as revealed by documents released under the freedom of information act, southern and his wife carol had been put under surveillance by the fbi starting in 1965. in a 2000 article, burroughs intimate victor bockris (who profiled southern for "interview") speculated that this surveillance and southern's "irs harassment" (a strategy concurrently employed by the nixon administration against the more fiscally sound andy warhol and robert rauschenberg) left him effectively blacklisted by hollywood, although perceived betrayals from such putatively close friends as hoffenberg and hopper vis-à-vis his longstanding history of substance abuse and tangible opportunities in other media may have played the catalytic role in eroding southern's efficacy as a writer.