Why don't we see this on on the air? To busy still talking up the DWI?
Tennessee Minister Recounts Gore's Wild Night With Biker Gang
By David Thibault
CNS Managing Editor
November 06, 2000
(CNSNews.com) - For most of his adult life, Ray Hudson kept quiet about the events surrounding a party he attended 29 years ago this month. Given the nature of society in the waning days of the American era we loosely refer to as The Sixties, Hudson's account of that November 1971 night in Nashville could easily strike many as unremarkable.
But the tale of this 55-year-old born-again Christian is made remarkable by his recollections and assertions about one of the party's guests, a young local news reporter who today stands a chance of becoming the next Democratic president of the United States.
Hudson, who's served as a non-denominational minister for the poor and homeless since 1980, lives in a Nashville suburb today and maintains a full-time job for a local computer store. His prior membership in a motorcycle gang has been relegated to ancient personal history, as was the story of Hudson's alleged experiences with Al Gore in 1971.
His associations with other gang members long severed, Hudson's story lacks corroboration, as did earlier news reports of marijuana use by Gore during his tenure in Congress and nameless rumors of cocaine use by George W. Bush. But the detail of Hudson's recollections and his reluctance to tell the tale, with little to gain and much to lose, lend credence to his account.
Breaking Three Decades of Silence
Hudson had no reason to talk about the mistakes he made as a young man or to make public what happened on that November night in 1971 when, he says, he and Gore attended the same motorcycle gang party in the Woodbine section of Nashville.
But last Thursday, only five days before the presidential election, news broke that Bush had been arrested in 1976 for driving while under the influence of alcohol. At that moment, according to Hudson, everything changed.
"When the DUI story broke, I said, 'Oh well. What the heck. This (Gore story) is true,'" said Hudson. "I know it's true and I'm going to put it out there." Hudson's story was first reported Friday in an interview with Nashville talk-show host Phil Valentine during Valentine's daily program on WLAC radio. What Hudson has put out there is his account of Al Gore's behavior at that biker gang party.
According to Hudson, Gore, who was researching biker gangs for an article he later wrote for the Nashville Tennessean, smoked marijuana with gang members that night, fired two rounds from an automatic pistol inside the home where the party was taking place and went off to a private room with a young woman, presumably to have sex. At the time, Gore had been married for about a year-and-a-half.
As a member of the motorcycle gang known as the Death Angels, Hudson's nickname in the early 1970's was "Buzzard." He admits it was a life full of sex, drugs and violence.
"Let's put it this way, the people I used to run with, it was not unusual to find a house full of naked bodies passed out," Hudson said in a telephone interview Saturday. "In a lot of ways, it was every young man's fantasy, a very violent culture. And I worked very hard to do what I needed to do, to be a part of that culture."
Growing up in a broken home in Mississippi, Hudson says he began stealing cars at the age of 13. In 1963, having just turned 18, Hudson says a judge gave him the choice of joining the military or serving time behind bars for a variety of criminal offenses. Hudson chose to sign up with the National Guard.
However, a few weeks after beginning basic training in North Carolina, Hudson says he went AWOL, traveled back to Mississippi, stole another car (coincidentally the vehicle belonging to the daughter of the local sheriff), and was finally arrested in Louisiana after leading police on a 10-20 mile car chase. Over the next six years, he was incarcerated three times, twice because he had violated parole conditions. In all, Hudson says, he served more than four years behind bars.
In 1970, Hudson joined the Death Angels. He says during the time he spent with the gang, he carried a weapon at all times and admits he fired his gun at people on different occasions. He would not say whether he ever killed anyone.
The former biker-turned-minister also admitted that on the night he said he was with Gore, he, Hudson, left the party after midnight, "and by that time, I was stoned, to put it mildly." However, Hudson says he was still sober when he witnessed Gore's actions.
Hudson says he believes Gore was able to first make contact with the bikers for his story because Gore knew the owner of a carpet company that employed two members of the Death Angels.
The party was not Gore's first visit with the bikers. Hudson remembers Gore visiting gang members at least once previously. Hudson said the gang was eager to help the young reporter, hoping that Gore would write a positive story, "because at that time, we were getting a lot of hassle from the police."
Unable to recall the exact date of the party, Hudson remembers it happened on a Wednesday or Thursday, just a few days before Gore's article was published in the Sunday edition of the Tennesseean.
He says the one-story frame house, where the party occurred, was in "a fairly rough neighborhood" and served as the rented home for several members of the Death Angels.
According to Hudson, it was not unusual for 25 to 30 people to be in the house at any one time. "Around 12 members, two or three probates (bikers who had not yet earned full membership), and our old ladies," would attend parties, he said.
Hudson said when he got to the party between 3 and 5 p.m., Gore already had arrived. "But it was after dark when the party really got going," he said. Between 8 and 10 p.m., "there were [alcohol] chugging contests and the dope got more plentiful."
Hudson recalls that he and Gore were seated in the living room with about 15 to 20 people. "We were all sitting around, getting fairly well-loaded, talking, joking. He (Gore) was not overly talkative." Hudson says he saw Gore drinking beer and "I saw him smoking pot and passing it around. He took a couple of tokes and was feeling pretty good."
Later, according to Hudson, one of the gang members took out his handgun and fired a bullet at a small piece of interior trim over the front door and then encouraged Gore to "take a shot at it."
"One of the old lady's guns was laying out on the coffee table and he (Gore) was handed the gun," Hudson recalls. The gun was either a .32 or .38 caliber automatic, according to Hudson, who says Gore fired twice and missed the trim both times.
"We didn't have registered guns, permits for the guns. In all probability, the gun came to us through illegal means. Gore knew we shouldn't have had them," Hudson said.
Following the shooting incident, Hudson says he remembers Gore "going into the room with the girl," but says "I did not see him come out."
The house contained three bedrooms, according to Hudson, and the one Gore allegedly used was just off the living room. Hudson said after Gore and the young woman left the living room, he didn't hear any sounds coming from the bedroom because the party was attended by "a rather noisy bunch and we pretty much forgot about him."
While Hudson did not witness what went on behind closed doors, he said there's little doubt what went on in the bedroom. "We didn't give somebody a girl for them to talk to," said Hudson. "We wanted good press. If you want a good article, you've got to be nice to the reporter. That's what the whole situation was."
Hudson couldn't recall the name of the woman who allegedly went into the bedroom with Gore that night, saying only that she was in her early 20s and was one of the women who "had sex with whoever they were told to have sex with."
Try as he might, Gore "didn't really fit in" with the biker gang, Hudson said. "He was not one of us. He would never be one of us. It was something completely foreign to his makeup."
Hudson described Gore as "a clean-cut college Joe, a regular guy, a very plain guy," and Hudson said he never made any connection between the young newsman and Gore's father, Albert Gore Sr., who had served many years as one of Tennessee's United States Senators. "I just knew he was a reporter. I had no clue who our senator was back then."
Weighing the Risks of Disclosure
Hudson said some people encouraged him to tell his story to the National Enquirer, but he decided he was "not looking to make any money off of it." But there also were Republicans in Nashville, including his employer at the computer store, former GOP state Senate candidate Lynn Ray, who urged him to tell his story earlier this year.
"We discussed it many times" over the past year said Ray. "There were times I urged him to tell it and other times I didn't." Ray launched an unsuccessful bid this year for the Republican nomination for the state Senate in District 22, which covers an area west of Nashville, calling it his first foray into politics.
Ray also made it clear that the GOP was not involved in Hudson's decision to publicize his story about Al Gore and the 1971 Death Angels party. "The Republican Party had nothing to do with it," said Ray. "They knew nothing about it."
For many months, Hudson said he "didn't want to be the one to put the story out, to be accused of dirty politics," a perspective that was shared by Ray. "We agreed at this late point in the campaign it would be dirty tricks and it probably wouldn't help Bush to do it," said Ray in an interview Saturday night.
Ray said he has known Hudson for "at least 15 years" and described how he first learned of the former biker's acquaintance with the vice president in casual conversation. "It was like, 'Let me tell you about the time I met Al Gore,'" said Ray.
As a result of their own personal and professional relationship, Ray said he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of Hudson's account, calling him "one of the most trustworthy people I know. I would trust my life with Ray Hudson."
According to Ray, both he and Hudson decided that the risk of retaliation for telling the story outweighed the need to tell it. "It's a scary thing to do," said Ray. But he recalled how Hudson made his decision to talk about Gore's conduct only after hearing news reports about Bush's arrest in Maine in 1976.
"It was a dastardly thing to do, what the man in Portland (Maine) did to Bush," said Ray, referring to attorney Thomas Connolly's admission that he was responsible for leaking the documents relating to Bush's arrest.
Ray said Hudson decided Friday to disclose the information in an e-mail to WLAC radio talk show host Phil Valentine, who then interviewed Hudson about the 1971 incident later that day. Ray said he expressed no opinion about Hudson's decision to go public because "the die was cast at that point."
From Life on the Road to a Life With God
Hudson says he was still a member of the Death Angels in 1972 when the group merged with another biker group called the Outlaws. Hudson says he got married that same year and actually spent his honeymoon riding with his new wife and members of the Outlaws from Nashville to Love Valley, North Carolina. Later that year, however, Hudson quit the gang and moved to Florida with his wife.
By 1975, the Hudsons were back in Tennessee, but it wasn't until 1978 that Ray Hudson said he became a Christian and turned his life around, joining the same church, The Lord's Chapel, in the city of Brentwood, that his wife attended.
In 1987, the Hudsons moved to Ashland City and a new church, the First Assembly of God. Now Ray Hudson belongs to a small church called "Old Path Missions" and conducts a Sunday morning radio program, along with his pastor, on a local AM radio station, WQSV. Hudson says he also often sets up his ministry in Wal-Mart parking lots and at trailer parks.
Hudson says he began voting regularly in 1978, the same year he became a Christian, and remembers consistently voting for Gore during the 1980's, when Gore was in the U.S. House and later, the Senate. During that period, Hudson says he had no idea that Al Gore, the politician, was the same Al Gore he had met in 1971.
"He was a conservative. I thought he was one of the good guys, upholding the moral beliefs" of Tennessee," Hudson explained. "He had voted with the right-to-life agenda."
It wasn't until 10 years ago that Hudson said he realized the increasingly prominent politician, who had already run for president in 1988, was the same man he had partied with in 1971.
Hudson's view of Gore, the politician, changed "as soon he was appointed to be [Clinton's] running mate. It was an immediate change, a complete turnaround right then and there," he said.
According to Hudson, the Gore of the 2000 election "pretty much stands for everything I'm against." Hudson opposes abortion, special rights for homosexuals and is still angry about the extent to which Gore defended the president during Clinton's impeachment by the House.
Hudson denies he has any political axe to grind, insists that he does "not have a reputation as a liar," and does not believe Gore's behavior of 29 years ago disqualifies him from being president today, "[any] more than the DUI disqualifies Bush," he said.
That assessment is shared by Hudson's confidant, Lynn Ray, who described Hudson's Gore story as "small time. It's just like the Bush thing."
Like his story about Gore and the 1971 party with the Death Angels, Hudson's vote is no secret either. He said he has already cast an absentee ballot, prior to Tuesday's election. He voted for Bush.
(CNSNews.com Executive Editor Scott Hogenson assisted with this story.)http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200011\POL20001106b.html |
