Wormwood (2017) s01e05 Episode Script
Chapter 5: Honorable Men
1 [TICKING.]
[FRANK.]
"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters.
And the name of the star is called Wormwood.
And the third part of the waters became Wormwood.
And many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
" [GOTTLIEB.]
Welcome, Dr.
Olson.
Have a seat.
[FRANK GRUNTS.]
- [GOTTLIEB.]
Relax.
- Okay.
[GOTTLIEB.]
This is part of the experiment.
[ECHOING.]
It says here you've been unsettled, tactless, almost to the point of indiscretion.
Isn't our business discretion, Frank? Yes, it is.
[GOTTLIEB.]
You've overindulged with alcohol.
- We can all attest to that, right? - No.
[GOTTLIEB.]
Not reliable from a technical standpoint.
That's not true.
I set up the lab at Detrick.
[LASHBROOK.]
Shh.
Quiet.
[GOTTLIEB.]
Detriment to the morale of the other personnel.
[LASHBROOK.]
Vin says so.
[CHUCKLES.]
[GOTTLIEB.]
That's interesting.
[LASHBROOK.]
Feeling ill, Frank? Do you object to control of scientific information by the military? Does it say that? [GOTTLIEB.]
Possible fear of a security violation! [FRANK.]
I want you to stop yelling at me.
[LASHBROOK.]
Come on.
- [GOTTLIEB.]
Fear of a security risk! - That's right.
Are you having fun? Fear.
[LASHBROOK.]
Relax, Frank.
You're doing good.
Are you conceited? Do you talk too much? [WHISPERS.]
I talk too much.
[LASHBROOK.]
Say something.
I talk too much.
[GOTTLIEB.]
Are you out of t-t-touch with reality? Oh, my God.
I talk too much.
[GOTTLIEB.]
Are you out of touch with reality? Yes.
Yes.
[LIGHT SWITCH CLICKS.]
The drug testing is a mystery to me in a way.
How did the CIA feel that LSD and such things fitted in with national security? When Allen Dulles, who was the director back in those days, authorized this thing to be undertaken, we all felt at the time that it would have been wrong of us not to investigate this area.
Who else in the government was gonna investigate it? It was our field.
Maybe our people were gonna be administered drugs.
In other words, in in a defensive way, we felt we would have been delinquent in our responsibilities if we hadn't gotten into this field to find out what was there, if anything.
What was your reaction when you heard about the death by suicide of Frank Olson? He was working for the Army at that time.
I believe at Fort Detrick.
And he had agreed, along with three or four other people, who were on the advisory committee to the Agency, to be administered a drug.
He had agreed to this.
Obviously, a mistake was made.
I believe it was discovered, that even though his family now denies it, that he had shown suicidal tendencies before.
Apparently, either the Agency did not know this, or hadn't been careful enough in its investigation, or should have put more uh weight on it.
In any event, it was a very sad event, and I don't think there was anybody involved that didn't wish it could go away, and never have happened.
[ERIC.]
Constructing an effective cover story was not that easy.
The misdirection of attention This, for the CIA, is very key to their whole modus operandi, which is, you know, how to direct attention toward where the thing is not actually occurring.
The whole LSD thing is not what this is about.
This is about biological warfare.
This is about interrogation.
But the LSD thing was the perfect decoy that got everybody looking in the wrong direction.
I mean, talk about an effective cover story.
[GLASS SHATTERING.]
Holy Moses! Look over here, so you won't ask these questions about any of this.
And nobody did.
I think it's brilliant.
[ERROL.]
What were you hoping to find when you opened the case? You're hoping you can resolve this for the family.
If it's completely shown that this was a suicide, at least I could demonstrate to Eric, "We're barking up the wrong tree here.
" Couldn't do that, and neither could I satisfy him, "We're ready to start locking people up, presenting this to a grand jury.
" Couldn't do that, either.
There's always a third possibility.
It was mind control.
This is what it was all about.
And if they could have manipulated his psyche that it would be best if you did kill yourself forensically it would look like a suicide, but it would be murder.
Remember that when he came to New York the first time with Vin Ruwet and Dr.
Lashbrook, they went to see two people.
One was the allergist, Dr.
Abramson, and one was the magician, John Mulholland.
Mulholland is the type, if you rang his bell, flowers would come out.
[BELL CHIMES.]
It was their explanation that they were taking him to see Mulholland, because they thought he would be entertained by John Mulholland.
John Mulholland wrote a manual for deception where he would teach CIA agents how to surreptitiously, you know, stick something in your drink, or how to misdirect your attention.
It's like a 50-page manual for CIA.
[ERIC.]
Why would you go to meet a magician if you're trying to kind of calm somebody down who you already think is paranoid? That's not, like, an obvious choice.
[CHUCKLES.]
But I must say, I don't care anymore, because I think all of that story is garbage.
Are there points where it touches reality? Maybe.
[ERROL.]
Do you think your father was even given LSD at Deep Creek? [ERIC.]
If he had been given it, I don't think it played any causal role in what subsequently happened.
[ERROL.]
The LSD, it's a way for the government to take responsibility, and not to take responsibility.
"It was an irresponsible experiment.
We regret the carelessness.
We shouldn't have done this.
Never gonna happen again.
" [ALICE.]
I talked to him on Friday night, just uh after Colonel Ruwet had talked to him, and it was a fine discussion.
Everything was, you know, "We will see you tomorrow.
" It was not a goodbye.
That was the one thing that consoled me, was that I knew this could not have been an intentional act, because he did not call up to say goodbye.
It was, "I will see you tomorrow.
" - [VIN.]
Chairman, could I say one thing? - [CHAIRMAN.]
Certainly.
[VIN.]
Uh Something has troubled me.
I never recall having told Mrs.
Olson anything that was flatly untrue.
I did allow her to think things that were not true.
I just would like to have that put on the record that I do regret it.
[CHAIRMAN.]
Well, that's a very honorable gesture.
I'm sure there's [MAN 1.]
Colonel, Colonel Ruwet is a very honorable man.
Thank you, sir.
[DOOR CLOSES.]
[VIN.]
Mr.
Chairman, could I say one thing? Something has troubled me.
I never recall having told Mrs.
Olson anything that was flatly untrue.
I did allow her to think things that were not true.
I just would like to have that put on the record that I do regret it.
[VIN.]
The secret is to shake it until it gets so cold you can't bear to hold it.
[ALICE.]
Why did you let him go? [LIGHTER CLICKS.]
I can't believe he left us.
Well, it's possible he didn't have a choice.
None of this makes any sense.
[ERIC.]
Vin Ruwet, serving the CIA, presents himself as a friend and her view of it was her husband couldn't have been murdered, because if he was murdered, Vin Ruwet would have had to know something about it, because he was present in New York for at least part of that week.
[ERROL.]
How does Ruwet live with himself, playing this strange double role? Has gotta be very tough.
I don't care who you are.
I don't care what your defenses are, I don't care what your rationale is, or what your duty you think you're performing for God and country.
It's gotta be difficult, anyhow.
Gotta be.
Vin Ruwet, after this happened, became Commanding Officer of Detrick.
Was this a kind of reward for services rendered? I don't know.
One could think that.
[ICE RATTLING.]
[ERIC.]
Ruwet died in church.
Talk about Shakespearean.
Just after Saracco interviewed him and made clear that this was a murder investigation, Ruwet has a heart attack.
[ERROL.]
Is he on his knees? Like Claudius? [CHUCKLES.]
I don't know.
I wasn't there.
I don't know exactly whether he was praying or what, but he was in church.
It was in 2001, very close friend, this guy named Norman Kenoyer, who I had remembered from my childhood, but who I hadn't seen for decades.
He saw this story in The New York Times.
He dropped me a note.
And he said, "Eric, you got everything right except for one thing.
" I said, "Really? What's that?" He said, "The historical context.
" I go, "Oh, that.
" "Your father had become convinced that the United States was using biological weapons in Korea, and he was pissed.
" One afternoon, we were talking about this, then we broke for lunch.
We were sitting there looking out at his yard, and suddenly this enormous lion walks across the yard.
[CHUCKLES.]
It was like a moment of From a magic realist novel or something.
Like, "What?" And what flashed through my mind at that moment was, you know, seeing this mountain lion walk through this yard, the likelihood of that occurring is about the same as Norman telling me that he was there at the time.
My father was there at the time.
My father became convinced that the United States was using this stuff.
And the question, of course, is what do we even mean by "using"? Was it a massive deployment? Was it experimental? That's what this argument ultimately comes down to, the semantic question.
What do we mean by "using"? Was it a tactical deployment, a strategic decision? What was it, actually? Was it a test? How big was that test? I think that's what this ultimately comes down to.
Does that end the whole historical controversy? No.
It shows that my father believed it, and if my father believed it, it was gonna be very difficult to to discredit him.
Very difficult.
I mean, what are they gonna say? Korea was a very tough fight.
Biological weapons would have seemed like the conservative choice.
We had already dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.
Were we gonna drop more atomic bombs on Korea? The incredible thing about biological weapons is no one knows you've done it.
You release these insects, which are carrying these vectors, as they call them, these diseases, and you can say, "We didn't do it.
" That's the point of connection between biological weapons, and the CIA's concern with covert operations, which was what the Cold War was all about.
Norman then told me that my father was also extremely upset by these interrogations, which the Agency was doing in Western Europe, which were often terminal.
When he came back from a trip in '53, he said, "Norman, have you ever seen anybody killed?" And Norman says, "No.
" And he said, "Well, I did.
" My father's involvement had been with something called ARTICHOKE.
Interrogation programs that go back to the early years of the Cold War.
How do you extract information from people who don't wanna give it? The use of drugs.
It could also be physical torture, mental torture.
Any kind of thing that they could think of.
People died as a result of these interrogations.
This is a bit like an Agatha Christie novel, where you have so many possible motives, and the cumulative effect of it all was, "Frank is a liability, because he's not on board with this.
Gotta figure out a way of getting rid of him.
We got an assassination manual that says drop him out of a window.
Let's try that.
" I think that's kind of what happened here.
"Our purpose in inviting you here today is to explain why, 49 years after his death, 27 years after the government claimed to have told us the truth about his death, and eight years after we had his body exhumed, and a forensic investigation performed, we are going to rebury our father's remains tomorrow.
The reason we have waited so long to do this is that we have wanted to be certain that when we reburied our father's remains, we would not be reburying the truth at the same time.
Frank Olson did not die because he was an experimental guinea pig who had experienced a, quote, "bad trip.
" He died because of concern that he would divulge information concerning a highly classified CIA interrogation program called ARTICHOKE, and concerning the use of biological weapons by the United States in the Korean War.
We, therefore, feel ready to rebury the physical remains of our father, our grandfather.
" If this was an individual, and you had the circumstantial evidence that has been accumulated, that individual would be in jail.
Convicted of murder.
[ERROL.]
But in this case? No individual.
If there's an individual, maybe they're dead.
There's a line I always cite from film noir that I like.
It's from Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past, and he says, "I could see the frame, but I still couldn't see the picture.
" [HARRY CHUCKLES.]
Buddy, you look like you're in trouble.
- Why? - Because you don't act like it.
I think I'm in a frame.
Don't sound like you.
I don't know.
All I can see is the frame.
I'm going in there now to look at the picture.
- I don't have to tell you to wait.
- No, don't tell me nothin'.
There are a lot of people that don't wanna talk about it.
"I don't wanna contemplate the fact that my government kills people.
Don't talk to me.
You're a conspiracy freak.
And you're drawing conclusions that aren't there.
" You hear some noises back in the woods, and you're not sure what they are.
You know the noises are there.
Somebody's making the noises.
The more you understand, the less you can draw a conclusion.
A son trying to solve the mystery of his father's death over 30 or 40 years.
He clearly has been dissuaded more than once.
He hasn't moved on.
He wants to get to the bottom of this.
I think he thinks he's finally at one bottom where his father didn't commit suicide, but his father was murdered.
But then the question is, "By whom? And who ordered that? Under what auspices? And why?" [ERROL.]
How does this make you feel as an investigator, not being able to essentially, solve a case? I investigated hundreds of murder cases.
Several cold homicide cases.
You know, we spent four years on this.
Not exclusively on this, but four years.
Was it professionally frustrating? Absolutely.
The chief medical examiner did change the cause of death from suicide to what's called a CUPPI.
C-U-P-P-I.
Cause unknown pending police investigation.
[ERROL.]
Did Eric get upset with you when this got dropped? Yes.
I may have, like, promised him too much at the beginning when I first met him.
Given him the idea that I was gonna be able to come to some conclusion, when, in fact, I was not able to do this.
There was a time when this had to be put to bed.
We had done what we felt could be done.
And then at the end, we didn't give Eric a call and say, "Well, we're done.
" We wrote a a formal closing-out letter, certainly under the understanding, "You know, listen, if you come up with something else on your own, send it down, and we're there with you.
" It was never that we're closing the door completely.
It came to this moment where they said, "We're gonna have to drop the case.
" And I said, "Excuse me?" I was just stunned.
So then we had this meeting, and the question was, "Why are you gonna drop this case?" They just made a kind of blanket statement, "There's nowhere to go here.
We don't have sufficient evidence to proceed.
" Harry then said to them, "If you're over your head here, which, you know, is no fault of your own, you weren't set up to investigate national security homicides, could you at least send a letter to the Department of Justice, saying they should look into this?" "No, we can't do that.
" This was just too much.
[DAVID.]
The home is a strong metaphor for what has happened to Eric.
Trapped by this event trapped by the story and now, physically unable to move out of his house.
All the memories and he's kind of ensconced there.
Giving up a hugely promising career.
And all of that gets channeled into a combination of trying to find out what happened, and hold people responsible, and kind of being frustrated, ultimately, at each level.
I would not have predicted he'd be so captured and obsessed as he's become by this.
I understand it, but I wouldn't have predicted it.
And I'm sure he looks back on 40 years and says, "Was this preordained, once 1975 happened? Could I have broken out of this at some point?" The problem here is there will never be a 100% certitude.
People died, records are gone, memories are hazed, people have reasons not to disclose.
Best you can do is, what's the most plausible story? [ERROL.]
I'm interested in the nature of Eric's obsession, which I am sympathetic to.
I represented Eric a couple of times and we couldn't answer his question.
And so, rather than kind of getting upset that the law had limits, it was, "Harry, you should have done more.
" Demanding too much of me, demanding too much of my time.
And then we didn't see each other probably for two, three, four years.
And then he and Nils sent me a long letter saying I was the only one that could help him.
And my wife said, "Don't get involved in this again, Harry.
Do not do this.
" And I said, "No, no.
Come on.
We have to help him.
" So, I got back involved.
Brought a second lawsuit.
[ERIC.]
His case was dismissed.
Nevertheless, the judge made a point in his opinion of saying that he had been convinced by the facts.
He believed that Frank Olson had been murdered, but he had to dismiss the case anyway.
[ERROL.]
On what basis did the judge make this decision? If you're gonna sue the CIA, or sue the American government, it has to be for negligence.
It can't be for intent.
If the government accidentally kills you, you can sue them for it.
If they intentionally kill you, you're out of luck.
You can't sue them.
[CHUCKLING.]
This is a kind of non-intuitive result, but this is the implication of the Federal Tort Claims Act, the only act under which you can sue the government at all.
What could you have done to convince this judge? You would have had to file this suit maybe 40 years earlier.
We shouldn't have signed the agreement with the government in 1975.
We didn't know that this was being engineered by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney as a way of preventing us from going to court.
[ERROL.]
Were they part of a cover-up of murder? [ERIC.]
They knew enough to know this was a real problem.
Did they know that it was definitely a murder, or did they just know that the suicide story wasn't all? It's hard to say.
But the Agency must have alerted them, "Look, you guys gotta help us cover this, because if we get exposed on this, this is gonna be big trouble.
" [KETTLE WHISTLES.]
[FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING.]
Thank you.
I'd be uh glad to tell you anything you wanna know.
[TEA CUP RATTLES.]
[LIGHTER CLICKS.]
Did you work with my husband? I worked closely with F-Frank for several years.
He never mentioned you.
He was a talented scientist.
Considered him a close friend.
[GOTTLIEB.]
We're sorry for your loss.
We'll make sure that everything is in line for you to get all the benefits that your h-h-husband deserved.
[ERIC.]
A year ago, a little over a year ago, I go back to Seymour Hersh for advice about, basically, how to inter this whole effort.
He goes, "We've all known this story for decades.
What's new?" And I go, "You gotta be kidding! Sy that's all a myth.
All of that is nonsense.
" And he was really incensed to hear that.
He kind of really pushed back.
He got upset.
He got irritated.
And I basically told him to sit down and shut up, and I wanted to tell him some things, because I got upset myself, and he was stunned.
He had swallowed the cover story.
Which, again, is ironic, since he was the one who said, "This is the most uncurious family in the United States.
" And I was there telling him, "All of what you think is true is actually a second-level myth.
" I kind of managed to prick his defenses enough that he he decided he had to look into this.
He said, you know, "I'm gonna check this.
" So it couldn't have been more than a couple of days later, he calls me, and it was a kind of sense of panic in his voice.
He goes, "Eric, I found something, but I can't tell you what it is.
" And I go, "What? What do you mean you can't tell me what it is?" He said, "Okay, come down here.
" He had gone to this source, a guy he's known for many, many years.
[ERIC.]
Is this Hersh's version of Deep Throat? This is a kind of a Deep Throat character.
But it's somebody Unlike the Deep Throat character, this is somebody who he knew very well, and who he had immense respect for, and complete confidence in.
Complete confidence.
So when this guy then tells him, it was something that Sy could not dismiss.
He knew he had heard "the truth.
" ["MOON-FACED, STARRY-EYED" PLAYING ON PIANO.]
Moon-faced, starry-eyed Peaches and cream With nuts on the side I never knew There was anyone livin' like you Moon-faced, starry-eyed I'm gonna bust my vest with pride I never lived, baby Not at all, till I met you At six o'clock, I expect your call Thank you.
At seven o'clock, I am in the hall At eight o'clock, if you don't come by At nine o'clock, baby, I die Moon-faced, starry-eyed [LIGHTER CLICKS.]
Cookin' with gas When I'm by your side I swear my heart's nowhere Without you At six o'clock, I'm gettin' up steam At seven o'clock, I am on the beam At eight o'clock If the knob don't turn Vin's on the line.
By nine o'clock, baby, I burn Moon-faced, starry-eyed Floatin' on clouds When I'm by your side Hello? Yeah.
I'm feeling much better.
[WAITRESS.]
Sorry.
Thanks a lot.
["CIA MAN" BY THE FUGS PLAYING.]
Mm Who can kill a general in his bed? Overthrow dictators if they're Red? Fucking A, man CIA man Who can buy a government so cheap? Change a cabinet without a squeak? Fucking A, man CIA man Who can train guerrillas By the dozens? Send them out To kill their untrained cousins? Fucking A, man CIA man Ooh Ooh Who can get a budget that's so great? Who will be the 51st state? Who has got the secretest service? The one that makes The other service nervous? - Fucking A, man - Fucking A, man - CIA man - CIA man Who can take the sugar from its sack? Pour in LSD and put it back? Fucking A, man CIA man Who can mine the harbors Nicarag-ua? Outhit all the hit men of Chicag-ua? Fucking A, man CIA man Who can be so overtly covert? [WHINES.]
[FRANK.]
"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters.
And the name of the star is called Wormwood.
And the third part of the waters became Wormwood.
And many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
" [GOTTLIEB.]
Welcome, Dr.
Olson.
Have a seat.
[FRANK GRUNTS.]
- [GOTTLIEB.]
Relax.
- Okay.
[GOTTLIEB.]
This is part of the experiment.
[ECHOING.]
It says here you've been unsettled, tactless, almost to the point of indiscretion.
Isn't our business discretion, Frank? Yes, it is.
[GOTTLIEB.]
You've overindulged with alcohol.
- We can all attest to that, right? - No.
[GOTTLIEB.]
Not reliable from a technical standpoint.
That's not true.
I set up the lab at Detrick.
[LASHBROOK.]
Shh.
Quiet.
[GOTTLIEB.]
Detriment to the morale of the other personnel.
[LASHBROOK.]
Vin says so.
[CHUCKLES.]
[GOTTLIEB.]
That's interesting.
[LASHBROOK.]
Feeling ill, Frank? Do you object to control of scientific information by the military? Does it say that? [GOTTLIEB.]
Possible fear of a security violation! [FRANK.]
I want you to stop yelling at me.
[LASHBROOK.]
Come on.
- [GOTTLIEB.]
Fear of a security risk! - That's right.
Are you having fun? Fear.
[LASHBROOK.]
Relax, Frank.
You're doing good.
Are you conceited? Do you talk too much? [WHISPERS.]
I talk too much.
[LASHBROOK.]
Say something.
I talk too much.
[GOTTLIEB.]
Are you out of t-t-touch with reality? Oh, my God.
I talk too much.
[GOTTLIEB.]
Are you out of touch with reality? Yes.
Yes.
[LIGHT SWITCH CLICKS.]
The drug testing is a mystery to me in a way.
How did the CIA feel that LSD and such things fitted in with national security? When Allen Dulles, who was the director back in those days, authorized this thing to be undertaken, we all felt at the time that it would have been wrong of us not to investigate this area.
Who else in the government was gonna investigate it? It was our field.
Maybe our people were gonna be administered drugs.
In other words, in in a defensive way, we felt we would have been delinquent in our responsibilities if we hadn't gotten into this field to find out what was there, if anything.
What was your reaction when you heard about the death by suicide of Frank Olson? He was working for the Army at that time.
I believe at Fort Detrick.
And he had agreed, along with three or four other people, who were on the advisory committee to the Agency, to be administered a drug.
He had agreed to this.
Obviously, a mistake was made.
I believe it was discovered, that even though his family now denies it, that he had shown suicidal tendencies before.
Apparently, either the Agency did not know this, or hadn't been careful enough in its investigation, or should have put more uh weight on it.
In any event, it was a very sad event, and I don't think there was anybody involved that didn't wish it could go away, and never have happened.
[ERIC.]
Constructing an effective cover story was not that easy.
The misdirection of attention This, for the CIA, is very key to their whole modus operandi, which is, you know, how to direct attention toward where the thing is not actually occurring.
The whole LSD thing is not what this is about.
This is about biological warfare.
This is about interrogation.
But the LSD thing was the perfect decoy that got everybody looking in the wrong direction.
I mean, talk about an effective cover story.
[GLASS SHATTERING.]
Holy Moses! Look over here, so you won't ask these questions about any of this.
And nobody did.
I think it's brilliant.
[ERROL.]
What were you hoping to find when you opened the case? You're hoping you can resolve this for the family.
If it's completely shown that this was a suicide, at least I could demonstrate to Eric, "We're barking up the wrong tree here.
" Couldn't do that, and neither could I satisfy him, "We're ready to start locking people up, presenting this to a grand jury.
" Couldn't do that, either.
There's always a third possibility.
It was mind control.
This is what it was all about.
And if they could have manipulated his psyche that it would be best if you did kill yourself forensically it would look like a suicide, but it would be murder.
Remember that when he came to New York the first time with Vin Ruwet and Dr.
Lashbrook, they went to see two people.
One was the allergist, Dr.
Abramson, and one was the magician, John Mulholland.
Mulholland is the type, if you rang his bell, flowers would come out.
[BELL CHIMES.]
It was their explanation that they were taking him to see Mulholland, because they thought he would be entertained by John Mulholland.
John Mulholland wrote a manual for deception where he would teach CIA agents how to surreptitiously, you know, stick something in your drink, or how to misdirect your attention.
It's like a 50-page manual for CIA.
[ERIC.]
Why would you go to meet a magician if you're trying to kind of calm somebody down who you already think is paranoid? That's not, like, an obvious choice.
[CHUCKLES.]
But I must say, I don't care anymore, because I think all of that story is garbage.
Are there points where it touches reality? Maybe.
[ERROL.]
Do you think your father was even given LSD at Deep Creek? [ERIC.]
If he had been given it, I don't think it played any causal role in what subsequently happened.
[ERROL.]
The LSD, it's a way for the government to take responsibility, and not to take responsibility.
"It was an irresponsible experiment.
We regret the carelessness.
We shouldn't have done this.
Never gonna happen again.
" [ALICE.]
I talked to him on Friday night, just uh after Colonel Ruwet had talked to him, and it was a fine discussion.
Everything was, you know, "We will see you tomorrow.
" It was not a goodbye.
That was the one thing that consoled me, was that I knew this could not have been an intentional act, because he did not call up to say goodbye.
It was, "I will see you tomorrow.
" - [VIN.]
Chairman, could I say one thing? - [CHAIRMAN.]
Certainly.
[VIN.]
Uh Something has troubled me.
I never recall having told Mrs.
Olson anything that was flatly untrue.
I did allow her to think things that were not true.
I just would like to have that put on the record that I do regret it.
[CHAIRMAN.]
Well, that's a very honorable gesture.
I'm sure there's [MAN 1.]
Colonel, Colonel Ruwet is a very honorable man.
Thank you, sir.
[DOOR CLOSES.]
[VIN.]
Mr.
Chairman, could I say one thing? Something has troubled me.
I never recall having told Mrs.
Olson anything that was flatly untrue.
I did allow her to think things that were not true.
I just would like to have that put on the record that I do regret it.
[VIN.]
The secret is to shake it until it gets so cold you can't bear to hold it.
[ALICE.]
Why did you let him go? [LIGHTER CLICKS.]
I can't believe he left us.
Well, it's possible he didn't have a choice.
None of this makes any sense.
[ERIC.]
Vin Ruwet, serving the CIA, presents himself as a friend and her view of it was her husband couldn't have been murdered, because if he was murdered, Vin Ruwet would have had to know something about it, because he was present in New York for at least part of that week.
[ERROL.]
How does Ruwet live with himself, playing this strange double role? Has gotta be very tough.
I don't care who you are.
I don't care what your defenses are, I don't care what your rationale is, or what your duty you think you're performing for God and country.
It's gotta be difficult, anyhow.
Gotta be.
Vin Ruwet, after this happened, became Commanding Officer of Detrick.
Was this a kind of reward for services rendered? I don't know.
One could think that.
[ICE RATTLING.]
[ERIC.]
Ruwet died in church.
Talk about Shakespearean.
Just after Saracco interviewed him and made clear that this was a murder investigation, Ruwet has a heart attack.
[ERROL.]
Is he on his knees? Like Claudius? [CHUCKLES.]
I don't know.
I wasn't there.
I don't know exactly whether he was praying or what, but he was in church.
It was in 2001, very close friend, this guy named Norman Kenoyer, who I had remembered from my childhood, but who I hadn't seen for decades.
He saw this story in The New York Times.
He dropped me a note.
And he said, "Eric, you got everything right except for one thing.
" I said, "Really? What's that?" He said, "The historical context.
" I go, "Oh, that.
" "Your father had become convinced that the United States was using biological weapons in Korea, and he was pissed.
" One afternoon, we were talking about this, then we broke for lunch.
We were sitting there looking out at his yard, and suddenly this enormous lion walks across the yard.
[CHUCKLES.]
It was like a moment of From a magic realist novel or something.
Like, "What?" And what flashed through my mind at that moment was, you know, seeing this mountain lion walk through this yard, the likelihood of that occurring is about the same as Norman telling me that he was there at the time.
My father was there at the time.
My father became convinced that the United States was using this stuff.
And the question, of course, is what do we even mean by "using"? Was it a massive deployment? Was it experimental? That's what this argument ultimately comes down to, the semantic question.
What do we mean by "using"? Was it a tactical deployment, a strategic decision? What was it, actually? Was it a test? How big was that test? I think that's what this ultimately comes down to.
Does that end the whole historical controversy? No.
It shows that my father believed it, and if my father believed it, it was gonna be very difficult to to discredit him.
Very difficult.
I mean, what are they gonna say? Korea was a very tough fight.
Biological weapons would have seemed like the conservative choice.
We had already dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.
Were we gonna drop more atomic bombs on Korea? The incredible thing about biological weapons is no one knows you've done it.
You release these insects, which are carrying these vectors, as they call them, these diseases, and you can say, "We didn't do it.
" That's the point of connection between biological weapons, and the CIA's concern with covert operations, which was what the Cold War was all about.
Norman then told me that my father was also extremely upset by these interrogations, which the Agency was doing in Western Europe, which were often terminal.
When he came back from a trip in '53, he said, "Norman, have you ever seen anybody killed?" And Norman says, "No.
" And he said, "Well, I did.
" My father's involvement had been with something called ARTICHOKE.
Interrogation programs that go back to the early years of the Cold War.
How do you extract information from people who don't wanna give it? The use of drugs.
It could also be physical torture, mental torture.
Any kind of thing that they could think of.
People died as a result of these interrogations.
This is a bit like an Agatha Christie novel, where you have so many possible motives, and the cumulative effect of it all was, "Frank is a liability, because he's not on board with this.
Gotta figure out a way of getting rid of him.
We got an assassination manual that says drop him out of a window.
Let's try that.
" I think that's kind of what happened here.
"Our purpose in inviting you here today is to explain why, 49 years after his death, 27 years after the government claimed to have told us the truth about his death, and eight years after we had his body exhumed, and a forensic investigation performed, we are going to rebury our father's remains tomorrow.
The reason we have waited so long to do this is that we have wanted to be certain that when we reburied our father's remains, we would not be reburying the truth at the same time.
Frank Olson did not die because he was an experimental guinea pig who had experienced a, quote, "bad trip.
" He died because of concern that he would divulge information concerning a highly classified CIA interrogation program called ARTICHOKE, and concerning the use of biological weapons by the United States in the Korean War.
We, therefore, feel ready to rebury the physical remains of our father, our grandfather.
" If this was an individual, and you had the circumstantial evidence that has been accumulated, that individual would be in jail.
Convicted of murder.
[ERROL.]
But in this case? No individual.
If there's an individual, maybe they're dead.
There's a line I always cite from film noir that I like.
It's from Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past, and he says, "I could see the frame, but I still couldn't see the picture.
" [HARRY CHUCKLES.]
Buddy, you look like you're in trouble.
- Why? - Because you don't act like it.
I think I'm in a frame.
Don't sound like you.
I don't know.
All I can see is the frame.
I'm going in there now to look at the picture.
- I don't have to tell you to wait.
- No, don't tell me nothin'.
There are a lot of people that don't wanna talk about it.
"I don't wanna contemplate the fact that my government kills people.
Don't talk to me.
You're a conspiracy freak.
And you're drawing conclusions that aren't there.
" You hear some noises back in the woods, and you're not sure what they are.
You know the noises are there.
Somebody's making the noises.
The more you understand, the less you can draw a conclusion.
A son trying to solve the mystery of his father's death over 30 or 40 years.
He clearly has been dissuaded more than once.
He hasn't moved on.
He wants to get to the bottom of this.
I think he thinks he's finally at one bottom where his father didn't commit suicide, but his father was murdered.
But then the question is, "By whom? And who ordered that? Under what auspices? And why?" [ERROL.]
How does this make you feel as an investigator, not being able to essentially, solve a case? I investigated hundreds of murder cases.
Several cold homicide cases.
You know, we spent four years on this.
Not exclusively on this, but four years.
Was it professionally frustrating? Absolutely.
The chief medical examiner did change the cause of death from suicide to what's called a CUPPI.
C-U-P-P-I.
Cause unknown pending police investigation.
[ERROL.]
Did Eric get upset with you when this got dropped? Yes.
I may have, like, promised him too much at the beginning when I first met him.
Given him the idea that I was gonna be able to come to some conclusion, when, in fact, I was not able to do this.
There was a time when this had to be put to bed.
We had done what we felt could be done.
And then at the end, we didn't give Eric a call and say, "Well, we're done.
" We wrote a a formal closing-out letter, certainly under the understanding, "You know, listen, if you come up with something else on your own, send it down, and we're there with you.
" It was never that we're closing the door completely.
It came to this moment where they said, "We're gonna have to drop the case.
" And I said, "Excuse me?" I was just stunned.
So then we had this meeting, and the question was, "Why are you gonna drop this case?" They just made a kind of blanket statement, "There's nowhere to go here.
We don't have sufficient evidence to proceed.
" Harry then said to them, "If you're over your head here, which, you know, is no fault of your own, you weren't set up to investigate national security homicides, could you at least send a letter to the Department of Justice, saying they should look into this?" "No, we can't do that.
" This was just too much.
[DAVID.]
The home is a strong metaphor for what has happened to Eric.
Trapped by this event trapped by the story and now, physically unable to move out of his house.
All the memories and he's kind of ensconced there.
Giving up a hugely promising career.
And all of that gets channeled into a combination of trying to find out what happened, and hold people responsible, and kind of being frustrated, ultimately, at each level.
I would not have predicted he'd be so captured and obsessed as he's become by this.
I understand it, but I wouldn't have predicted it.
And I'm sure he looks back on 40 years and says, "Was this preordained, once 1975 happened? Could I have broken out of this at some point?" The problem here is there will never be a 100% certitude.
People died, records are gone, memories are hazed, people have reasons not to disclose.
Best you can do is, what's the most plausible story? [ERROL.]
I'm interested in the nature of Eric's obsession, which I am sympathetic to.
I represented Eric a couple of times and we couldn't answer his question.
And so, rather than kind of getting upset that the law had limits, it was, "Harry, you should have done more.
" Demanding too much of me, demanding too much of my time.
And then we didn't see each other probably for two, three, four years.
And then he and Nils sent me a long letter saying I was the only one that could help him.
And my wife said, "Don't get involved in this again, Harry.
Do not do this.
" And I said, "No, no.
Come on.
We have to help him.
" So, I got back involved.
Brought a second lawsuit.
[ERIC.]
His case was dismissed.
Nevertheless, the judge made a point in his opinion of saying that he had been convinced by the facts.
He believed that Frank Olson had been murdered, but he had to dismiss the case anyway.
[ERROL.]
On what basis did the judge make this decision? If you're gonna sue the CIA, or sue the American government, it has to be for negligence.
It can't be for intent.
If the government accidentally kills you, you can sue them for it.
If they intentionally kill you, you're out of luck.
You can't sue them.
[CHUCKLING.]
This is a kind of non-intuitive result, but this is the implication of the Federal Tort Claims Act, the only act under which you can sue the government at all.
What could you have done to convince this judge? You would have had to file this suit maybe 40 years earlier.
We shouldn't have signed the agreement with the government in 1975.
We didn't know that this was being engineered by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney as a way of preventing us from going to court.
[ERROL.]
Were they part of a cover-up of murder? [ERIC.]
They knew enough to know this was a real problem.
Did they know that it was definitely a murder, or did they just know that the suicide story wasn't all? It's hard to say.
But the Agency must have alerted them, "Look, you guys gotta help us cover this, because if we get exposed on this, this is gonna be big trouble.
" [KETTLE WHISTLES.]
[FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING.]
Thank you.
I'd be uh glad to tell you anything you wanna know.
[TEA CUP RATTLES.]
[LIGHTER CLICKS.]
Did you work with my husband? I worked closely with F-Frank for several years.
He never mentioned you.
He was a talented scientist.
Considered him a close friend.
[GOTTLIEB.]
We're sorry for your loss.
We'll make sure that everything is in line for you to get all the benefits that your h-h-husband deserved.
[ERIC.]
A year ago, a little over a year ago, I go back to Seymour Hersh for advice about, basically, how to inter this whole effort.
He goes, "We've all known this story for decades.
What's new?" And I go, "You gotta be kidding! Sy that's all a myth.
All of that is nonsense.
" And he was really incensed to hear that.
He kind of really pushed back.
He got upset.
He got irritated.
And I basically told him to sit down and shut up, and I wanted to tell him some things, because I got upset myself, and he was stunned.
He had swallowed the cover story.
Which, again, is ironic, since he was the one who said, "This is the most uncurious family in the United States.
" And I was there telling him, "All of what you think is true is actually a second-level myth.
" I kind of managed to prick his defenses enough that he he decided he had to look into this.
He said, you know, "I'm gonna check this.
" So it couldn't have been more than a couple of days later, he calls me, and it was a kind of sense of panic in his voice.
He goes, "Eric, I found something, but I can't tell you what it is.
" And I go, "What? What do you mean you can't tell me what it is?" He said, "Okay, come down here.
" He had gone to this source, a guy he's known for many, many years.
[ERIC.]
Is this Hersh's version of Deep Throat? This is a kind of a Deep Throat character.
But it's somebody Unlike the Deep Throat character, this is somebody who he knew very well, and who he had immense respect for, and complete confidence in.
Complete confidence.
So when this guy then tells him, it was something that Sy could not dismiss.
He knew he had heard "the truth.
" ["MOON-FACED, STARRY-EYED" PLAYING ON PIANO.]
Moon-faced, starry-eyed Peaches and cream With nuts on the side I never knew There was anyone livin' like you Moon-faced, starry-eyed I'm gonna bust my vest with pride I never lived, baby Not at all, till I met you At six o'clock, I expect your call Thank you.
At seven o'clock, I am in the hall At eight o'clock, if you don't come by At nine o'clock, baby, I die Moon-faced, starry-eyed [LIGHTER CLICKS.]
Cookin' with gas When I'm by your side I swear my heart's nowhere Without you At six o'clock, I'm gettin' up steam At seven o'clock, I am on the beam At eight o'clock If the knob don't turn Vin's on the line.
By nine o'clock, baby, I burn Moon-faced, starry-eyed Floatin' on clouds When I'm by your side Hello? Yeah.
I'm feeling much better.
[WAITRESS.]
Sorry.
Thanks a lot.
["CIA MAN" BY THE FUGS PLAYING.]
Mm Who can kill a general in his bed? Overthrow dictators if they're Red? Fucking A, man CIA man Who can buy a government so cheap? Change a cabinet without a squeak? Fucking A, man CIA man Who can train guerrillas By the dozens? Send them out To kill their untrained cousins? Fucking A, man CIA man Ooh Ooh Who can get a budget that's so great? Who will be the 51st state? Who has got the secretest service? The one that makes The other service nervous? - Fucking A, man - Fucking A, man - CIA man - CIA man Who can take the sugar from its sack? Pour in LSD and put it back? Fucking A, man CIA man Who can mine the harbors Nicarag-ua? Outhit all the hit men of Chicag-ua? Fucking A, man CIA man Who can be so overtly covert? [WHINES.]