WEBVTT - Chapter 7: The Fight of the Century 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.760 From his office, j Edgar Hoover has placed on the 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:07.080 entire organization his own rigid code of service, integrity, and morality. 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:09.920 In a way that is true a few organizations. J 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:11.880 Edgar Hoover is the FBI. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:16.080 By November of nineteen seventy, FBI Director j Edgar Hoover 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.400 had been serving in his role for forty six years. 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.400 He had amassed so much power in the halls of Washington, 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.920 DC that he basically used Congress as an atm for 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:31.840 the bureaus. And by that I mean his priorities. His 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.320 annual budget hearings were little more than rubber stamp sessions 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:39.600 when senators fell all over themselves heaping praise on his record. 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.240 In the nineteen seventy hearing, testifying before two senators in 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.599 a Capitol Hill conference room, he asked for an additional 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.920 fourteen million dollars because of the growing menace of the 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:56.320 New Left. He told the senators of an incipient plot 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:58.640 on the part of an anarchist group called the East 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:03.080 Coast Conspiracy to Save lives. This is a militant group 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.080 of Catholic priests and nuns, he said, who have manifested 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.720 opposition to the war in Vietnam by acts of violence 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:15.720 against government agencies. The principal leaders of this group, he said, 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.640 are Philip and Daniel Berrigan. Then he dropped a bomb. 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.400 This group, he alleged, plans to blow up underground electrical 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.920 conduits serving the Washington, DC area. The plotters are also, 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.200 he closed, concocting a scheme to kidnap a highly placed 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:39.200 government official. Hoover had arranged for reporters to wait outside 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:44.720 the closed door testimony and immediately distributed copies of his report. 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.840 It was the first time in FBI history that the 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:54.040 director had publicly made unproven allegations against specific citizens that 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:58.480 had not been charged. There comes a point in any 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.920 protracted conflict, and each side starts to try and prove 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:07.000 what they're capable of. Hoover had crossed the rubicon. He 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:19.320 had declared war on the Catholic left. I'm Brendan Patrick Hughes. 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:30.040 This is Divine Intervention, Chapter seven, The Fight of the Century. 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:50.480 So anyways, I was housebound with using Chin. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:55.320 Meanwhile in Boston, Marianne, a divorced welfare mother of two, 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.160 and Patrick, a Roman Catholic freaking priest. We're dealing with 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.520 the fallout from having made out in front of the 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:03.679 fire in his doomed Beacon Street apartment. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.120 You know the kind of whisker burn stuff you get. 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.640 I thought I was bleeding on the way home in 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.160 the car, I thought, oh my god, I think my 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.799 chin's gone. This like oozing the chin. 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.600 I can confirm this. US Irish guys have some very 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.680 sharp stubble. I've seen some shit. 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:22.320 I remember. 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:26.440 The next night he came over to my apartment. I 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.680 couldn't leave the house, of course, because of the oozing chin. 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.600 And he was mortified because like, if I went to 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.600 the community with this, I mean, you only get that 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.080 from one situation. 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.760 Right, Remember hickeys, the scandal of physical evidence. After two 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.040 of your friends in high school hooked up over the weekend, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.320 turtlenecks on Mondays meant one thing, and one thing only 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.800 when I was in school. Patrick spent the next day 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.680 conducting his affairs like the Roman Catholic priest he still 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.800 ostensibly was, and then drove his VW bus to Marianne's 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:03.920 apartments in Dorchester. 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.800 The next night, he came over around ten o'clock. The 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:07.360 kids are in. 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:07.680 Dead and. 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.680 I opened the door and we just looked at each other. 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.560 Neither of us could believe what had happened. But it 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:17.080 was so. 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.080 Total, like the giving over of ourselves to each other 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:29.640 emotionally was so total, like having stepped over that line. 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.479 We can't know what kind of conversation Patrick was having 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.160 with himself about having broken his vow of celibacy. What 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:38.760 we do know is that A he fell in love 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.960 with Mary Anne and their affair continued, and B he 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.159 also continued to perform his duties as a priest and 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.080 made no announcement to the team the way Floyd did. 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:52.160 But in terms of being in love with or something 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:56.400 like that, he never spoke to me about that. 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:02.080 You know, did you ever pick up on any vibe? 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:08.200 I didn't. I did not, But I'm not that astute 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.560 when it comes to some of those. 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.599 Things, and I didn't know anything about. 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.159 It Patrick's sister Joanne. 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.240 But for him, he was still a practicing priest and 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:21.560 he's dating, I suppose you might say, and really falling 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:22.039 in love. 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.160 You know, there was. 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.400 Still that element, you see, that he wanted so much 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:34.160 in his life that somehow the priesthood refused to allow. 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:39.360 And yet when he saw it and felt it, he 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:45.200 knew that that's what he wanted and needed to really 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:50.080 fulfill himself and to be in this relationship, this partnership. 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.120 It just was going to happen no matter what. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.280 If Patrick were in the market for a strong rationalization 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.760 for his decision, he wouldn't have to look far. Strict 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.919 celibacy for priests had only been around since eleven thirty 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.159 nine AD, when the Church had grown tired of the 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.760 widows of priests inheriting the land on which they had 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.120 built their churches. So at the second latter in Council 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:20.640 they eliminated the future existence of widows by decreeing priestly celibacy. 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.600 Patrick might have told himself that the church's real concern 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:25.800 with sex had more to do with real estate than 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.360 anything holy or sacred, but the fact remained. He was 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.120 now sailing and the part of the old world maps 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:33.799 marked here be dragons. 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.760 Patrick. We have to talk to you. 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:41.280 Sarah Tosey back from New. 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.320 Jersey, because you are afraid to love. 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:44.440 I am alone. 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.080 We schedule our days so that we can say to 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.560 one another. I don't have time to know you, and 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:53.320 we're all guilty. 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:55.240 How can people be so hard? 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.280 Sarah must have known things were different when she returned. 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:03.200 The tricycles had come to depend on was now a bicycle. 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:07.560 Romance and the revolution. Don't mix. See, there's no time 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.280 in your life. There's no time for that in your life. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.240 And then when Marianne and Sarah's landlord on Florida Street 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.880 saw their picture in the paper during the Kooming asylum, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.960 he showed up at their door and evicted them. 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:23.240 You kind of had to be there to believe it. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.360 Wake up to god, damn it, you're all evicted, goddamn kids. 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.360 Goddamn mister Collins solo and attack on the front door. 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.200 The sound of ripping and falling paper. This isn't happening. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:41.560 Goddamn goddamn outraged Chrissy, mister Collins, don't you rip down 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:46.600 my mommy's door? Mama, where's my pone? Our sentiments exactly? 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:48.800 Maybe we can move to the center. 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.920 Unsettled and on the move once more, Sarah picked up 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.800 her pieces and refocused her energy away from her disintegrating 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:02.400 trio and towards ending this goddamn war. Her dream of 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.520 what the Paula Center could have been in her life 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.840 was ending, but her dream of being a revolutionary had 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:12.680 only just begun. Sarah TOSI was now determined to take 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:19.400 part in a draft rate. Jay Edgar Hoover's testimony before 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.280 the Appropriations Committee was only the first punch of a 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.360 one to two combination. The second punch came when his 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.720 Department of Justice delivered a preliminary indictment of Catholic left 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:36.000 movement leaders in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. FBI agents fanned out with 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.240 subpoenas up and down the Eastern Seaboard, serving hundreds of 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:43.160 activists like Anne Walsh, Paul Cooming, and Bob Kinnane. They 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:47.559 arrested eight, including Ted Glick and Phil Berrigan, for conspiracy. 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.040 Yeah, we were arrested, taken to the county jail. 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.600 Telling them they were no longer fit to live in society, 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:54.880 and scaring the shit out of them with threats of 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:55.680 life in prison. 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.960 Harrisburg were people charged with planning to kidnap Henry Kissinger 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.880 and blow up the steam pipes under the Pentagon. This 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:07.400 is Jim Carroll, which were ideas put forth in wild, irresponsible, 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:12.440 somewhat mad brainstorming sessions of Catholic peacenicks sitting around the 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.920 living room late at night having had a few, and 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.079 there was in the crowd, an FBI plant, an informant, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.880 and one of the piece knicks was describing some of 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:28.280 these sessions in letters to Philip Beregon, who was in prison, 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:32.160 and the letters were intercepted by the government. 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.280 Remember Boyd Douglas, the incarcerated man who helped plan the 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:40.040 Flower City conspiracy with Ted Glick and spirited messages to 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.720 phil Berrigan on the inside, Well, he was showing every 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:45.760 one of those letters to the FBI. 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.560 Those letters were the basis of the charges brought against 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:53.400 eight people, including the Berrigans, charges of conspiracy to kidnap 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.440 Henry Kissinger. They weren't going to kidnap Henry Kissinger. They 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.880 were going to make a citizens arrest. That's the way 0:09:58.920 --> 0:09:59.800 they talked about it. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.280 Vover's indictment was an important experiment. He was looking for 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.440 a new playbook for crushing descent in the US, and 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.840 he felt like if this grand jury could drain the 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.199 movement's resources in an endless court proceeding, he could all 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.680 but immunize the government to unrest. And those in the 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.840 movement now knew they had to respond, and they began 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.920 trading blows with the most powerful man in Washington, DC. 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.280 In Boston. Sarah's wish for a draft board to raid 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.920 was granted when Paul Cooming returned triumphantly to the gang 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:37.040 after only three weeks in jail following his sanctuary. Now 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.720 on probation, he crashed once again with Marianne and Sarah 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.080 in their new Dorchester digs on Bowden Street. And he 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.520 was ready for more action, lunatic that he was. 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:54.040 And there was some talk locally here about doing a 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:58.160 smaller draft board, just making things happen so that they 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:02.760 were constantly happening. So there was a plan to do 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:04.480 the Summerville draft board. 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.959 Sarah, Paul, Marianne and a few others planned a little 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:15.880 action to keep the government off balance. 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:16.040 Me. 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:17.800 I think there was a fairly small group. 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:19.439 I don't think there was more than eight of us 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:21.400 or nine of us all together that we're doing it. 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.920 They chose a draft board in Powderhouse Square Park, right 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.560 next to Tufts University. It was the oldest stone building 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.960 in Massachusetts, used by the British as a gunpowder magazine 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:33.640 and the run up to the Revolutionary War. 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.000 Yeah, I can remember casing it and saying, my god, 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.400 I've never seen such a simple building. You know, it's 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.560 just one floor. I mean, anybody can draw our three 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:42.760 dimensional picture of it. 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.320 Sarah, Paul and some of the others would sneak in 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.239 through the first floor window in the back while Marianne 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.920 sat in a parked car a block away acting as 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:51.320 a lookout. 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.240 I mean it would never go inside a draft board 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.680 for fear of getting arrested and of what would happen 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:57.320 to the kids. 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.840 So I would support in many, many other ways. 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.840 Marianne's job was to watch for passing police cars and 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:04.920 alert the raiders she saw if anything. 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.560 Happened, flashing her lights twice or something like that in 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.520 the car if somebody was coming, you know, like a cop, 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:13.360 cow was coming by or something. 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.280 They were lest we forget the gang that couldn't shoot straight. 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.600 So I was in a car, I had my walkie talkie, 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.319 and all of a sudden I picked up some wine, 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:33.679 some radio Cebe channel, and this couple are having Cebe 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:34.439 Channel sex. 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.160 She stap there. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.559 I didn't dare shut it off because I well, I 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.040 didn't know what would happen if I ever had a use. 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.439 Well, Marianne became more and more engrossed in a steamy 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.040 dialogue on her radio. Sarah and Paul in black painted 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.480 sneakers and hockey team flashlights, broke into the powder house. 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.080 They got in through some windows in the back and 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.199 they went right to the files, got all the files. 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:09.600 I mean, they were in and out and no time 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:10.800 at all, and it was done. 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.319 Back in Dorchester, Sarah and Marianne took their cue from 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.480 Paul's Newhaven action and mailed back the one A file 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.080 to the draftees until they ran out of postage. 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:25.760 And then we went to Miles Standish Park and had 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:26.800 a bonfire. 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:27.080 With the rest of them. 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.520 Miles Standish, the British Navy captain who once said war 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.600 is a terrible trade, but when the cause is just 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.240 the smell of gunpowder is sweet. 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.880 So as we're driving, we're all in the car and 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.440 we have all the files in the trunk. 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.760 And Joe and I were in the back seat, Chrissy, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.400 Marianne's daughter, Call and my mom were in the front seat, 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.360 and in the trunk which was in the front, they. 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:51.840 Had a beetle. 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.240 Of course, there were draft cards that had been stolen. 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.960 And we're driving to burn the files and these car 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:00.920 pull us over. 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.080 Every heart in the whole car just stopped. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.840 I think my mom drank a sip. She had like 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:25.960 a coke, a can of something, and they thought it 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.840 was beer or something and pulled us over. And it wasn't. 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:32.240 The cops that we were drinking, and that's why they 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:32.920 pulled us over. 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.360 If that cop inspected the vehicle. Given Hoover's declared war 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:39.240 on the Catholic left in the recent timing of the 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:43.400 Harrisburg indictment, they would go away for a long time. 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:49.880 But the gods smiled that night and the cop let 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.520 them go with a warning. 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:55.960 We drove away just oh my god. 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.480 I just remember being anxious a lot like that something 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:02.640 was going to happen, like people were getting arrested, like 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:07.400 people were going to jail, and my mom was doing stuff. 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:08.200 That might get hurt. 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.160 Like I was like, wait, they can just come and 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.440 take the people that you love out of your house. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:14.280 It made me very anxious. 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.920 Deeply spooked. Sarah, Paul, Marianne, and the kids continued to 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:23.440 mile Standish Park, where, despite their pounding hearts, the burning 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:38.560 one a files smelled sweet. Sarah, after the Somerville raid, 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.560 decided she could no longer linger in Boston as Patrick 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:44.760 and mary Anne fell deeper in love. 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.520 What are we saying goodbye to to a phase, to Patrick, 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.840 to our mission at the center, to what there's a 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:56.120 piece of me I don't give away the wayfaring stranger 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.840 part that doesn't want to say we, that won't fall 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:01.440 off any cliffs. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:02.920 That is alone. 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:07.080 Sarah soon left Boston. She left Marianne to her secret 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.560 affair with Patrick, and Patrick to his devolving mess at 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.160 the Paulit Center. She brought Paul coming home with her 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.680 to New Jersey, where her father lay dying from cancer. 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.320 I had gone to Sarah's house with her when her 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.480 father was very ill with cancer. The night were there, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.760 her father died during that night that we happened to 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:32.800 be there, so I stayed around for the funeral, and 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:35.320 siblings all came back to the house. 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.240 The war between the Catholic Left and the FBI was 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.840 complicated for Sarah Tosi in particular. As LeeAnne Mosha tells us, you. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.480 Know, Sarah Tosi's brother was an FBI agent, and most 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.240 of the FBI agents were Irish Catholic. 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:52.040 I'm still reacting from seeing my brother. It is so strange. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.160 I barely know him now. We get along, but that 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.960 is all I want so badly to talk to him, 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.200 my brother, not to his job, but the person. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.200 She wrote letters back to Marianne and Patrick from Jersey. 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.320 I think my FBI brother is coming to visit next week. 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.360 I'm dying to find out what he knows about Barrigan, 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.240 but I don't think he'll tell me. I'm trying to 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.240 think of something vaguely safe to talk about. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:19.280 I haven't thought of anything yet. 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.840 This cultural divide among siblings was very common in households 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.400 at the time, with older siblings born before World War 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:30.040 Two baffled by their crazy younger sisters and brothers. 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.480 Last time he was here, he threw my friends out 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.320 of the house and said they were a disgrace. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:40.080 To the family. Wonder if I'm next. And it was 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.400 what cleaved the generations. 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.800 Siblings three or five years older than you were completely 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.560 on the other side of the divide, so your parents 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:55.639 and siblings would be here and those of us who 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:01.159 had actually been caught up and part of this, what 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.840 we were experiencing is an incredible awakening and liberation and 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:09.720 understanding or over here, and there could have been one 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:14.040 hundred years, a century could have passed as between us. 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.080 So Sarah, the newly minted draft board raider and her 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.920 FBI brother are navigating their differences, and here was her guest, 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.000 Paul cooming very much a person of interest with the FBI, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:28.119 sharing a roof with a g. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.159 Man and her brother came back. I'm realizing that he 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.280 doesn't know who I am, at least I believe he 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.520 doesn't know. So it was a little bit uneasy. But 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:42.520 got up one morning and he was cooking breakfast for everybody. 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:44.400 So I pitched in and I said, here, I'll help. 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.200 So he taught me how to make omelets and nice 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:52.040 and neat. We hit it off great and talked and 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.120 joked as we served breakfast to everybody. 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:55.679 The FBI were everywhere. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:02.160 At this point, Hoover's FBI had surrounded the Catholic left. 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.800 So yes, the FBI kept tabs on me and so 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:06.520 many other people. 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:08.680 I kept a record, and I think I still have 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:10.840 a piece of paper with all the people who told 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.760 me that they were visited by the FBI because they 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.680 were in my you know, my paper address book. 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.399 I started to be followed very heavily by the FBI, 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.479 and we knew it, but you kind of don't believe it. 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:24.400 In a certain way. 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.840 I assume that my telephones were tapped. See what here, 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.960 somebody saying something in the background. Actually, when you're talking 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:33.520 on the phone. 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:38.320 They encouraged people to believe in their own paranoia. So 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.080 they encouraged people to believe that there was an FBI 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.480 agent lurking somewhere in the background everywhere. 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.520 Now I'm being watched closely. I mean, I have FBI 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.280 around me all the time. They've become to my house, 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:50.000 my mother's house. 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:50.520 Every week. 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.679 If you were in the movement, FBI agents would follow 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.239 you wherever you went and make sure you knew it. 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.600 They would visit your parents twice a week, sometimes for 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:03.080 a year at a time. They would conspicuously dig through 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.600 the trash of your parents' neighbors to create a sense 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:10.119 of scandal. The FBI even followed Marianne's sister in law's 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:13.920 brother in case they could get any information out of him. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.439 Hoover's testimony to the Appropriations Committee had granted him a 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:21.639 thousand new agents whose sole job was to crush descent, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:27.879 which it could be argued, is a bit undemocratic. But 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:32.200 the resistance was about to deal a very decisive blow 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:34.560 to j Edgar Hoover himself. 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.119 I can't tell you anything about it, because I'm still 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.320 of the mind that I don't know who did it, 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:44.200 and I can't tell you that I did it or 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.119 didn't do it, So I can't tell you anything about 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.120 that break in. That was an agreement made a long 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.399 time ago that I haven't officially heard it. It has been 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:59.879 called off so agreement not to say, not even to 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:05.200 whether that you didn't participate, because to say you didn't participate, 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.200 then they'd have a smaller group of people to look 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:08.760 at and be able to find them easier. 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:10.720 And I have. 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:15.879 Never been told officially otherwise, so I stick to that story. 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:17.440 It was a great action. 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:20.720 I recorded this interview with Paul Cooming in August of 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.320 two thousand and nine. And for those of you keeping 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:27.000 score at home, yes, this show has been in production 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:33.720 for a very long time. Media Pennsylvania media action subroup 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:35.639 called Media Pennsylvania. 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.440 That Media rate Media Pennsylvania. 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:41.119 The Media Pennsylvania experience was a really interesting Media. 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.560 Pennsylvania, very dramatic breaking in Media Pennsylvania. 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.960 Oh, it's always been a secret. I have a little 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.840 suspicion who did it, you know, It was always like 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:54.719 nobody say anything. 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.280 But then in twenty thirteen, Betty Medsger of The Washington 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:03.280 posted a book about this particular action in Media Pennsylvania. 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.760 Her book finally revealed the identities of the people who 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:11.600 pulled off the craziest break in perhaps in American history. 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:17.960 Media Pennsylvania was where the resistance broke into an FBI office. 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:22.080 And here's where the Catholic left does its counter attack 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:23.320 on the FBI. 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:24.680 Historian Charles M. 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:27.800 Konez, now, they're getting to a point where they're suppressing 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.239 dissent before it happens. That's the beginning of the end, 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.639 not beyond the war. That's the beginning of the end 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:40.560 of democracy in this country. That's what authoritatian redictatorial powers do. 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:42.520 It's the first thing they do is they crushed descent. 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:46.879 Then they can do whatever the hell they want. That's 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.280 where the idea of we got a counter attack against 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:50.920 the FBI. 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.160 With Hoover loaded for bear, it was the movement's turn 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:56.440 to give him a decisive poke. 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:59.640 Everybody who was active in the movement knew that the 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:05.439 FBI was trying to intimidate, suppress, and spy on the movement. 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:07.479 This is Keith forsythe. 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:10.840 They weren't out there trying to put the mafia in jail. 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:14.800 They were spending their time hassling movement people. It wasn't 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:17.720 the kind of thing that the person on the street 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:20.280 necessarily was aware of, but everybody who was active not. 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:24.199 Keith was radicalized against the government's suppression of dissent when 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:27.600 he heard an audio recording of the massacre at Jackson State, 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:33.400 an HBCU, where police opened fire on protesters, killing two students. 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:37.040 He dropped out of college to devote himself full time 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:40.280