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Mr. Ablard was appointed General Counsel of the Army on.
19 February 1975.
In this capacity he serves as legal counsel to
the Secretary, the Under Secretary,
the Assistant Secretaries, and
;their staffs.
Mr. Ablard was born on October 25,
1930,
in Enid, Oklahoma.
He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from the
University of Oklahoma in 1952, an LLB from the University of
Oklahoma m 1954, and an LLM from the George Washington University
Law Center in 1959.
He has been admitted to practice before the
Supreme Court of the United States,
the Supreme Court of Oklahoma,
the U. S. Court of Military Appeals and several lower federal courts.
Immediately after he graduated from law school in 1954, Mr.
Ablard served as a judge advocate in the Air Force with duty
assignments at Maxwell AFB, Oklahoma, and Itazuke, Japan.
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From 1958 to I960 Mr. Ablard was the Judicial Officer and
Chairman of the Board of Contract Appeals of the Post Office
Department.
Mr. Ablard was in the private practice of law in
Washington, D. C. from I960 to 1963.
From 1963 to 1969 Mr. Ablard served as the Vice President
and Counsel of the Magazine Publishers Association and the
American Association of Magazine Editors,
in Washington, D. C.
In 1969 Mr. Ablard became General Counsel and Congressional
Liaisompf the United States Information Agency, Washington, D.C.
,
where he served until 1972.
Mr. Ablard served as Associate Deputy
Attorney General in the Department of Justice from 1972 until 1974.
During 1974 Mr. Ablard was a Visiting Fellow of the Center of
International Studies, Cambridge University, England.
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Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:
It is a privilege for me to appear before your subcommittee
this morning to discuss the Army's Drug Testing Program; a subject
which quite properly warrants your review.
I am accompanied by
Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, The Surgeon General of the
Department of the Army.
We welcome the opportunity to testify
within the limits of our present knowledge.
Current interest in the history of Army drug testing using
human subjects was prompted in part by the Rockefeller Commission
Report's disclosure that an unidentified Army civilian, employee had
committed suicide several days after having been administered LSD,
This individual was,
of course, later identified as Dr. Frank Olson.
On^July 21,
1975, the Acting Secretary of the Army directed
the Army Inspector General to conduct a comprehensive investigation
/
to establish the totality of historical facts and circumstances surround-
ing the Army's participation in drug testing, focusing particularly upon
the testing of hallucinogenic drugs on human subjects.
The Secretary
also suspended all human testing, and ordered all volunteers to be
-M.
returned to their regular duty assignment.
The Inspector General's
investigation which also encompasses the allegations concerning the
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Chief of the Medical Research Division,
is currently in progress*
Although substantial investigatory effort has already been expended,
/including formal interviews of over 55 witnesses, numerous informal
interviews of other individuals , and review of thousands of pages of
documentation, the bulk of this investigation remains to be completed..
In the course of this investigation, one fatality has been identified as
having occurred in connection with one of the contracts let by the
Army for drug testing.
This was Mr. Harold Blauer, who at the
time of his death was a patient at the New York State Psychiatric
Institute.
The Department of the Army announced this information
shortly after it was learned on 7 August 1975.
As the time period of the investigation dates back to the late 1940 r s
many o£
tjjie most knowledgeable witnesses are either deceased or
have not as yet been located, and the memory of many of those who
have been located is incomplete or imprecise.
In addition, numerous
pertinent records have not as yet been located, and many may have
been routinely destroyed under standard procedures
for destruction.
of all records.
In my testimony today I will attempt to summarize
the information that has thus far been developed as a result of the;;.
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Inspector General’s investigation.
However,
I wish to emphasise
that because this investigation is still in progress, and because of
phe problems that I have just noted with regard to locating knowledge-
able witnesses and pertinent documentation, we have not as yet been
able to reconstruct a complete account of the Army’s participation in
drug testing.
There are substantial gaps in our knowledge, and much
of the information that we have been able to assemble is incomplete.
For this reason, there are many questions to which we simply do
not have the answers at the present time.
Before discussing the specifics of the program,
I believe it
appropriate to provide insofar as security considerations permit,
the factors which mandated that a program be initiated, and what
we perceived as the objectives of such a program.
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Starting in the early 1950's,
intelligence reports which were
received indicated large purchases by other governments of possible
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hallucinogenic agents which could be used as chemical warfare
material.
These reports also cited documented studies of research
conducted by these countries in the 1940’s and 5Q*s with various
psychochemicals, as well as references to the capture by U.S. or
U.S.
allies of foreign agents who were carrying syringes of fluid to
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facilitate control of captives.
Furthermore,
on October 21,
1951,
after communication with several European medical personnel
concerning the effect of "ego-depressant drugs," a civilian doctor
sent a report to The Surgeon General.
In it he related reports
of the utilization of drugs by foreign agents and indicated the need
for further research to determine the possible effects*such drugs
could have on national security.
This information presented a serious threat -- it indicated that
a major portion of our deterrent forces could be rendered helpless —
and defenseless -- by drugs which were odorless, colorless and
tasteless.
It also reflected that our most sensitive security matters
could be unknowingly compromised.
But perhaps of even greater
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*
significance,
it indicated that an alternative to nuclear weapons might
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be available; a weapon which might render large forces helpless — but
only temporarily -- and without any permanent damage to those forces
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and none to their surroundings.
These matters were covered in
testimony by Major General William M.
Creasy, former Chief
Chemical Officer, U.S. Army, before hearings of the.House Committee
on Science and Astronautics on June 16,
1959, wherein he discussed
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