Bob Dylan’s FBI Targeting: It Began with JFK’s Assassination
Award Recipients and Extemporaneous Speeches: A Risky Combination
Delivering extemporaneous speeches can be a daunting task for award recipients. However, when the speaker appears inebriated, the hazards multiply.
In December 1963, just three weeks after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a 22-year-old folk singer-songwriter named Bob Dylan found himself in this precarious situation. He was about to deliver an impromptu acceptance speech at an awards ceremony in New York City.
This peculiar incident is recounted in Aaron J. Leonard’s captivating new book, “Whole World in an Uproar: Music, Rebellion and Repression — 1955-1972.”
The History News Network at George Washington University recently shared an excerpt from Leonard’s book, shedding light on this intriguing episode.
A Strange Acceptance Speech
On December 13, 1963, Dylan received the Thomas Paine Award from the Emergency Civil Rights Committee. However, it was what happened next that caught the attention of not only the audience but also the FBI.
As Dylan, clearly under the influence, took the stage, he began his speech with these unforgettable words: “So I accept this reward — not reward [laughter], award on behalf of Phillip Luce who led the group to Cuba which all people should go down to Cuba. I don’t see why anybody can’t go to Cuba.”
These opening lines alone were enough to ruffle the feathers of the strident anti-Communists who lurked within the hallways of FBI headquarters during that era.
A Controversial Friendship
Phillip Luce, a leftist author, had organized a trip to Cuba for a group of 84 American students to meet with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary. This was a time of heightened tensions between the United States and Cuba, with the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis fresh in everyone’s minds.
Given the U.S. government’s disdain for pro-Castro sympathizers, Dylan’s public support for Luce and his trip to Cuba was sure to raise eyebrows.
A Shocking Revelation
But Dylan wasn’t finished. He continued his speech, making a shocking confession: “I’ll stand up and to get uncompromisable about it, which I have to be to be honest, I just got to be, as I got to admit that the man who shot President Kennedy, Lee Oswald, I don’t know exactly where — what he thought he was doing, but I got to admit honestly that I too — I saw some of myself in him.”
The audience, stunned into silence, listened as Dylan softened his confession slightly, stating that he didn’t believe he could ever go as far as Oswald did. However, the boos and hisses that followed made it clear that the audience had heard enough.
The Fallout
Even a group of social elites gathered to bestow an award named after one of history’s most fervent revolutionaries couldn’t tolerate Dylan’s sympathy for the man who had killed their beloved president.
But it wasn’t just the audience’s reaction that Dylan had to contend with. The FBI also took notice. In a report dated January 1964, there is a reference to a bureau file on “Bobby Dyllon.” This comes as no surprise to those familiar with the FBI under the notorious J. Edgar Hoover, who kept personal files on major public figures and targeted anyone suspected of Communist sympathies.
Dylan’s public expression of sympathy for Lee Harvey Oswald undoubtedly hastened the day when the FBI would turn its attention to him.
To learn more about how Bob Dylan became an FBI target and the events surrounding the Kennedy assassination, check out the full article on The Western Journal.
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