This story comes from source inside intelligence community.

Sodium thiopental/Sodium Pentothal was the Chief drug used as a "Truth Serum" but inside intelligence agencies there were rumors persisting that "THE OTHER SIDE" had a better tool.

US Security forces commissioned Sandoz and Albert Hoffman to search for a better substitute with would better lower defenses in the mind ... to reduce resistance and barriers.

LSD was known from ancient Greek Lore as a "Sacramental" substance and reducing barriers.

Sympathomimetic drugs were already used by torture experts like DR Joseph Mengele [doctor of death in Nazi camps] to enhance pain.

The Goal then was to find a "companion drug" to use beside these which would lower any capacity to resist interrogation under torture.


LSD became that drug showing higher success than any other.
Hippies never became alarmed that an illicit drug would be so cheap [50 cents a dose when I was young] that profit on a non-addictive drug would be impossible.

Yet Leary, and crew insisted that it was non-addictive, harmless, and no chromosome damage. {"Politics of Ecstasy" by DR Leary} ...


The bicycle ride and accidental absorption story was published to create a subculture "mythology" that its escape was an ACCIDENT ! Nothing could be farther from the truth.


I must stop now ... continued [maybe] later.
My sources include an intelligence Officer and subjects from McGill where CIA finished the work.