CoL49 (6) His Constant Theme

[Robin Landseadel]

On Jul 10, 2009, at 11:25 PM, Richard Fiero wrote:

>  I don't get the Kennedy connection.

I understand. Seems like [in Mr. Hollander's explanation] the less  
frequently something is mentioned, the greater weight given to the  
citation. While I don't catch the JFK connection, I do catch the  
Manchurian Candidate/CIA connection. Which may be the point the Dude's  
making.

Remember that Pynchon tossed off CoL49 in order to get breathing room  
for Gravity's Rainbow. Just as so much of GR concerns itself with Nazi  
technology that was subsumed into America via OSS & later the CIA,  
CoL49 points to the Nazi connection in the CIA's MKULTRA project:

	"You think," said Oedipa, "then, that they're trying to bring you
	back to Israel, to stand trial, like they did Eichinann?" The shrink
	kept nodding. "Why? What did you do at Buchenwald?"

	"I worked," Hilarius told her, "on experimentally-induced
	insanity. A catatonic Jew was as good as a dead one. Liberal
	SS circles felt it would be more humane." So they had gone at
	their subjects with metronomes, serpents, Brechtian vignettes at
	midnight, surgical removal of certain glands, magic-lantern
	hallucinations, new drugs, threats recited over hidden
	loudspeakers, hypnotism, clocks that ran backward, and faces.
	Hilarius had been put in charge of faces. "The Allied liberators,"
	he reminisced, "arrived, unfortunately, before we could gather
	enough data. Apart from the spectacular successes, like Zvi,
	there wasn't much we could point to in a statistical way." He
	smiled at the expression on her face. "Yes, you hate me. But
	didn't I try to atone? If I'd been a real Nazi I'd have chosen Jung,
	nicht wahr? But I chose Freud instead, the Jew. Freud's vision
	of the world had no Buchenwalds in it. Buchenwald, according
	to Freud, once the light was let in, would become a soccer field,
	fat children would learn flower-arranging and solfeggio in the
	strangling rooms. At Auschwitz the ovens would be converted
	over to petit fours and wedding cakes, and the V-2 missiles to
	public housing for the elves. I tried to believe it all. I slept three
	hours a night trying not to dream, and spent the other 21 at the
	forcible acquisition of faith. And yet my penance hasn't been
	enough. They've come like angels of death to get me, despite
	all I tried to do."

	CoL49, PC 112

	. . . Historians have asserted that creating a "Manchurian
	Candidate" subject through "mind control" techniques was a
	goal of MK-ULTRA and related CIA projects. . .

	. . .Early efforts focused on LSD, which later came to dominate
	many of MK-ULTRA's programs. . .

	. . .A precursor of the MK-ULTRA program began in 1945 when
	the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and 	
	given direct responsibility for Operation Paperclip. Operation
	Paperclip was a program to recruit former Nazi scientists. Some
	of these scientists studied torture and brainwashing, and
	several had just been identified and prosecuted as war
	criminals during the Nuremberg Trials . . .

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

	"It's like I have a separate channel for each one," Mucho said,
	excited, "and if I need more I just expand. Add on what I need. I
	don't know how it works, but lately I can do it with people talking
	too. Say 'rich, chocolaty goodness.'"
	
	"Rich, chocolaty, goodness," said Oedipa. "Yes," said Mucho,
	and fell silent.
	CoL49, PC 116

	Goals

	The Agency poured millions of dollars into studies probing
	dozens of methods of influencing and controlling the mind. One
	1955 MK-ULTRA document gives an indication of the size and
	range of the effort; this document refers to the study of an
	assortment of mind-altering substances described as
	follows:
	• Substances which will promote illogical thinking and
	impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be
	discredited in public. . .

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA