Operation Midnight Climax

Operation Midnight Climax

George White ran the CIA brothel. He watched from a hidden room while men were dosed with LSD — and he convinced himself the fate of the nation depended on it.

Episodes

March 13, 2024 64 mins

In 2011, after many delays, one of the most anticipated musicals in theater history finally opened on Broadway. The show was Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. The powerhouse creative team included a MacArthur Genius and Bono. But its downfall would be long and treacherous. Here's the story of what went wrong — and why we're still pushing for a revival.

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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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May 5, 2021 33 mins

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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April 28, 2021 31 mins

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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April 21, 2021 39 mins

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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April 14, 2021 11 mins

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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April 7, 2021 35 mins

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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March 31, 2021 33 mins

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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March 24, 2021 36 mins

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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March 17, 2021 28 mins

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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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played

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