The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 443 - George Hunter White

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine George Hunter WhiteSourcesTour DatesRedbubble Merch

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. You're listening to the dollop. This is a bilingual American history podcast for

each week. I, Dave Anthony, read a story from American history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds, que no tiene idea de que va a tratar el tema. Si. That was it. That was our... That's now that that should silence that should silence the critics forever because a lot of times people complain that you say it's bilingual and there's no... there's only one language. Now we've covered our stuff. It is. We have a Spanish language version of this podcast. It is bilingual. No, no. Here's the problem with our version of bilingual is that you speak Spanish and I speak English. So it's

not that we do a podcast that is bilingual where we're communicating it's just that neither one of us has any idea what the other one is saying. There's a lot to unpack here and I know we're at the intro so I don't want to get too deep into this but I definitely think that what I did covers us legally and I think L dollop is great and people should go listen to it for sure but and you by the way you have no idea how many weeks I've had that ready to go and you haven't done bilingual. What is it? Is it just your spiel in in Spanish or did you add some flair? No, it's my spiel. It's nothing nothing exciting added for the

Spanish speaking listeners. Wow, okay. All right, noted. I'll step it up. I'll step it up asshole. I also didn't realize permission to treat the coast is hostile permission granted. I also don't think that's how it works. It's exactly how it works. What? What were you gonna say? I forgot. Oh my god. And called it quote is jam-packed. Jam-packed? I'm the fucking hippo guy. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tiggly Clive. Okay. This is like an adult five-part coefficient. My room's a play. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. Actually, my friend. Oh, right. You okay bud? You know. Wanna go

9-9? Yeah, kind of. Do you want to go 9-9? June 22, 1908. Year of our Lord Jesus Christ. George Hunter White was born in Los Angeles, California. Okay. His father was the city manager of Alhambra, which is okay. White a gig. Yeah. George loved body surfing. He's a big water guy. He's into water stuff, sports, not just sure. Yeah. I didn't think he had gills or anything. Yeah. But you never know. You got to specify. After graduating from Oregon State College in 1928, George worked for the Red Cross as a first aid instructor and a lifeguard. And this is when they were probably teaching the Heimlich maneuver instead of backpats.

Maybe. I don't even know. I don't even know if they were teaching that then. I think this time you probably just punched a guy in the stomach. It's an amazing time. You suck his dick. Is that a thing? I don't know. I'm not registered. Let's give it a shot. Yeah, it's the spirit. But the lifeguard, that wasn't enough for him. He wanted more. He lives in San Francisco. He gets a job as a crime reporter for a local paper. Saving lives in a different way. Yeah, sure. Yeah, through the power of media. Yes. So after a little bit, he went back to LA where he wrote for a couple more papers. But George, he didn't want to report on the action. He wanted to

be a part of the action. Well, there's two ways this can go. Well, one night there was a large fire. And when a firefighter leaned the four-story ladder onto the building, George pushed by and climbed up the ladder. Okie dokie. So, right. Okay. So, bold. I'm sure fire, yeah. I don't know how you handle that. You're like, what the hell? Wait, hey! It's very, it's not something as a firefighter you're expecting or trained for. Yeah. But the idea that he gets up the lat that you'd be like, sorry, sir, wait a minute, you're in pajamas. Yeah, it's so he get he gets up to the top of the ladder, four-story ladder, and then he looks down and he's

terrified he freezes in fear. Okay, this is why see this is does he realize now this is why they go through training? I think so. So that's the angle. Now firemen have to come up to rescue him before they can get it in there to use help other people and stop the fire. Dave, my house burned down when I was a teenager and I'll tell you one thing. You can take your time. That's it's not the sort of thing you need to get on right away. So you have a little time to run a relay like that. Yeah, you got a window. Yeah, exactly. That someone's leaning out of. Now there's no there's no there was no further reporting on this of like how the

fire crews responded or how upset they were. But I assume they weren't happy. I would assume that. But he's still didn't dissuade him from wanting to be a part of the action. The next thing he did was he joined the border patrol. Great. Which he hated. He described it as a quote hurting harassing an alien ejecting police force run by short tempered officers. What year are we talking about again? 1934. Weird. Because I let's just time out for a second because I keep having this weird thing on this show. Where it's it's like deja vu. I call it deja vu. Yeah, sure. It's where you say something that is very reminiscent of

something that's happening now or a perspective that we we still can't shake. It's weird. So I call it deja vu and I just wanted to let you know. That's fine, Grodd. It's pronounced grod. Some friends said he should apply to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, known as the FBN, predecessor to the DEA. So Narcotics officers did undercover investigations and George was very good at it. Okay. So he's five seven. He's 200 pounds. He's bald and he's intimidating. Okay. He looked inactive like a human bulldog but he's also very amiable. One person said he could quote charm the hide off a rabid dog. Well, I mean I don't know where we're

going but can we at least say that right now he's climbing the ladder the right way? We can say that. Thank you. Is that a pushing a fire marshal out of the way? Yeah, but it's that. So he made some rookie mistakes. In one day two different drug dealers stole George's money. So he reloaded on cash. Yeah, I mean I have had that up where I try to make buy drugs and someone's like oh no I'm just gonna take your money and you're like oh okay. Well yeah I guess when you put it like that I guess I've had similar situations. The guys who ripped me off used to always have the decency to like at least put some like actual grass with some pine

needles in it so that I could be like hey guys we could still smoke it but probably not gonna feel great. So when he found out that he found out that $90 would have to come from his own paycheck. Okay. He was not happy so he went and hunted down. The $90 wait the $90 is how much he had on him? Yeah from the two dealers stole all together $90 from him. So the the the FBN is cut like so tight that they're like hey we know that you had funny money that was a prop money but you lost your prop money so that comes out of your bank account. Well definitely like I get it from the perspective of they could just be like oh I got robbed again man.

Is that the 10th time this week? Yeah I just keep getting robbed. Yeah but if you're like hey man look I'm trying to you know do my stupid job here you know. Yeah and you actually get robbed. Yeah I'd be like you don't cut that you're nickel and diming baby. I climb ladders when firemen are on it. Do you know who you're fucking with? Yeah but then you just stand there. Yeah exactly. Okay so he finds out it's going to come out of his paycheck and he then hunts down the second dealer who had robbed him who was known as Tuffy Jackson. Sure well with a name like that steer clear of Tuffy. After a little bit of a fight a little bit after

a fight George shot Jackson and killed him. Let me just say that's bad but let me just say I'm glad for once that I didn't jump on board have fun with the guy's name for you to just do the quick turnaround and tell me that he's been murdered. It's sad when you don't take the bait. Yeah stupid. The FBN threatened to fire George but then just let him offer the warning instead. Okay. FBI was very racist and Tuffy Jackson was black so that probably had something to do with it. So at first George mostly was. Yeah now totally fine. At first George mostly went after Chinese opium smugglers. Hmm okay. He got into the hipsing tong in Seattle

tongs which you probably don't remember but we covered them. Of course I do. No I remember the tong wars. Yeah. Yeah. Well what happened in it? It was like part of it was a part of town where it was a lot of opium and our law enforcement was like racist and horrible and did bad shit. Okay really good. Now let me say even if I'm wrong that's how you give a probable answer on this podcast. Okay that's fine. That's like where I'm playing odds. Okay. I can tell I'm right. Tongs are secretive meeting halls for Chinese communities and many were connected to organized crime. So George got into the tong by offering a senior member of the

hipsong tong money saying he worked for a west coast gangster named Uncle Sam who wanted to buy and sell opium. Hey that's clearly invented on the spot because nobody would approve Uncle Sam as your guy and yeah and his wife Statue of Liberty. And yet it is the most accurate description of America. Yeah it's too obvious. It's Oliver North. Tong members are very distrustful of George at first but he kept at it. He gave the members lots of money and anything else they wanted and eventually he was in. Okay. Senior Tong members gave him recommendation letters which he used to start deals with other tongs

and the hipsong tong liked him. What is he doing? He is just trying to get into get into the opium trade and bust everybody. Okay so he's gonna trade. Right right okay opium trade. I mean I know it was opium but he's trying to be like a dealer so he's getting recommendations to like validate his opium biz. Gotcha okay great. And make connections and yeah. Right. So the hipsong tong liked George so much they made him an official member. To become a member he promised never to betray the tong or he would be consumed by fire. Well I've got well well well Dave that's that's worse than we're gonna kill you. Yeah absolutely.

Geez that's worse. Not doing that. That's worse than firing squad. Yeah. Consumed by fire. Yeah it's it's pretty big. Can you imagine having the balls to be like I promise and be like oh my god these guys are not messing around. I better not get caught. Yeah after investigating the hipsong tong for two years the FBN busted them in 1937. They shut down chapters in Seattle, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Butte Montana. Oh so all the hot spots. Yeah the six big ones. Yeah the big six. And obviously Butte. Okay now we've got our biggest forces. Excuse me. I don't think there's a lot of time for questions but in the back. Yes but uh sorry it sounded like you said Butte. I did yeah we're hitting all the obviously I

should have led with Butte because we're talking about big big bustling areas. All right so Chicago Force I'm gonna want to I'm Butte. It's really quick really quick. Yeah there's like 75 people that live there. Yeah no we're we're ready we gotta keep an eye that's why we're sending you there we gotta keep all the metropolitan areas. Butte, Chicago, hands up again. Yes Sergeant Pepper what? I feel like when you call it a metropolitan area that you don't know what it is. Butte has everything that any town would like. Butte is full of people the name is Butte. It's short for beautiful but you goddamn what? I have a follow-up. What? It was the tong just like one guy that lived there. What we have are what we call tong seeds. We have pockets of possible tongs. All right look

I don't have time to explain to you why Butte is so look this if you you son of a you are off you understand that you don't even have the honor to go to Butte. You are not going to Butte. Do you understand me? You stay out of Butte. They don't need people like you there who may say that they have everything. They have a barbershop a bowling alley and the list goes on and on and the list goes on and on. Why is your hand still? There's no way they have a bowling alley. All right they don't have a bowling alley that's fine but they have a barbershop they have a barbershop and you know what else they have a bait shop. They have a bait shop and they have a hardware store. Yes none of these things describe a city. What metropolitan area they have you know I'm not

I mean I'm hot right now. I'll go I'll go to Butte. Oh let me guess you think that I'm having an affair with a woman in Butte and this whole thing is orchestrated just so that I could go there and have sex with my mistress? The absolute nerve sergeant. The nerve. Fine I'll go to Butte alone and handle it and take all the funds. I'll figure it out but by the way when you find out that you're not having any tongue disruption in Butte uh don't come kissing my ass okay because it will not be near my mistress. I am a happily married man. Okay I'm not going to ask you more questions I got really good weird good now let's let's get moving guys come on get moving where so huh get moving where to the places that were listed earlier we don't need to go through them all

again what are they what are the names of them the cities yeah we got Butte and then five tiny ones let's move boys 23 hip song members are arrested and also 10 members of the Italian mafia the Tong had connected George with Lucky Luciano's gang uh huh sure so this made George a really big star in the FBN but then when then World War II broke broke out so CIA does not exist yet but there was an early version of it in the army called the office of strategic services the OSS good it's that's always nice that we it's nice that we while we we're always worried about upcoming seasons what will we also need it's always good we always plan well and and we obviously we obviously need the CIA because they stop things like 9-11 and stuff right so obviously nobody

knows what you're talking about because that's never happened yeah thanks so one of the OSS's projects when the US entered World War II was to find a truth serum to use on prisoners during interrogations sure of course yep they read comic books like everyone else that's right so the head of the FBN recommended George to help with the field testing the OSS wanted George to help its head chemist Stan Lowell experiment with all kinds of drugs from caffeine to peyote wow now now you like this gig well let's just let's can we not be so hard on them so early please can we give them a chance imagine how crazy the caffeine experiments were oh yeah wild yeah yeah just to guide you and then peyote where you're just like you guys are water so

I need to not we're actually all water but also like when you think when I always when I think about like taking hallucinogens in that sort of clinical environment that's gotta suck like any results you get I've got to be like well you're assuming it's a clinical environment so where are they taking you at the beach everywhere yeah the chemist started uh with THC this is a great story Dave this is a story back to us they derived it from a concentrated form of weed from India that's like hashish George was Lowell's willing subject he would take different doses of THC at different venues from hospitals to his vacation cabin this guy what did he carve out for himself here what hey man uh we need you to help your country can you just get high in a bunch of

different places did you say we need you to help your country man yeah okay yeah I'll help so so they start with THC um George takes some doses that cause him to black out others gave him quote considerable euphoria well that's that's the spectrum that's it we've all been there after while George tried it out on gangsters he knew from working undercover one of George sources was a major heroin smuggler from Lucky Luciano's gang named August Del Grazio otherwise known as August Dallas okay so he he had okay so he's gonna start drugging unbeknownst to them he's gonna start giving them drugs that's right okay wow I mean that that's amazing when you first start experimenting drugging someone with weed just like so uh what are you thinking you probably know

some stuff dude we should totally hey man if you ever think about numbers like what is that uh that's crazy so like why like why are they why would four come opium after three a four well let's talk about this let's talk let's talk about this for a second okay opium where's like if you think an opium is kind of like a number where's all the where what would be the place where opium is going like that sort of stuff okay I'm I'm sorry man I'm still caught up on the numbers like and then and then instead of instead of doing like like a different number then they're like what about putting two ones together after the ten right so this is early this is early this is an early I've you I'm gonna come back when you have feel better and give you a different version of this

okay all right until then I just figure out your number stuff I'm leaving so that's happening I'm gonna watch Ren and Stimpy if you're gonna that's you're telling me that they don't have bowling alleys but you're gonna go watch Ren and Stimpy motherfucker that's right so he's trying it on the gangsters now one afternoon Augie came to George's house to have a quick meeting now he leaves his friend in the car that's a quick of a meeting and is like there's a guy fucking waiting for him so okay he comes in and George offers him a cigarette that is laced with THC concentrate here we go Augie smokes it he gets really fucking high and then he sat there for two hours and told George everything he wanted to know about his heroin smuggling operation what

what yeah what a group with a wow they made a confession strained that's crazy what Augie it's Augie admitted to killing informers and it went so well George tried it again with a stronger dose but that time it just made Augie pass out why push it you're like you have everything you fucking nailed it what's the problem he's gonna be more honest he's gonna be more honest but I love that Augie came back after that not thinking that something was off hey sure oven doesn't smoke why not after weeks the research seemed pretty promising but not perfect for example they used it on a german submarine captain twice and there was nothing to show for it during the first test one agent one agent was standing guard during the

interrogation and he accidentally smoked one of the laced cigarettes oh man oh my god so then he was like telling the person who was supposed to smoke it like we're actually gonna try to get you drugged so you'll tell us everything oh shit I think I shouldn't have smoked that cigarette these are laced oh boy I should get out of here because I'm an informant farewell well hours in the stone guard ranted about how he hated everyone in the ca even his boss while his boss was conducting the interrogation so that wasn't great what kind of weed are they dealing with the last test was on july 2nd 1943 and this time it was a lot of people at once in a room at the belmont hotel in new york seven os s agents

and six soldiers were drugged so that was just a party the yeah and yeah I'm sure like they probably I mean it would be nice to get some people who are not like in law enforcement in this drug room too you know kind of like yeah you have to balance a little bit yeah oh man I think I got to arrest myself man I'm under arrest for what possession of narcotics but sir it was given to me by you guys that I don't want to hear it asshole put your hands behind your back I know my rights motherfucker well do you then you have the right to remain silent I choose to waive it the test went so well that an officer lieutenant colonel jack landsdale got himself a box of the thc truth serum so um my wife and I have better sex with the truth serum

I mean is that crazy to say I'm gonna need to take some but also when you're on truth serum I need to take this box of truth serum back to headquarters really no I'm gonna take it home I'm stealing it nope haha I just want to I just want to take some of the truth serum and watch love boat is that a problem you know I really love like coming home after a hard day having a little bit of truth serum watching some cartoons and eating some chocolate cereal just truth and out man I just want I just want you know dude I'm so fucking honest right now dude I don't even know what's going on dude I have never been this honest before man I am like close I'm trippingly honest I am like so real right now did you get honest oh yeah yeah you don't seem what dude no I'm

totally I'm really honest right now like I like could not lie right now dude yeah I'm so I'm a cop freaking oh wait you're a cop I'm honestly man don't make me arrest myself again I'm freaking out man I got too fucking honest so the OSS also had George to get uh also had George get help from the mob with New York's waterfront so good George yeah right so George games going on George Joseph Lanza known as socks sure sure uh he he got him to tell everyone from fishermen to dock workers to watch out for gym renew boats or any suspicious activity and then like fishermen to fishermen well to watch out you never know you boats okay sure so socks reported to George everything he heard and in exchange George kept the NYPD off socks back so it all worked out keep him on his foot near the end

of the war the OSS transferred George to Calcutta India and there he hunted Japanese spies okay so for years the Japanese bombed the area and George helped the British track down scouts who were on the ground gathering intel to make the bombings more effective so he's out of the heroin drug game now and this is just a complete career shift yeah I think because of the war you know things are there's different objectives sure sure so George spent his time in Calcutta trailing British officers in public places then one day an old Chinese man with a staff was walking down the busy street singing a song to himself okay and George came along and started roughing the guy up of course makes total sense and a crowd gathered and they're completely shocked

the neighborhood knew the old guy as a nice bookkeeper who lived in the town and then George started ripping off his clothes and his wig and he revealed a much younger man who was in disguise as an old man what he was a spy and so George pulled his gun and shot him what so wait what I mean if you're in that crowd what a turnaround you're like that old man was nine and now he's dead yeah and now he's dead he lied to us and now he's dead wow gosh boy when you started that I did not think that was gonna have a twist oh Peter went off Peter there goes Jose the British were angry with George for killing an unarmed man on the crowded street but then they learned the man was a high up Japanese spy and then afterwards there was a noticeable drop off

and bombings after he killed the guy okay good lord okay yeah so you know job done yeah yeah president Truman disbanded the OSS just days after v-day and George was welcomed back into the FBN okay so it goes from the FBN to the CIA back to the so right so he's he's making a lot of connections he left the army a lieutenant colonel and would call himself colonel white through even though that was not as rank at the FBN sure whatever though George goes to Europe to fight the heroin trade there he spent time in France Turkey Italy went to Mexico helping bust drug rings in Rome he organized the local mafia and former fascists to beat the communists and socialist parties that were looking to take over the Italian government in 1948 so he's really getting mixed up in the

business yeah he comes back to this he comes back to the US and the FBA FBN promotes him to district supervisor of their San Francisco bureau okay so this is a big step up this is a big step for George has one downside less press so George while he was doing all the stuff that he had been doing always made sure the newspapers knew about his successes okay and what he'd been up to from infiltrating the hip sync tong to his work in Europe a supervisor he dealt with administrative duties and he didn't get the attention that he had getting being out in the field right he didn't you mean when he was unmasking old men as young people and killing them in the streets that's right his job as a district supervisor wasn't as hot in the presses turns out no wonder what was the

difference I don't know I haven't been able to figure it out yeah in January 1949 Billie holiday went on a four-week residency at tenors cafe society in San Francisco her career was at its peak but she also had a very bad reputation it was two years after she was busted for drug possession where she and her husband had been in New York when her husband stabbed a man in a jazz club's kitchen and Billie threw objects at people who were watching and then they were both arrested for Saul the dead they were for what yeah I couldn't figure it out I had to look it up because the story doesn't make sense yeah in January 22nd 1949 George and two agents knocked on holidays hotel room door and her husband had gotten a call just before they came and knocked on the door

and right after he got a phone call he gave Billie holiday an opium pipe and opium who's that hey take the drugs yeah I mean it's just so transparent uh so when the agents busted in Billie threw the pipe and drugs into the toilet but George was still able to fish it out of the pipe after finding finding opium resin in the pipe George arrested Billie holiday now the jazz club owner hired a high-end defense attorney who accused George of setting up holiday using her husband to help the husband at this point now had fled to the east coast before the trial and holiday testified that her husband stole her money and abused her and this was much easier to believe because right before he left he punched her and gave her a black eye

Jesus so the jury ends up acquitting Billie holiday and George told reporters quote I was one of the best narcotic agents in the business this was one of the few cases I lost I told Ilrich that he was a conniving Scheister lawyer of the first order and he laughed he thought it was a compliment so so he now he and he's his motivation for doing something like that is because it's going to be a big case I think so yeah headlines yeah okay crazy in 1952 the OSS which has now become the CIA asked George to come back they wanted someone who had experience with drugs because they were experimenting with LSD and they needed someone like George to help field test it mm-hmm now this is when you can call me hit this like I'm like I'm a guy who can do this job yeah but again though

it's CIA it's CIA drugs that's different yeah CIA calling you in for drug tests you're like does this end with me like in a robot suit like killing people in a battleground okay now I'm in again now I'm into now after I hear that that sounds pretty good now Abby Hoffman invented LSD while I was working for Sando's laboratories and yeah we covered this Dave yeah he first dust himself in 1943 and then the fun began so the CIA hears about LSD in 1950 and higher ups started getting concerned of how little it took to create such insane effects on someone's mental state mm-hmm so they were like how do we turn it into a weapon that's right so they were thinking if micrograms could give people whose nations what would buckets of it do in a town's water supply

or what if you gave it to a politician before a major speech those kind of things what a great speech that would be it would be the best speech that's what I mean truly if there's ever a time to put the LSD in the water of Congress in the Senate in DC where they could actually be like you know I just realized that I think the herd of people is bad for the cosmic fabric of society and that we're all kind of like a galactic stew that's just stirred together we're not independence we're all one and and I almost wonder if the stuff we're doing is karmically negative and that it'll come back to affect us but even if it does it this could all just be a simulation I'm sorry what the fuck just happened we need I'm sorry yeah yeah I need money I don't know what

the hell just happened to me a bunch of money that was close yeah so the next year the CIA heard that the Russians had bought 50 million doses of LSD from Sandos and this worried the CIA who are concerned that the Russians are up to you know mind control stuff right then Sandos puts out word that they had 10 kilograms for sale which is about 50 million doses so to keep it from the Russian and to get their own thing going the CIA and Pentagon together bought the LSD for 240 thousand dollars wow so there was a point in the history of the world where the CIA and Pentagon together bought up all of the available LSD on the market it's the worst the worst the worst people to have it yeah the grateful dead made a competitive offer but it wasn't heard so they would stop buying

from Sandos when Eli Lilly figured Eli Lilly figured a way to make LSD so the CIA officially sanctioned the MK Ultra program in 1953 to turn unsuspecting people into guinea pigs for its research into mind altering drugs right yes the CIA hoped that MK Ultra could create a Manchurian candidate or a programmable assassin and also control enemies like Fidel Castro so they had giant hopes that you know right they could turn people like Fidel Castro into what they wanted or just create assassins or yeah yeah and their hearts in the right place that's what that's right that's right yeah so there's a lot more to it the MK Ultra there's a lot more to it than drugs they also had sub-projects they used radiological implants hypnosis subliminal persuasion electro

electroshock therapy and isolation techniques so MK Ultra was basically a continuation of work that had started in Japanese and Nazi concentration camps roughly based on the experiments that they had done and the CIA hired those Japanese and Nazi vivisectionists and the torturers who had worked in Japan and Nazi concentration camps to come and explain what they had found out so the US could continue to build on their research Dave they're taking our jobs yeah this is definitely a job come on you got it you get it you get it yeah while all that's going on but George is doing his thing and George is basically just the drugs that's all he's doing the testing started in-house with CIA agents giving it to each other and taking notes what a weird okay so it's like tag

yeah I mean it's just so weird they start dosing each other secretly trying to catch people off guard and see how they reacted what kind of little trip prank order they have going on at the CIA I also love it like is this a time at the CIA office where you could uh it just dose a guy's coffee in the morning and then that guy's just gone for the rest of the day and you're like oh yeah I'm running an experiment on Jim he's just in a field like petting a sunflower like exactly exactly that's exactly right and that's what I can't communicate to them that's just so fucking weird yeah so sometimes this created issues like one time an agent escaped his minders and disappeared in Washington DC so they had to go searching for him and they found him

an hour and a half later but the agent said he he had found himself in a hellscape where every passing car was a terrible monster staring at him with evil eyes that's that's just yeah yeah yeah I was gonna say that's the city that's not the drug that's the city need a treat so so the CIA then funded lsd research at universities all universities all over the country this is how people like timothy leary got it as we heard in your episode they either were tapped or signed up to experiment with it leary credited the CIA was starting the lsd movement in the 60s so the CIA's head what well that I would just say that that's probably like later when everyone was like you fucking did this he's like I think the CIA was pretty responsible so see his head of its

chemical division Sydney Gottlieb I'm the CEO of trips he supervised lsd research and George was one of the first people Gottlieb wanted to bring on the project he had read George's truth serum reports for the OSS and he liked how George did everything for the experiment including trying the drugs himself I like that I like that too so this is gonna work great you like to trip I like to trip let's do some CIA great but in reality George was actually an alcoholic who just like getting high and tripping hey no shame in that game either Dave come on we all gotta go somehow so now George's experiments on Augie gave Gottlieb an idea his first task was to try lsd which he did a few times George he's on himself or people he interrogated and then he started

dosing his friends without their knowledge okay and great good friend what we call an Irish fear right right so one of his first lsd related journal entries noted that he tried lsd with quote Gil and Pat Joe and I and they showed delayed reactions turned into a circus that night did they know they were getting dosed no idea he just dosed his friends good lord lsd journals are like oh I have a lot of details no it's like if you're trying to take like that's what that's what I was in the Albert Hoffman that's what he did he like he was like 515 feeling tingly 517 want to go outside and that was the end it was like okay that'll do he was gone he like burned the journal they don't need words Gil and Pat Fox were a couple that George and his wife teen had a sexual

relationship they were all swingers sorry George and his wife teen I think her actual name is Augustine anyway teen is short okay well it's time to know it's hard to get like that discrepancy like I'm married to teen that's disgusting so they're swingers with Gil and Pat they all fuck each other sure so George does them without their knowledge and Gil called the next day trying to find out what happened but still everyone just moved on from the incident and they stayed friends and can you imagine did they know did he say what happened I don't think he did no can you imagine like tripping your balls off and being like really nothing all right what's up Tuesday want a barbecue still it's really crazy like I was drugged a few weeks later George does

three of teens friends without telling them one freaked out after she came home and couldn't sleep another woman 19 year old ended up in a psych ward five years later now oh my god could be connected could not be because most people when they have mental illness issues a lot of the times it comes on in your mid 20s so that might not have been so after George was familiar with the drug Gottlieb had him set up a testing site which was just a brothel uh-huh that's better than we're doing with corona though that's true yeah Gottlieb believed criminals were needed as test subjects because he thought they'd never go to the cops so exploiting the customers of sex workers made sense Jesus Christ I mean just like yeah I mean that's like that's a quite a

roller coaster of entrapment you that was illegal what you did over there god damn it what's the what am I gonna do now we're gonna make you trip your balls off on acid oh okay okay that was illegal fucking what are you gonna do to me make you party so George set up the first test site in a Greenwich Village apartment in New York City so he rigged the room with microphones and cameras and then he puts in a two-way mirror and he hires a French drug smuggler named Pierre Lafitte to be his assistant it's french for his defeat that's right what I mean really he was just a pimp Lafitte had been working with the feds for years as a way to stay in the states of this family he'd gotten busted for drugs but gave the feds lots of information about suppliers

so the feds offered him a job sure so the LSD operation uh when is planned for a year Lafitte would find sex workers who would lure Johns to the apartment where they were given LSD and tried to get them talking wow wow it was called Operation Midnight Climax oh good lord at least call it nocturnal emissions midnight climax George recorded everything but nothing was helpful they they try to entice local politicians and government employees but they'd also be happy if they just got a junkie to give LSD to so weird and it's not just George Columbia University was doing experiments Midnight Sunday Hospital and there's no rules one researcher kept seven junkies who had been

lured by the promise of heroin they kept them on LSD for 77 straight days oh my god oh my god that is like it's like George Clinton numbers I mean that's fucking insane that's crazy especially I mean it is that is total torture because yeah it's I mean that is you are completely without your mind for that long that's just that's awful and I don't know if you ever come back from it yeah no for sure yeah I mean no they say when I I mean they the thing I mean I'm sure this is not at all technically true but they when I they said the seven times you take like LSD like seven times and that's like when your brain chemistry is different forever or something like that so

you are you are changed I mean that wouldn't surprise me yeah and you of course you change I mean the way you view shit changes yeah no one ever followed up with the those guys after the 77 days were over they just did it for 77 days and then released them into the wild like all right have fun guys but they were right they were right that these they were right these people were so yeah legally fearful that they were just like okay yeah I mean they're they're junkies so they you know they disappear by nature and also if you like that is like you're putting people through heroin withdrawal or something while you're putting them on acid yeah it's not great like what a combo horrible so they also experimented on Dr. Frank Olson also was a specialist in

airborne diseases who worked for the army special operations division the SOD which is a lot like the CIA Olson researched whether biological agents could be deployed through ventilation systems and they developed a lot of harmful chemicals that the military could use awesome so the CIA and the SOD worked together and they even held retreats together Gottlieb hosted a retreat in November 1953 at Deep Creek Lodge in Maryland and on the second night can you he served a mixed drink wait what and the second night he served mixed drinks laced with LSD yeah I was just gonna say how can you do like truss falls when everyone doses everyone how can you have like a team building weekend where you're like uh I don't I mean yeah they're gonna they're just gonna

Jonestown you I mean it's absolutely insane uh Jimmy you want to say something that's true about Gladys she's got like an elephant eye good good okay good all right well this hold on this is going hold on the ground just split open and underneath I saw a fire area with creatures mm-hmm okay all right well that thank that now it's time to pass the shell to someone else who's going to share because you've overshared so we're going to pass the shell maybe to the left hold on just one last thing yeah well you've taken up we said we wouldn't we said we do one thing I swear to god I swear to god I swear to god that's sure sure sure sure sure sure that's called a tree yeah the shell to the left would be great like why also how can you how can you how can you name nature

fair fair fair fair fair point fair point absolutely that well to summarize great stuff pass it to the left why that would be why conch okay well the conches we'll get another conch once uh we'll get eyes on that other conch yeah no no it's in the river basin so we'll just uh get someone out there in a minute let's remember guys if you have the conch let's not hold on to it too long let's pass it let's definitely pass it okay I think he's right about trees though you're the same guy so I don't need you to piggyback on what you said that I'm never the same guy every moment I'm a different guy all right we're good we are good so we're good we are so are you okay there'll be no more there'll be no more pointing there'll be no more talking he gives these people

LSD the majority have a good time they laugh their asses off except for frank olson he has a hard time and he becomes convinced everyone is making fun of him he's very angry he's very paranoid the next day the retreat's over they all thought that doing the drugs had derailed their work everyone goes home frank olson doesn't get better he stays agitated his wife said he's not the same he tells her he wants to leave his job and on Monday he tried to quit but his bosses wouldn't let him so he goes to a psychiatrist one that is also working on LSD experiments with the CIA good so you can get an outsider's point of view okay yeah great so for some reason that psychiatrist didn't help him uh he has a nervous breakdown and ends up

in a facility in rockville maryland and it looks like he's getting better but on November 28th at 2 30 a.m a witness says that frank runs down the hall and jumps out the 13th floor window and he dies instantly when he hits the ground it was nine days after being dosed wow wow good golly yeah there's obviously debate about whether or not he committed suicide his family believes what his family believes he was killed by the CIA oh shit well that actually does make sense that's crazy either way the death ends the program the media or fbi could connect the dots back to george and his crew which would have been disastrous everyone would face serious repercussions so um c.a. director alan dulles agreed with godly that the research should continue

okay okay so george george is now sent to houston jesus uh the head of the f the head of the fbn learned that heroin confiscated by police was making its way onto the streets again so he sends george and a couple other agents to learn about it figure out what's going on uh george ends up interrogating martin bill billitzer who is an h.p.d vice detective and in the first interview martin's off there's something wrong something something you know not passing the smell test during the second interview martin admits more heroin had been found than was entered into evidence someone's put in the desks of the assistant police chief and senior detectives and the rest of it was sold by cops now did he take a drink from them

no i think he did no just straight up talking okay so witnesses said the next day martin went into his office and shut the door and these are cop witnesses the two gunshots were then heard and martin was done no shot in the heart twice oh my god can you have this idea of a second shot what a what a moment because you only think about the first what a moment to do a second to have to have the wherewithal to be like oh one you know what i mean like yeah in the chest too and the chest is a crazy always a crazy place to do it yeah it was ruled a suicide george didn't believe it was a suicide and he made his what on what grounds probably the two the two bullets in his heart yeah he makes his opinions public which leads to a showdown between

george and the hpd so a federal agent accusing the hpd of killing one of its own to cover up a drug ring sort of made the police chief and other houston officials mad what i mean what is the debate like when you do that when you did the second shot is where you're going like they'll know like do you need it wrapped up that badly it's not yeah so article speared in the houston chronicle and then he found a sword through his stomach too sir and he let himself on fire at the end yeah that's right his last words were i mean this i wasn't there for those that's just what the no more questions thank you in the newspaper article the police chief said george was a hatchet man who built bullied martin into killing himself george found out the houston city attorney

had sent letters to his boss and jago jade grover and other high higher ups asking them asking them to take george off the case they didn't also houston detectives went to washington dc to try to dig up dirt on george specifically trying to find any ties he had to communists uh huh sure well we all know that was the uh that's when red flags were actually red flags so george later had officers tailing him and one local customs agent challenged george to a duel what is that that's what a throwback who is this guy did he have a monocle oh what the best yeah i mean it's just let me guess he hunted quail so crazy he had he had what's known as a quaff he used ink with a feather that's right

this man is not of this era this is a shape-shifting time traveler so george doesn't accept the duel the duel doesn't happen on what grounds do you not accept my challenge for a duel why it's as regular as anything else it's not yes it is it's as regular as putting goat testicles into a man's stomach all right i gotta go for virility i am leaving it's as regular as being lobotomized on a stage it is a normal thing sir i challenge you to a jewel a what a jewel a jewel a duel a challenge you to a duel i'm not doing it obviously you're an lst i don't know you challenge you to a jewel

my tongue is so hot so george continues his investigation he has more agents brought to houston and they confirmed that martin could not have killed himself quote he would be the first person to kill himself twice the f the cia learned a valuable lesson and got it so just one time with the shooting uh no from then on oh as well right george's investigation revealed the houston chief of police was addicted to painkillers which he'd gotten from a crooked doctor so the police chief resigns doctor goes to prison two detectives who sold the heroin were fired and charged one went to prison and died after years of addiction the other was acquitted but then killed himself in the court parking lot i won yes yeah i mean how many shots to the head

four in 1955 george went back to san francisco and he rented an apartment on telegraph hill with a view of the bay and turned it into a new safe house it's supposed to look like a rich person's apartment so he put in recording equipment fancy furniture and talus la tray posters of women can tan dancing there we go you're talking about the ultimate bachelor pad in the main bedroom he set up a bathroom where he could sit for hours through a two-way mirror and watch sex workers having sex while he drank pictures of martini now dav as far as the work goes are we now have we now crossed through the threshold of where work has become sliver it's still the job it's still the job he's not abusing his job he is doing his job he's completely like drunk with power and pictures of

martini this is what he gets to do you get the yeah so he's abusing his power to just sit in a room he's not using his power and through a two-way mirror get this is what well but he's like this is what he's supposed to be doing i mean he's abusing the the the sex workers and the johns the pad yes yes yes and the idea that he's just getting drunk behind a two-way mirror is just not a good look for any angle i was wondering how many construction workers are brought in and and someone's like can i get a two-way mirror put in here like it must happen all the time oh god how do you ask that you've got to be like i work for the cia and uh what i need is a two-way mirror for the bathroom because i'm doing a lot of work but i can't tell you about it it's not because i want to watch my

wife's friend's poop uh george found himself a new pimp ike feldman who recruited heroin addicted workers who would lure other drug addicts to the apartment and then george would arrest them okay so george and other agents also party to the safe house themselves taking the drugs that they had uh what is happening is who is it what is happening what's the plan is there a plan at all and they had sex with the sex worker so who is what is going on they're like create the crime it's a job creator you're the johns then you watch the you guys fuck you then arrest each other drug each other arrest each other it's perfect he also hung out at dye bars to find informants using the alias morgan hill he said hill was an artist and a merchant seaman this is the classic combo uh and

george based him on jack london oh great oh i'm sure jack london was touched by the way i want to it's an honor to meet you sir i based my super creepy uh bring people back to my two-way mirror den while i drink martini's character on you talk about a call of the wild you want to watch people fuck hey you guys uh interested in you why don't we do this why don't we all go back to my place and we'll watch people bang i have martini's so george would protect the sex sex workers from the local police he gave all the escorts a get out of jail chit that they used when the cops would pick them up he also paid them uh 50 to 100 john and when the operations really got going george told felman they were going to dose the junkies with lsd wait say that last part again george told

felman they were going to dose the junkies with lsd so the who's felman again the felman's the pimp that he's working with oh okay right okay okay and okay so and so the sex workers are bringing in drug addicts now they're going to give the drug addicts lsd because it's quite it's quite a little job creator well felman that's why he's like why are we doing this and george said quote have you ever heard of the manchurian candidate what an answer what oh oh good oh okay so we're working towards a goal okay just wanted to know where we were headed awesome okay then i'm in let's do this for sure talking about the sinatra flick that's right i'm the manchurian but a candidate i'll do whatever you want me to it's not my fate major in candidate hey the court's in session

this isn't a court hey get out of here dulls i can't i can't believe he never sang a manchurian candidate song yeah so the cia is really genuinely afraid of russia's brainwashing techniques they heard about you know in previous wars uh and george isn't it amazing how our it's always our gross overreaction to the fear of what other countries are going to do so that we just make it all worse particularly russia yeah i mean rush has been like our like founding member for quite a while so george convinced felman that what they were doing was for the go to the country look man hit your country needs you to sit behind a two-way mirror drinking martinis watching addicted sex workers fuck junkies and then giving him lsd well i always said when my country came

calling i'd answer it would be an honor sir and you are rock hard yes i am i am excited by the plan and i was getting my dick suck before you walked in here so so george and other agents dose their subjects whenever possible but much of what they want to know is what the sex workers could learn so that's it they're only getting the information that the sec sex workers could get out of these guys they're giving lsd to oh right okay right right so it's like yeah exactly so it's a very i mean again it would the the whole the point here is not to really uncover anything right i mean it's just that this point to watch more of what it does to people and kind of be perv out i think so but they're also trying to they're also trying to see if they can just learn secrets you know if

people will reveal stuff right which they but they've established that they've established that so it's like how psychologists john gettinger conducted the sex research with george and felman and getting sure would later be called the genius of mk ultra he used his the safe house to learn the sex workers trade he watched them have sex for hours and had to make models of sex acts using pipe cleaners what sex and what it's what with pipe cleaners can you show me what is he a preschool teacher take these two little white fuzzy things and show me anal no okay can you take these two little pipe cleaners and show me 69 yes can you take these three little pipe cleaners and show me a cleveland steamer yes can you take these four pipe cleaners can i just avocado and this belt and

show me a dirty sanchez uh you're from the cia yeah yeah i am yeah sorry yes okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i just this is pretty hot i gotta go feed the meter okay yeah okay yeah good talk cool pipe cleaners though yeah great talk good to get to work what a good system george basically took all this information and he compiled it into what it was basically like a comma suture for the cia so it's like this big cia oh my god manual so gingers god gingers research was the beginning of the male performance drug industry during one what during one experiment some russian sailors weren't into sex workers so an agent slipped them a drug called sex tender sex tender not only got them in the mood and increased their sexual stamina significantly significantly and after two hours the

sex workers were protesting and asking to leave oh god there's nothing good in what you just first of all the amount of research you have to do to find out if dudes are fucking longer because of what you gave them is it's a it's a deep deep dive oh yeah as time as time went on the sf pad and a new one that george had opened in mill valley became the place with the cia so we need a little more area to fuck but in like a in like a nicer area like is there like a sleepy little valley town for the research for the research for the research we were thinking aspen yeah for the research for the research would be great and also can for the reason i get hard in aspen like that's also a question yeah let's find out we'll all go there and see if our if our penises will

get hard it'll be great yeah this is look what is more important to the country right now than our dicks getting hard in colorado uh you're approved that was harder than ever before i get it it's a double meaning i get it oh i hadn't even thought of that i did hey can you put on these shorts yep while you're wearing them so so this these two places where where the cia sent drugs that they didn't want to test on themselves and then godly would come over with new devices and chemicals to try out many of them were referred to as harassment substances and they included stink bombs itching powders and high-powered laxative so this is like from the cia's prank wing and this guy is basically like the pervy q that's right james bond we've got something amazing

this will make any dignitary shit his pants yo my god we've won the cold war also imagine this you're having dinner with some states of officials and ambassadors when the next thing you know the royal king of sweden has a case of the itchies oh i love it pretty good a mm wonderful work wonderful stuff you're doing yes also i'm working on something that will turn a bathtub into gelatin so please stick around also surround wrap for a toilet seat and toilet paper that's just one lump and doesn't do individual sheets oh wow also i'm working on a drug that will keep men's erections so sustainably long and their sexual propriety to be larger than it's ever been that it'll last it will cause some sort of sexual revolution while we all watch it

from a two-way mirror as people are using the toilet okay they give us a lot of money they really have carved out quite a nice chunk of the pie for our division yes also let me walk you to the division of funny teeth we these guys are working on some real banging stuff okay yes this was a great talk oh don't leave without a fake nose leaving through that door are you i think you'll find that's nothing more than a doorknob glued on a wall i'll take you the right way got you why don't you pick up that nickel before you leave wouldn't that be a drawl it's nailed to the floor noo look a dollar bill it's on string don't even try how much are you getting in funding we get 90 billion dollars george would try out everything on himself one device was a pen that

spurred at gas now remember what i just said he tried out everything on himself so he tried out the powered laxatives he tried out the itching powder he stink bombed himself he did it all oh man he's like the johnny knocks full of our government so one device was a pen that would squirt gas george tried to convince feldman to take it but he wouldn't do it so he allowed himself to be blasted in the face with it and the noxious chemical made his face turn red and he coughed uncontrollably it turned out to be a prototype for mace wow mace pens even sounds crazy but for the first macing to come from a pen what kind of ink is that what sort of ink sir decades later the burglars who broke into the watergate hotel had three of those pens wow good lord so you got to

be careful with those yeah seriously hey do you have a pen i got to write some absolutely oh no not that one not that one do you have a milk pen former us marshal and marine wane richie was a model citizen he worked at the post office during a christmas party on december 20th 1957 richie had a few drinks about four or five bourbons and sodas over a couple of hours when he left he became overwhelmed with paranoia and worthlessness he went home he had a very bad fight with his girlfriend and then he went to another bar and he drank more and then he went to his office and he got two guns and he robbed a bar he held up the cashier but he was distracted by a waitress and then the cashier

knocked wane richie out shot him with a mace please came and arrested him and charged him with attempted robbery and he got five years probation a five-dollar fine and he lost his job he moved on with his life he worked as a house painter for the next 34 years and he married again but he always wondered what had happened that night by the way best thing that could have happened to him but yeah i mean the obvious yeah now george ran the safe houses in septus go in the valley until 1961 when he was reassigned he retired in 1963 after being diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and then he moved to stinson beach in marine what a time to retire if you're him like you're like well you know what we've seen all the drug stuff we can really do what year is it 1963 i don't see

this going in any direction this will be fine uh that year the inspector general's office wrote a report about the mk ultra program it declared that many in the agency found the program's concepts to be distasteful and unethical name 1000 yet there were major accomplishments in both research and operational employment absolutely the report this was a job creator that's right it's like a genital coal the report recommended taking more control over the program the agency shut down mk ultra in 1965 in 1973 watergate caused a panic in the cia worried about potential discovery of the mk ultra experiment cia director richard helms had all the files destroyed the following year seymour hirsch reported for the new york times that the cia engaged in domestic

espionage and conducted experiments on civilians this led to the church senate committee hearings in the summer of 1975 the committee looked into various federal scandals including the fbi's harassment of martin luther king jr various assassination plots and of course mk ultra both gotlebe and feldman were witnesses the committee obtained the inspector general's report and george's journal everything came to light from the illegal dosing to the use of sex workers the hearings revealed the scope of mk ultra the cia hunted for drugs that increased perception made made aging faster or slower caused a certain amount of amnesia and other terrible uses now this whole time george's living in stinson beach can you imagine a time when like

there would be hearings on tv and you would actually hear shit like this like you would be like what our government like when you would actually like there would be information that was actually doled out through like you would learn stuff and there would be like an actual someone who'd be like that's true and you'd be like oh my god it's true instead of just like never nobody ever admitting anything and everybody just being like i will shout at you with my time yeah and you know this is a time when tons of democrats wanted to get rid of the cia instead of in love with them i'm not having davia vu right now for some reason so basically george was just like a dude who went to local bars and that's what he was was doing uh he died on october 23rd 1975 now the hearings led to suits

against the government by some of mk ultras victims frank olson's family sued the government and they settled the olson's wife and she got 750 000 other people didn't other people tried and they just said no 750 000 is also i mean even that i mean it's just so like the idea of putting a price tag on that sort of stuff is always so morbid yeah it's weird in 1999 wane richie read gotlebe's obituary which discussed mk ultra and mentioned george and richie knew george one of the last times he had seen him was at the christmas party just before he robbed the store at the bar well well well well well huh he was with felb so okay well what were they doing hanging out under the mistletoe so richie put two and two together and sued the government he was 72 years old when his lawyer

deposed felbin he said richie had been drugged and given quote a full head and deserved to suffer and still with all that information the judge ruled against richie saying his momentary insanity was organic because he drank this judge wow wow i mean okay so there's nothing to be said that sways someone i mean as far as felbin's admission the judge said it wasn't direct enough and couldn't be taken seriously well he's under this sheet right here your honor it literally is what we did i still see no reason to go further we think that this is the result of what we've already said the court stands uh the night circuit uh court of appeals upheld her decision in 2006 good so in the end the military found a mix of drugs that worked as

a truth serum for interrogations in the el salvador in civil war in the early 80s agents captured enemy enemy fighters and used a mix of sodium pentothal and rojepnole this combo loosened tongues and made them forget everything they would take an enemy soldier drug him or her take them to be interrogated ask them questions while pretending to be like russian soldiers or whatever uh and then and then they drug him or her again and when it was over dropped them off back where they had been captured and i mean what had happened devious devious fuckers and it's like people fear alien abduction i would much i would fear much more government abduction oh my god put anything in my ass on your spaceship just don't let me go in the back of a fucking

minivan in the middle of nowhere with unsuited military people yeah it's why when people get scared of the government and people look you're conspiracy theorists and you're like have you ever read the history of america it's really great i also don't understand how people you're like yeah why would i trust the people why would i distrust the people with all the power why why what about that yeah i believe them uh kevin jones was the researcher on this uh sources used include gary kimia's reporting in the s of chronicle main source was a book daner drugs and dirty work the george hunter uh story by stan waj kaluski and then a lot of government dot documents that are online so man yeah see i mean i read a little bit about it through just the leery stuff but um

um you know and it's just a slice of oh yeah slice of mk ultra mk ultra is fucking bananas i just i never wanted to do it because it's so it's so big and it's so fucking crazy it's literally like you you could do a podcast on it yeah right like that would be your whole podcast forever you know yeah i i mean it and it it really is amazing that it's the government who wanted it for themselves and then it got into the hands of doctors and then it got into the hands of regular people and it changed the culture and then they had to try to put that genie back in the bottle and then you get arrested for i mean it's just it's so it's so crazy it's just so crazy i mean it's just so i love i love that the cia is behind lsd and uh crack cocaine and like flying

plain loads of cocaine into america like the cia is just like yeah fucking insane yeah it's like yeah it's like Scarface got a badge yeah it's fucking nuts it's nuts uh yeah i mean and and you almost envy the days when bitching about the cia was the only thing you had you know what i mean like yeah the level of every government agency now where you have to be like well that's not good either like there's no there's nowhere yeah yeah it's like we should just it's we should just pull we should just divest just be like we're done with the senator you just i mean it's just like uh anyway these things are in a good spot yeah everything's good right now you know it'll be fun this is what'll be fun for someone to listen to this podcast when you and i are dead

that that'll be fun that'll be that's when this podcast will be like wow you know living through the time talking about the old time right now it's just a goddamn misery fuck yeah you tired buddy tired though yeah i don't know why i'm so tired what's the matter here want a little uh want a little uh c i h no yeah well i'll bump i need to see it c i a bump want a little bump keep you up for a few hours all right all right well fine here we go fine