Timothy Leary

His mother was a teacher and his father a dentist. He attended West Point, joined the Army, and earned an undergraduate psychology degree at the University of Alabama while in service. Next he earned a master's degree from Washington State University and a doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley. In 1959, Leary joined the faculty of Harvard University. There, he met professor Richard Alpert and began a series of controlled experiments with psychedelic drugs. Four years later they were fired for using undergraduate students in the tests. They retired to Millbrook Estate, a 63-room mansion in upstate New York. People like William Burroughs, Abbie Hoffman, Jack Kerouac, Aldous Huxley and Allen Ginsberg came and went, all united by a desire to experience better living through chemistry.

G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame was an assistant district attorney in the late 1960s and participated in a law enforcement raid on Leary's upstate compound. According to Liddy's autobiography 'Will' Leary greeted the police and Liddy wearing only a shirt and no pants or underwear. Few drugs were found and nearly all charges against Leary were dismissed.

While he toyed with the idea of cryogenic suspension, he never went ahead with it. Instead, his body was cremated, with a portion of his ashes placed on a small rocket that is presently in Earth orbit, and will eventually burn up as it re-enters the atmosphere (the rocket includes portions of the ashes of Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) creator Gene Roddenberry).

Served as one of several celebrity witnesses to testify at the trial of the "Chicago Eight" featuring defendants, Abbie Hoffman, David Dellinger, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Bobby Seale, Rennie Davis, John Froines and Lee Weiner (1969-1970).

In 1970, he escaped from the California Men's Colony at San Luis Obispo, where he was serving a 10-year sentence for possession of two marijuana joints. His bust-out was aided by the Weather Underground and his third wife, Rosemary. He and she roamed from country to country. In Algeria, they took stayed with Eldridge Cleaver, who ultimately kidnapped his guests after a political disagreement. They escaped and fled to Switzerland.

In 1973, at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan, Leary was arrested by agents from the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Extradited to the United States, he was sent to Folsom prison near Sacramento.

He was paroled in 1976. Leary's life turned to lecture tours, stand-up comedy, writing books, cyberspace and the Hollywood party scene.

He launched a much-ridiculed lecture tour in 1982 with Watergate villain G. Gordon Liddy.

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 348-351. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.