January 2020 Auction Ends Thursday, January 30th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/30/2020
Hunter S. Thompson typed letter signed ''HST'' in type, with a circle around his initials and also a handwritten note, ''See 'Viva Zapata' sometime'', referring to the movie starring Marlon Brando. Aerogram letter, which appeared in ''Proud Highway'', is dated 3 January (1964) from Woody Creek, Colorado to Thompson's friend Paul Semonin, with interesting content on revolutionary politics. He writes in part, ''Dear Young Pioneer -- Sorry to be throwing my wisdom at you in bits and pieces -- instead of the long bomber I planned on -- but I think we are dealing with too big a thing to try to whip it up into a neat package...You accuse me repeatedly of being 'anti-Marxist.' I am not, but when dealing with you these days there is no hope but to oppose you on the vocal front, or be sucked in. Thus, we found ourselves arguing quite often when there was really nothing to argue about. It was a tug of war, not a discussion.
My position is an always has been that I distrust power and authority, together with all those who come to it by conventional means -- whether it be guns, votes or outright bribery. There are two main evils in the world today: One is Poverty, and the other is Governments. And frankly I see no hope of getting rid of either. So it will have to be a matter of degrees, and that's where we quarrel...All of my reading about Africa, plus all my experience in SA [South America], convinces me that the 'civilized' nations of this earth have created in the 'under-developed' lands nothing more or less than a cheap and ragged imitation of their own Big System that has gone by the name of 'government' since man invented the word.
Now and then I get the scent of a man with enough balls to try and whip things around to a decent position. Kennedy was one; Betancourt is another; Castro was and may still be; I even go along now and then with Kruschev [sic]...but that doesn't really alter my basic feelings about power and government. It's pretty old to say that 'power corrupts,' but I think it does and I don't think it corrupted Kennedy any more than it has Castro. Or Mao -- and certainly your man [Kwame Nkrumah] there...he looks to me like another Batista...
You hit a hot nerve when you said you may have more faith in the US than I do. I think you might, and on top of that I'll give you another irony -- I think I may be much closer to being a real ding-dong 'revolutionary' than you are. I know you'll balk at that, but I reason it this way: No 'revolutionary' has any hope as long as he's willing to deal with the Established Order on its own terms and in its own context. The only Revolution I would bet on would be one that set out to kill the roots and break all the dies of the System that came before...Let me give you an example. As I see it, the best hope for South America is to export every gringo on the continent and sever all ties. But what then? Who would pay the bills? Surely not the Latins, because they don't have a dime that hasn't been salted away in Swiss banks...They threaten, they bluff, and they finally take the payoff, in cash or some other form. Maybe the Africans are different, I can't say. Castro has thrown off one bogeyman [sic], only to be confronted with two more. I read Sartre's thing [the introduction to ''The Damned''] and agree with it...maybe it's just that I won't play the Big Game until it stops looking phoney. The best I can do is keep my tools sharp and wait for the honest opening -- and decide, in the meantime, if it makes sense to kill the only roots we have...Tell me if you see a middleground -- and, if so, where, and how. I'm more open than I've been in a long time. HST''. Two page letter measures approximately 7.25'' x 12'' on one aerogram sheet. Type a bit light, overall very good plus condition.
Hunter S. Thompson Typed Letter, With Handwritten Note -- ''...My position has always been that I distrust power and authority...''
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