''Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.''

Investigation of CIA Involvement in Plans to Assassinate Foreign Leaders (C.I.A. 1975)

https://archive.org/details/CIA-Assassination-Foreign-Leaders

''Spy vs Spy''

Some transcripts from ''Venona'', a U.S. counter-intelligence program that lasted from 1943 to 1980 to decrypt messages sent by Soviet intelligence.

Venona program documents (N.S.A. , published 1995)

https://archive.org/stream/foia_Venona-HQ-1/Venona-HQ-1#page/n65/mode/2up

''If he blows his cover he might blow the lid
  So he stays in the shadows like he always did...''

Published January 17, 1944- "This information is to characterize simple sabotage, to outline its possible effects, and to present suggestions for inciting and executing it...''

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (Office Of Strategic Services,1944)

https://archive.org/details/SimpleSabotageFieldManualStrategicServicesProvisional

''When a ball dreams, it dreams it's a Frisbee.''

''Suggested Level: PR (Professional)'' Oh my...

Official Rules of Ultimate Frisbee - 11th Edition

https://archive.org/details/RulesForUltimateFrisbee

''Whatever happened
To those chromium heroes...?''

About Pulsa-
''This hitherto underappreciated collective was founded in 1967 by a group of painters, musicians, sculptors, and engineers working at Yale University.While the group was invested in a project of non-referential, anti-expressive abstraction and sensitizing its audience vis-a-vis the spatio-temporal conditions of perception in a semi-minimalist vein...(...) Pulsa thus emerged at the crux of several important strains of experimental art practice in the late 1960's, strains that have until recently been understood as separate if not outright antithetical.''

https://yatesmckee.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/mckee_pulsa1.pdf

Art in the Electric Age-The Pulsa Group (1969)

https://archive.org/details/ChandlerArtElectricAge

Pulsa -Spaces (MOMA 1969)

https://archive.org/details/MOMASpaces

Pulsa (American Art,1979)

https://archive.org/details/Brown-AmericanArt-Pulsa

Pulsa- The City as an Artwork  (1972)

https://archive.org/details/TheCityAsAnArtwork

''In order for music to free itself, it will have to pass over to the other side...''

''Music is known to alter people's ordinary experience of space and time. Not only does this challenge the concept of invariant space and time tacitly assumed in psychology but it may also help us understand how music works and how music can be understood as an embodied experience. Yet research about these alterations is in its infancy. This review is intended to delineate a future research agenda.''

Changes in the representation of space and time while listening to music (2013).

https://archive.org/details/pubmed-PMC373437

''High above the L.A. freeways, and the traffic's whine, 
Stands the well-known Galactronics branch of Yoyodyne...''

Company anthems were an important part of 1950s American corporate culture. Spooky.

Songs of the I.B.M.

https://archive.org/details/songs-of-the-ibm

I.B.M. music sound clips

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_clips.html

''Turn On, Tune In, Drop Bombs.''

''Be all that you can be'' or, ''Putting the fun back into chemical warfare.''

LSD Follow up Study Vol 1-3 (U.S. Army,1980)

https://archive.org/details/1980LsdFollowUpStudyVol1

https://archive.org/details/1980LsdFollowUpStudyVol2

https://archive.org/details/1980LsdFollowUpStudyVol3.0

''The family that prays together stays together.''

MP-15 The Family Fallout Shelter (1959)

https://archive.org/details/familyfalloutshe00unitrich

''Video Killed The Radio Star''

''A deconstruction of music videos that makes visible their aesthetic rules or grammar is necessary before an overall theoretical understanding is possible. Content-analytic studies usually divide music videos into two groups: "performance" and "concept" videos. Concept videos, in turn, can be subdivided into two different kinds: narrative dramatic videos and lyrical videos. Narrative videos tell a story, albeit with emotional overlay and expressive flair, while lyrical videos may be likened to imagist poetry in contrast to dramatic monologues.''

Music Video as Electronic Opera and Electronic Lyric (1987)

https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED281248

1958: ''How the Web Was Won''

 

The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE)  air defense system was designed by IBM for the US Air Force in the early 1950s to coordinate the response to air attack:

''Its innovative technological contributions to IBM and the IT industry as a whole were significant. These included magnetic-core memories, which worked faster and held more data than earlier technologies; a real-time operating system (a first); highly disciplined programming methods; overlapping computing and I/O operations; real-time transmission of data over telephone lines; use of interactive terminals and input light pens (a first); redundancy and backup methods and components; and the highest reliability of computer systems (uptime) of the day. It was the first geographically distributed, online, real-time application of digital computers in the world. Because many of the technological innovations spun off from this project were ported over to new IBM computers in the second half of the 1950s by the same engineers who had worked on SAGE, the company was quickly able to build on lessons learned in how to design, manufacture and maintain complex systems.''
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/sage/

SAGE Air Defense System general manual (I.B.M.,1958)

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibmsageSAGm1958_18586730

SAGE Air Defense System Input System (I.B.M.,1958)

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibmsage352_26517675

"Vivre? Les Robots feront cela pour nous."

''THE GENERAL USE OF ROBOT MANIPULATORS IS EXPLAINED AND THE BASICS OF THEIR DESIGN AND OPERATION ARE DESCRIBED...''

ROBOT MANIPULATORS (1975)

https://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_19750021707

''What the hell is he building in there? He has subscriptions to those magazines...''

73 Magazine was an amateur radio magazine that was published from 1960 to 2003.It was known for its emphasis on technical articles. ''73''  means "best regards" in amateur radio slang.

73 Magazine (Amateur Radio Today)

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine

''If anybody can be tape recorder 3 then tape recorder 3 loses power.''

 ''This publication listed and illustrated many professional and consumer tape recorders then on the market, alphabetically by manufacturer.'' 

 Audio Devices - Tape Recorder Directories (1955-1961)

https://archive.org/details/AudioDevices-TapeRecorderDirectory1960-1961

''Long live the New Flesh!''

The introduction of portable video cameras in the late 1960s brought about a new field- independent video. Radical Software was a journal started in 1970 to cover aspects of the new medium - from production, distribution, community work and political activism to theoretical,aesthetic and economic issues.

Radical Software (1970-74)

http://www.radicalsoftware.org/e/index.html

“Sooner or later, everything turns into television.” 

The first portable video system, the Sony Video Rover, was introduced in 1967. It was a two-piece set consisting of a black and white video camera and a separate, record only 1/2 inch recorder unit. 

The Video Guide: Ch. 12-The Video Portapak (Charles Bensiger,1981)

http://videopreservation.conservation-us.org/vid_guide/12/12.html

"...well, I am not a crook."

''Off-air tape recording of President Nixon fielding questions from a convention of newspaper editors in Florida. Includes questions on the missing White House Tapes with Nixon uttering his most famous quote "well, I am not a crook."''

Richard Nixon Press Conference - 17 Nov 1973

https://archive.org/details/RichardNixonPressConference-17Nov1973

“'My phone is spying on me'!” 

“There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.” P.K. Dick

Intelligent Surveillance Systems (2011)

https://archive.org/details/Intelligent_Surveillance_Systems

''A vegetarian, too.''

This document - created by the American O.S.S.in 1943- was the first attempt at the psychological ''profiling'' of political leaders as a tool for intelligence operations, a practice that has become widespread since.

 Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler (1943)

https://archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler

''Dr. Strangelove, I presume''

''15-page fallout prediction model, covering both land surface and underwater nuclear explosions, radiation shielding by buildings, fallout solubility as function of particle size, retention on vegetation, gamma ray spectrum versus time, fractionation of fission products, salting by cobalt-60 etc., and effects of environmental neutron induced activities in fallout.''

Fallout Prediction (2014)

https://archive.org/details/FalloutPrediction

''Freak out in a moon-age daydream...''

''THE EMOTIONAL STRESS OF COSMONAUTS DURING SPACE FLIGHT ARE EXAMINED.''

COSMONAUT'S EMOTIONAL STRESS IN SPACE FLIGHT (1972)

https://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_19730003386

''Space Age Slang.''

''The Apollo terminology definitions are presented. They were originally intended to provide Apollo Program participants with an updated collection of terminology used on the Apollo Program.''

Apollo terminology (1963)

https://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_19930074634

 “Is there a God?”

 UNIVAC 1 - Operating Manual (1954)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdN1EbkzIUM

 ''The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye.''

Video technique textbook from 1960.

Video tape recording (1960)

https://archive.org/details/videotaperecordi00bern

''Come on let's go space truckin'''

Designed in 1965 as the Soviet lunar orbiter, Soyuz is today the main vehicle for human space travel. 
Happy 50th Soyuz!


SOYUZ: WORKHORSE OF SPACE (1974).

https://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_19740024185

''All good clean fun. Have another stick of gum...''

Amphetamine, past and present - a pharmacological and clinical perspective (2013).

https://archive.org/details/pubmed-PMC3666194

''It's only the dead dreams of The Cold War Kid.''

DEW Line-Distant Early Warning, The Miracle Of America's First Line Of Defense (1957)

https://archive.org/details/DewLine

"You know what your trouble is? You're the kind who always reads the handbook.''

Moog Minimoog Owner's Manual

https://archive.org/details/synthmanual-moog-minimoog-owners-manual

''Target in sight. Where in hell is Major Kong?''

B-52E Stratofortress Characteristics Summary  (Boeing,July 1964)

https://archive.org/details/B-52EStratofortressCSJuly1964

''It's like,the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible.''

''The most extensive use of dream imagery in popular culture occurs in the visual arts, and in the past five years it has become evident that music video (a semi-narrative hybrid of film and television) is the most dreamlike media product of all. The rampant depiction and implication of dreams and media fantasies in music video are often strongly encouraged by the lyrics and soundtrack, formal requirements''

Dreams and Mediation in Music Video (1986).

https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED284312

''An elegant weapon for a more civilized age.''

The M3 was created during WW2 as a weapon for tank crews. It was still in use well into the 80s....

Grease Gun M3-M3A1 - FM 23-41 Service manual

https://archive.org/details/gunmanual_Grease_Gun_M3-M3A1_-_FM_23-41

''Mensch Machine,Ein Wesen und ein Ding''

The Emergence of Machine/Human Organizations (2006)

The Emergence of Machine/Human Organizations in the Context of Recent Advances in Information Technologies: A Descriptive Historical Perspective.

https://archive.org/details/The_Emergence_of_MachineHuman_Organizations

''Psychological forces exert a decisive influence on the elements involved in war.''

''Psychological Strategy Board Document that "covers in summary fashion the major developments during the past six years on that broad politico-military area of national policy which has been variously identified as propaganda, psychological warfare, or psychological operations."''

The Development of American Psychological Operations, 1945-51

https://archive.org/details/CIA-American-Psychological-Operations

"It's a boy."

Fallout report about the first H-Bomb explosion, the Ivy Mike test. It had a ten megaton yield,  700 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped in Hiroshima in 1945.

WT-615 -Fallout nature, distribution and intensity from the first H-bomb test (U,S. Defense Dept. 1952). 

https://archive.org/details/WT-615

''Easy.They are the ones shooting back at us.''

For the G.I.'s - How to recognize a Nazi soldier...


1942-11 Intelligence Bulletin Vol 01 No 03

https://archive.org/details/1942-11IntelligenceBulletinVol01No03

''Sherlock Holmes smarter brother''

Vannevar Bush: Mycroft Holmes, for real.

Science, the endless frontier- Report on a program for postwar scientific research (1945)

https://archive.org/details/scienceendlessfr00unit

"We've sure got a mess in here"

Living and working in space. A history of Skylab (N.A.S.A.,1983)

https://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_19840017669

''Night in the Science Zone''

“Building like crystals… walls of translucent glass… sheer glass blocks sheathing a steel grille… no gothic branch, no acanthus leaf, no recollection of the plant world. A mineral kingdom. Gleaming stalagmites. Forms as cold as ice. Mathematics. Night in the science zone.”

The Metropolis of Tomorrow by Hugh Ferriss, 1929

https://archive.org/details/mettomo00ferr

''Galloping Gertie''

"I tried to run up the yellow line in the center of the roadway, but found myself being bounced from one curb to the other and making no headway towards shore. I felt I could be tossed over the edge at any time. I was running in the air part of the time, because the bridge was moving faster than gravity. It dropped out from under me and then bounced back, knocking me down to my knees, banging the camera on the pavement."

Tacoma Bridge Failure-- a Physical Model (2004)

https://archive.org/details/arxiv-physics0408101

''Where today meets tomorrow''

G.M.C. über alles!

General Motors Technical Center (General Motors,1956)

https://archive.org/details/wheretodaymeetst00generich

''Whisky Tango Romeo veintiuno...'' 

                                       


''Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a one time pad is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is.''

The Conet Project (IRDIAL Records, 1997)

https://archive.org/details/ird059

''We have seen Mary Baker Eddy with one eye.''

''A cryptic sentence (''We have seen Mary Baker Eddy with one eye'') was inserted into a commercial short-wave broadcast to inform British Royal Radar Establishment of the invention of the T/R (Transmit/Receive) switch allowing a single radar antenna to be used for both transmitting and receiving (having seen the Christian Science building with just one antenna).''

 Five years at the Radiation Laboratory (1946,M.I.T.)

https://archive.org/details/fiveyearsatradia00mass

''A screaming comes across the sky.'' 

The American reverse engineering program of the German A-2.

Final report- Project Hermes V-2 Missile Program (Genertal Electric Corp. 1952)

https://archive.org/details/finalreportproje00whit

''This is Houston. Say again, please.''

''But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!''

 Apollo 13 - Press Kit (1970)

https://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_20040050622

''Everything is fun and games until someone...''

Don't try this at home.

Scientific Principles of Improvised Warfare and Home Defense - Volume 1

https://archive.org/details/ScientificPrinciplesOfImprovisedWarfareAndHomeDefense-Volume1

''Relax, everything will be alright...''

U.S. Army Technical Manual, TM 5-311 (1965)- For Nuclear, Chemical and Biological operations.

https://archive.org/details/armytechnicalman003467mbp

''This is not a place of honor.''

Warning future generations about radioactive waste burial sites. Or at least trying to.
''Sandia National Laboratories charged a panel of outside experts with the task to design a 10,000-year marking system for the WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) site, and estimate the efficacy of the system against various types of intrusion. The goal of the marking system is to deter inadvertent human interference with the site.''
Some of the people involved in this Sisyphean task did not believe that it was even possible for it to be accomplished-

''If the WIPP is ever operational, the site may pose a greater hazard than is officially acknowledged. Yet the problems involved in marking the site to deter inadvertent intrusion for the next 10,000 years are enormous. Even if knowledge exists that would allow translation of the message on the markers, there might be little motivation to solicit such knowledge. Pictorial messages, however, are unreliable and may even convey the opposite of what is intended.''
Maybe if they had hired Robert Smithson...

Sandia National Laboratories report (SAND92-1382 / UC-721)

http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm

''I have always been a voracious reader of what I call invisible literatures - scientific journals, technical manuals, pharmaceutical company brochures, think-tank internal documents, PR company position papers - part of that universe of published material to which most literate people have scarcely any access but which provides the most potent compost for the imagination''

J.G.Ballard

Texts found on the fringes of culture that may become tools or weapons for our imagination. Enjoy.