latimes | Gerald D. Klee, a retired psychiatrist and LSD expert who participated in experiments with the hallucinogenic drug on volunteer servicemen at U.S. military installations in the 1950s, has died. He was 86.
Klee died Sunday of complications after surgery at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md., his family said.
In 1975, Klee made headlines when he confirmed reports that the
University of Maryland School of Medicine's Psychiatric Institute had
been involved in secret research between 1956 and 1959, when hundreds of
soldiers were given LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide.
He said that in addition to LSD, the Army was experimenting with other hallucinogens as part of its chemical weapons research program.
Klee said the Army had negotiated a contract in 1956 with the
University of Maryland's Psychiatric Institute to conduct physiological
and psychological tests on the soldiers.
"A large proportion of the people who have gotten involved in research in this area have been harebrained and irresponsible — Timothy Leary being the most notorious example — and a lot of the stuff that has been published reflects that," Klee told the Baltimore Evening Sun in 1975.
"We didn't have any axes to grind, and the university's role was to
conduct scientific experimentation," he said. "The interests of the
University of Maryland group were purely scientific, and the military
was just there."
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