7# g      ) ; ; ; ; E O O kx ;  * I      I      RONALD STARK: THE RASPUTIN OF LSD Perhaps it was inevitable that those who tripped out during the heady days of flower power would often worship acid and reify its catalytic properties. The most ardent enthusiasts looked to LSD as somethinghat could move mountains and melt the icecaps - as if it constituted nothing less than the pharmacological key to world peace. If only President Lyndon Johnson turned on to the right stuff, many an acidhead effused. Surely the war in Viehlam would be over in a matter of days! Of course, the true believers had no idea the CIA had used LSD as a surreptitious mind-bending agent in cold war cloak-and-dagger operations. Nor could they have known that the largest single source of black market acid during the late 1960s and early 1970s was linked to the CIA. His name was Ronald Stark, and his story is as mind-boggling as the chemical he peddled. From drug labs in Europe, Stark chumed out tens of millions of acid trips. An Italian magistrate who investigated his role as an intemational terrorist and drug trafficker concluded that Stark was "an agent of me American secret services." Read about the incredible saga of Ronald Stark, the Rasputin of LSD, in Acid Dreams , which you can order directly from www. amazon.com. fore head. a @ "#zk$  P:f&xr&'t@BB pLNu/xdt@f@g\DTep(Jg 9@)@\DNu$(/8NuHJg8(Bt&Bg.v40 :=/ BrNew YorkGeneva(e (B  Lee/Lardner Lee/Lardner