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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Speaker 1 (00:05):
On September twelfth, nineteen fifty three, Linda King visited George
White at his Bedford Street pad in New York. At
the time, the aspiring actress thought she was there as
a friend, a guest. What she didn't understand was that
White didn't have friends. He had subjects, people he drugged,
whose names he jotted down in his diary. The CIA
(00:28):
needed data on what LSD did too unsuspecting minds, and
that's what George White provided. White and King made small talk.
He fixed her a standard drink, chin ice a floater
of acid. An hour passed. It wasn't long before King
found herself roaming the New York City streets, her mind
(00:50):
entering dimensions she never knew existed. White didn't chase her.
He never chased anyone. His experiments lack curiosity. He only
cared about the short term reaction. What a person did
in the hours, days, weeks, or even years following their
dosing didn't matter to him. When Linda King climbed to
(01:14):
the rooftop of her apartment building that night, wondering if
she should dive off the edge to quell her sudden
feeling of despair, White wasn't around he was home, fast asleep,
but someone was there to help. Her name was Albertine.
Her friends called her team or Teeny. She worked as
(01:37):
a buyer for retail stores in New York. She was
friends with King. Together, the two of them drove to
Lenox Hill Hospital. King in a state of hysteria, Albertine
soothing her, It's going to be okay, relax. George did something.
He gave me something. What did he give me? Get
(02:00):
you checked out? Okay? Come on, come on in At
Lennox Hill, Linda couldn't articulate what had happened, only that
she felt drugged. There was nothing to do but let
it pass. As the hours ticked by, King kept telling
anyone who would listen that a man named George White
(02:21):
had done this to her. They needed to remember the
name George White. Eighty one Bedford Street, George White. Alberteen
stood by passively. She wanted to help her friend, but
she was growing uncomfortable with Linda's chant of George White,
George White, Someone find George White. Alberteen knew exactly where
(02:46):
to find George White. That's because she was married to him.
(03:21):
For I Heart Radio, this is Operation Midnight Climax, and
I heart original podcast I'm your host Noel Brown and
this is chapter four Uncharted Waters, Part one. Love and Marriage.
(03:42):
Albertin and George White were married in nineteen fifty one,
just before White relocated to New York. It was White's
third marriage. He'd been married briefly. In nineteen thirty three.
He divorced his first wife after just a year general incompatibility.
In the nineteen forties, he married his second wife, Ruth.
She left him while he was serving abroad. They weren't
(04:07):
a happy couple. For all of White's bravado, for all
the drug peddlers he pushed around, and all the gunfights
he got into, he wilted in front of Ruth. She
verbally abused him, insulting his weight, calling him a slob.
White would harbor a lifelong resentment over those slights. But
(04:28):
Albertine was different. She didn't see a callous narcotics cop.
She saw White as good at his job, effective, punctual.
She liked punctual. She liked that his picture made it
into the newspapers after big drug busts. She liked that
he was well read and well traveled, even if he
(04:49):
left dead bodies in his wake. And he had powerful friends,
like mayoral candidate Rudolph Halle, who once to promised to
make White commissioner of the New York Police Departments. For white,
Albertine represented a step up society's ladder. She was a
clothing buyer, She knew fashion. She always looked spectacular. White
(05:13):
enjoyed taking her out and showing her off, watching men
as they admired her, and sometimes he didn't mind if
they did more than that. George and Albertin were swingers,
a couple who didn't mind if one or both got
into bed with a third or even fourth party. But
(05:35):
this wasn't swinging in the Internet age, where partners swapping
on an app would hardly be newsworthy. This was the
early nineteen fifties, when sex in America was still a
taboo subject. Alfred Kinsey had just caused a stir publishing
his research into American sex lives. The first issue of
(05:58):
Playboy was just around the corner, and while nudity was tolerated,
anything beyond that would have been a problem. Porn movies
were still known as stag films. If you wanted to
watch people having sex, you'd have to know someone who
could hang up a bedsheet and set up a thirty
five millimeter projector. White was in the right place at
(06:18):
the right time. If he'd been in Middle America, he'd
be run out of town, But in Greenwich Village he
could be more open. It was the sort of scene
you could casually say you and your wife enjoyed the
company of others without fear. So White developed a third
identity want Apart from White the narcotics cop and Morgan Hall,
(06:41):
the CIA operative, he didn't give this one a name.
In a sense, it was White's real self, the one
who didn't have to hide anything, his occupation, his badge,
his stash of LSD. In White's Greenwich Village, he could
be anyone he it, and what he wanted was to
(07:02):
be more than a swinger. He wanted to be kinky.
One of White's first friends in the city was John
Alexander Kutz. His fans knew him as John Willie, an
artist and fetish photographer. Willie specialized in depictions of women
trust up in corsets and heels, imprisoned for some imagined
(07:22):
fantasy scenario. Willie even published a magazine devoted to such
content called Bizarre. Like a lot of fringe adult publications
of the era, there wasn't actually any sex depicted. In
bizarre there wasn't even nudity. The authorities considered the material
depraved and morally corrosive. Willie took pains to avoid anything
(07:45):
that might raise the ire of people who could block
his magazine, but it was still dangerous business. Publishers of
similar material were routinely rated by authorities, their books and
magazines ceased and brought before congressional hearings. Reading these magazines,
let alone publishing them, wasn't anything you wanted to brag about.
(08:07):
But like minds tend to congregate. If you're John Willie,
maybe you value having a friend who might be able
to steer some vice cops clear of your business. If
you're George White, you like the fact that John Willie
is connected to a scene you want to be a
part of. It wasn't long before John Willie introduced George
(08:28):
White to a man he'd get along with. He lived
just a few blocks away. His name was Gil Fox.
Like White, he had an alter ego to several of them.
Dallas Mayo was one, Paul V. Russo was another. Kimberly
Kemp under pseudonyms. Fox wrote erotic novels with titles like
(08:51):
a Touch of Depravity and The Trouble with Redheads. Often
there were lesbian storylines. This was, for a time incredibly taboo,
so much so that Fox didn't have a lot of
source material to call from. I would watch old movies
and imagine the man and woman as two women and
(09:14):
reimagine it as a lesbian scene. I'd pull a whole
scene from the Late Show and write it down and
then put it in a box. The night pool ideas
from the box. But that wasn't the only place Fox
got ideas. Fox and his wife Pat had what would
today be called an ethically non monogamous marriage. Sometimes they
(09:36):
hopped in someone else's bed, either together or apart. Pat
could provide details of her encounters with other women. Fox
also got inspiration from friends like George White. You know,
I like high heels a lot high old woman as well.
(09:59):
There's just something about it. Do you think you could
right a scene with two women wearing high heels. Books
of this type were often sold by bookstores run by
the mafia, another reason law enforcement was so interested in them.
(10:20):
But Gil's books and John Willie's magazines weren't the only
way White could indulge his fetishes. Albertein knew about his
fascination with high heels. She watched his White filled up
an entire closet with them for her use and his pleasure.
According to Gil, who had intimate knowledge of White's life
(10:40):
behind closed doors, one of White's favorite scenarios would be
to take a pair of knee high boots and carefully
lace them up for Albertein. Gil's wife, Pat also instructed
Alberteen on other fetishes, like spanking. When White wanted or
needed something more extreme, he might solicit the company of
(11:02):
a professional. Once White invited Gil and Pat to his
hotel room. When they walked in, they saw White stripped
down to his underwear. Tied to the bed. Near him
was a dominatrix, a whip being cracked across White's ample backside,
and yes, she was wearing high heels. If White had
(11:27):
been in two loveless, relatively sexless marriages, he was making
up for lost time. Greenwich Village was a path to
indulging in anything he wanted. It was a playground. As
sexual escapades go. It was all relatively harmless. Gill and
Pat Fox regarded George and Albertine as like minds. All
(11:49):
of them were into kink. The two couples trusted one another.
Though Gill and Pat didn't know George was working for
the CIA, his extracurricular work wasn't disclosed to them, so
he thought nothing of it when White invited them over
for drinks. Gil had been around White long enough to
know he was an alcoholic. White favored gin, but wasn't picky.
(12:13):
He regularly started his drinking in the morning and continued
through the day. That detail matters. If there's one thing
you want out of someone conducting an illicit CIA experiment
with powerful haucinogenic drugs, it's probably sobriety, and that wasn't
something White could offer. But just how bad was White's problem?
(12:35):
Bad enough that when he was on assignment with the
Narcotics Bureau to chase a trail of heroin to Turkey,
he passed out drunk in front of a suspect while undercover.
The criminal went through his pockets and found his badge.
White barely escaped with his life years later, with LSD
(12:57):
in his possession, he was, in all likelihood drunk on
the night of November two when he welcomed the Foxes
to his apartment. We know the date because it's an
entry in White's diary. For him, it was a very
special occasion. He was about to take his LSD experimentation
(13:18):
into uncharted waters. Part two Dinner Parties. Gill and Pat
Fox arrived at White's apartment his real apartment, not as
(13:41):
Morgan Hall residents, and said hello to Kai Jerkinson. Kai
was a drama professor from Chapel Hill and another interesting
wrinkle in White's personality. His circle of friends included murderers, informants,
mayoral candidate, swingers, and apparently professors. All of them found
something alluring about White. For the criminals, fraternizing with a
(14:05):
cop felt empowering, like they were getting a peek at
the other side. For more respectable members of society it
was the opposite. White felt dangerous, unpredictable. They just didn't
quite understand the danger until it was too late. Welcome everyone, Pat,
(14:26):
you look like a million yil. How's the magnum opus coming? Well,
come on in and meet the Jerkinson's Tenas getting dinner ready,
The Foxes chatted with Kai and Joe Jurgensen while White
busied himself at the bar. One thing Gil had noticed
about White was that he liked mixing two pictures of
martinis at his parties. One was for himself, because again
(14:48):
he had some kind of vendetta against his liver. The
other was for guests. The two pictures served a different purpose,
though White wanted to keep the pictures separate so he
could add a little something extra to one of them
to liven up the proceedings. Drinks for everyone, come on
my own recipe. The Whites, Foxes, and Jorgenson's began to party, drinking, dancing,
(15:21):
talking about their Thanksgiving celebrations, talking about the holiday season
and about New York and their plans. Then the couples
piled into a car and began driving in the lower village.
Gil noticed it had started snowing, and he admired the
white flakes falling. After a few minutes, Gil stopped smiling.
(15:43):
The snow was beautiful, it was maybe the most beautiful
snow he'd ever seen, But there was something different about him.
It began to change colors. The snow was lit up,
switching from blue to green to yellow. Gil looked or
at his wife, Pat, who held an expression of pleasant disbelief.
(16:03):
Then he looked at Joe Jerkinson, who was holding her
arms out in front of herself like a ballet dancer.
Joe would later say she was admiring an ornate pair
of opera gloves that had materialized out of thin air. White,
having imbibed Martini after Martini, was looking at all of
it like the mad Hatter having a party. There was
(16:26):
Gil enjoying a winter snowstorm on a clear night, and
Pat quiet, Kay and Joe look nervous. They all decided
it would be a good idea to pile into a
lesbian bar, but Pat and Joe began freaking out and
wanted to go home. The night had come to an
ignoble conclusion. What could the c i A learn from this?
(16:52):
How to average couples responded to being dosed with LSD?
Did White even report the incident to Sydney Gottlieb or
did he keep it to himself knowing these people weren't
part of the profile gott Leap wanted. He was supposed
to be dosing criminals and outcasts, so he could have
plausible deniability if they ever reported him. Was he doing
(17:12):
it to win the Cold War? Or was George White
doing it just for fun. There were two important lessons
White learned that night about consequences for Kai and Joe
Jurgensen to educated, upper class professionals. They were livid they
(17:33):
knew why had dosed them, and Joe refused to forgive
White for what he deemed a harmless stunt. She felt
violated Her marriage toc I didn't last either. The two
divorced a few years later. The Foxes were another story.
They too were angry with White, who had betrayed their trust.
(17:53):
But the fox has also fancied themselves liberal thinkers on
the outskirts of society, Gil challenging conventions this erotic work,
and Pat an enthusiastic partner in their swinging lifestyle. In
another city, in another life, they might have gone to
the police. In Greenwich Village of the nineteen fifties, LSD
was around. It was part of the lifestyle. Unlike the Jurgenson's,
(18:17):
the Foxes decided to stay in White's orbit. In fact,
they did more than that. The Foxes actually helped White
grow as pool of subjects, and this time the consequences
would be far more serious than technicolor snow Elliott and
(18:40):
Barbara Smythe were married in September nineteen, Elliott was an
employee at the F. L. Smythe Machine Company, his family's business.
After Barbara gave birth to their daughter, Valerie, Elliott persuaded
his beautiful new bride to relocate to Greenwich Village. He
had heard the siren call of the neighborhood's contemporary are
attitudes about socializing and sex. Elliott wanted to swing. Elliott
(19:07):
had actually swung with the Foxes before. He and his
previous girlfriend once had a foursome with Gil and Pad,
and he wanted to continue the dynamic with his new wife.
But with Valerie their daughter, swinging didn't seem to be
in the cards. Free time was harder to come by.
Gil introduced Elliott to White and the two struck up
(19:29):
their own friendship. Well, they were friendly, but what really
made an impression on Elliott was Albertine, a vivacious woman
with poise and style. White noticed he always noticed when
men admired his wife, and he made it clear that
they were open to just about anything. The first time
Elliott and Barbara went over to White's apartment, White showed
(19:52):
him the shoe closet, heels of every color, size and
variety from basic pumps to the elaborate lacea boots that
Albertine and strutted around in for White's enjoyment. This was
White's toy chest. He only showed it to a select few,
but he liked Elliott and he really liked Barbara Swinger.
(20:16):
Math is always a little hard to define. There's what
a couple may want, and there's what each individual wants.
Elliott wanted Albertine in or out of high heels. Albertine
was attracted to Elliott. White was attracted to Barbara. But
and here's where the Brakes get pumped, Barbara wasn't into White.
(20:39):
It was always a dice roll how people perceived him.
Some found his bad boy menace appealing, others didn't, and
Barbara didn't. Ordinarily that would have been fine, with the
couple still socializing, still trading stories, maybe Elliott and Albertine
stealing some time together. But reject Shin was something White
(21:01):
didn't like. His first wife had rejected him, his second
wife had rejected him. The FBI George White's personality, approach
and appearance is not up to FBI standards. Right, there
was a pattern before, he hadn't been able to respond
to it. But now things were different. On January eleven, NFTE,
(21:28):
just a few weeks after the Smythes visited, George and
Albertine invited Barbara over, just Barbara. Elliott was away on
a business trip, but that was okay. Barbara could come
by herself, but she brought a sidekick, her baby, Valerie,
who was just twenty months old. There was someone else
(21:50):
in the apartment too, a friend named Clarice Stein, who
worked with Albertine. While she liked Albertine, she had apprehensions
about why gil Fox had never told Elliott or Barbara
about White's hobby, the one that had put him in
an LSD snowstorm. He should have in the apartment. Barbara
(22:12):
put Valerie down and started talking with Clarice and Albertine
about the apparel business. White tended bar mixing his standard
two pictures of Martinis, one for him, one for the guests.
They started drinking, Barbara keeping herself to one because of
the baby. It took about fifteen minutes before the laughing started.
(22:35):
Something was funny. Barbara, Clarice, and Albertine began laughing hysterically, uncontrollably,
like nitrous oxide was being pumped into the room, their
drinks slashed over the rim of the glass from her bassinet.
Valerie watches her mother seemed to be in good spirits.
But remember what the chemist Albert Hoffman said about his
(22:58):
discovery about LSD and about the dangers it posed when
it was outside of a highly controlled environment. The danger
of a psychotic reaction is especially great if l s
D is given to someone without his or her knowledge.
The conditions for the positive outcome of an l s
(23:19):
D experiment reside in the milieu of the experiment, the
person's present, their appearance, their traits. Barbara, you don't look
so good, you're feeling okay. The acoustic milieu is equally significant.
Even harmless noises can turn to torment. LSD tends to
(23:46):
intensify the actual psychic state. A feeling of happiness can
be heightened to bliss, a depression can deepen to despair.
It's danger to take LSD in a disturbed, unhappy frame
of mind or in a state of fear. The probability
(24:08):
that the experiment will end in a psychic breakdown is
then quite high. Before Barbara Smith could say more, there
was a knock at the door. It was Francine Kramer,
one of Albertin's coworkers. She seemed to be an intrusion
(24:29):
of reality. Francine watched as both Barbara and Clarice gathered
their things, Barbara scooping up Valerie and went out into
the night, Out into an uncontrolled environment, out to explore
a world bursting with their fears, the fear of being
a new mother, the amplified feelings of despair that can
(24:50):
accompany the arrival of a living being. You're now responsible
for all of it. Naked Present, m Part three, Untouchable.
(25:16):
Clarice and Barbara went their separate ways. Clarisse arrived home and,
still in a state of terror, picked up her telephone
and called White, demanding to know what he had done
to her. Yeah, George, George, I'm so scared. What's happening, Clarice?
You know what time it is? George? Should I see
(25:38):
a doctor? You should stop calling? Go to sleep, George, George.
Clarisse called again and again she begged him to tell
her what he had given her so she could get
something to counteract it. Each time White hung up, he
(26:00):
had gotten whatever information he wanted out of his experiment.
He had no interest in consoling her. In his diary,
he wrote just a four chilling words. Clarice got the
horrors Barbara had made at home with Valerie safely. She
didn't call White. She didn't even tell Elliot what had happened.
(26:22):
He had no idea that night would change the course
of both of their lives. Barbara grew distant. She was
prone to increasing bouts of depression. If it had started
as something expected, the kind of bleak moods knew mothers
sometimes experience, it had blossomed into something far more serious. Elliott,
(26:43):
I need to tell you something, and I need you
to promise to believe me. I think the mafia is
after me. The encroaching paranoia put a strain on their marriage.
Barbara withdrew more and more, fearing her phones were tapped
by She agreed it was best to be admitted to
(27:04):
Stony Lodge Hospital, where she was diagnosed as a chronic
paranoid with depression. She expressed fears Elliott was trying to
kill her. Her marriage didn't survive this day. She and
Elliott soon divorced, with Valerie being placed with Elliott's parents.
A woman with a new child with a happy home
(27:24):
life was by nineteen sixty two receiving a lecture shock therapy.
Over time, LSD researchers reputable ones would reinforce the idea
that people receiving doses unknowingly were at the greatest risk
for adverse reactions. They couldn't ease their minds by reassuring
(27:45):
themselves it was a drug induced episode and only temporary
traumatic flashbacks could persist for years, well beyond the initial
window of hallucinations. It would be a long long time
before Elliott found out what happened at George White's apartment
that night in nine By that time, Barbara would be dead,
(28:10):
having spent the remaining two decades of her life and
institutions we know George White had little compassion for his subjects,
like so many others. He left Barbara then for herself.
But what about Albertine? She had driven Linda King to
(28:31):
the hospital. Did she share white sampathy? Did you really
not care that her friends were being irreparably damaged by
his actions? In two thousand two, journalist Douglas Valentine interviewed Albertine.
It was Valentine who first revealed the connection between gil
(28:52):
Fox and George White in his two thousand two series
for CounterPunch dot Org. Albertine was Valentine wrote, a sweet woman,
measured in her responses, professing to have little knowledge of
White CIA activities. But when Valentine mentioned Barbara Smythe, she turned.
(29:12):
She began swearing and yelling. Valentine wrote that Albertine quote
descended into a string of expletives that would have embarrassed
a sailor. Her tirade left his writer with the firm
impression that she was thoroughly capable of having been White's
accomplice in his dirty work. Albertin refused to discuss it further.
(29:35):
Like George White had done with Clarice Stein, she simply
hung up. She didn't want to hear anymore. In all
of these cases, each person who trusted George White had
a vastly different reaction to his dosing them. Barbara Smythe withdrew,
succumbing to the paranoia. Clarice Stein phoned White and essently
(30:00):
until she realized his approach was careless and calculating. She
eventually drifted back into the White social circle. She was,
after all, coworkers with Albertine. Perhaps it was easier to
let the whole experience go than to create problems at
her job. The Jurgensen's avoided him entirely, the appeal of
(30:21):
his dangerous side having grown too frightening. The Foxes accepted
it as a condition of their friendship with White. For
a man who enforced morality, it's puzzling to consider White's
own version of it and how callous he could be
even to friends, though we do know something about his
(30:42):
ethics thanks to this passage from his unpublished autobiography Morality.
As far as I'm concerned, that's just a word that
describes a current fashion of conduct. The Navajo Indians regarded
it as a moral for old people to be permitted
to live longer than they were able to take care
of themselves. We are moral, so we let our old
(31:05):
stars rust brought away in dreary poorhouses or pensioners hubble
type hotels. Our immorality sees nothing really wrong with evictions,
civil murder, capital punishment, anti birth control, laws that spawned poverty,
loan sharks and hidden charge operators, police brutality, millionaire politicians,
and the nuclear pomb. So why should I get bugged
(31:27):
about the possibility that I might be immoral in someone's
daffy book merely because once upon a time I permitted
a generation of Adams to terry in my Eden? Where
(31:49):
was Sidney Gottlieb? And all of this for an operation
that CIA director Alan Dulles considered to be paramount and
securing the future of the United States. Was anyone aware
of white statistic street, that he was extending his psychedelic
outreach to include young mothers, that he was consumed by
sex and alcohol. Sydney Gottlieb knew all about it, as
(32:14):
White continued to give him reports. The two grew closer
when White took up leather working as a hobby. He
made Gotleib a belt for his birthday, and he had
another gift for Gotlieb the next time. He was in
New York. On at least one occasion, with White passed
out drunk, got leave and Albertine went into the next room,
shut the door and enjoyed the freedom Greenwich Village could bring.
(32:43):
In Eden, there was Linda King, the actress who visited
White and wound up on the rooftop of an apartment
complex contemplating a step forward. Albertein drove her to the hospital,
where she insisted to everyone that George White had done
this to her. She wasn't scared of White. She wanted
people to know what happened. A police officer from the
(33:06):
New York Police Department took her statement, so did a
representative from the department's mental health unit. You can imagine.
They raced over to George White's apartment, knocked on his door,
demanded answers. Toxicology reports would demonstrate Linda King had been
administered LSD if they dug deeper, Barbara Smythe, Clarice Stein Kai,
(33:28):
and Joe Jorgensen, and countless others could corroborate King's story
that George White was on a psychedelic rampage. That's what
could have and should have happened. But Lynda King didn't
take into account one thing that the authorities had already
been contacted by the CIA, and the message was simple,
(33:53):
if anyone should come in with a complaint about George White,
it should be torn up and forgotten. He was on
a state sanctioned mission. Whatever happened to Linda King wasn't
the business of the New York Police Department. Decades later,
a CIA official would try to find Linda King's records
at Lenox Hill Hospital, they didn't exist. George White was
(34:19):
something worse than dangerous. He was untouchable. The only thing
that could come between White and the CIA's mission to
master mind Control was from the game finally went too far.
It would take a fall from a tenth story window
for George White's fantasy life to finally shatter and for
(34:41):
the Snake to no longer be in charge about it. Yeah.
(35:11):
Operation Midnight Climax is hosted by Noel Brown. This show
is written by Jake Rosin, editing, sound design and mixing
by Ernie Indradad and Natasha Jacobs. Original music by Aaron Kaufman.
Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson and Marissa Brown.
Show logo by Lucy Quintanilla. Special thanks to Spencer Gibson,
(35:34):
David Crumholtz, Vanessa Crumholtz, Ted Raymie, and Jason Thompson. Julian
Weller is our supervising producer. Our executive producers are Jason
English and Mangesh a Ticketter. See you next week.
On September twelfth, nineteen fifty three, Linda King visited George
White at his Bedford Street pad in New York. At
the time, the aspiring actress thought she was there as
a friend, a guest. What she didn't understand was that
White didn't have friends. He had subjects, people he drugged,
whose names he jotted down in his diary. The CIA
(00:28):
needed data on what LSD did too unsuspecting minds, and
that's what George White provided. White and King made small talk.
He fixed her a standard drink, chin ice a floater
of acid. An hour passed. It wasn't long before King
found herself roaming the New York City streets, her mind
(00:50):
entering dimensions she never knew existed. White didn't chase her.
He never chased anyone. His experiments lack curiosity. He only
cared about the short term reaction. What a person did
in the hours, days, weeks, or even years following their
dosing didn't matter to him. When Linda King climbed to
(01:14):
the rooftop of her apartment building that night, wondering if
she should dive off the edge to quell her sudden
feeling of despair, White wasn't around he was home, fast asleep,
but someone was there to help. Her name was Albertine.
Her friends called her team or Teeny. She worked as
(01:37):
a buyer for retail stores in New York. She was
friends with King. Together, the two of them drove to
Lenox Hill Hospital. King in a state of hysteria, Albertine
soothing her, It's going to be okay, relax. George did something.
He gave me something. What did he give me? Get
(02:00):
you checked out? Okay? Come on, come on in At
Lennox Hill, Linda couldn't articulate what had happened, only that
she felt drugged. There was nothing to do but let
it pass. As the hours ticked by, King kept telling
anyone who would listen that a man named George White
(02:21):
had done this to her. They needed to remember the
name George White. Eighty one Bedford Street, George White. Alberteen
stood by passively. She wanted to help her friend, but
she was growing uncomfortable with Linda's chant of George White,
George White, Someone find George White. Alberteen knew exactly where
(02:46):
to find George White. That's because she was married to him.
(03:21):
For I Heart Radio, this is Operation Midnight Climax, and
I heart original podcast I'm your host Noel Brown and
this is chapter four Uncharted Waters, Part one. Love and Marriage.
(03:42):
Albertin and George White were married in nineteen fifty one,
just before White relocated to New York. It was White's
third marriage. He'd been married briefly. In nineteen thirty three.
He divorced his first wife after just a year general incompatibility.
In the nineteen forties, he married his second wife, Ruth.
She left him while he was serving abroad. They weren't
(04:07):
a happy couple. For all of White's bravado, for all
the drug peddlers he pushed around, and all the gunfights
he got into, he wilted in front of Ruth. She
verbally abused him, insulting his weight, calling him a slob.
White would harbor a lifelong resentment over those slights. But
(04:28):
Albertine was different. She didn't see a callous narcotics cop.
She saw White as good at his job, effective, punctual.
She liked punctual. She liked that his picture made it
into the newspapers after big drug busts. She liked that
he was well read and well traveled, even if he
(04:49):
left dead bodies in his wake. And he had powerful friends,
like mayoral candidate Rudolph Halle, who once to promised to
make White commissioner of the New York Police Departments. For white,
Albertine represented a step up society's ladder. She was a
clothing buyer, She knew fashion. She always looked spectacular. White
(05:13):
enjoyed taking her out and showing her off, watching men
as they admired her, and sometimes he didn't mind if
they did more than that. George and Albertin were swingers,
a couple who didn't mind if one or both got
into bed with a third or even fourth party. But
(05:35):
this wasn't swinging in the Internet age, where partners swapping
on an app would hardly be newsworthy. This was the
early nineteen fifties, when sex in America was still a
taboo subject. Alfred Kinsey had just caused a stir publishing
his research into American sex lives. The first issue of
(05:58):
Playboy was just around the corner, and while nudity was tolerated,
anything beyond that would have been a problem. Porn movies
were still known as stag films. If you wanted to
watch people having sex, you'd have to know someone who
could hang up a bedsheet and set up a thirty
five millimeter projector. White was in the right place at
(06:18):
the right time. If he'd been in Middle America, he'd
be run out of town, But in Greenwich Village he
could be more open. It was the sort of scene
you could casually say you and your wife enjoyed the
company of others without fear. So White developed a third
identity want Apart from White the narcotics cop and Morgan Hall,
(06:41):
the CIA operative, he didn't give this one a name.
In a sense, it was White's real self, the one
who didn't have to hide anything, his occupation, his badge,
his stash of LSD. In White's Greenwich Village, he could
be anyone he it, and what he wanted was to
(07:02):
be more than a swinger. He wanted to be kinky.
One of White's first friends in the city was John
Alexander Kutz. His fans knew him as John Willie, an
artist and fetish photographer. Willie specialized in depictions of women
trust up in corsets and heels, imprisoned for some imagined
(07:22):
fantasy scenario. Willie even published a magazine devoted to such
content called Bizarre. Like a lot of fringe adult publications
of the era, there wasn't actually any sex depicted. In
bizarre there wasn't even nudity. The authorities considered the material
depraved and morally corrosive. Willie took pains to avoid anything
(07:45):
that might raise the ire of people who could block
his magazine, but it was still dangerous business. Publishers of
similar material were routinely rated by authorities, their books and
magazines ceased and brought before congressional hearings. Reading these magazines,
let alone publishing them, wasn't anything you wanted to brag about.
(08:07):
But like minds tend to congregate. If you're John Willie,
maybe you value having a friend who might be able
to steer some vice cops clear of your business. If
you're George White, you like the fact that John Willie
is connected to a scene you want to be a
part of. It wasn't long before John Willie introduced George
(08:28):
White to a man he'd get along with. He lived
just a few blocks away. His name was Gil Fox.
Like White, he had an alter ego to several of them.
Dallas Mayo was one, Paul V. Russo was another. Kimberly
Kemp under pseudonyms. Fox wrote erotic novels with titles like
(08:51):
a Touch of Depravity and The Trouble with Redheads. Often
there were lesbian storylines. This was, for a time incredibly taboo,
so much so that Fox didn't have a lot of
source material to call from. I would watch old movies
and imagine the man and woman as two women and
(09:14):
reimagine it as a lesbian scene. I'd pull a whole
scene from the Late Show and write it down and
then put it in a box. The night pool ideas
from the box. But that wasn't the only place Fox
got ideas. Fox and his wife Pat had what would
today be called an ethically non monogamous marriage. Sometimes they
(09:36):
hopped in someone else's bed, either together or apart. Pat
could provide details of her encounters with other women. Fox
also got inspiration from friends like George White. You know,
I like high heels a lot high old woman as well.
(09:59):
There's just something about it. Do you think you could
right a scene with two women wearing high heels. Books
of this type were often sold by bookstores run by
the mafia, another reason law enforcement was so interested in them.
(10:20):
But Gil's books and John Willie's magazines weren't the only
way White could indulge his fetishes. Albertein knew about his
fascination with high heels. She watched his White filled up
an entire closet with them for her use and his pleasure.
According to Gil, who had intimate knowledge of White's life
(10:40):
behind closed doors, one of White's favorite scenarios would be
to take a pair of knee high boots and carefully
lace them up for Albertein. Gil's wife, Pat also instructed
Alberteen on other fetishes, like spanking. When White wanted or
needed something more extreme, he might solicit the company of
(11:02):
a professional. Once White invited Gil and Pat to his
hotel room. When they walked in, they saw White stripped
down to his underwear. Tied to the bed. Near him
was a dominatrix, a whip being cracked across White's ample backside,
and yes, she was wearing high heels. If White had
(11:27):
been in two loveless, relatively sexless marriages, he was making
up for lost time. Greenwich Village was a path to
indulging in anything he wanted. It was a playground. As
sexual escapades go. It was all relatively harmless. Gill and
Pat Fox regarded George and Albertine as like minds. All
(11:49):
of them were into kink. The two couples trusted one another.
Though Gill and Pat didn't know George was working for
the CIA, his extracurricular work wasn't disclosed to them, so
he thought nothing of it when White invited them over
for drinks. Gil had been around White long enough to
know he was an alcoholic. White favored gin, but wasn't picky.
(12:13):
He regularly started his drinking in the morning and continued
through the day. That detail matters. If there's one thing
you want out of someone conducting an illicit CIA experiment
with powerful haucinogenic drugs, it's probably sobriety, and that wasn't
something White could offer. But just how bad was White's problem?
(12:35):
Bad enough that when he was on assignment with the
Narcotics Bureau to chase a trail of heroin to Turkey,
he passed out drunk in front of a suspect while undercover.
The criminal went through his pockets and found his badge.
White barely escaped with his life years later, with LSD
(12:57):
in his possession, he was, in all likelihood drunk on
the night of November two when he welcomed the Foxes
to his apartment. We know the date because it's an
entry in White's diary. For him, it was a very
special occasion. He was about to take his LSD experimentation
(13:18):
into uncharted waters. Part two Dinner Parties. Gill and Pat
Fox arrived at White's apartment his real apartment, not as
(13:41):
Morgan Hall residents, and said hello to Kai Jerkinson. Kai
was a drama professor from Chapel Hill and another interesting
wrinkle in White's personality. His circle of friends included murderers, informants,
mayoral candidate, swingers, and apparently professors. All of them found
something alluring about White. For the criminals, fraternizing with a
(14:05):
cop felt empowering, like they were getting a peek at
the other side. For more respectable members of society it
was the opposite. White felt dangerous, unpredictable. They just didn't
quite understand the danger until it was too late. Welcome everyone, Pat,
(14:26):
you look like a million yil. How's the magnum opus coming? Well,
come on in and meet the Jerkinson's Tenas getting dinner ready,
The Foxes chatted with Kai and Joe Jurgensen while White
busied himself at the bar. One thing Gil had noticed
about White was that he liked mixing two pictures of
martinis at his parties. One was for himself, because again
(14:48):
he had some kind of vendetta against his liver. The
other was for guests. The two pictures served a different purpose,
though White wanted to keep the pictures separate so he
could add a little something extra to one of them
to liven up the proceedings. Drinks for everyone, come on
my own recipe. The Whites, Foxes, and Jorgenson's began to party, drinking, dancing,
(15:21):
talking about their Thanksgiving celebrations, talking about the holiday season
and about New York and their plans. Then the couples
piled into a car and began driving in the lower village.
Gil noticed it had started snowing, and he admired the
white flakes falling. After a few minutes, Gil stopped smiling.
(15:43):
The snow was beautiful, it was maybe the most beautiful
snow he'd ever seen, But there was something different about him.
It began to change colors. The snow was lit up,
switching from blue to green to yellow. Gil looked or
at his wife, Pat, who held an expression of pleasant disbelief.
(16:03):
Then he looked at Joe Jerkinson, who was holding her
arms out in front of herself like a ballet dancer.
Joe would later say she was admiring an ornate pair
of opera gloves that had materialized out of thin air. White,
having imbibed Martini after Martini, was looking at all of
it like the mad Hatter having a party. There was
(16:26):
Gil enjoying a winter snowstorm on a clear night, and
Pat quiet, Kay and Joe look nervous. They all decided
it would be a good idea to pile into a
lesbian bar, but Pat and Joe began freaking out and
wanted to go home. The night had come to an
ignoble conclusion. What could the c i A learn from this?
(16:52):
How to average couples responded to being dosed with LSD?
Did White even report the incident to Sydney Gottlieb or
did he keep it to himself knowing these people weren't
part of the profile gott Leap wanted. He was supposed
to be dosing criminals and outcasts, so he could have
plausible deniability if they ever reported him. Was he doing
(17:12):
it to win the Cold War? Or was George White
doing it just for fun. There were two important lessons
White learned that night about consequences for Kai and Joe
Jurgensen to educated, upper class professionals. They were livid they
(17:33):
knew why had dosed them, and Joe refused to forgive
White for what he deemed a harmless stunt. She felt
violated Her marriage toc I didn't last either. The two
divorced a few years later. The Foxes were another story.
They too were angry with White, who had betrayed their trust.
(17:53):
But the fox has also fancied themselves liberal thinkers on
the outskirts of society, Gil challenging conventions this erotic work,
and Pat an enthusiastic partner in their swinging lifestyle. In
another city, in another life, they might have gone to
the police. In Greenwich Village of the nineteen fifties, LSD
was around. It was part of the lifestyle. Unlike the Jurgenson's,
(18:17):
the Foxes decided to stay in White's orbit. In fact,
they did more than that. The Foxes actually helped White
grow as pool of subjects, and this time the consequences
would be far more serious than technicolor snow Elliott and
(18:40):
Barbara Smythe were married in September nineteen, Elliott was an
employee at the F. L. Smythe Machine Company, his family's business.
After Barbara gave birth to their daughter, Valerie, Elliott persuaded
his beautiful new bride to relocate to Greenwich Village. He
had heard the siren call of the neighborhood's contemporary are
attitudes about socializing and sex. Elliott wanted to swing. Elliott
(19:07):
had actually swung with the Foxes before. He and his
previous girlfriend once had a foursome with Gil and Pad,
and he wanted to continue the dynamic with his new wife.
But with Valerie their daughter, swinging didn't seem to be
in the cards. Free time was harder to come by.
Gil introduced Elliott to White and the two struck up
(19:29):
their own friendship. Well, they were friendly, but what really
made an impression on Elliott was Albertine, a vivacious woman
with poise and style. White noticed he always noticed when
men admired his wife, and he made it clear that
they were open to just about anything. The first time
Elliott and Barbara went over to White's apartment, White showed
(19:52):
him the shoe closet, heels of every color, size and
variety from basic pumps to the elaborate lacea boots that
Albertine and strutted around in for White's enjoyment. This was
White's toy chest. He only showed it to a select few,
but he liked Elliott and he really liked Barbara Swinger.
(20:16):
Math is always a little hard to define. There's what
a couple may want, and there's what each individual wants.
Elliott wanted Albertine in or out of high heels. Albertine
was attracted to Elliott. White was attracted to Barbara. But
and here's where the Brakes get pumped, Barbara wasn't into White.
(20:39):
It was always a dice roll how people perceived him.
Some found his bad boy menace appealing, others didn't, and
Barbara didn't. Ordinarily that would have been fine, with the
couple still socializing, still trading stories, maybe Elliott and Albertine
stealing some time together. But reject Shin was something White
(21:01):
didn't like. His first wife had rejected him, his second
wife had rejected him. The FBI George White's personality, approach
and appearance is not up to FBI standards. Right, there
was a pattern before, he hadn't been able to respond
to it. But now things were different. On January eleven, NFTE,
(21:28):
just a few weeks after the Smythes visited, George and
Albertine invited Barbara over, just Barbara. Elliott was away on
a business trip, but that was okay. Barbara could come
by herself, but she brought a sidekick, her baby, Valerie,
who was just twenty months old. There was someone else
(21:50):
in the apartment too, a friend named Clarice Stein, who
worked with Albertine. While she liked Albertine, she had apprehensions
about why gil Fox had never told Elliott or Barbara
about White's hobby, the one that had put him in
an LSD snowstorm. He should have in the apartment. Barbara
(22:12):
put Valerie down and started talking with Clarice and Albertine
about the apparel business. White tended bar mixing his standard
two pictures of Martinis, one for him, one for the guests.
They started drinking, Barbara keeping herself to one because of
the baby. It took about fifteen minutes before the laughing started.
(22:35):
Something was funny. Barbara, Clarice, and Albertine began laughing hysterically, uncontrollably,
like nitrous oxide was being pumped into the room, their
drinks slashed over the rim of the glass from her bassinet.
Valerie watches her mother seemed to be in good spirits.
But remember what the chemist Albert Hoffman said about his
(22:58):
discovery about LSD and about the dangers it posed when
it was outside of a highly controlled environment. The danger
of a psychotic reaction is especially great if l s
D is given to someone without his or her knowledge.
The conditions for the positive outcome of an l s
(23:19):
D experiment reside in the milieu of the experiment, the
person's present, their appearance, their traits. Barbara, you don't look
so good, you're feeling okay. The acoustic milieu is equally significant.
Even harmless noises can turn to torment. LSD tends to
(23:46):
intensify the actual psychic state. A feeling of happiness can
be heightened to bliss, a depression can deepen to despair.
It's danger to take LSD in a disturbed, unhappy frame
of mind or in a state of fear. The probability
(24:08):
that the experiment will end in a psychic breakdown is
then quite high. Before Barbara Smith could say more, there
was a knock at the door. It was Francine Kramer,
one of Albertin's coworkers. She seemed to be an intrusion
(24:29):
of reality. Francine watched as both Barbara and Clarice gathered
their things, Barbara scooping up Valerie and went out into
the night, Out into an uncontrolled environment, out to explore
a world bursting with their fears, the fear of being
a new mother, the amplified feelings of despair that can
(24:50):
accompany the arrival of a living being. You're now responsible
for all of it. Naked Present, m Part three, Untouchable.
(25:16):
Clarice and Barbara went their separate ways. Clarisse arrived home and,
still in a state of terror, picked up her telephone
and called White, demanding to know what he had done
to her. Yeah, George, George, I'm so scared. What's happening, Clarice?
You know what time it is? George? Should I see
(25:38):
a doctor? You should stop calling? Go to sleep, George, George.
Clarisse called again and again she begged him to tell
her what he had given her so she could get
something to counteract it. Each time White hung up, he
(26:00):
had gotten whatever information he wanted out of his experiment.
He had no interest in consoling her. In his diary,
he wrote just a four chilling words. Clarice got the
horrors Barbara had made at home with Valerie safely. She
didn't call White. She didn't even tell Elliot what had happened.
(26:22):
He had no idea that night would change the course
of both of their lives. Barbara grew distant. She was
prone to increasing bouts of depression. If it had started
as something expected, the kind of bleak moods knew mothers
sometimes experience, it had blossomed into something far more serious. Elliott,
(26:43):
I need to tell you something, and I need you
to promise to believe me. I think the mafia is
after me. The encroaching paranoia put a strain on their marriage.
Barbara withdrew more and more, fearing her phones were tapped
by She agreed it was best to be admitted to
(27:04):
Stony Lodge Hospital, where she was diagnosed as a chronic
paranoid with depression. She expressed fears Elliott was trying to
kill her. Her marriage didn't survive this day. She and
Elliott soon divorced, with Valerie being placed with Elliott's parents.
A woman with a new child with a happy home
(27:24):
life was by nineteen sixty two receiving a lecture shock therapy.
Over time, LSD researchers reputable ones would reinforce the idea
that people receiving doses unknowingly were at the greatest risk
for adverse reactions. They couldn't ease their minds by reassuring
(27:45):
themselves it was a drug induced episode and only temporary
traumatic flashbacks could persist for years, well beyond the initial
window of hallucinations. It would be a long long time
before Elliott found out what happened at George White's apartment
that night in nine By that time, Barbara would be dead,
(28:10):
having spent the remaining two decades of her life and
institutions we know George White had little compassion for his subjects,
like so many others. He left Barbara then for herself.
But what about Albertine? She had driven Linda King to
(28:31):
the hospital. Did she share white sampathy? Did you really
not care that her friends were being irreparably damaged by
his actions? In two thousand two, journalist Douglas Valentine interviewed Albertine.
It was Valentine who first revealed the connection between gil
(28:52):
Fox and George White in his two thousand two series
for CounterPunch dot Org. Albertine was Valentine wrote, a sweet woman,
measured in her responses, professing to have little knowledge of
White CIA activities. But when Valentine mentioned Barbara Smythe, she turned.
(29:12):
She began swearing and yelling. Valentine wrote that Albertine quote
descended into a string of expletives that would have embarrassed
a sailor. Her tirade left his writer with the firm
impression that she was thoroughly capable of having been White's
accomplice in his dirty work. Albertin refused to discuss it further.
(29:35):
Like George White had done with Clarice Stein, she simply
hung up. She didn't want to hear anymore. In all
of these cases, each person who trusted George White had
a vastly different reaction to his dosing them. Barbara Smythe withdrew,
succumbing to the paranoia. Clarice Stein phoned White and essently
(30:00):
until she realized his approach was careless and calculating. She
eventually drifted back into the White social circle. She was,
after all, coworkers with Albertine. Perhaps it was easier to
let the whole experience go than to create problems at
her job. The Jurgensen's avoided him entirely, the appeal of
(30:21):
his dangerous side having grown too frightening. The Foxes accepted
it as a condition of their friendship with White. For
a man who enforced morality, it's puzzling to consider White's
own version of it and how callous he could be
even to friends, though we do know something about his
(30:42):
ethics thanks to this passage from his unpublished autobiography Morality.
As far as I'm concerned, that's just a word that
describes a current fashion of conduct. The Navajo Indians regarded
it as a moral for old people to be permitted
to live longer than they were able to take care
of themselves. We are moral, so we let our old
(31:05):
stars rust brought away in dreary poorhouses or pensioners hubble
type hotels. Our immorality sees nothing really wrong with evictions,
civil murder, capital punishment, anti birth control, laws that spawned poverty,
loan sharks and hidden charge operators, police brutality, millionaire politicians,
and the nuclear pomb. So why should I get bugged
(31:27):
about the possibility that I might be immoral in someone's
daffy book merely because once upon a time I permitted
a generation of Adams to terry in my Eden? Where
(31:49):
was Sidney Gottlieb? And all of this for an operation
that CIA director Alan Dulles considered to be paramount and
securing the future of the United States. Was anyone aware
of white statistic street, that he was extending his psychedelic
outreach to include young mothers, that he was consumed by
sex and alcohol. Sydney Gottlieb knew all about it, as
(32:14):
White continued to give him reports. The two grew closer
when White took up leather working as a hobby. He
made Gotleib a belt for his birthday, and he had
another gift for Gotlieb the next time. He was in
New York. On at least one occasion, with White passed
out drunk, got leave and Albertine went into the next room,
shut the door and enjoyed the freedom Greenwich Village could bring.
(32:43):
In Eden, there was Linda King, the actress who visited
White and wound up on the rooftop of an apartment
complex contemplating a step forward. Albertein drove her to the hospital,
where she insisted to everyone that George White had done
this to her. She wasn't scared of White. She wanted
people to know what happened. A police officer from the
(33:06):
New York Police Department took her statement, so did a
representative from the department's mental health unit. You can imagine.
They raced over to George White's apartment, knocked on his door,
demanded answers. Toxicology reports would demonstrate Linda King had been
administered LSD if they dug deeper, Barbara Smythe, Clarice Stein Kai,
(33:28):
and Joe Jorgensen, and countless others could corroborate King's story
that George White was on a psychedelic rampage. That's what
could have and should have happened. But Lynda King didn't
take into account one thing that the authorities had already
been contacted by the CIA, and the message was simple,
(33:53):
if anyone should come in with a complaint about George White,
it should be torn up and forgotten. He was on
a state sanctioned mission. Whatever happened to Linda King wasn't
the business of the New York Police Department. Decades later,
a CIA official would try to find Linda King's records
at Lenox Hill Hospital, they didn't exist. George White was
(34:19):
something worse than dangerous. He was untouchable. The only thing
that could come between White and the CIA's mission to
master mind Control was from the game finally went too far.
It would take a fall from a tenth story window
for George White's fantasy life to finally shatter and for
(34:41):
the Snake to no longer be in charge about it. Yeah.
(35:11):
Operation Midnight Climax is hosted by Noel Brown. This show
is written by Jake Rosin, editing, sound design and mixing
by Ernie Indradad and Natasha Jacobs. Original music by Aaron Kaufman.
Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson and Marissa Brown.
Show logo by Lucy Quintanilla. Special thanks to Spencer Gibson,
(35:34):
David Crumholtz, Vanessa Crumholtz, Ted Raymie, and Jason Thompson. Julian
Weller is our supervising producer. Our executive producers are Jason
English and Mangesh a Ticketter. See you next week.
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