By  Daily Mail Reporter and Associated Press

PUBLISHED: 22:24 EST, 28  November 2012 |  UPDATED: 22:24 EST, 28 November 2012

Murdered? Frank Olson was long through to have jumped to  his death in 1959, but his sons now say he was pushed

A new lawsuit has dredged up a 60-year-old  Cold War mystery surrounding the death of an Army bioweapons researcher who was  given LSD by the CIA.

The government says Frank Olson jumped to his  death in 1959 after he was given the hallucinatory drug as part of a top-secret  CIA mind control program codenamed MK-ULTRA.

Dr Olson’s sons now claim they have evidence  that he did not commit suicide, but was instead pushed out of a 13th story New  York City highrise window by CIA operatives who feared he was getting cold feet  about the intelligence agency’s tactics.

Eric and Nils Olson, of Frederick, Maryland,  are seeking unspecified compensatory damages in the lawsuit filed in federal  court on Wednesday.

Their lawyer, Scott D Gilbert, said the  brothers also want to see a broad range of documents related to Dr Olson’s death  and other matters that they say the CIA has withheld from them since the  death.

Mr Olson was a bioweapons expert at Fort  Detrick, the Army’s biological weapons research center in Maryland.

The lawsuit claims the CIA killed Dr Olson  when he developed misgivings after witnessing extreme interrogations in which  they allege the CIA committed murder using biological agents Olson had  developed.

The CIA had a program in the 1950s and ’60s  called MK-ULTRA, which involved brainwashing and administering experimental  drugs like LSD to unsuspecting individuals. The project was investigated by  Congress in the 1970s.

Olson consumed a drink laced with LSD by CIA  agents on November 19, 1953, the suit says. Later that month, after being taken  to New York City purportedly for a ‘psychiatric’ consultation, Olson plunged to  his death.

At the time – when Eric and Nils Olson were 9  and 5 years old, respectively – the CIA said he died in an accident and did not  divulge to his family that Olsen had been given LSD.

 

Top secret: Research into biological, chemical and  nuclear weapons soared in the early days of the Cold War, including the CIA’s  MK-ULTRA program

But in 1975, a commission headed by Vice  President Nelson Rockefeller released a report on CIA abuses that included a  reference to an Army scientist who had jumped from a New York hotel days after  being slipped LSD in 1953.

Family members threatened to sue, but  President Gerald Ford invited the family to the White House, assuring them they  would be given all the government’s information. CIA Director William Colby  handed over documents and the family accepted a $750,000 settlement to avert a  lawsuit.

In an email, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer  Youngblood said that while the agency doesn’t comment on matters before U.S.  courts, ‘CIA activities related to MK-ULTRA have been thoroughly investigated  over the years, and the agency cooperated with each of those investigations.’

 

Destructive: The CIA believed it could use LSD as a mind  control agent to help interrogate captured operatives

She noted that tens of thousands of pages  related to the program have been released to the public.

In a statement, Eric Olson said that the CIA  has not given a complete picture of what happened to his father.

‘The evidence shows that our father was  killed in their custody,’ he said. ‘They have lied to us ever since, withholding  documents and information, and changing their story when convenient.’

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