Boy oh boy, the celebrity establishment are dropping like flies nowadays. In the past year, Brando, Miller, Carson, and now Hunter S. Thompson.

The death of Thompson this past weekend prompts me to share the one thing about him that sticks in my mind and probably always shall. I haven’t read any of his books, although I did love the Johnny Depp movie. This is a letter that was excerpted in Vanity Fair in their Dec 2000 issue, promoting the release of his book of collected correspondence at the time.

To the editor Aspen News and Times:December 14 1969
Woody Creek, Colorado

Dear Editor,

My reason for writing this letter is unfortunate, but I can no longer live in Aspen without doing something about the absence of feeling about the war in Vietnam. I am not the only one who feels this way.

Accordingly, I want to explain our action before we do it, because I realize a lot of people won’t understand. On Xmas eve we are going to burn a dog with napalm (or jellied gasoline made to the formula of napalm) on a street where many people will see it. If possible, we will burn several dogs, depending on how many we find on that day. We will burn these dogs wherever we can have the most public impact.

Anybody who hates the idea of burning dogs with napalm should remember that the American army is burning human beings with napalm every day in Vietnam. If you think it is wrong to burn a dog in Aspen, what do you think about burning people in Asia?

We think this will make the point, once people see what napalm does. It hurts humans much worse than it hurts dogs. And if anybody doubts this, they can volunteer to take the place of whatever dogs we have. Anybody who wants to try it should be standing in front of the Mountain Shop about four o’clock on Xmas eve, and he should be wearing a sign that says, ‘Napalm Dog.’ If this happens, we will put the jellied gasoline on the person, instead of the animal. Frankly, I’d rather burn a human war-monger than a dog, but I doubt if any of these will show up.

Sincerely,
‘Adolph’
(for obvious reasons I can’t state my real name).