Corruption

December 14, 2002 Updated Nov. 28, 2012

President Gerald Ford greeting Alice Olson in the Oval Office in 1975.

When CIA Scientist Frank Olson plunged to his death from the 10th floor of a New York hotel in 1953, his death was ruled a suicide. Twenty-two years later a special Presidential Commission investigating the CIA's development of potent drugs for use in biological warfare and assassinations revealed shocking new details about Olson's death. In 1996 Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau opened a new investigation into Olson's death based on startling discoveries uncovered by forensic sleuth James Starrs that put to lie the CIA's version of how Olson died.

by H. P. Albarelli Jr.

Editor’s Note:  On November 28, 2012, the sons of Frank Olson filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., accusing the CIA of covering up the truth about their father’s death in 1953. The sons, Eric and Nils Olson, said their long efforts to get the CIA to open its files and provide them with more information about their father’s death had failed and that the court filing is their only means to find out the truth.

“The evidence points to a murder, and not a drug-induced suicide,” Eric Olson told reporters.

Frank Olson, a bioweapons expert working at the special operations division of the Army’s Biological Laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland, plunged to his death from his room in the Statler Hotel in Manhattan on November 28, 1953. The CIA claimed his death was a suicide.

“The CIA’s wrongful conduct in this case continues under the present administration,” said Scott Gilbert, an attorney representing the Olson brothers. “I have met personally with senior agency officials who still refuse to acknowledge the truth and to provide us with all the documents relevant to this matter.”

May 19, 2003

Olson family press conference, August 8, 2002, Frederick, Maryland.
Eric Olson and his son, Stephan Kimbel Olson.

In 1996, Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau opened a new investigation into CIA Scientist Frank Olson's 1953 "suicide," assigning the case to a special Cold Case Unit staffed by two veteran prosecutors. Details about the activities and findings of that ongoing inquiry have never before been revealed. Investigative journalist and writer H.P. Albarelli Jr. conducted his own seven-year examination into Olson's death. In Part Two, he reports his findings about one of the U.S. government's greatest conspiracies and unsolved mysteries.

by H. P. Albarelli Jr.

 H.P. Albarelli's book on Frank Olson's death, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments published in October 2009. Advance orders can be placed at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and from the book's publisher Trine Day Books.  Additional information on the book may be obtained at: www.albarelli.net and from www.trineday.com.

Charles Gregory “Bebe” Rebozo and Richard Nixon

Bebe Rebozo came in and out of the Nixon White House as he pleased, without being logged in by the Secret Service. At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he had his own private office with a telephone and a designated bedroom always at his disposal. He was both Nixon’s best friend and his bag man to the Mafia and Howard Hughes.

by Don Fulsom

When Richard Nixon was president, a disreputable character named Charles Gregory “Bebe” Rebozo (a.k.a. Charles Gregory) all but lived in the White House. Not known beyond the executive mansion at that time—or to most people even now—Rebozo had working and sleeping quarters there. And he was plugged into the White House switchboard, which knew how to reach him anywhere at any time.

Rebozo was not a high-ranking government employee who deserved or required such free space or services. In fact, the only government entity that knew much about Bebe was the FBI, which said he was cozy with Mafia biggies—especially Tampa Godfather Santos Trafficante and Alfred (“Big Al”) Polizzi of Cleveland.  Big Al was a drug trafficker associated with the Syndicate’s financial genius, Meyer Lansky.  In 1964, the Bureau of Narcotics branded Polizzi “one of the most influential members of the underworld in the United States.”

Aug 21, 2009

J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar’s Hoover’s homosexuality compromised him and made him vulnerable to blackmail by the Mafia.  Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s crackdown on the Mob put Hoover between a rock and a hard place.

by Don Fulsom

J. Edgar Hoover was in the hip pocket of America’s godfathers, reputedly because they had pictorial proof of his homosexuality.  So the FBI director put the Mafia on a low level of his crime-fighting priorities. That is until 1961, when John and Robert Kennedy put potent muscle behind the government’s drive against organized crime—and Hoover reluctantly began paying more than just lip service to battling the Mob.

As President John F. Kennedy’s attorney general, Robert Kennedy became a menace to the Mafia—and his take-no-prisoners tactics trickled down not only to Hoover, but also to top local and state cops, district attorneys and judges.