Baedecker/Fodors

[Steelhead]

True connoiseurs of V., such as redbug, have probably been on to this for
some time. But I'm a slow learner and just discovered this interesting
sidebar to an infinitely puzzling novel.

In a book filled with natives, tourists, and spies, the guiding Text seems
to be the Baedecker Guide. The Baedecker, of course, was a deliberate
fiction of geography, culture and history, placing a false front, such as a
movie set in a western shot by the ridiculous Henry Hathaway, on cities
like Cairo and Paris and Valletta. In this way the Baedecker Guides became
a tool of cover and deception, to disquise the true objectives of the
foreign intrigues of the English, French and Germans.

At the time Pynchon was writing V., the pre-eminent travel guide was (and
largely remains) Fodors. Here's the interesting part. Fodors was a
proprietary of the CIA, set up and run by the Agency from the 50s through
the mid-60s, before being fully privatized. Believe it or not.

Steely