Form C.A. 1
The notice of injury required under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, revised 23 October 1952. It is due within forty-eight hours of the injury.
Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation
1953-12-09 · 42 source pages
This compilation remains available externally. Its source pages have separate authorship and display decisions.
Source scans are unavailable here. Publisher annotations remain available below.
Publisher annotations
Commentary by The Declassified Collection, separate from the original source.
Source PDF page 1 · 3 notes
SO Division, CmlC
Special Operations Division, Chemical Corps Biological Laboratories - Olson's unit at Camp Detrick.
Oakland, Western Maryland
The place of injury, in ink. Oakland is the town by Deep Creek Lake, where the two groups met. The date has been amended from 27 to 19 November - the evening of the experiment.
Source PDF page 2 · 2 notes
General Counsel
Lawrence R. Houston, the Agency's lawyer, makes this the CIA's official position, not merely a witness opinion. The Bureau accepted the causal connection for survivor benefits; the Justice Department recounts that decision in 1975 (Intelligence — Olson, Frank — source PDF page 8).
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
In December 1953 the post was held by General Charles P. Cabell. The initials CPC appear again on the February 1954 slip at Memorandum, "Unwitting Application of LSD", with letters to Col. James H. Drum, 10 February 1954 — source PDF page 1.
Source PDF page 3 · 1 notes
collaborators in research activities
The CIA's Chemical Division and the Army's Special Operations Division. The 1975 memorandum dates their formal agreement to early 1952 and says the Army supplied biological research and development for CIA requirements (CIA activities at Fort Detrick, 1975 — source PDF page 1). Gottlieb's personal contacts began before that agreement.
Source PDF page 4 · 1 notes
SIDNEY GOTTLIEB
Sidney Gottlieb, chief of the Chemical Division, recommended the experiment. The Church Committee attributes placing LSD in the Cointreau to Robert Lashbrook (original p. 396, Church Committee report: foreign and military intelligence — source PDF page 396).
Source PDF page 5 · 2 notes
the New York physician
Dr Harold A. Abramson, a private physician and Agency consultant. His memorandum of 4 December 1953 follows this statement, at Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 9-Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 12.
the Chief of my Division
Gottlieb. The writer of this statement is Robert V. Lashbrook, who signs it at Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 8.
Source PDF page 6 · 1 notes
the Division Chief
Lt. Col. Vincent L. Ruwet, Chief of the Special Operations Division, whose own eleven-page statement is at Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 31-Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 41.
Source PDF page 7 · 2 notes
a private hospital near Washington
Chestnut Lodge, a private psychiatric hospital at Rockville, Maryland, is named in the Security report (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 17). Lashbrook calls it a voluntary admission: the plan was for Olson to enter the next morning, not to be formally committed that night.
need-to-know principle
Access limited to information required for one's work. Gottlieb describes how this operated at Detrick: some research could be discussed with only one colleague (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 3). Lashbrook records Olson's fear that he had exceeded that restriction.
Source PDF page 8 · 1 notes
Room 1018
The file gives the number twice and not alike: Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 17 has Room #1018 with twin beds, the police report quoted at Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 23 has Room 1018A.
Source PDF page 9 · 1 notes
General Counsel
Abramson addressed this account to the Agency's lawyer for the compensation claim, six days after Olson's death.
Source PDF page 10 · 1 notes
release of classified information
Abramson ties Olson's anxiety to his work and earlier retirement; Ruwet instead describes outstanding performance and says he had noticed no unsoundness before the experiment (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 32-Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 33). These different accounts of the prior condition matter to the file's question of causation.
Source PDF page 11 · 1 notes
CONCLUSION
Abramson discusses occupational guilt and a crisis intensified by the experiment; Houston's official finding states a direct causal connection to the death (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 2). The physician's account and the compensation decision answer different questions.
Source PDF page 13 · 2 notes
Investigative Division
The Agency's Office of Security ran its own inquiry in parallel with the New York police. Its report is at Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 16-Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 26.
Case No. 73317
The Security Office's file number for the death. It appears at the head of every leaf of the report.
Source PDF page 14 · 1 notes
New York State Education Department
The inquiry distinguishes permission to practise from specialist training. The state official says a licensed physician could practise psychiatry without another licence; the report separately checks Abramson's training and whether membership in the Psychosomatic Society required it. Membership alone did not answer that question.
Source PDF page 15 · 1 notes
Manhattan Field Office
The Agency maintained field offices for security work in the United States. This one handled the death.
Source PDF page 16 · 2 notes
Room 488
Lashbrook was interviewed at the hotel at 7.50 a.m. on 28 November, some five hours after the fall, in a different room from the one he had shared with Olson.
SUBJECT
Olson. The report uses this label while recording Lashbrook's account to the Agency investigator.
Source PDF page 18 · 2 notes
more relaxed
Lashbrook's account to the Agency investigator of the evening of 27 November. His signed statement of 7 December gives the same evening at greater length (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 5-Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 8).
stated that
There are several voices here: Lashbrook describes events to an Agency investigator, including what he told the city police. When the report turns to the detectives' own records (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 23), the evidence chain changes. Following that change helps separate a retold conversation from a copied police entry.
Source PDF page 19 · 2 notes
G.W. / M.H.
The report identifies G.W. as George White of the Bureau of Narcotics and M.H. as his undercover name, Morgan Hall. It connects two apparently separate contacts on the slip to one person; Lashbrook gives the Agency investigator identities he says he withheld from the city detectives.
retained by Detectives
Papers taken from Lashbrook by the New York police. What was on them is described in the report but the papers themselves are not in the file.
Source PDF page 20 · 2 notes
Box 1925
The report says the police examined this pass but did not identify or question it. Beside Lashbrook's Defense Department identification on the preceding page (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 19), the generic return address shows how his Agency connection remained unspoken during the police interview.
instructions received from Dr. GOTTLIEB
The Chief of the Chemical Division who recommended the experiment. Here the report records his instruction that Lashbrook obtain Abramson's account and take it to Washington: one of the officers involved in the dosing was also directing the immediate collection of its paper record.
Source PDF page 21 · 1 notes
Pennsylvania Station
Across Seventh Avenue from the Statler. The Agency's escort remained with Lashbrook after the body identification and overheard the later office conversation. The report's next passages therefore change from Lashbrook's account to observations made by a second Agency officer.
Source PDF page 22 · 1 notes
Certificate of Death
An Agency officer obtained it from the New York City Department of Health on 2 December 1953. The photostat that reached the file is the enclosure taken out again at Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 27.
Source PDF page 23 · 1 notes
penicillin aerosol therapy
Aerosol therapy delivers medicine in an airborne mist. The directory entry links Abramson to wartime respiratory work for the Chemical Warfare Service; the next paragraph lists his practice as immunology and allergy. These are the credentials the separate psychiatric-qualification inquiry investigates (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 14).
Source PDF page 24 · 1 notes
DOA (Suicide)
The police classification combines death on arrival with a proposed manner of death. It is a different question from Houston's finding that the experiment caused a death arising from official duties (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 2); the two labels could coexist in the compensation file.
Source PDF page 25 · 1 notes
3:20 a.m.
The time Lashbrook gave the police for the crash of glass that woke him. His signed statement puts it at about 0230.
Source PDF page 26 · 2 notes
Sen. Mc Carthy's Committee
Senator Joseph McCarthy's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The detectives raise it as a possible explanation for the men's secrecy and contact the FBI; this is the police's attempted lead, not a committee connection established elsewhere in the file.
little publicity
The detectives attribute the lack of coverage to major New York newspapers not having been published since the incident, although reporters sought details that day. Their explanation distinguishes a break in publication from a lack of initial press interest.
Source PDF page 27 · 2 notes
EXHIBIT "A"
The enclosure is gone. The note records it going, on 5 January 1954 and per the General Counsel, to the Bureau of Employees' Compensation with the claim.
BEC
Bureau of Employees' Compensation, the body receiving the death-certificate photostat with the claim. Its benefit decision is described in the Justice Department's 1975 report (Intelligence — Olson, Frank — source PDF page 8).
Source PDF page 28 · 2 notes
May 1943
Schwab dates their acquaintance to the year Camp Detrick opened, when Olson was a commissioned officer on the classified research project there.
the Vigo Plant
The Army's wartime biological warfare production plant near Terre Haute, Indiana, to which Schwab was assigned from May 1944.
Source PDF page 29 · 2 notes
aerobiology
The study of airborne organisms, relevant to both protection from biological attack and the development of biological weapons. The Church Committee identifies Olson with the same field (original p. 395, Church Committee report: foreign and military intelligence — source PDF page 395).
a family man
Schwab knew Olson socially and records visiting the family at home. Ruwet also describes a close friendship between the families (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 31-Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 32).
Source PDF page 30 · 1 notes
DR. JOHN L. SCHWAB
Director of the Biological Laboratories at Camp Detrick, and the senior Army scientist to sign a statement in this file.
Source PDF page 31 · 2 notes
Vincent L. Ruwet
Lt. Colonel, Chemical Corps, and Chief of the Special Operations Division. His is the longest statement in the file and the fullest narrative of Olson's last days.
Branch Chief
Olson's post at his death. He had been Acting Division Chief until 1 March 1953, when he reverted at his own request.
Source PDF page 32 · 1 notes
before the experiment
Ruwet separates his appraisal before the experiment from the change he observed afterwards. Abramson's account gives a different emphasis to earlier anxiety and the relinquished division command (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 10). Comparing those explanations is more useful than treating every statement as one agreed medical history.
Source PDF page 33 · 1 notes
of unsound mind
The injury form requires a declaration that the injury was not caused by the employee's wilful intention to injure or kill himself (Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 1). The accounts of Olson's state of mind therefore sit within a file assembled to establish eligibility for compensation, not just to describe his last days.
Source PDF page 35 · 1 notes
Dr. Lashbrook
Ruwet telephoned him on 24 November to say Olson needed immediate professional attention. Lashbrook's account of the same call is at Frank R. Olson — CIA compilation — source PDF page 5.
Source PDF page 37 · 1 notes
Nembutal
Pentobarbital, a barbiturate sleeping drug, given by the New York physician.
Source PDF page 42 · 1 notes
Routing and Record Sheet
The Agency's internal circulation form. Officer designations go in the 'TO' column and each comment is numbered to correspond.