Speaker 1: Last time on Snafu.
Speaker 2: We cased the place for at least two maybe three months.
Speaker 3: I just felt like I was living in the heart
Speaker 3: of the dragon and it was just my job to
Speaker 3: stop the fire. There were no cameras, there were no
Speaker 3: alarms over the doors. I couldn't see any security measures whatsoever.
Speaker 4: Somebody wasn't me. Somebody suggested what about the night of
Speaker 4: the Ali Fraser fight? And it was like a brilliant suggestion.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, Muhammad Ali was the most famous
Speaker 1: athlete in the world. He was an undefeated boxing champion
Speaker 1: who just happened to be facing jail time.
Speaker 4: How do you stand there with the possibility of going
Speaker 4: to jail.
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 6: I'm just waiting in a day now.
Speaker 1: After refusing to serve in Vietnam as a conscientious objector
Speaker 1: to the war, Ali had been stripped of his heavyweight
Speaker 1: championship title. He had his boxing license revoked and was
Speaker 1: banned from the sport by the Boxing Commission. He was
Speaker 1: convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in prison.
Speaker 1: He stayed out of prison while he appealed the conviction
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. Ali being Ali wasn't going down
Speaker 1: without a fight.
Speaker 7: White America right now spending thirty million dollars a day
Speaker 7: in age of black and white boys are dying unjustly
Speaker 7: for nothing, just to free somebody else. So why should
Speaker 7: I worry about going to little old jail to free
Speaker 7: my pole people who's been catching ail here for four
Speaker 7: hundred years.
Speaker 1: While Ali was away from the ring, Joe Fraser had
Speaker 1: taken the heavyweight title belt. But on the night of
Speaker 1: March eighth, nineteen seventy one, a reinstated Ali would finally
Speaker 1: have his chance to take it back.
Speaker 4: And the big fight is coming up Ali and Fraser.
Speaker 5: Muhammad Ali Ak.
Speaker 1: That's George Carlin on the Ed Sullivan Show. Of course,
Speaker 1: the anti establishment icon had something to say about the
Speaker 1: big fight. But it's good that.
Speaker 8: He's been allowed to work again. As you know, he
Speaker 8: couldn't work for three years. Of course, he had a
Speaker 8: strange job beating people up, but that was you know,
Speaker 8: he is right, he could have that job. Govman wanted
Speaker 8: him to change jobs.
Speaker 4: Goubman wanted him to kill people.
Speaker 8: He thought it over and he said, no, that's where
Speaker 8: I draw the line. I'll beat him up, and I
Speaker 8: don't want to kill him, and the government told him, well,
Speaker 8: if you won't kill him, we won't let you beat
Speaker 8: him up.
Speaker 1: During his hiatus, Ali had become a vocal activist, a
Speaker 1: hero to the anti war movement. Fraser, meanwhile, was embraced
Speaker 1: by supporters of the war. Among Fraser's biggest fans, President
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon. Before the fight, Fraser and Nixon even met
Speaker 1: up at the White House and smoking Joe, Fraser promised
Speaker 1: the President that he'd give his draft dodging rival a
Speaker 1: quote good old beatdown. And so the Fight of the
Speaker 1: Century kruscheted into something bigger than just a contest between
Speaker 1: two athletes. Society at large turned it into a proxy
Speaker 1: battle between those who supported the war in Vietnam and
Speaker 1: those who opposed it. On March eighth, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: anti war activists prayed for an Ali victory, and on
Speaker 1: that same night, one hundred miles away, John and Bonnie
Speaker 1: Rains prepared for their own fight against the war.
Speaker 3: The kids had no reason to be suspicious that anything
Speaker 3: that was.
Speaker 9: Not normal was going on. They had no reason to
Speaker 9: suspect anything at all.
Speaker 3: It was just another meeting that mom and dad were
Speaker 3: going to.
Speaker 1: But this wasn't just another meeting, because this time the
Speaker 1: rains is new. They might not come back.
Speaker 3: We were very, very worried about what would happened to
Speaker 3: our children if we were arrested put in prison, So
Speaker 3: in planning for that possibility, we talked to John's brother
Speaker 3: Bob and his wife and my parents about this jeopardy
Speaker 3: that we were going to encounter. We had to have
Speaker 3: them reassure us that the children would be taken care
Speaker 3: of if we were in federal prison.
Speaker 1: Through dinner, John felt sick to his stomach as he
Speaker 1: contemplated the possibility that both he and Bonnie could be
Speaker 1: arrested that night. He would later say that if Bonnie
Speaker 1: had suggested that they drop out now, he would have agreed.
Speaker 1: A part of him maybe even hoped that she would
Speaker 1: back out, But Bonnie didn't waver, and now it was
Speaker 1: time to leave. The babysitter arrived, John and Bonnie cleared
Speaker 1: the table. They kissed their kids and told them good night.
Speaker 1: They stepped out into the cool night air, got into
Speaker 1: their old maroon station wagon, and drove off towards media.
Speaker 1: Come morning, would they be back at the breakfast table
Speaker 1: with their children as they hoped or locked away in
Speaker 1: a I'm ed Helms and this is Snaffo, a show
Speaker 1: about history's greatest screw ups. This is season two medburg
Speaker 1: the story of a daring heist and the colossal FBI snaffoo.
Speaker 1: It exposed this week. The burglary, a holiday inn off
Speaker 1: an exit ramp two miles from Media, became the Citizens
Speaker 1: Commission's command center for the night of March eighth.
Speaker 4: That was our base of operations. It had a phone
Speaker 4: because you know, remember this was long before cell phones
Speaker 4: and we didn't really think walkie talkies were secure.
Speaker 2: We have to be careful not to alert the hotel
Speaker 2: people that there was you know, seven or eight people
Speaker 2: in this room at that point, and there was a
Speaker 2: lot of nervous tension, excitement.
Speaker 1: One final time, the eight burglars talked through their plans
Speaker 1: for the burglary and each of their roles. There were
Speaker 1: four phases to the heist. Phase one, the break in. Keith,
Speaker 1: barely twenty years old and having mastered the art of
Speaker 1: lock picking, would embark on his solo mission, putting his
Speaker 1: assiduously owned lock picking skills to the test.
Speaker 4: My job was to get the door open by myself,
Speaker 4: and then I leave and then the inside crew comes in.
Speaker 1: Phase two belonged to the inside crew, which included Ralph
Speaker 1: the graduate student, Sarah Schumer, the professor, Bob Williamson, the
Speaker 1: social worker and jokester, and Judy Finegeld, the nineteen year
Speaker 1: old professional pacifist. This foursome would enter the unlocked office
Speaker 1: carrying empty suitcases. Once inside, their job was pretty simple.
Speaker 1: Stuff every file they could get their hands on into
Speaker 1: those suitcases. Oh yeah, and don't get caught. And if
Speaker 1: there were cops out on patrol, Bonnie was standing by
Speaker 1: ready with a distraction.
Speaker 3: They would have seen the hood up and just assumed
Speaker 3: that I was a damsel in distress.
Speaker 1: Phase three, the getaway. The inside team would exit the
Speaker 1: building suitcases in hand and load them into the two
Speaker 1: getaway cars. Then they'd drive to Swathmore College, where John
Speaker 1: Rains would be waiting in the family station wagon.
Speaker 3: We would transfer the suitcases into our family station wagon.
Speaker 1: Switching vehicles would create a smoke screen for anyone who
Speaker 1: might be on their trail. Through all this, their fearless leader,
Speaker 1: physicist and father of two, Bill Davidon, would stay stationed
Speaker 1: at the motel, calling the shots from mission control, coordinating
Speaker 1: departure times, answering calls, making any necessary snap decisions. Bill's philosophy,
Speaker 1: keep it simple.
Speaker 5: Just sort of check on readiness of everything was the
Speaker 5: rule that I played. I waded a car for the day.
Speaker 1: Bill had booked the car rental using his own name
Speaker 1: and real driver's license. He'd reserved the motel room under
Speaker 1: his own name too. It was part of a strategy
Speaker 1: to avoid a cloak and dagger vibe, which had the
Speaker 1: potential to attract attention in and of itself. Last up
Speaker 1: the final phase of any heist, counting the money, or
Speaker 1: in this case, analyzing the documents, would they find just
Speaker 1: a bunch of legitimate case files or records of nefarious
Speaker 1: political surveillance? Start to finish, they estimated the job would
Speaker 1: take about two hours. With this kind of meticulous planning,
Speaker 1: what could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 2: We had picked a time to begin the action, timing
Speaker 2: it to begin with the Ali Fraser fight.
Speaker 1: By eight o'clock in New York City, Manhattan was gridlocked,
Speaker 1: with tens of thousands descending upon Madison Square gardenp with Mohammed.
Speaker 8: Today is my birthday and my maid's name is Clay.
Speaker 1: I'm not on Fraser. The red carpet into the arena
Speaker 1: was bursting with celebrities in zoot suits, mink hats, full
Speaker 1: length fur coats. Remember it was the seventies.
Speaker 4: Fight, Well, it's gonna be a great fight Ali.
Speaker 1: That prediction was courtesy of Diana Ross, just one of
Speaker 1: twenty thousand fans squeezing into the arena. With the eyes
Speaker 1: of the world focused on Madison Square Garden, Bill Davidon
Speaker 1: gave the green light. Phase one of the media burglary began.
Speaker 1: John departed for Swathmore to wait for the handoff. Keith
Speaker 1: headed straight for the FBI office, lock picking tools in hand.
Speaker 1: Inside Madison Square Garden, Muhammad Ali faced the cameras oh
Speaker 1: a lot, dressed in an iconic red robe that would
Speaker 1: later sell it auction for a million bucks. The hour
Speaker 1: of truth also arrived for Keith, who pulled into media
Speaker 1: wearing his five dollars second hand sport coat.
Speaker 3: Keith joked that he had to get a haircut, and
Speaker 3: Bill directed him to a thrift store on the Mainline,
Speaker 3: where he got a Brooks Brother's sport coat for five dollars.
Speaker 9: He was very proud of that.
Speaker 1: The burglars understood they couldn't draw attention to themselves looking
Speaker 1: like anti war hippies. They needed to blend in.
Speaker 4: It was March, so I had a trench coat and
Speaker 4: then I could put some small tools in the pocket
Speaker 4: of that without being obvious.
Speaker 1: Keith arrived at one Veteran Square. He glocked his surroundings.
Speaker 1: Not a soul in sight, accept the security guard at
Speaker 1: the courthouse across the street. But that was perfectly normal.
Speaker 4: So I went in. I went through the front door,
Speaker 4: went up the stairs.
Speaker 1: He was careful to tread lightly.
Speaker 4: The building manager lived in the apartment directly underneath the
Speaker 4: FBI office.
Speaker 1: Keith was relieved to hear sounds from what he assumed
Speaker 1: was the fight broadcast emanating from downstairs.
Speaker 4: So I went to the door, mister confident, and there's
Speaker 4: a second lock on the door that wasn't there like
Speaker 4: two weeks before. I mean, I just about had a
Speaker 4: heart attack. Not only was there a second lock, but
Speaker 4: it wasn't a front door type lock. It was cylindrical
Speaker 4: tumblr lock, which A it's much harder than a regular lock,
Speaker 4: and B you can't do it with the kind of tools.
Speaker 4: I had, special tool.
Speaker 1: And now Keith was feeling like a real special tool
Speaker 1: for not bringing one.
Speaker 4: You know your mind, you always go to the worst
Speaker 4: thing first. Either they know we're coming, and if they
Speaker 4: know we're coming, the only way they can know we're
Speaker 4: coming is if we've got a leak. So somebody's talk
Speaker 4: if there's a leak.
Speaker 1: Keith's mind went straight to Burglar number nine. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: but no, the man who abruptly ditched the group a
Speaker 1: week earlier. Could he have turned into an informant for
Speaker 1: the FBI? Or was he won all along? Keith imagined
Speaker 1: a brigade of armed agents right on the other side
Speaker 1: of the door, waiting for him.
Speaker 4: I like took some deep breaths, and I'm like, all
Speaker 4: we know is that there's a new lock on the door.
Speaker 4: That's the only thing we know for sure. And the
Speaker 4: only other thing we know for sure is that I
Speaker 4: cannot pick this lock tonight. So I just turned around
Speaker 4: and went out and I used a payphone to the room.
Speaker 4: I would love to have a tape of that call,
Speaker 4: because I'm not sure how much sense I made.
Speaker 5: Since I was at the motel, I knew from Keith's
Speaker 5: phone call that there were problems.
Speaker 2: That was one of the people on the call, and
Speaker 2: he said something like we might have to cancel or
Speaker 2: reschedule the event because we can't get in.
Speaker 3: It was like, oh shit, you know, this is just terrible.
Speaker 3: It was a huge left down. I think there probably
Speaker 3: was a few minutes when we thought we had to
Speaker 3: had to give up.
Speaker 9: I mean, there was just no plan being.
Speaker 1: The burglars were crestfallen. They looked to their leader, Bill Davidan.
Speaker 1: He was not ready to give up. After all, there
Speaker 1: was no conclusive evidence that the FBI was on to them.
Speaker 3: We've got this far and we're just not going to
Speaker 3: give up. We're going to figure out something else. And
Speaker 3: that's when I remembered the second door.
Speaker 4: She said, well, what about the other door, And I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: the other door. Did that have a high security lock
Speaker 4: on it? No, just has the regular lock, And you know,
Speaker 4: there's some cabinet or something on the other side of it.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was a ginormous filing cabinet. Bonnie had
Speaker 1: seen it during her casing mission, and that gave.
Speaker 3: Me the chance to see another door from the hallway
Speaker 3: in that third office, and that the door was blocked
Speaker 3: by this huge metal file cabinet.
Speaker 1: But now that door might be their only hope.
Speaker 4: So I go back. I go up to the second door,
Speaker 4: and I could tell already before I even picked the
Speaker 4: lock that there was a dead boll on the door.
Speaker 4: I had a short sixteen inch Prie bar with me,
Speaker 4: so that wasn't going to be a problem. But the
Speaker 4: only thing that worried me is that I could hear
Speaker 4: sounds coming from the room directly underneath me.
Speaker 10: A let's turn back to the instance. Like for I'm
Speaker 10: gonna thirty.
Speaker 4: Five inns, I used the crowd noise to my advantage
Speaker 4: when I popped the dead bowlt, I waited for a
Speaker 4: loud moment to do that. So I put the pride
Speaker 4: bar in the jam and you know, snapped the dead
Speaker 4: bowled off all at once. It seemed quite loud to me.
Speaker 4: And then I just stood there and.
Speaker 1: Listened, listening, listening, and thank god, not a peep from
Speaker 1: the building manager.
Speaker 4: I pushed the door and it went like an inch
Speaker 4: and stopped, and so I could feel that it was
Speaker 4: the doorknob that was hitting something heavy. So I put
Speaker 4: my pride bar in and tried to scoot it and
Speaker 4: I couldn't get it to budge. It was like, oh shit,
Speaker 4: now what am I going to do? And then I thought, well,
Speaker 4: obviously I need more leverage, and I've got a jack
Speaker 4: in the car. I put it in the door jam
Speaker 4: and started to move it, and the whatever there was
Speaker 4: on the other side started to tip over, and I
Speaker 4: was like, oh shit, because if it fell, that would
Speaker 4: have been the end, because it would have been loud.
Speaker 4: The guy downstairs definitely would have heard that. You're not
Speaker 4: going to come up with a cover story to cover
Speaker 4: that one. So I quickly backed off.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind any of the building residents could have
Speaker 1: walked by at any moment.
Speaker 4: And so I laid down on the floor of the
Speaker 4: hall and worked the jackstand in there against the bottom
Speaker 4: of the thing and started moving it. And you could
Speaker 4: only move it like a fraction of an inch at
Speaker 4: a time. I was basically laying on the floor of
Speaker 4: the hallway with my feet against one side of the hall,
Speaker 4: you know, working on this lever and slowly moving it away.
Speaker 1: For what seemed like an eternity. Keith was sprawled across
Speaker 1: the floor in the hallway outside the FBI office in
Speaker 1: a position that can only be described as a cartoon
Speaker 1: caricature of a cat burglar.
Speaker 4: At some point during the whole process, I heard a
Speaker 4: banging noise inside, and that stopped me for a second.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, that was either the FBI or the
Speaker 4: heating system, and there's only one way to find out which.
Speaker 3: We were all probably watching our watches because it was
Speaker 3: taking so much more time than we expected it too.
Speaker 3: I don't think I cried, but we were so worried
Speaker 3: about about Keith.
Speaker 9: We were really worried about his safety.
Speaker 4: So just worked. It worked, at worked, at worked, it worked.
Speaker 4: It finally got it enough that I could squeeze in.
Speaker 4: So Luckily I'm not very wide.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: He squeezed through the door and immediately took in his surroundings.
Speaker 1: The office was dark and, to his relief empty, There
Speaker 1: was no crew of FBI agents with guns drawn.
Speaker 4: I taped the door so it wouldn't relock and pulled
Speaker 4: it close and left. Then I called him and said
Speaker 4: I am next.
Speaker 1: Against all odds and a ridiculously large filing cabinet, Keith prevailed.
Speaker 11: I imagine myself in that situation, and I honestly do not
Speaker 11: think that I would have risen to the occasion the
Speaker 11: way that he did.
Speaker 3: There was this huge, huge relief, so I think we
Speaker 3: had a little guardian angel on our.
Speaker 9: Side and Mary.
Speaker 1: Next Phase two, the Inside crew enters the office. The
Speaker 1: door of the FBI office was now open. It was
Speaker 1: approaching eleven PM at Madison Square Garden, Ali and Fraser
Speaker 1: were still slugging it out our burglars. In Media were
Speaker 1: behind schedule, way behind. John Rains, sitting in a parking
Speaker 1: lot in Swathmore, was starting to sweat. He wondered why
Speaker 1: the hell they were taking so long.
Speaker 3: He thinks they've been busted. I mean, he's that's what
Speaker 3: He's having a nervous breakdown.
Speaker 1: Back in Media, the Inside crew was just arriving at
Speaker 1: the office building.
Speaker 4: The men had suits and the women were dressed up.
Speaker 11: You know, we wanted to make it look like maybe
Speaker 11: we were visiting or that we were going on a
Speaker 11: vacation or something like that, and that's why we had suitcases.
Speaker 3: I remember thinking, I'm not breathing, but I've got to
Speaker 3: be breathing because I'm functioning. I can just imagine, you know,
Speaker 3: some FBI guy sitting in the meet the office, right,
Speaker 3: and he decides to work late because or maybe he
Speaker 3: wants to watch the fight, and his wife won't want
Speaker 3: to watch the fight, right, so he sit in the
Speaker 3: office that we all break in, right, the four of.
Speaker 9: Us break in, He'll shoot us. What do you think
Speaker 9: he's gonna do.
Speaker 4: He's got a gun.
Speaker 11: I remember the tight squeeze getting past the cabinet through
Speaker 11: the door, but we all did that no problem.
Speaker 4: Once we were in there, we shut the door.
Speaker 2: I think the real sentament was like, holy shit, we
Speaker 2: are really here, This is really happening, This is phenomenal
Speaker 2: and in some ways unbelievable. It was like, let's get
Speaker 2: the job done.
Speaker 11: I had a little flashlight, but we taped it up
Speaker 11: with black electrical tape so that only a little pinpoint
Speaker 11: of a hole was allowing light through.
Speaker 1: They gingerly crept through the office, opening every desk, drawer
Speaker 1: and cabinet. They could find thousands of top secret and
Speaker 1: confidential files just sitting there right for the taking.
Speaker 12: I think you were tre you right in the range
Speaker 12: of twenty minutes inside.
Speaker 1: That's Sarah Schumer.
Speaker 4: The focus was on.
Speaker 12: Doing it as quickly as possible and making as little
Speaker 12: noise as possible, and being as undetected as possible, and
Speaker 12: to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: Apart from one small safe they couldn't unlock. They cleaned
Speaker 1: the place out, stuffing the suitcases until all the files
Speaker 1: were removed. Periodically, Bob walked over to the window to
Speaker 1: see if the guard at the courthouse across the street
Speaker 1: was looking their way. He never was. With the files
Speaker 1: packed up, it was time to get out of Dodge,
Speaker 1: so they called the getaway cars, and just to add
Speaker 1: a little insult to injury, they used the FBI off.
Speaker 11: His phone and there was just a one word thing,
Speaker 11: like a pre arranged code.
Speaker 4: Word to let them know were ready. So we knew
Speaker 4: we had ten more minutes.
Speaker 11: Ralph saw this big teletype machine, giant machine that it
Speaker 11: was a means of communication between that office and the
Speaker 11: rest of the FBI system, particularly in Washington. I mean
Speaker 11: it was a direct line to Washington. But the cord
Speaker 11: on this thing was the biggest court I think I've
Speaker 11: ever seen, and we had a pair of both cutters.
Speaker 11: So he wanted to disable the machine by cutting the cord,
Speaker 11: which was plugged into a live socket.
Speaker 4: And I was a little.
Speaker 11: Nervous about that. I tried to talk him out of it,
Speaker 11: but he insisted. The sparks going all over the place.
Speaker 11: It was quite a show there. For about five seconds.
Speaker 3: There was a photo on the wall of Hoover, and
Speaker 3: one of the burglars slid the photo out of the
Speaker 3: frame and took it with them for a souvenir.
Speaker 1: Cut the communication cord and grab the portrait of the
Speaker 1: head honcho on your way out the door. Now that's
Speaker 1: how you leave a heist with style. Next phase three
Speaker 1: the getaway down.
Speaker 10: I stand, the round fourteen and one another great round.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 10: Now if you look over at joe'spoto, is something wrong
Speaker 10: with his face?
Speaker 1: The Fight of the century was living up to its billing.
Speaker 1: The first championship fight ever between two undefeated heavyweights had
Speaker 1: become an epic, bloody slugfest. Then in the fifteenth round,
Speaker 1: a jaw dropping turning point. There that gasp you here,
Speaker 1: that's the sound of tens of thousands of fans who
Speaker 1: can't believe what they just saw. A brutal left hook
Speaker 1: from Fraser and Ali tumbling to the mat.
Speaker 12: They only go on the bike.
Speaker 10: Ahamad Ali was hot on his back, but he's a
Speaker 10: welcome doesn't that late?
Speaker 12: However, it's real fired.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, in media, two men and two women strolled out
Speaker 1: of an office building at one veteran square, each carrying
Speaker 1: two full suitcases. He'th watched from his car. He looked
Speaker 1: across the street and his heart stopped. Someone was looking
Speaker 1: directly at the burglars leaving the building.
Speaker 4: The security guard in the courthouse. The front door of
Speaker 4: the courthouse is glass, and he's standing right inside the glass,
Speaker 4: looking directly across the street in our direction, just standing
Speaker 4: there with his hands folded, looking right. And he is
Speaker 4: a security guard, of course, so he's supposed to be
Speaker 4: watching for stuff. And here comes the inside crew out
Speaker 4: the door, each carrying two suitcases full of FBI files,
Speaker 4: and the guy's watching them.
Speaker 1: For a tense moment. Keith watched the guard watching the burglars,
Speaker 1: and then nothing.
Speaker 4: I used to joke to my kids, there's a very
Speaker 4: important object lesson there. If you're a white man in
Speaker 4: a suit, you can get away with anything.
Speaker 11: I just got in the backseat of the car and
Speaker 11: just you know, breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Speaker 4: And we're all excited too, you know, in the car.
Speaker 11: Once we got in the car on the road, we're like,
Speaker 11: at least I was just complete relaxation with some euphoria
Speaker 11: along with it.
Speaker 1: The two ghetaway cars zoomed off in different directions, One
Speaker 1: headed straight for the farmhouse, the other to Swapmore College,
Speaker 1: where John Rains was starting to panic. The drop off
Speaker 1: should have happened by now, it had been hours. John
Speaker 1: was now convinced that something had gone horribly wrong and
Speaker 1: that he and Bonnie wouldn't be back for dinner with
Speaker 1: the kids for a very long time. Then suddenly headlights
Speaker 1: emerged from the darkness. John held his breath. Was it
Speaker 1: campus security? The cops. The car rolled up next to
Speaker 1: his and the door opened. Bonnie stepped out and John exhaled,
Speaker 1: relief washing over him. He jumped out of his car.
Speaker 9: We hogged and we'd laughed a little bit.
Speaker 1: They worked fast, transferring the suitcases from Bonnie's getaway car
Speaker 1: to the Rains's station wagon. Then it was off to
Speaker 1: the final rally point, the farmhouse.
Speaker 3: I drove and we took back roads, you know, and
Speaker 3: by then it was the middle of the night.
Speaker 9: I was really jacked up. Leave it. We pulled it
Speaker 9: off without a single hitch.
Speaker 1: I don't know, without a hitch might be stretching it
Speaker 1: a little given the whole lock fiasco, but considering what
Speaker 1: could have gone wrong, yeah, you bet.
Speaker 3: We were feeling incredibly relieved and also a lot of
Speaker 3: adrenaline was flowing.
Speaker 9: A lot of adrenaline was flowing.
Speaker 1: It was nearing midnight, and inside Madison Square Garden it
Speaker 1: was bedlong now ring it started to cloud up. The
Speaker 1: fight was over. It was pandemonium. As the judges revealed
Speaker 1: their decision. Anonymous for the first time ever in his
Speaker 1: professional career, Muhammad Ali lost. His supporters around the world
Speaker 1: were shattered.
Speaker 10: Oh here we are in metithisquat God, and the people
Speaker 10: are still standing around. Nobody seems to want to go home.
Speaker 10: I think everybody has been treated to one of the
Speaker 10: greatest fighting evenings I've ever seen. The crowd is getting
Speaker 10: to be very oddly now they're quieting down. For a
Speaker 10: while there they looked like I'm going to tear the
Speaker 10: place up.
Speaker 1: As the world processed Ali's defeat, the burglars and their
Speaker 1: various cars were headed north. The drive took them through
Speaker 1: suburban neighborhoods and along dark, winding country roads. The drivers
Speaker 1: and passengers kept a wary eye on their rear view mirrors,
Speaker 1: constantly glancing behind them, wondering if they were being followed.
Speaker 1: It took an hour to reach their safe house.
Speaker 5: I was familiar with the farm just from knowing the
Speaker 5: people there over the years.
Speaker 3: As part of a Quaker retreat conference center kind of
Speaker 3: out in the country.
Speaker 5: I had made arrangements for the use of the farm.
Speaker 1: Fellowship Farm was a meeting place for local activists. Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King had even visited once it was isolated and
Speaker 1: surrounded by woods. One by one, the cars pulled up
Speaker 1: to the house. To their relief, no one had been
Speaker 1: stopped on the way. All eight were safe and sound.
Speaker 5: Once I realized that everything was working okay and that
Speaker 5: the other cars involved, we're okay, then there's a relaxation.
Speaker 9: I was just.
Speaker 4: Certainly, I was relieved. You know, here we were, everybody
Speaker 4: was there. There were no police.
Speaker 9: Oh my god, that was beautiful. I mean, you're in
Speaker 9: the country.
Speaker 3: You put our sleeping bags down, and that It's not
Speaker 3: that anybody slept. It was because we were all so
Speaker 3: punchy and the adrenaline was just going. We were just
Speaker 3: trying to come down, down and down from being up up, up,
Speaker 3: up and hyped and feeling relieved that we were successful.
Speaker 1: After the fight in New York, Fraser fans and the
Speaker 1: Warhawks celebrated President Nixon who watched the fight in a
Speaker 1: private screening room at the White House, reportedly jumped up
Speaker 1: and down, cheering the defeat of quote that draft dodger asshole. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Ali supporters were devastated.
Speaker 6: And there's nothing to cry and complain about. You know,
Speaker 6: I've been always handing out the defeat. So now I'm
Speaker 6: defeated now, and see how the people felt. And when
Speaker 6: I do come back, if I ever do, I'll have
Speaker 6: a more of a hungred determination, which is.
Speaker 1: Something The loss was crushing, not only for Ali but
Speaker 1: also for his millions of fans in the anti war movement.
Speaker 1: They had no way of knowing that about one hundred
Speaker 1: miles away they might have just won an even bigger victory.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, we had a little champag.
Speaker 3: Then there was this tension about what we would actually
Speaker 3: find in those documents.
Speaker 1: The citizens commissioned to investigate. The FBI had risked everything
Speaker 1: to remove all the files from the media FBI office,
Speaker 1: and now they were about to find out if it
Speaker 1: had all been worth it.
Speaker 3: It didn't take long before someone in the other room said.
Speaker 4: Holy Macro, you're not going to believe this.
Speaker 1: Next time on snafoo, we had some idea that this
Speaker 1: was pretty explosive.
Speaker 11: I went downstairs and my visitors were these two FBI agents,
Speaker 11: and you know, they suggested that we go outside and talk.
Speaker 12: And then the next morning I got a phone call
Speaker 12: from the FBI that they wanted to enterview me.
Speaker 1: Snafoo is a production of iHeartRadio, Film Nation Entertainment, and
Speaker 1: Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. This
Speaker 1: season of Snafoo is based on the book The Burglary,
Speaker 1: The Discovery of Jay Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, written by
Speaker 1: Betty Metzger. It's executive produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka,
Speaker 1: Mike Walbo, Whitney Donaldson, Andy Chug, Dylan Fagan, and Betty Metzger.
Speaker 1: Our lead producers are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Producer
Speaker 1: is Stephen Wood. This episode was written by Albert Chen,
Speaker 1: Sarah Joyner, and Stephen Wood, with additional writing and story
Speaker 1: editing from Alissa Martino and Ed Helms. Tory Smith is
Speaker 1: our associate producer. Nevin Calla Poly is our production assistant.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Charles Richter. Our creative executive is Brett Harris.
Speaker 1: Sensitivity consult from oloakemi Ala de Sui, editing, sound design
Speaker 1: and original music by Ben Chubg, Engineering and technical direction
Speaker 1: by Nick Dooley. Additional editing from Kelsey Albright, Olivia Canny
Speaker 1: and Jimma Castelli. Foley theme music by Dan Rosatto. Special
Speaker 1: well thanks to Alison Cohen, Daniel Welsh and Ben Ryzak.
Speaker 1: Additional thanks to director Joanna Hamilton for letting us use
Speaker 1: some of the original interviews from her incredible documentary nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one. Finally, our deepest gratitude to the courageous Citizens
Speaker 1: Commission to Investigate the FBI, Bill Davidon, Ralph Daniel, Judy Finegeld,
Speaker 1: Keith Forsyth, Bonnie Rains, John Rains, Sarah Schumer and Bob Williamson,