In early 1966 Thompson finished his book.
To say it was a success would be an understate-
ment.
The first edition of “Hell’s Angels: The
Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motor-
cycle Gangs” sold out immediately and it broke
into the New York Times bestseller list, although
Thompson had a few problems on the book
tour, showing up drunk for most interviews.
In 1968 Thompson began nurturing another
addiction he’d toyed with for years: politics. It
was also the beginning
of a friendship
with Oscar “Zeta”
Acosta, a radical,
militant lawyer from
East Los Angeles.
Acosta, who was
one of the driving
influences behind the
burgeoning Brown
Power scene in L.A.,
met Thompson on a
visit to Aspen in 1967.
The Thompson-Acosta
correspondences are
some of the most enter-
taining correspondences
in print.
While in New York,
Thompson met with
his publishers and he
pitched the idea of a
book on “The Death of
the American Dream.” Thompson’s idea was
to write a book that would “do up a massive
indictment, focusing on the murderers of the
so-called ‘American Dream.’” This related to the
“
fear and loathing” he felt after JFK’s assas-
sination. His main targets were the Pentagon,
the Joint Chiefs and Lyndon Johnson, to name
a few. For the next two years, the book was the
focal point of Thompson’s energies. Although it
never appeared in print, it helped set Thompson
on the path to creating two of his most influen-
tial and best known works, “Fear and Loathing
in Las Vegas” and “Fear and Loathing: On the
Campaign Trail ‘72.”
In 1969, Thompson was hired by Playboy
to do a piece on Jean-Claude Killy, an Olym-
pic skier turned pitchman. What Thompson
returned with was the first true piece of Gonzo
literature to be published, entitled “The Temp-
tations of Jean-Claude Killy.” But it was never
published in Playboy because the editors felt it
was too mean-spirited. The piece was eventually
published in Ramparts.
Soon after the Killy piece, Thompson and
English illustrator Ralph
Steadman were sent to cover
the Kentucky Derby for the
magazine. The resulting
article, “The Kentucky Derby
Is Decadent and Depraved,”
provided readers with a
vicious yet hilarious descrip-
tion of the event. Steadman’s
illustrations were done in
lipstick and were perverse
and humorous, much like
Thompson’s writing. It was
the beginning of a life-long
working relationship.
Thompson’s next target
was an old nemesis who
had returned stronger and
smarter: Richard Nixon.
By fluke, in 1968 Thomp-
son was allowed to ride
along with the candidate
in a car and discovered
that the washed-out politician was “brighter and
therefore more dangerous than I surmised. He
was a brute in need of extermination.”
Thompson and Nixon did have one thing
in common: an addiction to football. Thomp-
son recalled the depth of Nixon’s knowledge,
including his ability to recall a seemingly minor,
but strategically crucial play from the previous
year’s Super Bowl.
However, it wasn’t the interaction with Nixon
that pushed Thompson into politics so much as
the violence that erupted during the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago in 1968, which
Thompson was covering at the time for material
for a book.
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