WEBVTT - Chapter 8: What Do We Eat? Eagle Meat. 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.400 Okay, So, just so we're clear on the state of things, 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:05.440 we now have a movement of well meaning and funny 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.720 Catholic civilians trading blows with Federal Bureau Director j Edgar 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:14.040 Hoover and basically in open rebellion against the United States government. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.439 His giant trial in Harrisburg that was happening based on 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.120 brainstorming ideas the crew had mistakenly put to paper, had 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.960 turned the nine month trial prep of the Harrisburg Seven 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.640 into a cause celeb The Catholic. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:31.280 Left had been a pretty small, intimate homespun out that 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.000 where everybody knew everybody, and all of a sudden you 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:40.000 have all these big heavyweight lawyers and moneymakers and propaganda people. 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.360 All of a sudden you tune around, there's Joan Baez 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.080 singing at a fundraiser for you people. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.159 And money flooded into Central PA, including so called movement 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.760 professionals such as Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, Bill Kunstler, 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.480 and many others, the boldfaced names we still. 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:56.920 Read about in books on the period. 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:03.240 Benefit concerts were fundraising parties in every major city called 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.240 cocktail conspiracies, attracted all the left leaning glitterati of a 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.120 given town, Leonard and Felicia Bernstein threw a fundraiser in 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.679 their Park Avenue apartment. The Harrisburg Defense Committee became so 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.520 bloated and so hollywood that many insiders felt it could 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.959 be the death of the movement, which was exactly Hoover's 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:28.320 plan all along. If Harrisburg succeeded, shaky informants, grand jury, 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.160 fishing expeditions, trumped up charges, and death by due process 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.120 would be the government's playbook to crush the Left for 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:40.280 generations to come. As Harrisburg lumbered on, it became clear 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:42.840 to the movement rank and file that the only way 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.000 to strike back at Hoover to protect dissent for future 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:52.120 generations was to grab the brass ring. Throughout that spring 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.080 of nineteen seventy one, Cookie Ridolfi had been working with 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.400 some local activists in Camden, New Jersey, over the river 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.480 from Philadelphia, as they say, searched for just the right action. 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:01.880 You know. 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.720 I used to always say, there was the drama of Catonsville, 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.840 there was the tragedy of Harrisburg, which was a totally 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.000 bogus bolonnique charges, et cetera. And then there was the 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:12.960 comedy of Camden. 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.400 The Camden Locals had identified the downtown Federal Building to 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.040 be the place where they would do something serious. 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:21.560 The only problem was that it was a bit like 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:22.280 Fort Knox. 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.560 A post office on the first floor, an FBI field 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.600 office on the second, courtrooms on the third, Army intelligence 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.279 on the fourth, and all the draft records. 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.160 For the entire city on the fifth. 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:38.880 Cookie and John Peter Grady had shown them how to 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.880 case and gotten them started, But the Camden Locals had 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.560 unwittingly chosen the most ambitious and complex target of. 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:46.880 Any raids to date. 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:51.320 The Camden Locals centered around a parish priest off the 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:55.760 boat from Ireland named Father Michael Doyle. Father Doyle and 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.320 his crew began casing the Federal Building in earnest, studying 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.080 the security guardar it's patterns from a darkened church portico 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:07.280 across the street, but the building felt too impenetrable. Try 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.160 as they might to learn the comings and goings of 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.360 the place, none of them could figure out how the 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.720 hell to get into it. Then one night, as Father 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.840 Doyle approached the dinner meeting of the Camden Locals, he 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.360 noticed a man in a suit following him, so he 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.600 walked past the door of the house where the meeting 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:26.800 was to be held, pulled out a piece of paper 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.200 and began ripping it up. He then tossed the ripped 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.560 up shreds into a dumpster and kept walking. When he 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.280 looked back, the man in the suit was looking in 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:40.680 the dumpster. That night, as they went out to surveil 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:45.320 the building, they were all followed aggressively and conspicuously by 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.520 multiple g men. Father Doyle and the Canden locals were 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.720 so spooked they decided. 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:52.880 To call off the action completely. 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.120 The FBI was probably onto them and the building was impenetrable. 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.040 Their hopes of red As erecting the movement were dashed. 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:09.720 Hoover had won. But the next day one of the 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.320 Camden locals went to hang out with a fellow parishioner 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.960 of Father Doyle's, a contractor and handyman named Bob Hardy. 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.200 He spilled his guts to Hardy about the abandoned raid, 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.600 and Hardy consoled him, betting he could probably figure out 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.960 a way into the building. Hardy was an ex marine, 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.080 although as many ex marines will tell you, there's no 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.160 such thing as an ex marine, and a Catholic convert 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.400 brought into the church by Father Doyle. He'd worked as 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.479 a longshoreman and wept as he unloaded GI caskets from Vietnam. 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.120 After hearing about the abandoned raid, he joined up with 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:48.400 the Camden locals on the spot. Bob Hardy was just 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.880 what the Camden locals needed. Now they had a new 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.000 lease on life. A few days later, Hardy and another 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.719 activist paid a visit to the Camden Federal Building in 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:03.080 broad daylight. First, with Bob Hardy taking the lead, they 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.800 strode into the draft board on the fifth floor and 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.520 they said they were working with a nearby prison and 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.400 asked to check about the draft status of their detainees. 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.080 That showed them where the one A files were kept. Next, 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.919 they went down to the courtroom, where Hardy saw some 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:20.920 workmen and said do you mind if some. 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:22.280 Taxpayers have a look around. 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.000 They studied the fire escape and the window alarms to 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:30.000 their hearts content. Finally, they strode into the alley behind 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.680 the building where some mailmen were eating their lunch. Hardy 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.440 looked up at the fire escape and just blatantly said, 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:38.560 say you've got a fire alarm on that ladder? 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:38.960 Doja? 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.000 And the mailman unalarmed said yep, it goes off when 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.920 you pull it down. And just like that, they had 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.640 gathered more intel in two hours than months of casing 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.559 had yielded. The group's spirits were so lifted by Bob 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.360 Hardy's brio they decided to do the raid after all. 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.599 But Hardy told them if they were really going to 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:06.000 do this right, they were going to need a lot 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.800 more raiders. So the call went out up and down 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.880 the East Coast, Come to Camden. It's going to be 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:18.000 the most complicated, the largest and the greatest possible last 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.880 stand we could ever possibly pull against the war and 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:34.200 against Hoover. I'm Brendan Patrick Hughes, and this is Divine Intervention, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:35.640 Chapter eight. 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.279 What do we eat? Eagle Meat? 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.440 We did all the preliminary work for months, and then 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:03.240 at some point, as the action got closer, people out 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.039 of town would come in, and Tozy was one of 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:05.560 those people. 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.240 Sarah Toci and Paul Cooming arrived in late July. Paul 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.560 had just come from covertly making omelets with Sarah's FBI 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.280 brother in New Jersey, and. 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.400 There were other people from all over the East Coast 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:18.600 had come in to. 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.840 Help out, including Bob Williamson, who had been an inside 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.000 man on the media raid, but of course no one 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:25.160 in Camden knew that. 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.000 Bob Williamson, whose name at the time was weed X. 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.360 We'll call Bob Williamson weed X from now on, partly 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.640 because there were so many Bobs in this story, but 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.720 mostly because that nickname kicks ass. 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.000 My records if they were still in that Canada draft board, 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:40.960 because that was my draft board. 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.280 Just like Paul Cooming going after his draft file in 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.120 Dorchester during the Boston eight. Weed X was well aware 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.560 of a piece of paper in that building that held 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.320 the key to his fate and he wanted it back. 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:54.680 So they probably had a file on me and there somewhere. 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.239 So I started helping with the casing it for Camden 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.720 and just helping to put the action together. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.720 Wison called me up and said we want to go 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:04.360 to a party. 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.840 Weed X then called his media co conspirator, Keith Forsyth, 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:10.880 the one who had picked the lock in the hallway, 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.280 and brought him into the Camden fray. 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:17.600 And I said I might yeah, So he invited me 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:19.840 to meet the Camden twenty eight people. 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.280 Of course, neither would ever speak of their role in 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.520 the media burglary. Among themselves or with anyone else. 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.440 John Peter Grady was there and the m mouster had 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:28.840 come down. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.280 I understood that people chose it because it was such 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.079 a poverty ridden community and because there were so many 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:35.600 people being drafted from Camden. 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.640 Camden had boomed with a Campbell soup factory up until 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.559 the nineteen fifties, but over the sixties had been hit 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.480 severely by layoffs and was now destitute, with blocks of 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.480 derelic buildings and poor, young, underemployed men sitting like ducks 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.440 for the draft. In July of nineteen seventy one, local 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.920 Camden families had just welcomed home the one hundredth soldier's 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:01.480 body from Vietnam. The raiders arrived from up and down 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.160 the seaboard. A certain merriness about what they were doing 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.360 had taken hold. Bob Hardy's entrance on the scene had 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.559 instilled the new confidence, and the FBI tales had all 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:11.200 but vanished. 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.920 There was a lot of singing and continuing to be positive, 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.760 regardless of how scary things could get for us, and 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:18.520 there was just a lot of spirit. 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:20.560 To get to Camden without her. Twenty four to seven 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.880 FBI tail following her there and to avoid being subpoena 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.840 as an unindicted co conspirator in the Harrisburg trial, Cookie 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.720 had disguised herself in her brother's work uniform and escaped 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:36.080 her mother's house in a heating oil truck. Now she 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.920 was staying in Camden full time and had fallen in 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:40.520 love with everyone involved. 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.040 It would like pull you in because of the energy 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.439 of the group in Camden. It was like that, and 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:49.160 John Grady had a lot to do with it, because 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.079 he was that kind of charismatic band. 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:53.800 John Peter Grady we've heard his name, was the co 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.800 chairman of the Catonsville Nine Defense Committee. He was the 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.800 guy who ran Iron Mountain, the resistance book distributor in 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.600 them Bronx, where Anne Walsh and many others first got 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.840 involved with the raids. By many accounts, he was a 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.120 larger than life figure. Men found him gregarious and a 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.720 natural born leader. Women, from what I've been told, were 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:17.160 reasonably more wary. After the Barrigins went to jail, he 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.040 became the de facto leader of the movement and had 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.160 evolved into one hell of a cat burglar. He was 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.520 also the FBI's chief suspects, although wrongly so in the 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:30.040 media Pennsylvania Field Office break in. As all the new 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.520 raiders arrived, they discovered that this raid had a new 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.120 man in charge who seemed to be buying to oust 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.880 John Peter Grady. Bob Hardy, the local contractor who got 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:43.160 the raid back on its feet. 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.920 He was a handyman, and he worked with his hands 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:46.480 for a lover. 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:48.280 He knew a lot about tools. 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.840 He was like a jack of all trades, comperenture with 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:52.840 a wife and children who lived in town, who thought 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.679 this was a great idea. His parish priest sort of 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:56.200 drew him in. 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.360 Already started supplying weekly groceries for the raiders who were 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.360 in from out of town. When they needed tools, he 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.440 would bring them. But he was a bit more of 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.199 a civilian than his bohemian counterparts. 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:13.160 I remember he introduced himself. I remember right away thinking 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.200 this guy, I don't know what this guy's doing here. 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.800 Weed X aka Bob Williamson. 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.319 He was older, he was socially awkward. He did not 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.560 look anything like any of the people that I had 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:27.120 ever broken into a draft board with. 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.120 But what Bob Hardy lacked in street cred he more 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:30.800 than made up. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:32.560 For and know how he was always saying, oh, you 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.720 need ropes, Oh, I have ropes on my troupy. Yeah, 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:36.559 box cut is, you know, whatever, the little tools we 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.120 needed for the thing. He was always there at the ready, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:39.520 and with. 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.320 Bob in the mix, the Raiders decided to go big. 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:46.360 Once inside the Federal Building, they would hit the draft board, 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.439 the FBI Field Office, and the Office of Military Intelligence, 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.280 which George Carlin liked to joke was an oxymorn like 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:55.200 jumbo shrimp. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.560 The building housed the FBI office, the IM Intelligence Office 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.120 in the draft. It was in the courthouse, Federal Courthouse 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.920 and Camden, so it was kind of like a you know, trifecta. 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:06.720 So now it was time to get down to the 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.080 business of mad cap heists for peace, starting with a 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:11.880 new round of intense casing. 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.400 There was a ton of people. I'd never seen that 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.320 many people involved in one action. 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.320 Before prep work. Let's look at the building. What time 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:20.400 do the lights go on and off? 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:21.960 What we would do is go out for hours at 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.320 a time, and we would go out boy girl, so 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.000 that we would look like the cops came. It would 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.079 look like we were just making out. Me and Coombing 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.880 would go or me and one of the priests would 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:32.480 go and we would sit there. 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:34.200 Is there a guard, Where does the guard walk? When's 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.480 the pattern of the guard? How could we avoid the guard? 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:38.760 Basically, what we would do is we would take notes 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.720 about what was happening inside the building throughout the night. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.520 What we had to do is to figure out when 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:44.880 would it be safest to go in. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.600 There was an apartment building that we used to go 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.319 up to the roof of and we had a view 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:51.680 of the Federal Building. 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.280 So we'd have maybe two cars from two different sides 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.080 of the building watching to see when lights went on 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:57.440 and off. 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.400 From Bob Hardy, they learned the guard had a special 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.560 key that he would have to put in certain locks 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.120 on the walls of the corridors at certain times of 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.400 night for fire insurance, to prove there was someone patrolling 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:08.920 the floor. 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.880 And then after several weeks or a month or whatever, 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:13.920 we knew there were patterns. We knew that the guard 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:15.480 was in this part of the building at this time, 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:17.240 at this part of the building in this time, and 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.600 from that we chose our times to act. 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:21.560 From there, we could see the back of the building 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:23.680 where the fire escape was that led up to where 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.000 the draft board was we were able to see all 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:27.280 the floors of the building. 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.320 The building was more complicated than any other raid had 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:32.880 ever attempted to penetrate. 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.080 I did a little bit of teaching of people how 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.000 to pick locks and some stuff like that. 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.640 And then somebody would make a big sort of poster 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:43.760 board layout of analysis of all of the relevant information, 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:48.000 sort of categorized by things like janitors or security guards. 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.480 But with Hardy's know how, they hatched a plan that 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.200 involved getting eight people up a ladder in twenty two seconds, 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:55.840 and not just any ladder. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.760 Not a step ladder, but an extension ladder. Somebody decided 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.400 that we needed to practice climbing this ladder, so the 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.480 ladder was stuck up against I think it was maybe 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.839 Bob Hardy's garage or something in an alley behind his house. 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.440 Extension ladders will break your arm if you don't know 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.200 what you're doing, especially with eight people carrying equipment, only 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.800 having about two and three quarters seconds each to scale 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:17.720 fourteen feet. 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.600 And I can't imagine what the neighbors would have thought 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:24.040 of it. But he's standing there with a stopwatch and 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.560 timing us, you know, getting up the ladder onto the 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.560 roof of his garage or whatever. I just thought it 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.760 was hilarious that that was something we needed to practice. 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:35.880 This was going to be incredibly intense. 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.560 Cookie had always played a strategic, behind the scenes role 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.520 in the action she planned with Grady, but for Camden, 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.800 she decided she was going in. She would lead the 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.200 raiders up the fire escape and be the one to 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:49.680 cut the glass window. 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:55.400 Maybe it was while I was processing all this information 0:14:55.600 --> 0:15:01.200 and thinking about people across the world personal way, think 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.640 about Vietnamese families, just imagining what it must be like, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.640 and I started thinking them as my neighbors and people 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.680 that I knew. And when I started personalizing it that way, 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:15.880 it became more of an imperative to me to act. 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.280 They began to take on their assignments for the raid. 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.600 By that I was pretty committed to whatever what had 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:20.880 to do. 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.960 Some would be lookouts, some would be drivers, and some 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:26.960 would be putting their head in the lion's mouth. 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.120 I was excited, but I don't mean like in a 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.120 happy way. I was just I was excited. 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.200 A week before the raid, Bob Hardy insisted they do 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.400 a dry run of the very complicated plan to penetrate 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.480 the building on the night of the rehearsal. There were 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:44.840 eight raiders who would go into the building. There were 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.360 four lookouts stationed across the street, and there were eight drivers, 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.920 all with synchronized watches, working in a complicated dance. 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.960 Basically, you go with everybody you're going to use that night, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.040 everybody in sync at the exact time of night that 0:15:58.080 --> 0:15:59.920 you're going to try to break into the draft board. 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.200 Bob Hardy's van then reversed into the alley behind the building. 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:05.040 Off We even opened up the back of the thing 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.760 and put the ladder up to see how it was 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.040 going to fit. We had never actually done it before. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.080 The eight raiders had to get the ladder against the 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.480 metal canopy atop a post office loading dogs. 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.000 It was a docking area for trucks to back into 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.600 the post office, and this was an awning that went 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.200 out over It was a pretty sturdial awning that you 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.160 could walk on and walked carefully and quietly. 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:27.040 Because it made noise fourteen feet up, and. 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.280 We knew that we could get up. We had already 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.280 practiced growing up and down the ladder, so we knew 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:34.240 we had to practice some more, but we knew that 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:35.120 it was doable. 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.840 On the night of the raid, they would skidter across 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:39.440 the canopy to the fire escape. 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.480 Then you brought a ladder with you and got up 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.240 against the fire escape even another little bit. Because the 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.440 fire escape was pulled down, an alarm was going to 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.840 automatically go off. Bob Hardy had spotted that, told us 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:55.840 about it, made sure that we weren't going to set 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:57.000 off any alarms on the way. 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.480 They would then climb the fire escape to the fifth floorrapy, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.400 where they would bypass the window alarms by cutting through 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.760 the glass. On the night of the rehearsal, everything went 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:07.840 according to plan. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.520 So it's just a drill practice doing all the steps 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:11.640 and it all went pretty well. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:13.600 But Bob Hardy didn't like how it went. 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:15.800 Bob Hardy was very upset afterwards. 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.159 Emotions were starting to flare. What they were trying to 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.320 do had never been done before, and Hardy's demand for 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:27.680 precision felt a little unattainable. But despite Bob's hang ups, 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.400 the raid was now set for the following Saturday night. 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.160 Just a few days before the night of the raid, 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.200 during a traffic stop in downtown Camden, two police officers 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.720 beat a Puerto Rican resident who would later die from, 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:50.040 according to the autopsy, a blow to the groin. The 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:54.680 following night, Camden's Puerto Rican community entered into open rebellion. 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:59.920 Fires were set throughout downtown. More than fifty injuries were reported, 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.600 and additional state troopers were called in to supplement Camden's 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:04.240 police force. 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.200 There were riots happening in Campden the weekend of the action. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.639 Because about a week before the action, Camden police killed 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.000 a Puerto Rican kit motorists. 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.120 From the apartment they used as their headquarters, just two 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.640 blocks from the Camden building. The Raiders watched in horror 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:19.760 as the city burned. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.920 There was looting, and I can remember we were standing 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.200 in the window at the window looking across the street 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:32.120 and seeing these kids running in and out of these stores, 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.080 breaking windows, running out, running in getting stuff, slathering themselves 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.720 with vasoline, which I later learned they did that because 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:41.880 of the cops that grabbed them. They would slip out. 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.639 It was like one of those things ago. This have 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:46.960 to remember this, This is like a dream. Am I 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.680 really watching this? And this is in television? And the 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.800 streets were just insane, and there were cops everywhere. 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.800 Not only were the cops everywhere, but the mayor had 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:57.760 imposed a curfew here. 0:18:57.800 --> 0:18:59.640 We are trying to do an action in mild Ale. 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.080 This just a few days from the planned date of 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.720 the action. Somebody had to go out and get groceries 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.520 because we were you know, twenty eight people eat a 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.040 lot of food, and so Bob Hardy volunteered, I'll go. 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.320 Keith Forsyth and Bob Hardy climbed into Bob's van and 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.600 headed out to the grocery store. Hardy seemed to be 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:18.679 having second thoughts. 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.119 So Hardy says to me, what do you think you 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.359 think this is really I think it's really going to go. 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.280 There's an awful lot of police on the streets and stuff. 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.840 And I said, yeah, but you know, not so much 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.439 in this neighborhood, you know, right where the draft board is. 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.399 And he was like, it has to go no matter what. 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:39.320 He said. 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.439 You know what about the guard. You know, I'm like, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:44.919 what about the guard? We know what his routine is. 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.040 Just have to be you know, avoid him and be 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:53.159 quiet inside. And he goes, well, I got something, you know, 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.240 in case the guard is a problem, open the glocal apartment. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.520 I opened the glocal apartment. There's a snubnosed revolver in there. 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:03.639 And I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind? 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:06.399