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FTR#1304 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Albert Hof­mann
Pho­to Cred­it: Wikipedia

Intro­duc­tion: Trans­formed into some­thing of an icon dur­ing the “Psy­che­del­ic Era” of the 1960’s, San­doz’s Albert Hoff­man’s polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions are fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from his “Peace and Love” per­sona mint­ed dur­ing that time.

The real­i­ty of that time is fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from the sur­viv­ing cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal nar­ra­tive.

This pro­gram sets forth dis­turb­ing facts about Hoff­man, his rela­tion­ship with the CIA and the San­doz fir­m’s activ­i­ties in World War II.

“. . . . In the same inter­view [Gor­don] Was­son said that Albert Hof­mann ‘worked in some way with the CIA’ and that Hoffman’s ‘dis­cov­er­ies were impart­ed in whole by San­doz to the U.S. gov­ern­ment. San­doz want­ed to be on the right side of things.’ Hofmann’s con­nec­tion to the CIA has nev­er been offi­cial­ly con­firmed by the CIA, which main­tains a pol­i­cy of not com­ment­ing on or reveal­ing infor­ma­tion on for­eign cit­i­zens who find their way into its employ­ment. For­mer agency offi­cials have com­ment­ed anony­mous­ly that sev­er­al San­doz sci­en­tists and offi­cials, includ­ing Hof­mann, main­tained a close rela­tion­ship with the CIA, but the ‘Agency nev­er ful­ly trust­ed the Swiss’ and ‘always held a dual insur­ance pol­i­cy with San­doz’ by vet­ting and plac­ing covert employ­ees with­in the firm’s lab­o­ra­to­ries and admin­is­tra­tion. . . .”

Ele­ments of Dis­cus­sion and Analy­sis Include: The World War II indict­ment of San­doz for col­lab­o­rat­ing with Nazi Ger­many; Hof­man­n’s work for the CIA; the pres­ence of U.S. bio­log­i­cal war­fare per­son­nel in France at the time of the dis­as­trous Pont St.-Esprit ergot/LSD out­break; Hof­man­n’s pres­ence in Pont St.-Esprit in the imme­di­ate after­math of the out­break; Hof­man­n’s mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the cause of the out­break, attribut­ing it to the use of a mer­cury com­pound used to pre­serve seeds: ” . . . . ‘The mass poi­son­ing in the south­ern France city of Pont-St. Esprit in the year 1951, which many have attrib­uted to ergot-con­tain­ing bread, actu­al­ly had noth­ing to do with ergo­tism. It rather involved poi­son­ing by an organ­ic mer­cury com­pound that was uti­lized for dis­in­fect­ing seeds]’ . . . .”; Hof­man­n’s dis­cus­sion with doc­tors inves­ti­gat­ing the out­break in the imme­di­ate after­math of the event–a dis­cus­sion in which the mer­cury poi­son­ing the­o­ry was dis­missed: ” . . . .The doc­tors at the meet­ing agreed that mer­cury poi­son­ing was not evi­dent in any man­ner, spe­cial­ly because of the per­sis­tent lack of kid­ney or liv­er dam­age. . . .”; an account of the Pont St.-Esprit out­break.

1.Three Swiss firms [Geigy, San­doz and Ciba] were indict­ed in the Unit­ed States in 1942 because of their col­lab­o­ra­tion with I.G. Far­ben and the Third Reich.

1. ” . . . . Those indict­ed includ­ed duPont; Allied Chem­i­cal and Dye; and Amer­i­can Cyanamid; also Far­ben affil­i­ates the Amer­i­can Ciba, San­doz and Geigy. . . .”
2. ” . . . . A long list of oth­er co-con­spir­a­tors includ­ed the Swiss Ciba, San­doz and Geigy com­pa­nies with Cincin­nati Chem­i­cal works, their joint­ly owned Amer­i­can con­cern . . . .”
3. ” . . . . When Sec­re­tary of War Stim­son and Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bid­dle agreed to post­pone the tri­al until it would not inter­fere with war pro­duc­tion, one Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cial was quot­ed as say­ing sourly, ‘First they hurt the war effort by their restric­tive prac­tices, and then if caught they use the war effort as an excuse to avoid pros­e­cu­tion.’ . . .”

Use­ful back­ground research with which to flesh out under­stand­ing of the tit­il­lat­ing infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed by Ms. New­by con­cern­ing Geigy and his activ­i­ties can be obtained by read­ing some of the many books avail­able for down­load on this web­site.

Numer­ous pro­grams present research on the top­ic, includ­ing FTR #511.

Treason’s Peace–German Dyes and Amer­i­can Dupes by Howard Wat­son Ambruster; Beechurst Press; [HC] 1947; pp. 337–338.

. . . . Anoth­er indict­ment accus­ing Gen­er­al Ani­line and Gen­er­al Dyestuff of con­spir­a­cy in the dye indus­try was filed in the New Jer­sey Dis­trict Court on May 14, 1942; but in this instance Far­ben (local address still unknown) was named only as a co-con­spir­a­tor. Those indict­ed includ­ed duPont; Allied Chem­i­cal and Dye; and Amer­i­can Cyanamid; also Far­ben affil­i­ates the Amer­i­can Ciba, San­doz and Geigy. Some twen­ty offi­cers of the cor­po­rate defen­dants, includ­ing Ernest K. Hal­bach and two of his Far­ben pals were also indict­ed in this case.

The alleged con­spir­a­cy includ­ed world-wide restric­tions in the man­u­fac­ture, dis­tri­b­u­tion, import and export of dyestuffs stem­ming out of the inter­na­tion­al car­tel set-up in 1928 in which co-con­spir­a­tor Far­ben was the dom­i­nant influ­ence. A long list of oth­er co-con­spir­a­tors includ­ed the Swiss Ciba, San­doz and Geigy com­pa­nies with Cincin­nati Chem­i­cal works, their joint­ly owned Amer­i­can con­cern; Impe­r­i­al Chem­i­cal Indus­tries and its Cana­di­an sub­sidiary; the French Kuhlmann; Japan’s Mit­sui; and duPont‑I.C.I. branch­es in Brazil and the Argen­tine. In this case antitrust spread its largest net and land­ed speck­led fish of many vari­eties and many nations. All had been gath­ered in Farben’s net of the world’s dye indus­try.

When Sec­re­tary of War Stim­son and Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bid­dle agreed to post­pone the tri­al until it would not inter­fere with war pro­duc­tion, one Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cial was quot­ed as say­ing sourly, “First they hurt the war effort by their restric­tive prac­tices, and then if caught they use the war effort as an excuse to avoid pros­e­cu­tion.” A tug of war went on under cov­er over whether to com­pro­mise, dis­miss or for­get this case. Final­ly com­pro­mise won. In April 1946, after Tom Clark had become Attor­ney Gen­er­al, the indict­ments were com­plete­ly dis­missed as to eleven of the defen­dants, includ­ing Gen­er­al Dyestuff’s cel­e­brat­ed Hal­bach, and were par­tial­ly dis­missed as to four of the cor­po­ra­tions and eight of the oth­er indi­vid­u­als named. At the same time pleas of nolo con­tendere (which is equiv­a­lent to guilty) were entered and the Jus­tice Depart­ment noti­fied the court that under these cir­cum­stances it would not be in the pub­lic inter­est to stage a tri­al. No decree was entered by the court, so the con­tracts were not offi­cial­ly abro­gat­ed. . . .

2. A Ter­ri­ble Mis­take: The Mur­der of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Exper­i­ments by H.P. Albarel­li; Trine Day [HC]; Copy­right 2009 by H.P. Albarel­li, Jr.; (ISBN-13) 978–0‑9777953–7‑6. ISBN (10) 0–9777953‑7–3; pp. 359–360.

. . . . In the same inter­view [Gor­don] Was­son said that Albert Hof­mann “worked in some way with the CIA” and that Hoffman’s “dis­cov­er­ies were impart­ed in whole by San­doz to the U.S. gov­ern­ment. San­doz want­ed to be on the right side of things.” Hofmann’s con­nec­tion to the CIA has nev­er been offi­cial­ly con­firmed by the CIA, which main­tains a pol­i­cy of not com­ment­ing on or reveal­ing infor­ma­tion on for­eign cit­i­zens who find their way into its employ­ment. For­mer agency offi­cials have com­ment­ed anony­mous­ly that sev­er­al San­doz sci­en­tists and offi­cials, includ­ing Hof­mann, main­tained a close rela­tion­ship with the CIA, but the “Agency nev­er ful­ly trust­ed the Swiss” and “always held a dual insur­ance pol­i­cy with San­doz” by vet­ting and plac­ing covert employ­ees with­in the firm’s lab­o­ra­to­ries and admin­is­tra­tion. . . .

3. A Ter­ri­ble Mis­take: The Mur­der of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Exper­i­ments by H.P. Albarel­li; Trine Day [HC]; Copy­right 2009 by H.P. Albarel­li, Jr.; (ISBN-13) 978–0‑9777953–7‑6. ISBN (10) 0–9777953‑7–3; pp. 370–373.

. . . . Soon after read­ing about the Dachau mesca­line exper­i­ments, Greene’s atten­tion turned to the pow­er­ful drug about which he had been alert­ed months ear­li­er through top-secret Army reports from Europe. Right away, Greene lat­er said he “was struck by the phys­i­cal prox­im­i­ty of the lab­o­ra­to­ry doing the most to refine ergot and the camp where most of the mesca­line exper­i­men­ta­tion was per­formed.”. . . 

4. A Ter­ri­ble Mis­take: The Mur­der of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Exper­i­ments by H.P. Albarel­li; Trine Day [HC]; Copy­right 2009 by H.P. Albarel­li, Jr.; (ISBN-13) 978–0‑9777953–7‑6. ISBN (10) 0–9777953‑7–3; pp. 350–352.

This excerpt presents an account of the Pont St.-Esprit out­break.

 5. A Ter­ri­ble Mis­take: The Mur­der of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Exper­i­ments by H.P. Albarel­li; Trine Day [HC]; Copy­right 2009 by H.P. Albarel­li, Jr.; (ISBN-13) 978–0‑9777953–7‑6. ISBN (10) 0–9777953‑7–3; p. 357.

. . . . Nor could Dr. John­son, or oth­er med­ical author­i­ties, have known that at the time of the Pont-St. Esprit out­break, a group of camp Det­rick sci­en­tists just hap­pened to be vis­it­ing France. The evi­dence is in Frank Olson’s pass­port. As well as the pass­ports of oth­er SOD sci­en­tists. Nor was John­son aware that San­doz and CIA offi­cials were engaged in dis­cr­fete, ongo­ing dis­cus­sions about the “secret of St. Esprit.”. . . .

 6.  A Ter­ri­ble Mis­take: The Mur­der of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Exper­i­ments by H.P. Albarel­li; Trine Day [HC]; Copy­right 2009 by H.P. Albarel­li, Jr.; (ISBN-13) 978–0‑9777953–7‑6. ISBN (10) 0–9777953‑7–3; pp. 355.

. . . . Much over­looked in Fuller’s book is a brief sec­tion not­ing the pres­ence of San­doz Com­pa­ny researcher Dr. Albert Hoff­man in Pont-St. Esprit dur­ing the sum­mer of 1951. Hof­mann him­self has briefly, and par­en­thet­i­cal­ly, men­tioned the French out­break in his own book . . . . but for some rea­son he does not men­tion that he was in the town of Pont-St. Esprit in the days imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the out­break. Hofmann’s account is not only par­en­thet­i­cal, but of ques­tion­able accu­ra­cy: “The mass poi­son­ing in the south­ern France city of Pont-St. Esprit in the year 1951, which many have attrib­uted to ergot-con­tain­ing bread, actu­al­ly had noth­ing to do with ergo­tism. It rather involved poi­son­ing by an organ­ic mer­cury com­pound that was uti­lized for dis­in­fect­ing seeds]” Else­where, Hoff­man again pecu­liar­ly down­plays or evades the truth about the eti­ol­o­gy of Pont St. Esprit’s days of mad­ness. . . .

7. A Ter­ri­ble Mis­take: The Mur­der of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Exper­i­ments by H.P. Albarel­li; Trine Day [HC]; Copy­right 2009 by H.P. Albarel­li, Jr.; (ISBN-13) 978–0‑9777953–7‑6. ISBN (10) 0–9777953‑7–3; p. 356.

. . . . The doc­tors at the meet­ing agreed that mer­cury poi­son­ing was not evi­dent in any man­ner, spe­cial­ly because of the per­sis­tent lack of kid­ney or liv­er dam­age. . . .

8.  In his mas­ter­ful book, Albarel­li sets forth how CIA employ­ee Frank Olson was thrown out of a win­dow at the Statler Hotel in New York City, after speak­ing of his dis­tress at, and dis­taste for, “Oper­a­tion Span”–the 1951 dos­ing of the town of Pont St. Esprit in France.

We present an account of his mur­der.

A Ter­ri­ble Mis­take: The Mur­der of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Exper­i­ments by H.P. Albarel­li; Trine Day [HC]; Copy­right 2009 by H.P. Albarel­li, Jr.; (ISBN-13) 978–0‑9777953–7‑6. ISBN (10) 0–9777953‑7–3; pp. 17–19.

“ . . . . Lat­er, the door­man would tall Armond Pas­tore, the hotel’s night man­ag­er, ‘It was like the guy was div­ing, his hands out in front of him, but then his body twist­ed and he was com­ing down feet first, his arms grab­bing at the air above him.”  The falling man struck a tem­po­rary wood­en par­ti­tion that shield­ed work under­way on the hotel’s façade, the impact pro­duc­ing a sick­en­ing thud. He bounced off the ply­wood wall, land­ing hard on the side­walk. . . .

The man was lying on his back, one arm out­stretched, fin­gers extend­ed as if he was reach­ing for some­thing. His legs were close togeth­er, twist­ed to the side. He was wear­ing only a white, sleeve­less under­shirt and white under­shorts.

‘I knelt beside him,’ Pas­tore says, ‘think­ing about what best to do. He looked up at me and tried to speak, but only blood came from his mouth I told him, it’s okay, bud­dy, we’ve called for help.’

The man’s pale green eyes searched Pastore’s face. ‘There was blood run­ning from his eyes, nose, and ears,’ Pas­tore recalls. ‘I saw a large sec­tion of shat­tered bone stick­ing out of his left arm, and there were a few pieces of bro­ken glass around his body.’

‘Just hold on. You’ll be okay,’ Pas­tore reas­sured the man, imme­di­ate­ly feel­ing a twinge of guilt. ‘I knew he wasn’t going to make it.’ Pas­tore felt the cold of the con­crete side­walk in his knees. He told the door­man, now stand­ing sev­er­al feet away, to go and get a blan­ket for the man. Pas­tore won­dered what was tak­ing the ambu­lance so long, and the jumper attempt­ed to speak again. The effort caused grotesque red bub­bles to form around his mouth. Pas­tore remem­bers, ‘I took my hand­ker­chief and care­ful­ly wiped the froth away from his face. Then I asked him, ‘Can you tell me your name?’ but he didn’t answer.’

. . . . The door­man returned and hand­ed Pas­tore a fold­ed wool blan­ket. ‘When I began to cov­er his legs and tor­so,’ Pas­tore says, ‘I noticed a large splin­ter of tan wood pro­trud­ing from his chest.’. . . .

Pas­tore says the man looked at him implor­ing­ly, again try­ing to speak. ‘His right hand clutched my arm and he raised his head slight­ly, his lips mov­ing. His eyes were wide with des­per­a­tion. He want­ed to tell me some­thing, I leaned down clos­er to lis­ten, but he took a deep breath and died.’

. . . . ‘Every time I focused on a win­dow [try­ing to deter­mine from which room he had come], I thought of the guy’s eyes, the look on his face. I’d seen that look before, in Italy and France dur­ing the war, on the faces of guys that knew life was over for them. It’s a look you don’t for­get.’. . . .”