Was Lee Harvey Oswald on Acid?

Chad Nagle has written an article for Jefferson Morley's Substack on MK-Ultra and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Back in 1983, when online publishing was barely a twinkle in anyone’s eye, Rolling Stone magazine published an article entitled, “Did Lee Harvey Oswald Drop Acid?” Co-authored by Martin Lee, Robert Ranftel, and Jeff Cohen, it tells an uncorroborated yet intriguing tale suggesting that MKULTRA may have somehow caught JFK’s accused assassin in its web.

A respected New Orleans assistant district attorney named Edward G. Gillin recounted a strange and disturbing visit he received from an unidentified young man in the summer of 1963. The visitor wanted to know how he could get hold of a drug that “would affect the social and economic history of the world for the next 200 years.”

He also said he didn’t just want to try it. He wanted legal advice on how to import it into the United States. Gillin said he listened to the visitor speak about the mysterious chemical for about an hour and concluded he was “probably a bit crazy” before advising him to consult both the New Orleans chemist (“the police authority on such matters”) and his personal physician. The attorney said the man never visited him again.

After the assassination, Gillin — who retired as an Orleans Parish juvenile court judge and died in 2007 — recognized the visitor as having been Lee Harvey Oswald. He called the FBI to report the incident and said he thought Oswald might have been using “unusual drugs.” But the FBI seemed “uninterested,” and “the drug lead was never pursued.”

Here is the report from Edward Gillin:

This memo from Edward Gillin was found in Jim Garrison's files. Unfortunately, it is undated.

And, of course, Lee Harvey Oswald did check out Huxley's Brave New World from the library in New Orleans.

Here is the FBI report about this:

Gillin told the FBI that He made his identification of Oswald based on his voice. Interestingly, "he recalled he formed a mental image of OSWALD as being a psychopathic personality."

Now there is no mention of LSD and LSD was not mentioned in Huxley's book. Nagle says that Oswald wanted legal advice on the importation of this drug, but I don't see any evidence of that in Gillin's report.

Gerald Posner discusses this in his book, Cased Closed: (pages 207 - 208 in the Kindle edition)

Although this was a quiet time, and the one in which Oswald was at home the most, some assert that during the same period he visited the office of a New Orleans assistant district attorney, Edward Gillin. For over an hour, Oswald allegedly praised the wonders of a new drug, LSD, and asked if it was legal to import. Gillin suggested his visitor check with the city’s police chemist. After the man left the office, Gillin never again had contact with him, but over the assassination weekend of November 22, 1963, Gillin identified his visitor as Lee Oswald. Since the CIA was experimenting with LSD during the early 1960s, the incident might be evidence of an intelligence link to Oswald. The problem is with Gillin’s identification, which has been offered as evidence of another eyewitness account of Oswald’s suspicious behavior. “I was then, and still am now, legally blind,” Gillin told the author. “I could never have been sure of the identification of Oswald under oath.” Gillin had only identified Oswald from the sound of his voice over the television.

In an interview with Paul Hoch, Robert Rantfel said that "We're not convinced that it was Oswald who visited Gillin, but we are convinced that Gillin is convinced."

Here is a link to the article by Jeff Cohen, Martin Lee and Robert Rantfel :

Nagel continues:

The subheading of the Rolling Stone article by Lee, Ranftel and Cohen reads: “New evidence suggests [Oswald] was among soldiers given LSD in a CIA test program.” The piece explains the relevance of Atsugi in one paragraph:

Since the early 1950s, Atsugi served as one of two overseas field stations where the CIA conducted extensive LSD testing. A 1953 memo stated that LSD was being stored at the Manila and Atsugi CIA stations, and that its use in special interrogations in Europe was being considered.

Here is the memo about Atsugi

"Shortly after the death of U.S. Army scientist Frank Olson was linked to a CIA LSD experiment, this memo recounts steps taken by CIA Technical Services Staff (TSS) chief Willis Gibbons to account for LSD handled and distributed by TSS."

Of course, the above memo says that Dr. Gibbons was stopping LSD testing. This memo was written in 1953 well before Oswald was in Atsugi from September 1957 to October 1958.

Nagle does note that but adds that CIA testing was resumed under MK-Ultra. But was it continued at Atsugi? And even if it was, how do we know they tested it on Oswald. And even if they did test it on Oswald, it was unwitting, and would have nothing to do with his reading Aldous Huxley.

Did the CIA subject JFK’s accused assassin to MKULTRA? At least one Oswald anecdote from Japan sounds commensurate with LSD’s potentially adverse effects:

[W]hen Oswald was on guard duty, gunfire was heard. He was found sitting on the ground, more than a little dazed, babbling about seeing things in the bushes. His colleagues, unfamiliar with what in the Sixties would become known as a bad trip, walked him back to his barracks and put him to bed.

Here is how Vincent Bugliosi, in his book Reclaiming History, describes that incident: (pages 1066 -1067 in the Kindle edition)

One night Rhodes, on duty as officer-of-the-guard, heard several shots from one of the guard posts. He ran to it, drawing his .45 caliber pistol, and found Oswald slumped against a tree with his rifle on his lap. “When I got to him he was shaking and crying,” Rhodes told Epstein. “He said he had seen men in the woods and that he challenged them and then started shooting.” Rhodes put his arm around Oswald and walked him slowly back to his tent. “He kept saying he just couldn’t bear guard duty.” A few days later, on October 6, Oswald was sent back to Japan by plane for “medical treatment.” Rhodes suspected that Oswald had staged the shooting incident with the hope of being sent back to Japan, which he liked. “There was nothing dumb about Oswald,” Rhodes said.

Was this an acid trip? I don't think so.

Then Nagle goes into silly mode:

Author Bill Simpich notes in his e-book, “The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend,” that Oswald might have had “MKULTRA training.” He cites author John Marks’ book "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate" (1991) describing how “secretive Oswald was”:

So, Oswald was secretive, because he was an MK-Ultra subject?

Nagle continues:

In rebuttal, Simpich points out that “Oswald talked and talked for the last two days of his life — defying the common warning to not say anything until you have spoken to your lawyer.” Then again, getting manipulated into becoming a patsy in the assassination of a U.S. president has to be the ultimate “bad trip.” Oswald’s MKULTRA training wouldn’t have prepared him for that.

We have no evidence, in the final analysis, that Lee Harvey Oswald ever “dropped acid.” He didn’t drive, so if he dosed regularly, he wouldn’t have endangered others on the road. He was not talkative on the morning he rode to work, but then he never talked much anyway, at least according to the co-worker who drove him, Buell Wesley Frazier.

What we can say is that, in the event Oswald was under the influence of LSD on Nov. 22, 1963 — at a time when the CIA’s MKULTRA program was in full swing — his credentials as a lone gunman would look even more improbable. Hitting a moving target at 265 feet would be difficult if not impossible with “kaleidoscope eyes.”

Kaleidoscope eyes! How on earth could Oswald have made those shots with kaleidoscope eyes?

Well, isn't this all propinquity? Oswald was at Atsugi, LSD was stored there, and so, why not connect the two. Jim Garrison would be proud of this analysis, no? Interestingly, I can find no evidence that Garrison ever took any interest in this story.

MK-Ultra is fast becoming a useful took for conspiracy theorists. For instance, Jack Ruby can only be understood through the lens of MK-Ultra.

Jefferson Morley Responds to my Post on MK-Ultra and Jack Ruby

Jolyon West was more than just MK-Ultra.

Did Dr. Louis Jolyon West Ask to Examine Jack Ruby in November 1963? 

There is no evidence that Dr. West petitioned the court to examine Jack Ruby before his trial.

Did the CIA use a MK-Ultra Psychiatrist to Interfere with Jack Ruby's Case? 

There is absolutely no evidence that Dr. Louis Jolyon West interfered with Jack Ruby's case.

And if you thought that the Chad Nagle story was still, how about Judyth Vary Baker? Yes, she too has incorporated MK-Ultra into her fairy tales about Oswald:

THE TRUTH: In August, when Lee and I were cleaning up Dave's kitchen, Dave was busy opening packages of morning glory 'berries,' which he urged us to try. "They're entirely legal," he said. "Haven't heard of them before, but they're supposed to give you a buzz."

"No thanks!" I told him.

"It's not supposed to be worse than a cup of coffee," Dave persisted.

"Have you ever tried them?" Lee asked.

Saying he never had, Dave popped his "berries" into the oven. When he pulled them out again, they were almost black. Knowing that any 'drug' was probably now obliterated, Lee and i both chewed on some of "Ferrie's berries" --and quickly spat them out. "They're awful!" I told them. "Ugh!"

"You said they're 'perfectly legal,'" Lee commented, rinsing out his mouth with a splash of tap water. "How do you know?"

"Because they're just garden seeds," Dave replied (He had wisely not chewed on any of the seeds.). "And they're supposed to be harmless. Maybe give you some hallucinations."

"Hullicinations? " I put in. "That's not harmless."

"Maybe, maybe not," Dave replied, as I picked up some of the blackened berries and placed them into a napkin (I'd save these 'berries" for years).

"I want to find out," Lee told him. "Where can I find a list of prohibited drugs?"

"Go to the DA's office," Dave told him. "Somebody there in the Juvenile Division should have a list of drugs that are prohibited to minors. Go see Gillin. He's almost blind, he'll never be able to identify you, but he damned well should know what's on the list."

This is why Lee showed up at Edwin Gillin's office

By the way, Jeff Cohen, one of the authors of the Rolling Stone article, also thought that MK-Ultra was part of the story of Luis Castillo, a Puerto Rican who was deported from the US to the Philippines in 1967 and who claimed he was part of a 15-man assassination squad in Dallas. He was hypnotized in the Philippines and the hypnotist later suspected he was part of MK-Ultra. It's all nonsense and I have even talked to the hypnotist who says that all his reports were stolen from his apartment in Los Angeles by the CIA. I'll be writing a lot more about this story in the future.

My prediction: more MK-Ultra stories about the JFK assassination will be forthcoming.

Stay tuned.