FBI surveilled Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane
Grassroots Media Network
Feds Release Files on Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane
Oct. 18, 1999
By Tami Sheheri
AP
Jerry Garcia, Grace Slick
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- In the 1960s, the government's intelligence
services focused on a nation awash in drug use, civil rights strife and
anti-war politics.
Naturally, rock bands associated with the counterculture, such as the
Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, caught much of the government's
attention.
When Jefferson Airplane gave performances, shadowy figures often appeared
in the audience, said Jack Casady, the band's bassist.
"We would hear of it happening, people taking movies or people observing,
writing notes, taking pictures," said Casady.
As it turns out, Casady's suspicions were probably justified.
Related Documents:
Read the FBI and CIA Files
Related Forum:
Is government surveillance of pop music figures ever justifiable?
FBI and CIA documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) indicate the bureau and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) monitored performances of groups such as the Grateful Dead and
Jefferson Airplane. APBnews.com has obtained files the FBI maintained on
both bands.
FBI codes used to identify the files indicate the bureau monitored the rock
groups because of concerns about domestic security, civil unrest and
loyalty of government employees.
Even the CIA jumped into the counterculture-monitoring business; a
compilation of its reports on music festivals, speeches by Black Panthers,
Puerto Rican nationalists, communists, radical poets and others have been
released through FOIA.
Grateful Dead in concert clips and interviews
Drugs and rock 'n' roll
As illegal drug use began to emerge as a serious problem in the 1960s,
investigations focused on drug crimes associated with rock groups. An FBI
teletype describes drug surveillance concerns between the FBI and the DEA
in connection with the Grateful Dead, a band widely known to use drugs and
attract a drug-using crowd.
When those suspected to be FBI agents appeared at Jefferson Airplane
gatherings, they would sometimes wind up on an unwitting LSD trip after
being handed a spiked drink, said Paul Kantner, lead singer of Jefferson
Airplane.
"Our whole generation got away with stuff we really shouldn't have gotten
away with," Kantner said. "We broke the laws daily."
Back then, it wasn't hard to pick out the informers, said Todd Gitlin, a
professor at New York University and counterculture expert.
"The FBI guys traditionally wore black shoes and looked like G-men from the
'50s," said Gitlin. "And the informants were always too gung-ho."
Deadheads under surveillance
Jefferson Airplane psychedelic video
According to the FBI dossier on the Grateful Dead, the band's drug-fueled
message was no secret to the government. The band attracted attention well
beyond the 1960s.
"The Grateful Dead is well known to DEA," states a 1984 memo in the band's
file.
The band's FBI file shows the DEA contacted the FBI's narcotics and
dangerous drugs unit asking for "FBI assistance for technical and
surveillance coverage" on a drug-related investigation.
The Grateful Dead's historian and manager Dennis McNally said the band and
its followers -- known as "Deadheads" -- assumed they were being watched.
AP
Members of the Grateful Dead in 1969
"The single largest group consuming LSD were Deadheads, and the DEA knew
that," said McNally. "You assumed anybody you met in the Grateful Dead
scene could be a plant."
The DEA refused to comment on its mention in the Grateful Dead's file.
Although McNally said the Dead avoided politics, a "highly confidential
source" mentioned in the Dead's file appears to have been involved with the
Black Panther Party, a radical black nationalist group.
The memo, which is heavily blacked-out, mentions an apparent contact with
the Grateful Dead. The FBI's classification codes indicate the
investigation dealt with concerns about foreign counterintelligence and
civil unrest.
LSD plot aimed at Nixon
AP
The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia in 1991
While the Dead's usual policy was to avoid political conflict, it seems one
of Jefferson Airplane's lead singers, Grace Slick, was intent on creating it.
The FBI file on the band mentions that in 1970, Slick was invited to a
private ladies' luncheon at the Nixon White House. Slick was invited as an
alumnus of Finch College, a ritzy female finishing school.
But Slick brought a controversial guest with her: '60s radical Abbie
Hoffman, founder of the Youth International Party. White House security
discovered the uninvited Hoffman and refused him entry. The incident was
briefly rehashed in a two-page confidential FBI memo.
According to Slick's book, Somebody to Love?, the singer planned to use her
foiled White House visit to drop a dose of LSD into the president's teacup.
No plans for revolution
Related Stories:
John Lennon's G-File
The Kingsmen G-File
Jefferson Airplane's Casady said the band's concerts were forums for fringe
groups, and thus attracted the scrutiny of the police and FBI.
"Everybody kind of knew we were all being watched," he said. "We were
always aware of some sort of police presence."
But other than misdirected anger at the system, Casady said there was no
serious plan afoot to spark violent change.
"There was no revolutionary figure pulling together the youth of America to
overthrow the government," said Casady. "The random element was probably
confounding."
Slick's wild youth
AP
Jefferson Airplane
During the Vietnam War, Jefferson Airplane was one of many groups calling
for President Nixon's resignation. The group's FBI file mentions an
anti-Nixon demonstration, warning the event would be "possibly utilizing
rock concert group known as Jefferson Airplane." The rest of the memo is
blacked out.
An August 1970 FBI memo in the Jefferson Airplane file also refers to
Slick's apparently "wild, irresponsible" behavior in high school. The file
mentions that Slick's parents were "very conservative and somewhat
disenchanted with their daughter."
Slick was unavailable for comment. Slick's personal assistant, Vincent
Marino, said the singer is "not interested in talking about the '60s."
Government: Surveillance was warranted
AP
Hippies in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, 1967
For the government's part, lawbreaking that surrounded rock groups
constituted ample reason for surveillance.
"Why would we waste time on groups like the Grateful Dead unless they
involved death or a security threat to the United States?" asked Cartha
"Deke" Deloach, former deputy associate FBI director under J. Edgar Hoover
in the late 1960s.
Unless a band was involved in a felony, the only way it might appear in a
government file is through references in other files, said Deloach. A lot
of rock bands and organizations thought they were a lot more prominent than
they really were, he said.
But the FBI's rock band monitoring may have had some minor national
security impetus, according to a memo in the Dead's file that pertains to
the 1969 Woodstock music festival.
The document states the FBI received important information from a
confidential source. The memo warned that identifying the source could be
detrimental to the "defense interests of the nation."
Nixon: Deport Lennon
AP
Chicago police officers confront a crowd of demonstrators in 1968.
Even the relatively benign Beatles received a share of the government's
attention -- especially John Lennon, whom Nixon wanted to deport in 1972.
"In 1972 there was fairly intense surveillance of Lennon," said author and
UCLA professor Jon Wiener. "He complained at the time of men in dark suits
following him around New York."
But the FBI's obsession with Lennon didn't stop at that, Weiner said.
"Every time his name appeared in print or he was on a television show, they
clipped newspapers like crazy," Wiener said of the FBI.
For the past 16 years, Wiener has been involved in a lawsuit to retrieve
the FBI's entire file on Lennon. To date, he has received all but 10
documents.
Garbled lyrics and jockstrap performances
Another band that caught the government's eye was the Kingsmen, the 1960s
pop quintet whose hit Louie Louie was suspected of being obscene. Hoover's
agents spent hours playing the record backward and forward, slow and fast,
trying to decipher the song's garbled lyrics.
Band member Dick Peterson said the FBI began staking out Kingsmen concerts
when the FBI caught wind band members were performing in jockstraps.
"Like the government didn't have something better to do than follow the
Kingsmen around," said Peterson. "We were a bunch of clean-cut guys from
the Northwest. We didn't know anything about subverting the moral standards
of America."
Tami Sheheri is an APBnews.com staff writer (tami.s...@apbnews.com).
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