http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7415082/French-bread-spiked-with-LSD-in-CIA-experiment.html


French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment

A 50-year mystery over the 'cursed bread' of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents
suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked
the bread with LSD as part of an experiment.


Henry Samuel in Paris
Published: 7:00AM GMT 11 Mar 2010
French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment
An American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA
peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD

In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and
mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people
died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted.

For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with
a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has
uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic
drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War.

The mystery of Le Pain Maudit (Cursed Bread) still haunts the inhabitants of Pont-
Saint-Esprit, in the Gard, southeast France.

On August 16, 1951, the inhabitants were suddenly racked with frightful
hallucinations of terrifying beasts and fire.

One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was being eaten by snakes.
An 11-year-old tried to strangle his grandmother. Another man shouted: "I am a
plane", before jumping out of a second-floor window, breaking his legs. He then got
up and carried on for 50 yards. Another saw his heart escaping through his feet and
begged a doctor to put it back. Many were taken to the local asylum in strait jackets.

Time magazine wrote at the time: "Among the stricken, delirium rose: patients
thrashed wildly on their beds, screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their
bodies, that their heads had turned to molten lead."

Eventually, it was determined that the best-known local baker had unwittingly
contaminated his flour with ergot, a hallucinogenic mould that infects rye grain.
Another theory was the bread had been poisoned with organic mercury.

However, H P Albarelli Jr., an investigative journalist, claims the outbreak resulted
from a covert experiment directed by the CIA and the US Army's top-secret Special
Operations Division (SOD) at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The scientists who produced both alternative explanations, he writes, worked for the
Swiss-based Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company, which was then secretly supplying
both the Army and CIA with LSD.

Mr Albarelli came across CIA documents while investigating the suspicious suicide of
Frank Olson, a biochemist working for the SOD who fell from a 13th floor window two
years after the Cursed Bread incident. One note transcribes a conversation between a
CIA agent and a Sandoz official who mentions the "secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit" and
explains that it was not "at all" caused by mould but by diethylamide, the D in LSD.

While compiling his book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the
CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments, Mr Albarelli spoke to former colleagues of Mr
Olson, two of whom told him that the Pont-Saint-Esprit incident was part of a mind
control experiment run by the CIA and US army.

After the Korean War the Americans launched a vast research programme into the
mental manipulation of prisoners and enemy troops.

Scientists at Fort Detrick told him that agents had sprayed LSD into the air and also
contaminated "local foot products".

Mr Albarelli said the real "smoking gun" was a White House document sent to
members of the Rockefeller Commission formed in 1975 to investigate CIA abuses. It
contained the names of a number of French nationals who had been secretly
employed by the CIA and made direct reference to the "Pont St. Esprit incident." In
its quest to research LSD as an offensive weapon, Mr Albarelli claims, the US army
also drugged over 5,700 unwitting American servicemen between 1953 and 1965.

None of his sources would indicate whether the French secret services were aware of
the alleged operation. According to US news reports, French intelligence chiefs have
demanded the CIA explain itself following the book's revelations. French intelligence
officially denies this.

Locals in Pont-Saint-Esprit still want to know why they were hit by such apocalyptic
scenes. "At the time people brought up the theory of an experiment aimed at
controlling a popular revolt," said Charles Granjoh, 71.

"I almost kicked the bucket," he told the weekly French magazine Les Inrockuptibles.
"I'd like to know why."

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