Compiled and Edited by Steven Solomon ©1992

We next hear from the Professor as he undertakes, with great enthusiasm, his new life in the West. The pivotal transitions vis a vis loyalties East or West revealed in the following letters are striking. They may be seen to cast the dice that would inform the pattern of his life for the following two decades. Ed.

December 23rd, 1952


Dearest Evgeny Sergeivich,


I am in Las Vegas. Ho-ho, this is the Good Life! I will tell you Evgeny, these Capitalist Dog Americans know how to do a country... big sky, wide open spaces, fast cars, free liquor and cheap dope, legal gambling and drive-in whore houses every tenth of a mile up and down every highway in sight. As say the American cowboys; "Yeea-hah!"


I was debriefed over the past month by eager, young CIA operatives. All in all, it was a delightful affair featuring massive doses of crude pyscho-active substances; phenylbarbitol, sodium pentathol, nitrous oxide, and Dr. Hoffman's Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. Goodness, they really make a guest feel at home! I liked the LSD the best, but I wish they'd tried out one of those newly isolated phenethylamines on me. There's a young fellow named Shulgin on the, ahem, "Company" staff; I understand that he's doing very exciting work with these new substances. I'll have to meet him. Yes!


In any case, they asked me many questions and got me terribly stoned as I did my best, under the circumstances, to provide coherent answers. A rather strange method of interrogation, don't you think? It is hard, you know, to exactly recollect complex neurobiological information while flying on 1500 mics of acid and a serious load of downs. I'm sure, however, that if they actually to made any of those preparations, they would first test them on the monkeys.


I'm equally sure that all those monkeys would die horribly. I did not.


In any case, they've since set me up quite nicely. I've got a new identity. I'm supposed to be a veterinarian, but I never actually see any patients, only my lab monkeys. They gave me a lovely ranch-house on the edge of the desert. There's a beautiful and fully equipped laboratory in the secret sub-basement.


My new assistant, a Phd in Neuropharmacology and ersatz wife, Bambi, is a relatively inexperienced but very capable woman. A recent alum from the less than renowned Santo Domingo School of Medicine, whatever she lacks in seasoned lab skills, she more than makes up for in eagerness to learn. I've made it my personal responsibility to teach her everything I know.


Meanwhile, the boys at the Company, are happy to fulfill my every request for equipment and specimens. Glands and brain parts usually arrive at the post office box in plain brown wrappers, no return address. Recently, I did receive an entire human head in fairly good condition; strangely, it came with an odd note attached to a knitting needle jammed through ear to ear. "Next time, we kill your mother." It was signed "A friend of Anthony 'Big Ears' Tuzzio". Probably some sort of mix-up at the lab, or something.


Well, I'm not one to look a gift head in the mouth. I got the thing down to the lab, cracked the skull, peeled off the neocortex and popped out the pineal gland with a speed and dexterity that prompted Bambi to swoon in clinical admiration. It was not an hour later that we together tasted the fruit of our first great experiment. The result was moderately encouraging. Quaffing the decantation of cerebro-glandular essences, we soon noted a marked psychological, even sexual, stimulation.


What ensued was several hours of enthusiastic fantasy-play; though Bambi, for professional reasons, declined the opportunity to let me actually shtup her. She did, however, genuinely relish the chance to play Lone Ranger to my faithful Trigger. Best of all, she came equiped with her own set of sterling spurs.


Unfortunately, I must note that since our experiment, Bambi has experienced some minor side-effects. She has developed a marked case of hirsuitism, which, while rather attractive (reminding me of the gals back home, you know), has brought a black cloud over her normally bouyant personality. I think she blames me. I'm now working full-time to develop a cure in the form of an orally administered and all natural, hormone-based depilatory. That should set things right, aye.


It is now late and my duties in the lab call me away. There is important work to be done at the Frontier of Neuroscience! Of course, I cannot be sure that this missive will ever reach you. I have sent it by the most secure method available; one which I cannot describe other than to say it has been surgically implanted deep within the brain of an unknowing operative programmed to recite its contents to a Company controlled telegraphy operator, upon a previously agreed upon cue. If all goes well, you should be reading this transmission by the Month's end; if not, you will be in prison or worse. Good luck in this, Evgeny, and a very merry Christmas, happy New Year, to you and yours!


Yours in the Good Life of Science Fun,


Anton Saurian