Hell’s Angels. A Strange and Terrible. Saga by Hunter S. Thompson

During the weeks preceding the second march on the Oakland-Army Terminal, Allen Ginsberg spent much of his time trying to persuade Barger and his people not to attack the marchers. On the Wednesday before the march Ginsberg, Kesey, Neal Cassidy, some of Kesey’s Pranksters and a group of Angels met at Barger’s house in Oakland. A lot of LSD was taken, foolish po­litical discussion was resolved by phonograph voices of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, all concluding with the whole group chanting the text of the Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Buddhist Highest, Perfect Wisdom Sermon.

The outlaws had never met anyone quite like Ginsberg: they considered him otherworldly. That goddamn Ginsberg is gonna fuck us all up, said Terry. For a guy that ain’t straight at all, he’s about the straightest sonofabitch I’ve ever seen. Man, you shoulda been there when he told Sonny he loved him. . . Sonny didn’t know what the hell to say.

The Angels never really understood what Ginsberg meant, but his unnerving frankness and the fact that Kesey liked him gave them second thoughts about attacking a march that he obviously considered a Right thing. Shortly before the November march, Ginsberg published this speech in the Berkeley Barb:

To the Angels

by Allen Ginsberg

These are the thoughts — anxieties — of anxious marchers

That the Angels will attack them

for kicks, or to get publicity, to take the heat off

themselves

or to get the goodwill of police press / or right

wing Money

That a conscious deal has been made with Oakland

police

or an unconscious rapport, tacit understanding

mutual sympathy

that Oakland will lay off persecuting the Angels

if the Angels attack break up the March

make it a riot

Is any of this true, or is it the paranoia of the less

stable-minded marchers?

As long as Angels are ambiguous and don’t give open

reassurance that they can be trusted to be tranquil,

The anxious souls, the naturally violent, the insecure, the

hysterics among the marchers have an excuse for

policy of

self-defense thru violence,

a rationalization for their own inner violence.

That leaves the Marchers with choice of defending them­selves

thru force on account of fear threat

unleashing the more irrational minority of rebels

or at best, defending themselves coolly, under control

BUT CRITICIZED FOR BEING LAWLESS

or not defending selves, and possibly abandoned by police

(for we have no clear assurance from Oakland police

that they will sincerely try to maintain order and guard

our lawful right to march)

if you attack, having innocent pacifists, youths

old ladies busted up

AND CRITICIZED AS IRRESPONSIBLE COWARDS

By you, by Press, by Public by Violence loving leftists

rightists.

As it stands the VDC adopted policy of pacifism for marchers,

WHO SIMPLY WILL NOT RIGHT. And will try to

make the march a HAPPY SPECTACLE.

* *

Do Angels have any questions for Vietnam Day Committee?

any suspicions that might be cleared up now?

What’ s the main complaint?

What do the Angels plan to do Nov. 20? Do they really have

a plan?

Let’s now make a plan that will leave everybody secure.

Because the Fearheads around the VDC public meetings

believe the Image of Angels as They like to bust people

up for kicks and naturally you get a bad rep. that way

especially if you’ve finally found a group you can beat up

with some social approval, temporarily,

compliance of the cops.

You don’t want to change you want to be yrselves,

if that includes sadism, or forced hostility,

here’s a situation where you can get away with it.

BUT NOBODY WANTS TO REJECT THE SOULS OF

THE HELL’S ANGELS

or make them change —

WE JUST DON’ T WANT TO GET BEAT UP

* *

The protest march is trying to point out

that the terror in Vietnam is making

same terror here inside our country

loosing publicly the same cruel psychology that’ll

give approval to busting yellow head gooks in Vietnam

This is infecting peaceful human relations here

allowing for public mass persecution of people

who disagree with

the

growth of mass hostility mass hypocrisy mass conflict

The mass of marchers are not POLITICAL, they’re

PSYCHOLOGICAL HEADS

who don’t want the country to drift into the habit of blind