Hells Angels plotted to kill Mick Jagger
By Richard Eden, Deputy Editor of Mandrake
Last Updated: 2:25am GMT 03/03/2008
Sir Mick Jagger has long been regarded as one of rock music's greatest troupers, but, until now, he has been unaware of how much of a survivor he really is.
Mick Jagger had fallen out with the Hells Angels
The Rolling Stones singer was the target of an assassination attempt which only failed because the boat the would-be killers were using was swamped in a storm.
Details of the plot have been revealed by an FBI agent as part of a BBC series on the American crime fighting agency.
The attempt to kill Sir Mick was made by a group of Hells Angels after the infamous Altamont Speedway Free Concert in 1969, which the Rolling Stones had organised and for which the motorcycle gang reportedly provided security.
Meredith Hunter, a black 18-year-old member of the audience, was stabbed and kicked to death by a group of Hells Angels, in an attack captured on film cameras. As a result, Sir Mick allegedly refused to use their services again.
According to Mark Young, a former special agent, interviewed in BBC radio series The FBI at 100, which begins tomorrow, a boat of Hells Angels set out to take revenge on the singer at his holiday home in the Hamptons, Long Island, New York.
"The Hells Angels were so angered by Jagger's treatment of them that they decided to kill him," said Tom Mangold, who presents the series. "A group of them took a boat and were all tooled up and planned to attack him from the sea.
"They planned the attack from the sea so they could enter his property from the garden and avoid security at the front. The boat was hit by a storm and all of the men were thrown overboard. All survived and there was not said to have been any further attempt on Jagger's life."
It is understood that Sir Mick was never informed of the alleged assassination attempt. The singer has always been keen to play down any suggestion that he or anyone else working for the Rolling Stones had official dealings with the gang.
The murder at the Altamont concert in California came to be seen as the event that heralded the end of the hippie era of the "Swinging Sixties".
Hunter's graphic death near the stage was clearly captured on film by three separate cameras.
Footage from the documentary Gimme Shelter shows that while the Rolling Stones were ending the song Under My Thumb, Hunter, after an earlier altercation with the gang, was approaching the stage and drawing a gun.
Alan Passaro, the killer, parried the gun with his left hand and stabbed Hunter in the back with his right. The Rolling Stones were forced to interrupt their performance, but, unaware that Hunter's stabbing was fatal, they decided to continue playing.
Passaro was arrested and tried for murder in 1972, but was acquitted after a jury concluded that he had acted in self-defence because Hunter was carrying a handgun.
Under its controversial founder and then director, J Edgar Hoover, the FBI is believed to have infiltrated the gang as part of its investigations into suspected subversive groups.
According to a number of accounts, the gang were hired to provide security at Altamont by the Rolling Stones on the advice of the rock group the Grateful Dead for $500 and free beer.
This has, however, been denied by the speedway track's then owner, Dick Carter, and Ralph "Sonny" Barger, the leader of the group of Hells Angels who acted as bouncers.
Sir Mick was unavailable for comment in time for our deadline.
The first episode of The FBI at 100 is on BBC Radio Four tomorrow at 3.45pm.
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