Pynchon tracking Nixon, Misc.

[Mark Kohut]

In 1953, the year TRP graduated from high school (at 16) and started at Cornell, Nixon publicly used a 'shooting rats' [Commies] metaphor. He was tapped to diss McCarthy for "going too far" [when he went after the Army]
so spoke of having to "shoot rats directly' not scattershot. 

Also in 1953, after much extensive globe-trotting for reasons unknown but suspected by many, the political cartoonist Herblock did one of a crowd
awaiting Nixon who came bounding UP FROM A MANHOLE [Sewer] with heavily-festooned travel stickers on his luggage.

Rats and the sewer are not exactly the most original metaphors but they both appear in "V."--although not literally about Nixon---as we know. Nixon of the famous awkward V sign...