FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — Relatives of Frank R. Olson have long believed the government killed the Cold War scientist who plunged 13 stories to his death days after unwittingly taking LSD in a CIA mind-control experiment.
But nearly 50 years after Olson's death, family members said they have substantiated the theory to their satisfaction and must now close this chapter and go on with their lives, even though the people they believe are responsible will never stand trial.
"We feel done," son Eric W. Olson, 57, said at a news conference Thursday in the back yard of the family home. "We've got to get on with life here, and it's time to rebury our father."
Frank Olson's remains, exhumed in 1994 as part of the family's investigation, were to be buried Friday beside his wife, Alice.
The CIA denied Thursday that its agents killed Olson by throwing him out a New York hotel window on Nov. 28, 1953, to keep him from revealing secrets about the torture of Cold War prisoners and biological weapons used in the Korean War.
"That's absolutely untrue and totally without foundation," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said. He added that the CIA activities had been investigated by the 1975 Rockefeller Commission and two congressional committees.
The family originally was told Olson, a microbiologist at Fort Detrick, the Army's biological weapons research center in Frederick, had fallen or jumped.
In 1975, a commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller released a report on CIA abuses that included a reference to an Army scientist who had jumped from a New York hotel days after being slipped LSD in 1953.
Outraged family members threatened to sue but President Ford invited the family to the White House, assuring them they would be given all the government's information. CIA Director William Colby handed over documents and the family accepted a $750,000 settlement to avert a lawsuit.
But the documents didn't answer all the family's questions, and their investigation continued.
On Thursday, Eric Olson distributed copies of a July 11, 1975, memorandum from Vice President Dick Cheney to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then both Ford White House aides.
Cheney wrote that any lawsuit or legislative hearings stemming from the incident would raise "the possibility that it might be necessary to disclose highly classified national security information."
Another memo, dated Aug. 4, 1975, from White House counsel Roderick Hills to Cheney, urged a settlement with the family.
A Cheney spokeswoman said Thursday she was looking into the matter. Rumsfeld's press office did not return telephone calls.
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