Generally, when people think of the sixth decade of the twentieth century, their minds yearn back to images of frolicking "Hippies", young people with flowers in their hair and peace on their minds, tooling around in Volkswagen vans and beetles. Even people who actually lived through this turbulent decade have allowed their memories to be tainted by heavily edited footage of Woodstock ’69 and the noxious Scott McKenzie song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)". Though this view is mostly errant, it does have a few grains of truth embedded in it somewhere, as most young people in the sixties were incredibly, vehemently, against the war in Vietnam and some of them did in fact come to the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco, flowers at the ready, hoping to "Tune in, Turn on, and Drop Out", and more imminently important, avoid the draft.

But the sixties were more than insipid songs, uncomfortable and inexpensive cars and massive protestation against the war. Janis Joplin was passing out LSD backstage at Woodstock and shooting heroin outside in the mud, and "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)" was penned to hype the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. The sixties was the decade of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, all of which suffered ugly deaths either in that decade or just outside of it. It was the decade that suffered a record five assassinations in rapid and nearly consecutive succession. The decade was not all pretty, not all bright colors, pretty clothes, and "peace, love and empathy". In some regards, it was a decade still much in the grips of the same problems that had stunted the one before it, namely complacent apathy, which is why the ranks of the "counterculture" swelled so. Perhaps the greatest general explanation for the counterculture, or for the generation that came of age in the sixties behavior, is the fact that they had seen what living inside the bounds of societal decency had gotten their parents, and so were determined to live outside of them. In fact, the cautious, reasonable behavior which had so characterized the previous generations, seemed to be the very root of the problems America was suffering in the sixties, and a small group of politically charged youth during that time were ready to change all of that.

The Yippie!’s first started December the 31st of 1967, when Abbie and Anita Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Nancy Kurshan and Paul Krassner were gathered together, smoking pot and trying to decide what they would do in protest in Chicago for the National Democratic Convention of 1968 (Hamilton 339). They knew they would protest, but they decided they needed a name, because, unlike other organizations at that time, these particular people wanted to use the media instead of shy away from it. In order to make sure they would get the media attention they wanted, they needed a name for the traditional media to use in the stories they were sure to write about them. Their working name was the "International Youth Festival", but by general consensus, the letters IYF together weren’t just meaningless, but even worse, they weren’t catchy in the least. Krassner racked his brain to come up with something that fulfilled both of his goals, a name that would actually stand for something, yet have "the right attitude". "Kids International Festival" sounded too contrived, but what about "Yippie!"? "Yippie! Was the most appropriate name to signify the radicalization of hippies. What a perfect media myth that would be- the Yippie!’s!" (Krassner 156). It appeared to be the perfect name, for it would stand for the Youth International Party. As Krassner puts it, it would also stand for a party "in both senses of the word. We would be a party and would have a party" (Krassner 157). That one statement defines all that the Yippie!’s were and all that they aspired to be. Yes, they wanted to get a message across but they also wanted to have a good time doing it.

But was it really necessary to have such a party? Other student and youth orientated organizations were already planning protests for the Democratic National Convention. What would set the Yippie!’s apart from their peers? Jerry Rubin offers perhaps the best explanation for the birth of the Yippie!’s and their place in the counterculture. Simply put, an organization like the Yippie!’s was necessary because "since it was hard to reach people with words, the Yippie!’s would [have to] to it with emotion" (Hamilton 339). As according to the late Abbie Hoffman, the Yippie!’s had only "four main objectives:

1. The blending of pot and politics into a potlitical grass leaves

movement- a cross- fertilization of the hippie and New Left Philosophies.

2. A connecting link that would tie together as much of the underground as was willing into some gigantic national get-together.

3. The development of a model for an alternative society.

4. The need to make some statement, especially in action – theater terms, about LBJ, the Democratic Party, electoral politics, and the state of the nation" (Hoffman 421).

He continues, "To accomplish these tasks required the construction of a vast myth, for through the notion of myth, large numbers of people could get turned on, and in that process of getting turned on, begin to participate in Yippie! And start to focus on Chicago. Precision was sacrificed for a greater degree of suggestion" (Hoffman 421). In other words, if they could just get people interested and get them to join in with the Yippie!’s in any type of fashion, then they had succeeded. They didn’t all have to be doing the same thing at the same time, but they all needed to be doing something. This notion of myth is central to Yippie! doctrine. Their entire organization is built on this one principle, which is that truth is always subjective and malleable. The Yippie!'s needed large numbers of people to come to Chicago, but how could they get them there? By creating something that everyone could take part in, "Something that people can play a role in, can relate to," the Yippie!'s left the door open for huge membership numbers. If people determined their own part in he movement, the Yippie!'s were certain to always have numbers of people out there on the streets, all of them doing something to keep the Yippie! name alive. It didn't really matter what they were doing as long as they were getting the name Yippie! and the city of Chicago linked together (Hoffman 419).

By March of 1968, small groups of Yippie!’s had broken out in most of the major cities in this country. As the movement became more and more successful, dissent broke out between some of the original organizers. Abbie Hoffman allegedly wanted the Yippie!'s to be pure fun and games, whereas Jerry Rubin wanted their agenda to include an actual political message (Hamilton 339). As Paul Krassner puts it, "Jerry was the left brain of the Yippie!’s, and Abbie was the right brain" (Krassner 157). Jerry Rubin would look at a situation and try to figure out the exact mode of attack whereas Abbie Hoffman would simply act, following his impulses instead of stopping and trying to devise tactics. Such infighting seems to contradict the seeming pacifist spirit of the movement, but it certainly happened. Often the ego’s of the three top Yippie males, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and Paul Krassner, got in the way of executing quick and clean party decision (Krassner 167). Even throughout these problems, the Yippie!’s went on, and they continued with their planing for the Democratic National Convention of 1968. First though, they would need to organize a few smaller events to make sure that when the time came for them in Chicago, they would have the full force of the media behind them. This meant concocting eye popping sketches that would get the media interested and committed to covering their every move and statement.

It was important that the media be able to immediately differentiate the Yippie!'s from other groups, so the Yippie!'s planned events to set themselves apart from their peers. The first of these was the "Yip- In" held in New York's Grand Central Station. The party, which began at midnight, was "a party and celebration with minimal planning", unfortunate since more than five thousand people showed up (Hamilton 339). Hoffman and his wife had gotten there early and decorated the station with bright balloons, which added to the overall festive mood of the event. After standing around a bit, the party goers began to chant "Hell no, we won't go" to no one in particular, and some particularly industrious types "climbed onto the information-kiosk roof, and one tore the hands off one of those four clocks or perhaps of all the clocks", somewhat contradicting later Yippie claims that a resulting police attack was "unprovoked". Unwarranted perhaps, but not unprovoked. The police were evidently provoked in some way, for they "Suddenly started beating [them] out there with [their] nightsticks" (Kronig 49). Even Yippie! leaders were not immune. As the police "attacked the revelers with clubs, [they] sent Hoffman and several others to the hospital with bloody heads" (Hamilton 339). The next Yippie! Gathering was less eventful, this time it was a "Yip- Out", held in April in New York's Central Park. The gathering was dedicated to the "resurrection of the free" and attracted over twenty thousand people. The Yippie!'s were growing (Hamilton 340).

The pre- Chicago activities weren't limited only to these large gatherings though. Hoffman led smaller groups of Yippie!'s in inspired sketches of pure mischief that immediately caught the attention of the media and held it entranced. Yippie!'s threw handfuls of "soot at top executives from New York's famous polluter, Consolidated Edison," and "threw smoke bombs in their lobby" , making the mainstream media scratch their heads in confusion(Albert 2 and Hoffman 417). They staged a "blood bath for Dean Rusk in which [they] threw seventeen gallons of blood at cops, Rusk, limousines . . . had a demonstration at the Daily News Building. About three hundred people smoked pot, danced, sprayed the reporters with body deodorant, burned money" and handed out leaflets which insinuated possible Communist ties to the Daily News (Hoffman 415, 419). Hoffman announced that "He and his associated planned to levitate the Pentagon to great heights." When a reporter scoffed that Hoffman could only be joking about such a thing, he agreed "they might only be able to raise the structure for a few feet." Allegedly "Some say the building did stir a bit and perhaps rose by the odd inch". One of the most famous Yippie pranks was when three hundred Yippie!'s, all of them armed with about one hundred and fifty dollars total, marched into the New York Stock Exchange. Below them in the area of the Exchange known as the pit, the millionaire bankers saw a bunch of scruffy looking kids handing out money and began to gather under the balcony where they Yippie!'s were standing. Hoffman began handing out the money, most of it in five and ten dollar denominations, and the rich bankers grabbed at it like they had never seen money before. "Trading halted. The immense floor of hi- speed greed was now paying attention only to" the Yippie!'s. The stunt was a success. No one understood it, but the glare of the media was fixed on the Yippie!'s, and in every story on the stunt the mentioned that the Yippie!'s would be there in Chicago protesting. It was all that Abbie Hoffman could have asked for.

Truth, according to Yippie doctrine, is subjective. Your truth is different the truth of the man sitting next to you. "It was pure information , pure imagery, which is in the end truth" (Hoffman 420). The important thing was to get something out there, any image, any sound byte to connect the Yippie!'s with Chicago, and that was what was important. The Yippie!'s started a great number of terrific rumors to guarantee that the media, and the general populace that watched the media, would already be able to attach some outrageous idea with the Yippie!'s when they arrived in Chicago. They announced "Plans to drop LSD in the city's water supply; have Yippie!'s dress up like Vietcong, hijack the Chicago office of Nabisco, and distribute free cookies; and rally young people to run naked through the streets" (Hamilton 340). Anything at all that keep their name in the media.

Meanwhile, Paul Krassner had adopted the mantel of un-official Yippie! spokesman. He was quick witted and bold, two of the most important qualifications for that post. Having discovered that "If you gave good quote, they would give you free publicity", Krassner would tell the media whatever came into his head. When Krassner flew to Chicago with Hoffman and Rubin to try and obtain a permit for legal protesting, they were asked what they were "planning to do at the convention", Krassner replied "Didn't you see Wild in the Streets?", a movie where teens put LSD into the water supply of a large city and subsequently take over the government. The Yippie!'s were refused the permit, and Krassner now admits that perhaps "This may have been one reason they thought that the Yippie!'s were going to put LSD into the water supply." Another qualification for the post of Yippie! spokesman was the ability to talk without really saying anything, to give the appearance of answering questions when you're actually saying nothing at all:

"Do you plan to live in tents?"

"Well, some of will live intense, and others will live frivolously."

"Why don't you go to the Republican convention in Miami?"

"What during the off-season?"

"Suppose the war in Vietnam ends- then what will happen to the Yippie!'s?"

"We'll do what the March of Dimes did when the polio vaccine was discovered- we'll switch to birth defects" (Krassner 160).

Krassner's sensibilities objected to Hoffman's "Kill your parents!", after all he didn't want his kids to kill him, but Jerry Rubin loved it, so it became the groups main slogan and launched Rubin to the illustrious covers of the Nation Enquirer under the headline: "Yippie Leader Tells Children to Kill Their Parents!" (Krassner 160).

The Yippie! leaders were masters at media manipulation, but sometimes things didn't work out as well as planned. When Abbie Hoffman and Paul Krassner made it onto the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, Hoffman asserted "I'm prepared to win or die." The reporter then turned to Krassner and asked what the Yippie!'s were planning to do when they got to Chicago. "You think I'm gonna tell you? The first thing we're gonna do is put truth serum in the reporters' drinks." From the entire exchange, the only statement to make it to the actual broadcast was Krassners first, "You think I'm gonna tell you?" As Krassner succinctly puts it, "They had beaten me at my own game" (Krassner 161).

Pressures began to build up against the Yippie!'s from an unexpected source- other youth based protest groups, who took their politics seriously. The Yippie!'s might be all about fun and games, but the other groups had a message they wanted to get out, they truly wanted to change the world and worried that the silly pranks of the Yippie!'s would detract from the seriousness of the antiwar message carried by other groups. The leaders of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) went further, calling "the Yippie!'s irresponsible, and stated that the groups 'intention to bring thousands of young people to Chicago during the DNC [Democratic Nation Convention] to groove on rock bands and smoke grass and then put them up against bayonets- viewing that as a radicalizing experience- seems manipulative at best" (Hamilton 340). Despite this, the Yippie!'s planned to persevere, even as Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the race, "outflanking [them] on their Hippie! side", Hubert Humphrey started to build a platform around the "Politics of Joy" and Robert Kennedy started growing his hair longer to appeal to the younger voters. But even the normally optimistic Abbie Hoffman had to worry "When young longhairs told you how they'd heard Bobby turned on" and soon the Yippie!'s decided not to go to Chicago. Suddenly there seemed to be no worthwhile targets. "Reality and unreality had in six months switched sides. It was America that was on a trip we were just standing still." While the Yippie!'s tried to find a way to disassociate themselves from Chicago grateful, Humphrey changed to the "Politics of Hope" and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. The Yippie!'s were once again on the road to Chicago (Hoffman 423 - 424). Though some activities were planned, people attending the Festival of Life were urged to think up a skit- any skit- or else stay home. The Yippie! image was important, and if you weren't committed to the furtherance of that image, then you needn't come.

The Saturday before the week of the convention, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley ordered police officers to be placed at every water pumping and filtration plant to prevent the Yippie!'s from dumping LSD into the water supply, even though it had been calculated that it would take five tons of LSD for such an activity to be successful (Krassner 163). The Yippie! leaders headed for Chicago in a painted over retired police car after deciding that this would be the "cheapest and most sensible way for us Yippie!'s to surrender ourselves to Richard Daley's battering embrace." Most of the musicians who'd agreed to play the Festival had backed out, frightened by the dire predictions of a violent conflagration during the Convention week, "taking with them the spirit of innocence and harmless entertainment." Hurting badly from media slights, the scorn of other protest groups and the assassinations, the Yippie!'s were dragging into Chicago with a lot less of the bluster that had made them famous. Their "cotton candy cover was blown. [They] were stripped down to [their] politics. [They] came to Chicago only to prove it was still possible to make that journey. [Their] only compensation was publicity" (Albert 1).

As soon as the Yippie! leaders hit town, they realized they were being followed by the police. They had been under twenty- four hour surveillance from the moment they had entered the city proper. Once they realized this, they stopped at every store and every restaurant where they had been treated rudely, hoping to get the owners and workers in these establishments listed as Yippie! accomplices. Every place they went to was later visited by either Chicago Police Officers or FBI agents (Krassner 162).

The realization that Chicago authorities actually were afraid of them caused major ego swelling within the ranks of the male Yippie! leaders. Abbie Hoffman wanted to spread a rumor that the Chicago police had killed him so that people would riot in his name. Instead he got arrested for printing a four letter word on his forehead with lipstick. Jerry Rubin wanted to run down the main aisle of the convention center protesting when Humphrey received the nomination, all the while knowing that he'd be shot before he even got to the podium. Instead he was arrested for inciting to rioting when leaving a restaurant. Even Paul Krassner got caught up in this ego involvement, ignoring the summons of a National Guardsman carrying a huge bayonet and fascinating that the Guardsman would stick it through his back, getting a lot of media attention. The Guardsman didn't even know who Krassner was (Krassner 167).

One of the first matters of business to take care of in Chicago was the purchasing of a pig. Unfortunately, it had gotten around that the Yippie!'s planned to run a pig as their candidate for president, and an armed guard was placed on the pig exhibit at the zoo. Abbie Hoffman bought one, but Jerry Rubin decided that Hoffman's "pig wasn't big enough, mean enough, or ugly enough" so he went out and bought another one (Krassner 167). The pig was purchased from a farmer who'd never heard of the Yippie!'s and who didn't know what to make of them, but who wasn't about to pass up a sale. Later the FBI visited the farmer, and when the Yippie!'s came back hoping to buy a few vegetables, he refused to sell them as much as a tomato (Albert 2). Rubin took the pig, named it Pigasus and marched with it in front of the Chicago Civic Center. "They nominate a president and he eats the people. We nominate a president and the people eat him", he explained (Hamilton 340). Both Rubin and Pigasus were arrested and thrown into the back of the same paddy wagon. The Pigs had arrested a pig.

On Saturday afternoon, the first festivities were set to begin. The Yippie!'s had constructed a makeshift stage in Lincoln Park in anticipation of the concert they had planned. and were joined by "hundreds of experienced SDS street fighters . . . And then, perhaps another five thousand Chicago locals . . . hoping to prove that Richard Daley hadn't completely replaced the US Constitution with Al Capone's Treatise On Good Government" (Albert 2). The cops rushed in almost immediately, even though the Yippie!'s weren't breaking the law. Completely unprovoked, the cops began swinging at everything that moved, whether that was an actual protester, a reporter, or a musician. The violence was overwhelming as billy clubs and other weapons smashed into skulls and thrust into soft stomachs. "There was nothing accidental about this . . . "police riots" . . . don't repeat in the same way day after day, and circle around reporters and press photographers; nor do they push women through plate glass windows and drag them out of hotel lobbies in sight of the whole world" (Kronig 136). Now, instead of making wisecracks when asked what the difference between Yippie! and a Hippie was, Yippie!'s bitterly answered that a "Yippie! is a Hippie who's been hit in the head with a police billy club" (Krassner 169). The police attacked day after day, and in the same manner, injuring hundreds with impunity. It is an interesting point here that the officers attacked indiscriminately. Whoever was in their path felt the brunt of their power. The media was omnipresent and so was unable to escape the confrontation unscathed. The protesters began shouting "The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!", but it made no difference. The cops beat whomever and whatever was in their paths, be that a long haired Yippie! or a short haired camera man for a major network. The violence spread out of Lincoln Park "as far south as the Gold Coast and had demonstrators, bystanders, and folks in their own gardens, cars and bars clubbed, gassed, and arrested. It was the first time . . . that CS gas was used . . . on American boys" (Kronig 136). On the matter of CS gas, the ads for it said '"After ten minutes in fresh air . . . they [tear- gassed people, that is] are ready to start again . . . But if they've had a dose of CS, they're through for the day (And maybe for the year)"' (Kronig 137). Average citizens, appalled and enraged by police behavior, began to join the Movement, picking up rocks and stones along side some of the more militant protesters (Kronig 139). The violence was all over the networks, as shocked American's sat glued to the coverage. Most Americans old enough to watch the evening news remember the street battles, and they remain an enduring image of the nineteen sixty's to this day.

After Chicago, the Yippie! line began to fall apart, as did most of the other major organizations. No one could believe what had happened, and the naive idealism of before began to fade. Exactly what were they fighting? Though most of the protest group leaders had been involved in various groups for years, no one had ever expected anything like what had happened in Chicago. People were starting to think that perhaps they couldn't change the world with just a little marching and chanting.

The Government wouldn't stop, however, until they had squeezed the last bit of life from the Yippie! carcass. In October of 1968, FBI agents, under false names, were hard at work writing dissenting letters to the editor's of national magazines which had carried profiles on Yippie! leaders. The FBI tried to "smear Tom Hayden with the worst possible label they could invoke- FBI informer", they passed around notices characterizing Huey Newton of the Black Panther Party as a homosexual, ran a "fake 'Pick the Fag' contest", always remembering to "Insure mailing material utilized and paper on which leaflet is prepared cannot be traced to the Bureau". This was especially important once the FBI decided to go ahead and "'prepare and mail anonymously a letter regarding [an individual's] sexual liaison with his step - daughter (Age thirteen) to educational authorities in New Jersey' where he was a teacher". They produced a WANTED poster featuring a large swastika and the photo's of Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rudd (SDS) and Paul Krassner. The poster, which was supposed to have originated with militant blacks, called for the murders of these leaders (Krassner 168 - 176).

Finally, the FBI decided to indict twenty people for "conspiracy to cross state lines for the purpose of inciting a riot at the Chicago Convention", but couldn't get the grand jury to go for so many people. The list was then narrowed down to eight, including Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Paul Krassner would have been indicted, but the FBI feared that he would use his press credentials to suggest he had crossed state lines only to get a story. While Jerry Rubin declared that being indicted was like winning "the Academy Award of protest", Abbie Hoffman was truly afraid, and instead of the usual forcefulness he displayed, was reduced to contradicting himself. At times he told his friends that they could do absolutely nothing to help and could only harm, and at other times he said he wanted them to give the judge a heart attack (Krassner 176).

Deciding to take Hoffman at his word, Krassner brought a stash of LSD with him, and decided to take three hundred micrograms of LSD after eating so that when he went to testify he would vomit all over the courtroom. Instead of throwing up, Krassner began to hallucinate. The furniture in the courtroom danced, the judge "looked exactly like Elmer Fudd, the defense attorney . . looked exactly like the Wise Old Owl. The prosecutor looked exactly like the Big Bad Wolf. [Krassner] felt exactly like Alice in Wonderland." Once Krassner was escorted into the courtroom by "Tom and Jerry", he was "instructed by Goofy to raise [his] right hand and place [his] left on a bible that was positively vibrating". When asked to swear on the bible, Krassner, severely under the influence, assumed that "Goofy" was giving him a choice. So when asked if he swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God, Krassner thought a second before answering. When he did, his answer was short. "No." he replied (Krassner 177 - 178).

The day only went downhill from there. Believing that he would vomit himself off the witness stand, Krassner hadn't memorized the dates of any Yippie! meetings or any other pertinent information, and plagued by the huge amount of LSD he'd ingested, he was unable to answer any of the questions they asked him with any type of coherence. Abbie Hoffman was furious, because his freedom was on the line, and Krassner had treated the entire episode like it was a game (Krassner 178). The Chicago Eight were found guilty of rioting, but not of conspiring of riot by a notoriously biased judge, but these convictions were later overturned (Hamilton 341).

By the time they were, the heyday of the Yippie!'s, of all the major protest groups for that matter, was over. The Yippie!'s still exist today, but there is no sense of fraternity, or relevance. The official Yippie! website features links to articles about the charismatic leaders of the past, not any of note today. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin are now dead, Hoffman of suicide, and Rubin in a car accident. Krassner is still alive, and hasn't changed much. At the age of sixty-six, he is involved in the same things he was involved in thirty years ago. He alone carries forward the Yippie! mantel, because he is one of the few alive who was there when it happened, and can remember what happened.

The sixth decade of this century remains one of the most discussed, most talked about decades in the history of this country. The sixty's mean so much more than numbers. The sixty's are a set of idea's, of philosophies, of experimentation. It was a decade of change, and a decade where people still thought they could change the world, before they learned what Mark Twain said years earlier, that people have rights until they decide they want to test them, and that's when you find out what your rights truly are. It was a decade of true revolution, when a bunch of young people stood up and made the world take notice of them. It was a decade of protest, and at the forefront of this were the Yippie!'s, who for the short time when they were truly active, had the world in their hands through their revolutionary use of the media.

The use of the media as a blunt, though malleable tool, wasn't as common in the sixty's as it is now. As we reach towards the next millennium, the word "spin", and the notion of using the media to your advantage is common, but in the sixty's it was revolutionary, and it was what made the Yippie!'s stand out from their peers. Without this tool, the Yippie!'s would have been delegated to the same non-stature as thousands of other angry youths without a name who just wanted to speak, just wanted to be heard. But with the help of a few young, charismatic leaders and the use of this new tool, the Yippie!'s stood as one and used the media with as much force as they could, and they changed their world, and the course of history.

Hamilton, Neil A. The ABC-CLIO Companion to the ‘60’s Counterculture in America. New York: ABC-CLIO, 1997.

Hoffman, Abbie. Revolution For the Hell of It. New York: 1968.

Kronig, Hans. Nineteen Sixty-Eight. Ontario: Penguin Books, 1987.

Krassner, Paul. Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.