PUNK Magazine and the CIA
DOA/Sex Pistols Tour Chapter 31: January 14-16, 1978
NARRATOR: In our last episode, PUNK Magazine Editor John Holmstrom and Ace Photog Roberta Bayley were able to see the Sex Pistols at Winterland despite Warner Brothers’ security guards doing everything they could to keep us out.
After the Sex Pistols’ Winterland show ended, Roberta and I thought about going backstage (since she had a backstage pass), but thought better of it since we knew Noel Monk would just throw us out. There was an after-party not far away from Winterland, so we walked over. On the way, a carload of Warner Brothers security goons drove by with their leader, The Mad Mr. Noel Monk leading the way. The car slowed down to yell “CIA! CIA! CIA!” at us.
At the time, I didn’t understand it. Why the fuck were they yelling “CIA!” at us? I have to admit that, back in the day we would joke about the CIA and how they got involved in the underground press, and would even joke during media interviews: “We aren’t hippies! We’d love to get some of that CIA money!” The joke soon fell flat after an intelligence asset got involved with PUNK Magazine, but that’s a story for another day.
Ten years later, after I began to work full-time as Executive Editor at High Times magazine, Editor-in-Chief Steven Hager assigned a huge story to me: Research the life and times of Founder Tom Forcade in preparation for a tribute for the special 15th anniversary issue. I interviewed many people for the story, and the magazine ran one every month for over a year. I contacted most of his close associates (some of the interviews I did are linked to the High Times magazine Website, but many are behind their paywall): John Sinclair, Dana Beal, David Peel, A. J. Weberman, Victor Bockris, Albert Goldman, John Wilcock, Ben Masel, Rex Weiner, Cindy Ornsteen and Abbie Hoffman (a three-parter, as it turned out it was his last interview before he died) and a few more. It culminated in a very long feature article you can read online:
https://hightimes.com/culture/high-times-greats-life-high-times-tom-forcade/
So what was the source of the rumor that Tom Forcade was a double agent, working with US intelligence agencies? After researching Forcade’s life, I traced it to when he started the ZIPPIES as a protest to the YIPPIES endorsement of George McGovern at the Democrat convention in 1972.
Tom’s widow, Gabrielle Schang, admitted in the article:
Gabrielle says she felt “brainwashed” by the Yippie faction into thinking that Tom was a government agent—a rumor that would haunt him the rest of his life, and eventually spread to HIGH TIMES. “I honestly believed that,” she says. “I was very naive.”
But the rumors, spread by the intelligence agencies and their useful idiots, never stopped. While working there I was constantly reminded of these rumors: “High Times is owned by the FBI!” “The FBI owns the mailing list!” and other weird rumors. After I became the Publisher in 1991, I was finally able to cut through the bullshit, since I was in control of the subscriber list and most of the inner workings of Trans-High Corporation (the parent company of High Times magazine). I soon learned these rumors were all bullshit, spread by the same intelligence agencies that endlessly surveilled Forcade. The subscription list was locked up tight. Intelligence agencies were subscribing to the magazine, of course, and we were happy to take their money since they could just buy it on a newsstand if they wanted to.
The rumors made it very difficult to encourage High Times readers to join our activist crusade to legalize marijuana. Forcade was a high-level target of FBI surveillance, who had double agents infiltrating the peace movement and the New Left through the COINTELPRO program.
From the first day I first met Forcade he warned me not to tell anyone we were working together but I never understood why—but this explained his paranoia. He knew that he had powerful enemies, was under constant government surveillance, and had to be secretive in his maneuvers. Again, this is a story for another day, but the surveillance spread to PUNK Magazine and to a lesser degree, the entire punk rock movement. I don’t think they wanted the punk rock music scene to become as mainstream as the hippie movement.
Of course, I didn’t know any of this while Noel Monk was accusing Roberta and I of being CIA agents—undoubtedly due to the “CIA!” rumors many people in the record industry happily seized on, since Tom Forcade was a thorn in their side: For instance, he formed the Rock Liberation Front to free rock music from corporate control—meaning Warner Brothers of course, who were Tom’s mortal enemy. The fact WB Records were owned by the Mafia-controlled Kinney Corporation at the time makes for some intrigue, since the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and most punk bands were signed to recording deals with them in the 1970s. And the history between the Mafia and the CIA/FBI/DEA makes for some interesting reading if you dare to go there. (I know, this is very depressing stuff, but you have to go there if you want to learn the truth.)
Sean Howe’s book about Tom Forcade gives a lot of insight into how insane the government interference reached in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Anyhow, in case you were wondering? Roberta and I were definitely not CIA agents. Also, I am 99.9% certain that Tom wasn’t. My only misgiving is that according to credible research, counterculture figures such as Gloria Steinem and Timothy Leary worked with the CIA, along with mainstream journalists, actors and the Abstract Expressionist artists. Don’t get me started on Charlie Manson.
Don’t believe me? Take a deeper dive:
Gloria Steinem and the CIA:
From the CIA Website:
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88-01315R000300380009-2.pdf
The Chicago Tribune:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2015/10/25/the-feminist-was-a-spook/
Timothy Leary and the CIA:
From the CIA Website:
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88-01350R000200160001-6.pdf
From NPR:
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/758989641
From CBS News:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/timothy-leary-was-fbi-narc/
The CIA Created the ’60s Counter-Culture”
Modern Expressionism and the CIA:
The Independent:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
ArtForum:
https://www.artforum.com/features/abstract-expressionism-weapon-of-the-cold-war-214234/
The bottom line for me about whether Forcade was an intelligence asset revolves around the time he gave me The Grand Tour of the High Times magazine offices in 1977, when we agreed to work together again, just a few months before he was setting the stage for having me cover the Sex Pistols tour. When it came to the Alternative (nee Underground: UPS) Press Syndicate (aka APS) offices, he was like a proud father. This was his heart and soul. I rarely saw the guy express any emotion, but the sense of pride he had in running the UPS/APS syndicates was almost a tactile experience. It was obvious to me that Tom Forcade’s commitment to First Amendment rights to free expression was a driving force, one that we shared.
Underground Press Syndicate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Press_Syndicate
When you consider everything Tom Forcade contributed to making the underground press financially successful, and understand how many FBI and CIA agents infiltrated the underground movement in order to undermine and destroy it, I think it’s crazy for anyone to think that Forcade was working for the other side. Anyhow, back the the Sex Pistols tour:
The after-party was barely worth mentioning, since not much happened. The next day we were still having around with Malcolm and some of his crew when we heard that the band had broken up, and that Steve Jones and Paul Cook were flying with Malcolm to Brazil.
The next day, as Roberta and I were preparing to check out of the hotel, we both agreed that we couldn’t wait to go back to New York. Then Tom Forcade showed up with two plane tickets and asked us if we wanted to go to Brazil! For a moment, I believed him and wondered if I could deal with it, and I thin Roberta might have wondered about continuing this big adventure.
Then Tom admitted he was joking, and gave each of us a first class ticket to New York. We took a red eye flight back.
NEXT: The Sex Pistols in New York City!
The late, great Peter Gorman (who worked at High Times at the same time as I) often traveled to South America, where he did ayahuasca and other weird drugs with indigenous tribes. (He had a lot of crazy stories to tell!) He said that the CIA were down there, very easy to spot because their shoes would always be shiny and they were well-dressed... We were under surveillance all of the time: The DEA would occasionally attempt to shut down the magazine. The CIA is for real, and usually the agents will lie about their status and say they aren't CIA. It's Looney Tunes!
When I lived in Indonesia I got accused sometimes of being CIA, both by locals as well as Aussie and Brit expats. A lot of it was half joking, but I took it pretty seriously since rumors can get started like that and have problematic consequences. Mostly the CIA was a universal boogeyman that could be applied in any situation to support someone's feeling that life isn’t really random after all. All kinds of crazy things were attributed to them. I usually told people that the CIA just weren’t competent enough to manage all that. Ironically, I did have a close friend that they tried to recruit. He was fluent in several of the local languages and had a very good idea what was going on in that part of the world — although his grasp on what was going on in his own head was far less certain. Several of us sat him down at the bar and told him all the reasons why following through with it would be a very bad idea. He saw the light, I guess, because he and the CIA parted ways.