D.C. DOCTOR AT CENTER OF BIZARRE CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200790033-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 7, 1999
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: December 12, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

0
WASHINGTON POST
AND TIMES HERALD
: CIA-RDP7
"JAWWRelease'1999/09/i1
l- M5
At Center of DEC
Bizarre Case
Missing Food Expert
Believed Murdered
On Amsterdam Visit 1
By Barnard L. Collier
Herald Tribune Newe service
Sometime after 4:30 last'
Sunday morning, one of the
world's top authorities. on nu-'
tritional pathology,' a Wash-,
ington doctor named Richard.
H. Follis Jr. disappeared with-:
'out a trace in Amsterdam.
Chief Inspector Piet Land-
man of the Amsterdam police,
-.i-. ..C -.4 L. n.. ,.lnn- Tnn?1f fi
d
n
probably'fell into one of the workers.
,city's many canals and `co-workers.
.drowned during the. howling A few of Follis's trips were
Atlantic gale that raked Hol-'made to attend medical con-
land that weekend. h?f ninct wara fn
emu. uc01-o cnwaaoavc -6' carry out field studies in% his
'ging, the body of Follis has not
been found. : specialty: the. cure and pre-
In Europe, the press is head-, vention of goiter. He was'also
lining the doctor's disappear- an expert on dwarfism and
ance and hinting broadly that
somehow the CIA is involved.
In Washington the doctor's col-I
leagues scoff at the idea of any
growth retardation in chil-
dren.
Intelligence connection, took an Eastern Air Lines
In London usually reliable, i shuttle from Washington to
t
lli
genc ?"""`? ?"y -"":;New York and left for Amster-
"
e
the doctor was almost certain-edam on nonstop Pan American
ly murdered, but they refuse
to say how or why they arrive I !.jetliner flight 74. lie arrived
'at that conclusion. ; in Amsterdam on Friday morn-
Meanwhile, bizarre and con-;ling and that day, according to
iflicting information surround-
ing the case continues tollhis friends here, kept an ap-
mount. A State Department
security official says "almost
nothing about it jibes."
The doctor's background is
impressive' and impeccable.
A- graduate of Yale Univer-
sity (1932) and Johns Hopkins
Medical School (1936), Balti-
more-born Follis, the son of a
Ifamous surgeon, taught for
several years and then in 1955
became an employe of the Vet-
erans Administration. That
same year he was detached
for work at the Armed Forces
Institute of Pathology in
Washington, but the VA con-
tinues to pay his salary.
His home is at 4915 Albe-
marle ? nw. He and his wife
Edith have four children.
Since 1955, the doctor has,
made more than a score of
trips to odd corners of the
world on survey work in nutri-
tion. In 1959 he was in Saigon
and the villages of Vietnam,
DR. RICHARD H.
FOLLIS JR.
-may' have, been slain
STATINTL
A search of Follis's hotel'
room showed that he had not
slept' in his bed for at least
one night and possibly two.
All his luggage was intact, in-
cluding most of the $500 ex-
pense money he carried.
The' next day, Landman'
called what State Department
officials here consider a?
"really strange" press confer=
ence to announce the fact that
Follis was. missing and that'
he had fallen into a canal. For
a few days, the inspector's.
explanation , seemed go o d
enough. ?
But one Dutch official con-
tacted by the Herald Tribune.
News Service said: "The body
ought to have turned up days
ago. The police have a formula'
based on body weight and
such and they can tell within.
a few yards where a man will
pop. up if he falls in."
A diplomat from the Em-
bassy of the Netherlands in
Washington says:- "Those
canals are in concentric circles'
and are as calm as a fish pond.
I think it is impossible for
him not to have surfaced by
now. I think-he must be some-
where else-or weighted down,
in which case he did not have
urday and then went clown to
the lobby where he appeared
to witnesses to be `.'very dis-
tracted."
That night, Landman says,
the doctor again visited some
of the clubs at which he had
been'the previous night, and
a man fitting his description
was last seen by witnesses at
about 4:30 a.m. near a club~a s:uipie acciucu~.
Follis's' superiors late this
called. the Moulin Rouge-
"about 50 yards from a canal
and about 100 yards from the
Schiller Hotel,"
"Witnesses!.,say he looked
very ill," the inspector says.
"It was-very windy and rainy
that morning and even some
cars blew into canals. I think
that kind of accident happened
to the good doctor."
Nevertheless, Amsterdam
police are searching for three
men" who
disreputable'gentle
in 1960 in Thailand. He also; .
s
v1 A rae~kaFor '~ i~C me et~F ILQfA .i t~ltt
Wes dies, Burma, Lebanonp rddm tintil about 2.p.m. Sat- tified as Follis did..
pointment with a- Dutch ex-
pert in the field of vitamin
A deficiency and childhood
blindness that results from it.
? According to the Amsterdam
police, Follis returned to the
old, traditionally elegant Schil-
ler Hotel in the heart of the
somewhat garish downtown
district.
From that point on the in-
formation becomes widely
garbled.
Follis's friends, his family
and ? colleagues say that he
was a man of "absolute punc-
tuality," "sober," "a seasoned
traveler," "a man who kept
pretty much to himself."
Yet, after what inspector
Landman said was "a long Fri-
day night in -several clubs
near the hotel" Follis did not
telephone a Dutch nutrition
expert named Andreas Quer-
Ida at Leiden University as he
week sent one of their repre-
sentatives, also a. research
doctor, from Ankara, Turkey,
to Amsterdam to try and de-.
termine what seems to be
going on and to identify the
doctor's body-or the doctor
himself-if he somehow turns
up alive.
"There is something terri-
bly phony about all of this,
says Dr. Allan Forbes, a De-
fense Department medical%
supervisor and the Follis fam-
i icippn. "After a week.
-know nothing for.
sure and suspect everything."