Secret FBI Files On Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane

[TooStonedToType]

I've seen this mentioned in an old story from the ABPnews (out of business) and here.  Can't find the files they reference though.  Appearantly, ABP made FBI and CIA FOIA requests at one time.  I wonder how hard and expensive it would be to send in a request?  I wrote ABC asking about their source, but they never responded to me.  If anyone knows more about these files I think they would be interesting.
"Ludicrous" but interesting.

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http://www.abclocal.go.com/kgo/features ... files.html

Secret FBI Files On Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane

Nov. 22 (2001?) â€" The ABC7 News I-Team obtained once secret FBI files concerning San Francisco's Summer of Love. The reports show how J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men were very concerned about the effect the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were having on America's youth.

Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick told the I-Team she had no idea the FBI was trailing her and looking into her background, including her private school days at Castilleja High in Palo Alto.

The files focused on both bands apparent involvement with LSD, and the potential "Internal Security" threats from the "New Left." One FBI report says that, "LSD originates from San Francisco through a renowned rock group known as Grateful Dead."

Dennis McNally, a Grateful Dead historian, told the I-Team, "The notion that the Grateful Dead was in the drug business is just ludicrous."

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Did They Spike FBI Agents' Drinks With LSD?
Feds Release Files on Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane
Oct. 18, 1999

By Tami Sheheri

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[dergheist]

That was very interesting little piece.  I know that FOIA is practically a joke and trying to get such information, you end up half the time with a document that looks like somebody took the words of McJagger's song Paint it Black literally  :shock: that is if you get your request granted at all.  If you are serious TooStone, I wish ya the best of luck into the dig.

[JRL]

The FBI thought the Dead and the Airplane were subversive? How true, how true.


"everything they say we are we are, and we are very proud of ouselves"

                   Volunteers ( I think) by Jefferson Airplane

[TooStonedToType]

Found some of the files archived. Some are missing.  Most are blacked out.

http://web.archive.org/web/200112202239 ... /file.html