Obituaries
Louis J. West; Psychiatrist, Rights Activist
January 07, 1999|MYRNA OLIVER | TIMES STAFF WRITER
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Dr. Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West, an internationally known psychiatrist, civil rights activist and expert on alcoholism, drug abuse and cults, has died. He was 74.
West, who headed the department of psychiatry and the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA for 20 years, died Saturday of cancer at his Los Angeles home.
Although he partially retired in 1989, West had remained active in research and mentoring students. He was frequently sought out by the news media to offer insight into such cults as Heaven’s Gate, which staged a mass suicide in San Diego County in 1997.
West also served frequently as a court-appointed expert psychiatrist. He examined such defendants as Jack Ruby–killer of President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald–and Patricia Hearst, the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapping victim turned bank robber.
Ruby, West said, suffered from "major mental illness apparently precipitated by the stress of [his] trial and its aftermath." West’s opinion forestalled Ruby’s death sentence, and the convicted murderer died of cancer in prison.
West was one of four psychiatrists named to examine Hearst before her 1976 trial in San Francisco. The panel found her sane and able to stand trial but, in West’s words, "psychologically damaged as a result of torture by the SLA."
The doctors urged that she be treated for mental illness before the trial, a recommendation ignored by the court. West said in a San Diego speech after her conviction: "The government finished the destruction of her life started by an anti-government group." President Jimmy Carter commuted Hearst’s prison sentence in 1979.
West studied torture and brainwashing during the Korean War, when he was an Air Force doctor at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Asked to determine why American prisoners of war had falsely confessed to engaging in germ warfare, West determined that guilt could be instilled by solitary confinement and prolonged sleeplessness as well as by physical abuse.
He continued his studies of brainwashing over the years, along with his work in post-traumatic stress syndrome, alcohol and drug abuse, pain, sleep problems, dreams and hypnosis.
"What happens in coerced confinement," West once told The Times, explaining the behavior of cult members and kidnapping victims, "can be called the three Ds–debility, dread and dependency. A prisoner is debilitated by inactivity, by sleep loss or, worse, by physical harm. He is filled with dread by constant threats of pain or death or harm to his family. He is rendered completely dependent upon his captors for information, food, shelter, life."
Always active in civil rights, from the American South to South Africa, West was the first white psychiatrist to go to South Africa to testify on behalf of black prisoners–and Afrikaner Auret Van Heerden–during the attempt to end apartheid. In 1966 he was a member of the White House Conference on Civil Rights, and he worked for years to abolish capital punishment.
"Everybody makes a difference," West said about activism while speaking to The Times in 1985. "You can fight city hall. You can change the world. It might not seem like much of a change at the time, but you have the power as an individual to do a great deal."
Born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Madison, Wis., West grew up in poverty. But his mother, who gave him the middle name Jolyon after reading "The Forsyte Saga," convinced him that he was destined to do great things.
West studied at the University of Wisconsin and enlisted in the Army during World War II, determined to fight Hitler. Instead, the Army sent him to study medicine, a profession he had never considered, at the University of Iowa. He completed his training at the University of Minnesota.
Holy cow! An MK Ultra doctor examining Patty Hearst is crazy. Another SLA connection?
"West also served frequently as a court-appointed expert psychiatrist. He examined such defendants as Jack Ruby–killer of President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald–and Patricia Hearst, the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapping victim turned bank robber."
Very interesting documents.
In the book "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate" by John Marks about the CIA MK-ULTRA program and specifically programs to create an assassin, there was a very interesting document. From memory, it was a copy of a memo that said something like ‘explore the possibility of a person of ———— nationality to kill an official of the ———— government". The ——– parts were deleted.
MK-ULTRA victim Frank Olson was probably murdered. When CIA Director William Colby was giving too many documents to Congressional committees, President Ford instituted something called the "Halloween Massacre". Colby was fired and replaced by George HW Bush, Rumsfeld was made Secretary of Defense and Dick Cheney made Presidential Chief of Staff. Cooperation with Congress by the CIA was stopped. A lawsuit by the family of Frank Olson was settled for $750,000. So no court case no more documents released. The story released to the family and the public was that Olson was given LSD without his knowledge and this led to him jumping or falling from a hotel window. But he had been given the LSD a week prior. Olson was upset about MK-ULTRA experiments which violated the Nuremberg protocols and US law. There was fear he was going to go to the press. This is back in November 1953. He checked into the hotel room with a CIA officer. He went through the window to his death. Many years later the hotel front desk operator recalled a call from the room were the person said "Well, he’s gone" and the person at the other end responded "That’s too bad." IMO if someone unexpectedly and shockingly jumped or fell from a hotel room that is not the comment you would expect, "Well he’s gone". More like the comment after doing a regrettable job.
We will never know for sure what happened. Most of the documents have been destroyed. Frank Olson’s son has a website and is still trying to get the truth. http://www.frankolsonproject.org/
MODERATOR
These documents are telling.
Can you repost the first pages? So people can read them all? Thanks.
MODERATOR
These documents are chilling, blandly contemplating using people for assassinations.
MODERATOR
Darla Jones has an excellent post in the Zodiac Theories section about possible influences of the Process Church and Norse Myths and Runes on Zodiac here:
Ted also had an interest in Norse runes and myths as I have discussed before.
In that post she also discusses MK-ULTRA and possible links between Zodiac and EAR/ONS.
MODERATOR
This book claims that Zodiac was a cover for the RFK assassination. This is an interesting twist to the research I have been doing on MK Ultra. I tried to find it posted on this site. Has anyone else seen this book?
This book claims that Zodiac was a cover for the RFK assassination. This is an interesting twist to the research I have been doing on MK Ultra. I tried to find it posted on this site. Has anyone else seen this book?
There is a thread on the book here-
I have the book but it’s so convoluted that I never finished reading it.
Going by the available samples, I’d say it seems like the author has done very poor research – relying on Graysmith as a source of accurate information is obviously a rookie mistake in the Z context.
It’s poorly written too, in my opinion.
As for Darlene Ferrin and the many outlandish ideas about who or what she "really" was – let’s just say I don’t believe in over-complicating things. If she was in fact a CIA agent – or whatever – I personally think someone would have found out by now, given the scrutiny her life has been subject to, and been able to demonstrate it beyond doubt too.
The only thing missing now is a book about Darlene being Z himself, or rather herself – staging her own death, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. And I wouldn’t pay to read that book either.
