Dr. Rinkel, a research psychiatrist obtained LSD from its sole Swiss manufacturer, Sandoz Chemicals; his partner, Dr. Robert Hyde took the first acid trip in the West. They then organized an LSD Study at Boston Psychopathic Institute where they tested the drug on 100 patients.” Soon an elite group of five private researchers and six U.S. Army physicians began quietly conducting LSD experiments in the U.S. Robert Hyde continued to experiment at on unwitting patients for decades at CIA’s center in Rhode Island and then at the Vermont State Hospital.