IVIV: Chapter four—Truth Serum

[Robin Landseadel]

There's stuff in Inherent Vice that's obviously fictional, like  
Droolin' Floyd, and then there's stuff that's not. There's three books  
by Thomas Pynchon that are set in California, starting around 1964 and  
working their way through 1984. All three mention the CIA, though the  
way it is mentioned in The Crying of Lot 49 is extraordinarily  
roundabout. Associating the CIA with Fernando Arrabal seems like a  
long-shot, but consider the theater of cruelty aspects of Arrabal's  
work, the growing presence of the CIA in Latin American countries in  
the sixties, "the Courier's Tragedy," long-standing CIA traditions  
like "Enhanced Interrogation" and maybe even the possibility that TRP  
is more deeply involved with the CIA than he could ever talk about— 
perhaps this was a more "literary" way for the author to write about  
what was on his mind?

In any case, Pynchon is more forthright about stuff like Cointelpro &  
the CIA in Vineland and he's even more overt about Government  
activities not necessarily in the people's interests in Inherent Vice.  
The new novel throws new variables into the mix—like the simple fact  
that the author is alerting us to the presence of black-ops  
development center TRW right in the neighborhood where he lived during  
the gestation of Gravity's Rainbow. Rather than dance all around the  
issue of the locations of various CIA "black-ops" sites in the U.S.,  
like he did in "The Crying of Lot 49," Pynchon is now direct about it.

As [then] Larry Sportello works his way into the life of a skip-tracer  
he finds out about "Inconvenience Premiums" —ie; ass-kicking and /or  
the threat of ass-kickings, skip-tracing activities that add up to  
some kind of felony, as I recall—and how to deploy them. His teacher/ 
higher-up Fritz Drybeam gives Doc "the edge" in the form of a  
hypodermic outfit for dispensing  "Truth serum. Same kind the CIA  
uses." & there's your first CIA mention, bracketed in the context of  
MKULTRA and indicated as some kind of rite-of-passage for Doc. As to  
the actual ingredients list for that "Truth Serum", there's always the  
wikipedia these days.

Warning—may contain "weasel words":

	A truth drug (or truth serum) is a psychoactive drug used to
	attempt to obtain information from an unwilling subject, often by
	a police[citation needed], intelligence, or military organization.
	The use of truth drugs is classified as a form of torture according
	to international law. . .

	Substances
	Sedatives that interfere with judgment and higher cognitive
	function include ethanol, scopolamine, 3-Quinuclidinyl
	benzilate, temazepam, and various barbiturates including the
	anesthetic induction agent sodium thiopental (commonly known
	as sodium pentothal) . . .

	CIA
	There are several documented CIA operations such as
	Edgewood Arsenal experiments and Projects MKNAOMI,
	MKULTRA, MKDELTA, BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, and
	CHATTER. . . .

	Reliability
	According to information obtained by public disclosure, sodium
	amytal can be highly unreliable, with subjects apparently freely
	mixing fact and fantasy. Much of the claimed effect relies on the
	belief of the subject that they cannot tell a lie while under the
	influence of the drug. It has also been said that the use of
	sodium amobarbital does not increase truth-telling, but merely
	increases talking; therefore, truth is more likely to be revealed,
	but so are lies. . .

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

For what it's worth, scopolamine is mentioned in Chandler's novels.  
Marlowe seems to spend too much time around clinics that dispense  
"truth serum."  God Knows how much fun a novelist with a decidedly  
surrealist bent can have playing with that concept.