Operation Midnight Climax

On a cold day in 1973, a crowd gathered on a farm for one of history's strangest funerals. It was an elite group, including the Governor of Michigan, bank presidents, and local dignitaries. Even Walter Cronkite sent a correspondent. But they weren’t mourning anyone human. No, this was a pizza-based catastrophe. 

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On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Follow Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday. Subscribe to VSE wherever you get your podcasts.

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When he published The Great Gatsby 100 years ago this week, F. Scott Fitzgerald thought he'd written the Great American Novel. But it was a commercial flop. The year Fitzgerald died, he received a royalty check for a paltry seven copies. It would take an unlikely series of events to posthumously pluck a masterpiece from obscurity.

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On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Follow Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday. Subscribe to VSE wherever you get your podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During its first 50 seasons, Saturday Night Live has welcomed legendary actors, superstar athletes, and notable politicians. But for one memorable night in 1977, Lorne Michaels turned the show over to an 80-year-old amateur. 

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On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Follow Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday. Search 'Very Special Episodes' on your favorite podcast platform.

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Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English
Written by Jake Rossen
Produced by Josh Fisher
Editing and Sound Design by Chris Childs
Mixing and Mastering by Chris Childs
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English

Special thanks to Connie Crawford for sharing her story. And thanks to the great Bill Carter for stopping by! You can read more of his work at LateNighter, or check out his many classic books.

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Sidney Gottlieb thought he’d erased all traces of Operation Midnight Climax and MK-ULTRA from the government’s collective memory. While the world will never know the full extent of the CIA’s experimentation with LSD, an unlikely source revealed many of the victims. These breakthroughs came courtesy of George White, who testified from beyond the grave.

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As the walls closed in on Operation Midnight Climax, George White took lessons he’d learned from a world-class magician to explore the last uncharted frontier of the psychonaut — the general public. It’s how White would make San Francisco’s sanity disappear.

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After Frank Olson’s death in New York, George White had to move his whole operation to San Francisco. And the CIA added a twist: while they’d been occupied with using LSD as a mind-control drug, now they wanted him to weaponize sex.

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For 70 years, people have debated what happened to Frank Olson at the Hotel Statler. Did the CIA’s grand experiment with LSD lead to the sanctioned execution of a government employee? For George White, Frank Olson’s death would change everything.

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Today we wanted to share a bonus mini-episode. Here’s how George White’s LSD adventures tied in with the CIA’s increasingly bizarre attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. We’ll be back with a new installment next Wednesday.

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As the CIA’s LSD experiments went increasingly rogue, an aspiring actress realized what George White had done to her. But unlike others who’d complained, she reported White by name to the New York Police Department.

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To immerse himself in his CIA role, George White needed a new identity. In Greenwich Village, he set up a safehouse and became Morgan Hall, a struggling artist. But it wasn’t long before the wrong kind of people started showing up at his door — including the FBI

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If George White could manipulate the mafia with an old-fashioned wartime truth serum, what could he do with something more potent? What secrets could he uncover with the full support of the CIA and a supply of LSD? The world was about to find out.

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In the 1950s, the CIA conducted highly controversial research on mind-altering drugs to prepare for brain warfare with global superpowers. But after a checkered past, George White’s off-the-books Operation Midnight Climax took whatever flimsy rulebook the CIA had and threw it out the window.

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