GRGR(4)Question about Slothrop going under

[Tom Hickey]

> Hello
> I have been trying to find a post not too long ago where one of you sage
> listers made some sense out of the need for Psychological testing to
> uncover Race relations problems, and how does Pynchon tie this into
> anything having to do with Slothrop, bombs and the war. Perhaps he isn't.
> To me, race relations doesn't seem pertinent, except in a way that blacks
> being treated poorly in this country might make blacks not want to enlist
> in the service.

"And Black Wing has even found an American, a Lieutenant Slothrop, willing
to go under light narcosis to help illuminate racial problems in his own
country." (pg.75)

All of this in order to formulate Black Wing's propoganda (filmed images of
"fraudulent African rocket troops") aimed at demoralizing the "German
Beast".  They want to play upon Germany's own fear of their "dark, secret
children", the Herero who was once a comfortable distance away in the
Sudwest but now "lives in his stepfather's house."  The same fears running
through America at the time.