In The Covert War Against Rock, we have researcher Alex Constantine doing what he does best: trashing our preconceived notions of recent political history by assembling a jigsaw puzzle made up of declassified documents, court transcripts, quotes from the participants themselves, and forgotten or ignored articles from the mainstream media. This time, his target is the world of rock music (and, to a lesser extent, rap and reggae), specifically the roles played by government intelligence and the Mob.

"The central revelation of this volume is the fact that the [Central Intelligence] Agency and Organized Crime have, for over thirty years, engaged in a program to silence popular musicians whose influence subverts the cynical thought control tactics of American government and media." The power elite of the US, as represented by intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies "takes a dim view of critics in the music industry, particularly young 'communards' who advocate demilitarization, dread-locked musicians standing up for their rights, or street Thugs who condemn police violence and suggest shooting back."

The book starts off with some background on the turbulent period of the very late 1960s through mid-1970s, particularly the reign of Richard Nixon. Constantine presents intriguing evidence that political assassination was standard operating procedure under Nixon. For example, G. Gordon Liddy has twice testified in court proceedings that he was approached to murder investigative reporter Jack Anderson at the behest of the CIA. This is fascinating stuff which deserves a book of its own, since the true depths of corruption under Nixon have never been systematically investigated, with the mainstream media content to look at only one of the most trivial aspects of the whole mess, the Watergate break-in.

Anyway, this is just a set-up to demonstrate that the powers-that-be in the US are not above rubbing out troublemakers. Constantine follows this with a muddled chapter that talks about FBI surveillance of "subversives" and the CIA's illegal Operation CHAOS, which destabilized radical groups in the US through techniques that included framing for murder. In the middle of this, Constantine quickly looks at the strange deaths of the Byrds' two guitarists (within two months of each other) and even throws in a parenthetical aside about Jim Croce's death.

There follows a brief chapter showing that a Mafioso and a veteran of the OSS (the CIA's forerunner) were largely responsible for creating the Top 40 radio format. Then Constantine points out the heavy CIA involvement in the rise of LSD--as well as PCP and STP--in the counterculture.

It's around this point that the connections in a web involving Timothy Leary, Kenneth Anger, Charles Manson, intelligence operatives, and a plethora of rock musicians--from the world-famous to those known only by aficionados of the music of this period--becomes so amazingly Byzantine that I can't even follow it myself, never mind summarize it in this review. Although Constantine does reveal shady circumstances around a lot of performers' deaths, this book goes much deeper than that. We learn all kinds of things, including that Errol Flynn was an "avid admirer of Hitler," Beach Boy Dennis Wilson claimed in a San Francisco Chronicle article that he and Manson co-founded the Family, and the Hell's Angels have attempted to kill the Rolling Stones at least twice.

As far as the actual deaths of rock and rap stars goes, the coverage is uneven. Sometimes Constantine is able to present only shards of evidence, not enough to make you feel sure the person was murdered but enough to get you wondering. Dennis Wilson's drowning death was quite strange. Why did no one present even attempt to save him, and why was there a big gash on his head? The confused coroner's report for "Mama" Cass Eliot states that she died of either choking or a heart attack. One doctor who performed the autopsy gave an explanation based on a Victorian medical belief--thoroughly discounted in the twentieth century--that part of the heart can turn into fat. No matter how you cut it, the hanging death of INXS singer Michael Hutchence is strange (as is the disappearance of his assets), but one detail is almost never mentioned by the media--Hutchence was found with a broken hand, a split lip, and other indications that he had been badly beaten.

In other cases, though, there is more to go on, and Constantine presents substantial cases. Brian Jones--original lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones, who were relentlessly surveilled by British and American authorities--drown in a swimming pool in 1969. The official story is that, wasted on drugs and alcohol, he stumbled into his pool. But on his deathbed, a man who was on the strange, intimidating crew restoring Jones' home confessed to killing the guitarist, and Jones' friend Nick Fitzgerald claims that he accidentally witnessed the murder taking place. Keith Richards has commented: "I don't even know who was there that night, and finding out is impossible. It's the same feeling with who killed Kennedy. You can't get to the bottom of it."

Numerous friends and confidants of Jimi Hendrix feel the virtuosic guitar-player was snuffed. Far from a drug-addled flake, Hendrix actively supported radical causes, including the Chicago 7 and the Black Panthers. His manager--a self-proclaimed intelligence agent who often boasted of his underworld connections--manipulated Hendrix financially, professionally, and emotionally. Hendrix was aware of this and of the huge amounts of his money that were missing. In desperation, he severed all contact with his manager, and one month later Hendrix was dead. But not from drowning on his own puke from an overdose, as is almost universally believed. It has recently come to light that he drowned from a massive quantity of red wine in his lungs. Constantine conjectures that Hendrix was held down and forced to imbibe the alcohol. Monika Dannemann, who was supposedly with Hendrix on the night of his death, believed he was murdered. She was bringing this theory to wide attention in a highly-publicized lawsuit when "her body was discovered in a fume-filled car near her home in Seaford, Sussex, South England." It was ruled a suicide, of course.

There are also lots of contradictions and unanswered questions regarding the deaths of Jim Morrison, actor Sal Mineo, and John Lennon (the people who pulled the plug on Lennon have also been harassing Yoko Ono and smearing Lennon's reputation). The shooting of reggaeist Peter Tosh seemed like a professional hit, and the final days of Bob Marley--who endured a brutal "alternative" cancer treatment administered by a Nazi doctor who had been a protégé of Joseph Mengele--are horrifying, whether or not they were part of a plot. The main clues that the killings of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. had official backing are the footdragging and stonewalls of the authorities who don't seem very concerned with finding the murderers. Was Bob Dylan's near-fatal motorcycle crash in 1966 an assassination attempt? Either way, as soon as he recovered and started making music again, Dylan gave up the radical lyrics and became apolitical. Fellow radical folk-rocker Phil Ochs was driven to insanity and suicide by the authorities' harassment.