Alleged FBI pressure on magazine distributors and House Internal Security Committee blacklist cited by former writer

I wrote some movie reviews for Cavalier. I recall that Midnight Cowboy was 50 years ago. I always went to two screenings. The first one I would go stoned with magic mushrooms. The second one I took notes. However, I got fired by Cavalier. They declined to publish a particular column—-my review of MASH as though it were a Busby Berkeley musical called Gook Killers of 1970-— ostensibly on the grounds of bad taste, but I learned that three wholesalers had told the publisher they were pressured by the FBI and would refuse to distribute Cavalier if my name appeared in it. On top of that, my name was on a list of sixty-five “radical’’ campus speakers, released by the House Internal Security Committee. The blacklist was published in the New York Times, and picked up by newspapers across the country. It might have been a coincidence, but my campus- speaking engagement-bookings stopped abruptly. It felt just like a film. OH, WELL It was over for me, but it had been fun—like the issue with only the one large red headline on the Cavalier cover: “BEAT ‘EM SENSELESS FIRST’—THE FREE SPEECH CONTROVERSY, BY PAUL KRASSNER ... “Ironically,” I wrote, “it is this concept of the total education experience on campus which I believe to be the basic significance of the much- misunderstood free-speech imbroglio at the University of California in Berkeley.” The sit-in lasted till 3 a.m. Next day, October 1, 1964, ten tables were manned again, and a campus policeman approached one of the tables (manned by the Congress of Racial Equality) where a dozen persons were seated. One was singled out and placed under arrest. But before you could say nonviolent demonstration, the police car was surrounded, its captors reaching as many as 3,000 students. During the late evening, bored fraternity men gathered and tossed lighted cigarettes and eggs on those sitting in the plaza. The demonstrators responded with silence. Next day, 450 police assembled on campus to remove the cop car and its arrested inhabitant, but an agreement to negotiate was reached and the demonstrators dispersed. One of the folk HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_024629