Dissertation (Autosaved)

Hunter S. Thompson
& “The Ibogaine
Effect”
Findlay Mair
April 2014
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the require-
ments for an award of a BA (Hons) in Journalism
12126 Words

i
Abstract
Hunter Stockton Thompson was a highly regarded journalist who had a strained
relationship with the truth. His archaic, gonzo style of journalism has been much
written about. However, much of this has not been critical academic analysis. This
report looks specifically at the Rolling Stone article ‘Big Ed Exposed as Ibogaine
Addict’. The report aims to provide context and analysis of any lasting effect that
the article had on Hunter Thompson and the article’s subject, Maine Senator Ed-
mund Muskie.
The research firstly examines the four year period leading up to writing Fear and
Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. In doing this the report finds how Thompson’s
opinion on the career of journalism changed, his writing style changed and how
he became increasingly politically active in that time.
The research looks at many interviews, articles, books and films surrounding the
subject matter and discusses the motivations for writing about a political cam-
paign and to be so aggressively against one candidate.

ii
Acknowledgements
Thank you to John Linklater for setting this dissertation on the right track at the
start of the year and for scaring me into trying harder since First Year.
Thanks to my parents for putting up with me while this was being written.
Jack, Morgan and Jerry for their unwavering support, even during the wee hours.
And finally, Hunter S Thompson, without whom this dissertation would have been
considerably shorter.

iii
Contents
Abstract i
Acknowledgements ii
Contents iii
Introduction 1
Literature Review 3
Methodology 8
“Hunter Wanted to Smash the Windows” 10
Chicago and the Death of the American Dream 13
The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved 16
Freak Power in the Rockies 18
“Hunter had it in For Muskie” 22
Ibogaine 27
Conclusion 31
Bibliography 35
Appendix 41

1
Introduction
Hunter Stockton Thompson had a long, complicated relationship with the truth.
His writing closely followed the belief of one of his idols and one of the Great
American writers, William Faulkner, who said “I think truth and facts have almost
no relation to one another. They ain't very closely connected. And I would rather
have as few facts as possible, and let observation and experience and imagina-
tion [do the rest of it].”1
This report will discuss, among other things, the oft cited quip by Frank Mankie-
wicz, the campaign manager of the Democratic Presidential candidate for 1972
George McGovern, that Thompson’s book was “The most accurate and least fac-
tual”234
account of the campaign. The report will analyse several articles to clarify
the meaning behind this statement and how it came to define Thompson’s jour-
nalism.
There is a surprising lack of academic writing on the subject of Thompson and his
work or his many literary alter-egos and even less on the specific incidents that
interest this research. This research will look specifically at one standalone inci-
dent in his career- the Rolling Stone article Big Ed Exposed as Ibogaine Addict.
After immersive reading and textual analysis of many selected relevant articles,
the theory is put forward that this incident had a longer lasting and negative effect
on Thompson and his career than it did on the subject of the article, the Maine
senator Edmund Muskie.
This research will also deconstruct the development of Thompson’s writing style
and character in the years leading up to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
’72. This will be achieved by analysing The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and De-
praved and the final pages of Hell’s Angels.
1
University of Virginia. 1957. Faulkner at Virginia. [ONLINE] Available
at:http://faulkner.lib.virginia.edu/display/wfaudio13#wfaudio13.30. [Accessed 01 March 14].
2
Gonzo - The Life And Works Of Dr Hunter S. Thompson, 2009. [DVD] Alex Gibney, USA: Optimum Home
Releasing.
3
Corey Seymour and Jann Wenner, 2007. Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson. Edition. Sphere, p 173
4
The Film Archives. (2013). Hunter S. Thompson on Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72: George
McGovern (1997). [Online Video]. 1997. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a203s39qPuI.
[Accessed: 01 March 2014].

2
The dissertation will also look at the lasting affect that his visit to Chicago for the
Democratic National Convention in 1968 and his campaign to become sheriff of
Pitkin County had on him politically. It will also find the reasons Muskie became a
target in his reporting of the 1972 election. This deconstruction will provide rele-
vant context as to how Thompson was politically and personally motivated to be
against Muskie.

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Literature Review
The main text to draw close critical analysis from was Fear and Loathing on the
Campaign Trail ’72 by Hunter S Thompson. It is a compilation of articles written
by Thompson for the bi-weekly Rolling Stone magazine during the 1972 US Pres-
idential election. He follows the Democratic primaries to find out which candidate
receives the nomination at the Democratic National Convention to face the incum-
bent Richard Nixon. As this is an account from Thompson himself, it contains his
usual “gonzo” style of reporting which has a significant amount of exaggerations
and embellishments. This research looked, in particular, at the April chapter of the
book to conduct a lot of close textual analysis of Big Ed Exposed as Ibogaine Addict
article. The book was essential as a catalyst towards further research in the dis-
sertation as it is the key example of Thompson as an iconoclastic reporter, where
he regularly uses his creativity, rather than the actual events of the campaign, to
really make his points.
Other works by the same author, films where Thompson is the subject and several
interviews with him were also closely looked at. Key texts included the biography
Gonzo: The Life and Times of Hunter S Thompson which is a collection of stories
told by those who were close to Thompson. The most relevant passages for refer-
ence were Freak Power in the Rockies, a retelling of his own campaign to become
sheriff of Aspen in 1970, and A New Voice on the Campaign Trail. These passages
serve as good background and extra voices from eye witnesses to these events in
his life. These were helpful in understanding different aspects and nuances of
Thompson from those who knew him best and go some way to figuring out his
motivations for going on the campaign trail.
The similarly titled film Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S Thompson (Gibney,
Alex 2008) includes extensive footage from the campaign and interviews with
Thompson where he admits to creating the rumour that Edmund Muskie had been
taking Ibogaine. Of the many documentaries made based around the turbulent
life of Hunter Thompson, this one seems to have the most substance and rele-
vance to the topic at hand. The film features talking heads from people in Thomp-
son’s inner circle as well as several televised interviews Thompson gave and was

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directed by the Academy Award winning documentarian Alex Gibney. The inter-
views and footage will be used in conjunction with other interviews given by him
to other magazines such as The Paris Review, Playboy and The Atlantic.
These were the main texts that the research was based around. Other titles which
were looked at closely included Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey
of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-1976 (Thompson, H.S 2001), a collection of letters
and personal correspondence to and from Thompson during the height of his po-
litical engagement in the early 1970s. The various letters add a personal touch to
issues that concerned Thompson at the time and hint at his attitude and natural
suspicion of other people.
Another book that was very useful in the research was The Boys on the Bus
(Crouse-2003) which is a book written by the other Rolling Stone correspondent
following the campaign. The book critiques several of the reporters from other
media outlets, and their articles, and gave a better understanding of some of the
more eccentric occasions on the campaign trail from the perspective of the trav-
elling mainstream American media.
An example of a highly useful biography is Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times
of Hunter S. Thompson by William McKeen. The author is a professor of journalism
at the University of Florida and so should be seen as an authority on the subject.
The book is thoroughly researched and assisted in the pursuit of further literature
referring to Thompson. The chapters are thematically divided and covered topics
such as Thompson’s obsession with the death of the American Dream and his
struggle with his celebrity status.
In addition to the obvious need for Hunter S Thompson related literature, it was
also necessary to try and unravel the sort of character Edmund S. Muskie was.
The pre-campaign book Muskie by Theo Lippmann, Jr. and Donald C Hansen gives
an overview of the achievements, policies and personality of the 1968 Democratic
Party vice presidential candidate. It is often written, unapologetically, in an en-
tirely biased manner with chapter headings such as “Muskie for President”. As with
reading Thompson-centric literature it was part of the challenge to deconstruct
the bias to find the truth.

5
As outlined in the research proposal ahead of the dissertation, there was a chal-
lenge in looking for any evidence that “the Ibogaine Effect” on Edmund Muskie
had become common knowledge within other sections of the media.
To achieve this, contact was made with several organisations that covered the
campaign. The archives of national and local television networks, radio broadcast-
ers and the print media were contacted in the search for their coverage. The
straight reporting would also serve as a way to view the opinions in Thompson’s
writing in context.
Poring through the online archives of the Maine local newspapers for any evidence
of appropriation of Thompson’s Ibogaine article within their own reportage was
always going to be an ambitious pursuit. This is down to the logical conclusion
that small local newspapers are highly unlikely to stockpile 40 year old articles
within their database. The available archived articles from some of Maine’s largest
newspapers have been lost in the digital age. For example, at The Portland Press
Herald, the newspaper with the largest circulation in Maine, articles were only
available back to 1992.
However, going through the imaginatively titled newspapers.com archive website
did uncover several articles covering the Muskie campaign. Many were from local
large city or state-wide newspapers and used the copy sent by the Associated
Press. Articles written by the AP fall under a strict policy of impartiality and accu-
racy5
so when an article is published and references heckling during Muskie’s ‘Sun-
shine Special’ train stop tour of Florida then we can be more confident that the
Thompson article Enter the Savage Boohoo; Madness & Violence on the ‘Sunshine
Special’ had its roots in reality. Whereas, the same website returns no results from
1972 following up on Thompson’s comments that Muskie had been an Ibogaine
addict.
National Public Radio (NPR) began broadcasting in April 1971 across the United
States. An email exchange with their staff confirmed that their own archives would
only reach as far back as 1996 but that older broadcasts were now available
through the University of Maryland website’s extensive library. This uncovered an
5
News-Values. 2014. News-Values. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.ap.org/Company/news-values. [Accessed
16 March 2014].

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abundance of material from many institutions for coverage of the Muskie cam-
paign- including articles, legislation and even political cartoons from the time
which lampooned the ‘crying speech’.
Requests for archive footage were also made with two of the major television
networks. Columbia Broadcasting System and National Broadcasting Corporation
Universal (CBS and NBC). The intention being to see some news reports from key
moments during Muskie’s presidential run. The moments requested were of his
‘crying speech’ outside of the Manchester Union Leader offices, any coverage of
his ‘sunshine special’ train stop tour of Florida and of his eventual concession as a
candidate. Email exchanges with Maria Montas, from the CBS news archives divi-
sion, led to a dead end on two fronts- that they did not have the requested mate-
rial available digitally and that this would mean an expensive transfer of the clips
from film at the cost of at least $100. (See Appendix 1.1) Following the lodged
request for information with NBC all communication with them ceased. The infor-
mation requested was not vital to the research but could have been beneficial to
gaining a further understanding. Further requests with other television companies
were not considered following these exchanges as they were likely to have led to
further dead ends and wasted time.
The lack of existing evidence that the Ibogaine story had been widely reported
leaves the discussion that the article was the direct cause in the collapse of the
Muskie campaign as inconclusive. It has been difficult to get a hold of any existing,
solid evidence of the rumour appearing in the regular press. Frank Mankiewicz,
the director of the McGovern campaign, said that everybody was aware that these
claims were ridiculous.6
Though, perhaps, it is worth noting that Patrick Caddell,
a top strategist for George McGovern, contradicted Mankiewicz when he said “That
[the Ibogaine story] ended up on the wires, as a straight story, it caused a major
sensation.”7
That there is a contradiction between those who worked for a McGov-
ern, a candidate who stood to directly benefit from Muskie’s downfall, on the au-
thenticity of claims that the press and agencies reported the Ibogaine story as if
6
Weingarten, Marc. The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism
Revolution, New York: Crown, 2006 p.260
7
Gonzo - The Life And Works Of Dr Hunter S. Thompson, 2009. [DVD] Alex Gibney, USA: Optimum Home
Releasing.

7
it were factually accurate gives the claims from several members of Rolling Stone
staff8
, and indeed Thompson himself9
, more weight.
Of course, all these instances of people talking about the story serve to confirm
their narrative. Mankiewicz downplays the impact to make the case for McGovern
winning the nomination by virtue of being the best candidate. While, Caddell is
speaking in a film that speaks openly of Thompson’s legend with all the talking
heads being very positive about the impact he had. And, obviously the Rolling
Stone staff want to believe that news agencies picked up on the story as it made
the magazine seem like a major figure in political discussion.
Academic journals relating to Hunter S Thompson were quite hard to come by as
there does not seem to have been a lot of research and discussion from academics
about him before. Therefore meticulously analysing books, articles and films was
the most efficient use of the research period. It was essential for the research to
not just consider Thompson’s view, or Muskie’s for that matter, as the absolute
truth and considered the opinions of those around him, competing with him and
general commentators during the election. Working with the facts of incidents such
as “the crying speech” and “the Canuck letter” will give a clearer indication than
Thompson’s writing could of the situation at the time.
8
Ibid.
9
Vetter, C, 2005. The Playboy Interview. Journalscape, part 3, 3.

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Methodology
The research required a great deal of thorough critical analysis of the texts. It was
only through extensive reading and immersion with the many texts outlined above
that a satisfactory conclusion was reached. Through immersion of the texts we
can eventually deconstruct Thompson’s work and develop the arguments. By be-
coming immersed with the texts, unique interpretations became more likely.
Howard Stein(1994) encourages researchers to use the self in creative ways to
progress beyond obvious messages and interpretations. This may require pro-
cessing one’s own emotional responses, using one’s being as both recorder and
filter. (Crabtree & Miller, 1999, p181)10
The preferred method to collect and organise data was thematic. The final result
of the research is presented thematically as it is the most practical way to divide
the different planned sections of the study. “A theme invites you to identify the
literature relating to it, to read the relevant parts of that literature, and to form
views on it.” (Levin, 2005 p54)11
The advantages of a textual thematic analysis approach are clear. Texts are read-
ily available, especially from authors with as vast a corpus as Hunter Thompson,
and can be cross-referenced fairly easily. Through close textual analysis the true
meaning of Thompson’s, and others, words can be displayed as inductive, rea-
soned evidence based upon interpretations rather than a positivist approach using
statistics. This qualitative approach is the only appropriate method with which to
construct such a thesis. This hermeneutic approach is one that allows us to see
the ideas of Thompson and with a syntagmatic analysis of the text we can under-
stand, for example, the relationship between Thompson’s failed Freak Power cam-
paign for sheriff of Aspen to his desire to follow the 1972 election as a journalist.
Critical theory encourages much more, and more qualified, reflection than
is characteristic of most mainstream social science. Research should pro-
mote critical reflection and emancipation from frozen social and ideational
patterns. This applies not least to the researchers themselves. (Alvesson &
Sköldberg, 2009, p175)12
10
Crabtree & Miller, Engaging Crystallization in Qualitative Research 1999 Edition SAGE Publishing
11
Levin, Peter, Student Friendly Guides: Excellent Dissertations, 2005 Open University Press
12
Alvesson & Sköldberg, Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research, 2009 SAGE Publishing

9
The many different incarnations of Thompson’s writing from the early 1970s and
late 1960s can all be placed into one corpus of texts; all of his letters, books and
articles based around that time. These all follow Barthes’ criteria for the construc-
tion of a corpus. They all bare relevance to the discussion of the 1972 Presidential
election, and are therefore linked to the core discussion of the research- “The
Ibogaine Effect”. They’re also all written text by Thompson himself as opposed to
a televised interview with him or an article where Thompson is the topic. And,
finally they also all have synchronicity with the events as they are all intrinsically
linked to his political reporting. This corpus expanded, naturally, as the research
was carried out and other corpora of secondary sources were also created, which
considered the same criteria laid out by Barthes above. Dividing different sources
up in this manner made the final analysis of the research a less daunting task as
each text was already split into their relevant category.
It was important for the research to remain impartial throughout and to maintain
an open mind about sources that could potentially disprove any theories so as to
maintain an investigative angle.13
(Levin, Peter, 2005 p55)
The nature of the research rendered any consideration of quantitative methods of
research as doomed. The only realistic approach was to go with qualitative meth-
ods, essentially using a literary approach over a numerical one. Ruling out all
quantitative methods then meant whittling down the qualitative methods to those
necessary for close reading relevant to thematic analysis of the project. In brief,
immersive close textual analysis was the most sensible method towards achieving
a conclusion.
13
Levin, Peter, Student Friendly Guides: Excellent Dissertations, 2005 Open University Press

10
“Hunter Wanted to Smash the Windows”
The difference between them was that [F. Scott] Fitzgerald would look in on the
candy store window, he would look in on the store fronts of the rich. Hunter wanted
to smash the windows. (Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson -
2008)
Hunter Stockton Thompson was a working journalist who yearned to become more
like his idols Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It has been well docu-
mented that he would retype sections from A Farewell to Arms and The Great
Gatsby, books he considered to be examples of ‘The Great American Novel’, to get
a feel for the rhythm and music of their words. 1415
However, over time, he devel-
oped his own writing style which grew into what became Fear and Loathing on the
Campaign Trail ’72. There are several incidents leading up to his coverage of the
1972 presidential election that encapsulate why he tended to embellish the truth,
developing his character and manufacture interesting incidents.
For a long time, Thompson was convinced that journalism was a lower form of
writing and that he was better than the profession. He had written his novel, The
Rum Diary, first but could not get it published until much later. Journalism paid
the bills but he would actively try to avoid doing it.16
In his piece for The Nation
magazine about the Hell’s Angels, Thompson was heavily critical of the image that
the media were portraying of the gang and questioned the media’s attitude to-
wards them.17
This article for The Nation led to his first published book Hell’s An-
gels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. While writing
the book, Thompson realised that it was possible to be creative with journalism as
he manufactured the perfect ending for his narrative. He embedded himself with
the eponymous motorbike gang for a year and it was written as straight, partici-
patory journalism for the most part with a reliance on a tape recorder to accurately
retell debaucherous stories from his time with the gang. (Gonzo, Gibney)
14
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride, 2007. [DVD] Tom Thurman, USA: Starz Home Entertainment.
15
Charlie Rose. (2013). Charlie Rose - Hunter S. Thompson / Isabella Rossellini. [Online Video]. 31 October.
Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVcrimSicek. [Accessed: 28 March 2014].
16
Paris Review - The Art of Journalism No. 1, Hunter S. Thompson. 2014. Paris Review - The Art of Journalism No.
1, Hunter S. Thompson. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/619/the-art-of-
journalism-no-1-hunter-s-thompson. [Accessed 14 April 2014].
17
The Motorcycle Gangs | The Nation. 2014. The Motorcycle Gangs | The Nation. [ONLINE] Available
at: http://www.thenation.com/article/motorcycle-gangs#. [Accessed 2 April 2014].

11
It had been a bad trip…fast and wild in some moments, slow and dirty in others,
but on balance it looked like a bummer. On my way back to San Francisco, I
tried to compose a fitting epitaph... but after getting such a jolt of reality I was
not much concerned about justice.18
(Thompson-Hell’s Angels-P284)
In the closing lines of the book, the postscript, when he says he “tried to compose
a fitting epitaph” he is admitting that he had struggled to think of an original
ending. A confrontation between Thompson and Cliff ‘Skip’ Workman, a Hell’s An-
gels member, on Canadian television19
nearly gets to the bottom of why after a
year living on the road with them that he would suddenly be ‘stomped’ and ‘at-
tacked’ by a group of them. The short clip is used as the Hell’s Angels’ right to
reply and clarify the reason Thompson had been beaten. Workman dominates the
conversation accusing Thompson of reneging on a promise of a keg of beer, and
more sinister for getting involved in a domestic dispute between “Junkie George,
his old lady and his dog”. Thompson looks uncomfortable throughout, exhausted
from the rigours of a 35 day press junket.20
(McKeen, p 112) The confrontation
makes it seem as if Thompson had directly interfered with the man beating a
woman but from what we know about Thompson it would have been hypocritical
for him to hold a moral objection to such an occurrence. This is evidenced by his
agreement with Workman’s statement that “To keep a woman in line, you’ve got
to beat them like a rug every once in a while.”21
And that he was also prone to
beating his first wife, Sandy, if she dared to wake him before 3pm. (Carroll, 1993,
192-193)
Talking to P.J O’Rourke he said it was money that brought about the end with
the Angels. On another day, he said the fight started because he was preaching
the superiority of his BSA to a Harley-worshipping Angel. On another day talk-
ing to Craig Vetter of Playboy, he said it was because he witnessed an Angel
named ‘Junkie George’ mistreat his girlfriend and then his dog. (Mckeen-2013-
p110-111)
Thompson could not stick to one reason for his being beaten. Maybe there were
several, maybe there was none. It is open to interpretation. Ultimately, the reason
is irrelevant because it did happen and it provided him with a great ending to his
18
Hunter S. Thompson, 2003. Hell's Angels (Penguin Modern Classics). Edition. Penguin Books, p 284
19
CBC. (1967). RetroBites: Hunter S. Thompson & Hell's Angels (1967). [Online Video]. 07 July. Available
from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyu44rsaZo . [Accessed: 02 April 2014].
20
William McKeen, 2013. Outlaw Journalist: The Life & Times of Hunter S. Thompson. Edition. Aurum Press Ltd,
p 112
21
CBC. (1967). RetroBites: Hunter S. Thompson & Hell's Angels (1967). [Online Video]. 07 July. Available
from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyu44rsaZo . [Accessed: 02 April 2014].

12
book. The timing of the assault on Thompson was certainly very convenient, al-
lowing himself enough days, four, to write up a post script and get a picture of his
misshapen face sent away to Random House, his publisher. As William McKeen
recounts in his biography of Thompson, it also made for a great promotional angle
allowing the publisher to feed the question “So, what exactly was it like to be
stomped by the Hell’s Angels?”22
Sonny Barger, the president and co-founder of
the Hell’s Angels, said in his memoirs “The problem I have with it is that it just
really isn’t a true story, but it is a very, very good story. He was able to say. ‘I
met, I lived with and I was almost killed by the Angels.”23
This incident was a sign
that Thompson would be willing to force himself into situations that could have
been detrimental to him as a man but hugely beneficial to him as a writer.
22
Ibid
23
Ibid

13
Chicago and the Death of the American Dream
By 1968, Hunter takes on this idea that he is going to be able to write on the
death of the American Dream and Hunter thought that covering politics- ‘68
was going to be the book. (Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thomp-
son -2008)
As discussed earlier, Thompson looked up to writers like F Scott Fitzgerald. The
Great Gatsby is a much talked about book and is considered by many to be a good
example of the Great American novel. One of the key themes in Gatsby is the
death of the American Dream during the Great Depression of the 1920s. Fitzgerald
described the main plot “the whole idea of Gatsby is the unfairness of a poor young
man not being able to marry a girl with money.” 24
Gatsby’s failure to do so is
ultimately, also, the failure of the American Dream. It is likely that Thompson was
directly influenced by Fitzgerald’s criticisms of an increasingly materialistic Amer-
ican society and had taken this into consideration when he proposed that he should
write a book about the death of the 1960s American Dream for Random House. 25
No one sent me to Chicago.
I had a contract to write a book. I got an advance on it. The working title was
The Death of the American Dream. I had no idea what it meant. I didn’t care
what it meant. I just wanted money from a publisher and I wanted to write
something else. (Thompson-2002-p95)26
Thompson had become worried that he had taken on a subject so ‘vast &
weighty’27
to be confined to one book. He persuaded his publishers to give him
press credentials for the Democratic Party national convention in Chicago in Au-
gust of 1968. He had a hunch that a Presidential campaign would be a good place
to search for the death of the American Dream. 28
The events in Chicago would
brood an extreme amount cynicism in him towards national politics. There were
mass anti-war protests and demonstrations outside the convention centre. These
protests were met with violence and brutality from the Chicago police force as
innocent bystanders and journalists, such as Thompson, were clubbed and beaten.
The violence grew to such an extent that CBS reporter, Dan Rather, was attacked
24
Andrew Turnbull, Scott Fitzgerald (London: Penguin, 1970), 157.)
25
p 114
26
Hunter S. Thompson, 2002. Songs of the Doomed. Edition. Simon & Schuster, p 95
27
p 123
28
Hunter S. Thompson, 2002. Songs of the Doomed. Edition. Simon & Schuster, p 95

14
on live television by “some of Mayor Daley’s thugs.”29
The actions of the police
further fuelled Thompson’s contempt for authority figures as Chicago mayor Rich-
ard Daley took the majority of the criticism for inciting a police riot. The riots in
Chicago were just one of many in a year of unrest throughout the nation following
the assassinations of anti-war Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy30
and the
black civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jnr.31
Traditionally, in an election year, the Democratic convention serves the purpose
of confirming the Presidential candidates. In March of 1968, the incumbent Presi-
dent, Lyndon B Johnson, had made the decision to withdraw and not accept or
seek any nomination to run against the Republican Richard Nixon.32
This came
against the backdrop of a growing sentiment throughout the country that America
should pull out of the war in Vietnam but nonetheless was still considered a sur-
prise. The frontrunner for the Democratic nomination had been Kennedy before
he was assassinated on the 6th
of June. He was also Thompson’s favoured candi-
date. Thompson had written to one of the Kennedy campaign staffers, Ted
Sorensen, to offer his assistance as a speechwriter. He saw Kennedy as the ideal
candidate to “get that evil pigfucker [Johnson] out of the White House and not let
Nixon in.”33
For Thompson, Kennedy represented the best chance for America to
pull out of the Vietnam War and to avoid a Nixon presidency.
The death of Kennedy left only the incumbent Vice-President, Hubert Humphrey,
as a viable candidate by the time of the convention in Chicago. His running mate
was the Maine senator Edmund Muskie. “I think that [Chicago riots] was a mile-
stone event for Hunter that he never got over. And he never forgave Humphrey,
who was the candidate, and he never forgave Muskie, who was the Vice-presiden-
tial candidate, for supporting Mayor Daley and his Chicago police.” (Crouse,
Gonzo, Gibney)
29
p 124
30
Hill, G, 1968. Kennedy is Dead, Victim of Assassin; Suspect, Arab Immigrant, Arraigned; Johnson Appoints Panel
on Violence. The New York Times, 6/6/1968. 1.
31
Caldwell, E, 1968. Martin Luther King Is Slain in Memphis; A White Is Suspected; Johnson Urges Calm. The New
York Times, 5/4/1968. 1.
32
Wicker, T., 1968. Johnson Says He Won't Run. The New York Times, 31/3/1968. 1.
33
Hunter S. Thompson, 2001. Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-
1976. Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, p 50

15
The candidates were fully supportive of Mayor Daley and his police force’s use of
aggression during the riots. Their support of Daley was the start of a long grudge
that Thompson would carry with him when covering the Democratic primaries in
1972 where both men would return as candidates in their own right. As a childhood
friend put it “I always mark that time as when his political consciousness really
kicked in.”34
Thompson had now completely lost faith in the national political scene
and did not feel that any of the remaining candidates were representative of him.
34

16
The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved
In 1970, Thompson was sent by the short lived periodical magazine Scanlan’s
Monthly to his home state to cover the Kentucky Derby. The Kentucky Derby is
Decadent and Depraved, arguably above all others, was the one article to drasti-
cally change his outlook on writing and journalism. In an interview with The Paris
Review, he admitted that he had a new appreciation for journalism as a profession
following his struggle to meet his deadline.35
It would also lead to his first encoun-
ter with the British artist Ralph Steadman whose illustrations were an integral part
in creating what became gonzo journalism.
Just thought you’d like to know that the Kentucky Derby action was a night-
mare of such massive & horrible proportions that even now, at a safe distance,
I find myself loath to even think about it. But the “story” got done- at fantastic
cost to Scanlan’s- and the English illustrator they sent was absolutely first-
class.36
(Thompson-2001-p306)
Thompson was apologetic about the article. Having sent pages of his handwritten
notes, giving up on his typewriter37
, he wrote to Warren Hinckle, the editor at
Scanlan’s Monthly, saying that he did not think he had given himself sufficient
time to write everything that he felt he needed to say, that it was rushed and
completely disorganised.38
The latter two points, for better or worse, would be a
feature of Thompson’s style for the rest of his career. In other letters he was self-
deprecating and defeatist about his work on the Kentucky Derby. In a letter to his
companion on the trip, Ralph Steadman, he said “The article is useless” and apol-
ogised again “In all a bad show & I’m sorry it wasn’t better.”39
Later he called it
“a shitty article, a classic of irresponsible journalism” in a letter to Bill Cardoso of
the Boston Globe.40
Thompson was despondent. He felt that he had botched the
assignment.
35
Paris Review - The Art of Journalism No. 1, Hunter S. Thompson. 2014. Paris Review - The Art of Journalism No.
1, Hunter S. Thompson. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/619/the-art-of-
journalism-no-1-hunter-s-thompson. [Accessed 29 March 2014].
36
1976. Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, p 306
37
Beef Torrey & Kevin Simonsen, 2008. Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson (Literary Conversations Series).
Edition. University Press of Mississippi, p 46
38
1976. Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, pp 296-297
39
Ibid, pp 309-310
40
Ibid, p 295

17
It was one of those horrible deadline scrambles and I ran out of time. I was
desperate. Ralph Steadman had done the illustrations, the cover was printed
and there was this horrible hole in the interviews. I was convinced I was fin-
ished, I'd blown my mind, couldn't work. So finally I just started jerking pages
out of my notebook and numbering them and sending them to the printer. I
was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody. Then when
it came out, there were massive numbers of letters, phone calls, congratula-
tions, people calling it a "great breakthrough in journalism." And I thought,
"Holy shit, if I can write like this and get away with it, why should I keep trying
to write like The New York Times?" It was like falling down an elevator shaft
and landing in a pool full of mermaids. (Thompson-1974)
The reaction to the article was the polar opposite of what he had expected. After
the fact, Bill Cardoso recalled a letter he had sent to Thompson saying “I don’t
know what the fuck you’re doing, but you’ve changed everything. It’s totally
Gonzo.”41
While Thompson recalled the letter as saying “Forget all the shit that
you’ve been writing, this is it; this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling.”42
Neither man could remember the exact wording of the letter when asked offhand
in an interview but it is perhaps significant that Thompson’s perception of what
his peers thought of his writing until that point was that it had been ‘shit’ and that
he was now fulfilling their expectations. This official account from both of their
lifetimes does agree however, that Cardoso was the first to give Thompson’s
manic, rushed style of writing a name. According to The Boston Globe, Gonzo was
a local colloquial term for someone who was behaving crazily or out of their mind
but was also playing it up for laughs.43
The support from peers such as Cardoso,
gave Thompson the confidence to persist with this writing style, or at least the
legend of it, in his many Fear and Loathing ‘72 articles. Many of these would follow
the established narrative thread of the Kentucky Derby piece on the death of the
American Dream.
41
E. Jean Carroll, 1993. Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson. First Edition Edition. Plume,
p124
42
Beef Torrey & Kevin Simonsen, 2008. Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson (Literary Conversations Series).
Edition. University Press of Mississippi, p47
43
Historian casts doubt on origin of Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo label - The Boston Globe. 2014. Historian casts
doubt on origin of Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo label - The Boston Globe. [ONLINE] Available
at:http://www.boston.com/yourtown/cambridge/articles/2010/11/21/historian_casts_doubt_on_origin_of_g
onzo_label/?page=2. [Accessed 2 April 2014].

18
Freak Power in the Rockies
Having inserted himself into the story at the Kentucky derby in June of 1970 and
becoming increasingly cynical of politics following the 1968 Democratic convention
and the election of Nixon, Thompson turned his attention to local politics in Aspen,
Colorado. In 1969 he organised the campaign for Joe Edwards, on the Freak Power
ticket, in the city’s mayoral elections. The campaign engaged with the disenfran-
chised, cynical youth population of Aspen. There was a significant amount of hos-
tility felt between those in power and young people.
“Guido Meyer, the police magistrate… looked over his reading glasses and said,
‘You dirty hippies are messing up our town. We’ve got to clean you up. Ninety
days.’ That was the whole trial.” 44
Edwards was a young lawyer living in Aspen,
he had filed the first civil rights suit in Colorado under new federal laws put in
place to help black people registered to vote against the city police, city magistrate
and city council. He won the case for the oppressed youth in Aspen and soon
became known as the ‘hippie lawyer’.45
Along with a politically engaged Thomp-
son, he ran for mayor against an unlikely alliance of the local Democrats and
Republicans. In the end, Edwards narrowly lost by six votes. To this day, Edwards
claims that he would have won had the late absentee ballots been included in the
official final count.46
It was during this mayoral campaign that Thompson created a caricature, a fic-
tionalised version of himself, which would be used frequently throughout his writ-
ing career to differentiate between the real Hunter Thompson and the ‘Doctor’
Hunter Thompson. For $10 Thompson, along with the campaign artist Tom Ben-
ton, purchased a doctorate of divinity degree from the Missionaries of the New
Truth in Evanston, Illinois. 47
They were now legally capable of officiating in the
44
Ibid, p 101
45
Ibid
46
‘Hippie lawyer’ recalls Battle of Aspen | AspenTimes.com. 2014. ‘Hippie lawyer’ recalls Battle of Aspen |
AspenTimes.com. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.aspentimes.com/news/ticker/9234328-113/edwards-
aspen-county-pitkin. [Accessed 08 April 2014].
47

19
marrying of people though Thompson felt he was better suited to funerals.48
Indi-
cating his morbid affinity for loss and losers as opposed to the comfort and joy
associated with weddings.
When I lost, there was criticism that my campaign was just too far out there.
Hunter thought he would widen the “out there” span quite a bit and be the
farthest-out candidate you could possibly imagine. (Seymour & Wenner-2007-
p 101)49
As a result of the close-run mayoral campaign, Thompson decided to fulfil on a
promise he made to run for sheriff of Pitkin County, which takes in Aspen and the
surrounding area, in the 1970 election. Thompson was frightened that his relative
popularity, compared to Edwards, could see him win this election on the back of
such a close race the year before. He wrote and had published his first article in
Rolling Stone for the October 1st
1970 issue, one month before the election, de-
tailing everything that the Freak Power campaign had learned from their narrow
loss.50
The article was meant to appear in the magazine for the July issue to “mo-
bilize an army of freaks to descend on Aspen and scare the hell out of the locals”.51
Thompson, however, avoided the assignment to party on a boat with Ralph Stead-
man instead, sabotaging his chances of victory by only managing to complete the
article 3 months later.
Before writing at length about what he felt went wrong the year before and re-
vealing their campaign strategy, he briefly alludes to a real fear of victory, and
the responsibility that comes with it, when he says:
The possibility of victory can be a heavy millstone around the neck of any
political candidate who might prefer, in his heart, to spend his main energies
on a series of terrifying whiplash assaults on everything the voters hold dear.
(Thompson-2010-p 151)52
In the original article, this refers to the tactics used in a doomed campaign from
another American writer, Norman Mailer, during his run to become mayor of New
York. But this can also be seen as a confession from Thompson that, although he
frequently writes about the problems that those in power are causing the country
on a daily basis, he would rather not become a part of the government as it would
48
Ibid, p 104
49
Ibid, p 105
50
Hunter S. Thompson, 2008. Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of
the American Century. Edition. Penguin Books, Limited (UK), p 92
51
p 152
52
Hunter S. Thompson,2010 .Great Shark Hunt. Edition. Picador, p151

20
seriously affect his long term narrative on the death of the American Dream. As
well as describing his own campaign strategy in depth, he also gave away what
he felt was the only possible strategy for defeating him- “we couldn’t possibly win
in 1970 unless the Democrats and Republicans effectively split the ‘establishment
vote’ as they had a year earlier.”53
The two major parties promptly decided to
come together in order to stop the Freak Power movement’s progress. They
dumped one candidate each and stuck with the incumbent sheriff Carrol Whitmire
and commissioner J. Sterling Baxter. It should not be considered a coincidence
that his article on the 1969 mayoral election was published in time to assist the
opposition but was too late to have a positive impact on their ‘freak-registration’
campaign.54
His campaign also allowed for him to develop the manic public persona that would
stick with him for the rest of his career. The platform was outrageous and geared
almost entirely at solving his personal problems- to punish “dishonest dope deal-
ers”55
and to forbid non-residents from hunting and fishing, except those who gain
a signed endorsement from a resident.56
These policies were designed to give
Thompson better deals on drugs and to criminalise outsiders coming into the
county to hunt but was also given a qualifier so that he was still able to hunt with
visiting non-resident friends.
In addition, he appealed to his core base of voters who ‘hated politics and espe-
cially hated politicians’57
with several frivolous stunts during the campaign. He
shaved his hair off completely in order to refer to Whitmire, who wore a crew cut,
as his “long haired opponent” during their debate at the Wheeler Opera House
where they had “filled the place with hippies” so it was little surprise that Thomp-
son had “destroyed the guy”.58
This was an exercise in preaching to the converted
with the debate being heavily focused on drug policy and Thompson saying all the
things that the hippies wanted to hear. This kind of behaviour allowed Thompson
53
54
Ibid
55
Hunter S. Thompson,2010 .Great Shark Hunt. Edition. Picador, p162
56
Ibid, p 163
57
58
Corey Seymour and Jann Wenner, 2007. Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson. Edition. Sphere, pp 107-107

21
drew attention to the campaign, parodied cheap political point scoring, and as-
sisted in developing his eccentric public persona which would all come across later
in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.
In the end, Thompson had won the popular vote in Aspen city but ultimately lost
out by a much larger margin than Edwards had the previous year once the rest of
the county’s votes had been counted. He had 1,065 votes to Whitmire’s 1,533.59
He addressed the press following the announcement of his defeat, wearing a grey
wig and American flag, “Unfortunately, I proved what I set out to prove and it was
more a political point than a local election that the American Dream really is
fucked.” (Gonzo, Gibney) His friend Michael Solheim said of the result “We would
have won if we had taken the thing a drop more seriously.”60
This relates back to
the earlier point that Thompson was afraid of the consequences in the event of his
victory and made himself as unelectable as possible and that the whole campaign
gave him some good source material for his promised American Dream book.
59
p 156
60
p 156

22
“Hunter had it in For Muskie”
Hunter had it in for Muskie like you couldn’t believe. Hunter just could not lay
off of Muskie. (Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson -2008)
The front-runner at the start of the campaign from the Democrats was the Maine
senator and former Vice-Presidential candidate Edmund Muskie. Muskie had im-
pressed as Hubert Humphrey’s running mate in 1968, indeed a perception in the
press at the time was that Muskie had been ‘carrying’ Humphrey in the race
against Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.61
He also had the benefit of a large staff
making themselves available for consultation, many of whom had been involved
in some capacity with the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies.62
Some of them
believed in Muskie while others said that “they were good Democrats and wanted
the leading party figure, whoever he was, to have the benefit of their advice.”63
As 1972 the general consensus was that he appeared to be the most likely candi-
date for the Democrats.64
“Look,” said [Boston Globe reporter Marty] Nolan. “I’ve taken three and a half
years of this kind of shit from Nixon and those people, and I’m not gonna take
it from you pricks.”(Crouse-2003-p46)65
Though some of Muskie’s policies varied from Nixon there were several parallels
that could be drawn between the two. Whether it was intentional or subconscious
of Thompson to be vicious towards Muskie there were some similarities between
the two candidates that Thompson would exploit to make his case for McGovern.
In previous writing he had often felt the need to use an antagonist, for example
using high profile political figures such as Nixon66
to illustrate his point. In the
absence of the Republican nominee, Muskie became his foil.
In the early New Hampshire primary, the press expected Muskie to win by more
than half of the vote so when the results on March 7th
showed that Muskie had
only won with 46% of the vote the press began speculating that this was a setback
for his campaign. Muskie held a press conference in Manchester where he
61
Theo Lippman, Jr. and Donald C. Hansen, 1971. Muskie the Man Who Would Have Won In 1968. Edition 1.
W.W Norton Co, p 129
62
Ibid, p 220
63
Ibib, p 221
64
Timothy Crouse, 2003. The Boys on the Bus. Reprint Edition. Random House Trade Paperbacks, pp 44-46
65
Ibid
66
Hunter S. Thompson,2010 .Great Shark Hunt. Edition. Picador, pp 177-184

23
“launched into a tirade”67
and accused the press of misinterpreting the result and
his words because he thought they were out to get him.68
In New Hampshire,
Muskie would also make a speech at Keene High School with a question and an-
swer session integrated into his visit.69
During the session a student asked an
uncomfortable question of the senator which caused Muskie to react with anger
and accused the teenager of being a “plant from the McGovern campaign.”70
These
were early signs that the stress of campaigning was getting to him and of a con-
stant paranoid attitude which was reminiscent of Nixon.
Infamously, Nixon was notorious for his hostile attitude towards the press and was
later recorded saying to his national security adviser Henry Kissinger “Never for-
get…the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are
the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.”717273
Of
course, Muskie’s paranoia compared with such an extreme case as Nixon ended
when he was ruled out of the race, whereas Nixon’s worst would unravel in the
months leading up to the election.
The war in Vietnam was one of the major divisive issues of the 1972 campaign.
Muskie was a co-author of a 1965 senate committee report that reached several
conclusions on the conflict in Vietnam.74
His personal preference following the find-
ings of the report was for a policy of “unremitting pressure in a carefully measured
67
Ibid
68
Ibid
69
Lou Cannon, 1977. Reporting: An Inside View. Edition. California Journal Pr. P 157
70
"The Story That Still Nags at Me", by David Broder, The Washington Monthly, February 1987, pp. 29-35 .
2014. "The Story That Still Nags at Me", by David Broder, The Washington Monthly, February 1987, pp. 29-35 .
[ONLINE] Available at: http://www.unz.org/Pub/WashingtonMonthly-1987feb-00029. [Accessed 2 April 2014].
71
Nixon's the one still preoccupied with enemies - The New York Times. 2014.Nixon's the one still preoccupied
with enemies - The New York Times. [ONLINE] Available
at:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/world/americas/03iht-nixon.1.18356903.html?_r=0. [Accessed 10
April 2014].
72
Recordings reveal Richard Nixon's obsession with predecessors | World news | theguardian.com .
2014. Recordings reveal Richard Nixon's obsession with predecessors | World news | theguardian.com .
[ONLINE] Available at:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/03/richard-nixon-tapes. [Accessed 10
April 2014].
73
Tapes show a besieged Nixon saw enemies all over - USATODAY.com. 2014.Tapes show a besieged Nixon saw
enemies all over - USATODAY.com. [ONLINE] Available
at:http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-12-03-nixon-disclosures_N.htm. [Accessed 10
April 2014].
74
The Vietnam conflict: The substance and the shadow. Report of M. Mansfield, E.S. Muskie [a.o.] to the
Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. January 6, 1966. (Book, 1966) [University of Maryland,
College Park]. 2014. The Vietnam conflict: The substance and the shadow. Report of M. Mansfield, E.S. Muskie
[a.o.] to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. January 6, 1966. (Book, 1966) [University of
Maryland, College Park]. [ONLINE] Available at: http://bit.ly/1r1u6xE. [Accessed 17 April 2014].

24
response to the aggression of the enemy.”75
It was clear that while the Democrats
were in the White House that Muskie was in favour of America remaining active in
the Vietnam War. However, by 1969 and with the Republicans in control of the
White House, Muskie had become outspoken in his opposition to the war.76
For an
issue as complex as the long-term war in Vietnam it is possibly very cynical to
assume that a man could not change their opinion over time without the intention
of gaining political capital. It would also be naïve to assume otherwise, as Muskie
admitted that his new role “as a leading presidential aspirant during a Republican
[administration]”77
had changed his public stance on the issue. Muskie also said
in an interview “Nixon criticised President Johnson for some of the things he’s
doing himself. This role has to be fulfilled. The party out of power has more obli-
gation to criticise policies than when it is in power. That’s the basis of our party
system.”78
His stance on the war was borne more out of a political responsibility
rather than any personal feeling that the American involvement was wrong. For
that, Thompson would have seen him as just another dishonest career politician
(Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson-2008) in the campaign
standing in the way of the only candidate he believed, George McGovern.79
Much like Nixon (Black, 2007 : 406), and indeed Thompson (Carroll, p 192), Mus-
kie was also a very temperamental man who frequently lost his cool with report-
ers80
,his wife81
and his staff.82
The similarities in personality between Nixon and
Muskie and lack of trust Thompson felt in both men have to be considered one of
many reasons that Thompson sought Muskie as a target. This is in addition to
Muskie being one of the major threats to McGovern being declared for the nomi-
nation. And that while Muskie was campaigning, Nixon was inactive on the cam-
paign trail as he ran virtually unopposed- only Ohio representative John Ashbrook
75
W.W Norton Co, pp 174-179
76
Ibid
77
Ibid
78
Ibid
79
p 185
80
Timothy Crouse, 2003. The Boys on the Bus. Reprint Edition. Random House Trade Paperbacks, pp 45-53
81
Ibid
82
Ibid

25
and California representative Pete McCloskey declared an opposition83
- in the Re-
publican primaries. Thompson also still held resentment towards Muskie, and
Humphrey, for the Chicago riots in 1968.
The Associated Press reported (See Appendix 1.2) following Muskie’s charm of-
fensive on Florida in his ‘Sunshine Special Whistle Stop’ tour that there were sev-
eral hecklers during his final stop in Miami. Thompson had become bored of hear-
ing the same speech repeated verbatim to different voter demographics84
and felt
that the whole thing was “pure Nixon”.85
According to the story filed by Thompson,
he had seen a man, just out of jail, in the hotel’s reception bellowing crazily about
“all these pansies around here trying to suck up to Muskie.” The report in the
Associated Press said that one heckler had yelled out “You sound just like Nixon”.
(See Appendix 1.2) Thompson had been with the man, who he called ‘the boohoo’,
for 5 hours before giving him the press ticket.86
It is highly unlikely that a com-
parison between Muskie and Nixon had not been drawn in that time between the
two of them.
But the final reason for Thompson to relentlessly write negatively about Muskie is
that he had managed to get himself “permanently barred”87
from attending Muskie
campaign events. In an interview with Newsweek, Thompson said of the main-
stream reporters “Guys write down what a candidate says and they report it when
they know damn well he’s lying.”88
However in this instance, Thompson’s icono-
clasm is unfounded as he is equally guilty of playing “the game”.89
While Thomp-
son had the freedom to write whatever he felt like about the election, he was also
conscious that he would be limited in what he could write while Muskie remained
the front-runner. As Thompson’s Rolling Stone colleague put it, “A campaign re-
porter’s career is linked to the fortunes of his candidate.”90
So, while Thompson
83
Nixon Renominated. 2014. Nixon Renominated. [ONLINE] Available
at:http://partners.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/720823convention-gop-ra.html. [Accessed 11 April
2014].
84
Hunter S. Thompson, 2005. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (Harper Perennial Modern Classics).
Edition. HarperPerennial, pp 103-107
85
Ibid
86
87
Ibid, p 145
88
p 192
89
Ibid
90
Timothy Crouse, 2003. The Boys on the Bus. Reprint Edition. Random House Trade Paperbacks, p 55

26
was barred from the Muskie campaign it would have become increasingly difficult
for him to continue writing about his campaign with some clarity without being
present. Thompson had to increase the pressure on Muskie, following the Sunshine
Special tour, so that he could get back to writing with complete free reign. In doing
this, he is no different from a reporter hiding negative details about a campaign
for their own personal gain91
except Thompson’s writing is intended to have the
inverse effect.
91
Ibid

27
Ibogaine
Gzowski: What did you do to Ed Muskie?
Thompson: Nothing, Ed Muskie did it to himself. I just helped him along.
(Thompson-2010a-p72)92
While the article that got Thompson banned from the Muskie campaign had some
basis in reality, in that Muskie had been heckled and it was almost definitely the
man Thompson had given away his press credentials to, it is fairly clear that Big
Ed Exposed as Ibogaine Addict had little relationship with factual accuracy. The
article does open with a factual definition of the history and symptoms of the
African drug Ibogaine93
though it does also introduce the idea of Dr Claudio Na-
ranjo, who is hinted as being the “mysterious Brazilian doctor” working with Mus-
kie.94
The article goes into great detail about how Muskie’s decline as a campaigner
showed similar signs to what a person taking Ibogaine would be dealing with.
It does raise a curious point that Muskie had changed his tactics for dealing with
hecklers, especially with the national press watching and filming his whistle stop
tour of Florida.95
Since the 1968 election, Muskie had a fool proof tactic for dealing
with hecklers, he would invite them up on to his level and allow them to speak
uninterrupted for 10 minutes and then continue with his prepared speech.96
This
is in the opening pages of a book making the case for Muskie to become President,
indeed the chapter is called “Muskie for President”, and so it had been one of his
endearing qualities to the public. It made Muskie seem like the ultimate consensus
candidate, willing to listen to any one’s point of view. When Muskie dropped his
go-to tactic for handling hecklers, he appeared weak and unwilling to stray away
from his memorised script.
The final paragraph of the article is a case of Thompson trying to make it clear
that no one should take any of the contents preceding it at all seriously as he says
“We can only speculate on this” before reiterating once again that he was reporting
92
Hunter S Thompson, 2010 . Ancient Gonzo Wisdom. Edition. Picador Paperbacks, p72
93
94
Ibid
95
Ibid
96
W.W Norton Co, pp 13-14

28
a rumour, “but we were never able to confirm this.”97
Whether the press picked
up on this is inconclusive. Members of the press certainly read his articles with
interest98
but whether they considered what they read to be true is unclear. As
already mentioned in the literature review, Thompson’s employers thought that
other reporters were treating it seriously and that McGovern campaign staffers
were not in agreement over the incident. The Canadian reporter Peter Gzowski
stated, later in an April 1977 interview with Thompson, “the rumour began to
spread among all the people that were covering the campaign”99
. It would also
seem very unlikely that none of the many reporters covering the campaign would
not have, at least, asked a question about it during a press conference. At this
point, any evidence of the traditional press reporting on the rumour is purely an-
ecdotal and not backed up by sufficient existing copy from the time.
The allegations within the article centre on a series of increasingly erratic behav-
iour from Muskie. As well as the “Sunshine Special” incident, it also makes refer-
ence to his “tearful breakdown on the flatbread truck in New Hampshire”. This
refers to what became known as “the crying speech”100
outside of the Manchester
Union Leader newspaper headquarters. The speech was in retaliation to a couple
of slanderous articles which called Muskie as a viable President into question. The
newspaper, published by the politically far right William Loeb, accused Muskie of
making derogatory remarks towards people of French-Canadian descent and re-
printed a feature from Women’s Wear Daily profiling Muskie’s wife in a negative
light. The Muskie campaign was accused of hypocrisy by being supportive of black
rights but laughing with the racial epithet “Cannocks (sic)” in reference to the
large amount of French-Canadians living in New England, who were also a strong
voter base in New Hampshire.101
The editorial used an anonymous letter filled with
misspellings sent from Florida to support the hypocritical image that was being
97
98
pp 191-192
99
GONZO: Hunter S. Thompson - YouTube. 2014. GONZO: Hunter S. Thompson - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available
at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nx45bs88dA. [Accessed 30 March 2014].
100
101
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, 2005. All the President's Men. Reprint Edition. Pocket Books, p. 127

29
portrayed of Muskie. While, the reprinted article from Woman’s Wear Daily de-
picted Jane Muskie as a foul-mouthed haggard drunk who reflected badly on her
husband’s decision making.102
The normal rule in political campaigns is to ignore such attacks, or deal with
their instigators at arm’s length, through a letter to the editor or a rebuttal
from the press secretary; ‘you don’t get into a fight with anyone who buys ink
by the barrel’ as the saying goes. Muskie’s denunciation came at a time when
Loeb had more than a week before primary to reply. (Broder-1987)103
The legitimacy of the letter was called into question by the national press104
but
soon they were not interested in the provocation but in the reaction as Muskie
arrived in New Hampshire following a week of travelling around the country.105
It
was certainly unusual for a political campaigner to denounce the publishers of the
most widely read newspapers in the state, and to do so outside the headquarters
of the newspaper grabbed the attention of the press.106
Unfortunately for Muskie,
it had been snowing heavily all day. He wanted to create the impression of being
a strong, protective man defending his wife’s honour but the wintery conditions
made him appear weak as his voice croaked and he appeared to be wiping away
tears.107108
Muskie would later make the point that he had been on the verge of
tears as he wiped melted snow away from his face, but he definitely did not cry.109
Muskie had been very paranoid earlier in the campaign, but he had misplaced it
towards the press and George McGovern. ‘The Canuck Letter’ had been one in a
series of sabotage attempts against his campaign by Nixon and his staff. Muskie
had previously been slightly ahead of Nixon in several polls in the years leading
102
103
Ibid
104
Ibid
105
Theodore H. White, 2010. The Making of the President 1972 (Landmark Political). Reissue Edition. Harper
Perennial.
106
107
Ibid
108
MSNBC. (2009). Ed Muskie Cries Before New Hampshire Primary in 1972. [Online Video]. 05 January. Available
from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiLL8ZAXGys. [Accessed: 05 April 2014].
109

30
up to the election.110111
Since 1971, the Nixon campaign had set aside funding
from contributors for “an extensive undercover campaign aimed at discrediting
individual Democratic presidential candidates and disrupting their campaigns.”112
This included leaking false and manufactured items to the press. 113
The unstable
reaction of Muskie was much more than what the Nixon campaign had been hoping
for.114
Muskie stumbled to a narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary but had
been expected to win by a larger margin than the 46.4% win over McGovern’s
37.1%.115
But nationally116
, Muskie’s alleged tears would prove to be the decisive
and lasting image117
of his ailing campaign. The irrational reaction of Muskie to
‘the Canuck letter’ and the reprinted article about his wife were summed up by
Thompson as only explainable as a result of Muskie’s addiction to Ibogaine. They
could only have been the actions of a man on drugs.
110
The Sydney Morning Herald - Google News Archive Search. 2014. The Sydney Morning Herald - Google News
Archive Search. [ONLINE] Available
at:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19701202&id=XlEVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VuUDAAAAIBAJ&p
g=4829,237903. [Accessed 4 April 2014].
111
The Lewiston Daily Sun - Google News Archive Search. 2014. The Lewiston Daily Sun - Google News Archive
Search. [ONLINE] Available
at:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1928&dat=19710524&id=AZYgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IWgFAAAAIBAJ&p
g=4100,3138397. [Accessed 4 April 2014].
112
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, 2005. All the President's Men. Reprint Edition. Pocket Books, pp. 137-143
113
Ibid
114
ibid
115
New Hampshire Primary historical past election results. 2008 Democrat & Republican past results. John
McCain, Hillary Clinton winners.. 2014. New Hampshire Primary historical past election results. 2008 Democrat
& Republican past results. John McCain, Hillary Clinton winners.. [ONLINE] Available
at: http://www.primarynewhampshire.com/new-hampshire-primary-past-results.php. [Accessed 15 April
2014].
116
Rebecca B. Morton, Learning by Voting: Sequential Choices in Presidential Primaries and Other
Elections(2001) p. 24
117
The Charlie Daniel Editorial Cartoon Collection | This isn't the St. Johns River, these are Muskie's tears!.
2014. The Charlie Daniel Editorial Cartoon Collection | This isn't the St. Johns River, these are Muskie's tears!.
[ONLINE] Available at: http://kiva.lib.utk.edu/omeka153/items/show/671. [Accessed 15 April 2014].

31
Conclusion
Edmund Muskie’s bid to become president of the United States of America fell
apart following his alleged breakdown in New Hampshire and a poor fourth place
finish in Florida.118
In Illinois, there was a brief reprieve from a sequence of poor
results as he gained his largest majority of the campaign with 62.6% of the vote.
This, however was a false dawn and his final victory of the campaign. In every
primary afterwards, he was not even close to victory. Following defeats in Penn-
sylvania and Massachusetts, Muskie announced that he would no longer be ac-
tively campaigning. 119
He cited lack of funding as his reason but refused to with-
draw his name from the ballot.120
He dubbed himself as “everybody’s second can-
didate” following the loss in Pennsylvania.121
This indicated a new strategy of hold-
ing out hope of becoming a compromise candidate in the event of a deadlock at
the national convention. Unfortunately for Muskie, this was not the case as George
McGovern sealed the nomination by the time of the July Democratic convention in
Miami.122
Muskie would return to the senate to serve the people of Maine in the knowledge
that he had blown his chance to become President. He would later blame his strat-
egy of entering as many primaries as he possibly could afford to and said that “it
required that I make a major effort and major expenditure of resources in every
primary with a maximum impact in none.”123
He had also been tiring from the
118
Radio Report on 1972 Florida Presidential Primary: Wallace Leads Pack; McGovern Trails - YouTube.
2014. Radio Report on 1972 Florida Presidential Primary: Wallace Leads Pack; McGovern Trails - YouTube.
[ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKm7RQGurHU. [Accessed 16 April 2014].
119
The Deseret News - Google News Archive Search. 2014. The Deseret News - Google News Archive Search.
[ONLINE] Available
at:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19720427&id=YJMqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hlsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=
3578,6140473. [Accessed 16 April 2014].
120
Ibid
121
Times Daily - Google News Archive Search. 2014. Times Daily - Google News Archive Search. [ONLINE]
Available
at: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19720527&id=CBMsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W8gEAAAAIBAJ
&pg=3449,5312334. [Accessed 16 April 2014].
122
Our Campaigns - US President - D Convention Race - Jul 10, 1972. 2014. Our Campaigns - US President - D
Convention Race - Jul 10, 1972. [ONLINE] Available
at: http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=58482. [Accessed 16 April 2014].
123
The Deseret News - Google News Archive Search. 2014. The Deseret News - Google News Archive Search.
[ONLINE] Available
at:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19720427&id=YJMqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hlsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=
3578,6140473. [Accessed 16 April 2014].

32
heavy amount of travel that such a strategy would demand of him.124
Perhaps, it
was a combination of this and experiencing the dirty tactics from Nixon that con-
vinced him to not attempt another run at becoming President.
Muskie’s political reputation was largely unscathed from the campaign as his crime
of ‘weeping’ while defending his wife was outweighed by Nixon’s very real crimes
of corruption and deceit at the Watergate. In 1974, Muskie was appointed to be
the head of the first senate budget committee.125
Muskie continued to serve in the
senate until 1980, when he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to become
Secretary of State during the Iran hostage crisis.126
He proved to be so popular in
his role that an underground movement in the Democratic Party wanted to see
him challenge the incumbent Carter to the nomination127
this was based on polling
numbers that said Muskie was polling favourably against the Republican nominee
Ronald Reagan.128
Muskie was not interested however129
but his political profile had
risen again from its precarious position 8 years before it for the discussion to be
a valid one. Muskie was a competent and popular politician before the 1972 elec-
tion and quickly became popular again after it. There is also no evidence to sug-
gest he has ever been asked about the Ibogaine article with the emphasis on his
failure in 1972 eternalised by the long term dirty tactics of Richard Nixon.
If you look carefully, I’m a very accurate journalist. (Thompson-2010b-p73)
Thompson quipped on Canadian television during an interview with Peter Gzowski
that the Ibogaine article had been an instance of Thompson reporting on a rumour
that he had created.130
As previously mentioned, Frank Mankiewicz called Fear and
Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 “the most accurate and least factual account
124
125
Staff of Congressional Quarterly, 1999. Congress A-Z (Cq's Ready Reference Encyclopedia of American
Government). 3 Sub Edition. Routledge, p 39
126
Muskie, Ed. Interview with Ed Muskie by Chris Beam. By Chris Beam. Kennebunk, Maine. 1990
127
Ibid.
128
Clinton Campaign Reminiscent of 1980 Race - CBS News. 2014. Clinton Campaign Reminiscent of 1980 Race -
CBS News. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-campaign-reminiscent-of-1980-race/.
[Accessed 17 April 2014].
129
Muskie, Ed. Interview with Ed Muskie by Chris Beam. By Chris Beam. Kennebunk, Maine. 1990
130
Thompson, Hunter. 2010. Ancient Gonzo Wisdom. Edition. Picador Paperbacks. P 72-73

33
of the campaign.” The Ibogaine article is the perfect example of Mankiewicz’s in-
tended meaning in his statement. It comments on the surprising decline of the
Muskie campaign in a manner that is sheer fantasy yet, somehow, plausible.
Following the publication of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing
on the Campaign Trail ’72, Thompson was forming a sizable fan base who would
mistake him for the manic versions of himself that he’d put on to the page.131
He
had become famous for being a reckless exaggeration of his worst qualities.
Thompson had also lost his anonymity following the success of the two books. As
a journalist, this should prove to be a stumbling block as it would allow him less
access to the people he intends to lampoon. For example, in 1968, while writing
an article for Pageant132
, he spoke with Republican Presidential candidate Nixon in
the back of a car. This occurred before such a meeting would become politically
dangerous for someone like Nixon to be seen with such an adamant critic and
destructive character such as Thompson. In this instance, Nixon’s staff were only
aware that Thompson’s background had been in sports reporting (McKeen-2013-
p120) and were unaware of his radical political beliefs.
But, following the success of the two Fear and Loathing books, Thompson at-
tempted to cover the 1976 campaign for Rolling Stone but could only manage two
days in New Hampshire before giving up due to the overwhelming amount of au-
tograph hunters. (McKeen-2013-p243) He could no longer properly observe or
cause havoc for fear of being distracted by his fans or for it to be too obvious.
Around this time, he said of gonzo journalism “I think I’ve taken that form as far
as I could take it. I’m starting to repeat myself anyway. It’s not as fun anymore.”
(McKeen-2013-p251) His celebrity had a damning impact on his effectiveness as
a journalist.
Most people are surprised that I walk on two leg, and the idea that I would
have a wife or a child or even a mother comes as a surprise. People think I’m
maybe a violent version of that comic strip. [Doonesbury’s ‘Uncle Duke] I am
living a normal life. Right alongside me, this myth is growing and mushroom-
ing, getting more and more warped. When I get invited to speak at universities,
I’m not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson and so I’m not sure who to
131
p 204
132
Hunter S. Thompson,2010a .Great Shark Hunt. Edition. Picador, pp 177-184

34
be. I suppose my plans are to figure out some new identity- to kill off one life
and start another one. (Thompson-1978)133
In addition to his fame damaging his ability to covertly conduct gonzo journalism
after the 1972 presidential campaign, his perceived public image had also pre-
vented him from becoming a great political writer. Thompson felt that when he
was booked to speak at universities that they were probably booking Raoul Duke
or the Dr. Thompson from his books so he felt a need to perform for them. He
would blame the Garry Trudeau and his comic strip Doonesbury for aggravating
the problems that he was having with his public persona. The comic strip was an
exaggerated, fictionalised version of an already exaggerated and fictionalised ver-
sion of Thompson called Uncle Duke. He blamed it for his lethargy towards writing
new material (McKeen-2013-p250) and feared that he may have been becoming
irrelevant by the end of the 1970s. (McKeen-2013-p246) His work suffered. He
could no longer be the political commentator he wanted to be at the start of the
decade. His fear and loathing for what his celebrity and his persona had become
was too much of a burden.
133
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (Part 1) - YouTube. 2014. Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (Part 1) -
YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kngoOO7x7V8. [Accessed 13 April 2014].

35
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