GIVE LSD TO AN ARTIST AT PARIS CAFE IN 1952?

U.S. Jury Gets Case That Pits A Dead Mentally
Ill Man Vs. a Dead CIA Scientist

It sounds like a movie plot.

An American artist living in Paris 1952 goes to a cafe, where a club
footed man slips a mind altering drug into his drink. The artist ends
up in the hospital suffering from hallucinations. He is treated with
electroshock therapy and begins a 40 year decline into mental illness.
Along the way, he suspects that he may have been drugged by the
Central Intelligence Agency.

That is the essence of a claim brought by the estate of Stanley
Glickman against the late Sidney Gottlieb, widely known as the CIA
scientist who directed a project that tested the effects of
hallucinogenic drugs, such as lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, on
unwitting victims.

The case highlights a dark chapter in the history of Cold War
espionage, when the government began the experiments on civilians out
of fear that the Soviets and other communists were developing
mindcontrol techniques. The project came to light in the mid 1970s,
when Congress held hearings on it and Mr. Gottlieb, who had a club
foot, testified.

Today, closing arguments are scheduled to be heard by a federal court
jury in New York. The case was transferred yesterday to U.S. District
Judge Kimba Wood, after Dominick DiCarlo, the chief judge of the U.S.
International Court of Trade who had presided over the trial,
collapsed and died while exercising.

Federal prosecutors are defending the estate of Mr. Gottlieb, who died
March 7. The defense contends Mr. Glickman actually suffered from
naturally occurring schizophrenia.

Sidney Bender, the lawyer for Mr. Glickman's estate, acknowledged when
the trial began earlier this month that he didn't have documents
proving that Mr. Gottlieb drugged the artist. But he said Mr. Glickman
recalled that "the person who gave him the drink had a club foot."

On the night in question, Mr. Bender contends that Mr. Glickman was
lured by an acquaintance to the Cafe Select in Paris, where they met
three other men. One of the men offered Mr. Glickman a drink and as
the man walked to the bar, Mr. Glickman allegedly saw that he had a
clubfoot.

Halfway through the cocktail, Mr. Glickman began having hallucinations
and landed in the hospital. Several months later, his family brought
him back to the U.S. for treatment. Mr. Glickman's mental state never
improved. He held odd jobs but never painted again. He died of
unrelated causes on Dec. 11, 1992.

A major problem with Mr. Glickman's allegations is that he only began to
think that he had been drugged by the CIA after watching televised
congressional hearings in 1977 about the agency's LSD program. He didn't
sue until 1983. 1

Even the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in an opinion last
July that "there are reasons to be skeptical" of Mr. Glickman's claim,
which alleges violations of his constitutional rights. But, the
appellate panel allowed the case to go to trial because CIA records
that might have proved Mr. Glickman's claim were ordered destroyed in
January 1973 by Mr. Gottlieb. (The court dropped the government as a
defendant, saying Mr. Glickman didn't sue quickly enough after
learning about the CIA program; the court said he met the three year
deadline for suing Mr. Gottlieb because he didn't learn about Mr.
Gottlieb's club foot until 1981.)

The government has admitted that the CIA set up an LSD research
program, headed by Mr. Gottlieb, in the early 1950s. "And, absolutely,
it is true that a component of that program consisted of giving LSD to
unwitting people," said Martin Siegel, an assistant U.S. attorney on
the case. However, Mr. Siegel added that the case "is about whether
the CIA, in the person of Sidney Gottlieb, gave LSD to Stanley Glickman."