Memory experiment: I had a slow day at work recently, so I Googled around for a while and eventually found a video for an interesting old TV show from 1966. The show is called “The Nowhere Affair”, an episode from NBC’s “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” series, which I saw as a kid and vaguely remembered many years later because of the philosophical implications of its closing scene. (Man From UNCLE was part of the spy show craze that followed the first 007 movies in the mid-60s).

What stuck in my memory about “Nowhere Affair” was the repartee during the closing scenes between UNCLE agent Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and a woman who was somehow involved in a recent battle between UNCLE and the evil forces of THRUSH. I recalled that the plot involved a desolate town in Nevada called “Nowhere”, the site of an underground THRUSH complex . This site became a “former site” by episode’s end; Solo and his partner, agent Ilya Kuriaken (David McCallum), had of course managed to take down the place. I couldn’t remember exactly how this was done or what the woman’s role was in the process, but I did recall that she had lost her memory. (Ah! How appropriate to this test of my own memory!). I only remember seeing this episode once, when it aired during prime time in 1966; perhaps I might have seen a re-run of it in 1967, but after that I am quite sure that I never saw it again. Until now.

According to my 42 year old memory regarding this UNCLE episode, Solo and Kuryakin were sitting together somewhere after accomplishing their mission of taking THRUSH out of “Nowhere”. If I recalled correctly (which, actually, I didn’t), they briefly discussed the trauma that the woman had gone through because of THRUSH; according to my memory, it had to do with her previously being married to a bad-guy agent. Then, it was revealed that she had lost all recollection of who she was and what she had gone through. Next, according to my memory circuits, Solo approached the woman with his usual charm, asking her if she remembered where she was. She replied “nowhere” in a vague fashion, leaving you to wonder whether she was recalling the actual place in Nevada, or just reflecting existentially on her now mostly-blank mind. My own mind then remembered Solo responding to this with ultimate cool: “then you are somewhere”. Then the fade out.

That’s what I remembered about it. But now I’ve finally gotten a chance to watch that closing scene once more. So, just how accurate was this little memory impression, a memory buried deep down in my brain that had survived 42 years? Well, not bad, but with a lot of flaws.

The part about the woman’s trauma stemming from a relationship with someone inside THRUSH was totally wrong. My mind was probably mixing up some details from another Man From UNCLE episode. Solo and Kuryakin did not actually discuss the woman’s trauma in “Nowhere Affair”; their boss, Mr. Waverly (Leo Caroll) was in the actual scene (I totally forgot that), and had briefly commented that she would lose her entire life story because of the pills that he wanted her to take. Again, I totally forgot that it was at that final scene where she lost her memory, by voluntarily agreeing to take the pills offered by Mr. Waverly as to wipe out her own life as a THRUSH agent.

But after she took the pills, Mr. Solo did suavely approach her; that I did get right. He indeed did ask her if she knew where she was, and she said “nowhere”. But I totally forgot that Solo also asked two more questions: “do you know who I am?” (important because the plot involved this woman falling in love with Solo and sparing his life, despite her duties as a THRUSH agent), and “do you remember anything else”. Her answers were “yes” and “no”. Exactly the right answers, but I totally forgot this part of the scene.

But then Solo did caringly respond, although somewhat differently than my memory had it; he coyly smiled and quickly said “then you’re somewhere”. I recalled him not smiling, but looking sympathetically concerned, slowly mouthing out the words “then you are somewhere” — with emphasis on the “are”. Again, Solo actually used the conjunction of you and are, i.e. “you’re”, so there was no meaningful pause at the “are” as I recalled. I also recalled him wearing a suit jacket (as Solo so often did in Man From UNCLE); but in the real scene, he had a button-down dress shirt but no jacket.

So, over the course of 43 years, my mind retained something of this scene, which had impressed me as a 13 year old for its potential philosophical depth. But my mind mixed it up with other memory snippets from Man From UNCLE, and modified certain details so as to make Mr. Solo appear more like an empathetic counselor, versus the more accurate implications of the scene (i.e., sexual interest).

This is a really interesting brain experiment (for me, anyway). It shows just how much “processing” our minds can do with memories, how our minds can twist even the most prosaic memories to our preferred purposes. And also how memory storage overlaps, such that similar memory impressions derived at other times can blur and distort the details of a particular incident. Yes, emotions, beliefs and intentions can do almost as much to distort and damage our incidental memories as “Capsule B” from the UNCLE episode could (the stuff that erased the heroine’s memory at the end). It’s kind of scary when you think how much our judicial system relies on human memory, and how sure we usually are that we remember things as they really happened. In the interest of wisdom, we need to couch any description from memory with the disclaimer “I could be wrong”. As Agent Solo said, “then you’re somewhere”. Or as my mind would have it, “then you ARE somewhere”. Musical fade out!

P.S., the writers of “Nowhere Affair” were possibly a bit ahead of the times, in their assumption that you could find a soul-mate using modern technology. The THRUSH computer was able to find the perfect woman for Mr. Solo (using punchcards!); 43 years later, many people are still working on computers and dating web sites to do similar things.