FBI spied on hippies

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Oct 27 16:13:19 PDT 1999


Doug Henwood wrote:


> [From Sam Smith's Progressive Review. Touring with the Dead, how
> painfully dull that must have been! "Counterculture expert Todd
> Gitlin" is the funniest thing I've read all week.]
>
> APB NEWS: FBI and CIA documents obtained through the Freedom of Information
> Act indicate the bureau and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration
> monitored performances of groups such as the Grateful Dead and Jefferson
> Airplane.

There was a report in New Left Notes (the SDS paper) that at one of their concerts Jefferson Airplane had refused to allow an announcement to be made of a scheduled anti-war rally. (Or something like that -- I don't remember the details of the article -- only that the band had refused a fairly simple request.)

"Counterculture expert Todd Gitlin" is indeed a fine wisecrack.

Carrol



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