A plan to give President of the United States Richard Nixon “a little acid” was allegedly hatched by Jefferson Airplane member Grace Slick.
The psychedelic rock legend had been invited to a tea party at the White House in April 1970 thanks to her Finch College ties. Slick decided to attend the event, bringing with her activist Abbie Hoffman to the “all ladies” tea party. She apparently had a plan to drop 600 micrograms of LSD into the President’s drink, a plan which Slick would not get the opportunity to carry out. Her appearance at the event may come as a surprise to fans of Jefferson Airplane, and the invitation may be equally as shocking. But the invitation was reportedly sent by mistake, with Slick suggesting she would never have been invited if she had been using her stage name.
Instead, an invitation was sent to Grace Wing, the real name of Jefferson Airplane’s keyboardist and vocalist. Slick decided to attend and brought Hoffman as her “bodyguard and escort,” which left White House security more than a little suspicious.
Hoffman was told to leave the event, which was “strictly for females,” putting Slick’s alleged plan to spike the President of the United States on ice. Once Hoffman was denied entry, Slick declined to attend, with the pair running across the street to a waiting car.
Speaking of the plan in 1969, Slick would claim Tricia Nixon’s team had no idea who she was, and that they had invited her solely because of her ties to Finch College. She said: “Her people didn’t know that Grace Wing was Grace Slick. So I called Abbie Hoffman and said, ‘Guess where we’re going.'”
Though Slick had allegedly hoped to encounter and spike the president, the plan never came to fruition. A report from the Wall Street Journal claims Slick had been carrying 600 micrograms of LSD to the event.
Slick said her intent was not to “poison the guy” but to give Nixon such a large trip he would publicly embarrass himself. It would not be the President’s first encounter with the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, either, meeting with Hunter S. Thompson on the re-election campaign.
Thompson would nearly blow the President up during his meeting, which took place on the way to a private plane. Thompson, writing in his book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, recalled: “I was seized from behind and jerked away from the plane. Good God, I thought as I reeled backwards, Here We Go… ‘Watch out!’ somebody was shouting. ‘Get the cigarette!’
“A hand lashed out of the darkness to snatch the cigarette out of my mouth, then other hands kept me from falling, and I recognised the voice of Nick Ruwe, Nixon’s chief advance man for New Hampshire, saying, ‘God damnit, Hunter, you almost blew up the plane!’
“I shrugged. He was right. I’d been leaning over the fuel tank with a burning butt in my mouth. Nixon smiled and reached out to shake hands again, while Ruwe muttered darkly and the others stared down at the asphalt.”
