The Ice Storm & GR

[Paul Mackin]

On Aug 31, 2006, at 3:08 PM, Dave Monroe wrote:

> I was starting ca. June 1972 ...
>
> June 17, 1972
> Five men, one of whom says he used to work for the
> CIA, are arrested at 2:30 a.m. trying to bug the
> offices of the Democratic National Committee at the
> Watergate hotel and office complex. Post Story
>
> June 19, 1972
>
> A GOP security aide is among the Watergate burglars,
> The Washington Post reports. Former attorney general
> John Mitchell, head of the Nixon reelection campaign,
> denies any link to the operation....
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/ 
> chronology.htm
>
> ... and ending by February 1973 ...
>
> 1973   "Gravity's Rainbow" published Feb 28,
> universally hailed as classic

Thanks.

I don't think you are disagreeing with me--that there was no time or  
conceivable wish on Pynchon's  part to mention something that wasn't  
seen as significant until John McCord's sentence-bargaining  
revelation on March 19 (and Judge Sirica's decision to look into it).


Prior to that date, the fact that McCord had once held a low level  
administration security position was interesting but didn't cause  
much of a stir.  Naturally the Press picked it up but the  
administration simply denied any connection as it always denied the  
misbehavior (including "dirty tricks") it was routinely accused of  
being behind.

it is  a truism to say that the burglary wasn't what brought Nixon  
down. It was  the  attempted coverup.

The perjury and obstruction of justice.

And then there were the Tapes. The thing went  on for years.

In the early months of '73 I remember that it  was a little hard to  
concentrate on  reading Pynchon.  The daily announcements of new bad  
was a terrible distraction.

It was a wonderful time to be alive and to have a job that didn't  
require a daily product. Locked there in my office (overlooking the  
Soviet Embassy) with TV on and book open. No music however.




>
> http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/faq/BargerFAQ.html
>
> --- Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Aug 31, 2006, at 1:33 PM, Dave Monroe wrote:
>>
>>> I waffled on this earlier, but, while on the one
>> hand,
>>> Pynchon had the better part of a year betwixt the
>>> scandal's emergence and the publication of GR, he
>> was
>>> clearly not a fan nearly a decade earlier, writing
>> of
>>> Sick Dick and The Volkswagens and Peter Pinguid
>> (cf.
>>> Slick Dick) in The Crying of Lot 49.  It was
>> mentioned
>>> that he'd changed the epigraph to Pt. IV to that
>>> Nixon, uh, quote.  Source on that?  Reliable?  At
>> any
>>> rate, I'm still not sure these anything
>> SPECIFICALLY
>>> Watergatian, but if anyone spots anything, well
>> ...
>>>
>>> --- John Carvill <JCarvill at algsoftware.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> That's good. But I think I'd have to agree with
>>>> Paul M that GR was probably published too early
>> for
>>>> Watergate to have been incorporated....
>>
>>
>>
>> Just to follow up I looked up the  date on which one
>> of the
>> burglars, John McCord, hoping to get a lighter
>> sentence,  famously
>> informed Judge John Sirica that the other defendants
>> had pleaded
>> guilty under duress--that they  had committed
>> perjury  and that
>> others were involved in the break-in. He  claimed
>> that thy lied at
>> the urging of John Dean, counsel  to the President,
>> and John
>> Mitchell, the  Attorney-General. The date was March
>> 19, 1973. This
>> was effectively the start of "Watergate" as the
>> straw that broke
>> Nixon's back. Before that nobody saw the  burglary
>> as having much
>> significance. It had hardly figured at all in the
>> '72 reelection
>> campaign, for example.
>>
>> So Pynchon might have had a short window of
>> opportunity to refer
>> directly or indirectly to "Watergate" but it would
>> have been very
>> slight. (depending on the date of publication, which
>> I haven't looked
>> up yetP
>>
>> Unless of course he could see into the  future.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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