CIA accused of poisoning French village | Sydney Morning Herald
PARIS: In 1951 a quiet village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were committed to asylums and hundreds afflicted. For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now an even more extraordinary explanation has emerged, with evidence suggesting the CIA peppered food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind-control experiment at the height of the Cold War. <...> [A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments author] Mr Albarelli came across CIA documents while investigating the suicide of Frank Olson, a biochemist working for the Special Operations Division who fell from a 13th floor window two years after the cursed bread incident. One note transcribes a conversation between a CIA agent and a Sandoz official who mentions the ''secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit'' and explains that it was not ''at all'' caused by mould but by diethylamide, the D in LSD. <...> Scientists at Fort Detrick told him that agents had sprayed LSD into the air and also contaminated ''local food products''. Albarelli said the ''smoking gun'' was a White House document sent to members of the Rockefeller commission formed in 1975 to investigate CIA abuses. It contained the names of French citizens who had been secretly employed by the CIA and made direct reference to the "Pont St. Esprit incident". ...
For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now an even more extraordinary explanation has emerged, with evidence suggesting the CIA peppered food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind-control experiment at the height of the Cold War.
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[A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments author] Mr Albarelli came across CIA documents while investigating the suicide of Frank Olson, a biochemist working for the Special Operations Division who fell from a 13th floor window two years after the cursed bread incident. One note transcribes a conversation between a CIA agent and a Sandoz official who mentions the ''secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit'' and explains that it was not ''at all'' caused by mould but by diethylamide, the D in LSD.
Scientists at Fort Detrick told him that agents had sprayed LSD into the air and also contaminated ''local food products''.
Albarelli said the ''smoking gun'' was a White House document sent to members of the Rockefeller commission formed in 1975 to investigate CIA abuses. It contained the names of French citizens who had been secretly employed by the CIA and made direct reference to the "Pont St. Esprit incident". ...
Why would the CIA choose that particular town, in a country where the agency was less "at home" than in Italy, Belgium, or Germany, for example? And run a mass experiment in 1951, when tests on individuals to see what the effects of LSD were, were conducted in later years of the decade?
The postwar bread supply was still shaky in 1951, and bread was still often made with a mix of flours including rye. The "Pont St-Esprit incident" was in all likelihood caused by rye ergot ("natural LSD").
"My first tip-off was a 1954 CIA document that detailed an encounter between an official of the Sandoz chemical company (the producers of LSD) and a CIA official in which 'the secret of Pont St. Esprit' was referenced. The Sandoz official went on to say, 'It was not the ergot at all.'" Albarelli says he then obtained through the Freedom of Information Act a partially redacted 1955 CIA report entitled, A CIA Study of LSD-25. "That seemingly comprehensive report contained detailed information on the manufacture, supply, and use of LSD and LSD-type products worldwide. However, nearly its entire section on France and Pont St. Esprit were blacked out." Albarelli requested an un-redacted copy but CIA officials refused to provide one. He continued, "Then I came across a letter written by a Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent who was working secretly for the CIA; this was George Hunter White, who ran the CIA's New York City safe house in 1951-1954. White's letter referenced the Pont St. Esprit experiment. At that point, 5 years into my investigation, I began interviewing former Army biochemists who became very evasive and refused to talk about their work in France. Finally two former intelligence employees confirmed the experiment took place under the auspices of the Army's Special Operations Division and with CIA funding." Lastly, Albarelli explained, "I was given an undated White House document that was part of a larger file that had been sent to members of the Rockefeller Commission formed in 1975 to investigate CIA abuses. The document contained the names of a number of French nationals who had been secretly employed by the CIA and made direct reference to the 'Pont St. Esprit incident,' linking the former OSS head of secret research projects and the chief of Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division," Said Albarelli. "This, along with one other document, comprised the smoking gun." French Government Queries US re 50s Secret LSD Experiment
French Government Queries US re 50s Secret LSD Experiment
Even if for some reason he could not copy or photograph (at least one of) these documents, surely he could provide quotes from them. The march of civilizations is a series of defenses that man has put up against the dread of pure existence.
Steven Kaplan, a US historian specialising in French food history and the author of the 2008 book "Le pain maudit" told FRANCE 24: "I have numerous objections to this paltry evidence against the CIA. First of all, it's clinically incoherent: LSD takes effects in just a few hours, whereas the inhabitants showed symptoms only after 36 hours or more. Furthermore, LSD does not cause the digestive ailments or the vegetative effects described by the townspeople." Furthermore, Kaplan deems the whole notion "harebrained". "It is absurd, this idea of transmitting a very toxic drug by putting it in bread," he said. "As for pulverising it [for ingestion through the air], that technology was not even possible at that time. Most compellingly, why would they choose the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit to conduct these tests? It was half-destroyed by the US Army during fighting with the Germans in the Second World War. It makes no sense."
Steven Kaplan, a US historian specialising in French food history and the author of the 2008 book "Le pain maudit" told FRANCE 24: "I have numerous objections to this paltry evidence against the CIA. First of all, it's clinically incoherent: LSD takes effects in just a few hours, whereas the inhabitants showed symptoms only after 36 hours or more. Furthermore, LSD does not cause the digestive ailments or the vegetative effects described by the townspeople."
Furthermore, Kaplan deems the whole notion "harebrained". "It is absurd, this idea of transmitting a very toxic drug by putting it in bread," he said. "As for pulverising it [for ingestion through the air], that technology was not even possible at that time. Most compellingly, why would they choose the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit to conduct these tests? It was half-destroyed by the US Army during fighting with the Germans in the Second World War. It makes no sense."
agents had sprayed LSD into the air
That would have been the guys going round with face masks on.
LSD also has enamine-type reactivity because of the electron-donating effects of the indole ring. Because of this, chlorine destroys LSD molecules on contact; even though chlorinated tap water typically contains only a slight amount of chlorine, because a typical LSD solution only contains a small amount of LSD, dissolving LSD in tap water is likely to completely eliminate the substance.[4] The double bond between the 8-position and the aromatic ring, being conjugated with the indole ring, is susceptible to nucleophilic attacks by water or alcohol, especially in the presence of light. LSD often converts to "lumi-LSD", which is totally inactive in human beings (to the best of current knowledge).
Suspension of belief, more likely... You can't be me, I'm taken
I wonder what it was suspended in?
Breadcrumbs, apparently.
CIA? St Anthony's Fire "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
This is what it's supposed to look like:
