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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Speaker 1 (00:04):
In a politician named George Christopher promised to clean up
San Francisco. The mayoral candidate swore of voters that all
manner of vice would be eradicated, from drugs to illegal
gambling to prostitution. No sin would go unnoticed under Christopher's watch,
and his campaign worked. His administration endorsed s squads, cops
(00:26):
whose sole duty it was to patrol San Francisco streets
looking for signs of bad behavior. They arrested or intimidated
all manner of people in the red light district. The muggers, gamblers,
and dealers weren't having a good time under Christopher's watch,
but the prostitutes, at least some of them had a
way out. They just needed to say a name. George White.
(00:51):
White was there get out of jail free card. The
local cops knew his authority as a narcotics officer superseded
their own when it came to sex workers, and so
many prostitutes mentioned his name that law enforcement started referring
to them as George's girls. San Francisco Narcotics Bureau. This
(01:12):
is White got a lady of the night here says
she doesn't belong to jail, So cut her loose any
special reason. Why, Let's just say that lost souls get
to me. Thanks boys. Why did White care so much
about getting escorts out of jail, Well, he owed them
(01:34):
a favor. That's because George's girls had some additional responsibilities.
They were an extension of his experiments, subcontractors to one
of the most powerful government agencies in the world, and
not even the mayor of San Francisco had enough power
or influence to keep George White from doing his patriotic duty.
(01:56):
And in this case, George White's patriotic duty was to
observe them from behind a two way mirror, watching them
having sex while sitting on a portable toilet and drinking Martini's,
often recording it though they didn't know it themselves. George's
Girls were the CIA's prostitutes, and they would help George
(02:19):
White reach the most depraved heights of his career. For
(02:52):
My Heart Radio, this is Operation Midnight Climax and I
Heart original podcast, I'm Noel Brown and this is Chapter
six A Waste of Sin, Part one The Wild West
(03:14):
in nineteen fifty three, George White was like a traveling
salesman running out of new customers. He targeted and drugged
his friends, friends of friends, strangers, and more than a
few criminals. But things were getting dangerous in Greenwich Village.
Word had spread about the man with cold blue eyes
who liked to invite you home and serve lsd on
(03:35):
the rocks. But it wasn't just the rumors that worried him.
George White was being followed. It started after White was
told to close up shop at his Greenwich Village pad
and take on a new assignment, this time in Houston, Texas.
At the time, the police force was embroiled in a
(03:55):
controversy involving crooked cops who were selling stolen heroin back
to criminals, so White flew down. He started by interviewing
a detective named Martin Bill Knitzer, but the case quickly stalled.
The very next day, Bill Nitzer shot himself, well appeared
to have shot himself. White thought it was murder. It's
(04:18):
very difficult to shoot yourself in the chest. Houston police
weren't happy about an outsider sticking his nose in their business.
They called his boss, Harry Annslinger, to complain that he
wasn't welcome. One cop even approached White in a diner
gun on his hip and told him he leaned too
(04:38):
hard on his friend. White shrugged it off. Then the
man stepped back, eyeing White like they were in an
Old West saloon, and told him they could settle things outside.
George White might have wound up in a duel if
cooler heads had n't prevailed, but that wasn't the end
of it. Back in New York, White realized he was
(05:01):
being tailed by Houston cops. They were hoping to find
evidence he was a Communist at the time, a kiss
of death that could have ruined his name and career.
Of course, they didn't understand White had been busy fighting
Communism for a very long time. Still, White realized it
was a good time to leave New York City. Sydney Gottlieb,
(05:22):
White supervisor, didn't want to stop drug experiments, so he
proposed that White relocate to San Francisco and resume his
activities there. But there would be a twist. While White
had been occupied with the roll of drugs and getting
the truth, Gottlieb now wanted him to weaponize sex as well.
(05:44):
Spies and sex have a long tradition together. Seduction has
always played a role in foreign intrigue. And espionage, especially
in the movies, and the principle was similar to the
one behind LSD. It was about someone letting their guard down.
Sex may to subject vulnerable. Maybe Sidney Gottlieb had been
looking for the weapon to win the Cold War in
(06:06):
the wrong places all along. Maybe sex was the ultimate
truth drug. In March nineteen fifty, White and Albertine packed
their things and headed to San Francisco. The couple maintained
a separate residence there, but the real action would be
at the l Shaped Department at two Chestnut Street and
(06:27):
Telegraph Hill, a scenic neighborhood overlooking the San Francisco Bay,
Fisherman's Wharf, and even Alcatraz, where some of the dope
pushers White had long ago put away. May have been idling.
Why did Godliev select San Francisco In the nineteen fifties.
The city was alive with art and music. The thinking
(06:50):
was progressive. Like Greenwich Village, the city had embraced the
Beat generation and the counterculture movement. In October d five,
it hosted the famous Six Gallery Reading, where poets including
Alan Ginsburg and Michael McClure read their work. It was
the first time Ginsburg ever read Howell in public, and
(07:11):
it was met with a raucous reception from drunk spectators,
including Jack Kerouac. Cynically, Gottlieb targeted San Francisco because the
gay community was stirring there. Sex positivity was in the
first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Belitas, had just
formed in the city. If the CIA was going to
(07:32):
study sex, it needed to be in a place where
sexuality was thriving. But before White's work could begin, the
Chestnut Street apartment needed a makeover. Part of it was
for surveillance purposes. White hired an engineering student from cal Berkeley,
a tech whiz, to wire microphones into wall outlets. A
(07:54):
movie camera was obscured behind a two way mirror where
White could observe and record any d that unfolded. The
radio antenna was intended to let agents parked outside listen
to what was happening in the room. Maybe they were
there to watch the door to take surveillance photographs for
CIA blackmail purposes, But that audio signal is how the
(08:16):
live sex shows wound up getting out over the airwaves
to anyone picking up the frequency. White wasn't just concerned
with the technical stuff he wanted atmosphere. To find it,
he looked to Hugh Hefner and tried to ape the
Playboy Aesthetic record show that he expensed over a hundred
items to the CIA, including drapes, a mattress, art, and
(08:41):
a telescope. With the CIA's money, he also bought several
reproductions of Henri de toluz Latrex works, the nineteenth century
artist who was fascinated by Paris's lurid underbelly. White thought
the paintings, mostly of naked women kissing and embracing one another,
set the mood he all so brought along some photos
of women in bondage, likely supplied by his old friend,
(09:04):
the fetish publisher John Willie. All of it gave Chestnut
Street a kind of ci a Bordello aesthetic, a strange
mix of softcore porn and cheap elegance. Henri de toluz
La trec was also fond of depicting prostitutes in his work,
and that was another reason San Francisco was ideal for
(09:25):
White's purposes. In order to crack the code of sex
and drugs as matters of national security, he needed the
sex he needed professionals, and for that the CIA would
need a pimp pert two staffing up. Normally, procuring female
(09:56):
escorts would have fallen on Pierre Lafitte, who had been
White's right hand a man back in New York City,
but the FEET was still taking a vacation of sorts
in St. Petersburg, Florida. That's where White had sent him
to lay low following the controversial death of CIA employee
Frank Olsen. He had lost his Robin, so he did
the same thing Bruce Wayne once did in the comics.
(10:19):
He got himself a new sidekick. White summoned a man
named ira Ike Feldman. Of all the characters to pass
through White's life, Feldman was one of the most outrageous.
He was a fellow in Narcotics Bureau agent whose exterior
helped obscure a fierce intellect. A former military intelligence officer,
(10:39):
he spoke fluent Russian and Mandarin. He was also good
with the undercover work. In fact, he'd spent the past
several months posing as a heroin dealer in pimp under
the alias Joe Capone. The two men knew each other
by reputation. In journalist Richard Stratton tracked down Ike Feldman,
(11:00):
and rather than being evasive or contrite about his CIA work,
Feldman was all too happy to talk about it. Here's
what he said about working with George White. White was
the son of a bitch buddy who was a great cop.
That was Feldman's way of saying he liked White, and
just like White, he had taken his alter ego to extremes.
(11:20):
His persona of Joe Capone was flamboyant, prone to blue
suede shoes, pinstriped suits, huge hats, and a massive fake
diamond ring. Feldman was just five ft three, but quick
with his tongue and his fists. Like White, he was
from the old school of law enforcement. His preferred method
(11:40):
of getting people to talk involved a hammer. Sometimes when
people had information, it was the one way you could
get it. If it was a guy, you took his God,
can you hit it with, Amma, and they talked to you.
But White made an appeal to Feldman's curiosity. What if
there was a good way to get people to talk
without hitting their dicks with hammers? White explained the program.
(12:07):
He would supply the drugs, typically LSD, but whatever struck
his fancy, from sedatives to uppers too, experimental drugs that
didn't even have a name yet. The CIA would supply
the safe house, and Feldman, as the pimp, would supply
the women, ladies he recruited from bars and massage parlors.
(12:27):
Feldman would later argue he was only posing as a pimp.
He was an undercover cop playing a role, and the
role of Jo Capone called for him to take on
the profile of a drug dealer and vice kingpim. But
when you're recruiting actual prostitutes to have actual sex with
actual customers and paying them actual money, well doesn't that
make you an actual pimp too. It wasn't long before
(12:52):
Ike Feldman CIA pimp had assembled a harem for George
White's brothel. The prostitutes probably didn't know about the CIA part.
They just knew Feldman and White were paying them between
fifty two a hundred dollars a night to bring John's
back to the Chestnut Street apartment, where they were to
serve the men drinks dosed with LSD or other drugs,
(13:12):
and then they were supposed to indulge in whatever the
John's desired. The women could keep whatever fee they normally
charged for services rendered, whether Feldman took a cut of
that to keep up his pimp appearances is unknown. But
the women had another far more important incentive to work
with White and Feldman. White promised each one that if
(13:34):
they were ever busted by San Francisco police for their
escort work, they could call him and he would arrange
for their immediate release. The more men they brought to
the pad, the more favors White would owe them. Georgia's
girls had virtual immunity from the local police. Why it
wasn't someone who looked down on sex workers. Long before
(13:56):
he became an narcotics agent, White worked for the United
States Border but roll and at the border he fell
for one. In his autobiography, he wrote, her name was Estrellita,
and it was clear that she loved me with deep passion.
Otherwise would she have taken time off from her duties
(14:16):
to lose herself in my embraces coming home? However, she
subsequently fractured some of my ideals, if not my heart.
When it came time to murmur audios that night, she
rubbed her fingertips together in a manner that didn't at
all suggest deathless love. Money, She said, you get paid
(14:38):
for your work. I get paid for mine. Estralita made
quite an impression. Later, while working as a narcotics cop
in Omaha, White made the acquaintance of another prostitute named
Babe Barnes, and it might have been his first experience
as a bowyer. Babe freely permitted me to use her
workshop as my observation. Most regularly. I was able to
(15:01):
maintain a surveillance of her visitors, particularly the narcotic minded ones,
from the clothes closet in her room or even from
under her busy bed. Much of my knowledge of the
more esoteric facts of life, not to mention, my information
on the local narcotic traffic, was game in this somewhat
clinical fashion. When why it was about to be transferred,
(15:25):
he visited Babe Barnes one last time. I paid one
more visit to Babe, whom I had learned to like.
She was in the Council Bluffs jail during sixty days.
It was a sad sort of rainy day, and she
was pretty low, having run out of money, friends, and cigarettes.
I restocked her in at least one or two of
(15:46):
these categories, and suggested that she tried some other profession
when it was over, which was like trying to persuade
Campbell to stop carrying soup. What's funny? I was thinking
about you and under my bed to get junkies. What's
funny about that? Nothing except you're probably the first guy
(16:08):
who ever learned my business from the ground up. So long, baby,
So long, George. I'll see you again sometime now, he won't.
It never happens, but good luck, and it never happened.
Of course. It was the closest George White ever came
(16:35):
to explaining why he could respect the law even though
he didn't mind and even respected those who kept breaking in.
She was a lost soul. Lost Souls Get to Me
(16:59):
m Part three Breakthrough. In the spring of nine, everything
was in place for George White. He'd finally be able
to find out whether a combination of sex and drugs
was the key to breaking down the walls of discretion.
(17:22):
If it worked, maybe the Cold War would swing in
their favor. If it didn't, George White, renowned sexual deviant,
would still get paid to watch live sex shows. The
apartment on Chestnut Street was fully wired for audio and video.
White and Feldman had girls, LSD and an ample supply
of subjects. White even gave his project a name, Operation
(17:47):
Midnight Climax. The escorts would go out on the prowl
and quickly and snare a man using time tested methods
of seduction. You want to fuck, it's twenty dollars. White
sat behind the two a mirror recording for ambience. White
display his extensive collection of opium pipes collected from years
(18:10):
of drug busts. In front of him was a large
Martini picture, which he drained over the course of an evening,
peeing it out into the toilet underneath him so he
wouldn't miss a minute of action. Sometimes, when he was
particularly struck by an escorts beauty, he turned to his
colleague and say, that's a waste of a sin. The
(18:30):
escort and her john would step into the bedroom, clothing
falling to the floor. White told the women to approach
anyone they liked, from outcasts to white collar professionals. Like
any serious scientist, White wanted a cross section of subjects.
The weather, it was at the bar, or in the
living room, or even in the bedroom. The john's were
(18:52):
always offered a drink, often with something in it. As
the LSD worked its magic, the escorts would do what
escorts do. At first, White wanted to see if they're
willingness to try things sexually had any influence on whether
the man would loosen up. Positions played out like a
(19:15):
Comma Sutra page come to life. They assumed whatever role
their partner wanted. A scolding teacher, a jilted lover. A
closet full of sex toys was at their disposal, everything
from dildo's two paddles. After experiencing their fantasy of choice,
the men would enter their refractory period, and it was
(19:36):
here George White would lean forward, martini in hand and
wait for a revelation. The escorts would poke and prod
the John's about their profession, their family, their friends. Sometimes
they were politicians, sometimes millionaires. Others worked for companies that
demanded discretion. What would they say in George White's fantasia,
(20:00):
a place where pleasure was always on tap. Basically, they
talk about their wives, about their kids, about their bosses.
Sometimes it was under the influence of LSD. Sometimes just
sex would be enough. White always learned what the men
did for a living, but he was looking for more.
(20:23):
Would an airline pilot talk about the technical issues of
a passenger plane? Would a lawyer talk about a client.
The CIA's theory was that men were most vulnerable as
they neared orgasm. Their hormones had completely taken over by
that point, and if the escort could somehow delay their climax,
they might talk. This didn't work. When the escorts tried
(20:48):
to stall or converse, the men were virtually in a trance.
Their hormones were the dominant force in their brains, so
the CIA tried other things. Years later, Feldman would recall
the CIA shipped a new aphrodisiac to the Pad for
White and his girls to try out. Not long after,
(21:09):
the women brought back a number of Russian sailors and
served them this concoction, which CIA chemists had informally dubbed
the sextender. White wanted to know all kinds of crap,
but they weren't talking, so we had the girl slip
him this sex drug. These guys went crazy. White found
out what he wanted to know. What Feldman was describing
(21:30):
was something remarkably like viagra, which wouldn't go on sale
for another forty years. But there was a missing piece
of the equation. White was a master interrogator, someone who
could make a mime talk, but Now that the prostitutes
were the public face of this experiment, they had to
learn a different kind of manipulation, and so did the CIA.
(21:54):
Remember that even though George White had been around the block,
the CIA hadn't not when it came to actual coercion.
They wanted to know everything they could about the role
of sex and espionage, so they constantly dispatched psychologists to
interview the women, asking them about how they approached men,
how they made them comfortable, what men liked, what they didn't.
(22:18):
They didn't know what a trick was, what a john was.
It wasn't uncommon to walk into the pad and see
a CIA shrink, white dress, shirt, sleeves rolled up and
fogging up their eyeglasses as a prostitute told them the
best ways to use sex to get what they wanted,
in their case money. For the CIA, it was secrets.
(22:40):
Sometimes these exchanges bordered on the ridiculous. Once Feldman walked
in to find CIA psychologist John Gittinger on the floor
with two prostitutes using bendable pipe cleaners the kind you'd
find in school art projects, as the women contorted them
into human shapes to illustrate the various acrobat next their
clients liked getting Jer photographed these tiny dioramas for posterity,
(23:06):
carrying them all back to CIA headquarters. But most of
the time no psychologists or mental health professionals would be
on hand to oversee the experiments. Most of the time
it was just George White, inebriated, sitting on the portable
toilet behind a mirror, taking notes. White was many things,
(23:29):
a cop, a brawler, a patriot, but he wasn't a doctor.
His observations were superficial in the extreme. He could only
record and comment on whether a subject had spoken freely,
not about their overall mental state. From his perch, White
absorbed only the most salacious elements of this grand experiment.
(23:50):
He was a CIA sanctioned voyer, just as he had
with Babe Barnes back in Omaha. White took a liking
to one escorton which to kill her. Her name was
Liz Evans, and she spent hours with both White and
Gettinger filling them in on every possible nuance of her profession.
(24:10):
She had no idea they were acting on behalf of
the CIA. White was just a narcotics cop and Gettinger
a very curious associate. On a few occasions. White asked
her to accompany foreign dignitaries to some black tie events,
then retreat with them back to their hotel rooms. Was
White behind a mirror in an adjacent room filming? Was
(24:33):
he under the bed as he had been with Barnes?
Evans never said, though she did have something to say
to write our hp Albarelli Jr. I was paid to
practice my womanly charms. I'm sure George filmed parts of
those encounters if he could have a lot of the
times there were guys with George read movie cameras and
(24:55):
sound equipment. Even more curiously, Evans recalled the whites experiments
sometimes involved some very unconventional means of influence. We used
to play these crazy games hypnosis and like that. Yeah,
I think I was hypnotized once by a friend of George's.
(25:16):
White peered through his looking glass for weeks and then months,
the film camera capturing all of the encounters. He spent
his days hunting drug dealers and his nights watching naked
bodies contort themselves into any and every sexual position imaginable.
The results were always unpredictable. The men seemed guarded, even
(25:38):
after drinks, even after hallucinogenic chemicals turned the pad into
a world of bright colors and four breasted women uncloid.
I know we're close. What was missing was something prostitutes
didn't normally offer, intimacy. White took the prostitute aside and
(26:02):
told them to try something after sex, after climax. They
would usually hurry out of bed, get dressed, and get
the john out the door like a restaurant. High turnover
was good for business, but White told them to linger instead,
to just stay in bed and talk. The CIA had
been looking at this experiment as a two sided equation
(26:23):
between sex and drugs, but White saw a third side,
the male ego. When a prostitute began taking an interest
in the man beyond there a lotted time, they were flattered,
They felt special, and they wanted to reciprocate by talking, conversing,
sharing themselves, just like their escorts appeared to be doing.
(26:45):
As one CIA officer later said, to find a prostitute
who is willing to stay is a hell of a
shock to anyone used to prostitutes. It has a tremendous
effect on the guy. It's a boost to his ego
if she's telling him he was really and she wants
to stay for a few more hours. Most of the
time it gets pretty vulnerable. What the hell is he
(27:07):
going to talk about? Not the sex? So he starts
talking about his business. It's at this time she can
lead him gently. The simple act of human proximity and
a very reduced sense of inhibition thanks to the drugs,
led to the john saying things they shouldn't private, things
things one wouldn't normally say to an escort. Everyone is
(27:33):
taking kicked back to Sydney Hall. Everyone, you sure, just
tell you play the game. The prostitutes weren't there solely
for the John's. When George White's boss, Sydney Gottlieb came
to visit, they were there for him too, Just as
(27:55):
he had with L. S. D. Gottlieb liked to take
a hands on approach. Several times Sydney Gottlieb came out.
I met Gottlieb at the pad and a White's office.
White used to send me to the airport to pick
up Sydney in this other wacko John getten you the psychologist.
Sydney was a nice guy. He was a fucking nut.
They're all fucking nuts. Feldman claimed, Gottlie availed himself with
(28:20):
the hired help, retreating to a private space with the prostitutes.
They did it as a favorite of Feldman. This is
all rather illicit, dark, even for George White, but Ike
Feldman managed to bring it down to another more disturbing level.
Decades later, a woman stepped forward who had been an
(28:40):
escort working for Feldman on an narcotics case. Money and
favors weren't the only form of payment. The CIA offered,
you do a good job on this and I can
give you some of the best heroine you've ever had.
When an escort was a drug addict. It was another
way in a way to motivate this army of subcontractors.
(29:03):
White was prepared to do anything to succeed. But here's
the thing about CIA financed drug dens and brothels. Sometimes
they can get too conspicuous. White had been in business
for about a year in Telegraph Hill when Ike Feldman
decided to throw a party. It was a lavish affair
(29:25):
full of attractive women, drugs, and a beautiful view of
San Francisco. As Feldman mingled in his pinstriped suit, he
made deals for heroin. He flashed cash, he let it
be know that he was after no bigger a fish
than Ronaldo Red Ferrari, san Francisco's reigning criminal kingpin. No
(29:48):
one knew Feldman was a cop, but they soon would,
and when Feldman took the stand to testify it Ferrari's
eventual trial, but San Francisco examiner made sure to explain
how he pulled the fast woman Ferrari, that the spectacular
parties had all been arranged, that Feldman was working undercover,
and that Chestnut Street was where he had laid his trap.
(30:14):
George White's Utopia was no longer an anonymous broadcast, and
the CIA's secret campaign to harness the power of sex
and drugs was on the brink of being laid bare
for the entire world to see. But George White wasn't
about to lose his dream job for a second time.
He wasn't going to let San Francisco become another New York.
(30:37):
There was still too much to learn, too many secrets
to uncover. He'd do anything to keep it going, even
if it meant teaming up with the magician. Yeah. Operation
(31:13):
Midnight Climax is hosted by Noel Brown. This show's written
by Jake Rosson, Editing, sound design and mixing by Ernie
Indra Dat and Natasha Jacobs. Original music by Aeron Kaufman.
Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson and MAURICEA. Brown Show.
Logo by Lucy Quendonia. Special thanks to Enzo Salucci, Amanda Colbinson,
(31:35):
Spencer Gibson, David crum Holtz, Vanessa crum Holtz, Vinny Massimino,
and Ted Ramy. Julian Weller is our supervising producer. Our
executive producers are Jason English and mangesh Ha Ticketer. See
you next week.
In a politician named George Christopher promised to clean up
San Francisco. The mayoral candidate swore of voters that all
manner of vice would be eradicated, from drugs to illegal
gambling to prostitution. No sin would go unnoticed under Christopher's watch,
and his campaign worked. His administration endorsed s squads, cops
(00:26):
whose sole duty it was to patrol San Francisco streets
looking for signs of bad behavior. They arrested or intimidated
all manner of people in the red light district. The muggers, gamblers,
and dealers weren't having a good time under Christopher's watch,
but the prostitutes, at least some of them had a
way out. They just needed to say a name. George White.
(00:51):
White was there get out of jail free card. The
local cops knew his authority as a narcotics officer superseded
their own when it came to sex workers, and so
many prostitutes mentioned his name that law enforcement started referring
to them as George's girls. San Francisco Narcotics Bureau. This
(01:12):
is White got a lady of the night here says
she doesn't belong to jail, So cut her loose any
special reason. Why, Let's just say that lost souls get
to me. Thanks boys. Why did White care so much
about getting escorts out of jail, Well, he owed them
(01:34):
a favor. That's because George's girls had some additional responsibilities.
They were an extension of his experiments, subcontractors to one
of the most powerful government agencies in the world, and
not even the mayor of San Francisco had enough power
or influence to keep George White from doing his patriotic duty.
(01:56):
And in this case, George White's patriotic duty was to
observe them from behind a two way mirror, watching them
having sex while sitting on a portable toilet and drinking Martini's,
often recording it though they didn't know it themselves. George's
Girls were the CIA's prostitutes, and they would help George
(02:19):
White reach the most depraved heights of his career. For
(02:52):
My Heart Radio, this is Operation Midnight Climax and I
Heart original podcast, I'm Noel Brown and this is Chapter
six A Waste of Sin, Part one The Wild West
(03:14):
in nineteen fifty three, George White was like a traveling
salesman running out of new customers. He targeted and drugged
his friends, friends of friends, strangers, and more than a
few criminals. But things were getting dangerous in Greenwich Village.
Word had spread about the man with cold blue eyes
who liked to invite you home and serve lsd on
(03:35):
the rocks. But it wasn't just the rumors that worried him.
George White was being followed. It started after White was
told to close up shop at his Greenwich Village pad
and take on a new assignment, this time in Houston, Texas.
At the time, the police force was embroiled in a
(03:55):
controversy involving crooked cops who were selling stolen heroin back
to criminals, so White flew down. He started by interviewing
a detective named Martin Bill Knitzer, but the case quickly stalled.
The very next day, Bill Nitzer shot himself, well appeared
to have shot himself. White thought it was murder. It's
(04:18):
very difficult to shoot yourself in the chest. Houston police
weren't happy about an outsider sticking his nose in their business.
They called his boss, Harry Annslinger, to complain that he
wasn't welcome. One cop even approached White in a diner
gun on his hip and told him he leaned too
(04:38):
hard on his friend. White shrugged it off. Then the
man stepped back, eyeing White like they were in an
Old West saloon, and told him they could settle things outside.
George White might have wound up in a duel if
cooler heads had n't prevailed, but that wasn't the end
of it. Back in New York, White realized he was
(05:01):
being tailed by Houston cops. They were hoping to find
evidence he was a Communist at the time, a kiss
of death that could have ruined his name and career.
Of course, they didn't understand White had been busy fighting
Communism for a very long time. Still, White realized it
was a good time to leave New York City. Sydney Gottlieb,
(05:22):
White supervisor, didn't want to stop drug experiments, so he
proposed that White relocate to San Francisco and resume his
activities there. But there would be a twist. While White
had been occupied with the roll of drugs and getting
the truth, Gottlieb now wanted him to weaponize sex as well.
(05:44):
Spies and sex have a long tradition together. Seduction has
always played a role in foreign intrigue. And espionage, especially
in the movies, and the principle was similar to the
one behind LSD. It was about someone letting their guard down.
Sex may to subject vulnerable. Maybe Sidney Gottlieb had been
looking for the weapon to win the Cold War in
(06:06):
the wrong places all along. Maybe sex was the ultimate
truth drug. In March nineteen fifty, White and Albertine packed
their things and headed to San Francisco. The couple maintained
a separate residence there, but the real action would be
at the l Shaped Department at two Chestnut Street and
(06:27):
Telegraph Hill, a scenic neighborhood overlooking the San Francisco Bay,
Fisherman's Wharf, and even Alcatraz, where some of the dope
pushers White had long ago put away. May have been idling.
Why did Godliev select San Francisco In the nineteen fifties.
The city was alive with art and music. The thinking
(06:50):
was progressive. Like Greenwich Village, the city had embraced the
Beat generation and the counterculture movement. In October d five,
it hosted the famous Six Gallery Reading, where poets including
Alan Ginsburg and Michael McClure read their work. It was
the first time Ginsburg ever read Howell in public, and
(07:11):
it was met with a raucous reception from drunk spectators,
including Jack Kerouac. Cynically, Gottlieb targeted San Francisco because the
gay community was stirring there. Sex positivity was in the
first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Belitas, had just
formed in the city. If the CIA was going to
(07:32):
study sex, it needed to be in a place where
sexuality was thriving. But before White's work could begin, the
Chestnut Street apartment needed a makeover. Part of it was
for surveillance purposes. White hired an engineering student from cal Berkeley,
a tech whiz, to wire microphones into wall outlets. A
(07:54):
movie camera was obscured behind a two way mirror where
White could observe and record any d that unfolded. The
radio antenna was intended to let agents parked outside listen
to what was happening in the room. Maybe they were
there to watch the door to take surveillance photographs for
CIA blackmail purposes, But that audio signal is how the
(08:16):
live sex shows wound up getting out over the airwaves
to anyone picking up the frequency. White wasn't just concerned
with the technical stuff he wanted atmosphere. To find it,
he looked to Hugh Hefner and tried to ape the
Playboy Aesthetic record show that he expensed over a hundred
items to the CIA, including drapes, a mattress, art, and
(08:41):
a telescope. With the CIA's money, he also bought several
reproductions of Henri de toluz Latrex works, the nineteenth century
artist who was fascinated by Paris's lurid underbelly. White thought
the paintings, mostly of naked women kissing and embracing one another,
set the mood he all so brought along some photos
of women in bondage, likely supplied by his old friend,
(09:04):
the fetish publisher John Willie. All of it gave Chestnut
Street a kind of ci a Bordello aesthetic, a strange
mix of softcore porn and cheap elegance. Henri de toluz
La trec was also fond of depicting prostitutes in his work,
and that was another reason San Francisco was ideal for
(09:25):
White's purposes. In order to crack the code of sex
and drugs as matters of national security, he needed the
sex he needed professionals, and for that the CIA would
need a pimp pert two staffing up. Normally, procuring female
(09:56):
escorts would have fallen on Pierre Lafitte, who had been
White's right hand a man back in New York City,
but the FEET was still taking a vacation of sorts
in St. Petersburg, Florida. That's where White had sent him
to lay low following the controversial death of CIA employee
Frank Olsen. He had lost his Robin, so he did
the same thing Bruce Wayne once did in the comics.
(10:19):
He got himself a new sidekick. White summoned a man
named ira Ike Feldman. Of all the characters to pass
through White's life, Feldman was one of the most outrageous.
He was a fellow in Narcotics Bureau agent whose exterior
helped obscure a fierce intellect. A former military intelligence officer,
(10:39):
he spoke fluent Russian and Mandarin. He was also good
with the undercover work. In fact, he'd spent the past
several months posing as a heroin dealer in pimp under
the alias Joe Capone. The two men knew each other
by reputation. In journalist Richard Stratton tracked down Ike Feldman,
(11:00):
and rather than being evasive or contrite about his CIA work,
Feldman was all too happy to talk about it. Here's
what he said about working with George White. White was
the son of a bitch buddy who was a great cop.
That was Feldman's way of saying he liked White, and
just like White, he had taken his alter ego to extremes.
(11:20):
His persona of Joe Capone was flamboyant, prone to blue
suede shoes, pinstriped suits, huge hats, and a massive fake
diamond ring. Feldman was just five ft three, but quick
with his tongue and his fists. Like White, he was
from the old school of law enforcement. His preferred method
(11:40):
of getting people to talk involved a hammer. Sometimes when
people had information, it was the one way you could
get it. If it was a guy, you took his God,
can you hit it with, Amma, and they talked to you.
But White made an appeal to Feldman's curiosity. What if
there was a good way to get people to talk
without hitting their dicks with hammers? White explained the program.
(12:07):
He would supply the drugs, typically LSD, but whatever struck
his fancy, from sedatives to uppers too, experimental drugs that
didn't even have a name yet. The CIA would supply
the safe house, and Feldman, as the pimp, would supply
the women, ladies he recruited from bars and massage parlors.
(12:27):
Feldman would later argue he was only posing as a pimp.
He was an undercover cop playing a role, and the
role of Jo Capone called for him to take on
the profile of a drug dealer and vice kingpim. But
when you're recruiting actual prostitutes to have actual sex with
actual customers and paying them actual money, well doesn't that
make you an actual pimp too. It wasn't long before
(12:52):
Ike Feldman CIA pimp had assembled a harem for George
White's brothel. The prostitutes probably didn't know about the CIA part.
They just knew Feldman and White were paying them between
fifty two a hundred dollars a night to bring John's
back to the Chestnut Street apartment, where they were to
serve the men drinks dosed with LSD or other drugs,
(13:12):
and then they were supposed to indulge in whatever the
John's desired. The women could keep whatever fee they normally
charged for services rendered, whether Feldman took a cut of
that to keep up his pimp appearances is unknown. But
the women had another far more important incentive to work
with White and Feldman. White promised each one that if
(13:34):
they were ever busted by San Francisco police for their
escort work, they could call him and he would arrange
for their immediate release. The more men they brought to
the pad, the more favors White would owe them. Georgia's
girls had virtual immunity from the local police. Why it
wasn't someone who looked down on sex workers. Long before
(13:56):
he became an narcotics agent, White worked for the United
States Border but roll and at the border he fell
for one. In his autobiography, he wrote, her name was Estrellita,
and it was clear that she loved me with deep passion.
Otherwise would she have taken time off from her duties
(14:16):
to lose herself in my embraces coming home? However, she
subsequently fractured some of my ideals, if not my heart.
When it came time to murmur audios that night, she
rubbed her fingertips together in a manner that didn't at
all suggest deathless love. Money, She said, you get paid
(14:38):
for your work. I get paid for mine. Estralita made
quite an impression. Later, while working as a narcotics cop
in Omaha, White made the acquaintance of another prostitute named
Babe Barnes, and it might have been his first experience
as a bowyer. Babe freely permitted me to use her
workshop as my observation. Most regularly. I was able to
(15:01):
maintain a surveillance of her visitors, particularly the narcotic minded ones,
from the clothes closet in her room or even from
under her busy bed. Much of my knowledge of the
more esoteric facts of life, not to mention, my information
on the local narcotic traffic, was game in this somewhat
clinical fashion. When why it was about to be transferred,
(15:25):
he visited Babe Barnes one last time. I paid one
more visit to Babe, whom I had learned to like.
She was in the Council Bluffs jail during sixty days.
It was a sad sort of rainy day, and she
was pretty low, having run out of money, friends, and cigarettes.
I restocked her in at least one or two of
(15:46):
these categories, and suggested that she tried some other profession
when it was over, which was like trying to persuade
Campbell to stop carrying soup. What's funny? I was thinking
about you and under my bed to get junkies. What's
funny about that? Nothing except you're probably the first guy
(16:08):
who ever learned my business from the ground up. So long, baby,
So long, George. I'll see you again sometime now, he won't.
It never happens, but good luck, and it never happened.
Of course. It was the closest George White ever came
(16:35):
to explaining why he could respect the law even though
he didn't mind and even respected those who kept breaking in.
She was a lost soul. Lost Souls Get to Me
(16:59):
m Part three Breakthrough. In the spring of nine, everything
was in place for George White. He'd finally be able
to find out whether a combination of sex and drugs
was the key to breaking down the walls of discretion.
(17:22):
If it worked, maybe the Cold War would swing in
their favor. If it didn't, George White, renowned sexual deviant,
would still get paid to watch live sex shows. The
apartment on Chestnut Street was fully wired for audio and video.
White and Feldman had girls, LSD and an ample supply
of subjects. White even gave his project a name, Operation
(17:47):
Midnight Climax. The escorts would go out on the prowl
and quickly and snare a man using time tested methods
of seduction. You want to fuck, it's twenty dollars. White
sat behind the two a mirror recording for ambience. White
display his extensive collection of opium pipes collected from years
(18:10):
of drug busts. In front of him was a large
Martini picture, which he drained over the course of an evening,
peeing it out into the toilet underneath him so he
wouldn't miss a minute of action. Sometimes, when he was
particularly struck by an escorts beauty, he turned to his
colleague and say, that's a waste of a sin. The
(18:30):
escort and her john would step into the bedroom, clothing
falling to the floor. White told the women to approach
anyone they liked, from outcasts to white collar professionals. Like
any serious scientist, White wanted a cross section of subjects.
The weather, it was at the bar, or in the
living room, or even in the bedroom. The john's were
(18:52):
always offered a drink, often with something in it. As
the LSD worked its magic, the escorts would do what
escorts do. At first, White wanted to see if they're
willingness to try things sexually had any influence on whether
the man would loosen up. Positions played out like a
(19:15):
Comma Sutra page come to life. They assumed whatever role
their partner wanted. A scolding teacher, a jilted lover. A
closet full of sex toys was at their disposal, everything
from dildo's two paddles. After experiencing their fantasy of choice,
the men would enter their refractory period, and it was
(19:36):
here George White would lean forward, martini in hand and
wait for a revelation. The escorts would poke and prod
the John's about their profession, their family, their friends. Sometimes
they were politicians, sometimes millionaires. Others worked for companies that
demanded discretion. What would they say in George White's fantasia,
(20:00):
a place where pleasure was always on tap. Basically, they
talk about their wives, about their kids, about their bosses.
Sometimes it was under the influence of LSD. Sometimes just
sex would be enough. White always learned what the men
did for a living, but he was looking for more.
(20:23):
Would an airline pilot talk about the technical issues of
a passenger plane? Would a lawyer talk about a client.
The CIA's theory was that men were most vulnerable as
they neared orgasm. Their hormones had completely taken over by
that point, and if the escort could somehow delay their climax,
they might talk. This didn't work. When the escorts tried
(20:48):
to stall or converse, the men were virtually in a trance.
Their hormones were the dominant force in their brains, so
the CIA tried other things. Years later, Feldman would recall
the CIA shipped a new aphrodisiac to the Pad for
White and his girls to try out. Not long after,
(21:09):
the women brought back a number of Russian sailors and
served them this concoction, which CIA chemists had informally dubbed
the sextender. White wanted to know all kinds of crap,
but they weren't talking, so we had the girl slip
him this sex drug. These guys went crazy. White found
out what he wanted to know. What Feldman was describing
(21:30):
was something remarkably like viagra, which wouldn't go on sale
for another forty years. But there was a missing piece
of the equation. White was a master interrogator, someone who
could make a mime talk, but Now that the prostitutes
were the public face of this experiment, they had to
learn a different kind of manipulation, and so did the CIA.
(21:54):
Remember that even though George White had been around the block,
the CIA hadn't not when it came to actual coercion.
They wanted to know everything they could about the role
of sex and espionage, so they constantly dispatched psychologists to
interview the women, asking them about how they approached men,
how they made them comfortable, what men liked, what they didn't.
(22:18):
They didn't know what a trick was, what a john was.
It wasn't uncommon to walk into the pad and see
a CIA shrink, white dress, shirt, sleeves rolled up and
fogging up their eyeglasses as a prostitute told them the
best ways to use sex to get what they wanted,
in their case money. For the CIA, it was secrets.
(22:40):
Sometimes these exchanges bordered on the ridiculous. Once Feldman walked
in to find CIA psychologist John Gittinger on the floor
with two prostitutes using bendable pipe cleaners the kind you'd
find in school art projects, as the women contorted them
into human shapes to illustrate the various acrobat next their
clients liked getting Jer photographed these tiny dioramas for posterity,
(23:06):
carrying them all back to CIA headquarters. But most of
the time no psychologists or mental health professionals would be
on hand to oversee the experiments. Most of the time
it was just George White, inebriated, sitting on the portable
toilet behind a mirror, taking notes. White was many things,
(23:29):
a cop, a brawler, a patriot, but he wasn't a doctor.
His observations were superficial in the extreme. He could only
record and comment on whether a subject had spoken freely,
not about their overall mental state. From his perch, White
absorbed only the most salacious elements of this grand experiment.
(23:50):
He was a CIA sanctioned voyer, just as he had
with Babe Barnes back in Omaha. White took a liking
to one escorton which to kill her. Her name was
Liz Evans, and she spent hours with both White and
Gettinger filling them in on every possible nuance of her profession.
(24:10):
She had no idea they were acting on behalf of
the CIA. White was just a narcotics cop and Gettinger
a very curious associate. On a few occasions. White asked
her to accompany foreign dignitaries to some black tie events,
then retreat with them back to their hotel rooms. Was
White behind a mirror in an adjacent room filming? Was
(24:33):
he under the bed as he had been with Barnes?
Evans never said, though she did have something to say
to write our hp Albarelli Jr. I was paid to
practice my womanly charms. I'm sure George filmed parts of
those encounters if he could have a lot of the
times there were guys with George read movie cameras and
(24:55):
sound equipment. Even more curiously, Evans recalled the whites experiments
sometimes involved some very unconventional means of influence. We used
to play these crazy games hypnosis and like that. Yeah,
I think I was hypnotized once by a friend of George's.
(25:16):
White peered through his looking glass for weeks and then months,
the film camera capturing all of the encounters. He spent
his days hunting drug dealers and his nights watching naked
bodies contort themselves into any and every sexual position imaginable.
The results were always unpredictable. The men seemed guarded, even
(25:38):
after drinks, even after hallucinogenic chemicals turned the pad into
a world of bright colors and four breasted women uncloid.
I know we're close. What was missing was something prostitutes
didn't normally offer, intimacy. White took the prostitute aside and
(26:02):
told them to try something after sex, after climax. They
would usually hurry out of bed, get dressed, and get
the john out the door like a restaurant. High turnover
was good for business, but White told them to linger instead,
to just stay in bed and talk. The CIA had
been looking at this experiment as a two sided equation
(26:23):
between sex and drugs, but White saw a third side,
the male ego. When a prostitute began taking an interest
in the man beyond there a lotted time, they were flattered,
They felt special, and they wanted to reciprocate by talking, conversing,
sharing themselves, just like their escorts appeared to be doing.
(26:45):
As one CIA officer later said, to find a prostitute
who is willing to stay is a hell of a
shock to anyone used to prostitutes. It has a tremendous
effect on the guy. It's a boost to his ego
if she's telling him he was really and she wants
to stay for a few more hours. Most of the
time it gets pretty vulnerable. What the hell is he
(27:07):
going to talk about? Not the sex? So he starts
talking about his business. It's at this time she can
lead him gently. The simple act of human proximity and
a very reduced sense of inhibition thanks to the drugs,
led to the john saying things they shouldn't private, things
things one wouldn't normally say to an escort. Everyone is
(27:33):
taking kicked back to Sydney Hall. Everyone, you sure, just
tell you play the game. The prostitutes weren't there solely
for the John's. When George White's boss, Sydney Gottlieb came
to visit, they were there for him too, Just as
(27:55):
he had with L. S. D. Gottlieb liked to take
a hands on approach. Several times Sydney Gottlieb came out.
I met Gottlieb at the pad and a White's office.
White used to send me to the airport to pick
up Sydney in this other wacko John getten you the psychologist.
Sydney was a nice guy. He was a fucking nut.
They're all fucking nuts. Feldman claimed, Gottlie availed himself with
(28:20):
the hired help, retreating to a private space with the prostitutes.
They did it as a favorite of Feldman. This is
all rather illicit, dark, even for George White, but Ike
Feldman managed to bring it down to another more disturbing level.
Decades later, a woman stepped forward who had been an
(28:40):
escort working for Feldman on an narcotics case. Money and
favors weren't the only form of payment. The CIA offered,
you do a good job on this and I can
give you some of the best heroine you've ever had.
When an escort was a drug addict. It was another
way in a way to motivate this army of subcontractors.
(29:03):
White was prepared to do anything to succeed. But here's
the thing about CIA financed drug dens and brothels. Sometimes
they can get too conspicuous. White had been in business
for about a year in Telegraph Hill when Ike Feldman
decided to throw a party. It was a lavish affair
(29:25):
full of attractive women, drugs, and a beautiful view of
San Francisco. As Feldman mingled in his pinstriped suit, he
made deals for heroin. He flashed cash, he let it
be know that he was after no bigger a fish
than Ronaldo Red Ferrari, san Francisco's reigning criminal kingpin. No
(29:48):
one knew Feldman was a cop, but they soon would,
and when Feldman took the stand to testify it Ferrari's
eventual trial, but San Francisco examiner made sure to explain
how he pulled the fast woman Ferrari, that the spectacular
parties had all been arranged, that Feldman was working undercover,
and that Chestnut Street was where he had laid his trap.
(30:14):
George White's Utopia was no longer an anonymous broadcast, and
the CIA's secret campaign to harness the power of sex
and drugs was on the brink of being laid bare
for the entire world to see. But George White wasn't
about to lose his dream job for a second time.
He wasn't going to let San Francisco become another New York.
(30:37):
There was still too much to learn, too many secrets
to uncover. He'd do anything to keep it going, even
if it meant teaming up with the magician. Yeah. Operation
(31:13):
Midnight Climax is hosted by Noel Brown. This show's written
by Jake Rosson, Editing, sound design and mixing by Ernie
Indra Dat and Natasha Jacobs. Original music by Aeron Kaufman.
Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson and MAURICEA. Brown Show.
Logo by Lucy Quendonia. Special thanks to Enzo Salucci, Amanda Colbinson,
(31:35):
Spencer Gibson, David crum Holtz, Vanessa crum Holtz, Vinny Massimino,
and Ted Ramy. Julian Weller is our supervising producer. Our
executive producers are Jason English and mangesh Ha Ticketer. See
you next week.
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