WEBVTT - 6. Tin, Rubber, and Oil 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:04.280 Previously on SNAFU. 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:07.640 FBI record stolen from the media Pennsylvania office showed that 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:09.879 one goal of the bureau was to spread that very 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.039 impression among left wing organizations that there was an agent 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:14.280 behind every male box. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.320 We just knew that Hoover was beside himself that this 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:22.480 had happened. He dispatched two hundred agents to flood the 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:24.480 Philadelphia area to find us. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.000 Who decided, We're not getting together as a group ever again. 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:30.320 We really parted ways. 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.400 I knew that the only way that they could find 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:35.640 us was through somebody talk. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.199 It had been three and a half months since the 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.040 media burglary, and the FBI's hunt for the burglars was 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.680 going nowhere. They'd interviewed hundreds of suspects but failed to 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.880 turn up anything useful. All the fingerprints they could identify 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.360 from the crime scene turned out to belong to FBIA Jens. 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.840 The g men even hired a quote unquote staple expert 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.560 to examine the packets of stolen documents distributed by the burglars, 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:12.199 but shockingly, his conclusion that at least five different types 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:15.399 of staples had been used did not lead to a 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:22.560 major breakthrough. The FBI was grasping at Staples. But all 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.000 that changed on June twenty fifth, nineteen seventy one, three 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.560 and a half months after the Media burglary. On that day, 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.759 a contractor named Bob Hardy walked into an FBI office 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.880 in Camden, New Jersey, just a stone's throw from Media, Pennsylvania, 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.400 and handed the FBI exactly the break they'd been looking for. 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.600 Hardy was fair haired, with a square jaw and big ears. 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.160 He told the agents that he knew some people who 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.120 were planning on burglarising the local draft board office in Camden. 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:54.680 Here's Betty Medzger. 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.920 He had just learned that some friends were planning on 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.800 raiding a draft board, the Camden draft Board, and that 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:08.840 he liked them and he would like to help protect 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.040 him from doing that. But they thought the FBI ought 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.400 to know that some people were thinking of this, and. 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.000 Not just any random people. 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:26.679 The leaders of wait for it, the Catholic Peace Movement. Suddenly, 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.440 out of nowhere, the Medburg investigation had a promising lead 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.880 that they hadn't found an ounce of evidence to prove it. 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.880 The FBI had been assuming, literally since day one, that 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.000 those dastardly pastors and parishioners in the Catholic Peace Movement 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.680 were responsible for the media burglary. 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:52.080 The FBI agents were thrilled, absolutely thrilled, because they just 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:56.760 assumed that people in this group might be related to 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.520 the media burglary, and so on the spot, he was 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:01.800 hired as an informer. 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.680 Hardy's FBI handlers instructed him to infiltrate the group planning 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.080 the draft board raid and to do everything he could 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.720 to keep the plot moving forward. Hoover monitored the situation closely, 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.400 maybe even obsessively. He poured agents and resources into Camden, 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.359 totally convinced that the media burglars were influential members of 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.760 the Catholic Peace Movement. This was his chance to catch 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.799 the people who'd embarrassed him red handed in the middle 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.720 of another break in. Here's the thing, the Catholic Peace 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.760 Movement and the citizens commissioned to investigate the FBI were 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:41.240 not the same thing. Bill Davidon, architect of the media 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.800 break in, had nothing to do with the Camden draft 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.560 Board raid. In fact, he purposely excluded one of the 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.440 Camden leaders from his plans in media because he knew 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.080 the FBI was keeping close tabs on the guy. Hoover 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.040 was taking a big swing based entirely on a hunch. 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.960 But even a sumptuous, conniving, paranoid, racist, old broken clock 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.680 is right twice a day, because, as it turns out, 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:11.800 two of the media burglars were involved in Camden. And 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:15.920 that's how Keith Forsyth and Bob Williamson fell right into 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:20.000 the clutches of Jade Gar Hoover. I'm met Helms and 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.280 this is Snaffo, A show about history's greatest screw ups. 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.760 Season two medburg the story of a daring heist and 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:34.960 the colossal FBI snaffoo. It exposed this week a failed raid, 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:42.680 a triple cross, and the trial of the Camden twenty eight. 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:58.040 In the wake of the media. 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.680 Burglary, most of the participants laid John and Bonnie Rains 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:05.120 swore off criminal activity for good. Judy Feinegeld left the 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.240 East Coast all together and started a new life out west. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.520 But Bob Williamson wasn't quite ready to stop. Just a 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.040 few months after the media action, he got a call 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.800 from a friend telling him the usual suspects from the 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.799 Catholic Peace Movement were planning a draft board raid in Camden, 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:22.400 New Jersey. 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:24.440 Bob wanted in. 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.080 I said, Oh, Camden, that's my draft board. That was 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.560 the draft board that I was registered in. I had 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:33.679 gone to high school in Camden. I knew the city 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:38.680 pretty well. There were large numbers of minority people and 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.440 they were the ones that were getting drafted and sent 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:41.880 to fight. 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.800 Keith, fresh off his heroic pride barring of the media 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:50.400 FBI office door, also got involved. He was determined to 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.800 strike another blow against the war machine, even though he 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.840 had some reservations about the size of the team. 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:58.880 It just seemed like to me, there was like too 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.760 many people, and an awful lot of brand new people 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.360 that I wasn't quite sure exactly what they were doing. 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.560 Keith had a point. The Camden crew was more than 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.640 three times the size of the media group. There's a 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:14.320 direct correlation between the number of people involved in your 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:18.480 criminal plot and the chances of getting busted. In other words, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.719 there's a reason it was Oceans eleven and not Ocean's 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:23.600 thirty eight ten. 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:24.520 Ou to do it anything? 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:26.279 Do you think we need one more? 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:28.520 All right, we'll get one more. 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.080 But then again, this was a much more complex job 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.000 than the media break in. 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.680 In order to get up on the fire escape, you 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.760 had to pull down this ladder and some kind of 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:42.880 alarm on it, so we cut the wire to that. 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.480 There were a couple of tools that we needed to 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.240 be able to get into the building. 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:50.760 And maybe that's why the team was so quick to 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.920 welcome a friendly neighborhood contractor named Bob Hardy. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:56.440 And walkie Talkies was one of them. 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.839 They were a little expensive, but Hardy you always managed 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.280 to come up with the tools the team needed. 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.520 And gave us the impression that he'd paid for it 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:06.279 with his own money. 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.400 Hardy's handiness and extensive tool collection apparently made up for 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:12.720 his lack of anti war credentials. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:16.120 Bob Hardy was not a pacifist. There wasn't anything about 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:20.120 him that seemed that way. So in that sense, he 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:21.880 just didn't seem to fit. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.320 Somebody had to go out and make a grocery run, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:27.760 and somehow or other it ended up being me and 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.920 Hardy in his van and he said, well, if there 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.400 is a problem with the guard, I got something for you, 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.360 and he said it's in the glove compartment. So I 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.600 opened the glove compartment and there's a revolver in there, 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:45.560 and I'm like, are you nuts? You think I'm going 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.480 to shoot a minimum wage guard to keep from going 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:50.560 to jail for breaking into a draft board. What the 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.680 hell is wrong with you? And I really should have 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:54.960 told everybody about that. 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.760 What Geek didn't know was that the van radio was 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.960 bugged and the entire conversation was being broadcast directly to 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:05.640 the FBI. 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:10.280 The Feds had. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:14.120 Been watching the entire operation like hawks. In their minds. 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.640 This had to be the same group that embarrassed them 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.679 in media just a few months earlier, and this time 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.880 the FBI was going to catch them in the act. 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.200 As Bob Keith and the others prepared to break into 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.280 the federal building, at least eighty g men and dozens 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.600 of other federal agents took up positions nearby. Many waited 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.360 within the building itself, but others had to hide inside 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.959 a local funeral home, spending the evening in eerie silence 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:47.240 with corpses for company in Washington. Hoover was up all 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:51.040 night with Attorney General John Mitchell monitoring the situation in Camden. 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.000 Throughout the evening, they exchanged calls with President Nixon, who 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.400 was following along closely from his house in Orange County, California. 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.720 Forget I'll leaversus Frasier for the President and his highest 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.160 law enforcement officials. This was the fight of the century. 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.280 After a delay of roughly two hours, they forgot their 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.040 ladder and had to go back for it. The burglars 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.240 entered the Camden Federal Building, home of the Camden Draft Board. 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.440 This was an enormous and well guarded office building, equipped 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.240 with an alarm system, and located right in the middle 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.760 of the city, precisely the kind of target build Davidon 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.319 wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole. 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.000 It was on one of the top floors, eighth floor, 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.079 something like that of that Federal building. 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.440 Bob and a few others scaled the fire escape and 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.480 disconnected the alarm using a glass cutter. They made a 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:48.200 hole in the office window. Now that they were in 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.880 the inside crew removed draft files and placed them in sacks, 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.280 passing them out the window to Bob. For about two hours, 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.760 they quietly went about their work. Then just after four 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.600 point thirty in the morning, the Feds swooped in. 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.720 And then I hear this guy yelled freeze. I look 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:09.880 around and he's got a gun pointed at me. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.520 Keith was at a secondary location with a few other 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.080 members of the team. As soon as he heard a 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.680 car pull up outside, it all clicked. Bob Hardy had 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:21.440 sold them out. 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.560 I mean, I realized it as soon as I heard 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:28.320 his tire screech. I'm like, I was right. I'm a 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:34.360 dumb ass. I should have said something. They came through 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.760 the doors, guns drawn and put us up against the wall. 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.200 One of them had a shotgun, so he pushes my 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.360 face back up against the wall with the business end 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.760 of the shotgun, which really pissed me off. 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.480 And the FBI agent. Everybody's in a good mood among 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:51.400 the FBI agents. 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.440 And even though the Feds have just gotten one over 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.520 on him, Bob can't resist the opportunity to wipe the 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:57.960 smiles off their faces. 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:03.000 And they had a cheer that went like this, am 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.960 I allowed to say four letter words, go for it, man, Okay? 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:08.959 So I said what do we eat? 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:14.280 And they all yelled back eagle me and I said 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:15.280 what do they eat? 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:24.000 And they said, shit, what do we what do they sure? 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:33.280 What do we? They Soon a young Dan Rather was 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.880 announcing the dramatic arrests on CBS. The FBI arrested twenty 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.800 persons in Camden, New Jersey, early today and charged them 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:41.599 with trying. 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.600 To steal draft records from the federal building there. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.199 The following morning, Hoover took a victory lap. He and 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.439 Attorney General John Mitchell held a triumphant press conference to 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:55.720 announce the arrests. This was a highly unorthodox, one might 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.760 even say, petty thing to do, but hey, Hoover was 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.040 feling himself. The FBI was about to turn a huge 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:07.320 embarrassment into a massive victory. Hoover even wrote a letter 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.520 to Henry Kissinger bragging about his success. He just caught 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.520 the media burglars. It was only a matter of time 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:15.199 before one of them confessed. 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:20.079 I was in that room by myself, with handcuffed to 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.840 the desk until about noon the next day. 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.400 One of the FBI agents has a copy of I 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.959 don't know Time or Newsweek or one of those. 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:32.120 The cover story. 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.520 The headliner on the cover story was America's prisons. How 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.320 bad are they really? So the FBI agents going like 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.280 this with the cover over like, pretending to read it, 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.760 making sure we all see it, you know, I'm like, jeez, 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:47.160 you guys are lame. 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:52.040 Out of the group that came to be known as 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.400 the Camden twenty eight Bob and Keith were the only 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:56.960 ones with any knowledge of what happened in media. 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.640 I wasn't worried because I knew Bob was going to talk, 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.280 and I knew I wasn't going to talk, So you know, 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:04.800 I'm like, okay, send me to jail. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.400 Internal FBI memos, which Betty Medzger later unearthed, show that 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.000 Hoover and his cronies were very pleased with the press 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:20.600 coverage of the arrests, but increasingly concerned as the days 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:25.400 wore on and nobody confessed to the media burglary hit 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.800 him hard and turn the spotlight of public opinion against them. 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:29.240 Now. 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.520 One of Hoover's deputies recommended in a memo, heavy pressure, 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.120 he wrote, will likely serve as the means to obtain 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:41.000 admissions regarding the FBI media burglary. That pressure came when 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.560 the charges against the Camden twenty eight were announced seven 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:49.360 felonies per person, meaning the possibility of decades in prison. 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.280 Forty seven years would have been the maximum, And that 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.880 was true for I think most of us in the 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.040 twenty eight were facing forty seven. There were a few 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:00.679 that were facing a little bit less. 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.760 Eventually, the camped in twenty eight made bail and convened 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.000 to strategize. They knew they had an easy way out 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.600 plead guilty and they'd avoid the maximum sentence, maybe even 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.880 avoid prison altogether. But as they conferred, they reached a 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:17.160 surprising conclusion. 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.120 We wanted to trial. By that time, we had time 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.760 to get over the shock of the addressed and I was, 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.360 for one, I was ready. I wanted to do it. 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.160 I think it started with Father Doyle, and you know, 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.280 he said that he thought that part of our witness 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.920 against Vietnam was our willingness to suffer for our beliefs, 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.840 and he thought it was important. The suffering was important, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.840 just like Jesus's suffering was important to him in religious terms, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.800 and so we should try to put the war on trial. 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.520 That was also, you know, everybody agreed with that. That 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:56.840 was unanimous. 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.040 It was virtually inevitable that you are, we're going to 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.120 get caught. That was not the end of the opportunity 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.920 to further the cause of ending the war. That was 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.640 another opportunity to persuade people that the war was wrong. 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.320 They wanted a jury to hear their case, not just 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.960 what they did, but why they did it. 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:24.040 What we wanted was to persuade the jury that the 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.960 war was wrong and that it had to be stopped, 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.480 and that our action was an attempt to find a 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:35.240 jury who would set us free and end the war. 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.920 The Camden twenty eight was going to put the war 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:40.720 on trial. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:47.200 Our idea was what's called jury nullification, where the jury says, yeah, 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.920 you broke the law, but we think you did the 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:50.400 right thing. 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.400 Jury nullification means a jury can find a defendant not 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.760 guilty even if they totally did the crime in question. 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.880 The jury can rule that the law deserved to be broken. 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:07.720 In other words, the morality of the situation trumps the legality. 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.840 But jury nullification is a long shot, to say the least. 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.640 It basically never happens. For this to work, the Camden 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.640 twenty eight would need a hard break with traditional courtroom strategy. 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.760 They'd have to connect with the jury on a human level. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.240 So contrary to what any reasonable defense attorney would advise, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.840 they decided they'd testify and explain in their own words 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:35.080 why they broke the law. Some of them, Bob included, 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.200 even chose to represent themselves in a typical criminal trial. 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:43.640 This is a terrible idea because well, you're not a lawyer. 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.920 But then again, this was not shaping up to be 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:51.080 a typical criminal trial, and before it even began, there 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.080 was one more tragic twist. 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:05.560 Slowly began to realize that Bob Hardy, who had been 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:10.119 working with us, had indeed been an informer. 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.320 This is father Michael Doyle in an old interview. He 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.240 was Bob Hardy's priest and one of the Camden twenty eight. 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.120 I had known him for some years and his family, 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.879 and I felt had been helpful to him, and indeed 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:26.359 he to me. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.520 Father Doyle, an Irish immigrant, had recently guided Hardy through 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:34.440 his conversion to Catholicism. After that, he'd been the one 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.120 to invite Hardy into the group planning the Camden raid. 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.199 So realizing that he had been the informer all along 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.640 was hard for me, and I felt angry and upset 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:47.679 and basically betrayed. 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.200 A few weeks after the arrests, Bob Hardy was inside 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.880 his house talking to a reporter. He told his son 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.359 Billy to go play outside. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.320 Billy, who was nine years old, went out and, having 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.439 nothing better to do, climbed a tree. But he fell, 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:08.640 and he fell on a fence and tragically was impaled 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.640 on the fence and he was a wonderful boy and 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.400 I knew him very well. I remember particularly going down 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:20.600 to see him in Cooper Hospital and sitting in the 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:27.040 waiting room was Bob Hardie and Michael Rymer, FBI agent 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.119 who was the Hardy contact for the CAMT in twenty 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.960 eight uh, and I remember the three of us sitting 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:39.159 on a couch. Somehow my mind was uh twisting in 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.000 some kind of unreality. There was only one thing that 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.919 was real, and that was a child was dying. And 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.520 I remember driving out of that hospital that day and 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:54.240 and banging on my no the h in front of 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.360 my car, and just time on to feel the the 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:03.119 feel of of something that was there and real. And 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:10.360 he died on the third of October nineteen seventy one. 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.360 Father Doyle conducted the funeral mass at his church in Camden. 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.439 It was an extraordinary funeral in the sense that the 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:26.399 family was there, and the Camden twenty eight was there, 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:33.560 and some of its more active supporters were there, all 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:37.880 of them supporting Bob Hardy and sympathizing with the family 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:39.040 and their tragedy. 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.239 So even facing decades in prison from Hardy's betrayal, the 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.159 Camden twenty eight showed up anyway to support Hardy in 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:53.679 his darkest hour. Meanwhile, just across the aisle sat a 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:57.639 crowd of clean cut federal agents, some of whom Hardy 0:19:57.720 --> 0:19:59.200 had never even seen before. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:05.399 It would be hard to believe that a host of 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:10.280 FBI agents who really didn't know Bob Hardy were there 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:16.679 out of genuine human sympathy. He just had the feeling 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.639 they were there to make sure of their man that 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:25.680 he held up for their agenda, which was to convict 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.440 the Canon twenty eight for j Edgar Hoover. 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:32.960 In the aftermath of the funeral, Hardy talked to his 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:34.479 wife about the upcoming trial. 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.600 I think he just had an attack of conscience and 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:44.920 he I think was touched by Michael's christian like behavior. 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.479 Hardy decided he had to tell the truth, the whole truth, 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.960 that he hadn't just been an informant, but also a 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:58.800 provocateur helping the FBI make the break in happen. Hardy 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:01.760 was still going to testify, but not as a witness 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.320 for the prosecution. He was going to testify as a 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:21.720 witness for the Camden twenty eight. On February fifth, nineteen 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.240 seventy three, the trial of the Camden twenty eight began, 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:28.560 and the same federal building where they'd been arrested. Betty Medsger, 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.080 the journalists who had published the contents of the files 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.720 stolen from media, was assigned to cover it. The lead 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:36.479 prosecutor was John Berry. 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.080 My principal concern going in was that it was going 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:41.280 to be the swactive Clow. 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:43.520 Was it a frustrating situation? 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.480 Not at all, Not at all. I really didn't care, 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.040 because the one thing we had in this case was 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:50.639 substantial abinism was not. 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.959 On the surface. Barry's task looked pretty straightforward. After all, 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.720 the defendants weren't even pretending they hadn't done the crime. Plus, 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:02.520 the judge, the Honorable clarks And S. Fisher, was conservative, 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:05.359 an Army veteran who had been appointed by Richard Dixon. 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.639 In the defense's opening statement, Father Doyle asked the jury 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.200 who had really gone too far, the military that had 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.480 waged a brutal war in Vietnam for twelve years, or 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:20.600 the civilians simply trying to end it. He painted a vivid, 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.800 shocking picture of the brutality of war, referencing the violence, 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:31.000 bombs and bodies torn apart. But then it was time 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:34.240 for the prosecution to call its witnesses. John Berry asked 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:38.120 a long line of FBI agents the same questions. Did 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:39.840 you see people break into the office? 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:40.640 Yes? 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.119 Did they destroy draft board files? Yep? 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:48.320 Are the perpetrators in this room? You betcha, there's a 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:52.560 couple dozen of them right there. Agent after agent testified 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:57.760 to the same basic facts. This went on for weeks, 0:22:58.400 --> 0:22:59.960 so it must have been a nice break in the 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.520 monotony whenever Bob Williamson got up to cross examine the 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:08.119 very agents who'd arrested him. This was Bob's chance. He 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:10.359 stood in front of the court holding copies of the 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:11.479 stolen media files. 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:15.879 We weren't allowed to admit those documents as evidence because 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:19.920 it couldn't be established, you know, what their provenance was. 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:26.239 But he could still use them as he questioned the 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:30.040 FBI agents. We don't have an exact record of what 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:33.480 he asked, but you can probably imagine what the questions were, like, 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:37.240 why was the bureau spying on college kids? Why were 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.600 they tapping the phones of the local black panther office. Oh, 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:43.679 and why did the FBI want Americans to feel like 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:47.560 there was quote an agent behind every mailbox? 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.879 The jury was paying attention to the questions that I 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:57.840 was asking, and they were noting that the FBI agents 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:03.159 were claiming that they had never seen or heard of 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:09.199 that anywhere. Those FBI agents must have been exposed to 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:15.520 some mysterious agent that destroys memories because they couldn't recall anything. 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:18.600 The point of this wasn't to force some kind of 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:21.720 confession out of the FBI agents. The point was to 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:24.960 undermine them by reminding the jury of the abuses of 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:29.119 power described in the files. Abuses of power that violated 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:33.119 the constitutional right of American citizens to protest a war 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:37.159 they felt was unjust. So compared to what the FBI 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:40.479 had done, how bad was it really to tear up 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:41.600 some draft files? 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:45.879