Hm... according to this article, it's the opposite. He started out as a Hippie and then married a Republican and everything went to shit.

I hadn't know that much of the history (that link's article links to an even more in depth article), but that's what it says. I think the truth is probably a little more complicated; as you noted his most hippie-ish books came out after this thing says he was already a fascist. I think a certain amount of it is that he didn't really have a single consistent ideology (and felt very differently about personal liberty as he did about governmental structure.)