In the year 2001, when Paul Krassner was inducted into the counterculture hall of fame, he was the first living man to be awarded this honour. He made significant contributions to the counterculture of the 1960s as a co-founder of the Youth International Party and a member of fellow countercultural figure Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters who are known for their prankster activism, promotion of psychedelic drugs, and propagation of counterculture through road trips across the country.

As an active investigative satirist (as he calls himself), he published The Realist as a magazine from 1958 to 1974 and then reinvented it as a newsletter from 1985 to 2001. It was the very first magazine of the underground press and leading to the People magazine naming him “the Father of the Underground Press”. According to Kressner, his magazine was an essential combination of satire and alternative journalism. The Realist was also the first satirical magazine to publish conspiracy theories about the assassination of JFK, the Watergate scandal, and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, to name a few.

In 1963, Krassner published a red, white, and blue poster that read “F**K COMMUNISM”, and sent a copy of it to the then FBI Director. He expected an arrest for circulating obscene material and planned to use it as a means to publicise his magazine but was disappointed when no charges were filed against him.

Perhaps, Krassner’s most scandalous article is the “The Parts That Were Left Out of the Kennedy Book”, which was an appalling retelling of the censorship of William Manchester’s book on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, The Death of a President. At the climax, Lyndon B. Johnson, who was sworn in as the President of the United States within two hours of Kennedy’s assassination, can be seen sexually penetrating the bullet-hole wound on the throat of JFK. In an interview much later, Krassner said that a lot of people actually believed the story due to the unexplained removal of parts of Manchester’s book at the behest of Jacqueline Kennedy. The article also made them question the people conducting the war in Vietnam, and hence helped the counterculture movement garner more support.

Paul’s style of journalism unified the observer and the participant. He used to interview doctors who performed abortions when it was illegal, and also a ran a secret abortion referral service. He issued writings on the psychedelic revolution, and then took LSD with contemporary countercultural figures. He published a significant amount of material about the hippie culture, and then took an active part in Kesey’s Merry Prankster that explored the lives of various cults and counterculture groups across the country.

Paul’s most significant contribution to the countercultural movement remains the co-founding of the Youth International Party—whose members are called Yippies, a term coined by Paul Krassner himself—in the year 1967. The party was inspired by a radical, counter-cultural, and anarchic ideology of anti-war movement and free speech. They also used theatrical gestures such as nominating a pig named Pigasus for the 1968 US presidential elections to mock the socio-political setting of the time. The 1968 Democratic National Convention, a demonstration organised by the party against the involvement of the US in the Vietnam war, ended in a riot between the protestors and the police.

Paul Krassner has always been a prolific writer. Besides publishing four books (including his autobiography), he has also published three collections of drug stories, and numerous articles and interviews. Apart from editing and publishing his own magazine, he had been a regular contributor to countless other magazines like Mad, Cavalier, Playboy, and The Rag Blog. He also edited the controversial comedian Lenny Bruce’s autobiography “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People?” and with his encouragement, began performing as a comedian under the name Paul Maul.