Editor's summary:

France — In his book "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments", investigative journalist H. P. Albarelli Jr. primarily writes about the suspicious 1953 suicide of Frank Olson, a biochemist working for the US Army's top-secret Special Operations Division (SOD) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Olson supposedly jumped or fell out of a 13th story window after unknowingly taking LSD, a drug he allegedly experimented with for the Army.

However, from this Telegraph.co.uk article we learn another piece of history Albarelli explores is the French mystery of Le Pain Maudit ("Cursed Bread") in which the inhabitants of the village of Pont-Saint-Esprit were suddenly struck down by mass insanity and hallucinations in 1951. Albarelli claims this outbreak was the result of a covert experiment directed by the CIA and the very same Army outpost where Olson worked before his death.

Posted by: Chef on Mar. 11, 2010 (10:25 am EST)