WEBVTT - The Pad 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:07.840 If you dig through the boxes at Stanford University, you 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:12.639 can find George White's autobiography. It's called A Diet of Danger, 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.880 and it's exactly as pulpy as it sounds. I am 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.959 George Hunter White, and my parents must have been clairvoyant. 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.480 I've been a hunter of men all my life. I've 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.600 had to do it because it was a vitally important job. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.440 I've had to do it because I've loved doing it. 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.960 Evan wild, gruel, intense and fantastic moment of it. That's 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:42.360 not dedication, that's addiction. All the highlights are in the book, 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:47.360 tales of Turkish drug busts, Chinese opium gang initiations, encounters 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.360 with spies and killers. But the problem with the George 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:54.120 White version is he left out some important details. The 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.120 memories George White preferred to keep a secret, like this one. 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:07.640 It's ninety two and George White is boarding the subway. 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.200 The subway system in New York City is built to 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.039 be safe, and it is safe, but that's just the 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:19.400 train itself. Passenger behavior is different. You can get mugged, harassed, threatened, 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.679 or you can board a car with nothing amiss, no 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.199 sign of trouble, anywhere, and then you can step off 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:31.639 into a nightmare. There's no record of where George White 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.039 got on, but at some point in the ride, White 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.680 reaches into while maybe his pocket, maybe a briefcase. He 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.760 tried to erase the details. But here's what we do 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:47.319 know what he feels. The time is right, White sprays 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.920 an aerosol container into the air, an invisible mist. There's 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.600 not much of it, just enough to affect a handful 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:59.200 of people. The people in the car began to feel strange, 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:06.760 I think, uncomfortable, some panic. Odds are children were on board? 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:13.919 Hallucinations are inevitable. Did the walls start to bend? Did 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:18.560 the air change? Did people start to hear things? Maybe 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:24.600 they're crying or giggling or vominate. No one will have 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:31.200 any idea what happened or why. White takes notes, He 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:40.160 records the panic, then he vanishes. Later he'll write a 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:44.080 summary of the LSD experiment in his diary quote the 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:51.840 subway test was a success. Pleased with the results, George 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:56.320 White will do it again and again and again. He 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:01.480 will become a dispensary of hallucinations, a chemical, says resolute 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:03.720 in his search for a drug that could bend the 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.320 will of the men and women he hunted. It started 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:12.120 as a government assignment. It would become an obsession. That's 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:43.400 not dedication, that's addiction. For I Heart Radio, this is 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:48.160 Operation Midnight Climax and I Heart original podcast. I'm your 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.320 host Noel Brown. And this is chapter three the Pad, 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:06.240 Part one in the Lab. Back in nineteen forty three, 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.120 Albert Hoffman, the man who discovered LSD, was working as 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.200 a chemist for sand Dos, a pharmaceutical company in Basil, Switzerland. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.240 He was born in nineteen o six, the son of 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.440 a locksmith, and considering what Hoffman wound up doing providing 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:26.440 a key to access hidden states of consciousness that feels appropriate, 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.359 Hoffman attended the University of Zurich to study chemistry and 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.960 later went to work for sand Does. He quickly became 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:38.039 interested in ergate, a fungus that was blamed for mass 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.760 outbreaks of poisonings as far back as the Middle Ages, 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.040 but when used judiciously and with care, it also held 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:48.599 considerable promise as a treatment for migraines. Attempts were being 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.320 made to take what was useful from ergat and leave 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:57.040 the harmful side effects behind, using ergotoxine, a synthetic derivative. 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:03.559 Hoffman produced lysergic acid diethyla or LSD in nineteen thirty eight. 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:08.120 Then he got sidetracked with other work. But Hoffman never 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:12.120 forgot LSD. He wanted to explore it more, to see 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:17.240 if it could be useful for something. On April sixteenth, 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.360 nineteen forty three, he was working with the compound when 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:25.440 he began to feel odd, restless, dizzy. He left work 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:30.040 early and went home, whereas imagination, he said, was extremely stimulated. 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.240 For over two hours, Hoffman gave himself to a cascade 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:39.800 of vivid pictures, shapes, and colors. It was a censorial experience, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.239 one that left him with a smile on his face. 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.080 Here's what Hoffman wrote to his supervisor, Arthur Stall as 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.520 a kind of workplace accident report, shortly after his experience 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:57.440 last Friday, April sixte I was forced to interrupt my 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.680 work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:05.520 and proceed home. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:12.719 I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:18.200 with intense kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours, 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:26.640 this condition faded away. Retracing his steps, Hoffman discovered a 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.400 tiny amount of LSD had been absorbed through his fingers 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.320 in the lab while he was working. It had hallucinogenic properties. 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.200 Being a man of science, Hoffman felt the need to 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.360 pursue this discovery, but the first dose had been accidental. 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.520 He didn't know how much he had taken, so he 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:46.960 decided to start out light, really light. He only ingested 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:53.400 zero point to five milligrams. Hoffman thought he was being careful, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:07:01.760 but this was far, far too much. Oh no no. 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.839 In his notes, he quickly scribbled what had happened people, 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:13.720 my teenthe taken diluted with about ten c seas of water, 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:24.520 caseless saboteen o clock beginning, dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:39.080 symptoms of paraly system, desired to mouse twenty o'clock, most severe. Chris. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.680 If his first trip was a pleasure, Hoffman's second experience 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:48.080 with LSD tugged at the limit of his sanity. Familiar 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:53.880 objects in pieces of furniture assumed grotesque throughout the big forms. 0:07:54.800 --> 0:08:00.240 Your lady next door scarcely rains brought me milk and 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:05.480 of course drank more than two leaders. She was no 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:18.280 longer be shidious, witch colored mask. Hoffman felt possessed by 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.920 a demon, He wrote and began to scream, Terrified he 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.640 was going insane, livid he might actually die as a 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.760 consequence of the very substance he had brought into the world. 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:34.320 Worst of all, Hoffman recalled was the acoustic perceptions. Every 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:43.640 noise was realized visually. He could see sounds. Despite his trip, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.920 Hoffman knew LSD held potential, provided it could be dosed properly. 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.840 Sandals engaged in a series of animal experiments, observing mice 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.720 on acid and cats who suddenly became terrified of them. 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.719 Chimpanzees abandoned their sense of social order, fish swam in 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:05.880 irregular patterns, spiders spun immaculately proportioned webs at low doses, 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:12.400 and sagging confused webs at higher doses. Drugs that could 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.560 produce this kind of sensation were nothing new. People have 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.760 been searching for the divine truth for thousands of years, 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.559 back to the Aztecs and Mayan's hemp and peyote were 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.920 thought to harbor secrets of the mind. Mescalin was the 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.839 first to be synthesized in a chemically pure environment. What 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.680 Hoffman and his colleagues at Sandoz discovered was that at 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.080 a low enough dose, as little as one millionth of 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.000 a gram, LSD could produce a different kind of euphoria, 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.960 a breakdown of the ego that acted as a barrier 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.840 between the self and the road to improvement. Hoffman had 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.880 grand ideas for LSD in treating addiction and as an 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.520 aid in psychotherapy. Scientists began to study it with those 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.800 hopes in mind, but there was always the risk, the 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.360 risk of euphoria giving way to psych catic attacks or 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.840 feelings of omnipotence. Like any drug, it would need to 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.040 be carefully studied and subjects would have to be observed 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:13.480 in controlled conditions. In the wrong hands, at the wrong dose, 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:21.360 LSD would become a nightmare without beginning or end. Hoffman 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.120 soon lost his grip on LSD, and so did the 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:28.400 scientific research community. By the late nineteen forties, it became taboo, 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.680 too dangerous to pursue was a legitimate medical treatment. Hoffman 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.400 took to calling it his problem child. Well, Hoffman was 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.880 never involved with him. K Ultra Sandoz was. In nineteen 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.400 fifty three, got Leave heard that the KGB was attempting 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.200 to buy what amounted to the world's supply of pure LSD, 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.320 obviously for nefarious purposes. It was possible that KGB had 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:58.800 already bought fifty million doses. In a panic, got Leave 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.240 dispatched one of his under links to intervene. The man 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.160 reported back that Sandoz had ten kilograms available for sale. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:11.679 Remember LSD is activated in the tiniest doses imaginable. Gottlie 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.760 bought all of it before the Soviet Union could. He 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.240 spent two hundred and forty thousand dollars on the Sandos supply, 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:21.520 and then realized his operative, as good as he might 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:26.920 be an international espionage was extremely bad at math. Sandoz 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:31.960 didn't have ten kilograms. They had ten milligrams. The operative 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.960 was off by a factor of one million. That's all 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:39.240 they had made in the ten years since Hoffman discovered it. Still, 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.240 Gotti bought it all. It arrived in a barrel about 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.560 the size and shape of an oil drum, with hundreds 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:49.960 of thousands of doses in that barrel, a virtually unlimited 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.720 supply of nightmares that could be artificially induced. Sandoz agreed 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.160 to supply the CIA with a hundred grams a week, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:02.239 fresh off their LSD production line, and it got Leave's insistence. 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.199 They also refused any further orders from Russia or China 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.120 and agreed to inform the CIA when anyone else inquired 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.520 about the drug. For better or worse, the CIA had 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.959 a monopoly on l s D. From Hoffman's fingers, it 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.080 went to Sandas, from Sandos to Gotlieb, and from Gotlieb 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:27.320 to George Hunter White. No one stopped to heed Hoffman's warnings. 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.480 The biggest danger, Hoffman said, was giving l s D 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:35.240 to someone without their knowledge in an uncontrolled setting at random, 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.720 where harmless noises can turn, Hoffman said, into torment and 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:59.320 a psychotic crisis would be inevitable. Part two Alias For 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.599 George Why to immerse himself in the CIA role, He 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:06.160 would have to stop being George White, and that wouldn't 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.920 be easy. For all of his training at Camp X 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.360 and the Narcotics Bureau, White still looked very much like 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.439 a cop. He had the cops stare, the cops walk, 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.280 the swagger that comes with having a gun on your 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.040 hip and a badge on your belt. It's a hard 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:27.040 thing to shake, but he did it. Like a superhero. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.800 He developed a guy's for his CIA heroics a secret 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:37.040 identity at the time, White was fond of meeting his 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.959 assortment of criminals and killers at the American Museum of 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:44.760 Natural History to obtain information, debrief informants, or threaten them 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.560 with his power and influence. It was a good place 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:52.040 to disappear in a crowd. Inside the museum was a 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.319 section devoted to gems, named after famous financier JP Morgan, 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.160 a trustee of the museum and a frequent donor. In 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.640 honor of his contributions, the museum dubbed the Gem section 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.480 the JP Morgan Hall of Gems, or just Morgan Hall. 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.520 White like the sound of that, so he took it 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.720 on as Azaleas Morgan Hall. Morgan Hall was a sensitive 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.200 soul in the fiction of White's mind. He worked as 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.480 a merchant seaman clad in a peacoat, which helped explain 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.320 his calloused and weather warning steer here. But Morgan Hall 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.600 was also an aspiring artist, a painter and sculptor. He 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.840 was a supporter of the Beat generation, poets like Alan 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:38.240 ginsburg In, writers like Jack Kerouac, artists who were resisting 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.720 conservative views and taking control of the post war culture. 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.160 Later they'd be dubbed Beat Nicks after the Russian Sputnik 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.200 satellite that would go up in nineteen fifty seven. J 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:54.120 Edgar Hoover, that famously tolerant FBI director, said in nineteen 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.160 sixty that communists, eggheads, and beat Nicks were among the 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.280 country's great enemies. They were stereotyped as drug users who 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.760 wanted to reframe the status quo of America. They were 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:10.320 another danger to baked in moral values to the CIA 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:16.320 that made them expendable minds. If Beatenis were viable drug 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:20.320 experimentation candidates, Morgan Hall was in the right place. A 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:24.320 Fox and a Henhouse White lived at fifty nine West 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.840 twelfth Street in Greenwich Village. The Hotel Albert in the 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.600 village had been a haven for Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.760 and Jackson Pollock. Bob Dylan lived in Greenwich Village. It 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.760 had an atmosphere. It was alive, thriving like minds crowding 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.000 together in bars, in bohemian coffee houses and street corners. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.600 The smell of marijuana hung in the air. There was 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.840 sexual liberation. It was a perfect place for the kinds 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.040 of activities Morgan Hall like to get into, and for 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.280 the kinds of people Sidney Gottlieb wanted to dose with LSD. 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.840 Imagine a doctor or lawyer racing into a police station 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.280 insisting he'd been drugged. Now imagine a young man stumbling 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.120 in from the village, already presumed to be high. Most 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.400 of the time, New York would be White's home base 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:16.200 until early ninet. For now, at least, it was perfect. 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:19.560 With money he had gotten from Gotlieb in the CIA, 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.200 White rented a second apartment in Greenwich Village at one 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:27.920 Bedford Street. After all, drugging people in his own apartment 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:33.320 would be poor form. In writing Gotlieb. White bemoaned how 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.040 difficult it was to arrange for a lease and utilities 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.600 under an alias, how people wanted references and paperwork with 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.920 his name on them. Morgan Hall, he said, was becoming 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.880 a bit of a Jekyl and Hide situation. And while 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.400 he was right about that, White equipped the apartment, which 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.760 he liked to refer to as the Pad, with a 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.720 well stocked bar and plenty of paintings and sculptures to 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.240 reinforce his cover story of being a struggling artist. He 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.480 had murals painted on the walls, and there were other 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:07.040 kinds of decorations too, hidden microphones and two A mirrors 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.879 connected to an adjoining apartment he'd also rented out. This was, 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.359 in the language of law enforcement, a safe house, a 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:18.400 place for the CIA to conduct clandestine business under surveillance. 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:24.400 Here's how one observer described the place. Apartment one Sea 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.120 is disguised as an artist studio, consists of a bedroom, 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.200 large living room, kitchen, net, and bath. The kitchen has 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:36.679 been fully stocked with the best of foods, silver utensils, etcetera. 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.119 The bedroom has been decorated in a style attractive to 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.560 the feminine sex. The linen, closet and bathroom have been 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.920 completely equipped with all essentials for use of both male 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.760 and female occupants. The living room contains a well stocked bar, 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.439 over which has been placed a television set. A radio 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.720 phonograph combination has been purchased and will be placed to 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:00.440 conceal a portion of a doorway which is been cut 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.760 between apartments one Sea and one bat and at the 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.760 top of which opening will be placed an X ray mirror. 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.280 The report added that visitors to eighty one Bedford could 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:18.760 be compromised. White's comrade in this Cold War operation was 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.119 a narcotics agent named Pierre Lafitte, whom he had often 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:25.600 worked with on narcotics busts. Lafitte would play a much 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.480 bigger role in White's life, but for now he was 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:33.480 a sidekick. To celebrate their new assignment, White and Lafitte 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.840 took a trip to Las Vegas and tried out their 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:41.200 new weapon. They tripped. White had no hesitation, learning about 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.080 what he was dealing with firsthand. He would take LSD 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.520 dozens of times in his life, approaching it with an 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:51.399 academics attitude. He claimed a kind of immunity from its effects, 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.840 insisting that unlike virtually everyone else, he had developed a 0:18:54.920 --> 0:19:00.440 tolerance Lafitte had not. He called the Vegas ex speariment 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:05.760 another world of visions and horrors. When the apartment had 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:09.320 been equipped and White and Lafitte returned from their Vegas experiment, 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.440 White gut dressed as Morgan Hall, sporting a turtleneck in beret. 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:20.080 Then he went hunting. White began stalking in coffee houses 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.439 and jazz clubs. He liked hanging out at Chumley's, a 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:27.000 one time speakeasy just one block from the pad. He 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.080 sat patiently at tables and bars, nodding in time with 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.000 the sounds, striking up conversations with strangers. This was his 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.320 favorite part. He had already earned the trust of mobsters. 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.760 The thrill for White wasn't duping people he already knew, 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.120 or leveraging the power he had over them to get 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.600 what he wanted. The thrill was in winning the confidence 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.679 of a stranger. From there, White would spin tales of 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:55.000 his artistic endeavors, his thoughts on politics, his experience as 0:19:55.040 --> 0:20:00.480 at sea. It was a seduction. The climax was and sex. 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.720 It was someone who'd been a stranger hours before being 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.720 won over by Morgan Hall. It's easy to imagine the 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.080 words of the FBI ringing in White's ears, how he 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.040 was unfit for duty. Look at him now working for 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:20.240 the CIA on the new frontier of psychological warfare. Kiss 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:25.080 Mask j Edgar White was well read and often more 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.040 culturally informed than his demeanor led on. He spoke fluent, 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.520 beat nick, totally at ease, with a tone of the 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.359 counterculture movement. The people talking to White were on the 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:38.480 fringes of society, seamen who might be involved in the 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.040 drug trafficking trade at ports, artists who spoke with joints 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.520 dangling from their lips, as he talked and smiled, they 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.679 couldn't detect the animosity that simmered beneath his surface. The 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.720 Beat generation had a reputation for drug use, opioids, weed. 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.240 These people would have been terrified of George White, but 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:03.920 they liked Morgan Hall. Well, Jackson Pollock is wonderful. But 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.600 if you're into abstract expression uts, Yeah. Man, there's all 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.960 kinds of crazy shit out there. I've got some stuff, 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.480 some books. You should see back of the pad. It's 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.760 just a block away. I'm gay. If you are, I'm 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:23.000 always gay. Hall and his friend would walk back to 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.000 eighty one. Bedford White would not at the two way 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.480 mirror mounted over the phonograph. Beyond it in the apartment 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:33.159 was Lafitte or another colleague cradling a notebook, prepared to 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:42.680 observe whatever happened next. You want to drink, sure, some gin, 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.200 some ice, one ampule of LSD, and then there would 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:51.520 be time to sit back and watch the show. Where 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.520 do you buy your weed? What's your dad's name? Have 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:58.440 you ever been on the moon? What's your social Security number? 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:03.080 Try here? Where did you buy it from? You know what? 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:08.280 You Lucian? What about my Omansky? Are you a communist, 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:15.399 describe the color blue to me on your wife, your 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:35.600 girl friend, where it does utiful flowers, beautiful waterfuls. You 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:52.600 see him is born another drinks. Like a school report, 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.119 White would write down the dosage of LSD and the 0:22:55.160 --> 0:23:01.160 subject's reaction. Were they talkative, scared, catatonic? Did they answer questions? 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:06.080 Did they abandon discretion? Did they lose their ship? He'd 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:08.760 take copious notes and send them all back to Gottlieb 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:13.080 at a post office in Washington. This was the climax, 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:17.480 wasn't it the moment that justified what George White was doing. 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.480 In a letter written years before, he described his thought 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.200 process when he finished a report. It may come as 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:27.719 a surprise to you, but as far back as the 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:31.000 O S S. I firmly believe that all information collected 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.160 in the field was sent post haste to Washington, filed 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:39.280 in funereal gray steel cabinets by purified acolytes. Then, so 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.119 the rumor went on Sunday, the high priests were gathered 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.880 a kneel and pray before these repositories of sacred writings. 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:49.359 The missionaries in the field were happy in their faith. 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:52.520 The fruit of their labors was being used to propitiate 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:57.960 the angry gods. White was a sarcastic son of a bitch. 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.840 By writing down the details and clinical way absolved him 0:24:01.840 --> 0:24:06.320 of responsibility. It was for the greater good. The bureaucratic 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:11.680 forms proved it. For the first time. The CIA was 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:16.640 getting real, unadulterated field coverage of LSD, collected and curated 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:20.880 by Morgan Hall. Everything was going exactly according to plan, 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:26.200 well almost everything. It wasn't long before other people started 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:31.000 showing up the path, people like newspaper reporters, narcotics officers, 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:36.119 and an informant, not one of George White's informants, but 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:58.719 someone informing on George White Part three the informant. White 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:01.520 always wanted to be an fb EI agent, and even 0:25:01.520 --> 0:25:04.440 though the agency declared him unfit for duty, it doesn't 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:07.600 mean they forgot about him. When White accused New York 0:25:07.600 --> 0:25:10.920 Governor Thomas Dewey of making a secret deal with mobster 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:14.920 Lucky Luciano, he caught the attention of the governor. Do 0:25:15.040 --> 0:25:17.800 He wanted to know more about the man sullying his name, 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:21.800 so he asked the FBI to send along some information. 0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:26.639 They were all the typical biographical mentions along with something 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:30.520 a little more interesting. The FBI had made contact with 0:25:30.520 --> 0:25:33.800 the liaison in New York, someone who not only knew 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:37.080 George White, but knew George White was up to something 0:25:37.119 --> 0:25:39.920 at eighty one Bedford Street on behalf of the CIA. 0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:43.560 In fact, it was a Narcotics Bureau agent, the same 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:46.879 one who wrote the description of the pad. In addition 0:25:46.920 --> 0:25:50.400 to notifying Governor Dewey, the report went directly to FBI 0:25:50.480 --> 0:25:53.520 Director Jay Edker Hoover, who knew all about George White, 0:25:53.960 --> 0:25:58.199 specifically White's love of publicity for his drug busts. He 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:01.440 wanted to know exactly what White was up to intelligence 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:05.760 agencies love spying on other intelligence agencies. Here's part of 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:09.879 that report. A confidential informant of this office advised on 0:26:10.000 --> 0:26:13.959 July one that his former supervisor in the Bureau of Narcotics, 0:26:14.000 --> 0:26:18.119 George White, has become associated with CIA in an ultra 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:22.280 secret assignment. White and the CIA have rented dual apartments 0:26:22.359 --> 0:26:25.240 at eighty one Bedford Street. In one of these apartments 0:26:25.280 --> 0:26:28.359 has been set up a bar in quarters for entertainment, 0:26:28.720 --> 0:26:31.800 while the other apartment is being used by CIA for 0:26:31.880 --> 0:26:35.159 the purpose of taking motion pictures through an X ray mirror. 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:39.280 White indicated to the informant that no one in the 0:26:39.280 --> 0:26:42.080 Bureau of Narcotics or the CIA was aware of his 0:26:42.119 --> 0:26:46.639 apartment or his association therewith except Commissioner Harry Anslinger of 0:26:46.680 --> 0:26:50.960 the Narcotics Bureau and top officials of the CIA. The 0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:53.919 FBI and Hoover knew White was up to something, but 0:26:53.960 --> 0:26:57.600 they didn't know what. So agents pressed the informant for 0:26:57.680 --> 0:27:01.280 more information. They were die to know what White, the 0:27:01.440 --> 0:27:04.680 Maverick dope buster, was doing in league with the CIA. 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:09.840 One agent even dismissed the informants report, saying it hardly 0:27:09.880 --> 0:27:12.800 seemed plausible that White and the CIA were working together. 0:27:13.320 --> 0:27:17.120 It didn't smell right. It wasn't White a maniac? What 0:27:17.240 --> 0:27:21.160 function could he serve? More intelligence needed to be gathered 0:27:21.560 --> 0:27:28.560 most discreetly. The informant continued to hang around the pad, White, 0:27:28.600 --> 0:27:32.240 seemingly oblivious to his curiosity. He picked up bits of 0:27:32.280 --> 0:27:36.199 information here and there. The recording equipment seemed odd, so 0:27:36.320 --> 0:27:40.320 did the rumors there was drug experimentation going on. Finally, 0:27:40.400 --> 0:27:43.040 the informant managed to get his hands on two vials 0:27:43.040 --> 0:27:46.080 of liquid that were stored in the pad. One was 0:27:46.119 --> 0:27:48.880 in a screw top container, one was in the same 0:27:48.960 --> 0:27:52.840 kind of ampule used to house the LSD dosents. He 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:55.960 immediately forward both to the FBI, who turned them over 0:27:55.960 --> 0:27:59.879 to their laboratory analysts. Here was proof White and the 0:28:00.080 --> 0:28:05.600 CIA were up to something elicit, maybe illegal. When the 0:28:05.680 --> 0:28:12.080 FBI got the lab report back, they found table salt. 0:28:14.240 --> 0:28:17.399 The most talented chemists at the FBI were unable to 0:28:17.440 --> 0:28:20.239 identify the compound, saying only that it appeared to be 0:28:20.280 --> 0:28:23.240 some kind of organic material in a dilute solution of 0:28:23.320 --> 0:28:29.000 sodium chloride or salt. The other vial had chloral hydrate. 0:28:29.720 --> 0:28:32.840 At the time, it was a rather common sedative that 0:28:32.920 --> 0:28:36.080 was the solution in the screw top fial. Neither one 0:28:36.200 --> 0:28:38.360 was the smoking gun the FBI had been hoping for. 0:28:39.440 --> 0:28:43.600 The FBI had once again underestimated George White. An FBI 0:28:43.680 --> 0:28:48.160 memo advised the informant to tread carefully. White it red 0:28:48.280 --> 0:28:51.400 had been told the FBI was sniffing around, and the 0:28:51.480 --> 0:28:55.000 c I a likely Sydney Gottlieb told White to be 0:28:55.080 --> 0:28:59.320 on the lookout. Leaving an ampulate deluted table salt for 0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:02.600 the FBI chemists to examine was one way he could 0:29:02.640 --> 0:29:05.479 give them the middle finger, the same one he'd been 0:29:05.480 --> 0:29:10.480 giving them for years. White may have been clever enough 0:29:10.480 --> 0:29:12.959 to out with the FBI, but he was still showing 0:29:13.000 --> 0:29:16.800 signs of recklessness. Why was White discussing the fact that 0:29:16.800 --> 0:29:20.160 he was working with the CIA with anyone? Why, as 0:29:20.200 --> 0:29:23.680 the informant related, did White invite a newspaper reporter named 0:29:23.800 --> 0:29:28.240 Ed Reid to the pad. That's not a very covert idea. 0:29:28.920 --> 0:29:32.280 More importantly, what was White doing with the chloral hydrate 0:29:32.520 --> 0:29:35.480 the sedative? Wasn't he supposed to be focusing on the 0:29:35.480 --> 0:29:40.160 effects of LSD. White scribbled in his diary fleeting mentions 0:29:40.160 --> 0:29:44.280