Fear and Loathing in Hunter S. Thompson’s FBI file
Although he doubts that what he got via an FOIA filing is anywhere near complete, MuckRock user Cody Winchester still found plenty of interesting items in the file the FBI kept on gonzo journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson:
In 1967, the FBI was keeping close tabs on The People’s Weekly, the communist party’s west-coast newspaper affiliate. They had an informant who knew his way around the circulation department and was feeding them names of subscribers.
Among them, according to newly released records, was Hunter S. Thompson, a high-flying, drug-addled journalist who had just written a book about riding with the Hell’s Angels.
The FBI began gathering string on Thompson, who moved from San Francisco to Woody Creek, Colo. (where, decades later, he would commit suicide).
The agency followed Thompson’s unsuccessful bid for sheriff of Pitkin County, in which the Freak Power candidate memorably shaved his head bald and began referring to the crew-cut sheriff he was running against as “my long-haired opponent.” (Thompson campaigned on promises to rename Aspen “Fat City USA”; to jackhammer the streets and lay down sod; and to legalize drugs for personal use. Profit-seeking traffickers would be put in stocks on the courthouse lawn.)
FBI agents interviewed Thompson’s mailman and other Woody Creek locals. They collected copies of the Aspen Wallposter, a bimonthly newspaper that Thompson edited with the artist Tom Benton; illustrations of a bloody-mouthed Nixon (spelled with a swastika) and “comments regarding law enforcement and the Director” caught the agency’s eye. The Secret Service was alerted.
All this and more is detailed in Thompson’s FBI file, which I got a copy of last week.
But it’s only 58 pages long. Cody is probably right about this not being the entire file. I have Timothy Leary’s FBI file and it’s a foot tall stack of photocopies. Hunter S. Thompson’s life would surely have called for the same level of “documentation” during the Nixon administration and beyond, as Leary’s did.
Read Hunter S. Thompson’s FBI file (or at least part of it) at MuckRock.
Thank you, Chris Campion!