Fear and Loathing in America

by Hunter S. Thompson

  As for the antlers, yes, they’re from a large timber-buck, a Rocky Mountain deer. You can dress them up considerably by taking them to a local taxidermist—who will mount them on a wooden plaque and cover the skull with rich soft leather. What you have is the crude reality. Check the yellow pages for a taxidermist; he’ll be happy to transform that head into a trophy as soft and mellow as an old painting. A set of polished horns in wood & leather yes, very nice above your bed.

  Well, it’s 6:10 a.m. here and I’m going under. My head is much more active than it has been for at least a year. Maybe I’ll even write something. Silberman has been very decent of late; I actually feel like I owe him some words … and that’s a weird feeling, for me.

  As for your notion of switching jobs, I naturally oppose it—for purely selfish reasons. Or maybe not “purely.” You’re one of the very few human beings I met in all that terrible wrangle with the “world of publishing,” and if you quit I’d feel like I’d lost a beachhead in a world I have to deal with. But I guess that’s purely selfish—except that other people would feel the same way. All us outback freaks need a place to hide in NY, and you’d play hell hiding me in some teacher’s lounge in a slum school. That’s the sort of thing you could do on a part-time basis, anyway, to see if you really liked it. I’m not sure you would … but … yeah.

  OK for now. I’ll probably get to NY this fall & I’ll see you then. Ciao—

  Hunter

  TO ALLARD K. LOWENSTEIN:

  One of the sincerest and most courageous left-wing activists of the 1960s, Allard K. Lowenstein had co-organized Mississippi’s 1964 “Freedom Summer” protests before turning from civil rights to anti–Vietnam War activities. Rebuffed in his attempts to reserve Chicago’s Soldier Field for a rally of his Coalition for an Open Convention, a week before the Democrats assembled Lowenstein declared—correctly, as it turned out—that Chicago was “determined to have a confrontation that can only produce violence and bloodshed.”

  September 10, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Mr. Lowenstein:

  I trust this is the right address and the same Allard K. I saw in Chicago. If not, well … what the hell?

  I returned (to Aspen) from Chicago and told everybody to vote for Nixon, as the surest means of seizing the Demo party from the hands of croakers like Daley and [Texas governor John B.] Connally. But now—as I ponder that heinous reality—I suspect I won’t be able to bring myself to do that, unless I’m convinced that my Nixon vote is really a contribution to a far, far better thing, as it were. … Otherwise, I wouldn’t want it on my conscience.

  Yet I refuse, under any circumstances, to vote for that sold-out scum-sucking freak who now says he “could have accepted” the minority plank on Vietnam. About ten minutes after that vote I got punched in the stomach by a cop’s billy club when I tried to cross the bridge from the Hilton to the band-shell in Grant Park. I showed the swine my super-true-magnetic Stockyards Amphitheatre press pass—courtesy of Random House—and they let me know the score very quickly; I fled to my room at the Blackstone, to pick up my [motorcycle] helmet and running shoes, and emerged just in time to get caught in the Rommel-style attack92 on the stalled marchers—the one they pulled off right in front of all the TV lights … Wednesday evening on your screen. Selah.

  So it occurs to me now—faced with a choice between Nixon & Nada—that we’ll all waste our votes, individually, unless we can settle on some way to waste them effectively. Like I went out yesterday and voted for Ken Montfort (the anti-war Senate Candidate in the D-Primary), but I found out today that most of the local peace freaks didn’t even vote; they didn’t know Montfort’s name, much less what he stood for … and in terms of the November election they simply won’t vote; the few who will can’t agree on who or what to vote for.

  My own preference is MARTIN BORMANN, whom I tried to nominate from the press balcony, on several occasions, after Alabama and Bull Connor voted for [George] Wallace and Bear Bryant.93 The Jesuit priest sitting next to me kept me from hurling my binoculars down on [Oklahoma Democratic congressman] Carl Albert … and Daley’s thugs, sitting all around me, luckily didn’t know who Martin Bormann is/was …??

  In any case, a vote for Bormann is a vote for nada—unless everybody who agrees with me votes for Martin, too. The point is that we should all get together on some word, name or symbol—it could be almost anything, as long as everybody knows what it means—and then register a huge, coherent Protest Vote for president. The [Eldridge] Cleaver/[Dick] Gregory line won’t make it; that’s [Jerry] Rubin’s gig—“Beat me, you bastards, I’ll make it easy for you. …”

  But I don’t need that, and neither do most of the people I’ve talked to who say they can’t vote for either Nixon or Humphrey. They assume—as I do—that some kindred spirit, somewhere on high, will soon unleash The Word, a unity-concept of some kind, a set of simple directions telling how to make yourself heard in November. Whatever word, symbol or slogan that finally emerges doesn’t seem to matter. These people need a sign, a pole, a Thing to keep them together. We’re dealing, right now, with an incredibly rich talent/influence pool that might—if it doesn’t shatter and evaporate by November—be the nut of a whole new thing in 1972.

  I’m sure all this is as obvious to you as it is to me, but after a week of assuring people that we’ll get the sign in plenty of time to “vote No, together,” in November, I thought I’d check with you for some details. You are, after all, one of the few people with enough media-leverage to make The Sign real. It’ll have to be something very broad, emotional and vaguely “in.” Otherwise, we’ll have a scene where dope freaks, Black Panthers and Cambridge cocktail liberals will cancel each other out … and we’ll all go into a fear-spiral for at least four years and probably eight.

  (Looking back on that last graph, I have to wonder if it’s possible to bring all these weird elements together under one flag … but I also think it’s a case of having not much to gain and a hell of a lot to lose. There’s not much time; another month of “count on me” quotes from the “leaders” will croak any chance of a working coalition for 1972—or even 1970.)

  Do you have any thoughts on this? If so, I’d very much like to hear them—for two reasons, on two different levels: one is personal and obvious, the other is the fact that I’m working on a book that Random House calls “The Death of the American Dream.” And I leave you with that …

  … Sincerely,

  Hunter S. Thompson

  TO U.S. SENATOR ABRAHAM RIBICOFF:

  As the whole world was watching the Chicago police club unarmed demonstrators outside the Democratic National Convention, Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut publicly decried the city’s “Gestapo tactics”—to which Mayor Richard Daley responded, on camera through the din, “Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch. You lousy motherfucker! Go home.”

  September 22, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Senator Ribicoff:

  I had never given you much thought, as a person or a politician, until that Wednesday night in Chicago when you nominated Sen. McGovern. I was there all week—on press credentials from Random House—and in retrospect your performance stands out as the high point, for me, of that whole nightmarish scene. Everything you did and said that night seemed to rest on a bedrock of decency. It’s a very rare thing, in the stinking world of politics, to hear phrases like: “His peaceful soul …” and “His wholeness as a man …”

  I went to Chicago to research part of a book on “The Death of the American Dream,” and needless to say my trip was a rotten success. Yet, on the other side of the ledger, I think I’ll remember your Wednesday night speech long after I’ve forgotten the details of the “evidence” I gathered. There was an awesome dignity in your handling of Daley and his thugs, and for a moment that whole evil scene was redeemed—but only for a moment.

  I’m enclosing a token contribution to your campaign—the first political contribution I’ve ever made. I’d sen
d more if I weren’t broke … and I’d offer to write something for you if I thought you needed a speech-writer, but I don’t think you do. I hope to hell you win, because the next four years are going to be a horror show—tempered, perhaps, by the handful of decent men in the Senate, on the bench, and in whatever other, unforeseen roles or situations that will force a few men to define themselves, for good or ill.

  In any case, I think you’ll do alright, win or lose. And I feel a little better for knowing you’re around. You elevated that convention, for a moment, to a level that made Hubert and all his sold-out dealers look like sewer rats. I’m glad I was there to see it. And, again, the best of luck on all levels.

  Sincerely,

  Hunter S. Thompson

  TO BUD PALMER, GENERAL MANAGER, KREX-TV:

  Still incensed by the subpar programming on the only channel he could get in Woody Creek, Thompson once again went after the general manager of KREX-TV.

  September 24, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Mr. Palmer:

  Six months ago I watched your tearful commentary on the night of Dr. King’s death; it was an impressive performance—and I use that word very deliberately, in light of your influence on the level of KREX-TV’s programming since you took over as general manager. Your predecessor, as I recall, retired to work for Richard Nixon; he was an infamous yahoo, recognized all over the western slope for his unenlightened views on almost everything. So it was a hopeful sign—to those of us who can get only one channel on our sets—when the station’s management was taken over by an articulate human being who publicly cast himself as a one-time friend of Martin Luther King.

  Well … with friends like you, Dr. King didn’t need enemies. It’s you and your swinish, hypocritical ilk who’ve created and sustained the world that Dr. King was trying to change. You weep great liberal tears in public, but what have you done—regarding KREX-TV programming—that your “old buddy” “Doc King” would have even condoned, much less approved of? It’s phonies like you who wander around asking “What’s wrong with the younger generation?”

  Look in the mirror for a minute, you sold-out penny-pinching freak—you and that other Great Democrat from Chicago, Mayor Daley.

  A fellow named Tom Wicker, Washington bureau chief for The New York Times, wrote the other day: “… the question deserves to be asked: who shaped the society this generation scorns?”

  Hubert Humphrey might fit part of that bill, along with people like you and Daley. You weep for Dr. King, yet you manage a TV station that stands as a rancid monument to the worst instincts of the industry. You talk of the need for a better world, yet you treat your TV audience as if they were total waterheads. Not only have you failed to improve the station since you took over; you’ve actually made it worse.

  To wit: You moved the CBS News back to 4:30 p.m., a time slot most stations use for soap operas for housewives—the only people watching at that time. Has it ever occurred to you that most people work until slightly later than 4:30? Are they supposed to settle for that provincial hash you call the Ten o’Clock News? What prevents you from carrying [Walter] Cronkite at 6:30, as they do almost everywhere else? I noticed you didn’t have any qualms about delaying the [Harry] Reasoner–[Mike] Wallace 60 Minutes show tonight—at the announced time, all I got was Perry Mason, which I assume has replaced (on KREX) Judd, For the Defense.

  This is a goddamned stinking abomination, and a perfect example of the way you’ve down-graded the programming. Judd … is one of the best shows on any network, one of the few literate, realistic efforts still made in television … and you have the stupid, ignorant audacity to drop it for Perry Mason, a piece of cheap hackwork that’s been ridiculed in every corner of the legal and TV professions—a bad joke on everybody, and especially the audience. Is it too much to ask of you—to provide even one hour a week of something above the level of simian or senile entertainment? Just one hour? Not even in prime time?

  I could go on, perhaps, to mention the Jacques Cousteau [oceanography] special that was recently scheduled, but which never appeared—to my knowledge. Or the 20 minute film-advertisements, in prime-time, for Heston tractors. Or the half-hour films on “Vacation Fun in the Great Smoky Mountains.” Of Tennessee. Or the local ads inserted in those Xerox “Of Black America” specials that were introduced by the Xerox man who said they wouldn’t be interrupted by commercials. And running a 2-hour pilot film for some cheap Hawaii cop series—an obvious freebie … and no decent movies.

  Well … I’m sure “Doc King” would be proud of you. You got your hands on a captive audience and fed them the cheapest, meanest kind of swill you could find. You blew the national news, killed the good shows, got rid of the movies and made KREX a total wasteland. If a quote from The NY Times doesn’t register with you, maybe this one will: “By their fruit ye shall know them.”

  How do you and your station measure up on that scale? If the answer comes hard to you, just give me a ring—or send a message via my local Geritol dealer; I’m sure you know him well.

  Sincerely,

  Hunter S. Thompson

  TO HUGHES RUDD, CBS NEWS:

  CBS campaign correspondent Hughes Rudd had stood Thompson up one night during the Democratic National Convention when they had agreed to meet for drinks at a local tavern—but he had the good excuse of having suffered a mild heart attack.

  September 25, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Hughes …

  Fuck off with your excuses about why you didn’t show up at Miller’s Pub on Thursday night. So you had a fucking heart attack—so what? Are you some kind of pansy? Hell, you should have had the ambulance take you from the Amphitheatre to the Pub, not the hospital. The next time I plan to meet you anywhere for a drink I’ll know what to expect.

  Yeah … and so much for all that. I just remembered that my humor doesn’t always ring bells at CBS, so I won’t push it. Needless to say, I’m sorry to hear about the heart action, although in retrospect it strikes me as the most honest and straightforward reaction of that stinking week. It was, in truth, the only way to go you can be proud of yourself.

  As for me, I showed up at Miller’s around 2:30 and left, very abruptly, around 3:00. I was sitting at the bar, writing feverishly in my notebook so I could drink, later on, with a clear conscience … when suddenly I was engaged in conversation by a whale of a man standing next to me—he wanted to know what I was writing and I said I was writing about the Chicago Bears—and that led to a long talk about football, very cordial, open, etc. Then a friend of his roamed up and asked why I was wearing “that funny hat.” And that led, by some convoluted route, to the subject of “hippies and dirty scum.” Which bugged me—and at one point I shouted, “Yeah? Well I’m one of them, and you’re going to see a hell of a lot more of me before you get your fucking pension.”

  I left shortly after that—to make a short story shorter. I almost left with my head in my hands. They were going to do me, I could see it coming—so I suddenly stood up, left a full drink on the bar, and zapped outside … to find a taxi waiting for me. How about that for weird luck?

  “To the Pump Room,” I said, and we fled. Actually, Ramparts had a bunch of rooms in the Ambassador, with a lot of booze and flesh on the tab—so I ended up there. I got back to the Hilton around dawn, just in time for the wild aftermath of the cop raid on McCarthy’s hq. People running and screaming in the lobby—bleeding, falling, [veteran CBS correspondent] Blair Clark darting wild-eyed from one scene to another … it was the ultimate horror, the final groin-shot that only a beast like Daley would stoop to deliver. It was an LBJ-style trick: no rest for the losers, keep them on the run and if they fall, kick the shit out of them.

  So I stayed around all day Friday, mainly sleeping—but for the record I sort of wandered around and viewed the remains, checking the empty suites for echoes, picking up handbills, talking to the wounded, thinking … and on Friday night I really went out of my head. I wound up racing around C
hicago on a bike, drunk and drugged, burning a week’s accumulation of adrenaline. No sleep, a dirty argument with a gaggle of cops in the Hilton coffee shop on Saturday morning … and then the plane, four more hours of whiskey in the Denver airport, and finally home around dusk.

  It took me two weeks to calm down. I kept bursting into tears at unexpected moments … and now I’m trying to write some of it down, but it’s hard. Nobody really believes me when I say how terrifying it was, nothing I read compares to what I saw—so I feel like I’m working in a nightmare vacuum, with nothing but my notes to assure me that it really happened. The worst aspect of it all is that “the national press,” as it were, (with the lone exception of Newsweek) has acted like a gang of abject street urchins, caught in the act. The polls praise Daley and the press hangs its head. What a shitty way to treat the people who actually tried to cover the story. What a rotten bunch of sold-out freaks to work for. Those bastards spend millions of dollars outflanking Daley—and then when they get even a taste of the story, they apologize.

  I think you’re right about the damage being fatal this time. Nixon’s in, I’m out, and the devil take the hindmost. My vote’s going for Dick Gregory … he’s on the ballot here. I think you’re in the clear with that advance from RH … get the Cortez thing, keep your passport up to date, and dig the free time while you have it. I figure about two years until The Crunch … it’ll take that long for the would-be vested-interest people to figure out which side they’re on … and after that it’s going to be hell.