red22
Bluelighter
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This is my first draft of a transcript of Timothy Leary and Art Linkletter speaking on The Stanley Siegel Show in 1979. It's been on YouTube for years.
Leary: Well later, I understood, he admitted that she hadn't had LSD for several months before that … Now, the relationship between Art Linkletter and his daughter
The relationship between Art Linkletter, who's made a living for 20 or 30 years making fun of kids, you know—things that happened
Siegel: Do you think that LSD was a part of her death—the fact that she committed suicide.
Leary: How does anyone know? I would say the chances are 1,000 to 1, no. But Art certainly made a lot of money, and got on a lot of shows—he got himself into the Nixon White House, riding on the death of his daughter, and I think that's ghoulish—ghoulish of people like Carol Brunet, whose ratings are going down [...]
Siegel: Let me ask this, I know that Diane died in 1970: what part did LSD play in this in your judgement?
Linkletter: It played a very vital part and it caused her to become bewildered and agonized about life, and take her own life
Would you take the microphone away from that idiot and let me talk for a minute?
In subsequent investigations following her death, I have absolute, definite proof that Diane had mentioned Dr. Leary as one of the reasons why she thought that there was nothing wrong with LSD and believed what he said when he said it was God's gift to young people. And I think that this man, Dr. Leary, I had hoped he would die, I'd hoped he would be hung, then I'd hoped he would stay in prison for life and now I'm glad he's out as a pitiful example of an aging hippie, a gruesome spectacle of how drugs can ruin a brilliant mind, a third-rate comic in cheap nightclubs with a routine that evokes pity—I've seen it on TV—exploited like any ex-convict with a sensational past, and I predict and hope and pray that his next appearance in showbusiness is where he belongs, in the sideshow of a circus, not as a barker, but as a freak, inside.
Siegel: What evidence do you have of the documentation that LSD was responsible for her death?
Linkletter: Well it's an absolute fact, her boyfriend, her brother—she talked to her brother several times before she died, she was getting flashbacks from LSD. She was not a drug addict, she was an experimenter like so many of the young kids who were believing—and mind you, I do not blame Dr. Leary for all of this; I think he was an important part of it. Such things as Grace Slick and The Jefferson Airplane and the rock groups singing the songs of drugs—people, like Ginsberg, the poet and even Aldous Huxley and his Doors of Perception was talking about the glories of drug abuse, it was a drug world. But Timothy Leary happened to be an intellectual, university-based guru and gave the youngsters a kind of a rallying point. They weren't just talking about hippies, they were talking about an intellectual leader and he—by saying these things—was giving them an additional argument for experimentation in this tremendous time of the 60s.
[5.11]
Siegel: All right, briefly, what do you say to parents? You had this experience—you had five children, you have four now—if kids are involved in drugs, what do you say to parents, what should they do about it?
Linkletter: Don't panic, don't beat up on the kid, physically or emotionally, don't rush off and call the cops, but rather develop an attitude of listening and patience and understanding. The first thing every parent should do is to learn something about drugs and stop making it an emotional hot button.
And I wanna tell you, a study of teenage kids who do not use drugs or booze—and we're always studying the kids who do, but lets look at the kids who don't. Nine out of ten of them are close to their parents. Nine out of ten of them say that their parents check up on them—know what they're doing and who they're with. And eight out of ten say that religion is important or moderately important to them.
[6.11]
Siegel: How many LSD trips have you taken?
Well, they say you've taken 600 LSD trips, does that sound about right?
Leary: Could be.
Siegel: Do you think you've lost any of your brain power—I mean, seriously, do you think you've suffered any brain damage as a result of that.
Yeah, I think I'm one of the smartest people on the planet today. I'm writing two or three books a year, I'm giving lectures, I'm very well received
"Not until 1996 would the two men meet face to face, at a banquet. By then Leary had lost his own daughter and was terminally ill. Linkletter said afterward that he rejoiced in Leary’s pain."
Algis Valiunas. Timothy Leary: A Biography by Robert Greenfield. Commentary, Inc. Sep 2006.
Leary: Well later, I understood, he admitted that she hadn't had LSD for several months before that … Now, the relationship between Art Linkletter and his daughter
The relationship between Art Linkletter, who's made a living for 20 or 30 years making fun of kids, you know—things that happened
Siegel: Do you think that LSD was a part of her death—the fact that she committed suicide.
Leary: How does anyone know? I would say the chances are 1,000 to 1, no. But Art certainly made a lot of money, and got on a lot of shows—he got himself into the Nixon White House, riding on the death of his daughter, and I think that's ghoulish—ghoulish of people like Carol Brunet, whose ratings are going down [...]
Siegel: Let me ask this, I know that Diane died in 1970: what part did LSD play in this in your judgement?
Linkletter: It played a very vital part and it caused her to become bewildered and agonized about life, and take her own life
Would you take the microphone away from that idiot and let me talk for a minute?
In subsequent investigations following her death, I have absolute, definite proof that Diane had mentioned Dr. Leary as one of the reasons why she thought that there was nothing wrong with LSD and believed what he said when he said it was God's gift to young people. And I think that this man, Dr. Leary, I had hoped he would die, I'd hoped he would be hung, then I'd hoped he would stay in prison for life and now I'm glad he's out as a pitiful example of an aging hippie, a gruesome spectacle of how drugs can ruin a brilliant mind, a third-rate comic in cheap nightclubs with a routine that evokes pity—I've seen it on TV—exploited like any ex-convict with a sensational past, and I predict and hope and pray that his next appearance in showbusiness is where he belongs, in the sideshow of a circus, not as a barker, but as a freak, inside.
Siegel: What evidence do you have of the documentation that LSD was responsible for her death?
Linkletter: Well it's an absolute fact, her boyfriend, her brother—she talked to her brother several times before she died, she was getting flashbacks from LSD. She was not a drug addict, she was an experimenter like so many of the young kids who were believing—and mind you, I do not blame Dr. Leary for all of this; I think he was an important part of it. Such things as Grace Slick and The Jefferson Airplane and the rock groups singing the songs of drugs—people, like Ginsberg, the poet and even Aldous Huxley and his Doors of Perception was talking about the glories of drug abuse, it was a drug world. But Timothy Leary happened to be an intellectual, university-based guru and gave the youngsters a kind of a rallying point. They weren't just talking about hippies, they were talking about an intellectual leader and he—by saying these things—was giving them an additional argument for experimentation in this tremendous time of the 60s.
[5.11]
Siegel: All right, briefly, what do you say to parents? You had this experience—you had five children, you have four now—if kids are involved in drugs, what do you say to parents, what should they do about it?
Linkletter: Don't panic, don't beat up on the kid, physically or emotionally, don't rush off and call the cops, but rather develop an attitude of listening and patience and understanding. The first thing every parent should do is to learn something about drugs and stop making it an emotional hot button.
And I wanna tell you, a study of teenage kids who do not use drugs or booze—and we're always studying the kids who do, but lets look at the kids who don't. Nine out of ten of them are close to their parents. Nine out of ten of them say that their parents check up on them—know what they're doing and who they're with. And eight out of ten say that religion is important or moderately important to them.
[6.11]
Siegel: How many LSD trips have you taken?
Well, they say you've taken 600 LSD trips, does that sound about right?
Leary: Could be.
Siegel: Do you think you've lost any of your brain power—I mean, seriously, do you think you've suffered any brain damage as a result of that.
Yeah, I think I'm one of the smartest people on the planet today. I'm writing two or three books a year, I'm giving lectures, I'm very well received
"Not until 1996 would the two men meet face to face, at a banquet. By then Leary had lost his own daughter and was terminally ill. Linkletter said afterward that he rejoiced in Leary’s pain."
Algis Valiunas. Timothy Leary: A Biography by Robert Greenfield. Commentary, Inc. Sep 2006.
