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This is good, important work. I'm not sure what to make of it, but Overholser was also a Freemason and a boardmember of the Scottish Rite Committee for Research in Dementia Praecox in the '30s. I believe the org (renamed the Scottish Rite Schizophrenia Research Program) was later used as a funding conduit for MKULTRA. Overholser's predecessor at St. Elizabeths, Dr. William Alanson White, was also on the committee; apparently Overholser took over the superintendent position upon White's death.

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Oct 24·edited Oct 24Author

Thanks for your kind praise! I've looked a little into the Scottish Rite research, and I wasn't able to document anything specific. Perhaps I should give it another whirl, as that was some time ago. Also, you are correct. Overholser took over for White. Each in their way, from a historical viewpoint, were considered "progressive" in their day. From our perspective today, they appear in a very different light. White paved the way for Overholser by championing the use of psychiatrists (often still called "alienists" in the U.S. in the early 20th century) as expert witnesses at trial.

By the way, I left off one chapter of Overholser's life that is of some interest, and that was his peripheral involvement in the case of Sgt. Maurice Schick, who after the Korean War was charged with murdering the young daughter of Jacquard Rothschild. Jacquard had been the senior officer for the Army Chemical Corps in Japan during the Korean War, and to my mind, had to be a major figure in organizing the U.S. BW campaign. Earlier, he had headed Edgewood Arsenal. The Schick case is very strange, very suspicious, and I plan to write it up. Overholser in the end never examined Schick because the prosecution pushed the trial through quickly and wouldn't allow the time it would take for Overholser to travel from D.C. to Tokyo. Ultimately, it was not significant to the Overholser-centered article above, and I left it out. The article was already quite long anyway!

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Oct 24Liked by Jeffrey S. Kaye

Interesting! Overholser pops up in the James Forrestal case too.

I looked into the Scottish Rite work a little a while back, and yeah it's murky. IIRC it's mentioned in Colin Ross’s book, and I found that Fini Schulsinger and Sarnoff Mednick’s Danish twin research acknowledges their support.[e.g. 1] A recent documentary says that their twin research also got money through the Human Ecology Fund[2], adding to the suggestion of a CIA connection.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022395668900228

[2] https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/danske-boernehjemsboern-brugt-i-hemmelig-undersoegelse-stoettet-af-cia

https://www.rt.com/news/544673-cia-backed-experiments-danish-orphans/

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