There are many who view the “official” line over the alleged thallium poisoning of Osho by the US government as questionable – this particularly because the diagnostic effects mentioned by Osho’s Doctors for thallium poisoning so closely mimic the effects of long exposure to Nitrous Oxide. Osho’s use of nitrous oxide is now fully acknowledged – though it was not at the time.
Nonetheless it is clear that certain parts of the Reagen administration had it in mind to “do away” with Osho, if they could. Some evidence of this emerged in a 1995 talk shop on the US Johnson White Radio Show which interviewed Don Stewart, a man who claimed to do covert operations for various wings of the US government.
Stewart described how in 1984 a professional mercenary codenamed Wolfgang received instructions and money from certain patriots in the US Treasury and US Attorney General’s office to proceed with an assassination attempt on Osho.
Steward said that whilst working for Wolfgang he visited the Ranch on surveillance missions. His brief was to research methods as to how such an assassination could be carried out. He even mentioned enjoying an avocado sandwich in Zorba the Buddha Cafe in Antelope.
According to Steward the plan his overseers wanted was to shoot up Osho’s car with a long range rifle while Osho was driving through one of the more remote parts of the Ranch, (something that when one thinks about it would have been a possibility for a skilled rifle man). It was hoped that such an act would boil the whole commune into a frenzy, giving the law enforcement agencies the opportunity to move in, and put the Ranch under martial law and thereby dissolve it.
Stewart claimed that he himself thought the whole plot stank, and says he phoned the mayor of Rajneeshpuram at the time, Krishna Deva, to warn him of the assassination attempt. He however also claimed that the reason that Wolfgang did not go ahead was the difficulty of a “get out” after the hit had been completed, due to the advanced security systems in place on the Ranch by that time (1984).
Stewart commented on the government’s motivation as one of widespread frustration over the ableness of the Rajneeshpuram legal machine, who always seemed to find a way to counter the government’s own legal moves. -something they had not come across before in dealing with minorities they wanted to be shot of.
The Reagan administration found this increasingly frustrating and difficult, knowing each time they felt to advance very able and highly motivated lawyers from the “Rajneeshee” side successfully countered their moves.
As a last resort the administration described their plan as “time to bring out the dirty sock fairy”. (Maybe an American reader can explain this euphemism!)
There was an happenstance half way through the show – Ma Prem Patipada called in from Florida and spent some minutes describing life in the commune – and refuting some of the wilder allegations.
To listeners surprise the chat show hosts advised them to record the programme and what Stewart disclosed, so that the government would be unable to suppress it…. ..
(Editor’s note: A more detailed account of this matter is contained in Max Brecher’s Book “A Passage to America”.)
Why would anyone in the US government want to assassinate Osho? The ones who entertain such conspiracy theories overrate Osho’s importance in the scheme of things. He did not pose a great threat to American interests. At most, he was a nuisance and that is about the extent of it. I cannot imagine that even the most extreme Christian fundamentalist saw him posing any real threat to the status quo.
There are dozens of people who ranked way beyond Osho in terms of posing a threat to the United States and they are still alive. Osho’s followers are credited with pulling off the only successful bioterrorism attack perpetrated on US soil, but if one looks into it one quicky realizes it made a good headline but was not really that serious…it wasn’t exactly ebola.
Although Osho made much of being poisoned by thallium he did not exhibit real symptoms as such. Much more glorious to die at the hands of the bad guys and become a martyr than to die as a result of over-indulgence in consuming a truckload of daft drugs that exacerbated an already chronic physical condition.
Reading reports of a proposed sniper attack on Osho sounds absurd. The black ops department of the CIA could easily have come up with a far more subtle form of assassination had they wished to, wherein Osho would have appeared to die of natural causes. Which in turn brings us back to the thallium story:
Back in the eighties, someone once showed me a chemical agent that, when mixed with a poison, psychedelic, sedative or simple perfume, can be put on the tip of a rubber glove and be delivered directly into the blood stream simply by brushing a person’s skin lightly. I received a demonstration. Lemon flavouring was mixed with the agent then a light touch on the skin of my arm and within seconds I could taste lemon.
Now, I am not a secret agent or assassin working for a powersful government and I know about such things. Therfore one can conclude that the CIA would have lots of such chemicals at their disposal. Why then would they bother with using thallium on a famous person? It is none too subtle, easily detected, is messy, cruel, and has the physical equivalent of bashing someone’s brain in with a rusty crowbar.
Had the US government been behind an assassination attempt on Osho it would have been clever, not stupid and clumsy and easily detected.
Judging by some of the US mistakes, especially in foreign policy, one cannot be sure that any of their assassination attempts, be it of Osho or anyone else, would have been “clever”, in fact the words you use Lokesh of “Stupid, clumsy and easily detected” seem apposite to me of quite a lot of what the Americans, unfortunately, do.
One thing I find extraordinary still is in their domestic policies they are quite happy to keep one per cent (much higher than elsewhere in the western world) of their population in jail with very little attention to rehabilitation, etc, and draconian sentences being normal.
Yes, PM, I have one old sannyasin friend who thinks that the Americans did not poison Osho with thallium because they were not clever enough to do that. Everyone has their opinion.
The truth is that I don’t know and can only speculate on such matters. I was very touched when Osho spoke about this, outraged that someone could have done this to such a beautiful man. I suppose that I enjoy to play devil’s advocate.
A government assassination attempt on Osho is not beyond the scope of the imagination in a place like the U.S.A., where of course, anything is possible eg vote-rigging, corrupt cops etc. However, when looking at this issue I think that one needs to take into account how much of a threat the security forces there had estimated Osho posed to the establishment at that time. Couldn’t have been very high on their scale of things, could it, esp. while the ‘Cold War’ was still going on?
What seems much more plausible to me is the idea that Sheela and her gang had attracted the attention of the security forces, due to all the criminal nonsense they had been perpetrating in Antelope eg trying to poison the local townspeople in pursuit of their political goals etc. It kind of looks to me like ‘they brought it on themselves’. At that point the authorities took what they considered to be the necessary action eg for one, they kicked Osho and his entourage of cohorts out of the country.
I personally find testimony from ex-members of the security forces on TV shows and the like, to be highly questionable and of dubious intent.
I don’t really know much about Max Brecher, who wrote ‘A Passage to America’. I have a first edition of it, but I hear he wrote a somewhat changed second edition. Anyone here know who he was, must have been a sannyasin? And what his orientation was?
He claims to have tracked down both agents, one of whom is identified as Wolfgang, and names him as William Pratt Gossett, someone who had worked for the US army in various capacities for 25 years.
He interviewed Don Stewart the operative who it was claimed that Wolfgang hired to assassinate Osho, on various occasions in 1989, and again in April, 1990. He had a face-to-face interview with him at a Truck stop in Medford, Oregon on March 3rd, 1989 and a second meeting with him at the same place on April 6th 1989.
One has no reason not to believe Brecker?
Whether Stewart was trying to drum up a story in order to benefit financially, well, who is to say? As for Gossett, he seemed a much more elusive character and basically wanted to ‘lose’ the stalking of Brecker. He is reported to have “disappeared” in Brecker’s first edition, though perhaps the second edition revealed more?
I must admit this interest of mine is to some extent that of a detective. My great-grandfather was a fairly well-known Victorian detective and I suppose it is in the blood!
I have the first edition of the book too. Max is/was a sannyasin. I met him at the Ranch but do not recall his sannyas name. Think he worked in construction there. Good guy.
“My great grandfather was a fairly well known Victorian detective and I suppose it is in the blood!”
I hope so, Parmartha, I count on you, and I would need you here sometimes at my side – just for a tea and a long talk.
And I know it’s just a childlike fantasy now, but I like to indulge in it;
for the minutes here at may place, which is quite ´uncomfortable, some days extremely uncomfortable, the least to say.
Madhu (with a ´Bavarian blues´…the last before the last, before the very last day of the famous Munich ´Wiesen Event´, which indeed is spread ALL OVER the city, even if you don´t go there).
So bad, a long email re this issue just has been sucked into some data thief neighborhood!
So bad, as Lokesh said it – being in bad company – as far as IT hacking of those people is concerned!
So sorry -
Madhu
Seemingly not much interest in this!
Actually, just to ‘complete’ and, especially at this time of a fresh rise in Hindu nationalism, it may be as well to remember there was one serious assassination attempt on Osho’s life – by an extremist Hindu. He stood up (in 1979) as I remember in lecture and threw a knife at Osho. There were 20 policeman in plain clothes in the auditorium that morning.
The story was that the police had become aware that there could be an assassination attempt that morning and arrived in plain clothes to “protect” Osho. That was their story, but it proved the opposite!
There were 2,000 eye-witnesses to the attack, including the 20 policemen. Vila Tupe, the potential assassin, was arrested and taken away. BUT he was then released scot-free! The presiding magistrate said at the hearing that as Osho had continued to speak as if nothing had happened then nothing had occured, and released the man!
Strange goings-on indeed within the Indian judicary and its Hindu allies.
PM declares, “There were 2,000 eye-witnesses to the attack.” I was one of them. It was not a serious attack. More like an impassioned reaction.
To add another angle to the lead article, I just spent an afternoon with X, who visits Ibiza annually. X lived in Osho’s house for many years. X knew about these planned attacks. I asked X about the thallium story. X said that after Osho was in jail his health was never the same and was sure Osho had been poisoned and that it led to his eventual death. I respect X’s opinion greatly and the result in this case is that I was impressed in such a way that I think it may well be possible that Osho was poisoned. Perhaps one day the actual evidence to confirm this will surface.
“I think it may well be possible that Osho was poisoned. Perhaps one day the actual evidence to confirm this will surface”
Lokesh, I can very well relate to that, yet I don´t share your confidence that ‘one day evidence will surface’, although maybe some universal godliness supporting that I am wrong about that estimation; there are whistle-blowers on quite other ´arenas´, why not there?
What I know by my own experience though is that going against vested interests in whatsoever ´arena´ has its price and sometimes the price is high.
Love to read your posts.
Mostly.
Madhu