
The Bitter Secret of ‘Wormwood’ (2018) - benbreen
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/01/18/the-bitter-secret-of-wormwood/
======
AndrewBissell
A prior thread on MK-ULTRA:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21165137](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21165137)

The Frank Olson Project is an aggregation of a lot of the research Eric Olson
did into the circumstances of his father's death:
[https://frankolsonproject.org/](https://frankolsonproject.org/)

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ncmncm
The biggest lie about the program is that it ended.

The second biggest lie is that it was about doing crazy shit, and failed.

It was a PSY-OPS attack on the American public that worked perfectly: To this
day people believe the lies about what the program was.

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gwern
So, like the 'real' account of the OBL raid or chemical weapons in Syria,
another huge story being broken by Hersh based on unverifiable anonymous
insider information which no one else can confirm. No wonder the New Yorker
hasn't published anything by him in half a decade and he had to move to LRB
(and not always even then)...

~~~
AndrewBissell
Hersh's skeptical account of the 2017 Syrian chemical attack has been
corroborated by the OPCW Douma leaks.

~~~
gwern
'corroborated', eh:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douma_chemical_attack#OPCW_inv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douma_chemical_attack#OPCW_investigation)
Well, that is a word one could use. It certainly is a word that one could use.

Incidentally, note that it was leaked through the good offices of a Russian
cutout better known for selective leaking of DNC (but not RNC) emails and
forged Macron emails. Sure is excellent company Sy is keeping these days.

~~~
AndrewBissell
Ah yes, the old "never mind whether these leaks are true, look where they came
from!" And of course god forbid we might exercise some skepticism of our own
intelligence community or Crowdstrike's conclusions on that front.

I guess it's unfortunate that the RNC had better opsec than the DNC during
2016, I certainly would have been interested to know what they were sending
back and forth during their primary. Whatever it was it probably would not
have done much damage to Trump's campaign though.

It's really amazing what an effective sheepdogging campaign Russiagate turned
out to be. Sy Hersh reached some conclusions which align in some way with what
Russia might want, therefore MK-ULTRA wasn't really a thing or the government
wasn't involved in Frank Olson's death?

~~~
gwern
> Ah yes, the old "never mind whether these leaks are true, look where they
> came from!"

Particularly important a criticism given how selective leaks can paint a very
different picture by leaving out all the _responses_ and reasons the supposed
whistleblowing never made it into the report, on top of the past track record
in releasing outright forged documents. You're leaping to wild conclusions on
the basis of far less than half of a conversation which may never have
happened.

> I guess it's unfortunate that the RNC had better opsec than the DNC during
> 2016

If you've read any profile of the muppets that ran the RNC or the Trump
campaign, you know the RNC most definitely did not.

> therefore MK-ULTRA wasn't really a thing or the government wasn't involved
> in Frank Olson's death?

No one here said anything remotely like either of those. MK-ULTRA really was a
thing. The government really was involved in Olson's death. By...
administering LSD.

