Fear and Loathing in America

by Hunter S. Thompson

  Loss of the Vietnam book leaves us with maybe a good possibility of going the same route with my Washington/Campaign gig. I’m not sure how this would work out in terms of Ballantine, RH, etc., but maybe it’s worth considering … although RS would have a definite claim to this one, whereas they don’t have any hold at all on the Vegas book …

  … particularly not after going ahead with including the first Battle of Aspen piece in their anthology, or whatever it’s called. Probably it won’t make any difference, but I think we should hurry Silberman inre: that $5000 that comes with the “first third” of the politics book. As I said in the outline/letter, as far as I’m concerned he has the First Third now. He could argue that—claiming it’s only bulk copy—but in any case he has enough so that we can start thinking about where to draw the line for that $5K.

  Another big factor, in that area, is that this “politics” (AD/BA) book has been in limbo for so long that forcing a decision on the First Third/$5000 question would put definite pressure on both me and Silberman. In view of the time factor—the necessity to get it published by next summer—I think some heavy fiscal pressure would be a definite impetus. I get the feeling, from talking to him, that he’s still thinking more in terms of an idea than a book.

  That transition has to be made immediately, or we’ll blow all our lead time—which is already getting narrow. I know, from experience, how hard it is to make Random House move fast on anything. They already have about $10K in the book (about half of that toward my travel expenses), and I think another $5 grand might be just what Jim needs to get his adrenaline up for a fast finish … and some heavy pressure from his end is about the only thing that will force me into the kind of feverish concentration that I’ll need to get the book done … a Forced March, as it were: that’s the only way I ever get anything big done. (He doesn’t have any experience with this, because it was Shir-Cliff who dealt with it on the Hell’s Angels book. On the basis of far less than Silberman has now, S-C gave me the second & third leg of my Advance in a $3000 lump sum—because I said that’s what I needed to “get the book done”—and along with the money came an ominous warning that if he didn’t get a finished ms. on the specified date I could start looking for a newspaper job, because I’d be finished in book publishing … and what happened “is history,” as they say: After nine months of fucking around I had about half the book done—and then with only 2 wks to go before the deadline, I moved to a motel and wrote the second (better) half in four days. Selah….)

  Anyway, the point of that story is grossly evident. I’m definitely going to need some pressure from RH—and preferably from somebody like a copy editor who knows precisely what copy I’m talking about, rather than Silberman, who only knows about the idea. I tend to work only as hard as I think I have to work—and what gets me in gear is a serious deadline & people screaming at me on the long-distance telephone about specifics—like, “We must have the ending to Chapter Seven by Friday, or the printers are going to sack the whole goddamn book.”

  I have a history of never missing a real deadline—and Silberman has (wisely) never given me one, if only because neither of us understands exactly what book I was supposed to be writing. But now I think I understand it. God only knows what he thinks about it. But if he can handle that outline I sent, then he should stop fucking around and start setting deadlines … and he should assign somebody to the book who will prod me unmercifully, in the same way a copy editor named Margaret Harrell kept me locked to the daily grindstone on the Hell’s Angels book.

  Maybe I’ll try to locate Margaret. The last time I heard from her, she’d married a Flemish poet & was living over a water closet in Algiers. But that was a year or so ago, and possibly she’s back by now. If so, she’s definitely the Missing Link. I’ll see if I can find her.

  And that’s about it for now … except to clarify my statement, today, that I wasn’t “desperate for money.” Which is true, because I got that royalties (HA) money—and I hope you’ll remember this moment of addled honesty in the future. But my failure to Cry Wolf doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue that “First Third/$5000” with all your zeal and talent. I need that. Not only for the dollars, but to escalate the (mutual) level of commitment to the book.

  Ciao,

  Hunter

  TO MARGARET HARRELL:

  To sweeten the appeal to his trusted Hell’s Angels copy editor for help on his new book, Thompson attached a darkly funny essay blaming movie icon John Wayne for everything that had gone wrong with the American Dream.

  August 12, 1971

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Margaret …

  Where are you? And why? I’ve lost track completely. My last definite word was from a water-closet in Algiers.

  Anyway, I’m sending this on the odd chance that you might have bounced back to the U.S. since I last heard anything. If so, I’ve been hassling Silberman severely to assign a “Margaret-type” copy editor to this goddamn book that I finally seem to be on the verge of getting together. But god only knows who he’ll assign … and it worries me, for all the obvious reasons.

  The bastard has to be finished by Nov 1, because that’s my date for moving to Washington, DC, to become the Chief Political Correspondent for Rolling Stone—a contract job for one year: Nov ’71 to Nov ’72. The book is now titled “The Battle of Aspen,” but the main thrust is toward the idea of translating our Aspen “Freak Power” tactics into the national politics arena—so it will have to be out by the summer of ’72.

  If you’re anywhere loose & within hailing distance of Random House, I think I could recommend you for a job there—beginning almost immediately, although the pressure won’t get serious until around Sept 15 or maybe even Oct 1. That’s when I’m going to need somebody who can deal with the book without having to waste 2 months “getting to know me.” I am not encouraged by memories of the other copy editors I met there… but if dragging you back is absolutely out of the question, maybe you know somebody who could handle it????

  This deadline is real, I think. I had most of the bastard written last spring, but then I went out from LA to Vegas to do a “Quick caption” for Spts. Illustrated … but I got so involved with the place that the caption is now a book, incorporating what Silberman thought would be the final section of the “big” book. (He’s been a little nasty about letting the Vegas chunk go for a separate book, but I think he’s finally agreed. Last week—after about two months of haggling.)

  So what I’m looking at, right now, is two books. Vegas is almost finished. It’s called: “Fear & Loathing in Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream—by Raoul Duke, Doctor of Gonzo Journalism.”

  If you hurry, you can deal with that one, too. I’ve promised to have it all finished by the end of August. Jim already has about 35,000 finished words, with a maximum of 25,000 more to come. I’d prefer to keep it down to 50,000 or so, but I don’t think I can. It’s a boomer—a spontaneous outburst that almost wrote itself.

  Let me know where you are & if there’s any chance at all of tracking you down to help out on the Battle of Aspen. I’m not worried about Vegas, but the other one makes me very nervous. I suspect I’ll need a friend to make the bastard work & beat the deadline. Send Word at once, from anywhere. Even if you can’t make it, I’d like to know where you are & what you’re doing, thinking, feeling, etc. Ciao …

  Hunter

  (Attached)

  JOHN WAYNE/HAMMERHEAD PIECE:

  This country is so basically rotten that a vicious, bigoted pig like John Wayne is a great national hero. Thomas Jefferson would have been horrified by a monster like Wayne—and Wayne, given a shot across the time-span, would be proud to pistol-whip a “radical punk” like Jefferson.

  John Wayne is a final, rotten symbol of everything that went wrong with the American Dream—he is our Frankenstein monster, a hero to millions. Wayne is the ultimate & perhaps final “American.” He beats the mortal shit out of anything he can’t understand. The brai
nwaves of “The Duke” are like those of the Hammerhead Shark—a beast so stupid and irrationally vicious that scientists have abandoned all hope of dealing with it, except as an unexplainable “throwback.” The Hammerhead, they say, is no different today than he was in One Million B.C. He is a ruthless, stupid beast with only one instinct—to attack, to hurt & cripple & kill.

  There is no evidence in modern science that the Hammerhead Shark had any ancestors—and no descendants, either. But science is at least half-wrong on this count. Like many another species, the Hammerhead survived by moving to a new habitat. The most advanced of them came out of the sea and learned to walk on land. They learned to speak American—despite their tiny brains—and a few of them moved to Hollywood, where they found themselves much in demand as extras & even as heroes in hundreds of “cowboy” films.

  The New Hammerhead was a perfect cowboy. He was vicious & stupid & ignorant of everything except his own fears and appetites. He beat the mortal shit out of anything that made him uneasy, for any reason at all. The Hammerhead was a perfect warrior. He defended the flag. Any flag. He learned to understand words like “orders” and “patriotism,” but the secret of his success was an ancient taste for blood. He thrived on action. But he was brainless; he had to be aimed.

  The Hammerhead was the one you hired when you wanted to kill Indians. He was also available to whip Niggers. And then to hang Wobblies. He was given a badge and a club, and by 1960—or maybe even 1860—the Hammerhead Ethic was the American Dream.

  The press created a whole pantheon of Hammerhead Heroes: J. Edgar Hoover, John Dillinger, Audie Murphy, Joe McCarthy, Ira Hayes, Lyndon Johnson, Juan Corona37… but the king-bitch stud of them all was “The Duke,” John Wayne, a cowboy movie actor whose only real talent was an almost preternatural genius for brainless violence. The Duke wasn’t satisfied with just killing people; he beat them into bloody, screaming hamburger.

  Which made him Number One at the box office—the ultimate Hammerhead, a total American Hero. Thomas Jefferson was a useless artifact at this point, and even Horatio Alger was little less than a convenient myth. By 1960 John Wayne was more American than Studebaker;38 he had the whole Dream in his fists.

  And it was just about then that the Duke took his gig to Vietnam. Both the Negroes & the Indians had been beaten to jelly; the Beatniks were finished, the Hippies were on the ropes … and only the Gooks remained.

  (historical pause)

  The rest is history, as they say. The Duke ate it over there in The Nam. And he took all his relatives down with him: Westmoreland, McNamara, Bundy, Rostow, Rusk, Taylor,39 LBJ—a whole generation of King Hammerheads went down with the Duke in Vietnam … and by 1971 the only real question was whether or not Nixon, whom even the Hammerheads scorned, was stupid enough to link his name forever to some kind of horrible, nightmare echo of Dunkirk40 …an army of wild junkies, fleeing in terror along some broad and bloody highway that Texas contractors built with personal Income Tax money from Saigon to that beach on the South China Sea … and then wading, under fire, into the timeless surf toward a handful of broken lifeboats.

  A nation of Hammerheads going back to sea. A panic worse than anything lemmings ever dreamed of … an indescribable tragedy for those who will die there, with lungs full of blood and seawater … but not for the Main Hammerheads; they will toss another log on the fire down in Texas, and polish their gold-plated memoirs.

  The filthy truth is that 50 years from now our grandchildren will be herded, by law, into stylish jail/bunkers that will still, even then, be called schools …and they will be forced to buy millions of expensively bound “history books,” which they will study under the watchful eyes of a new generation of enforcers who will still, even then, be called “teachers” … and they will learn from their texts and their teachers that men like Richard Nixon and Lyndon Baines Johnson were “American Statesmen.” And other names, like Agnew and Humphrey—along with Rusk, Rostow, and [JFK/LBJ national security adviser McGeorge] Bundy—will fade away into footnotes.

  That is the horror of it: That in 1995 the standard/ text high school history books will not say that America in the 1960s was ruled and effectively gutted by a gang of cheap thugs who also happened, for reasons of political necessity, to be Mass Murderers. The history books will not say that Lyndon Johnson was more vicious than Mussolini and more stupid than Hitler.41 They will not say that Robert McNamara’s hands were so bloody that after five years he forgot what blood smelled like … and that the ranking Generals with “honored West Point names” like Taylor & Westmoreland & Abrams42 were still screaming, all the way to the end, for more blood and bombing and fire … and that even in 1971, with the awful truth so obvious that even Senators could see it, the ranking fixers who still ruled the U.S. Congress were threatening editors of The New York Times with “prosecution for Treason” because they finally published documented proof of what a whole generation of young Americans had been screaming in the streets for five years—while fifty thousand others died senselessly to protect a dozen or so wealthy dope-dealers who were also Generals and occasionally Presidents of that cancerously corrupt little finger of Asia called “South Vietnam.”

  These dirty truths will not appear in the history texts of 1995. The hired fixers will take over just as soon as this undeclared war is unofficially finished—just as soon as the last shark is called off and brought home for an angry rest. And not one of these blood-hungry Hammerhead scumbags will ever be nailed to the final whipsaw judgement they all deserve.

  Not because of what they did. But because they did it in the name of a Dream & a Human Possibility that was fragile from the start, but strong enough to survive almost every abuse and cruel failure that human beings were capable of …

  …except the Hammerhead Ethic, and the beasts who rode it to power. These were the swine who found their model in a brutal freak like John Wayne.

  If it won’t salute, stomp it. Break it. Destroy the goddamn queer dirty thing. Rip its lungs out …

  Then nail that coonskin to the wall, like LBJ said. If there is any real justice in this world or the universe, God has already dug a special hole in Hell for LBJ and the Duke—a pit full of rancid blood & fang-leeches, which the bastards will never escape from.

  But there is not much evidence in history of either God or Justice. The best we can hope for is Truth. Not often, and a pretty thin gruel even then. The Hammerheads get all the meat.

  TO JOE ESZTERHAS, CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER:

  In 1969, Hungarian-born Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Joe Eszterhas had lucked into one of the biggest scoops of the Vietnam War when an old college friend turned Army photographer asked if he’d like to see some gruesome shots of the 1968 massacre of hundreds of South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. Eszterhas became disenchanted with his own triumph, however, when his employer proved determined to profit from the atrocity by selling the images to other publications at outrageous prices, and in September 1971 he excoriated his own newspaper in a fourteen-thousand-word article, “The Selling of the My Lai Massacre,” in the tiny, liberal Evergreen Review—upon which he was immediately fired. Rolling Stone hired him soon after he lost the wrongful dismissal case he filed against the Plain Dealer; he would write several searing articles for the magazine before trying his hand in Hollywood, so successfully that he stayed there. Eszterhas made his screenwriting debut in 1978 with the Sylvester Stallone vehicle F.I.S.T., and in 1992 received a reported $3 million for his script for Sharon Stone’s star-making Basic Instinct.

  August 31, 1971

  Woody Creek, CO

  Joe …

  I just finished your My Lai piece in Evergreen, and it reminded me once again to bitch at Jann Wenner (Rolling Stone) for not offering you a fat contract of some kind. I thought your things on Kent State and The Biker War at Polish Hall were two of the best pieces RS has coughed up this year. I was especially taken with the biker thing, because I could almost smell every fucking detail … and when I read it in galleys I tho
ught, shit, I’d better hustle, because here’s a bastard who can write this stuff almost better than me.

  Anyway, I just sent a note to Wenner, reminding him that I told him to hire you about two months ago. If a gig like that interests you, send him a note & don’t worry about references. RS could use a hell of a lot more of the kind of stuff you do best.

  And if you get to Washington D.C. anytime after Nov 1, ask info. for a RS phone number and give me a call. At the moment it looks like I’ll be there all winter, fucking with national politics.

  Best,

  Hunter S. Thompson

  TO JANN WENNER, ROLLING STONE:

  Thompson was dragged once again into the tradesman chores of freelancing.

  September 10, 1971

  New York, New York

  Jann …

  I tried to call you the other nite—& even during the day—& Stephanie [Mills] finally told me you were in NY. I considered the idea of tracking you down—more or less as an exercise—but under the circumstances I decided against it. All I really wanted was a bit of talk about the preliminary trip to NY & Washington—along with some kind of non-vague understanding about whether or not all my expenses would be covered. This is a problem because [Carte Blanche] hasn’t yet officially reinstated my card, and I’m still waiting for a $5000 check (less $500) that Lynn somehow drilled out of RH.

  In other words, I’m penniless now and without a sure credit card. But if necessary I can borrow the $500 or so that I’ll need to make the trip—and after giving that idea some thought, I decided to go ahead, rather than try to deal with [David] Felton or anybody else at the office. (What this situation underscored, once again, I might add, is the yawning abyss in authority at RS when you’re out of the office. I don’t know enough about the individuals there to offer any suggestions—and I’ve never been one to knock “equality”—but in truth it’s a fucking bummer to call there & know that I’ve hit a goddamn dead end if you’re not available.) We should talk about this, when there’s time. There’s no fucking way you can be a good editor, effective publisher, world-traveling personage & beleaguered family man all at once.