WEBVTT - 2. Want to Come to a Party? 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:04.040 Last time on SNAFU. 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.560 Heavyweight boxers Joe Praise You'er and Mihamed Atli meet in 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:09.920 New York's Madison Square Garden Monday night. 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:12.840 There was a huge stack of mail, but this one 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:17.520 stood out because of the return address, which was Liberty 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.280 Publications Media, Pennsylvania. 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.919 As long as I am Director of the FBI, it 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:30.560 will continue to maintain its high and impartial standards of investigation. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.280 Last month, Burglars had an FBI a resident office and 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:38.720 took files which subsequently have been made public. 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.120 The FBI entered my life very soon after that. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.720 Reporter Betty Medsker now lived in San Francisco. Two decades 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.640 had passed since she first received an envelope from a 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.560 mysterious group called the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI. 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:07.759 That envelope contained fourteen top secret FBI files showing America's 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:12.200 beloved g men were surveilling American citizens with the goal 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.880 of quote enhancing paranoia. She still had no idea who 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.000 sent her those files that led to her bombshell reporting. 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.520 She had no idea about the incredible heist that pried 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.360 them out of the FBI's hands, and she might not 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.400 have ever known these things were it not for one 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:38.080 faithful evening in nineteen eighty nine, Betty was taking a 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.800 trip back to her old stomping grounds, Philadelphia. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:46.360 There were a number of people professionally and personally who 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.600 were very important to me, and I hadn't seen them 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:50.920 in a long time. 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.280 Like John and Bonnie Rains, a young couple she'd known 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:58.000 from her days reporting on religion for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.360 And I called and said I was going to be 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.400 a town could we get together? And they immediately invited 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.960 me to come to their home for dinner that Friday night, 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.079 and I was very much looking forward to it. 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.560 When Betty first met them, Bonnie was a young mother, 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.400 juggling her grad school studies and education, her job running 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.040 a daycare, and her three children. Her husband, John was 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.320 a young Methodist minister who taught religion at Temple University. 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.840 He was a gifted speaker, and he knew it. Some 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.320 might say he talked a little too much. Betty would 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.160 soon learn how true that was. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.200 We hadn't seen each other in a very long time. 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:43.120 We talked for quite a while and had a couple 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:47.400 classes of wine, catching each other up. On the last 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:51.400 decade of our lives. And at some point in the 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:55.480 middle of dinner, their youngest child came in. She had 0:02:55.520 --> 0:03:00.840 a question for John. Then John said when he was 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.680 done answering her question, he said, Mary, this is Betty Metzker. 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.440 We want you to know Betty because many years ago, 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.040 when your dad and mother had information about the FBI 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.720 that we wanted to give to the public, we gave 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:25.080 it to Betty. And I was just absolutely stunned. 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.880 Yeah, I would think, oh my gosh. 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.040 Mary was sort of lingering a little bit, but you 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.200 could just tell from the expression on her face that 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.320 this meant absolutely nothing. 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.960 Sure, and she's like, what are you talking about? 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:42.400 Dad? 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:46.240 And then when she left the room, I said, you know, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.320 are you telling me that you were you broke into 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:55.560 the FBI. And they had these wonderful white smiles on 0:03:55.640 --> 0:04:00.840 their faces and said, yes. It just it just it 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.240 popped out, popped out. I think it was a combination 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.200 of the fact that we were so happy to see 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.680 each other and we were telling each other tales at 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.240 a little bit of wine. Here we are sitting in 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:18.760 their beautiful suburban home, you know, four children, nice black 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:24.119 dog named Jezebel, and the station wagon, which they've always had. 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.520 But also I just simply know them. I had no 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:32.120 idea how radical they were that night. I'm just asking 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:38.320 one question after another and finding it all pretty unbelievable. 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.800 I'm at Helms and this is Snapoo, a show about 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:48.480 history's greatest screw ups. This is season two Medburgh, the 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.040 story of a daring heist and the colossal FBI Snapoo. 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:59.200 It exposed today a young couple's decision to put everything 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:08.880 on the line. 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.640 Super testing one, two, three, four, five six. 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:21.680 That's Betty Metzger interviewing John and Bonnie Rains. 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:27.960 When the idea introduced you, well, let's see, I think 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.600 it was something like September or October. 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.520 In September or October of nineteen seventy, John and Bonnie 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.240 Rains got a phone call from a friend, a man 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.000 by the name of Bill Davidan. Bill was a Navy veteran, 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.920 a physicist, a father of two. He was a noun 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:50.279 assuming man, calm, thoughtful, and deeply practical. Oh and a 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:54.520 dedicated anti war activist, just like John and Bonnie. 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.440 I think he just initially, he just called John and 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.720 me from his home in Haverford and asked us if 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:02.600 we would we want to come to a party. 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:08.040 That's Bonnie. Again, there was no actual party for activists. 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.000 This was code for thinking about an action, and would 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:13.920 you want to come and talk about it? 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:18.720 A protest action? That is Bonnie and John accepted the invitation. 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.160 So we met with him at his home and we 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.320 walked outside in the field behind his home to talk 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.880 about it. And that's when he floated the idea to 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:28.599 John and me. 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.719 It was casual, you know, in the way that someone 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:37.599 today might propose starting a fantasy football league. Bill simply asked, hey, 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:42.800 what do you guys think about burglarizing an FBI office? 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:49.680 And it took us back a bit crazy. That's crazy. 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.320 Yeah, you're not wrong, Bonnie. 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.279 Is this crazy or is this something we ought to 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:56.320 really take seriously? 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.839 You had it right the first time. It's definitely crazy. 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.400 The FBI was the biggest baddest law enforcement agency in 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.560 the biggest baddest nation on earth. And who were John 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:12.920 and Bonnie Rains Uh, not professional burglars, not spies, just 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.800 a nice young couple with three children in a station wagon. 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.880 How the hell were they supposed to break into an 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:25.760 FBI office? And if the FBI caught them. 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:26.240 No, they'll lock you in a room, and. 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:27.760 So with a room. 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:34.000 Thank you, Steven Soderberg. Anyway, unlike most sane people, the 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:39.160 Rainses would actually consider Bill Davidan's proposition because for months 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.640 they'd been suspicious that there was something very wrong with 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.200 the FBI, and this might be an opportunity to prove 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:47.480 it well. 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:53.080 Astar I was born in ran Rapids, Michigan, met waitressing 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.640 tables in the resort, and there in Michigan with family summer. 0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:00.560 Cottage, long before they would consider breaking into an FBI office. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.720 Bonnie and Clyde excuse me. Bonnie and John were just 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.240 two young people meeting by chance on a beautiful summer evening. 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.280 Bonnie was a waitress at the Homestead, a resort that 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.640 overlooked Lake Michigan. And John was a young Methodist minister, tall, 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:18.640 handsome and dining alone. 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.800 And he was at one of my tables, and he 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:27.000 was this absolutely gorgeous man in a blue sport coat 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:32.200 and these brilliant blue eyes. Part of our job description 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.280 was to kind of chat up the guests, so I 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.600 proceeded to start a chat with him, I guess. So 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.320 we found some things to talk about. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.640 They sure did, Bonnie asked John how his day was, 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.360 and John told Bonnie that he just arrived. Literally, this 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.160 was his first dinner since getting back from the Deep South, 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.680 where he'd been jailed for participating in the nineteen sixty 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:55.600 one Freedom Rides. 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.520 It was the experience for the first time in my life, 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.640 the fact that things were not okay with this country, that. 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.600 There were very deep things that were not okay with 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:11.360 this country. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.480 The Freedom Rides were a courageous civil rights protest action. 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.800 Black and white passengers alike boarded greyhound buses headed into 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.520 the Jim Crow South. It was a few months after 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.439 the Supreme Court had ruled that interstate travel facilities be desegregated, 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.880 but before most of the South had accepted the new 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:31.320 reality of this ruling. 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.560 A mob had gathered as our bus came into a 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:37.880 little Rock, Arkansas, and. 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.439 There was confrontation of a mob that, as John said, 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.520 they wanted to kill me. They really would have killed 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:44.960 me if they gotten their hands on me. 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.200 The Freedom Riders, including John, were arrested for breaching the peace. 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.320 They were fined, found guilty, and told to get out 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:54.880 of the state. 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.360 But sure we did, going south deeper into the balance, 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.880 it was a very powerful experience for me, and it 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:08.880 exposed me to the power of the African American Southern 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:10.040 community of resistance. 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.400 It had great moral authority, It acted under conditions of 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:19.280 great danger. It exposed itself to that danger. I began 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:23.960 to see law and order as a system which controls 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.560 other folks, oftentimes the black majority who. 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:28.280 Could not vote. 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.679 Bonnie hears this story, which is fresh off the press, 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:42.240 and I think she was intrigued by. Oh, yeah, I 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.760 think what I had for me. Maybe my blue eyes. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.200 I'm not sure they don't hurt John, they don't hurt. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:56.840 I really admired him and thought this is a special 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:03.480 kind of man, and he he was very interested in me. 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.760 I guess he thought I was pretty and funny. I 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.800 had goals, I had ambition, I had spunk, and I 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:17.679 was willing to not just settle for the comfortable life 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:19.559 that I could have settled for. 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:21.280 I wanted an adventure. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:23.920 I wanted my life to be an adventure. 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:26.000 And he liked joke. 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.520 He said it took him eight glasses of iced tea 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.840 to work up to asking me out on a date. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.280 Less than a year later, John and Bonnie were married. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.680 Three kids quickly followed but they made a promise to 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:40.960 each other that they wouldn't allow family to stand in 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.000 the way of fighting injustice, and there was plenty of 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:46.080 injustice to fight. 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:49.320 I signed it up. 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.600 About eight poumes from a US started on a mighty 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:58.080 role from so Alabama, the workers there who are striking 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.400 for a decent way, for decent working conditions. 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.520 At the time when the operation of the machine becomes 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.520 so odious makes you so sick and marked that unless 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.000 you're framed the machine wing, I. 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:15.200 Didn't come working at all. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.040 There was so much at risk at that time in 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.400 our democracy that you were either an activist or you 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.520 went along with things. 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:25.880 That were wrong. 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.839 You had a choice you had to make, and we 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.800 made the choice to be activists. And if it meant 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:39.840 some risks that were involved, well that's what citizens sometimes 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:40.400 have to do. 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.200 John and Vonnie Rain spent the nineteen sixties protesting for 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:50.040 civil rights, for women's rights, for labor rights. By nineteen 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.240 sixty nine, they were living in Philadelphia and becoming entrenched 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.760 in the fight against America's war in Vietnam. 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.840 Asafia, the NAZE official, the military chief of Kuang Nai Province, 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:04.520 today denied charges that American soldiers on the ground executed 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.440 several hundred villagers. The villagers version of the incident was 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.880 given by survivors yesterday. They said a patrol of one 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.520 hundred Americans stormed into the hamlet, drove all the residents 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.240 out of their huts, and then opened fire with automatic weapons. 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.680 On November twelfth, nineteen sixty nine, almost fifteen years after 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:28.040 American involvement in Vietnam began, report surface that US troops 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.800 had raided the Vietnamese village of Meli. The Americans had 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:36.360 burned huts, killed hundreds of civilians, including children, and committed 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.319 other atrocities. The army initially claimed that Meli was a 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.880 quote fierce firefight where one hundred and twenty eight enemy 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.400 troops and twenty civilians had been killed. But that was 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.920 a lie. It wasn't a battle, It was a slaughter. 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.920 I might killed about ten to fifteen. 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.760 Men, women and children, men, women, shure, babies and movies. 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:03.160 Why did you do it? 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:05.400 Why did I do it? 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.319 Because I feel like I was ordered to do it. 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.480 Two days after these news reports, half a million Americans 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.120 marched in Washington. It was the largest anti war protest 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:16.720 in history. 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.520 Be about today. 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.000 People were hopeful at the beginning. 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.200 Here's Betty Metzker. When she was a young reporter in Philly, 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.080 she sometimes covered the peace movement. 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.080 In order for protest to happen, there has to be 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:41.600 a deep feeling that there can be a result because 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:45.320 of what we're doing, and people really did feel that way. 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.600 We come out of the street, pour out with our 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.800 visions and our dreams and. 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:53.200 The beauty that is within us. 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:54.760 We will come as a new nation. 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:56.680 You want us to stay. 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.120 I don't love my country. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.840 I entered on with a final better solution that joined and. 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:11.720 Hey, but despite the massive protests, the administration just wasn't interested, like, 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.160 not even a bit. While half a million Americans marched 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:19.800 in protest right outside the White House, President Nixon sat 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:24.440 inside and watched a football game on TV. People like 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.200 John and Bonnie had seen firsthand how protests can affect change, 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.720 but as the war dragged on, even they had to 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.880 acknowledge a sobering truth. Marching and demonstrating didn't seem like 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.640 it was going to stop this war. Here's John. 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.160 It was a time in which we had a growing 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:45.680 feeling that the moral authority of the country was with 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:51.320 we the people, and was not in the administration in Washington. 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.840 Nixon later wrote in his memoirs that these protests quote 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.480 destroyed whatever small possibility may still have existed of ending 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.480 the war in nineteen sixty nine, which makes about as 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:04.840 much sense as smoking six packs a day and then 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.920 blaming your inphysema on the doctor who told you to quit. 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.400 Whoever's fault it was. And I happened to blame the 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.760 commander in chief of the United States Military, But that's 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.400 just me. The war did not end in nineteen sixty nine. Instead, 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.920 as the year came to a close, Nixon drafted a 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.920 whole new generation of men into the military to kill 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.600 and be killed in Vietnam. 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:37.760 Everybody, literally everybody knew a young man who was going 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.000 to Vietnam. You thought about your boyfriend, you thought about 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:42.680 your husband or your brother. 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.400 Christmas time, nineteen sixty nine, every family that included a 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:51.520 draft eligible young man crowded around their television set. 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.600 Pursue into the executive order, the Director's Sellective Service is 0:16:55.640 --> 0:17:03.400 going to establish tonight random selection sekuch for induction for nineteen. 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.840 Seven eight teenagers just barely men perched on the edge 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.040 of their living room sofas nervously bouncing their knees and 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.919 drumming their fingers. Their parents hovered as the lottery unfolded 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.720 on the TV. Representatives in stiff suits reached their arms 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.080 into a fish bowl of blue plastic capsules, and the 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.080 young men at home prayed their birthdays wouldn't be called 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.600 September fourteen. 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:35.640 September fourteen zero zero one, April twenty four. 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.760 April twenty four is zero zero two. 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:51.240 December thirty, December thirty zero zero three. 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.639 In March, you rally, you write letters to members of Congress, 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.920 and none of it was making any difference whatsoever. In fact, 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.439 the war was worsening. Our voices were not being heard. 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:17.120 So there was a lot of anger and frustration, and 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:22.840 we decided to pursue a different kind of civil disobedience. 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.000 John and Bonnie's activism was about to get hardcore. Their 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:31.760 pursuit of civil disobedience brought them into contact with the 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:38.800 Catholic Peace Movement. To be clear, America's Catholic leadership were 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.560 not peacenicks. In fact, in nineteen sixty eight, the Archbishop 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.840 of New York counter protested at a peace rally, but 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.439 at the local level, many parish priests and their parishioners 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.840 felt the war contradicted their religious beliefs. They thought the 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.919 draft was wrong, and some of them were even willing 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.239 to violate earthly laws to fight it. 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.200 Strategy was to go into draft boards in the middle 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.480 of the night, to break into draft boards and remove 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.800 draft files and destroy them. 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.280 All American men aged eighteen to twenty five were required 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.720 to register with their local draft boards. These small offices 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.680 would store their draft files, which were necessary for actually 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.280 calling these men up to serve, but there were no 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:27.000 digital copies. Of course, everything ran on paper, which meant 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.600 that if someone broke into those draft boards and removed 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.080 or destroyed the files, the men in those files couldn't 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.520 be called up. It wasn't only the Catholic Peace movement 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.200 planning these raids, but many prominent draft board raiders were 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:42.080 priests or people close to them. 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.040 We love to say that we learned our burglary skills 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:46.440 from nuns and priests. 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:53.440 The draft board raids were strategic targeting offices specifically located 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:54.560 in poor neighborhoods. 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.680 The men that they were drafting were all low income, 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.800 disadvantaged men who were just caught up in the draft 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.720 and sent over there to be slaughtered or to slaughter. 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.080 Rich people were more likely to be able to hire 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.439 attorneys that would be able to get them out of serving, 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:19.080 get doctors to find either valid or invalid reasons why 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:23.400 they shouldn't serve. There was learning how to fake mental illness. 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.920 So Bonnie John and a gaggle of nuns and priests 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.919 broke into federal draft board offices and made off with 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.600 draft files in the dead of night. Then they mailed 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:37.840 the files to the young men, along with a letter 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.560 explaining that they believed the war in Vietnam was unjust, 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.040 and now these men had a choice. They could report 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.479 to their Draft board office and offer to serve if 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:51.320 they wished, or they could keep their file and sleep 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.000 a little better at night knowing they would never be called. 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.800 Well, we were triumphant. I mean we felt pretty good 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.520 about it. So I think we felt at least that 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.520 was one very concrete thing that we could do, that 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:10.200 we could accomplish. 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:14.000 But they weren't naive. These raids weren't slowing the war. 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.439 Young men were still going to Vietnam at alarming rates, 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:19.639 many of them never to come home. 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.880 There was such a feeling of deep despair and less hopefulness. 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:36.080 People really came to feel like we're having no impact. 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:41.520 This war is not going to end. People were debating 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:44.000 whether or not violence is appropriate. 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.400 Some fringe groups formed, like the infamous Weather Underground. They 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.240 began building bombs and blowing up public buildings. They issued 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.360 warnings in advance and usually struck at night when offices 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:01.760 were empty, but they wouldn't avoid casualties. On one tragic occasion, 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.679 a Weather Underground bomb accidentally detonated inside a townhouse in 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:08.639 New York City in the West Village, killing two members 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:12.000 of the group. The peace movement was worried that all 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.840 this escalation would discredit the movement, and soon that escalation 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:29.160 would be brutally answered by the government. On May fourth, 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.680 nineteen seventy, at Kent State University, more than two thousand 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:36.439 students gathered to protest the war. The scene was tense. 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.040 The National Guard fired tear gas into the crowd, then 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:44.840 protesters through rocks. Then the National Guard fired sixty seven 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:49.600 shots into the crowd. Nine unarmed students were injured and 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:55.119 four were killed. The war was coming home in a 0:22:55.160 --> 0:23:00.399 horrifying way, which Neil Young eloquently captured in Ohio, a 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.280 song he wrote in the immediate aftermath of Kent State 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:13.480 as Summari. It was the first time American citizens were 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:17.479 killed while protesting the war in a gallup pole. Fifty 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:20.320 eight percent of Americans blamed the students for the shooting. 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:27.720 The peace movement was growing tired and exasperated, and on 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:30.920 top of all that, there was a growing paranoia amongst 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:34.879 activists in John and Bonnie's community, a lingering feeling that 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.359 a very powerful force was watching from the shadows. 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:45.800 We were very aware that the FBI was everywhere in Philadelphia. Surveillance, surveillance, 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:51.120 and intimidation were everywhere. Most of us were acutely aware 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:52.360 that that was happening. 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:56.320 According to Bonnie, it was easy to suss out the spies. 0:23:57.119 --> 0:24:00.800 The peace movement had a certain fashion sense, long hair, 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:05.600 secondhand clothing, leather, fringe tied eye. But occasionally one would 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:08.679 spot somebody in the corner wearing all that stuff, with 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:12.919 a crew cut and wingtip shoes, also wielding a camera. 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:20.160 Pretty apparent that they were just everywhere everywhere. 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:25.680 March is meetings, you know, peaceful, legal, constitutionally protected assemblies, 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:26.840 and worse. 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:30.320 I would take the children to school in a carpool 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:32.720 and there would be a car behind us with two 0:24:32.760 --> 0:24:36.040 men in it, and one of my kids would say, 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:39.160 do you think that's the FBI. I mean, that's how 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:43.520 pervasive it was that even my children wondered whether we 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:48.320 were being followed and watched. It's intimidating. It's really it 0:24:48.359 --> 0:24:49.200 is intimidating. 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:52.840 To be fair, if this surveillance focused only on the 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:56.440 people who were illegally breaking into draft boards, well that 0:24:56.520 --> 0:24:59.720 would be one thing, but all sorts of protesters felt 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:04.040 they were being watched, surveiled simply for exercising their First 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:07.520 Amendment right to free speech. Here's John Rains. 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:11.040 There was a feeling that the FBI worked for the 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:18.160 other side, the feeling that the FBI was used as 0:25:18.320 --> 0:25:21.000 not simply an instrument of investigation, but an instrument of 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:27.159 intimidation that was using its power to pursue what we 0:25:27.280 --> 0:25:30.520 felt to be highly unjust policies in Southeast Asil. 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:34.880 There's a term for this when a government starts keeping 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:37.320 tabs on people not because they're breaking the law, but 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:41.439 because they're criticizing the government. It's called a police state. 0:25:42.400 --> 0:25:45.320 John and Bonnie had the nagging feeling that America was 0:25:45.400 --> 0:25:48.600 becoming one, but they had no way of knowing for sure, 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:52.400 that is until they got a call from Bill Davidon 0:25:53.320 --> 0:26:05.000 inviting them to a party. By nineteen seventy, peace activists 0:26:05.040 --> 0:26:07.680 in Philadelphia had the eerie feeling that they were being 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:11.680 watched by the FBI. But what could be done about it? 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:14.520 It was incredibly hard to prove this was actually happening, 0:26:15.520 --> 0:26:20.200 so people resigned themselves to this new reality, but not everyone. 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:24.720 I was becoming increasingly involved in things like peace marches 0:26:25.400 --> 0:26:28.920 and giving talks against government policy. 0:26:29.160 --> 0:26:31.200