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rhetoric, I wrote to the Justice Department to find out the status of their
case against Groucho, and received this reply:

Dear Mr. Krassner:

Responding to your inquiry, the Supreme Court has held that Title
18 U.S.C., Section 871, prohibits only "true" threats. It is one thing
to say that "I (or we) will kill Richard Nixon" when you are the
leader of an organization which advocates killing people and
overthrowing the Government; it is quite another to utter the words
which are attributed to Mr. Marx, an alleged comedian. It was the
opinion of both myself and the United States Attorney in Los
Angeles (where Marx's words were alleged to have been uttered)
that the latter utterance did not constitute a "true" threat.

Very Truly Yours,
James L. Browning, Jr.
United States Attorney

It would later be revealed that the FBI had published pamphlets in the
name of the Black Panthers, advocating the killing of cops, and that an FBI
file on Groucho Marx had indeed been started, and he actually was labeled
a "national security risk." I phoned Groucho to tell him the good news.

"I deny everything," he said, "because I lie about everything."

He paused, then added, "And everything I deny is a lie."

The last time I saw Groucho was in 1976. He was speaking at the Los
Angeles Book Fair. He looked frail and unsmiling, but he was alert and
irascible as ever. He took questions from the audience.

"Are you working on a film now?"

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