The Main Scientist behind MK-Ultra - a book recommendation

[matthew cissell]

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the link. Kinzer lists a number of Universities that were
involved in Mk-Ultra, among them Cornell. I haven't read all the link you
sent so I don't know if it mentions that Dr. Wolff, who also appears at
length in Kinzer's book, took care of Dulles' son who was wounded in Korea.
That was in '54. TP was already there in '53 at the tender age of 16.
Amazing what can be going on around you.

But then ask yourself how many people at U. of Chicago in '42 knew about
the Met Lab. "It’s debated whether the president of the University of
Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, knew the experiment was going to take
place, though Compton said he did not tell him. The mayor of Chicago and
other elected officials were not notified."  (
https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/first-nuclear-reactor-explained).

One can only be aghast at how those Dr.s used patients and others
(prisoners, and even a poor elephant). However, it shows that Foucault was
right about how Power targets and silences the marginalized in society. We
can see that happening even now. Don't say "gay". Push them back into
silent inexistence and threaten them with the Law (or Name of the Father
for all you Lacanians out there).

Have a good weekend.
ciao
mc otis


On Thu, May 18, 2023 at 4:35 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> who know, maybe Pynchon figured out if the US gov't was willing to use LSD
> and other such things to control enemy populations that it would have no
> problem using such techniques on its own populations, Cornell in the 50s
> being such an example:
>
>
> https://ahrp.org/1953-dr-wolff-and-dr-hinkle-investigate-communist-brainwashing/
>
> Wolff proposed a partnership with the CIA aimed at mastering the
> techniques for gaining control over human beings’ thought patterns and
> behavior patterns. Drs. Wolff and Hinkle obtained permission from Cornell’s
> President and high University officials to conduct these experiments at
> Cornell on behalf of the CIA. They continued to test *“secret drugs and
> various brain damaging procedures”* on unwitting patients.
>
> On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 5:39 PM Thomas Eckhardt via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, not much to argue here. I take the opportunity to state my
>> arguments more precisely
>>
>>
>> > Nazi doctors are a different story. None of the doctors
>> > involved in the LSD testing in the US MK-Ultra were former Nazi's or
>> > even German.
>>
>> My point is that there is a direct line between the mescaline
>> experiments in Nazi concentration camps to mescaline and LSD testing in
>> MKULTRA. Which happens to be also what the author of the book you
>> recommended wrote:
>>
>> "[Scientists at Fort Detrick] spent many hours questioning German
>> scientists about mescaline experiments that had been performed on
>> prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp. (...) Gottlieb read piles of
>> reports on these experiments." (59)
>>
>> L. Wilson Greene, technical director of the Chemical and Radiological
>> Laboratories at Edgewood Arsenal wrote his "Psychochemical Warfare: A
>> New Concept of War" which "concluded with a strong recommendation that
>> the government begin systematically testing LSD, mescaline, and sixty
>> other mind-altering compounds that might be weaponized for use against
>> enemy populations." (36)
>>
>> Hilarius, of course, remembers working with new drugs to induce insanity
>> in Buchenwald (COL49, Perennial Classics, 112).
>>
>> (I also note in passing that on p. 117 the program to test LSD on
>> suburban housewives is suddenly Hilarius' program which he has broadened
>> "to include husbands" like Mucho.)
>>
>> > It is quite a leap to think that because /some/ people
>> > were aware of German scientists in the US that they would also know
>> > about the attempt to get Blome into the US, which did not finally
>> > happen. That includes TP.
>>
>> My argument does not hinge on Blome. They got Strughold and Schreiber in
>> the US and quite a few more. See Linda Hunt, "Secret Agenda", or:
>>
>> https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/08/98078/
>>
>> All in all, more than 1,600 Nazi scientists were shipped to the US.
>>
>> > And allow me to clarify something: I didn't mean to minimize
>> > Hilarius.
>>
>> No worries. I didn't think you did.
>>
>> > In fact, I see this as part of an important trend through TP's
>> > work, namely his clear targeting of anti-semiticism and racism. (This
>> is
>> > likely in part because of his closeness to the Meyerhof family with
>> whom
>> > he spent much time.) TP's portrayal is a grotesque ridicule of
>> Hilarius.
>> > And lest we forget, Hilarius is a dentist - not one of TP's favourite
>> > professionals. The satirical treatment targets Hilarius and is meant to
>> > do what satire does. Levitas does not mean one takes things lightly.
>> > Look at the humour in /The Master and Marguerita/.
>>
>> This is my reading as well. I particularly like two aspects that have
>> nothing to do what we are discussing: That Hilarius is "put in charge of
>> faces", and his discussion of Freudian and Jungian concepts of the
>> subconscious.
>>
>> > As I see it the two camps presented in this email chain are: my idea
>> > that TP created the character of Hilarius without knowing about Blome
>> or
>> > Paperclip, it is a product of his own authorial project and his
>> > particular habitus; the other view appears to be that in order to
>> create
>> > Hilarius he must have known somehow about these very top secret affairs.
>>
>> Yes. I don't think he *must* have known, however, but believe it to be
>> likely. Granted, I may have occasionally overstated my point.
>>
>> > It is not impossible that TP was given such information, but it is
>> > highly unlikely and therefore rather implausible. You wrote: "It should
>> > have been impossible for him to even speculate that this kind of war
>> > criminal was allowed to live in the US, no?" Not at all. In fact, this
>> > is where we differ.
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>> > I believe that writers do come up with things, and
>> > they are sometimes true. Look at E.A. Poe's /Eureka/, in which he puts
>> > forth an idea very similar to the Big Bang theory. Did he have some
>> > prior knowledge? No, he was being imaginative and creative. Dreaming up
>> > a dentist who is a Nazi war criminal that gives LSD to his patients
>> > would have been easier for TP to do than obtain the information you
>> > speculate that he had.
>>
>> Which is perfectly comprehensible.
>>
>> > It is difficult to determine where an artist has borrowed and recycled
>> > or where they have spun from strands of dreams. Clearly, TP has done a
>> > titanic amount of research. But is it not to his greater credit to
>> > postulate that he thought up Hilarius without knowing about Blome,
>> > Paperclip &/or MK-Ultra? Of course, I'm not here to convince you of
>> that
>> > or anything else. Proselytizing rarely works. Just sharing my view.
>>
>> A respectful debate is always worthwhile. It is instructive, fun, and
>> hopefully helps to keep Alzheimer's away.
>>
>> Best,
>> Thomas
>>
>>
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>