LENNY BRUCE, TIM LEARY AND THE SEARCH FOR ALIENATION -OR, WHICH DEODORANT DOES LYNDON JOHNSON USE?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00115R000300040004-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 30, 2013
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: February 1, 1967
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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CIA-RDP74-00115R000300040004-5
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February, 7967
35 Cents
?
Lenny Bruce, Tint Leary and the Search for Alienation
?or, Which Deodorant Does Lyndon Johnson Use?
by Paul Krassner
? :
I don't know where to begin. ?
The radio . announced,. "A sick comic'
came to a sikc end last night. . . .
." -
Just another news item. ?
But consider the audacity of a mani.
who would stand on a night club stage?:
7:
the Gate of Horn in Chicago, December; .
? 1962, Lenny Bruce at the peak of his..
??.-^
career .= request all lights off ' except
one dim blue' spot, ask his audience to
have, compassion for Adolf Eichmann,
and then become him, 'continuing in.
Cermaz1 accent: .
: "My name is, Adolf Eichmann. And
? the Jews came every da' to what they.
thought would be fun in the showers....
:People say? I should have been hung.
Rein. Do .you recognize the whore in
-, the middle of you ? that you would
-.have dune the same if you were there
. yourselves? My defense: I was a sol-'
- ? dier. I Saw the end of a conscientious
day's effort. I watched through the
; ? portholes. I saw every Jew burned and
? turned into soap. Do you people think
yourselves better because you burned
your enemies at long distance with mis..
(Continued on Page 23) '
Speak No Evil
The Murder of Malcoirn X
See No Evil ?
Smell No Evil..
introductory speech,: "And now, brotheh. and sisters,
here is a man willing to lay down his life for your.
? The applause was thunderous.. ? ? . ?
Malcolm walked slowly to the' rostrum. -His face ? '
? 'was strained, tired, and his step lacked its usual spring.
IzialLic Norden' ? ?? ? , ?
? ? He held up. his right hind. "A salaam alaikem,". he .
znoaa-tc,
Shortly after 3 p.m. on un.c.ray,'("February 21, 196,5: ,said in a hoarse voice. "Peace be unto' you."
Malcolm X'walked onto the stage of the Audubon ?"Wa 'alaikoit'saleta4ri,"-seme 400-Voices reSpOrided in
,
room at 166th Street..and Broadway. The audience of, ;,unison. "And unto you peace." ? ? ?
some 400 Negroes -and a ? half-dozen 'self-conscious! :.*: The tense 'Silence 'aWaiting-Malcolmbi 'Opening words .
whites stirred in anticipation. ? ?? '?? ? ' 1 was suddenly shattered .-"Nigger, .get your hands out
At the 'podium *Benjamin"X,?ari-officef:of-Malcblra'S-.-'-'Ofiriy:.poCketl"..a man's. voice shouted from the, middle. ?
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, ? ? ?
STAT ' ?
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0
25. JULY 1965
The Rise of
utrageous Magazine
?
by Liz Smith
. ? .. - ?-- - ? ' - - ----? ?? ??? - --:.-maOszine.dedicated to the right of everyone' to. have }Iii!
atirc, as everyone knows, is a losing proposition, : prurient interests aroused?a magazine that is, natii-
,.and efforts in that area arc measured by the ability to : rally, against any form of censorship in print, speech,
: stay alive. By this standard, a curious, cultish almost- : film or, I presume, graffiti?a magazine that thinks,
:.monthly magazine called The Realist is a Smash hit, nothing of repeating a "sick" joke about Jews being
turned into bars of soap?a magazine: whose idea of an
ambivalent gag is to put out for sale red, white and.
Its circulation has 'soared since its beginning, in .1958,
-
from a nucleus of 600 to a coterie of almost 50,000. Al-
% though . no goldmine for its editor-publisher Paul blue posters with a four-letter Anglo-Saxon imperative
j?Krassner, it is self-supporting, and haslately begun the "followed by the word."Communism"?a magazine that;
:?startling practice of occasionally paiing Contributors *:Shows Lucy of the "Peanuts cartoon strip obviously
; worthwhile rates. , , S: ! pregnant and saying, "Good grief, Charlie Brown 1"?al
What started out as an obscure pulpy-looking little ; magazine that-printi a satirical sex education manual.:
, periodical published in the shadow of police headquar- ?fo'r.Catholic 'Children that offends Catholics and non- ..
:ters at Centre and Broome Streetsovith an often ado- Catholics' alike' by its brutal choice of words?a maga-;
..lescent, college humor, youth-in-revolt attitude, has now ? zinc that draws the U.S.S.R. and Uncle Sam as two
',turned into a still pulpy-looking but increasingly atten- ' dirty old men taking advantage of a?blousy sexy female;
:tion-getting organ of iconoclastic satire, criticism arid. ' World?a magazine that notes Little Orphan Annic's.1
'trenchant wit. The Realist is now being taken seriously 40th birthday and suggests .she now learn. the word .1
:and is resoundingly ? discussed on college campuses, "menopause" from her doctor?a magazine that claims.i
' among the literati, and wheiever the elite hip meet to . the. Anti-Defamation League will protest' the showing 4
:bleat against censorship, conformism, commercialism, Of a film about the life of Christ to be titled, "I Was Al
;hypocrisy, Victorian prudery, outmoded laws, irrational Teen-Age Jew"?a magazine that slaps slogans like.)
, -.
: sex codes and "selling out." It is also viewed with a,larm "Pray for War" or "Help Put Commerce Back In .1
. by outraged parents, preachers; priests, politicians, cor- ? Christmas" on its front page?a magazine pointing outl
that The Visible Man anatomy toy has no reproductive 4,
:organs?a magazine showing Christ as a mystery guest 1
on "What's My Line?" and discussing whether or not:1
He works for a profit-making organization?a maga-11
.porate boards, educators and possibly the C. S. Postal
i authorities as a good example of what the 'world's
coming to. (Krassncr claims his magazine is being in-.
? vestigated by postal authorities in eight states who are
:trying to: classify it as "oliscene.matter." He also be- ? zinc that has been described as "an'avant-garde Combi- i
? ..,
'heves he .is under investigation by tbe FBI in order, .nation of smut and social criticism."
; .to determine the role of The Realist in the. nationwide.
,'.student rebellion.) ? ? . .
. .?
Public comment about The Realist has been curi-
ously oblique. The ? Son Francisco Chronicle said,.
:?"Any magazine that's against as many things as The
Realist. can't be all bad." The Dallas Morning News
noted that the editor's "cynicism will seem pristine to
anyone acquainted with the Book of Ecclesiastes." One
: critic commented that at first he thought the editor,
' Krassncr, was "just a had 'imitation Lenny Bruce, but
lately, I 'think he's damn funny on his own. He might
.? make it to jail yet." George Lincoln Rockwell, the
, American Nazi chief, told Krassncr personally, "You
arc' one of the Jews that is going to make it hard to
gas the rest of them."
? ? The Realist is an almost outcast publication spe-
cializing in putting into print the kind of sexual, re-
.ligious, racial and political jokes ? being told over of-
fice desks and at cocktail parties?a magazine that can ?
. devote an entire . issue to feces, then call it "experi-
mental journalism"?a magazine that blatantly throws
open its pages to the editorial remarks of super-atheist
: Madalyn Murray or the Nazi Rockwell .and advises
readers canceling subscriptions to be sure and include
.t.,.:..Zip .COdes?a magazine so anti-religious it takes-
? on Jews Catholics, Buddhists and Protestants aliko?a
. . ?
?
QA"
proximity to police headquarters, the physical shifl. of
the magazine's offices to the ground floor ota brown-
stone duplex at 318 East 18th Street in the artistically-.5,
seething new bohemia of today's East Village isn't !
:really so much of an upward step. However, The
.ist itself has become much more than just those naughty ?.?
taglincs in the opening paragraphs. Though these same
sexual, religious, political and racial irreverencies con-' thine to be the spice of its editorial life, it is becoming
? increasingly apparent that Krassner's abiding philoso-
.phy (borrowed from Byron) has meaning.. for our time.
The philosophy. is: "And if I laught at any mortal thing,
that I?may not weep."
? But what about Krassner himself, a man who in'd
these wildly lenient times:manages via his magazine tc,'
stand out as a genuine non-conformist, among the great ?
crowds of non-conformists clotting the American cul-
tural and political scene.
? Like that other doughty American iconoclast, H. L
Meneken, Paul Krassncr comes on at first as a kind of
callow cluck, hiding a high I.Q..(1-14) under a sensitive.-;
shyness, appearing about as sophistiatted and. cyni-
cal as a bottle of beer, and cieating.an initial downbeat.'
.. ? .. ,
. .
lthough the magazine has moved away from its
? !!nPressignt:j
? ? ?
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/12/30: CIA-RDP74-00115R000300040004-5
STAT N1I.61SWF,FK
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Man With a Ho
Just inside the basement door of a
New York brownstone is a small, di-
sheveled office cluttered by largely
unused filing cabinets, a garbage pail,
an Exercycle, a baseball bat, an electric
typewriter, and a desk barely visible un-
der its owner's editorial debris. On the
wall near the desk hangs a silver medal-
lion inscribed: "In case of accident
please call a rabbi, minister, and, a priest
in hedging my bets."
Beneath the medallion last week, in
black chinos and a worn white polo shirt,
sat Paul Krassner, who is not hedging his
bets at all. At 32, he is the founder, edi-
tor, and sole mover of The Realist, a
sometimes sophomoric, often significant, :
, frequently funny satirical magazine ded-
icated, as Krassner puts it, : to "com-
promising as little as possible."
In its six years, The Realist, whose
masthead mascot is a Shmoo-like crea-
ture called -St. Realist, has grown,
ac-
cording ?to Krassner, from an initial
circulation of 600 to 36,000. (No Audit
Bureau of Circulation figures are kep(
because the newsprint periodical has no ?
advertising.) At a cost of about $3,000
an issue, The Realist (35 cents), is pub- !
lished ten times a year and sold princi-
pally in New York, Chicago, and San
Francisco. Among its readers are Murray
Kempton, Dick Gregory, and Steve Al-!
len, who describes The Realist as "more
i or less the periodical equivalent of
.? Lenny Bruce."
Satire: Like Bruce, The Realist seems ,
unable to function without a certain
amount of four-letter words and smut..
But it is much more than. that. In the
current issue, for example, author Robert ;
Paul Smith writes seriously, humorously,
and unscatologically on literary censor-
ship. ("Is Fanny Hill a dirty book? You
bet your ever-loving it is.") ? :
Besides Smith, The Realist has also :
printed Richard Condon on "How to'? '
Eliminate the Nation's Most Popular Sui-
. cide Weapon," a biting essay on cigarette
?
smoking in which he urges that mothers
be awarded Black Stars for encouraging
their children to smoke. Krassner has
also run several pieces by Terry South-
ern, including "The Moon-Shot Scandal,"
the tale of an unmanly crewman aboard
a manned spaceship. "You can say things
in The Reali.t that you can't say in other
publications." says Southern.
The Realist also likes to print verbatim
words that 1,atx been said or written
elsewhere. Cue of Krassner's prize reali-
ties is a civil-defense application card
that: asks if the volunteer has roller
skates. "I couldn't make that up. It's a
satirical extehsion of itself," said Krassner
last week, as he happily waved the CD;
card. He, of course, initiates his own!
thrusts, too. His next issue will boost'
TV newsman Walter Cronkite for!,
President.
The Realist first gained widespread'
attention?and notoriety?in the spring of
1962 when Krassner printed, along with;
a White House denial, the erroneously
documented story that President Ken-;
nedy had been wed to a two-time di-
vorcee before he married Jacqueline:
Bouvier. "All I really wanted to do Nifas!
bring it aboveground," says Krassner, of
a story that almost every major news-
paper, magazine, and wire service had
refused to publish for sixteen months.
Financially, The Realist breaks even.
To support his wife, also his main edi-
torial assistant, and daughter, Krassner
gets $7,000 a year as a contributing
editor of Playboy magazine. But he is?
not afraid to bite satirically the hand
that feeds him. In an article about
Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, The
Realist ran a cartoon showing a furtive
form inscribing a wall with: "Hugh '
Hefner is a Virgin."
Krassner's background is both beat
and offbeat. At 6, he played the violin
at Carnegie Hall. As a teen-ager, he
played the outfield for Long Island City
High School. And at 22, he quit the City
College of New York just three credits
shy of graduation because the degree n
.had _ ceased to mean anything . to ? him': l'rs
What had meaning was satire, and the
t issue of The Realist in the summer
? of 1958 served as Krassner's diploma.
'We : have no doctrinaire policy, no
'ax to grind," Krassner said last week.
"We are' socially concerned, and to r.
:make fun of things indicates concern."
I, Although Krassner's printed acres are
,tightly fenced against .sacred cows, ,
;patches of. needless, vulgar weeds often -
imar the field. The Realist's purpose
vould be better served if he applied
the editorial hoe more frequently.
. ,-
Nowsweek.-11obort R. Nici.lroy
-
(1,101[
1..1Ktor .
. .
- Krassner:,`To make fun of things indicates concern'
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/12/30: CIA-RDP74-00115R000300040004-5