The Main Scientist behind MK-Ultra - a book recommendation

[matthew cissell]

Dear Mark,

Thanks, glad you've enjoyed the posts.

Yes, anybody in an urban area with a good bookstore (already a very limited
set of the US population in the 1950's) could have come across a number of
works referring to a few of our favourite things (Dostoevsky's "Novel with
Cocaine" or Pitigrelli's "Cocaine" predate Burroughs by decades). However,
the likelihood that Pynchon's crew talked about substances other than
cannabis much or knew anybody that used or knew someone that used, was very
remote. That's just going by the numbers. Of course, if one decided to
frequent the underworld and hang out with benny popping prostitutes, they
were much more likely to run into the Herbert Huncke types. But from what
I've been able to pick up on (that ain't much), that's not the path that TP
took. He wasn't hangin out on the East Side with the speed freaks or
getting high at the Factory. Of course, unless he decides to make that
information available, we will never know how close to the urban underbelly
of lumpenproletariat day and nights he may have come.

best regards,
mc otis




On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 12:44 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks again for all of this interesting history and detail (and smart
> speculating).
>
> I will only pick a nit. I think Pynchon would have heard about 'heroin"
> and other substances out there"
> as he learned and read some famous works of literature. De Quincy,
> Burroughs' JUNKY (of the mid-fifties)
> and others.
>
> On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 6:36 AM matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hello Thomas,
>>
>>   Glad to help remind you. The list that Kinzer has in his book onGottlieb
>> is staggering. Silly me. I thought, "Yeah, one or two unethical professors
>> or Doctors could get involved." Oh, sweet naivete.
>>
>>    Just to provide a counterpoint to the idea that he "picked up something
>> in the air". In the Kinzer book about Gottlieb, he writes that for a long
>> time Kesey didn't believe Ginsberg about the CIA being behind the LSD;
>> sadly, there is no date given for when that conversation transpired.
>> However,the following sentence makes it clear that it occurred before the
>> Church Committee. "Once the existence of MK-ULTRA was revealed in the
>> 1970's, he [Kesey] realized that Ginsberg was right" pg190). So Ginsberg
>> knew before the Committee blew the lid off it all. How and when would be
>> interesting to know.
>>           And it's understandable that even Kesey couldn't believe it as
>> that was a time before the now famous acronym (thank you, Tom Clancy?) was
>> so widely recognized. Also, people believed doctors back then in a way
>> that
>> we don't now. Check the bit on Whitey Bulger in the book, it could almost
>> make you feel sorry for the guy. He really thought they were giving him
>> something for research. Later, when he found out the truth, he swore he'd
>> kill the Dr. But that was one crime he didn't get to commit. And let me
>> just finish this part with a comment on discretion. Although much of what
>> happened during MK-Ultra was not exactly discreet, people did keep quiet.
>> One guy, at least, that was about to talk, was made permanently quiet. But
>> most of those Dr's and CIA sociopaths were keeping quiet at first because
>> it was a fight against the Ruskies (later because they were all
>> criminally responsible for horrendous crimes.) REDS! "Keep mum, she's not
>> dumb" was still in the air. Nobody was taking selfies of patients or
>> prisoners (or the elephant) when they were whacked on Alice D. and getting
>> their brains/ psyches prodded and tortured.
>>
>>   And one more angle to take on the question of whether TP knew or had
>> heard about LSD Dr's dosing suburban types (and an elephant). Wouldn't you
>> expect to see that turn up in some of his short stories? And let me give
>> some applause to Mr. Bailey's ongoing analysis of the early stories (sorry
>> I don't have time to respond to those posts). I mean, you're a young
>> aspiring writer and you hear a crazy rumour/ story, wouldn't you use that?
>> And just to tag one more thing on here. By his own admission in the Intro.
>> to SL, TP clearly says that his early cannabis humour was more talk than
>> real smoke; it simply was not ubiquitous in the way that it is today or
>> was
>> even in the 1980's, for example. He likely hadn't even heard very much
>> about heroin or other substances that were certainly out there, but not as
>> present and available as they are today. Of course, that is a very sad
>> evolution to see occur.
>>
>> Keep well, Thomas.
>>
>> Ciao
>> mc otis
>>
>>
>> On Sun, May 21, 2023 at 8:34 PM Hübschräuber <
>> huebschraeuber at protonmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > I knew about Wolff and the Human Ecology Fund but did not remember that
>> > this was in Cornell. It increases the possibility that Pynchon picked up
>> > something in the air (rumours, hearsay, whispered conversations in the
>> > hallways) rather than being privy to beyond top secret information, I'd
>> > say. Thank you.
>> >
>> > Sicher versendet mit Proton Mail <https://proton.me/>.
>> >
>> > ------- Original Message -------
>> > rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> schrieb am Donnerstag, 18. Mai 2023 um
>> > 16:34:
>> >
>> > 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
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>