Speaker 1: Last time on SNAFU.
Speaker 2: Heavyweight boxers Joe Praise You'er and Mihamed Atli meet in
Speaker 2: New York's Madison Square Garden Monday night.
Speaker 3: There was a huge stack of mail, but this one
Speaker 3: stood out because of the return address, which was Liberty
Speaker 3: Publications Media, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: As long as I am Director of the FBI, it
Speaker 4: will continue to maintain its high and impartial standards of investigation.
Speaker 2: Last month, Burglars had an FBI a resident office and
Speaker 2: took files which subsequently have been made public.
Speaker 3: The FBI entered my life very soon after that.
Speaker 1: Reporter Betty Medsker now lived in San Francisco. Two decades
Speaker 1: had passed since she first received an envelope from a
Speaker 1: mysterious group called the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI.
Speaker 1: That envelope contained fourteen top secret FBI files showing America's
Speaker 1: beloved g men were surveilling American citizens with the goal
Speaker 1: of quote enhancing paranoia. She still had no idea who
Speaker 1: sent her those files that led to her bombshell reporting.
Speaker 1: She had no idea about the incredible heist that pried
Speaker 1: them out of the FBI's hands, and she might not
Speaker 1: have ever known these things were it not for one
Speaker 1: faithful evening in nineteen eighty nine, Betty was taking a
Speaker 1: trip back to her old stomping grounds, Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: There were a number of people professionally and personally who
Speaker 3: were very important to me, and I hadn't seen them
Speaker 3: in a long time.
Speaker 1: Like John and Bonnie Rains, a young couple she'd known
Speaker 1: from her days reporting on religion for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.
Speaker 3: And I called and said I was going to be
Speaker 3: a town could we get together? And they immediately invited
Speaker 3: me to come to their home for dinner that Friday night,
Speaker 3: and I was very much looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: When Betty first met them, Bonnie was a young mother,
Speaker 1: juggling her grad school studies and education, her job running
Speaker 1: a daycare, and her three children. Her husband, John was
Speaker 1: a young Methodist minister who taught religion at Temple University.
Speaker 1: He was a gifted speaker, and he knew it. Some
Speaker 1: might say he talked a little too much. Betty would
Speaker 1: soon learn how true that was.
Speaker 3: We hadn't seen each other in a very long time.
Speaker 3: We talked for quite a while and had a couple
Speaker 3: classes of wine, catching each other up. On the last
Speaker 3: decade of our lives. And at some point in the
Speaker 3: middle of dinner, their youngest child came in. She had
Speaker 3: a question for John. Then John said when he was
Speaker 3: done answering her question, he said, Mary, this is Betty Metzker.
Speaker 3: We want you to know Betty because many years ago,
Speaker 3: when your dad and mother had information about the FBI
Speaker 3: that we wanted to give to the public, we gave
Speaker 3: it to Betty. And I was just absolutely stunned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would think, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Mary was sort of lingering a little bit, but you
Speaker 3: could just tell from the expression on her face that
Speaker 3: this meant absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1: Sure, and she's like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: Dad?
Speaker 3: And then when she left the room, I said, you know,
Speaker 3: are you telling me that you were you broke into
Speaker 3: the FBI. And they had these wonderful white smiles on
Speaker 3: their faces and said, yes. It just it just it
Speaker 3: popped out, popped out. I think it was a combination
Speaker 3: of the fact that we were so happy to see
Speaker 3: each other and we were telling each other tales at
Speaker 3: a little bit of wine. Here we are sitting in
Speaker 3: their beautiful suburban home, you know, four children, nice black
Speaker 3: dog named Jezebel, and the station wagon, which they've always had.
Speaker 3: But also I just simply know them. I had no
Speaker 3: idea how radical they were that night. I'm just asking
Speaker 3: one question after another and finding it all pretty unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I'm at Helms and this is Snapoo, a show about
Speaker 1: history's greatest screw ups. This is season two Medburgh, the
Speaker 1: story of a daring heist and the colossal FBI Snapoo.
Speaker 1: It exposed today a young couple's decision to put everything
Speaker 1: on the line.
Speaker 3: Super testing one, two, three, four, five six.
Speaker 1: That's Betty Metzger interviewing John and Bonnie Rains.
Speaker 5: When the idea introduced you, well, let's see, I think
Speaker 5: it was something like September or October.
Speaker 1: In September or October of nineteen seventy, John and Bonnie
Speaker 1: Rains got a phone call from a friend, a man
Speaker 1: by the name of Bill Davidan. Bill was a Navy veteran,
Speaker 1: a physicist, a father of two. He was a noun
Speaker 1: assuming man, calm, thoughtful, and deeply practical. Oh and a
Speaker 1: dedicated anti war activist, just like John and Bonnie.
Speaker 6: I think he just initially, he just called John and
Speaker 6: me from his home in Haverford and asked us if
Speaker 6: we would we want to come to a party.
Speaker 1: That's Bonnie. Again, there was no actual party for activists.
Speaker 6: This was code for thinking about an action, and would
Speaker 6: you want to come and talk about it?
Speaker 1: A protest action? That is Bonnie and John accepted the invitation.
Speaker 6: So we met with him at his home and we
Speaker 6: walked outside in the field behind his home to talk
Speaker 6: about it. And that's when he floated the idea to
Speaker 6: John and me.
Speaker 1: It was casual, you know, in the way that someone
Speaker 1: today might propose starting a fantasy football league. Bill simply asked, hey,
Speaker 1: what do you guys think about burglarizing an FBI office?
Speaker 6: And it took us back a bit crazy. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not wrong, Bonnie.
Speaker 6: Is this crazy or is this something we ought to
Speaker 6: really take seriously?
Speaker 1: You had it right the first time. It's definitely crazy.
Speaker 1: The FBI was the biggest baddest law enforcement agency in
Speaker 1: the biggest baddest nation on earth. And who were John
Speaker 1: and Bonnie Rains Uh, not professional burglars, not spies, just
Speaker 1: a nice young couple with three children in a station wagon.
Speaker 1: How the hell were they supposed to break into an
Speaker 1: FBI office? And if the FBI caught them.
Speaker 7: No, they'll lock you in a room, and.
Speaker 2: So with a room.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Steven Soderberg. Anyway, unlike most sane people, the
Speaker 1: Rainses would actually consider Bill Davidan's proposition because for months
Speaker 1: they'd been suspicious that there was something very wrong with
Speaker 1: the FBI, and this might be an opportunity to prove
Speaker 1: it well.
Speaker 3: Astar I was born in ran Rapids, Michigan, met waitressing
Speaker 3: tables in the resort, and there in Michigan with family summer.
Speaker 1: Cottage, long before they would consider breaking into an FBI office.
Speaker 1: Bonnie and Clyde excuse me. Bonnie and John were just
Speaker 1: two young people meeting by chance on a beautiful summer evening.
Speaker 1: Bonnie was a waitress at the Homestead, a resort that
Speaker 1: overlooked Lake Michigan. And John was a young Methodist minister, tall,
Speaker 1: handsome and dining alone.
Speaker 6: And he was at one of my tables, and he
Speaker 6: was this absolutely gorgeous man in a blue sport coat
Speaker 6: and these brilliant blue eyes. Part of our job description
Speaker 6: was to kind of chat up the guests, so I
Speaker 6: proceeded to start a chat with him, I guess. So
Speaker 6: we found some things to talk about.
Speaker 1: They sure did, Bonnie asked John how his day was,
Speaker 1: and John told Bonnie that he just arrived. Literally, this
Speaker 1: was his first dinner since getting back from the Deep South,
Speaker 1: where he'd been jailed for participating in the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: one Freedom Rides.
Speaker 8: It was the experience for the first time in my life,
Speaker 8: the fact that things were not okay with this country, that.
Speaker 9: There were very deep things that were not okay with
Speaker 9: this country.
Speaker 1: The Freedom Rides were a courageous civil rights protest action.
Speaker 1: Black and white passengers alike boarded greyhound buses headed into
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow South. It was a few months after
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court had ruled that interstate travel facilities be desegregated,
Speaker 1: but before most of the South had accepted the new
Speaker 1: reality of this ruling.
Speaker 8: A mob had gathered as our bus came into a
Speaker 8: little Rock, Arkansas, and.
Speaker 6: There was confrontation of a mob that, as John said,
Speaker 6: they wanted to kill me. They really would have killed
Speaker 6: me if they gotten their hands on me.
Speaker 1: The Freedom Riders, including John, were arrested for breaching the peace.
Speaker 1: They were fined, found guilty, and told to get out
Speaker 1: of the state.
Speaker 9: But sure we did, going south deeper into the balance,
Speaker 9: it was a very powerful experience for me, and it
Speaker 9: exposed me to the power of the African American Southern
Speaker 9: community of resistance.
Speaker 8: It had great moral authority, It acted under conditions of
Speaker 8: great danger. It exposed itself to that danger. I began
Speaker 8: to see law and order as a system which controls
Speaker 8: other folks, oftentimes the black majority who.
Speaker 9: Could not vote.
Speaker 8: Bonnie hears this story, which is fresh off the press,
Speaker 8: and I think she was intrigued by. Oh, yeah, I
Speaker 8: think what I had for me. Maybe my blue eyes.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they don't hurt John, they don't hurt.
Speaker 6: I really admired him and thought this is a special
Speaker 6: kind of man, and he he was very interested in me.
Speaker 6: I guess he thought I was pretty and funny. I
Speaker 6: had goals, I had ambition, I had spunk, and I
Speaker 6: was willing to not just settle for the comfortable life
Speaker 6: that I could have settled for.
Speaker 3: I wanted an adventure.
Speaker 6: I wanted my life to be an adventure.
Speaker 3: And he liked joke.
Speaker 6: He said it took him eight glasses of iced tea
Speaker 6: to work up to asking me out on a date.
Speaker 1: Less than a year later, John and Bonnie were married.
Speaker 1: Three kids quickly followed but they made a promise to
Speaker 1: each other that they wouldn't allow family to stand in
Speaker 1: the way of fighting injustice, and there was plenty of
Speaker 1: injustice to fight.
Speaker 10: I signed it up.
Speaker 2: About eight poumes from a US started on a mighty
Speaker 2: role from so Alabama, the workers there who are striking
Speaker 2: for a decent way, for decent working conditions.
Speaker 11: At the time when the operation of the machine becomes
Speaker 11: so odious makes you so sick and marked that unless
Speaker 11: you're framed the machine wing, I.
Speaker 1: Didn't come working at all.
Speaker 6: There was so much at risk at that time in
Speaker 6: our democracy that you were either an activist or you
Speaker 6: went along with things.
Speaker 3: That were wrong.
Speaker 6: You had a choice you had to make, and we
Speaker 6: made the choice to be activists. And if it meant
Speaker 6: some risks that were involved, well that's what citizens sometimes
Speaker 6: have to do.
Speaker 1: John and Vonnie Rain spent the nineteen sixties protesting for
Speaker 1: civil rights, for women's rights, for labor rights. By nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, they were living in Philadelphia and becoming entrenched
Speaker 1: in the fight against America's war in Vietnam.
Speaker 7: Asafia, the NAZE official, the military chief of Kuang Nai Province,
Speaker 7: today denied charges that American soldiers on the ground executed
Speaker 7: several hundred villagers. The villagers version of the incident was
Speaker 7: given by survivors yesterday. They said a patrol of one
Speaker 7: hundred Americans stormed into the hamlet, drove all the residents
Speaker 7: out of their huts, and then opened fire with automatic weapons.
Speaker 1: On November twelfth, nineteen sixty nine, almost fifteen years after
Speaker 1: American involvement in Vietnam began, report surface that US troops
Speaker 1: had raided the Vietnamese village of Meli. The Americans had
Speaker 1: burned huts, killed hundreds of civilians, including children, and committed
Speaker 1: other atrocities. The army initially claimed that Meli was a
Speaker 1: quote fierce firefight where one hundred and twenty eight enemy
Speaker 1: troops and twenty civilians had been killed. But that was
Speaker 1: a lie. It wasn't a battle, It was a slaughter.
Speaker 8: I might killed about ten to fifteen.
Speaker 1: Men, women and children, men, women, shure, babies and movies.
Speaker 12: Why did you do it?
Speaker 1: Why did I do it?
Speaker 12: Because I feel like I was ordered to do it.
Speaker 1: Two days after these news reports, half a million Americans
Speaker 1: marched in Washington. It was the largest anti war protest
Speaker 1: in history.
Speaker 6: Be about today.
Speaker 3: People were hopeful at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Here's Betty Metzker. When she was a young reporter in Philly,
Speaker 1: she sometimes covered the peace movement.
Speaker 3: In order for protest to happen, there has to be
Speaker 3: a deep feeling that there can be a result because
Speaker 3: of what we're doing, and people really did feel that way.
Speaker 11: We come out of the street, pour out with our
Speaker 11: visions and our dreams and.
Speaker 6: The beauty that is within us.
Speaker 13: We will come as a new nation.
Speaker 6: You want us to stay.
Speaker 3: I don't love my country.
Speaker 10: I entered on with a final better solution that joined and.
Speaker 1: Hey, but despite the massive protests, the administration just wasn't interested, like,
Speaker 1: not even a bit. While half a million Americans marched
Speaker 1: in protest right outside the White House, President Nixon sat
Speaker 1: inside and watched a football game on TV. People like
Speaker 1: John and Bonnie had seen firsthand how protests can affect change,
Speaker 1: but as the war dragged on, even they had to
Speaker 1: acknowledge a sobering truth. Marching and demonstrating didn't seem like
Speaker 1: it was going to stop this war. Here's John.
Speaker 5: It was a time in which we had a growing
Speaker 5: feeling that the moral authority of the country was with
Speaker 5: we the people, and was not in the administration in Washington.
Speaker 1: Nixon later wrote in his memoirs that these protests quote
Speaker 1: destroyed whatever small possibility may still have existed of ending
Speaker 1: the war in nineteen sixty nine, which makes about as
Speaker 1: much sense as smoking six packs a day and then
Speaker 1: blaming your inphysema on the doctor who told you to quit.
Speaker 1: Whoever's fault it was. And I happened to blame the
Speaker 1: commander in chief of the United States Military, But that's
Speaker 1: just me. The war did not end in nineteen sixty nine. Instead,
Speaker 1: as the year came to a close, Nixon drafted a
Speaker 1: whole new generation of men into the military to kill
Speaker 1: and be killed in Vietnam.
Speaker 3: Everybody, literally everybody knew a young man who was going
Speaker 3: to Vietnam. You thought about your boyfriend, you thought about
Speaker 3: your husband or your brother.
Speaker 1: Christmas time, nineteen sixty nine, every family that included a
Speaker 1: draft eligible young man crowded around their television set.
Speaker 4: Pursue into the executive order, the Director's Sellective Service is
Speaker 4: going to establish tonight random selection sekuch for induction for nineteen.
Speaker 1: Seven eight teenagers just barely men perched on the edge
Speaker 1: of their living room sofas nervously bouncing their knees and
Speaker 1: drumming their fingers. Their parents hovered as the lottery unfolded
Speaker 1: on the TV. Representatives in stiff suits reached their arms
Speaker 1: into a fish bowl of blue plastic capsules, and the
Speaker 1: young men at home prayed their birthdays wouldn't be called
Speaker 1: September fourteen.
Speaker 13: September fourteen zero zero one, April twenty four.
Speaker 2: April twenty four is zero zero two.
Speaker 13: December thirty, December thirty zero zero three.
Speaker 6: In March, you rally, you write letters to members of Congress,
Speaker 6: and none of it was making any difference whatsoever. In fact,
Speaker 6: the war was worsening. Our voices were not being heard.
Speaker 6: So there was a lot of anger and frustration, and
Speaker 6: we decided to pursue a different kind of civil disobedience.
Speaker 1: John and Bonnie's activism was about to get hardcore. Their
Speaker 1: pursuit of civil disobedience brought them into contact with the
Speaker 1: Catholic Peace Movement. To be clear, America's Catholic leadership were
Speaker 1: not peacenicks. In fact, in nineteen sixty eight, the Archbishop
Speaker 1: of New York counter protested at a peace rally, but
Speaker 1: at the local level, many parish priests and their parishioners
Speaker 1: felt the war contradicted their religious beliefs. They thought the
Speaker 1: draft was wrong, and some of them were even willing
Speaker 1: to violate earthly laws to fight it.
Speaker 6: Strategy was to go into draft boards in the middle
Speaker 6: of the night, to break into draft boards and remove
Speaker 6: draft files and destroy them.
Speaker 1: All American men aged eighteen to twenty five were required
Speaker 1: to register with their local draft boards. These small offices
Speaker 1: would store their draft files, which were necessary for actually
Speaker 1: calling these men up to serve, but there were no
Speaker 1: digital copies. Of course, everything ran on paper, which meant
Speaker 1: that if someone broke into those draft boards and removed
Speaker 1: or destroyed the files, the men in those files couldn't
Speaker 1: be called up. It wasn't only the Catholic Peace movement
Speaker 1: planning these raids, but many prominent draft board raiders were
Speaker 1: priests or people close to them.
Speaker 6: We love to say that we learned our burglary skills
Speaker 6: from nuns and priests.
Speaker 1: The draft board raids were strategic targeting offices specifically located
Speaker 1: in poor neighborhoods.
Speaker 6: The men that they were drafting were all low income,
Speaker 6: disadvantaged men who were just caught up in the draft
Speaker 6: and sent over there to be slaughtered or to slaughter.
Speaker 3: Rich people were more likely to be able to hire
Speaker 3: attorneys that would be able to get them out of serving,
Speaker 3: get doctors to find either valid or invalid reasons why
Speaker 3: they shouldn't serve. There was learning how to fake mental illness.
Speaker 1: So Bonnie John and a gaggle of nuns and priests
Speaker 1: broke into federal draft board offices and made off with
Speaker 1: draft files in the dead of night. Then they mailed
Speaker 1: the files to the young men, along with a letter
Speaker 1: explaining that they believed the war in Vietnam was unjust,
Speaker 1: and now these men had a choice. They could report
Speaker 1: to their Draft board office and offer to serve if
Speaker 1: they wished, or they could keep their file and sleep
Speaker 1: a little better at night knowing they would never be called.
Speaker 6: Well, we were triumphant. I mean we felt pretty good
Speaker 6: about it. So I think we felt at least that
Speaker 6: was one very concrete thing that we could do, that
Speaker 6: we could accomplish.
Speaker 1: But they weren't naive. These raids weren't slowing the war.
Speaker 1: Young men were still going to Vietnam at alarming rates,
Speaker 1: many of them never to come home.
Speaker 3: There was such a feeling of deep despair and less hopefulness.
Speaker 3: People really came to feel like we're having no impact.
Speaker 3: This war is not going to end. People were debating
Speaker 3: whether or not violence is appropriate.
Speaker 1: Some fringe groups formed, like the infamous Weather Underground. They
Speaker 1: began building bombs and blowing up public buildings. They issued
Speaker 1: warnings in advance and usually struck at night when offices
Speaker 1: were empty, but they wouldn't avoid casualties. On one tragic occasion,
Speaker 1: a Weather Underground bomb accidentally detonated inside a townhouse in
Speaker 1: New York City in the West Village, killing two members
Speaker 1: of the group. The peace movement was worried that all
Speaker 1: this escalation would discredit the movement, and soon that escalation
Speaker 1: would be brutally answered by the government. On May fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, at Kent State University, more than two thousand
Speaker 1: students gathered to protest the war. The scene was tense.
Speaker 1: The National Guard fired tear gas into the crowd, then
Speaker 1: protesters through rocks. Then the National Guard fired sixty seven
Speaker 1: shots into the crowd. Nine unarmed students were injured and
Speaker 1: four were killed. The war was coming home in a
Speaker 1: horrifying way, which Neil Young eloquently captured in Ohio, a
Speaker 1: song he wrote in the immediate aftermath of Kent State
Speaker 1: as Summari. It was the first time American citizens were
Speaker 1: killed while protesting the war in a gallup pole. Fifty
Speaker 1: eight percent of Americans blamed the students for the shooting.
Speaker 1: The peace movement was growing tired and exasperated, and on
Speaker 1: top of all that, there was a growing paranoia amongst
Speaker 1: activists in John and Bonnie's community, a lingering feeling that
Speaker 1: a very powerful force was watching from the shadows.
Speaker 6: We were very aware that the FBI was everywhere in Philadelphia. Surveillance, surveillance,
Speaker 6: and intimidation were everywhere. Most of us were acutely aware
Speaker 6: that that was happening.
Speaker 1: According to Bonnie, it was easy to suss out the spies.
Speaker 1: The peace movement had a certain fashion sense, long hair,
Speaker 1: secondhand clothing, leather, fringe tied eye. But occasionally one would
Speaker 1: spot somebody in the corner wearing all that stuff, with
Speaker 1: a crew cut and wingtip shoes, also wielding a camera.
Speaker 6: Pretty apparent that they were just everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 1: March is meetings, you know, peaceful, legal, constitutionally protected assemblies,
Speaker 1: and worse.
Speaker 6: I would take the children to school in a carpool
Speaker 6: and there would be a car behind us with two
Speaker 6: men in it, and one of my kids would say,
Speaker 6: do you think that's the FBI. I mean, that's how
Speaker 6: pervasive it was that even my children wondered whether we
Speaker 6: were being followed and watched. It's intimidating. It's really it
Speaker 6: is intimidating.
Speaker 1: To be fair, if this surveillance focused only on the
Speaker 1: people who were illegally breaking into draft boards, well that
Speaker 1: would be one thing, but all sorts of protesters felt
Speaker 1: they were being watched, surveiled simply for exercising their First
Speaker 1: Amendment right to free speech. Here's John Rains.
Speaker 5: There was a feeling that the FBI worked for the
Speaker 5: other side, the feeling that the FBI was used as
Speaker 5: not simply an instrument of investigation, but an instrument of
Speaker 5: intimidation that was using its power to pursue what we
Speaker 5: felt to be highly unjust policies in Southeast Asil.
Speaker 1: There's a term for this when a government starts keeping
Speaker 1: tabs on people not because they're breaking the law, but
Speaker 1: because they're criticizing the government. It's called a police state.
Speaker 1: John and Bonnie had the nagging feeling that America was
Speaker 1: becoming one, but they had no way of knowing for sure,
Speaker 1: that is until they got a call from Bill Davidon
Speaker 1: inviting them to a party. By nineteen seventy, peace activists
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia had the eerie feeling that they were being
Speaker 1: watched by the FBI. But what could be done about it?
Speaker 1: It was incredibly hard to prove this was actually happening,
Speaker 1: so people resigned themselves to this new reality, but not everyone.
Speaker 8: I was becoming increasingly involved in things like peace marches
Speaker 8: and giving talks against government policy.
Speaker 1: This is Bill Davidan.
Speaker 8: Another whole part of the movement.
Speaker 5: I've had to do with draft resistance and sort of
Speaker 5: actions which many people consider illegal.
Speaker 1: Bill has passed away, but here he is in an
Speaker 1: interview from twenty twelve.
Speaker 10: I grew up in Newark, New Jersey. My childhood was
Speaker 10: not somewhat unconventional one. I got interested in some aspects
Speaker 10: of politics.
Speaker 1: Bill's activism started early. When he was only eleven years old,
Speaker 1: he heard the mayor of Jersey City had banned a
Speaker 1: socialist from speaking there, so he boarded a bus all
Speaker 1: by himself to protest, supporting a stranger's First Amendment rights.
Speaker 1: When I was eleven, I spent weekends trading baseball cards
Speaker 1: and picking up fart jokes. But Bill Daviadon was already
Speaker 1: going miles out of his way to stand up for
Speaker 1: free speech in the face of government repression. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess he could have also traded a few baseball
Speaker 1: cards while he was there, But the point is when
Speaker 1: he saw injustice, Bill took a stand.
Speaker 10: I was concerned about political matters, but my energies were
Speaker 10: more directed towards the threat of nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: Bill was studying to become a theoretical physicist. When the
Speaker 1: United States dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Speaker 1: he was devastated that the science he loved was being
Speaker 1: corrupted for mass human casualty. Decades later, he was afraid
Speaker 1: that his country would use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. He
Speaker 1: began protesting in Philadelphia, and it wasn't long before he
Speaker 1: was rubbing shoulders with the Catholic peace movement. Bill was
Speaker 1: a scientist and as such, a methodical and practical problem solver.
Speaker 1: He often preferred simple solutions. Breaking into draft boards was dangerous,
Speaker 1: but that didn't necessarily mean it always had to be complicated.
Speaker 10: There are a number of different ways to open the
Speaker 10: doors to draft boards. One of the simplest is that
Speaker 10: in a couplifications we just put up a little sign
Speaker 10: that said, please don't lock the door, and generally people
Speaker 10: didn't lock the door.
Speaker 14: He was a brilliant person. I think he had a
Speaker 14: lot of motivation and determination and drive.
Speaker 1: This is Sarah davidan Bill's daughter.
Speaker 14: So we lived in a little town called Haverford, and
Speaker 14: there was a TV appliant store in Brinmar, which was
Speaker 14: the next town over, maybe like a three or four
Speaker 14: mile walk, And so he bought a TV and thought
Speaker 14: that he could just walk back to his apartment with
Speaker 14: this TV. And he's carrying this huge box down Lancaster Avenue,
Speaker 14: and you know, that was pre cell phone, so he
Speaker 14: couldn't like, you know, call an uber and say, yeah,
Speaker 14: I was wrong. So he did the whole walk with
Speaker 14: this TV, stopping like every half a block. And by
Speaker 14: the time he got there, I mean, he was just
Speaker 14: like pouring sweat and he was like, you know, wiping
Speaker 14: the sweat off of his face. But he got that
Speaker 14: TV back to his apartment and he said, oh, it
Speaker 14: ended up being a little bit heavier than I thought
Speaker 14: it was, and I don't know why. That story in
Speaker 14: particular is sort of like, you know, reminds me of
Speaker 14: who my dad is. But I think it was just
Speaker 14: sort of like this needs to be done, I'm going
Speaker 14: to do it, like he just wanted to get things done,
Speaker 14: like he wanted to get shit done. You know.
Speaker 1: Bill was a doer and the kind of person his
Speaker 1: community trusted, the kind of person you might come to
Speaker 1: if you thought big Brother was spying on you.
Speaker 10: A lot of people felt they're being watched. Perfectly legitimate
Speaker 10: organizations suspected FBI surveillance getting people to look over their
Speaker 10: shoulder and to constantly worry about whether they're being watched
Speaker 10: or not, and should create an atmosphere of fear.
Speaker 1: If it was true that the FBI was surveilling peace
Speaker 1: activists simply because of their protest activity, that would be
Speaker 1: a violation of the First Amendment rights of the very
Speaker 1: citizens the FBI was sworn to protect. But Bill also
Speaker 1: worried that all of this surveillance might have another effect.
Speaker 3: He felt that if act had this feeling that there
Speaker 3: was FBI agent in their midst, it would build cynicism
Speaker 3: and probably would lead to activists dropping out and to
Speaker 3: other people just not coming into activism. For Bill, dissent
Speaker 3: was at the heart of democracy. If the FBI was
Speaker 3: spying on people, he regarded it as a crime, and
Speaker 3: a crime that needed to be solved.
Speaker 1: But Bill knew it would be no use accusing the
Speaker 1: FBI of such a crime unless he had cold, hard proof.
Speaker 10: As frustrating party, because it's hard to get people to
Speaker 10: be actively concerned with threats that are not visible.
Speaker 1: Bill was a walking set of contradictions. Born to Jewish parents,
Speaker 1: he was an atheist, yet actively involved in the Catholic
Speaker 1: peace movement. Bill was quiet but still a natural leader,
Speaker 1: had a rare gift for comprehending the mysteries of the
Speaker 1: physical universe, and yet also purchased a big ass TV
Speaker 1: with no plan for how to get it home. By
Speaker 1: the early nineteen seventies, Bill and other activists started hearing
Speaker 1: strange noises when they picked up their phones. Guys in
Speaker 1: unconvincing hippie garb were showing up at protests and taking photos.
Speaker 1: People who protested the war were being followed and intimidated.
Speaker 1: So Bill looked at this evidence and formed a hypothesis
Speaker 1: some organization, a federal law enforcement agency, to be precise
Speaker 1: must be surveilling the anti war movement. Like any good scientists,
Speaker 1: Bill knew the next step test the hypothesis.
Speaker 3: And so he finds himself thinking about, would you dare
Speaker 3: break into an FBI office?
Speaker 14: How complicated would it be to go into the office.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, I've no.
Speaker 8: Records on what kinds of disruption.
Speaker 1: If Bill was right about the FBI surveiling the peace movement,
Speaker 1: then that meant they were probably keeping files documenting that surveillance.
Speaker 1: Find the files and he'd have proof that the government
Speaker 1: was suppressing free speech. He didn't know anything for certain,
Speaker 1: but even the possibility that this was going on was
Speaker 1: intolerable to Bill Davidan. So Bill decided to throw a party.
Speaker 1: He invited John and Bonnie Rains.
Speaker 3: We stayed up late a lot talking about it.
Speaker 6: Of course, we had more at risk because we had
Speaker 6: three children under the age of ten.
Speaker 1: John and Bonnie had already decided that if they said yes,
Speaker 1: they'd take this action together, which made the decision that
Speaker 1: much more serious. This wasn't like breaking into a draft board.
Speaker 1: People who'd been caught for that usually served a year
Speaker 1: two at most, But breaking into an FBI office and
Speaker 1: stealing confidential documents. That was the kind of crime that
Speaker 1: came with decades of prison time. Their kids would lose
Speaker 1: their mom and their dad.
Speaker 6: I mean, you really can't use the fact that you're
Speaker 6: a parent as an excuse to step back and not
Speaker 6: be engaged. It just seemed that that was the one
Speaker 6: and only way to reveal the truth. I mean, basically,
Speaker 6: what it came down to were threats to our democracy.
Speaker 6: I was raised with those kinds of values and the
Speaker 6: idea that you have an individual responsibility to protect our
Speaker 6: fragile democracy and to tell the truth.
Speaker 3: I was just really angry.
Speaker 6: Really, and I was feeling so helpless and frustrated, and
Speaker 6: I thought, here's something that might just make a great,
Speaker 6: big difference, and maybe we can make it happen.
Speaker 1: They called Bill, they said we're in. But they had
Speaker 1: no idea what they were about to unleash, no way
Speaker 1: of knowing that their action would fundamentally change the way
Speaker 1: Americans thought about their country, their government, and the people
Speaker 1: who were supposed to be keeping them safe. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: one more thing I should mention at this very moment
Speaker 1: that Bonnie and John called Bill and agreed to be
Speaker 1: part of his plot to burgle an FBI office. The
Speaker 1: FBI was tapping Bill Davidan's phone. Next time on SNAFU,
Speaker 1: david plans his attack on Goliath.
Speaker 7: There is nothing mysterious about the meta which the Federal
Speaker 7: Bureau of Investigation works.
Speaker 12: He called me and asked me if I was interested
Speaker 12: in going to a party, which was you know code,
Speaker 12: I said, sign me on.
Speaker 6: There were no alarms over the doors. I couldn't see
Speaker 6: any security measures whatsoever.
Speaker 12: It's really not hard and you can get through almost
Speaker 12: any door in twenty seconds if you are any good.
Speaker 6: I just felt like I was living in the heart
Speaker 6: of the dragon and it was just my job to
Speaker 6: stop the fire, and this seemed like a way to
Speaker 6: do it.
Speaker 1: Snapfoo is a production of iHeartRadio, Film, Nation Entertainment, and
Speaker 1: Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. This
Speaker 1: season of Snapfoo is based on the book The Burglary
Speaker 1: The Discovery of j Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, written by
Speaker 1: Betty Metzger. It's executive produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka,
Speaker 1: Mike Walbo, Whitney Donaldson, Andy Chugg, Dylan Fagan, and Betty Metzger.
Speaker 1: Our lead producers are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Producer
Speaker 1: is Stephen Wood. This episode was written by Albert Chen,
Speaker 1: Sarah Joyner, and Stephen Wood, with additional writing and story
Speaker 1: editing from Alissa Martino and Ed Helms. Tory Smith is
Speaker 1: our associate producer. Nevin Calla Poly is our production assistant.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Charles Richter. Our creative executive is Brett Harris.
Speaker 1: Sensitivity consult from Olowa Kemi, Ala de Sui, editing, sound
Speaker 1: design and original music by Ben Chubg, Engineering and technical
Speaker 1: direction by Nick Dooley. Additional editing from Kelsey Albright, Olivia
Speaker 1: Canny and Jimma Castelli Foley. Theme music by Dan Rosatto.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Daniel well shand Ben Rizak.
Speaker 1: Additional thanks to director Johanna Hamilton for letting us use
Speaker 1: some of the original interviews from her incredible documentary nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one. Finally, our deepest gratitude to the courageous Citizens
Speaker 1: Commission to Investigate the FBI, Bill Davidon, Ralph Daniel, Judy
Speaker 1: Fine Gold, Keith Forsyth, Bonnie Rains, John n Rains, Sarah
Speaker 1: Schumer and Bob Williamson.
Speaker 6: H