>He was one of several special operations division scientists who were in France on 16 August 1951, when an entire French village, Pont-Saint-Esprit, was myster

>He was one of several special operations division scientists who were in France on 16 August 1951, when an entire French village, Pont-Saint-Esprit, was mysteriously seized by mass hysteria and violent delirium that afflicted more than 200 residents and caused several deaths; the cause was later determined to have been poisoning by ergot, the fungus from which LSD was derived. The article insinuates this group of CIA & army scientists was responsible for the "ergot" poisoning in the french village, has any new evidence to this regard come to light besides the theory / book published in 2009? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_Pont-Saint-Esprit_mass_poisoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_Pont-Saint-Esprit_mass_po... >In his 2009 book, A Terrible Mistake, writer Hank P. Albarelli Jr alleged that the Special Operations Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tested the use of LSD on the population of Pont-Saint-Esprit as part of its MKNAOMI chemical behavior program in a field test dubbed Project SPAN. According to Albarelli, the ergot contamination explanation had been challenged and "ruled out".[10][13][14] Historian Stephen Kaplan dismissed Albarelli's theories and assertions as "hardly possible", and anthropologist Bernd Rieken [de] wrote that "even in the secular society of the present, substitutes for the devil and other demons may be found, in this case the CIA, which some people believe capable of every conceivable evil".[10][15] Especially the last quote seems very naive After reading the following paragraph from the posted article! >“In CIA safe-houses in Germany,” according to one study, “Olson witnessed horrific brutal interrogations on a regular basis. Detainees who were deemed ‘expendable’ – SUSPECTED spies or moles, security leaks, etc – were literally interrogated to death in experimental methods combining drugs, hypnosis and torture, to attempt to master brainwashing techniques and memory erasing.” capitalization mine: suspects being interrogated to death without any form of due process or trial? So we have a story about american (and presumably also west german) agents interrogating / experimenting suspects to death in safehouses in germany, and then we have an american-born historian Stephen Kaplan and a german (psychologist?) dismissing that western powers would ever perform feats typically associated with east-german Stasi practices. Guantanamo bay also happened, and was rubberstamped by psychologists / psychiatrists... some real class acts these CIA & army biological warfare gents!