The following episode contains graphic scenes of injury and death that some may find disturbing.

Parental discretion is advised.

You're listening to unexplained season 7 episode 1, The Fall Without End, part 2.

For Frank Olson's family, prior to the revelations of the 1975 Rockefeller inquiry,

it had always felt like there was some key information missing from the story of Frank's death,

but now that they had some of those missing pieces, the full picture was worse than they could have

imagined. Not only had Frank's death been indirectly caused by the government, he devoted his life to,

but the CIA had been actively lying to the family ever since,

and they'd done it through Vincent Ruitt, who'd become a trusted friend for both Alice and her

by then grown up children. Within days of the report's release, the family held a press conference

in their backyard and announced their intention to file a lawsuit against the CIA.

But Alice was also determined to set something straight,

stoically reading out a prepared statement in front of the photographers and reporters.

She painted a picture of Olson in his final days, that was at odds with the agencies.

He wasn't irrational or mentally unstable, she said. Instead, she felt he was simply consumed

by melancholy and had talked repeatedly about leaving his job.

Scrambleing to contain the fallout, the CIA enlisted some friends in high places to help with

damage control, the Rockefeller report had been damaging enough. If Frank Olson's family followed

through with the lawsuit, it could force the agency to disclose classified information that could

put national security at risk. It fell to then-president Gerald Ford's chief of staff,

Donald Rumsfeldt, and his deputy Dick Cheney to manage the situation.

Their first mission was finding a way to placate the family,

...