Okay …
Hunter
Enc: Doonesbury of Sept 8 & 9, RMN, Denver
TO U.S. SENATOR GARY HART:
Former McGovern campaign manager Gary Hart had won Colorado’s 1974 U.S. Senate contest.
September 11, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Gary …
I am trying to get this written quickly, between a constant barrage of sonic booms, zoning wars, attacks on my water source by armed thugs, and crazed junkies on my porch … along with another demented assault on everything I stand for by that nazi yo-yo of a cartoonist in the Post.
So, without delay—let me first request a copy of S.1 from you; and in addition to that, I’d like to know how you plan to vote on it, and why. It looks to me like a newer, leaner version of the ill-famed “Tom Charles Huston plan,”32 and needless to say I’m very concerned about it, along with a lot of other people.
I’ll be in Washington for the first week of Oct., and if you have any time I’d like to have a beer and ponder a few things. You can reach me thru the RS office in DC, or at the Washington Hilton; if I’m not in the N.A. Suite, try the pool.
Shit, the pool won’t be open, will it?
God damn that rotten town. I think you should sponsor a bill to move the national capital to Los Angeles; tack it onto S.1 as a rider, and that way … No! What the fuck am I saying? If thousands of politicians were suddenly moved to LA, they’d have to close the pools for health reasons. …So never mind that one.
Anyway, I get a feeling that this S.1 vote is going to get a lot of long-term attention, and my feeling at the moment is that anybody who votes for it should be castrated…. But maybe I’m wrong; that possibility always exists, eh? So I’m looking to you, My Senator, for wisdom on this question … and unless I hear from you to the contrary, I’ll expect to have a beer (or a sarsaparilla) with you when I get there to make my various speeches.
Cazart,
Hunter
TO DICK TUCK:
The shenanigans of Democratic prankster Dick Tuck—who had become notorious for his silly disruptions of opposing candidates’ campaign appearances (known as “black advance” or “ratfucking”)—didn’t seem so amusing once Tuck made Thompson his target.
October 4, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Dick …
You have already done me serious harm by your handling of that MacArthur/Hollingsworth tape that you got from my house the night before you left. God only knows what made you take it to NY & play it for a Newsweek writer (Steele), but I’ve spent about $200 so far in accepting collect calls from Hong Kong and taking some very unpleasant abuse from people I used to call friends. Despite my best efforts to dismiss all the bullshit that developed in the Newsweek hierarchy after you fed the thing to Steele, I’ve been accused of all kinds of sneaky, cheap madness, including “ruined careers” and almost everybody who was in Saigon with me is now convinced that their voices were on that tape and that Kosner is now holding it … and since I can’t get hold of you, I have no idea where the tape is or what further damage it’s causing. Nick Profitt33 in Beirut has already taken some shit from Newsweek about it, and also Loren Jenkins in Hong Kong … and since I can’t call Kosner, for fear of making it worse, I can’t spike the rumors …so for christ’s sake send the cassette back to me immediately, without dubbing it for any further cocktail entertainment. As I told you out here, the copy you have was a raw trial run for the Hollingsworth/MacArthur cassette I sent to Aspen, so his version is harmless—but I’m getting that one back too, just to be sure nothing volatile is floating around.
It makes no difference that the stuff on the tape you have is harmless…. What matters is that I’m being pilloried all over the fucking world for taping confidential conversations in Saigon and then sending them to Newsweek and butchering people’s careers … and if this is your idea of humor, it sure as hell isn’t mine, and needless to say I’d never have given you that thing if I’d had the faintest fucking notion that you were going to use it to make a worldwide asshole of me … and for all I know you’re playing the bastard all over Europe right now, and there’s no possible way I can ever kill all the stinking rumors it’s caused, because I’ll never even hear some of them … but anywhere I go, from now on, people are going to run from me when I bring out a tape recorder … and every time that happens, Dick, I’m going to think of you.
All I can do at the moment is ask you to send the fucker back to me and try to mend any damage you’ve already done with it, by rumor or otherwise … and if I keep hearing stories about how you’re “amusing” people with a tape that I duped for you in good faith and without the slightest notion that you’d put it to this kind of use, you might as well plan ahead and buy a plot in the cemetery next to your Aspen house for those dogs of yours, because I’ll come into your yard and blast those little fuckers into hamburger right in front of you. Two of them bit me last summer, and I see no reason to tolerate that shit any longer…so the next time they menace me I’ll kill them.
Okay for now …
Hunter
TO GEOFFREY NORMAN, PLAYBOY:
Playboy subeditor Geoffrey Norman had commissioned Thompson to write a nuts-and-bolts article on the increasingly interesting 1976 presidential campaign.
October 4, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Geoffrey …
If we are coming up on any kind of crunch on this Campaign-76 piece, I should be made aware of it in a very direct way. The only thing I’ve heard since I saw you out here was some kind of paranoid gibberish from Tuck about “uncertain plans” and “flux situations” and “two issues at once,” but none of it made any sense and I’ve been expecting to get some word from you, for good or ill.
My own situation is that I’ve been deliberately waiting as long as possible, before committing anything to print on a 3-month lead time…. Although I have enough pages so I can do a forced march on the bugger whenever the whistle blows…. And meanwhile I’m running up huge phone bills to Washington, keeping myself current on things like [Sargent] Shriver’s entry & who’s working for whom, etc…. but things change almost daily and I’m never sure where or when I’ll have to cut off the input and just write on the basis of whatever I have.
The only development that seems real since I saw you is Shriver’s entry, which was conceived mainly as the Demo “left’s” last hope of stopping [“Scoop”] Jackson in New York, which is beginning to look like the key primary, because it’s now on the same early date as Wisconsin … April 6, I think, but it’s almost dawn here & I don’t have a calendar so I can be absolutely certain…. But in any case, if Jackson wins New York, he’ll be the unquestioned frontrunner until the finale in California, and both those states have that massive Jewish vote that he’s been playing with for years … and according to the wizards, a Jackson win in NY will have a domino effect in California, which will bring him into the convention with enough delegates to either win or dictate … so Shriver’s decision to go for NY is a major development, particularly since he’ll have a lot of the old Kennedy clout. Teddy even gave him his press secretary, Dick Drayne, and that’s definitely a serious move—so serious, in fact, that I’m beginning to get nervous mutterings from my personal brain-trust, the people you met in Chicago; they don’t like Shriver, but they’ll never in hell cross Kennedy, and that’s how it stands, as of now. If Shriver can keep Jackson from winning big in NY, I’d bet on a Kennedy-Shriver ticket in November…. And in fact I’ll do $100 on that ticket right now, at 10–1, which is entirely reasonable at this stage of the game. Let me know if you’re up for it.
And also let me know about whatever deadline we’re facing. I’m leaving for Washington on Oct 10 … and if there’s any real rush I can come thru Chicago on my way back here, and finish off the piece because by then I’ll have a grip on what’s happening. In any case, send word ASAP, so we don’t drift into an emergency. Okay …
Hunter
TO PETER HAAS A
ND HOWARD LEARNER, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ACTIVITIES CENTER:
Thompson generally found public speaking engagements more trouble than they were worth, in every sense.
October 4, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Haas/Learner:
You scurvy bastards. I might have been a trifle bent when I spoke at Ann Arbor last time, but I wasn’t blind—and when I looked out from the podium I saw a fucking madhouse full of people, and at least half of them were crazier than me. That was one of the most berserk situations I’ve ever been plunged into…. But I dug it and on balance I had a good time, so rather than toss your lame money-offer into the fire along with the rest of the junk mail, I gave it a second thought and came up with a possible compromise, to wit:
I’m not sure exactly what I got paid last time, but I think it was around $1200, which means I got about $800—due to the agency’s 33% cut. And I know there were more than 1000 people in that place, so unless you’re embezzling heavily from the Future Worlds speakers budget, why don’t we dispense with this poor-mouth talk about my not making the nut last time…. Unless all those people came in through the windows, which wouldn’t surprise me but I can’t feel real guilty about it either. Security is not my gig.
Anyway, my personal feeling about these “appearances” is the same as it was then: Nine out of ten are bummers, and I don’t do them often enough to affect my income much, either way, so there’s no way in hell that I’ll deal with that madhouse again for less money than I got the first time—and on that one we also had a few amenities tossed in, which worked out very nicely, but my natural bent for discretion militates against putting those kind of specifics in print, so we’ll have to leave them for later, if we ever get that far.
For now, however, we have two options: I can forward your letter to the Rolling Stone lecture bureau and you’ll get a call from Patty Morrisey, asking you for (at least) a $1500 certified check 3 days in advance of my appearance there, plus a round-trip plane ticket from Aspen to Ann Arbor, also in advance … and frankly I’d just as soon do it that way, because it spares me the hassle of writing letters like this one, when I should be working….
The other option, which should only apply if you really are cramped for money (or embezzling), would be for me to explain your heart-rending quandary to Patty & then deal directly with you, based more or less on the decent relationship that emerged from the last trip. In this case, you would have to send me a certified check for $1000 (the same minimum I’d net if we worked through any agency), along with a pre-paid RT ticket from Aspen to Ann Arbor (or Detroit). And we could look at a date in the second week of April, like the 9th or 10th. The whole goddamn spring of ’76 is riddled with presidential primaries, so I’ll have to be pretty precise about dates for this kind of thing.
In any case, by the time you get this letter I’ll be in Washington—staying at the Washington Hilton from Oct 6 thru 10, so you can give me a ring there if you’re up to it. And if I don’t hear from you by Oct 17, by phone or mail, I’ll send your letter on to Patty and she’ll give you a quick lesson in contemporary economics. Okay for now …
Hunter S. Thompson
TO MARY MCGRORY, THE WASHINGTON STAR:
Political reporter Mary McGrory has written a lively liberal column for The Washington Post since The Washington Star folded in the early 1980s. Thompson had shared the stage with McGrory at a forum on politics at Washington, D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
October 12, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Mary …
I meant to apologize personally for that weird situation that I inadvertently plunged you into when I showed up late for the Town Hall thing last week. I wish I could have handled it better than I did … but then I have that feeling about a lot of things these days, and wishing hasn’t helped me much in the way of finding a cure.
Anyway, I assume it was obvious to you that I had no idea at all what I was doing on-stage in the concert hall of the Kennedy Center at that hour of the morning (I came over there thinking we were going to tape a quiet PBS radio show with a studio audience of about 20 shills hired by [Fred] Dutton …) and I was totally un-hinged to find myself in a set that seems in retrospect like something arranged & organized by Albert Speer34 … and my only real thought when I blundered into the back of the hall and saw [New York Times political reporter R. W. “Johnny”] Apple talking up there in front was that if I didn’t get up on the stage quick that I’d never in hell be paid for whatever I was expected to do … so I just made a blind & greedy rush for the mike, if only to establish my physical presence, for the record, so Fred couldn’t claim I hadn’t showed up … and I had no idea I was displacing you until the situation was explained to me (by Pat Oliphant, as I recall) several hours later, although by then it was too late to apologize for putting you in a weird situation that neither one of us had any reason to anticipate. But apologies are cheap, so I won’t dwell on this one … but the first time I get a chance to balance it out in some tangible way, I’ll do it, which is something you’ll just have to take on faith, for good or ill. I haven’t quite come to grips yet with the odd realities that seem to have overtaken me in the past few years, and the notion of being both a journalist and a public figure (sic) still confuses me, particularly when I have to grapple with it in public and with no warning about what to expect.
Anyway, I owe you one … and thanx for being so decent and competent in the way you handled that scene. Given my strung-out condition at the time, you could have reduced me to a confused & gibbering wreck by merely keeping your seat & raising your eyebrows a bit.
Indeed … and so we beat onward, boats against the current (sic)35 …and never really learning much except how to express it a little bit better, now & then; bluff, blunder & filigree, all of it firmly anchored on the Great Skyhook.
Jesus … what am I saying? This is not the kind of thing a front-runner should be even thinking at this point, much less putting in print, but what the hell? When the going gets tough, the tough get going. [1950s New York’s Mad Bomber] George Metesky said that…. OK,
Hunter
TO TOM DOWLING, THE WASHINGTON STAR:
Tom Dowling was among several Washington Star political reporters who encouraged Thompson to run for president himself in 1976.
October 12, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Tom…
Needless to say, it never occurred to me that meeting you for breakfast that morning would have such weird & ominous consequences. The combined efforts of you & Pat [Oliphant] & [Dave] Braaten have complicated my life very severely; I have spent the past 72 hours sorting & pondering applications from wizards, hit-men, seers, zealots and other action-junkies, all of them seeking positions of leverage & influence in my ’76 campaign … and if this madness keeps up you can expect a steady diet of calls no earlier than 2:00 a.m. …Indeed; remember Dr. Frankenstein, who also reaped the fruit of his labors.
On another, more serious & relatively human level, thanx for handling the thing the way you did: You’ve clearly mastered the first and only main rule of political journalism—which as far as I know has never been written down by anybody, including me … but that’s another story & we can talk about it later, once you get the hang of your new job.
Okay for now; see you on The Trail, eh?
HST
TO DAVE BRAATEN, THE WASHINGTON STAR:
Known for his smart tongue-in-cheek columns in The Washington Star, David Braaten joined the groundswell at the newspaper behind a 1976 Hunter S. Thompson candidacy for president.
October 12, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Dave …
Well, you dumb fuckers stirred up a genuinely weird and electric sort of talent/hornets’ nest with that full-bore treatment you laid on me in the twisted wake of my last visit to DC…. I’ve been swamped for the past few days with calls, cables, mail, etc. from people who want to get on the train before it erupts out of
the station; thanx to you & Pat & Dowling, I am now in a position to assemble a genuinely awesome campaign staff, merely by sorting through the numerous applications here on my desk. (There is an element of healthy humor in all this, but there’s also an undertone of something a bit heavier and definitely kinkier than meets the general eye—which means, I think, that the whole matter should be dumped on the cruel & meaty shoulders of my Public Affairs Consultant, Dr. Oliphant. Rank assaults on the public consciousness are nothing if not his specialty, so I think we can leave the next step to him … and meanwhile I’ll be back in D.C. on Nov 4, 5, or 6 for another dog-dance, and if the chance comes up I’ll pull the ripcord on Bellows, just for the hell of it … and I also want to be there for the public crushing of Pat’s left hand, which I’ve already contracted for, so I guess I’ll see you somewhere in all that madness….)
Anyway, it was a nice, sharp kind of piece, and if it hadn’t been for the stinking art that went with it, I’d offer to buy you a beer or so next time around. As it is, however, we’ll have to wait & see…. OK,
Hunter
FROM GOVERNOR JIMMY CARTER:
The Georgia governor welcomed Thompson’s entry into the 1976 presidential campaign.
November 17, 1975
Plains, GA
To Hunter Thompson:
When I heard you had announced I started to withdraw. However, with the faint hope that you may still be interested in the higher office of sheriff, I’m going to stick around & try to fill the vacuum you may leave.