FrostyMcFailure
Bluelighter
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- Aug 17, 2004
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weirdO
link oneRonald Hadley Stark was perhaps the largest source of American LSD in the late 1960s after Owsley Stanley's imprisonment in 1967.
Stark arrived in the spring of 1969 at the Laguna Beach, California home of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a biker collective and LSD dealership. Previously unknown to the Brotherhood, he was quickly welcomed when he proffered a kilogram of pure LSD (equivalent to 5 million 200-microgram doses), or so the story goes. What makes this particularly interesting is that there had never been that much LSD produced commercially (by Sandoz Laboratories, the only commercially manufacturer of the drug); there would be little reason for a legitimate laboratory to produce so much and less reason for an illegal operation to produce so much at once. If the story is true, it means that whoever produced the acid intended it for a large number of people and was unconcerned about prosecution. The standard operating procedure for any illegal drug lab is to produce only somewhat more than satisfies immediate demand, for obvious reasons.
The Brotherhood distributed a form of acid known as "Orange Sunshine," which had a reputation of having more unpleasant side-effects than Owsley's product had. Users had a greater incidence of symptoms akin to strychnine poisoning as well as more of a "speedy" feeling to their trips. In the words of Michael Hollinshead (the man who originally turned Leary on):
There was now (1968) little good acid around, and what there was – the so-called "street acid" - came mainly from California. There was something wrong with the synthesis; it was not pure. And you were never sure what it was exactly that you were taking, so I only dropped it on those rare occasions when someone gave me "Sandoz" or "crystal" acid...
My evaluation had nothing to do with the notion that a wholly synthetic drug produced a wholly synthetic experience - the intellectual response - but was based on direct, first-hand experience (about 30 trips with street acid in all). And in each session I felt that there was something it lacked - it was too "electric," too "speedy" and too "mind-shattering." The earlier clarity of "insight" which I had obtained via the Sandoz acid was replaced by confusion, brokenness, words and worlds thrown into absolute dismemberment, or even absolute chaos, though, I must add, often coupled with a feeling that I can only describe as "sublime inflation," a super abundance of emotive energy, but it could not signify more a passionate flame and less the life-giving sun.
Ronald Stark was also, allegedly, either a CIA agent or a free agent temporarily in the CIA's employ. Evidence of this came to light when he was arrested in Bologna, Italy for drug trafficking in 1975. Magistrate Giorgio Floridia ordered that he be released on the grounds that he was a CIA agent (and had been since 1960). Floridia's evidence was circumstantial, but nonetheless interesting. While imprisoned, Stark was frequently visited by Wendy M. Hansen, from the U.S. consulate in Florence. The police had seized letters to Stark addressed to one of his illegal laboratories in Brussels from Charles C. Adams at the U.S. Embassy in London. Floridia also claimed that Stark had done secret work for the U.S. Defense Department from 1960 to 1962, and that there had been "periodic payments to him from Fort Lee, known to be the site of a CIA office." In 1984 a report was issued by an Italian parliamentary commission to study terrorism in Italy. The report concluded that Stark had been an adventurer who had been employed by the CIA, though it was not specified during what period.
Stark himself made several references to his association to the CIA, though nobody has quoted him as ever saying he worked for them directly. He claimed that he ended his relationship to the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and moved operations to Brussels thanks to a CIA tip. He also claimed to have plans to supply LSD to CIA-backed Tibetan guerrillas resisting the Chinese occupation.
There is clearly some possibility the CIA had reason to desire control of the LSD supply in California. Their MKULTRA program had been researching the possibilities of using the drug for mind control purposes since well before recreational use became popular, and had discussed the research potential of an entire community on acid (e.g. the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco). The evidence that they did in fact, conspire to distribute underground LSD, or that Ronald Stark was involved, is tenuous at best, but is certainly worth looking at. In the words of Carl Oglesby, former head of Students for a Democratic Society:
What we have to contemplate nevertheless is the possibility that the great American acid trip, no matter how distinctive of the rebellion of the 1960s it came to appear, was in fact the result of a despicable government conspiracy.... If U.S. intelligence bodies collaborated in an effort to drug an entire generation of Americans, then the reason they did so was to disorient it, sedate it and de-politicize it.
linkThe curse of doing research out here in Weirdoland is that the really fascinating people are nearly impossible to do research on. For instance, when you're covertly running the world's largest LSD manufacturing and smuggling operation for the CIA, you're not going to be doing interviews in Newsweek or publishing an autobiography. That's precisely the problem with Ronald Hadley Stark, who is one of the most insane characters in the history of LSD -- and that's really saying something, don't you think?
Take some time meditating on that photo of him, by the way -- because it's the only verified picture of him that exists at the moment. This is not an article that lends itself to illustrations.
The Super-Context
For anyone unfamiliar with the tangle of political, scientific, cultural and covert forces behind spread of LSD, this article could get confusing. There were a lot of famous and infamous names in the mix, yet curiously, very few of them ever overlap with Ronald Stark. Yesterday we discussed Al Hubbard -- but there's no evidence that he and Stark ever even crossed paths. Although, as we'll see, Stark had considerable CIA connections, there's also no evidence that Stark had any connection with, or even knowledge of, the MKULTRA program. Then again, 99% of those files were destroyed in 1973.
Where Stark did connect was a meeting in in 1969 with a hippie drug syndicate called The Brotherhood of Eternal Love. (No, not kidding.) They were looking for a new supplier and Stark kicked off the meeting by showing them a kilogram of LSD -- for US readers, that's 2.2 pounds of acid, baby. Needless to say, his resume was persuasive. According to a figure quoted by everyone and verified by nobody, Stark made 20 kilograms of LSD in his career.
Jim Keith offers a paragraph of details on Stark's twilight years that I've never seen corroborated, or even mentioned, anywhere else. That could just mean he did his job better than most journalists, or it could mean he's repeating rumors and gossip -- either way, for the sake of completeness:
Stark...was seen at the student uprisings in Paris in 1968, and was also present at the student demonstrations and labor strikes in Milan in 1969. In the 1970s he lived a posh lifestyle in Italy, hobnobbing with the sicilian Mafiosi, espionage agents of various coloration, and terrorists.
Some Heavy Dudes
Researching Roland Stark, I was reminded of people like Porter Goss, Andijra Puharich, or Barry Seal: it is unreal how much this guy got around. I found him cropping up in articles I had from years ago, like Micheal E. Kreca's report on the manufacturing of the drug war. Stark shows up with some exceptionally creepy company:
Stark also was a close friend of the Los Angeles founders of a small breakaway Scientology sect called "The Process Church of the Final Judgement," English expatriates Robert DeGrimston Moore and Mary Ann McClean.
It's kinda suspect how the entire dark side of the hippie years came from California, a continuous stain that kept coming for five straight years. The Process Church shows up in every assassination, occult murder, and lone weirdo event during the late 60's and early 70's. They're connected to L. Ron Hubbard, Charles Manson, David Berkowitz, even the murder of Nicole Simpson, years later. Also, our favorite sociologist technocrat, William Sims Bainbridge, spent three years with them -- studying and learning. He published a book about it in 1978: Satan's Power: A Deviant Psychotherapy Cult
It probably sounds way more lurid than it was. Bainbridge didn't exactly make it sound like a frat party in hell: "there was no violence and no indiscriminate sex, but I found a remarkably aesthetic and intelligent alternative to conventional religion." You can read more in his essay Social Construction from Within: Satan's Process.
Giorgio Floridia
Most of what's known about Ronald Stark today is through an Italian magistrate named Giorgio Floridia, who released Stark from Italian prison in 1979. Apparently, Stark had gotten himself caught in 1975, and spent the following years trying to convince anyone and everyone that he was operating with the blessings of the United States government. Four years later, he finally managed to persuade Floridia, who cited "an impressive series of scrupulously enumerated proofs" that Stark had given him. That series went like this:
Floridia cited Stark's frequent prison visits from Wendy M. Hansen at the US Consulate in Florence, "Dear Ron" letters from Charles C. Adams at the US Embassy in London, addressed to Stark's LSD lab in Brussels (siezed by Italian police after his arrest), and his links with Philip B. Taylor III at the US Consulate in Rome.
Floridia also claims Stark worked for the Defense Department from 1960-62, and recieved paychecks from Fort Lee, in New Jersey. It is worth considering that Stark might have exaggerated his role and connections, and even fabricated evidence, in presenting his case to the magistrate who was in a position to free him. Either way, it worked. Stark was released on parole....and disappeared days later.
In terms of Floridia's motivation, it's worth considering the fate of the guy who came before him:
In June 1978 a Bologna magistrate, Graziano Gori, was assigned to investigate Stark and his astounding web of associates. A few weeks later, Gori was killed in a car wreck.
That, of course, might be the most "impressive proof" of all.
Somehow Not the End
Stark turned up in Holland in 1982. He got deported the next year and apparently died in custody -- because when Italy requested that he be extradited on terrorism charges, the US replied with a copy of Stark's death certificate. (You guessed it -- "heart attack.")
Jerry Garcia worked for CONINTELPRO
Of course, lets keep things in perspective, here. The 1960s were an incredible explosion of pure human love and positive energy. Everyone woke up to social injustice and racial prejudice and saved the world. I don't want to pretend that the "counterculture" was some sort of big mirage teevee show to keep people distracted. FBI never ran an operation called DEADHEAD, and they certainly never wrote any documents claiming that their employee, Jerry Garcia, was a huge help in "siphoning off student dissent and re-channeling it into self-destructive hedonism."
I could do no better for an ending than this Kreca quote:
To take a lesson from Orwell, what is more important about the 1960s, indeed, about any period in history, is not so much what really happened as how that period is remembered publicly decades later.
Be sure to check out the Cult of the Dead Cow's review of Acid: A New Secret History of LSD" -- full of further information on Stark.
. Oh, and the school authorities were clueless.
It just kind of tailed off, no bad crash.
