Frank Olson
| Frank Rudolph Olson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 17, 1910 Hurley, Wisconsin |
| Died | November 28, 1953 (aged 43) Manhattan, New York City, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Bacteriologist, biological warfare scientist |
| Years active | 1943-1953 |
Frank Rudolph Olson (July 17, 1910 – November 28, 1953) was an American bacteriologist, biological warfare scientist, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who worked at Camp Detrick (now Fort Detrick) in Maryland. In rural Maryland, he was covertly dosed with LSD by his CIA supervisor and, nine days later, plunged to his death from the window of a New York City hotel room. Some — including the U.S. government — term his death a suicide, while others allege murder.
Olson was born in Hurley, Iron County, Wisconsin, and earned both B.S. and Ph.D. degrees (Bacteriology, 1938) at the University of Wisconsin. He worked for a time at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana and then served as a captain in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. As a civilian, he was recruited to Camp Detrick, and to the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories, by the distinguished UW scientist Ira Baldwin, the technical director there. (Baldwin had been his departmental advisor at UW.) At Camp Detrick, Baldwin worked with industrial partners like George W. Merck and the U.S. military to establish the top secret U.S. bioweapons program beginning in 1943, a time when interest in applying modern technology to warfare was undergoing a boom. Olson's duties included experiments with aerosolized anthrax. After 10 years, he was a senior bacteriologist at the program.
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