WEBVTT - S1 E9: Contradictions 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.040 Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:08.600 and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host, 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:17.600 producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it fine? 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.919 Four in the morning. On May seventeenth, nineteen seventy four, 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.599 three and a half months after Patty Hurst's kidnapping, Donald 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.920 de Fries, better known as sin QW, the leader of 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.760 the Simbionese Liberation Army, knocked on the door of fourteen 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:37.400 sixty six East fifty fourth Street in Los Angeles. He 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:39.680 probably picked us home because there were lights on in 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:45.199 the windows. Inside, four adults listened to the radio, played cards, 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.800 and drank wine. Two children were asleep in their bedrooms. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.880 Minnie Lewis, who lived in the house, answered the door. 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.480 Sinq said that he and some friends needed a place 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.400 to lay low for a few hours. Mini was sure, 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.920 but Sinq offered her one hundred dollars and she agreed. 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:07.240 Sinq asked the man playing cards if he could help 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.520 them empty their vans. They brought in boxes of documents, 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:16.720 sleeping bags, suitcases, and a foot locker. They also brought 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:22.839 in weapons, a lot of weapons, nineteen shotguns, rifles and pistols, 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.200 and over four thousand rounds of ammunition. When the vans 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.039 were empty, they stashed them a block and a half away. 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.480 Later in the day, the Los Angeles police spotted the 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.400 two SLA vans where they'd been hidden behind a burned 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:41.760 out apartment building at fourteen fifty one East fifty third Street. 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.600 It was a spot they stopped by frequently where criminals 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:50.440 would drop stolen and stripped cars. The stash vans indicated 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.320 to the police that the SLA was almost certainly in 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:58.160 the area. They checked several addresses before receiving information that 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:02.120 Sinq and his companion were at the house at fourteen 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:07.400 sixty six East fifty fourth. According to neighbors, people had 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:11.440 been coming and going from that address all day. At 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.720 five point forty that evening, the police surrounded the house. 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.040 At five point forty four, an officer using a bullhorn 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:23.280 called for the people inside the house to surrender. An 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:28.200 eight year old named Tony emerged crying. Minutes later, a 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.320 man named Clarence Ross came out. In all, the police 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.920 made eighteen surrender announcements. At five point fifty three, the 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:37.760 shooting began. 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.720 The Los Angeles Police used a record amount of ammunition 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:42.480 in that shootout. 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.279 Today, the air shook. 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.920 With gunfire and police realized what they were up against. 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.520 Gunfire was so massive it was absolutely impossible to tell 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:52.920 if you were safe or not. Then police went to 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:54.000 tear gas bombs. 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.000 Fire was squires coming from the house. 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.240 I to have spread to the adjacent how it does go. 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:00.480 On, and it's possible at this point find that the 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.600 flames themselves were setting off the tremendous amounts of ammunition 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.600 that the SLA had stockpiled inside the house. 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.000 Several companies of the Los Angeles Fire Department were poised, 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.639 but police would not allow them near the blaze because 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.720 in spite of the inferno firing from the house continue. 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.080 Is the body of Patty Hurst among the five found 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.560 early tonight in a shot up, burned out home on 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.840 fifty fourth in Compton Avenues. The experience of watching the 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:29.040 holocaust and progress was more shocking, more terrifying than anything 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.480 I have ever experienced. A family spokesman said tonight that 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.240 the feeling inside the Hearst Hold is that it's all 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.920 over for Patty. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.040 I'm to be bald and I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.000 this is rip current. 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.400 That could betray the network. The underground network. But again 0:03:52.480 --> 0:04:11.480 I told him to, I told him take take Eye. 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.800 Episode nine contradictions. 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.440 All six of the SLA members at fourteen sixty six 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.560 East fifty fourth were killed in the shootout and the 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:26.000 fire that followed. This included since mis Moon, Soltizik, Camilla Hall, 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:32.240 Angela Atwood, Willie Wolf, and Nancy Ling Perry, but not 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.560 Patty Hurst. Author Jeffrey Tubin. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:42.120 As it happened, Patty Hurst and the married couple that 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.200 was sort of minding her, Bill and Emily Harris, were 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:48.560 not in the house, although that was not known for 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.039 some time, and the three of them then went on 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.920 the lamb. But at that point the Cydndiinese Liberation Army 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.719 really just amounted to those three people. That's all that 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:01.360 was left. 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.800 They were forced to retreat even further underground, eventually making 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.760 their way across the country to a farm in Pennsylvania. 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:14.920 They went dormant, but their influence was still felt. Two 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.039 weeks after the shootout in Los Angeles, a memorial was 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.520 held for Angela Atwood, one of the SLA members killed. 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.560 The setting was Willard Park in Berkeley, also known as 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.480 Ho Chi Min Park after the North Vietnamese leader among 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.839 the speakers at the rally was Popeye Jackson, one of 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.599 the few members of the left willing to publicly align 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:38.760 themselves with the SLA at this point. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.599 And not only did they see too that this food 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.240 was distributed, but I think a more important part that 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.480 they did for everyone is proved that while we were 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.039 always too many of us that are in community groups 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.599 that have day in and day out conversations with the 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.520 establishment or the reuning class or whatever. You know, your 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.360 particular political persuasion makes you call those, but not only 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:02.960 do when we have our day in and day out 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.720 of contact with them, we're always told the question of time, 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.240 that you're right, we realize that people need. 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:10.839 These things, but it takes time. 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.400 But what a program is in the interest of the 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.200 people of that class, it only takes a matter of days. 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:19.280 It only takes a matter of days to move to 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.800 get things organized and moved, to put cert goods in 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:23.880 the hands of the people. But it's not until they 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:27.640 feel pressured for whatever reason, is that thing done. What 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.559 we want to stress is that, contrary to what said 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.920 in the press, is that what happened with the SLA 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.640 is not an end, but we hope it's beginning. 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:43.359 A future, frankly a beginning in terms of the fact 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.960 that we hope certain things will be illustrated to people 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:47.640 in this country. 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.440 Popeye went on to say that he was quote tired 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:57.760 of armchair revolutionaries who theorize but don't act. At an 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.839 event commemorating the death of a member of a wildly 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.960 violent group, this was a provocative statement of intent. Popeye 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.919 was signaling what he felt was the need for violent action. 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:14.360 Why did Popeye say this? The SOLA had previously been 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.280 regarded with caution. Now people on the left were trying 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:23.360 to distance themselves from what seemed like unnecessary, unrevolutionary violence. 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.360 Was his support a tactic to maintain his viability as 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.360 a contact between what remained of the SLA and Randolph 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.760 Hurst or did he sincerely believe in the need for 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:39.920 SLA style violence regardless. During this time, he was also 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:44.960 acting as Sarah Jane's patron among the radical left. Jerry Spieler, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.560 author of Sarah Jane Moore's biography. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.960 They wanted her to go to these various rallies and 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:57.720 meetings of these radical organizations and try to get the 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.760 names of people who are there and find out what 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.160 they're plans. Are and then get that back to the FBI. 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:07.720 So they wanted her to infiltrate these different groups, and 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.040 she got Popeye to quote introduce her or take her 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.000 to these things and say, this is Sarah Jane, and 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.960 she wants to help out. She's taking notes and getting 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.920 information back to the FBI. This was very cool on 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.760 her part. She was, you know, a spy basically, Sarah 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.360 Jane felt very important about that, working with the FBI 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:29.960 and being able to give them information. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.280 The SLA shootout in Los Angeles happened in May. Two 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.000 months later. July nineteen seventy four marked a turning point 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.280 for Sarah Jane and her informant work with the FBI and, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.080 to a lesser extent, her work with Randolph Hurst in 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:51.080 the San Francisco Police Department. That month, she took two 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.640 big steps. The first was to distance herself from Popeye Jackson. 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.200 Until this time, she'd been closely associated with him. In 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.680 San Francisco. She'd volunteered to answer phones at the United 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:07.280 Prisoners Union, the organization that Popeye led. Popeye's wife, Pat Singer, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.640 said that Sarah Jane quote followed him around like a 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.480 puppy dog. But something caused her to decide to make 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.040 the split. Maybe it was that she felt used by Popeye. 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.240 He had borrowed money from her, which he had not repaid. 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.079 He'd also borrowed her car at one point and returned 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.640 it with some damage that went unrepaired. The clash of 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:31.360 two strong personalities was probably also a factor. For all 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.720 his talk of representing the people, Popeye was a chauvinist 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.680 photographer and friend of Popeye Jackson Jacob Holt. 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:45.880 Popeye was a terrible sexist, so I don't know how 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:51.280 he was able to get so many female white supporters. 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:52.440 As he did. 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.839 Later, explaining the split, Sarah Jane told the Berkeley Barb 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.400 he treated people like shit. He wanted money in middle 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.320 class life. He did not give people the same respect 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:09.400 he expected from them. The second and more consequential decision 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.080 was to disclose to a prominent member of the underground 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.040 Left that she was an FBI informant. From the beginning 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.280 of her work with the FBI, they had told her 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.200 that their top target was this man, whom Sarah Jane 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.960 referred to as Tom. She has never revealed Tom's identity. 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.559 In a retrospective nineteen seventy six, interview with journalist Andrew 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.320 Hill for Playboy magazine, she talked about her growing sympathy 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.720 with the people that the FBI was asking her to 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.520 report on. I began to see that the leftist people 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:41.880 I was working with were not enemies of this country. 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:46.400 They were dedicated people working for qualitative change. They were 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.920 not evil. Yes, they recognized revolution. They were dedicated to 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.480 the armed overthrow of the government because they did not 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.280 think there was any other way to do it. I 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.760 became aware of how dangerous what I was doing was 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.480 in terms of those people. I was looking at people 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.160 getting arrested on the basis of information like that which 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.000 I was telling the FBI. I was looking at people 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.800 getting killed. I couldn't do what I was doing any more. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.920 The reality was that Tom was radicalizing her, bringing her 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:19.000 in to the Maoist ideology that underpinned so many groups 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.679 in the Bay Area. Maoism in the US took the 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.520 form of a number of Marxist groups that roughly aligned 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.640 themselves with Chinese style communism or selectively picked from that ideology. 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.800 Its philosophy held some special attraction at the time. It 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.080 drew a parallel between what radicals called the Imperial war 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.240 in Vietnam and racial oppression in the US. It connected 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.240 domestic civil rights efforts with decolonization movements around the world, 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.960 seeing it as an international struggle, and there was an 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.120 expectation that a mass worker's revolt would take place and 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.280 that the current MAOIs would serve as the leadership, and 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.319 because of this needed to be educated in the correct 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:03.480 political philosophy. Maoism was often about studying an education or 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.440 re education. This is how Patty Hurst became a gorilla 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.960 and Sarah Jane Moore became a radical. As she tells 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.040 the story of her disclosure, she informed Tom that she was, 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:19.040 in her words, a pig, someone who worked with the cops. 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.360 Tom didn't believe it. She understood his doubts. She didn't 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.120 fit the profile of an agent, but Tom asked her 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.160 a series of questions and satisfied himself that she was 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.280 telling the truth. Tom told her that the FBI would 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.080 never allow her to genuinely work with a radical left. 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:37.720 He said he needed to talk with his group to 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.960 make a decision about what to do with this information. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.760 The decision of Tom's group was that I was a 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.280 security risk to them and therefore they had to break 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.600 off all contact with me. However, they believed in my 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.880 sincerity and therefore they were making what to them was 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.240 a dangerous decision. They would not tell anyone else I 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.520 was a pig. In September, she told her FBI handler 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.439 about her confession to Tom. They initially dropped her as informant, 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:06.640 but picked her up again a month later when they 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.360 realized that she had maintained her relationship in the LEFT. 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.240 She had less information to offer after her July disclosure 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.160 to Tom. Sarah Jane also realized that her disclosure to 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.120 Tom might have put her in danger. She talked about 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:24.280 this fear in the Playboy interview. I began to wonder 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.760 if Tom's group might be setting me up. What he 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.960 had done was contrary to all I had learned about 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.640 the way PIG agents were treated when they were discovered. 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.079 And you have to remember that violence and death were 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.320 very real in the Bay Area. Then, Marcus Foster had 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.480 been killed, Patti Hurst kidnapped, The People in Need program 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.679 operated in a sea of threats and violence. Then there 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:48.520 was the SLA's fiery shootout in LA. Three months after 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.120 being reinstated, technically, at least to the FBI payroll, she 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:57.000 made another rash decision. In the same interview with Playboy magazine, 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.680 Sarah Jane said that in January nineteen seventy five, she 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.640 told a left wing lawyer named Charles Garry about her 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:07.280 work for the FBI. He convinced her that her activities 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:09.959 had done more harm than she realized, and that she 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.600 had a duty to the people she reported on to 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.640 come clean, especially if she wanted to continue to work 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.680 with organizations on the left. On this advice, she contacted 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.040 people within the radical scene and told them about her 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.320 informant work. In a Berkeley barb article, she claimed that 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:29.160 she told around twenty five people, and Playboy Sarah Jane 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:31.880 claimed she had contacted the heads of three groups as 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.000 she had infiltrated. Of the three she contacted, one small 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.920 violent organization called Tribal Thumb would become a major part 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:44.080 of her story to these groups. Sarah Jane both confessed 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:46.480 to her work for the FBI up until July of 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:50.120 nineteen seventy four, and provided what she felt was damning 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:54.880 information about Popeye Jackson. Specifically, she disclosed his agreement with 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.600 Randolph Hurst Hearst's intervention in his parole revocation case. In 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.600 what she he claimed was Popeye's use of United Prisoner 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:07.120 Union funds for his own purposes. Sarah Jane claimed that 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.800 two of the groups handled this news at the leadership level, 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.080 but that the third spread her admission throughout the Bay 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:17.120 Area Left. That third group was most likely the Vietnam 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.119 Veterans against the War. While she had made this disclosure 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.920 with the aim of continuing her relationships within the leftist organizations, 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.120 their negative reaction angered her and recommitted her to her 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:33.720 work for the FBI. Paradoxically, the disclosure of her identity 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.040 as an FBI informant to the left at large actually 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:42.200 helped Sarah Jane's information collecting. She told Playboy, the faster 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.000 word about me spread through the movement, the more new 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.720 people came to me to ask me questions, and the 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.080 more information I was able to give about them to 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:54.960 the FBI. The interviewer followed up, asking if informing on 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:59.360 her friends bothered her. She replied, sure it did, and 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.160 I don't know how how I handled it, and then 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.040 rambled about how stupid those people were to talk to. 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:13.520 Her as an informant. Sarah Jane was part of a 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:18.600 concerted FBI effort to infiltrate and disrupt political extremist groups 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.200 on both the left and the right, but mostly on 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.520 the left. This initiative began in nineteen fifty six as 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.800 the infamous co intel Pro program that was technically shuttered 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.880 in nineteen seventy one, but continued on in practice through 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:36.000 the mid seventies. 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.360 Co intel Pro is a bad acronym for counterintelligence program. 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.440 When we talk about counterintelligence, the idea is this goes 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:49.040 beyond the more passive monitoring or surveillance of particular groups 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.560 in order to uncover what they might do, and it 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.520 moves to the more active disruption of these groups, like 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.800 seeking to proactively defuse these groups' ability to organize, ability 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:04.240 to act. I'm David Cunningham. I am a professor of 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.800 sociology at Washington University in Saint Louis. Co intel Pro 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:15.080 was predominantly targeting left wing groups, and so almost all 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.560 of the co intel Pro programs focused on left wing 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.800 quote unquote threats, ranging from the communist part of USA 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.800 to the Socialist Workers Party, to the New Left and 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:29.200 anti war movement, to civil rights and black power organizations 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:33.639 that the FBI deemed black nationalists and hate groups. 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.080 And it was the very existence of these left wing groups, 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.600 rather than their actual capacity to undertake meaningful action that 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.840 caught the eye of the FBI. Say what you will 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.480 about the rhetoric of some of these groups, they were 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.480 tiny and their goal of fomenting a national revolution was 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:53.000 comically unattainable. 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:58.080 Because when the FBI targeted the whole spectrum of groups 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.760 on the left wing, their aim almost across the board, 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.280 unilatterally was to eliminate these groups. They really wanted these 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.760 groups to be gone, and so even when these groups 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.560 seemed weak and ineffectual, the FBI would kind of relentlessly 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.119 go after undermining them and continuing to undermine them because 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.760 FBI Director Jagrew Hoover always saw them as having the 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:25.440 potential in the right climate, of having a revolutionary potential, 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:30.359 of being able to lead or further a revolutionary threat. 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.560 The goal of the FBI when they went after right 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.560 wing groups was significantly different. 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.920 When the FBI targeted the right wing groups. So the 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.959 ku Kluxplan in particular, the issue was not whether they 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.439 existed or not. It turned out the FBI didn't have 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.679 any problem with the KKK being active and being organized. 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.960 What they really wanted to do was control those groups. 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.640 So the aim of cointelpro against the Klan to be 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.040 more towards placing informants in these groups, which they were 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.879 very good at, and trying to get these informants placed 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.480 highly within the KKK so they could in effect run 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:13.800 the clan in a way that the FBI could see 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:18.560 as predictable and could see as controlling unpredictable violence against 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:20.040 civil rights workers and others. 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.159 Over time, changes in the size and tactics of the 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:29.920 revolutionary groups provided the FBI with new challenges. 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.520 As we move into the later nineteen sixties and into 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.639 the nineteen seventies, when a lot of these targets were 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.639 maybe seen as more explicitly revolutionary or radical in their 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:46.520 orientation and oftentimes took an underground approach to organizing, so 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.199 it was less about building, you know, mass events with 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.280 marches and things like that, and more about cell based 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.280 action or something that would look more insular and underground. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:01.439 The FBI was less and less effective trying to burrow 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.600 into those groups with informants, which does not mean that 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.800 they stopped trying, and if anything, they tried harder in 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.880 that environment, but with much more mixed success in terms 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:13.679 of their ability to do this effectively. 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.639 You can see this in Sarah Jane's recruitment. She was 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.560 an outsider to the movement and someone who didn't really 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.240 fit in with the radical scenery. Not only was she 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.800 outside the normal demographic of black ex convicts and young 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:33.200 white radicals, but her personality guaranteed that she would stand 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.680 out as well. Recruiting members from small, intense groups, though, 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:42.240 was difficult. This is Rick Riley, who will hear more 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.760 from next episode. He was a member of Tribal Thumb, 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.840 one of the groups Sarah Jane confessed to. Here, he 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.880 talks about a recruitment approach by the FBI to become 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.200 an informant. He had been sentenced to a one hundred 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.400 and twenty day prison stint and the FBI let him 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.640 sit a month before an agent came to talk with him. 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:05.679 Their plan was to send me to prison for a 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.280 little bit to scare me, you know, scare straight. They 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.800 came to visit me while I was in prison. After 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:13.800 I had been there like thirty something days, they came 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.480 to see me and again made the offer to me, 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:21.600 And this time they wanted me to escape and use 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:26.639 utilize travel thumbs escape resources. And then betray that, you know, 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.520 because like travel Thumb was involved in jail breaks and 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.960 prison breaks and stuff like that. So they wanted me 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:37.679 to go to a camp facility and get them to 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.280 help me to escape, and that way I could betray 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.960 the network, the underground network. I told him to take 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:44.600 a y. 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.439 I think that sort of tactic is really central to 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.320 what the FBI would try to do. I mean, they 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.879 knew that the placing of informants had a direct value 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:57.920 to them in the sense that these informants could act 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.440 directly and provide information directly. But they also knew that 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:06.439 the global effort to place informants had an indirect effect, 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.320 which is that it created a climate that really sowed 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.640 suspicion and potential dissent around the presence of informants generally. 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.880 And part of that indirect effect was trying to use 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:23.600 informants and others to accuse non informants of informing. And 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:28.200 sometimes they would do things that would signal to others 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:32.119 that someone was being treated like an informant by law enforcement, 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.640 so providing a light sentence releasing them from jail when 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:41.560 their co conspirators remained in jail. Things like this oftentimes 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:45.000 they would try to do for folks who were not informants, 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.240 precisely because that would be a signal to other members 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:50.320 that they must be an informant, and that's why they 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:54.600 were treated in that way. And so the FBI clearly 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.680 knew that this could be effective in an indirect way, 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:01.400 and that they could exploit the climate that they themselves 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:02.160 had created. 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:07.760 Even unsuccessful attempts to recruit served to increase the fear 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.000 in the radical community that there are informants in their 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:15.400 midst a paranoia that would play out in the coming months. 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:16.480 For Popeye and. 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:30.000 Sarah Jane after the break. 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:35.760 Oh well, yeah, we definitely had privileges. I would call 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:39.960 it middle class upbringing, but maybe, you know, maybe a 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:44.800 little more so economically. We lived in a really nice 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:51.000 home neighborhood in Menlo Park. I'm Lee Darby, author of 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:52.280 Stars in Our Eyes. 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:57.480 Stars in Our Eyes is a memoir that focuses in 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:00.000 large part on Lee's sister, Sally Void. 0:24:01.440 --> 0:24:04.760 When I was a freshman in high school, you know, 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:08.359 just right on the cusp of adulthood, we moved over 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:12.359 to the town of Alamo, which is near Walnut Creek 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:16.480 because my dad got a new job. We just had 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:21.440 a kind of a privileged life and intact family and 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:25.840 friends would come over and hang out and it was 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:30.640 just we really had a good time. There wasn't any 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:35.760 real angst other than the usual teenage stuff. She had 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:40.720 a real sense of justice. She would confront and tell 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:47.160 people off, and she was very popular. She didn't let 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:52.679 transgressions happen. You know, if somebody said something rude or 0:24:52.720 --> 0:24:56.119 not nice, she would call them on it. She was 0:24:56.200 --> 0:25:00.760 just that way, just really opinionated, you know, she wanted 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:05.320