The Main Scientist behind MK-Ultra - a book recommendation

Tue May 23 07:35:19 UTC 2023

And there I was thinking I was supporting your POV wrt how Dr. Hilarius and his LSD tests might have entered literature not through insider knowlege on the part of his creator but through rumours etc. he picked up at Cornell...

Otherwise, interesting, yes, and thanks, and I join the applause for Michael Bailey.

Speaking of LSD and elephants and thus Louis Jolyon West: Everybody interested in this stuff, and Charlie Manson, of course, should read Tom O'Neill's mind-blowing "CHAOS" (preferably after having first read Ed Sanders' "The Family"). Thanks to rich, I think, for the recommendation!

Best wishes
Thomas

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------- Original Message -------
matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> schrieb am Montag, 22. Mai 2023 um 12:35:

> 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