Maybe the Wild Turkey let him down

Hunter S. Thompson was a key influence in the formative years of the Vega. He helped me cultivate my taste for grapefruit, knives, and, yes, Wild Turkey 101. Thompson taught me the necessity of approaching everything from sports to presidential politics through the prisms of a healthy dose of skepticism and even heavier doses of psychotropics. And yet, through his rantings, his optimism and a weird kind of very American idealism always seemed to seep through.

That's why his apparent suicide was like a blow to the gut this morning.

From happier (I guess) times...

Thursday was not a good day for McGovern. By noon there was not much left of Wednesday night’s Triumphant Warrior smile. He spent most of Thursday afternoon grappling with a long list of vice-presidential possibilities and by two, the Doral lobby was foaming with reporters and TV cameras. The name had to be formally submitted by 3:59 P.M., but it was 4:05 when Mankiewicz finally appeared to say McGovern had decided on Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri.

There is a very tangled story behind that choice, but I don’t feel like writing it now. My immediate reaction was not enthusiastic, and the staff people I talked to seemed vaguely depressed – if only because it was a concession to “the Old Politics,” a nice-looking Catholic boy from Missouri with friends in the Labor Movement. His acceptance speech that night was not memorable – perhaps because it was followed by the long-awaited appearance of Ted Kennedy, who had turned the job down.

Kennedy’s speech was not memorable either: “Let us bury the hatchet, etc. … and Get Behind the Ticket.” There was something hollow about it, and when McGovern came on he made Kennedy sound like an old-timer.

Later than night, at a party on the roof of the Doral, a McGovern staffer asked me who I would have chosen for VP … and finally, after long brooding, I said I would have chosen Ron Dellums, the black congressman from Berkeley.

“Jesus Christ!” he said. “That would be suicide!”

“Why not?” I said. “He offered it to Mayor Daley before he called Eagleton.”

“No!” he shouted. “Not Daley! That’s a lie!”

“I was in the room when he made the call,” I said. “Ask anybody who was there – Gary, Frank, Dutton – they weren’t happy about it, but they said he’d be good for the ticket.”

He stared at me. “What did Daley say?” he asked finally.

I laughed. “Christ, you believed that, didn’t you?”

He had, for just an instant. After all, there was a lot of talk about “pragmatism” in Miami, and Illinois was a key state … I decided to try the Daley rumor on other people, to see their reactions.

But I never got around to it, I forgot all about it, in fact, until I flipped through my notebook on the midnight jet from Atlanta. I came across a statement by Ron Dellums. It depressed me, for some reason, but it seems like a good way to end this thing. Dellums writes pretty good, for a politician. It’s part of the statement he distributed when he switched his support from Shirley Chisholm to McGovern:

The great bulk of that coalition committed to change, human freedom and justice in the country has moved actively and powerfully behind the candidacy of Senator McGovern. That coalition of hope, conscience, morality and humanity – of the powerless and the voiceless – that did not exist in 1964, that expressed itself in outrage and frustration in 1968, and in 1972 began to form and welded itself imperfectly but courageously and lifted a man to the brink of the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. That coalition has formed behind Senator McGovern has battled the odds, baffled the pollsters, and beat the bosses. It is my conviction that when that total coalition of the victims in this country is ever formed, this potential for change would be unheralded, for it could pose a real alternative to expediency and status quo politics in America.
-- Ron Dellums, July 9, 1972.


[POSTCRIPT]

Friday, Aug. 11
National Broadcasting Company, Inc.
Thirty Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10020
CIRCLE 7-8300

Dear Hunter,

Because we share a fear and loathing for things which aren’t true, I point out that it ain’t true that I was taken in by the McGoverns on the South Carolina challenge in Miami Beach.

While they were switching votes, I said on the air that they might be trying to lose it deliberately. We had the floor people try to check this out and they ran into a couple of poolroom liars employed by McGovern who said yas, yas, it was defeat, etc., but a little while later Doug Kiker got Pat Lucey to tell it all. (Lucey called headquarters for permission, first, as Kiker waited.)

We were pleased that we got it right. Adam Clymer of the Sun called the next day with congratulations. I think the reason most people thought we blew the story is that CBS blew it badly. I guess I should have gone through the night pointing out what happened, but we got involved in the California roll-call and a lot of other stuff, and suddenly it was dawn.

Other than that I enjoyed your convention piece and let’s have a double Margarita when we next meet.

J. Chancellor


Sept 11 ‘72
Owl Farm
Woody Creek
Colorado

Dear John…..

You filthy skunk-sucking bastard! What kind of gall would prompt you to write me a letter like that sac of pus dated Aug. 11? I checked your story – about how NBC had the South Carolina trip all figured out – with Mrs. Lucey (Pat wouldn’t talk to me, for some reason), and she said both you & Kiker were so fucked up on drugs that you both kept calling it “the South Dakota challenge,” despite her attempts to correct you. She was baffled by your behavior, she said, until Makiewicz told her about you and LSD-25. Then, about an hour later, Bill Daughtery (sp?) found Kiker on his knees in the darkness outside McGovern’s command trailer, apparently trying to choke himself with his own hands … but, when Bill grabbed him, Kiker said he was trying to un-screw his head from what he called his “neck-pipe,” so he could “check the wiring” in his own brain.

But I guess you wouldn’t remember that episode, eh? Fuck no, you wouldn’t! You dope-addled fascist bastard. I’m heading east in a few days, and I think it’s about time we got this evil shit cleared away. Your deal is about to go down, John. You can run, but you can’t hide. See you soon …

Hunter S. Thompson

[all, sic]

Fear & Loathing On the Campaign Trail '72, "July"

Ah, Dr. Thompson. We will miss you as we traverse this dark valley of Republican triumphalism and the messianic bastard who leads them.