SCIENTIST'S DEATH HAUNTS FAMILY

The death in 1953 of a government scientist, Frank Olson, in a fall
from a New York hotel window, is one of the most notorious cases in
CIA history.

Only in 1975 did Olson's family learn that the CIA had slipped LSD
into his drink, days before his death. President Ford apologized for
an experiment gone awry, and promised that the government would reveal
everything about the case.

But newly obtained documents show that the Ford administration
continued to conceal information about Olson -- particularly, his role
in some of the CIA's most controversial research of the Cold War, on
anthrax and other biological weapons.

The documents show that two of the key officials involved in the
decision to withhold that information were White House aides Dick
Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, today the nation's vice president and
secretary of Defense.

``These documents show the lengths to which the government was trying
to cover up the truth,'' said the scientist's son, Eric Olson, who
gave them to the Mercury News. ``For 22 years there was a coverup. And
then, under the guise of revealing everything, there was a new coverup.''

Rumsfeld's office referred questions about the withholding of
information to the CIA, where a media officer, Paul Nowack, said that
CIA activities related to Frank Olson's death were investigated by the
Rockefeller Commission as well as subsequent congressional committees.

``The CIA fully cooperated'' in those investigations, he said, and
``tens of thousands of documents were released.'' If anyone has new
information, he said, ``they should contact appropriate
authorities.''

Eric Olson has contended for years that his father was murdered to
cover up his research for the CIA. At a news conference in Maryland
today, he will reveal the results of his long inquiry into his
father's death.

The new documents do not prove those allegations. But they do show
that the White House officials were concerned about any public
revelation of Eric Olson's work.

Contrary to the official explanation that Frank Olson was an Army
scientist, Olson worked for the CIA, at the special operations
division at Fort Detrick, the Maryland laboratory where biological
weapons were tested.

Classified research

Eric Olson said this week that a former colleague and friend of his
father's contacted him last year and described some of the closely
guarded work his father conducted.

He said the colleague told him his father was among scientists
studying the use of LSD and other drugs to enhance interrogations, as
Cold War tensions ran high and Americans feared that captured soldiers
had been brainwashed in Korea.

In the months before his death, the colleague said, Frank Olson had
gone to Europe, where he observed the interrogation of former Nazis
and Soviet citizens at a secret U.S. base. And, the colleague said,
Frank Olson had knowledge of the U.S. biological weapons program.

Eric Olson contends that in the final days of his life, his father
became morally distraught over his work and decided to quit. Personnel
records show that agency officials were concerned that he was a
security risk. Eric Olson believes the thought of Frank Olson quitting
was a motive for the government to want him dead.

In 1993, Eric Olson arranged for his father's body to be unearthed and
examined by a forensic scientist, James Starrs. Starrs concluded that
Frank Olson had probably been struck on the head and then thrown out
of the hotel window.

Starrs' conclusion is one of the tantalizing pieces that Eric Olson
has gathered to support his belief that his father was murdered.
Friday, satisfied that he has accomplished what he could, Olson
intends to rebury the remains of his father.

In late November 1953, Frank Olson, then 43, joined a group of
government officials at a conference at Deep Creek Lodge in western
Maryland. For days afterward, Olson was withdrawn. His son, Eric, says
his father told his wife that he intended to quit his job.

But Frank Olson did not quit. And on Nov. 23 he went to New York with
another government official, where he twice visited Harold A.
Abramson, a doctor who was one of the first researchers to study the
effects of LSD.

Olson returned to Washington, then went back to New York on Nov. 28
and checked into the Statler Hotel. He was scheduled to enter a
sanitarium the next day.

But early in the morning of Nov. 29, Frank Olson went through the
window of the hotel room he was sharing with a colleague, Robert
Lashbrook. Lashbrook told police that he was awakened by the sound of
breaking glass.

The Olson family knew little else. But in 1975, a commission headed by
Vice President Nelson Rockefeller issued a report on CIA abuses, and
an account in the Washington Post included a mention of an Army
scientist who jumped from a New York hotel room days after being
slipped LSD in 1953.

``We realized they were talking about my father,'' Eric Olson
recalled. Family members talked to reporters about their outrage and
said they would sue the government. Days later, the family was invited
to the White House to meet President Ford. He assured them that they
would be given all information about what happened to Frank Olson.

Soon after, the family was invited to lunch with CIA Director William
Colby, who gave them a file of documents that amounted to the CIA
investigation into Olson's death. But the documents left many
questions unanswered about both his work and the circumstances of his
death.

The family was told that a lawsuit was unlikely to succeed. Instead,
the administration promised to support a private bill in Congress,
through which the family received $750,000 to resolve their claims.

``The express understanding was that the government had promised to
give us all information, which clearly meant information about his
work relationship with the CIA,'' the Olsons' attorney, David Rudovsky
of Philadelphia, said this week. ``It now appears that was not the
case.''

Son finds clues

Over the years Eric Olson turned up many clues, real or coincidental.
There was, for example, the assassination manual that the CIA
declassified in connection with its Guatemala activities. The manual,
created in the early 1950s, identified ``the contrived accident'' as
``the most effective technique'' of secret assassination.

``The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of
75 feet or more onto a hard surface,'' the manual stated.

Only recently Eric Olson obtained files from a University of
California-Davis history professor that showed White House officials
had intentionally withheld details of Frank Olson's death from the
family.

The professor, Kathryn Olmsted, came across the records at the Gerald
Ford library. They included a memo from Dick Cheney, a White House
assistant at the time, to Donald Rumsfeld, the chief of staff, on July
11, 1975, one day after the Olsons first held a news conference.

The memo warned that a lawsuit could involve ``the possibility that it
might be necessary to disclose highly classified national-security
information in connection with any court suit or legislative hearings
on a private bill.''

The documents also include memos written by White House counsel
Roderick Hills to the president that were routed through Cheney and
other officials. ``Dr. Olson's job is so sensitive that it is highly
unlikely that we would submit relevant evidence'' to a court, Hills
wrote, regarding a potential suit by the Olson family.

``If there is a trial, it is apparent that the Olsons' lawyer will
seek to explore all of the circumstances of Dr. Olson's employment as
well as those concerning his death. Thus, in the trial it may become
apparent that we are concealing evidence for national-security reasons
and any settlement or judgment reached thereafter could be perceived
as money paid to cover up the activities of the CIA.''

As a result, Hills urged settling the case out of court.