May, 2003
I have made a remarkable discovery: CONTROL and KAOS are not fictitious after all. The TV show Get Smart was just a CONTROL front for the real spying going on behind the scenes. This isn't as crazy as it sounds. What better way to keep a secret organization secret than to convince everyone that it only exists in a TV comedy? I have not actually watched the show, so I know very little about it, but I'm told that most of the cases it covered were the same in all details as CONTROL's real cases, and that the characters on the screen were exact look-alikes of the real spies. (The show employed doubles who couldn't get work at KAOS due to an over-supply). The TV show provided the perfect cover for the real agents - as actors. If agents were seen in public behaving like spies, people naturally assumed that they were working on the next episode, or, like so many actors, were simply overplaying their roles. Another benefit of Get Smart was that real government secrets and scientific breakthroughs were laughed off as flights of fancy by over-imaginative script writers. Anyone who took them seriously was put in a straitjacket and locked away, ostensibly for their own good, but really just to make sure that the truth never got out. Even the KGB was convinced, which allowed CONTROL to put its all its limited resources into combating KAOS alone.
How I came to learn these startling facts began a few months ago when I found a list of questions in the attic of an old house I moved into. The questions related to the CONTROL and KAOS organizations during the period 1965 to 1970* [see footnote]. In my ignorance of Get Smart, I assumed that the questions were about real organizations, so I began investigating the list's origin. I asked lots of people lots of questions, and eventually traced the list as far back as its appearance in a coffee shop in 1971. The story goes that a gentleman customer, after consuming a cup of coffee and a prune Danish, took the wrong coat from the hooks provided and left his own behind – along with the questions in one of the pockets. I have not been able to discover who the customer was or how he came across the questions. However, by a remarkable stroke of good fortune, an academic literally bumped into me recently and told me that he is an expert in interrogation techniques, knows all about torture, and is familiar with many other matters related to CONTROL and KAOS, especially during the period 1965 to 1970. Between speaking often and highly of the remarkable contribution to science by a Dr Zarkon (or was it Zorko?), he kindly explained the facts relating to CONTROL, KAOS and Get Smart, and he told me the history of the questions that his painstaking research had uncovered.
"In mid-sixties,” he explained in an Oriental-like accent and manner, “KAOS abandon torture in favor of more subtle methods of extracting secrets from enemy agents. First, there was period of experimentation with truth drugs, but this was not successful and caused tension within organization, so it was discarded. At about same time they conceive diabolical plan – round-the-clock quiz questions. For years they collect trivial facts and details of utter insignificance, mostly from TV show in fact, which was most convenient source for these. By late 1970, they had enough questions to put ingenious conception into effect – prisoner would be asked trifling, mind-numbing questions mercilessly until he no longer distinguish useless, irrelevant facts from vital secrets, and then he would bow to the will of KAOS and reveal all he know. While it was master-stroke in theory, scheme was plagued by unforeseen difficulties. At first, KAOS commanders did not count on zealousness of own agents – as soon as prisoner gave wrong answer, he was immediately shot by KAOS underling keen to impress superior. Second, KAOS underestimate effectiveness of new technique. Before they were able to learn any useful secrets, the hundreds of mindless questions had reduced captive permanently to a babbling lunatic.
“KAOS was only beginning to consider how else to use potent questions when one resourceful captured agent, who gave wrong answer to first question, used some old trick to overpower captors and escape with questions to CONTROL. The questions were then believed lost in fire that obliterated CONTROL files shortly after. Through most cleverly placed bug in CONTROL Chief’s water pitcher, KAOS learn that fire was thought to have started in waste basket in Chief’s office, in which was found burnt match, but to this day, no one, not even KAOS, has any clue to identity of enemy infiltrator doubtless responsible. It emerge later that questions survive fire because escaped agent had locked them in Chief's wall-safe, but they had never been retrieved and filed because agent had inadvertently locked safe’s combination there also. When safe was eventually opened, same agent was ordered to keep questions in apartment umbrella stand, which was thought safer place than CONTROL headquarters. However, KAOS surveillance reveal that questions were never hidden there. This is where trail was lost. KAOS interrogators had unfortunately bungled by neglecting to make copies of questions, and efforts to reproduce the effect with new questions failed. There was evidently some unknown psychological ingredient in original questions that they were unable to reproduce. KAOS was therefore forced to postpone its plans.
"KAOS later discover that they had in turn been bugged by CONTROL, with most remarkable device in form of a fly, though discovery was not made before CONTROL had learned reason for incoherent ravings of some of its agents. KAOS became suspicious that fly was a different kind of bug than they had imagined when it kept bumping into objects and was unable to land. Microscopic examination reveal that fly had been badly assembled and was made from twisted, mangled and broken parts - poor construction by CONTROL professor, who KAOS previously believed was top man in his profession."
In light of the dangerous nature of the questions, I suggested that the best course would be to destroy them, but the expert's surprising response was that they should instead be published for everyone to see, especially CONTROL agents. "I most humbly assure them that questions are harmless outside hands of supremely skilled KAOS interrogators. If they answer questions at own leisure, they will develop resistance to this form of interrogation should they encounter it again. Results will be best if they persist with questions for hour after hour," he said.
He also suggested that other potential interrogation targets, such as government leaders and scientists, might also like to answer the questions, and added his assurance that there is no danger. "Questions are perfectly safe and can be rewarding recreational activity," he said. "Please to enjoy. Yes?"
*Note: Since it is now over thirty years
later, most questions that dealt with
contemporary circumstances in the present tense have been changed to the past tense.
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