Hunter Thompson Addresses UCLA Audience About Campaign, Cocaine

Journalist Hunter S. Thompson made an appearance last month before a standing room only crowd at UCLA to present his views on the presidential election, illegal drugs and other more esoteric topics.

Thompson, who has a reputation as a go-show, made the crowd nervous by appearing 10 minutes late.

According to the UCLA Daily Bruin, Thompson appeared unusually sober, although he was presented a bottle of Wild Turkey Whiskey and a bottle of Heineken beer, which he drank quickly.

Thompson spoke much about President Reagan and democratic hopeful Walter F. Mondale.

"I like Mondale, actually. I would vote for him. But I think in this election, the only person who is going to beat Ronald Reagan is Reagan himself."

Thompson called White House counselor and attorney general nominee Edwin Morse III a "genuine fascist" and a "Nazi." He added that he felt Reagan would win the election in November, because "people in this country will accept a fascist President as long as he does a good job."

High and Mighty

After his brief talk, Thompson opened the floor to questions. When asked about a story he wrote for Rolling Stone several months ago, Thompson said "It's hard for me to talk about that without massive amounts of drugs," and added, "my body hates massive ingestions of drugs this early in the morning."

Thompson said he thinks cocaine is far too dangerous a drug.

"It's not cocaine, so much as it's the people who use it," he said. "Cocaine has been around for a long time and as long as 1 percent of the population are simple coke-fiends, that's fine. But when 50 percent of the population are coke fiends, "the danger grows."

Thompson briefly discussed his new book, The Curse of Lone, and said he will publish another soon covering everything from "Cubans, to violence, to the Florida Key."

Like a Rolling Stone

The 44-year-old Thompson was National Affairs Editor for Rolling Stone Magazine from 1970-1981 and the global affairs correspondent for High Times since 1977. Ris carer includes assignments with Time Magazine, The New York Herald Tribune and the National Observer, Thompson is also famous as the model for the character "Duke" in Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury.