QUICKSILVER: PAPER OF POLITICS AND BARRED DOORS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300350001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 25, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: August 11, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release ~2?O4 Q9I l %1 CIA-RDP88-01314R0003
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By Liza i!er'covici
At .1736 Ii St. NW, the
front, doors are kept locked
and bal'ricac .. 24 hours a
da5'. The back doors are also
under permanent lock, The
first-floor window's,ire cov-
tired Wiiii chain-link fene-
are protected by iron grills.
"Lock the door and TEST it
everyianle" says a sign on
the back door. Visitors are
not allowed unescorted be-
yond the main entrance.
This fortress is meant to
deter police and neighbor-
hood right-wingers, frola
"no-knocks" at the home of
the Quicksilver T i in e s,
Washington's underground
newspaper. Security is tight
because the level of para-
noia is high.
"We think t;' .lese doors are
ri deterrent to our being
busted," says Steve Gale, 20,
a long-haired drop-out from
[letllesda-Chevy Chase Might
School who is the newspa-
per's chief photographer.
'It should keep the police
away, unless they conic with
grenades."
Hock music plays through
the four-story house. Multi-
Colored revolutionary pos-
ters decorate the walls.
Members of- the collective
stay in bed until 9:30 or 10.
Work starts at noon. Ilusi-
ness, breakfast and self-criti-
eism sessions are conducted
in the nude "because we are
less defensive that way." At
the completion of each
issue, all event w11icI1 occurs
twice a month, staff mem-
bers, say they go off some-
where together for a "big
acid trip."
.At Quicksilver, paranoia
and pleasure mix easily.
The heavy security e:dsts
in, spite of the fact the.
stolen from. the P Street
Peach. (The bench was
never found but the table
was located in the newspa-
per's front Yard).
Quicksilver is tilrashinf
ton's only underground-
newspaper. At one point
there were as many as three
undergrounds, with total cir-
culation estimated as high
as 31,000, but today; as
Quicksilver marks its third
anniversary as an undcr'-
iround, between 15100 and
20,000 collies of the Quicksil-
ver Tilnes are printed twice
a month in New York and
distributed, according, to one
staffer, to an estimated 100
street vendors for sale here
to tourists, "white (rop-outs
and potential dropouts" oil
Georget.ovvvn's Wisconsin Av-
enue, on. the 1-Iall and in
downtown Washington.
For 25 cents, the buyer
comes away with a. mixed
bag of national and ergroulid.
news, a column from the
medically-hip W. Hippo-
crates, community bulletin
board news with advice on
abortions and "bunt drugs
a revolutionary Comic strip;
some local reporting. There
is a lair amount of rhetoric,
usually political, sometimes
venomous and most often di-
rectecl at police and "White,
nlidclteelass machos,'' a far-
ranging variety of _ sexists
which; according to staffer
Peggy O'Collaghan, rilay
U -
ccft6'7t Y.0
We1rc AgIlL loll
Capitalist Ply
Please Come hopic
raided, But they remain on
guard. Last year, another
anderground paper, the
short-lived Washington Area
and we'll. N ork on
range from 1]c'njanun Spook'
to J. Edgar i-loocer.
Quicksilver is a eoio) ira-
tively young newspaper by
most underground stand-
ards, But in the past two
years it has undergone a
heady political evolution,
from a free swi ngin , politi-
cally-hip uesvspa-
per with plenty of under-
ground pornography to - a
heavily-i.deolo;ical "cornnlu-
n]st" organ of the revcl.u-
tiolr.
"We're Colnnlunist:s :be-
cause we advocate the over-
throw of capitalism and re-
placement with a comillunist.
rstructurc " says 22?year-old
Super Sumner. He poilits
out that communism as such
should not be confused with
"state capitalism, like in.
Russia. What we're talking
about is what's going on in
North Vietnam, Mainland
China and Cuba."
7'he earliest Quicksilver
editions ran step-by-step de-
scriptions of how to synthe-
size mescaline, a potent psy
ehedclie drug. Today the
paper outlines procedures
for ripping-off (stealing
from) stoics and runs a
photo of a dead policeman
with the caption, "And don't
'orget to . , ."
When Quicksilver was a
struggling little under-
ground with a circulation of
7,000 and playing second fid-
dlc'. to its much larger under-
ground cousin, the Free
Press, there was talk of the
paper one day publishing
64-page editions, circulating
60,000 papers a week, con-
verting into a non-profit:
foundation, blanching out
into radio and television and
sponsoring rock concerts in
the streets.
The profits never inatcr-
ialized. ''hough Quicksilver
is.a tax-paying public corpo-
ration with establishment-
type things like bank ac-
counts and public stock, div-
idends are rare and talk
about a budget brings on a
puzzled reply that there is
"no budget."
The Tinges was started by
staffers of the now-deceased
Washington Free Press who
were dissatisfied with the
"p'reep's" unbusiaesslike
structure and what. Quick.
silver saw as its wi.shiwashi-
litical. line."
In. April, 1970, the paper
suspended publication for
three weeks in a bitter staff
dispute over the function of
an underground newspaper.
By May, the paper had
split between factions ori-
ented toward the priorities
of local. community coverage
on one hand, and those, on
time other, favoring more in-
ternational coverage. of revo-
lutionary rnovenlents, such
as the NLl+, Patllet Lao, Pal-
estine LiberaHon Front and
Latin American guerillas.
After deciding to WE
primarily on local affairs
the present Quicksilver staff
vacated their old headquar-
ters at 1932 17th St. and
opened up new offices at
1.736 It St., off Dupont Cir-
cle, The dissidents, aligned
unofficially, with Weather-
people (the term Weather-
men is now verboten) poli-
tics, produced a new under
ground publication, Voice
Win the Mother Country,
which lasted exactly three
issues,
At Quicksilver, a staff
collective, composcd of five .?
people, four men and one
woman, was organized. Po-
litical views.-became more
uniform. Discipline -- aid
security - got tighter,
"As Communists," says
Whalen, "your primary con-
cern is not whether you
want to do something or
not. It's not for pleasure,
You're not here to have a
good time. You're here to
build a revolution"
The -collective's political
consciousness is apocalyptic.
Capitalism is crumbling.
Revolution, says Quicksil-
ver, is at our fingertips, if
we will only seize the time.
It is a Politics fashioned
from variations on Marxist-
Leninist themes. "The revolu-
tion won't Na be a workers'
revolution, but the luvlpen
and streetpeople 'and mid-
dleclass freaks and blacks
too," Steve Gale says.
By their own accounts, the
newspaper collective uses
Mao as frequently as South-
ern Baptists use the Bible.
To gain membership in the
collective, prior reading of
certain Mao works is neces-
One or the original fowl- for instance is mmmdlatory.
dens of the paper --- Steven Staff turnover is high
Free Press, was raided by Guss --- was an Insurance Onl two 1,0 )lc have been
police searching for a picApprovedaFo 4 2004/0L9 NY)'ClAA0P~18 3)1 RQQtQvi30tQ,3 ( Air-4since it
We and bench reportedly saleable product and wanted befan, and tvao staffers have