That Toiletship Rucksichtslos ...

[Dave Monroe]

... now what I skipped over in my eagerness to get to that Vietnam angle
are, of course, the very good reasons for mention GE in GR in re: WWII, as
Schenectady-HQ'd GE (and Peter Wegener mentions being taken to GE
Schenectady for a visit as well, by all means, DO see his The Peenemunde
Wind Tunnels: A Memoir; also note that vacuum sphere in the wind tunnels
...) WAS the primary contractor for Project Hermes (Mercury, Thoth,
messenger, trickster, hm, those Thurn 'n' Taxis blue and yellow "wigntips"
one of the Komical Kamikazes wears ....) under which the US Army smuggled
out 100 V-2s to New Mexico (White [...] Sands) after the war, afore the
USSR, much less the UK, got to 'em (the Soviets were given the area at
Yalta, but once the US realized what was there, well, the ol' hit 'n'
ransack 'n' run).   This first comes up in GR @ V287/B334 (and see
Weisenburger's annotation), where Major Marvy "Needs to coordinate with some
Project Hermnes people from General Electric."  And, in re: that Toiletship,
Achtfaden, Narrisch, well, someone notes somewhere, and they are correct,
that in re: Charles 'n' Steve,  this largely proceeds as a parody, satire,
whatever, of sorts, precisely of those "intellectual reparations" claimed
under Operation Paperclip (:Why don't teh British do something about
this?").  But, again, given the historical, literary, cinematic, cultural,
political, whatever contexts for Gravity's Rainbow, an, esp. given that it
was written during, published at the USs deepest involvemnt in, the Vietnam
War, any mention of GE in re: military contracts cannot help BUt evoke
Vietnam.  And there's that "Buf-falo Bayou' song, bayou far more evocative
of Indochina than Europe ("Buffalo" evoking US Manifest Destiny,
expansionism, Yankee Imperialism), those seemingly brainwashed "boys [...]
with minds like an infant," the mosquitoes, "their unspeakable thing,'
"we've laid down insecticides, a-and bombed the bayous with citronella"
(napalm, Agent Orange) "and it's no good folks.  They beed faster'n we can
kill 'em, and are we just gonna turn tail and let them be [...]?" (Peace
with Honor) ...


Dave Monroe wrote:

> that Operation Paperclip thing, "intellectual reparations," that Allied
> (esp., American) appropriation of Nazi scientists, not to mention
> research, patents, equipment, after the surrender (see, e.g., John Gimbel,
> Science, Technology and Reparations).  "Lucky the Bolshies didn't get it,
> huh, Charles?"  Well, we've discussed that competition for Nazi scientists
> and scientific apparatus amongst the US, USSR, UK, France already, so ...
>
> But what I was suddenly struck by was the GE thing.
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