Higgs John - I have America surrounded: the life of Timothy Leary

The signal that the jailbreak could go ahead was a telegram. It arrived on the afternoon of Friday, 11 September 1970, while Dr Timothy Leary was exercising in the prison yard. He was called into the control office and handed a slip of yellow paper that read:

BELOVEDOPERATION TOMORROW
DOCTORS FEEL BEST NOT TO WAIT
TOTALLY OPTIMISTIC ABOUT SUCCESS
AND NEW LIFE DONT WORRY ILL BE
BRAVE WONT BE DOWN TO VISIT
SUNDAY BUT WELL BE TOGETHER
SOON I AWAIT YOU I LOVE YOU
CONTACT ME AT THREE TREE
RECOVERY CENTER.
YOUR MATE

The sergeant who had handed him the telegram had done so with a look of sympathy. The message was from Tims wife Rosemary, and inmates always reacted badly to cancelled visits. Tim nodded and kept his face blank.

The telegram confirmed that arrangements for the necessary cars, drivers, safe houses and fake identity papers were complete, and that the operation could go ahead the following night. The three trees mentioned at the end of the telegram referred to the rendezvous. This was a group of trees, joined at the root, which stood a few hundred yards outside the penitentiary. If Tim could get himself outside the prison and reach the three trees, he would find a car waiting to take him to freedom. The symbolism was ideal, for Leary had Irish blood, and a group of three trees, always in fruit, was a symbol of unstoppable life in ancient Irish myths.

The stakes were high. If he did not reach the trees, there was little hope that he would ever be a free man. Leary had just been informed that he would be flown to Poughkeepsie in New York State the following week, where he would face further charges relating to the raid on his house in Millbrook nearly five years earlier. The likelihood of receiving more jail time was strong. This would destroy any hope that he had of escape, for this extra time would almost certainly trigger a transfer to a higher security prison. If he were to break out, it had to be Saturday or never. But that Friday the sky was a brilliant blue. His plan needed a foggy night in order to succeed. Without fog, there would be times during the escape that he would be silhouetted in the sights of the gun trucks and the armed guards. Without fog, only a miracle could prevent him from being shot.

He spent the following afternoon in the television room, watching the Stanford-Arkansas football game, and returned to his cell for the 4 p.m. head count. At 4.30 the whistle blew to signify the end of the count, and he waited for his cellmate to go to the food hall. Tim declined to join him, saying that he had eaten on the early line. The moment that his cellmate left, he got to work.

He opened his locker. He removed the white laces from his sneakers and replaced them with dark ones. Then he sat down in front of the locker, a newspaper across his lap, and painted out the white stripes on his shoes and handball gloves with black dye. There was a sudden jangle of keys outside his cell door, and he quickly stuffed the shoes back in the locker. His heart was pounding as he sat motionless, listening to the guard move slowly away. By the time that it was safe to retrieve the shoes and return to work, he was sweating. He was rushing now, and his hands got covered in the dye. He wiped them on his handball gloves and shoved them back in the locker with the sneakers. Then he moved to the sink, where he began to scrub the black paint off his hands with a wire brush. He used his towel to mop the spilled paint off the floor in front of the locker. Finally, he hid the stained towel under his mattress.

There could be no going back now that his escape preparations were under way. He would not be able to explain why he had painted out the white on his gloves and shoes. He had crossed the line. He returned to his bunk and wrote what, at first glance, appears to have been an extraordinarily self-righteous farewell note to the guards. In the name of the Father and the Mother and the Holy Ghost, it read, Oh, GuardsI leave now for freedom. I pray that you will free yourselves. To hold man captive is a crime against humanity and a sin against God. Oh, Guards, you are criminals and sinners. Cut it loose. Be Free. Amen. Those who knew Leary well could recognize his sense of humour at work here, but everyone else could be forgiven for seeing only the arrogance and ego that so annoyed his enemies.