OK, put me onto the big money—or any money at all. And when I’m famous I’ll buy you a drink. About two years.
Greedily—HST
TO EDITOR, SATURDAY REVIEW:
In a lengthly letter to the Saturday Review, Thompson offered his wisdom on Latin American affairs, garnered from wandering around the continent and living in Brazil.
October 14, 1963
Woody Creek, Colorado
Editor
SATURDAY REVIEW
25 W. 45
NYC 36
Dear Sir:
Two articles in your October 12 issue on “The Americas” deserve a bit of comment. Probably others do, too, but be that as it may; I refer here to “News and Latin America,” by Bernard Collier, and “What’s Happening to Journalism Education?” by John Tebbel.
The two are related, in that current journalism education is at least vaguely linked to our news coverage of Latin America. The subject interests me because I recently returned from a year and a half of traveling all over the South American continent as a free-lance journalist.
Collier’s piece, for one thing, reflects a nearly perfect case of tunnel vision on the subject of the Latin American press. He discusses, with one or two half-relevant side-comments, two newspapers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and concludes from his “study” that they are the only “exceptional” newspapers in Latin America, obviously no more than the best of a bad lot.
The fact that Collier did his research in Buenos Aires—which most of the foreign-based U.S. correspondents deserted years ago—is a good indication of just how far behind the times he is. Apparently he has never been to Brazil, which ten years ago eclipsed Argentina as the most significant nation on the continent, and which has at least three newspapers as good as any trio the U.S. can offer. According to a recent survey of the world press, O Estado de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s most influential papers, covered more of that year’s significant news stories than any other paper in the world—including The New York Times. In Rio de Janeiro, Jornal do Brasil and Correio de Manha ride herd on the government in a freewheeling fashion that would scare most U.S. editors into early retirement. If President Kennedy thinks the New York Herald Tribune gave him a rough time, he should thank his lucky stars that he never had to deal with the Brazilian press.
Collier says the Latin American press is guilty of “a dismal lack of analytical reporting on government affairs, both in time of crisis and during relative peace.” He also says, “It is common for a newspaper merely to reprint a government communique in full, without pertinent comment, no matter how severely the subject of the message affects the country’s people.”
This is pure balderdash, and one of the best examples of what happens when a “Latin American correspondent” tries to cover his beat from New York. (If the Trib has stationed Collier in Latin America, it has happened since I left last spring.) Has Collier ever come across El Tiempo or El Espectador in Bogotá, or read the fire and brimstone commentaries of the Ecuadoran columnist who calls himself “Juan Sin Cielo”? And if he has ever been in Rio, did he ever get far enough away from the Hotel Excelsior Bar to lay hands on a copy of the afternoon O Globo and read some of the brutally anti-government editorials?
It would not be unjust to ask, in fact, just where in hell he has been—except Buenos Aires for some earthy talk with some of the bitter, old-line malcontents who like nothing better than getting hold of a gringo journalist and explaining why, among other things, they have put all their money in Swiss banks.
Which brings us now to Tebbel’s lament that “research” is strangling the hopes for “professional training” in our schools of journalism. Perhaps your linking of the two articles was intentional—because Collier’s wretched failure to deal with his theme would appear to be proof of Tebbel’s thesis that journalism needs people who can cut the ever-toughening mustard.
It may be, however, that Tebbel has missed the point altogether; that it hardly matters how much emphasis is placed on research in our journalism schools—because if the whole idea of research were dropped tomorrow, there is no indication that the schools would turn out the sort of journalists capable of handling subjects like Latin America. A lot of people will tell you that the most important thing a man learns in Journalism School is to studiously avoid such low-pay areas as news work, and to aim instead for positions in related sectors like public relations, advertising and administration. Such critics are not necessarily “myopic,” as Tebbel implies; they may be closer to the root of the problem than he is.
Tebbel might consider a few other problem areas before he takes up the standard of “professionally oriented programs” as the panacea for better and more meaningful journalism in our time. He should consider the case of the Herald Tribune, for instance, which only this year decided Latin America was important enough to give one of its staffers the title of “Latin American correspondent.” The man chosen to carry the ball was Bernard Collier—but thus far it appears the Tribune would have been better off sticking with the wire services, who at least have men on the scene who read the local papers.
Or consider the case of Ralph McGill,16 who regularly bemoans our serious lack of news from Latin America, but who cannot for some reason see his way clear to hire a man to cover that mysterious continent. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution even turns down free-lancers who offer to send as many stories as the papers can use.
The sorry state of our Latin America coverage is a real embarrassment to contemporary U.S. newspapers, but it is hard to see how the problem is going to be cured by journalism schools. The first step is to find people who give a damn; this is crucial, and without this sense of mission in young journalists there is not much hope for the whole field.
Second, we may as well admit that wire service coverage of Latin America is next to useless, and that there are not enough competent free-lancers who “happen to be on the spot” to go around. The only alternative, then, is to pay somebody’s expenses to go down there and report what he sees. Yes, gentlemen, I know it hurts, but let’s face it. And not just anybody. The only man worth sending to Latin America is one who wants to know what’s going on down there, who’s willing to get off the jet-routes and out of the old ruts, and move out where things are happening, instead of sticking near the “press bars,” where the “inside dope” changes hands, and where the government ministries hand out statements and communiques to correspondents who line up to receive them and dutifully relay their contents back home.
For some people, the job of being a “foreign correspondent” requires little or no effort. I recall one time in Brazil when “the press” had scheduled a cocktail party at the same time that a powerful and controversial politician was holding a press conference. The solution was a pool, a drawing of lots, and the dispatching of the “loser” to cover the conference and report back to the others—some of whom worked for competing news media—on what was said. Needless to say, this is not the way for the American public to gain insights as to the true state of affairs in Latin America.
Tebbel was right in decrying the cult of research in schools of journalism, but he was wrong in not advocating something better. Graduate professional programs are not much good, he says, until the communicator can understand what he communicates. Given this dictum, Collier of the Herald Tribune should spend about fifteen more years on the scene in Latin America, then apply for journalism school. And his is only one case.
Special schools of journalism are not the answer. Special—and individual—grants like the Nieman Fellowships and others of the same kind are much closer to what we need. But first there are other things to be learned: the origins and appeal of Marxism should be near the top of the list; the ability to convey in writing the ideas behind a statement such as “Kennedy is a great man, but he’s a prisoner of Wall Street and I know the American people would understand me if I could talk to them.”
But mainly we need people who care, who are curious about places and events that
are surely going to affect the world their children will live in. Collier’s critique of the Latin press is a good example of the kind of reporting we don’t need, but there is no indication that Tebbel’s campaign to get the “research people” out of journalism schools will give us what we do need—and what we will somehow have to get if we mean to cope with the unpleasant realities that our shortsighted forefathers have left us.
If we cannot produce a generation of journalists—or even a good handful—who care enough about our world and our future to make journalism the great literature it can be, then “professionally oriented programs” are a waste of time. Without at least a hard core of articulate men, convinced that journalism today is perhaps the best means of interpreting and thereby preserving what little progress we have made toward freedom and self-respect over the years* without that tough-minded elite in our press, dedicated to concepts that are sensed and quietly understood, rather than learned in schools—without these men we might as well toss in the towel and admit that ours is a society too interested in comic strips and TV to consider revolution until it bangs on our front door in the dead of some quiet night when our guard is finally down and we no longer even kid ourselves about being the bearers of a great and decent dream.
Let Mr. Tebbel consider the broader possibilities for a moment, and postpone for a while his academic resentment of research in journalism schools. And let Mr. Collier, in reporting on a continent bogged down in misery and further from hope than most people in this country can possibly understand, at least give credit where credit is due, and not condemn out of ignorance a Brazilian journalist—putting faith in his fellow man to speak his own truth in a Damn You kind of style that “trained professionals” and “technicians” and “specialists” have just about killed in this country.
Cordially,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO LIONEL OLAY:
October 25, 1963
Woody Creek (yeah)
OK, Lionel, you’re a cute fella with the words but don’t step out of your league and start pushing me. You know damn well which half of the ballgame I was talking about. I’ve never given much worry to the first half; it’s the ass-scratching half that makes me wonder now and then. You knew that when you asked.
I write because I read your San Francisco piece tonight. It was damn good; the first time I’ve ever read any natural prose from you, except in letters, and not always then. As it happens, I have always said San Francisco is the nation’s number one gutless city, so it’s no surprise that I liked your piece. So maybe it wasn’t good at all, but just agreeable.
I understand you live in the same glen with Shelley Berman.17 […] By god I wish I could afford it. Maybe later, eh? When upward mobility comes. Probably Styron will be there first, though, and then Mailer. They can all live in Mother Herbert’s Rooming Lodge: “bring your own stupor drugs; we furnish all else, up to and including hired cocksuckers and electric blankets.” Herbert Gold, prop.18 I see you got in your dig at that jellyfish bastard; the moral of that story is never snub anybody who might someday write for the voyeur mags.
Well, Lionel, a chap named Donleavy has just written a book. He never made it to Beverly Glen, or even Esquire, but he can write the balls off of every punk who did—including me. The Observer sent me a review copy yesterday and I read it straight through. Real tough. I believe in people again. The Ginger Man grew up and got human. Now that you’ve taken personal journalism about as far as it can go, why don’t you read Singular Man and then get back to the real work? It’ll be out November 7. You can date your shame from that day on. And me too. I’m not dumping on you, old sport—just giving the needle. I just wish to shit I had somebody within 500 miles capable of giving me one. It took Donleavy’s book to make me see what a fog I’ve been in.
I’ll send your pal Fredrick Birmingham19 of Cavalier a ripping segment of my Rum Diary—but only after Playboy has bounced it. I read his shitty book. And after he goes pale from reading it, I’ll send it on to Nugget, where Seymour Krim rejects things. Christ, the punks are hiring everybody they can’t bury. And a lot of those they could bury. Later for them.
When are you going to move to the Garden of Allah? Are you digging my good, wasted journalism in the Observer? I just did a piece on Big Sur; gave you a condescending mention. When the money gets low, I can always come up with one on Big Sur. But my new gimmick is book reviews—$75 a crack, with my own choice of books. One a week keeps me in beer and bullets. I know that’s not in your league, but somehow it don’t turn me green. I had a taste of the big time in Rio, à la the recent dung-jobs on our press corps in Saigon. And no thanks. I got fat and stupid. In a few hours it’ll be 4:00 a.m. and I’ll be up and out on the road to the big mountain to get an elk. My other rifle is sleeping here on the couch. He has no talent and doesn’t know Grant Street from West Fourth, but he doesn’t seem any poorer for it. Outside on the gravel road I can hear jeeps going up the hill; one of those drunken shits will probably shoot me tomorrow. Eight have been killed so far, and the season is 7 days old today. I wear a fluorescent orange vest. One man shot his sister-in-law at 15 yards. Said he thought she was a bear. Yeah. He was fined $100. Jesus. Tired of your wife? Take her on a Colorado hunting trip.
Your questions. I am living in a very comfortable 5-room house with a Disposall about ten miles out of Aspen. Sandy is pregnant and I have a 7-month-old Doberman. I am living off of the Dow-Jones Company, doing book reviews and articles of any sort at all. They want me to go back to South America. I have a .44 Magnum. I am living here because I needed a home. Currently I am jousting for one about 60 miles north of San Francisco on Jack London’s mountain. I need rest, Lionel. You don’t seem to grasp that since leaving Big Sur I have dug La Paz and Quito. I have caught the clap in Bogotá and paid for the cure in Lima. I have run amok in Cuzco and been arrested in Rio. I have lugged a shoulder-holstered pistol through Buenos Aires and Asunción. I have argued with whores in Montevideo. And then I went back to Louisville and got married in a marriage parlor with a neon sign by a justice of the peace who talked like Elmer Fudd.
Talk about come-downs.
What the fuck have you done except get rich? Answer that one.
Come visit and bring Beverly and the wolf. Sandy says hello to Beverly and balls to that pompous bastard Lionel.
Bingo:
HST
TO DARYL HARRINGTON:
Harrington was Thompson’s “secret” girlfriend in San Francisco.
November 3, 1963
Woody Creek, Colorado
Dear Daryl:
Nagging guilt has finally won over procrastination, and for whatever it’s worth, here is communication or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.
I suppose you are down there playing shepherdess & I’m curious to know what it’s like. I’m sorry I didn’t write you in Europe, but the summer was vicious and I haven’t had an address until now, much less a moment of peace or rest. I got married, as you suggested, and now Sandy is pregnant. I have a new Doberman, nephew of my other one, and probably a better dog. I also have a car and a nice little house some 10 miles out of Aspen. I also have a Disposall.
All of which is very nice, and I trust you are well, too. You’ve undoubtedly met some “nice young man” who will bring home the bacon—or sit home and summon it, like me—and, god willing, we will all be spared the hemorrhoids and the clap. Grow old peacefully.
And so much for all that. I recall my inept bumbling in New York and wonder at it. Not that I’ve ever prided myself on being a skilled lecher or even a semi-skilled communicator, but what a complete goddamn power failure that one turned out to be. You put too much pressure on a person, I think. I knew exactly what I wanted to say—or at least I thought I did—but in that kind of hyped-up atmosphere I would have felt like I was making a speech. Maybe after two weeks the air would have cleared, but I’m not sure. You’ve always thrown me into a bit of a stall. Maybe it’s because we’ve always been rushed, usually due to my ch
aotic scheduling, and I’ve always had the feeling that whatever I had to say I had better say Right Now, and it had better be damn good. And don’t remind me that I’ve almost always brought the pressure on myself, and that you generally had good reason to expect more from me than what I offered.
Probably I’ve never convinced you that my interest in you is anything more than a sort of off-beat lechery. Even now, at a distance of several thousand miles and safe from your jack-hammer interrogation, I resist a wavering impulse to try and write it down. I could offer hints and write cleverly in the bargain, but that would be sort of cheap. Maybe I can write it sometime in a story and you can read it there and come a little closer to knowing. Or maybe you do know, but insist on having me say it. That’s what I like to think, but then that’s an easy way for me to duck out. Now and then I remember that day when you were sick and I stopped by to say hardly anything and sit on the bed and look out the window at San Francisco. That was a good day, and one of the few times I didn’t feel compelled to say “meaningful things.” It seemed like we were doing okay without any bullshit dialogue. But of course there was no hurry then, and I wasn’t trying to juggle you with the rest of my life like I usually am.
Why don’t you write and say a few things and if you give me any openings I’ll try to push on. I don’t want to bother you or plague you with old questions and buried answers, but I hate to think that I’ve barged into your life as often as I have without your knowing why. And if you don’t know, then I’d like to be able to tell you, but I am not real good along those lines. But at this distance I won’t be able to duck the whole thing and lapse into conventional lechery as a stopgap.