A HARLOT HIGH A RECONNOITERING T[ ] SECRET GOVER[ ]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300510034-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: August 16, 1976
• Content Type: NSPR

CIA 2.04.2
CIA 1.04 Hunt, '. Howard
P-Anderson, Jack
CIA 1.04 McCord, James
Sturgis, Frank
Butterfield, Alex
CIA 1.04 Maheu, Robert
Bennett, Robert
ORG 1 i-1a f;A
Colson, Charles
(tries to tie CIA into Watergate)
(orig under Mailer)
A9TICL.J 4PPEARRD N N YOYU p-.Mailer Norman
ON PAGE 22 16 AUGUST 19 /F
Approved For Release 2005/01/11 : CIA-RDP88-01315REO&33(JO 4~ , 3 9d
THERE ARE N0 ANSWERS. THERE ARE ONLY QUESTIONS.
--Jean Malaquais
'w` /?^`.% k? t HARLOT HIGH AN) Low WAS
.the English title given to Splendeurs of uris''res des cour-
tisarres, one of Bafzac's best novels. The book was con-
cerned as much with secret police as with the prosti-
tutes who passed through its pages, but then whores and
political agents made a fair association for Balzac. The
harlot, after all, inhabited the world of as if. You paid
your money and the harlot acted for a little while---when
she was a good harlot-as if she loved you, and that was
a more mysterious proposition than one Would think, for
it is always mysterious to play a role. It is equal in it
sense to living under cover. At her best, the harlot was It
different embodiment of a fantasy for each client, and at
those moments of existence most intense for herself, the
role she assumed became more real than the reality of her
profession.
A harlot high and low. The pores of society breathe a
new metaphor--the enigma of intelligence itself. For
we (10 not know if the people who make our history are
more intelligent than we think, or whether stupidity
rules the process of thought at its highest Level. Is America
governed by accident more than we are ready to suppose,
or by design? And if by design, is the design sinister?
Are the actors playing roles more intricate than we cx-
peel ? "frying to understand whether our real history is
public or secret, exposed or---at the highest level-
-under-ground, is equal to exploring the opposite theaters of our
cynicism and our paranoia,
For instance, we may be getting ready to decide that
the C:IA was the real producer of Watergate. (that avant-
garde show!), but where is the proof? \Vc have cone to
a circular place. The CIA occupies that region in the
modern mind where every truth is obliged to live in its
denial; facts are wiped out by artifacts; proof enters the
logic of eounterproof and we are in the dream; matter
breathes next to antimatter.
There are Americans whose careers ate composed of
fact. One does not begin to comprehend . certain men
without their collections of fact. It would probably h:o
crucial to know if Harry S. Truman had been happy or
angry On a given day since that would enter' the event
of the day. He lives on an elementary level of biography.
There are personalities, however, like Marilyn Monroe,
for whom there are no emotional facts. It does not matter
on any particular occasion if she was pleased or annoyed,
timid or bold, even successful or unsuccessful, tier mood
did not matter on a. given clay since she would ns easily be
feeling the opposite five minutes later. Morcrncr, she was
an actress, She was able to simulate the opposite of what
she felt. Since she was surrounded by people in show
business who felt no need to be accurate if that interfered
with a good story, one could not begin to discover the
facts about such a woman, only the paradoxes. It may be
that the difficulties in coming to know Marilyn Monroe
Intellioence.
Approved For Release 2005/01/11 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000300510034-9