NP but DeLillo

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Amongst the books in the deep politics section of my library are works 
by Sally Denton ("The Bluegrass Conspiracy") and Jim Hougan ("Spooks", 
"Secret Agenda") that I am very fond of.

Did we know this (Wiki on Jim Hougan) about DeLillo:

-- In the mid-1980s, Hougan joined author Sally Denton in forming a 
Washington-based company – Hougan & Denton – which undertook 
investigative research for law firms and labor unions. (...) During this 
same period, Hougan joined with Norman Mailer and Edward Jay Epstein in 
forming what Hougan characterized as "an invisible salon," but which The 
New York Times called "a small coterie of intelligence buffs, conspiracy 
theorists and meta-political speculators, who, with all proper 
self-mockery, call themselves 'the Dynamite Club.'" The group met 
irregularly at the Manhattan apartment of Edward Jay Epstein and at the 
Washington manse of Bernard "Bud" Fensterwald (founder of the 
Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington, D.C.). 
Attendees included Dick Russell (author of The Man Who Knew Too Much), 
Don DeLillo (Libra and Underworld), Kevin Coogan (Dreamer of the Day), 
G. Gordon Liddy (Will) and others. At the time, Hougan was helping 
Mailer in his research for what became Mailer's CIA novel, Harlot's 
Ghost. And while Mailer referred to these informal gatherings – drinks 
and dinner – as "meetings," the affairs had more in common with those of 
a salon than of an actual "club." --

Very interesting. I did not know that DeLillo (ir)regularly had 
conversations with people like that (at least Epstein, Russell and 
Fensterwald are important journalists/researchers wrt JFK and the idea 
that French mercenaries were on the Grassy Knoll, also taken up by James 
Ellroy, may have its origin in Fensterwald's research on Jean Souetre) 
but the meetings surely had some influence on "Libra". A-and G. Gordon 
Liddy?

And where is Pynchon in this picture? Not involved? Even though he 
appears to have known about MK-ULTRA and CHAOS ("The Crying of Lot 49" 
with its thematic concerns including LSD experiments, Dr. Hilarious and 
the postal services suggests at least some knowledge) long before the 
Church Committee brought those programmes to light? But this was, of 
course, decades earlier...