J. Edgar Hoover: Memo on Abbie Hoffman

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Hoover's concern with subversion persisted through the 1950s and 1960s. Under his direction the FBI continued to investigate suspected Communists, but Hoover extended these investigations to an assortment of groups. These groups included Socialist organizations, sympathizers of the anti–Vietnam War movement, the vaguely defined New Left, radical student groups such as Students for a Democratic Society, white hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National States' Rights Party, and militant black organizations—or those he perceived to be militant, such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. By gathering extensive information about these organizations, along with their leaders and members, Hoover hoped to disrupt their activities and discredit them.

Abbott Howard Hoffman, better known as “Abbie” Hoffman, was one of the most well-known political and social activists of the 1960s, as much for his theatrics and flamboyant personality as for his viewpoints. He began his career in the civil rights movement and participated in the activities of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He became active in the antiwar movement, at one time organizing a mass demonstration in which fifty thousand protesters attempted to use psychic energy to levitate the Pentagon, which, in their view, would bring the Vietnam War to an end. He became most widely known as a member of the Chicago Seven, a group of activists tried for conspiracy and inciting riot in connection with the turmoil surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (The group was originally called the Chicago Eight but became the Chicago Seven when the trial of one of the accused was severed from that of the others.) Through these and other activities Hoffman became almost symbolic of the 1960s counterculture.

Again, Hoover's memo to the special agent in charge of the FBI's San Francisco office (dated April 27, 1970) is an example of the workaday communications of the bureau. Hoover calls attention to a “Mrs. Grace Slick.” Hoover did not know it at the time (“Bufiles are negative on Mrs. Slick,” meaning that the bureau did not have a file on her), but Slick, born Grace Barnett Wing, was a vocalist and songwriter for the rock band Jefferson Airplane. She and Tricia Nixon, the daughter of President Richard Nixon, were alumnae of Finch College. Because of this connection, Slick was invited to a tea party at the White House. She invited Abbie Hoffman to be her escort, and the two planned to spike the president's tea with the drug LSD. The two never entered, however, because security guards identified Hoffman. In this memo Hoover asks the San Francisco office to identify Slick and determine the nature of her connections with Hoffman.