TRANSCRIPT OF BROADCAST BY FULTON LEWIS, JR.

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP63T00245R000100220135-7
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RIFPUB
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K
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5
Document Creation Date: 
December 19, 2016
Document Release Date: 
October 17, 2006
Sequence Number: 
135
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Publication Date: 
January 29, 1958
Content Type: 
TRANS
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Approved For Release 2006/10/19: CIA-R DP63T00245R00010,9 ~j135-7 TRANSCRIPT OF BROADCAST By Fulton Lewis, Jr. Station WGWS at 7-7:15 P. M. 29 January 1958 Last night, ladies and gentlemen, I told you part of the story of Fletcher Bartholemew, young meteorologist with the Free Europe balloon propaganda program in Munich, who was un- ceremoniously clapped into the mental ward of the army hospital after he had turned in a farewell report which suggested that there were some homosexuals in the Munich operations. Let me note here that this is recognized in all government procedure as a very serious security problem because of the danger of blackmail. It was in this direct connection that Fletcher Bartholemew made this report two weeks before he was to leave his job and bring his family back home to Minneapolis. He made three copies of that report, one of which he personally turned over to the US consul general in Munich, Edward Page, Jr., and the other two he sent to the Free Europe president in New York, Whitney Sheppardson, and the third to Mr. Allen Dulles' CIA here in Washington. On Saturday before he was scheduled to depart from Munich with his family to sail for home from Genoa, he was invited to lunch by an army chaplain, Father Peter S. Rush, who suggested that some doctors at the army hospital in Munich wanted to talk to him. The doctor turned out to be a Captain Alfred Cam, who questioned him and began filling out a printed form, and finally told Bartholemew that he would have to hold Bartholemew at the hospital for several days,by force if necessary, according to Bartholemew's story. He was placed in a solitary room with barred windows under 24-hour personal guard. His clothes and all other possessions were taken from him in favor of a hospital gown and a GI robe and slippers. Fletcher Bartholemew and his wife Cynthia, who was waiting for him at home, had an early supper engagement with friends at 4:00 p. m. and they were first to pick up their children at the home of another friend where they were spending the day. It was some time after 4:00 p. m., how- ever, when Father Rush appeared at the Bartholemew home and in- formed Mrs. Bartholemew that her husband, whom she had last seen in normal condition at noon, had been committed to a mental ward in the army hospital. Approved-FfliRelease -2006/40t1-9j C-1A- Approved For Release 2006/10/19: CIA-RDP63T00245R000100220135-7 I think it should be emphasized at this point that Fletcher Bartholemew was, and is, an American civilian employed in a civilian capacity by a private civilian organization and was in the army hospital as a mental patient nevertheless. Also, I ought to explain that each of the Bartholemews, together with other individuals involved along the chain of subsequent events, fortunately had the presence of mind at the time to make de- tailed memoranda of everything that happened. Thus, this is what Mrs. Bartholemew has to say about Father Rush's visit to her late Saturday afternoon: "He explained that he asked Fletcher to go the hospital for only a talk and that when they got there Fletcher was told he would have to stay. Father Rush said I must think that he had deceived my husband, and I answered that I most certainly thought he had deceived Fletcher. Father Rush went on to say that he had been told that Fletcher was very sick mentally and that he might become violent. He also said that if he had not been successful in getting Fletcher to the hospital peacefully, he would have been taken by force and that he could not bear the throught of Fletcher's being taken by a pair of strong armed men against his will." Mrs. Bartholemew says Father Rush drove her to the Dick Smith home where she had left the children for the night, and had no idea-of what might happen from then on, then drove her to the hospital. At the hospital she was informed that her husband was in the hospital auditorium with an attendant watching a moving picture. He was brought to a reception room, and Mrs. Bartholemew and Father Rush talked with him for about in hour. During this time Mrs. Bartholemew says she found her husband exactly as he had always been, perfectly normal, perfectly rational, and that Father Rush told Fletcher that he looked as fit as at any time he had ever seen him, and that as far as he was concerned, Fletcher was as sane as he was. Mrs. Bartholemew then saw Captain Cam without satisfaction. She said the conclusion was inescapable that Captain Cam had based his diagnosis on unchecked information from sources un- known to her. Mrs. Bartholemew on leaving the hospital went to the Dick Smith home only to find that the Smiths had put the children to bed, and they urged her to spend the night also, arguing that "if a force was powerful enough to put Fletcher Bartholemew in the hospital under the pretext that he was in- sane, that same force could conceivably do harm to the children or Mrs. Bartholemew if the people so desired." Approved For Release 2006/10/19: CIA-RDP63T00245R000100220135-7 Approved For Release 2006/10/19: CIA-RDP63T00245R000100220135-7 The next afternoon, Sunday, after parking the children with the Smiths again after morning mass and luncheon, Mrs. Bartholemew again went to the hospital where she found her husband in a heavily drugged condition. He was able to arouse himself, however, to the extent of asking her to go to the US consul general, Mr. Edward Page, Jr., who after all was the person whose responsibility it was to protect the rights of American citizens abroad, and to get Mr. Page's help in getting Fletcher Bartholemew free. In the hospital corridor, the nurse in charge told Mrs. Bartholemew that the patient, that is Fletcher Bartholemew, was not allowed to have visitors and that she must leave. Whereupon Mrs. Bartholemew said that it didn't matter really because it was all a mistake and that her husband probably would be out the next day anyway; to which the nurse replied, "Well, you had better hurry and get him out because the hos- pital is charging $17.50 a day for his room." Later, Mr. Page met with Mrs. Bartholemew at her request at her home, at which time she had Dick Smith and Fletcher Bartholemew's assistant, Mr. Martin Pederson, present. There is general agreement among them that Page beataround the bush for more than an hour saying that he really did not know any- thing about the case or any of the facts of it but that Fletcher Bartholemew was a "very sick boy," which phase he kept repeating over and over. He would not give, however, on what information was used as the basis for committing Bartholemew, although he said the psychiatrist had a lot of evidence. Mrs. Bartholemew asked to be allowed to see this so-called evidence, and Mr. Edward Page, Jr., said that it would be shown to her, but it never was. Finally, after insistant questioning by Dick Smith, Martin Pederson, and Mrs. Bartholemew as to what was necessary for the consul general to get Fletcher Bartholemew released, the consul general, Mr. Page, admitted that it was he who had been responsible for sending Fletcher Bartholemew to the hos- pital and therefore he could not help in getting him out. Now at this point, ladies and gentlemen, a new figure en- ters the picture, one whom I know you have all been waiting for since my broadcast of December the 19th in which I asked you to help me find him--Lieutenant Colonel Ralph W. Clements, now resigned-and practicing in New York City, who was the chief psy- chiatrist on the army hospital staff there in Munich. After the conversation with Edward Page, Jr., at the Bartholemew home, Dick Smith and Martin Pederson went to see Colonel Clements at his home and found that Captain Cam who had committed Bartholemew the day before, was also there. Colonel Clements said that he had not seen Bartholemew personally, but that on the basis of the informa- tion that had been provided from outside sources, he was confident Approved-ForRetease 2O-06tl-OTT9- A=RDF63Tt0245RO001 UU220135 7 Approved For Release 2006/10/19: CIA-RDP63T00245R000100220135-7 that the diagnosis already made would stand up when he did examine him. Colonel Clements has admitted to me personally that as of the time he talked to Dick Smith and Pederson he had never heard of Fletcher Bartholemew. On Monday morning for the first time, Colonel Clements saw Fletcher Bartholemew at the hospital. That afternoon Mrs. Bartholemew saw Colonel Clements but could get no satisfaction. He said only that she should have confidence in his professional competence and was to close to her husband to see his symptoms. As of Wednesday, Mrs. Bartholemew went to the hospital to see her husband only to discover that without any notification to her he had been shipped off to the army hospital at Frankfurt about 200 miles away. A friend drove her to Frankfurt where she finally made contact with her husband only to learn that from there the next day he was to be shipped by plane to the United States without permission of her or any member of the family. In Frankfurt, Fletcher Bartholemew's drug treatment was switched from capsules to hypodermic injections. The following day, Thursday, he was given a large injection, placed on a stretcher, his wrists were strapped down to the side frames of the stretcher, his ankles were strapped to the end frame, and a fan was placed across his forehead. He was placed in a litter plane, with the stretcher above him being just a few inches above his face; the injection caused his head to swim violently; he lapsed into unconsciousness. The next he knew he was on the ground in the Azores, when he was injected again and again lapsed into unconsciousness. Very late Friday he arrived at McGuire airport base in New Jersey and was taken to Fort Dix army hospital where he again was placed in the mental ward, this time behind barred doors, still in his bathrobe and slippers. Mrs. Bartholemew, left back in Munich with the three children, had frantically changed her return reservations and rushed back to the United States with the children by plane, arriving Sunday morning only to find that none of the army hospital officials was on duty until Monday morning. She did, however, drive from New York to the hospital and saw her husband. She said she found him perfectly normal again and by this time the drugs had pretty well worn off. The president of the Free Europe Committee, Mr. Sheppardson, visited Mrs. Bartholemew at the Hotel Salisbury, told her that he certainly hoped her husband would be released that day, saw no reason why the whole Bartholemew family couldn't be on its way back home to Minneapolis the next day. A o nnr_oTnnn 4r~R. Approve(-For-R~18-ast-2006/4-G[1-9=I Approved For Release 2006/10/19: CIA-RDP63T00245R000100220135-7 On Monday morning, Mrs. Bartholemew went to Fort Dix by bus (Mr. Sheppardson had promised to provide her with a limousine which he forgot about); she obtained her husband's release with- out difficulty; he was given back his clothes and possessions and by Monday night he was with his family back at the hotel. One final point. In investigating the various characters involved in this case, there is an interesting angle about Captain Cam, who first committed Fletcher Bartholemew to the mental ward on Saturday afternoon in Munich. I find from army records that Captain Alfred Cam, serial number 0535767, still on duty at the army hospital in Munich, is not a psychiatrist. In fact, Captain Alfred Cam is not even a medical doctor, he is not even in the army medical corp. The principals in the case did not know this until I told them three weeks ago--Father Rush, now in California, probably is learning it for the first time--but Captain Cam's rating in the Pentagon is "social worker." Approved-Far-Release-2006110/19--. ?4A-R-DP6-3TTA 35=