Chapter 14
A Somewhat Larger War
[Los Angeles]
May 9, 1975
The alley behind the apartment building was dark and chilly. I stuffed my tape recorder and tablet under my arm and lit up a smoke. These buildings were once studio apartments but had been converted to offices in the post World War II boom. With their stone exteriors and carved moldings, one could recall the glamour of old Hollywood. Up close, the structures were horribly run down. They were strewn all over the now poorly kept parts of east Hollywood, six—and seven-story reminders of cinema’s golden age when the lower echelons of Dietrich’s or Gable’s entourage were assigned to bunk in these studio apartments with built-in Murphy beds and electric coffee pots. I got my love of architecture from my engineer father, and I wished I had the money to restore the once lovely brick structure in front of me that had cracked green serpentine marble walls. I could see it through the broken glass of the lobby’s rear door.
I waited for my source as instructed. Donald Freed had a lot of street cred but these days one could never be sure someone hadn’t been turned by the pigs or the FBI. Were he and The Freep on the same side? Could the cops be using him, and indirectly me too, to trail his leftist fugitive friends? Still, I was the Press and could probably babble my way out of this if the cops sprang from nowhere. I’d dumb down, use my baby face to say I had no idea what was going on, or who I was meeting. Until now, turning down Penny’s assignment hadn’t crossed my mind. A good reporter had to take chances. The better the story, the more risk had to be taken.
Leftist circles said that Donald Freed ran with Bobby Seale, the leader of the Black Panthers. Being a white boy, Freed had founded and led Friends of the Black Panther Party, a group of white intellectual activists who sympathized with them. The street said that Freed also had contacts within the urban guerrilla group, the Weather Underground (WUO) and relayed messages for them.
The WUO, founded in the late sixties as the Weathermen, took its name from a line in Bob Dylan’s song, Subterranean Homesick Blues which proclaimed, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Earlier, they’d split off from the radical student movement’s leading organization—SDS, Students for a Democratic Society. The Weathermen had supplanted SDS’s prominence as the vanguard of the New Left, and were committed to the overthrow of “imperialist America” by any means necessary. The group, which included respected radical women like Bernadine Dohrn and Kathy Boudin in its leadership, saw themselves as the spark that would lead to a “prairie fire” of revolution led by working class youth. Knowing their lives would be harder, the WUO had made the strategic decision five years ago to go underground in order to avoid infiltration into their ranks by Hoover’s FBI. They also sought to avoid arrest as indictments were being leveled against several members, and going underground would give them the secrecy they needed to bomb sites representing the Military Industrial Complex—like the Pentagon! The alternative press was printing stories alleging that the FBI’s illegal spying unit, COINTELPRO, was calling the anti-war movement a threat to national security. This was their excuse to disrupt legal protests, even while Nixon’s White House flatly denied using agent provocateurs and other moles. Despite the war
having officially ended, two or three leaders of the WUO were still high on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. {1} It was difficult, even for the alternative press, to cover these fugitives. So when a source like Donald Freed, who was constantly being hounded by the LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section for “harboring” fugitives or alleged possession of illegal weapons, called The Free Press, we went to any lengths to accommodate them.
I buttoned my denim jacket tighter around my throat, wishing I’d brought something heavier. I could be standing here all night if something went wrong.
A man’s voice called out of the darkness, “Nice car, how long have you had it?”
I dropped my cigarette and looked around. Nothing, no one. I took a deep breath and said quietly, “Glad you like my car. I’m from The Free Press.”
A beam from a flashlight hit my left arm. I’d been instructed to wear my Press badge on my outer left sleeve. A figure appeared from behind a parked car. “Come with me,” he ordered. He took my arm and led me quickly toward a door, where he removed a board from the blocked side entrance. A street lamp revealed the shape of another figure ahead of us. My guide bent down to a crossbeam away from the door frame. The second figure held open another inner door.
“You’ve got to wear this.” The second voice was that of a woman, who held a dark-colored bandana in front of me. Turn around,” she spoke commandingly. “Everyone has to come in this way.” She tied the blindfold over my eyes.
“Everyone?” I asked, adrenaline running as my journalist mind kicked into gear. Perhaps I wasn’t the only invited guest.
“Sorry we have to put you through this. Bummer, huh?” Her voice sounded tired.
“No way to have a life,” I tried to joke empathetically. This could have been my life too if I’d made certain choices, stepped over the thin red line between activist reporter and revolutionary participant. Was I crossing that line now?
We seemed to walk up several flights of stairs, then back down and up again. If they were trying to confuse my sense of direction, they did a good job. Finally, a new pair of hands gripped my shoulders, stopping me.
The authoritative woman spoke again. “Unbutton your jacket, we have to frisk you.”
I loosened my jacket and yielded to the invasion. A woman’s hands slid across my trunk, and up and down both legs. I held my arms out away from my chest. The woman rubbed her palm carefully across my back looking for wires.
Again we walked the corridors and through doorways for what seemed like minutes. The carpet under my feet smelled of stale urine and some kind of burnt chemical. Cooked heroin, I wondered? Was this building also a junkie safe pad? A door close to me clicked open. Hands pushed me through the doorway and sat me in what felt like a metal folding chair. My blindfold was removed.
It didn’t take long to adjust my eyes to the darkness. The room seemed purposely wrapped in shadow and was small like a prison cell. The windows were covered with newsprint. The source of dim light was a large flashlight hanging from the wall on a nail. The floor and walls were mud brown. Quickly I made out six figures who sat on metal chairs arranged in a tight circle in the middle of the room. I realized the flashlight had been placed high up the wall. Its dim light couched everyone’s face in shadow. The group continued speaking in low tones even as I sat in a chair against the wall. A male figure sitting within the circle and to my left seemed to absorb the energy in the room. The others were in a listening posture and deferred to him when he spoke. I wondered if Freed, my source, was even in the room. He was the set-up conduit and since underground Leftist matters were conducted on a need-to-know basis, and Freed already knew the nature and purpose of the meeting, maybe he was advised not to attend. As people talked, they called the central figure “John.” I heard snatches of other words and caught the name “Cinque.” Many underground activists who had FBI jackets used aliases, even among themselves. Blacks, like the SLA leader Donald Defreeze, used African names like Cinque, the leader of the rebellion on the slave ship Amistad in 1839. Anglos used names out of American social struggles, like John Brown, the abolitionist.
I overheard someone say, “We have to find better methods to protect the others.” Would he be referring to Bill and Emily Harris, I wondered, the two SLA members last reported to have custody of Patty Hearst? Probably not because the Weather people didn’t like the SLA. Still, the FBI had accused the Harrises of planting pipe bombs under police cars parked at the House of Pancakes in the Northern California town of Highland last month. Bill and Emily—and Patty—were still at large. I was flattered that they spoke even in hushed tones in front of me, but I heard no other words that I could unravel.
Suddenly, the man called John turned to me. “Come forward,” he said,
pointing to the single empty chair in their circle.
I changed chairs, confident that John was the person who had sent Donald Freed to find me. John had probably sent for the others too, since only Donald seemed to know him. I wondered if the others were representatives from different New Left groups or other alternative press, like me. It was clear there would be no introductions.
“So, you’re Córdova,” he continued. “It’s a good thing you look like your photo.” His words fell clipped and quick with a New England accent, as he referred to the headshot that ran with my weekly column in The Freep. It dawned on me that I’d been chosen because my politics were in alignment—I was listed in the masthead as Human Rights Editor—and because they could be certain it was me who showed up.
“We like what you’ve been writing about,” John continued. “About Irv at the JDL, the socialist struggle in Portugal and the farce against Joan Little. Those who have gone to ground appreciate your efforts on our behalf.” He stuck out his hand and shook mine.
“I’m sorry they caught Shoshanna,” I said, referring to WUO comrade Patricia Swinton whom the FBI had just captured. By now I’d read and written so much that they all felt like family. Swinton was charged with allegedly being part of a plot to bomb a National Guard Amory in 1969.
“That’s OK, Alpert won’t be testifying against her,” said John. “They’ve all gone through too much together for too many years.”
“That’s good to hear,” I replied. “But I’ll have to cover the trial either way. Freedom of the press. The sword cuts both directions.”
“I understand,” said John. “That’s why you’re in your life and I’m in mine.” I thought he smiled ruefully in the dark. His spectacles rose and fell on his nose as he remarked, “The luxury of objectivity is a false one.”
He turned from me and nodded to the woman who stood by the door. Then he addressed me. “In a few minutes, I have to move out of here. So here’s what we want you to tell your readers, our comrades and friends.”
I interrupted, “What is life like living underground?”
“Life?” I glimpsed John’s teeth as he smiled ironically. He seemed amused by my question. “It’s not romantic and I don’t have time to tell you; even if I had the time, I wouldn’t tell you anyway. I summoned you here to give you a message.”
“Can I ask questions afterwards?”
“Sorry, no time.”
I reached to flip on my recorder.
He reached across me. “No tape,” he said, snapping it off. “They can trace voices too well now. You don’t want the FBI coming to The Free Press demanding your tapes, do you?” He leaned toward me, wearily resting his chin in his hand. “Just remember what we tell you,” John said, taking back the lead.
“Is Bernadine safe?” I couldn’t resist asking about their feminist leader.
“She’s far underground and clean,” he said. “And she’s going to stay that way. They ought to leave her alone.”
“But they won’t,” I interrupted.
“Just listen please,” John snapped at me. “We have little time. Let’s focus on our message.”
I decided to shut my mouth.
“We want you to tell the comrades that we in the vanguard who know the consequences of our actions are questioning revolutionary armed struggle as a tactic. We think the time for that might be over in this country. Historical conditions no longer warrant them.”
John leaned back in his chair. His shoulders seemed to sag. His voice slowed. “The war is over, the campuses are quiet, and Nixon has gone. The SLA has given the radical left a spurious name. We want supporters to know we remain responsible and committed to revolution. But we want people to think carefully before they take up weapons. We are re-examining the effectiveness of urban guerilla warfare. That’s what we want you to say for us.”
The commanding woman leaned over my shoulder and whispered, “Have you got that?”
Pen scribbling, I was shocked. “What you’re saying is a departure from the WUO’s past affirmation of guerilla warfare.”
“That’s right,” John confirmed. “We’re not telling comrades what to do. We are just saying objective conditions have changed, and to think carefully. We don’t want people dying for no reason.”
I flashed back to The Tide Collective’s argument earlier this week about supporting the radical left. Good thing my sister staff members would never know about tonight.
“John,” I said, “why did you call me in, why aren’t you just issuing a manifesto?”
“We are not yet ready to issue a comprehensive statement on this subject. We are still in-process, doing historical research. But this is a life and death tactic so we want comrades to know we are changing, adapting, as always to objective conditions. We’ll publish a document when we’ve concluded with our definitive position.”
John pulled away from me and addressed the whole group. “Then, that’s it. Córdova will stay with her.” He pointed to the woman guard who’d led me to them. “The rest of us are leaving now.”
No one else spoke. The woman behind me put her hands on my shoulders. The others stood. The meeting was over. A few shook John’s hand and muttered, “Thank you for coming.”
“Wait.” I reached out and tugged on John’s sleeve. “Who shall I say told me this, who can I quote?”
John was already up, but looked down at me. “Tell them we as a collective are saying this.”
“We, who?”
“The Weather Underground,” he answered. “Their brothers and sisters in revolution.”
The group moved one by one toward the door, leaving me alone with only the woman soldier.
John was the first out the door. He turned around and told my guard, “Wait ten minutes, take her back down. Then go home.”
“Understood,” my guard said.
The door closed softly and the woman with the authoritative voice sat down beside me. Her eyes looked tired beyond her years.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. I was too shocked to probe her for more information. I’d finally met the underground Left! The picture wasn’t romantic. At its core “revolution” wasn’t pretty or easy. People died, lives were ruined. The gay and lesbian movement was no stranger to tragedy either. Too often our victims, sissy boys and masculine women, were young “soldiers” killed or driven to suicide as teenagers. For them, I had to stay strong.
Finally, the woman put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Thanks for doing this, Córdova. Sometimes all we have is the press.” {2}
Chapter 15
The Strike
[Los Angeles]
Mid-May, 1975
The phone on my desk at the Freep rang.
“Córdova?” It was Pody.
“Yeah, buddy, what’s happenin’?”
“I just got a call from June. She said our lawyer, that Patton woman, called her and told her to get the Steering Committee and our supporters together for an emergency meeting tonight. Patton has bad news. And I heard a rumor yesterday that the Center has just hired a new administrator of Women’s Programs, the main grant writer of the alcoholism abuse program, a dyke named Lillene Fifield.”
Stifling my anger at the idea of “our lawyer”—we never voted to retain a lawyer—I realized we had a problem.
“That’s bad news already.”
“What is?”
“Hiring someone new in a position called ‘Women’s Programs’ signals the Board has no intention of giving us our jobs back. They’re moving ahead, hiring new staff, to replace us.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Pody said. “That doesn’t seem to go with the other news I’ve heard—that our demonstrations are beginning to slow down donations to the Center. That’s good news for our side, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Slow money would mean Kight has to come to the bargaining table soon.” As an organizer I knew that donors needed a clear line of sight. When there is controversy, they don’t stop to sort out whose fault it is. They
just stop giving.
“Okay. See you tonight then at Rachel’s…same place as last time.” Pody hung up.
Christ! Not at Rachel’s, I thought. It wasn’t a Monday or a Friday, not a space night between BeJo and me. That meant I’d have to see Rachel but not spend the night. Difficult. Awkward. I looked at the calendar on my desk. Damn. I should have called Rachel by now. I hadn’t given her much thought since I’d walked out of the Saloon a week ago. My life often felt like a movie reel of individual shorts with no narrative thread.
For instance, lately I had been working on a piece for the Freep about the rape victim, Joan Little, and other battered women. I’d already written one news article about the murder charges leveled against the twenty-year old Black woman who was in a North Carolina jail on a breaking-and-entering charge. But now she was charged with murder for stabbing her jailer the second time he came to rape her with the same ice pick he had used to rape her the first time. I’d explained to Penny earlier today that I wanted to do a second piece—an advocacy article urging that the Little murder charge be dropped to self-defense. {1}
“It’s not good enough the way the law reads now, that women don’t have the right to strike back unless they feel their lives are at stake,” I’d told Penny. “Repeated rape is sufficient cause to strike back. If a perpetrator gets killed or severely wounded in the process, that’s justifiable self-defense. This kind of law should be part of a woman’s right to control her own body, part of the privacy right that the Supreme Court gave women when they ruled we have the right to abortion three years ago!”
Penny had studied me, thinking—I supposed—that one day she might have to get my ass out of jail. She’d teased, “You never bring gentle people to the office to play with.” She was referring to the phone calls, letters and occasional surprise visits that my dyke column generated from angry straight white men.
She’d given me the go ahead. “Write it the way you feel it, Jeanne. Write it for all the abused women who need to hear that they have rights.”
When We Were Outlaws Page 17
