Mayhem and Murder

FCC would never ever approve of. A radio antenna at Chestnut Street streamed sounds from inside one of the bedrooms. Depending on who was listening to the frequency, the radio dial might be snapped off abruptly, embarrassed parents struggling to explain those sounds to their kids, but others would stay

tuned in, eager to hear what came next. The people of Telegraph Hill had no idea a CIA operation was happening inside the apartment and that it's chief investigator, a man named George White, decided to broadcast the sounds of sex workers and John's going at it. They didn't know he was on a mission from the CIA to find out whether sex and drugs could win the Cold War. That White had explicit permission to give LSD and virtually any other drug to anyone, anywhere, for any reason or

no reason at all. They couldn't know that as they were listening, he was secretly watching from behind a two way mirror, sipping a martini. George White had arrived. He was in charge of the CIA's newest experiment, one that would explore the effect of sex and drugs on subject acts. The fate of the nation depended on it. Officially, it was known as m k Ultra Subproject forty two, but White had another name for it. He called it Operation

Midnight Climax. For I Heart Radio, I'm Noel Brown, and this is Operation Midnight Climax, Chapter one Mayhem and Murder M. If you're even remotely familiar with the seedier chapters in American history, you've probably heard of mk Ultra. This was the top secret CIA program that sanctioned the use of psychoactive drugs on American citizens. The agency used shady psychiatrists, prisons,

and mental institutions to execute these studies. The goal was to see how spies and other operatives could use these drugs to our national advantage in the field. Whether it was MK ULTRA or another government agency. Some of these experiments felt like something a four year old would think up. It wasn't just drugs either. Some agents injected plutonium into soldiers. At a school in Massachusetts, kids in the science club were fed irradiated oatmeal to see how well they absorbed

iron and calcium. And in nineteen sixty two, a psychiatrist drugged an elephant with LSD. The poor thing keeled over debt, and we learned elephants can't handle a bad trip. For a good portion of the twentieth century, US government officials were out of their collective mind, and one of the most irresponsible things they ever did, even worse than giving an elephant l s D, was recruiting George Hunter White, And that was all thanks to a man named Sydney Gottlieb.

Part one not FBI material. Back in ninety two, Sydney Gottlieb was working as the chief chemist for the CIA. On paper, he was a straight laced patriot, but godly had a few secrets too, And when George White's FBI file landed on his desk, Sidney Gottlieb saw something. White had already applied to be a federal agent a few times. The first time was an May nineteen thirty four. This

is what the official report read. The interview reflected. The White parents and one sister resided in al Hamburg, California, where his father was city manager. White studied sociology at Oregon State College from nineteen twenty four to six, dropping from the university to take a position with the Red Cross in Los Angeles. Nothing too unusual so far, California kid drops out of college to soak up some sun

and ride waves. He went bodysurfing a lot. White became a first aid director for the Red Cross before resigning to become a police reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin. What the report doesn't mention is that White like newspaper work because it brought him close to the action, you know, the action, Chasing leads, shadowing subjects, digging for clues, putting yourself in harm's way. The truth is he'd liked danger,

but at a certain point reporting wasn't close enough. As White once said, newspapering is all right, but it makes a bystander out of you. I want to get out on the field where the game is going on. That was the other thing for White. It wasn't just the action. It was about the game, the battle of wits and sometimes fists. That's what White wanted. That's why he was applying to the FBI. But the file made it clear he wasn't a fit. According to Gottlieb's report, his personality, approach,

and appearance were not up to the bureau standards. Agents who got to know White would later say he was lone wolf, someone who didn't want to be a member of any team. He was prone to slapping people he didn't like with a black jack. A black jack, by the way, is a leather satchel with lead in it. He carried it to smack people. That was White. He got dressed every morning knowing he might have to pummel someone and play and accordingly, but the file didn't name there.

Even though White wasn't FBI material, the report made it clear that George White had been wartime material. In fact, George White had undergone top secret training by British intelligence to be a secret agent. He'd attended real life spy school. It's where White learned to be dangerous, Part two, the James Bond Finishing School before the CIA was formed in ninety seven. It had a precursor, the Office of Strategic Services or OSS. The OSS needed men who could be

molded into operatives that used subterfuge and deception. They needed men like George White. By this time, White was passed the newspaper reporting he took up a job as a private investigator. When the FBI rejected him, he joined the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics to be a dope buster. His work meant chasing down dealers of everything from marijuana to cocaine, but it also meant tailing people working under cover and getting into violent altercations. It was spy stuff.

The OSS realized, with a little fine tuning, White could be a major asset. And that's where Camp X came into play, or, as White used to call it, the School of Mayhem and Murder rumor has it Ian Fleming. The James Bond author was trained at Camp X, and the special training school has a storied, if secretive history. Opened in nineteen forty one, one day before the Pearl Harbor attacks, Camp X cater to British and American recruits.

Students spent their days learning the art of guerrilla warfare and in Cove operations over four weeks, located on two seventy acres of farmland on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. Recruits got a crash course and everything from parachuting to burglary to learning how to kill someone quickly and silently.

Years later, when the CIA would establish their own training facility known as the Farm, the nickname would be a nod to the farm land at Camp X. But by all accounts, Camp X instituted a new style of warfare. Here's a sample from the official training manual. Being conspicuous avoid all limelight by being an average citizen in appearance and conduct. Be tidy. You will be a cog in a very large machine, But that blending in always served a larger purpose. Your aim is to kill your opponent

as quickly as possible. A prisoner is generally a handicap, so forget the Queensberry rules. If you need to search a prisoner, it's best to kill him first. White had found his home. He was one of the first eight Americans ever sent to Camp X for training. There was no better action, no bigger game than intelligence operations. This was a place to sharpen his sword. Students learned to blow up bridges to operate Thompson's submachine guns to parachute

off ninety foot towers. There were martial arts classes that showcased moves to incapacitate and kill. Instructors recommended hiding razor blades and the brim of caps and slashing enemies in the throat. At night, men would be roused from a sound sleep a pistol thrust in their hand. Dazed, they try to navigate a maze and locate targets dressed like Nazi soldiers. This wasn't a game. The pistols had live rounds.

Instructors watched from the hind sandbacks. Targets would pop up, who were expected to put two rounds into each one. Speakers piped in the sound of footsteps and conversations in German. The corridors had uneven floors that made standing straight difficult. It was a little like being on drugs. During one live round session, a trainee was shot and killed by accident. The instructors treated it as though someone had stubbed the toe.

The day's schedule went on uninterrupted. As one CIA psychologist later observed, camp Ax was best suited for sociopathic characters. George White thrived at Camp AX, and if he didn't seem to have any hesitation about killing, maybe it's because he'd done it before Part three, getting into drugs. Let's go back and get into George White's life before spy School.

Long before he arrived at Camp X, White had sent applications to every major law enforcement agency in the country, but the FBI and other prestigious agencies didn't want White. He was too rough, too abrasive, not the Ivy League types these agencies were looking for. Normally, that would have been the end of it, but in the nineteen thirties, a new opportunity opened up. As the illicit drug trade began to grow, the government established the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

The Narcotics Bureau has been called the most successful law enforcement initiative in American history, but a big part of that is because they were able to invent their villain Weed. As the Great Depression loomed, federal agencies started to lose funding. The head of the Narcotics Bureau, Harry and Slinger, came up with a scheme to ensure his department would coast through the depression. He made a villain of marijuana. Anslinger was one of the people who lobbied to make possession

of felony. He claimed it could cause psychosis or insanity. In his crusade, Anslinger consulted thirty experts looking for some kind of medical backing. When twenty nine of them could find no reason marijuana should be considered dangerous, an sling are stuck with the one who agreed with him, And of course, there was a sinister racial component to this strategy, which tied marijuana to Mexican immigrants in the black community. By ninety seven, Congress essentially criminalized the drug with the

Marijuana Tacks Act. So, after a raft of rejections, George White applied to the Narcotics Bureau. He got a letter of endorsement from Senator William Gibbs McAdoo, a friend of the family, and in nineteen thirty six George White only got his chance to wear a badge. He was now George White, Agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. But it wasn't long before he fucked it up. An slinger dispatched White to San Francisco, where he was told to pose as a pimp in an effort to find heroin dealers.

The plan was simple, earn a dealer's trust, buy some heroin, then make an arrest. But White was learning on the job, so when a heroin dealer agreed to sell some heroin to White, took White's money and then told White to wait right there while he went and got his stash. White trusted him. Let's cut this story short, because you know, the heroin dealer isn't coming back. White was out his money, which came out of his own paycheck, so he tried again.

This time, he told a different dealer, a man named Tuffie Jackson, that he'd follow him back to his house to make sure he didn't take off with the cash, and off they went. White walked into Toffy's house and forked over the cash. I got you wait here, I'll be right there. Toffy Jackson didn't come back at all. It wasn't long before White tracked down Toughy so as politely as he could, White inquired as to the status

of their business transaction, Where's my fucking money? Things escalated quickly. White identified himself as a cop and drew his gun, but tough He wasn't going to be stopped. He pulled a knife and charged White, so he shot Tough. He took a point blank in the head, and well, look, it's just a bad idea to get into confrontations with people named Toffee. The bullet bounced off tough He's skull and he kept coming. So he shot again, this time

aiming for Toffy's stomach. The bullet would hit its mark and tough He would bleed out. So it wasn't a great first day for White. He lost money to one drug dealer, killed another. Oh and one more thing. When White had asked the homeowner where he could find tough He, he had told him to check the local park. So this gunfight. It took place in full view of people feeding pigeons and pushing babies and strollers. White didn't get fired,

but he did get demoted to Seattle. He was years away from Camp Ax, and from the look of things, he'd never get there with a track record like this. But Seattle is where George White turned it all around Part four Weaponized. When people in Seattle saw George White roughing up a man on crutches, they probably thought he was insane, but White knew something they didn't. Inside the man's crutch was a hollowed out space. Once you pulled off the rubber tip, you'd find a stash of morphine.

Arresting the dealer would have been a nice rebound, but White wanted more. At just twenty eight years old and with less than a year on duty, he wanted to build a career case. So White scared the dealer and turned him into an informant. In less than an hour, White was standing face to face with his supplier in a hotel room, a man named Lum Get. Get didn't want to go to jail. He offered White what he called the big men, the real heavyweights. This was much

bigger than a few guys selling drugs. Get worked for the Hip Sing Tong, a massive Chinese gang that had a presence not only in Seattle, but across the country. White was still a rookie agent, but no agent had ever infiltrated a Chinese opium gang before. He had a good plan. He claimed to be a purchasing agent for a West Coast narcotic syndicate in need of a new supplier. The agency gave him the green light. Before long, White had managed to land an intro to Jimmy Wong a

Tongue member who shipped drugs via mail order. White went to New York to meet Wong in person. The bureau set him up in a room that was wired for sound, the same kind of setup that would soon play a big role in his life. With agents recording, White got Wong to admit he could sell him everything from morphine to opium to cocaine. It was far more than White even had the approval or funds to buy. Get. Also introduced White to a gunman for the syndicate who was

offering drugs even cheaper than long. They got along well, and pretty soon the gunman made White an offer that knocked him for a loop, a chance to become a full fledged member of the Hip Sing Tong. For close to a year, White collected incriminating information on the gang from the inside. On November nineteenth nine, seven agents rated locations all across the country. Over fifty arrests were made,

including several members of the Italian mafia. It was one of the most spectacular takedowns of a drug syndicate in the history of law enforcement, and it belonged primarily to George White. He was a hero in the Elliott Ness mode, posing for pictures with an opium pipe in one hand and a Tommy gun in the other. The FBI hadn't wanted him, but look at George White. Now, he'd mauled a guy on crutches and chase that lead all the

way to a fiery altar of drug empire. For most cops, most people, this would have been it the big score. White got a promotion to New York, which he had fallen in love with. He had won the game. Except this wasn't it. This wasn't White's climax, not even close. There was still Camp X and a chance to put those spy skills to the test. White's FBI file gets into other chapters of his life, like his time abroad.

It's a few years later and White's been recruited by the OSS and is finishing up his training at Camp X, all of it based on his work as a decorated narcotics agent who somehow managed to become a card carrying member of a Chinese criminal enterprise. After his training, he goes to Cairo, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, observing the narcotics trade in territory and reporting back to the Narcotics Bureau. No narcotics officer had ever crossed oceans to do his job.

White was weaponized now. The OSS hadn't sent him to espionage school for fun. This was war. The fate of the free world was on the line. In Turkey, he convinced a gang of heroin dealers to sell to him. They agree, but only if you'll allow himself to be escorted to an undisclosed location. White memorizes the number of their gas meter and calls the utility company to get the address, which he gave to his partners. The guy

was good. In nineteen forty three, White is dispatched to Calcutta, India, where Allied forces relied heavily on getting shipments of supplies at the port. But the port had been repeatedly attacked by air bombardments, which pointed to a spy somewhere nearby. With all the skills he'd accumulated in the Narcotics Bureau and at Camp X, White is told to find the man and resolve the problem. White disguises himself as a longshoreman.

He stays inconspicuous an average citizen. White starts to focus on the owner of a bootmaking shop to preserve his cover. He has an Army sergeant confront the bootmaker with accusations he was a spy for the Axis. The conversation doesn't go well. The bootmaker pulls a knife and lunges for the sergeant. White pops out and fires twice, hitting the spy in the chest. The British weren't pleased with their trigger happy American counterparts, but you couldn't say White wasn't effective.

A couple of gunshots and the air raids stopped? Or has he put it? I interfered renally with their argument. When the war was over, White returned to the United States and resumed his work at the Narcotics Bureau, this time in Chicago. He'd moved around for the Bureau a lot, bouncing from one major city to the next, always garnering attention for high profile cases and busts. In nine he arrested singer Billie Holiday and her manager for opium possession.

He burst into her hotel room and said she tried to get rid of the drugs in the toilet. Holiday denied she was using drugs or that she had any on her person at the time of her arrest. She was eventually found not guilty. Perhaps White had planted the drugs as part of Harry Anslinger's bizarre crusade against Billie Holiday and Jazz. Still, it was more attention and more notoriety. The U. S. Treasury, which oversaw the Narcotics Bureau, gave

White their metal for Exceptional Civilian Service. This was George White's life, a celebrated narcotics agent with some very unusual skills. Still, White felt destined for more, but the FBI wasn't interested. The war was over. The only answer was more busts, just like the ones before them. Except except for that one day in nineteen fifty two, the day Sydney Gottlieb opened up George White's file and started reading everything about him. The Red Cross, the Hip Sing Tong, Camp X Calcutta,

Billie Holiday, everything he'd done in the last decade. Without knowing it, George White had built a resume that made him perfect for a job he didn't even know existed, in a war he didn't know what was happening. Gottlieb, you'll remember, was the CIA's head chemist, the man in charge of mk ultra. The Cold War was a time to explore everything from radioactive oatmeal to l s D. He was impressed by White's file, but he was fascinated

by one thing in particular. Buried in those pages was a classified document involving White that detailed a secret chapter in his life, something that had happened in between Campax and returning home from the war. It was something so amazing that Gottli had called up White's boss at the Narcotics Bureau that very minute and told him the CIA needed George White. America needed George White, a sociopath who

wouldn't hesitate to interfere terminally with a problem. If it came down to it, this secret document would change the course of history. It would destroy a lot of lives, and it would give George White everything he ever wanted. The only problem. At that very moment, George White was in jail this season in Operation Midnight Climax. Secretary couldn't wake her colleague, so she picked up the gun, took aim, and fired. America believes its enemies have mastered brainwashing. The

CIA is desperate to catch up. They've enlisted the help of George White. This is the story of the experiment Escaping the Lab. The LSD was an aerosolized form so it could be sprayed over a population. One man going deep cover, drugging strangers, bugging the CIA brothel, and keeping meticulous notes on the best ways to so chaos. Sex workers were on the CIA payroll. Can sex and drugs

win the Cold War? The Sea is willing to do anything to find out, and along the way, many people will lose their jobs, others will lose their minds, some their lives. And the man in the middle of it all, George White. It was George White. Find George White. Operation Midnight Climax is hosted by Noel Brown. The show is written by Jake Ross and editing by Ernie indraw Tat. Original music by Aaron Kaufman. Research and fact checking by

Austin Thompson and Maurica Brown. Show logo by Lucy Quintinilla. Special thanks to David Crumholtz, Vanessa crum Holtz, Ted Raymi, Adam Copeland, Christina Everett, and Ryan Murdoch. Julian Weller is our supervising producer. Our executive producers are Jason English and mangesh Had Ticketer