MWN Episode 113 – John Potash on the CIA and Its Use of Drugs Against Musicians and Activists

[Douglas Caddy]

MWN Episode 113 – John Potash on the CIA and Its Use of Drugs Against Musicians and Activists

https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-113-john-potash-on-the-cia-and-its-use-of-drugs-against-musician-and-activists/?fbclid=IwAR1xPeBgUUGqA_1FTc5zJWekouOHzGwLrnOFbuym8ZNPZBqrjiCoVtGozRM

[Anthony Thorne]

I’ve read Potash’s book, DRUGS AS WEAPONS AGAINST US, which is very good. A common theme of the book is anti-war activists during the Vietnam war era being targeted by CIA-linked folk who would turn up at gatherings with free drugs suggesting everyone get stoned. Potash runs through dozens of accounts that remind the reader how great it was for the authorities if anti-war demonstrators tuned out, dropped out and stopped protesting the war machine.

[B. A. Copeland]

Amazing show by Patrick and Potash. Reminds me of Bill Simpich's appearance on Dave Giglio's 'Our Hidden History' episode in 2017 (excellent episode as well):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVq0KMNfXBM

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by B. A. Copeland

[Rob Couteau]

Douglas, Thanks for posting this - some good expose on Tim Leary, who worked for the CIA "since 1963." 

[Paul Brancato]

52 minutes ago, Rob Couteau said:

Douglas, Thanks for posting this - some good expose on Tim Leary, who worked for the CIA "since 1963." 

When Leary left the US to avoid jail time he hooked up with Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria. Is that a fact? 

Pits clear to me that Cleaver was agent provocateur. 

[Kirk Gallaway]

It didn't open for me.

Paul, you think Leary was a CIA agent with the specific mission of getting youth to drop out of the Anti War movement? Or what was his purported purpose?

[Rob Couteau]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

he hooked up with Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria

That is correct. According to the interview Leary arrived with 20,000 hits of LSD and, when Cleaver discovered that, he put Leary under house arrest. He figured Leary wanted to distract and disorient those involved in the movement in Algeria. The main stuff on Leary is between 31:51 and 43:40. But there is other stuff starting at about 12:00. (I'm referring to the link that Doug posted.) The gist of the piece is that LSD was used to depoliticize the youth movement. A lot of this is covered in "Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond," an excellent book by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain. And in "Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream" by Jay Stevens (also good but inferior to "Acid Dreams"). But John Potash cites plenty of good facts, sources, and interviews here; it's not just speculation, and it makes me want to see the film. BTW, Dr Albert Hofmann, who discovered LSD, always regarded Leary as an irresponsible figure. (See Hofmann's book, "LSD: My Problem Child"). Leary advocated giving LSD to children.

Edited March 1, 2019 by Rob Couteau

[Paul Brancato]

11 hours ago, Rob Couteau said:

That is correct. According to the interview Leary arrived with 20,000 hits of LSD and, when Cleaver discovered that, he put Leary under house arrest. He figured Leary wanted to distract and disorient those involved in the movement in Algeria. The main stuff on Leary is between 31:51 and 43:40. But there is other stuff starting at about 12:00. (I'm referring to the link that Doug posted.) The gist of the piece is that LSD was used to depoliticize the youth movement. A lot of this is covered in "Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond," an excellent book by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain. And in "Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream" by Jay Stevens (also good but inferior to "Acid Dreams"). But John Potash cites plenty of good facts, sources, and interviews here; it's not just speculation, and it makes me want to see the film. BTW, Dr Albert Hofmann, who discovered LSD, always regarded Leary as an irresponsible figure. (See Hofmann's book, "LSD: My Problem Child"). Leary advocated giving LSD to children.

Rob - I read Acid Dreams many years ago and was very influenced by it. Great book. 

Are you familiar with Cleaver’s life after his exile? He became a Moony. 

[Rob Couteau]

Just now, Paul Brancato said:

He became a Moony.

Paul - I had no idea! I don't know much about him. That is certainly suspicious given the Bush ties to the Moonies and the Moonie ties to intelligence ops. Anything you can share on Cleaver would be of interest. Perhaps he was turned later on. BTW I interviewed Albert Hofmann two weeks before he died at the age of 102. He was a real gentleman. His book is worth reading. He didn't mention this in the Potash piece but it's another intriguing coincidence that Leary begins working with the Agency the same year JFK is killed. Coincidental but eerie nonetheless.

[Paul Brancato]

6 hours ago, Rob Couteau said:

Paul - I had no idea! I don't know much about him. That is certainly suspicious given the Bush ties to the Moonies and the Moonie ties to intelligence ops. Anything you can share on Cleaver would be of interest. Perhaps he was turned later on. BTW I interviewed Albert Hofmann two weeks before he died at the age of 102. He was a real gentleman. His book is worth reading. He didn't mention this in the Potash piece but it's another intriguing coincidence that Leary begins working with the Agency the same year JFK is killed. Coincidental but eerie nonetheless.

I just read the Wiki article on Cleaver. Good place to start and lots of hints. He destroyed the Panthers. Went to Cuba but Fidel thought he might be CIA. Went to Algeria. I’m much more suspicious of him that Leary, who I met btw when I was a teen. I went to music camp with his daughter. I didn’t know who he was other than a well off dad, living in an estate in Millbrook NY. Maynard Ferguson was practicing high trumpet next door while I sat on his veranda at dusk listening to him and two associates (possibly Richard Alpert) talk about things way beyond my ken. A year and several doses later I had a different perspective.

is it Acid Dreams that talks about Leary and CIA?

[Rob Couteau]

Paul: Your story about meeting Leary - that's really funny, thanks for sharing that! As I recall, Acid Dreams does talk about Leary. And his trip to Algeria. But I do not recall the bit about him showing up with 20,000 hits of acid. But I read it a long time ago. I also recall reading (either in AD or elsewhere) that Allen Ginsberg was trying to convince Cleaver to be more open-minded about acid, but Cleaver would not hear of it. I think this was at a big Leftist conference. In a smaller setting among Leftist leaders, Ginsberg confronted Leary about the negative ramifications of his "Turn on, tune in, drop out mantra" and Leary became extremely angry about it. Personally, I don't think the use of LSD is a black or white matter, but I do think the Agency used it in an attempt to derail the movement. Hofmann was upset that, because of the circus-like atmosphere created largely by Leary, serious scientific research into the beneficial use of LSD was postponed for decades. For ex., LSD therapy for alcoholics was more successful than any other treatment. When I spoke with Hofmann in 2008, he was very pleased because Switzerland was just beginning to reinstate serious research into the administration of LSD to medical patients (e.g., cancer victims) who were terminally ill and suffering extreme physical pain. A year or two later, the results were positive, and the research expanded, but Hofmann did not live to see that. In any event, Hofmann believed that you needed a very well thought out institutional framework (whether scientific, spiritual, or societal) if you were going to be administering something as powerful as LSD, and that you should not be advocating its use with children or young people who lacked the proper maturity, and who were still developing psychologically, and learning how to adapt to reality and social responsibility. Leary's response was that "American teenagers are so experienced that they are like grown-ups in Europe." Which I think is a pretty asinine response.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Rob Couteau

[Kirk Gallaway]

Rob,That's very interesting that you interviewed Hoffman, and that he lived to be 102!  Wow!

I never read Acid Dreams. I'm coming into this somewhat cold, but I'll give my observations about my experience at that time. I'm going to make some assumptions from what I've read about Potash.

I concur that Timothy Leary was very irresponsible. And that's right, now I do remember Leary escaping from jail and staying in exile with Cleaver in Algeria.

Potash quoted from a book that Brian Jones was murdered by Intelligence because he was just about to put together a super group with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, both he depicted as activists, but neither really were at that time. John Lennon didn't really take up activism until it had already peaked. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I personally don't believe it about Jone's death.. But as a story, anything pulling in rock icons sells. Not that I think Potash is dishonest, I just tend to be more skeptical.

 

I don't where to start with Potash, or even if I should. From what I pick up from him in an interview with Sean Stone, if he was born closer to 1960 rather than I assume around 1980, he'd be a disciple for Ronald Reagan's war on drugs, but in 2018, with the irrefutable evidence of what disaster it was, he can't quite make up his mind about decriminalization..Certainly his story line that all these stars and activists had drugs foisted on them by CIA intelligence leaving them helpless to do anything other than their bidding may in some isolated circumstance have been  be true, but generally is a crock. Drugs were already everywhere.

 

Obviously we know the successful role of the CIA in smuggling cocaine and heroin, and their MK Ultra experiments with witting and unwitting subjects with LSD.

Outside of the CIA, particularly with pot, natural psychedelics, and cocaine,  there was a lot of trafficking by organized crime, as well as small time people who had access to planes or just smuggled drugs over international borders. As far as LSD, after it got out, and some thought it beneficial, they were making it locally.

 

I know this clashes with the omnipotence of the CIA and government  which would be so luring here. But I think most of the MK ultra drug experiments backfired, which was a conclusion they themselves came to believe.

 

His chronology, is way off. Psychedelic drugs, widespread marijuana- hashish use predated the Viet Nam war protests. Once it leaked out of their experiments with LSD, and  came out to the public at large, it didn't make people controllable, quite the opposite , it made people more  free thinking and unruly. It was a total bungle.

When you consider the sameness of the response to the  JFKA, then only a few years later, it was viewed from young people as just another screw up by their war establishment parents, but there was no time to really reflect. That was a real revolution in thought, Good work CIA!.

 

Potash premise: The CIA brought LSD into the anti war movement and stopped it cold. It's a total crock!

 

The Anti Viet Nam movement was successful and brought the American war machine to it's knees. This is a fact that people born after the 60's never hear because we have to play politically correct with the silent majority at that time, or the families of soldiers who went to war there or gave their lives, and that benefits  the actual people who created the war. Another successful but little recognized coverup by the Deep state?  The anti war movement created the candidacy of Eugene Mc Carthy, RFK and eventually George Mc Govern in 1972. From around 1970 on it was understood that the War movement was eventually to be successful, but was going to be drawn out, with more lives lost, just to play out Nixon's story line of "Peace with Honor". This made many people angry, and many people dropped out, not because they were necessarily using psychedelics, the great majority weren't, but they had just become exhausted and dispirited that they couldn't have ended the war earlier.

 

The psychedelic drug did not defang the anti war movement. The  people who spearheaded the Anti war movement are not the psychedelic drug movement, yes  there's overlap, a lot of people were taking psychedelic drugs at that time, but it wasn't an integral part of their lifestyle. Certainly there are anecdotal stories people can cherry pick to enforce their narratives.

 

A footnote: I remember in the 70's when Cleaver was trying to make a comeback   He even had his own clothing line. A pair of pants that had a special pocket extruding from the crotch area of the pants for the penis. True it was the afterthe 60's, but even then it was quite a stretch to think males were walking around all the time with erections. I found a link to it. Then later in the 70's, he came back to the states. I remember seeing a flyer once from him where he claimed he had become a born again Christian who saw the light one night in France, and he was speaking somewhere. He later became a Mormon and then a Republican.

 

https://www.messynessychic.com/2013/08/01/the-1970s-political-activist-who-invented-penis-pants/

 

 

 

 

[Rob Couteau]

Kirk, Thanks for your reflections. "Acid Dreams" explores in depth this question of whether or to what degree the Agency's use of acid to defang the youth movement backfired or succeeded. I think it backfired in certain cases and worked in others; a mixed bag. Because when you are dealing with human beings, everyone is different and different psychological makeups react differently. Given your reflections, I think the book would be of great interest. It's based on solid research, is well sourced and carefully footnoted, and it relies more on facts than on speculation. 

[Paul Brancato]

1 hour ago, Rob Couteau said:

Kirk, Thanks for your reflections. "Acid Dreams" explores in depth this question of whether or to what degree the Agency's use of acid to defang the youth movement backfired or succeeded. I think it backfired in certain cases and worked in others; a mixed bag. Because when you are dealing with human beings, everyone is different and different psychological makeups react differently. Given your reflections, I think the book would be of great interest. It's based on solid research, is well sourced and carefully footnoted, and it relies more on facts than on speculation. 

Second that - Acid Dreams. 

Altamount - I remember that part of the book. 

Kirk - I disagree with you about the anti war movement bringing the war machine to its knees. And I recall there was considerable division after the free speech movement morphed into the anti war movement. Turn on tune in was good advice, but Drop Out was distinctly non political. It worked on me. I moved to Mendocino and lived in a small dome in the woods fro several years while the war raged on. I was only dimly aware of what was going on then. No media, no electricity even. 

[Rob Couteau]

3 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Drop Out was distinctly non political. It worked on me.

There you have it. Excellent example.