Scientist's death haunts family

The death in 1953 of a government scientist, Frank Olson, in a fall from a New York hotel window, is one of the most notorious cases in CIA history.

Only in 1975 did Olson's family learn that the CIA had slipped LSD into his drink, days before his death. President Ford apologized for an experiment gone awry, and promised that the government would reveal everything about the case.

But newly obtained documents show that the Ford administration continued to conceal information about Olson -- particularly his role in some of the CIA's most controversial research of the Cold War, on anthrax and other biological weapons.

The documents show that two of the key officials involved in the decision to withhold that information were White House aides Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, today the nation's vice president and secretary of defense.

``These documents show the lengths to which the government was trying to cover up the truth,'' said the scientist's son, Eric Olson, who gave them to the Mercury News. ``For 22 years there was a coverup. And then, under the guise of revealing everything, there was a new coverup.''

Rumsfeld's office referred questions about the withholding of information to the CIA, where a media officer, Paul Nowack, said CIA activities related to Frank Olson's death were investigated by the Rockefeller Commission as well as subsequent congressional committees.

``The CIA fully cooperated'' in those investigations, he said, and ``tens of thousands of documents were released.'' If anyone has new information, he said, ``they should contact appropriate authorities.''

Eric Olson has contended for years that his father was murdered to cover up his research for the CIA. At a news conference in Maryland today, he will reveal the results of his long inquiry into his father's death.

The new documents do not prove those allegations. But they do show that the White House officials were concerned about any public revelation of Frank Olson's work.

Contrary to the official explanation that Frank Olson was an Army scientist, Olson worked for the CIA, at the special-operations division at Fort Detrick, the Maryland laboratory where biological weapons were tested.