The Climax

Sidney Gottlieb thought he’d erased all traces of Operation Midnight Climax and MK-ULTRA from the government’s collective memory. While the world will never know the full extent of the CIA’s experimentation with LSD, an unlikely source revealed many of the victims. These breakthroughs came courtesy of George White, who testified from beyond the grave.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's December, five days before Christmas, and a few dozen
people are gathered for a big holiday party. They're at
the US Post Office building in downtown San Francisco. Peeking in,
it looks like a scene out of Mad Men. Guys
in crisp suits, skinny ties, women in colorful dresses, everyone

(00:26):
drinking and laughing. There's a Deputy U S Marshal at
the party named Wayne Ritchie. He's got a girlfriend, but
she didn't come tonight. It doesn't matter. He's just here
to mingle. The mood is light, everyone's having fun whatever
the small talk. The booze is flowing. Actually it's more

(00:48):
than that. It's the sort of party where you can
reach out and someone will put a glass right in
your hand. You don't even have to ask. As Wayne
Ritchie SIPs gingerly, the drink hits him a little too quick.
This isn't just some light buzz. There's an uncomfortable feeling
in his chest. Then something in his brain starts pulling

(01:09):
him away from reality towards someplace else, a place he
doesn't like. He begins seeing things. The holiday lights melt
in front of him, and for some reason, creatures pop
up around him. Monsters really eyeing him suspiciously. Richie's office

(01:35):
is in the building. He excuses himself and sits alone.
He spent five years in the military and one year
as a guard at Alcatraz. He's a well respected marshal.
But sitting there, Richie feels a surge of emotions, like
he's let people down, his friends, his relatives. Suddenly the
office no longer feels safe. He leaves. The monsters follow Wayne.

(02:07):
Ritchie is out on the streets now, trying to flee.
Faces don't look like faces anymore. Eyes are in the
wrong places, sore noses, sore mouths. The sidewalk moves under
his feet like it's liquid cement, like it never dried.
Richie's mind starts to wander. He starts thinking about his girlfriend.

(02:27):
He loves her so much. He remembers how she always
wanted to visit New York, how he couldn't afford the trip.
But right now, New York seems like a good idea.
Right now, it seems like the best idea he's ever had.
But he's got no money, not enough for that. What
if he could get the money. Richie goes back to

(02:52):
the post office building, to his storage locker, he gets
his service revolver. He's not sure why he needs a weapon,
but he feels better with it, safer. He begins ducking
in and out of bars for more drinks. Maybe something
will wash away these feelings. Then he walks into the

(03:13):
right bar, the bar that can solve all his problems,
Shady Grove. He looks around. The monsters are still there,
and there are people, too many people. He's nervous. Suddenly
he pulls out his gun. He aims at at the bartender.

(03:34):
He demands money, all the money. This is not Wayne Ritchie.
This man is committing armed robbery five days before Christmas.
Wayne Ritchie is a U S. Marshal, sworn to uphold
the law, a man who has never once broken it.
Part of him is looking on in horror, not believing

(03:56):
what's happening. Another part is totally comfortable with what's going on.
He can't even be fine if the bartender pulled out
his own gun and aimed it back at him. Now,
he says something that feels so right and so foreign
at the same time. Just put it all in the bag. Okay,
take it easy. I'm gonna go to New York with

(04:17):
my girl. Okay, Hey, hey, Mr. That last voice is
an anchor. It cuts through his thoughts and pulls him
back to reality. He's grateful, he turns to the person,
then a blast of pain explodes in the back of
his head. When Wayne Ritchie regains consciousness, two police officers

(04:53):
are standing over him. He'll lose his job, his reputation
will be ruined in an in stint, He'll go from
an officer of the law to a felon. And it'll
be decades before Richie has any clue what happened that
he hadn't gone insane. Richie would later come to believe

(05:13):
he'd been dosed with LSD. It explained everything, and George
White's diary had a note about this exact party at
the Federal Building. While Richie could never definitively prove what
had happened to him that night, his story is forever
late to White's reign of terror. For over a decade,
George White had used LSD to summon demons that chased

(05:36):
down innocent people, but before it was all over, someone
would finally be chasing him. For I Heart Radio, this

(06:13):
is Operation Midnight Climax, and I heard original podcast I'm
Your host Noel Brown. And this is chapter eight the climax,
Part one paper trail. Hey, Geo, fuck it, I fucking quit. Technically,

(06:40):
that's how George White's career came to a close, both
careers law enforcement and illegal LSD experimentation. It happened in
at the San Francisco Narcotics Bureau office. In the end,
it wasn't a complaint or a death or his conscience.

(07:01):
It was invoices. All along, White had been forwarding expense
invoices to his CIA supervisor, Sidney Gottlieb. White was billing
the CIA for everything from prostitutes to booze. Not exactly
a good move if you want to fly under the radar.
And beginning in nineteen sixty three, these invoices were landing

(07:24):
on the desk of CIA Inspector General John Eyerman. Eerman
was outraged. He spoke to Gotlieb, who confirmed White was
on the prowl in San Francisco. White had full approval
to dose innocent people with LSD. Erman dubbed the entire
enterprise a series of sophomoric procedures. He wanted it shutdown.

(07:48):
Of course, Gottlieb and a CIA ally named Richard Helms
didn't agree. Helms tried to placate Erman. You promised to
sit down with CIA director John mccoon to explain and
exactly what was going on. Then Helms ignored the issue completely.
He never approached mccon. Erman was shocked, so Erman wrote

(08:11):
a report and delivered it directly to mccon. Got Leeban
Helm sat down with the director to argue their side
of it. Sure, it looked like White was harming innocent civilians,
but this was war. Helms insisted the Soviets had a
stranglehole on chemical weapons and attacks. The United States was

(08:31):
just trying to keep up. George White's brand of realistic
testing was a necessity. Faced with what he perceived as
two compelling arguments, McCone did what bureaucrats do. He pushed
it off to the side and refused to make a
decision for two years. While Erman fumed, the San Francisco

(08:52):
safe houses were allowed to remain open as he had
always done, got leave insulated wife from the bureaucracy. When
mc hohne was finally convinced in k Ultra had to
be stopped, it was less of an order than a suggestion.
Gottlieb allowed George White to run his safe houses for
another year, Hey all of his bills. Maybe he believed

(09:14):
he could change mccowan's mind. Maybe he just wanted White
to have one last go of things. But ultimately common
sense prevails. There were no more last minute bailouts for White.
This time, the party really was over. In He turned
in his gun and badge and walked out the door,

(09:37):
not just the CIA's door, but the door of the
Narcotics Bureau too. The Narcotics Bureau had nothing to do
with the CIA work, but White was indignant. He'd only
remained on the job to moonlight as a psychedelic hit man.
If that was being stripped from him, he had little
reason to continue. All he had left was a job

(10:00):
that was now insisting on a concept he detested, oversight.
The culture was changing, police work was changing. There were
forms to fill out, people to answer to. Rogue agents
like White. Nike Feldman were a dying breed. Feldman had
been exiled to Bangkok. He had gotten into trouble for

(10:22):
searching a property without a search warrant and later distributing
guns he'd seized to other cops. White was criticized for
taking an opium scale during a raid for his extensive
collection of drug paraphernalia his trophies. The Narcotics Bureau itself
wouldn't exist for much longer. It underwent a restructuring. By

(10:44):
seventy three, it had been absorbed into the newly created
Drug Enforcement Agency or d e A. The world was
changing around George White, who later wrote to a friend
about his decision. I retired in San Francisco after about
thirty two years of rumbled tumble, and I suppose I
got out just in time, as I suspect I couldn't
abide the current rules applying to policeman. It was actually

(11:08):
bad health which forced me out, as the booze finally
cut off with my liver and sirosis kept me in
and out of hospitals for a few years. I haven't
had a drink in six years, and I'm living without it,
as the anti smoke TV puffs put it. And he
once told a journalist, there are more clerks, more forms,

(11:28):
more meetings, more laterals, more verticals. It serves no purpose,
wastes of time and money, and I don't enjoy it anymore.
I grew up in a much rougher school after decades
as one of the most successful and celebrated cops in
the country. George White disappeared, but the consequences at George

(11:49):
White's actions didn't just suddenly end with his retirement. They
reverberated for years. After he squeezed his last dose of
LSD into a stranger's drink like a hangover, his actions
would linger, and they wouldn't remain a secret forever. Though
Sydney Gottlieb gave it his best shot. For a time

(12:12):
it seemed like Gotlee ban White would get away with everything.
Gotleib continued to petition for LSD experiments when and where
he could, and for a time he was vindicated. In
nineteen seventy two, the c i A learned that two
physicians who accompanied President Richard Nixon to Moscow returned behaving erratically.

(12:33):
One of the physicians reportedly had unexplained crying fits. He
had trouble recognizing his friends. He was treated for months.
Gotly believed they had been drugged by the Soviets, though
was never proven. Then came Watergate. In June two, after
a break in at the Watergate Hotel, Gottlieb got nervous

(12:55):
think of all the incriminating documents related to MK Ultra.
It was a paper or trail of the CIA at
its most irresponsible and sadistic. A few months following the
Watergate break in got leaving his colleague of the CIA,
Richard Helms, decided to cover their tracks the old fashioned
way by destroying every single document related to MK Ultra,

(13:21):
and a few months after that Gottlieb retired to what
he believed would be a quiet life of tennis and
raising goats. He was now a bystander to LSD's evolution
from a truth drug to a notorious drug. The use
of LSD among the general public had gotten more popular,
doing no small measure to the government introducing into the

(13:41):
masses through frequent and covert experimentation. As Gottlieb fed it
to universities and professors, it spread through college campuses, but
it was getting harder for the general public to obtain.
In ninety eight, possession of LSD was a misdemeanor and
the sale of it a fell me Soon after, it

(14:02):
was a schedule one substance. People like Timothy Leary, Aldis Huxley,
and even actor Carrie Grant were advocating for LSD is
a therapeutic, even as it was being increasingly stigmatized. If
anyone found out about the government using LSD in the
most dangerous way possible by giving it to people unwittingly,
there would be a tremendous problem. But got Leep had

(14:26):
made confetti out of it, erasing any trace of mk
ultra from the government's collective memory, or so he thought.

(14:53):
In four a reporter named Seymour Hirsch wrote an article
for The New York Times. He detail l the CIA
is a legal domestic intelligence operation which kept surveillance on
the anti war movement. It was criminal and a considerable
departure from the CIA's boundaries. At least, it was a
departure from their public reputation of being a virtuous organization.

(15:18):
President Gerald Ford saw the press poking around, hoping for
another water game. He knew if Congress took the initiative,
it might result in unnecessary disclosures about CIA activities, So
Ford grabbed the wheel and announced a special commission devoted
to investigating the CIA. His vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, would

(15:40):
share it, and it was during those hearings that CIA
Director William Colby wound up dropping the bombshell that the
CIA had conducted LSD experiments on American citizens. Colby, unlike
many in the CIA, thought there was such a thing
as a bad secret, and so he simply told the truth.

(16:02):
When the Rockefeller Committee failed to follow up on Colby's revelations,
a second committee was organized, the Select Committee to Study
Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities. It could have
also been called what the fuck is the CIA doing.
Senator Frank Church headed the group, which was dubbed the

(16:23):
Church Committee, and unlike Rockefeller's team, they were eager to
get to the truth. The call went out to CIA
officials passed and present to explain themselves. Sydney Gottlieb was
among them. Gottlieb didn't want to talk when he was
summoned to the hearings in ninety five. His answers were
sealed from the public and the press. He was finally

(16:47):
convinced to speak a second time on September twenty one,
nineteen seventy seven, during hearings chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy.
In exchange he would be immune from prosecution. Gottlieb tried
to be as evasive as possible. He began by reading
a prepared statement. My name is Sydney Gottlieb. At least

(17:09):
that part was true. I would like to comment on
Project MK Ultra. In the judgment of the CIA, there
was tangible evidence that both the Soviets and the Red
Chinese might be using techniques of altering human behavior which
were not understood by the United States and which would
have implications of national survival in the context of national

(17:29):
security concerns at that time. Gotlieb admitted the CIA had
targeted civilians. As far as the Bureau of Narcotics project
is concerned, there was no advanced knowledge or protection of
the individual's concerned. The only comment I would like to
make on this is harsh as it may seem in retrospect.
In an issue where national survival might be concerned, such

(17:53):
a procedure and such a risk was a reasonable one
to take. The committee asked why, if the cause was just,
he had tried to destroy every document related to it.
With my retirements and with the drug work over and
inactive for several years, these files were of no constructive
use to the agency. They were the kind of sensitive

(18:13):
files that were capable of being misunderstood by anyone not
thoroughly familiar with their background, but Kennedy and his team
came prepared. God leaves paper apocalypse of a few years
prior had missed a number of boxes lurking in another office.
Some of the most devious minds and American intelligence had
failed to cover all their tracks. More than twenty thousand

(18:38):
documents related to MK Ultra survived. They were discovered by
a journalist named John Marks, who had filed a Freedom
of Information Act request to obtain them. The papers included
financial records, plus evidence the CIA had used LSD on
operatives as well as citizens. Got Leab took issue with
the papers for one specific reason. I feel victimized and

(19:03):
I am appalled at the CIA's policy wherein someone or
some group selectively pinpoints my name by failing to delete
it from documents released under the Freedom of Information Act
without any permission for me. Sydney Gottlieb was suddenly worried
about consent Part two implausible deniability. The hearing was not

(19:28):
Gotlieb's finest hour, but his plan, dating back to nineteen
fifty two, had actually worked brilliantly. Remember that Gotlieb hired
George White as a contractor. He was never an actual
CIA employee. White was a Narcotics Bureau employee. It gave
the CIA one degree of separation from the horrors he
inflicted At the hearings. Gotlieb argued George White had gone rogue.

(19:53):
The CIA, in turn would declare Gottlieb was the one
who had struck out on his own. No one was
responsible for any thing. I might straighten one thing out
here that this narcotics agent worked for the CIA. That
is total distortion. He remained a very active and I
understand effective Bureau of Narcotics agents and administrator. He felt

(20:17):
that his interest and ours could be successfully intermingled, and
the nature of the things that he did for us
were indeed not things that he would say, well, now
I am doing this for the CIA. They were meant
to be useful in his own work, to the extent
that he felt that way. I just want to straighten
that out. He never worked for the CIA. George White's

(20:39):
diary entry in fifty two told a far different story.
Gottly proposes, I'd be a C I a consultant. I agree.
Senator Kennedy press Scottie on this point. Kennedy knew about
George White, about Morgan Hall, about the safe houses. Kennedy
moved in on the number of victims was left in

(21:00):
the wake of white psychedelic journey. In response to your
second question of how many I testified, After carefully looking
over all the files that were shown to me, my
best guests would be fifty. Kennedy pointed out that among
the recovered documents, they were well over two hundred checks
White paid out to his underlings. The amounts ranged from

(21:23):
fifty dollars to a hundred dollars. Many had the words
stormy in the memo section. Stormy was, of course, George
White's favorite term for LSD. I would agree that they
probably represented at least attempts at drug administrations. The real
number is unknown. Senator Kennedy asked god lead if prostitutes

(21:44):
were involved. The element of prostitution is interwoven in the
whole matter, So I am certainly persuaded that, as far
as safe houses are concerned, there were prostitutes in them.
Gottlieb then tap danced around a question about whether they
had recorded the activities in Chestnut Street. That is another
matter which I think needs to be talked about in

(22:06):
something more than a yes or no answer. Kennedy wanted
to know about self experimentation. Did Gottlieb administer drugs to
any of his colleagues or try LSD himself? 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 were important to those of us who

(22:28):
were involved in the program. The committee also brought up
Frank Olsen, the CIA employee who plunged to his death
in nineteen three. Olson, you'll remember, had been dosed with
LSD just days prior. They asked why it didn't halt
the program, and Senator Kennedy broached the ultimate question, quote,

(22:52):
can you tell us what you learned from the years
of the operation of the safe house? Was a useful
What can you tell us? I think what we learned
from the safe houses was more about what you could
not do than what you could do. That was as
relevant as positive information. I think the conclusion from all

(23:16):
the activities was that it was very difficult to predictably
manipulate human behavior in this way, and that would be
a summary statement I would make. By the time the
hearing has concluded and the report issued, the CIA had
been publicly scolded and reprimanded for its intentional dosing of
Americans with LSD. The U. S Government banned the use

(23:38):
of experimental drugs on human subjects without their consent in seven,
although the CIA under Gottlieb's watch wouldn't have paid such
a mandate much mind promised immunity. Gottlieb walked away, back
to a retirement of folk dancing and his goats. But
one question remained. What happened to the man who was

(23:59):
respond posible for terrorizing American citizens with LSD for twelve years?
What happened to George White? Part three? The Colonel George

(24:28):
White grew up with the sound of crashing ocean waves
in the Hambra, California. When he walked away from police
work in nineteen he and his wife Albertin made a
home for themselves in Stinson Beach, California, a community of
about seven people. In the third and final act of
his life, he returned to the sea, but Albertin wasn't

(24:48):
known much. She was still acting as a clothing buyer
for major retailers. She was also dabbling in real estate.
Life kept her moving and on the road, and so
for the first time in decades, George White had time
on his hands. He thought about becoming a private investigator, which,
given his considerable skills, the legitimate investigator would have fit

(25:10):
him like a glove. It would have brought him full
circle back to his days as a private investigator's assistant
before becoming a narcotics cop. He applied for a license,
but his health was an impediment of cruising the streets
looking for wayward husbands. Decades of drinking had made a
mess of his liver. Instead, he threw himself into Stintson Beach.

(25:33):
He became the volunteer fire marshal, a job that didn't
demand much of him. White drove around in a red jeep,
sometimes driving across the lawn of residence he disliked. After
an increase in vandalism, he helped open a youth center.
The man who once took down a nationwide Chinese opium
ring was now concerned with juvenile delinquents busting windows with rocks.

(25:56):
We can't clean these little bastards are complete bastards until
we've given them a little clubhouse where they convent their energies.
If this fails, will throw them all in juvenile all.
In a letter to a friend, he wrote last year,
I was suckered into becoming fire chief of this village.
We have two modern pumpers and about twenty volunteer firemen,

(26:16):
all small town prima donnas. Although my heart attack last
year came about when in the capacity is firewarden, I
over exerted. It happened during a cliff side rescue operation.
I was persuaded to take the job since it appeared
I was the only two legged man who could get
along with the various cliques amongst the volunteers, most probably
because I was the only one who didn't want to

(26:38):
be chief. Of course, I stipulated I wouldn't slide down
the pole to send cliffs or eat smoke, but would
confine my activity to deep thinking and issuing orders. The
fire department was another small army White corral order around
and send that on missions. Was considering his limitations an

(27:02):
effective echo of his law enforcement work. It gave him
a measure of power and control, even if it was
just over fire hydrants and unpaid volunteers. But Stinson Beach
was an odd choice for White. The Stinson Beach of
the early nineteen seventies was full of retirees boating enthusiasts
and more than a few hippies. Jerry Garcia had a

(27:22):
place there. The smell of marijuana sometimes drifted from the
shore over to the homes just off the sand. White
kept a telescope in his living room and scanned the
beaches looking for the tiny burst of flame that accompanied
a freshly lit joint. If he saw it, well, there
would be trouble. Police department, Marty, it's the colonel. People

(27:48):
in Stinson Beach called White. The Colonel. I got four
creeps here lighting up a joint right outside my house.
You gotta come by and pick him up. Listen, Colonel,
are you sure? Because I'm damn sure, right in front
of my else. What do these kids think they are? Okay,
we'll be over pump kids, hippies. Dear Paul. This afternoon,

(28:14):
four adults sat down on the beach less than fifty
ft from my front window and had a pot party
on my beach. I called the sheriff and had them sneezed.
I'm gonna put a sign on my bulkhead. Hey man,
absolutely no pot smoking within a hundred yards of this window.
This means you, the man who had spent over a
decade drugging unwitting subjects was now anti drug, vehemently anti drug.

(28:39):
He once said, everyone convicted of smoking marijuana should spend
some time in jail. You'd have some pretty full jails
for perhaps a year. But when people learned it was
dangerous to smoke grass, I think use would taper off
and the problem would diminish greatly. In his writing, White
laid out his basic stance, the currently premiss of attitude

(29:00):
towards the smoking of marijuana cannot fail to breed damage
for society. It has been cleaned that marijuana is not addictive,
but admitted in the same quarters that a great many
marijuana users progress to other drugs that are definitely addictive.
As such, no apology or rationale may be made for it.
White also had words for LSD, which he'd wielded like

(29:22):
a weapon against an unknown number of people. LSD, like
all the hallucinogenic drugs, is devastatingly dangerous, particularly in its
social effect because of the curious endorsement given it by
pseudo intellectuals, bohemians, and some of the irresponsible celebrities. There
is no question that its use invites and in many cases,

(29:45):
produces brain damage. The solution to the drug issue was,
he wrote, suppression. I am convinced that the ultimate solution
as of the present time lies in rigid suppression of
the traffic, drying up the source of supply. The police,
and the police alone are responsible for this limitation and

(30:06):
are rarely given credit for the effectiveness of this accomplishment.
In White's mind, drugs had no demonstrable benefit. Clinicians working
towards therapeutic uses were spinning their wheels. Only complete and
total condemnation would work. White often spoke of a desire
to have power, to wield it, to have a secret.

(30:28):
It came in the form of his badge and his
gun in his exploits in foreign countries, and his killing
of spies in his double life as a straight laced
cop and a kinky swinger. And it came in the
form of a tiny plastic ampule that gave him more
power than any bullet ever could, the power to break
through the psychological borders of the mind. When he could

(30:50):
pursue it no longer, he retired distints and beach. Without
his oversight, drugs were dangerous, forbidden. The question is always
why why did George White drug an uncounted number of citizens.
Knowing early on that LSD was never going to be
the answer to brain warfare or mind control, that should

(31:12):
have become obvious within months. The so called mind control
of the Korean War was simply brutal interrogation techniques designed
to break the will of prisoners. White was armed with
LSD from nineteen fifty three to nineteen sixty five, a
period of twelve years. Based on the small sample size
of people he was known to have drugged and their

(31:34):
resulting problems ranging from a steria at a hospitalization, George
White might have driven more people to the brink than
anyone else alive. Today, LSD is experiencing a resurgence of
interest in legitimate and controlled medical study, its benefits hinge
on proper administration and consent. The knowledge that one is

(31:56):
taking LSD is the anchor to reality. Without you risk
a fractured mind. Maybe George White believed that was a
risk worth taking in the name of democracy, or maybe
he'd finally come to regret what he had done when
he wasn't busting pot smokers. White started scribbling on a

(32:19):
giant sheet of counterfeit paper he'd once sees during a raid.
He wanted to start chronicling his experiences in the field,
a lifetime spent chasing criminals from New York City to Calcutta.
He wanted to write his autobiography in a proper hard
boiled style. He titled it A Diet of Danger. Since

(32:40):
my retirement to a beachside cottage where I lived with
my wife, Albertine, I find myself increasingly reflective about the
full and active years just behind me, and of the
social forces and defections that add up to criminal conduct.
The surf rolls in at my doorstep, the fog billows
over my garden. My fire burns red and hot, and

(33:02):
the images of the past are as fresh as they
were yesterday. I remember a room in his stun Bolt
where heroin makers stood ready to end my life. The
hot pursuit of murder incorporated through the nighttime streets of
New York. I haven't forgotten a moment of my membership
in a Chinese gang. Each moment was a separate adventure

(33:24):
of itself. The past has not been though. White's autobiography,
at least the partial manuscript that survives, is a curious document.
It's full of the bravado you'd expect from a World
War two intelligence operative and narcotics cop. But out of necessity,
it lacks the most colorful portion of White's life, his

(33:46):
relentless pursuit of LSD as a truth and mind control drug.
He had taken a vow of silence familiar to intelligence operatives,
magicians and Mafiosa's morals and vital truths. You'll have to
draw for yourself as separate dividends. As a former newspaperman,
I know better than to set down more than the what,

(34:07):
the who, and the wire and the me. He even
disclosed why Stints in Beach had such appeal despite its
rampant drug culture. I am interested in content that I
live on the exact epicenter of the San Andreas Fault,
the historically lethal dead center of California's earthquake zone, and
perhaps on some quiet, lonely night as an alien and

(34:31):
unexplained automobile circles my Salty haven. The stimulating spark of
adventure and challenge me once more glow? What better tonic
could have pastured? Man Hunter? Ask for? It's been a
hell of a life. The Sirosis caught up to George

(34:53):
White on October He died at age sixty seven. It
was just weeks after Gottlieb testified to the Church Committee.
White's death may have cheated justice. His legacy becomes not
one of a narcotic star, but a devil in CoP's clothing.
Albertin remarried Stenson Beach, remembered and honored their colorful fire.

(35:17):
Marshal White never finished his autobiography notes from publishers, so
the material of a cop on the Hunt for dope
fiends would be hard to market. If White had lived,
he might have written about the exploits of Morgan Hall,
his c I a alter ego, and that would have
been a very different story epilog. Thanks to Sydney Gottlieb,

(35:52):
the world will likely never know the full extent of
the CIA's experimentation with LSD, or how many times it
was actually deployed. The victims the government was able to
identify came courtesy of George White, who testified from beyond
the grave. Not long after White's death, his wife, Albertine,
donated all of his papers to Foothill Junior College in

(36:14):
Los Altos Hills, California. They eventually wound up at Stanford University.
There are ten boxes of diaries and date books, names
and dates, letters and receipts. It would be the only
way George White would ever cooperate with the investigation. In
nineteen seventy nine, the CIA created a Victim's Task Force,

(36:37):
appointing CIA officer Frank Laubinger to track down White's victims
and offer whatever assistance or apology would be deemed appropriate.
Labbenger used White's diaries to try and locate individuals. Initially,
he was told White and only drug criminals, but as
he dove into the project, he realized White had expanded
his reach. The list of knowns subjects was rather short,

(37:01):
as White's diaries were purposefully vague. Still, Labinger managed to
reach Elliott Smythe, whose wife Barbara had been dosed in
ninety three while their newborn baby was present. It was
the first time Elliott had ever become aware of the
fact Barbara, now deceased, had been drugged. Elliott sued the

(37:23):
CIA for two point five million dollars, but it never
got very far. But Clarice Stein, drugged the same night
as Barbara, received a settlement from the CIA. The price
for a government approved psychological assault thousand dollars. Others like
the actress Linda King and the singer Ruth Kelly, were

(37:44):
never located by the Task Force. When Labinger kept pressing,
kept trying to find out why White dosed people he
was either friends with or just happened across, he was
told by his superiors to stop. Laubinger didn't look at
Wayne Ritchie U S. Marshall, who was dosed at a
holiday party in nineteen fifty seven in San Francisco. Richie

(38:06):
didn't connect the dots until nineteen when he read Sydney
got Leave's obituary and began to understand what had happened.
He sued the CIA and d e A for twelve
million dollars. He even deposed Ike Feldman, White's colleague. Sympathy
on the part of Feldman was in short supply. He

(38:28):
called Ritchie had Knitwitt, who simply couldn't handle the undisclosed
dose of l s D given to him. Ultimately, a
Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals judge wasn't convinced Richie
couldn't prove some kind of LSD psychosis had led to
his robbery attempt, but the judge also said had given
everything that had transpired. He believed Richie might have been
a victim, but there would be no recourse. And one

(38:55):
of his final letters, White wrote to his old friend
and former boss Sydney, got leap from his desk and
stints and beach, the tide rolling in, and the ghosts
of his past yet to catch up to him. It's
probably the most extinct form of self analysis George White
ever put down on paper. Dear Sid, It's pleasant to

(39:16):
be remembered these days, since nature has steadily been decimating
the ranks of my friends and acquaintances. In spite of
the serrhosis, diabetes, and cardiac issues, I'll probably outlive most
of my contemporaries and die with my fireman's boots on
the reason I have nothing to worry about. I need nothing,

(39:37):
and envy no one. Of course. I was a very
minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled in the
vineyards wholeheartedly because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else
could a red blooded American boy lie and kill and
cheat and steal with the sanction and blessing of the
all highest pretty good stuff. Brother like man, I don't

(40:03):
care if the FBI taps my phone. I'm gonna do
my crime planning while swimming in the ocean. Real cool.
Keep in touch regards g h W. WE hope you've

(40:44):
enjoyed Operation Midnight Climax and I heard original podcast excerpts
from George White's autobiography and letters are courtesy of the
Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries. If you enjoyed
Operation Midnight Climax, I highly recommend checking out another podcast
that I co host called Stuff They Don't Want You
To Know. In it, we talk about things like MK

(41:05):
Ultra and Operation Midnight Climax, everything from government cover ups
to the supernatural, and even cryptids and extraterrestrials. It's a
lot of fun. If you're red to the show, you
can find that anywhere you get podcasts, And if you
want to keep track of me, you can find me
on Instagram Where I Am at, how Now Noel Brown
and Now One Last Time. Operation Midnight Climax is hosted

(41:27):
by Noel Brown. This show's written by Jake Rosen, editing,
sound design and mixing by Ernie Indra Deete and Natasha Jacobs.
Original music by Aaron Kaufman. Research and fact checking by
Austin Thompson and MAURICEA Brown Show logo by Lucy King
Tania Special thanks to Enzo Solucci, Adam Copeland, Spencer Gibson,

(41:47):
David Crumholtz, Vanessa crum Holtz, Ryan Murdoch, and Ted Ramy.
Julian Weller is our supervising producer. Our executive producers are
Jason English and mangesh Ha Ticketer. See you on the
next one MM and in our next batch if I
heard original podcasts will transport you to the Great Depression
and an unlikely coup attempt against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

(42:09):
which oddly gets left out of the history books, and
to London and Isaac Newton's forgotten second act as a
ruthless cop. Will also answer age old questions like what
happens when the world's biggest movie star buys your town
and treats you like an extra, or when a brutal
dictator's son gets arrested at Disneyland. Keep an eye out

(42:30):
for these shows on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you find your favorite shows. That's all, folks,
thanks for listening.