WAS US WILDMAN AUTHOR HUNTER S THOMPSON A CIA AGENT?
January 6th 2008 10:18
Was US gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson a CIA operative sent to Australia to spread the gospel about LSD and undermine radical groups?
Highly unlikely said MediaBlab editor Peter Olszewski who was Thompson’s pr manager during the author’s reportedly LSD-addled 1976 tour of Australia.
An interview that Olszewski conducted with Thompson for Loose Licks magazine in September 1976 has been selected to appear this year in a book edited by Thompson’s widow, Anita.
Olszewski said that rather than being a part of a CIA movement, Thompson was probably under observation by the spy agency.
Revelations about Thompson’s tour 1976 Australian tour and intelligence surveillance have come to light following reports in The Australian newspaper that Keith Windshuttle, the conservative author and ABC board member, who was a 1960s student radical who published an article extolling the virtues of dropping acid, has now revealed that he may have been part of a CIA plot to destroy the counterculture.
In October 1967, Windschuttle – then a 25-year-old arts student at Sydney University – caused a furore when he published an article in the campus magazine, Honi Soit, explaining how to manufacture and ingest LSD.
The Daily Telegraph denounced the article, NSW deputy premier Charles Cutler called it deplorable and other government figures demanded that Windschuttle be prosecuted for obscenity, sacked as Honi Soit's editor and expelled. Sydney University took no action.
“But although he was named as the only author of the article, the historian admits much of it was written by an American who turned up in the magazine's offices, claiming to work for the computer company IBM.
Windshuttle told The Australian, "He looked like a US marine in a business suit, with a big jaw and a crew-cut. He had the formula for LSD and he had an article explaining how wonderful LSD was. He told me that although they all looked pretty straight at IBM, they were really anti-establishment characters."
Windschuttle said the American provided the chemical formula and wrote lengthy passages that praised LSD and provided advice for "inner-space astronauts" contemplating a trip.
Windshuttle said that only recently has he become aware of allegations that US spy agencies encouraged the spread of hallucinogens in the 1960s.
He told The Australian, “The conspiracy theory is that the CIA saw the anti-war movement as a threat to foreign policy and decided to neutralise it by promoting drugs. I've never been much of a believer in conspiracy theories. But what made me laugh was that I had an experience that in some ways confirmed the theory."
Windschuttle told The Australian that he has never taken LSD, although he did inhale.
- From MediaBlab
| 39 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
