Speaker 1: In the nineteen fifties, you couldn't get away with a
Speaker 1: whole lot on radio or television. Lucy and Ricky were
Speaker 1: still sleeping in separate beds. No one was broadcasting anything
Speaker 1: related to sex, sitcom kids or immaculate conceptions. But if
Speaker 1: you were living in the Telegraph Hill section of San
Speaker 1: Francisco in n things were slightly different. Flip around the
Speaker 1: radio dial and you might hear something unusual, something the
Speaker 1: FCC would never ever approve of. A radio antenna at
Speaker 1: Chestnut Street streamed sounds from inside one of the bedrooms.
Speaker 1: Depending on who was listening to the frequency, the radio
Speaker 1: dial might be snapped off abruptly, embarrassed parents struggling to
Speaker 1: explain those sounds to their kids, but others would stay
Speaker 1: tuned in, eager to hear what came next. The people
Speaker 1: of Telegraph Hill had no idea a CIA operation was
Speaker 1: happening inside the apartment and that it's chief investigator, a
Speaker 1: man named George White, decided to broadcast the sounds of
Speaker 1: sex workers and John's going at it. They didn't know
Speaker 1: he was on a mission from the CIA to find
Speaker 1: out whether sex and drugs could win the Cold War.
Speaker 1: That White had explicit permission to give LSD and virtually
Speaker 1: any other drug to anyone, anywhere, for any reason or
Speaker 1: no reason at all. They couldn't know that as they
Speaker 1: were listening, he was secretly watching from behind a two
Speaker 1: way mirror, sipping a martini. George White had arrived. He
Speaker 1: was in charge of the CIA's newest experiment, one that
Speaker 1: would explore the effect of sex and drugs on subject acts.
Speaker 1: The fate of the nation depended on it. Officially, it
Speaker 1: was known as m k Ultra Subproject forty two, but
Speaker 1: White had another name for it. He called it Operation
Speaker 1: Midnight Climax. For I Heart Radio, I'm Noel Brown, and
Speaker 1: this is Operation Midnight Climax, Chapter one Mayhem and Murder M.
Speaker 1: If you're even remotely familiar with the seedier chapters in
Speaker 1: American history, you've probably heard of mk Ultra. This was
Speaker 1: the top secret CIA program that sanctioned the use of
Speaker 1: psychoactive drugs on American citizens. The agency used shady psychiatrists, prisons,
Speaker 1: and mental institutions to execute these studies. The goal was
Speaker 1: to see how spies and other operatives could use these
Speaker 1: drugs to our national advantage in the field. Whether it
Speaker 1: was MK ULTRA or another government agency. Some of these
Speaker 1: experiments felt like something a four year old would think up.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just drugs either. Some agents injected plutonium into soldiers.
Speaker 1: At a school in Massachusetts, kids in the science club
Speaker 1: were fed irradiated oatmeal to see how well they absorbed
Speaker 1: iron and calcium. And in nineteen sixty two, a psychiatrist
Speaker 1: drugged an elephant with LSD. The poor thing keeled over debt,
Speaker 1: and we learned elephants can't handle a bad trip. For
Speaker 1: a good portion of the twentieth century, US government officials
Speaker 1: were out of their collective mind, and one of the
Speaker 1: most irresponsible things they ever did, even worse than giving
Speaker 1: an elephant l s D, was recruiting George Hunter White,
Speaker 1: And that was all thanks to a man named Sydney Gottlieb.
Speaker 1: Part one not FBI material. Back in ninety two, Sydney
Speaker 1: Gottlieb was working as the chief chemist for the CIA.
Speaker 1: On paper, he was a straight laced patriot, but godly
Speaker 1: had a few secrets too, And when George White's FBI
Speaker 1: file landed on his desk, Sidney Gottlieb saw something. White
Speaker 1: had already applied to be a federal agent a few times.
Speaker 1: The first time was an May nineteen thirty four. This
Speaker 1: is what the official report read. The interview reflected. The
Speaker 1: White parents and one sister resided in al Hamburg, California,
Speaker 1: where his father was city manager. White studied sociology at
Speaker 1: Oregon State College from nineteen twenty four to six, dropping
Speaker 1: from the university to take a position with the Red
Speaker 1: Cross in Los Angeles. Nothing too unusual so far, California
Speaker 1: kid drops out of college to soak up some sun
Speaker 1: and ride waves. He went bodysurfing a lot. White became
Speaker 1: a first aid director for the Red Cross before resigning
Speaker 1: to become a police reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin.
Speaker 1: What the report doesn't mention is that White like newspaper
Speaker 1: work because it brought him close to the action, you know,
Speaker 1: the action, Chasing leads, shadowing subjects, digging for clues, putting
Speaker 1: yourself in harm's way. The truth is he'd liked danger,
Speaker 1: but at a certain point reporting wasn't close enough. As
Speaker 1: White once said, newspapering is all right, but it makes
Speaker 1: a bystander out of you. I want to get out
Speaker 1: on the field where the game is going on. That
Speaker 1: was the other thing for White. It wasn't just the action.
Speaker 1: It was about the game, the battle of wits and
Speaker 1: sometimes fists. That's what White wanted. That's why he was
Speaker 1: applying to the FBI. But the file made it clear
Speaker 1: he wasn't a fit. According to Gottlieb's report, his personality, approach,
Speaker 1: and appearance were not up to the bureau standards. Agents
Speaker 1: who got to know White would later say he was
Speaker 1: lone wolf, someone who didn't want to be a member
Speaker 1: of any team. He was prone to slapping people he
Speaker 1: didn't like with a black jack. A black jack, by
Speaker 1: the way, is a leather satchel with lead in it.
Speaker 1: He carried it to smack people. That was White. He
Speaker 1: got dressed every morning knowing he might have to pummel
Speaker 1: someone and play and accordingly, but the file didn't name there.
Speaker 1: Even though White wasn't FBI material, the report made it
Speaker 1: clear that George White had been wartime material. In fact,
Speaker 1: George White had undergone top secret training by British intelligence
Speaker 1: to be a secret agent. He'd attended real life spy school.
Speaker 1: It's where White learned to be dangerous, Part two, the
Speaker 1: James Bond Finishing School before the CIA was formed in
Speaker 1: ninety seven. It had a precursor, the Office of Strategic
Speaker 1: Services or OSS. The OSS needed men who could be
Speaker 1: molded into operatives that used subterfuge and deception. They needed
Speaker 1: men like George White. By this time, White was passed
Speaker 1: the newspaper reporting he took up a job as a
Speaker 1: private investigator. When the FBI rejected him, he joined the
Speaker 1: newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics to be a dope buster.
Speaker 1: His work meant chasing down dealers of everything from marijuana
Speaker 1: to cocaine, but it also meant tailing people working under
Speaker 1: cover and getting into violent altercations. It was spy stuff.
Speaker 1: The OSS realized, with a little fine tuning, White could
Speaker 1: be a major asset. And that's where Camp X came
Speaker 1: into play, or, as White used to call it, the
Speaker 1: School of Mayhem and Murder rumor has it Ian Fleming.
Speaker 1: The James Bond author was trained at Camp X, and
Speaker 1: the special training school has a storied, if secretive history.
Speaker 1: Opened in nineteen forty one, one day before the Pearl
Speaker 1: Harbor attacks, Camp X cater to British and American recruits.
Speaker 1: Students spent their days learning the art of guerrilla warfare
Speaker 1: and in Cove operations over four weeks, located on two
Speaker 1: seventy acres of farmland on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario.
Speaker 1: Recruits got a crash course and everything from parachuting to
Speaker 1: burglary to learning how to kill someone quickly and silently.
Speaker 1: Years later, when the CIA would establish their own training
Speaker 1: facility known as the Farm, the nickname would be a
Speaker 1: nod to the farm land at Camp X. But by
Speaker 1: all accounts, Camp X instituted a new style of warfare.
Speaker 1: Here's a sample from the official training manual. Being conspicuous
Speaker 1: avoid all limelight by being an average citizen in appearance
Speaker 1: and conduct. Be tidy. You will be a cog in
Speaker 1: a very large machine, But that blending in always served
Speaker 1: a larger purpose. Your aim is to kill your opponent
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. A prisoner is generally a handicap,
Speaker 1: so forget the Queensberry rules. If you need to search
Speaker 1: a prisoner, it's best to kill him first. White had
Speaker 1: found his home. He was one of the first eight
Speaker 1: Americans ever sent to Camp X for training. There was
Speaker 1: no better action, no bigger game than intelligence operations. This
Speaker 1: was a place to sharpen his sword. Students learned to
Speaker 1: blow up bridges to operate Thompson's submachine guns to parachute
Speaker 1: off ninety foot towers. There were martial arts classes that
Speaker 1: showcased moves to incapacitate and kill. Instructors recommended hiding razor
Speaker 1: blades and the brim of caps and slashing enemies in
Speaker 1: the throat. At night, men would be roused from a
Speaker 1: sound sleep a pistol thrust in their hand. Dazed, they
Speaker 1: try to navigate a maze and locate targets dressed like
Speaker 1: Nazi soldiers. This wasn't a game. The pistols had live rounds.
Speaker 1: Instructors watched from the hind sandbacks. Targets would pop up,
Speaker 1: who were expected to put two rounds into each one.
Speaker 1: Speakers piped in the sound of footsteps and conversations in German.
Speaker 1: The corridors had uneven floors that made standing straight difficult.
Speaker 1: It was a little like being on drugs. During one
Speaker 1: live round session, a trainee was shot and killed by accident.
Speaker 1: The instructors treated it as though someone had stubbed the toe.
Speaker 1: The day's schedule went on uninterrupted. As one CIA psychologist
Speaker 1: later observed, camp Ax was best suited for sociopathic characters.
Speaker 1: George White thrived at Camp AX, and if he didn't
Speaker 1: seem to have any hesitation about killing, maybe it's because
Speaker 1: he'd done it before Part three, getting into drugs. Let's
Speaker 1: go back and get into George White's life before spy School.
Speaker 1: Long before he arrived at Camp X, White had sent
Speaker 1: applications to every major law enforcement agency in the country,
Speaker 1: but the FBI and other prestigious agencies didn't want White.
Speaker 1: He was too rough, too abrasive, not the Ivy League
Speaker 1: types these agencies were looking for. Normally, that would have
Speaker 1: been the end of it, but in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: a new opportunity opened up. As the illicit drug trade
Speaker 1: began to grow, the government established the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
Speaker 1: The Narcotics Bureau has been called the most successful law
Speaker 1: enforcement initiative in American history, but a big part of
Speaker 1: that is because they were able to invent their villain Weed.
Speaker 1: As the Great Depression loomed, federal agencies started to lose funding.
Speaker 1: The head of the Narcotics Bureau, Harry and Slinger, came
Speaker 1: up with a scheme to ensure his department would coast
Speaker 1: through the depression. He made a villain of marijuana. Anslinger
Speaker 1: was one of the people who lobbied to make possession
Speaker 1: of felony. He claimed it could cause psychosis or insanity.
Speaker 1: In his crusade, Anslinger consulted thirty experts looking for some
Speaker 1: kind of medical backing. When twenty nine of them could
Speaker 1: find no reason marijuana should be considered dangerous, an sling
Speaker 1: are stuck with the one who agreed with him, And
Speaker 1: of course, there was a sinister racial component to this strategy,
Speaker 1: which tied marijuana to Mexican immigrants in the black community.
Speaker 1: By ninety seven, Congress essentially criminalized the drug with the
Speaker 1: Marijuana Tacks Act. So, after a raft of rejections, George
Speaker 1: White applied to the Narcotics Bureau. He got a letter
Speaker 1: of endorsement from Senator William Gibbs McAdoo, a friend of
Speaker 1: the family, and in nineteen thirty six George White only
Speaker 1: got his chance to wear a badge. He was now
Speaker 1: George White, Agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before he fucked it up. An slinger
Speaker 1: dispatched White to San Francisco, where he was told to
Speaker 1: pose as a pimp in an effort to find heroin dealers.
Speaker 1: The plan was simple, earn a dealer's trust, buy some heroin,
Speaker 1: then make an arrest. But White was learning on the job,
Speaker 1: so when a heroin dealer agreed to sell some heroin
Speaker 1: to White, took White's money and then told White to
Speaker 1: wait right there while he went and got his stash.
Speaker 1: White trusted him. Let's cut this story short, because you know,
Speaker 1: the heroin dealer isn't coming back. White was out his money,
Speaker 1: which came out of his own paycheck, so he tried again.
Speaker 1: This time, he told a different dealer, a man named
Speaker 1: Tuffie Jackson, that he'd follow him back to his house
Speaker 1: to make sure he didn't take off with the cash,
Speaker 1: and off they went. White walked into Toffy's house and
Speaker 1: forked over the cash. I got you wait here, I'll
Speaker 1: be right there. Toffy Jackson didn't come back at all.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long before White tracked down Toughy so as
Speaker 1: politely as he could, White inquired as to the status
Speaker 1: of their business transaction, Where's my fucking money? Things escalated quickly.
Speaker 1: White identified himself as a cop and drew his gun,
Speaker 1: but tough He wasn't going to be stopped. He pulled
Speaker 1: a knife and charged White, so he shot Tough. He
Speaker 1: took a point blank in the head, and well, look,
Speaker 1: it's just a bad idea to get into confrontations with
Speaker 1: people named Toffee. The bullet bounced off tough He's skull
Speaker 1: and he kept coming. So he shot again, this time
Speaker 1: aiming for Toffy's stomach. The bullet would hit its mark
Speaker 1: and tough He would bleed out. So it wasn't a
Speaker 1: great first day for White. He lost money to one
Speaker 1: drug dealer, killed another. Oh and one more thing. When
Speaker 1: White had asked the homeowner where he could find tough He,
Speaker 1: he had told him to check the local park. So
Speaker 1: this gunfight. It took place in full view of people
Speaker 1: feeding pigeons and pushing babies and strollers. White didn't get fired,
Speaker 1: but he did get demoted to Seattle. He was years
Speaker 1: away from Camp Ax, and from the look of things,
Speaker 1: he'd never get there with a track record like this.
Speaker 1: But Seattle is where George White turned it all around
Speaker 1: Part four Weaponized. When people in Seattle saw George White
Speaker 1: roughing up a man on crutches, they probably thought he
Speaker 1: was insane, but White knew something they didn't. Inside the
Speaker 1: man's crutch was a hollowed out space. Once you pulled
Speaker 1: off the rubber tip, you'd find a stash of morphine.
Speaker 1: Arresting the dealer would have been a nice rebound, but
Speaker 1: White wanted more. At just twenty eight years old and
Speaker 1: with less than a year on duty, he wanted to
Speaker 1: build a career case. So White scared the dealer and
Speaker 1: turned him into an informant. In less than an hour,
Speaker 1: White was standing face to face with his supplier in
Speaker 1: a hotel room, a man named Lum Get. Get didn't
Speaker 1: want to go to jail. He offered White what he
Speaker 1: called the big men, the real heavyweights. This was much
Speaker 1: bigger than a few guys selling drugs. Get worked for
Speaker 1: the Hip Sing Tong, a massive Chinese gang that had
Speaker 1: a presence not only in Seattle, but across the country.
Speaker 1: White was still a rookie agent, but no agent had
Speaker 1: ever infiltrated a Chinese opium gang before. He had a
Speaker 1: good plan. He claimed to be a purchasing agent for
Speaker 1: a West Coast narcotic syndicate in need of a new supplier.
Speaker 1: The agency gave him the green light. Before long, White
Speaker 1: had managed to land an intro to Jimmy Wong a
Speaker 1: Tongue member who shipped drugs via mail order. White went
Speaker 1: to New York to meet Wong in person. The bureau
Speaker 1: set him up in a room that was wired for sound,
Speaker 1: the same kind of setup that would soon play a
Speaker 1: big role in his life. With agents recording, White got
Speaker 1: Wong to admit he could sell him everything from morphine
Speaker 1: to opium to cocaine. It was far more than White
Speaker 1: even had the approval or funds to buy. Get. Also
Speaker 1: introduced White to a gunman for the syndicate who was
Speaker 1: offering drugs even cheaper than long. They got along well,
Speaker 1: and pretty soon the gunman made White an offer that
Speaker 1: knocked him for a loop, a chance to become a
Speaker 1: full fledged member of the Hip Sing Tong. For close
Speaker 1: to a year, White collected incriminating information on the gang
Speaker 1: from the inside. On November nineteenth nine, seven agents rated
Speaker 1: locations all across the country. Over fifty arrests were made,
Speaker 1: including several members of the Italian mafia. It was one
Speaker 1: of the most spectacular takedowns of a drug syndicate in
Speaker 1: the history of law enforcement, and it belonged primarily to
Speaker 1: George White. He was a hero in the Elliott Ness mode,
Speaker 1: posing for pictures with an opium pipe in one hand
Speaker 1: and a Tommy gun in the other. The FBI hadn't
Speaker 1: wanted him, but look at George White. Now, he'd mauled
Speaker 1: a guy on crutches and chase that lead all the
Speaker 1: way to a fiery altar of drug empire. For most cops,
Speaker 1: most people, this would have been it the big score.
Speaker 1: White got a promotion to New York, which he had
Speaker 1: fallen in love with. He had won the game. Except
Speaker 1: this wasn't it. This wasn't White's climax, not even close.
Speaker 1: There was still Camp X and a chance to put
Speaker 1: those spy skills to the test. White's FBI file gets
Speaker 1: into other chapters of his life, like his time abroad.
Speaker 1: It's a few years later and White's been recruited by
Speaker 1: the OSS and is finishing up his training at Camp X,
Speaker 1: all of it based on his work as a decorated
Speaker 1: narcotics agent who somehow managed to become a card carrying
Speaker 1: member of a Chinese criminal enterprise. After his training, he
Speaker 1: goes to Cairo, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, observing the
Speaker 1: narcotics trade in territory and reporting back to the Narcotics Bureau.
Speaker 1: No narcotics officer had ever crossed oceans to do his job.
Speaker 1: White was weaponized now. The OSS hadn't sent him to
Speaker 1: espionage school for fun. This was war. The fate of
Speaker 1: the free world was on the line. In Turkey, he
Speaker 1: convinced a gang of heroin dealers to sell to him.
Speaker 1: They agree, but only if you'll allow himself to be
Speaker 1: escorted to an undisclosed location. White memorizes the number of
Speaker 1: their gas meter and calls the utility company to get
Speaker 1: the address, which he gave to his partners. The guy
Speaker 1: was good. In nineteen forty three, White is dispatched to Calcutta, India,
Speaker 1: where Allied forces relied heavily on getting shipments of supplies
Speaker 1: at the port. But the port had been repeatedly attacked
Speaker 1: by air bombardments, which pointed to a spy somewhere nearby.
Speaker 1: With all the skills he'd accumulated in the Narcotics Bureau
Speaker 1: and at Camp X, White is told to find the
Speaker 1: man and resolve the problem. White disguises himself as a longshoreman.
Speaker 1: He stays inconspicuous an average citizen. White starts to focus
Speaker 1: on the owner of a bootmaking shop to preserve his cover.
Speaker 1: He has an Army sergeant confront the bootmaker with accusations
Speaker 1: he was a spy for the Axis. The conversation doesn't
Speaker 1: go well. The bootmaker pulls a knife and lunges for
Speaker 1: the sergeant. White pops out and fires twice, hitting the
Speaker 1: spy in the chest. The British weren't pleased with their
Speaker 1: trigger happy American counterparts, but you couldn't say White wasn't effective.
Speaker 1: A couple of gunshots and the air raids stopped? Or
Speaker 1: has he put it? I interfered renally with their argument.
Speaker 1: When the war was over, White returned to the United
Speaker 1: States and resumed his work at the Narcotics Bureau, this
Speaker 1: time in Chicago. He'd moved around for the Bureau a lot,
Speaker 1: bouncing from one major city to the next, always garnering
Speaker 1: attention for high profile cases and busts. In nine he
Speaker 1: arrested singer Billie Holiday and her manager for opium possession.
Speaker 1: He burst into her hotel room and said she tried
Speaker 1: to get rid of the drugs in the toilet. Holiday
Speaker 1: denied she was using drugs or that she had any
Speaker 1: on her person at the time of her arrest. She
Speaker 1: was eventually found not guilty. Perhaps White had planted the
Speaker 1: drugs as part of Harry Anslinger's bizarre crusade against Billie
Speaker 1: Holiday and Jazz. Still, it was more attention and more notoriety.
Speaker 1: The U. S. Treasury, which oversaw the Narcotics Bureau, gave
Speaker 1: White their metal for Exceptional Civilian Service. This was George
Speaker 1: White's life, a celebrated narcotics agent with some very unusual skills. Still,
Speaker 1: White felt destined for more, but the FBI wasn't interested.
Speaker 1: The war was over. The only answer was more busts,
Speaker 1: just like the ones before them. Except except for that
Speaker 1: one day in nineteen fifty two, the day Sydney Gottlieb
Speaker 1: opened up George White's file and started reading everything about him.
Speaker 1: The Red Cross, the Hip Sing Tong, Camp X Calcutta,
Speaker 1: Billie Holiday, everything he'd done in the last decade. Without
Speaker 1: knowing it, George White had built a resume that made
Speaker 1: him perfect for a job he didn't even know existed,
Speaker 1: in a war he didn't know what was happening. Gottlieb,
Speaker 1: you'll remember, was the CIA's head chemist, the man in
Speaker 1: charge of mk ultra. The Cold War was a time
Speaker 1: to explore everything from radioactive oatmeal to l s D.
Speaker 1: He was impressed by White's file, but he was fascinated
Speaker 1: by one thing in particular. Buried in those pages was
Speaker 1: a classified document involving White that detailed a secret chapter
Speaker 1: in his life, something that had happened in between Campax
Speaker 1: and returning home from the war. It was something so
Speaker 1: amazing that Gottli had called up White's boss at the
Speaker 1: Narcotics Bureau that very minute and told him the CIA
Speaker 1: needed George White. America needed George White, a sociopath who
Speaker 1: wouldn't hesitate to interfere terminally with a problem. If it
Speaker 1: came down to it, this secret document would change the
Speaker 1: course of history. It would destroy a lot of lives,
Speaker 1: and it would give George White everything he ever wanted.
Speaker 1: The only problem. At that very moment, George White was
Speaker 1: in jail this season in Operation Midnight Climax. Secretary couldn't
Speaker 1: wake her colleague, so she picked up the gun, took aim,
Speaker 1: and fired. America believes its enemies have mastered brainwashing. The
Speaker 1: CIA is desperate to catch up. They've enlisted the help
Speaker 1: of George White. This is the story of the experiment
Speaker 1: Escaping the Lab. The LSD was an aerosolized form so
Speaker 1: it could be sprayed over a population. One man going
Speaker 1: deep cover, drugging strangers, bugging the CIA brothel, and keeping
Speaker 1: meticulous notes on the best ways to so chaos. Sex
Speaker 1: workers were on the CIA payroll. Can sex and drugs
Speaker 1: win the Cold War? The Sea is willing to do
Speaker 1: anything to find out, and along the way, many people
Speaker 1: will lose their jobs, others will lose their minds, some
Speaker 1: their lives. And the man in the middle of it all,
Speaker 1: George White. It was George White. Find George White. Operation
Speaker 1: Midnight Climax is hosted by Noel Brown. The show is
Speaker 1: written by Jake Ross and editing by Ernie indraw Tat.
Speaker 1: Original music by Aaron Kaufman. Research and fact checking by
Speaker 1: Austin Thompson and Maurica Brown. Show logo by Lucy Quintinilla.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to David Crumholtz, Vanessa crum Holtz, Ted Raymi,
Speaker 1: Adam Copeland, Christina Everett, and Ryan Murdoch. Julian Weller is
Speaker 1: our supervising producer. Our executive producers are Jason English and
Speaker 1: mangesh Had Ticketer