The Main Scientist behind MK-Ultra - a book recommendation

[matthew cissell]

Halo Thomas,

Alles klar?  Sorry about the lagging response but I've been up to my ears
with work and more. Now I'm ready to answer. First, though, let me say that
I didn't intend for the communication to be off list, just an accident. I
have nothing to be ashamed of or want to hide in my mail. Well, come to
think of it, there is probably one email that makes my ears burn. Oh,
fallible creature!

  Before going further, let me thank you for that reference to Ronald H.
Stark; I hadn't come across him before. Another very sketchy character.
Fits right into the story.

Second, you really cracked me up with the line about "I was hoping for
specifics" (re: GR plot genesis). Who says Germans have no sense of humour?
I should have written back, "Well, I called Tom and he told me..."

Ok, now for the bigger stuff, TP, LSD and MK-Ultra. You wrote: "As I see
it, the passages in question do not refer to a specific event but blend
together two notorious aspects of OSS/CIA/MKULTRA activity: rescue and
employment of Nazi doctors wanted for crimes against humanity, LSD
experiments." I suppose my response is that the blending is yours more than
Pynchon's. I hope that doesn't sound superior. Let me unravel it.

  Part of the problem may be in what we mean by "public knowledge". Photos
in newspapers from the period make it clear that in a certain sense the
presence of German scientists (not doctors) in the post-WWII US was not
hidden. Of course, it's another question altogether as to how much of the
US public was aware of that, as compared to knwing what team won the World
Series in '47 or '53. So, it seems we agree that TP could have known about
German scientists without knowing about Paperclip. However, I don't think
that extends to Nazi doctors despite the character of Dr. Hilarius.
    Let's take a minute to talk about CoL49 and LSD and TP and the time
period. Col49 hit shelves in '66. But a lot had already happened. The Acid
Tests, for example. The first one was in late '65, but by early '66 several
were celebrated in the LA area - so TP would have heard about that. (It
would be bigger news when California banned the substance in May of '66.)
LSD was out there. Whether it was Sandoz product that Kesey stole, or
Owsley or some other chemist, it was creating a socio-pyscho seismic ripple
in the US and abroad as the genie took flight. What did TP think?
     In my mind, 2 things give the reader an idea of how the almost 30
year-old TP likely felt about LSD at that time. LSD really makes its
appearance in the novel with Mucho and Dr. Hilarius, and both are basically
negative. Mucho gets lost in "rich, chocolaty goodness", which leads in
part to his disappearing relationship with Oedipa, and as such makes LSD
look bad. (We might mention that anti-LSD government propaganda would grow
through the period and make its appearance in the Dragnet episode with
Blue-boy in '67. Thereafter it became absurd.) Next, we have Dr. Hilarius
who is definitely not köscher. He is a bad guy. And what better way to
make him sound really off his tracks? Have him give LSD to his patients.
How wicked is that_
  A brief note on that. Journalist Joe Hyams published interviews with Cary
Grant in '59 that detail Grant's therapy with LSD. Hyams was inundated with
calls after that by psychologists and more that wanted to obtain the
substance for their patients who were clamouring for it. Kesey signed up
for the Menlo VA experiments in '59, and his book came out in '62. The idea
of doctors administering LSD was not that far from the
imagination, especially by '65
   The real difference is, as you say: "Yes, I believe the creation of a
character like Hilarius requires that knowledge." And I don't. I think it's
more plausible that TP included LSD and used it to depict characters in a
less than flattering light. It is worth noting that his position changes,
and by the time we get to IV the chemical is being treated in a much more
favourable manner. The other possibility (re. that he had some information
about Blome, LSD and the US doctors involved) would mean that he
had information not even the President had. Very few people, other than
Sydney Gottlieb, knew about the flat in San Fran or the dark sites and all
the rest that constitutes a big part of the Family Jewels.

  You asked: "Or are you arguing that he had not done the research yet when
he he wrote V. and COL49?" I'm not prepared to say what research was done
when and where. It's pretty clear from that letter in which he states he
has several projects going, that he is working on several things at once.
I'm not sure how far had gone by the time V. was published. Did he know
about the V-2? That seems quite a safe bet. Had he read about the treatment
of workers in Peenemünde or Mittel when CoL49 came out. Hard to say. He
certainly read an insane amount in just that one decade. Daunting to think
about how much he read while suffering writer's block. This might be one
way of saying that TP came to know about things that were out there and
available, but that the wider public wasn't looking at or into.

In summary, I think TP had not taken LSD by the time of CoL49's
publication. In fact, I think he had a suspicion and negative regard
towards LSD (understandably, many would add) and he used that for some
characters, among them a doctor. I strongly believe that at some point
after CoL 49, but before the publication of GR, he took the big dip.
Probably more than once. I think IV makes it pretty clear that TP does not
put LSD on the same page as heroin.

Let's just hope that TP has thought of some way to produce a biography that
he controls and will give us some of the answers many of us want. Like his
favorite ice-cream flavour. (har har).

Ok, gotta go be productive. Take care. Tschüss.

mc otis




On Sun, May 14, 2023 at 9:13 PM Thomas Eckhardt <
thomas.eckhardt at protonmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Matthew,
>
> I am curious: Why do you email me off-list when the matter at hand is
> on-topic for the P-list?
>
> Thomas
>
>
>
>
>
> Sicher versendet mit Proton Mail <https://proton.me/>.
>
> ------- Original Message -------
> Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at protonmail.com> schrieb am Dienstag, 9.
> Mai 2023 um 11:53:
>
> Hi Matthew,
>
> Excuse me, but what Nazi doctor was conducting experiments in CA?
>
>
> As I see it, the passages in question do not refer to a specific event but
> blend together two notorious aspects of OSS/CIA/MKULTRA activity: rescue
> and employment of Nazi doctors wanted for crimes against humanity, LSD
> experiments.
>
> As for how TP came up with the plot... You'll forgive me if I don't try to
> explain that more specifically than his life, reading, and LSD - and a
> great deal of hard work.
>
>
> I was hoping for specifics, of course.
>
> And again, the presence of German rocket scientists in his early novels is
> not evidence that he had some deep inside knowledge. At the risk of boring
> repetition, the work done by Disney and Warner Von Braun put the number one
> German science in front of everyone with a TV. Could he have heard
> something while working at Boeing? Sure. Rumour mixed with leaked bits.
>
>
> I have to ask: You do know that GR is, amongst other things, about the
> slave labour involved in developing the V-2? At the time of writing GR,
> Pynchon knew much, much more about von Braun and his team of rocket
> scienctists than the general public. I thought this was obvious. Or are you
> arguing that he had not done the research yet when he he wrote V. and
> COL49?
>
> To be clear: The information about slave labour at Mittelbau-DORA was
> available at the time, through reading and a great deal of hard work. It
> was certainly not public knowledge, and did IMHO not become so until the
> Eighties when Arthur Rudolph was forced to leave the US, but neither was it
> "insider dope" as references to MKULTRA in COL49 would indeed be.
>
> I do agree with you that it was not public knowledge that the US saved
> Blome or Shiro. But I don't see what bearing that has on the question of
> how much TP knew about various OSS/ CIA operations dating from the 40's to
> the 60's.
>
> You wrote: "...Pynchon must have known, if only in a general way, about
> Nazi doctors being brought to the US". Well, I don't know about that. How
> would he have known? And does the creation of a character like Hilarius
> require that knowledge? Look at it another way. Anybody doing the math at
> Nuremberg would quickly realize that Mengele wasn't the only Herr Doktor
> that escaped the noose.
>
>
> Yes, I believe the creation of a character like Hilarius requires that
> knowledge. I am not at all convinced about Pynchon just "doing the math at
> Nuremberg" and believe my explanation that he had insider knowledge to be
> much more plausible.
>
> But it is not only that: Pynchon might have known about the Nazi doctors
> through reading and hard work and researching the Nuremberg trials, and he
> might have known about the LSD experiments one way or another, but bringing
> the two together points to MKULTRA, and MKULTRA was as top secret as can be.
>
> I could be wrong, of course, and probably we'll never know.
>
> Of course, I could be very wrong. Maybe TP had some inside dope about who
> had their profile wiped clean and was given a job. Maybe he knew about Cary
> Grant and LSD. Or the parties Harold Abramson threw in NY (he was dosing
> people long before Kesey; he was also in on the Olson affair).
>
>
> The CIA/LSD thing is endlessly fascinating. Have you ever heard of Ronald
> Hadley Stark?
>
>
> http://www.brainsturbator.com/posts/188/ronald-hadley-stark-the-man-behind-the-lsd-curtain
>
> Thomas
>
> P.S. The article I linked to yesterday was by former P-lister Robin
> Landseadel:
> https://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pynchon%27s_California_Trilogy_and_the_CIA&direction=next&oldid=308
>
>
>
> ciao
> mc
>
> On Mon, May 8, 2023 at 1:54 PM Thomas Eckhardt <
> thomas.eckhardt at protonmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> ------- Original Message -------
>> matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> schrieb am Montag, 8. Mai 2023 um
>> 12:07:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> With all due respect, I don't see where or what the so-called
>> circumstantial evidence you refer to in the first paragraph points to.
>>
>>
>> I believe that a Nazi doctor conducting LSD experiments in California in
>> the early to mid-sixties points to MKULTRA.
>>
>> Of course, correlation is not causation and mileages may vary. So, what
>> do you think? How did Pynchon come up with this rather extraordinary plot
>> line?
>>
>> Relatedly:
>>
>>
>> https://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pynchon%27s_California_Trilogy_and_the_CIA
>>
>> The "larger context" is also unconvincing. The premise that TP was
>> "familiar with Paperclip" is vague to begin with. How familiar was he with
>> the operation?
>>
>>
>> By the time of GR, very familiar. German rocket scientists already turn
>> up in V. and in COL49.
>>
>> After all, anybody in El Paso in 1947 would have had an idea, or somebody
>> watching Disneyland's "Man on the Moon" (1955) might have thought those
>> German scientists came from somewhere.
>>
>>
>> Many knew about Wernher von Braun and his crew, of course. This was no
>> secret, as Monte Davis reminded us years ago. But was it also public
>> knowledge that the US saved from execution and provided a safe haven and
>> career opportunities to medical scientists who had conducted human
>> experiments in the concentration camps? I doubt it.
>>
>> However,it's a big leap from that to your conclusion that TP knew about
>> Kurt Blome, who was never even brought over to the US under Paperclip.
>>
>>
>> Indeed, I cannot know whether Pynchon knew about Blome. I misphrased
>> that. And indeed, Blome was not brought to the US under Paperclip. It was
>> Operation Alsos aka the Alsos Mission.
>>
>> But surely you agree that Pynchon must have known, if only in a general
>> way, about Nazi doctors being brought to the US? Someone like Hilarious
>> could not have entered the US without being protected.
>>
>> Whether Sargent's book influenced TP is an interesting idea that is quite
>> plausible.
>>
>>
>> In my view, the evidence is conclusive. The book is available for free
>> online.
>>
>> Thomas
>>
>
>
>