Difference between revisions of "Pynchon's California Trilogy and the CIA"

Revision as of 10:01, 28 July 2009

Pynchon's "California Trilogy"—The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland & Inherent Vice—all cite the CIA in the context of drugs. The Crying of Lot 49 does so covertly—note Dr. Hilarius "Die Brucke":

"We still need a hundred-and-fourth for the bridge." Chuckled aridly. The bridge, die Brucke, being his pet name for the experiment he was helping the community hospital run on effects of LSD-25, mescaline, psilocybin, and related drugs on a large sample of surburban housewives. The bridge inward. "When can you let us fit you into our schedule."

Dr. Hilarius "Bridge" points to CIA's drug research programs. In 1964, the CIA's MK-ULTRA program was renamed MK-SEARCH.

Early efforts focused on LSD, which later came to dominate many of MK-ULTRA's programs. Experiments included administering LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions. . .

. . .Historians have asserted that creating a "Manchurian Candidate" subject through "mind control" techniques was a goal of MK-ULTRA and related CIA projects Wikipedia

In Vineland the reference is overt:

". . .notice how cheap coke has been since '81? However in the world do you account for that?"

"Roy! Is you're sayin' the President himself is duked into some deal? Quit foolin'! Next you'll be tellin' me George Bush."

Roy kept a prop Bible on his desk, useful when he needed to get along with the born-agains in the Agency. He opened it and pretended to read. "Harken unto me, read thou my lips, for verily I say that wheresoever the CIA putteth in its meathooks upon the world, there also are to be found those substances which God may have created but the U.S. Code hath decided to control. Get me? Now old Bush used to be head of CIA, so you figure it out."

Vineland, pages 353/354