I'd heard that about Triptee as well.

I also found out that my parents were recruited by the CIA when they were teaching on U.S. military bases in Europe soon after WW II. They decided not to work for The Company officially, but they did debrief when they returned to the states. Although my grandparents were targets of the Red Scare, my parents somehow didn't consider their CIA contacts as something suspicious.

In fact, they were approached with much flattery and convinced that they, as "real" scientists, could help the poor government workers figure out what's really going on in the world.

Yeah, right.

I'm not surpised. Most intellectuals are vulnerable to appeals to work for a greater good, or a lesser evil. Oh to be in a position to ameliorate ills! You'd make a nifty CIA agent, Jonathan. Your recruiter would focus on your desire to lessen suffering.

Bwa ha ha ha ha!

I thought it came through both in "his" fanzine writing in the '70s and in some of "his" stories. There's one hell of a lot going on in "The Peacefulness of Vivian", for example.

But eventually it came out in the open. What I hadn't realized until earlier this year was that her husband had been something of a legend.

Oh, jeez, you want to check my sources, right? ;)

I'll be talking with my Mom in a few days and I'll ask more about it. The grandparents are dead, but were members of the Socialist Party -- they met and fell in love at a "Socialist Encampment" in Oklahoma. Grandpa ran for office on the same ticket as my all-time hero, Eugene B. Debs.

I'll see what I can find out for you!

Also, did you know the history of Gloria Steinem's reports to the CIA? Redstockings had the documentary evidence. The CIA spooks were quite good at convincing people that providing information was the decent thing to do.

Well, which building does Jennifer Garner work in?

This is "NEED TO KNOW!"

spy stuff

Another undersung hero of Great Era SF - Cordwainer Smith - worked for some arcane crypto-something branch of the spookists, in Asia I think.
Heinlein and Asimov did some gov't brain work in WW2, Heinlein recruited Azimov.
And I wouldn't be surprised if the enigmatic Algys Budrys was connected in somehow somewhere.
It didn't have that taint back when. We were still the good guys, sort of, generally, in the main.

" "Socialist Encampment" in Oklahoma."

Wow. I've rarely seen such a startling indication of how much the country has changed in the past 75 years or so. Nowadays you might expect to see

- Heavily Armed Cult in Oklahoma
- Corrupt Oilmen Meeting in Oklahoma
- Teaching Evolution Outlawed in Oklahoma
- Psychotic Doctor Elected Senator in Oklahoma

but "Socialist Encampment"? Definitely not.

Ted-- I, too, had to re-read that phrase a couple times.Thanks for making me smile. Now, back to CNN...

Now you've gone and made me look it up. Here's a short excerpt from a larger article:

The most successful approach used by these local organizers in this region was the Socialist encampment." First introduced in Grand Saline, Texas, in August 1904, these week-long meetings put the historic form of the religious revival to new but not so different purposes....

In the Southwest this powerful combination of religious impulse and prophetic Socialism generated a popular, broad-based critique of capitalism.....

Eugene Debs: "I have met many of the farmers down your way," Debs wrote the Oklahoma and Indian Territory Socialist organizer in 1906. They "were revolutionary to the heart's core, and furnished the very best material for the party movement." Self-conscious of their cultural traditions and painfully aware of their current circumstances, these Socialists forged from their roots a basic attack on capitalism that expressed their new, sharp class awareness.

Source: “The Working Class Republic”, Chapter 8 of Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1982)

http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/labor/Citizen%20and%20socialist.htm

Did anyone else ever hear the longstanding rumor that the schizophrenic rocket scientist in "The Jet-Propelled Couch," the concluding section of Robert Lindner's The 50-Minute Hour, was in fact Sinologist Paul Linebarger -- aka "Cordwainer Smith,"?

Personally, we never bought that one.

A comment to Ravenmn and his July 31, 2005, post. Ravenmn stated: "I'll be talking with my Mom in a few days and I'll ask more about it. The grandparents are dead, but were members of the Socialist Party -- they met and fell in love at a "Socialist Encampment" in Oklahoma. Grandpa ran for office on the same ticket as my all-time hero, Eugene B. Debs." First, perhaps a mistype, but Eugene Debs' middle name was Victor therefore the initial B. in incorrect. The reason I know this is that my dad born in early 1900's in Hastings, Oklahoma was named after EVD. Apparently my grandparents were quite fond of the socialist movement and Mr. Debs' role in those days. I don't know if they ever were participants in any of the socialist encampments mentioned in this series of comments.