: LSD? CIA? ETC?

[Mike Weaver]

What introduced the rest of the world to San Francisco and hippies was the 
coverage given to the Human Be-in in January 1967. The 'summer of love' was 
the inevitable upshot of several months of media focus on the 
Haight-Ashbury scene.
Read part 3 of Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan (of the Diggers) for a key 
insider's perspective.
Ringolevio is online at www.diggers.org

Since COL49 would have been in production by then Doug's point about 
Oedipa's elite status holds.

I've friends who were in the hip scene in London in the mid sixties. They 
have told me some whacky stories about tripping before illegal drugs (other 
than pep pills) were common knowledge, before "he's on drugs" was an 
automatic response to crazy behaviour, before paranioa was a normal side 
effect of tripping in public.

WRT Kesey, and LSD, the best source of info is in Ken Kesey's Garage Sale, 
which Viking published in 1973. It includes his drawings  of the characters 
in Cuckoo's nest and some bits about the place of acid in the creation of 
Sometimes a Great Notion.

Cheers Mike