1943. Yet on the whole, Denmark can be said to have suffered the least of all the European combatants from the war.[14] Many were killed and imprisoned because of their work resisting the German authorities. There were small bombing raids on select targets in the country, but nothing comparable to that suffered by, for instance, neighbouring Norway or the Netherlands. One area that was badly damaged was the island of Bornholm, largely due to Soviet bombardment of the German garrison there in the very last days of the war.
About 380 members of the resistance were killed during the war, they are commemorated in Ryvangen Memorial Park. Roughly 900 Danish civilians were killed in a variety of ways: either by being caught in air raids, killed during civil disturbances, or in reprisal killings, the so-called "clearing"-murders. 39 Danish soldiers were killed or injured during the invasion, and four were killed on 29 August 1943 when the Germans dissolved the Danish government. Some sources estimate that about 360 Danes died in concentration camps. The largest groups of fatalities were amongst Danish merchant sailors, who continued to operate throughout the war, most falling victim to submarines. 1,850 sailors died. Just over 100 soldiers died as part of Allied forces.
Thousands of Danes line the streets as Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery drives through Copenhagen, 1945
People celebrating the liberation of Denmark at Strøget in Copenhagen, 5 May 1945. Germany surrendered two days later.
Approximately 6,000 Danes were sent to concentration camps during World War II,[42] of whom about 600 (10%) died. In comparison with other countries this is a relatively low mortality rate in the concentration camps.
After the war, 40,000 people were arrested on suspicion of collaboration. Of these, 13,500 were punished in some way. 78 received death sentences, of which 46 were carried out. Most received prison sentences of under four years. Many people criticized the process for victimizing "small" people disproportionately, while many politicians and businesses were left untouched. One difficult issue was deciding what to do with collaborators who were essentially "following orders" that their own government had given them, such as business executives who had been encouraged to work with the Germans.
Although some members of the resistance tried to organize new political parties after the war to reshape the political order in Denmark, they were unable to do so. The only party that appeared to receive a significant boost from resistance was the Communist Party. The Communists received about one-eighth of the popular vote in the October 1945 elections.
On 5 May 1945, Denmark was officially free of German control. Citizens all over the country took black shades used to cover their windows during bombing raids, and burned them in the streets. Allied troops (mostly Soviet soldiers) were released from prisons all over the country and paraded down streets in Copenhagen, Aarhus, and other cities. In Aarhus, young girls known to have had relationships with German soldiers were dragged into streets by citizens in front of crowds of people, and had most of the hair on their heads cut off. They would then be forced to march down streets to be humiliated.
German refugeesEdit
In the final weeks of the war, between 9 February and 9 May, several hundred thousand German refugees fled across the Baltic Sea, fleeing the advancing Soviet Army. For the most part, the refugees were from East Prussia and Pomerania. Many of the refugees were women, children, or elderly. Many were malnourished, exhausted or seriously ill. A third of the refugees were younger than 15 years old.
The German authorities had given the refugees a privileged status, seizing Danish schools, assembly houses, hotels, factories and sports facilities for refugee housing. At the same time, thousands of Danes were deported to German prisons and concentration camps. German terror against Danish resistance fighters and civilians increased in these final months. The general sentiment among Danes saw the arrival of refugees as a new, violent German occupation.
At the time of the German capitulation there were about 250,000 German refugees in Denmark. Already at the end of April, the German military authorities seemed to have lost control of the situation; many refugees had no food, the sick were not treated, mortality was high, and unburied dead bodies were stored in warehouses and cellars – although this was the result of different priorities in negotiations on aid between German and Danish authorities. The Danish negotiators, led by secretary of state Nils Svenningsen [da], would only agree provided that approximately 4,000 Danish citizens, mainly policemen, who were being detained in German concentration camps, were liberated. German authorities, on the other hand, would only agree if those policemen would take an active part in defeating the Danish resistance.[43]
At the capitulation, the refugee administration was handed over to Danish authorities. Refugees were gradually moved from over 1,000 smaller locations to new-built camps or previous German military barracks, some of which held over 20,000 refugees. The largest of the camps, Oksbøl Refugee Camp, in Oksbøl on the west coast of Jutland, held 37,000 refugees. Camps were placed behind barbed wire and guarded by military personnel, as to avoid contact with the Danish population.
In some of the camps, food rations were scarce and medical care was inadequate. In 1945 alone, more than 13,000 people died, among them some 7,000 children under the age of five.[44] The situation was worst in the months right before and after the capitulation, when Danish hospitals and doctors were reluctant to treat German refugees. The reason for this was not only anti-German resentment, but also lack of resources, the time needed to rebuild administrative structures, and the fear of epidemic diseases which were highly prevalent among the refugees. Instead, Danish authorities established a camp-internal medical system with German medical personnel, which took some time to work adequately. In the camps, there was school education for children up to the upper secondary level, work duty for adults, study circles, theatre, music and self-issued German newspapers. After initial inadequacy, food rations became more sufficient.
On 24 July 1945, the British occupation force, contrary to Danish expectations, decided that the refugees must stay in Denmark until the situation in Germany had stabilized. The first refugees were returned to Germany in November 1946 and the last ones in February 1949. Very few stayed in Denmark for good.[45]
LegacyEdit
A memorial stone for the liberation of Denmark
The policy of the government, called samarbejdspolitikken (cooperation policy) is one of the most controversial issues in Danish history.[46] Some historians argue that the relatively accommodating policy which did not actively resist the occupation was the only realistic way of safeguarding Danish democracy and people.[47] However, others argue that accommodation was taken too far, was uniquely compliant when compared to other democratic governments in Europe, and can not be seen as part of a coherent long-term strategy to protect democracy in Denmark or Europe.[46] In 2003 Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen characterized the cooperation as "morally unjustifiable," the only time a Danish leader had condemned the war-era leadership,[48] even though Anders Fogh Rasmussen's opponents construed it as a justification for his own ambitions, in connection with the invasion of Iraq in 2003.[49][50]
Danish resistance movement
Rescue of the Danish Jews
British occupation of the Faroe Islands
British Invasion of Iceland
Deportation of the Danish police
Frøslev Prison Camp
^ "The diaries: Quisling sealed Denmark's WWII fate". Politico.dk. 20 December 2013.
^ Laursen, Gert (1997). "The Occupation in Numbers". milhist.dk. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
^ Christensen, Claus Bundgård; Poulsen, N. B.; Smith, P. S. (2006). Under hagekors og Dannebrog : danskere i Waffen SS 1940–45 [Under Svastika and Dannebrog : Danes in Waffen SS 1940–45] (in Danish). Aschehoug. pp. 492–494. ISBN 978-87-11-11843-6.
^ Caruso, Jesper Dahl (20 March 2014). "Oprejsning til danske krigssejlere". nyheder.tv2.dk. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
^ a b c Henrik Dethlefsen, "Denmark and the German Occupation: Cooperation, Negotiation, or Collaboration," Scandinavian Journal of History. 15:3 (1990), pp. 193, 201–2.
^ a b Jørgen Hæstrup, Secret Alliance: A Study of the Danish Resistance Movement 1940–45. Odense, 1976. p. 9.
^ Hendriksen, C. Næsh (ed.) (1945). Den danske Kamp i Billeder og Ord (in Danish). Odense: Bogforlaget "Dana". p. 18. CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link) Photo taken near Bredevad in Southern Jutland.
^ William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 663.
^ Flemming Østergaard (19 March 2010). "Dan Hilfling Petersen: 9. april 1940 — hele historien. Hvad der virkelig skete" [The whole history; what really happened]. Jyllands-Posten.
^ Poulsen, Henning (1 January 1991). "Die Deutschen Besatzungspolitik in Dänemark". In Bohn, Robert; Elvert, Jürgen; Rebas, Hain; Salewski, Michael (eds.). Neutralität und Totalitäre Aggression (in German). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 379. ISBN 978-3-515-05887-2. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
^ Mogens R. Nissen: "Prices on food 1940–1945: Nazi price policy in occupied Denmark", Nord-Europa Forum (2004:1) p. 25-44. Accessed 14 December 2012.
^ Phil Giltner, "In the friendliest manner: German-Danish economic cooperation during the Nazi occupation of 1940–1949," Peter Lang: 1998
^ Henning Poulsen, "Dansk Modstand og Tysk Politik" ("Danish opposition and German Politics") in Jyske Historiker 71(1995), p.10.
^ a b c d Phil Giltner, "The Success of Collaboration: Denmark’s Self-Assessment of its Economic Position after Five Years of Nazi Occupation," in Journal of Contemporary History 36:3 (2001) pp. 486, 488.
^ a b Henning Poulsen, "Hvad mente Danskerne?" Historie 2 (2000) p. 320.
^ a b c d e f Jerry Voorhis, "Germany and Denmark: 1940–45," Scandinavian Studies 44:2 (1972) pp. 174–6, 179, 181, 183.
^ Philip Giltner, 'Trade in 'Phoney' Wartime: The Danish-German 'Maltese' Agreement of 9 October 1939', The International History Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 (May 1997), pp. 333–346
^ "Hvad var det, der skete den 29. august 1943 tidligt om morgenen?" [What was it that happened on 29 August 1943 early in the morning?] (in Danish). Norwegian Armed Forces. 29 August 2003. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
^ H.M. Lunding (1970), Stemplet fortroligt, 3rd edition, Gyldendal (in Danish)
^ a b H.M. Lunding (1970), Stemplet fortroligt, 3rd edition, Gyldendal, pages 68–72. (in Danish)
^ Bjørn Pedersen, Jubel og glæde, 28 October 2001 (in Danish). Accessed 14 December 2012
^ John Oram Thomas, The Giant Killers, (London: 1975), p. 13.
^ Andrew Buckser, "Rescue and Cultural Context During the Holocaust: Grundtvigian Nationalism and the Rescue of Danish Jews", Shofar 19:2 (2001) p. 10.
^ Harold Flender, Rescue in Denmark, (New York: 1963) p. 30.
^ a b c d e Bo Lidegaard (ed.) (2003): Dansk Udenrigspolitiks historie, vol. 4, pp. 461–463
^ a b c d Bo Lidegaard (ed.) (2003): Dansk Udenrigspolitiks historie, vol. 4, pp. 474–483
^ HK København (now behind paywall)
^ "Vesterbro under den anden verdenskrig" [Vesterbro during World War II] (PDF) (in Danish). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 August 2006.
^ Kaarsted, Tage (1976) De danske ministerier 1929–1953 (in Danish). Pensionsforsikringsanstalten, p. 220. ISBN 87-17-05104-5.
^ Jørgen Hæstrup (1979), "Departementschefstyret" in Hæstrup, Jørgen; Kirchhoff, Hans; Poulsen, Henning; Petersen, Hjalmar (eds.) Besættelsen 1940–45 (in Danish). Politiken, p. 109. ISBN 87-567-3203-1.
^ Søværnets mærkedage – August Archived 10 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine
^ Flåden efter 29. August 1943 Archived 16 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine
^ Den danske Flotille 1944–1945
^ Den Danske Brigade "Danforce", Sverige 1943–45. Accessed 14 December 2012.
^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Biography of Preben Munch-Nielsen Archived 14 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
^ "Gads leksikon om dansk besættelsestid 1940–1945" Published 2002. Page 178.
^ Heard from Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nils Svenningsen
^ 19. September by Carl Aage Redlich, published 1945, page 11.
^ Ruth Meyer-Gohde: "Dänemarks wirtschaftspolitische Reaktion auf die Besetzung des Landes 1940/41", Nord-Europa-Forum (2006:2), p. 51-70 (in German). Accessed 14 December 2012.
^ a b Historiske snapshot, Pengeombytning Archived 8 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine, 5 October 2011, Nationalbanken. Accessed 14 December 2012.
^ Danmarks officielle Pengesedler Archived 25 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
^ "Gads leksikon om dansk besættelsestid 1940–1945" Published 2002, page 281
^ Michael Schultheiss: "Ob man an die kleinen Kinder gedacht hat ...? Die Verhandlungen über medizinische Hilfe für deutsche Flüchtlinge in Dänemark am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs" in Nord-Europa-Forum (2009:2) p. 37-59 (in German). Accessed 14 December 2012.
^ Manfred Ertel. A Legacy of Dead German Children, Spiegel Online, 16 May 2005
^ Bjørn Pedersen: Tyske flygtninge (German refugees), 2 May 2005, befrielsen1945.dk (in Danish). Accessed 14 December 2012.
^ a b Bertel, Haarder (21 September 2005). "Nye myter om samarbejdspolitikken" [New myths about the "cooperation policy]. Information (in Danish). Retrieved 14 February 2013.
^ Stenstrup, Brita (8 November 2003). "Kampen om Scavenius' eftermæle" [The fight for Scavenius's Legacy]. Berlingske Tidende (in Danish). Retrieved 14 February 2013.
^ "Foghs opgør med samarbejdspolitikken er strandet" [Foghs showdown with cooperation stranded]. Information. 4 May 2009. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
^ "Denmark: Apology For Cooperation With Nazis". The Associated Press. 30 August 2003. Retrieved 24 December 2016 – via The New York Times.
^ Nils Arne Sørensen, "Narrating the Second World War in Denmark since 1945." Contemporary European History 14.03 (2005): 295–315.
Flender, Harold. Rescue in Denmark. New York: Holocaust Library, 1963.
Dethlefsen, Henrik. "Denmark and the German Occupation: Cooperation, Negotiation, or Collaboration," Scandinavian Journal of History. 15:3 (1990), pp. 193–206.
Giltner, Phil. "The Success of Collaboration: Denmark's Self-Assessment of its Economic Position after Five Years of Nazi Occupation," Journal of Contemporary History 36:3 (2001) pp. 483–506.
Gram-Skjoldager, Karen. "The Law of the Jungle? Denmark's International Legal Status during the Second World War," International History Review (2011) 33#2 pp 235–256.
Lund, Joachim. "Denmark and the‘European New Order', 1940–1942." Contemporary European History 13.3 (2004): 305–321.
Lund, Joachim. "Building Hitler's Europe: Forced Labor in the Danish Construction Business during World War II." Business History Review 84.03 (2010): 479–499.
Lund, Joachim. "The Wages of Collaboration: the German food crisis 1939–1945 and the supplies from Denmark." Scandinavian Journal of History 38.4 (2013): 480–501.
Voorhis, Jerry. Germany and Denmark: 1940–45, Scandinavian Studies 44:2, 1972.
in DanishEdit
"Gads leksikon om dansk besættelsestid 1940–1945" (2002).
Lundbak, Henrik. Besættelsestid og frihedskamp 1940–45 København: Frihedsmuseet, 1996. ISBN 87-89384-40-7
Ziemke, Earl F. (2000) [1960]. "The German Decision to Invade Norway and Denmark". In Kent Roberts Greenfield (ed.). Command Decisions. United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 70-7.
"Agreement between U.S. Secretary of State and Danish Minister on the status of Greenland April 10, 1941"
The BBC's Danish broadcast, 4 May 1945, 20:30 announcing the surrender of the German army units in Denmark (audio, RealPlayer)
Podcast with one of 2,000 Danish policemen in Buchenwald. Episode 2 is about Denmark during World War II.
Besaettelsessamlingen, web museum about Denmark 1940–45
The short film Denmark Fights for Freedom (1944) is available for free download at the Internet Archive
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Denmark_in_World_War_II&oldid=935302190"
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Louis II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Louis II of Nassau-Weilburg (9 August 1565, Weilburg – 8 November 1627, Saarbrücken) was a count of Nassau-Weilburg.
(1565-08-09)9 August 1565
8 November 1627(1627-11-08) (aged 62)
Noble family
House of Nassau
Anna Maria of Hesse-Kassel
Albert, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
Anna of Nassau-Dillenburg
2 Marriage and issue
LifeEdit
Louis was the eldest son of Count Albert of Nassau-Weilburg-Ottweiler and Countess Anna of Nassau-Dillenburg. His family moved in 1575 from Weilburg to Ottweiler. After his education, he traveled through Europe, in particular the French-speaking part of Switzerland. He also visited France and princely courts in Germany. During his visit to William IV of Hesse-Kassel, he met William's daughter Anna Maria and fell in love with her. He married her on 4 June 1589.
After Albert died on 11 November 1593, the inheritance was divided among his three sons. Louis received the areas Ottweiler, Homburg, Kirchheim and Lahr in the left bank of the Rhine. His brothers William (died: 25 November 1597) and John Casimir (died: 29 March 1602) chose the Weilburg part, which also fell to Louis after they died. Louis also inherited the territories of his uncle Philip IV of Nassau-Saarbrücken (died: 12 March 1602) and John Louis II of Nassau-Wiesbaden (died: 9 June 1605), who was the last of his line. So he ended up combining the entire property of the Walram line in one hand.
Louis moved his seat of government to Saarbrücken Castle. He issued a series of regulations, and provided a better education for his population (e.g. through the establishment of the Louis Gymnasium Saarland in Saarbrücken and the promotion of elementary schools. He committed himself to make the Saar navigable and supported many construction projects. Prosperity increased during his reign. However, the Thirty Years' War also began during his reign.
He instructed his registrar Johann Andreae to reorganize the Saarbrücken Archives and the painter Henrich Dors from Altweilnau to design tomb for the Nassau family, resulting in a major "epitaph book" being published in 1632.
Louis had fourteen children, including four sons who survived him and they divided his inheritance: William Louis, John, Ernest Casimir and Otto.
Marriage and issueEdit
Louis married on 4 June 1589 Anna Maria of Hesse-Kassel (1567–1626), daughter of Landgrave William IV of Hesse-Kassel.
William Louis (1590–1640) married on 25 November 1615 Anna Amalia of Baden-Durlach (born: 9 July 1595; died: 18 November 1651), daughter of Margrave George Frederick of Baden-Durlach
Anna Sabina (1591–1593)
Albert (1593–1595)
Sophia Amalia (1594–1612)
George Adolf (1595–1596)
Philip (1597–1621)
Louise Juliana (1598–1622)
Moritz (1599–1601)
Charles Ernest (1600–1604)
Mary Elizabeth (1602–1626)
John (1603–1677), Count of Nassau-Idstein
married firstly on 6 June 1629 Sibylle Magdalene (born: 21 July 1605; died: 22 July 1644), daughter of Margrave George Frederick of Baden-Durlach
married secondly in 1646 Countess Anna of Leiningen-Falkenburg (1625-1668)
Dorothea (1605–1620)
Ernest Casimir (1607–1655), Count of Nassau-Weilburg
married in 1634 Countess Anna Maria of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Homburg (1610-1656)
Otto (1610–1632)
List of the Counts of Nassau-Saarbrücken
Joachim Conrad (2005). "Ludwig II. gen. Felix von Nassau-Saarbrücken". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). 25. Nordhausen: Bautz. cols. 856–862. ISBN 3-88309-332-7.
Henrich Dors (1590–1651): Genealogia Oder Stammregister Der Durchlauchtigen Hoch- Und Wohlgeborenen Fursten, Grafen Und Herren Des Uhralten Hochloblichen Hauses Nassau Samt Etlichen Konterfeitlichen Epitaphien, Minerva-Verlag Thinnes und Nolte, Saarbrücken 1983, ISBN 3-477-00060-9
Hans-Walter Herrmann (1987), "Ludwig II., Graf von Nassau-Saarbrücken", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 15, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 404–405
Ernst Joachim (1884), "Ludwig II. von Nassau-Weilburg", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German), 19, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, p. 568
Louis II of Nassau-Weilburg in the Saarland biographies
Born: 9 August 1565 Died: 8 November 1627
Philip IV Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken
1602-1627 Succeeded by
William Louis
John Louis II Count of Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louis_II,_Count_of_Nassau-Weilburg&oldid=869232307"
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Canadian Internet Registration Authority
Entities connected with
Popular in Canada, where .ca is advantageous when selling to a Canadian audience in Canadian dollars.
Registered domains
More than 2.8 million (Apr 2019)[2]
There are Canadian presence requirements for registrants
Provincially registered companies originally had to register at third level under province code, but now anybody may register at second level
Official CIRA documents
CIRA Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP)
yes[1]
.ca is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. The domain name registry that operates it is the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA).
Registrants can register domains at the second level (e.g., example.ca). Third-level registrations in one of the geographic third-level domains defined by the registry (e.g. example.ab.ca) were discontinued on October 12, 2010,[3] but existing third-level domain names continue to be supported.
1 Canadian Presence Requirements
3 Third-level (provincial) and fourth-level (municipal) domains
4 Naming restrictions
5 Expired domains
Canadian Presence Requirements[edit]
Registrants of .ca domains must meet the Canadian Presence Requirements[4] as defined by the registry. Examples of valid entities include:
a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, of the age of majority
a legally recognized Canadian organization
an Inuit, First Nation, Métis or other people indigenous to Canada
an Indian Band as defined in the Indian Act of Canada
a foreign resident of Canada that holds a registered Canadian trademark
an executor, administrator or other legal representative of a person or organization that meets the requirements
a division of the government
the monarch of Canada
The domain name was originally allocated by Jon Postel, operator of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), to John Demco of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1987. The first .ca domain was registered by the University of Prince Edward Island in January 1988.[5]
In 1997, at the Canadian annual Internet conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Canadian Internet community, with a view to liberalize registration procedures and substantially improve turnaround times, decided to undertake reform of the .ca Registry.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is a non-profit Canadian corporation that is responsible for operating the .ca Internet country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) today. It assumed operation of the .ca ccTLD on December 1, 2000, from UBC. On April 15, 2008, CIRA registered its one millionth .ca Internet domain name.[6]
Any .ca registration has to be ordered via a certified registrar.
Third-level (provincial) and fourth-level (municipal) domains[edit]
See also: ISO 3166-2:CA
UBC's registry operations once favoured fourth-level names (such as city.toronto.on.ca) for purely local entities or third-level names for entities operating solely within one province. Nationally incorporated companies could have a .ca domain, while provincially incorporated companies required the letters of their province, like .mb.ca. Only an entity with presence in two or more provinces was typically registered directly under .ca; this complex structure (and the long delays in getting .ca registration) caused many Canadian entities to favour the .com, .org and .net registrations, despite the then-higher cost.[citation needed]
Currently, any of the above listed parties can register a domain with a name of their choosing followed directly by .ca. CIRA stopped accepting new registrations for third-level domains on October 12, 2010,[3] citing complexity and the low number of new third domain registration as the reason for the change. As a result, the following domains at the third-level are no longer available for registration:
Province/Territory
.ab.ca Alberta
.bc.ca British Columbia
.mb.ca Manitoba
.nb.ca New Brunswick
.nf.ca Newfoundland
.nl.ca Newfoundland and Labrador
.ns.ca Nova Scotia
.nt.ca Northwest Territories
.nu.ca Nunavut
.on.ca Ontario
.pe.ca Prince Edward Island
.qc.ca Quebec
.sk.ca Saskatchewan
.yk.ca Yukon
The second-level domain name '.gc.ca' (Government of Canada) is commonly mistaken as one of the regional domains under which CIRA will allow Government of Canada registrations. gc.ca is actually a standard domain like all other .ca domain names. CIRA does not register domain names under .gc.ca directly.
The .mil.ca second-level domain name is also a standard domain and is registered to the Department of National Defence (DND). The .mil.ca suffix is used internally by DND on its intranet, the Defence Information Network (DIN) or Defence Wide Area Network (DWAN), to distinguish intranet-only websites.
Naming restrictions[edit]
Internationalized domain names (IDN) were introduced in January 2013 with a limited selection of characters (é, ë, ê, è, â, à, æ, ô, œ, ù, û, ü, ç, î, ï, ÿ) to allow French language text with diacritics.[7] Names which differ only in diacritical accents (such as metro.ca and métro.ca) must have the same owner and same registrar.[8] Domain names that begin with the four characters xn-- are otherwise not available for registration. Length must be 2-63 characters, including the xn-- prefix encoding for internationalised domain names.
Names which match the name of an existing generic three-letter top level domain (such as .com.ca) or the Canadian top level country code (.ca) are reserved and therefore not available for new registrations. Certain expletives are not accepted as names. Municipal names of individual cities and localities within Canada are also reserved nationwide, along with village.ca, hamlet.ca, town.ca, city.ca, ville.ca and the names of Canadian provinces.[9]
There are a handful of existing .ca registered names as short as two characters in length, but these tend to be rare as two-letter combinations matching any existing country-code TLDs were reserved in the past. Exceptions were typically names registered before the restriction was introduced, such as the Canadian Governor General at gg.ca.
Names which exist at any of the levels (.ca, an individual province or territory, or an individual city) are blocked in their availability elsewhere in the .ca hierarchy. Registration, if it can be done at all, requires manual intervention by the prospective registrar as the permission of all existing registrant(s) must be obtained by CIRA.[10] For instance, if the province of New Brunswick were to want to register "gouv.nb.ca",[11] CIRA's normal automated WHOIS and registration tools would simply return the following error:
The domain name provided conflicts with at least one other registered domain name (e.g. xyz.ca conflicts with xyz.on.ca). Registering this domain name requires permission from the Registrant(s) that already holds the domain name(s): gouv.on.ca, gouv.pe.ca, gouv.qc.ca. Contact CIRA for more information.
Since Ontario, PEI and Quebec already use "gouv" on their provincial second-level domains for the French-language versions of their government websites, this domain is unavailable through the normal registration process. However, with the agreement of these three parties New Brunswick would indeed be able to register and use gouv.nb.ca.
Existing third-level domain registrants looking to obtain the corresponding second-level domain are normally advised to use the same initial registrar for both names.
Expired domains[edit]
After a thirty-day redemption period, intended to provide the original registrant one final chance to reclaim a suspended name, the expired names are assigned a to-be-released (TBR) status. These names are made available through a weekly auction process, in which lists of available names are posted online[12] and advance bids are placed by prospective registrants through the various .ca registrars.
Domains which receive no bids are then released and made openly available for new registrations.
Internet in Canada
^ "DNSSEC: Securing the domain name system". Canadian Internet Registration Authority. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
^ "Canadian Internet Registration Authority Factbook 2016" (PDF). Retrieved 1 December 2018.
^ a b ".CA FAQ — October 12, 2010". Canadian Internet Registration Authority. 12 October 2010. Archived from the original on 13 September 2010. Retrieved 20 October 2010.
^ "Canadian Presence Requirements for Registrants" (PDF). Canadian Internet Registration Authority. Retrieved 20 October 2010.
^ "History". Canadian Internet Registration Authority. Archived from the original on 1 September 2013. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
^ "Canada Hits One Million Dot-Ca (.ca) Internet Addresses". Ottawa: Canadian Internet Registration Authority. 15 April 2008. Archived from the original on 21 September 2010. Retrieved 20 October 2010.
^ "CA takes on a French accent". CIRA. 14 January 2013. Archived from the original on 29 March 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
^ "Register a .CA in French". CIRA. Archived from the original on 28 March 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
^ "Registration rules" (PDF). CIRA. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
^ "Registration Of Conflicting Domain Names". Archived from the original on 22 March 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
^ Its current website is at gnb.ca and does not use subdomains.
^ "CIRA TBR process".
IANA .ca whois information
CIRA - The Canadian Internet Registration Authority
List of .ca certified registrars
Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun: Creator of .ca celebrates 20 years on Web
Year list
(Timeline)
Pre-colonization
British Canada (1763–1867)
Post-Confederation (1867–1914)
World Wars and Interwar Years (1914–1945)
Modern times: 1945–1960
Crown and Indigenous people
Former colonies and territories
Monarchical
Persons of significance
Territorial evolution
Parliament (Senate
House of Commons)
(west to east)
Canadian Prairies
Northern Canada
Top 100s
Metropolitan areas and agglomerations
Population centres
Nationalisms
Provincial and territorial
Article overviews
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=.ca&oldid=928607657"
1987 establishments in Canada
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Geno's Steaks
Geno's Steaks seen at night in 2007
1966; 54 years ago (1966)
Geno Vento
Previous owner(s)
Joey Vento (1966-2011)
1219 South 9th St
www.genosteaks.com
Geno's Steaks is a Philadelphia restaurant specializing in cheesesteaks, founded in 1966 by Joey Vento. Geno's is located in South Philadelphia at the intersection of 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue, directly across the street from rival Pat's King of Steaks, which is generally credited with having invented the cheesesteak in 1933.[1] The cheesesteak has since become a signature dish for the city of Philadelphia. After Joey Vento's death in 2011, restaurant ownership was passed to his son Geno Vento.[2]
3 English sign controversy
4 Famous people who have visited Geno's
Owner Joey Vento started a small grill venue at 9th and Passyunk in 1966 and over time his business gained praise from locals. Joey had a son in 1971 and named him Geno, who from 17 on, worked in his father's business.[3]
According to Vento, the name 'Geno's' was chosen because 'Joe's Steak Place' was already in business. He improvised the name from a broken door on which someone had painted 'GINO' and modified the spelling to prevent confusion with a regional fast food chain called Gino's. Vento later named his own son Geno, who now is in charge of the family business.[4]
Geno's was awarded Best of Philly for Best Takeout by Philadelphia Magazine in 2000. In April 2004, a branch of the shop opened in Citizens Bank Park, the home of the Philadelphia Phillies. This location was closed in 2006 and replaced with Rick's Steaks (operated by Rick Olivieri, grandson of Pat Olivieri, founder of Pat's King of Steaks).
On August 23, 2011, 71-year-old owner and founder Joey Vento died of a heart attack.[5]
Geno's Steaks has branch locations at Terminal B of Philadelphia International Airport[6] and at the SugarHouse Casino.[7] On September 20, 2015, Geno's Steaks opened a location at Xfinity Live! Philadelphia.[8]
"Whiz wit" from Geno's
Geno's menu is very similar to that of Pat's. Geno's does not chop the meat, while Pat's does.[9] Geno's claims to have sold up to 4,500 sandwiches daily.[9]
The walls, roof, and interior of Geno's are decorated with memorabilia and hundreds of autographed and framed photos of celebrities who have eaten there.
English sign controversy[edit]
The sign on the front window that provoked controversy
A sign on Geno's window gained press notoriety in 2006, during the immigration controversy.[10] The sign reads: "This Is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING Please "SPEAK ENGLISH"."[11] The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations filed a discrimination complaint, arguing that Geno's violated the city's Fair Practices Ordinance, which prohibits discrimination in public accommodation, by "denying service to someone because of his or her national origin, and having printed material making certain groups of people feel their patronage is unwelcome."[12] Vento had previously said the signs are directed at the Mexican immigrants in the surrounding neighborhood.[13]
Vento said that no one has been refused service for not speaking English, but said, "If I can't understand you, you might not get the sandwich you thought you ordered."[12]
The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations found probable cause that the sign is discriminatory. The commission says the sign could make non-English speakers feel unwelcome or discriminated against.[14]
Daytime shot of Geno's
One of two eating areas at Geno's.
Vento enlisted the aid of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a public-interest legal organization.[14] In 2006, the Foundation had defended a bar owner cited by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission for a sign reading "For Service, Speak English." That case was settled when the owner removed the sign.[15]
Responding in an interview with Fox News analyst Neil Cavuto, Vento stated that he does not turn away any customer, and therefore does not discriminate. He also vowed to keep his sign displayed no matter how much pressure he receives. He explained to Cavuto that his parents had to learn English when they came to the U.S. He said that if his customers order in any other language, he will give them Cheez Whiz on bread. Vento posed some rhetorical questions: "If one goes into a Puerto Rican neighborhood, how many signs would be seen in English?" and "When one is on the telephone, it may say press 1 for English, press 2 for Spanish; but where is the number for, say, Italian or Korean?"[16]
On March 19, 2008, Philadelphia's Commission on Human Relations ruled that the restaurant did not violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance.[17]
The sign was quietly removed at some point before the 2016 Democratic National Convention to avoid offense.[18][19]
Famous people who have visited Geno's[edit]
Geno's attracts famous people to visit the restaurant. It posts physical pictures of celebrities which customers can see when ordering, as well as online pictures on their website.[20] Some include: Chris Rock, Tyra Banks, President Donald Trump (visited Geno's in September of 2016),[21] and Philadelphia 76ers power forward Dario Šarić (November of 2017).[22] YouTube personality Angry Grandpa, also known as Charles Marvin Green, Jr., visited Geno's Steaks in 2015, while visiting his daughter Kimberly Green-Pratt with his son Michael Green, from Charleston, SC.
Italian Market (Philadelphia)
History of the Italian Americans in Philadelphia
Philadelphia portal
^ "New York Times, "Harry Olivieri, 90, Co-Inventor of Cheese Steak in Philadelphia, Dies" July 22, 2006 retrieved July 25, 2006". The New York Times. July 22, 2006. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
^ Victor Fiorillo (2013-08-30). "Joey Vento's Dying Wish: Keep "Speak English" Sign at Geno's". Philly Mag. Retrieved 2014-05-18.
^ https://www.genosteaks.com/about/
^ Welcome To Geno's Steaks - The Best in South Philly
^ "Geno's Steaks owner Joey Vento dies of heart attack". 6abc. Action News. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
^ "Dine, Shop & Services". Philadelphia International Airport. Retrieved August 15, 2017.
^ "Geno's Steaks". SugarHouse Casino. Retrieved November 23, 2017.
^ Bonghi, Gabrielle (August 11, 2015). "Geno's Steaks opening at Xfinity Live!". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved November 24, 2017.
^ a b Pettit, Mason (narrator) (2008-03-12). Steak Paradise (Television production). Prometheus Entertainment for The Travel Channel. Retrieved 2008-06-22.
^ [1] Archived May 14, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
^ Sign at Geno's Steaks.
^ a b DeHuff, Jenny, The Bulletin, 26 September 2007. "Hearing Postponed For Controversial Geno's Sign" Archived 2007-12-28 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 28 November 2007.
^ Campisi, Gloria, Philadelphia Daily News, 10 June 2006, "Free speech at steak."
^ a b Maykuth, Andrew, Philadelphia Inquirer, 9 February 2007 "Stakes get higher for Geno's".
^ Maykuth, Andrew, Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 February 2007, "City Commission: Geno’s 'speak English' sign discriminatory".
^ Owner of Geno's Cheesesteaks Responds to Bias Complaint, Fox News, 15 June 2006.
^ "Agency OKs cheese steak shop's English-only signs - CNN.com". Archived from the original on March 24, 2008.
^ "Geno's 50th Anniversary Block Party - And Guess What That Sign Is Not There | Philly Chit Chat". Philly Chit Chat. 2016-10-07. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
^ "'Speak English' sign gone from Geno's". Billy Penn. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
^ https://www.genosteaks.com/celebrities/
^ https://6abc.com/politics/donald-trump-stops-at-genos-steaks-in-philadelphia/1522573/
^ https://clutchpoints.com/sixers-news-dario-saric-finally-tries-philly-cheesesteak-genos/
Geno's steaks website
Whitford, David. "DRINKS WITH: FRANK OLIVIERI AND JOE VENTO Sandwich Superheroes" (Archive). Fortune. Thursday, May 29, 2003.
Pat Olivieri
Harry Olivieri
Tony Luke Jr.
Joey Vento
Tony Luke's
Steve's Prince of Steaks
John's Roast Pork
Dalessandro's Steaks
Joe's Steaks
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Geno%27s_Steaks&oldid=934316595"
Restaurants established in 1966
Submarine sandwich restaurants
1966 establishments in Pennsylvania
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The Eye of the Storm (2011 film)
The Eye of the Storm
Promotional poster
Fred Schepisi
Gregory J. Read
Antony Waddington
by Patrick White
8 September 2011 (2011-09-08)
The Eye of the Storm is an Australian drama film directed by Fred Schepisi. It is an adaptation of Patrick White's 1973 novel of the same name. It stars Geoffrey Rush, Charlotte Rampling and Judy Davis. It won the critics award for best Australian feature at the 2011 Melbourne International Film Festival[1][2] and had a September 2011 theatrical release.[3]
In the Sydney suburb of Centennial Park, a dying matriarch, Elizabeth Hunter (Rampling) is attended to by two nurses, a housekeeper and her two adult children (Rush and Davis). Despite her deteriorating health, Elizabeth continues to wield considerable control over her affairs and those around her.[4]
Geoffrey Rush as Basil Hunter
Charlotte Rampling as Elizabeth Hunter
Judy Davis as Dorothy de Lascabanes
John Gaden as Arnold Wyburd
Robyn Nevin as Lal
Helen Morse as Lotte
Colin Friels as Athol Shreve
Dustin Clare as Col
Elizabeth Alexander as Cherry Cheesman
Maria Theodorakis as Mary DeSantis
Alexandra Schepisi as Flora
Laurent Boulanger as French Waiter[5]
Awards[edit]
2011 Asia Pacific Screen Awards Judy Davis Best Performance by an Actress Nominated
AACTA Awards[6]
(1st) Antony Waddington
Fred Schepisi Best Film Nominated
Fred Schepisi Best Direction Nominated
Judy Morris Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated
Geoffrey Rush Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated
Judy Davis Best Actress in a Leading Role Won
Charlotte Rampling Nominated
John Gaden Best Actor in a Supporting Role Nominated
Helen Morse Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nominated
Fred Schepisi AFI Members' Choice Award Nominated
Melinda Doring Best Production Design Won
Terry Ryan Best Costume Design Won
2011 Inside Film Awards[7][8] Antony Waddington
Fred Schepisi Best Feature Film Nominated
Judy Davis Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated
Melbourne International Film Festival The Age Critics' Award for Best Australian Feature Film Won
Rome International Film Festival Jury Special Prize Won
^ "'The Eye Of The Storm' Wins at Melbourne International Film Festival". Yahoo! TV. 8 August 2011. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
^ Bulbeck, Pip (9 August 2011). "'The Eye Of The Storm' Wins at Melbourne International Film Festival". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
^ "Sycamore presents Fred Schepisi's, The Eye of the Storm" (pdf). Paper Bark Films EOS Pty Ltd. 18 August 2011. p. cover. Retrieved 25 December 2012.
^ "Schepisi, Rush in Eye of the Storm" Movie Hole. 18 April 2010
^ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1600207/
^ " Nominees for the 2011 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
^ " Winners of the 2011 Inside Film Awards. Inside Film Awards. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
^ " Nominees of the 2011 Inside Film Awards. Inside Film Awards. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
The Eye of the Storm on IMDb
The Eye of the Storm at Rotten Tomatoes
Films directed by Fred Schepisi
Libido (1973)
The Devil's Playground (1976)
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978)
Barbarosa (1982)
Iceman (1984)
Plenty (1985)
Roxanne (1987)
Evil Angels (1988)
The Russia House (1990)
Mr. Baseball (1992)
Six Degrees of Separation (1993)
I.Q. (1994)
Fierce Creatures (1997)
Last Orders (2001)
It Runs in the Family (2003)
The Eye of the Storm (2011)
Words and Pictures (2013)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Eye_of_the_Storm_(2011_film)&oldid=848086023"
Films about dysfunctional families
Films based on Australian novels
Films shot in Melbourne
Films set in 1972
Films set in the 1970s
Films set in Sydney
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Are you waiting for your heavenly home?
In two well-known old gospel songs it says: "A still uninhabited flat is waiting for me" and "My estate is just behind the mountain". These lyrics are based on the words of Jesus: "In my father's house are many apartments. If it were not so, then I would have said to you: I am going to prepare the place for you? "(Joh 14,2). These verses are also often quoted as funerals because they promise that Jesus will reward the people of God in Heaven who will wait for them after death. But was that what Jesus wanted to say? It would be wrong if we tried to relate every word of our Lord directly to our lives without considering what he meant to say to his addressee at that time.
The night before his death, Jesus sat with his disciples in the so-called Cenacle. The disciples were shocked at what they saw and heard. Jesus washed their feet, announced that among them was a traitor, and declared that Peter would betray him not once but three times. Can you imagine what they answered? "This can not be the Messiah. He speaks of suffering, betrayal and death. And we thought he was the forerunner of a new kingdom and we would rule with him! "Confusion, desperation, fear - emotions that are all too familiar to us. Disappointed expectations. And to all this, Jesus countered: "Do not worry! Trust me! "He wanted to mentally build up his disciples in view of the threatening approaching horror scenario and continued:" In my father's house are many apartments. "
But what did these words say to the disciples? The name "My Father's House" - as used in the Gospels - refers to the temple in Jerusalem (Lk 2,49, Joh 2,16). The temple had taken the place of the tabernacle, the portable tent used by the Israelites for the worship of God. Inside the tabernacle (from lat. Tabernaculum = tent, hut) was - separated by a thick curtain - a room, which was called the holy of holies. This was the homeland of God ("Tabernacle" in Hebrew means "Mishkan" = "Abode" or "Abode") in the midst of his people. Once a year, it was reserved for the high priest alone to enter this room to be aware of the presence of God.
Furthermore, the word "dwelling place" or "living space" means the place where one lives, and "in ancient Greek (the language of the New Testament) it was not commonly considered a permanent home but a stopover on a journey that will take you to another place in the long term ". [1] That would mean something other than being with God in heaven after death; For heaven is often regarded as the last and final abode of man.
Jesus now said that he would make his disciples a place to stay. Where should he go? His path should not lead him straight to heaven to build dwellings, but from the Cenacle to the Cross. With his death and resurrection, he was to prepare a place for his followers in his father's house (Joh 14,2). It was as if he meant to say, "Everything is under control. What happens may seem terrible, but it is all part of the plan of salvation. "Then he promised he would come again. In this context, he does not seem to allude to the Parousia (return) (although, of course, we look forward to Christ's apparition in glory on the Last Day), but we know that Jesus' path should lead him to the Cross, and that three days later he would be called the Death of the Risen Lord would return. Once again he returned in the form of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
"... I will come again and take you to me, that you may be where I am" (Jn 14,3), Jesus said. Let us pause for a moment with the words used here "to me". They are to be understood in the same sense as the words in the Gospel of John 1,1, which proclaim to us that the Son (the Word) was with God. What goes back to the Greek "pros", which can be both "to" and "at". By choosing these words to describe the relationship between Father and Son, the Holy Spirit refers to their intimate relationship with each other. In a Bible translation, the verses are given as follows: "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and in all things it was like God ... "[2]
Unfortunately, only too many people imagine God as somewhere in heaven as a single entity watching us from afar. The seemingly insignificant words "to me" and "to" reflect a completely different facet of the divine nature. It is about participation and intimacy. It's about a face to face relationship. That is deep and heartfelt. But what does that have to do with you and me today? Let me briefly review the temple before answering this question.
When Jesus died, the curtain tore in half in the middle of the temple. This rift symbolizes a new approach to the presence of God that opened with it. The temple was no longer his homestead. A completely new relationship with God was now open to each individual. In the translation of the Good News Bible we read in verse 2: "There are many dwellings in my father's house." There was only room for one person in the Holy of Holies, but now there had been a radical change. God had indeed made room for all people in his house! This had become possible because the Son had become flesh, redeeming us from the death and destructive power of sin, returning to the Father and bringing all humanity into the presence of God (Joh 12,32). That same evening, Jesus said, "He who loves me shall keep my word; and my father will love him, and we will come to him and dwell with him "(Jn 14,23). As in verse 2, here too there is talk of "apartments". Do you realize what that means?
What ideas do you associate with a good home? Maybe: peace, tranquility, joy, protection, instruction, forgiveness, provision, unconditional love, acceptance and hope, to name just a few. However, not only did Jesus come to earth to take the atoning death for us, but also to share in all of the good home related ideas and to experience the life he and his father had with the Father Holy Spirit leads.
The unbelievable, unique, and intimate relationship that Jesus Himself communicated with His Father is now also open to us, "that ye may be where I am," verse 3 says. And where is Jesus? "With the Father in close fellowship" (Joh 1,18, Good News Bible) or, as some translations say, "in the Father's womb". A scientist puts it this way: "To rest in the lap of someone means to be in his arms, to be valued by him as the goal of the most loving care and affection, or, as the saying goes, to be his bosom friend." [ 3] And there is Jesus. And where are we present? We participate in the Kingdom of Heaven of Jesus (Eph 2,6)!
Are you currently in a difficult, daunting, depressing situation? Rest assured: Jesus' words of comfort are addressed to you. Just as he once wanted to strengthen, encourage and strengthen his disciples, so he does the same with them: "Do not worry! Trust me! "Do not let your worries press you down, but rely on Jesus and think about what he says - and what he leaves unsaid - after! He does not say they have to be brave and everything will turn right. He does not guarantee you four steps to happiness and prosperity. He does not promise that he will give you a home in heaven that you can not take until you are dead - and thus it is worth all your suffering. Rather, he makes it clear that he suffered the crucifixion to take on all our sins, to nail them to himself on the cross so that everything that can separate us from God and the life in his house has been eradicated.
But that's not all. They are implicitly involved in the triune life of God so that you can share face to face in the intimate communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - of God's life. He wants you to share in him and everything he stands for. He says, "I created you so you can live in my house."
Father of all, we bring you, who, when we were still separated from you, came to meet us in your Son and bring us home, our thanks and our praise! In dying and in life he proclaimed your love for us, gave us grace and opened the door to glory. May we who share in Christ's body also lead His risen life; we who drink from his cup fulfill the lives of others; we, who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit, are a light to the world. Save us in the hope that you have promised us, so that we and all our children may be free and the whole earth praises your name - through Christ our Lord. Amen [4]
by Gordon Green
[1] NT Wright, Surprised By Hope, p. 150.
[2] Rick Renner, Dressed to Kill, Eng. 445; here cited the Good News Bible.
[3] Edward Robinson, Greek and English Lexicon of the NT, p. 452.
[4] Prayer after the Eucharist according to the Eucharistic liturgy of the Scottish Episcopal Church, quoted from Michael Jinkins, Invitation to Theology, p. 137.
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Stella McCartney went fresh from graduation at Central Saint Martins to chief designer at Chloé in 1997. Le Style Stella – a raunchy mix of rock ‘n’ roll and girly glamour – established Chloé as the best selling label in Paris and its designer as a card-carrying member of the fashion aristocracy. In 2000, McCartney left Chloé and signed a deal with the Gucci Group to launch her successful signature label.
Fashion. Fashion is completely transparent. It’s fun, it’s confusing, and it never dies off. Fashions from the past are still being worn by women across the country and new fashions are being designed every day. There’s SO many different fashion styles, and we’ve come up with a list of the top 20 looks, from elegant to gothic, exotic to casual, and everything in between.
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Shadow Government: U.S.-Russia Competition in the Middle East Is Back U.S.-Russia Competition in the Mi...
U.S.-Russia Competition in the Middle East Is Back
And the Trump administration needs a strategy to deal with it.
By Ilan Goldenberg, Julie Smith
| March 7, 2017, 11:10 AM
A portrait of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad hangs alongside the colours of the Russian flag during a pro-regime rally in Damascus on April 12, 2012, as a UN-backed ceasefire went into effect. Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad shot dead a civilian in the central province of Hama, a monitoring group said, hours after a deadline to implement a ceasefire aimed to end 13 months of bloodshed. AFP PHOTO/LOUAI BESHARA (Photo credit should read LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images)
The past few years have been characterized by increasing American-Russian competition all over the globe. The primary focus, has been on Russia’s ongoing efforts to challenge NATO, weaken transatlantic resolve, and intimidate its neighbors. Other than its intervention in Syria, Russia’s ambition to reassert itself in the Middle East has received far less attention. But in almost every discussion these days with Middle Eastern government officials and policy experts, it is one of the first subjects that comes up. This focus stands in strong contrast to two years ago when Russia’s role in the region was an afterthought to American engagement in the Middle East.
Russia views the Middle East as its near abroad, and is in the early stages of executing a long-term strategy in an attempt to return itself to the powerful stature and influence it had in the region during the heart of the Cold War. It is working to undercut longstanding U.S. relationships in the Middle East and restructure the regional order more to its liking. Indeed, Russia’s strategy in the Middle East is no different than its approach to undercutting NATO and the EU in Europe.
The obvious starting point was Russia’s decision to intervene in Syria in the fall of 2015 at the request of President Bashar al-Assad. The intervention is historic, representing the first time the Russians have put boots on the ground to support an ongoing conflict in the region since their support for Syria during the 1973 war with Israel. And by all accounts it has been a success, solidifying Assad’s position in Syria, protecting its single military base in the Middle East, and causing regional actors to rethink Russia’s role in the region all at a relatively low cost.
But we need to avoid the trap of focusing exclusively on Syria. Keeping Assad in power is not the sole extent of Russian ambition in the region. Instead, analysts and policymakers should examine the wider, growing Russian involvement in several other Middle Eastern countries, engagement through which Russia seeks to accomplish overarching economic, security and counterterrorism, and global prestige objectives. And, in particular, it should concern American policymakers that Russia is actively testing and seeking to upend the decades-long, strategic partnerships that the United States has built with some the most important state actors in the Middle East including Turkey, Egypt and Israel.
Of all of Russia’s relationships in the Middle East, perhaps none has been as tumultuous as the one with Turkey. During the Cold War, these two countries found themselves on opposing sides when Turkey joined NATO in 1952. In the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the relationship warmed thanks to strong economic and trade ties. But relations between Turkey and Russia took a sharp turn in November 2015 when Turkey shot down a Russian jet after it violated Turkish airspac leading to a deep freeze in bilateral ties.
As Turkey and Russia’s bilateral relationships with the United States soured, however, both countries were suddenly motivated to enhance their relationship, especially in Syria. Turkey was looking to distance the Russians from the Syrian Kurds in northern Syria, and Russia wanted to soften Turkey’s focus on removing Assad from power. Both countries have been deeply frustrated with Washington’s approach to the conflict. So in the summer of 2016 Erdogan and Putin met in St. Petersberg, and the two are now cooperating in Syria often without any consultation with the United States. They recently brokered a ceasefire between the Assad regime and opposition forces, one that gave the United States no role whatsoever and have begun coordinating some strikes on the Islamic State.
Egypt is another country where Russia is making inroads. For 25 years from the 1952 revolution that brought Gamal Abdel Nasser and his supporters to power until the Camp David Accords in 1979, Egypt had been the subject of intense U.S.-Soviet competition for influence. But under Nasser’s successor, Sadat, Egypt began moving in the 1970s into the American orbit – a shift that was consolidated in the aftermath of the Camp David Accords, with Egypt becoming one of America’s most reliable partners in the region and a diplomatic force for regional stability.
But the chaos brought on by the Arab Spring in Egypt gave Russia a new opening. While the United States pulled back in 2013 in the aftermath of the takeover by General Abdel Fattah al Sisi and temporarily suspended military aid in an effort to press politicalreform, the Russians had no such qualms. And in 2014 Egypt and Russia signed their first major arms agreement since the Cold War and have since been moving forward on additional follow-on deals, while Sisi and Putin keep a regular schedule of meetings.The Egyptians have also moved towards Russia on Syria with Sisi arguing publicly that stability in that country could best be achieved by supporting a strong man in Assad. And the Russians are now siding with the Egyptians in supporting a major role for Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in the Libyan government.
Israel is another example where the Russians are gaining influence – though certainly the security relationship with the United States remains paramount for the Israelis. Since the Russian intervention in Syria, the Israelis and Russians appear to have negotiated an understanding that allows the Israelis to continue to take limited air strikes in Syria if they detect the movement of advanced weaponry from Damascus into Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Netanyahu has also made three visits to Moscow in the past two years — a marked increase in engagement. Putin has entered into an arena traditionally dominated by the United States, by attempting a minor foray into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and trying to organize a summit between Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas. And on a number of occasions over the past few years Israel has tried to avoid getting between Moscow and Washington at the U.N. – a marked difference from the previous approach of siding with the United States. In the midst of the Crimea crisis in March 2014, Israel chose to be absent during a high profile U.N. General Assembly vote on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. And at Russia’s request, Israel recently skipped a vote at the U.N. General Assembly on enabling investigations into allegations of war crimes in Syria.
The failure to respond to this new Russian strategy is not a partisan question. Policymakers on the left and the right both did not see this coming and were slow to react. In the Middle East, the Obama administration was overwhelmed by the chaos brought on by the Arab Spring, the civil wars in Syria, Yemen, and Libya, and rise of the Islamic State. And when it came to Russia policy the administration was most concerned with the challenges posed in Ukraine and across Europe. Trying to pull back and develop a response to such a broad strategic question that links across different areas of responsibility is an incredibly difficult challenge for a slow-moving, stove-piped bureaucracy.
The task for American policymakers and the Trump administration going forward is threefold. First and foremost, the U.S. policymaking community (including folks both in and out of government) must do a better job of auditing what exactly Russia has been doing across the Middle East since President Putin returned to power in 2012. That means taking a close look at the evolving set of relationships Russia has been pursuing with a number of U.S. partners not just focusing on Syria.
Second, the United States should seek opportunities to cooperate with the Russian government where our interests align. The best example of Russian and American cooperation in the region is of course, the negotiations on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action where the U.S. and Russia collaborated on an issue of common interest with the goal of increasing the safety and security of the region. It is no secret that the Middle East can serve as a strategic sinkhole, forcing a disproportionate investment of American blood and treasure. Sharing the burden with other external powers like Russia could no doubt reduce the strain on the United States politically, financially, and militarily.
That said, there are plenty of examples where Russia is actively cooperating with partners in the Middle East to balance against U.S. interests. That brings us to the third task – ensuring that the United States is prepared and well equipped to address such challenges. The United States government was caught flat footed when Russia decided to send “little green men” into Ukraine in early 2014. Similarly, they were equally surprised to see the Russian military move into Syria. While U.S. policymakers cannot predict the future, they need to do more forecasting and analysis to anticipate potential areas of conflict with Russia in the Middle East.
Might Russia support a major move South by the Assad regime towards the Jordanian and Israeli borders, thus taking on moderate opposition forces that have created a useful buffer zone for two key American partners? Could it significantly increase sales of sophisticated weaponary to Iran? Or might it move to dictate outcomes in Syria and Libya with two traditional American partners – Turkey and Egypt respectively – and by doing so cut the United States out of the process? To be sure, Russia is not going to annex territory in the Middle East but it could make a sudden move or a series of moves that would significantly undermine U.S. interests and present the United States with a fait accompli as it has already done in Syria.
Ultimately, the Middle East will not be the primary arena upon which Russo-American competition plays out. But the broader Russian play both in Syria and beyond cannot be ignored.
Photo credit: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images
Ilan Goldenberg is the director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Previously, he served as chief of staff to the special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, supporting Secretary of State John Kerry’s initiative to conduct peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Twitter: @ilangoldenberg
Julianne (“Julie”) Smith is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a Weizsäcker fellow at the Bosch Academy in Berlin. She served as the deputy national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2012 to 2013. Before going to the White House, she served as the principal director for European/NATO policy at the Pentagon. Smith lives in Washington with her husband and two children. Smith is a co-editor of Shadow Government. Twitter: @Julie_C_Smith
Tags: assad, Middle East, Russia, Shadow Government, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, United States
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Study: German universities neglect Holocaust studies
phdnm
Postby phdnm » 3 years 5 months ago (Thu Aug 11, 2016 6:37 am)
Being a holocaust researcher in Germany is the easiest job there is. Everything you are allowed to say on the subject has already been written...
Despite investing heavily in Holocaust research, universities don't offer sufficient courses, study finds
Trying to come to grips with its past, Germany has invested significant resources in Holocaust research, but in one aspect its efforts appear to be lacking: Educating university students on the topic. German universities offer an insufficient number of courses about the Holocaust, claims a new study, strengthening experts' outcry over the overall neglect of the field.
Reviewing the course list of 79 German universities over the last two years (excluding institutions focused on science, medicine and music), researchers of the Center for Digital Systems (CeDiS) in Berlin found that on average each of them offers only 1.5 courses in connection with the Holocaust per semester.
A quarter of the reviewed institutions were found to offer no such lectures or just one course in the last four semesters. “It is clear that not at every university a basic knowledge about the Holocaust is provided,” deemed the study.
These findings illustrate the extent of the problem, says political scientist Dr. Johannes Tuchel, who advised the researchers. “We have no basis for teaching the Holocaust in German universities and it's a problem, an institutional problem.”
“Holocaust studies were never established in the academic world,” he continued. “Germany has a strong tradition of Holocaust research but it does not translate into a strong tradition of teaching. In other countries, like the US or the United Kingdom, these are accepted topics for teaching.”
The majority of courses relating to the Holocaust are offered in universities with ties to nearby Holocaust research institutions, like in Berlin, Munich or Hamburg. But there is only a handful of such institutions, explains Tuchel, leaving most students dependent on the personal interests of individual professors.
✕Currently, no university in Germany has a chair devoted solely to the study of the Holocaust. Frankfurt's Goethe University plans to be the first, with the establishment of such a professorship this year, a move already dubbed a milestone in German Holocaust research.
“Over the decades it was felt that there was no need for institutionalization of Holocaust research and teaching in Germany,” told Dr. Peter Klein, dean of a unique M.A. program in Holocaust Communication and Tolerance at Berlin's Touro College.
“Historians had the impression that it was only one part of German history and should not be detached from its entire course, so they were not willing to establish an institute. They didn't see it becoming an international topic of research and teaching.”
Tuchel, who also heads the German Resistance Memorial center, attributes this also to the presence of Nazi sympathizers who remained in office after WW2, including in universities. “We didn't change our people after 1945, so there was only a minority of researchers in the academic world who dealt with Holocaust Studies and to focus on this field would never guarantee a career.”
These views have changed, but the established practice is currently limiting the possibilities of students to educate themselves about the Holocaust. “All we are saying is that if you want to study the Holocaust, you should always have the opportunity to hear a lecture on the subject at your university without having to wait two or three years until the next course is offered,” stressed Tuchel.
This is particularly true for students en route to become teachers. “It's really appalling that even for teachers we have so few lectures,” noted the researcher. “Anyone who will later stand in front of pupils has to have taken at least one course that deals with the Holocaust and the Nazi system.”
Not providing future educators with enough information could harm the quality of education given to the next generation of school children, he says, “and from that point, to have no information, to say there was no Holocaust, it is only a small step.”
It is also possible that eventually schools will follow the universities' example, suggested Klein, and will also offer fewer lessons about the Holocaust and National Socialism, disregarding this chapter of history. “For future teachers, learning about the Holocaust should be mandatory,” agreed Klein.
The students, on their part, don't seem to show much objection. “There should be more classes about the Holocaust especially because I had none and I'm in the university now for three years,” admitted Laura (23), who is studying to become a Chemistry and English teacher. “It would be a great topic for a term paper.”
“We are already taught a lot in high school,” noted Simon (25), also a future teacher, “but teachers need a lot of general knowledge. This is a big topic for German teachers, so I think there should be a university class where students can learn more.”
“If people think that what they learned in high school is enough for them, that's fine,” emphasized Jana (25), a law student, “but every person should have the opportunity to learn more during their studies because then you have the time to go deeper into these topics.”
Demand isn't the problem – it's supply, say the experts. “If I were to give a lecture at the Free University, there are more people who want to hear it than there are places in the course, and this is also the experience of many of my colleagues,” argued Tuchel. “So it's really not a problem of people saying, 'we heard too much, we don't want to hear about the Holocaust anymore.’”
“Students and pupils are still interested,” agrees Klein. “We know this from the statistics at the German memorials - school classes aren't booking visits and lectures because the teacher planned to, but because the students want to have one. I don't think we have a so-called Holocaust fatigue here in Germany.”
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/internati ... st-studies
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Re: Study: German universities neglect Holocaust studies
Postby Tomt » 3 years 5 months ago (Thu Aug 11, 2016 9:00 am)
I think people are getting sick of it. I think people in Germany don't even want to hear Hitler name. What ever the subject is whether it's the American Indian massacre or slavery it gets a free pass. We have American heroes that were brutal slave owners and it's just a side note. I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Postby Hektor » 3 years 5 months ago (Thu Aug 11, 2016 9:05 am)
If they present that in open undergraduate class, I suspect they may get problems with students starting to ask critical questions.
Postby Leibniz » 3 years 5 months ago (Thu Aug 11, 2016 5:36 pm)
Hektor wrote: If they present that in open undergraduate class, I suspect they may get problems with students starting to ask critical questions.
I agree. Do they really want undergraduates poking around YouTube and watching David Cole's, Eric Hunt's or Denierbud's videos?
I imagine that teaching German students would present special problems because they actually know German and would be more empowered to investigate things for themselves. English speakers can only take others word on many issues.
Can you imagine a major German university offering a job to Carlo Mattogno in Holocaust studies?
If you believe in the Holocaust, then you believe in torture.
Postby Hannover » 3 years 5 months ago (Thu Aug 11, 2016 5:52 pm)
Leibniz wrote: Can you imagine a major German university offering a job to Carlo Mattogno in Holocaust studies?
Why not? After all, Germany is taking in all 'refugees' these days and Mattogno may well end up as one.*
Let's give him a Muslim name, that should do it.
* viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10481
The massive numbers of so called "survivors" are living testimony to fraudulence of the impossible '6M Jews, 5M others, & gas chambers'.
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Animaniacs: Lights, Camera, Action Review
It’s time for An-i-man-i-acs
And we’re zany to the max
So just sit back and relax
You’ll laugh till you collapse
As a young teen, I would watch this show over and over again. Why? Because they tried to break the comic mold for children. They used jokes and stunts that weren’t always for our age group, but were funny. When I heard there was an Animaniacs title coming out for the GBA SP, I was very happy. My editor made me even happier when he handed it to me for review. I couldn’t wait to put the antics of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot to use in finishing up three movies. With that in mind, I followed Thaddeus Plotz’s instructions to complete three movies, so the kids could make back the money that they cost the studio.
Due to the cartoon nature of the show, the visuals for this game are an easy win. Strong colors for the foreground elements against basic backgrounds make the Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister) stand out well. The enemies and items are also well colored to stand out. The backgrounds suffer in this though, being somewhat on the simple side. Brown,grey, and other dark colors form the basic background, with some elements like doors and windows, or dressing like tracks on the ground to pretty things up.Throughout the time I played this game, I don’t think I heard the Animaniacs theme song once. The music was your comedic calliope cartoon fare and was background noise for the most part. It did grate on my nerves after some time of play and I had to play with the volume turned off. They missed an opportunity here to really put the license to good use with theme music and sounds.
Control was the part of the game I hated the most. It was designed with an analog controller in mind, but the GBA’s d-pad is not analog. The game is also set along isometric angles which made control even worse. I put the game into my GBA Player, and found that the d-pad on the Gamecube controller was much better suited. I improved somewhat by holding the GBA at a 45 degree angle, as this made hitting the angles much better, but it wasn’t comfortable. This still didn’t help the controls in general as I was still missing the beats in the character switch minigame, or repeating jumps and runs because I was a little off. The controls were loose overall, and really cried out for an analog stick rather than the digital controls I was stuck with.
Under the supvervision of The Director, you have to move through rather open levels finding keys to open up access to the next area. You are timed through the use of film reels. They slowly play out, and you fail if you run out. You can find more reels throughout the levels.
Periodically, you encounter items that only other characters from the show can open or defeat, and must switch to that character through the stage door. Switching consists of a brief “Simon Says” game in which you earn more film reels, then you can switch to the characters available at that point in the game. Brain opens IQ Switches, Pinky can squeeze through tight places, Wakko burps, Dot can float when jumping, and Yakko…well…I’m still not sure why I use him.
The levels are pretty straightforward, with you following the instructions of The Director (who’da thunk it?) all the way to the end. The end of the level usually results in a boss fight against a pirate, alien, or zombie creature. The levels are pretty wide open, with your character being able to travel from the start to end at will. It is also hard to get lost, as you generally have arrows directing you towards the next appearance of The Director (Talk about cameo shots!). Repeat until end of game.
None to speak of. Aside from the game itself, there is nothing more to examine on the cartridge.
The true test of a licensed property is how it is used in a game. Aside from any other complaints I have listed above, my main one would be the misuse of the license. This game could just as easily be Pinky and the Brain: Lights, Camera, Action, or any other Warner Brothers property. There is nothing contained within that gels the Animaniacs license with the gameplay. I think I may have laughed at Slappy’s line in the first level, but otherwise sat, stone-faced throughout the remainder of the gameplay.
The development team behind this one really needs to look back at why the Animaniacs were funny, and reconsider their design for this game. It was designed for a younger audience, but considering the age of the license, I doubt many five year old players would even look twice at this title. Even fewer still would enjoy the gameplay within. As it stands there is no reason for me to recommend it for purchase. I’ll close with another quote from the theme song:
The writers flipped, we have no script,
Why bother to rehearse? We’re An-i-man-i-acs!
Why bother indeed.
Ron Burke is the Editor in Chief for Gaming Trend. Currently living in Fort Worth, Texas, Ron is an old-school gamer who enjoys CRPGs, action/adventure, platformers, music games, and has recently gotten into tabletop gaming. Ron is also a fourth degree black belt, with a Master's rank in Matsumura Seito Shōrin-ryū, Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do, Universal Tang Soo Do Alliance, and International Tang Soo Do Federation. He also holds ranks in several other styles in his search to be a well-rounded fighter. Ron has been married to Gaming Trend Editor, Laura Burke, for 21 years. They have three dogs - Pazuzu (Irish Terrier), Atë, and Calliope (both Australian Kelpie/Pit Bull mixes).
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Posts Tagged ‘Rene Zellweger’
The Rest of 2016
Posted in Art, Cabaret, Classical Music, Contemporary Music, Dance, Design, Film, Opera, Photography, tagged A United Kingdom, Abstract Expresionism, Adelphi Theatre, Akram Khan, Andre Tchaikowsky, Arrival, Ballet Rambert, Barbican Art Gallery, Barbican Hall, BBC Proms, BBC Singers, BBC SO, Berlioz Requiem, Bernard Herman, Bridget Jones Baby, British Museum, Cadogan Hall, Camille O'Sullivan, Carolyn Sampson, Colin Frith, Eight Days a Week, El Nino, English National Ballet, Fantastic Beasts, Gerald Finley, Giselle, Handel, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, I Daniel Blake, Iestyn Davies, Il Pomo d'Oro, Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tymans, Jacques Brel, Jette Parker Young Artists, John Adams, Joyce DiDonato, Juditha triumphans, Julian Dennison, Ken Loach, Lester Lynch, London Welsh Chorale, Los Straightjackets, LSC, LSO, Magdalena Kozena, Matthew Bourne, Mendelssohn, Michael Keegan-Dolan, National Ballet of China, Neil Brand, New Adventures, Nick Lowe, Nocturnal Beasts, NPG, O2, OAE, Opera Rara, Oreste, Peony Pavilion, Picasso Portraits, Pump House Gallery, Purcell, Quilter, Radical Eye, Rauschenberg, Red Shoes, Rene Zellweger, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rogue One, Ron Howard, Rossini, Royal Academy of Art, Royal Academy of Music SO, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Opera, Sadler's Wells, Sally Troughton, Sam Neill, Samara Scott, Semiramide, Seretse Khama, Shostakovitch, Sir Mark Elder, South Africa: the art of a nation, Southbank Sinfonia, St Giles Cripplegate, St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate, Star Wars Identities, Steve Reich, Sully, Swan Lake, Tate Modern, Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition, The Creation, The Merchant of Venice, The Pass, V&A, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Vivaldi, Vulgar: Fashion Redifined, Wifredo Lam, Wilton's Music Hall, WNO, You Say You Want a Revolution? Records & Rebels 1966-70 on December 31, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I spent a third of the last third of the year out of the country, so my monthly round-up’s for this period have merged into one mega-round-up of the two-thirds of the four months I was here!
Opera Rara’s concert performance of Rossini’s rare Semiramide, the last Bel Canto opera, at the Proms was a real highlight. It’s a long work, four hours with interval, in truth too long, but it contains some of Rossini’s best music (and I’m not even a fan!). The OAE, Opera Rara Chorus and a world class set of soloists under Sir Mark Elder gave it their all, with ovations during let alone at the end. Brilliant.
I was out of the country when I would have made my usual trip to Cardiff for WNO’s autumn season, so I went to Southampton to catch their UK premiere of Andre Tchaikowsky’s The Merchant of Venice when I got home and I was very glad I did. It’s a fine adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, with a particularly dramatic court scene, and it was beautifully sung and played, with a terrific performance by American Lester Lynch as Shylock.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been to something that sounded so beautiful but looked so ugly. Handel’s Oreste, a pasticcio opera (a compilation of tunes from elsewhere, in Handel’s case his own works) which the Royal Opera staged at Wilton’s Music Hall. The singing and playing of the Jette Parker Young Artists and Southbank Sinfonia were stunning, but the production was awful. One of those occasions when it’s best to shut your eyes.
Another delightful lunchtime Prom at Cadogan Hall, this time counter-tenor Iestyn Davies and soprano Carolyn Sampson, both of whom are terrific soloists, but together make a heavenly sound. I was less keen on the six Mendelssohn songs than the six Quilter’s and even more so the glorious six Purcell pieces. It was a joyful, uplifting hour.
Juditha triumphans is a rare opera / oratorio by Vivaldi that was brilliantly performed at the Barbican by the Venice Baroque Orchestra and a superb quintet of female singers including Magdalena Kozena as Juditha. It took a while to take off, but it then soared, and the second half was simply stunning.
Visiting the LSO Steve Reich at 80 concert at the Barbican was a bit of a punt which really paid off. The three pieces added up to a feast of modernist choral / orchestral fusions. The composer was present and received an extraordinary ovation from a surprisingly full house.
Berlioz Requiem is on a huge scale, so the Royal Albert Hall was the perfect venue, and it was Remembrance Sunday, so the perfect day too. The BBC Symphony Orchestra, with ten timpanists and an enormous brass section of 50 or 60, occasionally drowned out all three choirs (!) but it was otherwise a thrilling ride.
Joyce DiDonato‘s latest recital with the wonderful baroque ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro was a bit if a disappointment. It had some extraordinary musical high spots, but the selection could have been better and she didn’t really need the production (lights, projections, haze, costumes, face painting and a dancer!). It didn’t help that the stage lights sometimes shone into the eyes of large chunks of the audience, including me, blinding them and sending me home with a headache.
At the Royal Academy of Music their Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Sir Mark Elder in a lunchtime concert of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony and it was thrilling. Sir Mark did another of his fascinating introductory talks, this time illustrated with musical extracts.
The BBC Singers gave a lovely curtain-raising concert of unaccompanied seasonal music by British composers at St Giles Cripplegate, half from the 20th century and half from the 21st, before the BBC SO‘s equally seasonal pairing of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve Suite and Neil Brand’s A Christmas Carol for orchestra, choir and actors in the Barbican Hall. This was a big populist treat.
I’ve heard a lot of new classical music since I last heard John Adams‘ epic oratorio El Nino, so it was good to renew my acquaintance and discover how much I still admire it. 270 performers on the Barbican stage provide a very powerful experience – the LSO, LSC, a youth choir and six excellent American soloists who all know the work. Thrilling.
Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley, accompanied by Sir Antonio Pappano on piano no less, gave a superb but sparsely attended recital at the Barbican Hall. It was an eclectic, multi-lingual and highly original selection, beautifully sung. More fool those who stayed away from this absolute treat.
The standards of amateur choirs in the UK are extraordinary, and the London Welsh Chorale are no exception. Their lovely Christmas concert at St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate included extracts from Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria plus songs and carols. The soprano and mezzo soloists were superb too.
Rambert’s ballet set to Haydn’s oratorio The Creation at Sadler’s Wells was one of the best dance evenings of recent years. If you shut your eyes, this would be a world class concert with three fine soloists, the BBC Singers and the Rambert Orchestra. With a gothic cathedral backdrop, the dance added a visual dimension which wasn’t literal but was beautifully impressionistic and complimentary.
English National Ballet had the inspired idea to ask Akram Khan to breathe new life into Giselle and at Sadler’s Wells boy did he do that. It’s an extraordinarily powerful, mesmerising and thrilling combination of music, design and movement. From set, costumes and lighting to an exciting adapted score and the most stunning choreography, this is one of the best dance shows I’ve ever seen.
Michael Keegan-Dolan’s Swan Lake the following week, also at Sadler’s Wells, wasn’t such a success, and steered even further away from its inspiration. It revolved around a 36-year old single man whose mother was desperate to marry off, but there were lots of references to depression and madness. I’m afraid I didn’t find the narrative very clear, its relationship to the ballet is a mystery to me and it’s more physical theatre than dance. It had its moments, but it was not for me I’m afraid.
Back at Sadler’s Wells again for The National Ballet of China‘s Peony Pavilion, a real east-meets-west affair. Ancient Chinese tale, classical ballet with elements of Chinese dance, classical music with added Chinese opera. Lovely imagery and movement. I loved it.
New Adventures’ Red Shoes at Sadler’s Wells might be the best thing they’ve done since the male Swan Lake. With a lush Bernard Herman mash-up score, great production values and Matthew Bourne’s superb choreography, it’s a great big populist treat.
Camille O’Sullivan brought an edginess to the songs of Jacques Brel which I wasn’t comfortable with at first but then she alternated them with beautifully sung ballads and I became captivated. She inhabited the songs, creating characters for each one. Her encore tributes to Bowie & Cohen were inspired.
There were a few niggles with Nick Lowe‘s Christmas concert at the Adelphi Theatre – it started early (!), the sound mix wasn’t great and he gave over 30 minutes of his set to his backing band Los Straightjackets (who perform in suits, ties & Mexican wrestler masks!) but (What’s so funny ’bout) Peace Love & Understanding has never sounded more timely and the closing acoustic Alison was simply beautiful. He’s still growing old gracefully.
I loved Ron Howard’s recreation of the Beatles touring years in Eight Days a Week, plus the remastered Shea Stadium concert which followed. What was astonishing about this was that they were completely in tune with all that crowd noise and no monitors or earphones!
Bridget Jones Baby was my sort of escapist film – warm, fluffy and funny – and it was good to see Rene Zellweger and Colin Frith on fine form as the now much older characters.
I, Daniel Blake made me angry and made me cry. Thank goodness we’ve got Ken Loach to show up our shameful treatment of the disabled. Fine campaigning cinema.
I loved Nocturnal Beasts, a thriller that’s as close to the master, Hitchcock, as I’ve ever seen. I was gripped for the whole two hours.
Fantastic Beasts lived up to its hype. Though it is obviously related to Harry Potter, it’s its own thing which I suspect will have quite a series of its own. Starting in NYC, I reckon it will be a world tour of locations for future productions.
Kiwi film The Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a very funny, heart-warming affair with a stunning performance by a young teenager, Julian Dennison, matched by a fine one from Sam Neill.
I loved A United Kingdom, based on the true story of Botswana’s Seretse Khama, leader from mid-60s independence to 1980. It’s the true story of a country that has been a beacon of democracy in a continent of corruption.
The Pass must be one of the most successful stage-to-screen transfers ever. I was in the front row at the Royal Court upstairs, but it seemed even tenser on screen. Good that three of the four actors made the transfer too.
One of my occasional Sunday afternoon double-bills saw Arrival back-to-back with Sully. The former was my sort of SciFi, with the emphasis on the Sci, and it gripped me throughout. I’m also fond of true stories & the latter delivered that very well.
I liked (Star Wars) Rogue One, but it was a bit slow and dark (light-wise) to start with, then maybe too action-packed from then. I’m not sure I will do 3D again too; it’s beginning to feel too low definition and overly blurry for a man who wears glasses.
Sally Troughton‘s installations in the Pump House Gallery at Battersea Park didn’t really do much for me, but Samara Scott‘s installations in the Mirror Pools of its Pleasure Garden Fountains certainly did. A combination of dyed water and submerged fabrics created lovely reflective effects.
There was so much to see in the V&A’s You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970. It was an astonishing five years and the exhibition covers music, art, design, fashion, politics, literature…..you name it. I shall have to go again to take it all in.
Wifredo Lam is a Cuban artist I’ve never heard of, getting a full-blown retrospective at Tate Modern. There was too much of his late, very derivative abstract paintings, but it was still overall a surprising and worthwhile show.
South Africa: the art of a nation was a small but excellent exhibition covering thousands of years from early rock art to contemporary paintings and other works. Most of the old stuff was from the British Museum’s own collection, so in that sense it was one of those ‘excuses for a paying exhibition’ but the way they were put together and curated and the addition of modern art made it worthwhile.
The Picasso Portraits exhibition at the NPG was a lot better than I was expecting, largely because of the number of early works, which I prefer to the more abstract late Picasso. Seeing these does make you wonder why he departed from realism, for which he had so much talent.
Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy was also better than expected, largely because of the range of work and the inclusion of artists I didn’t really know. I do struggle with people like Pollock and Rothko though, and can’t help thinking they may be taking the piss!
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition, back at the NPG, seemed smaller than usual, but just as high quality. I do love these collections of diverse subjects and styles.
Back at the Royal Academy, Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans was a very interesting exhibition of the work of an underrated Belgian master (with an obsession with masks and skeletons!) curated by a contemporary Belgian artist. I’ve seen samples of his work in my travels, but it was good to see it all together, and I liked the curatorial idea too.
At Tate Modern, a double-bill starting with a Rauschenberg retrospective. I’ve been underwhelmed by bits of his work I’ve come across in my travels, but this comprehensive and eclectic show was fascinating (though I’m still not entirely sold on his work!). The second part was Radical Eye, a selection from Elton John’s collection of modernist photography (with more Man Ray’s that have probably ever been shown together). It’s an extraordinary collection and it was a privilege to see it.
Star Wars Identities at the O2 exceeded my expectations, largely because of the idea of discovering your own Star Wars identity by choosing a character and mentor and answering questions on behaviour and values and making choices at eight ‘stations’ en route which were recorded on your wristband, in addition to film clips, models, costumes etc. The behavioural, career and values stuff was well researched and the whole experience oozed quality.
I didn’t think many of the exhibits in Vulgar: Fashion Redefined at the Barbican were vulgar at all! It was an exhibition made up entirely of costumes, so it was never going to be my thing, but it passed a pre-concert hour interestingly enough.
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Addressing Biotoxin, Chemical & Food Sensitivities
Mold, Dr. Cheney and ME/CFS
Thread starter slayadragon
slayadragon
twitpic.com/photos/SlayaDragon
I was having a discussion on another forum with a patient of Dr. Cheney's, and a couple of people suggested I post an edited version here.
Even if XMRV is the root cause for all of us (which Cheney now seems to think) doesn't mean that treating it directly is the way to go.
Clearly something (maybe XMRV) is making our bodies unable to eliminate all kinds of toxins. Maybe through P450 (as he suggested to you), maybe some other ways too.
Clearly mold is extremely common in our environments, especially compared to other toxins.
Clearly when the body doesn't eliminate mold, the effects of the mold on our systems are worse.
Clearly mold has a number of strong negative effects on the body that are applicable to this disease, including the creation of oxidative stress, the decrease of reduced glutathione, perforations in the BBB, and destruction of intestinal cells.
Clearly mold also has big effects on the immune system, including Natural Killer Cell function. (That’s a big defect in this illness and a primary reason why we have such bad herpes family virus problems.)
Clearly all those things above are "control points" (as Cheney puts it) that not only cause “downstream” problems but that cause the viruses that we have to flourish.
Nothing ever is going to get rid of XMRV, I think. All we’re ever going to be able to do is to keep it and the other bugs we have from getting out of control.
Cheney's whole approach (even with the XMRV discovery) is to address various "control points" in order to improve the general system and get the viral activity to go down. He's not using antiviral drugs at all, or at least not yet. It's all indirect. He thinks of artesunate as an antiviral treatment, for instance. It's my impression that he thinks of working on the gut as an antiviral treatment.
So according to this logic, mold avoidance also is an antiviral treatment. And considering the fact that the mold is, as far as I can tell, the only reasonable explanation (other than certain pathogens like viruses and Lyme) for all the oxidative stress that we're getting, eliminating it to the extent that we can is a good foundation for anything else we try to do.
None of these points are arguable. They're just complex. But Cheney is a complex thinker, and the other people working in this field are (by and large) not stupid either. It's just a matter of helping them see it.
One issue that I’m seeing is that as soon as people fasten on the idea of a virus as “the cause” (or a cause) of CFS, they immediately jump to the conclusion that drugs to kill the virus are the solution. That may turn out to be the way to go, but then again it may not be.
I have no moral objection to drugs. Lamictal has been hugely helpful to me for the past decade (though with the mold avoidance, I've now cut down on the dose without backlash). The Valcyte/Famvir have been essential in the gains I've made recently. I never would have made nearly as much detox progress without the cholestyramine.
But I think that the drugs have to be looked at as part of the whole picture. Part of it is that some people can't take drugs, and part of it is that optimal drugs to treat this virus have (at least according to the researcher working on the virus) not been developed yet.
But it's also that even if the virus is at the bottom of the whole thing and we wouldn't be sick at all if we didn't have it doesn't mean we can get back to pre-illness just by addressing it. It's not just the genetic changes, it's the fact that our bodies (as Cheney suggests) have fallen behind in doing the things that they need to in order to run optimally. Even a normally functioning system without XMRV (or a “re-stemmed” one) would have a hard time getting rid of the garbage that has accumulated and doing backlogged “repair work.” So giving our bodies as much support as we can on our way to healing, using whatever tools we have, seems to me a good idea.
What amazes me is just how much we actually know about this disease. There are some really good and committed people working on it. The kind of person attracted to this disease tends to be a "new ideas" type of person, and that has really allowed a lot of progress to be made. But everybody's now defending their own little piece. They're all in their own little cubbyholes.
I think the pieces are there to work with though. I wouldn't be making this much progress otherwise. It’s not just the mold, in my case. But I never would have gotten anywhere without addressing the mold first.
And since I've yet to see anyone with confirmed CFS who's been sick for more than two years get anywhere close to being well (meaning as well as Erik or Jonathan or I am) by ANY methods as those of us who have pursued Erik's approach suggests that this is an important piece of the puzzle. (And this includes both Mike Dessin and StormySkye, who both acknowledge that they were following this mold avoidance approach, even if rather inadvertently and without knowing exactly what they were avoiding, as they also did other things.)
I'm not saying that mold is the answer, by any means. I just am saying that leaving it out may not be prudent.
Hopefully if doctors start to understand this, they can factor the mold into the other things that they’re doing and, perhaps, see better results.
Best, Lisa
Likes: cigana
gracenote
All shall be well . . .
slayadragon,
Thank you for sharing these thoughts.
mojoey
Thanks lisa for your points. I wanted to add that Cheney does now think of artesunate as an antiviral in the sense that it prevents replication of retroviruses. He showed a German study supporting this to a patient whom I spoke with, but I'm still waiting on the specific source.
However I do not believe mike ever avoided mold to the extreme extent that you are suggesting--packing up and moving to a completely mold-free environement whether it be the desert or elsewhere. I think it's prudent for all of us to do mold tests with ERMI or another reputable lab in our homes. Also Cheney has already established 3 functional cures, 2 were sick for 20+ years, 1 for 8 years. I also know of a patient that lives in incline village, was seeing Peterson for the last 20 yrs. According to Erik, incline village is a mold hotbed. Yet she still lives there today and is now able to ski intensively after stem cell therapy.
If one of the points you're trying to make the point that mold is an important piece of the puzzle, I wholeheartedly agree with you. In fact I think living in the bay area is what contributed to my decline, but if you are implying that we cannot get better with means
short of following your ascetic mold-avoidance steps, I think has been shown to simply not be true. You said that mold could allow the virus to flourish but it could easily be the other way around. Mold is extremely common and part of nature, so something seems to happen to our ability to effectively desensitize ourselves to and detoxify it. Just saying it's still a chicken and egg issue and xmrv doesn't make it any less of a toss up at this point.
Regarding everything you said about cheneys control points, they mirror my own conversations with Cheney patients, and I blogged very similar and additional points on my latest blog. You may find them to be interest.
Thanks again, and I always enjoy reading your posts.
ɹǝqɯǝɯ ɹoıuǝs
Cheney might be worth paying attention to if he didn't do 180 degree reversals on his approach every few months.
Chene might also be worth listening to if he were willing to swallow his pride and let being right based on the newest available information supplant being right all the time. He might also have our ear if he ever cures a patient or 3.
I'm always interested to read your thoughts - thanks for this. But you say you've yet to see anyone with confirmed CFS who's been ill longer than 2 years get anywhere close to being well. After 8 years of illness I was 95% well for the next 12 years (but then relapsed again a few years ago.) This pattern is quite common I believe - and also there a quite a few people in my local support group who have recovered after up to 15 years of illness.
Hi Joey,
What I'm increasingly interested in is what makes some CFSers benefit from treatments and some not benefit.
Certainly we've seen a scattering of patients improve from various treatments, including the ones that you mention. The question, in my mind, is why so many of them do not make progress or decline over time even with treatments that seem like they make sense and that do indeed help some people.
There are lots of factors why people don't get better from CFS. Mold isn't the only stress on our system. And mold avoidance isn't the answer either.....or at least, it's an impractical answer for most people. And I've added lots of other stuff to my own mold avoidance efforts.
But I feel pretty confident in saying that if CFS sufferers are getting a lot of mold exposure, they're going to be handicapped in terms of making any progress getting well from this disease.
The definition of "a lot of mold exposure" varies across people. I suspect it differs based on how sick people are, how many bugs they have, how many other toxins they have problems with, how long they've been sick, how broken their glutathione/methylation systems are, and other things. Just staying out of really moldy buildings may be enough for some people, even those who start off as pretty sick. And decreasing exposures by however much is always going to be a good thing.
I've discussed this with Mike on occasion, and I see him as an ideal example of a person who (if somewhat inadvertently) incorporated mold avoidance into his recovery. (Please check with him to confirm what I'm saying.) His health started to decline over time (maybe as a result of getting XMRV or something else, maybe not, who knows), but the time that things really fell apart was when he got a really severe mold problem in his home. At that point, he got rid of almost all his stuff. He then moved around a whole lot, to the point that he had almost nothing left from that old bad house. Finally he moved to a place in Ohio that felt good to him with regard to mold and chemicals. After that, he started the neural therapy and quickly regained much of his health.
This actually is PRECISELY what I did. I moved out of my bad house and put aside all my stuff. I found a new place. I made a lot of improvements (moving from being bedridden 18-22 hours a day to being up and reasonably functional most of the time) just from that.....even though I realized after really getting clear of mold that the place I was living had somewhat of a mold problem too. And then I worked on detox, including with neural therapy which (recently) I've found to be extremely helpful in pushing me toward the point that my reactivity has gone down to where few buildings and basically no objects have much of an effect on me any more.
Mike had a hell of a time of it. I'd like to think that people can do what he eventually did, but more systematically. If he had chosen a home in Ohio that was moldy, or if he'd had a bunch of contaminated possessions from a previous residence with him, would the neural therapy have been enough to turn it around? I don't know. Neural therapy is powerful. I benefited from it even when I was living in a really moldy house. But I can't believe that mold exposure wouldn't have made it a lot more difficult for him, at the very least requiring more treatments and with slower and less permanently stable results. That's what he told me, anyway.
I have a lot of respect for the work that Cheney is doing. I've heard enough good things about the artesunate that I likely will try it myself, when I'm done with the Valcyte course. Are the people who got functional cures living in better environments than the non-cures? Could the people who come back from stem cell treatments make even more progress if they were attending to their living environments and making even small attempts to stay out of moldy buildings?
I don't know. And until researchers start looking at the issue, no one else will know either.
The stem cell therapy is fascinating. I would consider it myself, if my own reactivity weren't going down so much from other means. My initial feeling is that, like neural therapy, it allows people to tolerate a lot more toxic exposures of all sorts than they did in the past. (Insofar as our detox mechanisms are part of what's broken, resetting everything might allow our bodies to excrete the toxins naturally without adding things like CSM or neural therapy, for instance.)
Certainly, lots of people live in Incline Village and don't get sick. There are a fair number of moldy houses there, but a lot of good ones. The scattered outdoor mold can be vicious for those of us who are already sick, but occasional exposures wouldn't drive down someone whose system is working well. The stem cell story is really encouraging all around, that a person could withstand even occasional exposures to this stuff.
But what I'd really hate is for people to go through stem cell treatments, come back to the U.S., feel better, and then get exposed to lots of mold again. Just because our systems are capable of handling increased amounts of whatever kinds of toxins doesn't mean that we shouldn't be at least a little careful. Even people who've never had XMRV are affected by mold, if they get too much exposure to it.
What I do know is that neither Cheney nor any other leading CFS doctor is actively encouraging patients to look into this issue. (My own doctors have started to do so somewhat after witnessing my experience.) Certainly, these doctors are helping some patients with the treatments that they are proposing, and I am grateful to them for that. But I'd like to see them help a higher percentage of patients, and for the patients who are helped not just to reach a functional cure ("normal activity with some difficulty") but actually get to the point where they're living full lives again.
Insofar as mold is weighing people down, that's going to be less likely to happen.
As for the desert.....Erik never encouraged people to LIVE in the desert. He never lived there himself. He lived in Incline Village for many years after getting well, and now he lives in Reno. The point of "the desert" was for people to get to somewhere really clear for a while, so that the "masking" recedes and they can avoid mold better back in civilization. ("Masking" is a chemical sensitivity term, similar to what happens when people eat wheat all the time and don't know they're sick from it until they stop.) Once they get unmasked, people can do a better job of finding mold in their environments.....for instance, not unknowingly moving into a moldy home.
I took the whole exercise to extremes by living in a tent for a while, because I concluded that it would allow me to detox more efficiently and take Valcyte without getting sick. This experiment has gone remarkably well. I'm way better than a "functional cure" at this point.
Whether I will ever not have to think about mold at all, I don't know. But my life is a lot less weird than you may think, even now.
Likes: debored13
I'm really sorry to hear about your relapse. Do you have any thoughts on what might have caused it?
Have you always lived in England? I suspect it would be very hard for me to do well there. I lived near London one summer early in my illness and got a lot worse while I was there.
One of the board moderators, Mark, has reclaimed most of his health by addressing mold. He lives in the UK. The things he has to do to maintain his health are pretty complicated though.
Yes, I've always lived in the UK. I am better in hot, dry climates though. I think what triggered my relapse was a ski-ing accident - the minor pain from that escalated over a year to all over pain. This was diagnosed as FM, and my ME got much worse soon after.
ukxmrv
The problem with the mould avoidance is what to do if it doesn't work. I am XMRV+ and have been lucky enough to travel at times. Leaving my belongings behind and living in a tent/caravan just didn't work for me. Currently I am too weak to leave my bed - let alone my home, for much of the time.
If there was something major in the mould avoidence for me, I would have seen it by now. I practise mould avoidance everyday. Will not live in a house with mould, destroyed personal effects. I have even moved to a different country where I was healthier, and will not live in cities I consider to be mould-traps.etc.
I have total confidence in Erik and he makes a lot of sense. The problem is that what to do if it doesn't work.
Of all the questions that I get, the ones from CFSers living in Texas, Louisiana, the San Francisco Bay Area and England are the most frustrating to me.
CFSers living in these places are almost always SO sick. Often they express some agreement that mold probably is an issue for them and willingness to try mold avoidance. But I've yet to see anyone living in any of these places make much improvement as a result of addressing mold.
Based on my own experiences, I can see why. I wouldn't be able to live in any of these places without getting really sick myself, even though I'm a lot less reactive than I used to be and have become really good at using Erik's "extreme avoidance tricks" to stay well in most other places.
The problem is that it's not just the insides of buildings that are bad. The outside air in these places is really bad too, meaning that EVERY building is a bad building.
I was impressed that Mark, from the UK, did make some progress through mold avoidance. But note, on this thread, that this is accomplished only insofar as he stays inside his home with air purifiers running. If he steps outside, he gets sick again.
http://www.forums.aboutmecfs.org/sh...l-but-XMRV-activated-via-mold-and-Lyme-toxins
It's scary, that entire states or countries can have air that's worse than a lot of bad buildings. That's what I and others who are sensitive to mold are seeing though.
People in these "sick regions" or "sick countries" often move from residence to residence, spend time outside in tents, even get rid of all their stuff....to no avail, because EVERYWHERE is bad.
Though sometimes they do feel better when they follow Dr. Myhill's advice to test for mold by going "on holiday" elsewhere, that doesn't always reveal the problem. If they stay in a bad building, or happen upon a patch of bad air, or bring their contaminated stuff with them, it may negate the whole experiment.
And even if it goes well and they get clear, they still may not feel better right away. Sometimes (especially for really sick people) the first thing the body does when it gets to a good place is play "catch up": dump toxins, kill bugs, do repair work. If that's what's going on, people may feel even more tired (though maybe in a less agitated way) than they did when they were back home.
And then even if people feel better when they're on vacation, that's not going to help them much if they go back to a place where all the outside air is bad. Erik's "trip to the desert" is supposed to get people sensitive enough to know when a building (or in some cases, section of a city) is bad, so that a hasty retreat can be made. But if EVERYWHERE is bad, people are back to Square One when they get back home.
The topic of mold as it relates to CFS is SO complex. I finally decided to compile a bunch of Erik's writings into a "book" so I wouldn't have to keep explaining it to people (a full-time job). People have told me that the compilation finally has made the topic understandable to them, so at least that's a first step.
I think that Dr. Shoemaker's research is pretty convincing that there is a huge CFS/mold connection and that maybe everyone with CFS is a mold reactor. (This does not mean that mold is the CAUSE of CFS, of course. Just that mold exposure makes many or all of us ill.) I'm looking forward to seeing more studies from other researchers on this topic.
So when people who live in a place that I know would make me personally deathly ill tell me that the don't think that mold avoidance is the answer for them, I don't know what to say.
Maybe they're not mold reactors. But then again, maybe they are.
I'm happy to give people the information that I have on this topic. Erik's writings (in compiled form) are remarkably instructive, and I'm putting together some additional materials.
Especially for people in bad places though, they're not a magic solution. They may not help at all, if they can't move to a different region or country.
That's why this needs more attention.
Neither Erik nor I are medical doctors, much less wizards. (My own Ph.D. is in psychology/marketing.) It's nice to help people, but our goal really is for CFS researchers and doctors to start attending to this phenomenon so that better treatments of whatever sort can be developed.
Because if mold really is as important to us as I think it is, we're never going to get anywhere if the leaders in this field don't take it into consideration when attempting to help us.
jbond
I've been reading Cheney's theories since about 1986. He's constantly changing his mind, and his ideas get weirder as time goes by.
People buy into them, then his theory falls out of favor, and a new one pops up. Oh well, mold today gone to maui.
Likes: JPV
Thanks Lisa,
I do think that I am a mould reactor and I have known that from childhood.
If only I did feel better on holiday that would be a good start or at least give me the encouragement to do more in this area
Good luck with disseminating this information. Erik is great in this topic. Please don't be too hard on those who don't listen. It may be that until there is a cure or at least any easy method to avoid moulds that pursuing this beyond trying other locations and leaving possessions behind may not be feasible for some.
XMRV+
>It may be that until there is a cure or at least any easy method to avoid moulds that pursuing this may not be feasible for some.
Yes, I know that. Especially for people who already are really sick.
Maybe if the information becomes more widely known, people will suspect mold as being an issue as soon as they get any CFS-type symptoms.
It's a lot easier to pursue this earlier on, when mold reactivity isn't as high and resources (physical and financial) aren't as depleted.
calzy
Naples Florida
:Sign giggle::In bed:
JPV said:
HA ha...dont I know that from experience and tons of $$$$$.
jenbooks
Bravo, Lisa.
Someone just asked me why I didn't put a link to the compilation of Erik's writings.
I'm still in the process of cleaning it up, but if folks would like a preliminary copy, please let me know and I will send it to you via e-mail.
Write to me at my user name on this board, on Yahoo.
Thanks Lisa, I'll look out for the finished copy as buried with information right now. It's a great idea and I'll look forward to reading it at some stage. Thank you.
So.. what if you don't have the mold sensitivity genes, but have CFS? I "tested" the mold theory by moving to a place that was deemed "acceptable" by ERMI test, and even took CSM for a few months. Didn't change my symptoms. I know that I don't carry any of the "susceptible" genes...
It's hard to know the answers to these questions when the only person doing any research into the topic is Ritchie Shoemaker. He's focused more on mold illness in general, which is a lot less complex than CFS. But his work is a really good start.
From what I've seen, a really high percentage of CFSers do have the mold-sensitive or multi-susceptible genes. But some do not.
I know a couple of CFSers who do not have those genes but who are very sensitive to even tiny amounts of mold.
Dr. Shoemaker likes the ERMI test, and I'm of the impression that it does a good job of finding really bad buildings. Unfortunately, many CFSers are so reactive to mold that merely having our "stuff" from a previous residence with us can be enough to keep us permanently ill. That would never show up on an ERMI test! And it's the experience of some of us that there are particular kinds of mold that can be harmful even to normal (not-yet-sick) people in amounts that the ERMI doesn't pick up on.
Especially for severe CFS patients, moving generally doesn't reduce mold exposures enough to make much noticeable difference in the illness. Usually they have their stuff with them, which can nullify any benefit. Most buildings have at least a little bit of mold in them. And outdoor mold can (depending on the place) be the biggest problem of all.
Reducing mold to 5% of the original level may not result in any big improvements. It may need to be more like 1%. Or 1/100th of 1%. And that's really hard!
So the question then is, why bother to think about mold at all?
I increasingly believe that lowering the level of mold in an environment can provide a foundation for other treatments to work. People who take antiviral drugs without attending to their living environment seem to me to be shooting themselves in the foot, for instance. It's really hard to take these drugs. Reducing the oxidative stress on the system by decreasing mold levels as much as possible may make the drugs easier to take and give them a chance to actually work.
At least, that's what happened to me with Valcyte.
It also can help patients to keep from declining. Considering that people with this illness do seem to slide downward over time, that's not a trivial benefit.
It also may allow them to very gradually improve over time, regardless of whether other treatments are used. I've heard a number of stories like this: that people have moved from a really bad environment to a better one and, a few years later, recovered some of their health. With so many toxins accumulated and so many pathogens in place, we wouldn't expect immediate improvements. It takes the system some time to reset itself.
Because mold is an allergen, people reflexively think that mold toxicity should act like an allergy. It's a poison! If someone had pesticide poisoning, you wouldn't expect him to recover the minute that he wasn't being sprayed with pesticides. It takes the system time to sort out.
I don't know exactly what to say about your situation.
I wonder though.....where do you live?
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Andare v. Attorney General
Decision Outcome (Disposition/Ruling), Law or Action Overturned or Deemed Unconstitutional
Petition No. 149 of 2015
Administrative Law, Constitutional Law
Facebook, Internet, Criminal Defamation, Vague Standard
The High Court of Kenya found a provision criminalizing “grossly offensive” statements, and false statements that are annoying, inconvenient or causing needless anxiety, to be unconstitutional because it was vague and unjustifiably limited freedom of expression. The case arose out of Geoffrey Andare’s post in a community Facebook group accusing Titus Kuria, a representative of a scholarship trust, of using his position of authority to sleep with young girls seeking scholarships. Kuria brought a criminal complaint against Andare under Section 29 of Kenya’s Information and Communication Act that broadly criminalizes indecent or false information. While the case was pending in criminal court, Andare brought a petition to challenge the constitutionality of the Section 29. The High Court held that Section 29 was unconstitutional because it unjustifiably limited freedom of expression and because it was worded in vague terms.
Geoffrey Andare made a post on a community Facebook page accusing Titus Kuria, a representative of the Canada-Mathare Education Trust, of forcing young girls to sleep with him to receive scholarship funds. The message read, “you don’t have to sleep with the young vulnerable girls to award them opportunities to go to school, that is so wrong! Shame on you.” Titus Kuria brought a complaint against Andare, who was then charged by the Attorney General of a criminal violation under Section 29 of the Kenya Information and Communication Act.
Section 29 reads: “A person who by means of a licensed telecommunication system—
sends a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
sends a message that he knows to be false for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another person, commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand shillings, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to both.”
Andare brought a petition to the High Court of Kenya challenging the constitutionality of Section 29, while he was arraigned in the Milimani Criminal Case No. 610 of 2015, Republic vs Geoffrey Andare. He argued that Section 29:
criminalizes publication of certain information in vague and overbroad terms;
has a chilling effect on the Constitutional guarantee to freedom of expression; and
creates an offense without establishing the requisite mens rea (mental state) on the part of the accused person.
In addition to requesting that the High Court declares the Section unconstitutional, Andare also requested the court to order the Attorney General to stop his prosecution.
ARTICLE 19 East Africa, a non-governmental organization that focuses on protecting the right to freedom of expression, appeared as an interested party in the case and supported Andare’s arguments. Particularly, ARTICLE 19 argued that Section 29 was overly broad and thus “net[s] a very large amount of protected and innocent speech. It submitted by way of illustration that a person may discuss or even advocate by means of writing disseminated over the internet information or licenced telecommunications device content that may be a point of view pertaining to governmental, literary, scientific or other matters which may be offensive to certain sections of society.” (as summarized at para 27 of the judgment) ARTICLE 19 also argued that the Section failed to set-out a requisite mens rea for the crime, violating criminal law principles. Lastly, ARTICLE 19 argued that the Section created constitutionally unjustified limitations to freedom of expression.
In turn, the Attorney General asserted that the words used in the Section were “clear and their literal meaning clearly brings out the mischief which they were intended to cure, as well as the cure provided.” [para. 35] Moreover, the Attorney General argued that the Section balanced freedom of expression with the protection of the reputation of others.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) joined the case as a respondent and argued that the decision to prosecute “was informed by the sufficiency of evidence on record and the public interest, and not on any other considerations.” [para 43] The DPP also agreed with the Attorney General that “freedom of expression of any person which is protected under Article 33 [of Kenya’s Constitution] is also regulated by the same Article. Consequently, any person who exercises the freedom is required to do so in such a way that the rights of others are not violated.” [para 46]
Judge Mumbi Ngugi delivered the opinion of the High Court of Kenya, Constitutional and Human Rights Division.
The main issue before the court was the constitutionality of Section 29 of the Kenya Information and Communication Act. First, the Court discussed whether Section 29 was vague and overbroad. The Court noted that the Act provided no definition of the key operative words: “grossly offensive”, “indecent”, “obscene”, “menacing character”, “annoyance”, “inconvenience”, “anxiety”. The Court asserted that “the words are so wide and vague that their meaning will depend on the subjective interpretation of each judicial officer seized of a matter”. [para. 77] Referencing the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Sunday Times v. United Kingdom, the Court held that this left an unconstitutionally wide margin of interpretation and failed to provide certainty with regard to the conduct that the Act sought to criminalize.
Secondly, the Court discussed whether the provision unduly limited the right to freedom of expression. Referencing the Ugandan Supreme Court decision in Onyango-Obbo v. Attorney-General, the Court stressed the importance of the right to freedom of expression in a democratic society and that the state had to demonstrate that the limitation was reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society. Moreover, the Court referenced Article 24 of the Constitution and the Canadian case of R. v. Oakes to highlight the State’s duty to establish the purpose and importance of a limitation on freedom of expression, the relationship between the limitation and its purpose, and to demonstrate that no less restrictive means to achieve the intended purpose exist. The Court held that the State had failed to establish any of these requirements, providing further grounds for ruling that the provision was unconstitutional.
Summing up, the Court noted that less restrictive means for protecting reputation online were available through regular libel laws and ordered the DPP to stop the prosecution. The Court did not rule on the mens rea arguments.
The decision expands expression in Kenya because it highlights that for a restriction on freedom of expression to be legitimate, it must be prescribed by law. The decision also stresses that new laws should not be introduced simply because they deal with a new mode of communications, but that existing and less restrictive laws should still be applied. Lastly, the High Court relied on foreign jurisprudence in its ruling, which is a welcome development for global protection of freedom of expression.
UNHR Comm., General Comment No. 34 (CCPR/C/GC/34)
Kenya, Coalition for Reforms & Democracy & Others vs Republic of Kenya & 10 Others, Petition No 628 of 2014 consolidated with Petition Nos 630 of 2014 & 12 of 2015
Kenya, Constitution, art. 33
Kenya, Chirau Ali Makwere v. Robert M. Mabera [2012] eKLR
Kenya, Kenya Information and Communication Act, Section 29
Kenya, John Ritho Kanogo & 2 Others vs Joseph Ngugi & Another Civil Suit No 589 of 2012
Kenya, Arthur Papa Odera vs Peter O. Ekisa, Civil suit No 142 of 2014
Other national standards, law or jurisprudence
Can., R. v. Oakes, [1986] 1 S.C.R. 103
Uganda, Charles Onyango Obbo v. Attorney General, [2004] UGSC 1
S. Afr., S. v. Mamabolo, 2001 (3) SA 409 (CC)
The High Court is the third highest court in Kenya and has supervisory jurisdiction over all the lower or subordinate courts and other persons.
Alai v. Attorney General
Okedara v. Attorney General
Andama v. Director of Public Prosecutions
http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/121033/
Ephraim Percy Kenyanito, Kenya’s KICA ruling: a beacon of hope for free expression in Africa, Access Now, May 9, 2016
https://www.accessnow.org/kenyas-kica-ruling-beacon-hope-free-expression-africa/
Olive Burrows, Kenya: Law On Misuse of Telecommunication Systems Illegal - Court, All Africa, April 19, 2016
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Milisavljević v. Serbia
Article 10 Violation
Serbia, Europe and Central Asia
Insult, Criminal Defamation, Media/Press
The European Court of Human Rights found that the Serbian authorities had violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights by convicting a journalist for insult after they had written an article about a well-known human rights activist. The Serbian courts had held that by failing to place the words “witch” and “prostitute” in quotation marks when referring to how others perceived the human rights activist, the journalist had tacitly endorsed the insulting words as her own. The domestic courts convicted the journalist of insult and gave her a judicial warning. The European Court of Human Rights disagreed with the approach of the national courts, and ruled that it was evident from the context of the overall article that it was describing how the human rights activist was perceived by others. The European Court of Human Rights also found that the domestic courts had failed to balance the rights and interests of both parties, and had imposed a disproportionate criminal sanction on the journalist.
The applicant, Ljiljana Milisavljević, was a journalist working for a major Serbian daily newspaper (Politika). In September 2003, she wrote an article entitled “The Hague Investigator” that was about Nataša Kandić, a Serbian human rights activist who was known for her involvement in investigating crimes committed by the Serbian forces during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. She was also one of the most vocal advocates for full cooperation of the Serbian authorities with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
At the time the article was published, a majority of the Serbian population was against the Serbian authorities’ cooperation with the ICTY, and there was a heated debate about the topic. Ms. Kandić herself came under attack by a significant portion of the Serbian political elite.
The article detailed aspects of Ms. Kandić’s career, set out the prestigious awards that she had won, and described her as a “campaigner for the truth on war crimes” and a “lonely voice of reason”. However, the article also made it clear that she “provoke[d] stormy reactions” from certain people. In the article, it was said that “although [Nataša Kandić] has been called a witch and a prostitute and is permanently under threat (this year she has also had to cancel her appearance at a local TV station owing to a bomb threat), she says: ‘This is simply the part of this job. I don’t think that they hate me, only my message.’” [para. 9]
Following the publication of the article, Ms. Kandić instituted a private prosecution against Ms. Milisavljević. Ms. Kandić complained that the piece tried to belittle her, and that it had portrayed her as a traitor to Serbia and as a “paid servant of foreign interests and a prostitute who sells herself for money.” [para. 10] Ms. Milisavljević, in her defence, argued that she did not intend to insult the activist and that she was only reporting on information taken from other magazines. She said that she put citations in quotation marks, except where she was paraphrasing the other sources.
In September 2005, the First Municipal Court found that Ms. Milisavljević had committed the criminal offence of insult by referring to Ms. Kandić as a “witch” and a “prostitute”. The First Municipal Court confirmed that the impugned phrase was taken from another article written by another journalist in another magazine. However, the First Municipal Court found that, by omitting the quotation marks, Ms. Milisavljević had agreed with the statement and it became her opinion. In light of Ms. Milisavljević’s clean record, her employment, and her “mature age”, no prison sentence or fine was imposed. In July 2006, the Belgrade District Court upheld the first instance decision and agreed with its reasoning.
Following these proceedings, Ms. Milisavljević was discharged from Politika, and she believed her conviction was the reason for this.
Ms. Milisavljević subsequently brought the case to the European Court of Human Rights complaining that her conviction for criminal insult violated her right to freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. She argued, in particular, that her conviction was disproportionate, and had represented a threat and warning to all Serbian journalists.
The European Court of Human Rights (Court) began by noting that it was not disputed between the parties that the conviction amounted to an “interference by public authority” Ms. Milisavljević’s right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention). The Court also accepted that the provision of the Criminal Code under which Ms. Milisavljević was convicted was adequately accessible, foreseeable and formulated with sufficient precision to enable the journalist to regulate her conduct. It was, therefore, “prescribed by law”. The Court also noted that it was not disputed between the parties that the “legitimate aim” of the conviction was “the protection of the reputation or rights of others”. As a result, it was left for the Court to decide whether the conviction was “necessary in a democratic society”.
The Court relied on the general principles set forth in Axel Springer AG v. Germany; namely consideration of (a) the contribution made by the article to a debate of general interest; (b) how well known the person concerned was and the subject of the report; (c) the conduct of the person concerned prior to the publication of the article; (d) the method of obtaining the information and its veracity; (e) content, form and consequences of the publication; and (f) the severity of the sanction imposed.
The Court held that the statements were made in the context of a public debate on matters of public interest. This was because the article was published at a time when there was a heated public debate on Serbia’s cooperation with the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia. The Court also took account of the fact that Ms. Milisavljević was a journalist writing about an undeniable public figure.
Although the Court accepted that the words “witch” and “prostitute” were offensive, it concluded that it was clear from the formulation of the sentence in which they were used that this was how Ms Kandinć was perceived by others, and not by the journalist authoring the article. The Court stated that it was evident that Ms. Milisavljević was merely transmitting the opinion of others. In this regard, the Court reiterated that “a general requirement for journalists systematically and formally to distance themselves from the content of a quotation that might insult or provoke others or damage their reputation is not reconcilable with the press’s role of providing information on current events, opinions and ideas.” [para. 37] Accordingly, the Court concluded that the omission of the quotation marks alone was not sufficient to justify the imposition of a penalty on the journalist.
The Court went on to state that the domestic courts had failed to conduct any balancing exercise between Ms. Kandić’s reputation and the journalist’s right to freedom of expression. Furthermore, there was no consideration of the overall context of the article, and the findings of the domestic courts were mostly limited to the omission of quotation marks.
The Court could not agree that the article was aimed at portraying Ms. Kandić in a negative light, and noted that the article contained opinions of her that were both positive and negative. The Court could not find that the impugned words, “witch” and “prostitute”, were to be understood as a gratuitous personal attack or insult to Ms. Kandić. The Court opined that they referred to how she was perceived professionally, rather than her private or family life.
Finally, with regards the severity of the sanction imposed, the Court concluded that convicting Ms. Milisavljević for a criminal offence of insult was disproportionate. The Court could not accept that the judicial warning was a lenient sentence, and stated that “what matters is not that the applicant was issued a judicial warning ‘only’, but that she was convicted for an insult at all.” [para. 41] The Court went on to state that “[i]rrespective of the severity of the penalty which is liable to be imposed, a recourse to the criminal prosecution of journalists for purported insults, with the attendant risk of a criminal conviction and a criminal penalty, for criticising a public figure in a manner which can be regarded as personally insulting, is likely to deter journalists from contributing to the public discussion of issues affecting the life of the community.” [para. 41]
In light of the foregoing, the Court held that the Serbian authorities had violated Ms. Milisavljević’s right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As for damages, the Court awarded 500 EUR in non-pecuniary damages to Ms. Milisavljević.
The decision expands freedom of expression since the European Court of Human Rights (Court) held that the criminal conviction of a journalist for insult violated the right to freedom of expression. The Court was particularly critical of the domestic court’s overly narrow analysis of the journalist’s article, focusing primarily on the lack of quotation marks around the allegedly insulting words. The Court recognized that such an approach may negatively impact press freedom by placing an unreasonable burden on journalists to systematically and formally distance themselves from the content of a quotation. The Court’s reasoning in this regard upholds and protects the important role that the media plays in disseminating the opinions or views of others. Also of particular note is the Court’s approach to the penalty imposed in this case. Although no term of imprisonment or fine was imposed on the journalist, the Court still recognized that convicting a journalist at all can have a deterrent effect on other journalists discussing issues of public interest. In other words, the decision did not just consider the violation of the applicant journalist’s right to freedom of expression, but also took more general and wider press freedom considerations into account.
ECtHR, Palomo Sánchez and Others v. Spain [GC], nos. 28955/06, 28957/06, 28959/06 and 28964/06, § 74, 2011
ECtHR, Minelli v. Switzerland (dec.), No. 14991/02 (2005)
ECtHR, Petrenco v. Moldova, App. No. 20928/05 (2010)
ECtHR, Ayhan Erdoğan v. Turkey, App. No. 39656/03 (2009)
ECtHR, Kuliś y Różycki v. Poland, App. No. 27209/03 (Oct. 6, 2009)
ECtHR, Thoma v. Luxembourg, No. 38432/97 (2001)
ECtHR, Lopes Gomes da Silva v. Portugal, App. No. 37698/97 (2000)
ECtHR, Bodrožić & Vujin v. Serbia, App. No. 38435/05 (2009)
ECtHR, Grebneva and Alisimchik v. Russia, App. No. 8918/05 (2016)
Faludy-Kovács v. Hungary
https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{"itemid":["003-5674801-7195200"]}
Milisavljević v. Serbia by Dirk Voorhoof
http://merlin.obs.coe.int/iris/2017/7/article2.en.html
Milisavljević v. Serbia: ECHR held that there had been a violation of freedom of expression by Salvis Juribus
http://www.salvisjuribus.it/milisavljevic-v-serbia-echr-held-that-there-had-been-a-violation-of-freedom-of-expression/
Libertà di stampa: le frasi non vanno isolate dal contesto by Marina Castellaneta (in Italian)
http://www.marinacastellaneta.it/blog/liberta-di-stampa-le-frasi-non-vanno-isolate-dal-contesto.html
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Duke University Marine Laboratory
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The Dr. Orrin H. Pilkey Research Laboratory is a new state-of-the-art, LEED Gold marine science research building for Duke University Marine Laboratory on Pivers Island. Designed to the highest environmental and sustainable standards, it incorporates design solutions to address hurricane force winds, sea level rise, and storm surge concerns.
The first floor contains a collaborative "Collisional Commons", surrounded by faculty offices, a PhD bullpen, teaching lab, video conference room and service spaces. Clad in wood and large expanses of glass, it reflects the architecture of the original campus quad built in the 1930s while opening up dramatic views to the coast. The second floor is a 'laboratory loft' that houses equipment-intensive research spaces, and features an elevated deck with views to downtown Beaufort and surrounding islands. Protected by a modern panelized system, it conveys the scientific and forward-thinking research taking place within.
Read more in "The Fifth Dimension: Architect-Led Design-Build," Architectural Design magazine, May/June 2017.
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Architect Led Design Build
Principal Bios
Peter L. Gluck
Thomas Gluck
Charlie Kaplan
Stacie Wong
Marc Gee
Office Bios
At GLUCK+, design matters and building matters. Better buildings result when architects take on the construction process. Our approach to Architect Led Design Build ensures that the built solution is done right.
The evolution of our firm name from Peter Gluck and Partners Architects to GLUCK+ recognizes that our practice has always been inclusive. From designer to builder to owner to developer, we do what it takes and care how it’s done. “Outside our scope” is not in our vocabulary.
Our work is diverse and recognized worldwide through national and international design awards and publications. Our range of projects–from houses, schools, religious buildings, community centers to hotels, university buildings, recreation centers, and historic restorations—are all unique because each project is specific. We are dedicated to advocating for the wants and needs of our clients.
It is their stories we want to tell.
Architect Led Design Build is single-source responsibility for the design, construction and commissioning of buildings. Typically, an owner hires an architect to draw a building and a contractor to oversee the subcontractors that will build the building. This separation is adverse for the quality and cost of building. Project stakeholders lose out.
Architect Led Design Build is an agile process in which the same people are responsible for an entire building project. Our architects are also construction managers, meaning feedback between method of construction and design is fluid and responsive. Priorities between design, cost and schedule are clear. Creativity is responsible.
Typically an owner makes decisions about their project before an architect is involved. What is the program? Where is the site? How will it affect my budget?
As architects and builders, we have tools that are critical for navigating early unknowns, such as assessing the feasibility of a project and vetting real estate opportunities. We are in a position to help clients strategically plan their project, to determine how much space they actually need, and to test-fit their project on potential sites. We also consider construction options that affect the economic viability of the project.
Ultimately these early decisions are up to project owners, but we can serve as a valuable resource to clarify options.
Expanding our role allows us to initiate projects that otherwise could not afford to exist.
We consider sites that developers typically shy away from because our experience as architects and builders allows us to find the feasible opportunity. We can consider building uses that are generally deemed non-profitable, such as middle-income housing, because we are also in a position to pair them with less typical, more economic methods of building, such as offsite construction.
Having the wherewithal to find and make projects is not just an opportunity to build better buildings, but to contribute to building a better urban fabric.
We believe coming from the private realm, we have the responsibility to do our part in enriching the lives of people and communities. The integration of our approach to architecture allows us to do that.
Peter Gluck received a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and a Master of Architecture from the Yale School of Art and Architecture in 1965. After designing a series of houses from New York to Newfoundland, he went to Tokyo to design large projects for a leading Japanese construction consortium. This experience influenced Gluck’s later work both in his knowledge of Japan’s traditional aesthetics and of its efficient modern methods of integrated construction and design. Formerly Peter Gluck and Partners, the New York City based firm has been designing and building throughout the country since 1972, joined in 1992 by ARCS, a construction-management firm, established to build the firm’s designs, and in 1997 by Aspen GK, Inc., a development partnership, founded to produce well-designed, high-quality speculative housing. In 2013, the firm's identity evolved into GLUCK+ to reflect the nature of the practice: architects involved in all aspects of the design, construction and development of a project.
Exhibitions of Gluck’s award-winning work have been held in the U.S. and Japan, and he is widely published in architectural journals around the world. He has taught at Columbia and Yale schools of architecture, and curated exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Milan Triennale.
Thomas Gluck joined the firm as Associate Principal in 2005.
Mr. Gluck has overseen the design and construction of numerous projects in New York City and around the country. Notable projects include Bridge, a LEED Gold mixed-use residential development in Philadelphia which received the 2019 AIANY Award of Merit in Sustainability, The Stack, the first prefabricated steel and concrete multifamily development completed in New York City, and Tower House, selected by Architectural Record for their Record Houses issue in 2013. He is currently managing a 500,000 SF mixed-use urban development in West Harlem. Prior to joining GLUCK+, Mr. Gluck worked with Herzog and de Meuron as the onsite project manager for the design and construction of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Mr. Gluck has published articles in the Architectural Research Quarterly and Retrospecta. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard College and a Master of Architecture from Yale University. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for Keewaydin Camp.
Charlie Kaplan joined the firm in 1996. He became Associate Principal in 1999.
Mr. Kaplan, LEED certified, has been heavily involved in both the design and construction of sustainable single-family and multi-family housing projects throughout the U.S. He was a partner with Peter Gluck in the purchase, development, design and construction of award winning affordable housing in Aspen, Colorado, built as a turnkey project for the City of Aspen.
Mr. Kaplan also was a lecturer at the 2007 Annual Colorado Preservation Conference, a collaboration between the Aspen and Telluride Historic Preservation departments and a former trustee and longtime member of the campus building committee for Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont.
Mr. Kaplan earned a BA from Williams College, a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, and spent time studying at the Architectural Association in London.
Stacie Wong joined the firm in 2001 as Associate Principal.
Ms. Wong brings considerable design and construction experience in both educational and residential projects. Notable educational projects include the award-winning Pilkey Lab groundup science research building for Duke University Marine Laboratory on their coastal campus and the award-winning East Harlem School, both utilizing Architect Led Design Build. Among other projects, she has extensive experience with school feasibility and programming studies at both K-12 and university levels.
Ms. Wong received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master of Architecture from Yale University. She was a member of the Yale Building Project and was a research assistant in the Yale Urban Design Workshop participating in an Urban Density and Neighborhood Revitalization study.
Marc Gee joined the firm in 1998. He became Associate Principal in 2000.
Mr. Gee is our most experienced construction expert having built most of our projects in New York City totaling over $35M. Recent projects include on-site construction supervision for the $26 million Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning, a public-private project for New York Junior Tennis & Learning and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, and The Stack, recipient of a 2015 AIANY/BSA Housing Award and the first prefabricated steel and concrete multifamily development completed in New York City. He was also on-site construction supervisor for the AIA award winning East Harlem School.
Mr. Gee is a graduate of Virginia Polytechnic University and State University with a Bachelor of Architecture.
Adie Mitchell
Adie Mitchell studied architecture at Williams College, and received his Bachelor of Arts in Biology. Adie's previous experience includes designing and building a pocket park for the City of Montpellier in Vermont, and large tensile fabric structures for outdoor workspaces for Yestermorrow Design/Build School.
Adriana Fernandez received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Florida International University. She has over 10 years of previous design experience on commercial, single-family and multifamily residential projects in Greater Miami, Florida. Adriana also brings experience managing construction onsite for both single-family and multi-family residential work in Miami.
Alexander Cutrona
Alexander Cutrona received his Bachelor of Architecture with a Minor in Business from New Jersey Institute of Technology. He also studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia for two years prior to his architecture studies. Alex has previous design experience on single-family residential projects in the greater New York area.
Anastasia Jaffray
Anastasia Jaffray is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Architectural Studies at University of Waterloo. Anastasia's previous work experience includes educational and multi-family residential projects in Canada and Peru. She was also involved in the design-build of a new powwow arbor for the Mississaugas of New Credit community in Ontario.
Bethia Liu, Associate
Bethia Liu received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Barnard College and her Master of Architecture from Princeton University. Bethia has worked as a professional modelmaker, graphic designer, and architect. After designing and managing an outdoor citywide interactive arts exhibition for ATHENS 2004, Bethia joined the firm in 2005. Her architectural work in the office includes designing and managing construction for the Little Ajax Affordable Housing in Aspen, The East Harlem School and Lakeside Retreat in New York. Since 2009, Bethia has managed the firm's public relations/press and marketing. She is involved with the firm's business development, and is Director of Strategic Planning. She art directs, writes, and manages the creative team to produce multimedia stories about GLUCK+.
Birgit Garland, Associate
Birgit Garland received her education at the Städtische Berufsschule für Bürokaufleute in Munich. Prior to joining the firm in 2002, Birgit worked in administrative services for the publishing industry and international financial services sector for 15 years. Birgit is Chief Financial Officer of the company.
Charles Gosrisirikul, Associate
Charles Gosrisirikul received his undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and his Master of Architecture from Yale University. Charles has over 9 years of previous design experience on international metropolitan projects from China to Spain to the United Arab Emirates; including high-rise mixed-use development, institutional, and residential projects.
Christianne Padilla
Christianne Padilla received her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with a Minor in Art History and Integrated Design, Engineering & Applied Science from Wesleyan University, including architectural studies for a semester abroad in Copenhagen. Previously, Christianne has worked as a graphic designer and event planner. For her undergraduate thesis, she designed and built a full-scale interactive gallery installation. As part of the GLUCK+ creative team, she is involved in visual storytelling about GLUCK+ projects and working process. Christianne writes, illustrates and designs architectural narratives for multimedia, print and website content.
Cory Collman, Associate
Cory Collman received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and his Master of Architecture from Yale University. While at Yale, Cory was a teaching and construction assistant for the Yale Building Project. He currently also teaches environmental design at Parsons School of Design. Cory's previous design experience includes residential and commercial projects in New York City and Chicago. Cory was on the project team for the House in the Mountains in Colorado.
Damian Baden
Damian Baden received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Arts in Philosophy from the University at Albany, State University of New York. Damian has five years of administrative experience and oversees the office facilities management, including information technology systems.
David Kagawa
David Kagawa received his Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Washington and his Master of Architecture from Columbia University. David has previous design experience for institutional and commercial projects in South Korea, China and The Netherlands. Prior to working in architecture, David worked as a production engineer for the 777 airplane at Boeing.
Elena Francisco
Elena Francisco received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Humboldt State University and her Master of Science in Public Accounting from Strayer University. Elena has over 6 years of administrative management and accounting for recreation club and resort facilities in California. Her experience also involved coordinating design review and construction as an owner's representative. Elena is responsible for administrative and accounting support at GLUCK+ Construction.
Emily Sperber
Emily Sperber received both her Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture from Tulane University. Emily's previous experience includes ground-up multifamily residential and higher education projects in New York City. Emily was involved in Tulane's URBANbuild program with the Make It Right Foundation in New Orlean's Lower 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina.
James Barclay received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of New South Wales with a semester exchange at University of California, Berkeley, and his Master of Architecture from Harvard University. James has over 7 years of design experience, as well as acting as Site Supervisor, managing construction onsite, for single-family residential projects in Sydney, Australia and the surrounding region. James has also designed and built temporary structures for installations at the annual Sydney Architecture Festival.
James Petty
James Petty received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Houston with a semester exchange at the Architectural Association in London, and his Master of Architecture from Yale University. James has over 6 years of previous design experience on medium to large scale institutional (K-12 and university) and commercial projects in New York City, London, Munich, Brussels, and Tokyo. He also currently serves on the AIA New York Oculus Committee/Advisory Board.
Jenny Chang
Jenny Chang received her Bachelor of Architecture with a Minor in Urban Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Her previous design experience includes luxury residential development in Miami and large-scale mixed-use projects in China.
Jim True
Jim True received his Bachelor of Architecture from Iowa State University. Jim joined the firm in 2004, with 6 years of residential experience in the Chicago area. Jim led the construction management team full-time onsite, from construction through commissioning, for both the Cascade House and House to the Beach projects in Chicago's North Shore.
Jorge Aguirre
Jorge Aguirre received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Architecture from Universidad Europea in Madrid, Spain. Jorge has over 10 years of previous work experience on single-family and multi-family residential, and commercial projects in New York City and Madrid, Spain. Jorge also brings experience acting as Site Supervisor, managing construction onsite, for multi-family residential work in Jersey City.
Kathy Chang, Associate
Kathy Chang received her undergraduate degree in architecture from Yale College and her Master of Architecture from Columbia University. Kathy was a 2003 winner of Common Ground and The Architectural League of New York's "First Step Housing" Competition. Kathy joined the firm in 2005 and contributed to Bronx Charter Preparatory School, followed by The East Harlem School. Kathy recently managed the project team from design through construction for the Lakeside Retreat in New York and House to the Beach on Chicago's North Shore.
Wazir Khan
Wazir Khan received his education and training in Guyana, and has over 15 years of construction experience on residential, commercial and institutional projects in New York City and Guyana. Khan has worked on numerous projects for the office, most recently the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning.
Leia Price
Leia Price received her Bachelor of Architecture from Auburn University. While at the Rural Studio, she designed and built the Newbern Volunteer Fire Station. Since 2006, Leia has managed construction onsite for the Cascade House in Chicago's North Shore, and then in North Carolina, leading the construction management team fulltime onsite for the Blue Ridge House, from construction through commissioning. Leia was also on the design team for the Orange Beach Arts Center Master Plan.
Marc Pittsley, Associate
Marc Pittsley received his Bachelor of Architecture from Syracuse University. Marc's previous work experience includes Boston transit and infrastructure projects, and 12 years in New York City on small to large scale residential, institutional, commercial, and retail projects. Marc has considerable experience with Landmarks Review, the Public Design Commission Review and ULURP in New York City. Marc has also taught in the Columbia University Master of Science Real Estate Development program.
Marisa Kolodny, Associate
Marisa Kolodny received her undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Dartmouth College and her Master of Architecture from Harvard University. Prior to joining the firm in 2007, Marisa worked in the internet industry for over 5 years. At GLUCK+, she contributed to single-family residential projects in North Carolina, Upstate New York, and Chicago Northshore, as well as a large scale commercial redevelopment project in West Harlem until 2014. After gaining additional experience in infrastructure, institutional and healthcare projects in New York City, Marisa returned to the firm in 2016.
Matt Harmon
Matt Harmon received his Bachelor of Science in Zoology and Masters of Science in Physics from Idaho State University. He later received his Master of Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture. Previously, Matt worked for 10 years as a research scientist, engineer and project manager in the physics and aerospace industry. Matt's architectural experience includes design build work for single family residential and cultural projects in Los Angeles, and urban planning projects for Los Angeles and China.
Narin Hagopian
Narin Hagopian received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture and Master of Architecture from Woodbury University. Narin's previous experience includes single-family residential projects in Los Angeles.
Natalie Wong
Natalie Wong received her Bachelor of Architecture from Hong Kong University and her Master of Architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Natalie has over 6 years of experience in single family residential projects in Massachusetts and small-scale mixed use residential developments in New York City.
Olga Reeder
Olga Reeder received her undergraduate degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from the University of Applied Sciences in Karlsruhe, Germany, and her Master of Urban Design from City College of New York. Olga’s previous design experience includes LEED certified equivalent single-family residential and multi-family residential projects in Germany.
Rikako Wakabayashi
Rikako Wakabayashi received her Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Michigan and her Master of Architecture from Harvard University. Her previous design experience includes residential projects in Japan. Rikako was a First Prize winner in the Envisioning Gateway International Competition co-sponsored by the Van Alen Institute, National Parks Conservation and Columbia University. She was on the design team for a residence in Maui and the Orange Beach Arts Center Master Plan.
Ross Galloway
Ross Galloway received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Maryland, College Park, and his Master of Architecture from University of Texas at Austin. Ross' previous experience includes large scale commercial projects in the Washington, D.C. area. After an internship during his graduate studies, Ross returned to join the firm the following year.
Sam Currie
Sam Currie received his Bachelor of Architecture from Auburn University and is a 2005 alumni of the Rural Studio. Sam joined the firm in 2008 and was onsite full-time managing construction for the Blue Ridge House. Since returning to the New York office, he has contributed to the Orange Beach Arts Center Master Plan, Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning, and the Central Queens Academy Charter School. Sam managed construction full-time onsite for the Lady Liberty Academy Charter School in Newark, New Jersey and the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning in the Bronx.
Scott Scales, Associate
Scott Scales received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Arkansas. Prior to joining the firm, Scott had 9 years of previous work experience on residential, institutional and commercial projects in Arizona and Arkansas. Scott has since contributed to the Urban Townhouse in New York, House in the Mountains in Colorado, and the urban redevelopment project in Harlem.
Shannon Bambenek, Associate
Shannon Bambenek received her Bachelor of Architecture from University of Texas at Austin. After interning for a summer in 2006, Shannon returned to join the firm the following year, and has since contributed on numerous projects, including The East Harlem School, Pool Pavilion, Legal Outreach, Rado Redux, and Artist Retreat.
Stephane Derveaux, Associate
Stephane Derveaux received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning from Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Nancy in France. Previously, Stephane had 7 years international architectural design experience on large-scale mixed-use commercial, institutional and residential projects in France, Germany, the Netherlands, China and Singapore; he was also senior designer and project architect for a large-scale museum plaza project in Kentucky. Stephane joined the firm in 2007, and has been project architect on numerous residential projects in Florida and East Hampton, New York, and later, the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning in the Bronx.
Steve Preston, Associate
Steve Preston received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Structural Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, followed by a Masters in Architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Steve has previous engineering design experience for kinetic architecture and architectural design experience on institutional projects.
Vivien Dong
Vivien Dong received her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Southern California and her Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. Vivien's previous design experience includes a master plan in Budapest, Hungary, civic and cultural projects in Hungary and the Ukraine, and a high-rise mixed-use residential building in China.
Will Ehrman
Will Ehrman received his Master of Architecture from the University of Kansas, including a semester abroad at DIS Copenhagen. Will's previous work experience includes a design-build LEED Platinum house with guest house, as part of University of Kansas' Studio 804, and small-scale residential and commercial projects in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Yeon Soo Kim
Yeon Soo Kim received her Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute. Yeon's previous experience includes high-rise residential, mixed-use developments in New York City, and institutional and cultural projects in Korea.
Yoonjin Kim
Yoonjin Kim received her Bachelor of Science in Architecture from The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and her Master of Architecture from Harvard University. Yoonjin's previous design experience includes mixed-use residential and institutional projects in London, England, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For Principal Bios and Office Bios, please visit our full site.
Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Houses
Morris Greenwald House: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
[…] Mies’s other two surviving American single-family houses. One of them is this house in Weston, Connecticut, for [Herbert Greenwald’s] brother Morris […] Typically for Mies, the design was uncompromising with a fluid, open floor plan in which the master bedroom was an alcove within the main space. The house was restored and updated in [1984, 1989] by architect Peter Gluck – who added a new ‘outrigger’ holding a master suite, and a separate pool pavilion and a guest house.
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McKinsey’s Voices on Infrastructure: Scaling Modular Construction
Thomas Gluck: The modular industry is at a tipping point and poised to become a more common method of delivery. To scale modular construction in this way, the industry will have to address three factors that are currently serving as impediments to growth.
Pro Tennis Returns to the Bronx, but for How Long?
Hosting a pro tournament in Crotona Park would not be possible without the completion of the Cary Leeds Center in 2017. It has a two-story clubhouse and 22 courts, including two sunken courts with seating for 1,000 spectators. No more than five will be used for the Bronx Open. In July, the complex became the new home of World Team Tennis matches for the New York Empire, which featured Sloane Stephens and John Isner. The center is also home to N.Y.J.T.L. programs, which serve more than 10,000 children…
2019 AIANY Design Awards
"This project added urban density, but also created humane public spaces at the same time." - Juror Garth Rockcastle commenting on Bridge, Philadelphia PA
10 Houses with Weird and Wonderful Floor Plans
Eight cuboids that look like a failed game of Tetris are arranged on a grid to form Artist Retreat, a house designed by [GLUCK+] in Upstate New York. Six of the concrete blocks contain the living spaces and are connected by open passages, while two are separate and are used as a photography studio. "The simple shapes are strong silhouettes in an agricultural landscape, organized in a shifting grid akin to farming plots in the area," said [GLUCK+].
Cocktails and Conversations: Dialogues on Architectural Design
Peter L. Gluck with Inga Saffron: In the Fray
Peter Gluck: The architectural world tends to focus on the really high cost of buildings, the zip-a-dee-doo-dah buildings – music halls, museums, luxury condos, corporate centers. No one talks about how much buildings cost while, simultaneously, the whole city is being silently rebuilt under our noses with a different set of criteria, different budgets. As part of our practice, although we do those zip-a-dee buildings, we seek projects that are not high-profile buildings with generous budgets, but more ordinary projects with ordinary budgets…
New Haven Register
Former New Haven Red Cross Building to be Reborn as Apartments
“It takes awhile to get these things properly birthed,” developer Nancy Greenberg said Tuesday, laughing, as she talked about the 42-apartment complex that is being created at 703 Whitney Ave., the longtime headquarters for the Red Cross. […] The pieces have now fallen into place and work is clearly underway for a modernist structure by GLUCK+ Architects on one part of the property that will compliment renovations at the adjoining 1902 home.
New Haven Independent
Luxury Transformation Of Red Cross HQ Underway
Forty-two luxury apartments are coming to the former Whitney Avenue headquarters of the Red Cross. Mayor Toni Harp and her economic development staff joined developer Nancy Greenberg Wednesday to break ground on the planned transformation of the 116-year-old mansion at 703 Whitney Ave […] Greenberg’s team consists of architect Fernando Pastor, who has designed the transformation of the mansion into seven apartments; and architect Peter Gluck, who is handling the design of a new building that will contain the 35 remaining apartments next door.
The New Urban House: A Global Survey
Urban Townhouse
Within the Urban Townhouse, architects GLUCK+ adapted the traditional New York residence to enhance its sense of retreat from the urban environment. Its presence is concealed behind a full-height metal screen, with a complex pattern shaped from water-cut aluminum. This urban veil shields a tall, narrow row house with an unconventional plan. To make the most of its site – and to preserve a sense of privacy – the architects placed the staircase at the very front of the plan in a location typically taken up by a parlour or front room.
New York Splendor: The City's Most Memorable Rooms
Public to Private: GLUCK+
As part of the larger design of a modern thirteen-bedroom town house in Borough Park, Brooklyn, veteran New York architect Peter L. Gluck, of the Harlem-based firm GLUCK+, designed the foyer to separate the public and private domains of the residence...
The Courts of New York City
[…] by far the most pristine tennis center I have encountered in the city. Cary Leeds is a private facility — its list of patrons reads like a who’s-who of the worlds of tennis, politics and high finance — but since it is within a city park, you can use your tennis permit to book a court there. There is a spacious clubhouse and 22 hard courts, and its tennis director is the six-time doubles Grand Slam winner Liezel Huber.
Architects' Houses
Peter & Thomas Gluck: Tower House
In 1961, Peter Gluck bought a tumbledown 1820s farmhouse with 8 hectares of forested land… on the edge of the Catskill State Park, and restored it as a weekend retreat. His son Thomas, now a [Principal at GLUCK+], built the Bridge House for weekend guests, working hands-on as a carpenter before he went on to architecture school…
Learn How These Design Experts Are Impacting Millions
Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning / Architecture by GLUCK+ / Tennis lovers of all backgrounds converge at this socially conscious Bronx complex, comprising 22 courts and a glass-and-steel clubhouse. Terraced into the earth, the center operates as the flagship for New York Junior Tennis & Learning—a nonprofit offering free lessons and tutoring to underserved youth. On any given day, these kids can be found practicing their backhand or perfecting their footwork alongside other members of the local com-munity. In the center’s first year alone, some 7,000 children and 1,000 adults used the facility, with 6,000 hours of court time provided to youth in need. Now that’s what we call a strong serve.
Tennis: Heroes Issue
It shouldn't stick out. That was the directive given to GLUCK+, the architects commissioned with designing the $26.5 million Cary Leeds Center--the new centerpiece of New York Junior Tennis & Learning. Set amidst Crotona Park, a sprawling 130-acre public space in the South Bronx, the hope was not to bring an overwhelming presence to the urban community. So the two-story, 12,000-foot clubhouse had a level built underground to minimize its footprint, and its two sunken stadium courts were carefully constructed.But the truth is, given the impressiveness of the new facility and the good works of the organization, it's impossible for the NYJTL to remain under the radar.
IW Magazine Special Issue: Detail ‘18
Building Constructions: Tower House
Grounded in a specific time and place, the architectural detailing of a project is driven by two separate issues: first, the conformance to the overall design idea of a building or space; and second, more importantly, the capability of available resources to execute the detail [...] The deeper the architect's engagement in the entire process - from the earliest phases of conceptualization, to the final details of construction - the greater the chances for the actual realization of a design and the emergence of good architecture.
Citymakers: The Culture and Craft of Practical Urbanism
Nimble Housing: The Constancy of Change
The New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman praised the schemes presented at the Making Room symposium […] Kimmelman also liked a proposal by a team led by Peter Gluck and Terry Chiao that “envisioned a five-story walkup on a town-house-size New York lot. The building would accommodate twenty micro-lofts, as the team termed them, some 150 square feet each…”
New York YIMBY
Interview with Charlie Kaplan of GLUCK+, Co-Developer, Architect and Builder of 150 Rivington Street, Lower East Side
Construction has begun on seven stories of condominiums at 150 Rivington Street on the Lower East Side. […] YIMBY sat down with Charlie Kaplan, principal at GLUCK+, to discuss the project’s inspiration and creative process, as well as the firm’s complex role as co-developer, architect and contractor.
A Lesson in Combining Style and Public Spirit in a Philadelphia High-Rise
Bridge, which is nearing completion at Second and Race Streets in Old City, is the first of the recent crop of high-rise apartments to beat the odds. The $65 million design exudes something rarely seen in Philadelphia: a bit of design swagger. Its four-story podium shimmies down Race Street. The tower twists and shouts before kicking up its heels at the corner of Second Street. This building has rhythm.
Commercial Observer
Kaufman Astoria Studios to Add 100K-SF Office Building to Astoria Campus
Movie studio Kaufman Astoria Studios is constructing a 100,000-square-foot office building at 34-11 36th Street with two new stages on its Astoria, Queens campus, […]. The new GLUCK+ Architecture building will have two new stages — one of 16,000 square feet and another of 9,000 square feet — on the ground floor, with 6,000 square feet for support space, according to a spokeswoman for JRT Realty Group, the project’s office leasing agent.
Tennis, for Anyone? In the Bronx, the Answer Is Yes
One of the city's best new works of public architecture sounds like a perk for the country club set. And it is. Partly. Tucked into Crotona Park in the Bronx, the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning is anchored by a modest two-story concrete-and-steel clubhouse, all sleek surfaces and sharp angles, overlooking a competition-worthy pair of exhibition courts. Devised by Gluck+, the New York architecture firm, the clubhouse and courts are stylish in the way that somebody with disposable income would regard as money well spent. That's money well spent in another way, too: The center provides after-school tutoring to homeless and other underserved young New Yorkers. In large measure, Cary Leeds
Urban Villa
The house stands on a rectangular lot that descends towards the lake from the curve of an urban street. The conditions of the surroundings, including the presence of a large white marble temple of the Bahá'í religion, the continuous noise of traffic and the sloping topography of the lot, suggested planimetric and landscape choices, developing specific episodes for this urban villa, to generate a sense of the pleasure of vacation in everyday life.
The Fifth Dimension: Architect-Led Design-Build
Engaging contractors early in a design process can resolve apparent mismatches between budget and programme and even enrich the design. But there are further benefits when this cooperation is followed through, with architects overseeing construction from a fully informed perspective – solving rather than creating problems for builders. Stacie Wong, a principal at New York design-build practice GLUCK+, explains.
New Cubists
An artist's retreat poses a unique set of design problems. The space has to be thoughtfully detailed for the kind of work it will support, yet retain an openness and fluidity that will allow a variety of living and working possibilities. The latest development by architects GLUCK+ in upstate New York has been conceived with this in mind, deftly treading a fine line between private and public, interior and exterior.
Journal of Architectural Education (JAE)
New York Modular
New York City has recently had a number of projects designed and built utilizing volumetric modules, an alternative method of delivery. This interview, moderated by Guest Editor Ryan E. Smith, is with four leading architects in New York City who have recent experience with modular design and construction. Peter Gluck with GLUCK+, Mimi Hoang with nArchitects, Chris Sharples with SHoP Architects, and James Garrison with Garrison Architects respond to a series of questions regarding factory-based production of architecture.
Flagship Facility Established in Love, Courts Community Success
NYJTL's Cary Leeds Center, located in Crotona Park within walking distance of 30,000 children, is a reality thanks to a unique public-partnership with the City of New York and the Department of Parks and Recreation," said recently appointed NYJTL President and Chief Executive Officer, George Guimaraes.Spearheaded by Cary's father and Tory Kiam, a childhood friend and NYJTL Vice Chairman, the project campaign Co-Chairs led the organization to officially break ground on the Center in the spring of 2013. Designed and constructed by GLUCK+ with the City of New York and its Department of Parks & Recreation, the Cary Leeds Center opened to fanfare and acclaim in 2015
Hard Hat Tour: The Bridge
The design by the New York-based architectural firm GLUCK+ is also distinctive in many ways, most notably for its much-lower-than-normal ratio of 90-degree angles. Interior hallways on the lower apartment floors, for instance, zigzag gently to break the monotony, [Jeff] Brown explained. So do the facades of both the tower and the base.
Residential Architect Design Awards
On a 5.6-acre wooded Upstate New York site that slopes towards a small pond, GLUCK+ has divided all the programmatic requirements of a 6,080-square-foot Artist Retreat and studio into a dynamic compound of eight cubic volumes. The architects intended the simple forms to reference the organization of farms in the region. The façades are clad in weathered horizontal slats of hemlock, whose cool gray contrasts with the warm greenery of the surrounding landscape.
What's Selling Now
“Unlike the past, today’s New Yorker knows what good design is and what it can do for them,” Charlie Kaplan, a principal at GLUCK+, the design firm behind 150 Rivington, told the Observer. “They want spaces that integrate rich finishes, big light and air, unique detailing and practical floor plans into a beautiful coherent whole.”
The New York Post
L.E.S. Is More
GLUCK+ is transforming the former Steit’s Matzo Factory into a glassy property with 45 homes. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame wide views of the surrounding neighborhood, and breathe light into the spacious residences. A roof terrace, with a deck for yoga, crowns the structure.
New York's latest crop of luxury residential developments
This dynamic condominium – housing 45 residences of various sizes – has been designed by GLUCK+, which offers both architectural and construction services. Due to be developed in partnership with Cogswell Lee Development, and rising up from the former site of Streit’s Matzo Factory on the Lower East Side, the corner-block is set for completion in early 2018.
Engaging in Architect-Led Design/Build
Evaluating the Benefits: Change orders and cost overruns are uncommon in architect-led design/build projects, at least in Gluck's experience. Architects are more sensitive to cost, schedule, and material issues during design, and more attuned to addressing quality issues during construction. "For us, the value is that integration," Gluck says. "The same person who's designing [the project] is the same person who is conveying it and working with the trades. Our impression is that this is what clients want."
Best of Hauser
Crazy Horst
Tower House is featured in the special edition, Best of Hauser: “Spectacular Houses” from the last 5 years.
These Are the Best-Designed, Most Useful Architecture Firm Websites
Our editors look at hundreds of websites per week. What do they admire and appreciate the most? Organization and simplicity. Sites that are not only clean, but fast. We actively search for projects to include on our platform, so it’s crucial that when we visit a website we not only know where to look, but how to access information. Filters and facets are our best friends. Typological differentiation is important, but perhaps not as important as distinguishing between built and un-built projects (“Is that a render?” is a question that comes up at least once a day).
Urban Land
ULX: Innovative Density
To shorten the construction schedule and thereby cut costs for a seven-story residential building in upper Manhattan, local architecture firm Gluck+ and local developers Jeffrey Brown and Kim Frank opted to take advantage of modular construction. Fifty-six modules were prefabricated and factory-finished off site in Pennsylvania while construction workers poured the concrete foundation. On top of the first floor, which houses commercial space, the modules were stacked to form 28 residential units, ranging from studios to three-bedroom apartments. The process took ten months, shaving six months off the construction schedule for a traditionally built multifamily residence of the same size.
150 Rivington: Reimagining a Historic LES Site, An Architect's Perspective
In partnership with Cogswell Lee Development, Gluck+ Architects will in 2018 wrap a new construction atop the former site of The Streit's Matzo Factory at 150 Rivington Street. The building that housed the factory is currently being cleared and Gluck+ has designed a new development that, from the ground up, will bring 45 luxurious one- to three-bedroom residences to the burgeoning downtown neighborhood. As Principal, Charlie Kaplan is the lead housing architect involved in reimagining the Lower East Side locale, and in the following interview he discusses Gluck+'s careful and calculated approach to renewing the historic site.
Curbed NY
Streit's matzo factory condos embody the Lower East Side's next iteration
A new building that is current, modern, and responds to the things we think about now and that excite us now. Hopefully it will have that same excitement that the old building had to its user.
Minimalist living: Gluck+ creates a calming lakeshore home in Chicago
Envisioned by New York-based architects Gluck+, House to the Beach was designed to encapsulate the atmosphere of West Coast living and transport it to a serene Midwestern lakeside location. Built for a large family of seven, the property is situated on a sandy stretch of private beach on the shores of Lake Michigan, bringing life to a picturesque plot that had been empty for over a decade.
Luxury Developments
The climate is ripe for new developments, which are springing up with regularity all across the city [...] Innovative privacy panels that maximize natural light and views are one of the highlights of 150 Rivington Street, a new development bringing 45 one- to three-bedroom condominium residences by architect GLUCK+ to the Lower East Side.
RE Business Online
Cogswell Lee Development, GLUCK+ Launches Sales...
Cogswell Lee Development, in partnership with architect/developer GLUCK+, has launched sales at 150 Rivington, a residential building located in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
No More Stopping
Peter Gluck uses an analogue version of BIM, which he calls Architect-Led Design-Build (ALDB). He has been outspoken about the traditional divisions between architecture and construction and how post-occupancy is understood. His firm GLUCK+ regularly enters into contracts to both design and build their projects, and is increasingly involved in the operational activities of their completed buildings in the years following client occupation, becoming an example of a DBO architectural practice. Since the design team leads the entire process, from concept to construction completion, team members can analyse, interpret and respond to post-occupancy issues with immediacy.
The architects who are building themselves a new future
The panel's moderator, Susan Szenasy, the editor and chief of Metropolis Magazine, told the audience, "New York is such a developer town, we think that developers are kings. In fact they have been given that role here."I think architects need to get into the action. I think there's some reason that they're reticent and there's all this sort of protecting your creative role, but at the same time, feeling that the money or the development or the kind of nasty reputation of development will rub off on you," said Szenasy. "You know, you could do worse," she joked before praising the panel members for finding a productive way to bridge the two practices.Charlie Kaplan, principal of Gluck+ said he felt that his firm's finished products benefit from its versatility."We're always thinking about how do we fill all the niches that need to be filled in order to create a great building," he said during the panel. "That means not just being an architect but, in our case, being a builder."The architects recalled that it was during a slow market in the early 19902 that he and his team asked themselves, "We have all these skills, we design, we build, Why can't we develop?
The DIY Approach to Housing
Patience might be a virtue, but impatience has a power of its own. Too often, architects "sit in their office waiting for somebody to call them to do a development - and they wait a long time," says Peter Gluck, RA, principal and founder of Manhattan-based GLUCK+. Instead, he and a small but ever-rising number of local architects have been taking a DIY approach with residential projects, developing their own designs. In doing so, they have gained greater control and efficiency in their work process, shed frustrating developer-client constraints, and created noteworthy new living spaces in New York City.
Long Time Coming: Ground Broken at 205 Race Street for Apartment Tower
Simply called Bridge, the 17-story apartment tower will officially move forward with construction [...] Greenberger said that the design from Gluck+ "represents the best of what we can do in this city" and lauded its "richness" in how it carefully responds to Race Street, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and the impact it will have bringing density to the northern edge of Old City and further connecting people to the Delaware River waterfront.
Cary Leeds Center for Tennis, Learning Unveiled
Laurence C. Leeds Jr., Mayor David Dinkins, Bronx Borough President Rubén Diaz Jr., Nick Bollettieri, Kenneth Cole, Mortimer Singer and Manny Chirico were among those who came out Monday night to celebrate the grand opening of the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning in Crotona Park in the South Bronx.They were among the hundreds of supporters from the worlds of tennis, fashion, government and civic engagement who gathered at the new facility, which has been 15 years in the making. The creation of the $26.5 million center is a public-private partnership, with $16.5 million of public funding, and the remainder from private donors, spearheaded by project campaign co-chairs Leeds and Tory Kiam.The facility is a tribute to Leeds' late son Cary, a star on the Yale University tennis team who went on to become a world-ranked player, ranking No. 12 in doubles and competing in six U.S. Open and five Wimbledon tournaments, where in 1981 he reached the semifinals in mixed doubles.
Bronx Times
Cary Leeds tennis center to open in June
A world-class tennis center is set to open in the Bronx next month. New York Junior Tennis & Learning will celebrate the opening of the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning in Crotona Park on June 15 [...] The modern clubhouse was designed and built by GLUCK+ which aimed to create a building that was both unobtrusive in the park--one of its two stories is below ground--yet sculptural in nature, said Peter Gluck.
Architectural Record
Like so many other industries, architecture is undergoing profound change, much of it driven by technology, which in turn is undermining the economic foundation of the profession. How architects get paid for-is in flux. The smartest and most profitable firms are identifying new opportunities and creating a broader definition of what constitutes architectural services.
Vertikales Loft
In the middle-class Midtown district east of Manhattan a townhouse presents itself as a spectacular eyecatcher with a front façade of steel instead of red brick. The building's interior, too, states clearly that this is a house of the 21st century.
The Architects' Secrets
Designing their own homes also allows architects to take more risks. When building his vacation home in New York's Catskills, Thomas Gluck of [GLUCK+] Architecture in New York City used a tinted-glass treatment--typically reserved for commercial projects--on the home's exteriors. The dark surface reflects the trees and sky, allowing the structure to blend into the landscape [...] "We are willing to believe in design in a way that sometimes clients would not go for--things that would be a hard sell," Mr. Gluck says.
Big Ideas: Building Blocks
"Unlike in the 1960's, today's modular construction is flexible," Thomas Gluck says. Apartments span multiple modules. No cookie-cutter boxes here.
BIG little house
Scholar's Library
Located two hours north of Manhattan, on a heavily wooded site near a reservoir, this simple form sits directly on the ground. It appears as an unexpected folly in the forest. The client, a scholar of Japanese history (and wife of the architect) originally requested a new chair for her desk. The new chair project quickly became a new desk project. Soon, the really hard question "what are you going to do with all of these books?" was asked, and the program requirements gradually became a new library and writing studio.
WABC TV Eyewitness News
New type of modular housing moving into New York City
"In the last two years in New York there has definitely been an upswing in development," said editor in chief Amanda Dameron of Dwell Magazine.A new seven story apartment building called "The Stack" is the first multi-family modular building in the city, developers say, providing moderate income housing.Built entirely at a site in Pennsylvania, the 56 modules were constructed and outfitted in a controlled environment.They were shipped to the site and after the foundation and first floor supports were constructed, the modules were hoisted into place in just 19 days."There was a demand for it, even though it didn't exist yet and so the modular played into that because it gave us the quality of construction and shorten the time frame," said architect Thomas Gluck.Gluck's firm is the designer, one of the co-developers and construction manager on the project.
Schoolhouse Block
Nomadic Newark school gets a lesson in offsite construction. Not for profit developer Build With Purpose turned to New York firm GLUCK+ to conceive a design solution that could beat the clock within a constrained budget.
Viel Luft Nach Oben
The grand finale of the whole [townhouse] is the top floor, the preferred retreat of the couple, which opens out to a private roof terrace. The surrounding panorama of the midtown Manhattan high-rise "giants" is fantastic. And although they tower above in height to the GLUCK+ building, in sophistication they certainly do not.
AIA YAF Connection, CRIT
Built by Design: GLUCK+ and Design Build
Do you think all architects should practice architect-led design build? Do you think there's still a place for other practice models? I wouldn't say that all architects should practice designbuild. I do think that all architects should expand and involve themselves more. I think we've lived through a period of time when the role of the architects has seen a series of limitations of their involvement. Architects used to supervise their work; it was standard practice. Now architects are told not to supervise their work.
Stack the Deck
Winning the race to build the tallest prefab building in New York City, Gluck+ assembles 28 affordable housing units in less than a month. A new residential building in upper Manhattan, dubbed The Stack and designed by the architecture firm Gluck+, employed offsite prefabrication methods to create a high-quality, affordable housing solution that was raised onsite in only 19 days. The modular construction is visible in the exterior, where individual units jut out to create a stepped façade that celebrates the construction process while still relating to the scale and texture of the surrounding architecture. The Stack also dispels the myth that prefabrication limits the size and shape of the final product: The building’s 28 apartments, which come in a variety of configurations and span multiple modules, optimize the infill site’s small footprint.
SUPERHOUSE
Tower House
While the Tower House is a beautifully calibrated, artificial object in its forest setting, part of its appeal is found not in its visual presence, or the arrangement of space, but in the resolution of the practical issue of energy use. The arrangement of the kitchen and bathrooms in a stack means that they form a vertical thermal core, which can be isolated and heated when the house is closed in winter, to avoid both frozen pipes and excessive heating bills. Because of such measures, the tower House uses a third of the energy of a house of comparable size.With regard to cooling, Peter Gluck is quite adamant that 'we don't go to the country to be air-conditioned', and describes how the adaptation of an attic fan system used in traditional American houses was influential in their thinking. Air is heated through the glass in the stair enclosure and, by creating a difference in pressure, air from outside is drawn in through small awning windows or horizontally placed casement windows. At night, either an open hatch at the roof level or a fan positioned under the roofline draws warm air out of the building through the stack effect.
Financial Times UK
Natural Highs
Elevation offers many special - and often sublime - advantages. Living up high provides a feeling of openness and light, as well as a greater sense of space and freedom. But it also offers the temptation of a home that engages with a vista full of interest and promise. This is especially true of a fresh generation of rural tower houses. Like their urban cousins, they offer an enticing vantage point, yet are also belvederes with a powerful and intimate connection with their bucolic surroundings.
GLUCK+ Screens a Modern Great Camp
Architect-led design build firm GLUCK+ designed the Lakeside Retreat in the Adirondack Mountains on an historic blueprint: the Great Camps, sprawling summer compounds built by vacationing families during the second half of the nineteenth century. "The clients wanted to hold events there, and to make a place where their kids--who were in college at the time--would want to spend time," said project manager Kathy Chang. "They wanted to create different ways of occupying the space." GLUCK+ carved the hilly wooded site into a series of semi-subterranean buildings, of which the two principal structures are the family house and the recreation building. These buildings are, in turn, distinguished by massive lake-facing glass facades, camouflaged by wooden screens designed to maximize both privacy and views.The project, explained Chang, "was really about sculpting in and out of the landscape, manipulating the ground plane." By using the existing site as a primary element of construction, the GLUCK+ team was able to accomplish two things. First, "it gave us a new level area for the clients to hang out outside," said Chang. "It provided a new way to occupy the site, because before there was no flat ground." Second, they were able to manipulate the program so that the mechanical spaces were tucked into the underground portions of the houses, making way for a transparent facade along the lakeside. "The fact that so much of the program is buried allowed us to build the glass facade, despite the energy requirements," said Chang.
Raum und Wohnen
Townhouse Mit Stahlfront
In Midtown Manhattan, this urban townhouse is a spectacular eye-catcher. While its modern steel front mimics the familiar brick facades of the older surrounding buildings, this new building makes it clear: This is a house of the 21st century.
Engineering News-record
Facing Modular's Twists and Turns
Modular-building boosters, including traditional owners, developers, contractors and designers maintain that off-site construction is faster, safer, leaner, greener, better quality and potentially less costly than site construction. But there is a big hitch, they caution: building teams are not likely to reach modular delivery's pot of gold unless they plan and execute the off-site strategy properly. And that is no simple proposition. "Everyone thinks it's a silver bullet," says Jeffrey M. Brown, the developer and general contractor for the Stack, a mostly factory-built seven-story residential building in Upper Manhattan that opened in May. "It really isn't unless you put the right ingredients in the bowl."
Despite Challenges, Developer of the Stack Thinks Modular Is the Way To Go
It's not easy to be first. The team that built the seven-story Stack in Upper Manhattan, New York City's first steel-framed modular mid-rise building, knows that from experience. The developer of the 28-unit residential building—at 90.5 ft tall, the tallest completed modular building in the U.S.—bought the land in 2007, yet the first tenants moved in just this past May."There were a lot of pitfalls," says Peter Gluck, who wears several hats on the Stack. Gluck+ is the architect and design-builder, and Gluck is a minority partner in the development.It also took "a few years to figure out the best design" for the 150-ft-deep, 50-ft-wide lot, which is not an ideal dimension for an apartment building, says Jeffrey M. Brown, the building's co-developer, with Kim Frank, and general contractor, under the firm that bears his name.The solution was a U-in-plan shape that provides a 30-ft-sq courtyard, which offers more exposures. "The building is really two buildings connected by a corridor," says Brown.
Perspecta 47
Interview: Thomas Gluck
P47 Could you describe the approach of GLUCK+ and how it differs from the status quo of the profession? TG Our attitude starts with a global perspective on where the profession has been, where it is right now, and where it's going. What's happened over time is that through trying to limit professional liability and reduce risk, the profession has also limited its own role and capacity to engage effectively.Sometimes we talk about architect-led design-build as a strategy to regain control over the building process, but "control" can conjure up a desire for complete power. The control we're interested in is instead the ability to follow the clients' interests and the conceptual underpinnings of a project through to completion. As the architect retreats back to an increasingly narrow realm of influence, he or she limits the ability to craft a building that truly serves the client and the urban, social, and economic contexts.
New York City's first true modular apartment building--the Stack, erected in a mere nineteen days--opened recently in Manhattan's northernmost neighborhood of Inwood. It's a nice-looking building (designed by Peter Gluck), but the apartments are a more conventional mix of unit types, none of them micro. This is a promising development that should help diminish resistance to modular construction by those who know it only through its shabbiest and most unattractive examples. Isn't this a better idea than stuffing people into spaces that can only be inhabited by childless Zen masters and anal-retentives? Shouldn't the city be a place where the investigation is of how to produce choice and not compulsion?
Every architect commissioned to design a mountain home that's sympathetic to its setting faces the same challenge: how to come to terms with the peak itself--the rock, the elevation, the climate, the slope, the vista. Despite the inevitable urge to triumph over topography by building at the summit, embracing a more modest accommodation can sometimes be a better path to achieving domestic bliss in the clouds.Consider the extraordinary house conceived by the New York–based architecture firm Gluck+ in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Situated well below the highest point on the property, at the edge of a sunken meadow ringed by trees and close to a precipice with a hundred-mile view to the bright lights of Charlotte, the residence strikes an elegant balance between exposure and protection, between high-altitude splendor and grounded repose. All of which was accomplished while adhering to environmental standards rigorous enough to earn the project a LEED Silver certification.
Architecture + Urbanism 526
Lakeside Retreat
The integration of building and landscape enhances the experience of the site…what was inhospitable and uninhabitable becomes new playing fields, outdoor dining terraces and recreational lookouts to more fully experience the exceptional characteristics of the geography of that particular place.
Inside Architecture's One-Stop Shop
"The typical process of architecture is broken." So begins a slideshow on the website of GLUCK+, the New York firm known for its practice--and advocacy--of architect-led design build. Design-build differs from conventional project delivery in that a single firm is responsible for both design and construction. Proponents of the method argue that by repairing the breach between architecture and building design-build benefits both clients and architects, and produces better designs.
The New Master Builders
Fact or fiction, it is a common perception that the design and construction process is plagued with problems: cost and schedule overruns, under-detailed design drawings, shoddy workmanship, disputes, and litigation. Some architects have been pursuing a remedy for this fraught situation--the project delivery method known as design-build. Until recently, most practitioners were reluctant to be too involved in construction. But that may be changing, with new approaches that make design-build a more viable alternative--one that gives the architect more control over the building process and the completed project.According to the professional association the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA), "design-build is a method of project delivery in which one entity--the design-build team--works under a single contract with the project owner to provide design and construction services." (With the more standard approach--design-bid-build--the owner hires an architect and a contractor separately and holds a contract with each.)Fans of design-build tout its advantages. They say it provides the client with the convenience of a one-stop shop, or a single point of responsibility, for both design and construction. They maintain that it provides tight control of costs and schedules. And they claim it fosters greater collaboration, and therefore results in a less adversarial process, and ultimately produces higher-quality buildings.
NBC Open House
Designer Living: Visit Tower House, A Luxury Eco Retreat
We headed 100 miles north of Manhattan to a luxury eco retreat in upstate New York, designed by architect Thomas Gluck. Called the Tower House, it offers elevated living and uninterrupted mountain views of the Catskills. Not only is it a gorgeous work of art, it's designed to be sustainable and energy efficient.
American Public Media: Marketplace
Prefab apartment buildings on the rise
A big chunk of the substantive consumer goods that we buy, from watches to cars to dishwashers, is built in a factory someplace. One notable exception until now, housing. From New York, Dan Bobkoff explains: I'm in Upper Manhattan, a new apartment building called 'The Stack'. And by design, it looks kind of like a collection of staggered lego blocks. On the inside, it's like any other modern building in New York.
The Tower House sits on a small plateau above the rest of the property and relies on a combination of wood platform construction and steel. Covering the armature is a skin that includes olive-green fritted glass, as part of a rainscreen cladding system, and insulated vision glass. This slick envelope simultaneously emphasizes the structure as a man-made object and acts as camouflage, reflecting the house's environs and altering its appearance over the course of a day, with the passage of seasons, and in changing atmospheric conditions. "We were trying to make a building about the experience of being in the woods without having the materials be natural," explains Thomas Gluck.
The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies In Architecture
Bold designs, innovative business models, and risky projects define the best in architecture this year. 7. GLUCK+ For taking control of the entire building process. With Architect Led Design Build, Peter Gluck and his team ensure quality and efficiency from idea to execution by seeing a building through the entire process of design and construction.
The Judges’ Awards 2014 Contenders: Best New Private House
Tower House: “Aiming to keep its footprint to a minimum, the house stands on a narrow ‘leg’, while its raised living area extends horizontally from the slender base.”
Putting the Pieces Together in Inwood
But just a block north, another development is under way that is unlike any other in Manhattan. The Stack, the city's first multistory modular apartment building, is anticipated to come on the rental market this month. The seven-story building was prefabricated in a Pennsylvania factory, shipped to Inwood in 56 modules, and was assembled on-site in the 50-by-150-foot lot at 4857 Broadway."We wanted to try out a modular approach and see if we could reap benefits from that, not only in providing a well-structured building, but one that would be conscious of good design," said Jeffrey Brown, who developed the Stack with design firm Gluck+. "We wanted to provide spaces that aren't really available to people in this neighborhood."
The East Harlem School
Much is going on in New York. The city is being transformed at a rapid pace. Large projects are being produced on available sites that require massive amounts of capital, over existing railroad yards, or huge former industrial sites, eg. Atlantic Yards or Trump Place. Deteriorating rail lines, waterfront piers of former times are being repurposed or converted to parks and public recreational areas, eg. Chelsea Piers, Highline, Brooklyn Bridge Park.Unfortunately a major element of change is being driven by "gentrification." Outmoded or decrepit buildings are being replaced. This phenomenon is effectively changing vast areas of the existing fabric. With little focus or scrutiny from the "design community," it is developer-driven and for the most part done without much thought. In major portions of the city, this will become the city of the future. Architectural thinking is seen as a luxury item not relevant to the real needs of the development process. Architects need to acquire multi-faceted knowledge and accept previously shunned responsibilities (to ensure the quality and cost of the built result) in order to change this perception, and merit participation.All players in the process of designing and building have retreated into ever shrinking silos of responsibility. The plus in GLUCK+ is meant to represent our impulse to go beyond; to break through silo walls to engage in facets of both thinking and making that have been avoided by architects. There are many needed pluses. With the addition of these pluses, architects can be the logical quarterbacks of the development game.
AIA Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice, 15th Edition
Architect-Led Design-Build [chapter]
In architect-led design-build [ALDB], the architect is the full-service leader of the design-build team, taking responsibility for the entire process...From the owner's point of view this can better reflect the need for a single source that is responsible for the design, costing, and production of the project, led by the entity that has originated the design and can take responsibility for its execution...It is a continual collaboration between the architect and the construction trades and manufacturers, as well as the owner, which can provide agile responsiveness to the nonlinear process of producing a building. In ALDB, this process can be a continuum from conceptual design to the ultimate commissioning of the building.
Pool Pavilion
...the decision to bury part of the construction allows minimizing the potential impact that an unavoidable large construction would have. In addition, it profits from the earth's thermal mass to reduce heat exchange and, at the same time, it is also a device to create an interesting game of indoor/outdoor spaces. Without any outstanding architectonic outline, the architects designed it to look more like a glass pavilion in a garden, half buried, merging into the landscape as part of it.
Vogue Living Australia
Completed in 2012, the Tower House is a striking and unexpected sculpture sitting in the forest, with a tall, vertical shaft climbing upwards and intersected at the fourth storey by a horizontal, cantilevered box holding the main living spaces, looking outwards to the mountains. Gluck, who started thinking about the design of the house back in 2003, built a full-scale scaffold tower on the site before starting construction, just to test that the idea would work and that the view would be open enough.It's one of a number of buildings on the property that has been in the family for many years. Peter Gluck, Thomas's father and a founding partner at what is now the architecture-led-design-build firm Gluck+, started with an 1820s cottage that he extended in the 1980s. Later he added a guesthouse, called the Bridge House, at the base of the forested plateau. There's also the Scholar's Library, a sublime study and book repository designed for Thomas's mother, Carol, who is a professor of history at Columbia University. The Tower House, which was designed and built by Gluck+, is the latest addition to the site.
Old School Patrons Wary of New Look
Like the rise of the nouveau riche, the dazzling state-of-the-art buildings touted by New York's newest schools can be viewed askance by some of the centuries-old institutions that rule the city's private-school scene.Their modest--to put it politely--facilities are badges of honor, their reputations rooted in intellect and character, they say, not cutting-edge cafeterias.So when Collegiate School--an all-boys K-12 institution on the Upper West Side that has been in its current location since 1892--announced this year it would move to a brand-new building in the same neighborhood, the reaction was, perhaps, predictable: apprehension.School officials gave the architects simple instructions: Make it nice, but not too nice."There is this pride in how limited the facilities are," said headmaster Lee Levison. "That we can have this kind of building yet generate some of the most creative and thoughtful and talented high school graduates in the country. It wasn't a function of having a shiny new building."
GA Houses 133
Tower House; Floating Box House
New photography by Yoshio Futagawa.
City's First Prefabricated Apartment Building Rises In Upper Manhattan
It took only 19 days to rise from foundation to seven stories tall -- and now "The Stack" in the Inwood section of Manhattan is New York City's first prefabricated apartment building. "The Stack is New York City's first modular multi-story apartment building," says Jeffrey Brown, the CEO of Jeffrey M. Brown Associates. "We built modules out of steel frames with concrete floors and we are able to stack them on top of each other." The seven-story building on 204th Street and Broadway is factory-made. Designed by architecture firm GLUCK+, it is made of 56 modules that were designed and manufactured off-site, then transported and put together to create 28 ready-made apartment units that range from studios to thee bedrooms.
An Amazing Glass House That Peeks Over the Forest
Gluck, a principal at Manhattan-based architecture firm GLUCK+, wanted to build a home that took full advantage of the view while limiting the impact on nature. He and his team of architects realized in order to do that, they'd have to totally reverse the way family-centric homes are traditionally laid out. Instead of building the family rooms on the ground floor and bedrooms upstairs, Gluck designed a vertical core of three bedrooms stacked on top of each other that supports a living/dining room cantilevered 30 feet from the forest floor. A bright yellow staircase leads from the house's base, up through the bedrooms to an observation deck-like communal space that rises above the tree line.
House in the Mountains
Houses embedded in the earth are becoming a specialty of GLUCK+, the New York architect-led design-build firm formerly known as Peter Gluck and Partners. The reasons are compelling--the grass roofs reduce energy loads and their low profile doesn't impinge on the natural landscape. In the case of a 2,850-square-foot guesthouse in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the clients...
The neutral colors and materials that camouflage the house are interrupted by the distinct yellow hue of the staircase -- a part of the house Gluck says should be embraced. Just as the ladder is the entrance to the tree house, so the staircase is part of the conceptual experience of being up in the trees. "There is a playfulness to the thing, that you are going to walk up four or five flights of staircases on your relaxing weekend, so we painted the stairs yellow to highlight that sudden exposure," Gluck says.
Elle Decoration Thailand
Open to the Air
The family weekend house of Thomas Gluck is designed and built to save energy and minimize its environmental impact. Located north of New York City, the 4-story vertical house resembles a glass-cladded letter T, with the yellow staircase visible through the clear glass...
Prefabricating Buildings Offsite, Then Installing Them In Location: Is There A Real Renaissance?
In New York's Inwood neighborhood, workers are busy stacking together weighty prebuilt modules made in Pennsylvania, as they piece together one of the city's latest and more notable residential complexes built almost entirely offsite. Prefabricated construction, as it's technically known, is constructing a building away from its ultimate location. Developers and architects increasingly look to the technique as a way to save time and money, even as they try to shake off the technique's negative associations. In the case of Inwood, project principals at the 28-apartment complex dubbed "The Stack" point out that construction should take only 10 months from start to finish, down from the 16 months they would project for traditional construction.
Stacks on Stacks
Despite the touted economy of off-site, prefabricated housing, the building methodology has made limited inroads in New York, stunted for decades by a wary local bureaucracy and a public that seemed to prefer flashy one-off condominiums. Following a 2008 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, however, interest in the potential that prefab offers for the dense urban environment was renewed. That interest only grew more urgent after Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York in 2012, leading officials to reexamine prefab prototype disaster-housing schemes.
Modular apartment building rises in 19 days
Nineteen days. That is all the time it took to put up a 28-unit, six-story apartment building in the Inwood section of Manhattan this summer. The secret? Modular construction. Working Monday through Friday from June 20 to July 18, a crew of just eight iron workers, a crane operator, and half-a-dozen helpers installed the 56 modules that make up the apartment building at 4857 Broadway. In a bow to the property's innovative construction technique, the building is to be known as The Stack. It was created by a partnership of developer/builder Jeffrey M. Brown Associates and GLUCK+ architects. "We're now done stacking," said Peter Gluck, principal at GLUCK+. "Building any building is a nightmare, but this was not a nightmare. Given that this is the first one we've ever done, this went amazingly smoothly."
Inwood gets the city’s first prefabricated apartment building
By the end of the summer, uptowners can live in a Lego house: the city's first concrete and steel, multi-story prefabricated building. Broadway Stack is a 28-unit moderate-income apartment complex built with 56 prefabricated modules. The modules were assembled off-site in a former subway car factory and then shipped to Inwood, where they are being stacked to form a seven-story tower. "It's an exciting alternative method of construction," said Stack's architect Peter Gluck. "As the country urbanizes there is more and more need for modern and low-cost housing, and this one response."
This Prefab Building Is A First For New York
"It's really exciting," Gluck, principal of GLUCK+ architects, says, as the building blocks are hoisted overhead. Standing at the edge of the lot, we discussed the history of modular and prefabrication building methods, and why they are again relevant. "This is all about urbanization, the moving back to the cities," the architect tells Co.Design. "Now the technology and the methods for doing it have evolved." Gluck's generation of architects was reared in the shadow of the late modernists, whose oversize urban panaceas and all-encompassing treatises they'd begun to aggressively critique. An inclination toward viewing architecture less as an art form and more as a high-tech solution to society's problems marked a shift in thinking for Gluck and his professional peers.
National Mortgage News
N.Y. Gets Its First Prefab Modular Multifamily Building
A multifamily building under construction in a working-class Manhattan neighborhood promises to offer a new avenue to creating moderate-income housing in urban areas. In a first-of-its-kind building project for New York, the 28-apartment, seven-story structure is being put together with modular units that are constructed off site. It's precise work, with the 56 modulars that make up this steel and concrete structure delivered by truck and then lifted by cranes and slowly and carefully set into place.
NY's modular moment arrives
Trucking thousands of building modules weighing up to 25 tons and as wide as two Hummers is a challenge in a densely packed city like New York, one complicated by narrow side streets and aging bridges. A case in point is 4857 Broadway, in the Inwood section of upper Manhattan. There, a partnership of GLUCK+ architects and Jeffrey M. Brown Associates is building 28 apartments from 56 modules that are being fabricated in Pennsylvania.
City's first modular apartment building unveiled
New York City's first multi-unit modular residential building was unveiled to the public last week in northern Manhattan. Pre-fab steel and concrete modules were hoisted atop one another by crane for the $13 million project named The Stack -- in a nod to its innovative design -- a seven-story, 28-unit residential building at 4857 Broadway. The 28-unit rental building is expected to be completed in September when the apartments will be leased by a team from Douglas Elliman and Newmark Grubb Knight Frank will handle marketing of the retail space at the base of the building.
Stacking Up
On Thursday contractors plan to top out a seven-story, 28-unit apartment building known as the Stack on an infill site in Upper Manhattan. The event would be unremarkable, except that four weeks ago, the only part of the structure that had been erected on the 50-foot-wide by 150-foot-long lot was the first floor framing. Now it is completely enclosed, and has its interior partitions as well as plumbing fixtures, countertops, doors, and hardware--even the toilet paper dispensers have been installed. The Stack, designed by architecture firm GLUCK+ (formerly Peter Gluck and Partners), has gone up so quickly because it is composed of 56 steel-and-concrete modules built in a factory in Berwick, Pennsylvania. These components, which make up the studio, one-, two-, and three- bedroom apartments, have been trucked to the site with all interior finishes in place and stacked by crane at the rate of about four per day since June 19.
Watch A New Prefab Building Rise In NYC, Stack by Stack
On a sizable, mid-block site in Inwood, near the northernmost point of the island, what might be New York's first prefab steel-and-concrete apartment building is taking shape. The Stack, a seven-story moderate-income residential project by GLUCK+ architects, champions an exciting modular building method, one with a rich heritage but that has too rarely been implemented. The 50-foot-wide, 150-foot-deep lot is sprinkled with a few cranes and what look like trailers but are actually building modules. From across the street, pedestrians stop in their tracks as each of the 45-foot-long oblongs seemingly takes flight.
Tower House by GLUCK+
Looking for the optimal arrangement of the primary building blocks that would constitute Tower House -- living room, kitchen, three bedrooms with adjoining baths -- New York City-based studio GLUCK+ set out to 'accentuate the experience of the site'. The result is a 'tree house for grown-ups' that is mindful of its natural surroundings and indebted to its geographical location: a mountainous area affording astonishing views.We are proud to be the first to release the studio's video about this bold project in upstate New York:*This project was featured in more detail in Mark#44's Cross Section, including an interview with one of the partners, Tom Gluck. Click here to subscribe.*Correction: In the article about Tower House that was published in Mark#44, we printed the name of the studio as Peter Gluck and Partners. The studio had launched its new identity and website in April and it is now GLUCK+.
2013 AIA NY Design Awards: Innovation, Grace and Style
Jury: "Whimsical. Delightful. A mini-house on steroids that recalls a forest ranger's watchtower. It shows the optimism of an architect. Keep the trees!" Designed as a stairway to the treetops, this 2,545-square-foot vacation house, owned by a principal of the firm, occupies a minimal footprint so as not to disturb its wooded site. Dark green, back-painted glass of the rainscreen wall cladding camouflages the house by reflecting the surrounding woods. The tower is a glass-enclosed stair that ascends from the forest floor to a treetop aerie connecting all levels of the building up to a rooftop terrace. The south-facing stair creates a solar chimney- as heated air rises, it is exhausted out the top, and fresh air enters the house from the cooler north side. Spreading out from the top of the stair is the main living space, cantilevered 30 feet from the ground.
The Tower House
"I have already said that we spent hours and hours in the trees not for utilitarian motives, as so many youths are prone to do, who climb trees to look for fruit or birds' nests, but for the pleasure of negotiating the troublesome bulges and forks, to get as high up as possible, to find the best spots in which to rest and gaze at the world below us. To play pranks and to shout to those passing underneath." This is how the young Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò of the "Baron in the Trees" by Italo Calvino speaks of his choice of going to live in the treetops, after a futile argument with his father.
Prefab Lives!
It's an exciting time for modular building, especially in New York, and as someone who has been deeply immersed in the world of prefabrication for over a decade, I am glad to see the much-maligned building technology finding its proper niche. It's the killer app for the modular industry.B2, a 32-story tower that is part of a 1,500-unit, mixed-use complex designed by SHoP Architects for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards, will soon be the tallest modular building in the world. nARCHITECTS recently won adaptNYC's competition to design a micro-unit apartment building, and will see its concept transformed into a 10-story
A Skyscraper-Style Treehouse With Soaring Mountain Views
Architects like wordplay. It's a fun and effective way to condense the main thesis behind a project without resorting to archi-speak. It's also a good bit of marketing. A simple subversion like "horizontal skyscraper" immediately makes a potentially interesting (or uninteresting) project that much more compelling. Another example: the Tower House. Designed by GLUCK+ architects, the Tower House looks exactly like it sounds--that is, it takes the form of a skyscraper and shrinks it down to the scale of a house. The four-story-high-building is configured to resemble Lego blocks, an analogy that extends to the house's bright yellow and green color scheme. A vertical bar, the "tower," is bisected at its summit by a wide horizontal volume, which appears to conquer gravity with the most minimal of supports.
Financial Times Magazine
Independence Stay
An increasing desire to house visiting friends and family in privacy has given rise to striking stand-alone spaces that double as anything from a pool house to a music room. Dominic Bradbury reports on a forward-looking generation of guest lodges. One of the great pleasures of having a beautifully designed home is sharing it with others, and in an age when friends and family are often spread far and wide, entertaining house guests has attained a special level of importance. Small wonder, then, that architects and their clients are approaching the business of creating inviting spaces for visiting friends and family with new enthusiasm and a fresh eye. And hence the rise of an ambitious generation of guest lodges: self-contained retreats set apart from main residences which have a sense of delight all of their own.
Metropolis Magazine POV Blog
Expanding the Scope of Architectural Thinking
On Monday night, a crowd of 200 assembled at a construction site in Harlem for the first panel in a series called "Changing Architecture." The discussion, moderated by Metropolis editor-in-chief Susan S. Szenasy, focused on the need for architects to develop a wider skill set that will enable them to take a more involved role in the building process of their projects. Among the evening's panelists was Peter Gluck, founder and principal at the firm Gluck+. He is a strong believer in architects getting their hands dirty at the construction site, working with communities, and being held responsible for a project coming in on budget. He remarked that "Architectural thinking is seen as a luxury item not relevant to the real needs of the development process...Architects need to acquire multi-faceted knowledge and accept previously shunned responsibilities in order to change this perception."
World-Architects eMagazine
Architects House Themselves
There exists a long tradition of architects designing houses for themselves, many of them becoming historically notable works of architecture because of experimentation, a mix of living and working spaces, and an obviously unique architect-client relationship. Think of Frank Lloyd Wright's Home and Studio in Oak Park and his Taliesin estates in Wisconsin and Arizona; Alvar Aalto's house in Helsinki; Walter Gropius's house ten miles from Harvard; the Charles and Ray Eames House in California; Luis Barragán's House and Studio outside Mexico City; Frank Gehry's exploded bungalow in Santa Monica. The list of architects and houses goes on, with pre-20th-century examples found in Thomas Jefferson's plantation home at Monticello and Sir John Soane's house-museum in London, to name just two.
A Stairway to the Treetops
A Stairway to the Treetops: A chameleonlike house--which changes with the seasons and throughout the day--provides a perch for total immersion in the surrounding woods. Architecture need not always be serious. And nowhere is lightheartedness more fitting than in a vacation house. One such playful example is the Tower House--a 2,500-square-foot structure on a sloping, wooded site in Ulster County, New York, about 100 miles north of Manhattan. Designed by New York City--based Gluck+ as the mountain retreat for one of the firm's principals, Thomas Gluck; his wife, Anne Langston; and their two children, the house resembles a cross between a Modernist skyscraper and a tree house. It is completely glass-clad and has three bedrooms and adjoining baths stacked one on top of the other to support a living and dining room cantilevered 30 feet from the ground. A switchback stair, with bright-yellow treads and risers, connects all four levels and leads to a rooftop deck. The goal, says Gluck, was to create an aerie within the trees and take advantage of views of nearby Catskill Park, a vast state forest preserve.
More Units Going Up In a Snap
A vacant lot on Broadway between Academy and 204th Streets in Inwood is littered with rubble and concrete pilings. But in a matter of weeks, this 50-foot-wide sand pit will be transformed into a seven-story apartment building, with finished bathrooms, maple cabinetry and 10 terraces. It is not a magic trick, but rather the result of modular, or prefabricated, construction. A technique in which a building is manufactured piecemeal on a factory assembly line, trucked to the construction site and erected much the way Legos are, modular construction is gaining popularity across New York City.
An exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York attempts to disrupt the city's present housing situation, exposing the key housing regulations and policies and reinforcing the ambition to produce real and tangible change. An architecture report from New York by Leigha Dennis.Housing in New York City is not easy to find. That is no secret. The city's population is at its highest and steadily increasing. In the next 20 years, the population is expected to grow by roughly 600,000 people, and yet housing conditions are already compromised. Many New Yorkers are living in illegal and often unsafe shared and informal arrangements. But what will happen when more people must squeeze in? Where will they live? How will the city make room?
School Plans Its 17th Move, but Its First Since 1892
After debating nearly seven years about where to move, the board of the Collegiate School, New York City’s oldest and one of its most prestigious private schools, announced Tuesday that it had purchased land for a new building between West 61st and 62nd Streets and between West End Avenue and Riverside Boulevard. It will be the 17th move for the school since its founding in New Amsterdam in 1628, but the first since 1892, when the West End Collegiate Church and the Collegiate School moved to the Upper West Side.
Das Ideale Heim
Rank & Schlank
“If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere" sings Frank Sinatra, and the Peter Gluck and Partners team has designed and built a spacious, bright townhouse on a 122-square-meter plot in Manhattan. […] The new home seems to be “snuck in-between” historic buildings on either side, two traditional townhouses that appear to forgivingly embrace the newcomer.The new building’s requirement for open, loft-like interiors with room to breathe, led to the design of the house’s façade and a complete re-envisioning of the configuration of the architectural plan of a typical townhouse.The house itself is a “gap filler,” and the stair’s glass railings demand, once again, outside-the-box thinking
Rock The Shack
A pure and elegant cube matches the unity of the building's purpose and form, in both programmatic and metaphorical terms. The first floor of this forest library houses the main book stacks and remains completely closed to the outdoors. On the second floor, the structure opens up to let in light and views for a scholar's working study. The structure expresses this dual character, with the floating roof cantilevered off the second floor to highlight the distinction between solid and void. The windows open on all four sides, to produce a light and airy feeling. The changing seasons outside act as evolving backdrops for the project, moving from green to orange and then white over the course of the year.
The Modern Impulse: Peter L. Gluck and Partners
The Modern Impulse is a book about modern architecture -- a book about buildings conceived and constructed from the perspective of what their award-winning architect, Peter L. Gluck, defines as "the modern impulse."Committed to the principled practice of modernism, Gluck began his career at Yale in the 1960s. For more than forty years he has continued to develop, refine and insist on the best, and boldest, of modernist design.
Ten Houses: Peter L. Gluck and Partners
Gluck's work contains hints of whimsy, but never so much as to make us want to describe these buildings as witty. His architecture takes itself too seriously for that, but coming close to whimsy without going all the way is, for Gluck, evocative of his glancing allusions to Historicism. He sees what it is about, he understands its purpose, but his main order of business is to do something else. This work comes close to being many other things, but it turns out to be, in the
Affordable by Design
When it comes to affordable housing in New York, the strongest arguments for better design are often not architectural but political or economical. Recent work by Phipps Rose Dattner Grimshaw, Jonathan Kirschenfeld, Peter Gluck and Partners, and SHoP Architects contribute significantly to redefining the ins and outs of social housing in the heartland of capitalism. This past July, 100 decision makers from the sectors of policy, finance, real-estate development and design gathered for a 1-day session on the 47th floor of the Deutsche Bank's Wall street office in new York to discuss strategies aimed at "Lowering the Cost to Develop and Sustain Affordable Housing". With the backdrop of Grank Gehry's recent
Changing Skyline: Old City plan deserves praise, not opposition
Forget the government's economic indicators. You know that Philadelphia's real-estate market is coming out of the doldrums when an old-time, bare-knuckle skyscraper fight breaks out in Old City.The scene is a familiar one: a surface lot at Second and Race Streets, hard by the Ben Franklin Bridge and the ramp to I-95. Back in the heat of the condo boom, Brown/Hill Development tried to transform the site into real-estate gold by hiring a big-name New York firm, SHoP Architects. They produced one of the city's best designs of the period, an accommodating 110-foot-high midrise. The Old City Civic Association loved it, but the market collapsed before it was built.
Race Street Rising
Last week Philadelphia’s new zoning code went into effect, but projects nurtured under the old code may still be rising. Just yesterday, architect Peter Gluck presented a tower proposal to the Old City Civic Association for a 16-story building adjacent to the Ben Franklin Bridge. Because the zoning permits were filed last month the building is subject to old code.Gluck’s presentation of 205 Race Street soured when new renderings revealed that an early proposal by SHoP Architects, initially approved at a 100-foot height, had morphed into a 197-foot tower that sets back from Race Street, PlanPhilly reported. The group voted 11 to 1 to oppose the project.
Tennis Architecture from Newport to the Bronx
Teddy Roosevelt once remarked on the commercialization of sports: “When money comes in at the gate, the game goes out the window.” With Wimbledon in high gear and tennis at the Olympics looming, tennis is getting more than its share of commercial attention lately. Just last month the United States Tennis Association announced it would spend a half billion dollars to upgrade the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Queens, where the U.S. Open is played. The project is linked to the $3 billion Willets Point project.
Studio Visit>Peter Gluck and Partners
At a recent competition to design a vertical campus for the prestigious Collegiate School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, several well-known New York firms showed up with snazzy renderings in hand. Peter Gluck did not bring a proposal. When asked by the selection committee why he arrived empty-handed, he responded, “How can we give you a solution when we don’t know the problem yet.” Gluck got the job.
Building as Business
Peter Gluck & Partners and Tocci Construction have developed innovative approaches to project delivery; more broadly, they have shifted the relationship between architect and contractor. Not for them is the typical separation between architect and contractor with its daily time lags, as one party communicates information to the other. It is a well-known fact in the industry that this piece-meal process ultimately creates change orders and cost overruns.
Imagining Housing for Today
Bronx Park East opened last year opposite the New York Botanical Garden. It consists of a five-story brick pavilion with triple-height windows facing the street, and a seven-story wing for 68 small studio apartments. “A good neighbor,” is how its designer, Jonathan Kirschenfeld, described the building’s look. Serious architecture is another way to describe Bronx Park East. It is a single-room occupancy residence, an S.R.O.,
House of the Month
Some minimalist architects boast that given enough money, they can make their architecture almost disappear. Although that claim seems to go against normal expectations about what so many architects really like to do, it often tempts those faced with a large program and sensitive site.Peter Gluck, for example, argues that creating an “experience” rather than building a visibly defined object should be an architect’s supreme goal.
Building a Better Way to Build
"No matter what the project, Gluck's goal is always marrying cost-effective solutions with innovative design and careful construction. 'We are trying to push the profession to accept and recognize the power of architect-led design-build,' he says. 'We're trying to improve the role of the architect and hopefully build better environments in the process'...'There's so much waste in a normal construction job, it's unbelievable,' Gluck says. 'Because we both design and build our buildings, our cost savings are 30, 40, sometimes 50 percent. It's important to us that our clients get the most for their money. So we're very interested in sustainability. It's deeply embedded in our design principles.'"
Elegant Solution
All houses have a story. This house has a saga. Call it the Three Ages of Architecture: modern, postmodern, and contemporary. The end result is a 4,600-square-foot house with six bedrooms, a home office, and a playroom, its upper story cantilevered over a picturesque Westchester County ravine. In the summer, from the road, the house seems to float in the trees—unlike its hulking neighbors. But it took the work of two sets of determined architects, first in 1958 and then in 2010, to make it look this easy.
Exceptions That Roof the Pool
Homes are constantly borrowing bright ideas from luxury hotels. There’s the super-indulgent bathroom, the home spa and the sophisticated bedroom that feels generous and seductive enough to double as an extra sitting room and a private retreat. Add also the notion of a tempting indoor pool that can be used all year round and happens to be beautifully crafted and exquisitely detailed. No wonder, then, that the architect-designed pool house is enjoying a period of high demand, expressed in a series of fresh, innovative and highly individual buildings.
Q+A: Peter Gluck
Palatial houses can be surprisingly modest. At least, that’s the philosophy of Peter Gluck, an acclaimed modernist who has spent the past 38 years creating extraordinary residences that make as little impact on the land as possible. One is featured in the April issue of Architectural Digest: A glass-walled house Peter Gluck and Partners, Architects designed for clients in Illinois, complete with a basketball court, spa, garage,…
Neighboring estates in this suburb of Chicago often announce their presence with showy turrets or columned façades, but Cascade House, a lakeside residence designed by New York architecture firm Peter Gluck and Partners, makes a more discreet impression. From its front drive, all one sees is a stack of two glass boxes: one transparent, one translucent. The rest of this home—true to its name—drops out of view, gently terracing down toward the waters of Lake Michigan.
American Builders Quarterly
No Building Stands Alone
Gluck is concerned that the word "responsible" has become a synonym for something good. "Responsible just means taking the least amount of time and risk," he says. "With this approach, the cost is often so far beyond the project's actual value that in the end, the project is irresponsible." Since 1972, [the firm] has worked directly with the variables of time and risk. From conception to closeout, these designers provide cutting-edge architectural solutions without the cost overruns typical of a multiple-source construction approach.
Design Bureau
Designing to Build
According to architect Peter Gluck, the traditional method of designing and constructing buildings is inherently flawed: architects don’t know how to build and contractors don’t understand design. So when Gluck started his architecture firm, Peter Gluck and Partners, he did so with the goal of fixing this broken process. “When architects construct buildings, it’s common knowledge that there are problems; they take too long to build, they leak, they’re over budget. But we really understand construction,” Gluck says….
Urban Omnibus
The East Harlem School at Exodus House
Recently the staff of the Architectural League had the opportunity to visit The East Harlem School at Exodus House, an independent middle school on East 103rd St. EHS co-founders and brothers Hans and Ivan Hageman grew up on the site when Exodus House was a residential drug rehabilitation center, founded in 1963 and run by their parents. Growing up in East Harlem while attending the prestigious Collegiate School,…
The Pride of East 103rd Street
Ivan Hageman wasn’t sold on the design. He feared anything modern. He didn’t like the method the architect was pushing—design-build, in which a single firm stewards everything from the first conceptual drawing to the last layer of paint. It seemed foreign and vaguely suspect. And above all, he thought that the architect, Peter Gluck, was a bit of a jerk. “Peter was somewhat loutish, somewhat rude, somewhat devil-may-care: ‘Either you’re going to go with me or not,’” Hageman says in his second-floor office, which overlooks, like a happy panopticon, the street outside the private school he helms. Recalling their first meeting, in 2004, with the school’s board of trustees, he says, “At the end of the meeting … the chair of the board said, ‘I agree with you, Ivan. He does seem kind of difficult. He reminds me of someone you’ve worked closely with over the years.’ I said, ‘Who?’ She said, ‘You.’”
East Harlem School: Contemporary Design, at a Bargain Price
Maybe the biggest reason why more builders don't hire contemporary architects is that, in addition to the up front design fees, your typical design visionary is bound to plow straight through the construction budget, and then some. But not always. Recently, Peter L. Gluck & Partners completed a new building for the East Harlem School, a charter school in Harlem. By acting as both the designer and the construction manager, they were able to deliver the building below budget, at a cost of $330 a square foot (which is very low, at least for New York). At the end, they even returned $500,000 in unspent contingencies--that is, the money budgeted for inevitable construction screw-ups.
GREEN Architecture Now!
Peter Gluck received both his B.Arch (1962) and M.Arch (1965) degrees from Yale University. He founded his present firm in New York in 1972. He has been chairman of AR/CS Architectural Construction Services, a firm that integrates architectural design and construction, since 1992. He is also a co-founder of Aspen GK (1997), a development partnership intended to build "well-designed high-quality housing)"
An Enthusiastic Sceptic
The sceptic, if he or she does his or her job correctly, is critical to the productive evolution of any movement, and as we embark on the Building Information Modeling (BIM) revolution, it is worth asking a few questions. We embrace the promise of BIM-- born from the notion of collaboration between disciplines and the integration of design-- and recognize it as a paradigm shift in an industry that has spent too much of the past century trying to separate consultants on the same design team, to clarify liability and to shed responsibility.
Architect Contractors Gain High End Following
Despite the financial crisis and the housing slump, the phone is still ringing in Peter Gluck's office. "We're OK for now," says Mr. Gluck, whose office of 50 architects specializes in high-end residences costing $5 million and up. That may be explained by the fact that Mr. Gluck and his associates aren't just architects for their homes. They're the general contractors as well, unlocking gates in the morning and stepping onto scaffolds to direct construction.
The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century Architecture
Little Ajax Affordable Housing
The form of the residential complex is a direct response to Aspen's need for communal family units, on-site parking and public trail connections. It consists of a two-storey block facing the street, and a three-storey volume behind, which climbs up the base of the mountain and is oriented along an adjacent public hiking trail.
Sometimes a single element - a rug from a honeymoon in Istanbul, an inherited coromandel screen, even a low, midcentury sectional sofa picked up at a yard sale - tells a story that reveals the meaning of a house and explains the character of its owners. If you can find the world in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour, you can fathom the spirit of a house from a Buddha bought on Hollywood Road in Hong Kong. In telling momment in the house that New York architect Peter L. Gluck designed and built for a young couple outside Austin, Texas, is a historic view: a striking
Peter Gluck's Social Work
Peter Gluck has a problem with the AIA. He has a problem with architectural education too. Really he has a problem with the whole profession of architecture as it is currently practiced. Economic exploitation of youth. Big ideas in service of the highest bidder. Callow young CAD monkeys trained in archispeak. Designers who don’t know how to build. Engineers rescuing forms untethered from reality. He doesn’t seem like an angry person: he’s a sort of laid-back father figure with a gentle demeanor who appears to relish his work. But don’t get him started on the irresponsibility of architects and the way the profession is practiced. Or do get him started: you might learn something.
Peter Gluck Builds the Inverted Guest House
"I wanted to build a barn," says Richard Yulman, the client for the Inverted Guest House in Lake George, New York. "Just a country barn where we could park cars and put stuff in the winter." What started as a simple shed kind of project, though, became a 5,600-square-foot building that features a pair of two-bedroom guest apartments on either side of an eight-car garage. With its rugged-yet-elegant copper cladding and flat roofs, it looks like no barn. But its industrial materials capture the utilitarian spirit of rural buildings, and its large, folding doors and shutters connect it to the light and views of its wooded site.
No Building Contractor? No Problem
Peter Gluck sits on the couch of his office loft recalling the house that "broke his back." In the working environment of that project, the tensions between his architectural firm, Peter Gluck & Partners, and the general contractor were so high that the construction dragged on for what seemed like forever. Inefficiencies abounded. As he concludes his story, his son, Thomas, another architect at the firm, comes by with a dustydesign plan that falls heavily on the table where he drops it. "This is how we used to dobusiness," he says.
The AD 100
Throughout his 34-year career, New York-based architect Peter L. Gluck has remained steadfastly Modernist, creating houses with an acute awareness of time and context while eschewing sentimentality or any reference to tradition. His design approach is governed by "the ongoing and evolving set of principles and impulses inherent to Modernism," and his projects are characterized by clean geometric lines, sculptural elements and respect for light, serenity and individuality. If Gluck's houses possess a certain Japanese sensibility, it is no accident. After graduating from Yale School of Architecture, he spent two years in Japan acting as a consultant for a local construction company.
Texas Architect
Floating Box House
Surrounded by a grove of more than 200 live oaks, the house is located just outside Austin and stands between the city's new urban skyline and its rural past. The forms of the house consist of a box, a stainless steel stucture on which the box is perched, transparent glass encolusre, and a plinth. Significant portions of the program are located below grade to prevent the size of the house from drawing attention away from the landscape. The guest bedrooms, media room, and gallery are located within the buried plinth. In addition, the garage is underground to keep the precinct of trees free of distracting automobiles and black top. The floating box contains the family bedrooms.
Gluck of the Draw
A 32-mile sliver of water in upstate New York, Lake George's shores are scattered with holiday homes and summer retreats. It's also a hot spot for America's ongoing battle of domestic architectural styles, as over-scaled neo-vernacular dukes it out with sleek modernism along the prime waterfront sites. One architect in particular, Peter L Gluck, makes a sound case for progressive modernism, His practice, Gluck & Partners, has stuck to his modernist guns, developing and honing the skills he learnt while a student at Yale in the late 1960s under the tutelage of Paul Rudolph. Gluck & Partners has since built up a respectable body of work, and now consists of 40 architects working on everything
The Scholar's Library
Sited at the architect's weekend family retreat in upstate New York, this library provides a study area for his wife, Carol, a scholar of Japanese. The building also houses 10,000 of her books, mostly in a compact basement. Thin columns extending from the basement to the second level support structural loads. The 20-by-20-by-20-foot building, solit at its base and translucent above, offers sliding glass doors in place of windows, allowing its occupants to experience a completely open environment. Architect Peter Gluck says his wife stays in the space from 8 in the morning until 9 at night. "She gets more done in there than anywhere else."
While taking a class taught by Vincent Scully at Yale on the history of architecture, Peter L. Gluck experiences an architectural awakening in which Louis Kahn, Alvar Aalto and "contemporary Swiss and Dutch architects" would become his "heroes." He later incorporated Japanese sensibilities that carry over into what he described as a "contextual modernism," replete with sculptural elements, unflinchingly sleek geometries and attention to detail, craft and light. Gluck formed his own firm 32 years ago and derives satisfaction from designing and building museums and affordable housing. Nonetheless, he takes on a number of residential commitments every year and is now working on houses in California
"A main concern of ours is to produce significant, properly constructed buildings at costs appropriate to their use," says Peter L. Gluck. "In this endeavor, we act as construction managers by actually building most of our projects." These range from houses across the United States for people "interested in real architecture" to multiuse building in New York's East Harlem and a 50,000-square-food community center in the South Bronx. The Yale-educated architect opened his firm in 1972, after spending two years in Japan. Gluck, whose office now consists of 20 architects, got his inspiration from the sensibilities of Japanese architecture and from "all serious and good architects," especially early- and mid
Peter L. Gluck gave his modern addition to an 18th-century New York farmhouse the character of utility farm structures pieced together over time. "The context demanded that the existing house remain prominent in the composition without inhibiting the sculptural possibilities of the new structure," the architect says, "I chose not to miniaturize the original but to enhance it by contrast." It seems, at first, to be altogether wrong, this sprawling modernist addition of stone, glass and metal on a delicate Federal-style farmhouse. Some kind of demonstration project in architectural insensitivity, you wonder? Why would any thoughtful do such a thing to a graceful eighteenth-century house?
Record Houses: Annex Supports Varied Pursuits
For architect Peter Gluck's family of four, its new 8,000-square-foot annex to a much smaller nearby house (site plan below) embodies more than simply expanding a weekend retreat. It shows how to accomodate a unified group of people's differing needs in a single location. "We spent a lot of time rethinking how we live," says Gluck, talking about the maturing family's increasingly diversified pursuits and habits, not to mention its widening circle of friends and acquaintances. Their traditional little farmhouse in new York's rural Catskill Mountains, which had served well for 20 years, had begun to burst at the seams wityh too many activities and people. Nor did the formal character and gardens lend themselves to the extensive, innovative addition the
Modifying Mies
In augmenting an International Style house in Connecticut designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1955, architect Peter Gluck was forced to confront a vision of architectural purity. Gluck did two additions - a pool with two pavilions and, later, a bedroom wing connected to the house. Few archtiectural problems are as vexing as adding to a building by Mies van der Rohe. First, any Mies building by definition possess the status of a historic artifact, protected by an ethical presumption if not by a legal requirement that any future architect tread lightly. But the nature of Mies's architecture leaves almost no room for anyone else anyway. How do you expand a glass box that aspires to Platonic perfection?
Progressive Architecture
Return to Grace: Residence, South Connecticut
It was the kind of classic design problem we all thought only our design professors fiendish enough to devise. All that would be required to strike terror and paralysis into the heart of a prospective architect/designer in the imperative "Add to an existing house by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe." The rest of the program could say just about anything; God has left the details for later. Originally designed in 1955, the house in lower Connecticut was built for the brother of Mies's client for the renowned Lake Shore Drive apartments. Its fenestration and glazing echo those apartment towers and, in fact, the house even used materials lft over from the Chicago projects. This was a forgotten Mies, however, having
Masterful Meeting: Gluck adds to Mies van der Rohe house
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed a small house in 1955 for a site on a Connecticut river, one of only three built by the architect in the United States. His client was the brother of a Chicago developer who had commissioned Mies' great apartment project on Lake Shore Drive. Family ties did not end here. The little house incorporated into its facades the same pattern of mullion and glass used in the Chicago apartments - suburbanized with a coat of white paint - and even used surplus materials from the Chicago job site.
Architecture: Peter L. Gluck
The design of an architect's home can present a special challenge. When building for himself, there is an implicit desire to make a statement, a signature. Because the project is so personal, the presumption grows that it must reveal the designer's innermost musings, not simply about house design, but about the condition of architecture, as well. Often this leads to self-consciousness or attempts at a perfection impossible to achieve. Other times, the error
The Ojai Valley Inn Addition
Because the building is set into a hillside in a series of stepped floors, and becasue the area is particularly subject to earthquakes, the feasibility of the project might have been in severe question if standard (and more expensive) structural techniques were used. The problem was accentuated by the single-loaded corridors and by the weight of 18 inches of earth on the uppermost roof. Working with engineers Spiegel & Zamencik, Gluck developed a composite system of plywood, steel and concrete
MoMA Exhibition
The Phenomenal City: Shinjuku Japan
Shinjuku is a dense clutter of commercial activity at the largest interchange in Tokyo's vast mass transit system. There are 12,000,000 people living in Tokyo; every day more than 1,000,000 of them pass in and out of Shinjuku station on nine radiating rail lines and fifty-odd bus routes. It is to accommodate the needs and wants of this mind-boggling concentration of people that a huge shopping and entertainment area has grown in, around, and through the station, including 4 mammoth department stores and over 3 thousand small retail shops, restaurants, bars, and entertainment facilities.
Record Houses
Apartments of the Year
A cool secluded pond is the focus for this house in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Access by car is possible only at a level 35 feet above the water, and so the entrance is at the top and the house is a series of terraced rooms facing the view and arranged around a central stairway that steps down inexorably from the entrance to the pond below, and just before (for the less adventurous) to an open deck and swimming pool.
Light and Air Houses: Peter Gluck, Architect
Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Gluck, the architect's parents, requested a vacation house that was easily maintainable, contained two bedrooms, two baths, and a large living room. For privacy, the architect separated the living room from the bedroom wing, and the latter took on the minimum dimensions and shape required by the bathroom core and bed space. The structure is supported by 40-ft telephone poles sunk 23 ft into the ground.
2019 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), Cary Leeds Tennis Center
2019 Design Award of Merit
Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY)
2019 Design Award of Merit, Sustainability, American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIA NY), Bridge
2019 Design Award of Merit, Sustainability
American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIA NY)
2018 Design Award of Honor, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Bridge
2018 Design Award of Honor
Society of American Registered Architects (SARA)
2018 Groundbreaker Awards Project Winner, Green Building United, Bridge
2018 Groundbreaker Awards Project Winner
Green Building United
2018 Best Project Winner, Residential/Hospitality, ENR MidAtlantic Best Project Awards, Bridge
2018 Best Project Winner, Residential/Hospitality
ENR MidAtlantic Best Project Awards
2018 5th Annual Willard G. "Bill" Rouse III Award for Excellence, Urban Land Institute Philadelphia, Bridge (with Brown Hill)
2018 5th Annual Willard G. "Bill" Rouse III Award for Excellence
Urban Land Institute Philadelphia
Bridge (with Brown Hill)
2018 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), Bridge
2017 Housing Honor Award, AIANY/BSA, Artist Retreat
2017 Housing Honor Award
AIANY/BSA
Artist Retreat
2017 Honor Award for Residential Design, AIA QUAD Design Award, Artist Retreat
2017 Honor Award for Residential Design
AIA QUAD Design Award
2017 Design Award of Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Artist Retreat
2017 Design Award of Excellence
2017 Winner, The American Architecture Prize, Artist Retreat
The American Architecture Prize
2017 Honorable Mention, The American Architecture Prize, Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning
2017 Honorable Mention
Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning
2017 International Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture, Artist Retreat
2017 International Architecture Award
The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture
2017 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), Artist Retreat
2017 American Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture, Artist Retreat
2017 American Architecture Award
2016 Residential Architect Design Award, Citation, Architect Magazine, Artist Retreat
2016 Residential Architect Design Award, Citation
2016 Distinguished Building Award, Citation of Merit, AIA Chicago, House to the Beach
2016 Distinguished Building Award, Citation of Merit
AIA Chicago
House to the Beach
2016 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Duke University Marine Lab
Duke University Marine Lab
2016 Design Award of Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), House to the Beach
2016 President's Award, Residential Category, American Society of Landscape Architects (Illinois), Cascade House (with Hoerr Schaudt)
2016 President's Award, Residential Category
American Society of Landscape Architects (Illinois)
Cascade House (with Hoerr Schaudt)
2016 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), Duke University Marine Lab
2016 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), House to the Beach
2016 Finalist, Architecture + Prefab, Architizer A+ Awards, Lady Liberty Academy Charter School
2016 Finalist, Architecture + Prefab
Architizer A+ Awards
Lady Liberty Academy Charter School
2015 American Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture, The Stack
2015 Housing Honor Award, AIANY/BSA, The Stack
2015 Jury Winner and Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Urban Transformation, Architizer A+ Awards, The Stack
2015 Jury Winner and Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Urban Transformation
2015 Special Mention, Multi Unit Housing - Mid Rise (5-15 Floors), Architizer A+ Awards, The Stack
2015 Special Mention, Multi Unit Housing - Mid Rise (5-15 Floors)
2015 Finalist, Single Family Home M 1,000-3,000 SF, Architizer A+ Awards, House in the Mountains
2015 Finalist, Single Family Home M 1,000-3,000 SF
2015 Bronze Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), The Stack
2015 Bronze Award of Merit
2015 Award of Merit, Residential Architecture - Single Family, AZ Awards 2015, Tower House
2015 Award of Merit, Residential Architecture - Single Family
AZ Awards 2015
2014 Bronx Building Award, The Bronx Chamber of Commerce, Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning
2014 Bronx Building Award
The Bronx Chamber of Commerce
2014 Shortlist, WAN Residential Award, The Stack
2014 Shortlist
WAN Residential Award
2014 Finalist, Single Family Home M 1,000-3,000 SF, Architizer A+ Awards, Tower House
2013 National Housing Award, American Institute of Architects (AIA), House in the Mountains
2013 National Housing Award
American Institute of Architects (AIA)
2013 Architecture Merit Award, American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIA NY), Tower House
2013 Architecture Merit Award
2013 Record Houses, Architectural Record, Tower House
2013 Record Houses
2013 House of the Month, Architectural Record, House in the Mountains
2013 House of the Month
2013 American Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture, Tower House
2013 American Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture, House in the Mountains
2013 International Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture, Tower House
2013 Design Award of Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects New York Council (SARA/NY), Tower House
Society of American Registered Architects New York Council (SARA/NY)
2013 Design Award of Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects New York Council (SARA/NY), House in the Mountains
2013 Special Mention, Single Family Home, Architizer A+ Awards, Lakeside Retreat
2013 Special Mention, Single Family Home
2012 Award for Excellence in Design, NYC Public Design Commission, Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning
2012 Award for Excellence in Design
NYC Public Design Commission
2012 Design Award of Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), Rado Redux
Rado Redux
2011 November, House of the Month, Architectural Record, Lakeside Retreat
2011 November, House of the Month
2011 Design Award of Merit, IALD International Lighting Design Awards, The East Harlem School (with Lux Populi)
IALD International Lighting Design Awards
The East Harlem School (with Lux Populi)
2011 Design Award of Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), Lakeside Retreat
2011 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Cascade House
Cascade House
2011 Design Award of Honor, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Blue Ridge House
Blue Ridge House
2011 Design Award of Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Lakeside Retreat
2011 Shortlist, WAN Effectiveness Award, The East Harlem School
WAN Effectiveness Award
2010 Architecture Honor Award, American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIA NY), The East Harlem School
2010 Architecture Honor Award
2010 International Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture, Urban Townhouse
2010 International Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum & The European Centre for Architecture, Pool Pavilion
2010 Design Award for Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), The East Harlem School
2010 Design Award for Excellence
2010 Design Award for Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects/NY Council (SARA/NY), Urban Townhouse
2010 Design Award of Recognition, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Urban Townhouse
2010 Design Award of Recognition
2010 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Pool Pavilion
2009 K-12 Educational Facilities Design Award for Design Excellence, Boston Society of Architects (BSA), The East Harlem School
2009 K-12 Educational Facilities Design Award for Design Excellence
Boston Society of Architects (BSA)
2009 Design Award of Merit, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Little Ajax Affordable Housing
2009 Design Award of Excellence, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), Floating Box House
2009 Design Award of Honor, Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), The East Harlem School
2009 National Design-Build Award of Excellence, Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA), The East Harlem School
2009 National Design-Build Award of Excellence
Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA)
2009 National Design-Build Award of Merit, Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA), Little Ajax Affordable Housing
2009 National Design-Build Award of Merit
2009 Project of the Year, Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) New York Tri-State Region, The East Harlem School
2009 Project of the Year
Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) New York Tri-State Region
2009 Citation of Excellence, BusinessWeek/ Architectural Record 'Good Design is Good Business' Award, The East Harlem School
2009 Citation of Excellence
BusinessWeek/ Architectural Record 'Good Design is Good Business' Award
2008 Winner, New Construction, North American Copper in Architecture Awards, Inverted Outbuilding
2008 Winner, New Construction
North American Copper in Architecture Awards
Inverted Outbuilding
2007 Award of Merit, American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York State, Little Ajax Affordable Housing
2007 Award of Merit
American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York State
2007 Show You're Green Award of Excellence, American Institute of Architects (AIA) National, Little Ajax Affordable Housing
2007 Show You're Green Award of Excellence
American Institute of Architects (AIA) National
2006 Honor Award, Boston Society of Architects (BSA), Floating Box House
2006 Honor Award
2006 Design Award, Texas Society of Architects, Floating Box House
2006 Design Award
Texas Society of Architects
2006 Award of Excellence, American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York State, Floating Box House
2006 Award of Excellence
2005 Design Award, American Institute of Architects (AIA) Connecticut, Split House
American Institute of Architects (AIA) Connecticut
Split House
2004 Honor Award, American Institute of Architects (AIA) NY, Scholar's Library
American Institute of Architects (AIA) NY
2004 Honor Award, American Institute of Architects (AIA) NY, Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service
Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service
2004 Award of Excellence, American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York State, Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service
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Tag Archives: Tipsarevic
All eyes back on London for one last 2012 time
8 of the world’s top 9 players descend on the Artist-formerly-known-as-the-Millennium-Dome this weekend as the ATP Tour Finals take place. This year’s finale comes two weeks earlier than usual; great news for those who have long campaigned for a shorter season. Let’s hope this change is justified and that the players arrive in much sharper fitness than in previous years. It would be nice if next Monday night’s final was between the best two players, rather than merely the last two standing.
Rafael Nadal’s absence gives opportunity to Jarko Tipsarevic, who performed well last year as an alternate. It is just reward for a man who continues to perform more and more consistently every year – he always had the talent and was always a dangerous floater in any draw but his performances over the last 18 months mean he is now becoming a contender to be the best of the rest. His swashbuckling style will mean that all of his matches this week will be well worth a watch for any neutral.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was the other player who left it late to book his London spot. His year has been solid enough but not as successful as his 2011 season. Tsonga has failed to kick on in a year when I fully expected him to at least reach a Grand Slam or Olympic final. The cold hard facts for Tsonga are that he is getting no younger and Murray and Djokovic look likely to continue being better than him and being much more consistent than him. The gap has not narrowed – it has got much, much wider.
Tomas Berdych arrives in Britain on the back of an impressive autumn. After first round defeats at Wimbledon and in the Olympics, Berdych looked in danger of slipping down the rankings. But he has steadied the ship and was unfortunate to have to play Murray in the New York semis on a ridiculously windy day which unfortunately spoiled what would have been a classic. The slower indoor courts in London may well suit Berdych’s game and I do not rule him out from a final appearance nine days from now, despite being put in the same group as Murray and Djokovic. If he comes out of that group, expect him to reach that final.
Juan-Martin Del Potro is back to full fitness and could have a massive 2013 ahead of him. He is the man with the game to take it to Murray, Federer, Djokovic and a fit Nadal. If Nadal continues to struggle next season, the smart money is on JMDP to be a staple of the last 4 in Grand Slam events. As things stand now, I put him as one of three men who can win the Australian Open next month, along with Murray and Djokovic. His recent victory over Federer in Basel leaves him in good fettle and one had to marvel at his delight at coming out victorious over Djokovic in the Olympics Bronze Medal match. JMDP has the ability to knock any of the top guys off the court – is he capable of doing it back-to-back? When fully fit and confident, yes I think he is.
David Ferrer is the sport’s Mr Consistency; 2 Grand Slam semi-finals this year with appearances in the last eight in the other two are testament to this. He is enjoying as fine an Indian Summer in his career as he could have dreamed of. His durability is the key to his game – I sometimes wonder what he could achieve if he actually thought he could beat the Top 3 or 4. After a favourable draw, Ferrer could feature in the last 4 this week, which will represent a solid end to another impressive year for the 30-year-old Spaniard.
I get the impression that Roger Federer is not going to pull up trees this week in London. His year has been an unqualified triumph. He won his 17th Grand Slam title and regained the Number 1 spot, before going on to become the man who has held that slot for the longest in Open history, a figure which now stands at over 300 weeks. Incredible. He is going for a hat-trick in London – he has not lost a match at the Championships since 2009. However, if anybody will come into this tournament feeling drained from his year’s efforts, it will be Federer. But it would be foolish to completely write him off (he has been placed in the weaker group which will help his cause) and I would be delighted to be eating my words in a week’s time if Federer poses with his 7th Tour Finals trophy. Yes, it would be his 7th. Incredible is often the best word to fully appreciate this man’s career.
Andy Murray will count on more home support than ever as he attempts to cap off a remarkable year for British tennis. His summer success seems to have inspired the country’s top 2 women with Laura Robson and Heather Watson both reaching WTA finals, the latter winning hers, since Murray lifted the US Open trophy. His early loss in Paris last week will have actually served him well. He will arrive in London fresh and ready to win his first Tour Finals. Murray has a difficult draw in Group A alongside Djokovic and Berdych but if he gets out of the group, which he should, he can take his place in his first final at the event. One thing is for certain, he arrives in better shape than he did a year ago, when he pulled out after his first match loss to David Ferrer.
Novak Djokovic is the man to beat in this tournament. He will end the year back on top of the world when he takes over from Federer in the rankings during the tournament. His year has been a resounding success. In an era where we are blessed with so many fantastic players, he was never going to be able to match his amazing 2011, but he has backed it up this season with one Grand Slam and two final appearances in others. Whilst Federer and Murray shared the summer plaudits, and rightly so, it is right and fitting that the Serb will finish the year as the top-ranked player in the world. He is there to be fired at, he knows that a victory in London will validate that spot but also knows that a victory for Murray or Federer will give that player scope to believe that they are the best player in the world right now. Like Murray, Djokovic lost early in Paris and should be fresh. It may not be the bravest of predictions but I tip Djokovic to prove he is still the best player in the world for now and end 2012 as Number 1 and with his second ATP Tour Finals trophy in his locker.
Tagged as ATP Tour Finals, Berdych, Del Potro, Djokovic, Federer, Ferrer, London, Murray, Tipsarevic, Tsonga
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NIMH Biobehavioral Research Awards for Innovative New Scientists (NIMH BRAINS) (R01)
Reissue of RFA-MH-13-110
February 17, 2017 -This RFA has been reissued as RFA-MH-18-200.
NOT-OD-16-004 - NIH & AHRQ Announce Upcoming Changes to Policies, Instructions and Forms for 2016 Grant Applications (November 18, 2015)
NOT-OD-16-006 - Simplification of the Vertebrate Animals Section of NIH Grant Applications and Contract Proposals (November 18, 2015)
NOT-OD-16-011 - Implementing Rigor and Transparency in NIH & AHRQ Research Grant Applications (November 18, 2015)
July 17, 2015 - Notice of Change in Eligibility for Projects Proposing Clinical Trials Submitted to RFA-MH-15-600. See Notice NOT-MH-15-023.
RFA-MH-15-600
The NIMH Biobehavioral Research Awards for Innovative New Scientists (BRAINS) award is intended to support the research and research career development of outstanding, exceptionally productive scientists who are in the early, formative stages of their careers and who plan to make a long term career commitment to research in specific mission areas of the NIMH. This award seeks to assist these individuals in launching an innovative clinical, translational, basic or services research program that holds the potential to profoundly transform the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of mental disorders. The NIMH BRAINS program will focus on the research priorities and gap areas identified in the NIMH Strategic Plan (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/strategic-planning-reports/index.shtml) and the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/research-funding/rdoc/index.shtml).
30 days before the application due date
October 23, 2014; October 23, 2015; October 24, 2016, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
February 2015; February 2016; February 2017
May 2015; May 2016; May 2017
July 1, 2015; July 1, 2016; July 1, 2017
It is critical that applicants follow the instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, except where instructed to do otherwise (in this FOA or in a Notice from the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts). Conformance to all requirements (both in the Application Guide and the FOA) is required and strictly enforced. Applicants must read and follow all application instructions in the Application Guide as well as any program-specific instructions noted in Section IV. When the program-specific instructions deviate from those in the Application Guide, follow the program-specific instructions. Applications that do not comply with these instructions may be delayed or not accepted for review.
The mission of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for recovery, prevention, and cure. An essential element of this mission is the support and career promotion of the future generation of exceptionally talented and creative new scientists who will transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses and enable NIMH to fulfill its vision of a world in which mental illnesses are prevented and cured. The NIMH supports a number of training and fellowship programs for pre- and postdoctoral training, as well as mentored career development awards for faculty in the early stages of their career. However, even with these career development mechanisms in place, to fulfill its mission of assuring a cadre of productive, highly innovative mental health investigators for the future, NIMH needs to support additional programs to identify and inspire the best new investigators and facilitate their establishing high impact, independent research programs in areas relevant to the mission of the NIMH. This award is intended to provide support for highly promising early stage investigators who may lack the preliminary data required for a traditional R01 and allow them to pursue their most innovative, creative, and potentially most impactful ideas at an earlier stage in their career.
Research Scope and Goals
To support its mission, NIMH has formulated a Strategic Plan with the following four overarching objectives:
1. Promote discovery in the brain and behavioral sciences to fuel research on the causes of mental disorders: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/strategic-planning-reports/index.shtml#strategic-objective1
2. Chart mental illness trajectories to determine when, where, and how to intervene: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/strategic-planning-reports/index.shtml#strategic-objective2
3. Develop new and better interventions that incorporate the diverse needs and circumstances of people with mental illnesses: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/strategic-planning-reports/index.shtml#strategic-objective3
4. Strengthen the public health impact of NIMH-supported research: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/strategic-planning-reports/index.shtml#strategic-objective4
These four Strategic Objectives can be viewed as a cumulative progression that begins with promoting discovery in the brain and behavioral sciences in order to better understand the workings of the brain that can be translated to the study of mental disorders. In effect, our efforts to understand how changes in the brain can lead to mental illness will inform (and be informed by) fundamental research to understand the trajectories of mental illnesses across the lifespan and across diverse populations. By learning more about the trajectories by which mental illnesses develop, we hope to stimulate innovative psychosocial and biomedical approaches that can preempt or change these trajectories before mental illness occurs. Finally, we will retain a strong focus on public health impact and create better methods for ensuring that our research reaches all whose lives are affected by mental illness, as well as those who are dedicated to their care.
In order to identify outstanding basic, translational and clinical investigators at the formative stages of their careers and assist them in launching innovative research programs with the potential to transform our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of mental illness and develop innovative treatments and prevention strategies, the NIMH has established this program of R01 research grants intended for early career researchers who have not received their first R01 research grant and are also Early Stage Investigators (ESI) according to NIH policy (NOT-OD-09-013). This program is designed specifically to support unusually creative investigators with highly innovative research ideas that may lack preliminary data necessary for a traditional R01. Accordingly, preliminary data is not required or expected but may be included to demonstrate feasibility. The program emphasizes both the potential of the PD/PI to be a future leader in the field and the innovation, creativity, and potential impact of the project. This program is expected to be highly competitive, and only a limited number of grants will be awarded per year.
Applications proposing clinical trials will be allowed if they respond to the experimental medicine approach to intervention development and testing described in the NIMH Policy for Submission of Applications Containing Clinical Trials NOT-MH-14-007. Under this approach, throughout all phases of intervention development and testing (i.e., from the development of novel interventions through effectiveness testing) projects should be designed to assess the relationship between underlying disease processes and the mechanisms of action through which an intervention produces therapeutic change. Accordingly, applicants that plan to utilize a clinical trial design, are required to propose studies that test 1) whether the intervention's intended targets were engaged and 2) a specific mechanism of action. Thus, intervention trials should be designed so that results, whether positive or negative, will provide information of high scientific utility and will inform decisions about whether further development or testing of the intervention is indicated. Applications submitted to this FOA that do not meet the requirements for NIMH clinical trials described in NOT-MH-14-007 will not be reviewed. For FOAs soliciting NIMH clinical trials, please see NOT-MH-14-007.
The applications in this program are distinguished from most other research grants in that the applications: 1) incorporate a statement of career goals relevant to the mission of the NIMH, 2) include a discussion of previous research experience, achievements, and impact on the field, 3) include active participation of an external advisory committee, and 4) require demonstration of the commitment by the institution to actively support the research program development of Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI). Research projects proposed in response to this FOA will be expected to directly address the objectives and priorities of the NIMH strategic plan and to have a defined impact on our understanding of the pathophysiology, trajectories, effective treatment and/or prevention of psychiatric diseases. Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact NIMH Scientific/Research staff prior to submission to determine if their project meets the goals of the BRAINS program.
It is anticipated that the BRAINS program would be evaluated on a continuing basis by NIMH program staff to assess the impact of the program on the portfolio of the NIMH, as well as on the progression of the awardees' careers. Metrics to be used include, but are not limited to: publications (both numbers and impact factors); academic promotion of PD/PIs; awards; invited talks at national/international symposia; students and postdoctoral fellows trained in the PD/PI's laboratory; honors received by PD/PIs; committee service of PD/PIs; and subsequent grant support awarded. PD/PIs of awarded BRAINS grants will be requested to provide information for the evaluation and any subsequent program evaluations for a period of up to fifteen years after the award
NIMH intends to commit $3,000,000 in FY 2015, FY 2016, and FY2017 to fund 7-10 new awards each year.
An applicant may request a budget for direct costs up to $1.625 million dollars with no more than $400,000 in direct costs for any single year.
The total project period for an application submitted in response to this FOA may not exceed five years.
NIH grants policies as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement will apply to the applications submitted and awards made in response to this FOA.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs)
Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions
Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs)
Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are not eligible to apply.
Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply.
Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are not allowed.
NATO Commercial and Government Entity (NCAGE) Code – Foreign organizations must obtain an NCAGE code (in lieu of a CAGE code) in order to register in SAM.
eRA Commons - Applicants must have an active DUNS number and SAM registration in order to complete the eRA Commons registration. Organizations can register with the eRA Commons as they are working through their SAM or Grants.gov registration. eRA Commons requires organizations to identify at least one Signing Official (SO) and at least one PD/PI account in order to submit an application.
Applicants must be designated Early Stage Investigators (ESI) by NIH as defined in NOT-OD-09-013. In addition, applicants must have faculty appointments which are tenure track or equivalent, generally at the level of Assistant Professor or equivalent, and have a research or health professional level degree (e.g., Ph.D., M.D., or equivalent) at the time of application. If the applicant is at an institution/organization that does not have a tenure track, he or she should hold an equivalent appointment and must have demonstrated support from the institution. Individuals must show that they have established research independence from a mentor, and have dedicated independent laboratory and research resources available to conduct the research proposed in the grant application.
Applicants will be expected to devote at least 6, and preferably up to 9, person months of effort to the award and have a long-term commitment to research relevant to the mission of NIMH. Individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as well as individuals with disabilities are always encouraged to apply for NIH support.
Applicants must have a research career and a long-term commitment to a career in research on the causes, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illnesses consistent with the core mission areas of the NIMH. The NIMH will decline applications not considered central to either the mission or the research priorities of the NIMH as part of the initial evaluation for responsiveness.
Applications proposing clinical trials will be accepted if they conform to the requirements specified in NOT-MH-14-007.
Potential applicants who anticipate developing or testing interventions that focus on measuring target engagement and mechanism of action are strongly advised to contact the Scientific/Research Contact for this FOA regarding the match between an application, current NIMH priorities, and the unique goals of this FOA.
In addition, the NIH will not accept a resubmission (A1) application that is submitted later than 37 months after submission of the new (A0) application that it follows. The NIH will accept submission:
To an RFA of an application that was submitted previously as an investigator-initiated application but not paid;
Of an investigator-initiated application that was originally submitted to an RFA but not paid; or
Of an application with a changed grant activity code.
Investigators who have another scientifically distinct R01 application pending at the time of the BRAINS due date are eligible to submit a BRAINS application for a different project. However, since the BRAINS award is designed for Early Stage Investigators who do not have R01 support, individuals who receive a fundable score and accept funding for another R01, DP1 or DP2 award prior to the award of the BRAINS grant are not eligible to receive the BRAINS award.
Applicants must download the SF424 (R&R) application package associated with this funding opportunity using the “Apply for Grant Electronically” button in this FOA or following the directions provided at Grants.gov.
It is critical that applicants follow the instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, except where instructed in this funding opportunity announcement to do otherwise. Conformance to the requirements in the Application Guide is required and strictly enforced. Applications that are out of compliance with these instructions may be delayed or not accepted for review.
Although a letter of intent is not required, is not binding, and does not enter into the review of a subsequent application, the information that it contains allows IC staff to estimate the potential review workload and plan the review.
By the date listed in Part 1. Overview Information, prospective applicants are asked to submit a letter of intent that includes the following information:
Descriptive title of proposed activity
Name(s), address(es), and telephone number(s) of the PD(s)/PI(s)
Names of other key personnel
Participating institution(s)
Number and title of this funding opportunity
The letter of intent should be sent to:
Kathleen C. Anderson, Ph.D.
Division of Developmental Translational Research
6001 Executive Blvd, Room 6189 MSC 9617
Rockville, MD 20852 (for express/courier service)
Email: kanders1@mail.nih.gov
Required and Optional Components
The forms package associated with this FOA includes all applicable components, required and optional. Please note that some components marked optional in the application package are required for submission of applications for this FOA. Follow all instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide to ensure you complete all appropriate “optional” components.
Other Attachments: Include a "Future Goals and Objectives" attachment (one page maximum) that briefly describes the career track and long-term research interests/objectives of the PD/PI with emphasis on how these interests/objectives relate to the mission of NIMH.
Biographical Sketch: The “Personal Statement” section of the biographical sketch should clearly describe the applicant’s scientific development from graduate school, the postdoctoral experience(s), through the present faculty position. Provide evidence to support your claim of innovation and creativity and describe the impact that your research has had on the field to date. For example, which experiences demonstrate your inclination to challenge paradigms and take intellectual risks, develop unique collaborations, integrate diverse sources of information, or develop novel approaches when new challenges or opportunities arise?
The PD/PI is encouraged to budget sufficient travel costs to present the results of the research at a variety of high-caliber technical meetings, at least one of which is devoted directly to mental health research and is widely attended by other NIMH grantees. A portion of the budget could include travel for external members of the advisory committee to meet yearly. In addition, the PD/PI should budget for travel to the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD each year in years 3-5 to present a seminar or participate in a research symposium. While requested as direct costs, consortium F&A does not count toward the direct cost cap.
Applicants are expected to devote at least 6 person months (50%) effort to the grant. However, after three full years of funding for this grant, should the PD/PI be successful in obtaining funding through another R01 or similar award, the effort on the BRAINS award may be negotiated with the NIMH program staff down to no less than 3.6 person months, (30%), if adequate progress has been made on the aims of the BRAINS award. In addition, the awardees' departments are encouraged to provide an additional 3-3.6 person months (25-30%) release time from clinical, teaching, and administrative duties in order to allow the awardee to devote a larger amount of time to research efforts.
Project Effort for mentored K-awardees: Mentored K awardees are encouraged to seek R01 or equivalent funding to support their research programs. Therefore, NIMH expects that such awardees may be particularly interested in seeking support through the BRAINS R01 program. Such PD/PIs are encouraged to consult with their mentored K Program Official at NIH prior to submission to ensure that the large effort commitments of both awards are feasible for their individual circumstance. However, since the BRAINS program requires a minimum of 6 person months per year, K-Awardees should not apply unless they will be in the final two years of the K-Award at the time of a BRAINS award in light of NIH policy limiting reduction in minimum required percent effort for K recipients (see NIH Guide NOT-OD-09-036).
Research Strategy: In the Research Strategy applicants must address the following topics as they pertain to the research project proposed:
The challenge: What is the hypothesis or problem that will be addressed? If you are testing an unconventional, exceptionally novel hypothesis, how does it challenge the standard paradigm? If no paradigm exists, how will your project create one?
The potential impact: Why is testing the hypothesis or solving the problem important to the mission of the NIMH and how does it specifically address one or more of the objectives or priorities in the NIMH Strategic Plan? Explain how a successful outcome has the potential to transform our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of mental illness, translate research to the clinic in order to develop effective interventions, prevent onset, improve diagnostic accuracy, and/or create cures. Applicants should describe how the research proposed directly addresses the mission and research priorities of the NIMH.
Innovation: State clearly and concisely what makes your project unusually innovative.
Approach: Provide enough information so that reviewers can determine what you are proposing to do. If your methodology is standard, what is unconventional and exceptionally innovative about your approach? How does your approach differ from what other investigators have attempted to do? If the approaches entail a high degree of risk, what will you do if these approaches are unsuccessful and how do the potential benefits/rewards outweigh the risks? If you are including collaborators on the project for aspects of the project that are not within your expertise, please describe their roles and how they will contribute to the success of the project and the career development of the PD/PI. NIMH also encourages applicants to include critical information about study design to enhance the rigor, reliability, and reproducibility of NIMH supported research (NOT-MH-14-004).
Also include:
The appropriateness to the BRAINS program: Why is the proposed research uniquely suited to the stated goals of the BRAINS initiative, rather than a conventional research grant application?
Timeline: Provide a timeline for the proposed research.
The PD/PI is expected to form an external advisory committee. Names of Advisory Committee members should not be listed in the application. This FOA uses the just-in-time concept for the External Advisory Committee members. The application should indicate the areas of scientific expertise and anticipated input, and any critical considerations in the selection of members, at the time of submission. The Advisory Committee is expected to meet at least annually to provide ongoing assessment of the progress of the research; to discuss future research goals, aims, and ideas; and to provide research career guidance to the awardee during the five years of the grant.
NIMH suggests an Advisory Committee structure such as the following: At least three scientists, two of whom are external to the Department, (one external to the University or Institution). One member should have research expertise similar to that of the PD/PI, and one should be an individual who is expert in human or clinical studies and who can provide input into the translation of the research. A schedule for the Advisory committee meetings should be included in the timeline. A copy of the minutes of meetings of the Advisory Committee should be provided to the NIMH as part of the annual progress report of the grant.
Letters of Support: The Chair of the Department where the PD/PIholds the primary academic appointment should provide a letter describing any tangible research support that has been committed to the PD/PI. This may include start up packages provided to the investigator, salary commitment, protected time for research, space and equipment allocations, core facilities that will be made available without charge-back, specialized training and mini-sabbatical experiences to promote career enhancement, etc. In addition, the letter should discuss the departmental commitment to protected research time for the applicant. The department is encouraged to provide release time so that the applicant will be able to devote at least 6, and preferably up to 9 person months (75%) of his/her professional effort to research (See Section III - Eligible Individuals (PD/PI)). The strength of the institutional support will be considered a factor in the review of the application.
If a previous postdoctoral or research mentor remains in the same Institution as the PD/PI, a letter should be included in the application and outline the respective roles of the PD/PI and the research mentor in the design and conduct of the proposed research. The research mentor should also indicate how the proposed research program is expected to be independent from the research directions of his/her laboratory.
Resource Sharing Plan: Individuals are required to comply with the instructions for the Resource Sharing Plans (Data Sharing Plan, Sharing Model Organisms, and Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS)) as provided in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.
Appendix: Do not use the Appendix to circumvent page limits. Follow all instructions for the Appendix as described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.
Planned Enrollment Report
When conducting clinical research, follow all instructions for completing Planned Enrollment Reports as described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.
PHS 398 Cumulative Inclusion Enrollment Report
When conducting clinical research, follow all instructions for completing Cumulative Inclusion Enrollment Report as described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.
Part I. Overview Information contains information about Key Dates. Applicants are encouraged to submit applications before the due date to ensure they have time to make any application corrections that might be necessary for successful submission.
Organizations must submit applications to Grants.gov (the online portal to find and apply for grants across all Federal agencies). Applicants must then complete the submission process by tracking the status of the application in the eRA Commons, NIH’s electronic system for grants administration. NIH and Grants.gov systems check the application against many of the application instructions upon submission. Errors must be corrected and a changed/corrected application must be submitted to Grants.gov on or before the application due date. If a Changed/Corrected application is submitted after the deadline, the application will be considered late.
For assistance with your electronic application or for more information on the electronic submission process, visit Applying Electronically.
The applicant organization must ensure that the DUNS number it provides on the application is the same number used in the organization’s profile in the eRA Commons and for the System for Award Management. Additional information may be found in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.
Upon receipt, applications will be evaluated for completeness by the Center for Scientific Review and responsiveness by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), NIH. Applications that are incomplete and/or nonresponsive will not be reviewed.
In order to expedite review, applicants are requested to notify the NIMH Referral Office by email at NIMHReferral@mail.nih.gov when the application has been submitted. Please include the FOA number and title, PD/PI name, and title of the application.
Use of Common Data Elements in NIH-funded Research
NIH encourages the use of common data elements (CDEs) in basic, clinical, and applied research, patient registries, and other human subject research to facilitate broader and more effective use of data and advance research across studies. CDEs are data elements that have been identified and defined for use in multiple data sets across different studies. Use of CDEs can facilitate data sharing and standardization to improve data quality and enable data integration from multiple studies and sources, including electronic health records. NIH ICs have identified CDEs for many clinical domains (e.g., neurological disease), types of studies (e.g., genome-wide association studies (GWAS)), types of outcomes (e.g., patient-reported outcomes), and patient registries (e.g., the Global Rare Diseases Patient Registry and Data Repository). NIH has established a “Common Data Element (CDE) Resource Portal" (http://cde.nih.gov/) to assist investigators in identifying NIH-supported CDEs when developing protocols, case report forms, and other instruments for data collection. The Portal provides guidance about and access to NIH-supported CDE initiatives and other tools and resources for the appropriate use of CDEs and data standards in NIH-funded research. Investigators are encouraged to consult the Portal and describe in their applications any use they will make of NIH-supported CDEs in their projects.
Applicants are required to follow the instructions for post-submission materials, as described in NOT-OD-13-030.
Important Update: See NOT-OD-16-006 and NOT-OD-16-011 for updated review language for applications for due dates on or after January 25, 2016.
For this particular announcement, note the following:
The BRAINS R01 grant supports the career advancement of exceptionally talented and promising ESIs who can implement innovative, ground-breaking, and potentially risky research projects that would transform the understanding and treatment of mental illness. Unlike traditional R01 applications, preliminary data are not required or expected but may be included. Reviewers should emphasize the following: 1) the importance of the scientific problem and potential impact of the research, 2) the novelty and innovativeness of the approach, and 3) evidence of the applicant's potential for creative and innovative research as an early stage investigator and as a future leader in the field.
Applications will be evaluated for scientific and technical merit by (an) appropriate Scientific Review Group(s), convened by the NIMH in accordance with NIH peer review policy and procedures, using the stated review criteria. Assignment to a Scientific Review Group will be shown in the eRA Commons. Following review by the appropriate scientific review group, candidates identified as the most promising investigators may be invited to NIMH in April-May of the fiscal year for interviews by program staff, NIMH leadership, and NIMH Director. Final selection of awardees will be made by the Director, NIMH, NIH based on 1) the outcome of the initial peer review, 2) the importance of the scientific problem and the potential impact of the research, 3) the novelty and innovativeness of the approach, and 4) evidence of the applicant's potential for creative and innovative research as an early stage investigator.
Does the project address an important problem or a critical barrier to progress in the field? If the aims of the project are achieved, how will scientific knowledge, technical capability, and/or clinical practice be improved? How will successful completion of the aims change the concepts, methods, technologies, treatments, services, or preventative interventions that drive this field? Is the potential significance of the proposed research exceptional, in terms of the magnitude of the expected impact on the field? If the applicant is attempting to verify a novel hypothesis, is it critical, for the field, that the hypothesis be verified or disproved? Is the work paradigm shifting or if no paradigm exists will this project create one? If the proposed work is successful does it have the potential to transform our understanding of the pathophysiology of mental illnesses, prevent their onset, improve diagnostic accuracy, and/or create cures?
Are the PD(s)/PI(s), collaborators, and other researchers well suited to the project? If Early Stage Investigators or New Investigators, or in the early stages of independent careers, do they have appropriate experience and training? If established, have they demonstrated an ongoing record of accomplishments that have advanced their field(s)? If the project is collaborative or multi-PD/PI, do the investigators have complementary and integrated expertise; are their leadership approach, governance and organizational structure appropriate for the project? Do the past achievements of the PD/PI suggest that the investigator is exceptionally innovative and likely to make paradigm-shifting, high-impact discoveries relevant to mental illness? Is there potential for the investigator to profoundly transform our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of mental illness or translate into the development of effective interventions, preventions or cures for mental disorders?
Does the application challenge and seek to shift current research or clinical practice paradigms by utilizing novel theoretical concepts, approaches or methodologies, instrumentation, or interventions? Are the concepts, approaches or methodologies, instrumentation, or interventions novel to one field of research or novel in a broad sense? Is a refinement, improvement, or new application of theoretical concepts, approaches or methodologies, instrumentation, or interventions proposed? Does the project develop or employ novel concepts, approaches, methodologies, tools, or technologies for this area? Is the project original and innovative? Is the hypothesis and/or the proposed methodology unconventional and exceptionally innovative?
Are the overall strategy, methodology, and analyses well-reasoned and appropriate to accomplish the specific aims of the project? Are potential problems, alternative strategies, and benchmarks for success presented? If the project is in the early stages of development, will the strategy establish feasibility and will particularly risky aspects be managed?
Will the scientific environment in which the work will be done contribute to the probability of success? Are the institutional support, equipment and other physical resources available to the investigators adequate for the project proposed? Will the project benefit from unique features of the scientific environment, subject populations, or collaborative arrangements? Is the strength of the Institutional support to the career advancement of PD/PI evident?
The committee will evaluate the involvement of live vertebrate animals as part of the scientific assessment according to the following five points: 1) proposed use of the animals, and species, strains, ages, sex, and numbers to be used; 2) justifications for the use of animals and for the appropriateness of the species and numbers proposed; 3) adequacy of veterinary care; 4) procedures for limiting discomfort, distress, pain and injury to that which is unavoidable in the conduct of scientifically sound research including the use of analgesic, anesthetic, and tranquilizing drugs and/or comfortable restraining devices; and 5) methods of euthanasia and reason for selection if not consistent with the AVMA Guidelines on Euthanasia. For additional information on review of the Vertebrate Animals section, please refer to the Worksheet for Review of the Vertebrate Animal Section.
Reviewers will comment on whether the following Resource Sharing Plans, or the rationale for not sharing the following types of resources, are reasonable: 1) Data Sharing Plan; 2) Sharing Model Organisms; and 3) Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS).
Applications will be evaluated for scientific and technical merit by (an) appropriate Scientific Review Group(s), convened by the NIMH in accordance with NIH peer review policy and procedures, using the stated review criteria. Assignment to a Scientific Review Group will be shown in the eRA Commons. Following review by the appropriate scientific review group, candidates identified as the most promising investigators will be invited to NIMH in April-May of the fiscal year for interviews. Final selection of awardees will be made by the Director, NIMH, NIH based on 1) the outcome of the initial peer review, 2) the importance of the scientific problem and the potential impact of the research, 3) the novelty and innovativeness of the approach, and 4) evidence of the applicant's potential for creative and innovative research as an early stage investigator.
May undergo a selection process in which only those applications deemed to have the highest scientific and technical merit (generally the top half of applications under review) will be discussed and assigned an overall impact score.Will receive a written critique.
Appeals of initial peer review will not be accepted for applications submitted in response to this FOA.
Applications will be assigned to the appropriate NIH Institute or Center. Applications will compete for available funds with all other recommended applications submitted in response to this FOA.The following will be considered in making funding decisions:
After the peer review of the application is completed, the PD/PI will be able to access his or her Summary Statement (written critique) via the eRA Commons.
A formal notification in the form of a Notice of Award (NoA) will be provided to the applicant organization for successful applications. The NoA signed by the grants management officer is the authorizing document and will be sent via email to the grantee’s business official.
Any application awarded in response to this FOA will be subject to the DUNS, SAM Registration, and Transparency Act requirements as noted on the Award Conditions and Information for NIH Grants website.
When multiple years are involved, awardees will be required to submit the annual Non-Competing Progress Report (PHS 2590 or RPPR) and financial statements as required in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.
A final progress report, invention statement, and the expenditure data portion of the Federal Financial Report are required for closeout of an award, as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.
Finding Help Online: https://grants.nih.gov/support/index.html
Email: commons@od.nih.gov
Contact CenterTelephone: 800-518-4726
Email: GrantsInfo@nih.gov
David Armstrong, Ph.D.
Email: armstrada@mail.nih.gov
Rebecca Claycamp, CRA
Email: rclaycam@mail.nih.gov
Awards are made under the authorization of Sections 301 and 405 of the Public Health Service Act as amended (42 USC 241 and 284) and under Federal Regulations 42 CFR Part 52 and 45 CFR Parts 74 and 92.
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The 'Chop Stands Alone — The Reykjavik Grapevine
The ‘Chop Stands Alone
RX Beckett
Once called “Nashville’s most fucked up country band” by Wilco’s Ken Coomer, Lambchop are one of the most complex and unclassifiable bands to emerge from the iconic southern town in the past twenty years. Bonded together since 1987 by their frontman, Kurt Wagner, the group has had nearly twenty members, released close to 50 recordings, and toured the world many times over. The band is a bit of a late bloomer—Kurt was 35 when Lambchops first album was recorded—but nonetheless has had as many sonic shifts and changes as their younger counterparts. They just seem a bit more comfortable doing so. Sandwiched between two gigs in one weekend to close out their recent European tour, we sat down with Kurt on the deck at KEX Hostel for a solid, chain-smoking chat.
Nice to meet you, Kurt. How are you?
Oh, fine! You know…
Your band has been around ages, but it seems like you still don’t really fit into the typical understanding of the Nashville recording scene, nor into the sort of “Pitchfork indie” world either…
Nobody knows what to do with us, really. Which is fine with me. That’s why we started recording in Nashville, because it had all these studios. We were able to go in there on weekends on the cheap and work with really great equipment and great engineers. People that were happy to do it because it wasn’t country music. That was sort of part of the idea. We were trying to be ourselves and make music that we like and use the facilities that were around there for that.
We were just like normal kids anywhere making music for ourselves, basically. It didn’t necessarily sound like country music but there was a point where I started thinking about it conceptually—what country music is—and we had all those qualities. It just didn’t sound like country music.
Does this dynamic of not quite fitting in help the longevity of a band like yours?
I think so, definitely. Even though people, I guess by necessity, need to sort of classify things in order to describe them to others. The fact is that we don’t actually fit those things. Or at least if we do it’s just one little facet, it doesn’t really describe what we do or tell the whole thing. I still have a lot of trouble describing what the hell it is we do. It’s just about playing the music that we like or that I’m drawn to or that I write about.
WORK HARD, STICK AROUND
Is it more a question of work ethic rather than concept?
Yeah, absolutely! I think it’s about just continuing to make music. Everyone’s musical tastes—well, I don’t know if this is true, but at least in my case—change a lot over the years. I’ve never been sort of singular about a particular type of music. I’ve always liked lots of different kinds of music, but at the same time I’m starting to discover music that I didn’t think so much about before, and that’s suddenly interesting. I think that’s because when you’ve been hanging around long enough you start thinking, “What was wrong with that? That sounds great!” You actually rediscover stuff. I just think you open up to other things so maybe it’s just time that that’s ringin’ the bell.
Does this openness also work its way into the stories you tell in your lyrics?
The lyrics are a funny thing because I try these different methods of writing. They’re usually centred around experience—friends’ experiences or something like that—but they’re not necessarily stories in the literary sense of a beginning, middle and end, or you have a message or something like that. The message sort of comes out by virtue of thinking about it a lot and going, ‘oh that’s what it means!’
There does seem to be a stream of consciousness to them sometimes. Are you fond of ambiguity in that way?
It’s not intentional in that sense. It’s just that if it feels right and I like it then it’s okay. Sometimes it ends up being quite evident later on; it just takes a while to sink in. So it’s not necessarily a stream of consciousness thing but I’ve tried to write like that on occasion. Other times I try to be very specific. If there were methods to doing it they would probably be something I wouldn’t want to keep repeating.
As far as writing in general, there’s no set way of doing it. It’s the same thing musically as it is with writing lyrics. You learn from it and you grow from it. At first I was very satisfied to let things be what they were, but now I’m much more the opposite. I’ll work on a song for a year in order to refine it that much. It’s not that either way is more successful than the other, it’s just what they are. They worked in their own context.
BUMPIN’ DANCE LAB
Would the term “experimental” be applicable to the way you work?
Oh, I do experiment, but more in the true notion of experimentation where there’s actually a thesis involved or a theorem, and then you try to prove that. It’s not just gettin’ high and spewing out a lot of stuff—although I used to do that as a kid. It’s more about saying, ‘wouldn’t it be interesting if I tried to work this way or if I drew information from a certain source or a concept.’
Like, I’m interested in making dance music at the moment and it’s a conceptual idea based on a 50-second comedy monologue by Buddy Hackett. Somehow that’s gonna become bumpin’ dance music. Will it come across literally? It really doesn’t matter. That’s what started the idea, then you get in the lab and you work on it a little while and see where it ends up. It may have nothing to do with that 50-second thing at the end or it might.
That actually sounds really cool. So the show tonight, how will that be compared to last night’s gig here at KEX?
That was pretty atypical for us over the last few years. We play clubs and stuff like that, but not just kinda setting up and going on. We do that in Nashville on occasion and we sort of prefer it to some sort of organised thing there, just because there are so many bars and clubs to play. We never wanted to be some sort of hometown phenomenon. Nashville’s not the kind of town that supports music in that way—it’s an industry town. It’s about music business, recording industry; it’s not about supporting musicians like… this country is! [Laughs] This whole country is very supportive of artists. Nashville is not like that.
Although there’s lots of great music now being made, it took a long time for that to happen. When we started making it, bands were convinced that you had to be signed to a record label. That was the ultimate goal. Then once you got signed to a label you could tour the world, or whatever. We did the opposite. We just made our own records for our own sake and a record label in Germany liked it and they put it out. Next thing you know, we’re playing everywhere but Nashville.
There was no DIY recording scene there at the time?
Not in Nashville. Not much. The goal was to be signed on a record label and our goal was to not. We just figured we’d put ‘em out and distribute them ourselves.
Kind of an anti-vision of the Altman film…
Well, that film was kind of an anti-vision of what was going on there at the time! When that came out, people in Nashville were appalled. They were freaked out. They thought it did not represent Nashville at all.
Great movie, though.
It’s an excellent film.
TURN IT DOWN
Would you say your show tonight will be a little more “hardcore” than last night’s?
Oh, it’s gonna be hardcore like, super quiet. Cause we play quietly. Last night was not representative of that. We tried to play quietly in there but we couldn’t hear anything! The concept I’m working on now, particularly live, is one of playing very quietly. In order to pull that off you sort of need a certain situation.
So last night was the party.
Absolutely! And it was great! We had a great time, but musically it was not what I’m trying to do at this point. I have an idea that music has become louder and louder and louder when you go to clubs or bars, and one thing is competing against the other. The louder the music is, the louder the people shout trying to have a conversation. We’re playing quietly now that people could have a conversation by whispering to each other. Whether they wanna hear what you’re doing because they care, or they just wanna party, that’s fine.
We’ve just been doing it long enough that this is the way I think I can continue making music for a while. I won’t grow hoarse, I won’t go deaf, it’s interesting and there’s a way to make it dynamic. We’re just going the inverse, a little bit, because the type of music I’m writing now is served by that. Obviously the dance music isn’t gonna be like that. I think once I’m done with that I’m gonna try to combine it with Lambchop. Who knows what the fuck that’ll sound like.
Read a review of Lambchop’s live performance here.
Next: Strange Beasts Bárujárn And Árni-related News
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Music News: Icelandic Women Make A Splash, Hatari, And More!
by The Reykjavík Grapevine 9:48 am
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Wayne Kramer's Air-Raid
By Bill Chemerka of The Aquarian
Live at The Meadowbrook
Cedar Grove, NJ.
Long before the popularity of weekend new wavers and trendy fashion / art-rock dance bands, the real rebels of rock 'n' roll, like Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls and the MC-5, were making waves against mainstream pop-shlock.
Despite such survivors as ex-Doll David Johansen, Iggy Pop and MC-5 grad Wayne Kramer, few veteran rock rebels still roam the clubs and concert halls of America.
Still, the aforementioned artists are alive and kicking, and occasionally they still manage to generate the desirable benevolent deviance upon which rock 'n' roll thrives. Such was the case recently when Wayne Kramer's Air Raid invaded the Meadowbrook for a blitzkrieg of a show.
The band - Bobby Dee (ex-Boyfriends), bass and vocals; Gregg Gerson, drums and vocals - and Kramer, guitar and vocals; kicked off their midnight set with "Looking At You," a hard rocker that showcased the trio's collective skills. Dee and Gerson, one of the best rhythm sections around, kept an intense foundation as Kramer cranked out some dexterous riffs during the song.
The frantic pace continued on "Show Off" and "Hotel." "Show Off" allowed the band to display their vocal harmonics and "Hotel" featured Gerson and Dee's rhythmic partnership rather well.
The band was particularly solid on a reworking of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come." The reggae classic was stripped of its roots-like beat thanks to the galvanized injection of Kramer's heavy metal approach and Gerson's straight ahead kicking.
After an infectious delivery of the danceable "I need Your Love," the group performed "Ramblin' Rose," which featured a lengthy, improvisational solo by Kramer that dazzled the crowd.
The band's set stalled somewhat during a rather ordinary interpretation of the Supremes' "Stop In The Name Of Love."
Following the song, Kramer delivered a nonmusical sermon to the crowd about the significance of "being somebody."
Some audience members got somewhat bored by it all, but their apathy was soon eliminated as the trio launched the legendary "Kick out the Jams," one of rock 'n' roll's all-time great anthems.
A rousing encore of Little Richard's "Tutti Fruitti" was anticlimactic compared to the fireworks that preceded it, but this was a minor flaw to say the least.
Overall, Wayne Kramer's Air Raid put on one of the best rock 'n' roll shows this writer has seen in a long time. If the band can keep up this kind of performance night after night, they might emerge as one of the best new bands (the trio formed back in December) of the year.
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Hillary Clinton Receives Endorsement From Boston Globe Editorial Board
By Cathy Milne-Ware on January 24, 2016 No Comment
On Jan. 24, 2016, the editorial board of the Boston Globe Newspaper published their support for Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary. The board states she is the best choice, not because of her opponents weaknesses but, instead, for her “demonstrated strength and experience.”
New Hampshire’s primary is scheduled for Feb. 9, 2016. The paper’s editorial board believes the U.S. has different challenges in 2016 as opposed to when Clinton last ran for president. While they believe Barack Obama has not been able to move forward on all of his proposed agenda, Clinton is the democrat who can “protect, consolidate, and extend” his gains.
The board endorses Clinton, because she is more grounded, seasoned, and has a greater opportunity to move the U.S. forward in the future. Mentioned also, is her 4-year-stint as secretary of state. They also agree with and support her stance on lifting restrictions for federal research into the crisis of gun violence, as well as her goal to reimpose the federal ban on assault weapons. The ban was not renewed when George W. Bush was the president.
Boston Globe’s editorial board cited the statistics on the U.S. gun violence, in 2013, there were over 33,000 Americans killed by firearms. Adding that Clinton has an aggressive record on her stand against guns, whereas, Sanders appears to be disingenuous with his stance. They state, according to his voting record, he is in favor of protecting firearms corporations from legal liability.
They further believe that Clinton is the most likely candidate to move forward immigration reform, claiming it eluded Obama due to his lack of aggressiveness on the issue. She, they assert, is the most likely capable of picking up where Obama left off, supporting the issues he managed to achieve, and standing her ground against the GOP were she elected to office.
By Cathy Milne
Boston Globe Newspaper: New Hampshire should go to Hillary Clinton
Image Courtesy of Gage Skidmore’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
clinton, GOP, Gun Control, Obama, secretary of state
Hillary Clinton Receives Endorsement From Boston Globe Editorial Board added by Cathy Milne-Ware on January 24, 2016
View all posts by Cathy Milne-Ware →
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What happens when you burp in space? Can you comb a hairy doughnut? Is the platypus even a real animal?
Join us for a mind-boggling look at the record-breaking world around us. From the science of slam dunks and the smelliest substances to over-engineered inventions and the physics of cats, you'll find page after page of amazing - and downright unbelievable - facts in Guinness World Records: Science & Stuff.
Videos: Science in action
Record Breaking Inventions of the Future!
Record Breaking Inventions of the Future! - Science & Stuff
Kids react to 'Loud Science' with Robin Ince
Big Bang Fair 2018
The world's loudest burp - Science & Stuff Explained
Real life Iron Man suit - Science Explained with Science Bob
The subject of science can sometimes be quite difficult – but it doesn’t always have to be!
Extraordinary human body records
In this video we take a look at the science behind the world's tallest living man, loudest burp, longest fingernails and more
Marshmallow catapult experiment
Farthest flight by hoverboard
The farthest flight by hoverboard is 2,252.4 m (7,389 ft 9 in) and was achieved by Franky Zapata (France), in Sausset-les-Pins, France, on 30 April 2016.
Josef Todtling
The oldest bodybuilder is Jim Arrington (USA, b. 1 September 1932) and was aged 83 years 6 days when competing at a professional bodybuilding competition in Venice, California, USA, on 7 September 2015.
Oldest gymnast
The oldest gymnast is Johanna Quaas (b. 20 November 1925, Germany) who, at the age of 86 years, is a regular competitor in the amateur competition Landes-Seniorenspiele, staged in Saxony, Germany.
Largest walking robot
The largest walking robot measures 15.72 m (51 ft 6 in) in length, 12.33 m (40 ft 5 in) in width, 8.20 m (26 ft 10 in) in height and was made by Zollner Elektronik AG (Germany) in Zandt, Germany. It was displayed in Berlin, Germany, on 27 September 2012.
Oldest bodybuilder
Oldest bodybuilder (male)
Dinosaur poop collection
Largest collection of coprolites
George Frandsen (USA) is the proud owner of the largest coprolite collection, with 1,277 pieces of prehistoric poo as of 2015. His fossils are housed at a museum in Florida for all to see/sniff..
Meet some of the female scientists included in Science & Stuff. Find out how they got into their chosen fields and plans for the future.
Dr Blanca Huertas
Simone Giertz
Sabine Hauert
Dr Rachel Albrecht
Visit our Make & Break page to find out how to make your own slime and break a record with it
Most powerful pencil sharpener
Peter Svensson’s (SWE) pencil sharpener is the epitome of over-engineering. Made in 1999, the souped-up stationery is driven by a V12 engine borrowed from a tank! Rated at 670 hp – about the same as a McLaren F1 LM sports car.
Most backflips with a water jet pack
Most backflips with a water jet pack in one minute
The most backflips with a water jet pack in one minute is 29 and was achieved by Liu He (China) in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China, on 10 October 2016.
Loudest burp
Loudest burp (male)
Paul Hunn (UK) unleashed a burp of 109.9 dB at Butlins, Bognor Regis, UK, on 23 August 2009.
Largest loop the loop in a car
The largest loop the loop in a car measures 19.08 m (62 ft 7.1 in) in diameter and was achieved by Terry Grant and Jaguar (both UK) at the Niederrad Racecourse, Frankfurt, Germany, on 14 September 2015.
Largest gathering of scientists
Largest gathering of people dressed as scientists
The largest gathering of people dressed as scientists is 893, and was achieved by USANA Health Sciences (USA) in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, on 16 August 2017.
Fastest time to fit in a box
Fastest time to cram into a box (female)
On 15 Sep 2011, contortionist Skye Broberg (NZ) folded her whole body into a box that measured just 52 x 45 x 45 cm (20 x 17 x 17 in) in just 4.78 sec.
Fastest pram
Colin Furze from the UK has made a career out of strapping engines and jets to slow-moving things such as bumper cars, mobility scooters and, um, toilets. In 2012, he hit 53.46 mph (86.04 km/h) while riding a supercharged stroller.
Brian Cox and Robin Ince
A couple of very clever scientists who appear in Science & Stuff. Brian holds the record for the most tickets sold for a science tour.
Are you a master of making? Proud to call yourself a science geek? It’s time to get hands on with science… and stuff
Try out our 10 cool home projects!
Loop-the-loop puzzle
How fast can you find the missing pieces?
Test your knowledge about the world's most advanced machines
The Guinness World Records collection
Guinness World Records is proud to bring you three incredible new books. The record-breaking annual is back and bursting with new images, facts and features. With a unique superheroes section and specially designed “superlative” posters, the 2018 edition crams in the most astonishing achievements from around the globe. We also present the 11th edition of the world’s best-selling gaming annual, Gamer’s Edition, which brings you a dazzling array of record-breaking gaming superheroes. And new to this year’s selection is a treat for animal lovers everywhere. Guinness World Records: Amazing Animals turns the spotlight on the most purr-fect pets, the cutest critters and the wackiest wildlife. With these three Guinness World Records books, there’s something for everyone.
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John Lewis on Welfare & Poverty
Democratic Representative (GA-5)
Voted NO on maintaining work requirement for welfare recipients.
Prohibits any experimental pilot or demonstration project that: waives compliance with mandatory work requirements
Rescinds and nullifies any such waiver granted before the enactment of this Act.
Rep. REICHERT: Congress must ensure that work continues to be the centerpiece of the TANF welfare program. We are here today debating the Obama administration's efforts to undermine work requirements. Bipartisan discussions were actually happening before the Obama administration announced they would waive work requirements for welfare recipients last summer. That announcement completely undermined bipartisan negotiations in our committee about ways to strengthen this program. Usually, if an administration wants to change the law, they must submit a legislative proposal for Congress to consider, but that's not what the Obama administration did with its proposal to waive the TANF work requirements.
Rep. LEVIN: Last summer the administration proposed that states would be allowed to apply for waivers and have some flexibility in terms of the application of the work requirements--not the end of them or changing them, but the implementation of them. The idea that the administration is going to try to overturn welfare reform is ridiculous. States have to apply individually for waivers, and they have to explain in detail why the approach would lead to either more employment or better jobs for people who are trying to stay off welfare.
Rep. NEAL: I chaired the Democratic position [on 1990s welfare reform]. One of the goals of welfare reform was to move unemployed Americans from welfare to work, and it did work. The legislation has been very successful in meeting that goal. Welfare reform put people back on the work rolls. Welfare rolls have dropped by half, & poverty amongst children has dropped as well. Reference: Preserving the Welfare Work Requirement & TANF Extension Act; Bill H.R.890 ; vote number 13-HV068 on Mar 13, 2013
Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers.
Voting YES on this amendment would add $70 million to the Section 8 housing voucher program, funding an additional 10,000 affordable housing vouchers.
Proponents of the amendment say:
This amendment would enable an additional 10,000 low-income families to afford safe, decent housing.
To offset this increase, the amendment cuts a poorly managed computer upgrade program. The committee has been very ingenious in squirreling away money in different accounts and the bill would still provide $94 million in funds for IT projects.
We have a choice: Do we want to help thousands of families obtain affordable housing, or do we think it is more important to have a somewhat faster computer upgrade in HUD?
Our amendment does not seek to restore the amount to the amount that the President recommended, which is $144 million more than the committee recommends, it seeks merely to restore $70 million, or about half of what the difference is to what the President recommended.
This is less than the bare minimum of what is needed. We have hundreds of thousands of families on waiting lists, waiting up to 10 years for decent housing for Section 8 vouchers.
Opponents say:
The existing bill fully funds the renewal of Section 8 vouchers. Additional funds are simply not necessary.
The cost of Section 8 vouchers are remaining constant and in some markets are actually decreasing. As such, this funding level will provide funds to restore vouchers that may have been lost in recent years.
The proposed reduction will cause delays in critically needed efforts to modernize antiquated legacy computer systems.
Reference: Department of Housing and Urban Development appropriations; Bill HR 5576 Amendment 1015 ; vote number 2006-267 on Jun 13, 2006
Voted NO on promoting work and marriage among TANF recipients.
Welfare Reauthorization Bill: Vote to pass a bill that would approve $16.5 billion to renew the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program through fiscal 2008 and call for new welfare aid conditions. The bill raises the work requirements for individuals getting assistance from 30 to 40 hours per week. States would be required to increase the number of recipient families working from the current level of 50 percent to 70 percent or more in 2008. The bill also provides an additional $1 billion in mandatory state child care grants and provides $200 million annually for marriage promotion programs. Reference: Bill sponsored by Pryce, R-OH; Bill HR 4 ; vote number 2003-30 on Feb 13, 2003
Voted NO on treating religious organizations equally for tax breaks.
Vote to pass a bill that would allow religious organizations to compete equally with other non-governmental groups for federal funds to provide social service, and provide $13.3 billion in tax breaks for charitable giving over 10 years. Bill HR 7 ; vote number 2001-254 on Jul 19, 2001
Voted YES on responsible fatherhood via faith-based organizations.
Vote to establish a program that would promote more responsible fatherhood by creating educational, economic and employment opportunities and give grants to state agencies and nonprofit groups, including faith-based institutions. Reference: Bill sponsored by Johnson, R-CT.; Bill HR 3073 ; vote number 1999-586 on Nov 10, 1999
Sponsored maintaining SNAP nutrition assistance program.
Lewis co-sponsored House Resolution on SNAP
WHEREAS hunger is a serious threat to individual dignity, productivity, learning, economic prosperity, health, and development;
WHEREAS food insecurity means that people face an ongoing struggle against hunger;
WHEREAS 50.1 million people lived in food insecure households in 2011;
WHEREAS the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), established in the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, is the nation's first line of defense against hunger and food insecurity;
WHEREAS SNAP served more than 47.5 million individuals in October 2012;
WHEREAS the SNAP benefits average less than $1.50 per individual per meal;
WHEREAS SNAP participation rises when the economy is weak;
WHEREAS millions of Americans need to turn to SNAP as a way to feed themselves and their families;
Whereas SNAP is an efficient public-private partnership that runs on the regular channels of commerce--regular retail food stores and electronic benefit transfer (EBT) systems;
WHEREAS every dollar in new SNAP benefits generates up to $1.79 in economi Source: H.RES.90 13-HRes90 on Feb 28, 2013
Increase the earned income tax credit.
Lewis co-sponsored increasing the earned income tax credit
Provisions Relating to Earned Income Credit: Amends the Internal Revenue Code to repeal the supplemental young child credit and revise and increase the earned income credit. Source: Tax Simplification Act (H.R.13) 1993-H13 on Jan 5, 1993
Fully fund Head Start; Job Corps; and WIC food program.
Lewis co-sponsored fully fund Head Start; Job Corps; and WIC food program
Making appropriations to begin a phase-in toward full funding of the special supplemental food program for women, infants and children (WIC) and of Head Start programs, and to expand the Job Corps program for the year ending September 30, 1994. Source: H.R.1722 1993-H1722 on Apr 20, 1993
Develop a strategy to eliminate extreme global poverty.
Lewis co-sponsored developing a strategy to eliminate extreme global poverty
A BILL to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.
More than 1 billion people worldwide live on less than $1 per day, and another 1.6 billion people struggle to survive on less than $2 per day.
At the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, the US joined more than 180 other countries in committing to work toward goals to improve life for the world's poorest people by 2015.
The year 2007 marks the mid-point to the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015.
The UN Millennium Development Goals include the goal of reducing by 1/2 the proportion of people that live on less than $1 per day, & cutting in half the proportion of people suffering from hunger and unable to access safe drinking water and sanitation.
DECLARATION OF POLICY: It is the policy of the United States to promote the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.
REQUIREMENT TO DEVELOP COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY: The US Government shall develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the US foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by 1/2 the proportion of people worldwide who live on less than $1 per day. The strategy shall include specific and measurable goals, efforts to be undertaken, benchmarks, and timetables to achieve the objectives. Source: Global Poverty Act (S.2433/H.R.1302) 2007-S2433 on Dec 7, 2007
Support school breakfast for low-income children.
Lewis signed bill favoring school breakfast for low-income kids
A resolutix`on expressing the sense of the Senate that providing breakfast in schools through the national school breakfast program has a positive impact on the lives and classroom performance of low-income children.
Recognizes the positive effect the National School Breakfast Program has had on children's classroom performance and the lives of low-income children and families.
Expresses strong support for states that have successfully implemented school breakfast programs and encourages all states to improve their programs.
Recognizes:
the importance of providing states with resources to improve the availability of adequate and nutritious breakfasts;
the role nonprofit and community organizations play in increasing awareness of, and access to, breakfast programs for low-income children; and
hat National School Breakfast Week helps draw attention to the need for, and success of, the National School Breakfast Program.
Source: SR67&HRes210 2009-SR67 on Mar 5, 2009
Reduce the concentration of wealth & wage inequality.
Lewis adopted the Progressive Caucus Position Paper:
Economic inequality is the result of two and a half decades of government policies and rules governing the economy being tilted in favor of large asset owners at the expense of wage earners. Tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy, government regulations and other rules have reflected this pro-investor bias. We propose the introduction or reintroduction of a package of legislative initiatives that will close America�s economic divide and address both income and wealth disparities.
The Progressive Caucus could take the lead in the formation of a national leadership steering committee to put this dramatic issue before the public through coordinated media campaigns and local education and action forums. The political program should be concerned with:
Reducing wage inequality: We are proposing initiatives to both raise the minimum wage floor and prevent the tax code from subsidizing excessive compensation.
Asset-building initiatives: The government has historically given land to citizens. Unfortunately, the programs were discriminatory toward people of color and kept a whole generation of people off the asset-building train. We are proposing a universal asset building approach that will dramatically reduce the number of �asset less� households and reduce the disparity of wealth for all Americans.
Addressing the over concentration of wealth and power: The concentration of wealth is a problem because it distorts our democracy, destabilizes the economy and erodes our at our social and cultural fabric. Too much concentrated wealth leads to too much concentrated power and begins to undermine our participatory democracy.
After a decade of economic prosperity, the moral question remains: if we can�t address the persistent economic divide in our nation today, when can we? Source: CPC Position Paper: Income Inequality 99-CPC3 on Nov 11, 1999
Click here for definitions & background information on Welfare & Poverty.
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2012 Governor, House and Senate candidates on Welfare & Poverty: John Lewis on other issues:
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GA Archives
Cannon HOB 343, Washington, DC 20515
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Highway 98.9Highway 98.9
Tom Petty’s Former Mansion on Sale for $4.9 Million
Corey Irwin
Jade and Tiffany Mills / Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
Tom Petty fans can purchase a one-of-a-kind piece of the rocker’s history, as long as they happen to have a small fortune. The late legend’s former hillside home is on the market for $4.9 million.
The gated, three-story retreat features many impressive highlights, including a recording studio, stone fireplace, wine cellar, gym and massage room. The house boasts six bedrooms, eight full bathrooms and two half-baths, with ample natural lighting throughout, thanks to an abundance of windows and skylights.
Outside, the tree-filled property features gorgeous landscaping, a gazebo, a patio, a cabana, a fire pit and multiple decks. There is also a pool and spa, complete with cascading waterfall. More details can be found at the home's official listing.
Petty previously had a different house at the same location. That residence was destroyed by an arsonist in 1987; the rocker and his family had to flee the flames. The traumatic experience inspired "I Won't Back Down," the song's defiant lyrics reflecting Petty's feelings toward his attacker.
A different classic comes to mind when looking at the current house for sale. The property is situated in the San Fernando Valley, close to Reseda and less than a mile from Ventura Boulevard. Though there isn’t a freeway running through the yard, the 101 isn’t far away. Coincidence or not, the home was completed in 1989, the same year Petty released his hugely successful hit song “Free Fallin’," which references many of these locations.
Petty died in 2017 at the age of 66, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most revered, and commercially successful, artists of all time. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer sold more than 80 million albums, earned three Grammy Awards and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His many hit songs include "Runnin' Down a Dream," "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and “American Girl.”
Scroll through the pictures below to see more of Petty’s former estate. Note that the images capture the home as it currently appears, not what it looked like when Petty lived there. As such, the instruments and platinum records on the walls do not belong to Petty, but are instead the property of the home’s current owner, music-industry veteran Randy Spendlove.
Next: See More Rock Star Homes
Source: Tom Petty’s Former Mansion on Sale for $4.9 Million
Filed Under: Tom Petty
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So far we have seen the Universe evolve from a tiny point of false vacuum into a huge dark gas of simple atoms 380 million years later. The next big step in history was the formation of the first stars and galaxies.
A galaxy is an island of stars, typically hundreds of billions of them, separated from hundreds of billions of other galaxies by a vast ocean of almost empty space. In this story we will look at one particular galaxy (the Milky Way), since that is the one we know best, the one where we live. But we should not forget that, scattered far and wide across the Universe, there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies very similar to ours. So before we focus down on the galaxy where we live, let's first look at the big picture.
How did all these galaxies form and how are they arranged in space?
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History's Women
The Unsung Heroines
Sarah Elizabeth Thompson
Tennessee Widow and Spy
1838 – 1909 A.D.
By Anne Adams
On that day in September 1864 as Greenville, Tennessee widow Sarah Elizabeth Thompson was working in her kitchen her ordinary domestic routine turned into an encounter with a Confederate “freebooter,” a ride for help, and then a quick glance into a neighbor’s garden. All events that would change her life.
Though Tennessee did not officially secede from the union during the Civil War, its citizens were divided, with some supporting the Union and others the Confederacy. In East Tennessee, where Sarah lived, it was generally Union in sentiment though there were a few Confederate sympathizers. And those were the ones who supported Confederate General John Hunt Morgan who led his men in raids on communities throughout the several states, raids that destroyed a great amount of property, civilian and military.
Then in June 1863, Morgan and his men crossed the Ohio River to conduct raids in the area of Cincinnati; but he was eventually cornered, captured and imprisoned in Columbus. However, by April 1864 Morgan and some of his men escaped as the Federals began to track him down.
Though he was on the run with only a small force, Morgan decided to attack a Union cavalry detachment under the command of General Alvan Gillem at Bull’s Gap, north of Greeneville so he headed in that direction. When he arrived in the area in September 1864, and entered Sarah’s home it was an unfortunate time – for him. For she was anxious to get revenge on the man she thought had inspired her husband’s murder.
Sarah’s husband Sylvanis had been a recruiter for the Union forces in the Greenville area, but he had been shot and killed in January that year, possibly by brigands attached to Morgan’s command. Though details were sketchy, Sarah was sure that Morgan’s men had done it and thus she took his visit as a chance to get her revenge.
She herself was involved in espionage for the Union, and in fact just a few weeks before Morgan arrived she had ridden more than 100 miles to and from Knoxville, carrying dispatches. At this time she was 25 and had two young daughters, Lilly and Harriett.
When Morgan arrived at her home she was busy in the kitchen. He swaggered around the house, telling her he was headed for Knoxville, and when he arrived he would send for her since “she would make some Rebel a good wife,” as she wrote later. She listened in bitter frustration, but things didn’t get any better when some of Morgan’s men began to raid her pantry and steal what they could – including her breadbasket.
When he left to head for the nearby home of friends, Sarah decided to take action. Somehow she knew of Morgan’s plan to attack the Union detachment at nearby Bull’s Gap and she reasoned that if he spent the day and night drinking with his friends he would be in no condition to attack. So to get Federals on the scene before he recovered, she reasoned she needed to inform General Gillem that Morgan was in Greenville.
She avoided Morgan’s men on the edge of town, and mounted on a horse acquired from a farmer, she cantered out in a downpour through a dark countryside. Racing past several sleeping communities, eventually she met a mounted sentry with a lantern. Within a few minutes she was speaking with a skeptical General Gillem who not only did not believe Morgan was in Greenville but also didn’t want to accept a “woman’s tale” as he called it.
Then two of his officers vouched for Sarah since they knew her previous service, so when she returned to Greenville she was accompanied with a force of Union men.
At dawn at his friend’s house, Morgan woke up, calling for brandy, but when he saw that the Yankees had arrived he pulled on his trousers over his nightshirt and scrambled out of the door. He sought refuge in a hotel, then a church.
The Union forces with Sarah met no opposition since Morgan’s men had fled but they began to search the town for their commander as Sarah returned home to find her children still asleep. She decided to search for herself, so she changed clothes and then set out for the nearby home where Morgan had been staying.
Meanwhile, Morgan had returned to the house but he was hiding nearby after he ducked under the board fence and hid in a grape arbor adjoining the house. He was crouching there as Sarah came by.
Spotting the trouser/nightshirt clad figure among the vines, she called to a Union soldier and told him: “Sir, if you will tear the fence down I assure you will find Morgan!” The soldier pulled the fence board aside, recognized Morgan and called him to surrender. Thinking Morgan was reaching for a weapon; the man fired and killed Morgan.
By evening the rest of Gillem’s force arrived just in time to rescue Sarah after her home was invaded by Confederate supporters. Since she obviously couldn’t safely stay in town, she was moved with her children out of state where she eventually worked in Federal hospitals.
There arose some controversy as to who exactly identified Morgan, but one supporter of hers claims it was Andrew Johnson, a former neighbor. In a letter of introduction signed in November 1864 just months before he became Vice President, Johnson wrote: “It affords me pleasure to state that the bearer thereof, Mrs. Thompson, .. is pusonally [sic] known to me as an East Tennessee lady of the highest respectability and unquestionably loyal to the Federal Government…”
After the war Sarah went on lecture tours, remarried and had two more children. Then after her second husband’s death she moved to Washington seeking employment and though she recently held a $600 a year clerical position at the Treasury Department when funding dried she was unemployed.
A now desperate and also bitter Sarah wrote pleading letters to Congress and the War Department seeking financial support or employment and then with the endorsement of officers who had served at Bull’s Gap, she found a job with the Postal Inspector’s office.
In the late 1880s Sarah married again but after her husband died she finally obtained a pension by means of an act of Congress. The same bill also offered congressional endorsement of her part in Morgan’s death.
After 1900 Sarah lived in Washington where she was active in her local church as well as the women’s auxiliary to a national veteran’s group. Then after she retired in 1903 to live with a son she was killed in a traffic accident in 1909 and was buried with full military honors at Arlington Cemetery. Today a small regulation headstone marks her grave.
Anne Adams, a resident of Athens, Texas, is a retired church staffer and has been a writer for many years, publishing in Christian and secular publications. Presently she has a weekly historical column in the Athens Review.
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Español Idaho.gov About Us Contact Us Careers
About IDHW
How to Apply/FAQs
You are here: About IDHW
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare offers a culture that supports and promotes learning organization principles, building community partnerships, and introducing innovative business solutions.
We are nearly 2,850 individuals working statewide to provide Idahoans with health and human services, access to health insurance programs, support to families and children, and hospitalization services for mental and developmentally disabled patients. We have 20 field offices and operate two hospitals and a state lab. Last year, our agency served almost 340,000 people - one out of every four Idahoans. From birth throughout life, we strive to enrich and protect the lives of our state’s citizens.
Learn more about us at http://healthandwelfare.idaho.gov.
Health and Welfare Divisions
Our organization deals with complex social, economic and health issues. To do that effectively, DHW is organized into eight divisions: Medicaid, Family and Community Services, Behavioral Health, Welfare (Self-Reliance), Public Health, Licensing and Certification, Operational and Support Services, and Information Technology. Each division provides services or partners with other agencies and groups to help people in our communities. DHW is a diverse organization whose workers are dedicated to protecting the health and safety of Idaho citizens.
Click on a division to learn more.
Family and Community Services
The Division of Family and Community Services (FACS) provides a collaborative leadership directing many of the Department's social service programs focusing on the entire family, building on family strengths while supporting and empowering families. Those programs include child protection, adoption, foster care, developmental disabilities, and screening early intervention for infants and toddlers.
FACS also administers the Southwest Idaho Treatment Center in Nampa. This facility provides residential care for people with developmental disabilities who experience severe behavioral or significant medical complications.
Licensing and Certification
The Division of Licensing and Certification surveys, inspects, licenses, and/or certifies health care facilities requiring certification or licensure by either state or federal regulatory requirements. The Division ensures skilled nursing facilities (SNF), hospitals, intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ICF/IID), and other non-long term care providers/suppliers meet both state and federal regulatory guidelines.
Additionally, team members conduct surveys in and license/certify residential care or assisted living facilities (RALFs), certified family homes (CFHs), developmental disabilities agencies (DDAs), and residential habilitation agencies (ResHabs) to ensure they comply with state statute and rule requirements. The 62-person team is responsible for over 3,100 health care and/or residential facilities and over 21,800 treatment beds across the state.
Each team also performs investigations of non-compliance with regulatory requirements, also known as complaint investigations. The teams work closely with partners in the respective industries, with advocates, with other governmental agencies, and with stakeholders to ensure safe and effective care in a wide variety of settings. The teams also participate in the rule writing process for each state licensed/certified provider group.
The Division of Medicaid provides comprehensive medical coverage for eligible Idahoans. The division does not provide direct medical services, but contracts and pays for services through providers similar to health insurance companies. Medicaid also licenses and inspects health facilities, including nursing homes, hospitals, and residential and assisted living facilities. Medicaid has different programs available that provide health coverage for:
Children under age 19
Parents or other related adults with children under age 19
Women diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer or pre-cancer
People aged 65 or older
People who are blind or disabled (using Social Security criteria)
Operational and Support Services
Additional support services in the Department include:
Contracting and Procurement
Facilities and Business Operations
Bureau of Financial Services
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Administrative Rules Unit
The Division of Public Health provides services ranging from immunizations, testing for communicable diseases, regulating food safety, certifying emergency medical personnel, vital record administration, and compilation of health statistics to bioterrorism preparedness. The Division's programs and services actively promote healthy lifestyles and prevention activities, while monitoring and intervening in disease transmission and health risks as a safeguard for Idaho citizens.
Bureau of Communicable Disease Prevention
Bureau of Community and Environmental Health
Bureau of Laboratories
Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics
Bureau of Emergency Medical Services and Preparedness
Bureau of Health Planning and Resource Development
State Office of Rural Health and Primary Care
Welfare and Self-Reliance
The Division of Welfare promotes stable, healthy families through program access and support services. The Division manages state and federal programs including Child Support, Food Stamps, Child Care, Temporary Assistance for Families in Idaho (TAFI), and Aid to the Aged, Blind, & Disabled (AABD). The programs, also called Self-Reliance programs, provide food, cash, and other assistance programs for low-income families and individuals, while encouraging participants to become more self-reliant.
The Division of Behavioral Health helps children, adults, and families address and manage personal challenges that result from mental illnesses and/or substance use disorders. The division recognizes that many people suffer from both a mental illness and substance use addiction, and is engaged in a process to integrate services for co-occurring disorders to improve outcomes. Services accessed through the division are consumer driven and prevention oriented.
The division is comprised of the Children's and Adult Mental Health Programs and Substance Abuse Services. The division also administers the state’s two mental health hospitals for people with serious and persistent mental illnesses, State Hospital North and State Hospital South.
Behavioral Health was formed by executive order of the Governor in June 2006 and provides many different services including:
Children's Mental Health Services
Suicide Prevention Services
The Idaho Tobacco Project
State Hospital South
State Hospital North
IDHW Careers Home
Employee Benefits Booklet
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h+ Media | Analysis of the Global Surveillance Infrastructure Via HackingTeam. - h+ Media
Pacemakers Without Batteries — Coming Soon Modern Cosmology Versus Creation by Gods
Analysis of the Global Surveillance Infrastructure Via HackingTeam.
June 25, 2014 Hacking, Security, Surveillance
authors ç
Security experts from Kaspersky Lab and Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto have released the results of their analysis on the global command and control infrastructure used by the Italian firm HackingTeam to manage its spyware instances all over the world.
Many times security experts have accused HackingTeam of providing its spyware to authoritarian regimes and law enforcement for the purpose of surveillance. According the researchers that presented their findings during an event in London, the command infrastructure supporting HackingTeam’s Remote Control System (RCS) is composed by 326 servers distributed in more than 40 countries. The majority of the C&C servers were hosted in the United States, Kazakhstan, Ecuador and UK.
Count of C2s Country name
6 INDONESIA
5 RUSSIAN FEDERATION
2 EGYPT
1 HUNGARY
“The presence of these servers in a given country doesn’t mean to say they are used by that particular country’s law enforcement agencies. However, it makes sense for the users of RCS to deploy C&Cs in locations they control – where there are minimal risks of cross-border legal issues or server seizures,” said Sergey Golovanov, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab.
Within the the products under analysis by experts, there is Galileo RCS, a solution capable of monitor communications and data transmission even if over a secure channel. The experts for the first time detailed the control network for the spyware used on victims’ mobile, malicious code used are custom built for each target and loaded onto a device.
“It was a well-known fact for quite some time that the HackingTeam products included malware for mobile phones. However, these were rarely seen,” “In particular, the Android and iOS Trojans have never been identified before and represented one of the remaining blank spots in the story.” reported Kaspersky Lab experts on the Securelist blog.
The RCS mobile components for every device, including Apple iOS, Android OS, Windows mobile and BlackBerry, allow customers of the HackingTeam company to monitor victims, spy on conversations through principal VOIP and instant messaging applications (e.g. WhatsApp, Skype), steal data from their devices and use them as spy bugs enabling the microphone.
“The RCS mobile modules are meticulously designed to operate in a discreet manner, for instance by paying close attention to the mobile device’s battery life,” “This is implemented through carefully customized spying capabilities, or special triggers: for example, an audio recording may start only when a victim is connected to a particular Wi-Fi network (for example, the network of a media house), or when he/she changes the SIM card, or while device is charging.” Kaspersky Lab said.
Experts at Kaspersky and Citizen Lab discovered that the iOS version of the RCS Trojans is able to monitor only jailbroken devices, anyway the spyware can work on any devices considering that is possible to remotely run a jailbreaking tool such as Evasi0n and then load the malware implant.
The Android spyware was characterized by the presence of a sophisticated obfuscator dubbed DexGuard that made hard the analysis of the malicious code.
The malware developer at HackingTeam also used zero-days for their exploits that served with classic spear phishing scheme and also through local infections via USB cables while synchronizing mobile devices.
The findings proposed by the experts are very important because demonstrate the high level of sophistication of the spyware designed by the HackingTeam and the scale of the surveillance operated through its tools.
These tools in the wrong hands are a dangerous weapon.
No doubts, one of the most advanced cyber threats is malware , we read daily news regarding new agents developed by cybercriminals, governments or hacktivists, but are we really ready to reduce the exposure of our systems?
Dr. Web, a Russian anti-virus company, has detected a cross-platform Trojan horse that is able to gain full control of its victims and it is also able to can render the system unusable. The agent, named dubbed BackDoor.DaVinci.1, runs both in Windows and Mac OS X and what is singular is the characteristics of the Mac OS X release that for the first time implements rootkit technologies to hide malware processes and files.
The first question is … who has developed the backdoor?According the info available on internet, the trojan has been designed by the Italian HackingTeam, a security firm which is specialized in the development of offensive solutions for cyber investigations, on its web site it is possible to find the following description of the debated product:
In modern digital communications, encryption is widely employed to protect users from eavesdropping. Unfortunately, encryption also prevents law enforcement and intelligence agencies from being able to monitor and prevent crimes and threats to the country security. Remote Control System (RCS) is a solution designed to evade encryption by means of an agent directly installed on the device to monitor. Evidence collection on monitored devices is stealth and transmission of collected data from the device to the RCS server is encrypted and untraceable. For Governmental LEAs and Agencies ONLY.
For the record the name of HackingTeam was published in the SpyFile dossier by Wikileaks’s Team which reports on the technologies developed for surveillance and control of communication channels.
The malware appears as very smart agent that is able to hide its presence to security systems and is also able to infect mobile devices, it’s spread as a signed AdobeFlashPlayer.jar file, obviously the for the signature it has been used an invalid digital certificate. The file is used to analyze the OS version of victim and execute malicious code.
The malware, following a valid design, is modular and its core components are represented by the backdoor module and a set of drivers that make possible the operation in hidden mode, all the instances of the malware share the same configuration settings stored in a dedicated file and it is equipped with a large collection of module to elude anti-virus software and firewalls. After Dr. Web other security firms have detected the cyber espionage tool giving it different name, for example Kaspersky lab team named it Morkut providing a first analysis on a blogpost. According to Mikko Hypponen (F- Secure) Tweet…
“The Mac backdoor in the news (DaVinci/Morcut/Crisis/Flosax) is a commercial espionage trojan, and openly advertised on www.hackingteam.it”
The developers of the BackDoor.DaVinci.1 claim that their product is able to elude any anti-virus program but Dr.Web antivirus is able to detect it … we can bet that the game of “cops and robbers” is begun and the group of the HackingTeam is already working to introduce improvements that can make their malware undetectable.
TheDaVinci backdoor is not a common malware released in the wild without control but it is a commercial surveillance Trojan sold mainly to governments, it is used to monitor thousands of people all over the world. Of course the product of the Italian firm is not the only one, to provide an example we can remind the FinFisher product developed by Gamma company, similar products have been used by law enforcement and also by authoritarian regimes such as Egypt and Bahrain and other governments such as Germany. Their use is becoming more frequent and the thought that a malicious agent could violate computer defenses for espionage or also for offensive purposes is not very reassuring.
Once released from these companies, are they actually able to control the diffusion of the malware? What could happen if a foreign government or a group of cyber criminals completed a reverse engineering of the products, developing its own malware resulting no easily identifiable software that could be used for cyber espionage on a large scale? Are we all really ready to this?
Unfortunately, although similar instruments designed for justifiable uses, such as support for investigations and prevention of crime and terrorism, exit they are too easily sold to governments that use them for tracking and persecution of dissidents. It should be mentioned that in court similar tools could not to be admitted as evidence since the provider must ensure that the instrument will not alter nature of information and the operation of the device put under control.
I’m not discussing on the the specific case, but it is evident that in the course of proceedings by authorities, the information collected may not be deemed reliable for some reasons. The very fact that a trojan alters the nature of the system that it infects, can lead to rejection of gathered evidence, and lawyers often argue that once comprised it is impossible to guarantee that the data collected from (for example) a chat are legitimate and not deliberately inserted by the malware. The EU Council has recently recommended that Member States should strive for the examination of computers remotely suspicious, but there are still many unresolved technical and legal aspects. The experience of Germany in its attempt to regulate the use of tools broadly known as “remote forensics” by those who must enforce the law is helpful in this regard. The new generation of technologies, such as software agents, including trojans, have unique features that distinguishes it from existing technologies currently used in the investigation.
During the investigation, these technologies can act independently. Their autonomous decision-making enables them to replace at least some of the functions previously performed by a human, and without the direct supervision of a human controller. This raises the question whether the rules that give human rights to officials can be applied by analogy to software agents, and if the rules are intended to limit the interference of the police citizen’s rights can be circumvented by using technology (Schafer, 2006) .
Another problem … companies that provide free anti-virus and those that provide the control systems are not necessarily in the same jurisdiction of the entity to control, causing conflicts with the relevant privacy laws. How should the person carrying out investigations in relation to suppliers of antivirus? Ask for their cooperation or proceeding seeking to evade them? At the moment it would seem that the second road traveled, at least by German government (BT-Drucksache 16/4995).
Another question … The data collection is automated, so no human subject will decide which data will be relevant and should be copied, but this may involve the collection of any data recorded on the computer including much that is irrelevant to the investigation. These data could be problematic and sensitive data, such as medical and health information, and therefore protected from investigations under law.
A judgment of the German Federal Supreme Court has established as a requirement for the use of RFS tools by law enforcement agencies for the custody of the selection process is conducted by an investigating judge, a state prosecutor or a bailiff (BVerfG, NJW 2008, 822), but the German judicial system does not have sufficient human resources.
Traditionally, forensic investigations computers are taken off-line to ensure that there aren’t changes and that the object of investigation is in the same condition when the evidence is admitted, as when the crime has found place.
The use of a trojan for investigations requires the authorities to reach from the remote target machines which, however, remain in the control of the suspect and remain connected to the network before, during and after the operations of inspecting.
Thus the problem of acquisition of the test using RFS tools that not only is the original source (the computer) has not been subjected to seizure, but this is not a static environment, yet flexible, which can be manipulated. As a general rule, evidence obtained from an insecure network, such as the Internet, can always be subject to a challenge to its authenticity and reliability.
The attempt to subject to statutory regulation the use of malware for investigation produces new ambiguity, it must be promoted a common approach applicable to the entire class of investigative technologies.
The debate is open, there are many doubts, but there is no ambiguity that these agents have efficacy for those governments who want to spy on and pursue their opponents … from an ethical point of view there is much to discuss.
Is the Tor Network Broken?
Animal Farm: Babar, Casper, and Evil Bunnies
WiFi Hacking Drones
Brain hacking, it’s time to protect our mind from hackers
GCHQ JTRIG Tools and Techniques for Propaganda and Internet Deception
Censorship, governments and corporations enemies of The Internet
Tim June 25, 2014, 5:19 pm
Think about how much worse this will get when brain uploads and downloads become possible and as technology becomes more integrated with the human body.
Now think of the utter stupidity, incompetence and utter ego of the politicians in Washington DC and ask yourself how much control they will want to have over these devices.
This is a very scary thing…
ubiquity aging process oxygen geoengineering virtual world Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Nobel Laureates Moorel's Law Jerry Sir Thomas Urquhart Professor Junichi Nabekura addicting
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IB Schools Australasia
About IBSA
About the IB
Geelong Grammar School
PYP DP
Location Corio, Victoria, Australia
Website https://www.ggs.vic.edu.au/
Australia's largest co-educational boarding school, Geelong Grammar School provides for some 1650 girls and boys on its four campuses, including the renowned Timbertop Year 9 campus in the foothills of the Victorian Alps. Boarding is available from Years 5 to 12 with a weekly boarding option available in middle school (Years 5 to 8). The 800 boarders come from all states of Australia and 25 other countries. The distinctive living and learning experience at Geelong Grammar School encourages ain its students a committment to do one's best in all fields of endeavour, a spirit of self confidence, of tolerance and mutual respect for others and a social conscience to serve the community.
Primary Years Programme (PYP)
Diploma Programme (DP)
Geelong Grammar School offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme to students in Years 11 and 12 as an alternative to the Victorian Certificate of Education. Subjects available within the diploma Programme depend on the demand of the students.
Find an IB school in Australia: Australian Capital Territory New South Wales Northern Territory Queensland South Australia Tasmania Victoria Western Australia
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© Copyright 2020 IB Schools Australasia
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NHL Winter Classic, 2011 in hockey
2011 NHL Winter Classic
The 2011 NHL Winter Classic (known via corporate sponsorship as the Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic) will be the fourth edition of the annual outdoor ice hockey game held by the National Hockey League (NHL) as a regular season game. The Pittsburgh Penguins will host the Washington Capitals at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA on January 1, 2011 at 1:00PM EST.[1] The game will be telecast on NBC in the USA, CBC (English) and RDS (French) in Canada.
2011 Heritage Classic Edit
Main article: 2011 Heritage Classic
The NHL is scheduled to play a second outdoor game, called the 2011 Heritage Classic between the Montreal Canadiens and the Calgary Flames at McMahon Stadium on the campus of the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada[2] on Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 4:00PM MST (6:00PM CDN EST).[3] The games would mark the second time the Penguins and Canadiens have participated in outdoor games. The Penguins visited the Buffalo Sabres for the 2008 NHL Winter Classic, while the Edmonton Oilers hosted the Canadiens in the original Heritage Classic back in 2003.[2]
Uniforms Edit
As has become custom with the annual event, the teams are expected to wear vintage uniforms based on Reebok's "Edge" template. The visiting Capitals will announce and unveil their uniform at their annual convention on October 2nd in Washington, as it is expected to be a replica of their inaugural 1974-75 white uniform which they wore through the 1994-95 season.[4] The Penguins will unveil their uniforms for this game sometime in the fall; that uniform expected to be based on their original 1967-68 uniforms, will officially replace their baby blue uniforms (first worn in the 2008 classic) as their third jersey, likely in the 2011-12 season.[5][6]
↑ Rossi, Rob (2010-05-27). Pittsburgh set for a 'winter celebration'. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Retrieved on 2010-05-27.
↑ 2.0 2.1 NHL to announce outdoor games in Pittsburgh, Calgary on Friday. The Sports Network (2010-05-27). Retrieved on 2010-05-27.
↑ MacFarlane, Steve (2010-05-27). Flames push for outdoor game. Calgary Sun. Retrieved on 2010-05-27.
↑ Capitals to Unveil 2011 Winter Classic Uniform at 2010 Capitals Convention, capitals.nhl.com, 14 June 2010; Retrived 22 June 2010
↑ New Pens' Sweater Coming in Fall, icethetics.info, 16 July 2010.
↑ Winter Classic Logos Unveiled, icethics.info, 27 July 2010.
Heritage Classic:Montreal Canadiens vs. Edmonton Oilers at Commonwealth Stadium
Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Buffalo Sabres at Ralph Wilson Stadium
Detroit Red Wings vs. Chicago Blackhawks at Wrigley Field
Philadelphia Flyers vs. Boston Bruins at Fenway Park
Retrieved from "https://icehockey.fandom.com/wiki/2011_NHL_Winter_Classic?oldid=160532"
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Ken Reardon
Terry Reardon
Born in 1971, Colorado Avalanche players, Edmonton Oilers players,
Frölunda HC players
1994 Olympian
Modo Hockey players
National Hockey League All-Stars
New York Islanders players
Olympic ice hockey players of Sweden
Swedish ice hockey players
VIK Västerås HK players
Tommy Salo
Salo with Frolunda HC in August 2005
Born February 1 1971 (1971-02-01) (age 48),
Surahammar, SWE
Weight 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
181 lb (82 kg; 12 st 13 lb)
Position Goaltender
Catches Left
Pro clubs Elitserien
Västerås IK
Modo Hockey
Frölunda HC
Ntl. team
NHL Draft 118th overall, 1993
Playing career 1990–2007
Tommy Mikael Salo (born February 1, 1971) is a Swedish General Manager of Swedish ice hockey club Leksands IF of the HockeyAllsvenskan. He is a retired professional ice hockey goaltender and a former head coach of IK Oskarshamn.
Playing career Edit
Salo began his career playing three seasons in the Elitserien with Västerås IK. He was chosen 118th overall, in the fifth round, by the New York Islanders in 1993. He debuted with the Islanders in 1994–95, but would play the majority of his first two seasons in North America with New York's International Hockey League (IHL) affiliate, the Utah Grizzlies. Playing in the IHL, Salo won back-to-back Turner Cups with the Grizzlies as league champions and earned the N.R. "Bud" Poile Trophy as playoff MVP in 1996. In his first year, he was named both league MVP and rookie of the year in 1995, in addition to First Team All-Star honours and a James Norris Memorial Trophy for allowing the fewest goals against.
In 1996–97, Salo emerged as the Islanders' starting goalie and played in that capacity for the club until March 20, 1999, when he was traded to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Mats Lindgren and an eighth round draft choice in 1999 (the Islanders used the pick to select Radek Martinek). Salo found his stride in Edmonton and was chosen to two All-Star Games in 2000 and 2002. In 2001–02, Salo recorded a career-best 2.22 goals against average (GAA).
On March 9, 2004, after six seasons with Edmonton, he was traded to the Colorado Avalanche with a sixth round selection in 2004 in exchange for Tom Gilbert. As NHL play was suspended the following season due to the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Salo returned to Sweden, signing a one-year contract with Modo Hockey of the Elitserien.
After Modo was eliminated in the playoffs by Färjestad,[1] Salo announced his retirement from professional hockey on March 17, 2005, citing chronic hip pain.[2] Shortly thereafter, however, on August 4, he returned to the Elitserien, signing with the Frölunda Indians. This led to a conflict with Modo since they had agreed to terminate his contract on account of his retirement. In light of this, the club appealed for Frölunda to pay for Salo's salary. On August 11, the issue was settled as Modo withdrew their claim. By signing with Frölunda, Salo replaced the departed Henrik Lundqvist, who incidentally, had taken over Salo's starting position on Sweden's national team.
On December 9, 2006, in an interview with Swedish newspaper Expressen, Salo announced that the he would retire from hockey after the 2006-07 season.[3]
International play Edit
Competitor for
Gold 1994 Lillehammer
Salo first competed for Sweden in the 1991 World Junior Championships. He played in six games and posted a 3.32 goals-against-average.
Several years later, he played an integral role in Sweden's gold medal victory at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Salo made critical saves in the gold medal game, as they defeated Canada in a shootout to secure Sweden's first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey.
In 1998, Salo once again competed in the Winter Olympics, as NHL players were allowed to compete for the first time. He played in four games as Sweden failed to medal.
In the 2002 Winter Olympics, Salo started for Sweden once more and were favourites to win the gold medal, placing first in the round robin. However, in the quarter-final game against Belarus, with the game tied late in the third period, Salo surrendered a 20-metre goal from defenceman Vladimir Kopat. The long slap shot puck bounced off Salo's mask after he had hopped, went up in the air, and bounced off of his back and into the net. Sweden would not recover and Salo was made the scapegoat in one of the biggest upsets in international hockey history. Team Sweden's captain Mats Sundin berated fans and media for singling Salo out asserting that "the entire team played subpar, a single fluke goal shouldn't cost us the game."
Coaching and executive career Edit
Shortly after the completion of his playing career, on March 5, 2007, hockey club Kungälvs IK of the Swedish tier III league announced Salo would be their head coach for the next two seasons.[4] Following his tenure with the club, he signed with IK Oskarshamn on March 12, 2009.[5]
On December 1, 2010, Salo left his post at IK Oskarshamn to become General Manager for his hometown club Leksands IF.
1990–91 Västerås IK SEL 2 — — — 6.60 .851 0 — — — — — —
1991–92 Koping SWE-2 29 — — — 3.23 .882 — — — — — — —
1992–93 Västerås IK SEL 24 — — — 2.47 .918 2 2 — — 3.00 .895 0
1994–95 Denver Grizzlies IHL 65 45 14 4 2.60 .910 3 8 7 0 3.07 .890 0
1994–95 New York Islanders NHL 6 1 5 0 3.02 .905 0 — — — — — —
1995–96 Utah Grizzlies IHL 45 28 15 2 2.65 .902 4 22 15 7 2.28 .919 3
1995–96 New York Islanders NHL 10 1 7 1 4.02 .860 0 — — — — — —
1996–97 New York Islanders NHL 58 20 27 8 2.82 .904 5 — — — — — —
1998–99 Edmonton Oilers NHL 13 8 2 2 2.31 .903 0 4 0 4 2.23 .926 0
1999–00 Edmonton Oilers NHL 70 27 28 13 2.33 .914 2 5 1 4 2.83 .895 0
2001–02 Edmonton Oilers NHL 69 30 28 10 2.22 .913 6 — — — — — —
2002–03 Edmonton Oilers NHL 65 29 27 8 2.71 .899 4 6 2 4 3.15 .888 0
2003–04 Edmonton Oilers NHL 44 17 18 6 2.58 .896 3 — — — — — —
2003–04 Colorado Avalanche NHL 5 1 3 1 2.37 .912 0 1 0 0 0.00 1.00 0
2004–05 Modo Hockey SEL 36 — — — 2.58 .909 0 6 — — 3.18 .888 1
2005–06 Frölunda HC SEL 37 — — — 2.47 .911 0 17 — — 2.35 .920 1
2006–07 Frölunda HC SEL 22 — — — 3.29 .875 1 — — — — — —
Awards Edit
Won a Winter Olympic gold medal with Sweden in 1994.
Won the James Gatschene Memorial Trophy (league MVP) in 1995.
Won the James Norris Memorial Trophy (fewest goals against) in 1995.
Won the Gary F. Longman Memorial Trophy (rookie of the year) in 1995.
Named to the First All-Star Team in 1995.
Won a Turner Cup (league championship) with the Denver Grizzlies in 1995 and 1996.
Won the N.R. "Bud" Poile Trophy (Playoff MVP) in 1996.
Played in the NHL All-Star Game in 2000 and 2002.
Named NHL Player of the Week on March 25, 2002 and March 10, 2003.
Won a silver medal with the Frölunda Indians in 2006.
Records Edit
Edmonton Oilers franchise record; lowest goals against average, career - 2.40
↑ Without injured Forsber, Modo ousted from playoffs. USA Today (2005-03-18). Retrieved on 2008-08-07.
↑ Salo retires from hockey due to hip injuries. CBC Sports (2005-03-17). Retrieved on 2008-08-07.
↑ Mattias Eriksson (2006). Tommy Salo slutar (Swedish). Expressen.se. Retrieved on 2006-12-18.
↑ Styrelsen, Kungälvs Ishockey Klubb (2007). Tommy Salo ny tränare i Kungälvs Ishockey Klubb (Swedish). Kungälv Hockey. Retrieved on 2007-03-06.
↑ Tommy Salo new coach in IKO (Swedish). IK Oskarshamn (2009-03-12).
Tommy Salo's career stats at The Internet Hockey Database
Salo's bio at hockeygoalies.org
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Tommy Salo. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).
Retrieved from "https://icehockey.fandom.com/wiki/Tommy_Salo?oldid=275069"
Colorado Avalanche players
Edmonton Oilers players
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Home/Documentaries/Soviet/Russia/Takeoff: Tupolev TU-144 Supersonic Transport DVD
Home/International Historic Films Complete Online Catalog/World Cinema on DVD/Russian (Soviet) Films DVDs/Soviet Documentary Films DVDs/ Soviet Space/Aviation DVDs/Takeoff: Tupolev TU-144 Supersonic Transport DVD
Takeoff: Tupolev TU-144 Supersonic Transport DVD
In the late 1960s, America, Europe, and the Soviet Union were competing to develop a supersonic transport plane. The first SST to actually fly was the Soviet TU-144, designed by Andrei Tupolev's team. This film depicts the design, testing, and manufacture of the plane and its maiden flight on December 31st, 1968. Many shots of Tupolev and his designer son Alexei are included, and Tupolev describes his schooling (synchronous sound). Previous Tupolev planes shown include the ANT-3, Maxim Gorky, ANT-6, ANT-25, TU-104, and a heavy bomber.
USSR, late 1960s, Color, 21 minutes, English voice-over commentary.
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U Visa for Victims of Criminal Activity
While many visas offered by the U.S. government are designed to help people achieve their career and family goals, sometimes a visa is needed to help foreign nationals escape serious physical or mental abuse. This is the idea behind the U Visa, which was designed to provide assistance to victims of human trafficking and other forms of violence. This page was designed to offer some general information on u-visa regulations and help visitors to this page decide if they should consult an immigration attorney. The following topics are covered on this page:
U Visa Basics
U-Visa Crimes
Applying for a U Visa
Applying for a Green Card
Each year, the U.S. government makes available roughly 10,000 U Visas to persons who have suffered physical or mental abuse, or are helping, or who have helped a criminal investigation. Those who have suffered abuse must have been victims of qualifying criminal activity. To learn more about specific u-visa crimes, see the section on qualifying crimes below.
During the application process, the foreign national will be required to submit documentation of the abuse, which could include police reports, court reports, affidavits from school officials, clergy or medical personnel, as well as other documentation.
Under u-visa regulations, foreign applicants need to be victims of certain qualifying criminal activity. Qualifying u-visa crimes include: abduction, blackmail, domestic violence, false imprisonment, assault, forced labor, female genital mutilation, manslaughter, murder, prostitution, rape, stalking, torture, as well as other crimes.
Victims of qualifying u-visa crimes have suffered direct or proximate harm as a result of one of the specific crimes named in the statute. In order for a foreign national to establish they have been a victim of u-visa crimes, they must have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse. Official affidavits from medical, school or church personnel, as well as court and police records, demonstrate evidence of this abuse.
The amount of time granted by a U Visa is typically four years. However, extensions may be granted if a certifying official attests that the foreign national’s cooperation is necessary to continue an investigation or prosecution.
A foreign applicant can file for U Visa can under a number of circumstances. For instance, a foreign national might file while facing deportation or a removal hearing. However, foreign nationals not facing deportation can also file a petition. Whatever the case, the primary form filed is A Petition for U Nonimmigrant Status (Form I-918). This document is filed with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
The petition must contain a signed statement by the petitioner describing the victimization, as well as proof of the physical or mental abuse.
If a u visa is granted, the foreign national will automatically be granted employment authorization.
U Visa to Green Card
Under current u-visa regulations, a foreign national with u status can become eligible to adjust status and obtain permanent residence. Those granted permanent residence are eligible to live and work in the U.S. for 10 years or more. The document signifying permanent resident status is the green card.
In order to be eligible to apply for a green card, the U-Visa holder must have lived in the U.S. for a continuous period of three years. However, if it is determined that the foreign national with u status unreasonably refused to assist in a criminal investigation or prosecution, he or she can be found ineligible for permanent resident status.
In order to adjust status, u-visa regulations require that the foreign national file an Application to Adjust Status (Form I-485) with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The foreign national must also submit a photocopy of his or her U status approval as well as an affidavit of three years physical presence in the U.S.
In many cases, yes. Spouses and unmarried children (younger than 21 years of age) can apply for U-2 status. Under current U-visa regulations, the primary u visa holder must be 21 years of age or older in order to be accompanied by immediate family.
Persons who are fleeing abuse and applying for a u visa are not required to hire an attorney. However, those considering a u visa have significant concerns beyond how to properly file government documents.
In some cases, U-visa applicants are fleeing abusive situations and facing deportation hearings.
Because of the high stakes involved, it is recommended that foreign nationals thinking about applying for a u visa contact a qualified lawyer. It’s important to remember that simple filing errors can lead to a denial of application.
An attorney’s job is to help the client navigate a vast federal bureaucracy and avoid costly or time-consuming errors in the process. If you have questions about u-visa crimes or u-visa regulations, contact our office to see how we can help.
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At Least 265 Killed in Floods and Landslides over 2 Months as Rains Continue to Batter East Africa
News18 5 December 2019
Nairobi: Two months of relentless rains have submerged villages and farms and sent rivers of mud crashing into houses across East Africa, with at least 265 killed, according to an AFP tally, as meteorologists warn of more to come.
The extreme downpours have affected close to two million people and washed away tens of thousands of livestock in Kenya, Somalia, Burundi, Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Djibouti and Ethiopia.
With a tropical storm headed for Somalia and more rain forecast across the region in the coming weeks, fears are rising over waterborne diseases and the prospect of hunger as crops are destroyed.
In Burundi, 38 people died on Wednesday night after heavy rains triggered landslides that swept through hillside communities in the northwest of the country, according to a provisional police toll on Thursday.
"It happened in the night, when everyone was at home, and landslides hit three very steep hills and buried everything in their path," a witness told AFP. "Whole families were buried alive in their homes or in the fields. It was terrifying."
Kenya has been hard hit with 132 killed and 17,000 displaced, schools, roads, and health centres flooded, and water systems clogged across the country, government spokesman Cyrus Oguna said in a statement on Tuesday.
The "weather forecast has indicated that the current rains are not expected to cease until the end of December 2019", the statement said.
In South Sudan, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said nearly a million people have been affected by floodwaters which submerged whole towns, compounding an already dire humanitarian situation after six years of war.
Flooding has also affected 570,000 people in Somalia, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The European humanitarian agency ECHO meanwhile warned of a tropical storm due to hit northeastern Somalia on Friday, bringing the threat of more flash floods.
In Tanzania, 55 people have died, according to an AFP tally of police figures, including 30 in flash floods in the northeast in October, 15 whose car was swept away by floodwaters in the town of Tanga, and 10 who drowned last month in northern Mwanza.
In Uganda, eight people have died and over 80,000 have been displaced by flooding and mudslides this week, Disaster Preparedness Minister Musa Ecweru said in a statement.
Days of heavy rainfall on Mount Elgon on Tuesday caused "multiple landslides in... Bududa district killing four people, injuring five and displacing over 6,000 people".
In Sironko district, also on Mount Elgon, "two adults and two children were killed" and over 4,000 people affected. "The risk of more flooding and landslides is real," the minister warned.
Ethiopia has also been affected,with 22 people dying in a landslidein the south of the country in October.
Djibouti has also experienced unusually heavy rains, with a joint government and United Nations press statement reporting that some areas received "the equivalent of 2 years of rainfall occurred in one day" in heavy downpours two weeks ago.
"Some 10 people (7 children) have reportedly been killed," said the statement, adding that 250,000 were affected countrywide.
The extreme weather is blamed on the Indian Ocean Dipole -- a climate system defined by the difference in sea surface temperature between the western and eastern areas of the ocean.
At the moment, the ocean around East Africa is far warmer than usual, resulting in higher evaporation and moist air flowing inwards over the continent as rain: the hallmarks of a "positive" dipole.
Scientists say the strength of this dipole is of a magnitude not seen in years, perhaps even decades. These waters around East Africa have been about two degrees warmer than those of the eastern Indian Ocean near Australia -- an imbalance well beyond the norm.
The heavy rains have also wrought destruction in central Africa, with scores killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including 41 in the capital Kinshasa last week.
In the Central African Republic, OCHA says around 100,000 people have been displaced.
Beating illegal wildlife trade tests our resolve to save the Earth
South Africa’s World Cup qualifying group confirmed
Erdogan says Somalia has invited Turkey to explore for oil in its seas: NTV
World doesn’t celebrate India’s achievement in climate tech enough: COP26 president Claire Perry
Nearly 450 schools shut as pollution chokes Thai capital
Dear India, Do Not Discriminate Based on Religion, Caste or Creed
Aiming 175GW for 2022: India kicks off largest renewable energy expansion programme
Bigg Boss 13: Paras Chhabra's girlfriend Akanksha Puri to enter house for breakup
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Common Sense Age 6+
4.4, 2.5K Ratings
"There's no place like home..." Entirely remastered, the colorful characters and unforgettable songs of Oz come alive as never before. This magical cinematic event finds Kansas farm girl Judy Garland ("A Star is Born," "Meet Me in St. Louis") caught in a tornado and magically transported to the Land of Oz. Needing help to return home, she is told to follow the Yellow Brick Road and find the powerful Wizard (Frank Morgan). On her perilous journey, she is befriended by the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), the Tin Man (Jack Haley), and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) who help her battle the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) and her flying monkeys. Based on the classic book by Frank L. Baum, "The Wizard of Oz" is a dazzling motion picture achievement, featuring unforgettable songs (including Oscar-winner "Over the Rainbow"), scenery, and costumes. The film had 5 Academy Award nominations, and Garland was awarded a special Oscar for her outstanding performance.
2.5K Ratings
Critics Consensus: An absolute masterpiece whose groundbreaking visuals and deft storytelling are still every bit as resonant, The Wizard of Oz is a must-see film for young and old.
Even decades later, one of the best family films ever made.
Ray Bolger
Bert Lahr
Jack Haley
Billie Burke
Charley Grapewin
Clara Blandick
Noel Langley
Florence Ryerson
Edgar Allan Woolf
Yentl
Movies in Sci-Fi & Fantasy
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Touch darkness and darkness touches you. From HBO and creator/executive producer Nic Pizzolato comes this searing crime drama series that follows troubled cops and the intense investigations that drive them to the edge. Each season features a star-studded new cast involved in cases that will have you on the edge of your seat. In Season 1, it was Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as two polar opposite cops on the hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana. In Season 2, a bizarre murder case brings together three law-enforcement officers (Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch) and a career criminal (Vince Vaughn).
True Detective, Seasons 1 & 2
© 2014 - 2015 Home Box Office, Inc.
True Detective, Season 2
Rome, Seasons 1 & 2
Boardwalk Empire, The Complete Series
Tin Star, Series 1
The Wire, Season 4
The Newsroom, Season 3
Fargo, Season 3
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While fellowship funding is not available for M.A.S candidates, students may apply for loans.
Both the Jackson Institute and the wider Yale community offer numerous paid positions for student work, including teaching fellowships and research and course assistantships.
Both US and international students are eligible to work on campus earning $12.25-$14.25 per hour for up to 20 hours per week. On campus jobs can be found at: https://www.yalestudentjobs.org/
Course Assistant
Both U.S. and international students are eligible to be a course assistant. In this position, the student assists a Jackson Senior Fellow or faculty member with course planning and administrative details, and can expect to work approximately 10 hours per week at $14.25 per hour. The student does not grade or lead discussions.
Both U.S. and international students are eligible to be a research assistant. In this position, the student assists a Jackson Senior Fellow or Yale faculty member in conducting research, often times as part of a book project or an ongoing research study. Salaries and work hours per week (no more than 20) are agreed upon between the Senior Fellow/faculty and student.
Teaching Fellowship
Both U.S. and international students are eligible to be a Teaching Fellow not only at Jackson but at departments across the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. As a Teaching Fellow, the student may be expected to grade papers, lead discussion sections, and hold office hours, and will earn either $4,000 (up to 10 hours work/week) or $8,000 (up to 20 hours work/week) per semester.
Loans are available by application through the Graduate School Financial Aid Office for both U.S. and international students.
Cost of Education, 2019-2020 (9 months)
Tuition & Fees: $43,300
Housing/Board: $16,786
Academic: $1,440
Personal: $1,854
Medical: $2,450
Transportation: $1,485
Contact Graduate Admissions
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Lou Severine, CEO of NYIAX on Transparency in Programmatic Advertising
CEO of NYIAX
Lou Severine is an executive with over 20 years of experience in digital media and advertising technology. Currently, Lou is serving as CEO of NYIAX, a revolutionary programmatic advertising platform developed in partnership with Nasdaq.
NYIAX combines financial trading and advertising technology in one platform to enable publishers and advertisers to buy, sell and re-trade premium advertising inventory as financial inventory.
As the first and only trusted, transparent future inventory marketplace, NYIAX allows both publishers and advertisers to increase ROI and reduce costs.
Lou has more than 20 years in digital media technology and advertising. He was most recently CRO of Phluid Media, SVP of AOL Networks and Director of BD at Microsoft.
Here are some of the topics discussed in this episode.
Advertising Needs a Solution for Fraud
While a digital advertising remains a powerful acquisition channel, like most other digital marketing at or point or another, advertising can be susceptible to fraud. This a losing situation for both advertisers and publishers.
“Advertisers basically aren’t getting an ROI because they don’t really know where their ads are going. There’s been a lot of advertisers that have stopped and their ads are still being run because there’s no transparency. Nobody can see where it’s going or where it’s coming from and that’s where the fraud has come into play. ”
NYIAX is an organization looking to solve this problem. With more transparency between advertisers and publishers, the likelihood of fraud dramatically increases.
Blockchain Technology Can Mitigate Advertising Fraud
An important part of creating this transparency is blockchain technology. This allows for a more accurate system of record keeping and accountability with the usages of digital advertising dollars.
“You know, blockchain is an immutable core ledger that records every single transaction from beginning to end in infinity. And we find that that’s going to be invaluable to this industry because it’s never been done before. Verification and reconciliation in the programmatic world now also has been another huge problem or issue. You know, someone has this count, someone has that count. And it’s millions and millions of dollars by the time you get done with it as to who wins or what. Publishers, nine out of ten times, lose.”
Implementing blockchain and smart contracts to the payment and execution of programmatic advertising can help solve the problems with verification and reconciliation, increasing the ROI of ad spend and lowering the cost of customer acquisition.
Transparency is Key Between Advertisers and Publishers
With blockchain technology and the rest of the NYIAX platform, a direct and automated relationship between advertisers and publishers will help prevent fraud and mitigate the amount of wasted advertising dollars.
“The only way to stop it is transparency and to be able to have a direct automated relationship. And I think real-time will always be there to a certain point, part of the inventory or the spend that’s out there, but I think if we can have the direct relationships as well as an automated direct relationship, I think it will alleviate a lot of the waste that’s happening in today’s online advertising spend. ”
As advertisers and publishers are able to track the results and cost of advertising more accurately, it will create a win-win situation for all stakeholders in the digital advertising space.
Note: this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Ander: So, it was a few months ago now, maybe a little bit less, that my former colleague and good friend Kat Leznik told me that she was working at this new company, NYIAX. And when I looked up this company, I immediately said this company is doing really cool stuff in the advertising space. I have to talk to their CEO for this podcast.
And it just so happens they’re based in New York, and that I’m in New York right now with so I’m here with Lou Severine, the CEO of NYIAX.
Lou, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us on this Wednesday.
Lou: My pleasure. Love the fact that you think we’re doing some interesting stuff.
Ander: It’s fascinating! And I explained a little bit about it in the introduction to this interview, but it’s going to sound much better coming from you. What is NYIAX?
Lou: NYIAX is a guaranteed contract matching engine, or advertising exchange. We’re built off of NASDAQ’s financial framework. We have built an advertising trading platform for guaranteed contracts from buyers to sellers in the RFP/RFI process. The IOs right now are done in a manual basis so we’re going to actually automate that for them.
Ander: Awesome. Why is this so important? There are some big problems, obviously, in the advertising space. We all want to lower our cost of customer acquisition. What problem is this really solving?
Lou: Well, I don’t like to ever think that we’re solving a problem; I like to think of how we can be an added value.
Ander: Right of course.
Lou: We’re an added value to the buyers in the fact that they’re able to go in and take a look at all of our publishers on our platform and their inventory. And our belief is to go, of course, to the Comp Score 100 but we also want to go to some of the smaller-to medium-sized publishers that have some very valuable inventory that some of these advertisers and agencies might not know exist or have never made relationships with. Or in the programmatic world they never get to see it.
Because as you know, in the programmatic world you’re in real-time, you’re in 100 milliseconds, and you’re in there buying and bidding on everything and then your ads are served. So you don’t really know where they go or how they go. It’s kind of bundled out and shipped out across the publisher network.
But in our world you can buy in what’s known as a forward contract world, so kind of like the upfront world and this will allow them now to take a look at the inventory of all of the publishers and pick and choose what they want. They can buy exactly as to what the CPM, the publisher, put up. And now the publishers have the advantage because they have their direct sales teams, whatever isn’t sold in the direct world 99.9% of the time goes into the programmatic world.
Ander: Oh awesome.
Lou: Well, this is kind of a step between that where now they can take that and in a little less than what they were charging for premium that they didn’t sell, they can put that up there and now these agencies that might not have known about this or might not have bought this can see this inventory and buy it.
Ander: So you’re creating a ton more transparency.
Lou: Yeah. Thank you for the segue into that. We will be the only transparent automated network or platform or exchange out there.
We’re going to be the ones that put the power back into the advertiser’s and the publisher’s hands and kind of take away a lot of the programmatic tax that’s out there today.
Ander: Yeah, it sounds like this is a win-win for everybody.
Lou: That’s our goal.
Ander: Awesome.
Now, before we get into why advertising really needs this and some of the nuances of what you’re working on and why it’s so important, let’s hear a little bit about you.
You’ve got this really interesting background. You spent a good amount of time at adMarketplace, some Adknowledge – I love that name, by the way – and also AOL.
What’s your professional history? What has your professional journey been like?
Lou: I started off in technology in the 90s. Worked actually in paging – that’s kind of how far back I go.
Ander: Alright.
Lou: Yes. We kind of certified and invented the way that texting is done today at a company called SkyTel, which was two-way paging, two-way-texting. From there went into broadband, built out the way that cable modem boxes work today with a company called Covad Communications in the DSL world. Then I went into online advertising. Kind of saw that as being a commodity and went to work in email marketing. Great company called Digital Impact that I worked with for quite a few years. It really taught me the way that online advertising and marketing world work. From there went into the display world of it with ad servers. Worked at aQuantive. aQuantive was purchased by Microsoft. Was at Microsoft for a couple of years and then went over to AOL to start up their adtech division of AOL… not start it up, but kind of launch it a little bit more into the United States. This was a Frankfurt based company that they had purchased just recently. Probably the best job I’ve ever had was at AOL.
Ander: Gotcha.
Lou: The colleagues and the friends that I’ve made from that company are amazing. I have five of them that I brought over here to NYIAX with me from AOL: my Chief Revenue Officer, Will Schmahl, worked with me at AOL and Richard Bush, my Chief Technology and Product Officer, along with other ones that are on our team.
From there dabbled around as, you know, heading sales companies within the search as well as display, video, mobile frontiers of the early 2010, 11, 12 timeframe. And then this came to me through a friend named Tom O’Neill who I’ve known for almost thirty years. We actually belong to the same country club on Long Island. And he came to me and said, ‘I’d like for you to take a look at this. These guys are asking me to help them raise money as well as bridge a relationship with NASDAQ.’ Tom sat on NASDAQ’s board for twelve years. And I read it and told him it can’t be done and he said, ‘Well, what if we build it on NASDAQ’s platform?’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s a whole different world that you’re talking about. You’re already taking a proven financial trading platform that’s probably the best in the world,’ – 44% of every trade done today in every currency out there across the globe is done on one of NASDAQ’s exchanges.
Ander: Wow! I was not aware of that specific number.
Lou: 85 exchanges in 52 countries.
Ander: Yep.
Lou: From what I was told. It could be more now; it could be less… I don’t know.
Ander: Sure.
Lou: They’re opening up exchanges everywhere. And I said I want to be a part of it, so he kind of brought me on as his advisor and I was working with the two co-founders, Carolina Abenante and Mark Grinbaum. And around July time frame when the funding was almost secured, our first round, they asked me to come on as the Chief Executive Officer and build the company.
Lou: And that’s where we are today.
Ander: Now, what is it about NASDAQ’s platform that made this possible, that actually makes this work?
Lou: Because in today’s world to go out and build something that probably has over $100,000,000 and fifteen to twenty years of building it… and to build this type of an exchange in the online advertising, well, by the time you built it, it would be commoditized. It would take years.
Ander: Right.
Lou: And NASDAQ has proven it’s regulated. It’s regulated more than any other exchange out there in the world today. Think of how many different security exchanges across the globe that they have to deal with.
And it’s extremely flexible. The way that they’ve done it, the OMEX platform, their financial framework platform, they’ve sold this off to many people that have built a UI via an API into their platform. And their team knows what they’re doing so working with them has been probably the best partner that I’ve ever had in my 25+ years in technology.
Ander: Yeah, the partnership you have with them is pretty impressive. I’m wondering how they reacted when they heard about this idea?
Lou: Yeah, so Tom is very good friends with Adena Friedman, who is the CEO now. At the time she was, I think, the CFO and President or Chief Operating Officer and President.
And he went to her with this idea and she’s kind of a techie… She gets it. She understands it. And she was looking for a way for NASDAQ to move into another industry or another vertical. And a proof of concept. And, what better… and with all the different ideologies and data points that go on in the programmatic AdTech world today, to prove how good NASDAQ’s financial framework is.
So we started working them roughly about end of January 2016 on building our platform and we accepted our platform I think mid-June of this year.
Lou: So it took just a little over a year and we’re beyond satisfied. And the working relationship we have with them, not just from a product standpoint but from a business standpoint, is phenomenal. From their CMO to their SVP of Strategy to our day-to-day contact Mark Driscoll, they’ve just been an incredible partner. You couldn’t ask for a better partner, so I don’t even feel like we’re a start-up. A kind of a startup on steroids.
Ander: You know, it’s funny. I was just about to say I know that I guess technically in the minds of many people you guys might be considered a start-up, but you’re a start-up with this – to use an advertising term – inventory of awesome executives, of incredible partnerships and technology that is going to do really awesome things for you!
Lou: Yes and you know, it’s helped a lot having the NASDAQ name behind us because it’s opened up a lot of doors, especially to the tough ones like the holding companies. And the top 50 publishers out there, they’ve kind of contacted us.
Ander: Of course.
Lou: And I don’t think if we were just, you know, NYIAX building this platform without NASDAQ behind us, that all would have happened no matter how good we are.
Lou: But of course having a name, a behemoth financial giant like NASDAQ behind you made it much, much easier for us so we’re beyond grateful and, you know, our partnership is just growing day by day with them.
Ander: Yeah. Now, you said top 50 publishers. What are some examples? I’m sure that we could think of them on our own but some of the ones that just come to mind for you?
Lou: Well right now, I’m under NDA with them and we’re doing an alpha and a beta.
Lou: And it’s kind of privileged, confidential information because they’re helping us build out the final 1.0 platform. So I really can’t talk about…
Ander: Definitely don’t want to violate that!
Lou: Don’t want to violate that. Just like I used the word ‘holding companies’ and didn’t mention their names because I can’t really mention anybody because we’re not live. But the minute we’re live, everything is transparent. Our platform is going to be all open so everyone will be able to see everyone.
Ander: That’s awesome. Now, just for anybody who might not be as familiar with the programmatic advertising world – just in case, to cover the bases – how would you define it? What would you say separates that from other digital?
Lou: It’s a way where they automated how online advertising is done in a real-time world. In the past it was bought and sold via Excel spreadsheets and emails and phone calls. Programmatic came into place with some of these RTBs, DSPs, and SSPs where they made it much more automated and it was really good for the industry. Unfortunately, it has kind of eroded a little bit because of the fact of fraud and no transparency.
Ander: Right..
Lou: I think, you know, there really wasn’t much fraud, there really wasn’t much non-human traffic. It was going out there and gobbling up ads and there wasn’t many bots that were disguising themselves as websites. But in the programmable world and done in real-time, it’s much easier and there’s no direct relationship. So last year in the United States 22.5% of every dollar spent was fraud.
Ander: Wow… On advertising?
Lou: On advertising, on online advertising. So that came out to roughly about 8.5 billion dollars.
Ander: That is completely unreal.
Lou: Yeah. So we’re hoping – and we know… we’re not hoping, we know that we’re going to decrease fraud because of the transparency and the ability to have a direct relationship in an automated way where they know they’re going to be buying from, say, Wall Street Journal, or Forbes, or Financial Times because they can see it within our platform. They know where that contract is going because that contract is guaranteed by the inventory that those publishers are putting up.
Where in the programmable world, you’re bidding in real-time according to demos and geographics, and it just goes across to maybe 50, 60 different publishers and some of them might not be the actual publisher you think they are. Now, are we ever going to stop non-human traffic? I don’t think so but to kind of cut 22.5% in half or less is a win.
Ander: That is a win. And I imagine that this is going to also result in increased click-through rates? Increased conversion rates?
Lou: We hope, yeah. That’s the goal. I mean, we’re not going to know until we launch.
Ander: Yeah.
Lou: Our testing has been extremely favorable so far.
Ander: And what’s also really cool about that with the median conversion rate… AdWords, just as an example, has a median conversion rate is around 2.35% or and that goes across all kinds of digital advertising.
I can’t think of another business case where it’s ok to be wasting 95% of the dollars you’re spending on something.
Lou: There’s not. And if we can cut that by, you know, let’s say 15%, think of how much more of an ROI that the brands are going to have.
Lou: And the publishers are going to be able to see, ‘Well, now I know that I can sell Colgate on my site because I know that Colgate’s buying on my site because I have that direct automated relationship with them. I’m guaranteeing those contracts. I’ve uploaded my sales packages, or my inventory,’ which is basically the people that visit their sites and where it is and what it is, ‘and I can actually say that, oh yeah, now actually Colgate is selling on there.’ Or Mercedes or Ford or on and on and on… Once we start to get more data and have more transactions, we’ll be able to provide a lot more, I guess, statistical information back to the advertisers and the publishers as to what’s working and what’s not.
Ander: So publishers will actually be able to use this historical data to basically price the contracts in a more favorable way to them?
Lou: Yes. Correct.
Lou: Because of the transparency that they’re seeing and they know who’s buying on their site, they’re able to then know what to package, how to package it, because of what happened. What was the CPA on this campaign? Or what was the click-through over here? Or how many did they sell? Or how many people actually went to a post-click landing page or went to a shopping cart? They’ll be able to know that data so it’s going to be a lot easier for them over a period of time. We have to walk before we get there.
Ander: So with how programmatic advertising is right now, obviously NYIAX is going to be providing a really fantastic solution for a lot of the problems, but what is something that you think people in that space are doing wrong right now?
Lou: Well, let me clarify a couple of things. I really wouldn’t consider us a programmatic solution.
Ander: Ok.
Lou: I consider us an automated guaranteed contracts forwards market. Think about how television does upfronts. You can utilize our platform to automate all of your upfronts or buy into the future. So today, right now on July 26th or 25th, whatever date this is, you want to buy Super Bowl, you want to buy Black Friday, you want to buy Cyber Monday, you want to buy Christmas Eve, you want to buy on and on and on…
You can utilize our system to do that. So it’s not a programmatic world because programmatic is real-time, it’s done in a hundred milliseconds and basically it’s right there, you buy instantaneously. Ours is more of an automated way to buy and sell contracts for advertising. And I think that’s where we’re going to be different and I think that’s kind of where we differentiate not only ourselves from programmatic but to transparency.
Lou: So programmatic, I think, has gotten into it because there’s too many players, there’s way too people that are touch points. A publisher today puts up a $5 CPM. If they get back $2, they’re lucky. With all the people that touch, all the programmatic tax that touches along the way.
Advertisers basically aren’t getting an ROI because they don’t really know where their ads are going. There’s been a lot of advertisers that have stopped and their ads are still being run because there’s no transparency. Nobody can see where it’s going or where it’s coming from and that’s where the fraud has come into play.
And the only way to stop fraud is to open it up. Open it up and everybody be able to play on a level, fair playing field where everybody knows who everybody is and you take away the black box because the black box allows the bots to come in and that’s where the fraud happens.
I think transparency and fraud are the two biggest downfalls of programmatic today. And I don’t remember who exactly it was that came out – I just read it recently – for the first time ever, programmatic advertising was down 12% in the first quarter.
Ander: This year?
Lou: This year.
Ander: Interesting.
Lou: It was either ComScore or eMarketer or one of those.
But the advertisers are getting smarter. They don’t want their dollars to be wasted and they’re putting the pressure on the holding companies and the holding companies now are putting the pressure on the programmatic world where they’re saying, ‘Give us a better solution.’ So we feel we’re in a very, very good spot to come in with that better solution.
Ander: Gotcha. Now obviously, throughout the course of your career, you’ve developed an expertise in all of this stuff and you came into this role because you have that expertise [chuckles]. What is something, since you’ve come into the role of CEO here at NYIAX, what is something that you’ve learned that surprised you? Maybe something you weren’t previously aware of or something that was a reality check of some kind?
Lou: Great question! I don’t think I’ve really thought about that one. I would say just running a startup.
Ander: Mm-hmm. Is this your first startup?
Lou: Running it, yes. No, not my first start-up working for.
Lou: I’ve run sales organizations, I’ve run support organizations, I’ve run sales and support organizations in start-ups. Never being the CEO.
You know, it’s Murphy’s Law – everything that can go wrong, will go wrong – so there’s been some bumps in the road. I think the biggest challenge that you always have in any start-up is people and finding the right people, trying to teach them the way that we’re trying to go to business. And we’ve found great people so I think we’ve been extremely lucky there. But I would say just the people and getting it ramped up has been probably the hardest part.
Ander: And what about your knowledge of the industry? Have any of your perspectives changed at all since starting this?
Lou: No.
Ander: I like the confidence! Haha.
Lou: It’s been very eye opening. I think the only thing that I’m a little bit shocked about is the level of interest that we’ve gotten.
Lou: I didn’t think it would be this much. And when we put out our press release on March 14th about our partnership with NASDAQ and the fact that we were launching into our pilot, over fifty publications picked it up and we did an embargo.
Because nobody would do it exclusive when we tried to get them to. And we did an embargo and our PR company, Blast PR and Alana McGillivray, who’s amazing, best PR company I’ve ever worked with in the past, in my entire career said, ‘If you get about fifteen, twenty pickups that’s pretty good.’ So over a period of time we have over fifty and all the different interviews that we’ve done from the people that actually said that they didn’t want to do it as an exclusive has been amazing. And again, I attribute that to being a partner with NASDAQ.
Lou: So that’s been my biggest shock.
Ander: And another thing that’s interesting is there’s no other company doing this.
Lou: No. Well, there’s a couple that do certain bits and pieces of it.
Lou: But I don’t think anybody has the full solution that we have off of NASDAQ’s financial framework. We’re not even going to light up all the capabilities in our 1.0 that NASDAQ has because we have to walk before we run. But our 1.1s, 1.2s, and 1.3s… we’ll load a lot more capabilities into our platform.
Lou, we talked briefly, before we hit the record button for this interview, about blockchain. I actually did an interview a few weeks ago with a guy who is in the Bitcoin space, which obviously is a totally different universe. A little unpredictable to say the least.
Lou: Yeah, it’s a similar philosophy but in a different way.
Ander: Yes. Needless to say though, blockchain technology is something that is growing very quickly. It’s something that’s becoming very, very relevant, especially in the financial industry and the advertising industry as well. So how does that play into what you guys are doing?
Lou: Well, it’s great. We’re going to be utilizing a blockchain technology from NASDAQ and we’ll be the first platform on NASDAQ’s financial framework that is in the Cloud and we will be the first exchange that uses blockchain for them. So we’re doing a ton of different proof of concepts in that part.
You know, blockchain is an immutable core ledger that records every single transaction from beginning to end in infinity. And we find that that’s going to be invaluable to this industry because it’s never been done before.
Verification and reconciliation in the programmatic world now also has been another huge problem or issue. You know, someone has this count, someone has that count. And it’s millions and millions of dollars by the time you get done with it as to who wins or what. Publishers, nine out of ten times, lose.
We feel, by utilizing their verification systems as well as blockchain, we’re going to alleviate a lot of those problems also.
Ander: Awesome. Now, if we step back from advertising, if we step back even from digital, if we just look at marketing as a whole, where do you think marketing is headed in the future? What do you think is going to change and how can we as advertisers, how can we as marketers, really prepare for what’s coming?
Lou: I think the only way that marketing in the online world – because I’m in the online world right now; we will be venturing to other verticals after this, other medias…
Lou: I feel that everything has to become transparent. I feel that every single advertiser and agency needs to know exactly where every single ad is going and in an automated way. You can’t do it in a direct way today. There are too many publishers out there, there are too many relationships you have to build, there’s too much inventory.
So if you can help streamline that and automate it but keep it transparent and keep it where they actually have value of every single dollar they spend, that’s where marketing is going. Because it can’t keep going the way it’s going today because unfortunately, the fraudsters are pretty smart.
And every time we come up with a solution as an industry, they figure it out. And they’re only going to get better at it because that’s all they focus on.
Lou: And the only way to stop it is transparency and to be able to have a direct automated relationship. And I think real-time will always be there to a certain point, part of the inventory or the spend that’s out there, but I think if we can have the direct relationships as well as an automated direct relationship, I think it will alleviate a lot of the waste that’s happening in today’s online advertising spend.
Ander: Awesome. Well, I certainly look forward to all of those things happening. You guys are working on something very cool as I have said many, many times. Thanks so much for taking the time to sit down, inviting me up to your office here in the… I guess we’re in Chelsea, right?
Lou: Yes.
Ander: Yeah. I sort of know my New York City neighborhoods but I’m getting better every time I come.
Lou: Every time you turn a corner there’s another New York neighborhood, so don’t worry about it!
Ander: Right! When I used to come here more often for work, I used to get very happy when I did not use my phone to figure out which train to take.
Lou: Think of it as a grid.
Lou: The streets go east to west, and the avenues go north to south. Except for Wall Street. Other than that you can figure just about anything out.
Ander: Yeah. So, Lou, if people want to check out what you’re doing, they want to get some more information, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Lou: They can email us at [email protected] or go to our website, nyiax.com. We’re going to be at a couple of Digiday events coming up. I’ll be speaking at DMEXCO as well as the Web Summit in Lisbon. Other than that, go on our website and ask us any question. We’re more than happy to answer.
Ander: N-Y-I-A-X.com.
Lou: That’s correct.
Ander: Awesome. Lou, once again, thanks so much for your time.
Lou: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
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The Situation in Ivory Coast: intervention to protect or regime change operation?
By Susan Breau, Professor of International Law (Flinders University, Australia)
On 30 March 2011, the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter adopted Resolution 1975 which urged the defeated President Gbagbo to immediately step aside and declared the situation in Ivory Coast to be a threat to international threat and security.
The resolution also imposed targeted sanctions (freezing of assets, travel bans) against Laurent Gbagbo and other members of his regime. In its preamble it declared that the attacks currently taking place in Côte d’Ivoire against the civilian population could amount to crimes against humanity and that perpetrators of such crimes must be held accountable under international law and noting that the International Criminal Court may decide on its jurisdiction over the situation in Côte d’Ivoire on the basis of article 12, paragraph 3 of the Rome Statute.
For the purposes of this analysis the resolution also authorised the United Nations Operation in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI) to use “all necessary means to carry out its mandate to protect civilians” including preventing the use of heavy weapons. Surprisingly, the resolution specifically mentioned ‘the French forces’ supporting UNOCI which indirectly authorised the use of force by French forces in assisting the UN operation to fulfil its mandate.
Importantly, the resolution specificially referred to the ‘primary responsibility’ of each State to protect civilians, thus referring to the responsibility to protect albeit in an oblique way. It can be asserted that together with the recent resolution 1973 on Libya which authorised “all necessary means to protect civilians”, there is a growing body of international practice responding to massive violations of human rights with mandates to use force, if necessary, to protect civilians.
Posted by Professor Susan Breau
Tags: armed conflicts, Iraq, Ivory Coast, peace and security, Security Council, UN
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Sabitha hangs on by a thread
Sabitha’s Lebelek is a widow and mother to five children. The decades of war in South Sudan, and the brutal violence of 2013 and 2016, after the nation achieved its independence, have created thousands of widows and orphans. Her story is typical of so many who have lost their husbands. Her husband was a soldier, killed during the conflict of 2016.
Being left alone to survive and bring up children on your own in a developed country is difficult. Doing this in what is now one of the harshest environments on earth, such as South Sudan, is near to impossible. “When my husband was alive, we survived on his salary and we were able buy food,” she says. “But now I am alone and I have no food at all.”
She and her children are entirely vulnerable, on the brink of starvation and rely almost entirely on humanitarian aid. Not only can she not feed her children – Sabitha cannot feed herself – she is skin and bone and visibly malnourished herself.
Sabitha says she was born in Gumuruk and came to live in Pibor. She explains that her family tended cattle and used the livestock as money as is the culture of the pastoralists here, and has been for generations. Life has not been easy for her and hunger has always shadowed the family. When she was growing up, she says that they ate wild fruit and drank milk of the cattle. “We were always hungry. There was not enough food for us.”
When her husband was injured he received medical treatment in Juba. She travelled to the capital to visit him. Sabitha is now more widely travelled than other villagers, many of whom only ever travel within a few hours walking distance from their places of birth. When he died of his injuries, Sabitha returned to Pibor.
Her struggle is not confined to having enough food to stay alive. Collecting water is difficult and time-consuming. Sabitha says it takes an hour to walk to the river. She walks to the water source in the morning, at noon and in the evening. If people such as Sabitha in poor communities hours looking for water, there is no time for anything else, such as caring for the children and cultivating the land. Her life is suspended in time and simply cannot progress. To add to this, the water she collects is dirty and is sometimes contaminated, she has no choice but to use it. “Sometimes, the water makes my children sick,” she says.
The question about food is a difficult one. “We have no food at home. We go and look for wild fruit. If we do not find anything, we rely on humanitarian aid. There is nothing else for us,” she says.
Sabitha had that day brought her youngest child to the Pibor malnutrition clinic and the child qualified to go into the programme. Sabitha was given a take-home ration of Plumpy’Nut for one child. She was also trained on washing her hands and washing the child’s hands and face before eating. The sachet of paste also has to be folded over after use to prevent flies entering the foil packaging and contaminating it.
Her expression is one of quiet resignation. She knows that her child could have died. Perhaps she knows the whole family could die. Many thousands of others in her position also face breath-taking social, economic and emotional hardship. Help JAM to spread its reach in South Sudan and help us to continue to help those like Sabitha.
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Seeds of Inspiration: Israel Forever Bloggers
Tags: Tu B'Shevat, Land and Nature, Israel Engagement, Writers
The Israel Forever bloggers are a diverse group of writers from around the world. They provide us with a dynamic collection of personal perspectives, insights, and stories that inspire others to explore and strengthen their own personal connection to Israel.
Who planted those seeds in them and encouraged them to become an inspiration to you, our Virtual Citizens of Israel?
In honor of Tu B’Shevat, we asked them to share their seeds of inspiration.
Here’s what they had to say:
Rhonda Blender
Rhonda booked her first trip to Israel, traveling by herself, determined to initiate conversations with Israelis in cafes and shops for a fuller portrait of the country than that provided by news outlets in the States. She left Israel knowing that, “it’s more complex here than anyone in the Diaspora can grasp from their living rooms” and that she was in love with the country and the people. She is trying to make a career change into a role where she can work full time on behalf of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
I would have to say that as far as inspiration goes, my figure would be Dr. Elana Heideman, PhD. Through the highs and lows of the news, the seasons and the holidays, Elana advances forward. I truly think that the website for Israel Forever is the best out there. The content is superb, the actual graphic design at a superior level, and most importantly it is inclusive. Everyone can find something there of interest and it is not superficial. I truly have no idea where she has the time and the energy to keep the site at the level she maintains it at. What is especially inspirational is the ideas she introduces all the time- I don't know the well she draws from, but she does.
Varda Epstein
Varda Epstein is a writer in love with Israel, a mother of 12, and a grandmother, too. When not battling the trolls, Varda is a parent education expert and writer at Kars4kids, a Guidestar gold medal charity.
Prof. Wisse is unafraid to speak the truth: that there is no Arab-Israel conflict, but an Arab war against the Jews. Her brown eyes flash brilliance as she lays out the facts that underscore each undeniable point. There is no doubt that with her words and facts, she proves the mischaracterization of the nature of the war we face as a people. I like her Jewish pride, her bravery, and shining intelligence. I see her as utterly Jewish, and a heroine to her people. I want to be her, with my head held high, always a lady, never resorting to insult, proud to be Jewish, and piercingly intelligent.
Judi Felber
Judi Felber is a creative writer, editor, educator and development expert who made Aliyah with her family in 2006 at the start of the Second Lebanon War. Combining her strong communication and critical thinking skills with a deep love of Israel, Judi is a Communications Coordinator at Israel Forever.
Are you an American Jew or a Jewish American or an Israeli?" These types of questions were the kinds that my friends and I would discuss and debate at our BBYO Shabbatons. They, and other questions like these, helped me focus on who I was in the world as a Jew and who I wanted to become. So, if I was to choose who influenced me to be involved in Israel advocacy and activism, I would have to say my friends in BBYO, many of whom I am still in touch with.
Steve Linde
Steve Linde is senior features editor at The Jerusalem Post. He served as editor-in-chief for five years from July 2011, after working as managing editor, news editor and night editor since he started at the newspaper in 1997. He previously worked as a radio broadcaster at Israel Radio’s English News. Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, Linde grew up in Durban, South Africa, and has graduate degrees in sociology and journalism, the latter from the University of California at Berkeley. Linde made aliya in 1988, served in the IDF Artillery Corps, and lives in Jerusalem.
The person who inspired me most in my life was my late mother, Roseve (Saacks) Linde, who died of a rare disease in her native South Africa on Tu Bishvat in 1988 at the age of 54. My mom said she and my dad had provided me and my sister, Debbie Sandler, with roots and wings, roots in Judaism and Zionism, and wings to fly into the future, which landed us both in Israel. A speech and drama teacher by profession, she worked as an aliya emissary in Durban and later as national organizer of the Union of Jewish Women in Johannesburg.
Rolene Marks
Rolene Marks is a passionate advocate for Israel and appears on radio, television and has been published in numerous global publications. Rolene is a member of the Media Team Israel, an advocacy body that fights media bias as well as Truth be Told.
I consider my greatest purpose in life to be of service to my country and the Jewish people. It is always my intention to leave people feeling motivated, strong and proud of who they are and where they come from. I draw my greatest inspiration from the generations who came before us. It is my belief that they hold us high on their shoulders and we can and must never forget that they were the pioneers, survivors, martyrs, teachers and nation builders. When I look at the generation that comes after me I am inspired again. I see hope, continuity, enthusiasm, youth and future trailblazers. It is the unseen link of generation to generation. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
Arsen Ostrovsky
Arsen Ostrovsky is the Executive Director of The Israeli-Jewish Congress (IJC), as well as an international human rights lawyer, national security and foreign policy analyst. He writes for a number of major publications and speaks regularly on topics related to: Arab-Israeli conflict, Antisemitism, Middle East Foreign Policy and National Security, International Human Rights, Israeli – European relations and various issues relating to the Jewish community and public diplomacy. (Unless explicitly stated, all articles are written in his personal capacity)
My sense of Jewish identity, history and deep sense of Zionism is what inspires me the most to be an advocate for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. As I see the Israel and Jewish communities around the world increasingly under attack, I feel as Zionists we all have an obligation to stand up, be counted and act. I also firmly believe in the need to 'broaden the conversation' about Israel beyond just the prism of ‘the conflict’ with our neighbors to telling our story - which is one an ancient people returning home, of hope, inspiration and an unrivaled spirit of dynamism, innovation, culture and creativity. THAT is my Israel and that is what inspires me -
Inspired by the vision of Herzl, the leadership of Ben-Gurion and the courage of Begin.
Noemi Schlosser
Noémi Schlosser is an established Belgian theater actor, director, writer and producer who graduated under Ivo van Hove in 2001. In 2004 she founded the mixed media theater company Salomee Speelt and has been the artistic director ever since. She has performed plays internationally throughout Morocco, Europe and the USA with the support of both Flemish Government and European Union.
I am a theater person, I write, direct, produce. Since a young age, I have struggled heavily with depression. When I was 21, it hit me again. Hard. Earlier that year my boyfriend crashed in a car accident and I was battling with a disease that took me 8 years to beat. I took some time off and went to visit a friend on the island Lanzarote, it was around Pessach. I was preparing a show called "Moscow-New York" about Jewish emigration in the 1930s, the Gulag, the camps, the loss of humanity, and one of my recurring themes: people in extraordinary circumstances .
I sat, all wrapped up in a warm blanket, facing the sea about to start reading "If this is a man" Primo Levi's Holocaust testimony. I started with the introduction by Elie Wiesel. It said something I will paraphrase here : 'They can take everything away from you except who you are and how you think'.
This sentence saved my life then, and many times over the years. As a person, a woman and an artist this has given me the will to not give up and even more... It gave me the strength to follow my (artistic) dreams and missions. Even if that meant taking the hardest possible way to achieve it.
Tricia Schwitzer
Tricia Schwitzer serves on both the World WIZO Executive and the Executive of Friends of WIZO. Prior to joining the executive, Tricia was the assistant editor of the WIZO Review. Special projects undertaken for World WIZO include Israel advocacy, social media marketing material and promotional writing.
Whenever I visit WIZO's many welfare projects and meet those in our care, I am so inspired by the success stories of those who, against all the odds, have turned obstacles into opportunities, just like the State of Israel itself. When I see little Israeli toddlers playing in the playground of our WIZO Day Care Centres, I feel a tug in my heart knowing that one day in the not too distant future they will don the uniform of Israel's Armed Forces in defence of the citizens of the State of Israel and they are proud to serve, just as we are proud to serve them. That fact alone is all the inspiration I need.
I believe that, now more than ever, Jews around the world must not be complacent about Israel. Our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora must look beyond local and international media bias to search out the truth, the spirit and the heart of Israel, and they should take an active part in advocating, supporting and promoting Israel - and they should look for creative and practical ways in which to engage others, non-Jews and Jews in order to amplify the voice that needs to make itself heard on every platform.
Romi Sussman
Romi Sussman heads the content writing department for a technology and digital consulting company. Originally from Los Angeles, California, she made Aliyah from Potomac, MD and is raising six boys in the hills of Gush Etzion. She frequently blogs about life in Israel and her experiences over the last decade.
We were inspired to make Aliyah, in large part, due to the participants of the Torah Mitzion Kollel. These Israeli families and young adults put their regular lives (and those of their children) on hold for a year or more to move to foreign locations and share their love of Israel. And it wasn't their words about Israel that inspired us; rather it was their personalities, enthusiasm, friendship and energy that captured our hearts and made us wonder if we were missing out on something greater than what we already had in our lives.
WHO GIVES YOU SEEDS OF INSPIRATION?
Now YOU have a chance to honor a person who has had an inspirational impact on YOUR life and YOUR personal connection to Israel!
Eretz, Eretz, Eretz - ארץ ,ארץ ,ארץ
The Almond Tree Is Blooming - השקדיה פורחת
Kinneret - כנרת by Naomi Shemer
Tu B'shevat, connecting to the Land of Israel through nature
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Frank Olson Project
Olson Family
Collage Method
Credit: The elegance, richness, and ease of navigation of this website owe to the labor, talent, and ingenuity of Dylan Simpson who worked unstintingly on a brilliant re-design of the original site. He has created a resource which will be of lasting value to students, scholars, journalists, and the general public for years to come. My deepest thanks to him. — Eric Olson
Contribute: Please click here to make a contribution to help us continue the work.
Contact: We would love to hear from you. Please click here to send us a message.
Copyright 2019 Eric Olson, Ph.D. – All Rights Reserved.
Murray, the Zelig
Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist
by Alston Chase.
Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Henry Murray, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, played a key role in CIA psychological experimentation going back to his involvement with the OSS during World War II, as this chapter explains.
By a great biographical irony, I had already come to know Henry Murray quite well at Harvard in the early 1970’s, before I knew anything about the role of the CIA—or the alleged role of LSD—in my father’s death. My own critical response to Murray’s Thematic Apperception Test was one of the factors that led to my work on the collage method.
— Eric Olson
In giving the six unwitting Harvard seniors LSD that spring of 1954, Dr. Hyde was motivated by the highest ideals. He and his colleagues believed that by studying the effects of this drug on the brain, they might find a cure for mental illness. But the CIA was paying his bills, and it had a different agenda in mind. The agency wanted a drug, as LSD historians Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain put it, that would “blow minds and make people crazy.”
University researchers would soon discover that, like Dr. Faustus, the legendary Renaissance magician who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power, they had signed a contract before reading the fine print. And the fine print contained an ethical trap: Saving the world required the sacrifice—of others. In the name of the highest ideals, some would commit the lowest of crimes. Others, while not quite doing evil, simply lost their ethical direction. For both, this journey from high to low was such a gradual descent that many did not notice.
And among these fellow travelers would be Professor Murray
himself.
The agency’s interest began with its precursor, the OSS, in 1942, when General Donovan, anxious to perfect interrogation techniques for captured spies, established a “truth drug” committee of prominent psychologists, including Dr. Winfred Overholser, superintendent of St. Elizabethís hospital in Washington, D.C., and Dr. Edward Strecker, president of the American Psychiatric Association. The committee began testing a wide variety of chemicals on test subjects, from peyote and marijuana to “goofball” concoctions of sedatives and stimulants.
The following year, an obscure Swiss chemist named Albert Hoffmann, working for the Sandoz pharmaceutical company, accidentally imbibed a concoction he had created while looking for a circulation stimulant. The chemical was D-lysergic acid diethylamide, better known today as LSD. Without warning, Hoffmann found himself experiencing what was the world’s first acid trip. Coincidentally, at the same time, across the Rhine River in Germany, Nazi doctors were testing another hallucinogenic drug, mescaline, on inmates at the Dachau concentration camp.
The discovery of the Nazis’ Dachau notes after the war by U.S. Navy investigators triggered intense interest in mescaline in American intelligence circles. But it also generated alarm. The field of psychoactive drugs, it seemed, was yet another defense-related area in which the Nazis had been ahead of the Allies. To snatch up these Nazi experts in the dark sciences before the Soviets got them, the Pentagon launched ‘Operation Paperclip,’ a highly secret program to bring some of these German scientists into America. As most had been Nazis, their entry into the United States was prohibited by law. So Paperclip officials smuggled them in, forging, deleting, and doctoring documents to erase evidence of their Nazi past.
Some Paperclip scientists, such as the famous rocket specialist and Nazi Party member Werner von Braun, went to work in the U.S. space program. Others were chemical warfare specialists, experts on everything from sterilization to mass extermination. Among these were members of the former team of doctors already wanted by the U.S. Army war crimes unit for having conducted the ghoulish “high-altitude” (oxygen and pressure deprivation) experiments on Dachau inmates that killed at least seventy. These men would carry on similar research for the U.S. Air Force. Still other Paperclip scientists were sent to Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, where they were put on the CIA payroll and began testing Nazi nerve and mustard gases on unwitting American GIs, seriously injuring several.
Soon, the very same Nazis who had helped to develop nerve gas and “Zyklon B”—tthe gas used to exterminate Jews at Auschwitzówere helping to perfect America’s own “Psychochemical Warfare” program, testing everything from alcohol to LSD on unsuspecting American soldiers. At Edgewood and Fort Holabird, Maryland (where I was stationed as a young second lieutenant in intelligence in 1957-58) at least one thousand soldiers were given up to twenty doses of LSD. Some, locked in boxes and then given LSD, went temporarily insane. Others had epileptic seizures.
In 1949, a Viennese chemist named Otto Kauders gave a lecture on LSD at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, claiming that this newly discovered drug artificially and temporarily induced psychosis. This claim would later be found false — acid trips are not at all like psychosis — but Kaudersís account impressed the hospital staff. If LSD reproduced the symptoms of psychosis, they reasoned, this proved that the disease had a chemical base. So studying LSD’s effects might lead them to drugs for treating mental illness.
Shortly after Kaudersís talk, one hospital staffer, Max Rinkel, ordered a supply of LSD from Sandoz and then persuaded his colleague Robert Hyde to test it on himself. Hyde’s ensuing trip—the first by an American—fired his enthusiasm for further experimentation. Research on one hundred subjects began at Harvard’s Boston Psychopathic under Hyde’s direction in 1950
Meanwhile, the CIA was in hot pursuit of the elusive truth drug. After the Soviets’ 1949 show trial of the Hungarian prelate Cardinal JÛzsef Mindszenty, this pursuit turned into a race. At the trial, the cardinal confessed to crimes he clearly didn’t commit, and acted as though he were sleepwalking. Other Soviet show trials demonstrated the same apparent “brainwashing” of prisoners. Later, it would be learned that the Soviets didn’t use drugs at all to accomplish this. Their major weapon was psychology and sleep deprivation. But at the time, the CIA suspected the Soviets had some super-mind-control drug. And they had to have it too.
In 1949, according to John Marks, who first broke the story of CIA experimentation with LSD, the agency’s head of Scientific Intelligence went to Western Europe to learn more about Soviet techniques and to supervise experiments of his own, in order, this official explained, to “apply special methods of interrogation for the purpose of evaluation of Russian practices.” By the spring of 1950, the agency established a special program under its security division named “Operation Bluebird” to test behavior-control methods, and started recruiting university scholars to work for the program. Bluebird scientists began experimenting on North Korean prisoners of war and others. They tried “ice-pick lobotomies,” electroshock, and other “neural-surgical techniques,” as well as a host of drugs including cocaine, heroin, and even something called a “stupid bush,” whose effects remain classified to this day.
To pursue these shadowy endeavors, the government enlisted the elite of the American psychological establishment, either as conduits, consultants, or researchers. According to a later agency review, these helpers included at least ninety-three universities and other governmental or nonprofit organizations, including Harvard, Cornell, the University of Minnesota, the Stanford University School of Medicine, the Lexington, Kentucky, Narcotics Farm, several prisons and penitentiaries, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Institutes of Health.
Project Bluebird was renamed “Project Artichoke” in 1951, and in that same year the CIA discovered LSD. When the Korean War drew to a close the following spring, the CIA’s interest in the drug became an obsession.
As American prisoners of the Chinese were repatriated, authorities discovered to their horror that 70 percent had either made confessions of “guilt” for participating in the war or had signed petitions calling for an end to the U.S. war effort in Asia. Fifteen percent collaborated fully with the Chinese, and only 5 percent refused to cooperate with them at all. Clearly, the Chinese had found new and formidable brainwashing techniques that could transform American servicemen into “Manchurian candidates” programmed to do Communist bidding. America faced a brainwash gap!
Pushing the panic button, in April 1953 the CIA replaced Project Artichoke with a more ambitious effort called MKULTRA, under the direction of Sidney Gottlieb, a brilliant chemist with a degree from CalTech. Gottlieb was the ultimate dirty trickster, having personally participated in attempts to assassinate foreign leaders. And he immediately put his talents to work, this time against Americans.
Once MKULTRA was established, say Lee and Shlain, “almost overnight a whole new market for grants in LSD research sprang into existence as money started pouring through CIA-linked conduits.” Among these conduits was the Josiah J. Macy Foundation, whose director was an ex-OSS officer named Frank Fremont-Smith. And among the beneficiaries of this covert funding would be Harold Abramson, an acquaintance of Gregory Bateson’s, who was an allergist at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital and a CIA consultant to Edgewood Arsenal’s Paperclip scientists. Another was Hydeís group at Boston Psychopathic.
The aim, Gottlieb explained, was “to investigate whether and how it was possible to modify an individual’s behavior by covert means.” LSD, he hoped, would turn out to be the Swiss Army knife of mind control—an all-purpose drug that could ruin a man’s marriage, change his sexual behavior, make him lie or tell the truth, destroy his memory or help him recover it, induce him to betray his country or program him to obey orders or disobey them.
Soon, MKULTRA was testing all conceivable drugs on every kind of victim, including prison inmates, mental patients, foreigners, the terminally ill, homosexuals, and ethnic minorities. Altogether, it conducted tests at fifteen penal and mental institutions, concealing its role by using the U.S. Navy, the Public Health Service, and the National Institute of Mental Health as funding conduits. During the ten years of MKULTRA’s existence, the agency’s inspector general reported after its termination in 1963, the program experimented with “electro-shock, various fields of psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and anthropology, graphology, harassment substances, and paramilitary devices and materials.”
Its brainwashing research also took the CIA to Canada, where the agency hired an eminently prestigious psychologist, Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, president of the Canadian, American, and World Psychiatric associations and head of the Allen Memorial Institute at McGill University (which had been founded with money from the Rockefeller Foundation). Cameron’s studies centered on what he called “depatterning” and what one CIA operative described as the “creation of a vegetable.” This entailed giving unwitting test subjects bevies of drugs that caused them to sleep for several weeks, virtually straight, with only brief waking intervals. This was followed by up to sixty-five days of powerful electroshock “therapy,” where each jolt was twenty to forty times more intense than standard electroshock treatment. After this program, some were given LSD and put in sensory deprivation boxes for another sixty-five days.
By the late 1950s, the CIA and LSD had become virtually inseparable. The advent of LSD, Timothy Leary would declare later, “was no accident. It was all planned and scripted by the Central Intelligence.”
Indeed, it was. As Lee and Shlain explain:
Nearly every drug that appeared on the black market during the 1960s — marijuana, cocaine, heroin, PCP, amyl nitrite, mushrooms, DMT, barbiturates, laughing gas, speed and many others — had previously been scrutinized, tested, and in some cases refined by CIA and army scientists. But of all the techniques explored by the Agency in its multimillion-dollar twenty-five-year quest to conquer the human mind, none received as much attention or was embraced with such enthusiasm as LSD-25. For a time CIA personnel were completely infatuated with the hallucinogen. Those who first tested LSD in the early 1950s were convinced that it would revolutionize the cloak-and-dagger trade.
To push its drugs, the CIA sought help from the university elite. In 1969, John Marks reports,
the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs published a fascinating little study designed to curb illegal LSD use. The authors wrote that the drug’s “early use was among small groups of intellectuals at large Eastern and West Coast universities. It spread to undergraduate students, then to other campuses. Most often, users have been introduced to the drug by persons of high status. Teachers have influenced students; upperclassmen have influenced lower classmen.” Calling this a “trickle-down phenomenon,” the authors seem to have correctly analyzed how LSD got around the country. They left out only one vital element, which they had no way of knowing: That somebody had to influence the teachers and that up there at the top of the LSD distribution system could be found the men of MKULTRA.
Fremont-Smith and Abramson were the links between the universities and MKULTRA.
Fremont-Smith organized the conferences that spread the word about LSD to the academic hinterlands. Abramson also gave Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead’s former husband, his first LSD. In 1959 Bateson, in turn, helped arrange for a beat poet friend of his named Allen Ginsberg to take the drug at a research program located off the Stanford campus.
And Murray was part of this drug-testing pyramid. During this time, according to Frank Barron, he had supervised experiments “on the subjective effects of psycho-active drugs, injecting adrenaline . . . into naive subjects to study changes in their subjectivity.” And in 1960, even as the “Multiform Assessments” on Kaczynski and his classmates were underway, Murray had, according to Leary, given his blessing to the latter’s testing psilocybin, an hallucinogen derived from mushrooms, on undergraduates.
In his autobiography, Flashbacks, Leary, who would dedicate the rest of his life to “turning on and tuning out,” described Murray as “the wizard of personality assessment who, as OSS chief psychologist, had monitored military experiments on brainwashing and sodium amytal interrogation. Murray expressed great interest in our drug-research project and offered his support.”
Leary had taken LSD for the first time at Harvard in 1959, where, traveling in Abramson’s orbit, he had attended Fremont-Smithís Macy Foundation conferences on the drug. And Murray, write Lee and Shlain, “took a keen interest in Leary’s work. He volunteered for a psilocybin session, becoming one of the first of many faculty and graduate students to sample the mushroom pill under Learyís guidance.”
By that time, Gregory Bateson was working at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, California. While he was introducing Allen Ginsberg to the drug, a colleague began testing it on Stanford undergraduates. One of these students was Ken Kesey, who would later write One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and was soon to be immortalized by Tom Wolfe as a “Merry Prankster” and LSD missionary in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Meanwhile, Murray, already addicted to amphetamines, continued to flirt with hallucinogens. At Leary’s suggestion, according to a former colleague, he took psilocybin again, this time with Aldous Huxley and Ginsberg. He introduced Morgan to LSD. And in 1961 he spoke at the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Copenhagen, which, thanks to Leary and Huxley’s presence, turned into a virtual psychoactive circus. His talk there, wrote Forrest Robinson, featured “a highly literary rendering of a psilocybin ‘trip’ that he took with Timothy Leary a year earlier. . . . ‘The newspapers described it as the report of a drug-induced vision,’ he wrote [Lewis] Mumford, with obvious delight.”
Not all scientists worked for the CIA. And many did so unwittingly. Nor was this agency the only covert intelligence bureaucracy sponsoring Cold War studies. The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and other defense agencies financed their own experiments as well, often duplicating each otherís efforts, sometimes at the same institutions. (The Harvard Medical School, for example, conducted LSD research on unwitting subjects for the Department of the Army in 1952-54, even as Hyde continued with similar work at Boston Psychopathic for the CIA.)
And although LSD may have been the most sensational subject, Lee and Shlain make clear that it was far from the only field in which the government was prime mover. Cold War research ran the gamut, from investigations of sleep deprivation to perfecting anthrax delivery systems. It co-opted nearly an entire generation of scholars in the physical, social, and health sciences. This work was so various, so widespread, and so secret that even today it is impossible to grasp its full dimensions.
Among MKULTRA papers that later came to light, Lee and Shlain write, were
CIA documents describing experiments in sensory deprivation, sleep teaching, ESP, subliminal projection, electronic brain stimulation, and many other methods that might have applications for behavior modification. One project was designed to turn people into programmed assassins who would kill on automatic command. Another document mentioned “hypnotically-induced anxieties” and “induced pain as a form of physical and psychological control.” There were repeated references to exotic drugs and biological agents that caused “headache clusters,” uncontrollable twitching or drooling, or a lobotomy-like stupor. Deadly chemicals were concocted for the sole purpose of inducing a heart attack or cancer without leaving a clue as to the actual source of the disease. CIA specialists also studied the effects of magnetic fields, ultrasonic vibration, and other forms of radiant energy on the brain. As one CIA doctor put it, “We lived in a never-never land of ‘eyes only’ memos and unceasing experimentation.”
As university professors and hospital researchers pursued their devil’s bargain with the intelligence community, victims accumulated.
On January 8, 1953, Harold Blauer, a professional tennis player, reportedly died from a massive overdose of a mescaline derivative at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. The drug, say the investigative journalists H. P. Albarelli, Jr., and John Kelly, was administered “as part of a top-secret Army-funded experimental program . . . code named Project Pelican, in which Blauer was used as a guinea pig.” The supervisor of the project was Dr. Paul H. Hoch, director of experimental psychiatry and, according to Albarelli and Kelly, an associate of Harold Abramson’s.
Project Pelican, write Albarelli and Kelly, was part of a larger cooperative venture between the CIA and the army’s Chemical Corps Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, Maryland, called MK-NAOMI — reputedly named after Abramsonís assistant, Naomi Busner. The project’s purpose, according to CIA documents, was to develop biological weapons that could be used on “individuals for the purposes of affecting human behavior with the objectives ranging from very temporary minor disablement to more serious and longer incapacitation to death.” At the behest of the Chemical Corps, the New York medical examiner conducted no autopsy of Blauer, kept the army’s name out of its report, and described the death as an accidental overdose.
Eleven months later, the CIA claimed another victim. On November 28, 1953, a Fort Detrick biochemist fell — or was pushedófrom a thirteenth-floor window of New York’s Statler Hotel on Seventh Avenue, falling 170 feet to the sidewalk. He was still alive and trying to talk when the night manager, Armond Pastore, reached him, but died a few minutes later.
Frank Olson, a chemist and joint employee of the CIA and Army Chemical Corps, had worked his entire professional life at Fort Detrick. An expert in germ warfare, during World War II he had designed clothing intended to protect Allied soldiers from possible German biological attacks during the Normandy invasion. In 1949 and 1950, he worked briefly on “Operation Harness,” a joint US-British effort to spray virulent organisms — so-called BW antipersonnel agents — around the Caribbean, decimating untold thousands of plants and animals. At the time of his death, Olson was developing a new, portable, and more lethal form of anthrax that could be put into a small spray can.
By 1953, Olson was acting chief of Fort Detrick’s Special Operations Division, which, according to a Michael Ignatieff article in the New York Times Magazine, had become “the center for the development of drugs for use in brainwashing and interrogation.” But he was becoming increasingly disillusioned.
The turning point came during the summer of 1953. Olson had traveled to England and Germany to observe the use of mind-control drugs on collaborators and German SS prisoners considered “expendable.” Some died. While in Europe, according to his son, Eric, Frank Olson also learned that the Americans were deploying Anthrax against enemy troops in Korea. When returning American POWs reported this — the first use of bacterial weapons by the United States in war — authorities in Washington dismissed their claims as products of brainwashing. Returning to America shaken, Olson resolved to quit.
On November 19, Gottlieb met with six MKULTRA personnel, including Olson, at Deep Creek Lodge in rural Maryland. The CIA would claim twenty-two years later that during the retreat, on Gottlieb’s order, his deputy, Robert Lashbrook, spiked the after-dinner Cointreau with LSD. Olson and all but two of the others (one a teetotaler, the other abstaining because of a headcold) drank it. In fact, Eric Olson believes that only his father’s drink was spiked, and that the substance he imbibed was probably not LSD but something stronger. In any case, soon, Olson was experiencing disorientation.
When he came home, his wife, Alice, found him withdrawn, saying repeatedly that he “had made a terrible mistake.” The next day he told his supervisor, Vincent Ruwet, that he wanted to resign from the agency. But officials couldn’t afford to let him leave. He knew too much. Once outside, he could be an acute embarrassment. So Ruwet and Lashbrook took Olson to New York, supposedly to see a psychiatrist. In fact, they brought him to Harold Abramson, who prescribed nembutal and bourbon.
According to the CIA, Ruwet and Lashbrook had earlier taken Olson to see John Mulholland, a magician hired by the CIA to advise on “the delivery of various materials to unwitting subjects” — i.e., on how to spike drinks with drugs or poisons. Olson was suspicious of Mulholland and asked Ruwet, “Whatís behind this? Give me the lowdown. What are they trying to do with me? . . . Just let me disappear.”
That evening, Olson wandered the streets of New York, discarding his wallet and identification cards before returning to the Statler. And the next day, the CIA claims its experts decided Olson must be institutionalized. Yet he seemed to be feeling better. After he and Lashbrook ate a dreary Thanksgiving meal at a Horn & Hardart restaurant, the two men returned to their room at the Statler, which they shared, and Olson called Alice to say he “looked forward to seeing her the next day.”
Around 2:00 a.m. the next morning, Pastore found Olson on the sidewalk. Olson tried to tell Pastore something, but his words were too faint and garbled to be understood. He died before the ambulance arrived. Immediately afterward, Pastore asked the hotel operator if she’d overheard any calls from Room 1081A. Yes, she said, two. In one, someone from the room said, “He’s gone,” and the voice at the other end of the line said, “That’s too bad.”
The CIA hushed up Olson’s death. The medical examiner made no mention of the CIA, did not do an autopsy, and ruled the death a suicide due to depression. The family didn’t believe this story, as Olson had never seemed depressed until after the retreat at Deep Creek Lodge. Yet it would not be until 1975 that they would learn some of the circumstances of his death, and even then not apparently the whole story.
At the request of Frank Olson’s son, Eric, an autopsy was performed in 1994, revealing that Olson had apparently been struck on the left side of the temple and knocked unconscious before going through the window. In 1998, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office reclassified Olson’s death “cause unknown.”
With Olson’s death, the culture of despair had come full circle. Having experienced what Ellen Herman called “a collapse of faith in the rational appeal and workability of democratic ideology and behavior,” the generation of scholars that emerged from World War II had sought to perfect the tools of social control by which the elite would save democracy. Following the rubrics of positivism, they believed that good and evil are fictions. People aren’t bad, merely sick. By curing them, psychologists can prevent war. All problems can be fixed by the alchemy of the mind sciences.
But a world in which morality has no meaning is one in which eventually everything is permitted. The same narrow focus on value-free science that led Nazi concentration camp doctors to commit atrocities encouraged many of these well-meaning scholars to cross ethical lines. By following a path of moral agnosticism, they reached a dead end. Rather than saving democracy, they created tools for coercion, and many people were hurt.
Murray was a product of these times, a man whose career and ideas embodied the development of his discipline and its role in American culture. Like other leading psychologists of his generation, he was a beneficiary of the Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts to promote psychology in public policy. He was intensely patriotic and served on the Committee for National Morale. He flourished during World War II and he was a star in the OSS.
After the war, Murray’s contributions to personality theory, including the TAT, personnel assessment, and techniques for analyzing foreign leaders and countries, became virtual Cold War institutions. Throughout this undeclared conflict he continued to serve, albeit quietly, America’s defense efforts. And among the services he performed would be the experiments on Kaczynski and his cohort.
Even today, however, neither Murray’s friends, his widow, nor even some historians believe this. Murray, they argue, was a world federalist who, in Herman’s words, was “transformed into a militant pacifist and peace activist after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Their skepticism is understandable. It is rare when even spouses know of these connections. The CIA never reveals the identity of its “assets.” Often the professor himself doesn’t know the originating source of research monies he receives. And Murray made much of his supposed transformation into ‘peace activist’ following Hiroshima.
Nevertheless, they are mistaken. Hiroshima did not convert Murray to world federalism. Even in 1943, during the same period when he was seeking combat duty in Europe, he wrote in his analysis of Hitler that “there is a great need now rather than later, for some form of World Federation” (Murray’s italics).
Rather, like so many “nervous liberals” of his generation, Murray was both hawk and dove. He resembled his contemporary, Cord Meyer, the war hero and onetime president of United World Federalists, who eventually became a top officer in the CIA. Such ambivalence characterized virtually the entire elite clique of East Coast professionals to which he belonged. Theirs was a world in which everyone knew each other, and many worked for the CIA. Murray was so surrounded by agency people he couldn’t have moved without bumping into one.
In fact, as we have seen, Murray was indeed a Cold War warrior—not, perhaps, as prominent a player as some, but a player nonetheless. He received steady funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, which had served as cover for his trip with Cantril to the Soviet Union for the CIA in 1958, and from the National Institute of Mental Health, also known to be a covert funding conduit. He apparently worked for HumRRo. He served as an adviser on army-sponsored steroid experiments. He helped found Harvard’s Social Relations Department, which had been generously funded by covert intelligence agencies. He served the U.S. Army Surgeon General’s Clinical Psychology Advisory Board and the National Committee for Mental Hygiene with the CIA’s propagator of LSD, Frank Fremont-Smith. Along with Fremont-Smith, Abramson, and Leary, he occupied a spot on the agency’s LSD pyramid.
And in 1959, Murray would cap off a long and distinguished career with the last of a series of studies inspired by his OSS assessments and originally undertaken for the U.S. Navy Department. And Ted Kaczynski would participate.
Finding the cabin at Deep Creek Lake
Eric Olson
Deep Creek Lake, Maryland
“What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
Quick now, here, now, always —
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)”
— T.S. Eliot
“Little Gidding,” (1943) Four Quartets
I drove west from Frederick on Route 70 in a pouring rain, and continued in slightly better weather on Route 68 through Cumberland, a dilapidated town I hadn’t seen in 37 years, since Nils and I collapsed in exhaustion there on the first day of our bicycle trip to California in the summer of 1961. I kept thinking “Harolds Club or Bust.” Just west of Frostberg I turned south on Route 219.
When I reached the town of “Accident” Maryland I figured I must be getting close. (That town was named for two nineteenth century survey parties who happened—accidentally—to meet up there.) Sure enough, the Deep Creek Bridge, a key landmark for finding the old cabin, was just a few miles beyond.
I stopped at a restaurant a half mile or so from the bridge, and asked where I would find the “Bailey Cabin.” Nobody knew. But then came the suggestion that perhaps I meant the “Railey Cabin.” I had gotten the name from the old typewritten 1953 “Deep Creek Rendezvous” invitation. I checked the name more closely and discovered that the “B” was in fact an “R.” I was crushed to hear someone say “The old Railey cabin was torn down ten years ago,” but I revived fast when the next sentence came. “Go over and meet Mr. Railey, He’s next door drinking at the bar.”
Jim Railey is a small man in his late 70’s who still operates what appears to be a substantial a real estate business. I found him sitting at the bar nursing a Coca Cola. I explained why I was there, and Railey immediately knew the story. “No,” he said, “the old cottage is still there. It’s been added onto quite a bit, but it’s still there. The Stone Tavern that used to stand by the bridge is gone. But the cottage those guys from the CIA used—that’s still there.”
Railey had had only a dim memory of the guys from Washington who had rented the cottage forty-five years earlier. He and his father and brother had laid out the foundation for the place in the early 1940’s, and had finished building it in 1946 when the two brothers got home from the war.
Railey couldn’t say just when he had figured out that the guy who had gone out the window in New York was one of the men who had stayed in his cottage a few days earlier. But at some point he had remembered that a group of government guys had been in his place, and that Olson had been one of them. The cottage itself was only a quarter of mile from where we were sitting and Railey told me how to find it.
The mythical Deep Creek cabin: why had it taken me forty five years to go looking for it? And why had I had to wait until another investigator implied that maybe the place hadn’t been used for the experiment at all? By comparison it had only taken 31 years to find room 1018A in what had been the Statler Hotel. Then another 10 years to exhume the body. Finally I found myself driving toward the place where something had happened on a chilly November night 45 years ago, something that had set a bizarre chain of events in motion.
The stone house is just above the lake at the end of a small dirt road. It is built on a steep slope, and appears considerably larger from the lake side than from the approach. Nobody was home, so I spent half an hour looking in the windows, taking pictures, trying to imagine what might have occurred there those many years ago. I could see a big stone fireplace in the living room of a wing of the house that hadn’t been there in 1953. Just outside was a broad terrace with old lawn chairs facing the lake, and a set of wooden stairs going down 50 feet to the water. The old part of the house was all there was in ’53. In agreement with the 1953 invitation, Railey said the the cottage had had four only bedrooms, each with a double bed. It must have been tight, I thought, when the CIA group of four and the SOD group of five occupied it.
Point View Inn
I spent the night at the Point View Inn next to the bar where I had met Jim Railey. I was eating breakfast in the dining room overlooking the lake when Railey appeared again with pictures of the Stone Tavern and some of the smaller cottages. He hadn’t found a picture of the old Railey cabin as it looked in 1953, but as we sat drinking coffee he called his brother on his cell phone and Bud Railey promised to send me one.
As we talked about the old cabin Railey looked sad. Meeting me must have been strange for him, but I imagined there was more. It seemed as if, irrationally, a part of Jim Railey believed that what had happened in his cottage, and what it had led to, had been in some way his fault. This bizarre story has the power to make a lot of different people feel that way. I thought for example of Armand Pastore, who is Jim Railey’s contemporary and is clearly pained when he remembers the aspects he witnessed. The only people who seem to be immune to feelings like that are the ones who were actually involved in making it happen.
“Why Our Town is Called ‘Accident’?
About the year, 1751, a grant of land was given to Mr. George Deakins by King George II, of England, in payment of a debt. According to the terms, Mr. Deakins was to receive 600 acres of land anywhere in Western Maryland he chose. Mr. Deakins sent out two corps of engineers, each without knowledge of the other grroup, to survey the best land in this section that contained 600 acres.
After the survey, the Engineers returned with their maps of the plots they had surveyed. To their surprise, they discovered that they had surveyed a tract of land starting at the same tall oak tree and returning to the starting point. Mr. Deakins chose this plot of ground and had it patented ‘The Accident Tract’ — Hence, the name of the town.”
History from the back of the business card for:
Accident Garage, Main Street
Accident, Maryland
Allen Fratz, owner
1. Wormwood
Errol Morris’s Wormwood is a groundbreaking hybrid of non-fictional and fictional storytelling modes—although no matter how you classify it, it’s the year’s towering cinematic achievement. The filmmaker’s second release of the year (after the charming The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography) recounts the tangled saga of Frank Olson, a government biochemist whose mysterious 1953 death out a New York City hotel room window was first deemed a suicide, then the byproduct of a CIA mind-control program, and then something more sinister still. With Olson’s sleuthing son Eric as his guide, Morris immerses himself in this thorny true-crime case, using dramatized sequences—starring a phenomenal Peter Sarsgaard, Molly Parker, Tim Blake Nelson, and Bob Balaban—for his 1953-set sequences, and documentary interviews and material for the rest. Wormwood is assembled as a hallucinatory, psychologically penetrating collage and plays like a pulse-pounding thriller, a damning indictment of institutional malfeasance, and a chilling portrait of both self-destructive obsession and the elusiveness of truth. Simultaneously released as both a 241-minute theatrical movie and a six-part Netflix mini-series, it’s a masterpiece that breathes new life into the documentary form, and further confirms Morris’ peerless greatness. Consequently, it’s our pick for the best film of 2017. Available to stream on Netflix.
PAUL ROBESON JR.
The Paul Robeson Files
The PBS American Masters documentary on Paul Robeson titled “Here I Stand” surveys the life and work of this great American artist, scholar, and activist. The documentary also examines the question of Robeson’ 1961 suicide attempt.
In the morning of March 27, 196 1, Paul Robeson was found in the bathroom of his Moscow hotel suite after having slashed his wrists with a razor blade following a wild party that had raged there the preceding night. His blood loss was not yet severe, and he recovered rapidly. However, both the raucous party and his “suicide attempt” remain unexplained, and for the past twenty years the US government has withheld documents that I believe hold the answer to the question: Was this a drug induced suicide attempt?
Heavily censored documents I have already received under the Freedom of Information Act confirm that my father was under intense surveillance by the FBI and the CIA in 1960 and 1961, because he was planning to visit China and Cuba, in violation of US passport restrictions. The FBI files also reveal a suspicious concern over my father’s health, beginning in 1955.
A meeting I had in 1998 adds further grounds for suspicion. In June of that year I met Dr. Eric Olson in New York, and we were both struck by the similarities between the cases of our respective fathers. On November 28, 1953, Olson’s father, Dr. Frank Olson, a scientist working with the CIA’s top-secret MK-ULTRA “mind control” program, allegedly “jumped” through the glass of a thirteenth-floor hotel window and fell to his death. CIA documents have confirmed that a week earlier Olson had been surreptitiously drugged with LSD at a high-level CIA meeting. It is expected that a New York grand jury will soon reveal whether it believes Olson was murdered by the CIA because of his qualms about the work he was doing. MK-ULTRA poisoned foreign and domestic “enemies” with LSD to induce mental breakdown and/ or suicide. Olson’s drugging suggested a CIA motive similar to the possible one in my father’s case—concern about the target’s planned course of action.
In this context, the fact that Richard Helms was CIA chief of operations at the time of my father’s 1961 “suicide attempt” has sinister implications. Helms was also responsible for the MK-ULTRA program. In 1967 a former CIA agent to whom I promised anonymity told me in a private conversation that my father was the subject of high-level concern and that Helms and Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles discussed him in a meeting in 1955.
The events leading to my father’s “suicide attempt” began when, alarmed by intense surveillance in London, he departed abruptly for Moscow alone. His intention was to visit Havana at Fidel Castro’s personal invitation and return home to join the civil rights movement. Since the date set by the CIA for the Bay of Pigs invasion fell only four weeks after his arrival in Moscow, the CIA had a strong motive for preventing his travel to Havana.
My father manifested no depressive symptoms at the time, and when my mother and I spoke to him in the hospital soon after his “suicide” attempt, he was lucid and able to recount his experience clearly. The party in his suite had been imposed on him under false pretenses, by people he knew but without the knowledge of his official hosts. By the time he realized this, his suite had been invaded by a variety of anti-Soviet people whose behavior had become so raucous that he locked himself in his bedroom. His description of that setting, I later came to learn, matched the conditions prescribed by the CIA for drugging an unsuspecting victim, and the physical psychological symptoms he experienced matched those of an LSD trip.
My Russian being fluent, I confirmed my father’s story by interviewing his official hosts, his doctors, the organizers of the party, several attendees and a top Soviet official. However, I could not determine whether my father’s blood tests had shown any trace of drugs, whether an official investigation was in progress or why his hosts were unaware of the party. The Soviet official confirmed that known “anti-Soviet people” had attended the party.
By the time I returned to New York in early June, my father appeared to me to be fully recovered. However, when my parents returned to London several weeks later, my father became anxious, and he and my mother returned to Moscow. There his wellbeing was again restored, and in September they once more went back to London, where my father almost immediately suffered a relapse. My mother, acting on the ill-considered advice of a close family friend, allowed a hastily recommended English physician to sign my father into the Priory psychiatric hospital near London.
My father’s records from the Priory, which I obtained only recently, raise the suspicion that he may have been subjected to the CIA’s MK-ULTRA “mind depatterning” technique, which combined massive electroconvulsive therapy with drug therapy. On the day of his admission, my mother was pressured into consenting to ECT, and the treatment began just thirty-six hours later. In May 1963 1 learned that my father had received fifty four ECT treatments, and I arranged his transfer to a clinic in East Berlin.
Certain key CIA documents that have been withheld, in whole or in part, would probably shed additional light on these events. Among the questions to be answered are:
Why was Robeson’s health such a concern to the government, and why is the FBI’s information on it still being withheld?
Was the CIA implicated in my father’s 1961 “suicide attempt”?
Did the CIA, in collusion with the British intelligence service, orchestrate his subjection to “mind depatterning”?
The idea that thirty-eight years after the original events occurred, the release of these documents could endanger national security should be rejected. On the contrary, the release of the information will improve national security by helping to protect the American people from criminal abuse by the intelligence agencies that are supposed to defend them.
In reburial, Olsons hope to lay saga of father to rest
Family has disputed government claims he committed suicide in ’53; Ceremony planned for today
By Stephanie Desmon
Baltimore Sun Staff
Originally published August 9, 2002
FREDERICK — It was here in the Olson family back yard in 1975 that the world first learned the name of a man who, the story went, had been unwittingly drugged with LSD by the Central Intelligence Agency 22 years earlier and then jumped to his death from a 10th-floor hotel room.
The Olsons – among them Eric, the oldest child – called a news conference. Reporters from throughout the country came to the house that Frank Olson had built and gathered around the picnic table to listen.
Reporters heard that family patriarch Frank Olson, ostensibly an Army scientist, had committed suicide in 1953. But that explanation left the family – Eric Olson in particular – with many questions about Frank Olson’s life and death.
Eight years ago, questions unanswered, Frank Olson’s body was exhumed from the Frederick cemetery where it had lain for more than 40 years. Forensic experts are hesitant to assert anything with complete certainty, but they said the death was not a suicide.
Today, Eric Olson and his family will try to put their questions, theories and suspicions to rest as they rebury what is left of Frank Olson in the cemetery plot he shared with his wife. Yesterday, from the same picnic table, Eric Olson, now 57, spoke again to reporters, this time saying he knows how his father was killed, and why – enough answers to allow him to move on.
“I feel satisfied,” said Olson, a Harvard-educated clinical psychologist. “We’re where we want to be – we know what happened.”
What Olson says he knows is this: His father was not a civilian scientist at nearby Fort Detrick, as the family had been told. Instead, he worked for the CIA, running the Special Operations Division at Detrick, which Olson says was the government’s “most secret biological weapons laboratory,” working with materials such as anthrax.
He says the evidence he has gathered over the years shows that Frank Olson didn’t suffer a nervous breakdown, as the family initially was told, and didn’t commit suicide because he had had a negative drug experience, as they learned in the 1970s. Instead, the son says, his father was killed by the CIA because officials there feared he would divulge classified information concerning the United States’ use of biological weapons in Korea.
“It didn’t happen,” CIA spokesman Paul F. Novack said yesterday. “We categorically deny that.”
Two weeks after that news conference in 1975, the Olson family was invited to the White House for a formal apology from President Gerald R. Ford. “Actually, it was not at all clear exactly what it was that the president and the CIA director were apologizing for,” Olson recalled yesterday. After the family agreed not to sue the CIA, it was awarded a $750,000 settlement. They had been told theirs was a case they could not win.
Now the family has learned that the Ford administration was keeping information from the family, concerned that family members would ask questions about the scientist’s work that the government was unprepared to answer. Among those who advocated keeping quiet were Dick Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the vice president and defense secretary, the Olsons learned from memos and other papers received last year from the Gerald R. Ford Library.
“Most of it is documented now,” said Philadelphia lawyer David Rudovsky, who was a roommate of Eric Olson’s in the 1970s and has assisted him with the case over the years. “It’s more than just some crazy paranoid speculation.”
“It’s not an easy theory to wrap your mind around,” concedes Nils Olson, 53, Eric Olson’s brother.
Little is left of the body the Olsons exhumed in 1994. When the casket was opened that day – it had been closed during the funeral years before because the family had been told Frank Olson’s body was too disfigured from his fall – Eric Olson recognized his father. His face was largely intact, lacking the cuts that would have resulted if he had broken through a plate-glass window to jump.
Something else they say they have learned: Information about the murder of Frank Olson, as the family calls it, is included in the assassination curriculum of the Israeli Mossad – Israel’s intelligence agency – because it is considered a successful instance of disguising a murder as a suicide.
When Frank Olson is buried again today, only bones will be returned to the ground – the tissue has been removed for study. The bones have been sitting for years in a locked file cabinet in the George Washington University office of James E. Starrs, the professor of law and forensic sciences who determined that the death was not a suicide.
Yesterday’s news conference lasted nearly two hours as members of Eric Olson’s family, including his brother, son and nieces, read through a statement, more than 20 pages long, before answering questions. Eric Olson lives in his childhood home, the place he lived when he was 9 years old and learned of his father’s death.
Yesterday, Eric Olson thanked people who have long listened to his story and helped him work through the details: the filmmaker who made a German documentary on the subject, the mechanic who has kept his Volvo running, the friend who catered lunch.
Starrs listened to Eric Olson talk yesterday about putting his father’s death in the past. Starrs is not sure that Olson will be able to do so.
“I think people say these things in the hope they’ll have sleep-filled nights again,” Starrs said.
“What I really respect about Eric is the purity of his pursuit,” brother Nils Olson, a dentist who lives in Frederick, said afterward. “It hasn’t been to pursue a fixed agenda. It’s really been the pursuit of truth.” Nils Olson sometimes worried that they might learn something ugly about their father – for example, that he had been a traitor to his government. Eric, though, was undeterred, whatever the outcome.
“Eric has given over a large bulk of his life to this,” Nils Olson said. “To be able to now invest energy back into his professional career – hopefully, it’s not too late; he is in his late 50s. He is extremely bright, and he has a lot to offer the field of psychology.
“I believe he can put it to rest.”
Unpublished letter to the editor, The New Yorker, in response to Louis Menand’s “Brainwashed: Where the ‘Manchurian Candidate’ came from.”
To the editor, The New Yorker
In his essay “Brainwashed: Where the ‘Manchurian Candidate’ came from” Louis Menand suggests that the charge made by brainwashed American pilots that the US had engaged in germ warfare during the Korean War was “untrue but widely believed in many countries.” Menand implies that this controversial issue is far more settled than is in fact the case.
A new documentary film, “Code Name Artichoke” (produced this year by German public television and widely shown internationally and in the US on WorldLink TV) on the death of my father, Dr. Frank Olson, revisits this question and presents new evidence.
In the year before his death in 1953 my father, a biochemist, was acting chief of the Special Operations Division (essentially an off-campus CIA BW lab) at the Army’s center for biological warfare at Camp Detrick, Maryland. This position put him on the boundary between biological warfare and interrogation research, precisely the strange boundary zone evoked in the term “germ warfare confessions.” The conventional wisdom alleges that in November 1953 he threw himself out of a 13th floor window of the Statler Hotel in New York (now the Hotel Pennsylvania) after having himself been drugged with LSD by the CIA in a mind control experiment. This version of events comprises the core chapter of John Marks’ 1979 book, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. (Times Books)
“Code Name Artichoke” shows that my father became convinced that the US was using biological weapons in Korea, at least on an experimental basis. The film juxtaposes footage of an American pilot making these claims with footage in which this same serviceman subsequently recants his “germ warfare confession.” The question as to which of these statements is the product of indoctrination is thereby starkly posed, with the implication that the notion of brainwashing was, among other things, a powerful tool for psychological discrediting.
Eric Olson, PhD
Family Statement on the Murder of Frank Olson
Eric Olson, PhD – Stephan Kimbel Olson – Nils Olson, DDS – Lauren Olson – Kristin Olson
We welcome you and thank you for coming.
Forty-one years ago—on June 26, 1961—Nils (then twelve years old) and Eric (then sixteen) set out on our bicycles from this house and began cycling to California.
A bit like Lewis and Clark, we had very little idea what we would encounter during our trip West. During the six and a half weeks of our journey we were propelled by a powerful and simple idea, which boiled down to the notion “just keep peddling.” We knew that Route 40, the old National Pike just a few hundred yards from here at the end of the lane, went all the way to the West Coast. Our motto was “Harolds Club or Bust.” All you had to do was just keep going and follow the road. Eventually you would come to San Francisco.
Eight years earlier our father had died—vanished really—and it has taken all the years since then to figure out what happened to him. Our search for the truth about what happened to our father has been a lot like that bike trip to California. All one had to do was to keep following the thread represented by his disappearance. Eventually one would come to the answer.
In both cases one reached the goal by small continuous increments of motion along a single strand. Nevertheless, the final destination did not look anything like the place from which one started out. Little by little one entered unknown terrain. But the destination, whether it was San Francisco or the truth about what happened to Frank Olson, was still on the same map. Incredible as it sometimes seemed, in both cases, the place one finally got to was still part of America.
Today we want want to try to give you some idea of what this journey has been like, and tell you something about the unfamiliar American territory we have discovered.
Our purpose in inviting you here today is to explain why—49 years after his death, 27 years after the government claimed to have told us the truth about his death, and 8 years after we had his body exhumed and a forensic investigation performed—we are going to rebury our father’s remains tomorrow.
The reason we have waited so long to do this is that we wanted to be certain that when we reburied our father’s remains we would not be reburying the truth at the same time.
The gist of what we want to say can be compressed into three headlines:
1. The death of Frank Olson on November 28, 1953 was a murder, not a suicide.
2. This is not an LSD drug-experiment story, as it was represented in 1975. This is a biological warfare story. Frank Olson did not die because he was an experimental guinea pig who experienced a “bad trip.” He died because of concern that he would divulge information concerning a highly classified CIA interrogation program called “ARTICHOKE” in the early 1950’s, and concerning the use of biological weapons by the United States in the Korean War.
3. The truth concerning the death of Frank Olson was concealed from the Olson family as well as from the public in 1953. In 1975 a cover story regarding Frank Olson’s death was disseminated. At the same time a renewed coverup of the truth concerning this story was being carried out at the highest levels of government, including the White House. The new coverup involved the participation of persons serving in the current Administration.
We will make available materials to amplify all these points, and provide copies of a definitive new one-hour documentary film on the Frank Olson case called “Code Name ARTICHOKE” that will air on public TV in Germany (the ARD network) next week, on Monday, August 12.
I. “Return to the beginning”
Now, to back up and approach all this a bit more slowly:
There is a passage in “The Four Quartets” where the poet T.S. Eliot writes:
… the end of all our exploring
This is a moment like that, a moment when the circle closes. A moment of returning—this time with knowledge—to the beginning.
Twenty-seven years ago, on July 10, 1975, our family sat at this same picnic table in this same backyard, to hold a press conference. At that time the family consisted of our mother Alice, then 59 years old, Eric, 30, our sister Lisa, 29, and Nils, 26.
Today Eric is 57. Nils is 53. Eric’s son Stephan is 12. Nils’ daughter Lauren is 19. His daughter Kristin is 17. Lisa died in an airplane crash in 1978. Our mother passed away in 1993.
That day in July 1975 we sat at this table and read a family statement. This was how it looked that day.(“Backyard press conference,” poster 3).
A month earlier, on June 11, 1975, an article had appeared on the front page of the Washington Post. The article contained stunning news about our father, but it did not mention his name. The purpose of our press conference in 1975 was to say that the unidentified man referred to in that article was Frank Olson.
Twenty-two years earlier, in the early morning of November 28, 1953, our father died in what we were told was an “accident.” For those twenty-two years between 1953 and 1975 we knew nothing about how he died or why. In 1953 we had been told only that he had had “an accident” in a New York hotel room and had “fallen or jumped” out the window.
Then followed 22 years of inky darkness.
II. “Suicide Revealed”
Ours was a family that tried its best to be normal in the 1950’s way. But in fact this was a family haunted by fear, shame, uncertainty, and insecurity. It was a family that had, in effect, been terrorized. Two decades passed.
Then on June 11, 1975, out of nowhere, like a message in a bottle suddenly washed ashore by distant storms (in this instance the storms were Vietnam and Watergate), came a cryptic bit of news.
Under the headline “Suicide Revealed” on the front page of the Washington Post we read the following paragraphs:
A civilian employee of the Department of the Army unwittingly took LSD as part of a Central Intelligence Agency test, then jumped 10 floors to his death less than a week later, according to the Rockefeller commission report released yesterday.
The man was given the drug while attending a meeting with CIA personnel working on a test project that involved the administration of mind-bending drugs to unsuspecting Americans and the testing of new listening devices by eavesdropping on citizens who were unaware they were being overheard.
“This individual was not made aware he had been given LSD until about 20 minutes after it had been administered,” the commission said. “He developed serious side effects and was sent to New York with a CIA escort for psychiatric treatment. Several days later, he jumped from a tenth-floor window of his room and died as a result.”
The CIA’s general counsel ruled that the death resulted from “circumstances arising out of an experiment undertaken in the course of his official duties for the United States government.” His family, thus, was eligible for death benefits. And two CIA employees were “reprimanded” by the director.
The man identified as an “army scientist” turned out to be Frank Olson. But nobody bothered to notify our family that this story was being released. Not the Rockefeller Commission, not the CIA, not the White House.
It was as if a long-lost MIA had at last been found and identified, but his family were not notified.
This horrendous omission turns out to be a key to the whole story. It indicates that the “truth” was being suppressed even as it was coming to light. In fact the headline “Suicide Revealed” was triply ironic. First the death was not a suicide. Second it was not “revealed”: the name was not given. Third, we would later learn that the subject of the experiment was not an “Army scientist.”
We recognized our father in this story only by the fit of the details: the man was a “scientist,” the year was “1953,” the fall was from a “tenth floor window.”
A month later (July 10) we held a press conference, right here, to provide the name—“Frank Olson”—that the story had lacked up to then.
At that point the government wasted no time in getting in touch.
Less than two weeks later (July 23) we were sitting in the Oval Office receiving an official apology from Gerald Ford. And five days after that (July 28) we were having lunch with CIA Director William Colby in the Director’s 7th floor office at Langley, receiving an apology from the CIA, along with what we were told was the complete CIA file on our father’s death.
The contrast between the failure of the government to notify us when the anonymous story about our father was being released, and the scurrying around at the highest levels to apologize to us once we identified ourselves, could not have been more stark.
This was another sign that something was still amiss. Ask yourself when you last remember an American President calling a family to the Oval Office to receive an apology for the unintended effects of a United States government policy.
Actually it was not at all clear exactly what it was that the President and the CIA Director were apologizing for.
Was it for the reckless CIA LSD drugging at Deep Creek Lake?
Was it for the nonchalant medical treatment by the non-psychiatrist to whom Frank Olson was subsequently taken?
Was it for keeping the allegedly psychotic Frank Olson in a hotel rather than a hospital?
Was it for the fact that his CIA escort was asleep in the next bed when Frank Olson “fell or jumped” out the window?
Was it for not telling the truth to his family in 1953?
Or was it for not notifying the Olson family when this story was finally emerging twenty-two years later, in 1975?
The President assured us that the White House would support our efforts to obtain justice. Almost immediately we were advised by White House attorneys that a law suit would be risky, as the law was not on our side. Accordingly the government attorneys strongly recommended that we pursue a settlement via a Private Bill in Congress, which they said the White House would support.
In 1976 our family received a financial settlement from Congress for far less than the White House, CIA Director George Bush, the Justice Department, the Labor Department, and the Treasury Department had recommended. A single Congressman had decided to oppose the settlement, so it was enacted in drastically reduced form.
Having already received the document package from the CIA, the matter was now officially over. We signed an agreement saying that all our claims against the United States government in the death of Frank Olson were settled.
By that time the name “Frank Olson” had started to achieve the almost mythical status it subsequently acquired. “Frank Olson” became a symbol for the effects of careless human experimentation in general and reckless CIA behavior in particular. (“Psychology Today,” poster 5.)
The “fell or jumped” scenario at the window never really made sense. But nobody in the 1970’s spent much time thinking about how our father actually died. In fact the 1970’s version of the Frank Olson story was a story that everyone could love.
Journalists could pride themselves on having reported a story of horrendous governmental wrong-doing that now had a human face. Congressional investigators and legislators could pride themselves on their dutiful governmental housecleaning in the aftermath of Watergate. The White House could pride themselves on having acted responsibly when the truth came to light. The public could revel in wild stories of government-sponsored drug experiments. And the CIA itself could relax, knowing that behind the popular notion of buffoon-like behaviour of out-of-control-agents the real story had not even been touched.
Everyone seemed to get high on the Frank Olson story. In the midst of all this hubbub what nobody seemed to notice was that the story of Frank Olson’s death hadn’t changed at all.
In 1953 the story was that Frank Olson “fell or jumped” out the window due to job-related stress. The Olson children grew up saying that our father died of a “fatal nervous breakdown.”
In 1975 the story was still that Frank Olson “fell or jumped” out the window. Only now the reason was that he had been drugged with LSD by the CIA eight days earlier.
In both cases the claim was that nobody saw anything even though a CIA official allegedly acting as an escort and protector was sleeping in the next bed when Frank Olson “fell or jumped” out the window of a very small room.
Nobody saw anything in 1953. In the 1975 version nobody saw anything either (the only new element was the unwitting administration of LSD), and nobody notified the Olson family that a new story was coming out. In 1953 the Olson family was assured by the government within three days of Frank Olson’s death that the family would receive government employee’s compensation. In 1975 after the family press conference the Olson family was immediately assured by the President that the government would provide more restitution.
Despite the apparent narrative shift, the continuity in the structure of the story over two decades could scarcely have been more complete.
The story didn’t make any sense in 1953, and it didn’t make any more sense in 1975. But the sensational notion of LSD administered by the CIA served wonderfully to conceal this gap.
Frank Olson didn’t jump out the window (even in physical terms that would have been virtually impossible), and he certainly didn’t fall out. He was pushed out. Or, to use the words of CIA terminology that we would later discover, he was “dropped.”
But if there was foul play in the death of Frank Olson what was the motive? Why would the government murder an “Army scientist” who had been unwittingly drugged with LSD?
At that point the gap concerning what happened at the window turned into a chasm concerning the motive for the whole affair.
The story of Frank Olson’s death, illuminated for a moment with the anonymous news from the Rockefeller Report, seemed to return to inky darkness.
III. A story no one could love
Over the 27 years that have elapsed since 1975 light has been cast on all this from many directions, and the real story of Frank Olson’s death has gradually taken shape.
The real story is not merely a story that no one could love. The real story is a story that no one wanted to know. This made it easy to peddle the ludicrous fairy tale cover story in 1975, a story that in hindsight resembles “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
The real story is not a simple or short one, and we will not be able to tell all of it in detail in this statement. Instead we will fast forward to key the key moments that have, piece by piece, eviscerated the 1975 story and left a very different one in its place. The real story is not one in which anyone will take pleasure. Uncovering this story has been a decades-long agony for us as well.
The real story is like a murder mystery in which the tale begins with a body that floats to the surface of a murky lake. The mystery of the death can’t be solved until that body is reinserted into the sprawling network of crime, corruption, and power that motivated the murder.
In Eric’s quest for truth two quotes have been key:
One came from CBS correspondent Anthony Mason in 1994: “Eric,” Mason said, “you are going to get to the bottom of this, but it is going to be a false bottom.”
That is no longer the situation, but getting to a solid bottom has required a very long descent.
The second quote comes from Tommy Worsley, the genius Volvo mechanic who kept Eric’s car running during the long years of digging. Tommy said:
“Eric, you need to tell this story, because it will help a lot of people connect a lot of other dots in other stories that have nothing to do with this one.”
In that spirit, we will try here to convey the path we followed that led, finally, to a very different story of how, and why, Frank Olson died. We want to emphasize at the outset, however, that our purpose was never to prove that Frank Olson was murdered. Our purpose was to find out what had happened, and to arrive at a story—whatever that story might be—that made sense. In the course of a long search not a single shred of evidence has corroborated the government’s story, which, it is important to remember, was never really a story at all. The Emperor was naked from the start.
Problems with the conventional story
(The Colby documents)
In the years after the case was settled we had had time to grapple more carefully with the confusing stack of documents we had received from William Colby. The more we tried to absorb these documents the more they seemed to dissolve in ambiguity in front of our eyes. The story told by the government simply did not hold up to scrutiny.
Already in 1976 the New York Times had observed that the Colby documents were “elliptical, incoherent, and contradictory.” The Times wrote that:
Taken as a whole, the file is a jumble of deletions, conflicting statements, unintelligible passages and such unexplained terms as the “Artichoke Committee” and “Project Bluebird” that tend to confuse more than enlighten.
But the real problem was that the Colby documents seemed to be pointing to a story that they were not telling—a story quite at odds with the spin that had already been placed on the story by the initial account in the Rockefeller Commission Report.
For example, one of the reports submitted by the doctor (an allergist, as it turned out) to whom our father was taken in New York, states that “an experiment had been done to trap” Frank Olson.
We now know that this story begins long before the meeting at Deep Creek Lake November 1953 where the CIA conducted what it later called a “drug experiment.” It begins with concerns about Frank Olson’s commitment to CIA programs, especially after he witnessed terminal interrogations in Germany in the summer of 1953. The aim of the drugging at Deep Creek was apparently to assess the extent of Frank Olson’s disaffection and alienation, given the depth of his ethical qualms.
The CIA official (Sidney Gottlieb) who was reprimanded by the Agency for the drugging of Frank Olson was also personally involved in CIA attempts to assassinate Patrice Lumumba and other national leaders.
In another place the Colby documents refer to something called “the Schwab activity” at Frank Olson’s division at Detrick as being arguably “un-American.” The documents imply that issues pertaining to this activity were somehow involved in Frank Olson’s death.
In these documents the overall context for Frank Olson’s death is related not to the infamous MK-ULTRA program for mind and behavior control, as is generally assumed. The Colby documents locate Olson’s death in the context of a CIA operation called ARTICHOKE. However most of the passages pertaining to ARTICHOKE in the documents provided to the Olson family have been carefully deleted.
Operation ARTICHOKE was a CIA program that preceded MK-ULTRA. ARTICHOKE involved the development of special, extreme methods of interrogation. Officials responsible for the ARTICHOKE program were very concerned with the problem of disposing of “blown agents” and with the task of finding a way to produce amnesia in operatives who had seen too much and could no longer be relied upon.
The Colby documents state, as does William Colby in his 1978 autobiography, that Frank Olson was not an “Army scientist,” but, rather, a “CIA employee,” a “CIA officer.”
The key witness changes his story
(What Dr. Lashbrook told Dr. Gibson)
One of the most confusing aspects of the story of what happened to Frank Olson is the inconsistency in the accounts given by the key witness, CIA employee Dr. Robert Lashbrook, who was allegedly asleep in next bed in the same small hotel room at the time Frank Olson went out the window (“Psychology Today,” poster 5).
In the immediate aftermath of Olson’s death in 1953 Lashbrook told Alice Olson that he had seen her husband plunge through the hotel window. But later Lashbrook said that he had been awakened from sleep by the sound of crashing glass, and only upon noticing that the bed next to his was empty did he realize that his roommate had gone out the window. In 1995 we were contacted by Dr. Robert Gibson.
In 1953 Dr. Gibson was the admitting psychiatrist at the hospital near Washington to which Frank Olson was allegedly to have been taken after returning from New York City. Subsequently Dr. Gibson went on to a distinguished career in psychiatry, becoming President of the American Psychiatric Association, and Director of Sheppard Pratt Hospital in Baltimore.
Dr. Gibson reported to us the statement that had been made to him by the CIA official who contacted him on the morning of Frank Olson’s death—a statement identical to one Robert Lashbrook made to Alice Olson, but in direct contradiction to the story told in the Colby documents.
In the early morning of November 28, the CIA official who had shared the hotel room with Frank Olson did not tell Dr. Gibson that he was awakened by the sound of crashing glass when his roommate went through the window. Instead, Dr. Gibson was told that Frank Olson’s CIA escort had awakened to see Olson standing in the middle of the room. The witness had tried to speak to Olson, and had then watched as Olson plunged through the window on a dead run.
This account appears to have been the first draft of a cover story that was subsequently revised to the form in which it was eventually disseminated. In that version of the story nobody saw anything.
But if nobody saw nuthin, somebody did hear something. Immediately after the death a call was placed from Frank Olson’s hotel room. The call was overheard by the hotel switchboard operator and reported immediately to the night manager (Armand Pastore). The call consisted of only two sentences. According to the operator the person in the room had said:
“Well he’s gone.”
The person on the other end replied:
“That’s too bad.”
Then they both hung up.
In various versions of Lashbrook’s accounts of what occurred in room 1018A the window was either open or else it was closed; the blind was either drawn and pushed through the window when Frank Olson plunged through the window or else it snapped up and spun around the spindle when it was hit; and Lashbrook either did nor did not see what happened.
Digging up the body
(Exhumation and forensic investigation)
The doubts raised by the incoherent Colby documents, and by the many other anomalies in the story, led us to have Frank Olson’s body exhumed and a forensic investigation performed. This we did in 1994.
After his death the Olson family was told that Frank Olson’s body was too disfigured to be seen. For this reason at the funeral in 1953 Frank Olson’s casket was closed. The Olson family never saw his body after he left for New York four days earlier. This contributed to a feeling that Frank Olson had not so much died as disappeared.
When the casket was opened in 1994 Frank Olson’s upper body was not disfigured as the New York Medical Examiner’s Report had claimed in 1953. In fact Frank Olson was recognizable after forty-one years in the grave.
The forensic investigation in 1994 confirmed the family’s worst suspicions. In fact the results of this investigation led the principal forensic investigator, who is with us today, to conclude that the overwhelming probability was that Frank Olson’s death was not a suicide but a homicide.
In November of 1994 Professor Starrs and his team presented the initial findings of their forensic investigation at a press conference. “When you pull on the Frank Olson case,” Professor Starrs said then, “you get the feeling that something very big is pulling back.”
In 1994 nobody had a clear idea of what that big something might be.
The question of motive
(Why would the government murder Frank Olson?)
As indications accumulated that Frank Olson had been murdered the question of motive became more pressing. Why would the government murder an “Army scientist” simply because he had been used as an unwitting guinea pig in a drug experiment? Once again, as we went down the path suggested by these questions we discovered that all the assumptions on which they were based were incorrect.
First, as indicated earlier, we discovered that Frank Olson was not simply an “Army scientist.” He was a “CIA officer” associated with projects so heavily guarded that the term “top secret” gives only scant indication of their sensitivity. Actually they are better described as State Secrets.
Special Operations Division at Detrick
In 1952 Frank Olson was acting chief of the Special Operations Division at Detrick; at the time of his death in 1953 he was SOD’s director of planning and evaluations. The Special Operations Divison at Detrick was the government’s most secret biological weapons laboratory. In fact the SO Division was only physically located at Detrick. In essence the SO Division was an off-campus CIA biological warfare laboratory, doing work on bacteriological agents for use in covert operations.
The Rockefeller Commission’s account of the suicide of an “Army scientist” not only neglected to add the man’s name and his CIA affiliation; it omitted any reference to his high position in the country’s most secret biological weapons laboratory.
When this information is added to the story, and when one obtains some idea of what sorts of projects were being pursued at the SO Division, then the overall picture of the death of Frank Olson changes entirely. (“Dangerous intersection,” poster 6.)
Projects at the Special Operations Division involved or related to the following activities:
• Assassinations materials research (e.g. the materials used in the CIA’s attempts to assassination Lumumba in the Congo and Castro in Cuba)
• Biological warfare materials for use in covert operations
• Biological warfare experiments in populated areas
• Terminal interrogations
• Collaboration with former Nazi scientists
• LSD mind-control research
• U.S. employment of biological weapons in the Korean War.
As our understanding of Frank Olson’s work grew, our attention was again drawn back to the Colby documents, and we became aware of another gaping hole in the story we had been given. Considering the ultra-secrecy and strategic importance of the work in which Frank Olson was engaged at the time of his death it is nothing less than astounding that among the documents we had been given by the CIA in 1975, which we were told was the complete file, there is no mention at all of any security issues.
Even within the parameters of the CIA’s own story this could not have been true. Here was a top government scientist, engaged in some of the most secret projects at the height of the Cold War. According to the CIA’s account, this scientist had now been used as an unwitting guinea pig in an LSD experiment. He reacts badly to the drug, becomes unstable, and is taken to New York for treatment. But he is not taken to a hospital, or even a safe house. He is kept in a hotel. Two days before his death he allegedly leaves his room in the middle of the night, wanders the streets alone, throws away wallet, including all of his money and his identification.
At no point do the documents describing this weird scenario mention a security problem.
But if the Colby documents fail to discuss security issues, other internal documents that we obtained do mention this issue. One document, found in Frank Olson’s personnel file at Detrick, specifically mentions “fear of a security violation” after Olson’s trip to Europe in the summer of 1953, just four months before his death.
The New York District Attorney
From every direction the story of Frank Olson’s death seemed only to become more dark as we were able to fill in more of the background and context. First, the CIA documents proved unconvincing. Second, the forensic investigation added fuel to the fires of our suspicions. And third, the motive for murder turned out to be far more substantial than we had dared to imagine.
By 1996 our suspicions had reached an intolerable threshold. We decided to turn for assistance to the only governmental institution that might be able to help us. Because the death occurred in New York we presented a memorandum to the New York District Attorney’s Office outlining the many reasons for believing that the death of Frank Olson was a murder. We asked the DA’s office to reopen the case. (Copies of this memorandum are available.) This memorandum proved persuasive. In 1996 the New York District Attorney opened a homicide investigation into the death of Frank Olson.
One of the outcomes of the The New York District Attorney’s investigation has been confirmation of an allegation that had earlier seemed too extreme to be taken seriously. The New York DA was informed that for many years the murder of Frank Olson was taught as a case of “perfect murder” at the assassination training unit of the Israeli Mossad outside Tel Aviv. The Frank Olson case was included in the Mossad’s assassination curriculum due to the success with which a murder had been disguised as a suicide.
The New York District Attorney was in fact able to locate a source in Israel with close ties to Israeli intelligence which was able to confirm this allegation. In 2000 this source traveled to the United States to speak with the Assistant District Attorney assigned to the case, and also to Eric Olson. Eric was told directly by the New York DA’s source that the case of Frank Olson’s death has been taught in Israel as a case of “perfect murder.”
An alternative story of the death of Frank Olson
(Terminal interrogations and biological weapons in the Korean War)
Gradually a completely new story of the death of Frank Olson was emerging, one that bore very little resemblance to the one that had long-since become the conventional wisdom on this issue. But the question of motive remained a mystery. Eventually that piece of the puzzle appeared as well.
A little over a year ago we were contacted by one of our father’s oldest friends and closest colleagues at Detrick. Together with a small group of other scientists this colleague (Norman Cournoyer) and Frank Olson had designed the protective clothing for the invasion of Normandy during World War II.
Cournoyer told us that a crucial element had been omitted from published accounts of the Olson case. That element was the Korean War.
Cournoyer added three crucial elements to the story:
1. In the late 1940’s Frank Olson joined the CIA where he specialized in the field of “information retrieval.” This was the ARTICHOKE program, which we already knew was the operational context in which Frank Olson was working.
2. In the course of this work in information retrieval Frank Olson made numerous trips to Europe, during which he observed interrogations of persons (Soviet prisoners, former Nazis, and others) which involved the combined application of electro-shock, drugs, and torture. These interrogations sometimes led to the deaths of the subjects being interrogated.
3. Through the “information retrieval” work Frank Olson learned that in fact—despite vehement denials by the American government—the United States was using biological weapons, including anthrax, in the Korean War.
This information from Cournoyer fit well with what we already knew and with what we would soon learn. In documents from the Gerald Ford Library we were about to discover the extreme concern in the 1975 White House that “highly classified national security information” was at stake in the death of Frank Olson.
This information also fits closely with what Alice Olson had repeatedly said about her husband’s state of mind in the period prior to his death. Alice Olson had always insisted that Frank had been very worried that the United States may have been employing biological weapons in Korea. But she did not know whether her husband knew the truth about this or not, or even whether he would have been in a position to know.
This information also fits the fact that in the summer of 1953, after returning from a trip to Europe, Frank Olson underwent a moral crisis concerning his work. This moral crisis was noticed by his wife, by his close friends, as well as by relatives. This crisis occurred, it is important to emphasize, several months prior to the LSD drugging at Deep Creek Lake.
Frank Olson’s moral crisis culminated in his decision to quit his job during the weekend following the drugging, a fact which, again, is not mentioned in the Colby documents. Frank Olson went to work on a Monday morning and resigned from his job. By late Friday night he was dead.
For fifty years the United States has continued to deny that this country has used biological weapons in combat. As chief of the government’s most secret biological lab in the early 1950’s Frank Olson’s position concerning these allegations could not have been discredited.
An interview with Cournoyer elaborating these points appears in the new German documentary film, “Code Name ARTICHOKE.”
Technique of a concealed murder
(The CIA assassination manual)
The story of Frank Olson’s death now held two of the three elements that are required to be present to postulate a murder: motive, means, and opportunity. The days in the New York hotel room, away from family and community, had certainly offered an opportunity for the crime. What we had discovered about the scale of national security secrets to which Frank Olson had access, combined with Frank’s growing moral doubts, held a plausible motive. However, we were still unable to conceptualize a means for the execution of the crime. That too was about to change.
In 1997 we obtained a copy of the CIA’s 1953 assassination manual and were stunned to discover its pertinence to the questions that haunted us. The scenario presented in that manual dovetails not only with what we had learned from the forensic investigation, but also with what we had been told regarding the teaching of the Frank Olson case by the Mossad’s assassination training unit in Israel.
The CIA’s own assassination manual contains precise instructions for the technique of disguising a murder as a suicide or an accident through perpetrating what the manual calls a “contrived accident.”
The sort of “contrived accident” that the manual recommends for the purpose of disguising a murder as a suicide is a fall from a high window or roof onto a hard surface.
As with the original Washington Post story that had led us in 1975 to recognize our father—even though he was not named—the fit between what the manual says about this technique and what is known about Frank Olson’s death is stunningly precise. This fit led the principal forensic investigator who had exhumed our father’s body to say that the assassination manual “fits the death of Frank Olson like the fingers of a glove.” (“CIA assassination manual found,” poster 7.)
The assistant district attorney handling the homicide investigation in New York put it even more strongly. After reading the assassination manual the Assistant District Attorney said,
The assassination manual reads like a script for the murder of Frank Olson.… The only question is which came first, the manual or the murder. Was the manual based on the murder or was the murder carried out according to the manual? (“Saracco reads the manual,” poster 8.)
Here are some passages from the CIA’s own manual on the technique of disguising a murder through engineering a “contrived accident”:
Assassination is a term thought to be derived from “Hashish,” a drug similar to marijuana, said to have been used by Hasan-Dan-Sabah to induce motivation in his followers…
Assassination is an extreme measure not normally used in clandestine operations.…
No assassination instructions should ever be written or recorded. Consequently, the decision to employ this technique must nearly always be reached in the field, at the area where the act will take place. Decision and instructions should be confined to an absolute minimum of persons. Ideally, only one person will be involved. No report may be made…
The essential point of assassination is the death of the subject.
Techniques may be considered as follows:
It is possible to kill a man with bare hands, but very few are skillful enough to do it well…
2. Accidents
For secret assassination, either simple [where the subject is unaware of the danger he is in] or chase [where the subject is aware of the danger but unguarded], the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it causes little excitement and is only casually investigated.
The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Elevator shafts, stair wells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve… If the assassin immediately sets up an outcry, playing the “horrified witness”, no alibi or surreptitious withdrawal is necessary. In chase cases it will usually be necessary to stun or drug the subject before dropping him. Care is required to insure that no wound or condition not attributable to the fall is discernible after death.
If the subject’s personal habits make it feasible, alcohol may be used [2 words excised] to prepare him for a contrived accident of any kind.
3. Drugs
In all types of assassination except terroristic, drugs can be very effective. If the assassin is trained as a doctor or nurse and the subject is under medical care, this is an easy and rare method.
5. Blunt weapons
Blows should be directed to the temple, the area just below and behind the ear, and the lower, rear portion of the skull.
It was on Frank Olson’s temple, above his left eye, that the forensic team discovered a suspicious hematoma which they concluded must have come from a blow to Frank Olson’s head before he went out the window. The forensic team discovered this hematoma, and concluded it must have come from a blow to the head in the room, a full three years before we found the CIA’s assassination manual. (“CIA assassination manual found,” poster 7.)
In the end it was impossible not to read the CIA’s assassination manual as anything but a blueprint for the murder of Frank Olson. Indeed the principal forensic investigator who had exhumed the body viewed it in exactly that way. Hard as it was to imagine that the government would murder an American citizen and then disguise that murder, first as a suicide and then as a reaction to an LSD overdose, we now felt compelled by the overwhelming weight of the evidence to accept this scenario as the only plausible account of this whole complex affair.
Clinching the story
(Documents from the 1975 Ford White House)
A long and grueling journey toward understanding seemed to be coming to an end. We now were able to clearly formulate a motive, a means, and an opportunity for the murder of Frank Olson, and to provide an account of the death that was more convincing than anything we had been told by the government. The glaring gap that still remained pertained not to what had happened in 1953 but to what had happened in 1975.
Certainly if the real story to which we were being led was correct, then the government would have been forced into a very awkward position when the Olson family suddenly attached a name to the anonymous story of an “Army scientist” that the Rockefeller Commission had divulged. This would explain why the goverment had reacted so quickly to our press conference in July of 1975, immediately inviting us to meet the President in the Oval Office of the White House to receive an official apology.
But was the truth that was buried in the death of Frank Olson so big that even the President would be enlisted to maintain the secret? Certainly the virtuoso job of disinformational engineering that had been applied to the whole affair seemed to suggest that no resources would be spared to keep the truth secret. But now, having reached what we were now convinced was the truth about the murder, how could we ever learn the truth about the renewal of the coverup in 1975?
That gap in our understanding—which seemed even wider than the one that had once surrounded the death itself—was about to be closed in the most astounding way.
In 2001 we obtained documents from the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan pertaining to the handling of our case by the Ford White House in 1975. These documents include intra-office memoranda by senior White House staff members and attorneys. Copies of these documents are available. (“The White House reacts,” poster 9.)
These documents show that the White House was extremely alarmed that the Olson family had recognized the unnamed “Army scientist” as Frank Olson, and was concerned that the family was demanding the truth concerning Olson’s death. Already on July 11, 1975—just one day after our press conference—the White House was outlining a strategy to handle our case, a strategy that would ensure that we did not request pertinent information regarding what had actually happened to Frank Olson.
In 1975 the White House advised us that they were concerned that if we went to court we might lose and not obtain what the White House regarded as appropriate compensation.
But the memoranda we obtained show that the real concern at the White House was that if we went to court we it might become necessary to disclose “highly classified information.” The memos show that the government would refuse to disclose such information. This would mean that the government would have no defense at all against claims for information that the Olson family might legitimately make.
The invitation to our family to meet with President Gerald Ford was part of this strategy. Unbeknownst to us, the intent of the White House in having the family meet personally with the President was to ensure that the Olson family pursue a course that would enable the government to maintain secrecy even as it was being alleged that the full story concerning this incident was being released.
Despite the government’s claim to have released all information pertinent to the death of Frank Olson, we still have not received the information that the White House was so concerned to keep secret.
The 1975 White House documents include the following comments:
First, a passage from a September 1975 memorandum by White House attorney Roderick Hills addressed to Richard Cheney:
The Defense to the Olson Claim. …
two circumstances affect our analysis of the Justice Department position.
(i) The bizarre circumstances of his death could well cause a court of law to determine as a matter of public policy that he did not die in the course of his official duties.
(ii) Dr. Olson’s job is so sensitive that it is highly unlikely that we would submit relevance to the court on the issue of his duties.
The latter circumstance may mean as a practical matter we would have no defense against the Olson law suit. In this connection, you should know that the CIA and the Counsel’s office both strongly recommend that the evidence concerning his employment not be released in a civil trial.
In short, there is a significant possibility that a court would either (a) grant full discovery to the Olsons’ attorneys to learn of Dr. Olson’s job responsibilities; or (b) rule that as a matter of public policy, a man who commits suicide as a result of a drug criminally given him cannot as a matter of law be determined to have died “in the course of his official duties.”
If there is a trial, it is apparent that the Olsons’ lawyer will seek to explore all of the circumstances of Dr. Olson’s employment as well as those concerning his death. It is not at all clear that we can keep such evidence from becoming relevant even if the government waives the defense of the Federal Employees Compensation Act. Thus, in the trial it may become apparent that we are concealing evidence for national security reasons and any settlement of judgment reached thereafter could be perceived as money paid to cover-up the activities of the CIA.
These comments are from the same White House attorney, Roderick Hills, who was simultaneously advising us that we should not go to court because the law was not on our side.
Obviously it was not possible for the Olson family in 1975 to assess the government’s story of what Hills refers to here as Frank Olson’s “bizarre death” as long as the family was being misinformed as to the job Olson was doing—a job that Hills describes as so “sensitive” that the government would refuse to describe it.
The same concerns are evident in a memo that was written by White House Deputy Staff Director Dick Cheney to his boss Donald Rumsfeld on July 11, 1975, the day after our family press conference. In this memo Cheney refers to concerns about:
…the possibility that it might become necessary to disclose highly classified national security information in connection with any court suit, or legislative hearings on a private bill intended to provide additional compensation to the family.
Again, these comments have to be placed in the context of assurances given to us personally by the President of the United States that we would be provided with all relevant information concerning the death of our father.
IV. What’s it all about?
What do we learn, finally, from the harrowing story of the death of Frank Olson and its half-century concealment?
In the years after World War II the United States was busy learning what it could from the two powers it had just defeated—information it would then employ in its new battle against the Soviet Union. This occurred on both of World War II’s major fronts, and Detrick was involved in both.
Detrick scientists made a secret deal to obtain the results of Japanese biological warfare research that had entailed some of the most ghastly human experiements of the century. One of those scientists lived just across the highway from where we are sitting today, about a quarter of a mile from here. And Detrick scientists were also involved in collaboration with former Nazi scientists to obtain the results of experiments that had been performed in the death camps.
A Cold War context in which unethical research was being absorbed and sponsored was bound to see extreme forms of discipline and sanction applied to those who raised ethical questions or who might be likely to do so. In the wake of the Nuremberg trials in the late 1940’s the United States could not afford to be exposed as a sponsor of the sort of research it had prosecuted the Nazis for undertaking. Lacking a Siberia to which the reluctant could be sent, extreme security measures in the US took a more complex form.
We are familiar with the health risks to which workers in plutonium plants were subjected during the Cold War. And we are familiar with the risks taken with the lives of persons who were subjects of unwitting government experiments of various kinds. We are familiar with the stories of those whose lives were ruined when they became victims of unjustified accusations during the McCarthy witch hunts. The discrediting of Manhattan Project director Robert Oppenheimer, which began just two weeks before Frank Olson was killed, illustrates the jeopardy into which highly-regarded scientists who dared to criticize American weapons development in the early 1950’s were placed.
These are all phenomena that have become part of the record of Cold War history, a dark side of this nation’s history during that painful era. But even in this company the true story of Frank Olson opens a new chapter. “National security homicide” and “secret state assassination” are not terms with which we are familiar in this country. There are no other terms for Frank Olson’s “bizarre death,” and for the elaborate disinformational edifice that has been erected to obscure it.
V. Conclusion: An MIA with a name
With the information concerning biological weapons in the Korean War on the one hand and the information about the White House coverup in 1975 on the other, the story of the death of Frank Olson finally hit bottom. Frank Olson did not die as a consequence of a drug experiment gone awry. He died because of security concerns regarding disavowed programs of terminal interrogation and the use of biological weapons in Korea. This secret was so immense that even twenty-two years later the White House had been enlisted to maintain it.
The body that had floated to the surface of the murky lake had at last been reinserted into the network of shady, disavowed operations that led to the murder. Amazingly, the solution to the mystery had pertained to the most obvious fact of all concerning Frank Olson, but one that was conspicuously missing from the accounts in 1975: Frank Olson was a founding member and in the year prior to his death he was chief of the country’s most secret biological warfare laboratory.
For just under half a century the death of Frank Olson has been a weighty burden for the Olson family. But this is far more than a family story, which is why for many years it has been avidly followed by many people in this country and others.
At the end of this story one’s mind is inevitably drawn back to that Washington Post article which, under the ironic headline “Suicide Revealed,” reported the anonymous suicide of an “Army scientist.” Clearly the intent was that Frank Olson was an MIA who should remain forever nameless.
Frank Olson does have a name. Finally, forty-nine years after his death, he also has a story. We therefore feel ready to rebury the physical remains of our father, our grandfather.
New Evidence in Army Scientist’s Death
48-year-old case has links to CIA’s secret experimentation program
By H.P. Albarelli Jr. and John Kelly
Originally published by
WorldNet Daily, Friday, July 6, 2001
© 2001 H.P. Albarelli Jr. and John Kelly
Editor’s note: In 1998, WorldNetDaily first reported on the CIA’s secret behavior-modification program MK-ULTRA, which included experimentation with LSD on unsuspecting subjects. Authors H.P. Albarelli Jr. and John Kelly’s upcoming book deals with the mysterious death of one of those subject, Dr. Frank Olson. In this report, Albarelli and Kelly disclose new evidence they have uncovered in this case. By H.P. Albarelli Jr. and John Kelly
To view this article in on the WorldNet site go to WorldNet Daily and enter “Olson and CIA” in the WND search box at left side of the page. Links are also provided to three additional, previously published WorldNet articles pertaining to the Frank Olson case.
“I would turn our gaze from the past,” pronounced CIA Director George Tenet recently before Congress. “It is dangerous, frankly, to have to keep looking over our shoulders.” Whether Tenet had the unsolved death of Dr. Frank Olson in mind is not known, but there is little doubt that it is on his mind today.
Informed sources revealed this week that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is reviewing dramatic new evidence in the Olson case. The evidence is said to involve the Jan. 8, 1953, death of Harold Blauer and its subsequent elaborate cover-up.
Blauer, a widely respected tennis professional, died nine months before Olson after being injected with a massive dose of a mescaline derivative at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Blauer was being treated at the Institute for depression related to a broken marriage, but the injection was not part of his treatment. It was administered only as part of a top-secret Army-funded experimental program. The program, codenamed Project Pelican, was overseen by Dr. Paul H. Hoch, director of experimental psychiatry at the Institute, who worked in secret collaboration with the Army Chemical Corps chief of clinical research, Dr. Amedeo Marrazzi.
Born in Hungary and schooled in psychiatry in Germany, Hoch came to the U.S. in 1933 on a visitor’s visa and soon legally immigrated with the assistance of then-attorney and future Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. (At the time of Frank Olson’s death, Allen Dulles, brother of John Foster, was head of the CIA.) Before joining the Institute’s staff, Hoch headed the Manhattan State Hospital Shock Therapy Unit and worked as chief medical officer for war neuroses for the U.S. Public Health Service.
Hoch, along with associates Dr. Harold A. Abramson and Dr. Max Rinkel, was among an elite group of five private researchers and six U.S. Army physicians who began quietly conducting LSD experiments in the U.S. in 1949.
Rinkel, the man responsible for first transporting LSD into this country, supplied the drug to Hoch and Abramson in that same year. Rinkel, who fled Nazi Germany before the war to work at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, had known both Abramson and Hoch when all three studied together at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany. According to 1998 interviews with former-CIA official Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, it was Rinkel’s close associate, Dr. H.E. Himwich, along with the Army’s Dr. L. Wilson Greene, who first drew the CIA’s attention to the “wonders of LSD.”
When he died in 1965, Hoch was eulogized by two of his closest friends, Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, who would soon be exposed as administrator of some of the most horrendous CIA-funded experiments on record, and New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller.
For nearly five years, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s cold-case unit has been conducting an unprecedented criminal investigation into the mysterious death of Fort Detrick biochemist Frank Olson. On Nov. 28, 1953, Olson allegedly dove through a closed and shaded 10th-floor hotel window in the middle of the night.
He plummeted 170 feet to his death on the sidewalk below. Uniformed policemen, summoned to the hotel by night manager Armondo Diaz Pastore, discovered CIA official Robert V. Lashbrook calmly sitting in the room he shared with Olson. Lashbrook identified himself only as a “consultant chemist” for the Defense Department and inexplicably told the officers that he saw no reason to go down to the street to check on his colleague. Lashbrook also told police that Olson had journeyed to Manhattan to be treated by Abramson for “depression related to an ulcer.”
Two detectives from the 14th Precinct dispatched to the Statler Hotel were suspicious about what they observed. At first, they suspected they had a “homosexual affair” gone bad on their hands. Detective James Ward initially referred to the case as a possible “homocide” in his report. Ward and his partner, detective Robert Mullee, took Lashbrook to the precinct house for interrogation. Within less than two hours, Lashbrook was set loose and the case was closed out as “D.O.A. Suicide.” The final police report makes no mention whatsoever of the CIA or any drugs, nor does the report on Olson’s death filed by the New York City Medical Examiners Office.
After his release from questioning at the 14th Precinct station, Lashbrook went to the Medical Examiners office to officially identify Olson’s body. There he was briefly interviewed by a stenographer before returning to spend another day at the Statler Hotel.
The Olson death remained a suicide stemming from depression for 22 years. Then in June 1975, a blue-ribbon commission chaired by Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller submitted a report on CIA domestic crimes to President Gerald Ford. In it, under a section headed “The Testing of Behavior-Influencing Drugs on Unsuspecting Subjects Within the United States,” the suicide of an unnamed man who jumped from a New York hotel after being given LSD “without his knowledge while he was attending a meeting with CIA personnel working on the drug project” was briefly mentioned.
The Olson family threatened to sue the government, were granted an Oval Office audience with President Ford, served a stately luncheon by then-DCI William Colby at the CIA’s Langley, Va., complex, and were generally placated with a pile of heavily redacted documents pertaining to Olson’s “suicide” and by a 1976 congressionally approved settlement in the amount of $750,000. At the time, Alice Wicks Olson, Frank’s widow, said she “was satisfied with the settlement” and that her family was ready to move on with their lives. After decades of doubts and confusion, it appeared that the strange story had finally found a fitting conclusion.
But then in 1994, Frank Olson’s only survivors, sons Eric and Nils, convinced noted forensic sleuth James E. Starrs of George Washington University, Washington, D.C., to disinter their father’s corpse and scientifically scrutinize the remains for any signs of suspected foul play.
Working with a team of 15 forensic experts, Starrs quickly discovered a number of peculiarities in the New York Medical Examiner’s 1953 report written by then-Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Dominick DiMaio.
Starrs noted, “That report was brief and to the point, but it was a report of what was only an external examination of the remains.” Starrs was troubled that “the accompanying toxicological report only assayed the presence of methyl and ethyl alcohol, including no drugs of any kind.” This despite that Olson had allegedly been dosed with LSD and given “nembutal” shortly before his death.
Starrs was even more puzzled to discover that Olson’s body lacked any lacerations on the face and neck. Said Starrs, “This finding stood in contradistinction to that of Dr. DiMaio in his report of his external examination of Dr. Olson’s remains in 1953.” Continued Starrs, “It is a matter of some consternation how Dr. DiMaio could have reported the existence of multiple lacerations on the face and neck of Frank Olson when in truth, there were none.”
In addition to these discrepancies in the medical examiner’s report, Starrs discovered a “highly suspicious” hematoma over Olson’s left eye that he concluded was “singular evidence of the possibility that Olson was struck a stunning blow to the head prior to exiting the window.” There was no mention of this hematoma in the 1953 medical examiner’s report.
Armed with Starrs’ startling findings, the Olson brothers retained high-powered Washington, D.C., attorney Harry Huge of Powell, Goldstein, Frazer, & Murphy, to convince Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau to open a murder investigation. Earlier in 1975, spurred by the LSD revelations of the Rockefeller Commission, Morgenthau’s office had briefly considered doing so but for reasons reportedly tied to the Olson family’s settlement decided not to pursue the case. At the same time, DiMaio told reporters that he had been told nothing in 1953 about Olson being given LSD or having been brought to New York to see a physician.
DiMaio said that Robert Lashbrook, when questioned by the medical examiner’s stenographer, Max Katzman, failed to say anything about Olson having taken LSD or that he was under psychiatric treatment. DiMaio also said that while it “was routine for his office to review the police report in such cases,” the report on Olson’s death had “not been forwarded.”
Pertinent to note here is that the police report, dated Nov. 30, 1953, clearly states that Olson was being examined by Abramson for “a mental ailment” and that Abramson “had advised” that Olson “enter a sanitarium as he was suffering from severe psychosis and illusions.”
On March 31, 1995, attorney Huge sent Morgenthau a 12-page memorandum that methodically argued why an investigation should be opened. Within weeks, Morgenthau agreed with Huge’s findings and assigned the reopened case to his newly created cold-case unit headed by seasoned prosecutors Stephen Saracco and Daniel Bibb.
According to informed sources, newly emerging evidence in the Olson case revolves around Harold Blauer’s death and a number of previously unrevealed links between the CIA, Fort Detrick’s Special Operations Division, or SOD, Olson’s place of work and the New York City Medical Examiners Office.
Cold case prosecutors Saracco and Bibb have learned that, contrary to long-standing reports, both the CIA and SOD had a direct interest in the experiments conducted at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Sources say that Saracco and Bibb have obtained “incontrovertible evidence” that reveals that CIA officials Lashbrook and Gottlieb, as well as officials from the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office, directly participated in the cover-up of Blauer’s death. Gottlieb was the CIA branch chief that ordered “the experiment” with LSD that allegedly resulted in Olson’s suicide. In 1986, Lashbrook denied that he had any knowledge about Blauer’s death.
But a top-secret CIA memorandum obtained by the authors reveals that Lashbrook knew far more than he claimed. The document, written in January 1954, details a conversation Lashbrook had with a high-ranking Pentagon official who telephoned the CIA to inquire if the agency “had heard that the Chemical Corps was being sued” because “of an incident involving the use of chemical compounds” at “the New York Psychiatric Institute, which is affiliated with Columbia University.” The memo states: “A Dr. Paul Hoch was the Institute’s principal investigator. He was carrying out experiments involving the injection of Mescalin [sic] derivatives into patients. In this particular case the patient died. Relatives of the deceased have brought the action.”
The document goes on to detail that Lashbrook “had been advised of these facts by Dr. Marrazzi, civilian employee of the Medical Laboratory,” and that both Lashbrook and Gottlieb advised the inquiring Pentagon officer that Marrazzi “was keeping [CIA] informed of their various activities along these lines.” The document continues, “Chemical Corps’ contract is for approximately $1,000,000 dollars. We took a $65,000 financial interest in this place of research around 23 February 1953, after the referenced incident occurred.”
The memorandum goes on to explain that following Lashbrook’s telephone conversation, Gottlieb contacted the Pentagon officer the next day “and advised him we did not want the Agency’s name mentioned in connection with the case since we were in no way involved.” The officer, according to the memo, “assured” Gottlieb that the Agency “will not be mentioned and that he would keep us informed.” The last several sentences of the memo read: “Further information supplied by [officer] was that the lawyer [for the Blauer family] was a military man and had been advised the case involved military connections. The lawyer stated he would give the case no publicity. And finally, the reason for [officer’s] contacting the Agency in the first place was to see if we could help them in any way to hush the thing up. He advised they are now using other channels.”
Other recently discovered documents concerning Blauer’s death reveal a more complete portrait of the specifics surrounding the experiments at the Psychiatric Institute. A 1975 CIA document written by Technical Services Inspector General, Donald F. Chamberlain, reads: “The Army Inspector General informed me that the Army’s Special Operations Division, Fort Detrick (the unit that Frank Olson was in) had a contract for two years with the Psychiatric Institute (1952-53) to test various mescaline-related and other drugs [including LSD] that the Army was interested in. Blauer died 2-1/2 hours after an injection of an apparent overdose of 450 milligrams of EA 1298 [mescaline-related drug].”
That it was Fort Detrick’s Special Operations Division that initiated the secret contracts with the New York State Psychiatric Institute is significant because the division was established with CIA assistance for the exclusive purposes of devising biological weapons that, according to CIA documents, could be targeted “at individuals for the purposes of affecting human behavior with the objectives ranging from very temporary minor disablement to more serious and longer incapacitation to death.” These purposes seriously call into question the motivations behind the “experiment” on Blauer.
Nearly a year before Blauer’s death, beginning in 1952, the relationship between the CIA and Fort Detrick’s SOD was formalized through a written agreement. It was officially referred to as Project MK/NAOMI, an adjunct to the larger CIA behavior modification program that within months became known as MK-ULTRA. According to former CIA officials, Project MK/NAOMI was named after Abramson’s assistant, Naomi Busner. Abramson, from 1951 through to at least the late 1960s, served as a high-level researcher for the CIA and Army. Earlier in 1943-1944, Olson, assigned to Division D at the Chemical Corps’ Edgewood Arsenal, and Abramson worked closely together on a prototype project involving simulated exercises aimed at biological-contamination of the New York City water supply.
Fort Detrick’s Special Operations Division was the top-secret Chemical Corps branch that was Olson’s assigned place of work at the time of his death. Contrary to conventional press accounts, CIA-employee Olson was not a simple research scientist with SOD but was a high-ranking division administrator holding the titles assistant division chief and director of plans and assessments. Prior to that, according to military and CIA records, he served as the division’s director of planning and intelligence activities and as director of the SO division itself for about 12 months.
Documents uncovered by the authors reveal that within 48 hours of Blauer’s death, Dr. Amedeo Marrazzi, the Chemical Corps contract officer for Project Pelican, traveled to the New York State Psychiatric Institute on Jan. 10 and met with Hoch. According to several documents, Marrazzi instructed Hoch to do everything possible to conceal the Army’s involvement in Blauer’s death. Additionally, documents reveal: “Marrazzi indicated in his trip report that while he was in New York he prevailed on one of the New York City Medical Examiners with whom he was well acquainted to place all the records (regarding Blauer) in a confidential file in the medical examiners office. Thus the Medical Examiner was informed that Blauer’s death was connected with secret Army experiments, but he was also told that this information was not to be disclosed.” This was the same office of the New York City Medical Examiner that months later received the body of Frank Olson.
Contacted at his home, retired medical examiner DiMaio said, “I don’t recall the incident involving Harold Blauer.” On Frank Olson’s death, he said, “It was a long time ago. They [the police] told me he was on LSD and had been acting aberrant and erratic for a while. There was no reason to do an autopsy.”
CIA spokesman Tom Crispwell declined to comment on any of the new evidence being examined by the District Attorney’s Office.
He said, “CIA activities related to the MK-ULTRA program were thoroughly investigated in 1975 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research. The CIA cooperated with each investigation.”
Olson family attorney Harry Huge said, “We are monitoring these developments closely and are very encouraged that we may now have the means to pursue things further. For obvious reasons, this is an extremely difficult case. The district attorney’s prosecutors have diligently logged hundreds of hours working on it, and we’re anxious about additional findings that may be forthcoming.”
Portions of this article were taken from the forthcoming book, A TERRIBLE MISTAKE: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Cold War Experimentsby H.P. Albarelli Jr. and John F. Kelly.
Meet Sidney Gottlieb – CIA dirty trickster
Terry Lenzner’s CIA connection
Cold War legend dies at 80
To view these articles on the WorldNet site go to WorldNet Daily and enter “Olson and CIA” in the WND search box at left side of the page. Links are also provided to three additional
THE OLSON FILE
A secret that could destroy the CIA
by Kevin Dowling and Phillip Knightley
Dr. Frank Olson’s life was a mystery, full of dubious experiments for the CIA, and unexplained trips to Porton Down. His death, in 1953, was stranger still. Was it suicide? A failed exercise in brainwashing? Or murder? And what did he know that made his death so convenient? Next week, a grand jury may finally hear the truth about the Cold War’s darkest Secret.
Published in Night and Daymagazine, the Sunday supplement to The London Mail on Aug 23, 1998.
Reprinted June 12, 1999 in Dagens Nyheter, largest newspaper in Sweden. Used here with permission of the authors.
In the early hours of 28 November 1953, Armand Pastore, the night manager of the Statler Hotel, New York, was startled to hear a crash of breaking glass and then a sickening thump on the pavement outside his hotel. He rushed out to find a middle-aged man lying semi-conscious on the ground.
Pastore looked up to see light shining from a shattered window of a room on the hotel‚s thirteenth floor. He knelt down alongside the man, cradled his head in his arms and leaned closer as the man made an effort to speak, then died. He had obviously jumped out of the window, just another suicide in a city where the plunge from skyscraper to pavement was a shocking but not unusual event.
Suicide was certainly the finding at the inquest—Dr Frank Olson, a United States Army scientist, for reasons no one could fathom, had taken his own life. And that was what the record showed for the next twenty-two years.
Then in 1975 the Rockefeller Commission, set up by President Ford to examine the extent of the CIA‚s illegal domestic operations, revealed that an unnamed army scientist had died after CIA experts, experimenting with mind-bending drugs, had secretly slipped him a dose of potent LSD. During the ensuing uproar, the scientist was identified as Frank Olson.
The US government moved immediately to show how sorry it was for what had happened. Congress passed a private humanitarian relief bill which authorised a payment of $750,000 to the widow, Mrs Olson, and her three children. Mrs Olson and her son Eric were invited to the White House where President Ford publicly apologised to them. And the then CIA director, William Colby, held a lunch for Mrs Olson and Eric in his office at the CIA, apologised and gave them the CIA file on the case.
According to the file, Olson had suffered a “chemically-induced psychotic flashback” a week after he had been slipped the dose of LSD. So a CIA doctor, Richard Lashbrook, had been deputed to look after Olson until he was normal again. Lashbrook had been sharing the hotel room with Olson and was asleep in a bed next to him when, he said, he was awoken by the sound of breaking glass and realised that Olson had crashed through the window.
Eric, who is now 54,was never very convinced by this version of events but kept quiet so as not to distress his mother. Then when she died in 1994 he decided to test the official story of his father’s death. Experts told him that in order to achieve the momentum needed to vault over a central heating radiator under the window, burst through the closed blinds and smash through the hotel’s heavy glass panes, Olson would have had to struck the window travelling at more than 30km per hour. A trained athlete takes about fifty metres to accelerate to that speed. But the hotel room was only 5.5 metres long.
Next there was Dr. Lashbrook‚s strange behaviour when the hotel manager Pastore arrived in the room to tell him that his colleague was dead on the pavement below. Lashbrook went to the telephone, rang a number and simply said, “Olson’s gone”. Then he hung up and retired to the bathroom where he sat on the lavatory with his head in his hands.
Eric Olson, a Maryland clinical psychologist, began to spend every spare moment trying to get at the true story of what had happened to his father. Today he is convinced he is on the brink of doing so. But the story is so strange, so reminiscent of the TV series “The X-Files,” that despite compelling evidence, it is uncertain that anyone will believe it.
THE TERMS of the $750,000 government settlement for Olson‚s death prevented his family from pursuing the matter in the civil courts. But if Eric Olson could convince the authorities that his father’s death was a criminal matter, then he might eventually get at the truth. Four years ago he had his first breakthrough when he won a court order to exhume his father’s body.
“When he was buried the coffin had been sealed. They said he had been so badly mutilated in the fall that it wouldn’t be right for the family to see him. But when we opened the casket a lifetime later, I knew Daddy at once. He had been embalmed and his face was unmarked and untroubled. He hadn‚t been hurt the way they said he had.”
A new autopsy confirmed Eric Olson’s impression and entirely contradicted the findings of the first inquest. Carried out by a team led by James Starrs, Professor of Law and Forensic Science at The National Law Centre, George Washington University, it could find no sign of the cuts and abrasions that the first autopsy said had been caused by crashing through the window glass.
On the other hand, there was a haematoma, unrecorded at the first post mortem examination, on the left hand side of Olson’s skull. This had been caused by a heavy blow, James Starrs decided, probably from a hammer, before the fall from the window. Starrs and his team concluded that the evidence from their examination was “rankly and starkly suggestive of homicide.”
Although the team did not say so—because it could be only supposition—someone had struck Olson on the head with a hammer, smashed open the window, probably with the same hammer, and had then thrown Olson out. But the new autopsy findings were certainly enough for a New York public prosecutor, Stephen Saracco, to win the right for a grand jury to begin hearing the evidence he had uncovered. If the jury, too, found the evidence of murder compelling, then Saracco requested that it should hand down indictments for murder and conspiracy to murder.
Saracco, an ambitious, aggressive lawyer with no fear about taking on the American establishment, says that the men he wants named in the indictments will include some of America’s most respected CIA veterans and, if the grand jury agrees to his request to widen his investigations, former officers of the British Secret Intelligence and Security Services as well.
Already there are indications that the international intelligence community is running scared. The CIA and the Department of Justice have resisted Saracco ‘s attempts to subpoena Dr. Lashbrook, who now lives in California, to question him, among other things, about Olson’s last hours, the telephone call that Lashbrook made immediately after Olson’s death and the work that Lashbrook and Olson had been engaged in together.
Early in July, after months of negotiation, the two government departments gave in and agreed that the grand jury should hear Saracco’s team examine Lashbrook at Venture County Courthouse during the week beginning 24 August. Saracco has already offered Lashbrook immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony. He was too late, however, to do the same for William Colby, the CIA chief who apologised for Olson’s death.
On 27 April 1996, after Saracco won the right to a grand jury hearing, Colby who realised that he would be forced to give evidence, vanished from his country retreat about forty miles south of Washington. It looked as if he had left in a hurry: the lights and the radio were still on, his computer was still running, and a half finished glass of wine was on the table. The next day his empty canoe was found swamped on a sand bar. Five days later divers found a body identified as Colby’s. He had apparently been the victim of a boating accident.
If so, it would appear that Maryland waters are particularly unkind to retired members of the CIA. In 1978 another CIA officer, John Paisley, also vaanished there in another boating accident. A week after Paisley‚s abandoned boat was located, a body with a gunshot wound to the head was found. But the condition of the body meant that precise identification was impossible—making the area a conspiracy blackspot.
Suppose the grand jury does in the end find that the evidence that Olson was murdered and that the perpetrators were other CIA officers, there will still remain a major barrier to an eventual conviction–what was the motive? What was so sensitive to the CIA that it would kill one of its own? To find an answer we have to go back to the fifties when the two great ideologies of the 20th century, communism and capitalism, were locked in a battle to the death and no act no matter how morally shocking was ruled out in the struggle for victory.
THE NUCLEAR stand-off of the Cold War had sent both sides back to their drawing boards. If it were impossible to employ nuclear weapons without assuring mutual total destruction, what other weapons could the boffins come up with—given virtually unlimited funds and no moral restraints—that would win any future war? Two possibilities attracted attention. The first was bacteriological warfare.
Bacteriological warfare is remarkably cheap; it has been described as “the poor man‚s nuclear bomb.” A deadly virus sufficient to wipe out every living person over an area of one square mile would cost only about $50. In the 1950s both sides in the Cold War set up research establishments to develop biological weapons, methods of delivering them, and methods of protecting against them. Dr. Frank Olson worked in this area.
Trained as a biochemist, he had been employed since 1943 in the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, Maryland, was associated with a CIA secret research unit known at the time as MK-ULTRA, and came to Britain frequently between 1950-53 to work at the British Microbiological Research Establishment (MRE) at Porton Down. Olson was part of a team which was developing aerosol delivery systems for biological weapons that included staphylococcus enterotoxin, Venezuelan equine encephalo- myelitis, and anthrax. Olson seems to have concentrated on counter- biological warfare, trying to find vaccines and special clothing that would protect against attack.
Deadly effective though it may be, biological warfare has drawbacks. There is always the risk that it may get out of control and attack not only the enemy but those who decided to employ it in the first place. Like nuclear warfare, biological warfare could wipe out civilisation as we know it. So Olson and some of his colleagues became intrigued by another type of weapon altogether, one which attacked not the body but the mind.
Those scientists in the Western intelligence community who supported the idea of developing brain-washing programmes had two gurus—Dr Douglas Ewan Cameron, a Glasgow-born psychiatrist, and Dr. Sydney “The Gimp” Gottlieb, the CIA‚s top expert on brainwashing. Cameron won his post-graduate diploma in psychiatric medicine at the University of London before joining the staff at John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, in 1926. He became convinced that the mentally ill posed a grave threat to Anglo-American civilisation and should be forcibly sterilised.
During the Second World War he was a member of the Military Mobilization Committee of the American Psychiatric Association and was appalled to learn that of the fifteen million men inducted into the US armed forces, two million had to be rejected on neuropsychiatric grounds, a proportion far higher than in any other nation. He set about finding remedies including electroshock (60,000 ECTs in a single year), lobotomies and other forms of psychosurgery, sensory deprivation and mind-altering drugs–all used on patients who had little or no say in their treatment. Conscientious objectors, many of them Quakers, were defined by Cameron as mentally-ill and sometimes forced to accept treatment.
When the end of the war revealed that the Nazis had been carrying out similar experiments—23 German doctors were convicted at Nuremberg—the Western intelligence community suddenly became very interested in Cameron’s work. This interest grew to an obsession after the Stalin show trials with the robotic, apparently artificially-induced confessions made by the accused. Then the behaviour of American POWs held in Chinese camps during the Korean War and their subsequent denunciation of the American way of life, futher convinced the CIA that the communists were already well advanced in mind control techniques. In intelligence circles there were rumours of a Soviet plot to place brain-washed zombies in the White House and other citadels of Western power.
The American response was MK-ULTRA. Its director, Dr. Gottleib, sought help from his Scottish hero, Cameron, and set him up with cover organisations to distance the CIA from some of the more abbhorent aspects of MK-ULTRA‚s work. So Cameron founded the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, ran a proprietary company called Psychological Assessment Associates, and contributed papers to learned journals on “Psychic Driving”, “The Restructuring of the Personality” and “Suggestion and Extra-Sensory Perception.”
The short term goals were to counter any communist plot to insert brain-washed assassins into the West. However, according to authors Gerald Colby and Charlotte Dennett, biographers of Nelson Rockefeller—one-time chairman of a committee overseeing the MK-ULTRA operation—the scientists also wanted to find drugs or techniques by which “a man could be surreptitiously drugged through the medium of an alcoholic cocktail at a social party . . . and the subject induced to perform the act of attempted assassination of an official in a government in which he was well-established socially and politically.”
A far-fetched ides, perhaps, but one whose currency was not limited to the CIA. A few years later, the surreptitious administration of a mind-altering drug in a drink at a party was suggested as a possible solution to a strange double death in Sidney, Australia. On the morning of January 1, 1963, Dr. Gilbert Bogel, and his lover, Mrs. Margaret Chandler, were found dead on a river bank after a riotous party given by staff of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. Bogle, a brilliant scientist, had told friends that he was about to go to the US to work on scientific research of great military importance. The deaths were never solved, but Sydney detectives became convinced that Bogle and his colleagues had been experimenting with LSD and the effect it produced on their thought-processes—the invitation to the New Year’s party required each guest to bring a painting done under the influenced of the drug—and their either by accident or by design someone had slipped the couple what turned out to be an overdose.
Repeated requests to the BBI under the Freedom of Information Act asking for details of the work that Boigle would have been doing in the US have met with refusal on the grounds of national security. But the speculation is irresistible that it might have involved experiments in mind control similar to those that Olson had worked on.
The long-term aim of these experiments with mind-altering drugs is thought by those who have studied the MK-ULTRA programme to have been to ensure the dominance of Anglo-American civilisation in the “war of all against all—the key to evolutionary success.” Brain-washing would be used not only to defeat the enemy but to ensure compliance and loyalty of one’s own population.
Where did Dr. Olson fit into all this? A Harley Street psychiatrist, Dr. William Sargant, now dead, was sent by the British goverment in the early 1950s to evaluate MK-ULTRA. On his return he told a colleague and friend, former BBC television producer, Gordon Thomas, that what Cameron and Gottlieb were up to was as bad as anything going on in the Soviet gulags.
Thomas, whose books include a 1988 study of the CIA’s forays into mind-control, Journey into Madness: Medical Torture and the Mind Controllers, says “Sargant told me that he had urged the British government to distance this country from it. He said it was blacker than black.” According to Thomas, Sargant told him that Frank Olson had come to Britain between 1950-53 to work on attachment at Porton Down and had also made frequent visits to “an intelligence facility” in Sussex. This is confirmed by entries in the special passport that Olson used.
The stamps on the passport, which declare that the bearer was on “official business for the Department of the Army” indicate a pattern of travel that took Olson between various British military airfields, France, Occupied Germany, Scandanavia and the United States between May 1950 and August 1953. Prosecuting attorney Saracco believes that something happened on one of these trips that holds the key to Olson’s death. Since the matter is still before a grand jury Saracco cannot talk about it but Gordon Thomas has his own idea of what it was. “The CIA was using German SS prisoners and Norwegian Quislings [collaborators] taken from jails and detention centres as guinea pigs to test Cameron’s theories about mind control. The agency preferred to conduct such clinical trials outside the United States because sometimes they were terminal—the human guinea pig ended up dead. Olson was accustomed to seeing lethal experiments done on animals but when human beings were used in this way it was too much for him. I believe that he wanted out.”
Mike Miniccino, an American businessman and historical researcher who has spent 25 years studying the MK-ULTRA programme and developing a database on its activities says that if Olson expressed doubts about MK-ULTRA and its work then he would have done so to William Sargant, the Harley Street psychiatrist, who had evaluated MK-ULTRA‚s work and who had been a close colleague of Olson’s.
And although—as we already know—Sargant wanted the British government to distance itself from the CIA’s work with MK-ULTRA, Miniccino says he nevertheless was committed to the principle of mind control and became the link between the British Secret Intelligence Service and MK-ULTRA. Miniccino adds, “So if Frank Olson expressed serious doubts about the MK-ULTRA project to Sargant, then he signed his own death warrant.”
What Miniccino is implying and what public prosecutor Saracco wants to prove is that the MK-ULTRA mind control project—with its clinical trials on unsuspecting human beings—was such a sensitive issue with the western intelligence community that it would go to any lengths to prevent an insider like Olson, from blowing the whistle.
Is this, then, what happened? Did Olson tell the British psychiatrist/SIS agent Sargant that he wanted out of the mind-control project, and that his conscience might compel him to reveal publicly what the intelligence services had been doing? Did Sargant then pass this on to SIS, who in turn told the CIA? Was a decision then taken to make certain that Olson never talked by destroying his memory with drugs and, when this failed, by murdering him and making it look like a suicide?
Apart from the evidence set out earlier, there is another compelling fact that supports this theory. Until Mrs Olson died in 1993, a regular visitor at her house was Olson’s former boss in Special Operations, Vincent Ruwet. Ruwet would spent long-daytime hours with Mrs Olson. The two would drink together at her house (Mrs. Olson became an alcoholic) while Ruwet listened to the problems she faced in bringing up her three fatherless children. Everyone considered him to be a sympathetic family friend. But newly-discovered documents reveal that Vincent Ruwet had been assigned by the CIA to “keep track of the wife.”. If Olson was a threat because of what he knew, and knowledge can be passed on, then the CIA would have to spy on all those who had been close to him in case he had told them the truth about MK-ULTRA? THE CIA has always maintained as a matter of historical record that it has never murdered an American citizen on American soil. If, as a result of Eric Olson’s persistence in trying to uncover what really happened to his father, and the investigating skills of public prosecutor Saracco, this turns out to be a lie, it could well be the beginning of the end of the agency.
Eric Olson says, “The Cold War is over and there are now ongoing national debates about the future of the CIA and about unethical medical testing on humans. My father’s case covers both. The use of hallucinogens, hypnosis, electroshock and other procedures in an attempt to control the way people behave was the CIA‚s equivalent of the Manhattan [atom bomb] Project. MK-ULTRA was secret, shocking and incredibly dangerous. They couldn‚t afford to take the risk of letting my father continue to be involved or, considering all he knew, allowing him to quit. So he was terminated instead. My father’s murder crossed a line in the sand which the U.S. government has always publicly respected. The guilty ones will not be allowed to get away with it.” Or as Fox Mulder would say, “The truth is out there.”
Code Name: Artichoke
The CIA’s Secret Experiments on Humans
A film by Egmont R. Koch and Michael Wech
Camera: Sven Kiesche
Sound: Jan Schmiedt
Editing: Arno Schumann
Archive Research: John H. Colhoun
English version: Mark Rossman
Editorial Director: Gert Monheim
Production: Egmont R. Koch Filmproduktion
Premier, ARD, WDR August 12, 2002
(distorted voice, like a radio newscast)
Frederick/Maryland. More than 40 years after his death, the body of former CIA scientist Dr. Frank Olson has been exhumed. Olson’s son Eric is convinced his father was murdered by agents of the American government because he wanted to leave the CIA. Dr. Frank Olson was an expert for anthrax and other biological weapons and had top security clearance. Forensic pathologists at George Washington University performed an autopsy and concluded that Olson probably was the victim of a violent crime.
00.50 Voice of Eric Olson
“I was strongly identifying with him, I loved him. And I am sure that’s why in the end I came to take on this task trying to figure out what had become of him.”
Title: “Code Name: Artichoke.”
It has been eight years since the exhumation. Eric Olson is still searching for the reasons behind his father’s death in November of 1953. Eric was nine years old at the time. It’s a quest he inherited as the oldest of three children. To solve the mystery of their father’s death.
2.01 Voice of Eric Olson
“My real memories of my father are not very many or very clear, because the trauma of his death really darkened a lot of these memories. His death was so dark and so unmentionable. After he died, it was a subject one couldn’t really go near.”
Eric Olson has returned to live in the house his father built for the family in Frederick in 1950. Back then, Olson senior was one of the biochemists responsible for the biological weapons center the U.S. army ran nearby. The anthrax letters that killed five and caused illness to several others have haunted Eric ever since. Could there be a connection between his father’s death five decades ago and the acts of terror taking place today? (3.00)
The deadly disease that frightened America after the terrorist attacks on September 11th seems to have come from the same US Army Laboratory in Frederick where Olson had worked: Fort Detrick.
The biological weapons lab was founded in 1943. At the time, the Americans feared Hitler might attack the allied troops with a virus or bacteria. They quickly produced gas masks and anthrax weapons, in order to be able to strike back in kind.
Dr. Frank Olson, an army captain and one of the first scientists at Fort Detrick, worked together with Norman Cournoyer. The two became good friends. Their first sons were born within a few days of each other in 1944.
4.18 Voice of Norman Cournoyer/Friend of Frank Olson:
“We worked about five months in this thing called aerosols to see if we could test gas masks and impregnated clothing to see how good they were. And then one day he was transferred to working on hot agents. He said: ‘Norm, how about working for me in the hot stuff?’ That’s how we always referred to it. N was Anthrax, X was botulism and so forth.” (4.53)
Christmas 1947. The war is finally over. Norman and his family celebrate together with Alice and Frank Olson and their children.
“Were we close? Yes! Very, very close, every day of the week for two and a half years. You are going to expect us to be close.”
Among the things his father left behind, Eric Olson found some home movies and slides. At first he didn’t pay them much attention. But today, he sees that material from a different point of view. Might it contain any indication of the secret anthrax research his father was doing after the war?
Frank Olson made a hobby of home movies. These scenes reveal nothing of his secret task involving deadly weapons. They show the perfect world of a young father, captured with the latest 8-mm camera to hit the market.
Frank Olson also used photography. He brought home a lot of slides from his many travels. His photographs also primarily show private moments.
Frank with his wife Alice and son Eric in 1945. Both in 1947 with son Eric and daughter Lisa. Christmas 1949 in a tuxedo. Alice had given birth to their third child, Nils, in the meantime.
6.19 Voice of Eric Olson:
“The whole subject of the relationship between a wife and a husband who is doing top secret, classified work is a subject one could discuss at some length. The wife develops uncanny kind of intuitions, about all the things that are not being said and she knows the limits of what she can ask. And for quite a long time, possibly ever since my father began working at Detrick, the whole business about the monkey dying was a very delicate matter for him.
When he would come home for lunch and have a certain kind of expression, she would immediately know that this meant that this morning all the monkeys had died, which meant that the experiment had been a success.”
Arthur Vidich is Frank Olson’s brother-in-law. Their families regularly spent their summer vacation together. Vidich remembers Frank Olson as an American patriot, who was enthusiastic about working for the Army’s biological weapons program.
7.22 Voice of Arthur Vidich/Brother-in-law of Frank Olson
“He was a person who believed in what he was doing, who felt the work that he was doing at the Center in Frederick was important for the United States. He considered himself a terribly loyal and patriotic person. That kind of an attitude of loyalty was one way of expressing your Americanism.”
Dr. Frank Olson had worked for the US Army’s biological weapons laboratory for exactly ten years when he died in New York in the wee hours of November 28, 1953. He spent the night at the Hotel Pennsylvania, along with a CIA agent who was there to guard him. That night, Frank Olson plunged to his death from his room on the hotel’s thirteenth floor. Through a closed window, it was said.
“Army Bacteriologist Dies In Plunge From New York Hotel”.
Nils, the youngest of Olson’s three children, scribbled on the clipping with a crayon.
“I was simply told that ‘Your father has had an accident,’ and that ‘he has died.’ The only detail that I was then given was that he had fallen or jumped out of a window. I remember quite clearly just being quite stupefied by this.
As a nine-year-old I was old enough to have some idea of cause and effect. And I had no idea what does it mean to fall out of a window. How you fall out of a window in the middle of the night. What is that?”
Eric didn’t understand.
And for his mother, the subject of his father’s death became a taboo.
The search for the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of Dr. Frank Olson begins in 1945, with the liberation of the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. American troops discovered the corpses of hundreds of prisoners who had been murdered or starved to death. Many of the survivors told US doctors about cruel experiments the camp’s doctors carried out using disease germs and various drugs.
A few weeks later, at Kransberg Castle north of Frankfurt, the scientific elite of Nazi Germany is arrested and questioned by American officers. The name of the project is “Operation Dustbin.” The American military hopes to evaluate and exploit the findings German researchers made during the war. Among the prisoners at Kransberg Castle is rocket scientist Professor Hermann Oberth, who collects autographs from his colleagues.
Also at Kransberg Castle: Some of the leading scientific experts in Nazi Germany had been involved in biological warfare, testing the effects of deadly germs on human beings in Dachau and other concentration camps. One of them was Professor Kurt Blome. Blome was the Third Reich’s Deputy Surgeon General and the man behind German research into biological weapons.
Blome will be among those charged in the case against concentration camp doctors brought before the military tribunal in Nuremberg. He will face the death penalty.
In spite of the fact that there is enough evidence against him, Kurt Blome will be acquitted in Nuremberg. The Americans have other plans for him.
11.21 Voice of Professor Kurt Blome: Untertitel // Subtitles
1) I stated publicly and openly that I was a conscientious National Socialist…
2) and a follower of Adolf Hitler.
11.29 Voice of Norman Cournoyer
“We were interested in anyone who did work in biological warfare. Did they want to use that? The Nazis? Yes, absolutely! They wanted to use anything that killed people. Anything!”
The Americans save Kurt Blome, seen here on the left, from death by hanging. In turn, he provides them with information about the Nazi biological weapons program. One of the specialists interrogating Blome is Donald Falconer, a friend and colleague of Frank Olson. Falconer is responsible for developing anthrax bombs.
Today, more than 50 years later, Donald Falconer lives in a convalescent home not far from Frederick.
Eric Olson has visited Falconer several times, hoping his father’s old friend might one day confide a crucial secret in him. But Falconer refuses to say anything, feeling bound by his military oath, and doesn’t want to be interviewed.
In one of his father film’s, immediately following images of his grandfather, Eric discovers a sequence that seems to show secret crop-dusting flights that took place in 1947. Using the findings of Blome and other Nazi scientists, the Americans experimented with artificial diseases capable of destroying crops.
After this short clip, more family pictures of the children.
Meanwhile, in Fort Detrick, a massive arms program is taking place with bacteriological weapons, primarily anthrax spores, which have proven to be highly resistant and therefore suitable for biological warfare.
Anthrax was cultivated in this building, then placed in bombs. The Americans are concerned about the Soviets’ biological arsenal. If the cold war should ever turn hot, deadly bacteria might be used as weapons. The army demands ample weapons at the ready.
Frank Olson often uses the Air Force to test germ warfare in the field, for example on the Caribbean island of Antigua. These tests are carried out to monitor the spread of diseases under realistic conditions. Most of the tests Olson’s team carries out in the Caribbean and on the Alaskan tundra deal with relatively harmless bacteria, but some tests are conducted using actual pathogens – called “hot stuff.”
14.20 Voice of Norman Cournoyer:
“We did not use anthrax, we used bacillus globigii which is very similar a spore as Anthrax is. So to that extent we did do something that was not kosher. We picked it up all over. It was picked up months after it.”
It’s an easy-going life they lead, but they have a secret mission. In California, Olson and his team drive up the Pacific coast in a yellow convertible to prepare an experiment to take place over San Francisco Bay. Spores will be released in order to test the city’s vulnerability to an act of Russian sabotage. Frank Olson loves life and has little interest in following rules. His unconventional manner seems inconsistent with his job working for the army.
In October of 1949, Olson is suspected of disclosing government secrets. He is interrogated by military intelligence.
(visual texts) “Olson was mildly impatient with the questioning conducted during the course of this interview. This attitude is regarded as typical by persons at Detrick who are acquainted with him.”
“Olson is violently opposed to control of scientific research, either
military or otherwise, and opposes supervision of his work. He does not follow orders, and has had numerous altercations with MP’s (…)”
15.52 Voice of Norman Cournoyer/Friend of Frank Olson:
“He was very, very open and not scared to say what he thought. For that matter to the contrary. He did not give a damn. Frank Olson pulled no punches at any time. And I don’t know. That’s what they were scared of, I am sure. He did speak up any time he wanted to. Was he gonna be caught on this? Could be. Could be.”
As the scientist responsible for biological warfare experiments, Frank Olson was among the most important holders of confidential information during the Cold War.
November 1953. Four years after he was suspected for disclosing secrets – an accusation that was never proved: During a trip to New York, Olson is accompanied by a CIA agent who watches him constantly, never leaving his side. Olson and the CIA agent take a room in the famous Hotel Pennsylvania. So, what are they doing in New York?
Armand Pastore is the manager of the hotel. He is on duty that night, when Frank Olson falls from the 13th floor, landing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.
17.12 Voice of Armand Pastore/Former hotel manager:
“He was laying there looking at me, trying to speak to me, very earnest
look in his eyes, wide open …. but there was blood everywhere: blood from his nose, blood from his eyes, blood from his ears, there was a bone protruding from his left arm, sticking straight out. And I kept trying to speak to him, but we were not really communicating, because I could not understand anything he was saying, and then finally he died.”
Pastore notifies the police and accompanies them to the 13th floor. In the meantime, he has determined that Olson must have fallen to his death from 1018A, and that there was probably another person in the room at the time.
“’Wait a minute’, I said, ’it is possible that there is somebody in there’. Then they became alert and they pulled their guns out and said: ’You open the door and we’ll go in.’ I opened the door with my key and they rushed in. Here this guy was sitting in the commode with the hands on his knees, his hands up to his head. The cops said ’what happened’ he said: ’I don’t know, I just heard a crash of glass and I then I see, that Frank Olson is out of the window. And he is down on the street.’”
The CIA shadow testifies that he was fast asleep and didn’t hear Olson get out of bed. He can offer no explanation for the suicide. He has nothing else to say. He makes no statement regarding the reason the two were visiting New York. The case is closed quickly. No one is interested in the telephone call that was made from Olson’s room immediately following his death.
“The operator said, ’yes there was one call out of that room’. So I said ‘What was the conversation?’ She said the man in the room called this number out in Long Island and said ‘Well, he’s gone’ and the man on the other end said ’Well, that’s too bad’ and they both hung up.”
Was that the CIA agent reporting that he had solved the “Frank Olson problem” in the Hotel Pennsylvania?
Eric Olson in New York. For years now, he has been searching for witnesses who might know something about his father’s death, which he considers to be a murder perpetrated by the CIA. He wants to know the motive. Was the government afraid Frank Olson might reveal state secrets? The recent terror attacks involving anthrax were a shock to Eric.
Eric finds himself wondering about a lot of things. Was the anthrax terrorist one of our own? Is that the reason he hasn’t been caught? Because he knows something no one else should find out about? A secret his father knew, too?
In a suburb of New York, Eric Olson meets long-time CIA veteran Ike Feldman. In the fifties, he worked in drug enforcement. At least, that was the official version. Although Feldman never met Eric’s father personally, he discovered some information about the circumstances of his death.
21.07 Voice of Ira (“Ike”) Feldman/Former CIA agent:
“The source that I have was the New York City Police Department, the Bureau of Narcotics Agents and the CIA Agents themselves. They all say the same thing: that he was pushed out of the window and that he did not jump.
People who wanted him out of the way said he talked too much and he was telling people about the things he had done which is American secret. If you work on a top government secret, a city secret, a state secret, and it spills out to people who should not know, there is only one way to do it: kill him.”
In April of 1950, Dr. Frank Olson received a diplomatic passport, unusual for an army scientist. Did he have a new job? In the following years, he traveled often to Europe, including making several trips to Germany.
“He was a member of the CIA. I only found this out after he told me about it. To me he was a Captain. That’s all I knew about it at first. It turned out that he was a CIA agent. And stayed on, right on through to 1953.”
Pictures taken in Frankfurt and Heidelberg will later turn up among Olson’s slides. These cities were home to the US Army’s most important facilities in Germany. There is also a picture of the top secret CIA headquarters in Germany, located in the building of IG Farben in the heart of Frankfurt.
What is Olson’s new assignment? He is now working in an area that has nothing to do with biological weapons. Here, in the German offices of the CIA, the biochemist is conducting important conversations with US intelligence officers.
Increasingly, he can be found in the company of other CIA agents, including a certain John McNulty. It has to do with a top secret project to use chemicals, drugs and torture on human beings in order to break their will and make them submissive. Brainwashing.
The code name for this operation: Artichoke.
(Visual text!)
“The (…) team would enjoy the opportunity of applying
“Artichoke” techniques to individuals of dubious loyalty, suspected agents or plants and subjects having known reasons for deception.”
In Oberursel, in the Taunus hills north of Frankfurt, hidden in old half-timbered houses, the US Army led a quiet interrogation center: “Camp King”. It was primarily Soviet agents and defectors from East Germany who were kept here, people the CIA considered to be communist spies. Special teams, the so-called “rough boys”, interrogated the prisoners.
Former SS member Franz Gajdosch was hired just after the war by the Americans to tend the bar in the officers’ mess at Camp King. Sometime in the year of 1952, in the top secret interrogation center, Gajdosch runs across another German: Professor Kurt Blome.
24.42 Voice of Franz Gajdosch-dt./ Former barkeeper at “Camp King”:
“For a long time, Blome was a doctor at Camp King, he also ran the clinic. He was a protégé of the Americans, and had been a concentration camp doctor. He conducted experiments.”
The American officers who lived the good life at Camp King aren’t disturbed about Blome’s past. Was the former concentration camp doctor expected to lend his experience for their own planned experiments on human beings? A CIA consultant began planning the Artichoke experiments as early as September of 1951.
“The conversations at Oberursel pointed up (…) signs
and symptoms of drugs that might be used (…) We should look into the use of amnesia-producing drugs.”
“Of course their methods were not humane, they exerted a lot of pressure. There are ways of breaking people. At Camp King, they were notorious, the “rough boys” – anything somebody didn’t want to reveal, they would try to get it out of them.”
There are many indications that the cruel experiments involving human beings – “Operation Artichoke” – took place in this isolated CIA safe house near Camp King, at the edge of a town called Kronberg.
The former “Schuster Villa”, now called “Haus Waldhof”, was built shortly after the turn of the century as the summer residence of a Jewish banking family from Frankfurt. The Nazis confiscated it in 1934, and the Americans took it over after the war.
26.33 Voice of Franz Gajdosch-dt./Former bartender at “Camp King”:
“The neighbors, the community didn’t know who it was, what this place was, because the military personnel going in and out of the house weren’t in uniform, they wore civilian clothing. The vehicles had no license tags, so the community wasn’t even aware it was an American facility.”
At “House Waldhof,” in June 1952, the CIA begins conducting brain-washing experiments, using various drugs, hypnosis, and probably torture. One of the top secret protocols documents a Russian agent being pumped full of medication.
The goal of the experiments is to manipulate the human mind in order to extract secrets from its subjects. And then to erase their memory, so they can’t remember what happened to them.
Dr. Frank Olson arrived in Frankfurt on June 12, 1952, from Hendon Military Airport near London. He left the Rhine-Main region three days later, on June 15.
On June 13, experiments are conducted with “Patient No. 2”, a suspected Soviet double-agent.
28.03 Voice of Norm Cournoyer
“He was troubled after he came back from Germany one time. He came back and told me and he said Norm, I tell you right now you and I never talked about this, but we were both grown-ups and this was rough. He said ‘Norm, you would be stunned by the techniques that they used.’
They made people talk! They brainwashed people! They used all kinds of drugs, they used all kinds of torture.”
The CIA’s unscrupulous experiments on human beings continued the Nazi drug experiments they learned of during the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp.
“They were using Nazis, they were using prisoners, they were using Russians, and they didn’t care whether they got out of that or not.”
Meanwhile, the US army was conducting extensive experiments with a new miracle drug: LSD. Here, for example, a soldier was expected to assemble a rifle while under the influence of the hallucinogen.
The army’s LSD experiments took place on the campus of the Chemical Corps in Edgewood Arsenal. The scientists who worked in these laboratories in the early fifties, and who collaborated closely with Frank Olson, were looking for new hallucinogenic substances. They hoped to find a way to use the drugs on the battle ground.
Dr. Fritz Hoffmann, a chemist from former Nazi Germany, had been hired a few years earlier to spur the search for new behavior-modifying substances. Immediately after the war he courted the Americans, seeking to ensure a job in the United States.
30:21 Voice of Bennie E. Hackley/Chemical Corps US Army:
“There was an interest in the U.S. during that time in looking at mood-altering drugs from LSD to BZ and other possible mood-altering drugs. Fritz was interested in that area as well.”
After its experiments on soldiers, the army saw potential in using LSD and other drugs to sedate and “dope” enemy troops. In short order, it would be possible to conquer territory without a fight.
A short time later, the CIA begins conducting its own LSD experiments in the bohemian New York neighborhood of Greenwich Village, on Bedford Street. But unlike the army experiments, the subjects of these tests, which took place in an apartment disguised as a brothel, would not be informed. The CIA hired prostitutes to pour LSD into their customers’ drinks. And then lure them into revealing secrets.
31.41 Voice of Ira (“Ike”) Feldman/Former CIA agent
“My purpose was to see that we got guys up there we wanted to talk and through other people we got prostitutes to talk to these guys and each prostitutes would put something – which I found out later was LSD – into their drink and made them talk. Either they wanted to talk about narcotics, security or crime. This was all part of the CIA experiments. They called it ‘dirty tricks’”.
LSD, it was soon learned, was a much more effective way to loosen the tongue than alcohol was.
Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland, a three-hour drive from Washington. In an isolated vacation house at the edge of the lake, the CIA’s “dirty tricks” department converged here for a meeting with ten of its scientists in November 1953.
The meeting is about Artichoke. According to the invitation, it was a conference for sports journalists. But in reality, the participants, one of them Frank Olson, were to be placed under the influence of LSD.
One of the drinks has been spiked. Later, it will be said the CIA was conducting a kind of self test – but without the knowledge of the participants.
“I do not think again from what I heard, that he was drugged because he was a security agent. He was drugged because he talked too much.”
When Frank Olson was later briefed about the LSD experiment, he knew immediately what it meant: They had interrogated him with Artichoke techniques.
33.30 Voice of Eric Olson:
“Friday evening he came home and spent the weekend in this house with my mother, my brother and sister and me and during much of the weekend they sat on the sofa which was just over here. It was a foggy November weekend, as she described it, and they sat here, holding hands and staring out of this big window into the fog, and he described having made something he referred to as a terrible mistake.”
The CIA brings Olson, accompanied by an agent, to New York. In the hotel they are joined by a doctor working for the secret service, who administers medication. Frank Olson has become a security risk. But it seems the CIA has already found a solution.
Forty years later, at the Institute for Forensic Sciences at George Washington University. The body of Dr. Frank Olson has been exhumed and is undergoing an autopsy. Eric wants clarity, once and for all. And as it turns out, the results of the first autopsy in 1953 in New York were manipulated.
34.52 Voice of Prof. James Starrs/George Washington University:
“The report from New York City, from the Medical Examiner’s office which I had before me was totally inaccurate in some very important respects. It talks about lacerations, cuts of the flesh that in all probability might have been caused by glass in the course of his fall.
There were no lacerations. They were not there, totally non-existent.
We also noticed immediately that he had a hemorrhage, which we call a hematoma, which is under the skull by the frontal bone. That is only reasonably explainable as having occurred by reason of his being shall we say silenced, being rendered unable to defend himself, so that he could be tossed out of the window.”
Starrs arranges to visit the Pennsylvania Hotel with Armand Pastore, the hotel manager who found Frank Olson that night. Afterwards, he makes his judgment:
“It is my view and a number of my team members, not all of them, that it was homicide.”
That would mean Frank Olson was first knocked out by a targeted blow and then thrown out of the open hotel window. Just a few months before the murder took place, the CIA had this “Study of Assassination” prepared, a how-to book for agents, on how to kill people without leaving any clues. In this report, it says:
“The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. (…) In some cases it will be necessary to stun or drug the subject before dropping him.”
“What was spelled out in that ‘Assassination Manual’ was almost letter for letter what happened to Doctor Olson and it was a protocol, as we call it, for an assassination, which fit like the fingers in a glove.”
So was it in fact murder? But for what reason? Why did Olson speak of a “terrible mistake” he had made?
“There is a piece missing and I am not sure that I am the one to give it to you. What happened was, that he just got involved in it in a way he was unhappy about it. But there was nothing he could do about it. He was CIA and they took it to the end.”
Summer 1953. Frank Olson and his father-in-law cut down a tree. Then the family goes to Tupper Lake on vacation. Just like every year. With Arthur Vidich, his wife and their children. Everything seems the same as always. But that appearance is deceiving. Frank is troubled by something. And he makes an attempt to confide in his brother-in-law Art.
38:16 Voice of Arthur Vidich/Brother-in-law of Frank Olson:
“I had never had a conversation with him about anything that might have involved moral values. What had startled me about it was that he had mentioned the Bible and that he was struggling with something. I knew that there was a problem that he was attempting to confront. But what that problem was, I did not know. I can visualize his face actually: It was drawn, in a way I had never seen it before.”
While the family enjoys summertime at the lake, Frank retreats into his own world.
39:03 Voice of Eric Olson:
“My mother also recalled that my father was short-tempered during that last summer. She knew that he had been going through some kind of crisis. She knew he had not been sleeping well, she knew he wasn’t really at peace. He had been agitated and worried about something and from time to time discussed leaving Detrick, leaving his job and retraining himself as a dentist. She had encouraged him to do this if that is what he wanted to do.”
In Asia, at that time, a bitter war was going on between allied US troops against the North Koreans and Chinese. It had already been going on for three years. It was the first, long-awaited and long-feared battle between the West and Communism. Could the Korean War have anything to do with Frank’s personal problems?
He still has an office here in Fort Detrick, in the US army’s center for biological weapons. At the same time, he is working for the CIA. Among the tasks of the dirty tricks department in Building 1412 are brainwashing, drugs and torture, as well as murder by means of poisons and bacteria.
On July 17, 1953, Olson celebrates his 43rd birthday with friends. A few days later, he leaves for the last trip he will ever take. He took his movie camera.
First stop: London. First objects filmed: Big Ben and a parade on the Mall.
Then on to Paris. Near the Eiffel Tower, his two CIA colleagues sit in a sidewalk café and watch pretty French girls go by, on the left is John McNulty.
“Paris, London, Stockholm”, Frank will later write on the packaging. His son Eric is seeing his father’s last film consciously for the first time.
Then, suddenly, a picture of the ruins of the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate. The Soviet Memorial for the Victims of the Second World War. So Frank Olson was also in Berlin early in August 1953.
In Zehlendorf he photographs the headquarters of the American army.
Is Frank Olson on a secret Artichoke mission? Several top-level communist agents were being interrogated in Berlin at the time. It was a time of intense political and military tension in the divided city, just weeks after the civilian uprising in the Soviet sector. At the army headquarters in Berlin, Olson apparently witnessed brutal interrogation methods.
42.19 Voice of Norman Cournoyer/Friend of Frank Olson
“After he came back from Germany the last time he sounded different. When he talked to me he said, I can probably tell you things, that I can’t tell other people, because they are still in top secret material. The people he saw in Germany went to the extreme. He said: ‘Norm, did you ever see a man die?’
I said ‘No.’
He said, ‘Well, I did.’
Yes, they did die. Some of the people they interrogated died. So you can imagine the amount of work they did on these people.”
“He said, that he was going to leave. He told me that. He said, ‘I am getting out of that CIA. Period’.”
In Korea, it’s just a matter of days before the first American prisoners of war will be released. Some of them will face charges of high treason, because they accused their own country of conducting biological warfare.
43.31 Voice of US Air Force Pilot (Prisoner of War in North Korea):
“If my son asked me what I did, what I did in Korea, how can I tell him that I came over here and dropped germ bombs on people destroying, and bringing death and destruction. How can I go back and face my family?”
Are their accusations accurate? Or are they themselves the victims of communist brainwashing? One thing is for certain: Back home, in freedom, the soldiers making these confessions will be interrogated again, using drugs and torture – by their own people!
“All hands agreed that (…) among the returning POWs
from Korea (…) the ‘hard core’ group and those who had been successfully indoctrinated were excellent subjects for Artichoke work.”
The American soldiers who claimed to have committed biological warfare were apparently manipulated using Artichoke techniques. This is documented in CIA papers. And indeed, all discredited their confessions.
44.30 Voice of US Air Force-Pilot (after his return):
“I did sign a confession, relating to germ warfare. The statements contained in this confession were false they were obtained under duress from Chinese communists. When making these statements I deliberately attempted to put in much as was false and ridiculous that I could possibly get away with.”
“I took an oath when I left the Army that I would not talk about that. I am sorry.”
The Korean War Memorial in Washington honors the Americans who died in that fight. Of those who returned, some were interrogated by the CIA using cruel methods, and forced to rescind their confessions. But were the confessions the truth? Did the Americans in fact use biological weapons in the Korean War? As a test? And was this the secret Frank Olson knew, and might disclose?
“This fits with what my mother had always said: Korea really bothered your father.
Finally when one my father’s colleagues within the past year only told me that my father had come to understand that Korea was the key thing and that they were using biological warfare methods in Korea.
And then I preceded to ask him about the germ warfare confessions, this was alleged to be by the American government, these confessions made by the American servicemen were immediately discredited by the U.S. government under the idea that these were manipulated and produced only by the effect of brainwashing.
And at that point my father’s colleague looked at me as if to say ‘read-my-lips’: ‘it wasn’t all brainwashing’.”
Would this colleague, Norman Cournoyer, repeat this statement in front of the camera? He has never made a public statement. Neither about Frank Olson, nor about biological warfare in the Korean War. Will he, now in his 80s, pay last respects to his old friend Frank Olson? And to Frank’s son Eric, who takes part in this conversation?
“I took an oath when I left the United States Army that I would never divulge that stuff.”
“You divulged it to me.”
“You cannot prove it, can you?”
“I can assert it. You told me.”
“Hearsay!”
“So you don’t want to say it?”
“No …. I don’t want to say it. But, there were people who had biological weapons and they used them. I won’t say anything more than that. They used them.”
47:24 Voice of Norman Cournoyer/Friend of Frank Olson:
“Was there a reason for your Dad being killed by the CIA? Probably so.”
Around Frederick, Maryland, where Frank Olson lived while working for both the US Army’s secret biological warfare program and the CIA, the FBI is still looking for the anthrax terrorist.
For months, the largest investigation in the history of American criminal justice has been underway. Should the perpetrator be accused and the case come to court, the government in Washington might be forced to reveal what Eric Olson believes is top secret information about illegal research on biological weapons, about the use of anthrax in the Korean War – and about his father’s murder.
Eric wants to tell his friend Bruce about the latest evidence. Bruce has been at his side throughout his years of research. Once, in the summer of 1975, the American government didn’t hesitate to see to it that the truth was not made known.
The conspiracy originated at the top, in the White House, initiated by Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney. It had just been learned that the CIA allegedly drugged its employee Frank Olson with LSD before his supposed suicide.
Rumsfeld and Cheney, heads of the White House chiefs of staff, at the time recommended to President Gerald Ford that he apologize to the family in the name of the government, and to support retribution. In order to prevent worse things from happening. That’s the content of this White House memo:
“There (is…) the possibility that it might be necessary to disclose highly classified national security information in connection with any court suit or legislative hearings.”
Ten days later, Ford hosted the Olson family and apologized. This allowed him to remain silent about state secrets – and the true reasons for Frank Olson’s death.
“What this means for me is that a national security homicide is not only a possibility, but really it is a necessity, when you have a certain number of ingredients together.
If you are doing top secret work that is immoral, arguably immoral, especially in the post-Nuremberg period, and arguably illegal, and at odds with the kind of high moral position you are trying to maintain in the world, then you have to have a mechanism of security which is going to include murder.”
The two politicians who collaborated in the conspiracy in 1975, Rumsfeld and Cheney, are back in power. As vice president and secretary of defense of the government of the United States. The Frank Olson case, it seems, is far from being closed, even 50 years later. That, at least, is one thing of which Olson’s son is now certain.
Frederick’s ‘Candidate’ was not Frank Olson, but Frederick itself
Frederick News-Post
By Eric Olson
Roy Meachum’s column “Frederick’s ‘Candidate'” (News-Post, Aug. 4) makes a very useful contribution to the burgeoning literature on the death of my father, Dr. Frank Olson. Meachum’s column becomes even more informative when combined with the two long articles by Scott Shane on Detrick’s Special Operations Division and on the Olson case that ran in the “Baltimore Sun” three days earlier, on August 1.
Meachum does an excellent job of sketching the context of my father’s work at Detrick and the CIA, his objections to biological warfare, and the Cold War climate in which the whole saga unfolded and in which his 1953 murder must be understood.
However, in discussing this history in relation to “The Manchurian Candidate” movies, both the new and the old versions, Meachum inadvertently adds to the confusion.
Why has it taken half a century to arrive at the truth about what happened to Frank Olson?
What Meachum doesn’t say is that “The Manchurian Candidate” has been a large part of the problem.
The notion of a “Manchurian Candidate,” the idea that someone could be programmed to make statements or commit actions contrary to their own will, bears a very complicated relationship to the Frank Olson story.
Actually “Manchuria” conjoins exactly the two disparate ideas — biological weapons and mind control — that initially seem such unlikely bedfellows in the Frank Olson story.
Manchuria is the area in northeast China directly north of North Korea where, beginning in 1932, the Japanese began an intense program of research in biological warfare. Detrick was established a decade later during World War II as a response to the infamous Japanese BW program in Manchuria (“Unit 731”) which used thousands of Chinese as live, human guinea pigs for biological warfare experimentation. One of Detrick’s early scientific directors told me that the impetus to get the United States into biological warfare research was driven much more by what the Japanese were doing in Manchuria than by what the Nazis were doing in Germany.
The second notion in the Frank Olson story, that of mind control, enters the picture during the Korean War, when captured American GI’s were taken to Manchuria for what the Chinese called “thought reform,” the strenuous program of interrogation popularly called “brainwashing.”
While still in captivity in Manchuria some of the captured American pilots made statements that became known as “germ warfare confessions.” In these statements the pilots said they had dropped biological weapons on North Korea.
When they returned to the States these same pilots made statements recanting their former confessions. They now claimed that their earlier statements had been made under the duress of psychological manipulation and torture. Available documents indicate that a Detrick-CIA interrogation program called “Artichoke” with which my father was involved had “debriefed” these POWs prior to their recantations.
The experience of American GIs imprisoned in Manchuria became the basis of Richard Condon’s 1959 novel, “The Manchurian Candidate,” and then of the 1962 film by the same name. The novel and the film then supplied the name for John Marks’ 1979 nonfiction work on CIA mind-control experiments, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. A long chapter on Frank Olson, called “The Case of Dr. Frank Olson” forms the centerpiece of that book. (This chapter and many other materials are available on the Frank Olson website at www.frankolsonproject.org.)
John Marks’ chapter, combined with the spin that was put on the story of my father’s death by the CIA in 1975, formed the basis for the public’s belief that Frank Olson committed suicide after being drugged with LSD in a secret CIA experiment. It is this version of the story that has required another quarter of a century to deconstruct, as Meachum explains.
What Meachum does not explain is that the spurious link of Frank Olson’s death to the whole notion of mind control and LSD — in short the link to the Manchurian scenario — was actually a major stumbling block in arriving at a lucid account of what really happened.
At the time of his death my father’s colleagues at Detrick were informed that Frank Olson had been an unwitting participant in a drug experiment, and that this caused the psychological reaction that led to his taking his own life ten days later. His closest colleagues knew that this explanation was not the true reason for his death. Many others at Detrick were highly skeptical to say the least. But the notion of an LSD suicide provided at least a placeholder to quiet rumors and suspicions, even as it left room for the message that was being sent by security to all the personnel at Detrick: potential whistle-blowers will be dealt with harshly.
Fifty years later old-timers at Detrick are still reduced to quivering jelly at the mention of the name “Frank Olson.”
The story those colleagues were given in 1953 is the one that the public received in 1975 when the Rockefeller Commission released the news that an unnamed scientist had been drugged with LSD in 1953 and then plunged to his death.
This story of my father’s death as it was experienced by insiders was brought up to date for me in 2001 when one of my father’s closest Detrick colleagues and friends told me what he knew about the events that preceded my father’s death. This colleague explained that my father had become alarmed both by terminal experiments and interrogations that were being conducted by American forces in Europe using Detrick-CIA techniques, and also by the use of biological weapons in Korea.
When my father’s colleague told me about the use of biological weapons in Korea, I responded by saying. “Yes, but what about the claim that those allegations were the result of brainwashing?”
As if he were stunned by my naïveté, this colleague looked into my eyes said, “It wasn’t all brainwashing. Get it?”
“It wasn’t all brainwashing. Get it?”
In its disinformation wars the CIA did not hesitate to use whatever arrows it had in its quiver, including the claim of brainwashing, in the service of what it called “psychological discrediting.”
What my father’s colleague was telling me was that this discrediting technique had been used to neutralize the “germ warfare confessions.”
The LSD drugging story was used with similar effect to neutralize suspicions that my father had been murdered for security reasons.
This complex story is told in detail in the 2002 documentary film on the Frank Olson story “Code Name Artichoke”which has now been shown internationally in many countries and in the United States on Link-TV. Copes of the film on VHS or DVD are available from Satellite Video in Walkersville.
The essential point is this: it is necessary to insert the notion of “psychological discrediting” into the Manchurian Candidate scenario as it applies to the Frank Olson story. It then becomes clear that the real target of mind control was not Frank Olson. Frank Olson was killed the old fashioned way. He was simply knocked on the head and thrown out the window, as the CIA’s assassination manual suggests (and as Roy Meachum asserts).
The real target of mind control was the public to whom the story of a suicidal, deranged, drugged scientist would be told. That story was so shocking and sensational that, even though it didn’t hold together, nearly thirty more years have been required to shake it loose.
In understanding this phenomenon of directed misperception the most pertinent literary source is not “The Manchurian Candidate,” but, rather, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” What that classic story illustrates is the power of authority to establish a perceptual illusion among a public who are instructed to see things in a certain way. No one in H.C. Anderson’s story, except a small child, has the courage to break ranks and point out that the emperor is stark naked.
In that sense the real Frederick Candidate, the real subject of brainwashing and mind control, was not Frank Olson. It was Frederick itself.
– Eric Olson, PhD
By Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen
Revised, updated, and expanded.
A Citadel Press Book
(Used with the permission of the authors.)
Chapter 80 of:
The Eighty Greatest Conspiracies of All Time: History’s Biggest Mysteries, Coverups, and Cabals
No one saw Frank Olson plunge to his death from the 13th story of New York’s Statler Hotel. No one, at any rate, willing to admit it. Not the man from the CIA who was in room 1018A with Olson when the 43-year-old biochemist and father of three crashed through a closed, shuttered window and tumbled to the cold sidewalk below. To believe the CIA man, he either awoke in his bed some time after midnight to see his roommate charge the window and throw himself through the thick plate-glass; or, as he told it on another occasion, he awoke after Olson had already defenestrated, startled from sleep by the sound of shattering glass.
The CIA man with the shifting story was Robert Lashbrook, deputy to the spy agency’s wizard of mind-control and exotic assassinations. Despite its many inconsistencies, the CIA account of what happened during the early morning hours of November 28, 1953 would become the official story of Frank Olson’s death: It was an unfortunate suicide triggered by a small dose of Lycergic Acid Diethylamide – LSD – secretly administered to Olson in a mind-control experiment gone awry.
Fifty years after the fact, conventional history records Dr. Frank Olson’s death as perhaps the most infamous repercussion of MK-ULTRA, the CIA’s illegal quest to “modify an individual’s behavior by covert means” using hypnosis, electroshock treatment and psychotropic drugs such as LSD. According to this interpretation, Olson’s fatal fall was the result of a “bad trip,” a tragic, yet accidental, consequence of the CIA’s Cold War wet dream of developing a magical brainwashing elixir.
But could the Frank Olson story have an even simpler, albeit darker, explanation? Is it possible that the accidental death scenario – however embarrassing to the CIA at the time of its disclosure during the mid-1970s — served as a cover story to conceal a more disturbing truth? To wit: Was Frank Olson deliberately assassinated?
Two decades after the bizarre tragedy, Olson’s eldest son, Eric, would begin to dispute the official account. His search for answers would ultimately span the course of three decades, becoming a personal obsession that would drain his finances, upend his relationships, and derail his once promising career as a Harvard-trained psychologist. No obstacle would deter him from his mission, not even the taboo of unearthing his father’s bones. (The Shakespearean parallels weren’t lost on the scholarly Eric; “think Hamlet,” he liked to say, “but on the order of years, not months.”) Eventually, Eric would uncover tantalizing evidence suggesting that his father, far from being the victim of a “drug experiment gone awry,” may have been murdered as the proverbial man who knew too much.
Yet in the aftermath of that ill-fated Thanksgiving weekend in 1953, and for a numbing 22 years afterward, the Olson family had been given no explanation at all for Frank Olson’s mysterious death.
It was still dark outside when two grim visitors arrived at the Olson house in Frederick, Maryland, two days after Thanksgiving. Alice Olson roused her nine-year-old son, Eric, from bed and led him into the living room. The sleepy boy immediately recognized the two men as the family doctor and Lt. Col. Vincent Ruwet, his father’s boss at U.S. Army Camp Detrick, just down the road from the Olson home.
Ruwet delivered the terrible news: Alice’s husband was dead. Earlier that morning, Frank Olson had “fallen or jumped,” as Ruwet put it, from the window of a New York City hotel room. Calling it a “work-related accident,” Ruwet explained that the family would be eligible for government compensation. (In the compensation form he subsequently filed on behalf of the family, Ruwet wrote that Olson had died of a “classified illness.”)
Exactly what kind of work Olson had been engaged in at the time of his “accident” wasn’t a part of the morning’s ad hoc grief counseling. Alice, a 38-year-old housewife, had only a vague knowledge of her husband’s classified work at Camp Detrick, where he was director of planning and evaluations in the Army Chemical Corps’ Special Operations Division (SOD). She knew that as a biochemist, Frank Olson’s specialty during World War II had been the airborne delivery of biological toxins and bacteria, including anthrax. Before the end of the war, a painful stomach ulcer had forced Olson to seek a medical discharge from the Army. But he had stayed on at Camp Detrick as a civilian scientist.
In consoling the Olsons, Ruwet made no mention of the nature of the work at Detrick. Nor did he ever mention LSD or the CIA.
As Eric struggled to absorb the devastating news, Alice composed herself enough to tell her two other children, seven-year-old Lisa and five-year-old Nils, that their father would not be coming home. Compounding the family’s sense of shock was the seeming improbability of the tragedy. That Frank Olson had taken his own life just didn’t square with the devoted husband and caring father they knew. It made no sense. And in the absence of a reasonable explanation – the missing how and why – a kind of numbness began to set in. As Eric would later recall, “In that moment when I learned that my father had gone out a window and died, it was as if the plug were pulled from some central basin of my mind and a vital portion of my consciousness drained out.”
Yet Alice knew that her husband had been troubled by something of late. A deeply moral and religious man, Frank Olson had been grappling with an ethical dilemma related to his work. Whenever a group of lab monkeys died upon completion of a successful experiment, Olson had come home depressed and withdrawn. At one point, he had said to his wife rather enigmatically, “If the Germans had won the Second World War, my colleagues and I would have been prosecuted for war crimes.”
The casket, draped with an American flag, remained closed at the funeral four days later. The government explained to the family that even though the body had been embalmed, it was badly disfigured from the fall. Among the mourners at the ceremony were two CIA men: Robert Lashbrook – the man from room 1018A – and his boss, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, architect of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program and the spy agency’s mastermind of bizarre assassination techniques employing lethal biological agents ranging from anthrax to shellfish toxin.
As the coffin was lowered into the ground, the CIA men might have felt an odd sense of relief. After all, the mystery of what killed Frank Olson – and, perhaps, who killed him – was buried on that day along with the body.
The mystery would remain underground – literally — for the next 22 years. In the absence of “closure,” the Olsons’ personal trauma would also remain buried, in a state of unspoken denial. As Eric would later explain, “So great was the shock experience by the family that we did not grieve our loss at all; it was as if nothing had happened.” But as they often do, calm surfaces belied turbulent undercurrents. By the 1960s, Alice had developed a drinking problem that eventually led to the loss of her job as a teacher and a drunk driving arrest on Christmas Eve. Unable to broach the subject of their father’s death with their mother, the Olson children were left to grapple with a legacy of shame and pain. To their friends, they would explain that their father had died of a “fatal nervous breakdown.”
It was long after the Olson children had grown up – and Alice had recovered from alcoholism — that the ghost of the father returned. On June 11, 1975, startling new details turned up on Alice Olson’s front doorstep, in the morning edition of The Washington Post. A front-page story headlined “Suicide Revealed” zeroed in on a sensational item from the just-released report of the Rockefeller Commission, the first of the post-Watergate inquiries into CIA misdeeds. According to the report, an “Army scientist” had leaped to his death from the 13th floor of a New York City hotel room in 1953 after being dosed with LSD by the CIA.
Though the report didn’t name the victim, the family recognized their father in the details. A check with Ruwet confirmed it.
According to the report in the Post – based on the official findings of an internal CIA investigation conducted after the incident – a “civilian employee” of the Army had been dosed with LSD during a government retreat in western Maryland. As the Rockefeller Commission summarized, “This individual was not made aware he had been given LSD until about 20 minutes after it had been administered. He developed serious side effects and was sent to New York with a CIA escort for psychiatric treatment. Several days later, he jumped from a tenth-floor window of his room and died as a result.” (Actually, Room 1018A was on the 13th floor.)
In the weeks following the Post story, no one from the government bothered to contact the Olsons. Frustrated and understandably indignant, the family – and their lawyers — held a press conference in the back yard of the home in Frederick. Now the bizarre story had a face and a name, and journalists flocked to the event. Eric, by then a 31-year-old graduate student working toward a Ph.D in clinical psychology at Harvard, recalls brushing elbows with the likes of Rolling Stone magazine’s Hunter S. Thompson and Leslie Stahl of CBS News. The Olsons took turns reading from a family statement demanding full disclosure from the government. “We feel our family has been violated by the CIA in two ways,” Eric declared. “First, Frank Olson was experimented on illegally and negligently. Second, the true nature of his death was concealed for twenty-two years. … In telling our story, we are concerned that neither the personal pain this family has experienced nor the moral and political outrage we feel be slighted.”
That evening and the following day stories about Frank Olson and his family dominated network news broadcasts and newspaper headlines. Suddenly, information so long denied the Olson family began to dribble in. Two days after the press conference, a man named Armand Pastore contacted the family. In 1953, Pastore had been the night manager at the Statler Hotel. He explained that at around 2 a.m. on November 28 of that year, a panicky busboy had summoned Pastore out to the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Lying on the pavement, bloodied and broken, was Frank Olson. Looking up 13 floors, Pastore saw a dangling blind flapping through an open window frame. Amazingly, Olson was still alive. “He was trying to mumble something,” Pastore later told reporters, “but I couldn’t make it out. It was all garbled, and I was trying to get his name.” Pastore called for a priest and an ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived, Olson was dead.
Pastore recalled that immediately after the incident someone had made a phone call from Olson’s hotel room to a number in Long Island. According to the hotel switchboard operator, who had listened in, it was a short conversation consisting of only two lines:
“Well, he’s gone,” a man in the hotel room had said.
“That’s too bad,” a man on the other end of the line had replied, before hanging up.
Pastore told Alice Olson that he had always been disturbed by the “unusual circumstances” of her husband’s death. As he later elaborated to reporters, “In all my years in the business, I never encountered a case where someone in the middle of the night jumped through a closed window with the shades and curtains drawn.”
Pastore wasn’t the only interested party to take note of the recent news headlines. Less than two weeks after their backyard press conference, the Olsons were summoned to White House for a personal meeting with President Ford. In the Oval Office, Ford offered the family an official government apology. In a photograph taken during the 1975 meeting, Alice Olson and her grown-up children – Eric, 30; Nils, 27; and Lisa, 29 – look at ease and, more to the point, relieved, as they stand with the president. At the time, it must have been a reassuring, and even heady, experience. After years of government silence on the subject of Frank Olson’s death, the family had finally achieved recognition – and, most importantly, a promise of full disclosure.
The Olsons had been considering legal action, but White House attorneys advised the family against it, telling them, Eric Olson recalls, that “the law was not on our side.” Instead, the government lawyers promised that the White House would support a private bill in Congress to pay the family a settlement. The family signed a waiver releasing the CIA from liability, and in return the Olsons were eventually awarded $750,000 in compensation. The family decision not to file suit, made in deference to Alice Olson’s desire to bring the 22-year ordeal to closure, would prove to be a mistake.
Yet at the time, the family believed that full disclosure was finally at hand. Five days after the Oval Office session, the Olson family met with CIA Director William Colby at the spy agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Over a lavish multi-course luncheon in the Director’s dining room adjacent to his 7th-floor office, Colby offered the Olsons his apologies. The meeting was as awkward as the food was elegant. In his memoirs Colby later referred to the encounter as “one of the most difficult assignments I have ever had.” At the end of the hour, the CIA chief gave the family an inch-thick file of declassified documents, calling it the complete dossier on the death of Frank Olson.
Though heavily redacted, the file fleshed out the narrative bones of the Washington Post story. On November 19, 1953, Olson had joined nine colleagues for a three-day working retreat at Deep Creek Lodge, a rustic cabin in the secluded woods of western Maryland. Five of the attendees were SOD men from Camp Detrick, including Olson and his boss Ruwet. The remaining four were CIA officers from the Technical Services Staff (TSS), commonly known inside the Agency as the “dirty tricks department.” The official purpose of the gathering was to discuss MK-NOAMI, a top-secret joint program of the SOD and TSS to develop germ weapons to infect enemy spies in the field. To maintain absolute secrecy, the participants had been instructed to remove all Camp Detrick tags from their automobiles, and to adopt the occupational “camouflage” of sports journalists.
Assisted by his deputy Lashbrook, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, head of the TSS Chemical Division, led the sessions in the lodge’s chestnut-paneled living room, opposite a roaring fire in a stone hearth. A brilliant chemist with personality tics numerous enough to satisfy a novelist’s appetite for the aberrant (Norman Mailer and Barbara Kingsolver have immortalized him in their fiction), Gottlieb at the time had not yet been dubbed “the CIA’s Dr. Strangelove.” But a few decades of diligent work – and a congressional inquiry or two – would eventually remedy that oversight.
Born with two clubfeet, Gottlieb spent much of his life almost compulsively adapting himself to the external world. According to a cousin, in the hospital when the blanket covering his feet was removed, his mother screamed. Unable to walk, he spent his earliest years in her arms. As a child, he underwent foot surgery three times. Although he remained handicapped for life, he compensated by teaching himself to become a graceful square dancer. A habitual stutterer, Gottlieb exhibited the same zeal for self-improvement and personal reinvention in every other aspect of his life. He excelled in his studies and eventually earned a doctoral degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology.
After joining the CIA in 1951, he quickly proved himself to be an ardent Cold War patriot. As his CIA recruiter later noted, “He always had a certain amount of ‘guilt’…about not being able to be in the service during World War II like all his contemporaries because of his clubfoot, so he gave an unusual amount of patriotic service to make up for that.” Working in the CIA’s chemical group, he impressed his superiors as a resourceful, inventive administrator.
By early 1953, Gottlieb had been given control of the Agency’s newly minted mind-control program, MK-ULTRA. At the same time, he ran the research efforts into germ warfare being conducted out of Camp Detrick. Later, he would become the CIA’s expert in better assassination through chemistry. Some colleagues saw Gottlieb, in his single-minded ardor for his work, as a something of a “wild man.”
In less than a year on the job as steward of MK-ULTRA, Gottlieb had already established a rather wild and arguably unscientific methodology that involved dosing unsuspecting CIA men at Langley with LSD and then watching them freak out. According to the official CIA account, Gottlieb performed the same experiment on the men at Deep Creek Lodge.
After dinner on the second night, Gottlieb or one of his CIA men secretly slipped LSD into seven glasses of Cointreau liqueur. If Gottlieb and Lashbrook are to be believed, each of the seven men received a relatively modest dose of 70 micrograms. (Ten years later, Hollywood luminaries such as Cary Grant and James Coburn would regularly ingest doses of 200 micrograms under the supervision of a handful of Los Angeles psychiatrists who briefly dabbled in LSD therapy.) The meeting quickly devolved into laughter and random psychedelic incoherence, and by various accounts several of the men grew uneasy. Olson reportedly had the worst trip. As the biochemist’s SOD colleague Ben Wilson would later tell author John Marks, “Olson was psychotic. He couldn’t understand what happened. He thought someone was playing tricks on him.”
Olson and several others spent a sleepless night under the effects of the drug. The next morning, their nerves frayed, the men decided to adjourn early. When Olson returned home, Alice found her husband to be uncharacteristically withdrawn. After a silent dinner, he told his wife he had made a “terrible mistake” at the retreat. He refused to elaborate, and he didn’t mention anything about Gottlieb drugging him.
Over the weekend, Olson remained quiet and emotionally remote, his thoughts as impenetrable as the dense November fog that hung over the landscape outside. He and Alice spent much of that weekend sitting on the couch, holding hands, quietly looking out the window at the obscuring mist. At one point, Alice asked her husband whether he had falsified information. He said he hadn’t. When Alice asked if he had broken security, Olson replied, “You know I would never do that.” Although he revealed little more, he did tell his wife that he planned to resign his job and retrain himself as a dentist. Alice said that if he felt it was necessary, she would support his decision.
On Sunday night, Frank and Alice Olson took in a movie, Martin Luther, the just-released biopic on the 16th-century Protestant reformer. As Alice would later note, it wasn’t the best choice of movies, given her husband’s mood. The film, which chronicles Luther’s struggles against moral corruption in the Catholic Church and his ultimate break with Catholicism, greatly upset Olson. At the end of the film, Luther nails his 95 theses to the door of the castle church in Whittenburg, officially severing his ties to the Catholic Church.
Early the next morning, Frank Olson appeared in his boss’s office to tender his resignation. Lt. Col. Ruwet reassured Olson that he had done nothing wrong at the retreat, and persuaded his employee to stay on. But the next morning, Olson, still agitated, was back in Ruwet’s office determined to quit. According to Ruwet, Olson said he felt “all mixed up” and questioned his own ability to perform his duties. Ruwet decided that Olson needed “psychiatric attention.” But instead of sending him to the base hospital, Ruwet called Lashbrook at the CIA.
Lashbrook and Gottlieb hastily made arrangements for Olson to see Dr. Harold Abramson, a New York M.D. and allergist who had parlayed a fascination with behavior-modifying drugs into lucrative MK-ULTRA contract work. (In one of his “experiments,” Abramson had dosed goldfish with LSD to see their reaction.) The fact that Abramson was not a psychiatrist apparently didn’t bother Gottlieb, who later sought to justify the peculiar patient referral on national security grounds, that last refuge of panicky civil servants: Abramson, who had considerable experience dosing himself and others with LSD on behalf of the CIA, was already vetted for secrecy.
Ruwet phoned Alice on Tuesday morning to tell her that he and a colleague were taking her husband to New York for treatment because they were “concerned that Frank might become violent with you.” According to Eric, this statement “completely shocked my mother, because she had seen no indications of anything remotely like violent tendencies.” Eric now believes that Ruwet was lying, in an effort to frighten Alice and thereby “preempt the possibility that she might object in any way to their plans.” Later that day, Alice drove with her husband to Washington, D.C., where he was to catch a flight to New York with Ruwet and Lashbrook. The couple stopped for lunch at a coffee shop just outside the Capitol, but Olson wouldn’t touch his coffee. “I can’t drink this,” he said. He grew anxious that someone might have tampered with the beverage, a not entirely paranoid concern given his earlier secret LSD dosing. A half-hour later, Frank Olson boarded a flight to New York. It was the last time Alice would ever see him.
According to the CIA file, Olson saw Abramson for the first time later that day. By then, Olson had become increasingly “paranoid,” as the CIA report put it, and was convinced that the Agency was putting Benzadrine or some other stimulant into his coffee to keep him awake.
The next day, Lashbrook and Ruwet took Olson to the home of John Mulholland, a professional magician whom the TSS had hired to write a manual adapting “the magician’s art to covert activities.” Gottlieb had tasked Mulholland with developing sleight-of-hand techniques that CIA agents could use to slip drugs into drinks. Although Lashbrook later asserted that he was only trying to amuse Olson, the visit had an opposite effect – it freaked him out. If anyone had wanted to unhinge a guy already convinced that he was being drugged against his will, they probably couldn’t have done better than to commission an impromptu magic show by a known conjurer of CIA mickey fins.
Cutting the visit with Mulholland short, Lashbrook and Ruwet hustled Olson back to Abramson’s Long Island office. The CIA allergist talked to Olson for about an hour, then gave him permission to spend Thanksgiving with his family. Olson and his two escorts had an evening to kill before their flight back to Washington the next morning, so the trio took in a Rogers & Hammerstein musical. But Olson became agitated during the first act, believing, according to Ruwet, that people were waiting outside the theater to arrest him. Ruwet took Olson back to the Statler hotel. That night while he slept in the adjacent bed, Olson slipped out of the room and wandered the streets of New York. According to Ruwet, Olson proceeded to tear up his paper money and throw his wallet away, purportedly under the delusion that he was following orders. Ruwet and Lashbrook claimed to have found Olson sitting in the Statler lobby early the next morning.
In Ruwet and Lashbrook’s version of events, the three flew back to Washington later that morning. However, during the drive from National Airport back to Frederick, Maryland, Olson purportedly grew alarmed. If Ruwet is to be believed, Olson said he was “ashamed” to see his family in his present condition, and worried that he might become violent with his children. Lashbrook supposedly contacted Gottlieb, interrupting his boss’s Thanksgiving dinner, and the CIA men decided it would be best to take Olson back to Abramson in New York. Ruwet agreed to return to Frederick and notify the family that Frank Olson wouldn’t be coming home for the holiday.
Later that day, Lashbrook escorted Olson to Abramson’s office, and the non-shrink finally decided to get Olson qualified professional help. According to the CIA’s version of events, Olson agreed to check himself into Chestnut Lodge, a Maryland sanitarium staffed by psychiatrists who allegedly had special security clearance. (In fact, Eric Olson would later discover that the doctors at Chestnut Lodge had no special security clearance, a fact that begs the question, Why did the CIA lie about this?) . According to Lashbrook, he and Olson were unable to get a departing flight until the weekend, so they settled for Thanksgiving dinner at a Horn & Hardart Automat, then checked into room 1018A of the Statler Hotel.
At some point on Friday – the last day of Frank Olson’s life — Abramson showed up at the hotel with a bottle of bourbon and the sedative Nembutol. To say the least, it was an odd prescription for a man who already believed – irrationally or not — that the CIA was trying to drug him. The CIA report offers no more details about Olson’s doings on that Friday. However, we do know that Olson called his wife on Friday evening. It was the first time they had spoken in three days, and Alice was relieved to discover that his mood had improved (a state of mind in stark contrast to the angst-ridden portrait depicted by the CIA). They spoke for several minutes, and Olson told his wife that he was looking forward to seeing her and the kids the next day. By 2 a.m. Saturday morning, just hours after the phone call, and hours before his scheduled flight back to Washington, Olson was dead.
When police arrived on the scene, they found Lashbrook sitting on the toilet in room 1018A, cradling his head in his hands. The CIA man immediately began to tell lies. First, he claimed that he worked for the Defense Department. Then he insisted he had no clue as to why Olson jumped, but added, irrelevantly, that the dead man had “suffered from ulcers.” Police initially suspected a homicide with homosexual overtones, but they dropped the matter after Ruwet and Abramson backed Lashbrook’s account and hinted at classified government connections.
While the CIA’s Office of Security went to work scrubbing New York clean of any telltale evidence linking Olson’s death to the Agency, Lashbrook and Abramson got their own cover stories straight. Lashbrook dictated the specifics of Olson’s alleged psychiatric symptoms while Abramson took notes. Lashbrook went so far as to claim that Alice Olson had urged her husband to seek psychiatric help months before the LSD dosing – a bald-faced lie, according to Alice.
Despite Lashbrook’s pathetic attempts to deflect blame by trumping up a bogus psychiatric history for Olson, CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick officially (but secretly) concluded that Olson’s “suicide” had been “triggered” by the LSD dosing. Kirkpatrick recommended stern censures for Gottlieb and his immediate TSS superiors, but CIA Director Allen Dulles interceded, reducing the reprimand to a weak hand-slap that did no harm to Gottlieb’s career as the Agency’s Cold War alchemist.
Although the CIA documents that Colby had given the Olson family filled in some missing details, it raised as many questions as it purported to answer. In fact, the New York Times called the file “elliptical, incoherent, and contradictory.” It was, the newspaper concluded, “a jumble of deletions, conflicting statements [and] unintelligible passages.” For one thing, despite LSD’s tendency to provoke mercurial responses in distressed individuals, Olson’s bad trip – a week-long psychosis escalating to suicide – seemed out of proportion to the small dose he supposedly swallowed. Then there were several contradictory statements made by Abramson in the report. In one memo, he wrote that Olson’s “psychotic state…seemed to have been crystallized by [the LSD] experiment.” But in another document, he characterized the LSD dose as “therapeutic,” and an amount that “could hardly have had any significant role in the course of events that followed.
Even more puzzling were the report’s numerous references – with all details blacked out — to the CIA’s Project ARTICHOKE. As the precursor to MK-ULTRA, ARTICHOKE concerned the search for a “truth drug” to aid in interrogation. But the top-secret program had also involved other interrogation methods, including torture and attempts to induce amnesia in “blown agents” who knew too much. If Frank Olson’s death was indeed the unintended result of an MK-ULTRA experiment – as the report concluded — then why all the cryptic references in the document to ARTICHOKE?
Unanswered questions or not, the family wanted to believe – needed to believe — that vindication and justice had prevailed. It was time to move on. But, it seemed, the curse of the past wouldn’t let go. In 1976, Eric’s sister Lisa, her husband, and her two-year-old son took off from Frederick in a small plane, bound for the Adirondacks, where they planned to invest Lisa’s share of the settlement money in a lumber mill. The plane crashed and no one survived.
That same year, Eric moved to Sweden, the birth country of his father’s parents, hoping to put some distance between himself and the family curse. In Stockholm, he worked to develop the psychotherapeutic technique he had begun at Harvard: the “collage method,” a process that involved clipping pictures and pasting them into photomontages. Eric found that when patients assembled a collection of nonverbal images in a tableau, they often gained powerful insight into suppressed emotions and memories. (Eric’s own collages often featured images of men tumbling from buildings.) He believed that the collage method might provide a “whole new conceptual base for psychotherapy.” During what would become a decade-long sabbatical in Sweden, Eric fathered a son, Stephan, with a woman he did not marry.
But his new life abroad offered little insulation from the past. Ironically, Eric’s retreat to a “neutral and very quiet country” only sharpened his resolve to exorcise the old family ghosts. “Sweden gave me a great deal of distance from the whole CIA business,” he explained. “And it was precisely the new-found calm which enabled me to see that, objectively, the CIA’s version of events made no sense. My effort was not to hold on to the issue, but to put it behind me. The problem was that every time I turned over another rock, I discovered another snake.”
The serpents were in the details. In his spare time Eric continued his labors to “decode” the meaning of the Colby documents. It was a process not unlike the collage method – piecing together seemingly fragmentary data, but often uncovering deeper or hidden connections.
Back home in the United States, some of those deeper connections had begun to surface on their own. In late 1975, summoned by the U.S. Senate, Sidney Gottlieb returned from semi-retirement as a hospital volunteer in India (he dedicated the latter portion of his life to charitable pursuits, almost as if doing penance for earlier sins). In secret testimony before the Senate Church Committee on Assassinations, the former CIA chemist admitted to his key role in CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders. In 1960, for instance, Gottlieb himself had hand-delivered an “assassination kit” to the CIA station chief in the Congo, with instructions that it be used to eliminate Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. The kit consisted of a lethal toxin – possibly anthrax — concealed in a tube of toothpaste. When the Church Committee published its findings, Eric realized that Gottlieb had been involved in work much darker than mere “experimental drugging.”
In 1978, an even bigger shocker surfaced: In his memoir, former CIA chief William Colby admitted that Frank Olson was more than an “Army scientist,” as the official story claimed. At the time of his death, in fact, Olson had been a full-fledged “CIA employee,” and a “CIA officer.”
Clearly, in its post-mortem investigation, the CIA had attempted to conceal the fact that Olson was one of its own. But why? Eric wondered. Ransacking the Colby documents for the umpteenth time, Eric stumbled upon a new, possibly telling clue. One of the reports submitted by Abramson, the CIA allergist, described the drugging at Deep Creek Lodge as “an experiment [that] had been done to trap” Frank Olson. This description of the fateful session as a “trap” obviously contradicted the official CIA story that Olson had been one of seven human guinea pigs in a simple LSD experiment. Given the many references in the Colby document to ARTICHOKE, Eric began to wonder if the Deep Creek dosing had been part of an interrogation targeting his father.
In 1984, Eric returned to the United States. His first order of business was to visit room 1018A at the Statler Hotel (by that time, renamed the Pennsylvania Hotel). Standing in the tiny room, Eric was struck by the physical impossibility of the official scenario. There wasn’t room enough for a running start, and the window sill was high and blocked by a radiator. Says Eric: “I knew that my father couldn’t have jumped out through that closed hotel window even if he wanted to.”
That same year Eric, Nils and Alice paid a visit to Sidney Gottlieb at his secluded farmhouse in Rappahannock County, Virginia. The 66-year-old former master assassin was now devoted to two of his presumably less lethal passions, goat farming and communal living. He greeted the Olsons warily. “Oh my God,” he said. “I’m so relieved to see you all don’t have a gun.” The night before, he told them, he had dreamed that the Olsons had shot him dead. The family wanted answers, but Gottlieb, true to his espionage training, was evasive. He said that he regretted the incident, but denied that Olson was pushed out the window. At the end of the meeting Gottlieb snapped to Eric, “I can see you’re still wrapped up in your father’s death. I recommend that you join a support group for children whose parents have committed suicide.”
The family also called on Lashbrook, by then retired, at his home in Ojai, California. Eric recalls that Lashbrook was uncommunicative and nervous, claiming to have forgotten key details. The one useful item he revealed was that Gottlieb had been with Olson in New York the week before he died – a fact Gottlieb had failed to mention.
If the CIA’s cult of secrecy remained the proverbial immovable object, by the early 1990s Eric had become its unstoppable force. Eric’s avocation had become a fixation that had eclipsed his career; having returned to the United States for good, he gave up his work as a clinical psychologist to focus full-time on his father’s case. To bankroll his investigation, he became adept in the art of nonprofit fundraising. But he also borrowed money from friends and family, maxed out half a dozen credit cards, and began to sink into debt. Personal relationships faltered. Friction grew between Eric and brother Nils, a successful dentist who had helped Eric financially in his quest, but who now worried that Eric had gone off the deep end.
Concern for his mother, who by the early 1990s had developed pancreatic cancer, held Eric back from taking the next logical step in his investigation. But after Alice died in 1993, Eric, with the consent of Nils, decided to exhume his father’s body. In June 1994, 41 years after Frank Olson’s burial, Eric watched as a steam shovel began to dredge up the earth at his father’s grave. Supervising the disinterment was Professor James Starrs, a criminologist and forensic scientist at George Washington University who had previously unearthed and re-examined the corpses of Jesse James and Dr. Carl Weiss, alleged assassin of Senator Huey Long. After two hours of digging, Starr’s men hauled the rusted casket out of the hole and transported it to a nearby police lab.
In the lab, as he prepared to unseal the lid, Starrs warned Eric not to watch. The sight of his father’s shrunken corpse might prove disturbing. “I’m seeing this!” Eric shot back. When Starrs raised the lid, he was surprised to find Frank Olson’s body remarkably well preserved. The skin was brown and shriveled, but the face was still recognizable. After Eric left the lab, Starrs began his autopsy. He quickly discovered that the New York medical examiner’s report from 1953 was dead wrong. That report had described multiple facial lacerations caused by the impact with the glass. But Starrs was looking at an undamaged face, devoid of cuts. Even more remarkable than what he did not find was what Starrs did find: A large bruise over Olson’s left eye, which suggested to Starrs that the victim had been smashed on the head before plunging through the window. Starr’s concluded that the forensic evidence was “rankly and starkly suggestive of homicide.”
“I am exceedingly skeptical of the view that Frank Olson went through that window on his own,” Starrs said at the end of his investigation. The evidence suggested that someone had knocked Olson over the head either while he slept or during a struggle, and then tossed him out the window.
Three years later, Eric would discover that a CIA assassination manual written in late 1953 – the period of his father’s death – prescribed exactly that technique. The manual, declassified by the CIA in 1997, contained the following eerie passage: “The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Elevator shafts, stairwells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve. . . . The act may be executed by sudden, vigorous [redacted] of the ankles, tipping the subject over the edge.” The manual recommended a sharp blow to the victim’s temple: “In chase cases it will usually be necessary to stun or drug the subject before dropping him.”
Eric had other reasons to believe that his father had been the victim of a CIA assassination. Investigative writer H.P. Albarelli, who had been conducting his own research into the Olson death, claimed to have contact with retired CIA agents in Florida. According to these unnamed sources, the CIA had hired contract killers associated with the Trafficante mob family to murder Frank Olson in Room 1018A. Citing confidentiality agreements with the Agency, these sources have thus far declined to go public with their claims.
Though armed with a mountain of circumstantial evidence, Eric remained hamstrung by the waiver he and his family had signed promising not to sue the CIA. Barred from pursuing the case in civil court, he turned to the criminal justice system. In 1996 Eric asked Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthau to open a new investigation. Morganthau agreed, assigning the task to his “cold case” unit. Almost immediately, though, the investigation encountered a major setback. A week after the case was reopened, William Colby, a key witness, vanished. After an intensive ten-day search of the Wicomico River in Southern Maryland, where he had last been seen canoeing by himself, the former CIA chief’s body washed ashore. The death was ruled accidental.
Meanwhile, ex-CIA man Robert Lashbrook fought the New York D.A.’s attempts to interview him; he eventually submitted to a deposition. But the D.A.’s attempts to question Sidney Gottlieb – who was to become a central target of the investigation – hit a terminal snag in 1999 when the ailing Gottlieb died, taking whatever secrets he still guarded to his grave.
Although their cold case proceeded to get colder, the D.A.’s office did manage to dislodge a number of interesting leads. Most notably, a source with connections to Israeli intelligence told the investigators that for years the Mossad had used the case of Frank Olson in its operative training program as an object lesson in the “perfect murder.”
But as new millennium ushered itself in, it was becoming clear to Eric that the New York D.A. was losing interest. Eric inundated cold case unit daily with potential leads, but few were being checked out. Then in early 2002, to Eric’s dismay and frustration, the D.A. quietly dropped the case (the New York D.A.’s office has declined to comment, citing grand jury secrecy). In an angry letter to the New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, Eric and Nils accused the D.A.’s office of being “corrupted [by] and … knuckl[ing] under to federal pressure to back off from any real examination of the facts and motives involved” in the Frank Olson case. In another letter to Assistant D.A. Stephen Saracco, Eric wrote, “I know that you have reason to believe (no – that is too weak a way of putting it; to “know” is more like it) that my father was murdered. You have made that abundantly clear on numerous occasions… Looking back, I realize that it was when you returned from California [to depose Lashbrook] that everything changed. You stopped taking any initiative, you stopped gathering evidence….”
For Eric, the D.A.’s dumping of the Frank Olson case was yet another in a long line of betrayals by the state. But even the worst setbacks can be instructive. He now realized he had been naïve to expect justice from the same government that had committed the crime in question. After all, he observed, “The CIA has never been convicted of any crime in this country.”
Ironically, the Frank Olson case itself may have played a key role in fortifying the CIA’s ability to commit felonies with impunity – the equivalent of a get-out-of-jail-free card. Eric would later uncover an official “memorandum of understanding” between the CIA and the Department of Justice essentially excusing the Agency from having to report crimes committed by its own personnel when doing so might compromise “highly classified and complex covert operations.”
The timing of the memo was interesting. It was drafted in early 1954, shortly after Olson’s death, contemporaneous to the CIA’s internal probe into the Olson affair, and in anticipation of then-pending legislation requiring government agencies to report criminal violations of its employees to the Justice Department.
The memo remained under wraps and officially off the books for decades – until the Frank Olson case erupted again, in 1975. The day after President Ford apologized to the Olsons in the Oval Office, a congressional subcommittee headed by Bella Abzug met to question Lawrence R. Houston, the former CIA general counsel who had drafted the 1954 memo. In the transcript of the hearing, Abzug presses the ex-CIA lawyer to explain the genesis of the memo. When the lawyer hems and haws, Abzug rather astonishingly asks whether the memo might have been used to cover up murder in the Frank Olson case.
ABZUG: It may very well have been a State offense if there was foul play. Was [the Olson case] ever referred to the New York Police Department or State authorities for consideration?
HOUSTON: Not that I recall.
ABZUG: In other words, this memorandum of understanding in your judgment gave authority to the CIA to … give immunity to individuals who happened to work for the CIA for all kinds of crimes, including possibly murder.
Failing to get a straight answer, the indomitable congresswoman presses harder, and Houston finally yields:
HOUSTON: It could have that effect, yes.
ABZUG: Did it have that effect?
HOUSTON: In certain cases it did.
By the time Eric Olson unearthed the hearing transcripts, Abzug had passed away. So it’s not possible to know for sure whether she had any specific reason – other than a well-oiled suspicion of the CIA — to suspect that Frank Olson had been murdered.
Eric would later wonder whether Houston’s “memo of understanding” – or another backroom agreement – had played a role in the abortive investigation by the New York D.A.’s office. As Professor Starrs had once summed up the mystery, “When you pull on the Frank Olson case you feel that something very big is pulling back.”
Embittered, cynical, frustrated — and utterly undeterred — Eric pressed ahead with his own private investigation. Now living by himself in the family home his father built, he surrounded himself with stacks of documents and bits of evidence accumulated in his decades-long pursuit of justice. What little money he managed to scrape together he funneled back into the investigation. Meanwhile, without proper maintenance, the Olson home had fallen into disrepair, its paint peeling and roof sagging. It was, in a sense, a house haunted by its own history.
Although Eric was convinced that his father had been the victim of a CIA assassination, the possible motive behind a murder had long remained the weak link in his theories. But new sources were emerging. One of them was a former CIA pimp named Ira “Ike” Feldman. A squat, muscular fellow who played the tough guy card to the hilt, Feldman had worked as a federal narcotics agent during the 1950s. Most of his historical foot-notoriety, however, stems from his freelance work using prostitutes to lure unsuspecting “johns” to a CIA safehouse in San Francisco, where the unwitting pleasure-seekers would instead be dosed with MK-ULTRA acid. Feldman told Eric that Frank Olson had been murdered.
As Feldman elaborated in a 2002 documentary about Olson aired on German television: “The source that I have was the New York City Police Department, the Bureau of Narcotics agents and the CIA agents themselves. They all say the same thing: that [Olson] was pushed out of the window and did not jump. People who wanted him out of the way said he talked too much and he was telling people about the things he had done, which are American secrets. If you work on a top government secret… and it spills out to people who should not know, there is only one way to do it: kill him.”
To be sure, as a CIA scientist working on some of the nation’s most secret Cold War projects, Frank Olson was in a position to know things that, if exposed publicly, would prove embarrassing to the government. But, Eric wondered, what sort of secrets might his father have known? Another clue arrived when a European investigator and journalist contacted Eric and told him of a trip his father had made to England, Germany and Scandinavia during the summer of 1953. The investigator had interviewed William Sargant, the English psychiatrist and consultant to British intelligence (and author of an early book on brainwashing). Frank Olson had met with Sargant to discuss a moral crisis: he had been horrified to witness “terminal experiments” conducted by the CIA on human subjects – Nazi prisoners and suspected spies who had been plied with the various, sometimes lethal, ARTICHOKE interrogation techniques.
Frank Olson’s special diplomatic passport confirmed that he had indeed traveled on government business to Europe during that time frame. Eric recalled family descriptions of Olson’s state of mind upon returning from the European junket. According to Eric’s uncle, who spoke to Olson during the summer of 1953, he had undergone an ethical crisis of some sort. And at one point, Olson had commented to his wife that Americans were just as responsible for “war crimes” as the Germans had been.
In the spring of 2001, Eric heard from one of his father’s colleagues at Camp Detrick, Norman Cournoyer, a man Eric had assumed was dead. Cournoyer had worked with the elder Olson during World War II to design the protective clothing worn by American soldiers during the invasion of Normandy. He had remained close to Eric’s father after the war, when Olson had been recruited into the CIA. Cournoyer had recently seen an article about Eric in the New York Times Magazine. “Eric,” he said, “you’ve got everything right except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Eric replied.
“The historical context.”
Eric asked him to elaborate but the old man demurred. “I am eighty-two years old and I’m no longer afraid,” he said. “I’m going to tell you the truth. But I don’t want to do it on the phone.”
A week later, Eric flew to Massachussets to meet Cournoyer in his home. The man who greeted him at the door was physically frail, confined to a wheelchair as the result of a stroke, but still sharp of mind. Cournoyer directed Eric into his dining room, instructing him to remove all the paintings from the wall to make room for the eight-foot-long historical timeline Eric had brought with him, a chronological collage.
Cournoyer got right to the point: “Yes, your father worked for the CIA. He told me that directly.” Cournoyer explained that Frank Olson had revealed sometime in 1946-47 that he was “on a new path” as a CIA employee. That path involved “information retrieval,” an intelligence euphemism for interrogation techniques pioneered under the ARTICHOKE project.
Cournoyer affirmed that Frank Olson had returned from Germany during the summer of 1953 feeling “troubled.” Later, in the documentary aired on German TV, Cournoyer would elaborate, stating that “the people [Olson] saw in Germany [at the CIA interrogation center] went to the extreme. He said: ’Norm, did you ever see a man die?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, I did.’”
Olson told Cournoyer that CIA interrogators were using experimental techniques first employed in Nazi drug experiments during wartime. Now the Americans were testing the same techniques on captured Germans and others. “They were using Nazis,” Cournoyer said, “they were using prisoners, they were using Russians.”
But terminal ARTICHOKE experiments weren’t the only matters weighing heavily on Olson’s conscience during the summer of 1953. Pointing to the section on Eric’s timeline spanning the early 1950s, Cournoyer offered a laconic statement: “Korea is the key.” This was the historical context he had referred to in the earlier phone call.
“Your father,” Cournoyer explained, “was horrified to discover that the Americans were using biological warfare in Korea.”
According to Cournoyer, through his work at Camp Detrick, Frank Olson had acquired direct knowledge of illegal biowarfare experiments conducted by U.S. armed forces and the CIA on Korean soldiers and civilians. One of the virulent agents deployed was none other than airborne anthrax, the elder Olson’s area of expertise. Cournoyer’s assertions resonated strongly with Eric. He recalled his mother telling him that Frank Olson had been concerned that the United States was using biological weapons in Korea.
The U.S. government has always denied allegations that it sprayed Korean soldiers with anthrax and dropped a number of other lethal germ warfare agents, including Bubonic plague-bearing fleas. However, the allegations have proved persistent, and, thanks in large part to a 1952 international study into the matter, are generally taken as a given everywhere in the world outside the 202 area code.
Did Frank Olson – hardly reticent about his growing ethical dilemma – become a perceived security risk. Did his superiors fear he might turn whistleblower, exposing dangerous knowledge about America adopting the killing techniques of German and Japanese war criminals? Cournoyer believed so. “This,” he told Eric, “is quite probably what got your father murdered.”
As Eric spoke with his father’s old friend and colleague, Cournoyer’s gardener interrupted them. “There’s something out there,” he said, pointing at the window overlooking the lawn. The men moved to the window. From behind a tree in the middle of the lawn, a huge mountain lion emerged. Padding slowly, it crossed the yard while the men gazed in astonishment. A third-rate novelist couldn’t have ordered up a more obvious literary trope: The cat was indeed out of the bag.
As he continued to assemble his postmortem collage, Eric also encountered signs and symbols of a less fantastical nature.
There was the peculiar memo in Olson’s personnel file at Detrick, which indicated that the CIA did indeed see him as a potential security risk. In 1994, an Associated Press reporter discovered the typewritten memo, which quoted an earlier, hand-written note forwarded to Detrick in 1975 by a person described only as “retired Army and retired DAC” (Army shorthand for “Department of the Army Civilian”). The hand-written note, headlined “Re – Dr. F. W. Olson,” suggested further investigation into Olson’s background in connection to his death. One item on the list suggested that someone look into “Trip to Paris and Norway in 1953(?) and possible fear of security violation. Sources – F.W. Wagner, H.T. Eigelsbach, Robert Lashbrook, and Dr. [Abramson].”
That the CIA had much to hide became dramatically evident during the summer of 2001, when Eric obtained documents from the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Among the papers were memos written by senior White House staffers and attorneys who were concerned about the possibility of an Olson family lawsuit – and the inevitable public disclosure it would entail. White House attorney Roderick Hills wrote to White House Deputy Staff Director Dick Cheney (yes, that Dick Cheney) stating, “Dr. Olson’s job [was] so sensitive” that in a trial the government would refuse to reveal it. Another of the memos, written by Cheney on July 11, 1975, the day after the Olson family press conference, and addressed to his boss Donald Rumsfeld (yes, that Donald Rumsfeld) raised concern for:
“…the possibility that it might become necessary to disclose highly classified national security information in connection with any court suit, or legislative hearings.”
Such a revelation was to be avoided at all costs, the internal correspondence stated. What exactly was this “highly classified national security information”? MK-ULTRA? As far as that program was concerned, disclosure was already well underway. . Was the big secret that Olson was a CIA employee? That hardly seems shocking in the context of an accidental LSD dosing. In fact, it might be argued that, PR-wise, a CIA employee dying in a bungled CIA drug experiment is somewhat less scandalous than an innocent Army civilian as fallguy.
Fifty years after the fact, Eric Olson came to believe that he had finally prized loose the carefully guarded state secret of his father’s death. In the summer of 2002, he and his brother Nils were finally ready to lay their father, and the mystery, to rest. Nine years after unearthing Frank Olson’s body, Eric and Nils Olson put their father’s cursed bones back into the ground (the tissue remains in Professor Starr’s lab). They now rest in a plot beside the remains of their sister, Lisa, her husband and child, and their mother, Alice.
The day before the reburial, the surviving Olsons held one last backyard press conference. It wasn’t exactly the sort of closure the Olson family had sought for so many years; after all, no one from the District Attorney’s office was on hand to announce an official finding, or even to call for a congressional inquiry. And no government panel would be publishing a report acknowledging that Frank Olson had been murdered. But nevertheless it was a kind of justice – hard-fought and self-won.
“Frank Olson did not die as a consequence of a drug experiment gone awry,” Eric said, addressing a small huddle of television cameras. “He died because of security concerns regarding disavowed programs of terminal interrogation and the use of biological weapons in Korea. This secret was so immense that even twenty-two years later the White House had been enlisted to maintain it.”
Finally, the fall that had begun 49 years earlier was over. It had held the family suspended in a kind of weightless limbo, captives to the pull of their own unrevealed and unresolved history. And like bodies in motion around a distant, immense, and barely visible object, their destination was forever falling away from under them. But on the day Eric put his father to rest for the second time, the son seemed to have found his footing again. At last, he said, he was ready to move on. “Today,” he announced, “Frank Olson finally hit bottom.” Eric Olson might just as well have been talking about himself.
Click on the image above to purchase the book from Amazon.
Click on the image above to read the chapter on the Olson story from the previous edition, now part of a re-edited Chapter 1 of the new edition.
MAJOR SOURCES
Conversations and correspondence with Eric Olson.
Albarelli Jr., H.P. and John Kelly. “The Strange Story of Frank Olson.” Weekly Planet (Tampa, FL), December 6, 2000.
Fischer, Mary A. “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” Gentlemen’s Quarterly, January 2000.
Olson, Eric. Frank Olson Project Web site:
http://www.frankolsonproject.org
Gup, Ted. “The Coldest Warrior.” The Washington Post Magazine, December 16, 2001.
House of Representatives, 94th Congress, First Session. “Hearings Before a Subcommittee on Government Operations.” U.S. Government Printing Office, July 22, 23, 29, 31 and August 1, 1975.
Ignatieff, Michael. “What Did the CIA Do to Eric Olson’s Father?” New York Times Magazine, April 1, 2001.
Koch, Egmont R. and Michael Wech.“Codename: ARTICHOKE.” Egmont R. Koch Filmproduktion. First aired on German television August 12, 2002.
Marks, John. The Search for “The Manchurian Candidate.” New York: Norton, 1991.
The Men Who Stare at Goats
(Picador Books, Sept. 2004; Simon and Schuster, April, 2005.)
The 1953 House
There is a house in Frederick, Maryland that has barely been touched since 1953. It looks like an exhibit in a down-at-heel museum of the Cold War. All that brightly coloured Formica, and the kitschy kitchen ornaments — breezy symbols of 1950s American optimism — haven’t stood the test of time.
Eric Olson’s house – and Eric would be the first to admit this – could do with some re-decoration.
Eric was born here, but he never liked Frederick and he never liked this house. He got out as quickly as he could after high school and ended up in Ohio and India and New York and Massachusetts and Stockholm and California, but in 1993 he thought he would just crash out for a few months, and then ten years passed, during which time he hasn’t decorated for three reasons:
He hasn’t any money.
His mind is on other things.
And, really, his life ground to a shuddering halt on November 28th, 1953, and if your living environment is meant to reflect your inner life, Eric’s house does the job. It an inescapable reminder of the moment Eric’s life froze. Eric says that if he ever forgets ‘why I’m doing this’, he just needs to look around his house, and 1953 comes flooding back to him.
Eric says 1953 was probably the most significant year in modern history. He says we’re all stuck in 1953, in a sense, because the events of that year have a continual and overwhelming impact on our lives. He rattled through a list of key events that occurred in 1953. Everest was conquered. James Watson and Francis Crick published, in Nature magazine, their famous paper mapping the double helix structure of DNA. Elvis first visited a recording studio, and Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock gave the world rock and roll, and subsequently the teenager. President Truman announced that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb. The polio vaccine was created, as was the colour TV. And Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, gave a talk to his Princeton alumni group in which he said ‘Mind warfare is the great battlefield of the Cold War, and we have to do whatever it takes to win this.’
On the night of November 28th 1953, Eric went to bed, as normal, a happy 9-year-old child. The family home had been built three years earlier, and his father Frank was still putting the finishing touches to it, but now he was in New York on business. Eric’s mother Alice was sleeping down the hall. His little brother Nils and his sister Lisa were in the next room.
And then, somewhere around dawn, Eric was woken up.
‘It was a very dim November pre-dawn,’ Eric said.
Eric was woken up by his mother and taken down the hall, still wearing his pyjamas, towards the living room – the same room where the two of us now sat, on the same sofas.
Eric turned the corner to see the family doctor sitting there.
‘And,’ Eric said, ‘also, there were these two…’
Eric searched for a moment for the right word to describe the others. He said, ‘There were these two …men… there also.’
The news that the men delivered was that Eric’s father was dead.
‘What are you talking about?’ Eric asked them, crossly.
‘He had an accident,’ said one of the men, ‘and the accident was that he fell or jumped out of a window.’
‘Excuse me?’ said Eric. ‘He did what?’
‘He fell or jumped out of a window in New York.’
‘What does that look like?’ asked Eric.
This question was greeted with silence. Eric looked over at his mother and saw that she was frozen and empty-eyed.
‘How do you fall out of a window?’ said Eric. ‘What does that mean? Why would he do that? What do you mean, fell or jumped?’
‘We don’t know if he fell,’ said one of the men. ‘He might have fallen. He might have jumped.’
‘Did he dive?’ asked Eric.
‘Anyhow,’ said one of the men. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Was he standing on a ledge and he jumped?’ asked Eric.
‘It was a work-related accident,’ said one of the men.
‘Excuse me?’ said Eric. ‘He fell out a window and that’s work related? What?’
Eric turned to his mother.
‘Um,’ he said. ‘What is his work again?’
Eric believed his father was a civilian scientist, working with chemicals at the nearby Fort Detrick military base.
Eric said to me, ‘It very quickly became an incredibly rancorous issue in the family because I was always the kid saying, “Excuse me, where did he go? Tell me this story again.” And my mother very quickly adopted the stance, “Look, I’ve told you this story a thousand times.” And I would say, “Yeah, but I didn’t get it.”
Eric’s mother had created – from the same scant facts offered to Eric – this scenario: Frank Olson was in New York. He was staying in the 10th floor of the Statler Hotel, now the Pennsylvania Hotel, across the road from Madison Square Gardens, in midtown Manhattan. He had a bad dream. He woke up, confused, and headed in the dark towards the bathroom. He became disorientated and fell out of the window.
It was 2 A.M.
Eric and his little brother Nils told their school friends that their father had died of a ‘fatal nervous breakdown’ although they had no idea what this meant. Fort Detrick was what glued the town together. All their friends’ fathers worked at the base. The Olsons would still get invited to neighbourhood picnics and other community events but there didn’t seem any reason for them to be there any more.
When Eric was 16, he and Nils, then 12, decided to cycle from the end of their driveway to San Francisco. Even at that young age, Eric saw the 2,415-mile journey as a metaphor. He wanted to immerse himself in unknown American terrain, the mysterious America that had, for some impenetrable reason, taken his father away from him. He and Nils would ‘reach the goal’ – San Francisco – ‘by small continuous increments of motion along a single strand.’ This was in Eric’s mind a test-run for another goal he would one day reach in an equally fastidious way: the solution to the mystery of what happened to his father in that hotel room in New York at 2am.
I spent a lot of time at Eric’s house, reading his documents and looking though his photos and watching his home movies. There were pictures of the teenage Eric and his younger brother Nils standing by their bikes. Eric had captioned the photograph ‘Happy Bikers.’ There were 8mm videos shot two decades earlier of Eric’s father, Frank, playing in the garden with the children. Then there were some films Frank Olson had shot himself during a trip to Europe a few months before he died. There was Big Ben and the Changing of the Guard. There was the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin. There was the Eiffel Tower. It looked like a family holiday, except the family weren’t with him. Sometimes, in these 8mm films, you catch a glimpse of Frank’s travelling companions, three men, wearing long dark coats and trilby hats, sitting in Parisian pavement cafés, watching the girls go by.
I watched them, and then I watched a home movie that a friend of Eric’s had shot on June 2nd 1994, the day Eric had his father’s body exhumed.
There was the digger breaking through the soil.
There was a local journalist asking Eric, as the coffin was hauled noisily into the back of a truck, ‘Are you having second thoughts about this, Eric?’
She had to yell over the sound of the digger.
‘Ha!’ Eric replied.
‘ I keep expecting you to change your mind,’ shouted the journalist.
Then there was Frank Olson himself, shrivelled and brown on a slab in a pathologist’s lab at Washington Georgetown University, his leg broken, a big hole in his skull.
And then, in this home video, Eric was back at home, exhilarated, talking on the phone to Nils: ‘I saw daddy today!’
After Eric put the phone down he told his friend with the video camera the story of the bicycle trip he and Nils took in 1961, from the bottom of their driveway all the way to San Francisco.
‘I’d seen an article in Boys Life about a 14-year-old kid who cycled from Connecticut to the West Coast,’ Eric said, ‘so I figured my brother was 12 and I was 16 so that averaged at 14, so we could do it. We got these terrible two-speed heavy twin bikes, and we started off right here. 40 West. We heard it went all the way! And we made it! We went all the way!’
‘No!’ said Eric’s friend.
‘Yeah,’ said Eric. ‘We cycled across the country.’
‘No way!’
‘It’s an incredible story,’ said Eric. ‘And we’ve never heard of a younger person than my brother who cycled across the United States. It’s doubtful there is one.
When you think about it, 12, and alone. It took us seven weeks, and we had unbelievable adventures all the way.’
‘Did you camp out?’
‘We camped out. Farmers would invite us to stay in their houses. In Kansas City the police picked us up, figuring we were runaways, and when they found out we weren’t they let us stay in their jail.’
‘And your mom let you do this?’
‘Yeah, that’s a kind of unbelievable mystery.’
(Eric’s mother Alice had died by 1994. She had been drinking on the quiet since the 1960s, and had begun locking herself in the bathroom and coming out mean and confused. Eric would never have exhumed his father’s remains while she was alive. His sister Lisa had died too, together with her husband and their 2-year-old son. They’d been flying to the Adirondacks, where they were going to invest money in a lumber mill. The plane crashed, and everyone on board was killed.)
‘Yeah,’ said Eric, ‘it’s an unbelievable mystery that my mother let us go, but we called home twice a week from different places, and the local paper, the Frederick paper, twice a week had these front-page articles: Olsons Reach St Louis! All across the country back then there were billboards advertising a place called Harolds Club, which was a big gambling casino in Reno. It used to be the biggest casino in the world. And their motif was HAROLDS CLUB OR BUST! Every day we’d see these billboards, HAROLDS CLUB OR BUST! It became a kind of slogan for our journey. When we got to Reno we realised we couldn’t get into Harolds Club because we were too young. So we decided to make a sign that said HAROLDS CLUB OR BUST! tie it to the back of our bikes, go over to Harolds Club and tell Harold, whoever he might be, that we’d had this across the whole United States and we were just crazy to see Harold’s Club.
So we went into a drugstore. We brought an old cardboard box and some crayons, and we started writing this sign. The woman who sold us the crayons said, “What are you guys doing?”
We said, “We’re going to make a sign, HAROLDS CLUB OR BUST! and tell Harold that we cycled all the way from…”
She said, “These people are very smart. They’re not going to fall for this.”
So we made this thing, took it out onto the streets, scuffed it up, tied it to the back of our bikes, went over to Harolds Club, got to this big entry-way – Harolds Club was this gigantic thing, literally the biggest gambling casino in the world – and there was a doorperson there.
He said, “What do you boys want?”
We said, “We want to meet Harold.”
He said, “Harold is not here.”
We said, “Well, who is here?”
He said, “Harold senior is not here but Harold junior is here.”
We said, “That’s fine, we’ll take Harold junior.”
He said, “Okay, I’ll go in and see.”
Pretty soon out strides this dude in a fancy cowboy suit. Handsome guy. So he comes out and looks at our bikes and he says, “What are you guys doing?”
We said, “Harold. We’ve been cycling across the United States and we’ve wanted to see Harolds Club the whole time. We’ve been sweating across the desert.”
And he said, “Well, come on in!”
We ended up staying for a week at Harolds Club. He took us up in a helicopter around Reno, put us up in a fancy hotel. And when we were leaving he said, “I guess you guys want to see Disneyland, right? Well let me call up my friend Walt!”
So he called up Walt Disney, and this is one of the great disappointments of my life, Walt wasn’t home.’
I have wondered why Eric spent the evening of the day he had his father’s body exhumed telling his friend the story of Harolds Club Or Bust. Maybe it’s because Eric had spent so much of his adult life failing to be offered the kindness of strangers, failing to benefit from anything approaching an American dream, but now Frank Olson was out there, lying on a slab in a pathologist’s lab, and perhaps things were about to turn around for Eric. Maybe some mysterious Harold junior would come along and kindly explain everything.
Happy Bikers.
In 1970, Eric enrolled at Harvard. He went home every Thanksgiving weekend, and because Frank Olson went out of the window during the Thanksgiving holiday of 1953, the family invariably ended up watching old home movies of Frank, and Eric inevitably said to his mother, ‘Tell me the story again.’
During Thanksgiving weekend 1974, Eric’s mother replied, ‘I’ve told you this story a hundred times, a thousand times.’
Eric said, ‘Just tell me it one more time.’
And so Eric’s mother sighed and she began.
Frank Olson had spent a weekend on an office retreat in a cabin called the Deep Creek Lodge in rural Maryland. When he came home, his mood was unusually anxious.
He told his wife, ‘I made a terrible mistake and I’ll tell you what it was when the children have gone to bed.’
But the conversation never got around to what the terrible mistake had been.
Frank remained agitated all weekend. He told Alice he wanted to quit his job and become a dentist. On the Sunday night Alice tried to calm him down by taking him to the cinema in Frederick to see whatever was on, which turned out to be a new film called Martin Luther.
It was the story of Luther’s crisis of conscience over the corruption of the Catholic Church in the 16th Century, when its theologians claimed it was impossible for the Church to do any wrong, because they defined the moral code. They were fighting the Devil, after all. The film climaxed with Luther declaring, ‘No. Here I stand, I can do no other.’ The moral of Martin Luther is that the individual cannot hide behind the institution.
(TV Guide’s movie review database gives Martin Luther 2/5 stars and says, ‘It is not “entertainment” in the usual sense of the word. One wishes there might have been some humour in the script, to make the man look more human. The film was made with such respect that the subject matter seems gloomy when it should be uplifting.’)
The trip to the cinema didn’t help Frank’s mood, and the next day it was suggested by some colleagues that he go to New York to visit a psychiatrist. Alice drove Frank to Washington DC and she dropped him off at the offices of the men who would accompany him to New York.
This was the last time she ever saw her husband.
On the spur of the moment, during that Thanksgiving weekend in 1974, Eric asked his mother a question he’d never thought to ask before:
‘Describe the offices where you dropped him off.’
So she did.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Eric, ‘that sounds just like CIA headquarters.’
And then Eric’s mother became hysterical.
She screamed, ‘You will never find out what happened in that hotel room!’
Eric said, ‘As soon as I finish at Harvard I’m going to move back home and I’m not going to rest until I find out the truth.’
Eric didn’t have to wait long for a breakthrough. He received a telephone call from a family friend on the morning of June 11th 1975: ‘Have you seen the Washington Post? I think you’d better take a look.’
It was a front-page story, and the headline read:
SUICIDE REVEALED
‘A civilian employee of the Department of the Army unwittingly took LSD as part of a Central Intelligence Agency test, then jumped 10 floors to his death less than a week later, according to the Rockefeller commission report released yesterday.’
(The Rockefeller Commission had been created to investigate CIA misdeeds in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.)
‘The man was given the drug while attending a meeting with CIA personnel working on a test project that involved the administration of mind-bending drugs to unsuspecting Americans.
The practice of giving drugs to unsuspecting people lasted from 1953 to 1963, when it was discovered by the CIA’s inspector general and stopped, the commission said.’
‘Is this my father?’ thought Eric.
The headline was misleading. Not much was ‘revealed’ – not even the name of the victim.
‘Is this what happened at the Deep Creek Lodge?’ thought Eric. ‘They slipped him LSD? No, but it has to be my father. How many army scientists were jumping out of hotel windows in New York in 1953?’
On the whole, the American public reacted to the Frank Olson story in much the same way that they responded, 50 years later, to the news that Barney was being used to torture Iraqi detainees. Horror would be the wrong word. People were basically amused and fascinated. As in the case of Barney, this response was, I think, triggered by the disconcertingly surreal combination of dark intelligence secrets and familiar pop culture.
‘For America it was lurid,’ said Eric, ‘and exciting.’
The Olsons were invited to the White House so President Ford could personally apologise to them – ‘He was very, very sorry,’ said Eric – and the photographs from that day show the family beaming and entranced inside the Oval Office.
‘When you look at those photographs now,’ I asked Eric one day, ‘what do they say to you?’
‘They say that the power of that Oval Office for seduction is enormous,’ Eric replied, ‘as we now know from Clinton. You go into that sacred space – that oval – and you’re really in a special charmed circle and you can’t think straight. It works. It really works.’
Outside the White House, after their 17-minute meeting with President Ford, Alice Olson gave a statement to the press.
‘I think it should be noted,’ she said, ‘that an American family can receive communication from the President of the United States. I think that’s a tremendous tribute to our country.’
‘She felt very embraced by Gerald Ford,’ said Eric. ‘They laughed together, and so on.’
The Olsons in the Oval Office. Eric is second from the right.
The Olsons back at home.
The President promised the Olsons full disclosure, and the CIA provided the family, and America, with a flurry of details, each more unexpected than the last.
The CIA had slipped LSD into Frank Olson’s Cointreau at a camping retreat called the Deep Creek Lodge. The project was code-named MK-ULTRA, and they did it, they explained, because they wanted to watch how a scientist would cope with the effects of a mind-altering drug. Would he be unable to resist revealing secrets? Would the information be coherent? Could LSD be used as a truth serum for CIA interrogators?
And there was another motive. The CIA later admitted that they very much enjoyed paranoid thrillers like The Manchurian Candidate and they wanted to know if they could create real life brainwashed assassins by pumping people with LSD. But Frank Olson had a bad trip, perhaps giving rise to the legend that if you take LSD you believe you can fly and you end up falling out of windows.
Social historians and political satirists immediately labelled these events ‘a great historical irony’, and Eric repeated these words to me through gritted teeth because he doesn’t appreciate the fact that his father’s death has become a fragment of an irony.
‘The great historical irony,’ Eric said, ‘being that “the CIA brought LSD to America thereby bringing a kind of enlightenment, thereby opening up a new level of political consciousness, thereby sowing the seeds of its own undoing because it created an enlightened public.” It made great copy, and you’ll find that this theme is the motif of a lot of books.’
The details kept coming, so thick and fast that Frank Olson was in danger of becoming lost, swept away like a twig in the tidal wave of this colourful story. Also in 1953, the CIA told the Olsons, they created an MK-ULTRA brothel in New York City, where they spiked the customers’ drinks with LSD. They placed an agent called George White behind a one-way mirror where he moulded, and passed up the chain of command, little models made out of pipe cleaners. The models represented the sexual positions considered, by the observant George White, to be the most effective in releasing a flow of information.
When George White left the CIA his letter of resignation read, in part, ‘I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun … Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the all-highest?’
George White addressed this letter to his boss, the very same CIA man who had spiked Frank Olson’s Cointreau: an ecology-obsessed Buddhist named Sidney Gottlieb.
Gottlieb had learnt the art of sleight-of-hand from a Broadway magician called John Mulholland. This magician is all but forgotten today but back then he was a big star, a David Copperfield, who mysteriously bowed out of the public eye in 1953, claiming ill health, when the truth was that he had been secretly employed by Sidney Gottlieb to teach agents how to spike people’s drinks with LSD.
Mulholland also taught Gottlieb how to slip bio-toxins into the toothbrushes and cigars of America’s enemies abroad. It was Gottlieb who travelled to Congo to assassinate the country’s first democratically elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba by putting toxins in his toothbrush (he failed: the story goes that someone else, a non-American, managed to assassinate Lumumba first).
It was Gottlieb who mailed a monogrammed handkerchief, doctored with brucellosis, to Iraqi colonel Abd a-Karim Qasim. Qasim survived.
And it was Gottlieb who travelled to Cuba to slip poisons into Fidel Castro’s cigars and his diving suit. Castro survived.
It was like a comedy routine, like the Marx Brothers Become Covert Assassins, and sometimes it seemed to Eric as if his family were the only people not laughing.
‘The image that was presented to us,’ Eric said, ‘was fraternity boys out of control. “We tried some crazy things, and we made errors of judgement. We put various poisons in Castro’s cigars but none of that worked. And then we decided that we weren’t really good at that sort of thing.”’
‘A clown assassin,’ I said.
‘A clown assassin,’ said Eric. ‘Ineptitude. We drug people and they jump out of windows. We try to assassinate people and we get there too late. And we never actually assassinated anybody.’
Eric paused.
‘And Gottlieb turns up everywhere!’ he said. ‘Is Gottlieb the only person in the shop? Does he have to do everything?’ Eric laughed. ‘And this is what my mother was seizing on when she talked to Gottlieb. She said, “How could you do such a harebrained scientific experiment? Where’s the medical supervision? Where’s the control group? You call this science?’ And Gottlieb basically replied, ‘Yeah, it was a bit casual. We’re sorry for that.”’
As I sat in Eric Olson’s house and listened to his story I remembered that I had heard Sidney Gottlieb’s name mentioned before, in some other faraway context. Then it came to me. Before General Stubblebine came along, the secret psychic spies had another administrator: Sidney Gottlieb.
It took me a while to remember this because it seemed so unlikely. What was someone like Sidney Gottlieb, a poisoner, an assassin (albeit a not particularly good one), the man indirectly responsible for the death of Frank Olson, doing in the middle of this other, funny, psychic story? It seemed remarkable to me that the organizational gap in the intelligence world between the light side (psychic supermen) and the dark side (covert assassinations) has been so narrow. But it wasn’t until Eric showed me a letter his mother received out of the blue on July 13th 1975 that I began to understand just how narrow it was. The letter was from The Diplomat Motor Hotel, in Ocean City, Maryland. It read:
Dear Mrs Olson,
After reading the newspaper accounts on the tragic death of your husband, I felt compelled to write to you.
At the time of your husband’s death, I was the assistant night manager at the Hotel Statler in New York and was at his side almost immediately after his fall. He attempted to speak but his words were unintelligible. A priest was summoned and he was given the last rites.
Having been in the hotel business for the last 36 years and witnessed innumerable unfortunate incidents, your husband’s death disturbed me greatly due to the most unusual circumstances of which you are now aware.
If I can be of any assistance to you, please do not hesitate to call upon me.
My heartfelt sympathy to you and your family.
Armond D. Pastore
General Manager.
The Olsons did phone Armond Pastore to thank him for his letter, and it was then that Pastore told them what happened in the moments after Frank had died in his arms on the street at 2am.
Pastore said he went back inside the hotel and he spoke to the telephone switchboard operator. He asked her if any calls had been made from Frank Olson’s room.
She said that there was just one call, and she had listened in to it. It was very short. It was made immediately after Frank Olson went out of the window.
The man in Frank Olson’s room said, ‘Well, he’s gone.’
The voice on the other end of the phone said, ‘That’s too bad.’
And then they both hung up.
Harolds Club Or Bust!
Eric Olson has a swimming pool in his back garden – one of the very few additions to the house made since 1953. On a hot day in August, Eric and his brother Nils and Eric’s son, who usually lives in Sweden, and Nils’s wife and their children, and some of Eric’s friends and I, were sunbathing by the pool, when a truck covered with pictures of party balloons – Capital Party Rentals – pulled up in his driveway to drop off 100 plastic seats.
‘Hey! Coloured chairs!’ yelled Eric.
‘You want the coloured chairs?’ said the driver.
‘Nah,’ said Eric. ‘Inappropriate.’
Eric had brought a ghetto blaster down to the poolside and he tuned it to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered because the legendary reporter Daniel Schorr was about to deliver a commentary about him. Daniel Schorr was the first man to interview Khrushchev, he won three Emmys for his coverage of Watergate, and now he was turning his attention to Eric.
His commentary began.
‘…Eric Olson is ready to charge in a news conference tomorrow that the story of a suicide plunge makes no sense…’
Eric leaned up against the wire fence that surrounded his swimming pool and he grinned at his friends and his family, who were listening intently to this broadcast.
‘…and that his father was killed to silence him about the lethal activities he’d been involved in, projects codenamed Artichoke and MK-ULTRA. Today a spokesman for the CIA said no congressional or executive branch probes of the Olson case have turned up any evidence of homicide. Eric Olson may not have the whole story. The thing is, the government’s lid on its secrets remains so tight, we may never know the whole story…’
Eric flinched.
‘Don’t go there, Dan,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Don’t go there.’
‘…This is Daniel Schorr…’
‘Don’t GO there, Dan,’ Eric said.
He turned to us all, sitting by the pool. We sat there and said nothing.
‘See?’ said Eric. ‘That’s what they want to do. ‘“We may never know the whole story.” And there’s so much comfort they take in that. Bullshit. Bullshit. “Oh, it could be this, it could be that, and everything in the CIA is a hall of mirrors, layers, you can never get to the bottom…” When people say that, what they’re really saying is, “We’re comfortable with this because we don’t want to know.” It’s like my mother always said, “You’re never going to know what happened in that hotel room.” Well, something DID happen in that room and it is knowable.’
Suddenly, Eric is 60 years old. Decades have gone by, and he has spent them investigating his father’s death. One day I asked him if he regretted this, and he replied, ‘I regret it all the time.’
Piecing together the facts has been hard enough for Eric, the facts being buried in classified documents, or declassified documents covered with thick black lines made with marker pens, or worse – Sidney Gottlieb admitted to Eric during one meeting that he had, on his retirement, destroyed the MK-ULTRA files. When Eric asked him why, Gottlieb explained that his ‘ecological sensitivity’ had made him aware of the dangers of ‘paper overflow’.
Gottlieb added that it didn’t really matter that the documents were ruined, because it was all a waste anyway. All the MK-ULTRA experiments were futile, he told Eric. They had all come to nothing. Eric left Gottlieb realising he’d been truly beaten by a first class mind.
‘What a brilliant cover story,’ he thought. ‘In a success-obsessed society like this one, what’s the best rock to hide something under? It’s the rock called failure.’
So most of the facts were retained only in the memories of men who did not want to talk. Nonetheless, Eric has constructed a narrative that is just as plausible, even more plausible, than the LSD suicide story.
Collecting the facts has been difficult enough, but there has been something even harder.
‘The old story is so much fun,’ Eric said, ‘why would anyone want to replace it with a story that’s not fun. You see? The person who puts the spin on the story controls it from the beginning. Its very hard for people to read against the grain of what you’ve been told the narrative is about.’
‘Your new story is not as much fun,’ I agreed.
‘This is no longer a happy, feelgood story,’ Eric said, ‘and I don’t like it better than anyone else does. It’s hard to accept that your father didn’t die because of suicide, nor did he die because of negligence after a drug experiment, he died because they killed him. That’s a different feeling.’
And, vexingly for Eric, on the rare occasions he’s convinced a journalist that the CIA murdered his father, the revelation has not been greeted with horror. One writer declined Eric’s invitation to attend tomorrow’s press conference by saying ‘We know the CIA kills people. That’s old news.’
In fact, Eric told me, tomorrow would be the first time anyone had ever publicly charged the CIA with murdering an American citizen.
‘People have been so brainwashed by fiction,’ said Eric as we drove to the local Kinko’s to pick up the press releases for the conference, ‘so brainwashed by the Tom Clancy thing, they think, “We know this stuff. We know the CIA does this.” Actually, we know nothing of this. There’s no case of this, and all this fictional stuff is like an immunisation against reality. It makes people think they know things that they don’t know and it enables them to have a kind of superficial quasi-sophistication and cynicism which is just a thin layer beyond which they’re not cynical at all.’
It isn’t that people aren’t interested: it’s that they’re interested in the wrong way. Recently a theatre director approached Eric for his permission to turn the Frank Olson story into ‘an opera about defenestration’, but Eric declined, explaining that this was a complex enough tale anyway even without having the facts sung at an audience. Tomorrow’s press conference was really Eric’s last chance to convince the world that his father was not an LSD suicide.
There were so many ways for Eric to recount his new version of the story at the press conference. It was impossible for him – for anyone – to know how to do it in the most coherent and still entertaining way. Eric’s new story is not only no longer fun, it is also exasperatingly intricate. There’s so much information to absorb that an audience could just glaze over.
Really, this story begins with the proclamation delivered by the CIA director Allen Dulles to his Princeton alumni group in 1953.
‘Mind warfare,’ he said, ‘is the great battlefield of the Cold War and we have to do whatever it takes to win this.’
Before Jim Channon and General Stubblebine and Colonel Alexander came along, there was Allen Dulles, the first great out-of-the-box thinker in US intelligence. He was a great friend of the Bushes, once the Bush family lawyer, a pipe-smoking patriarch who believed that the CIA should be like an ivy league university, taking inspiration not only from agents, but also from scientists, academics, and whoever else might come up with something new. It was Dulles who moved the CIA’s headquarters from central Washington DC to suburban Langley, Virginia (now renamed The George Bush Center For Intelligence) because he wanted to create a thoughtful, out-of-town campus milieu. It was Dulles who sent undercover CIA agents out into the American suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s to infiltrate séances in the hope of unearthing and recruiting America’s most talented clairvoyants to his mind-warfare battlefield, which is how the relationship between intelligence and the psychic world was born. But it was General Stubblebine who, inspired by the First Earth Battalion, proclaimed a generation later that anyone could be a great psychic, and so he opened the doors wide, and Major Ed Dames joined the program, and subsequently revealed the secrets of the unit on the Art Bell show, and then all hell broke loose and 39 people in San Diego killed themselves in an attempt to hitch a ride on Prudence and Courtney’s Hale Bopp companion.
Allen Dulles put Sidney Gottlieb in charge of the fledgling psychic program, and also MK-ULTRA, and then a third covert mind-warfare project known as Artichoke.
Artichoke is the program that is not fun.
Recently declassified documents reveal that Artichoke was all about inventing insane, brutal, violent, frequently fatal new ways of interrogating people.
Frank Olson was not just a civilian scientist working with chemicals at Fort Detrick. He was a CIA man too. He was working for Artichoke. This is why he was in Europe in the months before he died, sitting in pavement cafes with the other men wearing long coats and trilbies. They were there on Artichoke business. Eric’s father was – and there is no pleasant way of putting this – a pioneering torturer, or at the very least a pioneering torturer’s assistant. Artichoke was the First Earth Battalion of torture – a like-minded group of ground-breaking out-of-the-box thinkers, coming up with all manner of clever new ways of getting information out of people.
An example: according to a CIA document dated April 26th 1952, the Artichoke men ‘used heroin on a routine basis’, because they determined that heroin (and other substances) ‘can be useful in reverse because of the stresses produced when they are withdrawn from those who are addicted to their use.’
This is why, Eric has learnt, his father was recruited to Artichoke. He, alone among the interrogators, had a scientific knowledge of how to administer drugs and chemicals.
And now, in 2004, this Artichoke-created cold turkey method of interrogation is back in business. Mark Bowden, the author of Black Hawk Down, interviewed a number of CIA interrogators for the October 2003 edition of Atlantic Monthly, and this is the scenario he constructed:
‘On what may or may not have been March 1 [2003] the notorious terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was roughly awakened by a raiding party of Pakistani and American commandos …Here was the biggest catch yet in the war on terror. Sheikh Mohammed is considered the architect of two attempts on the World Trade Center: the one that failed, in 1993, and the one that succeeded so catastrophically, eight years later …He was flown to an “undisclosed location” (a place the CIA calls “Hotel California”) — presumably a facility in another cooperative nation, or perhaps a specially designed prison aboard an aircraft carrier.
It doesn’t much matter where, because the place would not have been familiar or identifiable to him. Place and time, the anchors of sanity, were about to come unmoored. He might as well have been entering a new dimension, a strange new world where his every word, move, and sensation would be monitored and measured; where things might be as they seemed but might not; where there would be no such thing as day or night, or normal patterns of eating and drinking, wakefulness and sleep; where hot and cold, wet and dry, clean and dirty, truth and lies, would all be tangled and distorted.
The space would be filled night and day with harsh light and noise. Questioning would be intense—sometimes loud and rough, sometimes quiet and friendly, with no apparent reason for either. The session might last for days, with interrogators taking turns, or it might last only a few minutes. On occasion he might be given a drug to elevate his mood prior to interrogation; marijuana, heroin, and sodium pentothal have been shown to overcome a reluctance to speak. These drugs could be administered surreptitiously with food or drink, and given the bleakness of his existence, they might even offer a brief period of relief and pleasure, thereby creating a whole new category of longing—and new leverage for his interrogators.’
See how in this scenario a slice of Jim Channon’s First Earth Battalion (‘harsh light and noise’) and a slice of Frank Olson’s Artichoke (‘a whole new category of longing’) come together like two pieces of a jigsaw.
On the day before Eric’s press conference, Eric and I watched old 8mm home movies of his father playing in the garden with his children. On the screen, Frank was riding a wobbly old bicycle and Eric, then a toddler, was resting on the handlebars. Eric gazed, smiling, at the screen.
He said, ‘There’s my father. Right there! That’s him! In comparison with the other guys from the CIA, he has an open face. Um…’
Eric paused. ‘Basically,’ he said, ‘this is a story about a guy who had a simple moral code and a naïve view of the world. He wasn’t fundamentally a military guy. And he certainly wasn’t someone who would be involved in “terminal interrogations”. He went though a moral crisis, but he was in too deep and they couldn’t let him out.’
We continued watching the home video. Then Eric said, ‘Think of how much could have been different if he was alive to tell any of this. Ha! The whole history of a lot of things would be different. And you can see a lot of that just in his face. A lot of the other men have very tight, closed faces. He doesn’t…’
And then Eric trailed off.
At some point during his investigation, Eric hooked up with the British journalist Gordon Thomas, who has written numerous books on intelligence matters. Through Thomas, Eric learned that during a trip to London in the summer of 1953 his father had apparently confided in William Sargant, a consultant psychiatrist who advised British intelligence on brainwashing techniques.
According to Thomas, Frank Olson told Sargant that he had visited secret joint American-British research installations near Frankfurt, where the CIA was testing truth serums on “expendables,” captured Russian agents and ex-Nazis. Olson confessed to Sargant that he had witnessed something terrible, possibly “a terminal experiment” on one or more of the expendables. Sargant heard Olson out and then he reported to British intelligence that the young American scientist’s misgivings were making him a security risk. He recommended that Olson be denied further access to Porton Down, the British chemical-weapons research establishment.
After Eric learnt this, he told his friend, the writer Michael Ignatieff, who published an article about Eric in the New York Times. A week later, Eric received the telephone call he’d been waiting for his whole life. It was a real Harold Junior, one of his father’s best friends from Detrick, a man who knew everything, and was willing to tell Eric the whole story.
His name was Norman Cournoyer.
Eric spent a weekend at Norman’s house in Connecticut. Revealing to Eric the secrets he’d been harbouring all these years was so stressful for Norman that he repeatedly excused himself so he could go to the toilet and vomit.
Norman told Eric that the Artichoke story was true. Frank told Norman that ‘they didn’t mind if people came out of this or not. They might survive, they might not. They might be put to death.’
Eric said, ‘Norman declined to go into detail about what this meant but he said it wasn’t nice. Extreme torture, extreme use of drugs, extreme stress.’
Norman told Eric that his father was in deep, and horrified at the way his life had turned. He watched people die in Europe, perhaps he even helped them die, and by the time he returned to America he was determined to reveal what he had seen. There was a 24-hour contingent of Quakers down at the Fort Detrick gates, peace protestors, and Frank would wander over to chat to them, much to the dismay of his colleagues. Frank asked Norman one day, ‘Do you know a good journalist I can talk to?’
And so, Eric said, slipping LSD into his father’s Cointreau at the Deep Creek Lodge was not an experiment that went wrong: it was designed to get him to talk while hallucinating. And Frank failed the test. He revealed his intentions to Gottlieb and the other MK-ULTRA men present. This was the ‘terrible mistake’ he had made. Seeing Martin Luther on the Sunday night had made him all the more determined to quit his job. Here I stand. I can do no other.
And on the Monday morning Frank did, indeed, tender his resignation, but his colleagues persuaded him to seek psychological counselling in New York.
Documents reveal that Frank never saw a psychiatrist in New York. He was taken instead, by Gottlieb’s deputy, to the office of the former Broadway magician John Mulholland, who probably hypnotised him, and Frank probably failed that test too.
Housing a possibly deranged and desperate man in a hotel room high above Seventh Avenue no longer seemed like a regrettable error of judgment. It seemed like the prelude to murder.
When Eric had his father’s body exhumed in 1994, the pathologist, Dr James Starrs, found a hole in Frank’s head that – he concluded – came from the butt of a gun and not a fall from a 10th floor window.
‘Well, he’s gone,’ said the voice of Sidney Gottlieb’s deputy, Robert Lashbrook.
‘That’s too bad,’ came the reply.
And they both hung up.
There were around 40 journalists at Eric’s press conference – crews from all the networks and many of the big newspapers. Eric had decided – for the purposes of clarity – to tell the story primarily through the narrative of his weekend with Norman Cournoyer. He repeatedly stressed that this was no longer a family story. This was now a story about what happened to America in the 1950s and how that informs what is happening today.
‘Where’s the proof?’ asked Julia Robb, the reporter from Eric’s local paper, the Frederick News Post, when he had finished. ‘Does all this rest on the word of one man, your father’s friend?’
Julia looked around her to make the point that this Norman Cournoyer wasn’t even in attendance.
‘No,’ said Eric. He looked exasperated. ‘As I’ve tried to tell you it conceptually rests on the idea that there are two vectors in this story and they only intersect in one place.’
There was a baffled silence.
‘Are you in any way motivated by ideology over this?’ the man from Fox News asked.
‘Just a desire to know the truth,’ sighed Eric.
Later, as the journalists milled around, eating from the buffet that was laid out on the picnic tables, the conversation among the Olsons and their friends turned to Julia Robb, the reporter from the Frederick News Post. Someone said he thought it was a shame that the most hostile journalist present represented Eric and Nils’s local paper.
‘Yeah it is,’ said Nils. ‘It’s painful to me. I’m a professional here in town. I have connections with local people as a dentist, and I see people on a daily basis who come in and read the local paper, and that affects me.’
Nils looked over at Eric, who was saying something to Julia, across the garden, but we couldn’t hear what.
Nils said, ‘At times you go through a phase of believing that maybe the story is a bunch of hooey, and that it was just a simple LSD suicide and that…’
Nils glanced at Julia.
‘…can trigger a kind of shame spiral. Its like the feelings you’ve had in the middle of the night, at 3am, when you’re trying to get to sleep and you start having some thought and the thought spins you into another negative thought and it kind of spins out of control and you have to shake yourself and maybe turn the light on and get grounded in reality again.’
Eric and Julia were arguing now. Julia said something to Eric and then she walked away, back to her car. (Later Eric said to me that Julia seemed ‘incensed, as if the entire story made her furious in some deep way that she was completely at a loss to articulate.’)
‘I mean,’ said Nils, ‘America fundamentally wants to think of itself as being good, and we’re fundamentally right in what we’re doing, and we have a very compelling responsibility for the free world. And looking at some of these issues is troubling, because if America does have a darker side it threatens your hold on your view of America and it’s kind of like, “Gee, if I pull out this one underpinning of the American consciousness, is this a house of cards? Does it really threaten the fundamental nature of America?”’
We drifted back down to the swimming pool, and an hour passed, and then Eric joined us. He’d been in the house on the telephone. He was laughing.
‘You hear the latest?’ he said.
‘Bring me up to date,’ said Nils. ‘I’m dying to hear.’
‘Julia,’ said Eric, ‘called Norman. I just called her and she said, “Eric, I’m glad you phoned. I just called Norman. He says he has no reason to believe that the CIA would murder Frank Olson.” I said, “Julia thanks for respecting my wishes about not calling Norman.” She said, “Eric, I’m a reporter. I have to do what’s necessary to get the story.”’
Eric laughed, although nobody else did.
And so I drove to Connecticut, to Norman Cournoyer’s house. I was slightly shaken by the news of the telephone call between Julia Robb and Norman. Had I got Eric wrong? Was he some kind of fantasist?
Norman lives in a large white bungalow in an upmarket suburban street. His wife answered the door and she led me into the living room where Norman was waiting for me. He pointed to the table and said, ‘I dug out some old photographs for you.’
They were of Norman and Frank Olson, arm in arm, somewhere in the middle of Fort Detrick, circa 1953.
‘Did you tell the reporter from the Fredrick News Post that you had no evidence to suggest that Frank was murdered by the CIA?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ said Norman.
‘Why did you do that?’ I asked.
‘Over the phone?’ said Norman. ‘I think a journalist is making a big mistake in trying to get somebody to talk over the phone.’
‘So you do think Frank was murdered?’ I said.
‘I’m sure of it,’ said Norman.
And then he told me something he hadn’t told Eric.
‘I saw Frank after he’d been given the LSD,’ he said. ‘We joked about it.’
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
‘He said, “They’re trying to find out what kind of guy I am. Whether I’m giving secrets away.”’
‘You were joking about it?’ I said.
‘We joked about it because he didn’t react to LSD.’
‘He wasn’t tripping at all?’ I said.
‘Nah,’ said Norman. ‘He was laughing about it. He said, “They’re getting very, very uptight now because of what they believe I am capable of.” He really thought they were picking on him because he was the man who might give away the secrets.’
‘Was he going to talk to a journalist?’ I asked.
‘He came so close it wasn’t even funny,’ said Norman.
‘Did he come back from Europe looking very upset?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ said Norman. ‘We talked about a week, ten days, after he came back. I said “What happened to you Frank? You seem awfully upset.” He said, “Oh, you know…” I must admit, in all honesty, it’s just coming back to me now. He said…’
Suddenly, Norman fell silent.
‘I don’t want to go on further than that,’ he said. ‘There are certain things that I don’t want to talk about.’
Norman looked out of the window.
‘It speaks for itself,’ he said.
Eric hoped his press conference would, at least, change the language of the reporting of the story. At best it would motivate some energetic journalist to take the challenge and find an unequivocal smoking gun that proved Frank Olson was pushed out of the window.
But in the days that followed the press conference it became clear that every journalist had decided to report the story in much the same way.
Eric had finally found ‘closure.’
He was on the way to being ‘healed’.
He had ‘laid his mystery to rest.’
He could ‘move on’ now.
Perhaps we will ‘never know’ what really happened to Frank Olson, but the important thing was that Eric had achieved ‘closure’.
The story was fun again.
From Norman Mailer’s novel, Harlot’s Ghost
© Random House 1991, used with permission of the author
[The Family Jewels and the “High Holies”]
All the same, not many occasions in my life had been more momentous than the summer day in 1982 when Harlot had invited me to work again with him. “Yes,” he had said, “I need your assistance so much that I will forgo my true innings.” His knuckles, huge as carbuncles, fretted his wheel chair forward and back.…
It was exactly at this time, when disaffection was collecting in my pores like bile, that Harlot summoned me to his rump office at the farmhouse in Virginia, much as he must have called in several other men like myself, still ambitious enough to know rage that their careers were in irons, yet old enough to suffer the knowledge that their best years were committed and gone. Who knows what Harlot cooked up for the others? I can tell you what he talked about with me.
We, at the CIA, had gone through some considerable suffering on the exposure of the Family Jewels in 1975. Maybe a few bushmen in Australia had not heard how we labored to rub Fidel Castro out, but by the time the Senate Select Committee to Study Intelligence Activities had done inquiring, there were very few bushmen. The rest of the world had learned that we were ready to kill Patrice Lumumba as well, and had gone in for LSD experiments in brainwashing so exuberantly that one of our subjects, a Dr. Frank Olson (on government contract), had jumped out the window. We hid the fact from his widow. She spent twenty years thinking her husband was an ordinary suicide, which is onerous for a family to believe since there are no ordinary suicides. We opened mail between Russia and the U.S. and closed it again and sent it on. We spied on high government officials like Barry Goldwater and Bobby Kennedy; we had all of those activities advertised in the marketplace. Since we are, at CIA, a proud and secretive people, we felt not unlike a convention of Methodist ministers who are sued by a fine hotel for infesting the bed linen with crab lice. The Company had never been quite the same since exposure of the Family Jewels.
In its wake many of our top men had to go.…
Seven years later [Harlot] was calling me to action. “I ask us, Harry boy,” he said, “to forgive the spears we’ve left in one another. There is a scandal forming that will prove worse than the “Skeletons”—which was his term for the Family Jewels. “I’d estimate about as much worse as Hiroshima was an order of magnitude beyond Pearl Harbor. The Skeletons decimated our ranks; the High Holies, if not excised, will cut us right out of the map.
(PP. 26-28 Ballentine paperback edition)
[Herrick]
“How are your headaches?” asked my father at the bar at Twenty-One.…
“Herrick, I haven’t seen a superior hell of a lot of you lately, have I?” he asked, unfolding his napkin, and sizing up the room.…
“Well, there’s a reason I haven’t seen a lot of you Rick.” He was the only one to call me Rick, rather than Harry, for Herrick. “I have been traveling an unconscionable amount.” This was said for the blond woman as much as for me. “They don’t know yet whether I’ll be one of the linchpins in Europe or the Far East.”
Now the man in the pencil-strip suit began his counteroffensive. He must have put a curve on what he said, for the woman gave a low intimate laugh. In response, my father leaned toward me across the table and whispered, “They’ve given OPC the covert operations.”
What’s covert?” I whispered back.
“The real stuff. None of that counterespionage where you drink out of my teacup and I drink out of yours. This is war. Without declaring it.” …
[The letter]
“Yes, one more thing,” I said. “You mentioned that you would let me see Rosen’s letters.”
“Why do you want to see them now?”
I shrugged. “For diversion.”
“Yes,” he said. “that’s right. All right.” But I could see he was reluctant. He went to his room, closed the door, came out, locked the door, and handed me a thick envelope. “Read it tonight,” he said. “And when you’re done, slip it under the sill.”
“I’ll read in this room,” I said, “and if anybody unfamiliar knocks, anyone official, that is, I’ll put the letter under your door before I go to answer.”
“Approved,” he said.
Dear Dix,
Well, here I am on hotshot duty in TSS, and there you are, honcho number one to the big man in Berlin. Congratulations. The old training group PQ 31 is doing all right for itself, even if PQ has to stand for peculiar—which is what I can say about my work now. Dix, procedure and any other I send you, is BAP (which in case you forgot is Burn After Perusal). I don’t know if work at TSS deserves to be as hush-hush as is presented to us here, but it is certainly a special place. Only geniuses need apply—how did they ever miss you? (Before you get too pissed off, recognize that I mean it.) The overseer for all us Mensa types is Hugh Montague, the old OSS legend, and he’s an odd one, as remote as Mt. Everest, confident as God. I can’t imagine what would happen if you ever tangled with him. Anyway, TSS is but part of his demesne, which I deliver as a gift to you love of big words. (Demesne is the etymological origin of domain, that is, the lands belonging to the Lord for which he pays no rent.) Montague, so far as I can see, pays no rent.) He reports only to Dulles. Over at Top Sanctum Sanctorum (true meaning of TSS), we tend to be savage our opinions of everybody, but on Montague, we agree. Unlike many in the Company, he is no dedicated brwon-noser.
…back to TSS. I find an unholy desire to tell you about the worst fiasco we ever had, which is why this letter has to be Ultra—BAP [Burn After Perusal]. It could fry my kishkes if read by the wrong eyes. Do not bother about the meaning of kishkes. That is argot from Yiddish and will advance nothing you’re interested in. I mention it only because the nominal head of TSS is named Gottlieb, and kishkes is the only Jewish word I ever heard him use. Of course, they assigned me to him — I guess they figure we have something in common. Well, not all that much. Some Jews are deep in tradition like my family, which is half religious-orthodox, half socialist — typically Jewish, ha, ha — but some Jews go in the other direction. They become mirrors of their culture. (Like me!) Disraeli, the British Prime Minister under Queen Victoria, born of Jewish parents, but they say he had the best upper-class English accent of anyone in the British Isles.
Well, Gottlieb is like that except he’s cosmic in scope, interested in everything. Odd! He lives on a farm outside of Washington and gets up every morning to milk his goats. The farmhouse itself used to be a slave cabin, but Gottlieb is a Sunday carpenter, so it’s big enough now to house his family. Mrs. Gottlieb, incidentally, spent her childhood in India. That may be the explanation for the goats! She’s the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries. Gottlieb also raises Christmas trees. And he has a clubfoot, but loves all the same to square dance. He’s only a chemist with a degree from City College, but he’s nonetheless a genius. Which is why in summary he sounds like nothing but pieces and parts. I must say, he messed up. Of course, only a genius can when in concert with another genius like Hugh Montague. It actually happened three years ago, but it’s still the worst-kept secret at TSS. You can’t go out with a colleague for a drink and get a little intimate without being told The Story. I find it interesting. There’s some principle of reverse-morale here. Montague is so elevated that I think The Story makes him human for us. Of course he only failed in a judgment call. He put his bet on Gottlieb, and Sidney did the damage.
Here’s the gen. (Old OSS word for poop.) Three years ago the big rumor at TSS was that the Sovs had synthesized some magic drug. They could not only control the behavior of their agents, but could fix a spy’s memory to self-destruct upon capture. They also had schizophrenia-inducing chemicals to free their agents from all moral concerns. Isn’t this what Communism is all about anyway! The magic drug is in the ideology! Anyway, Gottlieb had come upon a physical substance that turns a few corners in schizophrenia. It is called lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD for short, and TSS people harbor the hope that it will become our wonder drug, since present techniques of debriefing enemy agents are too slow. Allen Dulles wants a chemical spigot to turn a defector on and off. Kind of a truth cocktail. LSD inspires one to tell the truth.
Now, it’s hard to be sure, Dix, because I only acquired this at several removes, but Gottlieb seems to have had a honey of a theory, worked out in collaboration with Mrs. Montague and her theories. It is built on the premise that the psychic wall which schizophrenia builds to close off communication between opposite parts of the personality is composed of an immense number of lies, and the truth is encysted behind it. Any drug that can induce schizophrenia might also, if used on a start-stop -start-stop basis, induce enough of a vibration in the lies of that schizophrenic wall to shake it and, conceivably, crack it. More normal people, in contrast, only choose the lies that will keep their ego intact. By the Gottlieb-Gardiner theory, a defector’s wall, whether psychotic or normal, can be shattered by the use of LSD. First, however, Gottlieb had to test the compatibility of LSD to his purpose. He and a few colleagues tried it on one another, but they were aware of the experiment. Unwitting LSD recipients were what was needed.
So, one night at a small cocktail party a TSS researcher managed to slip ad’s of LSD into a pony of Cointreau that a contract scientist was drinking. The victim was not witting of the experiment. Now, I don’t know his name — that fact is sealed, but let’s call him what he is — VICTIM.
As it turned out, he did not react well. VICTIM returned to his home in a state of agitation. A very disciplined man, he fought the effects of the LSD. No symptoms of overt derangement presented themselves. The only manifestation was that he could not sleep. Then he began to tell his wife that he had made terrible mistakes. Only he could not specify what they were. After a couple of days, he was so agitated that Gottlieb sent him to New York to see one of our psychiatrists. Gottlieb’s own deputy stayed with VICTIM in a New York hotel room. VICTIM, however, got worse and worse. Finally, right in front of his keeper, he took a running dive through a closed window and crashed ten stories to his death. They gave his widow and children a government pension, and Gottlieb got away with a slap on the wrist. Montague sent a memo to Dulles: Formal punishment would tend to interfere with ‘that most necessary spirit of initiative and outright enthusiasm so prerequisite to this work.’ Dulles did send a personal letter to Gottlieb scolding him for poor judgment, but no copy of this letter — at least so goes the gen — ever landed in Gottlieb’s file. Sidney is in fine shape at TSS these days.
I had a strong reaction to the letter. I could read no further. The fear that I was being used by Harlot in careless fashion had just been confirmed. VICTIM kept falling in my mind.
[“Wet jobs” and termination experiments]
So I went on to TSS with Allen [Dulles’] blessing and Hugh’s strong arm around my waist. I was prepared to dive into the dark depths, but, of course, as soon as I finished training, they wrapped me in cotton. Technical Services Staff, as you can guess, is as highly compartmentalized as any place you’re going to work in the Agency. Even now, after five years in TSS’s recessive folds, I still can’t decide such basic things as whether we go in for wet jobs, or leaving assassination quite to the side, whether we indulge in even worse deeds, such as honest-to-god termination experiments. If one were to believe the more sinister gossip, it’s true. Of course, such rumors do come to me in the large from Arnie Rosen, and I’m not sure he’s always to be trusted. (He loves wild stories too much.!)
Frank Olson: The Man Who Fell 13 Stories
Chapter 3, of
A Voice for the Dead: A Forensic Investigator’s Pursuit of the Truth in the Grave
By James E. Starrs with Katherine Ramsland
(G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2005) Used with permission of the author
We grow accustomed to the Dark—
When light is put away…
The Bravest—grope a little—
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead—
But as they learn to see—
Either the Darkness alters
Or something in the sight…
He was a conflicted man living in conflicted times who died leaving conflicting leads.
When a forty-three-year-old man falls thirteen stories from a hotel room window in mid-town New York City, to his death, it may seem to be a daunting task to determine the true circumstances of his death, especially after his being buried for more than 40 years. Yet after exhuming and examining his remains a specific injury that went undetected at the time of his death turned out to be an important lead in re-evaluating the manner of the man’s death.
Not only had the elite government scientist whose death was in question not died in the manner officially described, his body did not bear the injuries stated in his autopsy report. Upon discovering these new and troubling facts, many questions arose, such as whether this “suicidal leap” (the deceased being referred to in the parlance of officialdoms as a jumper) had been related to his employment resignation, which was offered only a few days before the incident. Had he found out something he was not supposed to know?
These questions remained for my scientific team to try to answer, and once the victim’s family asked for my aid, told me what they knew, and then warned me, “Now of course, you know you’re taking on the C.I.A,” I began walking with my back to the wall, any wall would do for cover.
What seemed to be at first glance a simple and straight-forward set of events leading to a death turned out to be much more complicated than had been anticipated, including the occurrence of yet more mysterious deaths.
The victim under scrutiny was Frank Olson, Ph.D. who had died sometime after midnight on November 28, 1953, on the Seventh Avenue sidewalk outside New York’s Hotel Statler. Robert Lashbrook, Ph.D. who was with Olson on that fateful night, recounted his version of the events leading up to and occurring at the tragic moment many times: Lashbrook and Olson were together in Room 1018A on the 10th floor, actually the 13th when the first three unnumbered floors are counted, when Dr. Olson suddenly went out the room’s only window. In his initial version of the events, Lashbrook insisted that he had been asleep at the time, and that he awoke to the sound of crashing glass. Only then did he realize that Dr. Olson had catapulted through the room’s closed window, apparently bent on suicide.
A New York City assistant medical examiner, Dr. Dominick De Maio, confirmed Lashbrook’s recital, stating in his report of his external (not internal) examination of Olson’s body that there were many compound fractures of Olson’s extremities and multiple lacerations on his face and neck as well as his lower extremities. This report was filed, was uncontested, and as such, became the official record. Yet there were perturbing features surrounding Olson’s death that only gradually came to light over a span of many years during which the Olson family tried to unlock what they were convinced was a more terrible truth about his death.
Eric Olson, Dr. Olson’s elder surviving son, was nine years old at the time of his father’s unexpected death. On the morning after the incident, he learned from his father’s government boss, Colonel Vincent Ruwet, that his father had died in a work-related accident that had occurred in a hotel. He had either “fallen or jumped,” but young Eric could not understand the full importance of what that meant. Over the years, as he came to think about the claim that his father’s death resulted from a “fatal nervous breakdown,” he discovered that his father had been an employee of the C.I.A. engaged in sinister and clandestine research activities of a biochemical nature.
The Olson family was in 1953 living on the verge of Frederick, Maryland, while Frank Olson was employed as a biochemist at nearby Fort Detrick, the Army’s premier bacteriological warfare research installation. Since 1943, he had been part of a team of scientists who were immersed in a top-secret program aimed toward developing lethal biological and chemical weapons for America’s defense during the Cold War, a subject considered to be a matter of utmost secrecy for the protection of national security.
In 1949, Frank Olson had helped to set up the Special Operations Division (SOD) at Fort Detrick, where written records were forbidden and only a trusted few were allowed to know about the more sensitive projects. Olson was tasked to develop new and secret biological means for effective interrogation and warfare. Olson soon became the acting head of this division. Among its projects, according to what Eric’s research taught him, were the development of assassination materials, collaboration with former Nazi scientists, LSD mind control research, and the use of biological weapons during the Korean War. The ominous nature of such mind-control research was exposed to public view in the Hollywood movie “The Manchurian Candidate,” starring the late Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey.
Eric remembers that his mother was uncomfortable about the work her husband was doing. He is of a mind that his father had expressed distress over experiments he was conducting and the possible use of the results. While a great deal about his activities remained unknown to his family, apparently during the weekend preceding his death Frank Olson had been uncharacteristically distraught, he being a person of considerable cheerfulness and bonhomie. He had come home early from a meeting at a mountain retreat and he had said something to his wife, Alice, about “a terrible mistake” he had made while presenting a paper at the meeting. He seemed deeply and singularly anxious about it but he would not reveal the nature of his mistake. According to Mrs. Olson, he felt certain that his career was in jeopardy and he had decided to resign.
Yet when he returned from work the next day, he told Alice that his colleagues had reassured him. Consequently he withdrew his resignation letter. However, he said it was recommended that he obtain treatment for some newly emergent behavioral problems he was having. The plan of action included his seeing a psychiatrist. Otherwise, he said, she might not be safe with him under the same roof. Alice Olson was stunned. Nothing in his demeanor had indicated that he was dangerous. But he did not explain what he meant any further. It was only two days before Thanksgiving, 1953 but, notwithstanding the importance of his family holiday he insisted he needed to leave for treatment. He believed he would return in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
The next day an official SOD car came to convey Frank Olson to New York. Alice joined her husband during the 30plus mile trip to Washington, where she saw her husband enplane for New York. He was accompanied by his boss, Vincent Ruwet and a stranger who was introduced to her as Dr. Robert Lashbrook.
In New York City, at 58th Street, Olson reportedly had several sessions with a medical doctor that lasted most of the day. He and Dr. Lashbrook had Thanksgiving dinner in New York, but Olson telephoned his wife on Friday and told her he expected to be home that Saturday. He was contemplating entering a psychiatric hospital in Washington for treatment. But his plans were not to be. That night he died in New York City. He was 43, and left behind a wife and three young children, two sons, Eric and Nils, and a daughter, Lisa.
His death being ruled a suicide, his body was sent home to Maryland for a burial. His casket was at all times kept closed due, so the family was informed, to the massive injuries he sustained in his fatal fall. Frank Olson was buried in a solemn ceremony on December 1, 1953 in Linden Hills Cemetery n Frederick, Maryland where a stone monument was put in place to his memory.
For twenty odd years, the Olson family remained in a state of perplexity about these events. In her grief Alice Olson took drinking to excess, ultimately becoming an alcoholic.
His father’s sudden death haunted Eric, who was now the man of the house. He felt certain that his father had not deliberately jumped out the window, but he was at a loss as to how to resolve his suspicions.
Then on June 11, 1975, a front-page article in the Washington Post engaged his excited attention. Now after the passage of so many years since his father’s death, the political scene in Washington, D.C. had changed. No longer were people afraid of Soviet biological warfare. In fact, many people had expressed distrust of the government’s conduct of the Cold War and were rooting out past secrets, some of which were shameful and unethical. This Post newspaper report, revealing the results of the Rockefeller Commission’s findings about illegal C.I.A. activities, noted that a civilian employee of the Department of the Army had jumped from the tenth floor of a New York hotel after he was surreptitiously given the hallucinogenic drug, LSD. “This individual,” the article stated, “had not been made aware he had been given LSD until twenty minutes after it had been administered.” It had been part of a larger C.I.A. orchestrated project that had involved the administration of psychoactive drugs to numerous unsuspecting Americans.
The victim’s name was not disclosed, but the description of the incident was too similar to the circumstances of Frank Olson’s death for Eric to ignore. He showed the article to the rest of his family. He proceeded with direct inquiries to Vincent Ruwet, who had been his father’s supervisor at Fort Detrick. Indeed he had visited with Alice Olson often after her husband’s death, purporting to sense and share her grief.
Ruwet reluctantly admitted that the unnamed man in the Post’s article was in fact Frank Olson. He had been a guinea pig in a CIA sponsored testing of LSD at a retreat at Deep Creek Lodge in rural Maryland. Afterward, when he seemed to be suffering from serious side effects, the C.I.A. had decided to seek treatment for him, taking him to New York for that purpose. Before it was completed, however, he had jumped to his death, so Ruwet maintained.
In righteous outrage, the Olson family invited the media to a press conference in July 1975 to announce their intention of suing the government for its complicity in the wrongful death of Frank Olson. It was hoped the media attention would pressure the C.I.A. to make a full disclosure of Olson’s tragic death. Alice made the first statement, indicating that she believed her husband must have been suffering from some sort of bad dream to have jumped as said through a closed window. Then Eric recalled that the family had never been told any of the details, that they had been callously deceived, and that they wanted to know why a cover-up had been in place all these years.
Four days later, an invitation to the White House arrived. In a meeting that lasted less than twenty minutes, President Gerald Ford offered a complete and uncompromising apology and urged the government to grant the family 3⁄4 of a million dollars as a monetary settlement. The President also ordered the C.I.A. Director William Colby to cooperate with them.
When the family, in due course, met with Colby, who later reported that this had been among the most difficult assignments he had ever had, he offered them 150 pages of redacted documents that he claimed amounted to the entire file that was relevant to their concerns. It was the C.I.A.’s investigation into Frank Olson’s death. He believed it would answer any questions they might have. He seemed unaware of the importance of what he was giving them, for the material soon raised more questions than it answered. It became clear to them that there was something darker in this tragic incident than a failed LSD experiment.
Pouring over the documents in which many lines and names were blacked out, the Olsons believed that significant information about their father’s death was still missing. There was no explanation in these pages, for example, about why the C.I.A. agents had bundled Frank Olson off to a New York City hotel rather than a hospital. If he had been in such a self destructive frame of mind, why was his supposed escort asleep when he exited the room through the window? And why, when he went out the window, had Lashbrook failed to summon help or even notify the hotel’s staff? The family now came to the painful realization that Frank Olson might have been murdered. But if so, what was the motive for such a nefarious deed?
In their questing for the truth they discovered that C.I.A. higher-up Sidney Gottlieb, Ph.D., who was officially reprimanded for the handling of the Olson incident, had been involved in C.I.A. assassination plots on national leaders and was an enthusiastic supporter of mind control. Gottlieb’s experiments occurred at a time in our country’s history when no act performed with a view toward thwarting communism was considered out-of-bounds. The standoff between these two world powers meant that survival was seen as the end that justified all means, including the development of biological weapons and mental manipulation. Intelligence reports had the Soviets on the fast track and the Americans playing catch up. The C.I.A.’s activities were disguised in projects bearing innocuous names that concealed their actual purpose.
Passages in the documents they had received pertaining to a C.I.A. operation called “Project Bluebird” and renamed ARTICHOKE were deleted, but Eric Olson plumbed the depths from other sources. ARTICHOKE had involved extreme methods of interrogation and an attempt to develop a way to produce complete amnesia in questioned subjects or in agents who had seen too much and could no longer be trusted. It was also disclosed that Olson was not just a “civilian scientist” with the Army but a full-fledged C.I.A. employee. He had been an agent in a powerful position and possessing detailed covert information.
The laboratory experiment in which Frank Olson had unwittingly participated had been part of a “truth drug” program, supervised by Sidney Gottlieb and George Hunter White, which involved getting people to disclose all under the influence of a drug clandestinely administered. If the C.I.A. found the right drug, they could use it to extract secrets from enemy agents as well as learn how to protect their own agents against such disclosures. They had started with the active ingredient in marijuana and moved on to more dangerous drugs, like LSD once the program directors decided that informed subjects could not give authentic results, agents had administered LSD in large doses to unsuspecting soldiers at the Edgewood Arsenal and to unconsenting civilians in hospitals. The C.I.A. managers offered emoluments to universities soliciting their involvements. For the purposes of this research, some people were kept in a hallucinogenic state for days at a time.
At the New York Psychiatric Institute in January 1953, less than a year before Olson died, other experiments had been conducted. Harold Blauer, a tennis professional, went there for depression. He became one of the guinea pigs, but his reaction to the LSD spelled disaster for him. After a bad reaction, he succumbed to a coma and in short order died.
Operation Realism, a top-secret project run by George White, involved giving citizens in bars and restaurants LSD without their knowledge. White even set up massage parlors for Operation Midnight Climax another C.I.A. program as a way to lure people into their LSD experiments.
Frank Olson was described in these heavily redacted reports as one of the C.I.A’s guinea pigs, making him a victim. But being so involved in its operation, he would hardly have been an easy target. Nevertheless, the report described how on November 19, 1953, Gottlieb or someone acting at his behest had slipped the drug into Olson’s glass of Cointreau at Deep Creek Lodge. After twenty minutes, Olson was said to have developed hallucinations, after which he was told that he had been a subject in their experimenting. By morning, he was still in an agitated state.
After his return home in a dispirited and depressed state, he went to work and told Ruwet of his intention to resign. Ruwet indicated to investigators that he had appeared to be “all mixed up.” He and Lashbrook then took Olson to New York. Instead of being under the care of a qualified psychiatrist, Olson was taken to Harold Abramson, an allergist with a C.I.A. clearance who was a firm believer in the therapeutic value of LSD for psychiatric patients. At one point he apparently gave Olson bourbon and the sedative nembutal both central nervous system depressants whose adjuvant affect could have killed Olson. The sleep they might have induced in him could have been his last.
By some accounts, Olson might also have met a magician by the name of John Mulholland, who may have tried to use hypnosis on him. Ruwet told investigators that Olson became highly agitated and paranoid while New York. He spent one night wandering the streets, and at one point he discarded his wallet and his identification papers asking to be allowed to “disappear.” Ruwet said that Olson did not want to go home to face his wife. Yet the next day, he called his wife to assure her that he was better and expected to see her the following day.
Lashbrook reported to the police who were investigating Olson’s death that he, Olson, worked for the Defense Department, and that Olson had been calm that evening, washing out his socks in the sink before going to bed.
Yet, four hours later, Olson fell (sic) to his death.
As part of the police investigation Lashbrook was taken to the 14th Precinct station house, spending only a brief period there. He told the police that he did not know why Olson had killed himself, except that he did suffer from ulcers. The detectives asked him to empty his pockets but did not keep a record of what they found. However, a Security Office report indicated that he had airline ticket stubs for the trips that he and Olson had taken, and a receipt for $115, dated November 25, 1953 and signed by John Mulholland. Supposedly this was an advance for travel to Chicago.
Lashbrook also had hotel bills and papers with phone numbers, including those for Vince Ruwet and Dr. Abramson. In addition, he had an address for a house on Bedford Street that was used for Operation Midnight Climax. One sheet of paper had New York City addresses for people identified only by the initials G.W., M.H., and J.M. Lashbrook said that for security reasons, he preferred not to reveal who they were. The detectives apparently did not press the matter.
Since John Mulholland had died in 1970, there was no way for the Olsons to interview him about his possible involvement in this tragedy. However, he had been under contract to prepare a manual, “Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception,” that applied the magician’s art to covert activities, such as slipping drugs into drinks. There was no record of the actual manual having been produced.
Right after Olson’s death, the C.I.A. sent five investigators to New York, without explaining why they would send so many in the case of an outright, uncontested suicide. An internal memo the following week refers to Olson’s “suicide” in quotation marks, as if the memo’s author was aware that it had not been a suicide. And one of the phone numbers that Lashbrook carried that fateful night was for George White, the man in charge of the program, whose alias was Morgan Hall. Lashbrook’s immediate boss was Sidney Gottlieb. Although George White operated a CIA safe house in Greenwich Village, only minutes from the Hotel Statler, where Olson and Lashbrook had taken lodging, they apparently did not visit it.
The investigating team recommended disciplinary action against Lashbrook and Gottlieb, but while Lashbrook left the agency, Gottlieb remained in power for the next two decades. (He can be said to have dismissed Olson’s death during hearings in 1977 as one of the risks of running such experiments.)
The Olson family was disturbed by what they had learned. Although the men who were investigated had claimed that Frank Olson was in a suicidal frame of mind, they had roomed him on a high floor. He had even managed to slip away from them one night, a good indication that they were not really watching him. On Thanksgiving Day, they had found him in a shell-shocked state in the hotel lobby. Dr. Abramson had diagnosed him as psychotic and recommended hospitalization. Yet he remained in the hotel for two more nights.
Piecing these facts together, Eric Olson thought that Lashbrook’s account was implausible. He decided to investigate on his own. So in 1984, he went to the Hotel Statler (now the Hotel Pennsylvania) to see the room for himself. It was a basic hotel room with two double beds, small and rather spare in its furnishings. He could not imagine how anyone could have gotten a running start in such a room without awakening the person in the next bed—the man who was posted there to watch Eric’s supposedly delusional and suicidal father. The sill was high and there was a radiator right in front of it. The shade had also been pulled down. He wondered if it was in the realm of possibility to break through the window with so little space allowed to gain momentum and so many obstructions at the window.
Experts later told Eric that a man would have to be running more than thirty miles per hour to crash through such a window and the hotel room was too short for even an accomplished athlete to accomplish it.
Another mystery that seemed to be part of Olson’s November death involved the trip that he had taken overseas during the prior summer. Again, the family had to piece together different sources of information to understand his travels. He had been to Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain, that was certain. But for what purpose?
In London, Eric learned from a reporter that his father had talked with an expert on brainwashing about something he had witnessed at research installations in Frankfurt. Eric was led to believe that these facilities tested human subjects, called “expendables”— who were enemy agents or collaborators and that they sometimes died from the experiments. Perhaps Frank Olson had voiced his dismay and disgust over this inhumane behavior and was for that reason considered a potential security risk. Alice recalled that when Frank returned from Europe that summer, he was unusually withdrawn and morose and contemplative.
To Eric, the newly revealed facts painted a grim picture of his father’s death having been a C.I.A. staged suicide. The C.I.A. operatives may have slipped the LSD into his father’s drink to get him talking, and once they saw his reaction, decided to get him to New York where the suicide could be faked convincingly.
That was the hypothesis he felt was cementing itself into place.
Yet even before this new angle could be explored more thoroughly the Olson family was visited by yet another tragedy—one that was indirectly instrumental in bringing me into this steamy John Carre-like brew. To tell that story, I ask the reader’s indulgence in my turning the clock back a few years.
The Olson family and I were linked in a friendly, social relationship through Greg Hayward, a student of mine at George Washington University’s law school. Greg had married Eric Olson’s sister, Lisa.
Greg was a rugged and totally engaging outdoorsman who had served as an Airborne Ranger in Vietnam. We were biking companions, and also went rock climbing and rappelling. He owned a farm in Frederick Maryland, to which I would journey with my family on many occasions. But during that time I knew nothing about the death of Frank Olson or the family’s sustained grief over it, a grief which they keep well closeted from me.
Gregg was readying himself for a run for Congress. I have no doubt his likeable and knowledgeable personality would have carried the day for him. Lisa was active as a teacher for the deaf. They were a wonderful, much-loved couple with a young son, Jonathan. It was a joy to know them.
One day in 1978, Greg came to my university office, his face glowing, and his smile evoking the best of news.
“I’m here to tell you,” he said, “that the government has paid the Olson family close to a million dollars for their wrongdoing in causing the death of Frank Olson.”
Surprised and curious, I invited him to tell me more about it, and so he did, putting me on notice of the circumstances of Frank Olson’s death. I congratulated him on the government’s fessing up for their wrongdoing and his finding solace in it. The moment was one to be savored by him and the Olson family.
Shortly thereafter Greg called to invite me to join him in an airplane trip to the Adirondacks where he had a cottage. I was sorely tempted to join him and his family since I had once before visited his remote cabin and felt the memory of that good time tugging me to go.
But I was compelled to decline, my classes at the University demanding my attention. Reluctantly he accepted me decision. He signed off with one of his favorite expressions. “Remember Jim,” he excited, “danger is no stranger to an Airborne Ranger.” As it turned out that was the last conversation I ever had with Greg Hayward.
That same night, I received another phone call from another former student, Hugh Lewis, stating that the plane carrying Greg to the Adirondack retreat had encountered a sudden, unexpected snowstorm causing it to crash into a mountainside. Both Greg and Lisa, their two-year-old son, Jonathan, and the child that Lisa was carrying had died in the crash, the entire family wiped out.
And if I had not been so stuffy, so wedded to my faculty duties, I would have gone, too. This tragedy stayed with me as did my questioning the reason for the fate that had saved me. Would there come a time when I would be called to repay my good fortune?
Then in 1993, Alice Olson died. This was the impetus for Eric to act more aggressively on his unflagging suspicions over his father’s death. The knock once again came at my office door from a member of the Olson family. This time it was Eric who was familiar to me due to my cycling excursions to Greg Hayward’s farm.
Eric explained to me that his mother, Alice, had been buried in Mount Olivet cemetery in Frederick, Maryland while his father, Frank, had been interred in 1953 in Linden Hills Cemetery, also in Frederick. It was his wish, which he articulated with his usual enthusiasm, to remove his father’s remains to the Mount Olivet cemetery so that, in death, they could be reunited. But, at the same time, he was quite obviously suffused with another, even more compelling, desire.
Eric represented in a very straightforward way and with a calm and determined mind that he and his brother, Nils, wanted to have their father’s remains scientifically scrutinized to see if modern methods of analysis could provide tangible evidence of the underlying cause and manner of his death. “We want to find out if we can learn more than we already know,” he emphasized.
Eric’s request, even entreaty, was entitled to and received my immediate and careful attention. I cautioned him that I would coordinate and oversee the project only if my exacting criteria for an exhumation were fulfilled. He was entirely agreeable to that arrangement.
From what I could determine from many background sources, there was certainly substantial controversy over whether Frank Olson’s death was an accident, a suicide or, more ominously, a homicide. Further the fact that no autopsy had been performed on Olson militated in favor of our discovering new and possibly determinative evidence to shed new light on his death. It was also clear that all of the immediate family supported this project.
The first step involved a word by word examination of the New York City medical examiner’s report, rendered in 1953, on the death of Dr. Olson. With the necessary consent of Eric Olson, I secured a copy which revealed its author to be Dr. Dominick Di Maio later to become the New York City medical examiner. His report was most abbreviated since the death had been “no posted,” (reported out based only on an external examination of Olson’s dead body). The accompanying toxicological report only assayed the presence of methyl and ethyl alcohol in the liver, with negative results, and included no drug scan of any kind. Those were strong indicia that a thorough autopsy could potentially accomplish something more than previously-contingent on the condition of Olson’s remains. That condition, for good or for ill, was the most uncertain and the most significant aspect of this as it is in any exhumation, especially where the time elapsed since burial is prolonged.
Seeking to flesh out the particulars of Di Maio’s written report, I telephoned him in New York City and found him to be cordial and candid. He conceded that no x-rays had been taken at the time of his examining the remains. As he put it, he had been “taken in” by the reports he received that this death was an uncomplicated out-and-out suicide. Indeed, in the 1970s, after the Washington Post’s revelations, his ire over learning that he had been misled resulted in his contemplating revisiting the death of Dr. Olson. But other matters had pre-empted his time.
These discussions with Dr. Di Maio, along with my review of the vast documentary evidence regarding Dr. Olson’s death and the congressional investigations into it, convinced me that an exhumation was warranted.
Three main objectives loomed largest in my approach to this exhumation:
1. To give the Olson family confidence that all available scientific and investigative means had been employed to bring the truth about Frank Olson’s death under public and scientific scrutiny;
2. To provide a forum for the utilization of new or under-utilized scientific technologies and experiences, such as the bio-engineering aspects of a fall from a height, an analysis of the causal features in fractures resulting from such a fall, a toxicological analysis of bodily tissues and hair for therapeutic and abused drugs (whether defined as “controlled substances” or not), the use of the computer to animate a re-enactment scenario of the event, and to provide an identification of the remains by a computerized skull superimposition.
3. To examine and to ponder whether the tragedy of scientific experimentation with the lives and well-being of unwitting persons which marred and stigmatized this C.I.A. research enterprise might conceivably be replicated in today’s society.
But first it was requisite to obtain written and notarized authorizations for the exhumation and analysis of the remains from Eric and Nils Olson, as the two surviving children. Fulfilling any legal requirements in Maryland for an exhumation was next in my line of investigative fire. As I have found in other states the Maryland statutory provisions governing exhumations are haphazard, spotty and unclear. For clarity I went to a presumed reliable source – the state’s medical examiner’s office in Baltimore. After explaining my interest in removing Frank Olson from one cemetery and his reburial in another cemetery, beside his wife, I was directed to the local district attorney for Frederick County.
That contact, by phone and mail, was cordial and cooperative in the sense that no court order approving the exhumation was deemed necessary. Of course, it is fair to say that if the full details of the exhumation had been demanded of me a different attitude and result might have ensued. The autopsy and its sequelae which were to intervene between the exhumation and the reburial were not featured in my approaches to the legal authorities in Maryland. Whether the investigation would have been stymied or side-tracked if all had been told I cannot say, but it is probable that Frank Olson’s remains would not have been housed above ground under lock and key in my office and in that of Dr. Jack Levisky at York College, Pennsylvania over the nearly ten year span that transpired until his reburial.
With these preliminaries accomplished by October 1993, I proceeded to assemble a team of qualified and eminent specialists in the multiple scientific disciplines that would be put to the task in this investigation.
The total came to fifteen. Dr. “Jack” (James) Frost, a West Virginia Medical Examiner, agreed to perform the autopsy at the Hagerstown (Md) Community College, arranged through the contacts made by Jeff Kercheval, a criminalist with the Hagerstown police lab, who served on the team. Geologist George Stevens, Ph.D. of The George Washington University was in charge of any geological assessments. Yale Caplan Ph.D., a former President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, would perform the toxicological analyses. Michael Calhoun, a radiolographer with Shady Grove (Md) Adventist Hospital would do the x-raying. Jean Gardner Esq., stood by for her legal insights, along with three photographers, including Gerry Richards, a retired chief of the photography section at the FBI and a former student of mine in the MFS curriculum at George Washington University.
Last to mention but always in the forefront throughout the project was Dr. “Jack” John Levisky, a forensic anthropologist and department chairman at York College, PA. A scientific consultant, and an assortment of support staff were also used. Some of these people would become regulars with me in my future exhumations.
I provided the background on the case to each person and all of them responded with alacrity to my invitation, even after hearing the many complexities and, possibly imponderables that lurked on the horizon. Each team member deserves the highest praise and has my most genuine and entirely unreserved gratitude for their selfless, uncompensated labors in our attempts to disentangle this mystery.
All was now in readiness.
I organized the project in my usual bi-level manner. On one level, the below ground one, it was strictly a scientific investigation. On another level, the above ground one, it partook of investigations into the facts and circumstances of Olson’s death. In combination with the scientific findings the above ground investigations would contribute to a better understanding of how Dr. Frank R. Olson came to his death. Those above ground investigations would include securing interviews, with people with knowledge of the incident.
My foremost interest was to locate the whereabouts of persons present at the Hotel Statler on the night Frank Olson had died. I focused on the Statler’s night manager, Armand Pastore, who first found Dr. Olson lying supine and barely alive on the 7th Avenue west-side sidewalk; the Statler’s telephone operator, who overheard Dr. Lashbrook’s call from room 1018A following Olson’s exiting the window; the priest from the nearby Roman Catholic Church who had given Dr. Olson the Last Rites as he lay dying on the sidewalk; and the New York City police officer on the beat who had responded to the death scene. As the investigations progressed others would be added to the list of interviewees, including the C.I.A’s mandarin for clandestine research projects, Sidney Gottlieb.
While the above ground investigations proceeded, the exhumation was given the go-ahead.
The Exhumation
The exhumation at Linden Hills Cemetery took place on Thursday, June 2, 1994, commencing at 8:30 A.M, under clear skies and in the presence of the Olson brothers, my team members, representatives of the press and a smallish group of voyeurs. We removed the metal coffin from the grave without incident, and transported the unopened coffin to the nearby (30 miles plus west) Hagerstown Police Department Crime Laboratory for the unveiling of the remains and for Michael Calhoun and his wife to perform their radiographic wizardry.
On Friday, we transported the remains to the biology department at Hagerstown Junior College where we would conduct the autopsy, analyze the skeletal features and obtain specimens for toxicological analysis.
Upon opening the coffin, the remains proved to be immaculately well preserved, albeit mummified, under a tight wrapping of linen acting as a full body shroud. We were able to look at the body as if the incident had happened only yesterday. We did not observe the slightest sign of mold or decay. After some forty years in the grave, despite embalming, one expects that the coffin’s interior dampness from the moisture resulting from the release of body fluids would have produced some mildew and that the body would have begun to putrefy.
Yet there is never any assurance as to the condition of the remains overtime, the type of coffin used, and the preservative qualities of the embalming fluid, keeping decay at bay for sixty years plus or minus, are just two factors to take into account. I have seen corpses in much worse condition with a lesser time period in between burial and exhumation. But such was not the case here, probably because of the lack of the disruption of an autopsy on the remains and the care taken to preserve the remains for interstate transfer from New York City to Frederick, Maryland.
On other occasions the remains of persons long dead have been exhumed and surprisingly, even startlingly, seen to be fully fleshed and well-preserved although mummified. The finding and the opening in Paris, France in 1905 of the leaden coffin of American Naval hero John Paul Jones, some 113 years after his death was one such instance. His preservation is best explained by Ambassador Porter who reported to the Secretary of State that “the body fortunately was found well-preserved, the coffin having been filled with alcohol but which had evaporated.” Of course, like Frank Olson, the linen winding sheet in which both he and John Paul Jones had been wrapped was added protection against post-mortem decay.
In the first instance our attention was drawn to Olson’s face and neck. I saw no lacerations there, nary a one, although Dr. Di Maio’s report had indicated the presence of “multiple abrasions and lacerations.” While we were examining the remains prior to the autopsy, Eric Olson arrived and insisted on viewing his father’s remains. Although it is the standard practice to keep the relatives out of the autopsy room I made an exception in this case due to my noticing the uncanny resemblance between Eric in life and his father in death.
Seeing Eric standing beside his father’s remains gave me a start for one was a look-a-like for the other, in the same way that civil rights leader Medgar Evers and his son were seen to be duplicates of each other when Medgar Evers was exhumed from his grave in Arlington National Cemetery.
The Olson family had been advised against an open casket funeral cemetery on the advice of Dr. Olson’s superiors who had represented that his injuries were too gruesome to behold. Yet on our close inspection there was no evidence of such injuries. That was a matter of some considerable consternation. How could Dr. Di Maio have reported the existence of multiple lacerations when, in truth and in fact, there were none?
Further, the entire anterior (front) portion from head to toe of the flesh of Frank Olson’s remains was devoid of lacerations, save those to be expected from the many compound fractures, and from that in the upper thoracic region where a laceration had been sutured up, probably during embalming.
The significance of this absence of lacerations is less a criticism of Dr. Di Maio than a commentary on the way Dr. Olson exited through the window. Certainly going through an open window would be one feasible explanation, because if it had been closed, it is reasonable to expect that the glass would have cut his skin at some place or other. If a drawn shade separated the glass from the flesh, then perhaps the shade buffered kept the glass from piercing Olson’s underwear-clad body, but it is nevertheless inexplicable that we found no cuts on the front of the lower extremities from dragging across glass shards on the bottom edge of the window.
The literature reporting on broken-glass type burglaries reveals that the broken glass causes lacerations most frequently when the body, generally an arm inserted through the broken glass to open a door or window to facilitate the burglar’s entry, withdraws from the broken window.
For the moment, we could only say that it is most probable either that Dr. Olson went to his death through an open window or that he went through a closed window with a shade drawn in front of it. The lack of lacerations gives only an immeasurable edge to the open window hypothesis.
We turned our attention to the head. It is altogether improbable that Dr. Olson would have gone unresisting to his death if he were conscious of a third person’s trying to force him out the window to a certain death. His resistance or, rather, the reaction to quiet his resistance by such third persons might have left its imprint on the skull of Dr. Olson. Our sights were therefore particularly set on that portion of his anatomy.
Yet before we could go further with these examinations, we must needs establish the identification of the remains as that of Frank Olson. It may seem superfluous for us to have labored to identify the remains from the grave, marked by a toe tag as Frank Olson, as those of Frank Olson, but such are the intrinsic necessities of a scientific investigation. The grave marker was presumptive evidence of his identity and burial location, as was the toe tag attached to the remains in the coffin.
We knew that Dr. Olson had been a pipe smoker, which could be reflected in his teeth, that he might have taken some falls from horseback riding, and that he’d been discharged from the army for an ulcer. These could become helpful for the purpose of solidifying the identification. In exhumations, no stone should be left unturned for there will probably be no future opportunity to revisit an exhumation once the remains are reburied.
Jeff Kercheval rolled the mummified palmar surface of the finger pads after having in fused them with a saline solution to puff up the flesh of the finger pads, and I mikrosiled (a “silly putty” type of material) cast them, both with splendid results, in the hope that ante-mortem fingerprints of Frank Olson in his military records might be retrieved for comparison purposes. However, we were not to be blessed by such good fortune, since his fingerprints if they had ever appeared in his military records had been destroyed long ago.
Jack Frost, our pathologist from West Virginia, performed the autopsy. Jack is an active, wiry man, a contemporary of mine, who has more than once tracked the story of an undetermined death to resolve its particular manner. His instincts are superb and his work ethic exacting and conscientious.
In a full autopsy, the external evaluation consists of examining old injuries, along with tattoos and scars. Trace evidence, such as hairs and fibers, is collected off the body and from under the fingernails. Even the nails are clipped or retained in full.
In the standard autopsy, the pathologist makes a ‘Y’ incision, cutting into the body from shoulder to shoulder, with the arms of the “Y” meeting at the sternum (breast plate) and then going straight down the abdomen to the groin. A saw (often a Stryker saw) is used to cut through the ribs so that the ribcage can be lifted away as one piece from the soft internal organs.
The next step is to take a blood sample from the heart for drug and other subsequent tests, and then start taking the organs out, one by one, to examine and to weigh them. If there is fluid in an organ, it gets drained for a sample, and then the stomach and intestines are opened to examine the contents. We were only interested in the condition of the organs of Dr. Olson for the purpose of assaying injuries to them.
Injuries are generally categorized as blunt-force trauma, gunshot, and sharp-force trauma. In all cases, the number of wounds is recorded and each wound is carefully measured and its characteristics described.
A blunt force injury comes from impact with an object, lacking sharp edges, like a gun butt, a hammer or, in this instance, the 7th Avenue sidewalk. A medical examiner will try to determine the direction of impact, the type of object that caused it, and how often contact was made. A suspect weapon may or may not be available, but if it is, then the wound patterns may be connected to the instrumentality causing them, described as a pattern-type injury.
Sometimes lacerations result, which is a tearing injury from impact and has ragged or abraded edges, often with bruising. There may also be abrasions, or friction injuries that remove superficial layers of skin. Contusions are ruptures of small subcutaneous blood vessels. Crushing wounds result from blunt violence to skin which is close to bone, causing these wounds to bleed into the surrounding tissues.
With gunshot wounds, the coroner looks for distinct patterns that indicate the type of weapon used, where the bullet entered and exited (if it did), and how far from the body the gun was when the shot occurred.
With knife or “incised” wounds, the ME must draw a distinction between cut and stab or puncture wounds, and among different types of piercing implements such as an ice pick or a knife.
Some victims are asphyxiated, which results from cutting off oxygen to the brain. Hanging, obstruction of airways with some object, smothering, or strangulation can cause asphyxia and each has specific manifestations. Carbon monoxide poisoning can also be a cause of death.
After examining and describing wounds for the documentary record, the ME takes swabs from all orifices and cuts pieces from the organs to place on slides for further trace evidence, including firearms, toxicological (poisons), histological (cellular) studies. Samples of hair are taken as well, and if the body has recently died, urine is removed from the bladder for drug testing. The scientific studies following the autopsy can take weeks to months. Consequently, we knew those results would likely be a long time coming.
Finally, we examine the head, first examining the eyes and skin for pinpoint capillary hemorrhages (called petechiae) that may reveal evidence of strangulation. After that, we incise the scalp behind the head and carefully reflect the skin over the face to expose the skull. Using a high-speed oscillating saw, we open the skull and remove the calvarium (the top of the skull above the brow ridges) so we can lift out the brain to examine and weigh it and examine the intra-cranial walls of the skull.
All of this, of course, depends on having a well-preserved body, and organs, which we did.
As Dr. Frost systematically worked his way over the body, it was seen through the x-rays that Olson’s right foot had taken the greatest impact upon colliding with the pavement. There was a small laceration in the bottom of the right heel causing a fracture of the calcaneus (the heel bone). The right tibia (lower leg bone) was massively fractured resulting in its being in two linear pieces. On the left side of the body, there was an indication of hitting something hard with the bottom of the foot.
During all these close and careful scientific perambulations, my overriding concentration was with the goings-on in Olson’s room that might have precipitated his fall from it. If Eric Olson’s suspicions of homicide were correct, then it was possible that Frank Olson had been hit with something in the room and then thrown or dropped out the window. The most likely source revealing such a happening was Olson’s head.
Over the left eye, underneath unbroken skin, was a fist-sized hematoma embedded in the sub-galeal sheath. This sub-galeal hematoma necessarily resulted from the hemorrhage of a blood vessel over the left eye. The flesh in that area of the scalp was intact, having experienced, as best we could tell, neither a laceration nor an incised wound. No fracture of the skull or any other hemorrhage could be directly related to the impact causing this hematoma. In a way it seemed to stand apart and alone. It had not been noted in Dr. Di Maio’s first autopsy report.
Yet Jack Frost thought that if Olson had been hit with a blunt force object in the room, he would expect to find some indication on the skull’s surface. He thought what he found was more consistent with the man’s head hitting a broad, flat, firm obstruction—possibly the window frame or the window’s plate glass itself. However, the size of the injury suggested to me that if Olson hit his head against a wall or window frame first, he would have been unconscious when he took another run at the glass. And if he had butted his head against the glass on his way out, breaking it in the doing, then he’d necessarily had his head up and was looking where he was going with his arms at his sides.
While I didn’t find it entirely unlikely that someone would want to see what was about to happen to him, I did think it unlikely that such a suicidally-minded person would have his arms at his sides, as Jack Frost’s opinion suggested, with his head taking the brunt of the collision with the window. It was improbable that Olson’s exit was as Jack Frost hypothesized especially with the shade drawn and the window closed. Not even Superman has been pictured soaring off into the blue in that fashion.
To get a closer analysis of the bones and flesh, we transported the remains an hour north to Dr. Jack Levisky’s anthropology lab at York College in York, Pennsylvania, where more intensive analysis could be conducted under his supervision.
Chair of the behavioral Sciences Department there, Dr. Levisky is a quiet and unassuming scientist with a lively interest in historical cemeteries in the York county arena. Being located close to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where a fierce four-day battle was waged in 1863 that turned the tide of the American Civil War, he is fully apprized of local efforts in historical preservation
.In Dr. Levisky’s laboratory at York College the remains of Dr. Olsen were kept in a secure vault under lock and key while Jack Levisky and his assistant, Sherry Brown, worked to macerate (deflesh) the bones. With the bones defleshed it would be possible to gain closer insights into the fractures and their patterns and interconnectedness than even the x-rays provided to us. As it happened, some hairline fractures, undetected on the radiographs, were discovered only after inspection of the skeletorized remains. The objectives of the project thus required that the bones be defleshed.
Dr. Levisky’s calculations revealed three separate fracture sites: one was in the upper body, particularly the ribs and shoulders where Olson must have collided with a construction barrier at street level; another in the lower legs as they impacted the sidewalk with the forces of velocity having traveled upward to cause a “book” fracture in the pelvis (opening it like the pages of a book); and dissipating the upward thrust so as to protect the vertebral column from any dislodgement; and thirdly, a horizontally aligned fracture to the right temporal and parietal bones of Dr. Olson’s skull, occasioned in all probability when his head hit the sidewalk after his feet had first struck the pavement and he just toppled over. At the point of impact, the skull was split from right to left across the top of the skull allowing it to be manipulated as if it were hinged.
From our anthropological appraisal, we concluded that in his descent, Dr. Olson’s upper body had first struck an obstruction, and we learned later that a wooden barrier had been in place that night, located along the building wall for sandblasting purposes. It was likely he had struck that, spinning his body about so that he landed feet first on the sidewalk in an almost upright posture. Then he fell like a rag doll to his side, coming to a full stop lying supine on the sidewalk.
Yet nothing had been seen thus far to account for the large hematoma to Olson’s head. It remained for us to assess how and where it had come into existence, because we were convinced it would be signally instrumental in resolving the dispute over whether his death was an accident, a suicide or, worse yet, a homicide.
To assist in our evaluation, we excised the skin around the site of the parietal laceration and studied it microscopically. Viewing it under a stereo microscope left no doubt that this laceration was a unit and not the sum of more than one blow at the same site inflicted at different times or places.
Then we looked for trace elements in the excised tissue that might resolve some of the mystery as to how and where it came in to being. A scanning electron microscope, coupled with energy dispersive X-ray, disclosed the presence of a number of elements, one of which was silicon in a rather high concentration. The element silicon, second only to oxygen in its abundance in the earth’s crust, is a principal component of glass. The supposition surfaced that the laceration showed evidence of a fragment of glass of micron size (one thousandth of a millimeter).
Yet even supposing that this trace of silicon demonstrated the presence of glass, the question remained whether it was glass from the window of Room 1018A or from some other source. And if it were determined to be glass from the window of Room 1018A, there remained a question whether it came to adhere in this laceration when Dr. Olson’s head struck the window of Room 1018A in exiting it or whether it was the broken window glass of Room 1018A already lying on the sidewalk of 7th Avenue when Dr. Olson’s head hit there. Of course it bears mention that it could be random broken glass on the sidewalk having no connection to Dr. Olson’s death.
Since the laceration and its subjacent skull fracture plainly seemed to be linked to a single impact, and since that impact would have to have been a blow well beyond the capacity of a window or its housing to inflict, I believed that the glass in that laceration must have originated from a particle of glass picked up at the street level.
But whether that glass was the window glass of room 1018A or some foreign piece of glass of infinitesimally minute size that had been lying about on the 7th Avenue sidewalk of the Hotel Statler are equally possible, and that issue is a conundrum not answerable by scientific means. We can only infer that the laceration had glass in it and that it came from glass from the sidewalk. Further than this we dare not even hazard a guess.
Our next port of call for identification purposes lay in the teeth. Not having ante-mortem dental X-rays of Frank Olson, how were we to make an acceptable identification? Photographs of Olson showing his teeth through a smiling face were assembled and forwarded to the team’s forensic odontologist, Dr. John McDowell, at the University of Colorado Medical School in Denver. At the same time the actual skull from our exhumation was forwarded to Dr. McDowell. His report of his dental comparisons was thorough and constituted additional strong support for the remains being those of Frank Olson, even though it lacked the element of surprise that his dental expertise revealed from the exhumed teeth of Jesse Woodson James.
While we had no reasonable doubt about the identity of these remains, we decided to go one long stride forward with new technology still on the scientific cusp to attempt a computerized superimposition of the skull to known photographs of Frank Olson. Calling upon the combined services of Dr. Vernon Spitzer, also of the University of Colorado in Denver, and Michael Sellbert of Engineering Animation, Inc, we were able to use computer wizardry to see how the ante-mortem photographs of Olson matched the skull from the grave. These telling results left no further doubt that the remains we had autopsied were those of Dr. Frank Olson to the exclusion of anyone else.
A computer animation of the most likely scenarios for Frank Olson’s fall was to follow after additional on scene measurements based on the recollections of those present at the scene on the occasion of Olson’s death-fall.
Later in June, 1993 I located and visited with Armand Pastore, the Hotel Statler’s assistant night manager in 1953, who had been summoned to Olson’s side. His recollection of the location of Dr. Olson’s body on the sidewalk fronting the hotel was quite fresh and keen, giving us a base from which to synthesize a computer animation of the event. It also provided a backdrop for our reconstructing the scene at the street level of the hotel. He said that when he found Olson, his eyes were open while he was making a supreme effort to speak, but words were only an incomprehensible gurgle. As he lay on his back one of his legs was twisted at a terrible angle. Before a priest and an ambulance arrived, Olson died in Pastore’s arms.
Pastore then went across the street to look at the upper floors from which Olson had doubtlessly fallen. He espied a window shade sticking out through one of the windows in the upper floors — a window that was broken. Having identified the room as 1018A, he proceeded to check the hotel records and found that two people were staying in that room: Frank Olson and Robert Lashbrook. Upon the arrival of the police Pastore escorted them to the tenth floor. As Pastore placed his pass-key into the door, the police drew their guns as a precautionary measure.
Upon the door being opened by Pastore the room, its window broken, appeared to be empty, aswim in cold air. Lashbrook, the other occupant of the room, was found to be sitting in the bathroom on the toilet with his head in his hands. Lashbrook, giving the impression of being befuddled, said he had been sleeping when he awoke to the sound of crashing glass.
Pastore told me that Lashbrook’s statements and behavior disturbed him and led him to doubt the truth of Lashbrook’s recitals. Why hadn’t he called downstairs to the desk to find out about his friend’s condition? Why had he placed a most curious telephone call only to another C.I.A. operative stating only that “he” was “gone”? And why was he just sitting there many removes from any positive action?
Another peculiar aspect of the incident was the condition of the bed in which Olson supposedly had been asleep. The bedclothes were pulled back in a way that was consistent with someone ripping him out of bed forcibly.
His suspicions aroused, Pastore spoke to the hotel’s phone operator, asking if any calls had come from room 1018A. She recalled one call. The man in the room had called a number out on Long Island while she had listened in. When an unidentified person answered, the caller said, “Well, he’s gone.” At the other end the reply was brief and unemotional. “That’s too bad” he said. They then both had both hung up with nothing more being said. This report did nothing to quiet Pastore’s suspicions.
A later report from the C.I.A., which Eric Olson had brought to my attention, disclosed that the operator had overheard a call from Lashbrook to Dr. Harold Abramson’s clinic on Long Island— Abramson was the man charged with overseeing Olson’s treatment in New York City.
Other suspicious circumstances emerged. Olson was rushed into the autopsy room but then they decided not to do a full autopsy. We also learned that the priest who came to the site for the purpose of giving Dr. Olson the Last Rites was quietly moved aside. So there were many aspects of this case that were very suspicious, and they would become even more so.
While interviewing Pastore he showed us the approximate location of a wooden barrier that had been in place at the time Olson fell. It was on the sidewalk in front of the Penn Bar, adjacent to the place where he had found Dr. Olson’s body. I gained confirmation for some of Pastore’s remembrances from another former Hotel Statler employee, employed, upon my meeting with him, at the relocated Penn Bar.He was on duty at the hotel the night of Olson’s death. It was also his recollection that there was a barrier in front of the Penn Bar during steam cleaning of the building’s street level stone facing.
From what Pastore could recall, I determined that Dr. Olson had landed at a particular location on the sidewalk, and he told us that when he looked up, the drapes and shades from 1018A were flapping in the breeze outside the window. This firsthand information fixed the location of Dr. Olson’s fall and enabled us to reverse his travel for reenactment from that point back to the room. We used that information to assist in a reconstruction.
We had a triad of possibilities to consider: that someone in the room had hit Olson and pushed or dropped him out; that he had hit something on the way out or down; and that he had received his injury on the sidewalk. We would use the injury and the information to make this determination.
Two matters of a bioengineering nature that drew our attention deserve separate mention here. The first relates to the speed at which Dr. Olson exited the window of Room 1018A. The other concerns the physical difficulties to be encountered in falling through a closed window or its housing.
The distance from the sidewalk to the windowsill of Room 1018A was about 173 feet as determined by triangulation made by Geologist George Stephens and myself from actual measurements we made onsite. Using Pastore’s information and our measurements, we had the engineers from Engineering Animation, Inc. create a computer simulation of the fall, figuring in the height in feet to room 1018A with the location of the beds in the room and the floor measurements in room 1013A to determine both the horizontal and vertical velocity of Olson’s exiting the room and falling to the street.
It was calculated that for Dr. Olson to have struck the sidewalk-level wooden barrier causing him to land where Pastore said, his exit velocity would have had to have been no more than 1.5 miles per hour, because a greater speed would have propelled his body beyond striking range of the barrier. Consequently, so he had fallen at about half the speed of a normal walker’s pace, hardly running as if his death depended on it. Yet this estimate of horizontal velocity did not shed light on whether Olson went through an open or closed window, or with or without a drawn shade. Those factors would have an impact on his speed in exiting the room. Would one and one-half miles per hour be sufficient speed for him to exit through a closed window? That remained a lingering and unresolved puzzle.
And still the possibility could not be discounted that someone in the room had inflicted a blow to Dr. Olson in the process of stunning him into submission, preparatory to ejecting him from the window, especially if the window was open at the time and broken thereafter to coincide with Lashbrook’s contemporaneous statements.
The next step in our reconstruction efforts was to assay the size of the room, the location of the beds in the room, the height and dimensions of the window, and any obstructions that might have been in front of it. It was within our engineering objectives to seek an answer to the question of the velocity needed to exit the room, whether the window was open or closed at the time. In addition, we learned that the nature and thickness of the window glass, although altered at the time of our on-scene investigations, was identical to that of a window in an upstairs unit at the hotel.
More importantly, the window in 1018A was unchanged in its dimensions from 1953, and even the current radiator that had fronted the window then was now a similarly sized heating unit in the same position. I also learned upon a visit to the window shade’s manufacturer in Alexandria, Virginia, that the shade, if drawn, would have impeded Dr. Olson’s exit making it implausible that he could have exited with it drawn at the time. All of these factors affected our computerized reconstruction of the incident and augmented the complexities and the imponderables of bringing the truth of Dr. Olson’s death to light.
We know that the horizontal divider on this double-hung window was five feet ten inches from the floor of Room 1018A. We accepted as a fact that Dr. Olson himself was five feet ten inches tall, necessitating his bending over to some degree to clear the horizontal bar of the window. Our measurements also revealed that the lower window ledge was thirty-one inches from the floor, requiring a person bent on throwing himself head first through the window to elevate himself and be airborne to clear the ledge. The combination of these two gymnastic feats leaves it highly problematic that striking the window glass or the window’s housing could realistically be said to have been the cause of the hematoma situated just over and traveling to the orbit of the left eye.
To gain a measure of certainty on this matter, we would have to experiment with a number of five-foot-ten inch bodies (or simulations of them in the form of mannequins) hurtling through a window of the dimensions and the location of the one in Room 1018A. Ruefully, no such experiment could be designed with any approach to verisimilitude. No would-be “A” students in any of my classes in law or forensic science were game to be guinea pigs in such an experiment. The one component that we cannot factor into such an experiment and without which such an experiment would be fatally flawed is the agony of disorientation that one must surmise overpowered Dr. Olson if he went through the window by his own unreasoned choice.
We gave serious consideration to whether the hematoma to Dr. Olson’s skull had occurred at the street level when his body, determined to have been traveling in excess of sixty miles per hour, struck one or more hard and unresisting objects. I discussed this matter with Dr. Batterman, our team’s bioengineer, and he left me with the distinct understanding that if this part of Dr. Olson’s frontal bone had come into direct contact with an object at ground level at any speed above eleven miles per hour the frontal bone would have suffered a fracture, and the skin would have been lacerated. None of that having occurred, that possibility seemed to be excluded. In other words, had the hematoma been caused by hitting the sidewalk, there would have been much more damage to the skull than we found.
Regarding this hematoma, however, we must address another matter. Hemorrhages of the head do occur from trauma inflicted at a site removed from the situs of the hemorrhage. Intra-cranial contrecoup hemorrhaging is a classic example, as is the hemorrhaging of the eye from gunshot wounds to the head, resulting in what is known in the parlance of forensic pathologists as “raccoon’s eye.” A contre-coup injury within the intra-cranial vault occurs when the skull has sustained trauma to one side, say in a fall, but the interior hemorrhaging is massed on the opposite side of the intra-cranial vault. The blow to the head creates a wave effect on the brain tissue, causing it to flow to the side of the skull opposite the injury site where hemorrhaging occurs when the moving brain tissue finds no outlet and crashes against the inner table of the skull. A contra-coup hemorrhage is the consequence.
The specific question, then, was whether the sub-galeal hemorrhage over the left eye can reasonably be attributable to the impact to the right parietal bone, resulting in the hinge fracture of the skull.
I noted that the hematoma over Dr. Olson’s left eye did not bear even the remotest resemblance to a hemorrhage resulting from a contrecoup cephalic insult. It was not even remotely similar, and likewise, Olson’s hemorrhage over the frontal bone had no association with the firearms-injury phenomenon that produces a raccoon’s eye. That is not to say that this hematoma could not have resulted from the force fracturing the right parietal bone, only that more than speculation must be demonstrated to reach that conclusion.
I realized full well that the major unresolved mystery continued to be: the large hemorrhage above the left eye. All of the team members agreed that it was most likely that it had occurred as the result of some incident in the room, not from hitting the sidewalk nor in Olson’s descent. The question was, did it happen in the room prior to his going out the window or did it happen at the window when he went out? Given what we knew about Lashbrook’s immediate reaction that night, I thought a straight-forward uncomplicated interpretation was likely to be the correct one. Investigations of suspicious events are justifiably reliant on an Occam’s razor’s approach in reaching their conclusions. When two or more possibilities exist, sometimes even when equally plausible, it is incumbent to adopt that rationale which is the simplest, the most direct and the least convoluted, so Occam’s razor teaches.
Among the few matters on which we can only speculate is the likelihood that the traditional view (at least since 1976) of Dr. Olson’s exiting the window – glass, shade and all – is scientifically and realistically plausible. This is a matter which is just not scientifically testable in view of our not knowing and not being able to reconstruct, if we did know, the state of mind of Dr. Olson as he hurtled head first through the window on his own (or that induced by LSD) misbegotten choice, if such was indeed the case. For myself, I am solidly skeptical of anyone in Dr. Olson’s allegedly distraught state of mind, or even someone of sound mind and memory, clearing a 31-inch high window opening obscured by a drawn shade, all in the darkness of a hotel room at night without having his line of travel so obstructed as to cause the venture to misfire. On this issue, until this query is put to rest by adequate scientific testing, I am a diehard skeptic.
It came time to probe other avenues of possible information on Dr. Olson’s death. Testing for the presence of drugs in the bodily tissues and the hair of Dr. Olson was a first order of our scientific sequelae following the autopsy. But what drugs or their metabolites should we seek to discover?
Self-evidently LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) was at the very top of our list, but other drugs were on it as well. With all the outrage over the C.I.A.’s LSD experimentation, little attention has been paid to the government’s testing of other drugs, many of which also have hallucinogenic affects–some like benztropine, or BZ, ever more potent in even smaller doses than LSD.
After a thorough perusal of the various available Freedom of Information documents of the C.I.A.’s drug experiments, I narrowed the field of candidates for our drug testing to tetrahydrocannabinol (the active ingredient in marijuana), mescaline, morning glory, radioactive LSD, LSD and benztropine. Highlighting these drugs or drug sources, I personally delivered a variety of well-preserved, carefully logged and continuously refrigerated bodily tissues harvested by Dr. Frost to Dr. Yale Caplan, one of our forensic toxicologists who had established a private, commercial toxicology lab in Baltimore. Hairs from a number of bodily locations on Dr. Olson, some fitted with a root structure, were also submitted to Dr. Caplan.
His written report came back to me in two parts, with the LSD testing considered separately from other therapeutic or abused substances. The testing of bodily tissues for substances other than LSD was negative. The LSD testing of these tissues through radio-immunoassays (RIA) was deemed inconclusive. I telephoned Dr. Bruce Goldberger, Dr. Caplan’s associate and the man from whose testing these results were derived. From him I learned that the RIA tests had all given positive results for the presence of LSD in the tissues. However, he added, these results were so unusually uniform as to be considered unreliable. Something about the RIA kits was deemed to be plainly out of whack.
Dr. Goldberger, a toxicologist with the University of Florida and an internationally recognized toxicologist, recommended further confirmatory testing at the one location that possessed the knowledge and the technique sufficient to give a firm determination. However, this added testing would cost a minimum of $2000. I knew that if the Olson sons had only a vendetta against the C.I.A., the report of inconclusive results which we had in hand would add a dollop of scientific certainty to their anger leaving them disinclined to go further with drug testing, but much to their credit they agreed to fund the new testing. This proved their stated interest in getting to the root cause of their father’s death, whether the findings implicated the C.I.A. or not in something more nefarious than an accidental death.
On my instruction, Dr. Goldberger forwarded selected bodily tissue samples to Dr. Rodger Foltz at Northwest Toxicology in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dr Foltz is an eminent toxicologist well versed in the use of gas chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry to assay the presence of LSD in bodily tissues. His report confirmed the absence of any traces of LSD in the submitted samples. Happily the extraction process had hit no snags. The detection limits set by Dr. Foltz for his analysis were so low that it can be said with no hint of uncertainty that those tissues were, at the time of testing, devoid of any evidence of LSD.
Having said as much, however, is most definitely, not an affirmation of the lack of LSD in those tissues at the time of Dr. Olson’s death in 1953, or prior to it. The dosage of LSD concededly administered to Dr. Olson was so miniscule—70 micrograms, according to CIA project director Dr. Sidney Gottlieb; the half-life of LSD is so short (only a few hours at the outside), and the liability of LSD in embalmed tissues over time is so unknown that not finding LSD is absolutely non-probative on the issue of whether Dr. Olson had ingested the substance in 1953.
At every turning this investigation brought new issues to light to burden and perplex us. One of these perturbing matters was the question of Dr. Olson’s mental stability prior to the Deep Creek experiment on November 19, 1953. According to an undated statement made by Lt. Col. Vincent Ruwet, Olson’s supervisor at then Camp Detrick, “during the period prior to the experiment my opinion of his state of mind was that I noticed nothing which would lead me to believe that he was of unsound mind.” This assessment was said by Colonel Ruwet to be founded on professional opinions and C.I.A. contacts with Dr. Olson and his family, which he described as “intimate” over a two and a half year period prior to Dr. Olson’s death.
Similarly Dr. John Schwab, another of Dr. Olson’s supervisors at Camp Detrick, gave a statement from the perspective of one who knew Dr. Olson both over a long period of time and at home and in the office, that “(h)is general state of mind and outlook on life was always that of extreme optimism. Never was there any indication of pessimism.”
On the contrary Lyman Kirkpatrick would report on December 1, 1953 that in a conversation with Dr. Willis Gibbons, a higher-up in the C.I.A., Gibbons indicated that, “Olson had a history of mental disturbances.” His source for this knowledge was not revealed.
In piecing out the puzzle of the reasons for Dr. Olson’s death, the state of his mental health prior to and at the time of his surreptitiously being given LSD is of prime importance. Mental health professionals recognize that in certain persons suffering from mental distress the ingestion of LSD can have consequences that are reflected in altered personality traits and behavior. Yet the weight of the evidence from friends, the family and professional colleagues of Dr. Olson is that he was outgoing, even extroverted, a family man devoted to his children and in all respects a well-balanced individual prior to the night of November 19, 1953 at Deep Creek. But Dr. Gibbons and the C.I.A. in questionable apologies following Olson’s death would have us believe otherwise.
A well-documented effect of LSD use in some persons is the occurrence of flashbacks, days and even months after the LSD has been taken. However the voluminous literature on the hallucinogenic effects of LSD, compiled from a time before that of Dr. Timothy Leary, the LSD guru of his time, to the present, demonstrates well-nigh conclusively that during flashbacks LSD users do not commit violent acts such as throwing themselves through a closed window. Even a Government study commissioned on account of Dr. Olson’s death and published by the Government Printing Office makes a telling point – a point not in any degree compromised by more recent experience – that LSD flashbacks are a rarity and that during such flashbacks violence is all but non-existent.
Of course violent, and even self-destructive, acts are not uncommon in the immediate aftermath of LSD use, while “tripping,” as it is colloquially said. The death of Diane Linkletter, daughter of celebrity Art Linkletter, reportedly occurred while she was in the grip of LSD and not during a flashback—although it is difficult to say which is which in the case of an LSD habitué.
Is it possible, then, that in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 28, 1953, in Room 1018A of the Hotel Statler in New York City that Frank Olson’s body and mind were so possessed by a dose of LSD that he was given that night which precipitated his exiting the 13th floor window to his death? That possibility is not as fantastical as it might at first blush appear to be.
More searching and additional questing lay before me.
According to Colonel Ruwert’s further recollections in 1953 he journeyed to New York City with Dr. Olson on the Tuesday prior to Olson’s death for an emergency visit to Dr. Harold Abramson, a medical doctor who had a grant-in-aid from a C.I.A. cover organization to engage in LSD experimentation, using it as an adjunct to psychotherapy on “abnormal” or mentally disturbed persons. According to Ruwet, Abramson prescribed the use of “sedatives” and a “high-ball” to relieve Olson’s mental distress. Later in the evening of that same Tuesday, Abramson visited Olson’s hotel room and “brought a bottle of bourbon and some Nembutal for Dr. Olson. After “a couple of high-balls,” Abramson left, recommending “to Dr. Olson that he should take a Nembutal which he did at the time and that Dr. Olson take another should he have difficulty sleeping.”
Medicating Dr. Olson with two interacting central nervous system depressants had the real potential of killing him, as columnist Dorothy Kilgallen learned to her fatal distress. What sort of medical practitioner would prescribe with such reckless abandon?
We know that Dr. Harold Abramson was a true believer, in the Eric Hoffer sense, in the value of LSD in psychotherapy for disturbed persons. The literature of his writing on that theme is bountiful, even up to 1975, when the use of LSD had been long prohibited by Federal criminal statutes. It is known also that in 1953, he was under contract with the C.I.A. to experiment with LSD on his mental patients.
Although Dr. Abramson is now deceased, it appeared from the C.I.A. files still available, that his associate Dr. Margaret Ferguson was still alive in 1993. However, my assistant’s phone call to her was abruptly terminated by her. When it was mentioned that the call related to the death of Dr. Olson, she was unwilling to discuss the matter of Dr. Abramson’s treatment of Dr. Olson’s or his experiments with LSD or her knowledge or involvement in it.
The extant record of Dr. Abramson’s commitment to LSD in psychotherapy and his ministrations to Dr. Olson trembles with the disquieting possibility that Dr. Abramson might have given Dr. Olson an additional dose of LSD, under a misguided belief that it would relieve his symptoms of depression. That dose might have catapulted him to his death.
For myself, however, the likelihood of Dr. Abramson’s direct involvement in the death of Dr. Olson is less plausible than that it was the outcome of the C.I.A.’s own calculated misdeeds. Not only does the paper record do more than whisper of this possibility, but the statements and silence of persons privy to insider information on the matter who were interviewed or sought to be interviewed by me reinforce that conviction.
I am fully cognizant of the dread scourge of non-involvement that causes many people to play the clam when information is sought. I am also aware that there are those who refuse to speak because they view the subject under inquiry as too well rung to have any value in pursuing yet another time. Notwithstanding these purported justifications for silence, there are those whose intimate knowledge of critical details imposes upon them a singular duty to speak. Thus, their refusal can legitimately be read as evidence of concealment, and conceivably, even more incriminating mirrorings.
Dr. Margaret Ferguson was not the only one who refused to be interviewed. Vincent Ruwet, both a supervisor of Olson and his supposed friend, also adamantly refused to enter into a dialogue on the death of Dr. Olson. His reiterated one-liner to me during my telephone call was “I have nothing to say on the matter.”
Yet I did find people who would talk, though there were major frustrations in the doing.
Retired New York City Patrolman Joseph Guastafeste (meaning a “good feast,” as he told me while preening himself, but the correct translation would be “wasted or ruined feast”) took a different tack and talked a blue streak, but his uncommunicativeness on Dr. Olson’s death was just as indefatigable as that of Colonel Ruwet. He authored the first police report on the death of Dr. Olson and, therefore, presumptively, was the first police officer on the beat to respond to the alarm of a man’s having fallen. My letter to the New York City police department’s pension division seeking to contact him was forwarded to him but I received no reply from him.
However, I was not to be deterred or flummoxed by this administrative impenetrability. My unflagging investigator, Gary Eldredge, located Guastafeste through driver’s license and vehicle registrations as having homes both in New York and in Florida. While attending a scientific convention in Orland, Florida, I decided to rent a car and pay a surprise visit to the former patrolman at his west coast Florida retreat. As it turned out my knock at his door went unanswered. The neighbors, however, said Gustafeste was only momentarily absent. So I hid out at a nearby Hooter’s, courtesy of a CBS camera crew, who were following me about.
Upon my returning to Gustafeste’s home in the darkness I noted a light was on in the dimly lighted interior. I was beginning to sense that I was approaching a fog-laden back alley in a London byway.
With a mike concealed in my pocket connected to the CBS camera crew across the street, I knocked imploringly on Gustafeste’s door. “Who’s there?” came a gruff and uninviting male voice. “A professor investigating the death of Dr. Frank Olson,” I gently responded. Suddenly a female voice interjected “I knew they’d find you some day. Don’t let him in.”
That voice having had its strongly voiced say the door was opened and Joseph Gustafeste stepped out on the porch having turned on a bare bulb over my head. As the curtains fluttered on a window next to the front door, Gustafeste shut the door and turned his imposing full seventy year old frame toward me. “What do you want?” he said with emphasis on each word. “Your remembrances of Dr. Olson’s death in a fall from the Hotel Statler in November 1953 is what brings me to you,” I answered in an unquavering voice.
Guastafeste professed to remember little of the events at the time of his investigation into Olson’s death. He did confirm night manager Armond Pastore’s statement that Olson was still breathing as he lay on the sidewalk. On matters of more vital moment, such as what Lashbrook’s statement or behavior might have been when confronted in room 1018A, his memory went blank and immovably so. As he explained it to me, he was just a “dumb cop.”
I cannot comment on that, except to say that his memory was obviously very selective, sometimes showing crystal clarity and sometimes mired in opacity. His failure to recall whether he kept a record of the event in his patrolman’s notebook was a challenge to his credibility as was his memory lapse on whether this was the one and only jumper he had investigated. Inexplicable silence during an interview comes in many tones and hues. A failure to recall is but one dubious kind.
Dr. Robert Lashbrook was to be next in my investigative sights. No devious or long-term tracking was necessitated in this instance. One telephone call said it all. And that all was a most disturbing revelation.
Many persons with insider information whom I contacted were more or less generous with their time. Dr. Lashbrook, then retired from the C.I.A., permitted a member of my team to question him at some length over the telephone. The most important new and unexpected revelation from Lashbrook was his contradicting all the previous reports of what had caused him to awaken when Olson plummeted to his death.
It was not as the Church Committee and the New York City Police Report and all the many other reports, including his own signed report, had said that “a crash of glass” had cast his sleep aside. It was rather the noise of the window shade spinning in its upper housing. As to whether the glass had been broken at all, he asserted he had no recollection, even though the New York City Police report had simply repeated his own recitals that he had heard “a crash of glass” and he admitted to having gone to the window, put his head outside it, and viewed the body of what he surmised was Dr. Olson on the sidewalk below. In addition his signed statement to the C.I.A. on December 7, 1953 speaks of Olson having exited through a closed window. Moreover Lashbrook’s remembrance of the window-shade’s snapping back into its housing was out of joint with Armond Pastore’s oft-repeated recollection of the shade’s having been pushed through the window’s broken glass.
Moreover my prior interview with Lyman Kirkpatrick, a long-time manufacturer of window shades, left me with little doubt that a shade of the type fitted to the window of room 1018A would not snap back to its housing if a body had struck it full-tilt.
Was Lashbrook’s memory playing tricks on him, or was he playing hob with the truth of the matter? Clearly his statements must be considered to be the most self-serving of all, since he was the last person known to have seen Dr. Olson before he plunged to his death and it was he who was charged with supervising Olson’s well-being.
I had yet one more interview to pursue, and that was with Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the man reported to have been instrumental in the death of Patrice Lumumba in South Africa. It turned out to be the most mind-bending of all the interviews I had conducted in this investigation.
My meeting with him took place in his home near Culpepper, Virginia, early on a Sunday morning as the sun was peeking over the eastern horizon. Hearing of this impending interview Eric Olson had cautioned me, a genuine smile creasing his face, not to “drink his coffee.” I did and lived to drink more on another day.
I had almost been foiled in this opportunity by my initial attempt to engage him in conversation unannounced with CBS cameramen in the background. That encounter came to naught because of his distress over the presence of the media. However on his initiative in telephoning me at my office, a later meeting was scheduled at which he demanded the right to question me for one hour in return for my interviewing him for an equal period of time. A most uncommon request, but one to which I acceded. His stipulations made me make haste to sit in his presence, the presence, as it appeared, of a most curious man with a puzzling mind.
Even though I had my tape recorder in my pocket at our meeting, I judged it best not to seek my interviewee’s permission to turn it on remitting myself to four pages of handwritten notes and a contemporaneous transcription of them into my tape recorder as I motored home after our meeting.
My over-all assessment of this interview was not at all favorable to Dr. Gottlieb. His undue concern over my investigation and its findings evidenced more than idle curiosity. His reaction to the glare of the rising sun’s blinding me like an interrogation lamp causing me to seek to move to another chair out of the sun’s bright light had C.I.A. written all over it. Instead of my moving to another chair at the table he politely insisted that I relocate the same chair upon which I had been sitting up to then. Query: was the chair “bugged” or was my Robert Redford movie viewers idea of the C.I.A. verging on paranoia? His explanations for his actions both before and after Olson’s death were at least unsatisfactory and at most incredible.
For example, when I asked whether any of the eight unwitting participants in the LSD experiment had been pre-screened for any medical disabilities that might put them at risk, he unhesitatingly said, “No.” When I inquired whether any medical personnel had been in attendance at the Deep Creek meeting in the eventuality that some one of the LSD subjects would have an untoward reaction requiring immediate medical attention, he again replied, “No.” Yet his own prior use of LSD, which he openly admitted, had not been so devoid of medical supervision.
Other questions gave rise to answers sufficient to stand plausibility on its head. Had he shredded documents relevant to this matter? “Sure” was his immediate reply.
“But why,” I rejoined?
So that those documents would not be “misunderstood,” he answered.
Misunderstood? Or was it rather necessary to destroy them so that they would not be understood, I silently mused?
When I asked what action he had first taken upon being apprised by Lashbrook of Olson’s death, he said he called his boss, Dr. Gibbons, to arrange a meeting at 5 A.M. that very morning. In reply to my raised eyebrows and my inquiry as to the purpose for such a meeting with such urgency, he said the meeting was designed to be “informational.”
As he spoke my mind raced with a stream of unvoiced questions. Informational, and not to plot to cover the tracks of persons responsible for Dr. Olson’s death? If informational only, why the rush to have an immediate meeting? If not a deliberate effort to present a united front in the event of a skeptical and official inquiry, why not wait until regular business hours for the “informational” meeting?
Probably the most unsettling, even unnerving moment in my conversation with Dr. Gottlieb occurred toward its close when he spontaneously sought to enlighten me on a matter of which I might not take due notice—so he thought. He pointedly explained that in 1953 the Russian menace was quite palpable and that it was potentially worsened by the Russians’ having cached many kilograms of LSD from the Sandoz laboratory in Switzerland.
Listening awe-struck to him as I gazed at a picture of South African Bishop Tutu on the wall, I was emboldened to ask “how he could so recklessly and cavalierly have jeopardized the lives of so many of his own men by the Deep Creek Lodge experiment with LSD.”
“Professor,” he said without mincing a word, “you just do not understand. I had the security of this country in my hands.” He did not say more, nor need he have done so nor did I, dumb-founded, offer a rejoinder. The means-end message was pellucidly clear. Risking the lives of the unwitting victims of the Deep Creek experiment was simply the necessary means to a greater good, the protection of the national security.
And that was my final interview in this deeply disturbing investigation. I realized then that my professional ivory-tower had not equipped me for the C.I.A.’s world of feints, flaws and foibles.
The original plan was to rebury Frank Olson at Mount Olivet Cemetery beside his wife, Alice, in July 1994, but instead his remains were stored for possible re-examination. The bones lay in pieces in boxes under lock and key in my office at GW, and the soft flesh was placed in a vault in storage at York College. These are the places where Olson’s remains were deposited for eight years while Eric pursued further avenues of investigation. Not even the presentation of my team’s scientific and investigative findings at the National Press Club on November 28, 1994, closed the door to the emergence of new eye-opening details. It was the day following the National Press Club’s public disclosure of our work and findings that I received a telephone call from Dr. Robert Gibson, a retired psychiatrist, who indicated that his memory had been jogged by his reading the newspaper accounts of my Olson labors.
Dr. Gibson informed me that he had been the psychiatrist on duty at the Chestnut Lodge hospital in Rockville, Maryland when Lashbrook, without identifying himself, had called from New York City just hours before Dr. Olson died. He told me he could never forget that call although so many years had passed because he was also the recipient of a second phone call the next morning from Dr. Lashbrook stating that Dr. Olson had died in New York City and, therefore, he would not be coming to Chestnut Lodge Hospital.
Dr. Gibson explained that the affair was still vivid in his memory because he grieved over the fact that he had dissuaded Dr. Lashbrook from journeying with Dr. Olson to the hospital on the night of the first phone call. His recommendations against hospitalization had been voiced when Dr. Lashbrook had insisted that Olson was then no danger to himself or to others.
Upon my inquiring about the conversation between him and Dr. Lashbrook on the morning of Olson’s death, I was stunned to hear yet another conflicting account from Lashbrook of the occurrence. Dr. Gibson affirmed that Lashbrook had said he awakened to find Olson standing in the middle of the hotel room. He had tried to speak to Olson, but Olson had run straight toward the window, through it and to his death. But Lashbrook had not said a word about whether the window was closed, whether the shade was drawn or otherwise. However, I now had another conflicting view of the last moments in the life of Frank Olson. And this latest account came from the recollections of an unimpeachable reporter, a psychiatrist of impeccable credentials who had gone on to become the director of the esteemed Sheppard, Enoch and Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. This telephone call was memorialized by me in a subsequent taped interview with Dr. Gibson at the Sheppard, Enoch and Pratt Hospital.
That same year, Eric and Nils retained attorney Harry Huge, based in Washington, D.C., to represent them in their effort to re-open the case and instigate a criminal investigation. They had high hopes of suing the government for misrepresentation or concealment of the facts. Huge drafted a fifteen-page memorandum in support of their position. That memorandum, together with the urging of others, persuaded New York’s District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, to re-open the investigation. He assigned the case to Stephen Saracco and Daniel Bibb, seasoned prosecutors on the “cold cases” unit. They immediately began to run down leads, and were surprised to learn that the C.I.A. had not turned over to my team Olson’s fingerprints or dental records. They also noted my interview with Gottlieb and my unshakeable feeling that he was concealing information.
In addition, it was at least odd that C.I.A. Director William Colby had produced documents about Olson’s projects that Gottlieb had testified before Congress in 1977 were destroyed. At that time he had asked for immunity, but Saracco was not sure why he would do so, nor why so much material had been redacted from the Olson files. They looked more closely at several aides-de-memoirs that the Olson’s had not accessed believing they held the key to why Frank Olson had been considered a security hazard.One of these memos indicated that Olson had been associated with what it dubbed “un-American” groups. The message was cryptic, but it characterized Frank Olson as having “no inhibitions.”
Saracco and Bibb decided to interview William Colby, Vincent Ruwet, Robert Lashbrook, and Sidney Gottlieb. They mailed letters to Ruwet and Colby. Within days, Colby suddenly turned up missing. He left a computer running in his home, a glass of wine on the table, and the lights and radio on. It was a mystery, solved a week later when searchers found his decomposing remains on a Chesapeake Bay island. His death was ruled an accidental drowning when water swamped his canoe.
Saracco and Bibb did manage to meet with Ruwet in Frederick, Maryland, as reported by H.P. Albarelli, and they found him skillfully evasive. They decided to set up a second meeting to explore further what he had said, but on November 16, Vincent Ruwet suffered a fatal heart attack.
Lashbrook, now 80, refused to respond to the request for an interview, so the DA’s office issued a subpoena. Lashbrook refused it. Saracco and Bibb flew to meet him in California, but he would only talk in the presence of an attorney, which resulted in his stone walling all the questions asked.
Gottlieb was another matter. Even as they were seeking an interview, they learned that he was being sued in civil court by the family of an aspiring artist whom he had allegedly drugged with LSD in Paris in 1952. The incident had made this man unstable and had ruined his life, so it was alleged, possibly precipitating his early death. The situation was consistent with the CIA’s surreptitious drugging of hundreds of unwitting American citizens as part of their Cold War experiments. At Senate hearings on the matter in 1977, Gottlieb had stated that these were risks worth taking for the sake of national security, the same position he had expressed to me at our one and only meeting.
With this information in hand, Saracco and Bibb prepared to see him. He had told reporters in the past that he was not going to discuss Frank Olson any further. Nevertheless, the attorneys prepared a draft of a letter to him. On that same day, Gottlieb died from a heart attack.
A bit befuddled and bemused, the prosecutors turned their attention to David Berlin, who had investigated the C.I.A. in 1975 and had brought Frank Olson’s LSD dosing to public attention. They wanted to know the wherewithal of those details. Prophetically enough, before they could make contact with him, Berlin fell in a hotel room and died from head injuries.
Eric Olson, always on the qui vive for new information, discovered that in the assassination training unit of the Israeli Mossad, the Olson case was used as an example of the perfect murder. Eventually investigative essayist H.P. Albarelli came to Olson in his research into the case. He had contacts among C.I.A. agents in Florida, he said, and some of them had told him they knew who had killed Frank Olson in Room 1018A that night. It was his belief that the perpetrators were contract killers associated with a mob family and the C.I.A. had hired them to do their dirty work. However, these agents refused to spill the details without the C.I.A.’s releasing them from their confidentiality agreements, and that never happened.
Then in 1997, Eric obtained a copy of the C.I.A.’s 1953 assassination manual, now declassified. In it, the scenario promoted for “contrived accident” murder precisely fit like the key that would unlock the door the mystery of Frank Olson is death — so much so that the only question remaining was whether his murder was the paradigm for the manual or whether the manual offered the blueprint for his death. That manual clearly suggested disguising a murder as a suicide by dropping the subject from a high window or roof. It also suggested that the perpetrator then play the “horrified witness,” and that drugs be used for the subject’s preparation. If the subject had to be controlled, blows to the temple or behind the ear were said to be effective means of silencing him.
That manual certainly might explain why the C.I.A. had taken an allegedly psychotic man to a hotel room situated on a high floor rather than to a safe house or hospital. It would also explain the low exit velocity that allowed Olson to hit the wooden impediment on the sidewalk below. That is exactly what would have transpired if he had been dropped rather than propelled through the window.
Through an unnamed source, the DA’s office learned that at the Deep Creek meeting, Olson had been given LSD mixed with Meretran, a drug that made people talk more freely. This confirmed the document from Dr. Abramson, written a few weeks after Olson’s death, that the drug had been used to set a trap. He had also told Army researchers that Olson’s death had been in the wake of security breaches by him following his 1953 trip overseas, and that only two people knew the complete story about it. One of them had received a substantial sum of money in the month of Olson’s death for “services rendered.” So had Abramson.
It was learned that an agent who had gone to New York immediately after Olson’s death had listened to a conversation between Lashbrook and Abramson that clearly concerned their conspiring to devise a report to the effect that Olson’s mental state had been deteriorating. But that was not all. Even more frightful discoveries were aborning.
The Olsons discovered documents in Michigan’s Gerald Ford Library that indicated that the government had been extremely concerned upon learning that Frank Olson’s family was questioning the official explanation of his death. The government feared that highly classified information was at stake and that a court might grant full discovery, including information on the nature of Olson’s work. That had to be avoided at any cost. As Eric Olson surmised, “In the wake of the Nuremburg trials in the late 1940s, the United States could not afford to be exposed as a sponsor of the sort of research it had prosecuted the Nazis for undertaking.”
While these myriad investigations were occurring around me, I was not quiescent. At the urging of Eric and Harry Huge I took a train to New York City accompanied by Olson’s boxed skull. Traveling with human skeletal remains in tow always leaves me, as Albert Camus said on another subject, “strangely aching.” I cannot leave the skull out of sight but at the same time I cannot treat it in away to generate suspicions. After all, what would the prying eyes say to my explanation that I was carrying it to the New York City Medical Examiner for his inspection.
Upon arriving in New York City I had my usual professional difficulty of finding my way successfully from Point A, Grand Central Station, to Point B, the District Attorney office where I was to meet a member of the Medical Examiner’s staff. Finding myself lost in the warrens of lower Manhattan I happened by chance upon a police station where I asked for directions. The directions were forthcoming and very accommodating, even to the point of a uniformed officer’s volunteering to show me the way even to the extent of carrying the box with the skull for me. The police officer was most courteous and pointed to my being somewhat over burdened, as he said, for a man of my years with the items I was lugging about with me. Needless to say I declined his offer, not wanting to be exposed as a possible follower of Milwaukee’s cannibalistic killer Jeffrey Dahmer who collected the skulls of his victims.
I made my way unescorted to the District Attorney’s office, where by happenstance I met Patricia Cornwall who said she was there researching material for a book. “What brought you here?” she asked.
“Oh,” I said, “just a skull session with an assistant medical examiner.”
She inquired no further nor did I volunteer anything more.
My meeting with the assistant medical examiner was most unsatisfactory. He entered the meeting with a negative frame of mind, wondering aloud why such a “cold case” would be deserving of his or anyone’s attention. It was, therefore, not unexpected that he would down-play the significance of the sizeable blood stain on the skull over Olson’s left eye. As he put it, the staining could have come about post-mortem. When I asked for his experiential evidence that such a thing had happened in some reported case or cases involving an exhumation many years after the fact, the answer was one that no true scientist would tender. “Everyone knows that to be the case,” he said. I could have asked, but, getting the drift of the position he had taken, I pretermitted asking whether he was telling me that bleeding continued after death even for thirty-six years after the fact.
Here was a pathologist who wanted a smoking gun, not a skull with a massively blood-stained frontal bone, to induce him to declare the manner of death a homicide. I wondered, to myself, with that attitude controlling his decision-making, how many murderers had escaped their just deserts in New York City on his watch.
Foiled and frustrated I made a quick but courteous departure and in my abstracted frame of mind took a taxi back to Grand Central Station.
Early in 2001, Harry Huge reportedly expected the DA’s office to declare Olson’s death a murder, which would free the Olsons to file a substantial lawsuit. However, things began to crumble and by the end of the year, Eric discerned that the DA’s office had retrenched on their efforts. Notwithstanding, the DA’s men had learned that two men had gone into Olson’s room the night of his death. Unfortunately, these men were untraceable at this late date. The C.I.A. denied any knowledge of them, but one man appeared to be related to several assassination cases, and therefore no one was going to talk.
I had thought all along of the possibility of the presence of a third person in room 1018A when Olson exited it. Such a third person could have been positioned to enter from the room next door through a door from that room to room 1018A. The hotel management had refused my request to disclose the identity of any person resident on November 27, 1953 in the adjoining room. It was said not to be the hotel’s policy to reveal the names of its guests since they might be temporarily resident there, shall we say, under circumstances possibly compromising their marital vows or otherwise.
More was yet in the offing.
In the spring of 2001, Norman Cournoyer, who had been a close friend of Olson’s and a colleague at Detrick, contacted the Olson brothers. He had seen the published accounts of the investigations and believed that something was missing. He pointed out that Olson had witnessed harsh interrogations of former Nazis and Soviet spies, and that sometimes these persons had died as a result of those procedures. Olson had heard it said that, despite official denials, the American government had used biological weapons in Korea during the Korean “Conflict.” Alice Olson had said that Frank, her husband, had expressed distress over this possibility, but she had not known if he actually knew anything.
On September 12, 2001, Harry Huge suddenly bowed out. He was swamped with too many other cases, he said. Disappointed, Eric found it difficult acquiring another attorney to take the lead. He decided the time had come to close the case and to rebury his father. He called me in mid-July 2002 to obtain the return of his father’s remains. After eight years of his presence in my office I parted with them with mixed emotions.
On the day before the funeral, Eric and his family held a press conference to call finis to everything he had learned to anyone who was interested. The Olson family had written a twenty-three-page statement for the media, reminding everyone that it had been forty-one years since their father’s death, twenty-seven years since the government had offered what they said was the truth, and eight years since the exhumation.
It was their belief, although they had no smoking gun, that their father had been murdered to keep him from disclosing information about a secret C.I.A. program, and that the story of a “bad trip” on LSD had been concocted either as a cover-up for his murder or as a cloak that concealed the dagger they had figuratively used to kill him.
On August 9, 2002, I went in the company of team members Jack Frost and Jack Levisky to Mount Olivet Cemetery on Market Street in Frederick, Maryland, for Dr. Olson’s reburial beside his wife Alice. It had been eight years since we had exhumed his remains and more than time had passed since that time. Nils and Eric had discussed with me the possibility of cremating the remains of their father. I prevailed on them not to do so for the sake of Alice, their mother, and for the solace they would take in knowing the investigation was not ended, only interrupted by the reburial.
In Mount Olivet Cemetery, which dates its first interment to 1854, lay hundreds of soldiers from both sides of the Civil War, as well as veterans from the past century’s world wars. Eight miles of paved roads run past more than 34,000 graves. Also the impressive monument to Francis Scott Key, who wrote “The Star Spangled Banner,” stood tall and erect there.
At the funeral, attended by several dozen relatives, friends of the family, and members of my team, the remains were lowered into the ground for what could be their final rest.
From my view and that of the clear majority of my team members, with all the other investigative details, as well as what we found scientifically, Dr. Olson’s death was not a suicide. The probabilities, taken together, strongly and relentlessly suggest that it was a homicide.
In the present state of our factual knowledge about the death of Dr. Olson, I would venture to say that the sub-galeal hematoma is singular evidence of the possibility that Dr. Olson was struck a stunning blow to the head by some person or instrument prior to his exiting through the window of Room 1018A, a person or persons with a homicidal frame of mind The convergence of this physical evidence from our scientific investigations with the results of our non-scientific inquiries raises this possibility from the merely possible to the realm of real and incontestable probability.
The documentary evidence from 1953 demonstrates a concerted pattern of concealment and deception on the part of those persons and agencies most closely associated with–and most likely to be accountable for–a homicide most foul in the death of Dr. Olson. And the steeled reluctance to be honest, forthright and candid by persons with knowledge of the occurrence on matters pivotal to the question of homicide or suicide bespeaks an involvement more sinister than mere unconcern, arrogance or even negligence. The confluence of scientific fact and investigative fact points unerringly to the death of Frank Olson as being a homicide, deft, deliberate and diabolical.
A father lost
By Scott Shane
Baltimore Sun,
page one, “Perspectives” section
Since 1953, Eric Olson has heard more than one explanation for his father’s mysterious death. Now he believes it was murder.
He was 9 years old when his mother woke him before dawn half a century ago in Cold War America. Eric Olson came blinking into the living room of their Frederick home, where his father’s boss and friend, Col. Vincent Ruwet, sat with the family doctor.
“Everybody had this stony-faced expression,” Olson recalls. “I remember Ruwet saying, ‘Your father was in New York and he had an accident. He either fell out the window or jumped.'”
After decades of dogged inquiry, Eric Olson now has a new verb for what happened to his father, Frank Olson, who worked for the Army’s top-secret Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, where he developed bioweapons and experimented with mind-control drugs.
Eric Olson found the verb in a 1950s CIA manual that was declassified in 1997 – one more clue in a quest that has consumed his adult life.
The verb is “dropped.” And the manual is a how-to guide for assassins.
“The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface,” the manual says, adding helpfully: “It will usually be necessary to stun or drug the subject before dropping him.”
Eric Olson believes his father – who developed misgivings about his work and tried to resign – was murdered by government agents to protect dark government secrets.
To find out what happened in the Statler Hotel on the night of Nov. 28, 1953, Eric once spent a sleepless night in the room from which his father fell. He confronted his father’s close-mouthed colleagues. He had his father’s mummified body exhumed. And he built a circumstantial case that Frank Olson was the victim of what he calls a “national security homicide.”
The government has long denied the charge of murder. But it has admitted what might be called negligent manslaughter. Its version: that Frank Olson crashed through the window in a suicidal depression nine days after he was given LSD without his knowledge in a CIA mind-control experiment.
Eric never bought that argument. His devotion to the case derailed a promising career as a clinical psychologist that began with a doctorate from Harvard. In some Frederick circles, you’ll hear disapproving murmurs about Eric’s obsession – contrasted with the success of his younger brother, Nils, a dentist. But Nils Olson, 55, says he admires his brother’s tenacity and agrees with his conclusion.
“At every point there seems to be a convergence of the evidence,” Nils Olson says. “It all points to my father’s being murdered.”
The patriotic community surrounding Fort Detrick has long been reluctant to believe such a possibility. Once, Eric Olson says, he was, too.
“I’m not essentially conspiratorial in my worldview,” says the lanky psychologist, who seems almost boyish at 59. “In my father’s case, I just started turning over stones, and there was a snake under every one.”
It may well be that Olson is wrong – that the government merely drugged his father with LSD, treated him thoughtlessly when he fell into madness and covered it up for 22 years. But if Frank Olson was murdered, then part of the plan would naturally be a cover-up.
“No assassination instructions should ever be written or recorded,” says the CIA assassination manual. “Decision and instructions should be confined to an absolute minimum of persons.”
It adds: “For secret assassination … the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it causes little excitement and is only casually investigated.”
Whether the truth is homicide or suicide induced by a reckless drug experiment, the Olson saga is a cautionary tale in an era that echoes the early days of the Cold War. In the war on terror, America again appears tempted to use extreme measures.
In Olson’s case, it took the government until 1975 to admit to the LSD experiment. When an investigation of CIA abuses exposed the facts in 1975, two White House aides named Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld helped set up a meeting at which President Gerald Ford apologized to the Olson family.
The goal, according to a declassified White House memo, was to avert a lawsuit in which it “may become apparent that we are concealing evidence for national security reasons.”
What evidence was concealed, the memo does not reveal. But people who are far from wild-eyed conspiracy theorists accept the plausibility of Frank Olson’s death as an execution.
Among them is Army intelligence veteran Norman G. Cournoyer, 85, who worked with Olson at Detrick and became one of his closest friends.
“If the question is, did Frank commit suicide, my answer is absolutely, positively not,” says Cournoyer, now frail and wheelchair-bound, living in Amherst, Mass.
Why would he have been killed?
“To shut him up,” Cournoyer says. “Frank was a talker … . His concept of being a real American had changed. He wasn’t sure we should be in germ warfare, at the end.”
William P. Walter, 78, who supervised anthrax production at Detrick, says Olson’s colleagues were divided about his death. “Some say he jumped. Some say he had help,” Walter says. “I’m one of the ‘had-help’ people.”
So is James Starrs, a George Washington University forensic pathologist who examined Olson’s exhumed corpse in 1994 and called the evidence “rankly and starkly suggestive of homicide.”
Based on that finding, the Manhattan district attorney’s office opened a homicide investigation in 1996. Two cold-case prosecutors, Steve Saracco and Daniel Bibb, conducted dozens of interviews, hunted records at the CIA and went to California with a court order to question CIA retiree Robert V. Lashbrook, who shared Olson’s room the night he died. (Like everyone known to be directly involved, Lashbrook is now dead.)
In 2001, they gave up.
“We could never prove it was murder,” says Saracco.
But Saracco, now retired, found plenty to fuel his suspicions: a hotel room so cramped it was hard to imagine Olson vaulting through the closed window; motives to shut Olson up; the ambiguous autopsy; and the CIA assassination manual.
“Whether the manual is a complete coincidence, I don’t know,” Saracco says. “But it was very disturbing to see that a CIA manual suggested the exact method of Frank Olson’s death.”
Covert work
For 20 years after its creation in 1949, Detrick’s Special Operations Division developed covert germ weapons – dart guns and aerosol sprayers to assassinate foreign enemies.
There is no evidence they were ever used. In fact, the only death that clearly resulted from the program was that of Frank Olson, one of its senior officers.
The son of Swedish immigrants, Frank Rudolph Olson earned a doctorate in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and joined the World War II bioweapons program at what was then Camp Detrick.
In 1949, Olson was recruited by Detrick’s Special Operations Division. Within months, the Korean War was raging, Sen. Joseph McCarthy was launching his hunt for Communist agents, and pressure was on to build new U.S. germ weapons.
By 1951, the Special Operations Division had won praise from a Pentagon committee for the “the originality, imagination and aggressiveness it has displayed in devising means and mechanisms for the covert dissemination of bacteriological warfare agents.”
In October 1952, Olson was promoted to acting director of the division. Although his family didn’t know it, he had also been recruited by the CIA for a program code-named Artichoke, part of a decades-long hunt for drugs to make enemy prisoners spill their secrets.
As his career prospered, Olson and his wife, Alice, built a dream house on a hillside above Frederick. They became regulars at Detrick’s officers’ club.
“He and his wife were both fun people,” recalls Curtis B. Thorne, a Detrick veteran who pioneered anthrax studies at the University of Massachusetts.
But promotions and parties concealed Olson’s qualms about his work. Suffering from ulcers, he left the Army and stayed on at Detrick as a civilian – though he bridled at the Army’s strict oversight. A 1949 security document reported: “Olson is violently opposed to control of scientific research, either military or otherwise, and opposes supervision of his work.”
The same year, colleagues recall, Olson was influenced by a new book by a mentor. In Peace or Pestilence: Biological Warfare and How To Avoid It, Theodor Rosebury said science should combat disease, not find devious ways to spread it.
Cournoyer, the Army intelligence veteran, says Olson began to raise ethical issues the friends had discussed during night courses in philosophy at the Catholic University of America. Colleagues were astonished to spot Olson chatting with the pacifists who protested outside Detrick’s gates.
“He was turning, no doubt about it,” Cournoyer says.
By the fall of 1953, according to Cournoyer, Olson was approaching a crisis of conscience. He had witnessed “special interrogations” of prisoners under the Artichoke program during a secret trip to Europe in July.
After returning, Cournoyer recalls, Olson asked, “Have you ever seen a man die?”
“He actually called it torture,” Cournoyer recalls. “He said they went so far as to take a life – lives, definitely more than one. Whatever they got out of them, he didn’t consider it worth a life.”
One colleague, who spoke on condition of anonymity, thinks Olson was upset because he believed the U.S. had used biological weapons against North Korea. Two Canadian researchers, Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, wrote a 1998 book arguing that such attacks occurred.
But the U.S. government has long denied using bioweapons, and most U.S. experts reject the charge. The issue may not be resolved until all the relevant documents are declassified, if ever.
Whatever its source, Olson’s disillusionment came to a head after the LSD experiment on Nov. 19, 1953, at a rented cabin on Deep Creek Lake in Western Maryland. Olson – who had stepped down to deputy chief of Special Operations – joined six Army colleagues and three CIA men led by Sidney Gottlieb, the eccentric and powerful CIA liaison to Detrick.
By his own account, Gottlieb served Cointreau to seven of the men without telling them he had laced it with LSD, ostensibly to study the drug’s effects.
A ‘terrible mistake’
Alice Olson would recall that her husband returned home deeply depressed. He told her he had made a “terrible mistake” but wouldn’t elaborate. He said he planned to leave the Army and retrain as a dentist.
According to the official CIA version of events, made public in 1975, Olson became increasingly despondent and paranoid. On Nov. 24, concerned colleagues took him to New York to see a doctor, Harold Abramson, who had experimented with LSD.
Three days later, Olson agreed to be admitted to a Rockville psychiatric hospital. He and CIA officer Robert Lashbrook decided to spend the night at the Statler and head south the next morning.
But at 2:45 a.m., Lashbrook told investigators, he awoke to the sound of breaking glass. Olson had thrown himself through the closed shade and closed window, falling 170 feet to his death on the sidewalk below.
From 1953 to 1975, as Alice Olson descended into alcoholism and fought back to sobriety, she and her children were told nothing about LSD. When the story finally surfaced in the Rockefeller Commission report on CIA abuses, they got official apologies from President Ford and from CIA Director William Colby, who handed over CIA documents on the case. They later received $750,000 in compensation.
But 22 years of deception made it difficult to persuade the family that the new official story was the whole truth.
The betrayal was deeply personal. The LSD cover-up had involved Frank Olson’s colleagues, particularly his boss, the late Col. Vincent Ruwet – who had consoled Eric with the gift of a darkroom set and a jigsaw after his father’s death.
“Whenever suspicions came up, the family would say: ‘This can’t be correct, because Ruwet would have known, and Ruwet wouldn’t deceive us.’ Our relationship to Ruwet was symbolic of our relationship to the whole Detrick community,” Eric said.
As a teenager, Eric was a patriotic member of that community, where he became an Eagle Scout in the base-sponsored troop. But in college and graduate school, he grew skeptical.
If his mother shared his doubts, Eric said, she never acted on them: “My mother’s mantra was: ‘You are never going to know what happened in that hotel room.’ It’s an injunction, a kind of threat, a taboo and a prediction.”
Eric’s younger sister, Lisa, was killed in a 1978 plane crash along with her husband and 2-year-old son. Ironically, she died on the way to inspect a lumber mill as a place to invest her share of the government’s compensation for Frank’s death.
His brother, Nils, who was only 5 in 1953, consciously chose dentistry, the alternate career his father had considered.
But Eric, the eldest, couldn’t settle down. He moved to Sweden, his father’s ancestral home, and had a son, Stephan, with a Swedish woman. Then he returned to the family home, determined to explain his father’s death.
One clue came from Armand Pastore, the assistant night manager at the Statler in 1953. He approached the family in 1975 to report what he’d heard from the hotel switchboard operator that night. Immediately after Olson’s fall, CIA officer Lashbrook phoned Abramson, the physician. Instead of shocked and emotional voices, the operator had told Pastore, there was a brief and seemingly expected exchange.
“He’s gone,” Lashbrook said.
“That’s too bad,” Abramson reportedly answered.
A similar impression came from a CIA investigator’s report in Colby’s documents. Dispatched to New York immediately after Olson’s death, the investigator listened through a closed door as Abramson told Lashbrook he was “worried as to whether or not the deal was in jeopardy” and thought “the whole operation was dangerous and the whole deal should be reanalyzed.”
In a report to the CIA on the death, Abramson wrote that the LSD experiment was designed “especially to trap [Olson].” This conflicted with Gottlieb’s story and raised a troubling possibility: that the LSD experiment was actually designed to see whether Olson could still be trusted to keep the agency’s dark secrets.
And there was Frank Olson’s mummified body, exhumed in 1994, the year after Alice Olson died. Starrs, the pathologist, found none of the facial cuts the original autopsy described, but he did find a contusion to the head that he thought was caused by a blow struck before the fall.
All these anomalies Eric Olson has duly recorded on a Web site devoted to his father’s memory: www.frankolsonproject.org.
A half-century after his father’s death, Eric Olson seems to be struggling to put it behind him. He says he believes he knows what happened, even if he doesn’t know details of perpetrators and motives. “You can see the truth through the fog,” he says. “But you can’t quite make out what it is.”
Sometimes, in moments of frustration – which come often because he’s struggling to earn a living – he says he’s sorry he ever looked into his father’s death.
“I’ve ruined my life,” he says in one interview. “I regret everything. I regret digging my father’s body up … . For me, the end has come with facing a hard truth, confronting my own naivete. I thought I wanted knowledge. I didn’t think that if knowledge is knowledge of murder, then it’s not enough – because then you want justice. And you don’t get justice with a secret state murder.”
At other times, he seems eager for any new scrap of information. He explains the contradiction by citing the Shakespearean son who pursues the truth about his father’s murder.
“Read Hamlet,” he says. “Hamlet has become like a friend to me. Once you start looking into your father’s death, you go to the end.”
A new documentary film, “Code Name Artichoke” (produced this year by German public television and widely shown internationally and in the US on WorldLink TV) on the death of my father, Dr. Frank Olson, revisits this question and presents new evidence. (See this link for a transcript of the film.)
TO: Eric Olson
FROM: Gordon Thomas
c.c.: To Whom Else It Concerns
DATE: 30th November 1998
This memo sets out the information provided by both Dr William Sargant, consultant psychiatrist, and William Buckley, former Station Chief of the CIA in Beirut, Lebanon. Both believed your father was murdered by the CIA. To judge my credibility in accepting this claim I begin with:
PERSONAL BACKGROUND:
I am the author of thirty eight books published world wide. Total sales exceed 45 million copies. Five of my books have been made into successful motion pictures, including the Academy Award winning Voyage of the Damned. My other awards include the Critics; and Jurys’ prizes at the Monte Carlo Film Festival, an Edgar Allen Poe Award and three citations from the Mark Twain Society for Reporting Excellence.
I have written a number of non-fiction books dealing with the activities of various intelligence agencies. in 1998 1 wrote and presented for Britain’s Channel 4, “The Spying Machine”, a major television documentary in which for the first time key members of Mossad appeared, describing their work. My latest book on the Israeli service, “Gideon’s Spies,” to be published by St Martin’s Press in New York, will be published in 40 countries in April 1999.
In the 1950/60 period that is relevant to the events surrounding your father, I was a senior BBC writer/producer employed by the Science Department. Dr Sargant was engaged by me as a consultant for a number of programmes. A relationship developed between us that became close and remained so until his death in 1988.
The first lesson I learned during what has been a quarter of a century of writing about secret intelligence is that deception and disinformation are its stock-in-trade, along with subversion, corruption, blackmail and sometimes assassination. Agents are trained to lie and to use and abuse friendships. They are the very opposite of the dictum that gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.
I first encountered their behaviour while investigating many of the great spy scandals of the Cold War: the betrayal of America’s atomic bomb secrets by Klaus Fuchs and the compromising of Britain’s M15 and M16 by Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Kim Philby. Each made treachery and duplicity his byword. I also was one of the first writers to uncover the CIA’s obsession with mind control, a preoccupation the Agency was forced to confirm ten years after my book on the subject, Journey into Madness, appeared. Denial is the black art all intelligence services long ago perfected.
Nevertheless, in getting to the truth, I was greatly helped by two professional intelligence officers: Joachim Kraner, my late father-in-law, who ran an M16 network in Dresden in the post-World War II years, and Bill Buckley who was station chief of the CIA in Beirut in the 1980s. Both constantly reminded me that a great deal can be heard from what Bill called “murmurs in the mush;” a deadly skirmish fought in an alley with no name; the collective hold-your breath when an agent or network is blown; a covert operation which could have undone years of overt political bridge-building; a snippet of mundane information that completed a particular intelligence jigsaw. Through them I made contacts in a number of military and civilian intelligence agencies, Germany’s BND and France’s DGSE; the CIA; Canadian and British services. Later that network extended to include members of Israel’s security services including senior members of Mossad.
It is these contacts who have helped to reinforce the belief of both William Sargant and Bill Buckley that your father was murdered. I am assured that because of the highly unusual circumstances of your father’s death, the details have remained on file with several of the above-mentioned agencies, specifically the Mossad. The circumstances surrounding the death are taught as a case study at the Mossad Training School outside Tel Aviv. This has been confirmed by two former Mossad agents, Ari Ben-Menashe and Victor Ostrovsky.
Let me now turn to the specific information that both William Sargant and Bill Buckley provided me with on separate occasions over a number of years. At that time they were both alive and spoke on the usual understanding we had: that what they had to say would not be directly sourced to them. Both made a specific request that I should not publish ‘in any form’ what they told me about your father’s death because, as they believed they were among the few who knew the true circumstances, publication of such information could almost certainly be traced back to them. Given the circumstances they outlined, the outcome for either of them could be severe.
So: First to William Sargant,
At the time we spoke of your father, Dr Sargant was Director of Psychological Medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, England. He was also a consultant to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI5/6), largely because of his work in the eliciting of confessions by the Soviets. His conclusions can be found in his textbook “Battle for the Mind”; it remains a standard work on the subject of mind control
Because of my own family connections (detailed above), I was able to gain the trust of Dr Sargent. This developed during the time I used him in various documentary programmes for the BBC. It was during that period (1968169), that I first began to explore with him his own relationship with both M15/6 and the CIA. He told me lie had visited Langley several times and had met with Dr Sydney Gottlieb, Richard Helms and other senior CIA officials. During those visits he had also met with Dr Ewan Cameron and, on one occasion, he had met Dr Lashbrook and your father, Frank Olson.
Subsequently Dr Gottlieb and Frank Olson visited London and, according to Dr Sargent, he accompanied them to Porton Down, Britain’s main research centre for biological/chemical research. Dr Sargent’s interest in the work going on there was to study the psychological implications of mind-blowing drugs such as LSD.
He told me that he developed a rapport with Frank Olson during a number of subsequent visits Frank Olson made to Britain. Dr Sargant remarked that “he was just like any other CIA spy, using our secret airfields to come and go”. Evidence in support of that can be found in Frank Olson’s passport.
During this period (1953/5), Dr Sargant had met several more times with Dr Ewan Cameron, both in Washington and in Montreal, Canada. Cameron was engaged in secret experimental work for the CIA (details of that can be found in my book Journey into Madness).
Sargent said he knew that Frank Olson and Cameron knew each other and that Frank Olson also shared his (Sargant’s) view that some of the work Dr Gottlieb was funding Cameron to do through the Human Ecology Foundation (a CIAfront Organisation, was bordering on the criminal.
During the research and writing of Journey into Madness, Dr Sargent and I met on many occasions, perhaps as many as 20. During that time he gave me much valuable material relating to the work of Dr Cameron and insights into what he knew of Dr Gottlieb, Richard Helms and, of course, the death of your father.
By then, Dr Sargant was physically not a well man but his memory was still good. He could remember exact details with compelling clarity; for instance we once had a somewhat esoteric; conversation on how Patty Hearst (whom he had seen during her trial as an expert witness) would have survived some of the techniques that the CIA had developed in mind control.
From time to time, he referred to the death of your father and, as I clearly recall, he said his paperwork on the case had been handed over to the competent authorities in the British Secret Intelligence Service.
Time and again Dr Sargant expressed the view that, from all he had learned from the M15 and his own contacts in Washington, there was a strong prima facie case that Frank Olson had been murdered. Sargant believed that Frank Olson could also have been given a cocktail of drugs that included more than LSD. He said he knew that Dr Gottlieb had been researching into slow-acting depressants which, when taken, could drive a person to suicide.
He also believed that, from his own meetings with Frank Olson, there was a very real possibility that your father could become a whistle-blower if he believed that what was happening was wrong.
After my book was published, I continued to meet with Dr Sargent. At that time, I was hoping to see a new edition of the book published (this was not to be) and I wanted to get Dr Sargant’s permission to use all he had told me in a new edition. He said I could only publish what he had said after his death. He died in 1988. This Is the account he gave me of your father’s death which I now feel free to make public.
in the summer of 1953 Frank Olson travelled to Britain, once again to visit Parton Down. Sargent met with him. Olson said he was going to Europe to meet with a CIA team led by Dr Gottlieb. By then Sargent had learned that Frank Olson was acting deputy head of SO (Special Operations).
Sargent was satisfied that the CIA team were doing similar work that M16 were conducting in Europe – executing without trial known Nazis, especially SS men. (One of the survivors of the British “hit squad” is Peter Mason who lives in Montana: I know nothing about him).
Sargant saw Frank Olson after his brief visit to Norway and West Germany, including Berlin, in the summer of 1953. He said he was concerned about the psychological changes in Frank Olson. In Sargent’s view Olson, primarily a researchbased scientist, had witnessed in the field how his arsenal of drugs, etc. worked with lethal effect on human beings (the “expendable” SS men etc.). Sargant believed that for the first time Olson had come face to face with his own reality.
Sargant told me he believed Frank Olson had witnessed murder being committed with the various drugs he had prepared. The shock of what he witnessed, Sargent believed, was all the harder to cope with given that Frank Olson was a patriotic man who believed that the United States would never sanction such acts. Part of that assumption was formed by Sargent because he had come to see Frank Olson as a somewhat naive man: “locked up in his lab mentality” was, I recall, one of the phrases Sargant used.
I remember Sargent telling me that he spoke several times in 1953 with Frank Olson at Sargent’s consulting rooms in Harley Street, London. These were not formal patient/doctor consultations but rather Sargent trying to establish what Frank Olson had seen and done in Europe.
Dr Sargent’s own conclusion was that Frank Olson had undergone a marked personality change; many of Olson’s symptoms — soul searching, seeking reassurance etc. were typical of that, Sargent told me.
He decided that Frank Olson could pose a security risk if he continued to speak and behave as he did. He recommended to his own superiors at the SIS that Frank Olson should no longer have access to Portion Down or to any ongoing British research at the various secret establishments Olson had been allowed prior free access to.
Sargent told me his recommendation was acted upon by his superiors. He was also certain that his superiors, by the nature of the close ties with the CIA, would have informed Richard Helms and Dr Gottlieb of the circumstances why Frank Olson would no longer be given access to British research. Effectively a substantial part of Frank Olson’s importance to the CIA had been cut off.
When Dr Sargant learned of Frank Olson’s death — I recall him telling me it came in a priority message from the British Embassy in Washington Sargant came to the immediate conclusion that Olson could only have been murdered. I recall him telling me that in many ways the staged death was almost classic.
BILL BUCKLEY, Station Chief of the CIA in Beirut (1983).
Again through my family connection and the contacts I had established independently with various Intelligence services, I came to know Bill Buckley. (see pp Chap 4, “Journey into Madness”). At various stages in our friendship the question of Frank Olson’s death came up.
I told Bill what Dr Sargant believed. Bill said that Sargant was right but that he was sure that Richard Helms and Sydney Gottlieb would have ensured that nothing would ever be proven. Buckley described both men as expert in hiding or destroying evidence.
I hope this helps to set the record straight.
Gordon Thomas
Also by Gordon Thomas:
DESCENT INTO DANGER
PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY
HEROES OF THE R.A.F.
THEY GOT BACK
MIRACLE OF SURGERY
THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE AND YOU
THAMES NUMBER ONE
MIDNIGHT TRADER$
THE PARENT’S HOME DOCTOR (with lan D Hudson, Vincent Pippet)
TURN BY THE WIN DOW (with Ronald Hutchinson)
ISSELS: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DOCTOR
THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (with Max MorganWitts)
EARTHQUAKE (with Max MorganWitts)
SHIPWRECK (with Max MorganWitts)
VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED (with Max MorganWitts)
THE DAY GUERNICA DIED (with Max MorganWitts)
ENOLA GAY/RUIN FROM THE AIR (with Max MorganWitts)
THE DAY THE BUBBLE BURST (With Max MorganWifts)
TRAUMA (with Max MorganWitts)
PONTIFF (with Max MorganWitts)
THE YEAR OF ARMAGEDDON (with Max MorganWitts)
THE OPERATION
DESIRE AND DENIAL
THE TRIAL: The Life and Inevitable Crucifixion of Jesus
JOURNEY INTO MADNESS
CHAOS UNDER HEAVEN
TRESPASS INTO TEMPTATION
GIDEON’S SPIES
THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND
TORPEDO RUN
DEADLY PERFUME
GODLESS ICON
VOICES IN THE SILENCE
ORGAN HUNTERS
POISONED SKY
Screenplays:
EMMETT (With Gordon Parry)
ENSLAVED (With Jeff Bricmont)
ORGAN HUNTER
Army harvested victims’ blood to boost anthrax
Ex-scientists detail Detrick experiments
In an attempt to make America’s biological arsenal more lethal during the Cold War, the Army collected anthrax from the bodies or blood of workers at Fort Detrick who were accidentally infected with the bacteria, veterans of the biowarfare program say.
The experiments, during the 1950s and ’60s, were based on long experience with animals showing that anthrax often becomes more virulent after infecting an animal and growing in its body, according to experts on the bacteria and scientific studies published at the time. Former Army scientists say the anthrax strain used to make weapons was replaced at least once, and possibly three times, with more potent anthrax that had grown in the workers’ bodies. But some of the key scientists who did the work more than four decades ago are dead, and records are classified, contradictory or nonexistent, so it is difficult to establish with certainty the details of what happened.
The use of human accident victims to boost the killing power of the nation’s germ arsenal is a macabre footnote to a top-secret program designed to destroy enemy troops with such exotic weapons as botulism, smallpox, plague and paralytic shellfish poison.
The offensive bioweapons program was launched during World War II and ended by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969.
Today, after a few grams of mailed anthrax have killed five people, sickened 13 others and disrupted the postal system and government, the old program’s gruesome potential for destruction seems unimaginable. But at the time, fearing correctly that the Soviet Union had an even larger bioweapons program, Army scientists were driven to come up with more and more lethal disease strains.”
Any deadly diseases, anywhere in the world, we’d go and collect a sample,” said Bill Walter, 76, who worked in the weapons program from 1951 until it closed.
Walter was involved in anthrax production from selection of seed stock to the dry, deadly spore powder ready to be loaded into a bomb; his final job was as “principal investigator” in a lab that studied anthrax and other powder weapons.
Walter believes the original weapons strain of anthrax, a variety called Vollum after the British scientist who isolated it, was upgraded with bacteria collected from three Detrick workers who were accidentally infected. Two of them died.
His recollection is supported by another veteran of the anthrax program, 84-year-old James R.E. Smith. A third bioweapons veteran, William C. Patrick III, confirms two of the cases but says he is not sure about the third.”
Anthrax gets stronger as it goes through a human host,” said Walter, now retired in Florida. “So we got pulmonary [lung] spores from Bill Boyles and Joel Willard. And finally we got it from Lefty Kreh’s finger.”
William A. Boyles, a 46-year-old microbiologist, inhaled anthrax spores on the job in 1951 and died a few days later. Seven years after that, Joel E. Willard, 53, an electrician who worked in the “hot” areas where animals were dosed with deadly germs, died of the same inhalational form of the disease.
The third anthrax victim, Bernard “Lefty” Kreh, was a plant operator who spent night shifts in a biohazard suit, breathing air from a tube on the wall, using a kitchen spatula to scrape the anthrax “mud” off the inside of a centrifuge. One day in the late ’50s or early ’60s, his finger swelled to the size of a sausage with a cutaneous, or skin, anthrax infection.
Kreh went on to become a nationally known outdoors writer and expert on fly fishing. He did not know that the bacteria that had put him in Fort Detrick’s hospital for a month had gone on to another life, too – as a sub-strain of anthrax bearing his initials.
“We called it `LK’ – that’s what we’d put on the log sheets for each run,” Walter said. A “run” was an 1,800-gallon batch of anthrax mixture, grown in one of the 40-foot- high fermenters inside Building 470, which stands empty at Detrick, its demolition planned.
“Lefty’s strain was rather easy to detect,” Walter said. When a colony of bacteria grew on growth medium, he recalled, “it came out like a little comma, perfectly spherical.”
Surprised by his role
Orley R. Bourland Jr., 75, who worked as a plant manager, said anthrax from Kreh’s finger was isolated and designated “BVK-1,” for Bernard Victor Kreh.
Walter said he assumes the initials in the log sheets were shortened by someone who knew the source of the new sub-strain of anthrax never went by his formal name. Yet in the secret, compartmented biological program, Kreh himself does not recall ever being informed of the use to which his government put his illness.
“You’re kidding,” Kreh said. “I’ll have to tell my wife.” He doesn’t remember which finger it was, he said, but he does remember that his wife, Evelyn, could see him only through a glass barrier designed to keep any dangerous microbes contained during treatment
At 77, Kreh, who lives in Cockeysville, lives the full life of a fishing celebrity, writing magazine articles, taking VIPs on fly-fishing expeditions and endorsing products. A former outdoors columnist for The Sun, he credits his 19 years at Fort Detrick with giving him time to develop his expertise. Because of the rotating night-shift work, he said, “Two out of three weeks I could hunt and fish all day long.”
The available evidence confirming the use of bacteria from the two men who died, Boyles and Willard, is less complete. W. Irving Jones Jr., 80, of Frederick, a biochemist, remembers his supervisor, Dr. Ralph E. Lincoln, giving him an unusual request some months after the electrician’s death.
“Dr. Lincoln had me pull a sample of Willard’s dried blood,” Jones said. “We were able to grow [the anthrax bacteria] right up. And it was deadly,” a determination he made by testing it on animals.
Jones said he cannot confirm the recollection of others that Willard’s sub-strain of anthrax was used for a new weapons strain. That might well have happened, he said, if animal tests showed it to be more virulent than the existing weapons strain, the only means of checking potency at the time. But like any secret program, the Army’s biowarfare operation was run on a “need-to-know” basis, and weapons development was not his bailiwick, Jones said.
Contradictory evidence
The evidence on Boyles is contradictory. Patrick, who joined the bioweapons program in 1951, the year the microbiologist died of anthrax, said unequivocally that the Vollum weapons strain was altered by passage through Boyles’ body and became Vollum 1B.
“That’s where Vollum 1B came from,” said Patrick, of Frederick, who eventually headed Detrick’s product development division. “It’s 1-Boyles.”
A review of scientific papers on anthrax published by Fort Detrick scientists in the 1940s and ’50s offers indirect support for Patrick’s contention. The Vollum strain found in the early Detrick papers is first replaced by a Vollum sub-strain called “M36,” produced by the British biological weapons program by passing the Vollum strain through a series of monkeys to increase its virulence.
Then, in the late 1950s, references to the M36 variant of Vollum give way to references to “the highly virulent Vollum 1B strain.” No 1A strain seems to have existed. Nor is there an explanation of the 1B sub-strain’s origin – a break with the standard practice in describing sub-strains derived from passage through animals.
On the other hand, a medical report prepared by the Army 18 years after Boyles’ death states that live anthrax bacteria “could not be (and never was) cultivated from blood, sputum, nose and throat, or skin at any time during the illness, not from tissue and fluids taken at autopsy.
“The cause of death was confirmed by an autopsy finding of bacteria resembling anthrax in the brain.
The absence of live bacteria may have a simple explanation. Doctors say a person with inhalation anthrax who is given intravenous antibiotics might soon show no live bacteria, even though the person might still die of toxin produced earlier by the bacteria. But if the medical report is accurate, it appears to rule out the possibility that the weapons strain included bacteria collected during or after Boyles’ illness.
It is possible that after Boyles’ death, blood taken early in his illness was found to contain anthrax. Or, anthrax spores, which are not killed by antibiotics, might have been found in his lungs after death.
Scientists say it is possible, but not certain, that one pass through a human host would boost the virulence of anthrax. Repeated passes through a particular species usually increase the bacteria’s lethality toward that species, said David L. Huxsoll, who oversaw anthrax vaccine tests as commander of the Army’s biodefense center in the 1980s.
“If you pass it through a rabbit repeatedly, it will kill rabbits, but it won’t kill a cow,” Huxsoll said. In humans, “you could have a switch toward more virulence on one passage, but it wouldn’t necessarily happen.”
Officials of the biological defense program at Fort Detrick, where Vollum 1B is still used to test vaccines, do not know of any connection to the accidental human infections, said Caree Vander Linden, spokeswoman for the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. One account passed down by a former staff member was that Vollum 1B was produced by passage of the Vollum strain through rabbits, she said.
If the “B” actually stands for Boyles, it’s news to William Boyles’ family. Natalie Boyles said Friday that her husband, Charles M. Boyles, William’s son, had never heard of such a thing.
Kenneth E. Willard, Joel Willard’s son, said the same. “Shock would be my first feeling,” Willard said on hearing the evidence described in this article. “Second would be that my mother or I should have been made aware of it, if it happened. We should have been given more information all along.”
But secrecy governed everything in the program, including the deaths, because the American bioweapons makers had a keen awareness of the threat from their counterparts in the Soviet Union, occasionally supplemented by detailed information.
“We used to get intelligence reports telling me what my Russian counterpart was doing,” Walter said. “Our rate and the Russian rate was the same – about 7 kilograms of dry anthrax a week.”
Another parallel exists. If the United States took advantage of tragic accidents to make its anthrax deadlier, those experiments were mirrored at least once in the Soviet program. Far larger than the U.S. effort, the Soviet biowarfare program was also secretly continued after 1972, when the nations signed a treaty banning such work.
According to Ken Alibek, a former deputy chief of the Soviet program who defected to the United States in 1992, a scientist named Nikolai Ustinov accidentally pricked himself while injecting a guinea pig with Marburg virus in 1988. He died an agonizing death two weeks later.
“No one needed to debate the next step,” Alibek wrote in his 1999 book Biohazard. “Orders went out immediately to replace the old strain with the new, which was called, in a move the wry Ustinov might have appreciated, `Variant U.'”
Altered States of America
By Richard Stratton
Spin Magazine, March 1994
In the early 195O’s the US chased the world’s LSD supply as just the first step in a debauched CIA program code-named MK-ULTRA. In an exclusive interview, Ike Feldman, one of the operation’s kingpins, talks to Richard Stratton about deadly viruses, spy hookers, and bad trips.
“I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vinyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?”
—George Hunter White
The meeting was set for noon at a suitably anonymous bastion of corporate America, a sprawling Marriott Hotel and convention center on Long Island. Driving out of the city, I was tense and paranoid. For one thing, I was leaving Manhattan without permission from my parole officer, What was I going to tell him? “I want to travel to Long Island to interview a former narcotics agent who worked undercover for the CIA dosing people with LSD.” My parole officer would have ordered a urine test on the spot.
Then there was the fact that previous run-ins with drug cops had usually resulted in criminal prosecutions. I spent most of the ’80s in prison for smuggling marijuana. How would this ex-agent of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (BBN), forerunner of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) take to a retired outlaw writing a story about M K-ULTRA, the CIA’s highly secretive mind-control and drug-testing program?
Ira “Ike” Feldman is the only person still alive who worked directly under the legendary George Hunter White in MK-ULTRA. The program began in 1953 amid growing fear of the Soviet Union’s potential for developing alternative weaponry. The atomic bomb was a sinister threat, but more terrifying still were possible Soviet assaults on the mind and body from within — through drugs and disease. In an attempt to preempt foreign attacks and even wage its own assaults, the CIA funded a group of renegade agents to experiment with ways to derail a human being.
For years, Feldman had ducked reporters. He agreed to meet with me only after a private detective, a former New York cop who also did time for drugs. put in a good word. There was no guarantee Feldman would talk.
The LSD, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Write this down. Espionage. Assassinations. The study of prostitutes for clandestine use. That’s what I was doing when I worked for the CIA.
I recognized Feldman immediately when he waddled into the lobby of the Marriott. I had heard he was short, five three, and I’d read how George White used to dress him in a pinstriped zoot suit, blue suede shoes, a Bursalino hat with a tu rned-up brim, and a phony diamond ring, then send him onto the streets of San Francisco to pose as an East Coast heroin dealer. Now in his 70s, Feldman still looks and talks like Edward G. Robinson playing gangster Johnny Rocco in Key Largo.
Feldman leveled a cold, lizard-like gaze on me when we sat down for lunch. He wielded a fat unlit cigar like a baton, pulled out a wad of bills that could have gagged a drug dealer, slipped a 20 to the waitress and told her to take good care of us.
“What’s this about?” Feldman demanded. “Who the fuck are you?”
I explained I was a writer researching George White. White, a world-class drinker known to polish off a bottle of gin at a sitting and get up and walk away, died of liver disease in 1975, two years before MK-ULTRA was first made public.
“Why do you want to write about White? I suppose it’s this LSD shit.”
No, I said, not just the LSD. George White deserved to have his story told..
“White was a son of a bitch,” Feldman said. “But he was a great cop. He made that fruitcake Hoover look like Nancy Drew.”
Again he gazed stonily at me. “Lots of writers asked me to tell my story. Why should I talk to you?”
I decided to come clean. “I used to be part of your world,” I answered. “I did eight years for the Feds because I refused to rat when I got busted for pot.”
Feldman stared at me for a long time. “I know,” he said. “I checked you out. That’s why I’m here. Now get out your pencil.” He waved for the waitress and palmed her a 50 to cover the tab.
“The LSD,” Feldman began, “that was just the tip of the iceberg. Write this down. Espionage. Assassinations. Dirty tricks. Drug experiments. Sexual encounters and the study of prostitutes for clandestine use. That’s what I was doing when I worked for George White and the CIA.”
For my next Interview with Feldman, I rented a day room at the Marriott and brought along a tape recorder. Feldman tottered in, pulled a small footballshaped clear plastic ampule out of his pocket and plunked it on the table. It was filled with pure Sandoz LSD-25. He also showed me a gun disguised as a fountain pen which could shoot a cartridge of nerve gas. “Some of the stuff George White and I tested,” he explained.
“It all began because the CIA knew the Russians had this LSD shit and they were afraid the KGB was using it to brainwash agents,” Feldman told me. “They were worried they might dump it in the water supply and drive everybody wacky. They wanted us to find out if we could actually use it as a truth serum.”
Actually, it all began with a mistake. In 1951, Allen Dulles, later appointed director of Central Intelligence, received a report from military sources that the Russians had bought 50 million doses of a new drug from Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland. A follow-up memo stated that Sandoz had an additional ten kilos – about 100 million doses – of the drug, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25), available for sale on the open market
Dulles was alarmed. From the beginning, LSD was lauded by military and intelligence scientists working on chemical warfare compounds and mind-control experiments as the most potent mind-altering substance known to man. “Infinitesimally small amounts of LSD can completely destroy the sanity of a human being for considerable periods of time (or possibly permanently),” stated an October 1953 CIA memo. In the wrong hands, 100 million doses would be enough to sabotage a whole nation’s mental equilibrium.
Dulles convened a high-level committee of CIA and Pentagon officials who agreed the agency should buy the entire Sandoz LSD supply lest the KGB acquire it first. Two agents were dispatched to Switzerland with a black bag containing $240,000.
In fact, Sandoz had produced only about 40 grams of LSD in the ten years since its psychoactive features were first discovered by Albert Hofmann. According to a 1975 CIA document, the U.S. Military attaché in Switzerland had miscalculated by a factor of one million in his CIA reports because he did not know the difference between a milligram (1 /1,000 of a gram) and a kilogram (1,000 grams).
Nevertheless, a deal was struck. The CIA would purchase all of Sandoz’s potential output of LSD. (Later, when the Eli Lilly Company of Indianapolis perfected a process to synthesize LSD, agency officials insisted on a similar agreement.) An internal CIA memo to Dulles declared the agency would have access to “tonnage quantities.” All that remained was for agency heads to figure out what to do with it.
“The objectives were behavior control, behavior anomaly -production, and counter-measures for opposition application of similar substances,” states a heavily redacted CIA document on MK-ULTRA released under a 1977 Freedom of Information Act request, The chill winds of the Cold War were howling across the land. Dulles was convinced that, as he told Princeton University’s National Alumni Conference, Russian and Chinese Communists had secretly developed “brain perversion techniques … so subtle and so abhorrent to our way of life that we have recoiled from facing up to them.”
Pentagon strategists began to envision a day when battles would be fought on psychic terrain in wars without conventional weaponry. The terrifying specter of a secret army of “Manchurian Candidates,” outwardly normal operatives programmed to carry out political assassinations, was paraded before a gullible and easily manipulated public.
Ike Feldman remembers that time well. A Brooklyn boy, he was drafted into the Army in 1941. Army tests showed he had an unusual facility for language, so he was enrolled in a special school in Germany where he learned fluent Russian, By the end of the war, Feldman was a lieutenant colonel with a background in Military Intelligence. The Army sent him to another language school, this time in Monterey, California, where he added Mandarin Chinese:to his repertoire.
While with Military Intelligence in Europe, Feldman first heard of George White. “White was with the OSS [Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA]. I heard stories about him. Donovan [William “Wild Bill” Donovan, founder of the OSS] loved White. White supposedly killed some Japanese spy with his bare hands while he was on assignment in Calcutta. He used to keep a picture of the bloody corpse on the wall in his office.”
In the early ’50s, after a stint in Korea working for the CIA under Army auspices, Feldman decided he’d had enough of military life. He settled in California. “I always wanted chickens,” Feldman recalled, “so I bought a chicken ranch. In the meantime, there wasn’t a hell of a lot to do with chickens.
“Before long, I got a call—this time from White,” Feldman continued. “We understand you’re back in the States,” he says.“I want you to come in to the Bureau of Narcotics.” This was ’54 to ’55, White was District Supervisor [of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics] in San Francisco. I went in. I go to room 144 of the Federal Building, and this is the first time I met George White. He was a big, powerful man with a completely bald head. Not tall, but big. Fat. He shaved his head and had the most beautiful blue eyes you’ve ever seen. “Ike,” he says, “we want you as an agent. We know you’ve been a hell of an agent with Intelligence. The CIA knows it. You speak all these languages. We want you to work as an under cover agent in San Francisco.”
What Feldman didn’t know at the time was that George White was still working for the CIA. White’s particular area of expertise was the testing of drugs on unwitting human guinea pigs. During the war, one of White’s projects for the OSS was the quest for a “truth drug,” a serum that could be administered to prisoners of war or captured spies during interrogations. After trying and rejecting several substances the OSS scientists settled on a highly concentrated liquid extract of cannabis indica, a particularly potent strain of marijuana. Never one to shrink from the call of duty, White first tried the drug on himself. He downed a full vial of the clear, viscous liquid and soon passed out without revealing any secrets.
Meanwhile, at the CIA’s Technical Services Staff (TSS), the department specializing in unconventional weaponry such as poisons, biological warfare, psychoactive substances, and mind control, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb was searching for a candidate to head MK-ULTRA. Gottlieb, a club-footed scientist who overcame a pronounced stutter in his rise to head the TSS, had discovered White’s name while perusing old OSS files on the Truth Drug Experiments. White’s credentials were impeccable: A former crime reporter on the West Coast before he joined the narcotics bureau, White had soon become one of the top international undercover agents under Harry Anslinger, the grandfather of America’s war on drugs.
After meeting with Gottlieb, White noted his initiation into the world of psychedelics in his diary: “Gottlieb proposes I be CIA consultant and I agree.”
Moonlighting for the CIA, with funds disbursed by Gottlieb, White rented two adjoining apartment safe houses at 81 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village. Using the alias Morgan Hall, he constructed an elaborate alter-identity as a seaman and artist in the Jack London mode. By night, CIA spy Morgan Hall metamorphosed into a drug-eating denizen of the bohemian coffeehouse scene. With a head full of acid and gin, White prowled downtown clubs and bars. He struck up conversations with strangers, then lured them back to the pad where he served drinks spiked with Sandoz’s finest.
“Gloria gets the horrors … Janet sky high,” White dutifully recorded in his diary. In another entry, he proudly noted, “Lashbrook at 81 Bedford Street—Owen Winkle and the LSD surprise—can wash.” In recognition of the often bizarre behavior brought on by the drug, White assigned LSD the codename “Stormy.”
Secret agent man: Allen Dulles (top), the former director of the CIA, who authorized the purchase of Sandoz LSD; George White (middle) examines opium pipes as he takes over as head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in Boston in 1951; Harry Anslinger (bottom), circa 1954, then head of FBN.
According to an agency memo, the CIA feared KGB agents might employ psychedelics “to produce anxiety or terror in medically unsophisticated subjects unable to distinguish drug-induced psychosis from actual insanity.” In an effort to school “enlightened operatives” for that eventuality, Dulles and Gottlieb instructed high-ranking agency personnel, including Gottlieb’s entire staff at TSS, to take LSD themselves and administer it to their colleagues.
“There was an extensive amount of self-experimentation for the reason that we felt that a firsthand knowledge of the subjective effects of these drugs [was] important to those of us who were involved in the program,” Gottlieb explained at a Senate Subcommittee hearing years later. In truth, CIA spooks and scientists alike were tripping their brains out. “I didn’t want to leave it,” one CIA agent said of his first LSD trip “I felt I would be going back to a place where I wouldn’t be able to hold on to this kind of beauty.”
But as covert LSD experiments proliferated, things down at CIA headquarters began to get out of hand. “LSD favors the prepared mind,” wrote Dr. Oscar Janiger, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and early LSD devotee. Non-drug factors such as set and setting—a person’s mental state going into the experience and the surroundings in which the drug is taken—can make all the difference in reactions to a dose of LSD.
Frank Olson was a civilian biochemist working for the Army Chemical Corps’ Special Operations Division (SOD) at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. In another sub-project of MK-ULTRA code-named MK-NAOMI, the CIA had bankrolled SOD to produce and maintain vicious mutant germ strains capable of killing or incapacitating would-be victims. Olson’s specialty at Fort Detrick was delivering deadly diseases in sprays and aerosol emulsions.
Just before Thanksgiving in 1953, at a CIA retreat for a conference on biological warfare, Gottlieb slipped Olson a huge dose of LSD in an after-dinner liqueur. When Gottlieb revealed to the uproarious group that he’d laced the Cointreau, Olson suffered a psychotic snap. “You’re all a bunch of thespians!” Olson shouted at his fellow acid trippers, then spent a long night wandering around babbling to himself.
Back at Fort Detrick, Olson lapsed in and out of depression, began to have grave misgivings about his work, and believed the agency was out to get him Ten days later, he crashed through the tenth-floor window of the Statler Hotel in New York and plummeted to his death on the sidewalk below.
I don’t know if [Olson] jumped or he was pushed. They say he jumped…
“White had been testing the stuff in New York when that guy Olson went out the window and died,” Feldman said. “I don’t know if he jumped or he was pushed. They say he jumped. Anyway, that’s when they shut down the New York operation and moved it to San Francisco.” The Olson affair was successfully covered up by the CIA for over 20 years. White, who had been instrumental in the cover-up, was promoted to district supervisor.
Unfazed by the suicide of their colleague, the CIA’s acid enthusiasts were, in fact, more convinced of the value of their experiments. They would now focus on LSD as a potent new agent for offensive unconven-tional warfare. The drug-testing program resumed in the Bay Area under the cryptonyrn Operation Mid-night Climax. It was then that White hired Feldman.
Posing as Joe Capone, junk dealer and pimp, Feldman infiltrated the seamy North Beach criminal demimonde. “I always wanted to be a gangster,” Feldman told me. “So I was good at it. Before long, I had half a dozen girls working for me. One day, White calls me into his office. ‘Ike,’ he says, ‘you’ve been doing one hell of a job as an undercover man. Now I’m gonna give you another assignment. We want you to test these mind-bending drugs.’ I said, ‘Why the hell do you want to test mind-bending drugs?’ He said, ‘Have you ever heard of The Manchurian Candidate?’ I know about The Manchurian Candidate. In fact, I read the book. ‘Well,’ White said,‘that’s why we have to test these drugs, to find out if they can be used to brainwash people.’ He says, ‘If we can find outjust how good this stuff works, you’ll be doing a great deal for your country.’”
These days, Feldman takes offense at how his work has been charqcterized by former cops who knew him. “I was no pimp,” Feldman insisted. Yet he freely admitted that his role in Midnight Climax was to supply whores. “These cunts all thought I was a racketeer,” Feldman explained. He paid girls $50 to $100 a night to lure johns to a safe house apartment that White had set up on Telegraph Hill with funds provided by the CIA. Unsuspecting clients were served cocktails laced with powerful doses of LSD and other concoctions the CIA sent out to be tested.
“As George White once told me, ‘Ike, your best information outside comes from the whores and the junkies. If you treat a whore nice, she’ll treat you nice. If you treat a junkie nice, he’ll treat you nice.’ But sometimes, when people had information, there was only one way you could get it, If it was a girl, you put her tits in a drawer and slammed the drawer. If it was a guy, you took his cock and you hit it with a hammer. And they would talk to you. Now, with these drugs, you could get information without having to abuse people.”
The “pad,” as White called the CIA safe house, resembled a playboy’s lair, circa 1955. The walls were covered with Toulouse-Lautrec posters of French cancan dancers. In the cabinets were sex toys and photos of manacled women in black fishnet stockings and studded leather halters. White outfitted the place with elaborate bugging equipment, including four microphones disguised as electrical outlets that were connected to tape recorders hidden behind a false wall. While Feldman’s hookers served mind-altering cocktails and frolicked with the johns, White sat on a portable toilet behind the two-way mirror, sipping martinis, watching the experiments, and scribbling notes for his reports to the CIA.
“We tested this stuff they call the Sextender,” Feldman went on. “There was this Russian ship in the harbor. I had a couple of my girls pick up these Russian sailors and bring ’em back to the pad. White wanted to know all kinds of crap, but they weren’t talking. So we had the girls slip ’em this sex drug. It gets your dick up like a rat. Stays up for two hours. These guys went crazy. They fucked these poor girls until they couldn’t walk straight. The girls were complaining they couldn’t take any more screwing. But White found out what he wanted to know. Now this drug, what they call the Sextender, I understand it’s being sold to guys who can’t get a hard-on.”
One such drug, called papavarine, is injected directly into the penis with a half-inch needle containing about two raindrops’ worth of the medicine. “I tell [the men] to thrust it in like a bullfighter finishing off the bull,” said a San Antonio urologist in a recent report on the new therapies used to treat male impo-tence. “Dangers include injecting too much drug, so that an erection can last dangerously long and kill penile tissue.” The potions are not administered orally, as they were by the CIA, because the drug must affect only the penis and not the rest of the body. Drug companies are now working on a cream that can be rubbed directly into the penis before intercourse. Feldman claims we have the CIA to thank for these medical breakthroughs.
“White always wanted to try everything himself,” Feldman remembered. “Whatever drugs they sent out, it didn’t matter, he wanted to see how they worked on him before he tried them on anyone else. He always said he never felt a goddamn thing. He thought it was all bullshit. White drank so much booze, he couldn’t feel his fucking cock.
“This thing” — Feldman held up the fountain pen gas gun — “the boys in Washington sent it out and told us to test the gas. White says to me,’C’mon, Ike. Let’s go outside. I’ll shoot you with it, then you shoot me.” ‘Fuck that,’I said.‘You ain’t gonna shoot me with that crap.’ So we went outside and I shot George White with the gas. He coughed, his face turned red, his eyes started watering. He was choking. Turned out, that stuffwas the prototype for Mace.”
I asked Feldman if he’d ever met Sidney Gottlieb, the elusive scientist who was the brains behind MK-ULTRA. “Several times Sidney Gottlieb came out,” Feldman assured me. “I met Gottlieb at the pad, and at White’s office. White used to send me to the air-port to pick up Sidney and this other wacko, John Gittinger, the psychologist. Sidney was a nice guy. He was a fuckin’ nut. They were all nuts. I says, ‘You’re a good Jewish boy from Brooklyn, like me. What are you doing with these crazy cocksuckers? He had this black bag with him. He says, ‘This is my bag of dirty tricks.’ He had all kinds of crap in that bag. We took a drive over to Muir Woods out by Stinson Beach. Sidney says, ‘Stop the car.’ He pulls out a dart gun and shoots this big eucalyptus tree with a dart. Then he tells me, Come back in two days and check this tree.’ So we go back in two days, the tree was completely dead. Not a leaf left on it. Now that was the forerunner of Agent Orange.
“I went back and I saw White, and he says to me, ‘What do you think of Sidney?’ I said, ‘I think he’s a fuckin’ nut.’ White says,’Well, he may be a nut, but this is the program. This is what we do.’ White thought they were all assholes. He said, ‘These guys are running our Intelligence?’ but they sent George $2,000 a month for the pad, and as long as they paid the bills, we went along with the program.” Gottlieb, who now lives in Virginia, refused to be interviewed for this article.
“Another time, I come back to the pad and the whole joint is littered with these pipe cleaners,” Feldman went on. “I said, ‘Who’s smokin’ a pipe?’ Gittinger, one of those CIA nuts, was there with two of my girls. He had ’am explaining all these different sex acts, the different positions they knew for humping. Now he has them making these little figurines out of the pipe cleaners-men and women screwing in all these different positions. He was taking pictures of the figurines and writing a history of each one. These pipe cleaner histories were sent back to Washington.”
A stated goal of Project MK-ULTRA was to determine “if an individual can be trained to perform an act of attempted assassination involuntarily” while under the influence of various mind-control techniques, and then have no memory of the event later. Feldman told me that in the early ’60s, after the MK-ULTRA program had been around for over a decade, he was summoned to George White’s office. White and CIA director Allen Dulles were there.
“They wanted George to arrange to hit Fidel Castro,” Feldman said. “They were gonna soak his cigars with LSD and drive him crazy. George called me in because I had this whore, one of my whores was this Cuban girl and we were gonna send her down to see Castro with a box of LSD-soaked cigars.”
Dick Russell, author of a recent book on the Kennedy assassination titled The Man Who Knew Too Much, uncovers new evidence to support the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald was a product of MK-ULTRA. One of the CIA’s overseas locations for LSD and mindcontrol experiments was Atsugi Naval Air base in Japan where Oswald served as a Marine radar technician. Russell says that after his book was published, a former CIA counter-intelligence expert called him and said Oswald had been “viewed by the CIA as fitting the psychological profile of someone they were looking for in their MK-ULTRA program,” and that he had been mind-conditioned to defect to the USSR.
Robert Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, while working as a horse trainer at the Santa Anita race track near Los Angeles, was introduced to hypnosis and the occult by a fellow groom with shadowy connections. Sirhan has always maintained he has no memory of the night he shot Kennedy,
One of the CIA’s mob contacts long suspected of involvement in John Kennedy’s assassination was the Las Vegas capo mafioso John Roselli. Roselli had risen to prominence in the Mob by taking over the Annenberg-Ragen wire service at Santa Anita, where Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby, sold a handicapper’s tip sheet. Ike Feldman told me Roselli was one of White’s many informants.
“On more than one occasion, White sent me to the airport to pick up John Roselli and bring him to the office,” said Feldman. Roselli was originally from Chicago, where White had served as District Supervisor of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1945 through 1947. Following a big opium smuggling bust in 1947, Jack Ruby was picked up and hauled in for interrogation, then later let off the hook by none other than White. Federal Bureau of Narcotics files indicate Jack Ruby was yet another of White’s legion stool pigeons.
The connections between MK-mind-control experiments, the proliferation of the drug culture, Mob/CIA assassination plots, and the emergence of new, lethal viruses go on and on. Fort Detrick in Maryland, where Frank Olson worked experimenting with viral strains (such as the deadly microbes Sidney Gottlieb personally carried to Africa in an aborted attempt to assassinate Patrice Lumumba), was recently the locale of a near disaster involving an outbreak of a newly emerged virus. The event was chronicled in a lengthy article published in the New Yorker.
Though the New Yorker writer did not make the connection between Fort Detrick, SOD, Frank Olson, and MK-NAOMI, he told of a number of monkeys who all died of a highly infectious virus known as Ebola that first appeared in 55 African villages in 1976, killing nine out of ten of its victims. Some epidemiologists believe AIDS originated in Africa. Feldman claimed the CIA used Africa as a staging ground to test germ warfare because “no one gave a goddamn about any of this crap over there.”
The MK-ULTRA program, the largest domestic operation ever mounted by the CIA, continued well into the ’70s. According to Feldman and other CIA experts, it is still continuing today under an alphabet soup of different cryptonyms. Indeed, one ex-agent told me it would be foolish to think that a program as fruitful as MK-ULTRA would be discontinued. When the agency comes under scrutiny, it simply changes the name of the program and continues unabated.
The public first learned of MK-ULTRA in 1977, with the disclosure of thousands of classified documents and CIA testimony before a Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy. Ike Feldman was subpoenaed and appeared on a panel of witnesses, but the senators failed to ask him a single question. Sidney Gottlieb, complaining of a heart condition, testified at a special semi-public session. He delivered a prepared statement and admitted to having destroyed perhaps one set of files. Another set was turned over to Senate investigators. The full extent of the CIA’s activities under the rubric of MK-ULTRA may never be known.
George White retired from the Narcotics Bureau in 1965. The last ten years of his life, he lived in Stinson Beach, California, where, known as Colonel White, he went on the wagon for a few years and became chief of the volunteer fire department. Local residents remember him once turning in four kids for smoking pot, and in another incident, spraying a preacher and his congregation with water at a beach picnic. He was also known to terrorize his wealthier neighbors by driving his jeep across their lawns. After White’s death, his widow donated his papers, including diaries, to an electronic surveillance museum. As information on MK-ULTRA entered the public domain, people who had known White only in his official FBN capacity were stunned to learn of his undercover role as Morgan Hall.
Ike Feldman, kept alive by a pacemaker, lives with his wife in a quiet suburban Long Island community where he tends his garden and oversees a number of business interests. According to George Belk, a former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency in New York, Feldman quit the drug agency following a probe by the internal security division. “Feldman was the sort of guy who didn’t have too many scruples,” said Dan Casey, a retired FBN agent who worked with Feldman in San Francisco. “For him, the ends justified the means.” A DEA flack confirmed Feldman “resigned under a cloud” at a time when a number of agents came under suspicion for a variety of offenses, none having to do with secret drug-testing programs. Feldman asserts he still works for the CIA on a contract basis, mostly in the Far East and Korea.
On the day of our last interview, over lunch at a restaurant in Little Italy, Feldman told me the CIA had contacted him and asked him why he was talking to me.
“Fuck them,” Feldman said. “I do what I want. I never signed any goddamn secrecy agreement.”
I asked him why he decided to talk with me. “There’s too much bullshit in the world,” Feldman said. “The world runs on bullshit.
“To make a long story short,” he said, using one of his favorite verbal segues, “I want the truth of this to be known so that people understand that what we did was good for the country.”
We ambled down the street to a Chinese grocer, where Feldman carried on a lengthy conversation with the owner in Chinese. A couple of young girls, tourists, wanted to have their picture taken with Feldman. “Are you a gangster?” they asked.
“No,” Feldman replied with a wave of his cigar, “I’m a goddamn CIA agent.”
As we walked on, I asked Feldman to explain how his work had been helpful to the country.
“I learned that most of this stuff was necessary for the United States,” he said, “and even though it may have hurt somebody in the beginning, in the long run it was important. As long as it did good for the country.”
I pressed him. “How so?”
“Well, look,” Feldman gestured with his cigar, “We’re goddamn free, aren’t we?”
SCIENTIST WAS ‘KILLED TO STOP HIM REVEALING DEATH SECRETS’; SO DID CHENEY AND RUMSFELD COVER UP A CIA ASSASSINATION?
London Sunday Express
By Gordon Thomas
US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld have been sensationally accused of covering up the “murder” of a former army scientist.
In 1953, Frank Olson, a key member of the CIA’s brainwashing programme MKULTRA, “plunged” from a New York hotel window.
He had allegedly threatened to reveal the CIA involvement in “terminal experiments” in post-war Germany and in Korea during the Korean War.
For almost half a century, his son Eric, a psychologist, has insisted his father as murdered on orders from the highest level. Now, California history professor Kathryn Olmstead says she has found documents written by Cheney and Rumsfeld which show how far the White House went to conceal information about Olson’s death.
She says Olson made anthrax and other biological weapons and that part of his work had been at Britain’s Porton Down Research Centre.
Eric Olson believes that Cheney and Rumsfeld were later given the task in the 1970s of covering up the details of his father’s death.
At that time Rumsfeld was White House Chief of Staff to President Gerald Ford. Dick Cheney was a White House assistant.
Among the papers found by Professor Olmstead is one that allegedly states: “Dr Olson’s job was so sensitive that it is highly unlikely that we would submit relevant evidence.”
In a memo, Cheney allegedly acknowledges that: “The Olson lawyers will seek to explore all the circumstances of Dr Olson’s employment, as well as those concerning his death. In any trial, it may become apparent that we are concealing evidence for national security reasons and any settlement or judgement reached thereafter could be perceived as money paid to cover up the activities of the CIA.”
Frank Olson’s family received $ 750,000 (then about GBP 400,000) to settle their claims in 1976.
Both the offices of Rumsfeld and Cheney have declined to comment on their role concerning the alleged coverup but, from his home outside Washington, Eric Olson said that the documents involving Rumsfeld and Cheney show they “have questions to answer”.
He added: “The documents show the lengths to which the government was trying to cover up the truth.”
However, CIA spokesman Paul Nowack insisted: “The CIA fully cooperated in allowing the truth to surface. Tens of thousands of documents were released”.
Eric Olson said his father was murdered to cover up his ultra-secret research in Korea and Europe.
He said: “My father was among scientists studying the use of LSD and other drugs to enhance interrogations as Cold War tensions ran high.”
He contends that, in the final days of his life, his father became “morally distraught” over his work and decided to quit.
Mercury News reporter Frederick Tulksy said: “In 1993, Eric Olson arranged for his father’s body to be unearthed and examined by James Starrs, a forensic scientist. Starrs concluded that Frank Olson had probably been struck on the head and then thrown out of the hotel window.”
In late November 1953, Frank Olson, then 43, joined a group of government officials at a conference at Deep Creek Lodge in western Maryland. For days afterward, Olson was withdrawn. His son, Eric, says his father told his wife that he intended to quit his job.
Frank Olson did not quit. On November 23, he went to New York and visited LSD researcher Harold A Abramson.
Olson went back to New York on November 28 and checked into the Statler Hotel. He was scheduled to enter a sanitarium the next day.
Early in the morning of November 29, Frank Olson went through the window of the hotel room he was sharing with colleague Robert Lashbrook. Lashbrook told the police he was awakened by the sound of breaking glass.
In 1975, a commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller issued a report on CIA abuses, Days later, the family was invited to the White House to meet President Ford. He assured them they would be given all information about what happened to Frank Olson.
This week, the Olsons’ attorney David Rudovsky, of Philadelphia, said: “It now appears that was not the case.”
“Justice Delayed”
Final section of new Postscript to:
Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans
by Jonathan Moreno
Professor of Biomedical Ethics, University of Virginia
In Chapter Seven I chronicled some of the outrageous activities of the national security agencies during the 1950s. Perhaps the most famous single case of CIA “mind control” experiments was that of Frank Olson, the scientist who has long been said to have committed suicide by jumping out of a New York City hotel room window after being given LSD without his knowledge. That, at least, is the story that the public has come to know and that is recounted in this book.
However, in the fall of 1999 the A&E cable television network aired a program that reiterated previously broadcast doubts about the official story and also offered the most comprehensive alternative theory yet presented. The program noted that the New York City district attorney’s office has reopened the 1953 case as a homicide investigation. The D.A. was partly influenced by the findings of a forensic pathologist from George Washington University who examined Olson’s remains and concluded that Olson suffered a blow on the head with a blunt object prior to his fall. Just as importantly, the pathologist did not find the facial lacerations that had been recorded by the coroner in 1953 (though the skin was intact upon exhumation of the remains), though cuts would have been expected from a violent thrust through glass. Others interviewed on the program disputed the likelihood of suicide from a closed window with the shade drawn, and in fact Olson has spoken calmly to his wife on the telephone a few hours before. But why would a quiet scientist like Frank Olson be murdered?
In the spring of 2000 Eric Olson, Frank Olson’s son, called me in my office at the University of Virginia. We talked about the standard account of his father’s death and he shared with me his theory, one that will be tested by the New York district attorney. According to Eric Olson, his father was eliminated because he posed a threat to the agency’s top secret drug experiments, including some that may have been conducted abroad. Frank Olson, it seems, was not only an experimental subject but also engaged as a researcher in the CIA’s Special Operations Division. As a researcher Olson himself used animals in experiments and perhaps witnessed the use of humans as well. Whatever he saw, perhaps in U.S.-occupied West Germany, seems to have greatly disturbed him. As it happens, Eric Olson told me, the CIA’s declassified assassination manual for 1953 specifies a faked suicidal jump as a preferred means of elimination.
I asked Eric Olson for the image that came to his mind after nearly five decades of life with one of the greatest burdens a person can have, the unsolved mystery of his father’s death. “I have long thought that accounts of my father’s death are very like H.C. Andersen’s story ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ Olson said. “After the perceptual cloud is punctured and the emperor is seen to be stark naked one wonders how the illusion of fine garb could have been sustained so long.” Olson continued:
“Neither version of the story of my father’s ‘suicide’— neither the one from 1953 in which he ‘fell or jumped’ out a hotel room window for no reason, nor the 1975 version in which he dives through a closed window in a nine-day delayed LSD flashback while his hapless CIA escort either looks on in dismay or is suddenly awakened by the sound of crashing glass (both versions were peddled) — made any sense. On the other hand both versions deflected attention from the most troubling issue inherent in the conduct of the kind of BW and mind-control research in which my father and his colleagues were engaged.
“The moral of my father’s murder is that a post-Nuremberg world places the experimenters as well as the research subjects (my father was both simultaneously) at risk in a new way, particularly in countries that claim the moral high ground. Maintenance of absolute secrecy in the new ethical context implies that potential whistle blowers can neither be automatically discredited nor brought to trial for treason. Nor can casualties arising from experiments with unacknowledged weapons be publicly displayed. The only remaining option is some form of ‘disposal.’ This places the architects of such experiments in a position more like that of Mafia dons than traditional administrators of military research. The only organizational exit is a horizontal one. In the face of this implication the CIA enforcers of the early 1950’s did not flinch, though historians along with the general public have continued to see the state in all its finery.”
My conversations with Eric Olson were one of two experiences that brought his father’s case home and the CIA’s decades-old experiments home to me after Undue Risk was first published. A history devoted specifically to American biological weapons program, The Biology of Doom, also appeared for the first time in 1999. Its author, Ed Regis, is like me a former philosophy professor. Reading Regis’ book I learned that Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA spymaster responsible for their chemical warfare program, including the LSD experiments, died at the University of Virginia Hospital. His death occurred while I was putting the finishing touches on Undue Risk, and his deathbed was steps from my office in the medical school.
Later a second irony occurred to me. Gottlieb’s privacy was scrupulously protected by my physician colleagues, his doctors, as it should have been. They afforded him the moral consideration and human dignity that he seems not to have granted those who were unfortunate enough to be unwitting participants in his experiments. Yet I am more hopeful than ever that efforts to quash the truth about some of the most closely held secrets of cold war experiments, including the circumstances surrounding Frank Olson’s death, will ultimately fail. The only way to be sure is to demand that federal officials open the files on biological and chemical experiments, just as they did on radiation experiments. The New York district attorney’s handling of the Olson case can light the way for the rest of government, but only if all of us refuse to forget the victims of undue risk.
Jonathan D. Moreno, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Biomedical Ethics
Box 348 Health Sciences Center
Charlottesville, Va. 22908
§ Why was Robeson’s health such a concern to the government, and why is the FBI’s information on it still being withheld?
§ Was the CIA implicated in my father’s 1961 “suicide attempt”?
§ Did the CIA, in collusion with the British intelligence service, orchestrate his subjection to “mind depatterning”?
THE CIA’S ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST
By Tad Szulc
What was in the minds of the men who for two decades pursued the dream of a mind-control drug? And how did they see the practical and ethical issues?
“LSD -25 is the most potent psychoagent available at the present time. Trace quantities of LSD-25 create serious mental confusion of the manic and schizophrenic type and render the mind temporarily susceptible to suggestion. … But there are as yet insufficient data to confirm or deny its usefulness for eliciting true and accurate statements from subjects under its influence. Because LSD-25 is colorless, odorless and tasteless, it could possibly be used clandestinely for the contamination of food and water, although the data on its stability in solution are conflicting. Since the effect of the drug is temporary in contrast to the fatal nerve agents, there are important strategic advantages for its use in certain operations…. Of the other known psychogenic drugs, mescaline produces reactions that are the most similar to those of LSD-25…. Although no Soviet data are available on LSD-25, it must be assumed that the scientists of the USSR are thoroughly cognizant of the strategic importance of this powerful drug and are capable of producing it at any time.”
For a change, the Central Intelligence Agency was onto something before most of the rest of the world had discovered it. The year was 1955 and the analysis was from a report of the agency’s Office of Scientific Intelligence titled “Strategic Medical Significance of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD-25).”
Some researchers had already begun to experiment with LSD on their own in those days, without any help from the CIA. But the drug cult of the 1960s was far in the future, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were only a couple of struggling young assistant professors. Supplies of the powerful hallucinogen were not even available on the U.S. market, and little was known about its effects on personality and behavior (see box, page 101). Indeed, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that the CIA-sponsored research with LSD during the 1950s in private institutions and hospitals contributed in some modest way to the drug culture-by turning many people on to the drug. As described in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Ken Kesey first took the drug in 1959 as an experimental subject at the Stanford University Medical School-one of the institutions recently notified by the CIA that it was a site for research associated with the mind-control program.
America’s intelligence chiefs were interested in some kind of “truth drug” as far back as 1943, when the wartime Office of Strategic Services ~OSS~ experimented with marijuana. But the CIA’s interest in drugs and behavioral research was, during the 1950s, awakened by reports that the Soviet Union had made giant strides in developing chemical compounds for brainwashing. Government officials had been impressed by the “confessions” of Hungary’s late Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty during his trial in 1949—CIA specialists were convinced he had been brainwashed with drugs—and with the apparent brainwashing of American prisoners of war in North Korea.
Bad trip: Artist’s portrayal of the suicide of biochemist Frank Olson, who jumped from a New York hotel room at 2:30 A.M. on November 28, 1953, nine days after the CIA gave him LSD. Foreground, Dr. Robert Lashbrook, the CIA scientist who brought Olson to New York to seek treatment. (Illustrations by Haruo Miyauchi)
Under the circumstances, the agency was fearful that its own agents could be brainwashed, and in 1950, it embarked on “defensive” research to find ways of protecting them. What CIA scientists eagerly sought at the outset was a drug that might neutralize the suspected Russian compounds and prevent agents from revealing information. Taking shape as it did in the early 1950s, when the Cold War was the central concern of U.S. foreign policy, the “defensive” research was expanded almost overnight to encompass “offensive” work as well-the testing and development of drugs such as LSD that the CIA could use for its interrogations of enemy personnel.
During almost a quarter of a century, the CIA conducted or sponsored at least 419 secret drug- testing projects. The ex-periments were part of a broader pro-gram that also explored other means ofmind and behavior control, such as hyp-nosis and even implantation of electrodes in the brain. Although the agency tested compounds ranging from mes-caline to extracts from poisonous mushrooms, the key drug was LSD-25, a synthetic variation on a c ompound found in a fungus. The tests were con-ducted at a cost of at least $25 million at 86 United States and Canadian hospi-tals, prisons, universities, and military installations, as well as the agency’s own “safe houses” in Washington, New York, and San Francisco.
The subjects of the test were, at first, largely CIA volunteers-and, indeed, some of the agency’s top scientists took LSD to see how it aff ected their intellectual faculties. But eventually the agency found other subjects among narcotics addicts under treatment, federal prisoners, terminal-cancer patients in charity wards, college students, and fun-seeking “johns” entrapped at $100 a head by CIA-controlled prostitutes. just how much they were all told about LSD before they were given the drug remains unclear, but, by the agency’s own admission, many were “unwitting” subjects. Although ethical standards for such experiments were considerably murkier then than they are now, the CIA launched its LSD research on unwitting subjects even though the U.S. was a party to an international understanding that, in effect, banned such activities. The understanding known as the Nuremberg Principles was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1946-with the U.S. voting in favor-as a formal condemnation of war crimes that included the medical experiments performed by Nazi doctors on human prisoners.
“War room”: In the years of projects BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, the planners met in what was known as the war room. The program was the creation of gung-ho young operatives who later rose to top positions, among them Richard Helms (lower right), who became CIA director.
Before Richard Helms left his post as CIA director in 1973, a large portion of the agency’s records of its mindcontrol program was ordered destroyed But a good deal of the story is detailed in Congressional testimony and thousands of pages of documents released in recent months under the Freedom of Information Act. While the general outlines of the program are by now generally known, the documents-which include descriptions of the tests themselves, memos from top CIA officials tracing the evolution of the projects, evaluations of the results-provide an interesting, close-up look at just what the CIA wanted to find out and to accomplish, andhow a defensive program turned into an offensive one that used many innocent citizens as guinea pigs.
Most important, the story raises ethical questions that are important today. One-fourth of the American scientists who were approached by the CIA agreed to work for it, according to one of the agency’s documents. While some were no doubt pursuing harmless research, others were working on projects that Could have been used for manipulative purposes, with top-secret security clearances and under the cover of “pure medical research.” What does their complicity tell us about the ethical standards of American scientists?
The Birth of BLUEBIRD
The man whom the CIA documents credit with inspiring the program is Dr. L. Wilson Greene of the Army Chemical Corps, who had long urged the United States to embark upon psychochemical warfare. The basic program, called BLUEBIRD,and soon renamed ARTICHOKE (the code names have no known significance), was the creation of a small group of young, gung-ho CIA operators, former members of the OSS, whom time rose to key positions in the, agency. One of these was Richard Helms, then special assistant for clandestine operations to CIA director Walter Bedell Smith. Another was James Angleton, then chief of the agency’s “Staff A,” the forerunner of the Counterintelligence Staff that he ran until his forced retirement in 1974.Among CIA officials with a scientific background present at the birth of BLUEBIRD were Dr. Marshall Chadwell, assistant director for scientific intelligence, Colonel James H. Drum, deputy chief of the Technical Services Staff, and Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, a biochemist who was to become th e central figure in all the subsequent CIA mind- and-behavior-modifi cation endeavors.
Established by the CIA on April 2, 1951, Project BLUEBIRD Was supposed to invent techniques for what became known as “special interrogations.” By mid-year, however, BLUEBIRD had begun to spread its wings. A document issued on June 11 described the essential elements in the program as “physiological research leading to a better understanding of the constituent factors in human behavior” and “physiological and pharmacological research leading to a better understanding of the action or effectiveness of various agents used in connection with efforts to control human behavior.”
Soon a list of 37 “physiological agents” was drawn up for possible use in interrogations. It ranged from amphetamines and cocaine, to cannabis, mescaline, morphine, pentobarbital, and scopolamine. Although lysergic acid had been discovered in 1938, and the effects of LSD on the mind were first observed in 1943, the CIA seemed unaware of it in 1951: it did not make the BLUEBIRD list.
Shortly thereafter, however, BLUEBIRD acquired a new aim: a memo on the program’s goals from Dr. Sidney Gottlieb spoke vaguely about the possibilities of “inducing a person to perform acts (short or long term) which he normally could not be expected to perform.” The CIA had begun to think seriously about behavior control,
BLUEBIRD became ARTICHOKE on August 20,1951, and a few months later an internal memo of the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence suggested a more specific aim for the program. At this point, the agency seemed to be looking for a method of inducing amnesia in persons from whom information had been obtained under the effect of special drugs or hypnotism. The idea was that foreign agents should never remember that they had talked to CIA interrogators. “It remains the dream of the interested agencies,” the memo of January 25, 1952, said, “that a drug is forthcoming that can be given to a person orall , without his knowledge, that will result in his revealing anything the interested party would like to know, and the person would have complete amnesia for the event.”
In the same report, the agency expressed interest in hypnotism as a related tool, observing that “there is ample evidence that unethical actions can be accomplished through the use of hypnosis in our controlled situations.” It recommended the recruitment of a New York hypnotist who “tends toward unscrupulous use of this technique.” It declared that “it has been proven… that a hypnotized person can be made to lie to the polygraph through direct hypnotic control or through posthypnotic suggestion,” (Most professionals experienced in hypnotism would deny there is any evidence it has these powers.)
The report also complained that the CIA Security Office was being too strict with ARTICHOKE operators, denying, for example, the permission to use federal prisoners for their experiments on the grounds that “criticism of the government interest in such activities might, if discovered, result in irreparable political repercussions.”
In February, the new coordinator of ARTICHOKE, Dr. Marshall Chadwell, proposed the establishment of “an integrated CIA program for the development of special interrogations or other techniques for the purpose of controlling an individual without his knowledge.” CIA director Smith accepted Dr. Chadwell’s proposal, and a month later, the CIA set up a “small testing facility” at its downtown headquarters in Washington, D.C. Sometime in 1952, the agency began testing LSD on individuals, presumably CIA volunteers. But a new ARTICHOKE report was not promising as far as LSD was concerned. It noted that “while definite results have been achieved in producing confusion among subjects treated with minute quantities, these items have not yet shown usefulness for interrogation purposes.”
LSD was not yet ready for testing in interrogations, but the agency did report some success in causing amnesia after interrogations, through a combination of hypnosis and sodium pentathol. In June, ARTICHOKE dispatched a team to West Germany to test new interrogation methods on two Soviet intelligence agents suspected of “being doubled,” that is, pretending to defect while actually working for the KGB. The two agents, who claimed to be working for the West, were examined under a “psychiatric-medical cover” that is, they were given a trumped-up excuse for the interrogations.
With medication and hypnosis, one agent was put in a trance that he held for about One hour and 40 minutes; subsequently, the documents say, total amnesia was produced by posthypnotic suggestion. The second agent went into a deep hypnotic trance with only light medication and was interrogated for well over an hour. The ARTICHOKE report says only a partial amnesia was achieved. But in a second test on the agent, in which “the ARTICHOKE technique of using straight medication” was employed, the agency obtained highly successful results during a two-hour and-15-minute interrogation which included a “remarkable regression.” During this regression, the subject evidently relived certain events in his life, some dating back 15 years, while totally accepting the case officer and interpreter “as an old, trusted and beloved personal friend whom the subject had known in years past in Georgia, USSR.” The report goes on to say that total amnesia was apparently achieved for the second test. (It does not disclose whether the CIA ever learned if the two Russians were double agents or not.)
The drugs used in the interrogation were sodium pentathol alone, or sodium pentathol together with Desoxyn, a stimulant. The team reported that the tests “demonstrated conclusively the effectiveness of the combined chemical-hypnotic technique” Now the way was opened for the use of LSD in interrogations.
MK-ULTRA-A Turning Point
Meanwhile, a CIA scientist, working under deep cover, had returned from a trip to Europe in July 1952 with a recommendation that the drug be employed in chemical warfare against entire populations. The scientist wrote that “our own current work contains the strong suggestion that LSD-25 will produce mass hysteria (unaccountable laughter, anxiety, eth.). While our studies so far have been carried out in isolated individuals, one at a time, it is well known that hysteria is compounded when several vulnerable individuals are together. The lysergic-acid derivative can produce a temporary state of severe imbalance, hysteria, insanity…. Conceivably, this might be an unusually merciful agent of warfare: temporarily nullifying the individual’s effectiveness, but not permanently damaging him.”
With all this in mind, the CIA decided to broaden ARTICHOKE. A memorandum circulated in September 1952 announced that the scope of the project was “research and testing to arrive at, means of control rather than the more limited concept embodied in ‘special interrogations.”’ At a subsequent meeting of the ARTICHOKE steering committee, much time was taken up with discussions of LSD and on the possibility of concentrating on “certain facilities in the United States as testing grounds for new ideas, experiments, etc., particularly using criminals and the criminally insane.”
But the great turning point in the history of the CIA program came in April 1953 with the launching of the equally top-secret Project MK-ULTRA, which was apparently intended as a parallel funding mechanism for ARTICHOKE. In its subsequent attempts at reconstructing All these events, the agency was unable to explain why exactly MK-ULTRA was created; it became completely intertwined with ARTICHOKE, although it very quickly came up with some very extraordinary ideas of its own.
The guiding force behind MK-ULTRA was Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who had just become chief of the Chemical Division of the CIA’s Technical Services Staff. Remembered by his colleagues for his forcefulness as well as for his marked stuttering while excited, Gottlieb came closest to the image of the sinister scientist in the whole strange cast of agency characters. He played this role for 20 years, until his forced resignation and a two-year disappearance in Australia after CIA scandals began breaking out in 1973.
The bespectacled researcher was a passionate believer in psychochemical warfare and dedicated his time to LSD testing, highly sophisticated experiments in hypnosis, and the search for hallucinatory materials in exotic mushrooms and flowers. When the agency plotted the assassination of Congo leftist Patrice Lumumba in 1960, it was Gottlieb who personally carried the poison to the Congo and hand-delivered it to the agency’s chief of station.
No sooner had MK-ULTRA been established than Gottlieb proceeded to organize 13 subprojects that called for the support of LSD research for the purposes of disturbance of memory, discrediting by aberrant behavior, altering sex patterns, eliciting information, enhancing suggestibility, and creating dependence. He ordered the preparation of an operational field manual on the uses of LSD. He personally handled contracts with outside institutions, approving every payment, no matter how small.
He even recruited a well-known New York magician, the late John Mulholland, to prepare a top-secret manual on techniques for surreptitiously slipping LSD and other drugs into the drinks of unsuspecting persons. The idea occurred to Gottlieb after his field agents reported difficulties in handling LSD without detection. He agreed to pay Mulholland $3,000 for his efforts, and was greatly pleased with his discovery of the magician. But while Mulholland prepared a detailed memo on what the manual would cover, there’s no evidence in the CIA documents that he ever turned it in.
Sleight of hand: When its field agents reported problems in handling LSD for secret tests, the CIA hired a New York magician, John Mulholland, for advice on how to I . improve their skills, He was to prepare a manual of tricks for slipping drugs into the drinks of unsuspecting test subjects.
Another Gottlieb subproject under MK-ULTRA conducted experiments with LAE, a lysergic-acid derivative, for the purpose of inducing depersonalization and a schizophrenia-like condition in test subjects. Gottlieb referred to the result in these cases as “reversible chemical lobotomy”—suggesting that the effects wear off. There were 429 tests of this type reported on normal and psychotic individuals in the first year of MK-ULTRA. (As in other such tests mentioned in the CIA documents, there was no indication of where the test subjects came from and whether they were “witting” or “unwitting.”) Still another MKULTRA subproject called for a psychological analysis of the effects of LSD on 220 college students who were tested in 1953.
Only one problem seemed to slow down Gottlieb’s ambitious drug experiments: the agency couldn’t get enough LSD. The drug was manufactured only by the Sandoz company in Switzerland. The CIA was able to secretly buy small amounts from Sandoz, but this was not considered sufficient. The agency kept worrying, moreover, that the Swiss were also exporting the drug to the Sovier Union.
Gottlieb therefore set up another subproject to search for new supplies of LSD and other rare drugs in theU.S. and abroad. A Gottlieb memo in 1953 stated that MK-ULTRA Subproject 6 “is designed to develop a reliable source of lysergic acid derivatives within the U.S., as opposed to our present complete depen upon [DELETED I sources, and in addition, it aims to extend the isolation and testing program of the hypnoti c nat- products from the Rivea species of plants obtained from [DELETED].”
Gottlieb failed to explain it in his memo, but seeds of the Rivea plant (its full name is Rivea corymbosa), when ingested in quantity, produce nausea, digestive upset, hallucinations, loss of motor control, and, finally, coma. He obviously knew, however, that lysergic acid monoethylamide can be isolated from Rivea seeds and turned into LSD.
CIA “Guinea Pigs”
While Gottlieb was looking for better sources of LSD, the CIA’s ARTICHOKE committee developed concern that for-agency personnel might, Lill &I t h e influence of drugs, reveal top-secret information to outsiders. According to the minutes of a committee meeting held in July 1953, one of the participants stated that “some individuals in the Agency had to know tremendous amounts of information and if any way could be found to produce amnesias for this type of information-for instance, after the individual had left the Agency-it would be a remarkable thing.”
The speaker then stated that “the need for amnesias was particularly great in operations work.” He was assured by two of his colleagues that work was continually being done in an effort to produce controlled amnesias by various means.
One series of tests on CIA employees was designed to see whether LSD could i break the so-called “pentathol block.” During interrogations, captured agents were often given sodium pentathol-or “truth serum” sometimes combined with hypnosis, as in the case of the Soviet “double agents,” in an effort to get them to disclose secrets. But intelligence services discovered that they could “condition” their agents against revealing information under the influence of the drug by giving them doses of it themselves.
A former CIA official reported in an interview that he was given LSD 21 times for this purpose at one of the agency’s cover facilities in Washington. Tic was never given a psychiatri c examination, and after the last test, he suffered within 24 hours what he described as an LSD “relapse,” Driving his car i that day, he experienced a major “loss of coherence.” He lost all control and found himself in the wreckage of the vehicle after it turned over several times on a Washington parkway.
But the greatest shock in these LSD experiments came when the CIA learned that one of its subjects committed suicide nine days after ingesting the drug. The victim was Dr. Frank R. Olson, a 43-year-old civilian biochemist employed by the Army Medical Corps a tFort Detrick, Maryland. According to a report by Colonel Sheffield Edwards Olson had participated in an LSD-test’ ing session on the evening of November 19, 1953. Also present were Gottlieb, 1 two CIA scientists-a man named Hughes and Dr. Robert V. Lashbrook and four members of the Army’s Chemi cal Corps Special Operations team.
Gottlieb and Lashbrook took the drug thernselves. Colonel Edwards reported that the men had assembled at a twostory log cabin in the Deer Creek Lake area of Fort Detrick. He wrote that “on Thursday evening, it was decided to experiment with the drug LSD, and for the members present to administer the drug to themselves to ascertain the effect a clandestine application would have on a meeting or conference.” The report asserted that “Gottlieb stated a ‘very small dose’ of LSD was placed in a bottle of Cointreau,” and that afterward the group was “boisterous and laughing, and they could not continue the meeting or engage in sensible conversation.”
Olson was told that he had swallowed LSD about 20 minutes after drinking some Cointreau. He killed himself nine days later by jumping out the window of New York’s Starlet Hotel at 2:30 A.M. on Saturday, November 28. He had been brought to New York by Lashbrook to be treated for an alleged psychiatric disturbance by the CIA’s principal secret LSD consultant, Dr. Harold A. Abramson, a highly respected physician who was then head of the Allergy Clinic at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York.
It remains unclear why Olson was the only one to be seriously affected by the LSD dose. Subsequent CIA memos claimed that he had previously suffered from “suicidal tendencies” and that LSD had simply triggered his suicide. Colonel Edwards reported that “Gottlieb reiterated many times that outside of the boisterous effect and the inability to think properly, LSD has no harmful or permanently injurious effects.”
Outside Contractors
None of the men in the log cabin had undergone medical or psychiatric examinations before taking the drug, and Gottlieb was reprimanded by the new ClA director, Allen Dulles, for failure to take precautions. For a while, indeed, it looked as if the CIA flirtation with LSD was over. According to an official reI port, Gottlieb’s immediate supervisor, Dr. Willis Gibbons, chief of the Technical Services Staff, had impounded all LSD material at CIA headquarters and locked it in a safe next to his own desk. The report added that “Dr. Gibbons stated that he is stopping any LSD tests which may have been instituted under CIA auspices.”
Although all outside contractors I were to be notified of Gibbons’ ban, the testing nonetheless went on. This was particularly true at the Addiction Research Center at the U.S. Public Health Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, whose director, Dr. Harris Isbell, had been experimenting with LSD on federal prisoners and his patients, with secret CIA sponsorship, for nearly two years before Olson died.
Dr. Isbell was among the group of distinguished American scientists who had enthusiastically embarked on studies under CIA contracts. His principal responsibilities had been research to find a synthetic substitute for codeine (the government feared the U.S. might be cut off from all its usual sources of opium). But Dr. Isbell’s report for the first quarter of 1954 noted that clinical studies at his center were also concerned with “intoxication with diethylamide of lysergic acid.” In his quarterly report to the CIA, he claimed new insights, including an evaluation of whether the drug’s effects varied according to race, age, and social and economic status: “We have now studied the subjective changes induced by LSD-25 in more than 50 former narcotic addicts. The symptoms observed appear to be identical with those observed in groups of non-addicts or for different composition with respect to race, age, social and economic status, and personality types…. The effects of LSD-25 appear to be specific and are not related to any of the factors mentioned above. This is a matter of great interest, since the subjective effects induced by LSD-25 have been studied more intensively and more thoroughly in a greater diversity of populations than any other drug with which we are familiar, including morphine and alcohol.”
LSD, it appears from CIA documents, was also given at about the same time to cancer patients and diabetics at a Washington hospital under an agency contract. This was one of Gottlieb’s MK-ULTRA subprojects and it was concerned with “toxic delirium, uremic coma and cerebral toxicity from poisoning.” Cancer and diabetic patients were given “chemical compounds” in order to “study the eff ect on mental function of large doses of the compound.” The document, which has heavy deletions, does not specifically mention LSD as the drug in these tests, but a former CIA official familiar with this particular program said privately that “it couldn’t have been anything else.”
Of course, we do not know if LSD had adverse effects on these patients; indeed, some dying patients today take LSD voluntarily, to experience the powerful visions that it stimulates in their final days. No doubt, Isbell’s prisoners and addicts were “volunteers,” but the documents do not tell us anything about what they were told before the experiments and whether they were given psychiatric examinations. Isbell has not made himself available for questioning on these and other points.
LSD Breakthrough
Whatever restraints on LSD tests had been imposed by the Olson death seem to have been abandoned when the agency received the electrifying news, in October 1954, that Eli Lilly & Company had succeeded in synthesizing the drug in its laboratories. This was the breakthrough the agency had been awaiting for three years; now it had access to all the LSD money could buy.
It was judged to be so important that a special memorandum on the subject was rushed to CIA director Dulles on October 26. The CIA clandestine services had immediately concluded that now LSD could be employed not only in testing but also in actual intelligence operations, for reasons given in the memo to Dulles: “Hitherto, LSD could not be considered seriously as a candidate Chemical Warfare agent for overt use. This was due to two factors: a) until recently only volatile liquids could be disseminated in a suitable fashion in bulk. LSD is a solid. LSD can now be produced in quantity and recent technical developments make it possible to disseminate solids in an effective manner.”
At this point, the matter was considered so important that the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence prepared its bulky top-secret study, “Strategic Medical Significance of Lysergic Acid Diethylamidc (LSD-25),” which was circulated to only seven senior officials besides Dulles. The study offered the best rationale to date for tests on humans. The drug had important strategic advantages. It was assumed that Russian scientists were aware of it. National security might be at stake.
As far back as April 1953, for example, a special CIA committee running the secret drug program had requested a “large number of bodies” for testing mind-affecting compounds, expressing the belief that a great many American scientists would be willing and anxious to carry out the experiments. In 1955, the CIA concluded that tests in a controlled environment-at the agency and in hospitals and prisons-were no longer sufficient, and, to make sense, they had to be conducted in “normal social situations.”
All along, Gottlieb had been trying to persuade his CIA superiors that experiments on unwitting subjects were necessary. He explained it thus: “One of the difficulties of determining explicitly the effect of the drug itself is that the subject and the observer are both conscious of the fact that an experiment is being performed. It is hoped in the next year that subjects… who are essentially normal from a psychiatric point of view will be given unwitting doses of the drug…. In this way more valuable experiments will probably be carried out in spite of hospital conditions. Attempts are being made at present to set up projects with collaborating organizations on the effect of LSD-25 on brain metabolism, on the metabolic activities of nerves and on enzyme reactions.”
The CIA had learned a great deal about LSD during its first four years of experiments, but it was also aware of wide gaps in its knowledge. After reading the strategic study, therefore, CIA director Dulles said in a 1955 memo to the secretary of defense that “it would appear to be important that field trials be made to determine the effects on groups of people or on individuals engaged in group activities.” This was the official green light for the CIA’s indiscriminate testing of LSD on unsuspecting Americans, and from 1955 onward, there’s evidence that more Such subjects were involved as the CIA kept expanding its quest for a dream drug without interference by agency directors or Presidents.
The drug programs were phased out in 1967 during the Johnson administration, but some projects were continued until 1973, when the new director, James R. Schlesinger, canceled a large number of questionable operations. What, then, had the CIA accomplished?
A 1975 report by the CIA’s inspectorgeneral summed it up: “The program had explored avenues of control of human behavior involving such subjects as radiation, electroshock, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and anthropology, harassment substances, and paramilitary devices and materials. … The TSD [Technical Services Division of the CIA] doctrine was described as being to the effect that testing of materials under accepted scientific procedures does not disclose the full pattern of reactions that may occur in operational situations, leading to TSD’s initiating a program in 1955 of covert testing of materials on unwitting U.S. citizens …. In a number of instances the test subject became ill for hours or days, including hospitalization in at least one case. While evaluations indicated some operational value in the tests, it was noted that scientific controls were ab-in addition to the basic ethical problem.”
Here, then, is the CIA’s own admission of failure. In 25 years of research into controlling human behavior, the agency had found little of value to its operations. But the report is also a selfindictment on moral and ethical grounds. And, by extension, it is an indictment of those scientists and academic and medical institutions who joined in these experiments in the name of a strange perception of national security.
To be sure, men such as Dr. Isbell of the Addiction Research Center were perhaps looking only for funding f or their work and might have opposed its use for mind control. “From my reading of the documents, it sounds as if Isbell’s research could just as easily have been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health,” says Dr. Sidney Cohen of UCLA, a respected LSD researcher. “The only thing Isbell was ‘guilty’ of was getting money from the CIA.”
It is true that the climate of the times was different. “Before World War 11, few medical researchers seemed consciously concerned with ethical problems,” says Dr. Richard Restak, a neurologist who writes about bioethical problems. “But with the postwar revelations of Nazi atrocities in the name of science, the need for formal ethical guidelines became painfully clear, The Nuremberg code was the most important document of this period. Still, the 1950s were a period of transition, and the Nuremberg Principles may have seemed to apply more directly to medical procedures than to behavioral research. It is only in the last decade or so that formal codes of ethics have become widely accepted in the psychiatric community.”
The number of scientists who de to participate in the CIA prograrn suggests the agency must have known from the start that its program would be viewed as shocking in many academic quarters. In fact, a former CIA staff psychiatrist, now in private practice in Arlington, Virginia, says that he had warned his agency colleagues at the inception of the LSD program that in his opinion, it was a “useless and dangerous pursuit.” He himself refused to be drawn into it.
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a professor of psychiatry at Yale and an expert on brainwashing, takes the view that the CIA’s mind-control experiments were “the product of a lurid imagination,” leading to “destructive processes in the name of science.” Dr. Lifton, whom the CIA tried unsuccessfully to recruit in the early 1960s to work on the psychological breakdown of captured enemy guerrillas, said that all these events showed “how our profession can be drawn into corruption.” Quite aside from the moral issues, Lifton believes that the CIA research was not a serious professional effort, for it lacked the nccessary scientific standards. Carried out as a secret operation, Lifton points out, this work was deprived of exposure and critical evaluation by others.
He also believes that it was a violation of the Nuremberg Principles. It remains unclear, however, whether in the strictest legal sense the CIA was guilty of violating international law by conducting its mind-control tests. But whether the Nuremberg Principles were binding or not on the U.S., many Americans would consider the research dangerous from both an ethical and political viewpoint. Most frightening is the prospect that unless such research is strictly controlled, a government with vast powers could one day use it to manipulate its own citizenry. Recent experience strongly suggests, moreover, that such top-secret work fosters ever more lurid schemes. As one former CIA doctor put it: “We lived in a nevernever land of ‘eyes-only’ memos and unceasing experimentation.”
The final report of Senator Frank Church’s Select Committee on intelligence in 1976 summed it LIP this way: “The research and development program, and particularly the covert testing program, resulted in massive abridgements of the rights of American citizens, sometimes with tragic conscquences. The deaths of two Americans can be attributed to these programs; other participants in the testing program may still suffer from the residual effects.”*
Most of the men who conceived and directed the CIA’s rnind-control program are dead. The one scientist who probably knows the full history, Sidney Gottlieb, revealed little in an appearance before Senator Edward Kennedy’s Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research in September. Gottlieb testified in a private session with the senators because of ill health (his voice was piped via loudspeakers to reporters in another room) and under a grant of immunity from prosecution.
Gottlieb said that the CIA in the 1950s knew of “well-documented instances of covert drug administration against Americans.” Only from 20 to 50 Americans were unknowing subjects of drug tests at CIA safe houses in New York and San Francisco; “Harsh as it may seem in retrospect,” he said, “such a procedure and such a risk” were believed reasonable in view of the threat to “national survival.” The whitehaired witness admitted he had destroyed the records of these experi en ts. Gottlieb’s appearance, moreover, revealed little about the standards and procedures used in experiments by the CIAs private contractors.
We may never know the full truth about projects ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA, and, if we do, it probably won’t come from Gottlieb. As he discovered himself-along with the CIA-it is not easy to unlock men’s minds and wrest the secrets from them.
Tad Szulc is a Washington-based writer on national security matters. He is a former foreign correspondent of the New York Times and also covered the CIA in Washington for the Times. His books include one on E. Howard Hunt, Jr., Compulsive Spy (Viking), and a study of Nixon’s foreign policy to appear in January, The Illusion of Peace (Viking)
LSD: YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW
LSD-25 was the 25th in a series of compounds derived from the rye fungus ergot in routine research at Switzerland’s Sandoz Pharmaceutical Laboratories. In 1943, five years after it was synthesized, Dr. Albert Hofmann, one of the codiscoverers, accidentally became aware of its odd effects on the human brain. In his account of history’s first acid trip, Dr. Hofmann wrote, “My field of vision swayed before me like the reflections in an amusement-park mirror. Occasionally, I felt as if I were out of my body.”
When other-people who ingested the drug reported similar effects, the chemical became something of a pharmaceutical curiosity: a mysterious drug searching for something to cure. Because of the resemblance between an LSD trip and psychosis, much of the early research was focused on mental illness. Wholesale experimentation with the drug was launched in the early 1950s. Neurotics, psychotics, depressives, alcoholics, epileptics, and even terminal-cancer patients were given LSD.
LSD never did find a disease to cure. But, by 1965, about 2,000 studies of the drug had been published: Conservative estimates suggest that over 30,000 psychiatric patients and several thousand normal volunteers had been given LSD during this period.
Around 1954, Eli Lilly & Company published the details of a new process they had developed for synthesizing lysergic acid (the parent molecule of the ergot alkaloids) cheaply and in bulk. The immediate effect of this breakthrough was to keep down the price of ergot alkaloids, which tip to then had been distributed only by Sandoz. But there were other unanticipated results as well. Vast quantities of lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, could now be produced with reasonable ease in any sophisticated chemistry laboratory.At about the same time, a subculture of researchers began to experiment on themselves. Some wanted to experience madness firsthand; others sought a mystical union with the beyond. Harvard psychologists Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were discovered by the media in 1962, and the craze was on. Only researchers had access to LSD through legitimate channels, but when publicity created a demand for LSD, hip chemists rushed to create a supply. An enterprising Californian called Owsley, for example, is said to have produced more than a million doses of LSD over the next few years. (At 25 micrograms per dose, a million doses of LSD would weigh only nine ounces.) Owsley acid became world famous for its high quality. But when Owsley’s factory in Berkeley, California, was raided in February 1965, the case was thrown out of court since California law did not specifically regulate LSD.
This oversight was soon to be corrected. As the numbers of people using LSD multiplied, so did sensationalized accounts of its effects. Alarmed by these horror stories, federal and state authorities moved to ban the drug. California passed its anti-LSD laws in October 1966. By the end of the 1960s, LSD was illegal. But, by 1973, according to the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, almost 5 percent of adult Americans had tried LSD or a similar hallucinogen at least once.
It is now clear that, tinder controlled conditions, LSD is a relatively harmless drug. In 1960, UCLA psychiatrist Sidney Cohen reviewed studies of 5,000 persons who had taken LSD a total of 25,000 times. He reported that for every 1,000 persons taking LSD under medical supervision, there were 0.8 psychotic reactions lasting more than a day, and no attempted or com suicides. These figures compare quite favorably with Cohen’s estimates for patients in psychotherapy: 1.8 psychotic episodes per thousand patients, and 1.2 attempted suicides and 0.4 completed suicides per thousand.
Thus, psychotic episodes, attempted suicide, and actual suicide were more common among psychotherapy patients than among persons taking LSD under medical supervision. This is particularly impressive since so many LSD recipients actually received the drug in psychotherapy.
A similar survey in 1969 by Dr. Nicholas Malleson of 4,303 British patients who had taken a total of more than 50,000 doses of LSD came to much the same conclusion. Interestingly, the Malleson study also noted that those physicians who had the greatest experience with LSD therapy were least likely to observe adverse reactions. That is, the patients of inexperienced LSD therapists were more likely to have bad trips. These data stress the point that LSD is safe only when it is taken under adequate medical supervision. The personality of the LSD user, his expectations for the experience, the setting in which the drug is consumed-all are factors in the complicated equation that determines LSD’s effects.
According to the most recent surveys of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, LSD still has a following. As large a percentage of the population took the drug in 1976 as in 1972. Dr. loan Rittenhouse, supervisory research psychologist at the National Institute, believes that LSD’s failure to achieve wider popularity stems from newspaper reports that the drug produces chromosome damage. Although the belief that LSD causes birth defects is quite controversial in scientific circles, it seems to be widely accepted by the public.
—James Hassett
By John Jacobs, Washington Post Staff Writer;
Free-Lance reporter Paul Avery contributed to this article.
September 5, 1977;
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 4, 1977 – He was a “rock-em, sock-em cop not overly carried away with playing spook,” according to a friend who knew him at the time. But the diaries and personal papers of the Central Intelligence Agency operative who ran “safe houses” in San Francisco and New York in which drug-addicted prostitutes gave LSD and other drugs to unsuspecting visitors tell a different story.
The diaries were kept by Col. George H. White, Alias Morgan Hall, a colorful federal narcotics agent and CIA “consultant” who died two years ago. They reveal new details, including names and dates, about the safe house project, dubbed “Operation Midnight Climax,” which was part of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program in the 1950s and 1960s to manipulate human behavior. Curiously, White’s widow donated his papers to the Electronics Museum at Foothill Junior College, a two-year school set amidst the rolling Los Altes hills 40 miles south of San Francisco. The papers are a rare find for anyone interested in the espionage business and show White dashing about the world, busting up narcotics rings in South America, Texas and San Francisco’s Chinatown.
They also provide documentary evidence that White met to discuss drugs and safe houses with such CIA luminaries as Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, head of the Chemical Division of the Technical Services Division and the man who ran MK-ULTRA, and Dr. Robert V. Lashbrook, a CIA chemist who worked with LSD. Other high-ranking CIA officials mentioned prominently include Jame Angleton, C. P. Cabell and Stanley Lovell. Gottleib and Lashbrook have been subpoenaed to testify Sept. 20 before a Senate subcommittee investigating the MK-ULTRA project.
“Gottlieb proposes I be CIA consultant and I agree.” White wrote in his diary June 9, 1952. A year later it was confirmed: “CIA – got final clearance and sign contract as ‘consultant’ – met Gottlieb . . . lunch Napeleon’s – met Anslinger.”
Harry C. Anslinger was White’s boss and the No. 1 man in the Federal Bureau fo Narcotics. It could not be learned from the diaries whether Anslinger knew that one of his top narcotics agents also was working for the CIA, in fact, was tape-recording and observing men to whom prostitutes gave drugs after picking them up in bars. But a July 20, 1953, entry by White strongly suggests Anslinger knew: “Arrive Wash. – confer Anslinger and Gottlieb re CIA reimbursement for 3 men’s services.”
These entries fit in with a 1963 internal report by then-CIA Inspector General Lyman B. Kirkpatrick about the MK-ULTRA project. That report, made public in 1975, discussed the safe house operations and the connection to the Bureau of Narcotics:
“TSD (Technical Services Division) entered into an informal arrangement with certain cleared and witting individuals in the Bureau of Narcotics in 1955 which provided for the release of MK-ULTRA materials for such testing as those individuals deemed desirable and feasible.”
The report added that while “covert testing” was being transferred to the bureau, its chief would disclaim any knowledge of it.
“The effectiveness of the substances on individuals at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign,” Kirkpatrick wrote, “is of great significance, and testing has been performed on a variety of individuals within these categories.”
In 1953, White rented a house at 81 Bedford St. in New York City’s Greenwich Village under the name of Morgan Hall, the same one he used serveral years later to set up the Telegraph Hill apartment at 225 Chestnut St. in San Francisco.
His diaries show that Gottlieb and Lashbrook met him at the Bedford Street apartment. A June 8, 1953, entry said: “Gottlieb brings $4,123.27 for ‘Hall’ – Deposit $3,400.” A Sept. 16 entry added: “Lashbrook at 81 Bedford – Owen Winkle and LSD surprise – can wash.”
In 1955, White moved the safe house to San Francisco, and he took over as regional head of tha Bueau of Narcotics. Apparently, the Chestnut Street duplex also was used by the bureau to lure narcotics dealers and then arrest them. In 1956, White and narcotics agent Ira C. Feldman, who posed as an East Cost mobster, arrested seven San. Franciscans as part of a heroin ring.
Leo Jones, a friend of White, owned the company that installed the bugging equipment at the apartment. The equipment included four DD4 microphones disguised as wall outlets. These were hooked up to two model F-301 tape recorders monitored by agents in a “listening post” adjacent to the apartment. Jones also sold White a “portable toilet for observation post.”
It was an L-shaped apartment with a beautiful view of San Francisco Bay, and White, who kept pitchers of chilled martinis in the refrigerator, also had photos of manacled women being tortured and whipped.
“We were contacted by George White,” Jones said in an interview. “It was a combined project of the CIA and Bureau of Narcotics . . . It was always referred to as the pad, never the apartment, and was modeled after Playboy magazine, 1955 . . . I heard about prostitutes. Feldman had acquired three or four to set himself up with cover.”
White’s diaries indicate that Gottlieb continued to visit, flying out from Washington several times a year at least until 1961. Another visitor was John Gittinger, a CIA psychologist who testified last month before Senate investigative committees that he met with “Morgan Hall” on numerous occasions to interview prostitutes about their drug and sex habits.
White retired from the bureau in 1965 and became the fire marshal at Stinson Beach, a resort area in Marin County, north of San Francisco. Among his papers is a Sept. 30, 1970, letter to Dr. Harvey Powelson, then chief of the department of psychiatry at the University of California at Berkeley. He told Powelson that he had worked for a “rather obscure department of the government (that would like to remain obscure).”
That obscure department. White wrote, “was then interested in obtaining some factual information and data on the use and effect of various hallucinogens, including marijuana tetrahydrocannabinol and the then brandnew LSD. Tests were made under both clinical and nonclinical conditions on both witting and unwitting subjects.”
White said in the letter to Powelson he was interested enough to try the drugs himself. “So far as I was concerned, ‘clear thinking’ was nonexistent while under the influence of any of these drugs,” he wrote. “I did feel at times that I was having a ‘mind-expanding experience,’ but this vanished like a dream immediately after the session.” He said the tests were observed by psychiatrists, psychologists and pharmacologists.
Not all of White’s diary entries involved clandestine meetings with narcoties or CIA agents – or addicts and prostitutes, for that matter. He duly recorded that Eisenhower and Nixon won in 1952 and that the Brooklyn Dodgers took the National League baseball pennant in 1955.
And when his pet bird died, it hurt, he wrote. “Poor little bastard just couldn’t make it,” a 1952 entry says. “Tried hard. I don’t know if I’ll ever get another bird or pet. It’s tough on everyone when they die.”
White, born in 1906, started out as an itinerant journalist, working for newspapers in San Francisco and Los Angeles before becoming a narcotics aent in the early 1930s. During World War II he was in the Office of strategic Services, the precursor of the CIA. where he acquired the rank of lieutenant colonel and made future contacts. After that, he went back to his narcotics work, interrupting it in the early 1950s to become an investigator for the Serate committee headed by Sen. Estes Kefauver that looked into organized crime.
One interesting detail links White to the 1953 case of Dr. Frank Olson, and Army employee who was working with the CIA at Camp Detrick, Md. Olson had been given LSD without being told, and 10 days later jumped to his death from the 10th floor of a New York City hotel. At the time, Lashbrook was in the room with Olson, who had gone to New York to be treated by Dr. Harrold Abramson, a psychiatrist who had worked for the CIA.According to CIA documents, Lashbrook called Gottlieb, his supervisor at the time, and then went to the police station to identify the body. He was asked to “turn out his pockets.”
He had written on a piece of white paper the initials “G. W.” and “M.H.” Lashbrook was asked to identify whose initials they were, but expunged CIA documents said he could not for security reasons. However, knowledgeable sources who have seen the CIA documents said Lashbrook identified “G. W.” as George White and “M. H.” as Morgan Hall, White’s undercover name. The piece of paper also contained the address 81 Bedford St. which White’s diary shows to be the New York safe house.
White apparently knew Abramson, because a Sept. 20, 1954, diary entry contained a reference to Gottlieb and Abramson. Return to Search Results.
CIAcid Trip
Chapter One of:
The Seventy Greatest Conspiracies of All Time:
History’s Biggest Mysteries, Coverups, and Cabals
From Part 1:
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Published by Carol Pubishing Group
LSD was invented in Switzerland by Albert Hofmann, a researcher for Sandoz pharmaceuticals. It did not spontaneously appear among the youth of the Western world as a gift from the God of Gettin’ High. The CIA was on to acid long before the flower children.
So, for that matter, were upstanding citizens like Time-Life magnate Henry Luce and his wife, Clare Boothe Luce, who openly sang the praises of their magical mystery tours during the early sixties. Henry, a staunch conservative with close connections to the CIA, once dropped acid on the golf course and then claimed he had enjoyed a little chat with God.
While the cognoscenti had the benefit of tuned-in physicians, other psychedelic pioneers took their first trips as part of CIA-controlled research studies.
At least one person committed suicide after becoming an unwitting subject of a CIA LSD test, crashing through a highstory plate-glass window in a New York hotel as his Agency guardian watched. (Or perhaps the guardian did more than watch. In June 1994 the victim’s family had his thirty-year-old corpse exhumed to check for signs that he may have been thrown out that window.) Numerous others lost their grip on reality.
MK-ULTRA was the code name the CIA used for its program directed at gaining control over human behavior through “covert use of chemical and biological materials,” as proposed by Richard Helms. The name itself was a variation on ULTRA, the U.S. intelligence program behind Nazi lines in World War 11, of which the CIA’s veteran spies were justly proud.
Helms later became CIA director and gained a measure of notoriety for his ‘Watergate “lying to Congress” conviction and a touch of immortality in Thomas Powers’s aptly named biography, The Man Who Kept the Secrets. Helms founded the MK-ULTRA program and justified its notably unethical aspects with the rationale, “We are not Boy Scouts.”
At the time, the spook scientists suspected that LSD had the potential to reprogram the human personality. In retrospect, they were probably right-Timothy Leary spoke in similar terms, though he saw unlimited potential for self-improvement in this “reprogramming.” The CIA and the military simply couldn’t figure out how to harness the drug’s power. Thank goodness. Their idea was not to open “the doors of perception” but to convert otherwise free human beings into automatons.
“ ‘We must remember to thank the CIA and the army for LSD”, spoke no less an authority figure on matters psychedelic than John Lennon. “They invented LSD to control people and what it did was give us freedom.”
Or did it? The acid-tripping intersection between the CIA and the counterculture is one of the areas where the on-the-record facts about MK-ULTRA meld into the foggy region of conspiracy theory. It has been suggested, even by prominent participants in the counterculture, that with LSD the CIA found the ultimate weapon against the youth movement.
Officially, the MK-ULTRA program ran from 1953 to 1964, at which time it was renamed MK-SEARCH and continued until 1973. However, U.S. intelligence and military operations with the same purpose had been ongoing at least since World War 11 and likely chugged ahead for many years after MK- publicly stated conclusion. MK-ULTRA encompassed an undetermined number of bizarre and often grotesque experiments. In one, psychiatrist Ewen Cameron received CIA funding to test a procedure he called “depatterning.” This technique, Cameron explained when he applied for his CIA grant (through a front group called the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology), involved the “breaking down of ongoing patterns of the patient’s behavior by means of particularly intensive elec- in addition to LSD. Some of his subjects suffered brain damage and other debilitations. One sued the government and won an out-of-court settlement in 1988.
Then there was operation “Midnight Climax,” in which prostitutes lured unsuspecting johns to a CIA bordello in San Francisco. There they slipped their clients an LSD mickey while Agency researchers savored the “scientific” action from behind a two-way mirror, a pitcher of martinis at the ready.
Author John Marks, whose The Search for the Manchurian Candidate is one of the most thoroughgoing volumes yet assembled on U.S. government mind-control research, readily admits that all of his source material comprised but ten boxes of documents—but those took him a year to comprehend despite the aid of a research staff.
Marks writes that he sought access to records of a branch of the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology, the Office of Research and Development (ORD), which took over behavioral (i.e., mind control) research after MK-ULTRA’s staff dispersed.
Marks was told that ORD’s files contained 130 boxes of documents relating to behavioral research. Even if they were all released, their sheer bulk is sufficient to fend off even the most dedicated—or obsessed—investigator. To generate such an intimidating volume of paper must have taken considerable time and effort. Yet curiously, the CIA has always claimed that its attempts to create real-life incarnations of Richard Condon’s unfortunate protagonist Raymond Shaw—the hypnotically programmed assassin of The Manchurian Candidate—were a complete bust.
If their demurrals are to be trusted, then this particular program constitutes one of the least cost-effective deployments of taxpayer dollars in the history of the U.S. government, which is rife with non-cost-effective dollar deployments.
The CIA’s most effective line of defense against exposure of their mind-control operations (or any of their operations, for that matter) has always been self-effacement. The agency portrays its agents as incompetent stooges, encouraging the public to laugh at their wacky attempts to formulate cancer potions and knock off foreign leaders.
Under this cover story, MK-ULTR’’s research team was nothing but a bunch of ineffectual eccentrics. “We are sufficiently ineffective so our findings can be published,” quipped one MK-ULTRA consultant.
Despite the findings of a Senate committee headed by Ted Kennedy that U.S. mind-control research was a big silly failure, and even though Marks—whose approach is fairly conservative—acknowledges that he found no record to prove it, the project may have indeed succeeded.
“I cannot be positive that they never found a technique to control people,” Marks writes, “despite my definite bias in favor of the idea that the human spirit defeated the manipulators.”
A sunny view of human nature, that. And indeed a consoling one. But the human spirit, history sadly proves, is far from indomitable. The clandestine researchers explored every possible means of manipulating the human mind. The CIA’s experiments with LSD are the most famous MK-ULTRA undertakings, but acid was not even the most potent drug investigated by intelligence and military agencies. Nor did they limit their inquiries to drugs. Hypnosis, electronic brain implants, microwave transmissions, and parapsychology also received intense scrutiny. Marks, Kennedy, and many others apparently believe that the U.S. government failed where alltoo-many far less sophisticated operations—from the Moonies to Scientology to EST—have scored resounding triumphs. Brainwashing is commonplace among “cults,” but not with the multimillion-dollar resources of the United States government’s military and intelligence operations?
For that matter, the (supposed) impetus for the program was the reported success of communist countries in “brainwashing.” The word itself originally applied to several soldiers who’d fought in the Korean War who exhibited strange behavior and had large blank spots in their memories—particularly when it came to their travels through regions of Manchuria. Those incidents were the inspiration for Condon’s novel, in which a group of American soldiers are hypnotically brainwashed by the Korean and Chinese communists and one is programmed to kill a presidential candidate.
Interestingly, the belief that one’s psyche is being invaded by radio transmissions or electrical implants is considered a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia. But there is no doubt that the CIA contemplated using those methods and carried out such experiments on animals, and the way these things go it would require the willful naivete of, say, a Senate subcommittee to maintain that they stopped there. Even Marks, who exercises the journalistic wisdom to stick only to what he can back up with hard documentation, readily acknowledges that the clandestine researchers “probably” planted electrodes in the brains of men. Marks points out that the electrode experiments “went far beyond giving monkeys orgasms,” one of the researchers’ early achievements.
The ultimate goal of mind control would have been to produce a Manchurian Candidate assassin, an agent who didn’t know he (or she) was an agent—brainwashed and programmed to carry out that most sensitive of missions. Whether the program’s accomplishments reached that peak will probably never be public knowledge. So we are left to guess whether certain humans have been ”programmed to kill.” In 1967, Luis Castillo, a Puerto Rican arrested in the Philippines for planning to bump off Ferdinand Marcos, claimed (while in a hypnotic trance) that he had been implanted with a posthypnotic suggestion to carry out the assassination. Sirhan Sirhan, convicted as the assassin of Robert F Kennedy, showed unmistakable symptoms of hypnosis. A psychiatrist testifying in Sirhan’s defense said that the accused assassin was in a trance when he shot Kennedy, albeit a self-induced one. Author Robert Kaiser echoed that doctor’s conclusions in his book RFK Must Die! Others, of course, have offered darker conjectures regarding the origins of Sirhan’s symptoms.
James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, also had a known fascination with hypnosis, and, more recently, British lawyer Fenton Bressler has assembled circumstantial evidence to support a theory that Mark David Chapman, slayer of John Lennon, was subject to CIA mind control. Way back in 1967, a book titled Were We Controlled?, whose unknown author used the pseudonym Lincoln Lawrence, stated that both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby were under mind control of some kind. The book may have had at least a trace of validity: Something in the book convinced Oswald’s mother that the author was personally acquainted with her son.
Did MK-ULTRA spin off a wave of history-altering assassinations—it whelp a brood of hypnoprogrammed killers? The definitive answer to that question will certainly never reach the public. We are left, with John Marks, to hope on faith alone that it did not, but always with the uneasy knowledge that it could have.
Perhaps not through assassinations, and perhaps not even intentionally, MK-ULTRA definitely altered a generation. John Lennon was far from the only sixties acid-hero to make the connection between the mood of the streets and the secret CIA labs. “A surprising number of counterculture veterans endorsed the notion that the CIA disseminated street acid en masse to deflate the political potency of the youth rebellion,” write Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain in Acid Dreams, their chronicle of both the clandestine and countercultural sides of the LSD revolution.
”By magnifying the impulse toward revolutionism out of context, acid sped up the process by which the Movement became unglued,” the authors continue. “The use of LSD among young people in the U.S. reached a peak in the late 1960s, shortly after the CIA initiated a series of covert operations designed to disrupt, discredit, and neutralize the New Left. Was this merely a historical coincidence, or did the Agency actually take steps to promote the illicit acid trade?”
The tale of Ronald Stark, told by Lee and Shlain, may provide the connection between the CIA and the Left. Stark was a leading distributor of LSD in the late 1960s-the same time acid use was at its heaviest-and apparently a CIA operative. The Agency has never admitted this, but an Italian judge deciding in 1979 whether to try Stark for “armed banditry” in relation to Stark’s many contacts with terrorists (among other things, Stark accurately predicted the assassination of Aldo Moro) released the drug dealer after finding “an impressive series of scrupulously enumerated proofs” that Stark had worked for the CIA “from 1960 onward.”
“It could have been,” mused Tim Scully, the chief of Stark’s major LSD-brewing outfit (a group of idealistic radicals called the Brotherhood who grew to feel exploited by Stark), ”that he was employed by an American intelligence agency that wanted to see more psychedelic drugs on the street.” But Lee and Shlain leave open the possibility that Stark may have been simply one of the world’s most ingenious con artists—a possibility acknowledged by most everyone to come in contact with Stark.
The CIA’s original ”acid dream” was that LSD would open the mind to suggestion, but they found the drug too potent to manage. Sometime around 1973, right before MK-ULTRA founder and, by then, CIA director Richard Helms hung up his trenchcoat and stepped down from the CIA’s top post, he ordered the majority of secret MK-ULTRA documents destroyed due to ”a burgeoning paper problem.” Among the eradicated material, Lee and Shlain report, were ”all existing copies of a classified CIA manual titled LSD: Some UnPsycbedelic Implications.”
There exists today no on-paper evidence (that anyone has yet uncovered) that MK-ULTRA was the progenitor of either a conspiracy to unleash remote-controlled lethal human robots or to emasculate an entire generation by oversaturating it with a mind-frying drug. But MK-ULTRA was very real and the danger of a secret government program to control the thoughts of its citizens, even just a few of them at a time, needs no elaboration.
Budiansky, Stephen, Erica E. Goode, and Ted Gest. “The Cold War
Experiments.” U.S. News & World Report. 24 January 1994.
Lee, Martin, and Bruce Shlain. Acid Dreams. New York: Grove Press,
Marks, John. The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. New York:
Dell, 1979.
“Frank Olson: The CIA’s Bad Trip.”
By Melissa Roth
George Magazine, October 1977
“CIA Under Suspicion:
‘Suicide’ of LSD guinea pig probed.”
By John O’Mahony,
New York Post, Sept. 21, 1997
Buried secrets of biowarfare
Baltimore Sun, page one
Wallace Pannier
During the Cold War, top Army scientists toiled stealthily in rural Maryland to make covert weapons coveted by new enemies.
For years, in total secrecy, they studied the black art of bioterrorism.
They designed deadly, silent biological dart guns and hid them in fountain pens and walking sticks. They crunched lethal bacteria into suit buttons that could be worn unnoticed across borders. They rigged light fixtures and car tailpipes to loose an invisible spray of anthrax.
They practiced germ attacks in airports and on the New York subway, tracking air currents and calculating the potential death toll.
But they weren’t a band of al-Qaida fanatics — or enemies of any kind. They were biowarriors in the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick.
From 1949 to 1969, at the jittery height of the Cold War, the division tested the nation’s vulnerability to covert germ warfare — and devised weapons for secret biological attacks if the United States chose to mount them.
A few years ago, its story — never before told in detail — would have seemed a macabre footnote to U.S. history.
Now, after the Sept. 11 attacks, the anthrax mailings and a steady stream of government warnings on terrorism, the fears of the 1950s have returned — and the experiments of Fort Detrick’s covert bioweapons makers suddenly resonate in a new era. In the biological realm, there is little that any terrorist group could concoct that Fort Detrick’s “dirty tricks department,” as veterans call it, didn’t think up decades ago.
But because of the division’s scant recordkeeping and the fast-disappearing ranks of its aged scientist-warriors, the knowledge it acquired is being lost to history.
One of the few survivors is Wallace Pannier, 76, who remembers standing in a Frederick County field watching sheep shot with what the Army called a “nondiscernible bioinoculator” — a dart gun. The bosses demanded a dart so fine that it could penetrate clothing and skin unnoticed, then dissolve, leaving no trace in an autopsy.
“If the sheep jumped, that meant people were going to jump, too,” said Pannier, now living a quiet life tending his flowers and shrubs in Frederick.
Once perfected, the dart gun astonished those who saw it in action. Charles Baronian, a retired Army weapons official, recalls a demonstration at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
“Twenty-five seconds after it was shot, the sheep just fell to the ground,” said Baronian, 73. “It didn’t bleat. It didn’t move. It just fell dead. You couldn’t help but be impressed.”
The rest of the Army’s offensive biological weapons program thought big: 500-pound anthrax bombs that could contaminate entire cities. But the Special Operations Division — known at Fort Detrick by its initials, SO — studied biowarfare on a more intimate scale, figuring ways to kill an individual, disable a roomful of people or touch off an epidemic.
‘Army has no records’
The existence of the SO Division was revealed only six years after it shut down, in a 1975 Senate investigation into CIA abuses. Senators wanted to know why the CIA had retained a lethal stock of shellfish toxin and cobra venom after President Richard M. Nixon’s 1969 order to destroy all biological weapons stocks. They found that the poisons had come from the SO Division under a CIA-Army project code-named MKNAOMI.
But records show that even CIA bosses were stymied as they tried to get the facts on the SO Division. “The practice of keeping little or no record of the activity was standard MKNAOMI procedure,” a CIA investigator wrote. The military offered little help, he added: “The Army has no records on MKNAOMI or on the Special Operations Division.”
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Sun, the Army said no records of the Special Operations Division could be found. Nor is there any mention at the National Archives, which reclassified Fort Detrick’s old biowarfare records after the Bush administration ordered agencies to withhold anything that might aid terrorists.
Few SO Division veterans are still alive. Fewer still are willing to describe their work. They are not sure what is still classified and don’t relish leaving biological horror tales for their grandchildren.
“I just don’t give interviews on that subject,” said Andrew M. Cowan Jr., 74, the division’s last chief, who is retired and living near Seattle. “It should still be classified — if nothing else, to keep the information the division developed out of the hands of some nut.”
But it is possible to assemble a patchwork portrait from documents obtained by The Sun under the Freedom of Information Act, Senate investigative files and private document collections, including the National Security Archive in Washington and even the Church of Scientology, which long collected material on government mind-control research.
And a few Detrick retirees who worked in the SO Division or collaborated with it spoke sparingly about what they know. Most are proud of their work, pointing out that the Soviet biological program was much larger and also developed assassination tools.
Unsuccessful attacks
The veterans still slip into biowarrior-speak, in which “good” means good-and-lethal. “It made a real nice aerosol,” they’ll say, or “That would give you real good coverage.”
All say that if the biological devices they made were used against humans, they never learned about it. But it is impossible to be certain, they say, because the program was strictly compartmented: One worker didn’t know what another was doing, let alone what CIA or Special Forces did with the bioweapons.
The 1975 Senate investigation revealed that the SO Division supplied biological materials for several planned CIA attacks, none of which were successful.
In 1960, the CIA’s main contact with the SO Division, Sidney Gottlieb, carried a tube of toxin-laced toothpaste to Africa in a plot to kill Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. But the CIA station chief balked and pitched the poison into a river, a congressional investigation later revealed.
Records suggest, though they do not prove, that the SO Division also supplied germs for CIA schemes to kill or sicken Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and that it came up with the poisoned handkerchief that the agency’s drolly-named Health Alteration Committee sent to Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qasim in 1963. (He survived.)
Army Special Forces also asked the SO Division to design biological assassination weapons. Fort Detrick’s engineers delivered five devices — including the dart gun — collectively known as the “Big Five.” But records of what Special Forces did with the weapons remain classified, said Fort Bragg archivist Cynthia Hayden.
If the work sounds sinister today, there were doubters at the time, too. A 1954 Army document says high-ranking officials — including George W. Merck, the pharmaceutical executive and top government adviser on biowarfare — wanted to shut down the SO Division because they considered it “un-American.”
But Fort Detrick’s rank and file rarely voiced such doubts. “We did not sit around talking about the moral implications of what we were doing,” said William C. Patrick III, a Fort Detrick veteran who worked closely with the SO Division. “We were problem-solving.”
And if the orders came to unleash the weapons, Fort Detrick’s biowarriors were ready.
During the Vietnam War, William P. Walter, who supervised anthrax production at Fort Detrick and worked with the SO Division on projects, asked British intelligence agents for blueprints of the office occupied by North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. Plotting a covert germ assault is easier if the room’s cubic footage and ventilation system are known, he says.
“We thought if the president of the United States wants to kill somebody, we want to be able to do it,” said Walter, now 78 and retired in Florida.
Opening of the division
A gun or a bomb leaves no doubt that a deliberate attack has occurred. But if someone is stricken with a sudden, fatal illness — or an epidemic slashes across a crowded city — there is no way of knowing whether anyone attacked, much less who.
That was the key conclusion of the Pentagon’s Committee on Biological Warfare in a secret October 1948 report on covert biowarfare.
At the time, the United States feared a shadowy global enemy, organized in secret cells overseas and on U.S. soil –Communists. Echoing today’s fears, the report said the United States “is particularly vulnerable” to covert germ attack because enemy agents “are present already in this country [and] there is no control exercised over the movements of people.”
Although it emphasized the threat to America, the report called for offensive capability. “Biological agents would appear to be well adapted to subversive use since very small amounts of such agents can be effective,” the report said. “A significant portion of the human population within selected target areas may be killed or incapacitated.”
Setting an imaginative tone for what would follow, the report listed potential targets: “ventilating systems, subway systems, water supply systems … stamps, envelopes, money, biologicals and cosmetics … contamination of food and beverages.”
Seven months later, in May 1949, the Special Operations Division quietly opened at Fort Detrick.
The other divisions there, created during and after World War II, focused on large-scale biological attack, said Walter, who completed a quadruple major at Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmittsburg and went to work at Fort Detrick in 1951.
At the time, planners regarded bioweapons as a valuable military option — more devastating than chemical weapons, but more selective than a nuclear attack.
“Biological agents can really cover more territory than nuclear weapons,” Walter said. “Biological’s better than nuclear because it doesn’t destroy the buildings.”
Shrouded in secrecy
Fort Detrick’s other divisions had diabolical tricks of their own. For instance, Walter said, their scientists bred antibiotic-resistant bacteria to make standard Soviet and Chinese treatments useless against U.S. weapons.
Still, the veterans say, Special Operations stood apart. You didn’t apply for SO, you were chosen. And even within the tight-lipped world of Fort Detrick, the SO Division’s secrecy was extraordinary.
“Most of the people [at Fort Detrick] didn’t know what was going on in SO,” Pannier said. “And they got angry because you wouldn’t tell ’em what was going on.”
When Pannier hitchhiked to Fort Detrick to take up his new assignment in 1946, he saw so many guard towers that he thought he had been sent to a prison. After three years there, he went home to Utah and completed a degree in bacteriology. When he returned, his former boss recommended him to the SO Division, “sort of a little Detrick within Detrick.”
SO Division personnel — about 75 at the unit’s peak — didn’t get the usual parking stickers. They had metal tags that could be removed from their cars when they traveled undercover.
Pannier spent a night on the roof of the Pentagon taking air samples to rule out a bioattack before a visit by President John F. Kennedy.
He was also assigned to see what germs were leaking from a Merck pharmaceutical plant on the Susquehanna River, observations that would be crucial to U.S. spies trying to identify Soviet bioweapons facilities. Pannier posed variously as a fisherman, an air-quality tester and a driver with a broken-down car.
When East Bloc officials who were suspected of working in biowarfare labs traveled abroad, U.S. agents secretly swabbed their clothes so the SO Division could test for germs.
Fanning out across the country, SO Division officers also played the role of bioterrorists in an era before the word had even been coined. Their usual mock weapons were two forms of bacteria, Bacillus globigii (BG) and Serratia marcescens (SM).
Scientists thought both were harmless, though later research found that SM could cause illness or death in people with weakened immune systems.
In an elaborate 1965 attempt to assess how travelers might be used to spread smallpox, SO Division officers loosed BG in the air at Washington National Airport and at bus stations in Washington, Chicago and San Francisco, then tracked its movement using air samplers disguised as suitcases.
Tracking travelers’ routes, Fort Detrick scientists plotted on a U.S. map the smallpox cases that would result from a real release.
The germ-spreaders were never challenged, the report noted: “No terminal employee, passenger or visitor gave any outward indication of suspicion that something unusual was taking place.”
The next year, without alerting local officials, SO Division agents staged a mock attack on the New York subway, shattering light bulbs packed with BG powder on the tracks.
“People could carry a brown bag with light bulbs in it and nobody would be suspicious,” Pannier said. “But when [a bulb] would break, it would burst. … The trains swishing by would get it airborne.”
The SO Division’s report concluded that “similar covert attacks with a pathogenic agent during peak traffic periods could be expected to expose large numbers of people to infection and subsequent illness or death.”
Understanding U.S. vulnerability may have been the main purpose of such experiments. But defensive findings had offensive implications. No one had to tell experimenters that Moscow, too, had a subway.
‘Big Five’ arsenal
If the subway tests could be explained as defensive, there was no such ambiguity in the SO Division’s development of covert biological weapons.
Mysterious characters from Fort Bragg and the CIA came and went at the SO Division, leaving wish-lists and checking progress. For cover, CIA visitors often wore military uniforms and said they worked for “Staff Support Group.” No one mentioned aloud the name of the agency financing so much of the division’s work.
“It was never really said, except that probably by the middle ’60s it became obvious,” Pannier said. Army bosses “would ask: ‘Are you keeping them happy?'”
Most CIA records on the SO Division were apparently destroyed in 1973 by Gottlieb, the agency’s liaison to Fort Detrick. But declassified invoices the division submitted to the CIA give a sense of the work.
Germ dispensers could be concealed in many objects, such as the exhaust system on a 1953 Mercury. (“It might look like a smoky, oil-burning car,” Pannier said.) There were invoices for fountain pens, even “1 Toy Dog, 98 cents.”
There are receipts for books with suggestive titles: The Assassins, The Enemy Within, Dictionary of Poisons. There are rent bills for cabins at state parks — a favorite site for secret meetings.
And there is much ado about dogs, including supplies for a “Buster Project.” One plan for the dart guns was to knock out guard dogs so U.S. agents could sneak into foreign facilities.
But dogs were not the primary target of the SO Division’s creative efforts. “The requirements of the Army Special Forces were the driving force defining SOD activities, and … Special Forces’ interest included a number of weird things, definitely among which was assassination,” a CIA retiree told an agency investigator in 1975, according to a declassified report.
The former CIA man referred to the arsenal that came to be called the Big Five. “The Big Five program was devoted to assassination,” said Patrick, who worked closely with the SO Division as chief of product development at Fort Detrick. He calls it “the most sensitive program we ever created at Detrick,” and says its details should still be kept secret because they might be useful to terrorists and “embarrassing to the United States.”
Walter, the former Detrick anthrax maker, calls the Big Five “hair-raising. We really kept that thing hush-hush,” he said.
Detailed descriptions of the Big Five remain classified. But documents show that they included at least one version of the biological dart, dipped in shellfish toxin and fired from a rifle using a pressurized air cartridge.
Walter recalled that colleagues were sent overseas to collect the mussels that produced the poison, into which the darts would be dipped. Tiny grooves guided the dose: “You could time a death by the load [of toxin] you shot,” he said.
Among the other Big Five weapons: a 7.62 mm rifle cartridge packed with anthrax or botulinum toxin that would disperse in the air on impact; a time-delay bomblet that would release a cloud of bacteria when a train or truck convoy passed; and a pressurized can that sprayed an aerosol of germs. The fifth is described in unclassified documents only as an “E-41 disseminator.”
Walter recalls an effort to package the spray device in a food can for smuggling into the Soviet Union and planting in a target’s office or apartment.
“We had a hell of a time with that because we had to get Russian cans,” he said. “It had to look exactly like an ordinary can.”
‘Nothing has changed’
Of all the old bioweaponeers, Patrick is the only one who still has ties to U.S. biodefense programs, working as a consultant and trainer. But he said the government has made little effort to learn from the work of the Special Operations Division and the larger biowarfare program.
Although bioengineering today could produce more virulent pathogens, “nothing has changed” in the most challenging part of covert biological attack: delivering germs so that they infect people, Patrick said.
“The problem today is there’s a huge disconnect between what us old fossils know and what the current generation knows,” Patrick said. “The good doctors at CDC [the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] don’t have a clue about aerosol dissemination, and the military is not much better.”
Walter, in Florida, agreed with Patrick’s diagnosis. But he said it’s fine with him if the dark lessons of Fort Detrick’s early days are lost forever.
“When we all die off, that’s it,” he said. “If anybody with bad intentions got hold of the things we had, it would be disastrous.”
Suicide Revealed:
CIA Infiltrated 17 Area Groups, Gave Out LSD
By Thomas O’Tooole
Washington Post Staff Writer
This is the paper in which the first news about the death of Frank Olson arrived, twenty-two years late. The Frank Olson story, “Suicide Revealed,” is on the left side, about half-way down. The word “revealed” in the headline is ironic in that no name is provided.
The Rockefeller commission report on domestic CIA activities said it did not know how many Americans were given “behavior influencing” drugs by the CIA, declaring that “all persons directly involved in the early phases of the program were either out of the country and not available for interview or were deceased.”
Drugs also were tested on volunteers and were part of a “much larger” program to study ways of controlling human behavior. Other studies “explored the effects of radiation, electric shock, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and harassment substances.
The commission report said that all the drug program “records were ordered destroyed in 1973, including a total of 152 separate files.”
The commission did not say who ordered the files destroyed or why such an order was given. A commission spokesman said that all documented evidence for the drug tests was turned over to the White House, where it will remain indefinitely.
How widespread the practice was of testing new listening devices on unsuspecting people also will remain a mystery. The commission said only that “in the process of this testing, private communications, presumably between United States citizens, have sometimes been overheard.”
The commission said that some conversations were recorded, then destroyed when the listening devices were fully tested. It said there was never any evidence that the tests or recordings were used against the people whose conversations were listened to or recorded.
Also mentioned by the commission was the CIA practice of forging documents, such as Social Security cards, bank cards, library cards and club cards.
Only the Social Security Administration was told of this practice, which was recently scaled down to almost eliminate the manufacture of false credit cards, drivers licenses and birth certificates.
The commission found all three practices unsavory, but reserved its harshest language for the drug tests.
“It was clearly illegal to test potentially dangerous drugs on unsuspecting United States citizens.”
The only drug mentioned is LSD, which the CIA began to use on test subjects as long as 25 years ago. The commission said the CIA began its drug tests because of reports that the Soviet Union was using drugs to elicit confessions by political criminals, and expanded them when North Korea began brainwashing U.S. prisoners.
Four tests were begun on unsuspecting persons in 1953, then expanded two years later under what the commission called “an unfortunate arrangement” with the federal Bureau of Dug Abuse Control. Presumably, the commission means the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Narcotics since the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control was not established until 1965.
Memo from Stephen Endicott
Professor of History – York University
analyzing the documents obtained by the Olson family from CIA Director William Colby in June 1975
Link to Stephen Endicott website
Co-author with Edward Hagerman of:
The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea
Here are my comments on twenty-five pages from the package of documents which I understand that the Director of Central Intelligence, William Colby, gave to the Olson family some years after the tragic death of Frank Olson. I’ve read them through twice, and about all I can do is summarize the impression that they leave on my mind.
I can see why the Olson family feel so dissatisfied with the official verdict of suicide as the cause of his death. At the same time it seems clear that Mr. Colby would not have given them the papers had he thought there was anything contained in them that might make possible a challenge and reversal of the official verdict. (One paragraph of the CIA report on Mr. Olson’s death is blanked out by a censor) Perhaps Colby didn’t pay close attention, because there are certainly some disquieting matters in the conduct and reported conversations of Frank Olson’s colleague, Robert Lashbrook, and the New York allergist, Dr. Harold Abramson, in the hours after Mr. Olson’s death.
Here is a summary of the scenario as formed in my mind:
Frank Olson, Ph.D, a biologist by profession, was a disturbed man in 1953. He had been working in the Biological Laboratory of the Special Operations Division, of the U. S. Army Chemical Corps (formerly known as the Chemical Warfare Service) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, for about ten years without any problem. According to his colleagues he had always been a popular, extroverted person and his professional, scientific work was considered to be outstanding. He was a branch chief and in October 1952 the confidence which his superiors had in him was reflected in the fact that they promoted him to be Acting Chief of the entire Special Operations Division.
After six months, in March 1953, Olson reverted back to his former position at his own request. It was also in March 1953 that he became mentally and emotionally disturbed. According to his wife, Alice, he could no longer sleep at nights, and she urged him to consult a psychiatrist. The cause of his disturbance is not made clear in the documents at hand, but it is said that he had begun to feel guilty about something. Was it from overwork and worry caused by the burdens of heading up the whole Division? It might have been, but by now he had been relieved of that burden. Another answer is suggested by a colleague: “It is well known,” wrote Dr. Howard Abramson after Olson’s death, “that it is an occupational hazard to mental stability to be doing the type of work connected with his [Olson’s] duties. Guilt feelings are well known to occur to a greater or less extent.” (Colby Pg. 38)
What was the nature of Olson’s duties? Stripped of technical language and put bluntly, they were to use his knowledge of biological and medical science to perfect secret ways to kill or incapacitate other humans, animals and plants.
The Special Operations Division of Fort Detrick was the most secret of secret places in the biological warfare program and only people with the highest security clearance could work there or gain admission to its grounds. Frank Olson counted himself in this number. It was the centre of covert biological warfare and as such the record of its activities are deeply buried. But it is known that the SOD was considered to be very effective, receiving commendation on “the originality, imagination and aggressiveness it has displayed in devising means and mechanisms for the covert dissemination of bacteriological warfare agents.” (Our BW book, pg 70.) When William Colby appeared before a Senate Committee in 1975 to explain the Agency’s involvement in biological warfare he remarked that from the outset this activity “was characterized by extreme compartmentation” [sic] and “a high degree of secrecy within CIA itself.”
Only two or three Agency officers at any time were cleared for access to Fort Detrick activities. (Senate hearings, pg 6). Frank Olson was one of these. But because of the compartmentalization it is unlikely that Frank Olson had much idea of what took place at Detrick beyond his work bench until he was promoted to be acting chief of the Special Operations Division. Even then he would have no knowledge of what happened to the products of Detrick when they left the encampment and he certainly had no idea that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had an offensive, first use policy for biological weapons applicable to the Korean War then in progress. He was working as a pure research scientist, solving technical problems surrounding the cultivation and spread of bacteria.
In late February and early March 1953 something happened which would have raised the profile of the Korean War sharply in Frank Olson’s mind. Two high ranking officers of the United States Marine Corps, who had been taken prisoner by the Chinese army in Korea, made lengthy, detailed confessions about the U. S. military forces using biological weapons in Korea and China. The Chinese broadcast their statements around the world. A glance at The New York TimesIndex for 1953 (pg 573) under the heading “Germ Warfare” shows the large number of articles on the subject day after day, and charges about the use of biological warfare as a crime against humanity.
Even though U. S. officials denied the Chinese claims, Frank Olson would have faced the stark possibility that his work was no longer “pure research.” It was at this time that his feelings of guilt arose, and according to his wife, he began to have sleepless nights.
How would the CIA cope with a man who is beginning to have doubts and who is in a position to reveal the most secret of its secrets?
In his early years at the biological warfare laboratory, during World War II, one of Frank Olson’s close colleagues there had been Dr. HAROLD ABRAMSON who was a specialist in immunology and allergies and who initiated the breakthrough therapy of penicillin aerosol for infected lungs. More recently his colleagues at the laboratory included DR. SID GOTTLEIB, who was chief of the Technical Services Division, and ROBERT V. LASHBROOK, Ph.D, who joined the organization only in 1952. Olson, Lashbrook and possibly Gottlieb were also members of the CIA group at Detrick. The chief of the Special Operations Division was VINCENT L. RUWET, a Lt. Colonel in the Chemical Corps and a man who described himself as a close personal friend of the Olson family. These men interacted with, one might say surrounded, Frank Olson in his last days before he either committed suicide, or as some suspect, was murdered.
In the autumn of 1953 Olson’s psychological state of mind worsened. This worsening coincided with considerable publicity in the press about the return to the United States of twenty-five airmen who had made confessions of using biological warfare in Korea. U. S. authorities claimed that the Chinese had “brainwashed” their prisoners, cleaned out their minds and inserted the false information. It was an absurd idea, a caricature of how the Chinese had induced their prisoners to write elaborate confessions, nevertheless, there was much discussion of the question at the United Nations and in the newspapers. (See New York Times Index, ibid.)
Meanwhile the CIA had become interested in the possibilities of “brainwashing.” Proof of this, which came to light many years later, was the contract it made with a Canadian psychiatrist in Montreal, Dr Ewen Cameron, to experiment illegally on his patients with LSD and possibly other drugs for such purposes.
One way, therefore, for the Agency to deal with its troubled member at Fort Detrick would be to have him forget all he knew about Special Operations, to clear out his mind by this supposed new technique of “brainwashing.” Then he could safely be allowed to retire from the service and return with his family to his home town in Wisconsin. Frank Olson himself believed “that the CIA group had been putting something like Benzedrine in his coffee at night to keep him awake.” (Colby Pg 37-38)
The Colby documents reveal that “an experiment” was tried on Olson, involving the use of some drug. The experiment appears to have been conducted with Olson’s consent and took place on Thursday, 19th November 1953. The experiment failed to work as intended. It did not clear his mind; it worsened his anxieties and nine days later Frank Olson was dead, having jumped or been pushed through a window on the tenth floor of the Statler Hotel in New York City.
Reporting on Frank Olson’s death in the Colby Papers proceeds on three levels.
At the first level there are the reports of the New York city policeman who came to the scene after a call from the Statler Hotel around 4 a.m. on 28th November as well as comments by two New York city detectives. These officers conclude that it was a case of suicide, although they toy with the idea that it might be a homicide because Robert Lashbrook had stayed in the same hotel room as Olson and because of his reluctance to answer certain questions.
At the second level are the reports of two Special Agents sent to question Lashbrook in New York City.
At the third level are memoranda by Dr. Howard Abramson and Lt. Colonel Vincent Ruwet giving their understandings about Frank Olson and About what happened in the last few days of his life.
The most striking information is that contained in the report of the two Special Agents who are identified only as “reporting agent for Case No 73317,” and “Walter P. T.,” which centres on the activities of Robert Lashbrook. The agency controlling these two agents is not identified in the documents. Are they also CIA? Or Department of Defense? The two agents, who did not seem to have any prior knowledge about Lashbrook (CIA agent) or his work unit, interviewed him intensively and followed him around all day following Olson’s death.
What follows are my comments on some ambiguities, coincidences and question marks that arise from the report of the two special agents on the death of Frank Olson:
Lashbrook said that Olson had jumped through the window shade and the window glass. What kind of window shade was it? Was it broken? If the window shade was Venetian blinds it would have been a virtually impossible scenario. Could it be that the window shade was lowered after the man went through the window?
The first call that Lashbrook made was not to the hotel management or the police, but to his superior, Dr. Sid Gottlieb, at his home in Virginia, to tell him what had happened. Then he reported to the hotel desk clerk and telephoned Dr. Abramson. He did not call Lt-Col Ruwet, the chief of the Special Operations Division, right away. Ruwet was a close friend of the Olson family, he had been in contact with Olson daily since June 1953 and had been with Lashbrook and Olson in New York until the previous day. Was there any significance to the sequence of these calls? [Gottlieb is mentioned by Colby in his testimony to the Senate Committee in September 1975, pg 22-23 as the person who destroyed CIA records on BW activities.]
Lashbrook told the police that Olson had come to New York on 24th November to seek help for mental illness. In view of Olson’s upset state of mind that was not unreasonable. But why had Olson been taken to see Dr Abramson who was not a psychiatrist at all but a skin allergist? Was it because Olson was suffering from some embarrassing aftermath of the drug ‘experiment’ of 19th November as well as from nervous disorder? Was it because Abramson, an old acquaintance of Olson’s in the Chemical Corps, could handle the situation without publicity? Lashbrook had also given Lt-Col Ruwet the impression that Olson was coming to New York to see a psychiatrist. (Colby, p. 46)
When Olson died there were no papers to identify him. Reportedly he himself had thrown away his papers, his identification badge and his wallet while walking around the city the previous day. As a result when reporters came to the police station they could get no information about the dead man’s identity and the story never hit the New York papers. This coincidence was extremely convenient for Lashbrook, the Chemical Corps and the CIA.
Lashbrook shared an apartment in Washington, D. C. with EDWIN SPOEHEL. Who was Edwin Spoehel?
The Reporting Agent notes that other than exhibiting fatigue, Lashbrook “appeared completely composed” throughout 28th November, the day Olson died. Robert Lashbrook must have been a hard-boiled type, nerves of steel.
Sid Gottlieb instructed Lashbrook to get a report from Dr. Abramson on Olson and bring it back to Washington with him. Lashbrook and special agent Walter P. T. Jr. went together to Abramson’s office at 9:15 in the evening of the 28th. Lashbrook asked agent Walter P. T. to remain in the reception room while he spoke to Dr. Abramson. While waiting in the outer office agent Walter P. T. was nevertheless able to overhear the conversation of the two men, which he records in his report. What transpired between Lashbrook and Abramson?
First they talked about security, and Abramson said to Lashbrook that he was worried about him. Did Lashbrook have something to worry about?
Lashbrook told Dr. Abramson something he should put in his report about Olson. The CIA agent dictated it to Dr. Abramson. First they both listened to portions of a tape recording of a conversation between “a physician or psychiatrist and the SUBJECT.” Then Lashbrook dictated to Abramson on the SUBJEC’’S behaviour prior to his demise. Since Abramson had attended Olson several times on the days previous to his death, why was it not sufficient that Abramson, a medical doctor, write up his own report?
It seems that the CIA wanted to make sure certain things were in a report that might become the basis of a claim to the Bureau of Employees Compensation. [ From reading Dr. Abramson’s report it is not readily evident what the CIA wanted in particular to have in it.] C. Lashbrook and Abramson adjourned their discussion and moved into another room apparently relaxing with a drink. Agent Walter P. T. heard Abramson remark to Lashbrook that he “was worried as to whether or not the deal was in jeopardy” and he thought “the operation was dangerous and the whole deal should be reanalyzed.” What was the “deal” which both Dr. Abramson and CIA Agent Lashbrook knew about?
What “operation” was dangerous? Was this conversation still relating to the Olson case? After all these years there may be no possibility of following up to find answers to these elusive and sometimes disturbing questions. Without knowing something more about them, especially about the shadowy figure of Robert Lashbrook, it would be difficult to determine with greater certainty how Frank Olson met his death. I hope that my speculations, and they are nothing more than that, may be of some interest and modest help to you.
Stephen Endicott
Dear Steve and Ned,
After studying your remarkable book more carefully it occurs to me to ask you about one of the most mysterious details in the documents I received from William Colby in 1975. I wonder if this will mean anything to you.
I refer to a two-page document entitled:
“MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD” SUBJECT: Project ARTICHOKE
The memorandum is dated 3 February 1975.
Both pages of the document are totally whited-out with the exception of a paragraph near the bottom of the second page. This reads as follows:
7. Little information pertaining to the suicide of Frank OLSON was found in the collection of materials made available by DDS&T. However, one brief memorandum dated 14 December 1953 mentioned the OLSON incident. The memorandum stated in part “LOVELL reported that QUARLES and George MERCK were about to kill the Schwab activity at Detrick as “un-American.” The memorandum later continued “LOVELL knew of Frank R. OLSON.”
Dr. John Schwab, whom I knew, was the founder and first director of Special Operations at Detrick.
I wonder what other light you might be able to shed on this, particularly on what “the Schwab activity” might refer to.
The other thing that has occurred to me on re-reading your book and considering the role of the CIA in BW in Korea is the very likely possibility that my father was the CIA’s man at Detrick, whose job may well have been that of linking Detrick’s resources with the CIA’s task of administering the secret deployment of BW in cooperation with the Air Force. This impression is strengthened by information we now have that proves that the purpose of Presidential “apology” our family received in 1975 was to deflect our intention to sue, which might have led to our discovering the true nature of my father’s job. It was not only the cover-up of his “bizarre death” (as this information refers to it) that was in question, but the nature of his work.
Best regards, – Eric
The meaning of “Schwab activity” is not apparent from the documents you have. I have a speculation about it though. It is related to that part of Special Operations which was said to be was one of Gottleib’s specialities: creating means (darts, toxins etc.) to assassinate particular individuals. I suppose that to people like George Merck this might seem to be an “un-American” activity. Merck, as you know, was one of the strongest promoters of the idea of using biological weapons in war, therefore he obviously wouldn’t have considered BW as such to be “un-American.” But individual acts of terror might have been in a different, troubling category in their minds. It’s just a thought.
I was reading your website yesterday and was quite amazed to find out about the circumstances of Colby’s death on the eve of being called up to testify before a Grand Jury! Did that Grand Jury meet and mark recommendations about investigating your father’s death?
Best, Steve
U.S. Knew in 1953 North Koreans Held American POW’s
By PHILIP SHENON
September 17, 1996, Tuesday
Newly declassified documents show that the United States knew immediately after the Korean War that North Korea had failed to turn over hundreds of American prisoners known to be alive at the end of the war, adding to growing speculation that American prisoners might still be alive and in custody there.
…experiments in which American prisoners were drugged in a program to ‘develop comprehensive interrogation techniques, involving medical, psychological and drug-induced behavior modification.’… At the end of the testing, the Americans were reportedly executed.
The documents, obtained from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and other Government depositories by a Congressional committee, show that the Pentagon knew in December 1953 that more than 900 American troops were alive at the end of the war but were never released by the North Koreans.
The documents may only deepen the mystery over the fate of Americans still considered missing from the Korean War. In June a Defense Department intelligence analyst testified that on the basis of ”a recent flurry” of ”very compelling reports,” he believed that as many as 15 Americans were still being held prisoner in North Korea.
While not dismissing the analyst’s report entirely, the Defense Department has said it has no clear evidence that any Americans are being held against their will in North Korea, although it has pledged to continue to investigate accounts of defectors and others who say they have seen American prisoners there.
The North Korean Government has said it is not holding any Americans. A handful of American defectors are known to live in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and some are believed to have appeared in North Korean propaganda films.
The documents were obtained by the House National Security subcommittee on military personnel. Congressional investigators said much of the information was confirmed by a former military aide to President Eisenhower, Col. Phillip Corso.
In a statement prepared for delivery before the House panel on Tuesday, Colonel Corso, who is retired, said, ”In the past I have tried to tell Congress the fact that in 1953, 500 sick and wounded American prisoners were within 10 miles of the prisoner exchange point at Panmunjom but were never exchanged.” Panmunjom was the site of peace negotiations between the United States and North Korea that ended with an armistice on July 27, 1953.
One of the documents obtained by the House subcommittee, a December 1953 memo that had been on file at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., shows that the Army believed at that time that 610 ”Army people” and 300 Air Force personnel were still being held prisoners by the North Koreans, five months after a prisoner exchange between the United States and North Korea.
The memo said that President Eisenhower was ”intensely interested” in the fate of ”the missing P.O.W.’s,” and that he had wanted to make sure ”everybody was doing all they could about it.”
Al Santoli, a Congressional investigator who helped gather the documents, said the House subcommittee would explore the possibility that some of the American prisoners reported missing in 1953 were the same Americans reportedly sighted in recent years in North Korea.
He said that the intelligence information released by the Eisenhower Library had been declassified at the request of the subcommittee, and that it showed that the Eisenhower Administration ”was trying to do what it could to get the prisoners back” short of war.
Historians of the Korean War have suggested that the Eisenhower Administration chose not to make public much of its intelligence on the issue of missing Americans for fearing of whipping up a war hysteria among Americans who would have demanded that the prisoners be returned home.
”In a nuclear age, Eisenhower could not risk telling the Russians or the Chinese that we’re willing to go to all-out war to get our prisoners back,” Mr. Santoli said.
The hearing Tuesday of the subcommittee will include potentially explosive testimony from a Czech defector, Jan Sejna, who now works for the United States Defense Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Sejna, a former Czech defense official, had access to information about medical experiments carried out on American prisoners of war by Russian and Czech personnel in a hospital in North Korea during the war. Mr. Sejna had described experiments in which American prisoners were drugged in a program to ”develop comprehensive interrogation techniques, involving medical, psychological and drug-induced behavior modification.”
At the end of the testing, the Americans were reportedly executed.
A STUDY OF ASSASSINATION
Assassination is a term thought to be derived from “Hashish,” a drug similar to marijuana, said to have been used by Hasan-Dan-Sabah to induce motivation in his followers, who were assigned to carry out political and other murders, usually at the cost of their lives.
It is here used to describe the planned killing of a person who is not under the legal jurisdiction of the killer, who is not physically in the hands of the killer, who has been selected by a resistance organization for death, and whose death provides positive advantages to that organization.
Assassination is an extreme measure not normally used in clandestine operations. It should be assumed that it will never be ordered or authorized by any U.S. Headquarters, though the latter may in rare instances agree to its execution by members of an associated foreign service. This reticence is partly due to the necessity of committing communications to paper. No assassination instructions should ever be written or recorded. Consequently, the decision to employ this technique must nearly always be reached in the field, at the area where the act will take place. Decision and instructions should be confined to an absolute minimum of persons. Ideally, only one person will be involved. No report may be made, but usually the act will be properly covered by normal news services, whose output is available to all concerned.
Murder is not morally justifiable. Self-defense may be argued if the victim has knowledge which may destroy the resistance organization if divulged. Assassination of persons responsible for atrocities or reprisals may be regarded as just punishment. Killing a political leader whose burgeoning career is a clear and present danger to the cause of freedom may be held necessary.
But assassination can seldom be employed with a clear conscience. Persons who are morally squeamish should not attempt it.
The techniques employed will vary according to whether the subject is unaware of his danger, aware but unguarded, or guarded. They will also be affected by whether or not the assassin is to be killed with the subject. Hereafter, assassinations in which the subject is unaware will be termed “simple”; those where the subject is aware but unguarded will be termed “chase”; those where the victim is guarded will be termed “guarded.”
If the assassin is to die with the subject, the act will be called “lost.” If the assassin is to escape, the adjective will be “safe.” It should be noted that no compromises should exist here. The assassin must not fall into enemy hands.
A further type division is caused by the need to conceal the fact that the subject was actually the victim of assassination, rather than an accident or natural causes. If such concealment is desirable the operation will be called “secret”; if concealment is immaterial, the act will be called open”; while if the assassination requires publicity to be effective it will be termed “terroristic.”
Following these definitions, the assassination of Julius Caesar was safe, simple, and terroristic, while that of Huey Long was lost, guarded and open. Obviously, successful secret assassinations are not recorded as assassination at all. [Illeg] of Thailand and Augustus Caesar may have been the victims of safe, guarded and secret assassination. Chase assassinations usually involve clandestine agents or members of criminal organizations.
In safe assassinations, the assassin needs the usual qualities of a clandestine agent. He should be determined, courageous, intelligent, resourceful, and physically active. If special equipment is to be used, such as firearms or drugs, it is clear that he must have outstanding skill with such equipment.
Except in terroristic assassinations, it is desirable that the assassin be transient in the area. He should have an absolute minimum of contact with the rest of the organization and his instructions should be given orally by one person only. His safe evacuation after the act is absolutely essential, but here again contact should be as limited as possible. It is preferable that the person issuing instructions also conduct any withdrawal or covering action which may be necessary.
In lost assassination, the assassin must be a fanatic of some sort. Politics, religion, and revenge are about the only feasible motives. Since a fanatic is unstable psychologically, he must be handled with extreme care. He must not know the identities of the other members of the organization, for although it is intended that he die in the act, something may go wrong. Will the Assassin of Trotsky has never revealed any significant information, it was unsound to depend on this when the act was planned.
When the decision to assassinate has been reached, the tactics of the operation must be planned, based upon an estimate of the situation similar to that used in military operations. The preliminary estimate will reveal gaps in information and possible indicate a need for special equipment which must be procured or constructed. When all necessary data has been collected, an effective tactical plan can be prepared. All planning must be mental; no papers should ever contain evidence of the operation.
In resistance situations, assassination may be used as a counter-reprisal. Since this requires advertising to be effective, the resistance organization must be in a position to warn high officials publicly that their lives will be the price of reprisal action against innocent people. Such a threat is of no value unless it can be carried out, so it may be necessary to plan the assassination of various responsible officers of the oppressive regime and hold such plans in readiness to be used only if provoked by excessive brutality. Such plans must be modified frequently to meet changes in the tactical situation.
The essential point of assassination is the death of the subject. A human being may be killed in many ways but sureness is often overlooked by those who may be emotionally unstrung by the seriousness of this act they intend to commit. The specific technique employed will depend upon a large number of variables, but should be constant in one point: Death must be absolutely certain. The attempt on Hitler’s life failed because the conspiracy did not give this matter proper attention.
It is possible to kill a man with bare hands, but very few are skillful enough to do it well. Even a highly trained Judo expert will hesitate to risk killing by hand unless he has absolutely no alternative. However, the simplest local tools are often much the most efficient means of assassination. A hammer, axe, wrench, screw driver, fire poker, kitchen knife, lamp stand, or anything hard, heavy and handy will suffice. A length of rope or wire or a belt will do if the assassin is strong and agile. All such improvised weapons have the important advantage of availability and apparent innocence. The obviously lethal machine gun failed to kill Trotsky where an item of sporting goods succeeded.
In all safe cases where the assassin may be subject to search, either before or after the act, specialized weapons should not be used. Even in the lost case, the assassin may accidentally be searched before the act and should not carry an incriminating device if any sort of lethal weapon can be improvised at or near the site. If the assassin normally carries weapons because of the nature of his job, it may still be desirable to improvise and implement at the scene to avoid disclosure of his identity.
For secret assassination, either simple or chase, the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it causes little excitement and is only casually investigated.
The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Elevator shafts, stair wells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve. Bridge falls into water are not reliable. In simple cases a private meeting with the subject may be arranged at a properly-cased location. The act may be executed by sudden, vigorous [excised] of the ankles, tipping the subject over the edge. If the assassin immediately sets up an outcry, playing the “horrified witness”, no alibi or surreptitious withdrawal is necessary. In chase cases it will usually be necessary to stun or drug the subject before dropping him. Care is required to insure that no wound or condition not attributable to the fall is discernible after death.
Falls into the sea or swiftly flowing rivers may suffice if the subject cannot swim. It will be more reliable if the assassin can arrange to attempt rescue, as he can thus be sure of the subject’s death and at the same time establish a workable alibi.
Falls before trains or subway cars are usually effective, but require exact timing and can seldom be free from unexpected observation.
Automobile accidents are a less satisfactory means of assassination. If the subject is deliberately run down, very exact timing is necessary and investigation is likely to be thorough. If the subject’s car is tampered with, reliability is very low. The subject may be stunned or drugged and then place in the car, but this is only reliable when the car can be run off a high cliff or into deep water without observation.
Arson can cause accidental death if the subject is drugged and left in a burning building. Reliability is not satisfactory unless the building is isolated and highly combustible.
In all types of assassination except terroristic, drugs can be very effective. If the assassin is trained as a doctor or nurse and the subject is under medical care, this is an easy and rare method. An overdose of morphine administered as a sedative will cause death without disturbance and is difficult to detect. The size of the dose will depend upon whether the subject has been using narcotics regularly. If no, two grains will suffice.
If the subject drinks heavily, morphine or a similar narcotic can be injected at the passing out stage, and the cause of death will often be held to be acute alcoholism.
Specific poisons, such as arsenic or strychnine, are effective but their possession or procurement is incriminating, and accurate dosage is problematical. Poison was used unsuccessfully in the assassination or Rasputin and Kolohan, though the latter case is more accurately described as a murder.
4. Edge weapons
Any locally obtained edge device may be successfully employed. A certain minimum of anatomical knowledge is needed for reliability.
Puncture wounds of the body cavity may not be reliable unless the heart is reached. The heart is protected by the rib cage and is not always easy to locate.
Abdominal wounds were once nearly always mortal, but modern medical treatment has made this no longer true.
Absolute reliability is obtained by severing the spinal cord in the cervical region. This can be done with the point of a knife or a light blow of an axe or hatchet.
Another reliable method is the severing of both jugular and carotid blood vessels on both sides of the windpipe.
If the subject has been rendered unconscious by other wounds or drugs, either of the above methods can be used to insure death.
As with edge weapons, blunt weapons require some anatomical knowledge for effective use. Their main advantage is their universal availability. A hammer may be picked up almost anywhere in the world. Baseball and [illeg] bats are very widely distributed. Even a rock or a heavy stick will do, and nothing resembling a weapon need be procured, carried or subsequently disposed of.
Blows should be directed to the temple, the area just below and behind the ear, and the lower, rear portion of the skull. Of course, if the blow is very heavy, any portion of the upper skull will do. The lower frontal portion of the head, from the eyes to the throat, can withstand enormous blows without fatal consequences.
6. Firearms
Firearms are often used in assassination, often very ineffectively. The assassin usually has insufficient technical knowledge of the limitations of weapons, and expects more range, accuracy and killing power than can be provided with reliability. Since certainty of death is the major requirement, firearms should be used which can provide destructive power at least 100% in excess of that thought to be necessary, and ranges should be half that considered practical for the weapon.
Firearms have other drawbacks. Their possession is often incriminating. They may be difficult to obtain. They require a degree of experience from the user. They [illeg] is consistently over-rated.
However, there are many cases in which firearms are probably more efficient than any other means. These cases usually involve distance betweeen the assassin and the subject, or comparative physical weakness of the assassin, as with a woman.
(a) The precision rifle.
In guarded assassination, a good hunting or target rifle should always be considered as a possibility. Absolute reliability can nearly always be achieved at a distance of one hundred yards. In ideal circumastances, the range may be extended to 250 yards. The rifle shold be a wll made bolt or falling block action type, handling a powerful long-range cartirdge. The .300 F.A.B. Magnum is probably the best cartridge readily available. other excellent calibers are .375 M.[illeg]. Magnum, .270 Winchester, .30 – 106 p.s., 8 x 60 MM Magnum, 9.3 X 62 KK and others of this type. These are preferable to ordinary military calibers, since ammunition available for them is usually of the expanding bullet type, whereas most ammunition for military refles is full jacketed and hence not sufficiently lethal. Military ammunition should not be altered by filing or drilling bullets, as this will adversely affect accuracy.
The rifle may be of the “bull gun” variety, with extra heavy barrel and set triggers, but in any case should be able to group in one inch at one hundred yards, but 2 1/2″ groups are adequate. The sight shold be telescopic, not only for accuracy, but because such a sight is much better in dim light or near darkness. As long as the bare outline of the target is discernable, a telescope sight will work, even if the rifle and shooter are in total darkness.
An expanding, hunting bullet of such calibers as described above will produce extravagant laceration and shock at short or mid-range. if a man is struck just once in the body cavity, his death is almost entirely certain.
Public figures or guarded officials may be killed withgreat reliability and some safety if a firing point can be established prior to an official occasion. The propaganda value of this system may be very high.
(b) The machine gun.
Machine guns may be used in most cases where the precision rifle is applicable. Usually this will require the subversion of a unit of an official guard at a ceremony, though a skillful and determined team might conceivably dispose of a loyal gun crow without commotion and take over the gun at the critical time.
The area fire capacity of the machine gun should not be used to search out a concealed subject. This was tried with predictable lack of success on Trotsky. The automatic feature of the machine gun should rather be used to increase reliability by placing a 5 second burst on the subject. Even with full jacket ammunition, this will be absolute lethal is the burst pattern is no larger than a man. This can be accomplished at about 150 yards. In ideal circumstances, a properly padded and targeted machine gun can do it at 850 yards. The major difficulty is placing the first burst exactly on the target, as most machine gunners are trained to spot their fire on target by observation of strike. This will not do in assassination as the subject will not wait.
(c) The Submachine Gun.
This weapon, known as the “machine-pistol” by the Russians and Germans and “machine-carbide” by the British, is occasionally useful in assassination. Unlike the rifle and machine gun, this is a short range weapon and since it fires pistol ammunition, much less powerful. To be reliable, it should deliver at least 5 rounds into the subject’s chest, though the .45 caliber U.S. weaponshave a much larger margin of killing efficiency than the 9 mm European arms.
The assassination range of the sub-machine gun is point blank. While accurate single rounds can be delivered by sub-machine gunners at 50 yards or more, this is not certain enough for assassination. Under ordinary circumstances, the 5MG shold be used as a fully automatic weapon. In the hands of a capable gunner, a high cyclic rate is a distinct advantage, as speed of execution is most desirable, particularly in the case of multiple subjects.
The sub-machine gun is especially adapted to indoor work when more than one subject is to be assassinated. An effective technique has been devised for the use of a pair of sub-machine gunners, by which a room contailning as many as a dozen subjectgs can be “purifico” in about twenty seconds with little or no risk to the gunners. It is illustratrated below.
While the U.S. sub-machine guns fire the most lethal cartridges, the higher cyclic rate of some foreigh weapons enable the gunner to cover a target quicker with acceptable pattern density. The Bergmann Model 1934 is particularly good in this way. The Danish Madman? SMG has a moderately good cyclic rate and is admirably compact and concealable. The Russian SHG’s have a good cyclic rate, but are handicapped by a small, light protective which requires more kits for equivalent killing effect.
Shutting off curiosity:
Notes on Evan Thomas’ book,
The Very Best Men—Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA
Diary entry
“This is a story that no one wants to know.”
— Harry Huge, Esq., 1994
I was talking with a friend tonight about my father’s death. My friend said he saw an analogy between my father’s murder and the order given to Francis Gary Powers to kill himself rather than allow himself to be captured by the enemy. The analogy my friend saw lay in the similarity between a national security murder on the one hand, and the order to kill oneself for security on the other hand–the only difference being in whether one’s death comes at the hand of another or at one’s own.
I later realized that the analogy goes further, because the pill Powers was supposed to have taken was concocted by the ubiquitous Sidney Gottlieb, and also because the U2 plane Powers was piloting was the brain child of Richard Bissell who (according to Evan Thomas in The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA) gave considerable thought to the problem of how to murder someone for security reasons while doing so in a way that would seem to be a natural death and would not arouse undue curiosity.
Evan Thomas writes as follows:
Bissell, on the other hand, was “more open-minded,” said Gottlieb. He had, of course, worked closely with the Technical Services Staff developing the U-2. When he became DD/P [Deputy Director of Plans, i.e. covert operations] in 1959, “he was very interested in MKULTRA,” said Gottlieb. “He fancied himself a technological promoter and entrepreneur. He wanted to understand what the farthest reach could be. He wanted to know, could you assassinate someone without anyone every finding out about it?”
At first it was all “speculative,” recalled Bissell. But the concept interested him. If one of the obstacles to assassination was what agency officials called blowback, perhaps there was a technical solution. “I wanted to see if there was a way to make it look like a natural occurrence. This would be the best way to preserve security. You’d shut off curiosity.” (paperback edition, p. 212)
The interesting thing, the amazing thing really about this quote is that it occurs on the very same page (p. 212) where—just eight lines earlier—Thomas tells the story of the death of Frank Olson, who, Thomas says, “worked with Gottlieb, also experimented with LSD and fell to his death from the window of a New York hotel in 1953.”
But Thomas never connects the two subjects. Talk about shutting off curiosity!!!
This example is so good it could be used in literary theory as a case of unconscious reflexivity: inadvertently performing the very thing one is explaining.
It all reminds me a bit of the collage work too. Sometimes a collage-maker will place two images in very close proximity and then, pointing first at one image and then at the other, insists that “This has nothing to do with that.”
Of course one can’t contemplate Bissell’s recommendations for “shutting off curiosity” without being reminded of the CIA’s Assassination Manual of late 1953, where the device of the “contrived accident” is the recommended method for disguising a murder as a suicide:
The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface…
If the assassin immediately sets up an outcry, playing the “horrified witness”, no alibi or surreptitious withdrawal is necessary.
And of course one can’t read these passages without thinking of this exchange from the Elmore Leonard novel, BE COOL:
“I know a way,” Elliot said. “Throw him out a window and make it look like he committed suicide.”
Raji said, “Elliot” –like, are you stupid or something? –“the windows in the office don’t open.”
Elliot said, “I don’t mean in the office.”
Raji heard him, but Raji was the boss. Once he said Elliot was wrong or stupid Raji would keep going, have his say.
“Man’s gonna commit suicide. So what he does is run across the room and throw himself through[italics in the original] the window? Breaks the glass? Cuts himself all up?”
Elliot didn’t mean that at all. What he had in mind, take the man to a hotel room like in the Roosevelt and pitch him out from the top floor. But Raji was still talking.
“Nicky leave a suicide note? ‘I can’t take no more of this shit life is handing me, so I’m gonna throw myself through the fuckin window?’ You did it to the man in Haiwa-ya and you think, year, that’s it, that’s how to do it. Man, it’s the dumbest idea I ever heard of.”
(Elmore Leonard,
BE COOL, Dell, 1999, p. 233)
The startling similarity of this quote to my father’s story is very likely not entirely coincidental. I met Elmore Leonard in 1996 at a book signing at a bookshop called Killer Books in Washington, together with his friend James Grady who wrote “6 Days of the Condor” (changed to “3 Days of the Condor” for the movie). Grady was very familiar with the Olson story—he had interviewed my sister in 1975 for a Jack Anderson column. I don’t know whether Leonard had known the story before or not, but he followed the exchange between me and Grady with considerable interest.
The remarkable example of Evan Thomas’ failure to see what he himself placed in front of his own eyes on page 212 of The Very Best Men is not the only case where an author has blinked when faced with the Frank Olson story. In some ways an even more startling example is to be found in Ed Regis’ history of Fort Detrick, The Biology of Doom. Regis scatters the Olson story through a number of chapters of his book, which enables him to make it almost a leit motif of his narrative while divesting him of the responsibility to confront the story head on. On page 157 (hardback edition) Regis describes the Tuesday morning when, for the second time after the Deep Creek drugging, Olson arrived at work:
Ruwet now decided that this was far more serious than he’d realized at first. Outside intervention was clearly advisable, not only for Frank Olson’s sake, but for the sake of Camp Detrick and the biological warfare program, and in particular for the overall security of the SO Division. Everyone’s worst nightmare had always been of someone’s flipping out and running amok, and spilling all the family secrets. (p 157-168)
So there it is: the elephant in the room finally named, even if its features remain entirely unexplored. What sorts of contingency plans did Detrick (or any other Cold War facility) have for a situation where a key scientist threatens to pose a security risk? And what if that scientist has been drugged — destabilized — by his own colleagues?
This is the only example of which I am aware where the obvious problem of security in the wake of some kind of psychological breakdown is stated clearly. This was obviously a huge problem in many areas of Cold War research and industry, one which in many cases would have posed horrendous dilemmas for a democracy which did not have the equivalent of a Gulag prison system in which to dispose of people. I know of no work in which any any historian has explored this issue. This makes Regis’ next narrative move all the more interesting.
This is how Regis tells the story of Olson’s death in New York three days later:
Just in case Olson should try to leave the room and wander about the neighborhood as he’d done two nights earlier, Lashbrook took the bed next to the door.
Now, around midnight, they went to bed.
Only ten days previously, Frank Rudolph Olson, Ph.D., had been a branch chief in the Special Operations Division, a trusted employee of the U.S. Government’s secret germ warfare installation at Camp Detrick. Now he was hearing voices, having delusions, and on his way to the crazy house.
He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stay asleep.
At about 3 A.M., with Lashbrook asleep, Frank Olson crashed through the closed window of room 1018A and disappeared below the ledge. (p. 161)
“Disappeared below the ledge”…! The drugged guinea pig — out of control and “on his way to the crazy house” — now disappears below the ledge!
How should we read the word “disappeared”? Should the verb “disappeared” be taken to mean “jumped”? Or should we perhaps take the word “disappeared” in the meaning it has acquired in Latin America, where it is used as a past participle: i.e., the dissidents “were disappeared”?
Regis makes no mention of the fact that this extremely unlikely story derives only from the CIA’s uncorroborated version of events. (See my notes on the interview with Dr. Robert Gibson for one example on a contradictory story, and the new Afterword to Jonathan Moreno’s Undue Risk for a more general discussion.)
Most alarming of all, Regis does not mention that this “disappearance below the ledge“ was, at the very least, extremely convenient for Olson’s caretakers, charged as they were with the security of a high level scientist doing top secret work and now (according to the standard version of the story) completely out of control. What, in fact, would these “caretakers” have done if this scientist — privy to a whole network of secrets involving everything from terminal experiments on human subjects, assassination materials research, mind control experiments, the use of biological weapons in Korea — what would they have done, what could they have done, if Olson had not “disappeared below the ledge” on the very day when he was scheduled to be placed in an open psychiatric hospital with no provision for maintaining security, and with open access to family and friends?
But of course one does not ask questions that lead in the direction of issues that one does not wish to face. In the Agency’s terminology, the ideal tactic is to intercept a question before it has a chance to be stated, thereby “shutting off curiosity” before a direction of thought can be formulated, articulated, and acquire momentum.
This strategy has been remarkably effective. The whole issue of what one might call “Cold War homicides” or “national security murders” has (so far as I am aware) never been raised as a ‘problem of democracy,’ (as my high school civics teacher might has put it). (For an article that raises this issue empirically, though not philosophically, “Mid-century deaths all linked to CIA? New evidence in Olson case suggests similarities with other incidents” by H.P. Albarelli Jr. and John Kelly.) The most candid discussion I have seen of this general problem with reference to the values of a democracy (though murder of a fellow citizen is not mentioned) occurs between two CIA officers in William Buckley’s novel Spytime:
Esterhazy was solemn in his reflection. “Lincoln asked himself a related question, I remember. Along the lines of, Does it further the aims of the Constitution to abide by it when doing so endangers, well, endangers the whole thing–”
“Here are his words exactly. You can understand why I have committed them to memory. Lincoln said, ‘Is there, in all republics, this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?’… Well, Hugo, there’s a good case to be made for declining even to talk about quandaries like that. It’s best left that although the truth may make you free, something less than the whole truth, in some situations, is necessary in order to keep the fire lit.”
(William F. Buckley, Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton (New York: Harcourt, 2000)
Perhaps the most disturbing example of what we might call the phenomenon of ‘the spatially proximate but discursively unconnected’ in the treatment of the death of Frank Olson occurs in Christopher Simpson’s impressive book, Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War. It is often more instructive to notice where the story of Frank Olson’s death is told than exactly what is said (the story is usually virtually identical); one frequently has the impression that in choosing the narrative context in which to insert this story an author is implicitly making connections that he has not yet explicitly formulated. To put this differently, an author may know more than he realizes he knows, or, in some cases, more than he wants to know, and, as in a collage, he may convey this knowledge implicitly in choices concerning spatial positioning.
Chapter Eleven of Simpson’s book, “Guerrillas for World War III,” deals with the recruitment of former Nazis to carry out American-ordered assassinations in Europe in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. On pages 149-150 of the paperback edition Simpson writes as follows:
Former Nazi collaborators made excellent executioners in such instances, because of both their wartime training and the fact that the U.S. government could plausibly deny any knowledge of their activities. Suspected double agents were the most common targets for execution. “In the international clandestine operations business, it was part of the code that the one and only remedy for the unfrocked double agent was to kill him” (emphasis added [by Simpson]), the CIA’s director of operations planning during the Truman administration testified before Congress in 1976, “and all double agents knew that. That was part of the occupational hazard of the job.” The former director, whom the government declines to identify, also claimed, however, that he didn’t recall any executions of double agents actually occurring during his tenure there. It is understandable that he might fail to remember any executions; for admitting a role in such killings could well lead to arrest and prosecution for conspiracy to commit murder in Europe, if not in the United States itself.*
The asterisk at the end of this paragraph directs us to a footnote at the bottom of the page — and here it comes: the Frank Olson story as a footnote to assassinations in Europe!
*Unfrocked double agents were also tortured — there is no other word for it — in so-called terminal medical experiments sponsored by the army, navy, and the CIA. These tests fed massive quantities of convulsant and psychedelic drugs to foreign prisoners in an attempt to make them talk, according to CIA records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by author John Marks. The CIA also explored use of psychosurgery and repeated electric shocks directly into the brain.
Then CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all records of these “experiments” in the midst of Watergate and congressional investigations that threatened to bring to light the agency’s practices in this field. A cache of papers that he accidentally missed was found some years later, however, and the agency has since been forced to make public sanitized versions of some of those records. It is now known that similar agency tests with LSD led to the suicide of an army employee, Frank Olson, and are alleged to have permanently damaged a group of unsuspecting psychiatric patients at a Canadian clinic whose director was working under CIA contract. The agency unit that administered this program was the same Directorate of Scientific Research that developed the exotic poisons used in attempted assassinations of Fidel Castro and Patrice Lumumba.
So close, and yet so far. How differently the above account reads if one keeps in mind the following facts: (1) Frank Olson was not an army employee; according to the CIA’s own file (the one that Helms “accidentally missed” and therefore did not destroy, and also according to William Colby’s autobiography) Olson was not an army employee; he was, in fact, a “CIA employee;” (2) the Special Operations Division for which Olson worked was closely allied with the CIA, and with the CIA’s efforts to develop methods for “special interrogation;” (3) the CIA officer in charge of the “experiment” in which Olson was drugged (Sidney Gottlieb) was the same man who developed the “exotic poisons” for use in the attempted assassinations of Castro and Lumumba; (4) Gottlieb has testified that the poison for use in the attempted assassination of Lumumba came from the laboratory (Detrick) in which Frank Olson worked; (5) Frank Olson had made a trip to Europe and specifically to Germany on Special Operations business in the summer of 1953 before he was killed in November of that year.
I find it remarkable that the notion of a file being “accidentally missed” finds its way into this account, especially when one considers how many things about the death of Frank Olson the CIA has claimed were “accidents.” To wit: in 1953 the Olson family was told that the death of Frank Olson was an “accident;” when other materials were being shredded in 1973 the file on Frank Olson was “accidentally” not destroyed; when the Rockefeller Commission investigators were gathering materials at the CIA an Agency secretary “accidentally” gave them the Olson file, which was not supposed to be released (this explanation provided to the Olson family by Seymour Hersh); when the Rockefeller Commission came into possession of the Olson file in 1975 they “accidentally” forgot to notify the Olson family that the story of the death of their husband-father, kept secret for twenty-two years, was about to come to light; the CIA also “accidentally” failed to notify the Olson family when they came to know that the Olson story was about to be anonymously disseminated both in the Rockefeller Commission’s report and in the press; the story of Frank Olson’s death as it was described in the notoriously missing file which was “accidentally” not destroyed was that Olson had been “accidentally” kept on a high floor of a hotel during his stay in New York for psychiatric consultation because of an “accidental” failure of judgment in which the severity of his disturbance was underestimated; Sidney Gottlieb told the Olson family in 1984 that he had had no idea that LSD could cause the sort of effects it caused in Olson’s case, and that in that sense the drugging of Olson was a mistake and an “accident.”
What remains striking in Simpson’s account is the placement of the Olson “suicide” story in such close spatial proximity to the accounts of terminal experiments and assassinations in Europe. In this context the memo provided by Gordon Thomas takes on special significance.
The Agency has deflected the question of national security homicides in a double maneuver. On the one hand the CIA has admitted to unsuccessful (and ill-advised) attempts at assassinating foreign leaders, while, on the other hand, the notion of domestic involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy has been effectively marginalized as “conspiracy theory” (i.e., lunacy). The result is that the issue of the vast territory that falls between the poles of these extreme cases, what we might call ‘plain old everyday national security terminations,’ has been effectively omitted from the discourse of Cold War history (except of course in Stalin’s Russia where “the end justified the means.”) From the perspective of analyses like that of Michel Foucault one might ask not only about the occasional necessity for such acts, but also about the role such terminations would have played in “disciplining” a democratic population for fighting a Cold War in which covert operations and plausible deniability were the key weapons.
The Evan Thomas-Ed Regis examples are valuable, though, not only from the perspective of questions they raise for political theory but also for the quite complex psychological issues they embody. How do the mechanisms of perception enable the mind to posit a connection and yet avoid seeing it? In order not to see what one does not wish to see how does the mind first recognize a dangerous object precisely in order to intercept and block it? And what is the remedy? How is the mechanism of perception refreshed; how are the mechanisms of internal censorship and repression modified so that inconvenient objects can be perceived and held in mind, awkward questions can be raised?
A few thoughts on the many questions this raises:
The idea of placing one thing near another and then asserting (explicitly or implicitly) that “the one has nothing to do with the other” of course suggests Freud’s comments about negation, where, due to the fact that the unconscious cannot represent a negative relationship, denial always implies affirmation. Even if true, however, this approach conveys little about how the mechanism might actually work, and particularly how it works not only in verbal exchange but in the more primary register of perception.
The most useful line of thought on this problem comes, I think, from philosopher Susanne Langer who in her multivolume study Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling emphasizes that perception is a complex act which consists of many components or phases, not all of which are synchronized and integrated with each other. The early phases of the perceptual act often serve to register the emotional value of the stimulus precisely in order to steer subsequent perceptual phases away from the stimulus or from some aspects of it.
In her explanation of this phenomenon Langer emphasizes the idea that the early phases serve to adumbrate value. She writes:
[…in acts of recognition, motivation and feeling] value may be adumbrated before the perception of forms is complete.
(Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, Vol. 1, 1967)
The phenomenon that Langer is seeking to account for here is the seemingly paradoxical fact that one can’t avoid something unless one first recognizes it: one can’t resist seeing something unless one has first seen it. This phenomenon is a familiar one in psychoanalytic experience. As one psychoanalyst (Roy Schafer) put it, the mystery of how the repressed makes its appearance in the psychoanalytic dialogue is that patient “refers to what he is passing over as he passes over it.” The reciprocal task of the psychoanalyst, therefore, becomes that of hearing the alienated voice of the other within the rhythms of the patient’s multivocal speech. This textual nature of this task is one reason why literary theory and psychoanalysis have had such a rich cross-fertilization in recent decades.
But what about the social manifestation of this mechanism in the form of learning to ignore that which (perhaps despite its strangeness) has been made to appear normal or usual? Habituation to that which was in fact quite bizarre was the common experience in my own family, where my father’s death acquired a pseudo-familiarity that served to remove it from the reach of curiosity and thought.
The phenomenon of the dulling of perception through habituation has received a great deal of attention in literary theory, particularly from the Russian formalists who thought that the artist’s challenge was then to regrasp the strangeness of the familiar: the process that has been called “making strange”:
“People living at the seashore,” wrote Shlovskij, “grow so accustomed to the murmur of waves that they never hear it. By the same token, we scarcely ever hear the words which we utter.… We look at each other, but we do not see each other any more. Our perception of the world has withered away, what has remained is mere recognition.”…
The poetic image makes strange the habitual and… its linguistic devices, to use the favorite Formalist expression, are “laid bare.”
(Victor Erlich,
Russian Formalism: History-Doctrine, 1981)
Brecht’s epic theater … is a theater that is in certain ways conscious of itself as signifying practice, and that draws attention to its own means of production, its own processes of representation. This quality of self-reflexivity largely derives from the devices of distanciation or alienation… [The] means of representation are foregrounded.… This foregrounding of devices, however, is not so much designed to produce a sense of aesthetic “play”… [as] to offer the audience a place from which it can develop its own criticism of and judgment upon the actions represented.…
…“the individual episodes have to be knotted together in such a way that the knots are easily noticed.”…
This process of “noticing the knots” or of foregrounding the means of representation has been a familiar one in modernist theory and practice since the time of the cubists.
(Sylvia Harvey,
Quoting B. Brecht, in “Whose Brecht? Memories of the Eighties,” Screen, 1982)
This long trajectory through the notions of “shutting off curiosity,” motivated perceptual blindness, habituation, and “making strange” brings us, finally, to collage, and to the remarkable observations of German art theorist Franz Mon on the social relevance of this medium:
Collage offers an opportunity for accelerated insight into what happens to us in our reality. In the multiplicity of collage working techniques — ranging from tearing, to burning, cutting, crumpling, ripping, rubbing — one finds analogues to society’s socializing processes and events. In the renderings of collage is disclosed that which social ideology tends to pass over.
Using the material of a given reality collage brings forth, through transposition, ‘another’ reality, which reveals the inner essence of that which has become dulled through habituation. By relieving reality of its rules of the game, collage presents designs for experimentation — patterns which are new, unused, and possibly valid only for the moment.
(Franz Mon
Prinzip Collage, 1968)
Books referred to in this note:
Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA.
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995; paperback 1996).
Elmore Leonard, BE COOL.
(New York: Dell, 1999).
Ed Regis, The Biology of Doom: The History of America’s Secret Germ Warfare Project
(New York: Henry Holt, 1999; paperback 2000).
William Buckley, Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton.
(New York: Harcourt, 2000; paperback, 2001).
Susanne Langer. Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (3 Vols.) (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967-82).
Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War (New York: Widenfeld & Nicolson, 1988).
Notes on my meeting with Dr. Robert Gibson
When last-minute plans were being made on the afternoon of November 27, 1953 to hospitalize Frank Olson a call was placed to a young admitting psychiatrist in Maryland named Robert Gibson. (Gibson went on to a very distinguished career in medicine: he became director of Shepherd-Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, and President of the American Psychiatric Association.) The Olson family had never heard this name, and would not learn of Dr. Gibson’s role until 1994. When Dr. Gibson read about the exhumation of Frank Olson’s body he contacted Professor James Starrs, director of the forensic team, to tell his side of the story. This was reported in a January 19, 1995 AP story by reporter Deb Riechmann, the same reporter who had also found a mysterious document in Olson’s personnel file. James Starrs interviewed Dr. Gibson in 1994, and in 1999 I finally decided I should meet him too. The AP story appears below, followed by my notes on that meeting.
I met Dr. Gibson at his home north of Baltimore just after 2:00 p.m. on a rainy Monday afternoon, Dec 20, 1999. Dr. Gibson greeted me at the door together with his two large brown dogs. He then showed me around the ground floor of his large wooden house, which is set in the woods overlooking a large reservoir. Then we settled down, Dr. Gibson on the sofa and me in a large comfortable chair, to begin what became a five-hour conversation.
I told Dr. Gibson that I had re-read the transcript of the conversation he had had with Jim Starrs almost exactly five years earlier, on Dec 21, 1994. {As I mentioned this I was aware for a moment of the almost Proustian expanse of time that has been devoted to solving my father’s murder.] On the low table facing us Dr. Gibson had spread out the materials I had sent him, which included the chronology of this long affair. He directed my attention to an ambiguity in the way I had described what he had said during the meeting he had had with Jim Starrs Gibson pointed out that my description could be read as implying that he had had some sort of affiliation or relation with the CIA, or had access to special information from that source. Dr. Gibson wanted me to understand that this was not and had never been the case.
Dr. Gibson has had a remarkably distinguished career. He was director of Shepherd Pratt Hospital for twenty years, where a building there bears his name. As we turned toward the matter of the CIA Dr. Gibson began by telling me about an event that had occurred when he was president of the American Psychiatric Association. A letter he had sent to the CIA declining cooperation with a study had turned up in the hands of the Scientology Church. How had this occurred? The explanation turned out to be that a member of the Scientology Church had gotten a short term job in Dr. Gibson’s organization just prior to this affair and had had access to office files. I said that I had heard that the Scientology Church reputedly has large files on the CIA’s mind control projects. Dr. Gibson said he found this very believable.
I gave Dr. Gibson a copy of Paul Robeson Jr.’s Nation article, in which Robeson links his father’s drug-manipulated suicide-attempt to my father’s murder, which was disguised as an LSD suicide. Dr. Gibson said he remembered having seen Paul Robeson Jr. play football for Cornell in a game against Penn, where Dr. Gibson had studied.
We then turned to a detailed discussion of the contact that Dr. Gibson had had with one of my father’s caretakers, the “caretaker” who apparently was Robert Lashbrook though Gibson does not remember the name.
In November 1953 Dr. Gibson, then a young doctor of twenty-five, was working as an admitting psychiatrist at Chestnut Lodge Hospital in Rockville, Maryland. He said he received a call late one afternoon—about four P.M. he thinks— inquiring about the possibility of an admission for Dr. Olson. This call was received the day before a second call on the day of Olson’s death informing Gibson that Dr. Olson would not be coming. This means that the first call was received on Nov. 27, 1953, at about 4:00 P.M.
The caller identified himself as a doctor, and Gibson took this to mean that he was a medical doctor. [I do not know whether Dr. Gibson is able to be specific as to whether names were given, either of the caller or the friend. I must ask about this.] The caller said that he was calling from New York where he was with “a friend” who had “been acting strangely” and appeared to require hospitalization. This terse description of Olson’s condition was apparently the only explanation given for requiring hospitalization. Dr. Gibson is certain that he then asked whether the friend to be admitted was currently under the care of a physician, or was receiving any sort of treatment. Dr. Gibson says he can be certain that he asked these questions both because he remembers having done so, and also because he would have routinely asked this.
The answer given by the caller was that Dr. Olson was not currently in treatment and was not under the care of a doctor.
Dr. Gibson then explained that based on this limited information he could not arrange for an admission immediately, but that the patient could be brought in for an examination and that then a recommendation (which might be either an admission or a referral) could be made. The caller then inquired about bringing the patient in that same night. In the discussion that ensued, however, it became clear that the time required to travel from New York to Washington by train and then to come all the way to Rockville would make the arrival very late at night. It would be difficult even to find Chestnut Lodge. It was agreed that the trip should be made the following day.
[I now recall that this explanation for the delay based upon the lateness of the hour contradicts the explanation given in the Colby documents, I think by Lashbrook. There the explanation for coming on Saturday is that the weather in New York was bad and that flights were not departing, the assumption being that Lashbrook and Olson would travel by plane, not by train. I must check this. I have checked the weather for the 27th and 28th, and found that in fact, contarary to what was claimed, the weather was good for flying.]
Dr. Gibson said that normally an immediate hospitalization at Chestnut Lodge would have been impossible, due to the long waiting list which usually required a one year wait. However, on this particular day Dr. Gibson checked the waiting list and found that all those on it had removed their names, so that one bed was in fact available.
The next morning Dr. Gibson arrived about 8:00 a.m. He explained to me that he sometimes did work on Saturdays, so that it is plausible that he would have been at the hospital on Saturday November 28. On his arrival the secretary informed him that a call had just come in concerning the admission he had discussed the previous day. Dr. Gibson then went into his office to take the call.
The caller was the same man with whom Gibson has spoken the day before. The caller said that his friend would not be coming. Hearing this, Dr. Gibson inquired about the reason, asking whether the plans had been changed. The caller explained that the reason was that his friend had died during the night. He then described what had happened. Dr. Gibson said he cannot remember all the words that were used in the explanation, but that was what was told to him had formed an image in his mind of what the situation had been, and this image he remembers very clearly.
The caller said that he had awakened in the middle of the night, whereupon he saw his friend standing in the middle of the room. The caller tried to speak to his friend, but this apparently startled the friend, who then started running and hurled himself through the window. Crashing glass was part of the image that Dr. Gibson remembers. The caller said he had known his friend was dead because “the window was on a high floor of the hotel.”
Dr. Gibson remembers being concerned for the caller, who had apparently witnessed the horrifying death of a friend. Gibson made some inquiries along these lines but doesn’t remember eliciting any particular response.
After recounting this story Dr. Gibson and I discussed a number of questions that naturally arise. One question is why Lashbrook (or Abramson if that was who the caller was) would have called to arrange hospitalization, possibly to begin as early as that same night, if the intention was to kill the patient. A second question is whether, if the hospitalization had occurred, it would have been possible to guarantee a level of security adequate to the concerns of the Agency. A third question is why in 1994, when he was informed of Dr. Gibson’s version of these events, Lashbrook would have responded by saying, “Dr. Gibson must be dreaming.”
As for the first question—why would hospitalization have been arranged for a patient who was slated to be killed?—two answers occurred to us. The first is that some event or chain of events might have occurred after the call was made that resulted in a new decision about what to do with Frank. One element in this may have been the realization that security at the hospital would indeed have posed unsolvable problems. Dr. Abramson, for example, would inevitably have been drawn into the situation, either during the admission process or during treatment. Dr. Abramson makes clear in the Colby documents that he wanted “to be kept out of it.” This is merely the first of a whole series of security problems that would have arisen. Dr. Gibson explained that Chestnut Lodge did not have security-cleared psychiatrists on its staff at that time, and that security would indeed have been a problem had psychotherapeutic treatment begun at Chestnut Lodge.
But, if security was a concern, as it would have had to have been, then the question arises as to why the Agency’s secure mental health facility in Massachusetts was not considered. The obvious answer is that termination, not a secured facility was the course chose. This answer also explains why Lashbrook and Olson stayed in the Statler Hotel, rather than in the safehouse that was available to them in Greenwich Village, ten minutes away by taxi.
A second explanation for arranging hospitalization is that an alibi would have been needed. If Olson’s death was to be explained as a suicide, and if there were numerous signs that he had in fact been suicidal during the days in New York, then it would have appeared suspicious in the extreme if the death had occurred in the absence of any plans for further treatment. This is especially true given that the alleged reason for being in New York to begin with was to receive treatment from Dr. Abramson (which of course was not acknowledged in the call to Gibson). If at the end of three days of consultation with Abramson the patient killed himself (as the story was to be told) then it had to be as an unfortunate event happening before the hospitalization that had been arranged could be put into effect. The impression given was to be, “We did our best, but unfortunately we didn’t quite make it to the hospital.” That was the myth with which I grew up as a child. “Yes they tried to take care of our father,” my brother and sister and I always thought. “But he fell out the window the night before they could get him to a hospital.”
This rationale has the ring of plausibility, and it explains another aspect of the story that otherwise is a gaping hole. This is the question of timing: why were arrangements for hospitalization made so late in the week, and so late in the day? If Abramson’s reports in the Colby documents are to be believed, Abramson had had ample reason to have come to the conclusion early on that Olson required hospitalization. In fact, given his reports the astounding thing is that Olson was permitted to reside on a high floor of a hotel at all during the New York stay.
From the perspective at which we have arrived here, however, one can suspect that a decision to kill Olson would have to have been accompanied by a decision to arrange a spurious hospitalization for him. Both decisions must have been reached some time Friday. By calling Chestnut Lodge so late in the day it was possible to give the impression that immediate care was needed, leaving it to Dr. Gibson to take the responsibility for delaying the arrival for a day. This would create the desired impression of concern, while at the same time avoiding the possibility that Olson would indeed land in a hospital that same night and out of the reach of his CIA “caretakers.” It’s a bit like the story my mother used to tell about my father before he was married. When he knew a woman already had a date for a particular night he would call her up and ask her out. That way he could get credit for being interested and for trying without actually having to spend any money.
This interpretation is given support by another anomaly in the story. Just hours after the arrangement was made to take Frank to Chestnut Lodge the following day he had a phone call with my mother in which he said he would be home that same following day. Had Frank himself not been told of the hospitalization plans, or were these plans bogus—made disingenuously, without serious intent to carry them out? The latter seems overwhelmingly likely.
As for the question of whether security could have been guaranteed at Chestnut Lodge, Dr. Gibson gives a clear negative response. He told me that neither he nor his colleagues had clearances to deal with secret information, and said that the process of psychotherapy would have exposed the whole scenario in which my father was caught.
The third question—why did Lashbrook say what he did in 1994—was raised by Dr. Gibson in response to what he considered to be a strange response by Lashbrook to Gibson’s recounting of the call he received. Dr. Gibson said that the more natural response would not have been “Dr. Gibson must be dreaming,” but, rather, a suggestion that either Lashbrook had spoken to someone else (not Gibson) or that someone else (not Lashbrook) had spoken to Gibson. A call from someone was definitely received by Dr. Gibson, and certainly a call from someone in the Agency to someone at Chestnut Lodge would have to have been made. In either case it seems obvious that if hospitalization had been arranged, as is claimed in the Colby documents and as the family was informed after the death in 1953, then someone must have called the hospital to inform them of the new situation. It is curious that nowhere in the Colby documents is there any mention of a call being made by anyone to Chestnut Lodge to arrange hospitalization, or a call by anyone to cancel the arrangements once made.
But here too an explanation suggests itself. Apparently the cover story was changed later on Saturday morning, after the call to Gibson had been made. The idea that Lashbrook saw the exit through the window was clearly problematic. It must have been decided that the story would be that Lashbrook saw nothing, that he was awakened by the sound of crashing glass, and that by the time he opened his eyes Olson was gone. This story is obviously preferable to one in which Lashbrook sees Olson plunge through the window, which must have been a sort of first rough draft of a cover story. Perhaps Lashbrook, Gottlieb, and or Agency the security officers who were called in subsequently checked their own assassination manual and discovered that the best alibi of choice is one in which it is claimed that the assassination/witness saw nothing. When he looked around the subject was gone.
By the time a satisfactory cover story was decided upon a first draft had apparently already been conveyed to Gibson during the call in which the hospitalization was cancelled. This realization that this was the case must have been an awkward moment. I suspect that Lashbrook and company would have concluded, however that this storm could be weather. If Gibson’s name were kept out of the record nobody would ever hear his version anyway. Nobody would think to call Chestnut Lodge, and Chestnut Lodge would not think to get involved as they would never hear the new version of the story. The contradictions in the cover story would be unlikely to surface.
Were it not for “The Shadow” all that might have been true.
As we were discussing the scenario in New York I mentioned the very strange business involving Frank’s visit to a magician, Dr. Mullholland.
“Oh I met him,” Dr. Gibson said. “My father was a friend of his.”
Stunned by this I pressed Gibson for an explanation.
“My father was a writer and magician,” Dr. Gibson said. He knew all the greatest magicians of the day, Houdini, Blackstone, and Mullholland. He was also a novelist. Have you heard of “The Shadow” novels? He wrote all of those, more than three hundred “Shadow” novels in all.
Then Dr. Gibson’s wife appeared. Turning to her husband she [Diane] said, “If it weren’t for ‘The Shadow’ you might never have contacted Dr. Starrs.”
By this point I was starting to experience a hot flash. Dr. Gibson had met Mullholland! Dr. Gibson’s father the author of “The Shadow”! Not the psychologist Carl Jung’s shadow as the unacknowledged part of the personality, but The Shadow! Had I once again passed through the looking glass? Could the circle of psychiatrists and magicians in this story really be so small that the doctor who was to have admitted my father to the hospital have met the magician who had taught the CIA how to drug my father and whom my father was taken to see during that last fateful week in New York? And, in the context of this endlessly dark story, could the father of the doctor to whom I was now speaking really be the author of the line, “The Shadow knows?” Apparently so.
Dr. Gibson went to the bookshelf and pulled out an an old and cracking volume, a biography of his father William Gibson called “The Man of Magic and Mystery.” Page after page, probably at least sixty pages of this book, were devoted to merely listing the books William Gibson had written, over seven hundred in all. “Yes,” Dr. Gibson said, “my father would go into his study after dinner and start typing on an old Smith Corona typewriter. We would find him in exactly the same position the next morning. By then he would have written over a hundred pages. He never corrected them at all. They went directly to the publisher.”
The rest of the evening with Dr. Gibson was spent discussing the glory days of Chestnut Lodge where in the 1950’s and ’60’s an internationally famous group of psychiatrists was pioneering the treatment of schizophrenia. One of these, Harold Searles, authored a book, “Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects” that is one of the great classics of psychotherapeutic literature, and which I read with enormous profit while treating a schizophrenic patient in Sweden. Dr. Gibson also told me about research he had done using hypnosis to create very precise age regressions in a patient. He also described a book he is currently writing together with a former suicidal patient in which they are exploring the motivations that lead to suicide.
But then the most astounding question occurred to me. Given these connections among LSD, hypnosis schizophrenia, psychiatry, magic, and mystery, could mere chance explain the fact that the Lashbrook-Gottlieb team had somehow contacted Dr. Gibson? Given Gottlieb’s intellectual perspicacity (he had been familiar with the work of the professors with whom I worked in graduate school and even claimed to have financed Robert Lifton’s early work) I found this hard to believe. And yet some things in this tightly woven tale that led to my father’s death must have occurred by mere chance. My old Harvard mentor Henry Murray (who assessed Hitler’s personality for the OSS) used to tell me, “Chance, love, and logic. Can’t be all chance.”
But some of it must be.
“Only The Shadow knows.”
THE SPHINX AND THE SPY
The Clandestine World of John Mulholland
By Michael Edwards
Copyright 2001 by The Genii Corporation.
All Rights Reserved. Reproduced by Permission.
The Conjuror’s Magazine
At mid-century The Sphinx stood as America’s oldest and most prestigious magic magazine. Over its five-decade history, it had become part of the lifeblood of the conjuring world. Then, on June 29, 1953, John Mulholland wrote a letter to journal’s subscribers. “This is to inform you that as of June 1, 1953, the publication of The Sphinx has been suspended. The immediate cause is that my health does not permit me to do the necessary work. My Doctor orders me to confine my efforts at this time to the shows by which I earn my living.”
It was true that Mulholland’s health was not good. An inveterate smoker, he suffered from ulcers, stomach disorders and arthritis. Editing The Sphinxfor twenty-three years had taken a physical and financial toll. But rather than limiting his activities to his live performances, Mulholland had actually embarked on a new endeavor…an endeavor far more secretive than anything in the realm of conjuring. He had entered a world of covert operations, espionage, mind control, drugs, and even death. John Mulholland had gone to work for the CIA.
At the time, John Mulholland was one of America’s most highly regarded magicians. An outstanding stage as well as close-up performer, he had become a noted author, lecturer, historian, collector, editor, and world traveler. In many ways, he had helped make magic intellectually respectable.
Mulholland was born in Chicago, Illinois, on June 9, 1898. As a five-year old, he sat enthralled by a performance of Harry Kellar’s. It would begin a lifelong love of conjuring. His family moved to New York when he was quite young and it was there that he began to learn the techniques of the craft. At age 13 Mulholland began taking magic lessons from John William Sargent at $5 an hour. Known as “The Merry Wizard,” the gray-haired, goatee’d Sargent had been President of the Society of American Magicians in 1905-6 and would later serve as Harry Houdini’s secretary from 1918 until 1920. He was a true mentor to young Mulholland and instilled in him not only an appreciation of the art of magic but of its theory, history, and literature.
Mulholland learned his lessons well. He made his debut as a performer when he was 15. While he would be later regarded as one of magic’s great scholars, his academic achievements were somewhat limited. He took a number of courses at both Columbia University and at New York’s City College, but did not attain a degree. From 1918 to 1924, he taught industrial arts at the Horace Mann School in New York. He sold books for a while and then taught at Columbia University before embarking on a career as a full time professional magician.
Over the years, Mulholland developed an enormous range of presentations. He was equally at home performing close-up magic, entertaining a society dinner, or working the mammoth stage at Radio City Music Hall. In 1927 Mulholland gave a lecture in Boston about the magicians of the world, illustrating each vignette with a trick from that nation. It added a new genre for him and for the profession: the magician as lecturer.
After the death of Dr. A. M. Wilson in April of 1930, he took over editorship of The Sphinx. For the next 23 years he would oversee magic’s most influential periodical. He was a prolific writer. Aside from the vast number of articles he penned, he authored such books as Magic in the Making (with Milton M. Smith in 1925), Quicker than the Eye (1932), The Magic and Magicians of the World(1932), The Story of Magic (1935), Beware Familiar Spirits (1938), The Art of Illusion, (1944) reprinted as Magic for Entertaining, The Early Magic Shows (1945), John Mulholland’s Book of Magic (1963), Magic of the World (1965) and The Magical Mind — Key to Successful Communication (with George Gordon in 1967). He had also co-wrote a 1939 magic-detective novel, The Girl in the Cage, with Cortland Fitzsimmons.
Over the years, he amassed one of the world’s finest collections of magic books and memorabilia. His library housed some 4,000 volumes related to conjuring.
His knowledge of tricks seemed inexhaustible, as was his familiarity with the performance, theory, psychology, history, and literature of magic. He served as the consultant on conjuring to the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Merriam-Webster dictionary and at one time was the only magician listed in Who’s Who in America.
As America entered the 1950’s, the world around John Mulholland was changing. The Cold War was at its height. U.S. foreign policy had gone from trust to terror. In June of 1950, over one hundred thousand soldiers from Communist North Korea crossed the thirty-eighth parallel, invading the republic to the South. The previous year, Soviet Union had detonated its first atomic bomb. The stakes had become enormous. The consequences of military confrontation could well be global thermonuclear war.
American policy-makers decided that other means – covert means — would have to be instituted to stop the expansion of communism. As a secret study commission under former President Hoover put it:
“It is now clear we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable longstanding concepts of ‘fair play’ must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us.”
The vehicle for this effort was the Central Intelligence Agency.
Within the Agency, there was a concern – almost a panic – that the Russians had developed a frightening new weapon: a drug or technology for controlling men’s minds. A new term had entered the lexicon: “brainwashing.” At show trials in Eastern Europe, dazed defendants had admitted to crimes they hadn’t committed. American prisoners of war, paraded before the press by their North Korean captors, “confessed” in Zombie-like fashion that the US was using chemical and biological warfare against them. When George Kennan, the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, made some inexplicably undiplomatic remarks at a press conference and was declared persona non grata by the Kremlin, American intelligence officials wondered if he had been hypnotized or drugged.
The CIA leadership feared a “mind control gap.”
The Search for a Manchurian Candidate
In early April of 1953, Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles outlined to a Princeton audience the urgency of the situation. Describing “how sinister the battle for men’s minds has become in Soviet hands,” Dulles revealed that the Russians had developed “brain perversion techniques” which must be countered at any price.
The CIA had already begun crafting this counter. On April 3, 1953 Richard Helms, the Agency’s Acting Deputy Director, had proposed an “ultra-sensitive” program of research and development in clandestine chemical and biological warfare.
The goal, Helms wrote, was “to develop a capability in the covert use of biological and chemical materials. This area includes the production of various physiological conditions which could support present or future clandestine operations. Aside from the offensive potential, the development of a comprehensive capability in this field of covert chemical and biological warfare gives us a thorough knowledge of the enemies theoretical potential, thus enabling us to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained in the use of these techniques as we are. For example: we intend to investigate the development of a chemical material which causes a reversible non-toxic aberrant mental state, the specific nature of which can be reasonably well predicted for each individual. This material could potentially aid in discrediting individuals, eliciting information, implanting suggestion and other forms of mental control.” [2]
The “offensive potential” was unstated, but the aim was clear: to create what later would be known as a “Manchurian Candidate.” The term would come from the title of Richard Condon’s 1959 best seller about a plot to take an American soldier captured in Korea, condition him at a special brainwashing center in Manchuria, and create a remote-controlled assassin programmed to kill the President of the United States. Condon’s book was fiction; the Helm’s plan was not.
In fact, the CIA had already begun exploring the use of chemicals to influence thought and action as well as to incapacitate and even kill. Of particular interest to the Agency was the potential the hallucinogen LSD had in this arena.
Discovered by Dr. Albert Hoffman on April 16, 1943, d-lysergic acid diethylamide — or LSD as it would become known — seemed to be a drug custom-made for the intelligence community. Its intense potency in even miniscule amounts would make it easy to administer covertly. The sense of euphoria and hallucinations that accompanied it might well lead those under interrogation to drop their guard and inhibitions, enabling a free flow of information. Some believed the chemical might even be used to alter the state of a persons being — to convert an enemy agent, to dishearten idealistic adversaries, to reprogram a person’s memory or thoughts, to get an individual to do something he or she otherwise would never do.
The proposed CIA work on drugs and mind manipulation was to remain one of the Agency’s deepest secrets. “Even internally in the CIA, as few individuals as possible should be aware of our interest in these fields and of the identity of those who are working for us.” [3]
On April 13, 1953 Allen Dulles approved the project. The program was to be known as “Project MKULTRA. [4] The “ULTRA” hearkened back to the most closely guarded American-British secret of the Second World War: the breaking of Germany’s military codes. The “M-K” identified the initiative as a CIA Technical Services Staff (TSS) project. This was the division within the Agency responsible for such things as weapons, forgeries, disguises, surveillance equipment and the kindred tools of the espionage trade. Within the TSS, MKULTRA was assigned to the Chemical Division (TSS/CD), a component with functions few others – even within the Technical Services Staff – knew about.
This unit was headed by Sidney Gottlieb, then a 34-year old Bronx native with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. A brilliant biochemist, Gottlieb was a remarkable, albeit eccentric, man. A socialist in his youth and a Buddhist as an adult, he was on a constant search for meaning in his life. He found some of it in an unrelenting passion for his clandestine labors. He did not appear to be the least bit troubled by the moral ambiguities of intelligence work. He would do virtually anything if he believed it to be in the American interest. Overcoming a pronounced stutter and a clubfoot to rise through the ranks of the CIA, he would later describe himself as the Agency’s “Dr. Strangelove.” Others were less kind. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair termed him America’s “official poisoner.” [5]
The very same day that Allen Dulles approved Project MKULTRA, Sidney Gottlieb went to see John Mulholland.
Gottlieb knew how to mix the potions. The question was how to deliver them secretly.
Mulholland agreed to help.
A Magician Among the Spies
Gottlieb wanted Mulholland to teach intelligence operatives how to use the tools of the magician’s trade – sleight of hand and misdirection – to covertly administer drugs, chemicals and biological agents to unsuspecting victims.
Why Mulholland decided to do this is a matter of some conjecture. The world was a far different and more dangerous place in the early months of 1953 than it is today. The war raged in Korea. The bloody battles of Pork Chop Hill, Eerie and Old Baldy were headline news. Some 50,000 American servicemen had already lost their lives in the conflict and more than 7,000 were prisoners of war. Stalin’s death in March raised tremendous concern about stability in the Kremlin. In the United States, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade was raging. The prevailing mood was one fear, perhaps even paranoia.
“John did not have a political agenda,” says George Gordon, a close friend with whom Mulholland would later write The Magical Mind. “He said ‘yes’ because his government asked him to.”
Mulholland had an enormous sense of public duty. He took great pride in his contributions, however small. That a special edition of his book The Art of Illusion had been printed in a format so that its 160 page text could fit into the shirtpockets of World War II servicemen gave him great satisfaction.
He was very aware of the role other magicians had played in aiding their countries in times of trouble. He had written and lectured about Robert-Houdin’s 1856 mission on behalf of Napoleon III to help quell the Mirabout-led uprising in Algeria. And he was very familiar with the camouflage work Jasper Maskelyne had done for the British government during the Second World War.
Furthermore, the leaders of America’s intelligence community were the kind of men Mulholland could easily like and admire. General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services, America’s World war II spy agency liked to hire Wall Street lawyers and Ivy League academics to commit espionage. He filled the secret service with confident, intelligent, often daring young men from leading eastern colleges. By the time the CIA was established in 1947, these were the people who ran America’s covert operations. Within the inner circles of American government, they were regarded as the best and the brightest. They planned and acted to keep the country out of war by their stealth and cunning – two qualities Mulholland long admired.
They were also America’s elite. Steward Alsop noted they were called “the Ivy Leaguers, the Socialites, the Establishmentarians.” He himself coined an alternative epithet: “the Bold Easterners.” The CIA, he said, was “positively riddled with Old Grotonians.” [6]
The men heading the CIA effort that Mulholland had been asked to join certainly fit this picture. The Princeton-educated Allen Dulles had been associated with the prestigious Wall Street law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell. His grandfather John W. Foster had been Secretary of State as had been his uncle-by-marriage Robert Lansing. A secret agent in both world wars, Dulles looked like an avuncular professor with his white brush moustache, his tweed suits, and his ever-present pipe. But behind the jovial exterior was a hard and determined leader. His brother John Foster Dulles became Secretary of State on January 31, 1953. Allen took up the CIA post twenty-six days later.
His deputy, Richard Helms, had a different personality but similar roots. His education had included a year at an exclusive Swiss boarding school and another year in Germany. A Williams graduate, he tried his hand at journalism before joining the OSS. He served with Dulles in Germany and stayed within the intelligence community after the war. This prudent, professional spy – the chief of operations of the clandestine services — could be seen playing tennis at the Chevy Chase Club on Sunday mornings clad in long white flannel trousers.
It may not be surprising that John Mulholland, who spent much of his career among in New York’s fashionable society, would find such men fascinating. As Jean Hugard wrote to Orville Meyer: “I believe in reality he (Mulholland) has an inferiority complex. He doesn’t mix with us poor mortals.” [7]
If “The Very Best Men” who made up the CIA were to the magician’s liking, the converse was also true. John Mulholland was precisely kind of person the Agency wanted and needed. Here was a man with a remarkable knowledge of the art of deception – its tools, its techniques, its psychology. And he knew how to keep a secret. Not only had Mulholland made a living from the execution of these skills, he had gained a reputation as conjuring’s most accomplished teacher. By look and demeanor, the magician fit the Agency mold. While his roots were not really Eastern establishment, the tall, slender Mulholland with his prominent nose and thatch of gray hair certainly looked the part. He had entrée to a wide circle of business, governmental, social, academic, and entertainment leaders. A world traveler, he was equally at home on the New York City subway system or entertaining the Sultan of Sulu or the King of Romania.
How and when Mulholland came in first contact with the CIA remains unknown. Evidence suggests that it was in 1952, perhaps earlier. By March of 1953, he was certainly consulting for the Agency and being paid for these “professional services.” Inasmuch as he was billing the government on a biweekly basis, it seems apparent that this was ongoing work with at least some of it related to development of Project MKULTRA. [8]
During their April 13 conversation, Sidney Gottlieb asked Mulholland to put together a proposal for an operations manual applying the magician’s art to clandestine activities. Mulholland summed up his suggestions as to what this covert guide would have to contain in a letter that he sent to Gottlieb the following week.
“I have given the subjects we discussed considerable thought,” Mulholland wrote. “Below is outlined what I believe is necessary adequately to cover instructions for the workers.
“1. Supplying…background facts in order that a complete novice in the subject can appreciate the underlying reasons for the procedures suggested. Part of this background would clarify the erroneous opinions commonly held by those who are familiar with (magician’s techniques). In this section would be given alternative procedures, or modifications, needed by different types of operators (differences in fact or assumed), as well as changes in procedure needed as situations and circumstances vary. The material is necessary in order for the operator to be able to learn how to do those things which are required…
“2. Detailed descriptions of (covert techniques) in all those operations outlined to me. Also variations of techniques according to whether material is in a solid, liquid or gaseous form. Included would be explanations of (the skills) required and how quickly to master such skills. It is understood that no manipulation will be suggested which requires (actions) not normally used, nor any necessitating long practice. To state this positively: all (covert techniques) described would be adaptations of acts usually performed for other purposes. Descriptions also would be given of simple mechanical aids, how to make them, and how to carry them about. Where needed, application of the data given in section 1 would be supplied. The time consuming part of writing this section will be in developing the adaptations and modifications of the best existing (methods) to fit new requirements.
“3. A variety of examples to show in detail how to make use of the (techniques) previously described. These examples would be given with varying situations and the ways to accommodate procedure to meet variations.
“If desired, I am prepared to start work on this project immediately. I believe I can complete the proposed writing in eighteen to twenty weeks. I understand, if I am given this assignment, that you, or your representative, would be willing to check my work at a conference approximately every two weeks.”
Mulholland estimated that the cost for him to do write the manual would be $3,000. [9]
The Secret Book of Secrets
Gottlieb was very enthusiastic about Mulholland’s approach and wanted to move ahead quickly. On May 4, he drafted a Memorandum for the Record spelling out what Mulholland was to do:
“1. The scope of this subproject is the collection, in the form of a concise manual, of as much pertinent information as possible in the fields of (magic as it relates to covert activities). The information collected will be pertinent to the problem of (surreptitiously administering) liquid, solid, or gaseous substances to (unknowing) subjects.
“2. The information will be collected principally from the previous studies made by Mr. Mulholland in connection with various problems he has considered. Mr. Mulholland seems well qualified to execute this study. He has been a successful (performer) of all forms of prestidigitation. He has made a careful and exhaustive study of the history of prestidigitation and is the possessor of an extensive library of old volumes in this field. He has further seriously studied the psychology of deception and has instructed graduate students…
“3. The period of time covered by this request covers six months from the date of commencement of work by Mr. Mulholland and the costs will not exceed $3,000.”
Mulholland’s proposal was approved that same day and $3,000 was set aside to cover its cost. It would become Project MKULTRA, Subproject 4. [10]
MKULTRA – and its component parts – had already become one of the Agency’s most secret operations. Mulholland’s work, along with that of others working on the project, was considered “ultra sensitive.” Consequently, there would be no formal documents that would associate CIA or the Government with the work in question. Instead, the Technical Services Staff was to reach “an understanding with the individuals who will perform the work as to the conditions under which the work will be performed and reimbursement arranged. No standard contract will be signed.” [11]
On May 5, Gottlieb, in accordance with this procedure, wrote the magician that “The project outlined in your letter of April 20 has been approved by us, and you are hereby authorized to spend up to $3,000 in the next six months in the execution of this work.” No contract or formal agreement was enclosed or ever signed per CIA policy. However, the letter did include a check for $150 to cover Mulholland’s latest work for the agency (March 18th – April 13th). In terms of when Gottlieb and Mulholland could next meet, the chemist noted “A very crowded schedule of travel makes it necessary for us to delay until June 8thour next visit with you. An effective alternative to this would be for you to come..on May, 13, 14, or 15 to discuss the current status of the work. Is this possible?” [12]
Mulholland wrote Gottlieb back on May 11. “Thank you for the notification that my project has been approved. I understand the stipulations. I am resuming work today.” Enclosed was a signed receipt for the check and a notation that Gottlieb’s missive had taken longer than expected to reach him. “Due to the fact that your letter was addressed to (a former address), it was delayed in reaching me. That was an apartment from which I moved …years ago. The fact that the letter did reach me shows the cordial relationship I have with my local Post Office. My present address is above.” [13] He made no comment on how such an error could occur on such a confidential issue.
Mulholland was keenly aware of the project’s sensitivity. Among the stipulations was a commitment to total secrecy. Even the manuscript itself would have to be written in a manner that protected the Agency should it fall into the wrong hands. There would be no references to “agents” or “operatives.” Instead, covert workers would be called “performers;” covert actions would simply be labeled “tricks.”
Mulholland immediately set about the task of researching and writing the manual. While he continued his performance schedule, he cleared his calendar of other commitments. He stopped giving magic lessons, put off work on other writing assignments, and suspended publication of The Sphinx.
Ending The Sphinx was a major step for Mulholland and for the magic community. Begun in Chicago in March of 1902 and subsequently housed in Kansas City and finally New York, this staid yet controversial periodical had become the most influential of magic journals. Mulholland had taken over the publication with Volume 29 Number 3 in May of 1930. [14] It was a source of great joy for him. It was also a tremendous burden.
“For 23 years, I have edited The Sphinx as a labor of love and without financial reward. Each of these years I have spent a great amount of time, and considerable money, to produce a magazine of service to the professional magician and to the serious student of magic. The magazine has been a professional publication and never has catered to those who look on magic as a sort of game. I realized I could not go on forever and for the past several years I have been searching for some individual, or group, qualified to take over the editing and publication of The Sphinxand maintain its standards. I found no such person, or persons, and until such is, or are, found the publication of the magazine will be suspended.
“I wish to express my appreciation to the many loyal readers, and above all to the contributors who made my editorship such a rewarding endeavor. It has been a source of deep personal gratification to know how well The Sphinx has been received during the years.” [15] The final issue, the 597th, was Volume 52, #1, dated March 1953.
For the next several months, he worked continuously on the MKULTRA project. [16] He soon found, however, that if it were to meet the CIA’s expectations, his manual would have to be far more than a hypothetical extension of existing magic tricks, principles and methods to covert activities. He was going to have to create real world solutions to real world problems. He and Gottlieb discussed the challenge.
On August 3, Gottlieb set up a new subproject (Subproject 15) in order “to expand the original provisions of subproject 4 to include an allowance for travel for Mr. Mulholland and for operational supplies used in the course of this project.” Mulholland and the Agency, Gottlieb wrote, needed to meet more frequently in order to consult on the details of the manual and the travel allowance would facilitate Mulholland’s coming to Washington for some of these discussions. Furthermore, he noted, “Certain portions of subproject 4 require experimental verification by Mr. Mulholland. The item for operational supplies is intended to provide for the purchase of supplies used to test or verify ideas. The cost estimate for subproject 15 is $700.00 for a period of six months.”[17]
Even with these additional resources, Mulholland found the project a greater challenge than he expected. Getting it right was imperative. The consequences of a magic trick going wrong might be embarrassment or a decline in bookings; a covert operation going bad could cost an agent his or her life. He met with Gottlieb in late summer to discuss the matter. Gottlieb agreed to consider extending the time to meet this need.
On September 18, Gottlieb filed an amendment to the MKULTRA Project Records that noted “The time period for the original proposal by Mr. Mulholland was six months, which would expire about 11 October 1953. The unusual nature of this manual demands that it be a creative project… rather than a mere compilation of already existing knowledge. For this reason the time estimates are difficult to make in advance and it is apparent at this time that the estimate was too short for the adequate preparation of this manual. It is in the best interests of the Agency to extend this time limit and obtain the best possible manual rather than hold Mr. Mulholland to the six-month period. It is requested that the original six month time period be extended an additional six months. There is no change in the original cost estimate or the original agenda.” [18]
That same day, Gottlieb wrote to Mulholland: “This is at least a partial answer to the questions you asked the last time I saw you. According to my records, your initial estimate was six months, which would expire about October 11, I am initiating a six month extension of the original estimate, which should more than take care of the time factor. The original cost was $3,000.00, of which $1,500.00 is remaining as of now. [19]
Mulholland devoted his energies to the project and by November his first draft was complete. But neither the magician nor the Agency were completely satisfied with the product. As Mulholland wrote Gottlieb on November 11:
“The manual as it now stands consists of the following five sections:
“1. Underlying bases for the successful performance of tricks and the background of the psychological principles by which they operate.
“2. Tricks with pills.
“3. Tricks with loose solids.
“4. Tricks with liquids.
“5. Tricks by which small objects may be obtained secretly. This section was not considered inmy original outline and was suggested subsequently to me. I was, however, able to add it without necessitating extension of the number of weeks requested for the writing. Another completed task not noted in the outline was making models of such equipment as has been described in the manual.”
“As sections 2,3,4, and 5 were written solely for use by men working alone the manual needs two further sections. One section would give modified, or different, tricks and techniques of performance so that the tricks could be performed by women. The other section would describe tricks suitable for two or more people working in collaboration. In both these proposed sections the tricks would differ considerably from those which have been described.
“I believe that properly to devise the required techniques and devices and to describe them in writing would require 12 working weeks to complete the two sections. However, I cannot now work on this project every week and would hesitate to promise completion prior to the first of May, 1954.” [20]
Mulholland estimated that it would cost $1800 to finish the project. [21]
Gottlieb, whose goal was an operational guide that would be of use to agents in the real world, shared Mulholland’s view that broadening its scope to include collaborative efforts by teams of operatives or by female agents was well worth the delay. On November 17, he authorized Mulholland to draft the two additional chapters and extended the timeline for completion of the book until May. This new work became MKULTRA Subproject 19. [22]
Impressed with Mulholland’s range of knowledge and analysis, the CIA was beginning to extend its relationship with the magician beyond just the preparation of the covert operations manual. By now, the Agency was utilizing more and more of his expert advice. His ongoing meetings with the TSS staff accelerated. In December 9, Gottlieb expanded MKULTRA’s Subproject 19 to increase the travel and operational supplies available to Mulholland and to provide for even more consultation between the conjuror and CD/TSS. At the same time, he was asked to take on yet another assignment: to work with the Agency “in connection with an investigation of claims in the general field of parapsychology…” [23]
The CIA was fascinated by the idea of mind reading and thought transmittal. If possible, such extrasensory abilities would be among the most potent weapons in their arsenal. It would revolutionize both the obtaining and the delivery of secret information. At one point, the Agency had been approached by a man claiming to be a “genuine mystic” who had developed a system for sending and receiving telepathic messages anywhere in the world. Mulholland’s task was to evaluate this and other claims of telepathy and clairvoyance.
Mulholland, a hard-nosed skeptic, was right at home investigating the paranormal. He had been lecturing on the topic since 1930, when he began exposing the means and methods of fortunetellers. He soon broadened this to debunk and denounce other forms of occultism. By 1938, he had written a book on the subject, Beware Familiar Spirits, which traced the history of modern spiritualism and described its techniques. He had no interest in letting the assertions of “mystics,” clairvoyants and mind readers go unchallenged.
With increasing frequency, someone inside the Agency would want an explanation for something they had seen or heard and Mulholland was asked to explain it. In virtually every case it would turn to have been accomplished through the stagecraft of magic. This would not stop the CIA – or other branches of the United States Government – from spending enormous resources over the next three decades to explore the possibilities of parapsychology and remote viewing.
With this additional work at hand, it was soon evident that Mulholland would not be able to have the manual finished as anticipated. “An extension of time is needed to give Mr. Mulholland more time to complete this task,” Gottlieb wrote. “The original estimated completion date was May 1, 1954. It is noted that the completion date estimate is now extended to November 1, 1954.” [24]
In the spring of 1954, Mulholland found himself facing an unforeseen problem. Much of his income for the previous year had come from the CIA for work that he knew was to be kept absolutely secret…even from other branches of the United States Government. But now it was time for him to prepare his taxes. Mulholland requested instructions from the Agency on how he was to report this income to the Internal Revenue Service and what he should do if he were audited or questioned by the IRS.
An internal CIA memo spelled out the problem: “Mr. Mulholland is a self employed magician whose normal income is derived from payment by various individuals and organizations for individual performances. Although not applying to calendar year 1953, other characteristic sources of income are from publishers of books, etc., and from individuals to whom he has given instructions in magic. When preparing his Federal Income Tax form, income is customarily listed by individual performances, etc., with the person or organization paying for the performance, the location of the performance, the amount received, and the deductions itemized for each performance or each source of funds, rather than for a standard deduction to be taken. As may or may not be characteristic with professional performers, these deductions are often questioned by the Internal Revenue people, and Mr. Mulholland is frequently called on to justify some of his deductions. For this reason, a detailed record book is kept of his income, with a separate page for each performance or source of income.”
While acknowledgement of the magician receiving payments from the Agency was not felt to be a breach of security in itself, the CIA believed that it was absolutely imperative that the nature of Mulholland’s work be kept from IRS scrutiny. “After several conferences with the Assistant General Counsel of the Agency, and the Security Officer for TSS, the following was recommended: Mr. Mulholland should report all funds received from CD/TSS except for funds for travel expenses, but no attempt should be made to itemize deductions based on these funds. Income tax should be paid on the entire amount reported. Mr. Mulholland should determine a conservative value for the amount of tax paid in excess of what would have been paid if reasonable deductions were made. The reason for this was the feeling that any questions by the Internal Revenue people concerning funds paid by CD/TSS would be prompted by questions on deductions made. It was recommended that the excess tax paid by Mr. Mulholland be refunded by the CD/TSS.” [25] This recommendation was immediately accepted “to protect the security of the Agency.” [26]
Mulholland followed the Agency’s instructions and was reimbursed by the CIA for the excess taxes that resulted from this approach [27]Subproject 15 was expanded to include this financial arrangement [28] and similar agreements were instituted for subsequent years in which he received remuneration from the Agency. [29]
Operational Applications of the Art of Deception
Mulholland continued work on the operational guide throughout the spring and summer. The text was completed by early fall. But the magician had one more task to do – to help prepare drawings, diagrams and photographs to illustrate the book’s proposed techniques. [30] By winter, the manuscript was finally complete. It was titled Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception.
“The purpose of this paper,” Mulholland wrote in the introduction, “is to instruct the reader so he may learn to perform a variety of acts secretly and indetectably. In short, here are instructions in deception.” [31]
The following eight chapters – illustrated with diagrams hand-drawn by Mulholland – ran over 100 pages and outlined how to apply the magician’s art to the needs of espionage and covert activity. It covered how to administer pills, liquids, gasses and loose solids surreptitiously. It discussed means of obtaining small objects secretly. It proposed strategies and tactics to fit the needs of female agents. And it put forth techniques that could be used by teams of men working in tandem. All this was set forth in language that adhered to the original stipulations put to Mulholland in April of 1953. The language of the manual had to sound like a simple magic text without any words or examples that would connect it to its true clandestine use.
But this was not some primer for amateur magicians to learn a few tricks. No matter how gentle the language, this was to be a guide for agents in the field to perform dangerous, provocative and even lethal acts. The solids, gases and liquids were not harmless substances. What Mulholland was teaching CIA operatives to do was surreptitiously administer mind-altering chemicals, biological agents, dangerous drugs, and lethal poisons in order to disorient, discredit, injure, and even kill people.
Today – five decades after it was written – the tricks and approaches set forth in this manual are still classified “top secret.”
Mulholland’s name appears nowhere on the document, but – consciously or not — he did leave a subtle trace: the illustrations he sketched detailing facial expressions look very much like self-portraits. This notwithstanding, Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception remains John Mulholland’s most secret book of secrets.
A Member of the Team
While the operational manual was now complete, John Mulholland’s work for the CIA was far from over. He had become part of the MKULTRA team and the Agency was already employing his knowledge and skills in a wide range of ways.
In October of 1954, Mulholland’s agreement with the CIA was extended to include his assistance in the “design of devices for the covert delivery of materials” as well as provide for “such other travel and services as may be desired from Mr. Mulholland at various times.” [32]
The following summer, the Agency asked the magician to undertake another assignment. The success of intelligence operations almost always rests on the ability to transmit information clandestinely. Theirs, after all, is a world of secrets. Mulholland’s manual had spelled out how to administer materials – notably pills, liquids, and loose solids – to unsuspecting victims through the tricks of the magician’s trade. He was also helping the Technical Services Staff design devices to carry this out. Now he was to show the intelligence community how to use the methods of magic to exchange information covertly with one another. Furthermore, he was to use his knowledge and creativity to fashion new methods that were unknown even to the conjuring community.
On August 25, Gottlieb outlined this new project “on the application of the magician’s art to the covert communication of information” in a confidential CIA memo. According to Gottlieb, “this would involve the application of techniques and principles employed by ‘magicians, ‘mind readers’ etc, to communicate information, and the development of new techniques. It is contemplated the above would provide a contribution to the general efforts in the area of non-electrical means of communication. Mr. Mulholland has agreed to undertake this task.” Mulholland’s compensation for this was raised from $150.00 per week to $200.00 per week. [33]
The Agency continued to enlarge the scope of John Mulholland’s work. On June 20, 1956, the magician’s arrangement was again expanded. “Objective: to make Mr. Mulholland available as a consultant on various problems, TSS and otherwise, as they evolve. These problems concern the application of the magician’s technique to clandestine operations, such techniques to include surreptitious delivery of materials, deceptive movements and actions to cover normally prohibited activities, influencing choices and perceptions of other persons, various forms of disguise; covert signaling systems, etc” [34]
That August the Agency extended its financial arrangement with the magician for another year. [35]And in November of 1957 Mulholland’s projects were authorized for yet another 12 months. [36] CIA financial records show that he continued to submit vouchers and be paid through February 5, 1958 [37]
It is not clear whether John Mulholland continued to consult for the CIA after that. By then, his health had deteriorated considerably. He still smoked constantly. His arthritis had become very severe, but ulcers and other stomach problems prevented him from taking even aspirin to relieve it. He severely limited many – if not most – of his projects and activities.
While Mulholland’s work for the CIA may have ended, the Agency continued its interest in the connection between the techniques of conjuring and espionage. Indeed, in the spring of 1959, the Agency extended another MKULTRA Subproject (subproject 83) to revise and adapt some of material that Mulholland had developed on “deception techniques (magic, sleight of hand, signals) and on psychic phenomena.” [38]
Project MKULTRA was eventually brought to a close in 1964.
MKULTRA was not merely some academic research experiment. Nor was Sidney Gottlieb, the man who oversaw Mulholland’s work, just an American version of “Q,” the scientific wizard who supplied James Bond with his dazzling gizmos and gadgets. Certainly Gottlieb’s Technical Services Staff came up with more than their share of wristwatch radios and disappearing inks. At his core, Gottlieb was a dedicated and determined “operations” leader. His chemical division laboratory stored a vast array of poison pills and potions. And Gottlieb knew how – and was willing — to use them.
While a clubfoot kept him from military service in World War II, it didn’t stop him from engaging in some of the CIA’s most covert and deadly missions. He traveled to Leopoldville (Kimshasa) with an Agency-developed bio-toxin in his diplomatic bag. Designed to mimic a disease endemic to the Congo, the virus was cultured specifically for its lethal effect. Its intended victim: Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Once in the Congo, the scientist carefully instructed CIA operatives in how to apply the toxin to Lumumba’s toothbrush and food. [39]Gottlieb mailed a monogrammed handkerchief — doctored with brucellosis– to Iraqi colonel Abd a-Karim Qasim [40] and he developed poisoned cigarettes intended for Jamal abd an-Nasir of Egypt.[41] Fidel Castro was an ongoing focus of Gottlieb’s chemists – from the LSD the Agency hoped to spray in the Cuban leader’s radio booth to the botulinum pill-laden pencil they crafted to assassinate him. [42]
Foreign leaders were not the only objects of Gottlieb’s interest. Gottlieb was constantly experimenting to see the real world impact of his drugs. Such experimentation was at the heart of the MKULTRA project. The Agency conducted 149 separate projects involving drug testing, behavior modification, and secret administration of mind-altering chemicals at 80 US and Canadian universities, hospitals, research foundations, and prisons. Over the years, hundreds of individuals were guinea pigs in this research. Some were government employees, military personnel, and students who had varying degrees of knowledge about
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Chinese Expats Can Boost Growth for Western Brands
Adina-Laura Achim
The Chinese expat base offers incredible opportunities for luxury brands who perhaps can’t afford to pursue a long-term business plan inside China or don’t have a holistic market-entry strategy. Photo: Shutterstock
While the term “globalization” became popular in the 1980s, by 1848, Karl Marx had already developed an academic theory similar to globalization. According to Marx, “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.”
In other words, the world is becoming smaller as the bourgeoisie uses new commerce routes and markets to trade goods, ideas, and capital. This modern age stands in contrast to the regionalism of past centuries when self-sustaining societies could function without the support of foreign actors and individuals were confined to limited space. But that isolationism isn’t feasible anymore.
Today, we live in an interconnected and interdependent world, and a mobile group of individuals called expatriates — or “expats” — has become a driving force behind the economic success of various nations. Made up of talented employees assigned overseas, scholars studying abroad, and individuals who’ve moved to foreign lands for personal reasons, expats are widely considered to offer unprecedented support to new and innovative sciences, tech, and cross-border trade projects. And since their incomes from overseas jobs are usually higher than similar jobs in their homeland, expats have become an interesting consumer base for brands. Although they’re hard to make generalizations about, common denominators can be found in this group.
According to a report titled Shopping behavior and attribute evaluation of expatriates — a cross-cultural study, expats “are usually highly educated and receive an above-average income including all kinds of (tax) benefits and remunerations.” Furthermore, the study mentions that expatriates “are often regarded as cosmopolitan consumers.” As a group, they are intelligent, multicultural, and wealthy buyers, and these characteristics make them an excellent target for luxury brands. Yet marketing campaigns didn’t target expatriates directly until recently.
There have been particular cases (mostly in the U.S.) when shopping malls marketed directly to expatriates. According to a study conducted by Geri Wijnen, Astrid Kemperman, and Ingrid Janssen, “examples are the Legaspi Group centres (Hispanic community), the Mitsuwa Marketplace chain (Japanese community), the South DeKalb Mall in Atlanta (Afro-American community) and the Diamond Jamboree mall in Irvine (Asian community), and the Japan Centre in London.” Interestingly enough, despite the high spending power of affluent Chinese expats, luxury retailers rarely mention them in advertising campaigns. According to a study by Bain &Co., Chinese spending accounted for 33 percent of the global luxury market in 2018. But luxury retailers put all their eggs in that basket and became dependent on Chinese tourists instead of diversifying by also focusing on the highly lucrative expat community.
Andrew Browne from the Wall Street Journal says that “even when the emperors did their utmost to keep them at home, the Chinese ventured overseas in search of knowledge, fortune, and adventure. Manchu Qing rulers thought those who left must be criminals or conspirators and once forced the entire coastal population of southern China to move at least 10 miles inland. But even that didn’t put an end to wanderlust.” Browne is correct in his assessment. The Chinese conducted voyages and explorations, inaugurated the Silk Road, and according to recent research, Zheng He — a Chinese Muslim eunuch — even discovered America more than 70 years before Columbus. It comes as no surprise that now, as the Chinese population gets wealthier, their desire to explore the world has returned full force.
According to Marty Hurwitz, CEO MVI Marketing, Chinese expats are “actually driving a lot of luxury spending now,” and as the Asia-Pacific region surges to the top of the world’s wealthiest areas and the number of Chinese millionaires and billionaires continues to grow, those top earners have started sending not just their money internationally but also their families. And with this new affluent expat class comes the same Chinese cash flood that redesigned the luxury housing markets in Canada, the European Union, the United States, and Australia. It’s been widely noted that Chinese expatriates have shaped the real estate market in Sydney, Vancouver, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, however, apart from pricey real estate, this affluent consumer base also tends to invest in unique luxury retail pieces.
Hurwitz says that Chinese “are driving brand growth in many categories, but certainly in jewelry.” He argues that Chinese jewelers are ahead of the curve, understanding their compatriots better than foreign businesses, which comes as no surprise. In fact, Chinese jewelers Chow Tai Fook and Luk Fook opened stores in New York primarily to capitalize on the influx of Chinese luxury buyers. Additionally, Luk Fook has inaugurated new stores in California and Canada — areas with a high Chinese population density.
Data from the Migration Policy Institute shows that the number of Chinese immigrants in the United States grew from 1.7 million in 2010 to 2.3 million in 2016. As noted in the research, Chinese students make up a significant portion of the expat category, and 83 percent of Chinese millionaires now want to send their children to study overseas. We don’t commonly associate extravagant expenditures with these spendthrift Chinese students, but that’s only one segment of this phenomenon since their mature visiting family members tend to engage in luxury shopping sprees. Joshua Freedman quotes data from Emerging Communications when he argues that “high-spending Chinese students in the UK number about 95,000, with each of them receiving an average of 3.3 visits per year from family members.”
“In traditional Chinese culture, the family is the basic unit of society,” explains Victor Lum, vice-president of Well Trend. “So much so that the concept of family is extended to include close friends who are often referred to as ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’. There is an expectation that family members who have gone abroad, especially to wealthy and developed countries, should provide support to their family back in China.” And this support doesn’t just refer to payments but also luxury gifts. Therefore, Chinese expats don’t just go on shopping sprees for themselves but also to buy for their extended families, so luxury retailers need to make a conscious effort to adapt to their needs and target them through extensive communication and marketing strategies.
Australia is another interesting market for this demographic. Jane Cadzow from the Sydney Morning Herald says that in Australia, Chinese expats “have injected billions into the economy, spending with particular enthusiasm on real estate and their children’s education but also supporting a range of niche industries.” One of those niche industries is cosmetic plastic surgery. Mark Ashton, president of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons says that he and his colleagues devote a significant portion of their time to surgeries and cosmetic procedures that Westernize Asian features. Three procedures are the most in-demand with Chinese expats: “eyelid surgery (to create European-style folds), rhinoplasty (to make the nose less flat), and breast enhancement.”
But apart from luxury shopping sprees, expensive real estate, and plastic surgery, Chinese expats also make serious investments in the country itself. The Sydney Morning Herald indicates that Chinese investors represent the biggest source of overseas funds coming into Australia, and in the financial year of 2016, the Foreign Investment Review Abroad authorized over $47 billion in Chinese investments. In Canada, figures show a similar story and even in the U.S., Chinese expats remain a powerful engine of the economy, bringing growth in domestic consumption. According to research by Environics Analytics, “household spending from the two largest groups (South Asians and Chinese-Canadians) combined accounted for nearly 9 percent of total consumer expenditure in Canada in 2013,” and a report titled Ethnic Marketing in Canada shows that “South Asians and Chinese-Canadians reported 2013 household spending growth of 9 percent and 5 percent, respectively, versus just 2 percent for the average consumer household.”
The Chinese expat base offers incredible opportunities for luxury brands who perhaps can’t afford to pursue a long-term business plan inside China or don’t have a holistic market-entry strategy, and luxury retailers would be wise to carefully study the Chinese expat base if they want to unlock a new source of growth that continues to trend steadily upward.
Chinese Expats, chinese luxury consumers, chow tai fook, Environics Analytics, Joshua Freedman, luk fook, Marty Hurwitz, Sydney Morning Herald, Victor Lum, wall street journal
US Affordable Luxury Brands’ Problems Run Deeper Than the Trade War
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Postdoctoral 3 Abnormal 2 Other 1 Applied Psychology 1 Behavioral 1 Clinical 1
Cognitive 1 Development 1 Discrimination 1 Ethnic Identity 1 Quantitative 1 Research Methods 1
Postdoc 3 Full time 1
Behavioral Neuroscience Psychopathology Social Child/Adolescent Developmental Neuroscience Education Research Pennsylvania
Postdoctoral Fellow Featured
Applications are being sought for a postdoctoral position in the Ellman Lab in the Department of Psychology at Temple University. The Ellman Lab focuses on developmental risk factors for psychosis and related disorders (e.g., schizophrenia and depression) during the pre- and perinatal period and in adolescence/young adulthood. The latter studies involve multi-modal assessment of risk factors, including (but not limited to) biomarkers, neuroimaging, cognition, and a variety of psychosocial risk factors. The postdoctoral fellow will focus primarily on multiple large, multi-site studies examining risk for psychosis in adolescence/young adulthood, but could contribute to any of the ongoing studies in the lab and will have opportunities to develop independent research projects. Clinical hours towards licensure will be available, in addition to many potential research opportunities. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology Preferred Qualifications: Experience with structured interviewing, interest/experience in psychosis. Responsibilities will include conducting clinical interviews, including certification in the Structured Clinical Interview for Psychosis-Risk Syndromes (SIPS), supervision and mentorship of lab graduate students, leading diagnostic consensus meetings across-sites, and manuscript development/preparation. For questions or to submit an application, please contact Lauren Ellman (ellman@temple.edu). Applicants should send a C.V., brief letter describing interests and prior experience, and two publications (that best reflect contributions of the candidate). Salary is based on the NIMH Postdoctoral scale, and funding is available for at least two years (appointments are for one year, but renewable for two years or more, based on progress/merit). There is a flexible start date (Spring/Summer 2020). Review of applications will begin immediately.
Temple University - Ellman Lab Philadelphia, PA, USA Postdoc
Assistant/Associate Professor of Psychology
Assistant/Associate Professor of Psychology King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, PA is seeking an Assistant/Associate Professor of Psychology, tenure-track, beginning in August 2020. The College seeks a new faculty member to teach a wide variety of undergraduate psychology courses while developing research opportunities suitable for the inclusion of undergraduate psychology majors. Applications are especially welcomed from those committed to teaching, who value liberal learning, and are prepared to teach Psychological Assessment, Research Methods, Industrial and/or Cognitive Psychology, as well as courses in areas of personal interest. Requirements include a Ph.D. in Psychology and teaching experience teaching at the college level. The successful candidate will need to support the Holy Cross Mission and Catholic identity of the College and its expectation of service to the institution and surrounding community. Send one .pdf file containing a letter of application, CV, statement of teaching philosophy, statement of research interests, and undergraduate and graduate transcripts to hrjobs@kings.edu . Three letters of recommendation must also be provided to receive full consideration. Applications preferred by February 15, 2020, but position will remain open until filled. Only complete applications will be reviewed. King’s College is a private, Catholic, teaching college of the liberal arts & sciences and pre-professional programs sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross. The College serves over 2400 FT & PT undergraduate & graduate students. A rigorous core curriculum provides the foundation for all majors. The College is located near downtown Wilkes-Barre, on the edge of the Pocono Mountains. King’s is committed to recruiting a diverse faculty and student body and welcomes applications from persons of traditionally under-represented groups. EOE www.kings.edu
King's College Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA Full time
Postdoctoral Fellowship Position in Developmental and Learning Science
The Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh is accepting applications for two Postdoctoral Fellowships in youth development and learning across multiple ecological contexts with an emphasis on diversity, opportunity, and equity. The initial appointment will be two years with the possibility of renewal for a third year. The position involves work on several multi-method longitudinal research projects exploring how sociocultural and psychological factors influence youth of color’s identity development, academic learning, and socioemotional wellbeing during middle childhood and adolescence. The work takes an interdisciplinary approach and applies questions and methods from psychological and developmental science to elementary and secondary school settings. Applicants must have a doctorate and a track record of publication in psychology or education, substantive knowledge and background in the field of developmental psychology, child/adolescent development, or learning science, and excellent academic writing and analytic skills. Expertise is necessary in theory, methods, and research framed by dynamic, relational processes of the positive development of diverse youth (particularly youth who have experienced adversity and challenge), in strength-based approaches to research design and program evaluation. Strong quantitative skills (e.g., HLM, SEM, and growth modeling), or experience with longitudinal datasets or mixed-methods approach are preferred. The fellow will receive strong mentoring with well-established scholars focused on the demanding aspects of producing high quality scholarship. The fellow will be expected to build a research program by formulating research questions, generating research designs, writing grants, conducting analysis, and writing and presenting findings. To apply for this position, please submit (1) a cover letter describing your research goals and training, including why your background and interests are a good match for the position, (2) Curriculum Vitae, (3) two writing samples, (4) three letters of reference to https://app.education.pitt.edu/employment/postings . The online system will prompt applicants to request three letters of recommendation, directly. Reviews of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. However, interested applicants are strongly encouraged to submit their application no later than 3/1/2020 . Inquiries may be directed to Dr. Ming-Te Wang, at mtwang@pitt.edu , or Dr. James Huguley, at Huguley@pitt.edu LRDC is an internationally renowned center with the aim of promoting basic and applied research on learning in its cognitive, neural, social, and motivational aspects and to make research and human development links to formal and informal settings. Pittsburgh is repeatedly voted among “The Most Livable City”, with affordable cost of living and access to a wide array of seasonal recreation opportunities, professional and collegiate athletic events, and a vibrant cultural district.
University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA, USA Postdoc
Post-doctoral Fellowship in Eating Disorders - Children's Hospital of Philadelphia https://career4.successfactors.com/sfcareer/jobreqcareer?jobId=47361&company=C0000169453P&username = The Eating Disorder Assessment and Treatment Program (EDATP) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is seeking at least one post-doctoral fellow starting in July/August of 2020. The EDATP is a large and vibrant eating disorder program serving over 400 new pediatric and adolescent patients each year. With a treatment philosophy grounded in the principles of Family Based Treatment, we offer outpatient care, medical stabilization, and an intensive outpatient program. Clinical experiences are available across all levels of care. Fellows will work collaboratively with other mental health providers and disciplines within the fields of medicine, education, and community professionals. Research focuses on neuro-cognition in anorexia, social reward in eating disorders, and sex differences in eating disorders. One post-doctoral fellow will work primarily on the Shifting Perspectives Study in the Timko Research Group (see https://www.med.upenn.edu/timkolab/ ). The Shifting Perspectives study is investigating whether or not adding Cognitive Remediation Therapy (CRT) to Family Based Treatment improves outcome in adolescents with anorexia nervosa. In the first two years of this project we are focused on evaluating whether or not CRT significantly improves flexibility. The post-doctoral fellow will deliver treatment to families in the study and will be responsible for all appropriate documentation of treatment delivery. It is anticipated that the fellow will carry a caseload of approximately 12 families. The fellow will have opportunities for trial related research, manuscript writing, and preparing funding applications. Fellows will have the opportunity to join PolicyLab ( https://policylab.chop.edu/ ), a center within the Research Institute at CHOP. Ideal candidates will have experience working with adolescents with eating disorders, though any experience treating adolescents in a family-based context or individuals with eating disorders will be considered. Under the supervision of a licensed psychologist, fellows will have training experiences in the areas of research and clinical training that will help prepare them for a future career in a pediatric healthcare setting or university-based training program. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is home to the Department of Pediatrics for the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and is consistently ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the country in the U.S. News and World Report’s Honor Roll of the nation’s Best Children’s Hospitals. Please send a cover letter and current CV along with the names and contact information of three references to Dr. Alix Timko (timkoc@email.chop.edu). Review of applications will begin immediately. Job Responsibilities Under clinical supervision, the psychology fellow may engage in the following research, clinical and related activities: Assessment of patients with a variety of medical, developmental, and mental health disorders. Consultation with patients, families, and other professionals within the hospital and other community agencies (e.g., schools, community mental health). Psychological treatment of patients and families in order to support internalizing and externalizing disorders, coping with illness, developmental disorders, and school related problems. Participate in active research projects including tasks related to subject recruitment, assessment and intervention in the context of research, and assisting with regulatory affairs and participation in human subjects research training. Assist with preparation of posters, presentations, and journal articles based on research findings. Participate in the development of new research projects and assisting with grant writing. Umbrella supervision of other psychology clinical and research trainees, such as interns, externs, and research assistants. Required Licenses, Certifications, Registrations Required Education and Experience Ph.D. or Psy.D in psychology from program accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) or the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA). APA/CPA-accredited internship training. Experience and training in pediatric psychology at the extern or internship level. Specific clinical training and skills in pediatric pain management, as well as the application of cognitive-behavioral, biofeedback, and family systems interventions with children and families is preferred. Additional Technical Requirements Organizational and research skills. Skills in working with community agencies, schools, multidisciplinary teams, and other medical professionals. All CHOP employees who work in a patient building or who provide patient care are required to receive an annual influenza vaccine unless they are granted a medical or religious exemption. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for its patients, family members, visitors and employees. In an effort to achieve this goal, employment at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, other than for positions with regularly scheduled hours in New Jersey, is contingent upon an attestation that the job applicant does not use tobacco products or nicotine in any form and a negative nicotine screen (the latter occurs after a job offer). Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, national or ethnic origin, disability or protected veteran status. VEVRAA Federal Contractor/Seeking priority referrals for protected veterans. Please contact our hiring official with any referrals or questions. CHOP Careers Contact Talent Acquisition 2716 South Street, 6th Floor Philadelphia, PA 19146 Phone: 866-820-9288 Email:TalentAcquisition@email.chop.edu
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA, USA Postdoc
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Thought you might appreciate this item(s) I saw at Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.
Invited Review
Artificial Intelligence Applied to Gastrointestinal Diagnostics
A Review
Patel, Vatsal*; Khan, Marium N.†; Shrivastava, Aman‡; Sadiq, Kamran§; Ali, S. Asad§; Moore, Sean R.†; Brown, Donald E.‡,||; Syed, Sana†,§
*School of Medicine
†Department of Pediatrics, Division of Gastroenterology
‡Data Science Institute, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
§Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
||Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Sana Syed, University of Virginia, PO Box 801349, Charlottesville, VA 22908 (e-mail: sana.syed@virginia.edu).
Received 9 February, 2019
Accepted 6 September, 2019
Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text, and links to the digital files are provided in the HTML text of this article on the journal's Web site (www.jpgn.org).
Vatsal Patel and Marium N. Khan are co-first authors.
The study was supported by University of Virginia Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia (THRIV), Mentored Career Development Award (S.S.), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award [K23 DK117061-01A1] (S.S.), and the University of Virginia Engineering in Medicine SEED Grant (S.S. and D.E.B.).
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition: January 2020 - Volume 70 - Issue 1 - p 4–11
doi: 10.1097/MPG.0000000000002507
Artificial intelligence (AI), a discipline encompassed by data science, has seen recent rapid growth in its application to healthcare and beyond, and is now an integral part of daily life. Uses of AI in gastroenterology include the automated detection of disease and differentiation of pathology subtypes and disease severity. Although a majority of AI research in gastroenterology focuses on adult applications, there are a number of pediatric pathologies that could benefit from more research. As new and improved diagnostic tools become available and more information is retrieved from them, AI could provide physicians a method to distill enormous amounts of data into enhanced decision-making and cost saving for children with digestive disorders. This review provides a broad overview of AI and examples of its possible applications in pediatric gastroenterology.
© 2020 by European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition and North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology,
Artificial Intelligence Applied to Gastrointestinal Diagnostics: A Review
Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition70(1):4-11, January 2020.
Articles in PubMed by Vatsal Patel
Articles in Google Scholar by Vatsal Patel
Other articles in this journal by Vatsal Patel
artificial intelligence, diagnostic efficiency, gastrointestinal diagnostics, machine learning
twitter.com/JPGNonline
Depression Screening in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinics: Recommendations and a Toolkit for Implementation
Comparison of Tolerance and Complication Rates Between Early and Delayed Feeding After Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy Placement in Children
Management Guidelines of Eosinophilic Esophagitis in Childhood
Paediatric Gastrointestinal Endoscopy: European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition and European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Guidelines
Diagnostic Tests in Pediatric Constipation
by European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition and North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
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{{/if}} Powerful – the voice of the ocean silences the wind. – Kaeser Compressors Ltd.
Powerful – the voice of the ocean silences the wind.
Orgelbau Hey from Urspringen/Rhön relies on KAESER technology for its ambitious “Vox Maris” project.
The giant “Vox Maris” organ at the Sky Tower in Yeosu, Korea was completed and erected in time for the Expo 2012. Now, the “voice of the ocean” will roll across the entire Expo site and the bay of Yeosu.
Vox Maris was Orgelbau Hey’s largest ever project to date. Designed and built for Expo 2012 in Korea, the innovative, six and a half octave aerophone is expected to form an acoustic symbol and one of the major attractions of the World Fair. The gigantic open-air organ is equipped with 80 wind and weather-proof copper pipes towering up to 10 metres high. The giant instrument is integrated into an ornamental structure on the outer tower that resembles a harp and is shaped like an ocean wave. And of course the pipes need to be supplied with compressed air.
The wind whistles and blows over the ocean. And how's an organ is supposed to match that?
The stated aim of the project creators was to make the organ as loud as possible – while also delivering a balanced, acoustic experience. This was no easy task – especially on the coast with unpredictable wind. Another requirement was that the organ should be able to be played with lower pressure, similar to being in a concert with other instruments.
KAESER piles on the pressure – from pianissimo to fortissimo.
The solution was clear – a Kaeser compressor. A Kaeser SM 6 has already successfully been in use at Hey organ builders for many years. A Kaeser specialist knew what to do: the DSD 202 T, a rotary screw compressor that delivers 20,000 litres of air a minute, should do the trick. At 8 bar, the pressure applied to the "Vox Maris" pipes is a thousand-fold that of a church organ. At the same time, the DSD 202 T is flexible enough for quieter sounds.
On the day of the Expo opening, the "Vox Maris" pipes reached their crescendo, which spread out powerfully in all directions, and could be heard as far as six kilometres away. According to the Guinness book of records, at 138.4 (db)A, the sound sculpture is currently the world's loudest organ.
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Tag Archives: taylor kitsch
“Battleship” – 2 STARS
October 16, 2012 by Keith
Hollywood has made movies based on just about everything. They’ve made movies based on fairy tales, movies based on old TV shows, and even movies based on video games. So should it come as a surprise to anyone that they would make a movie based on an old Hasbro board game? I guess it would be more accurate to say that “Battleship” is loosely based on the popular board game that first appeared in 1967. Obviously the story has little to do with the back-and-forth game itself, but in some ways it’s just as boring as watching two people play. This movie is all about the visual eye candy with almost no attention given to storytelling or dialogue. But visuals only take you so far and at about 130 minutes long, the movie eventually becomes an almost tedious exercise in endurance.
The story is about as shallow and stripped down as they come. Taylor Kitsch plays Alex, a shaggy-haired loser who always finds a way to get into trouble. Fed up with Alex’s “do nothing” approach to life, his older brother comes up with a great idea – force Alex to join him in The United States Navy. Apparently there’s nothing to joining and advancing in the Navy because next we see Alex as a lieutenant aboard the USS John Paul Jones. He’s still getting into trouble and eventually finds himself on the verge of being tossed out. But that’s before a hostile alien force lands near Hawaii and Alex’s leadership may be the only thing that can save the planet. Sense some all too familiar storylines here? How about this one – he wants to marry his girlfriend (Brooklyn Decker) who happens to be his commander’s daughter. I’ll bet you can figure out how that plays out. Oh, and this one – Alex is forced to work alongside his chief rival (Tadanobu Asano) in order to survive and save mankind. It’s pretty obvious where that goes isn’t it?
Jon and Erich Hoeber’s script is riddled with cheesy dialogue and there’s not a single action movie cliché that isn’t used here. If you’ve seen any of these types of movies you will see where the amateurish plotting is going from a mile away. Director Peter Berg tries to give the film some credibility and weight with his heavy-handed use of patriotism and military camaraderie. There’s certainly nothing wrong with the message but the cut-rate execution makes it feel like a cheap knock-off of a number of other films. And it’s impossible to take any of these attempts seriously mainly due to some horribly written and sometimes unintentionally hilarious dialogue. I found myself completing a character’s sentence just because their lines were so familiar. I also caught myself laughing several times during dramatic moments that weren’t meant to be funny.
Now let’s be clear, “Battleship” doesn’t aim to be anything more than a simple, loud, CGI-heavy, summer popcorn picture that strictly adheres to the Michael Bay “Transformers” formula. It bombards you with large-scale special effects sequences, many of which are quite impressive yet undeniably repetitive. I can’t count how many times we see alien ships hopping up and down out of the water or arming their weapons over and over in what looks like the exact same scenes. But the film does at times look spectacular and it can be fun in occasional bursts. There is one particular sequence where the aliens send a metal rollie pollie that literally shreds a destroyer vessel from the inside out. Sure they rip off a couple of scenes from James Cameron’s “Titanic” as the ship sinks but it’s still a wildly impressive scene.
Maybe I’m just getting old but this film left a lot of potential on the table. I suppose “Battleship” would work for the passive movie fan or if you were 12 years old. But even those folks won’t rush to see it again. Yet I have to admit there are some amazing visuals here and I did find myself occasionally caught up in them. But underneath the bombastic veneer of grinding metal, explosions, and destruction lies a corny and often times ridiculous story that can’t be saved by the fancy coat of CGI paint. “Battleship” is a hard film to rate. Narratively speaking its a train wreck. But it’s a visually stunning wreck which makes the experience bearable. But I need more than that in my movies.
Posted in Movie Reviews - B. Tagged battleship review, hasbro, liam neeson, michael bay, movies, taylor kitsch
“JOHN CARTER” – 4 STARS
March 19, 2012 by Keith
After seeing the mixed reviews for Disney’s $250 million “John Carter”, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s the kind of movie that you automatically expect to receive some unfavorable reviews. It’s a large-scaled science fiction epic and they simply don’t appeal to a certain group of people. I’m a pretty big sci-fi fan but even I had concerns going in to “John Carter”. Being someone completely unfamiliar with the source material, could the movie pull me into its enormous, sprawling world? Could Taylor Kitsch headline such a huge, ambitious project? Let me just say I was thoroughly drawn in right from the start of the film and Kitsch, while certainly not profound, does enough to get the job done.
“John Carter” is based on of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel “A Princess of Mars”, the first book of the 11-volume “Barsoom” series. The movie starts with Edgar Burroughs (Daryl Sabara) arriving in Richmond, Virginia after inheriting the estate of his recently deceased uncle, John Carter (Kitsch). Edgar hasn’t seen his uncle in years but he’s always cherished the wonderful stories he used to tell. Edgar is given a private journal that John Carter said was to only be read by his nephew. It’s through Edgar’s reading of the journal that we’re whisked away on the interplanetary journey that makes up the majority of the story.
In the journal John Carter writes of his time prospecting for gold in the Arizona Territory after the Civil War. He’s taken into custody by a U.S. Calvary officer (Bryan Cranston) who wants to recruit him to join their fight against the Apache. Carter finds himself caught in the middle of a shootout between the Calvary and the Apache. He takes shelter in a cave where he finds not only gold but a mysterious medallion that ends up transporting him to what he later finds out to be Mars. He quickly finds that the planet is inhabited by a race of four-armed aliens called Tharks. Their leader, Tars Tarkas (Willem DaFoe) takes a liking to him and is especially intrigued by Carter’s newfound gravity-manipulating leaping abilities. We also learn that two humanoid cities, Helium and Zodanga, are at war with each other. At the center of the conflict is the beautiful Princess Dejah (Lynn Collins). Her father and Helium leader (Ciaran Hinds) is pressured into giving his daughter in marriage to an evil Zodanga general (Dominic West) in hopes that it will bring peace between the two groups. Dejah wants no part of it and of course John Carter finds himself right in the middle of it.
The movie puts together a solid supporting cast of quality actors. In addition to DaFoe, Hinds, West, and Cranston we also get Mark Strong as the leader of the god-like Holy Therns, a sinister group of shape-shifting eternals who have been manipulating historical events on several planets. Strong is good here and he adds yet another solid “bad guy” performance to his resume. Thomas Haden Church has a lot of fun playing an evil Thark who desperately wants to overthrow Tarkas and gain power over the Alien tribe. But the main focus is on Taylor Kitsch. The first thing you notice is that he has all the physical attributes needed to play John Carter. He’s quite believable and he certainly knows how to handle a sword. The one thing I noticed is that he didn’t have a very wide range of emotions. The character is intended to be cold and reserved. But there are scenes that call for more emotion and Kitsch doesn’t add much to them. He’s not bad, but he doesn’t have a lot of charisma. I did buy into the chemistry between him and the lovely Lynn Collins. While her character is given a few pretty cheesy lines, she’s still pretty good and she shares some really fun scenes with Kitsch.
While Kitsch may not necessarily stand out, the special effects certainly do. “John Carter’s” assortment of creatures look impressive and its alien technologies are a cool cross between futuristic and archaic. I was blown away by the detailed structure of the solar-powered air ships. I also really liked the CGI design of the Thark creatures. Director and co-writer Andrew Stanton, better known for his work at Pixar Animation, creates a planet that’s full of life yet that looks barren and on the verge of death. And while the landscapes do look fitting, they resemble an Arizona desert far more than what you would expect Mars, The Red Planet, to look like.
Stanton’s Mars is also a place of a strained but structured social order. There are a lot of politics at work between the two humanoid cities and we even get a bit of rather corny social commentary along the way. Mars also has its system of theology that ends up helping Carter and Dejah along the way but I would be lying if I said I understood exactly how. But together, the politics and theology of the planet do make it more than just a wasteland full of monsters and little green men. It makes it’s inhabitation feel more structured and complex and I actually bought into it (with a slight bit of suspension of disbelief).
“John Carter” is the first big blockbuster of 2011 and it’s already been viewed as a “flop”. It’s mediocre opening weekend at the box office did little to cover the film’s $250 million price tag. But I have to say that I had a lot of fun with the film. I enjoy good science fiction and I feel this qualifies. “John Carter” isn’t without its faults but it overcomes them by creating a huge new world that I had never experienced. I’ve never read Wright’s books but I think I could, and I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing “John Carter” become the full trilogy it was intended to be. I’m certainly not calling this the best movie of the year. But I’m also not calling it the terrible movie that some are. For me it was a creative and entertaining motion picture experience – the type of thing that makes the movies fun.
Posted in Movie Reviews - J. Tagged andrew stanton, bryan cranston, ciaran hinds, daryl sabara, dominic west, edgar rice burroughs, lynn collins, mark strong, mars, movie review, science fiction, taylor kitsch, thomas haden church, willem dafoe
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Best of AC-Text PMA Acceptance Speech, Michelle L Devon
Wow! What a year we’ve had.
I’ve been with AC going on my second year, not quite having been with the site from the beginning, but close to it, and as such I’ve seen AC go through a lot of changes. The site has been redesigned, the forums overhauled, the submission process changed — twice — and new rules, regulations and policies show how Associated Content is a growing, living, thriving company that offers something to just about everyone — readers, bloggers, writers alike.
I watched last year’s PMA awards with curiosity when they showed who was in the running for the awards and updated them weekly. This year, shrouded behind the veil of the awards committee, the only clue we had to the winners was supposition and nominations in the forum.
There were several people in the forums who nominated me for an award, and for that, I am grateful. They say it’s an honor just to be nominated, and I must admit that’s true. I was humbled and honored by each person who threw my name in the hat.
Don’t get me wrong though, being nominated was cool, but winning is pretty cool too!
As a freelance writer, I didn’t know what to make of Associated Content when I first stumbled upon it. I subscribed to a writers group for posting freelance paying leads, and someone in the group posted a link to Associated Content. Much debate ensued about whether AC was a legitimate paying job for writers, and arguments sparked up about how much they paid and the future of the site.
The site was in its infancy at that time.
So I waited and watched the site change and grow, read the things people who wrote for the site were saying, and eventually, I signed up so I could give it a shot first hand. My first article with AC was a print magazine article reprint that the rights had reverted back to me, and I put it up just out of curiosity. Once I received that offer, I took some keyword articles I had written for a client who had not paid me and I posted them for payment consideration.
Soon, I was making a few bucks for articles that would have been a complete waste of my time and loss of money for me, articles that I either couldn’t sell to a publication, articles I had written for print and the rights finally reverted back to me, articles I had sitting on my computer gathering figurative dust. The possibility of being paid for an article that normally would have just sat was more than welcome to me! Plus, AC allowed me to write about anything that I wanted to write about, without having to worry about what the publisher wanted, or meeting a deadline, or writing on spec on a particular topic. AC soon became an outlet for me.
In truth though, it’s not the site itself that brings me back day after day, but rather the people on the site, the other writers, and the people behind the scenes at AC. Mike, Sam, Leah, Jason, the other Mike, and the rest of the gang who work for AC and frequent the forum and constantly throw themselves to the wolves trying to walk that thin line between what is best for the company and what is best for the Content Producers deserve a nod. We’re often harder on them personally than we should be, but something tells me that at the core, these folks really do have our best interests at heart.
More than them though, it is my fellow CPs who have made this site a great place for me to return, time and again, to write, read, rate and comment. I stumbled into the forums over a year ago and there have met some fantastic people who help break up the monotony of the day, spark ideas for creative endeavors, and just provide untold support and encouragement.
In other words, it’s fun, and it’s you guys, the CPs of AC, who make it that way for me, with every kind word, with every comment on an article, with every subscription or addition to your favorites, with every e-mail, with every forum post… it is you guys, my fellow CPs, who make this site the great place it is.
…and it is you guys I have to thank for this award.
A writer without readers is a very sad thing indeed. So even though I won’t be sharing the cash with you all (snickers), I must honestly say that I share the award itself with each and every one of you who nominated me, who have read my content, who have commented to me, or who have interacted with me in any way on this site.
I would be nothing here without you all.
My article that won Best Text for the 2007 PMAs, Confessions of a Writer: The Ugly Truth about Being a Writer, is actually an article I wrote and submitted for free to AC, based on my personal experience with the publishing industry. I had someone tell me I should have put it up for payment review instead of for free, because it was worth payment.
Little did I know that a year later, I would be paid for the article, more than any other article on the site has ever paid me, and honored and touched by the award all at the same time. This same article was nominated for the Preditors & Editors Reader’s Poll Awards this year as well, and the final tally put it in as a Top Ten Finisher for 2007 for the nonfiction article category with Associated Content as the publisher of record.
Just goes to show that sometimes a free submission does pay off, right? I’m very proud of this article, and hope you all will take the time to read it, particularly if you have any interest in writing and publishing a book in your future.
So thank you to both AC and the CPs here on this site, too numerous to mention and too fearful I’d leave someone out, but thank you nonetheless for all you have given to me, the happiness, the friendship, the fun, the support and more. You guys rock! If I could give you all an award myself, I surely would.
So with 2007 down, and 2008 already on its way, what are you goals for the next year on Associated Content? I never dreamed last year I would be eligible for much less win a PMA, so if I can do it, you can too!
Set your sights high, shoot for the stars, and keep writing!
Love and stuff,
“I am a writer. It’s not what I do; it’s who I am!” – Michelle L Devon
The Path: Series on Redemption and Sensual Awakening by Michelle Devon
Michelle L Devon's Interview
Pam Gaulin's Acceptance Speech
Oscar Acceptance Speech Time Limits Are Becoming Ridiculous
Understanding Text Messaging Lingo: Are You Smart Enough to Crack the Text Message Code?
Software Product Review - Dragon NaturallySpeaking Speech to Text Software
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