The Raineses were still worried about whether he was considering turning them in when two unwanted guests showed up on a warm afternoon in early May. John was dropped off in front of their home by a friend after a tennis game. As he said goodbye to his tennis partner and walked toward his front door, he was greeted by two men who were waiting for him on the porch. He recognized them immediately before they introduced themselves. They were FBI agents straight from central casting—short hair, white shirts, suits, ties, wingtip shoes—everything you would expect from watching Inspector Lewis Erskine, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. on The F.B.I. Sunday evenings. The agents showed John their badges and said they wanted to talk to him.
The burglars had agreed that they would refuse to talk with FBI agents unless a lawyer was present. That was the typical stance taken at that time by antiwar activists regarding contact with the bureau. For reasons John can’t remember many years later—overwhelming fear being perhaps the most likely explanation—he violated that agreement and talked with the agents that day, but under rather unusual circumstances. He recalls welcoming them and telling them he would be glad to talk to them. He unlocked the front door and motioned for them to be seated in the living room. He apologized for being so sweaty from playing tennis and invited them to make themselves at home while he freshened up. He thinks he may have given them a cold drink of water or iced tea before he went upstairs. Once he was upstairs, he decided to shower.
His decision to welcome them and then let them wait while he showered was a split-second one. The shower gave him time to compose his thoughts. He thought hard about how he would respond. He thinks he may have decided as soon as he saw them that it might be more trouble not to talk than to talk. As he showered, he decided he would filibuster the interview.
After his shower, John joined his guests in the living room about twenty minutes after he had left them. As he looked at the two men he thought, “It’s true. Just like everyone says, they do look like Mutt and Jeff.” Their first comment as he sat down in a comfortable chair across from them must have stopped him from continuing to see them as comic figures.
“We’re investigating the Media break-in, and we want to talk to you about it,” one of them said. “Do you know anything about it?”
At that point, John recalls, he launched into the plan he had settled on while showering. He told them he thought he had read just about everything that had been written about the burglary and that he was appalled by what he had learned about the contents of the stolen documents. He described the documents. “That one about an FBI agent behind every mailbox … shocking.…Using campus switchboard operators.…Trying to scare politicians.…That was terrible.”
After a rather lengthy rhetorical tour of the leading documents he had “read about in the newspapers,” John recalls, he then tried to ask them questions. “All this time you folks are spending on political surveillance, aren’t you kind of ashamed of your priorities?” The agents took it as a rhetorical question and answered with silence. John continued lecturing them. “Shouldn’t you be out there looking at major crimes, like organized crime?” This was a touchy subject in the bureau, given the growing awareness outside the FBI of what had long been known inside the bureau—that the FBI director cared far more about conducting surveillance of civil rights and antiwar activists than he did about fighting organized crime.
John’s spirited Socratic approach produced a mixed response. One of the agents frowned and looked somewhat angry as John lectured them. Occasionally, the irritated agent made a comment that made it clear he did not agree with John’s assessment of the bureau. The other agent “was kind of apologetic.” It was difficult, even under the pressure of this moment, for John not to see them as Mutt and Jeff, as the good cop and the bad cop. The good-cop agent would interrupt once in a while and say, “He [the bad cop] is actually a nice guy.” In fact, the agent who was playing good cop seemed at one point about to confess that he agreed with John’s opinion. Under the unusual circumstances, though, John may have been hearing more than the agent intended to convey. “As a matter of fact,” the good-cop agent said, giving the impression that he was searching for the right words, “well, you know, we all have to work.”
John Raines felt that he, rather than the agents, was in control of the conversation. In the shower, that had become his goal. He tried not to let silences develop. Every time one did, he filled it. After a while, he decided it was time for the conversation to end and announced that he would have to leave soon. The agents looked at each other and seemed to be preparing to leave when the agent playing the good cop looked directly at John and pointedly asked,
“By the way, did you have anything to do with this Media break-in?”
Though John had been willing to break the law and burglarize an FBI office, he recalls telling himself at that moment, “Remember, it’s a crime to lie to an FBI agent.” He thinks he may have missed only a very small beat before he returned to filibuster mode and replied indirectly, forcefully, and, in line with his goal, at length. “I feel so angry about what I found out from those stories about the documents about what you, the FBI, have been doing that I don’t want to answer that. I don’t want to make your search for people any easier, so I’m not going to say whether or not I was involved.” He continued his lecture on the importance of what was revealed in the documents and how upset he was about the activities of the bureau.
For whatever reason—not liking being lectured, being bored by John’s filibustering, or not really thinking he was a very likely suspect, or at least not likely to answer directly any question they posed—the agents thanked him and stood up to leave. There were no more questions and no suggestion there would be another visit.
From the living room window, a somewhat relieved but also puzzled John Raines watched the two agents walk to their car and drive away. They were gone. Thank goodness. Even now, he is not sure if he was wise or foolish that day. There was no mention of this meeting in the massive FBI record of the investigation.
He soon realized that one aspect of his drawn-out filibuster had been very foolish, perhaps nearly disastrous. While the agents were there, he did not pay attention to the time and did not think about the fact that Bonnie was likely to come home any minute. Only about five minutes after the agents left, she arrived. She was stunned to learn that FBI agents had just been there. Both of them briefly felt paralyzed when they realized what had almost happened—what almost certainly would have happened if she had come home just a few minutes earlier. The Raineses did not know, of course, that a very recognizable sketch of her, as she was remembered by the Media agents, had been distributed to agents throughout the country and that agents, especially the ones investigating the case, were constantly looking for her. Not finding her, in fact, was by then one of the most frustrating aspects of the case for Hoover and the investigators. Along with the women of the Weather Underground who had escaped the 1970 bomb factory explosion in Greenwich Village, where three members of the Weather Underground were killed and others went into hiding, she was one of the few women FBI agents were looking for at that time. The director had repeatedly expressed frustration and irritation that she had not been found.
The agents did not ask Raines anything about his wife. They did not mention her name. But if she had walked in while they were there, they surely would have recognized her as the woman in the police artist’s sketch. The Raineses knew that the search for the woman who had visited the office was intense, because they had heard about what happened to a woman peace activist in Powelton Village who looked remarkably like Bonnie and apparently was believed by the FBI to be “that woman.” They knew that the door to her home had been knocked down by the FBI. Because they were aware of that, Bonnie Raines’s narrow escape that May afternoon—more than the visit itself and even more than the direct question to John Raines: “By the way, did you have anything to do with this Media break-in?”—shocked them as they reviewed everything that had been said by the agents
. They were very relieved that she had not been seen, but the frightening thought of what might have happened was hard to shake. Bonnie sat in the living room where the FBI agents had sat. She was nearly transfixed, wondering what would have happened in that living room minutes earlier if she had not been stuck longer than usual in traffic at a stoplight, if she had not talked a few extra minutes with friends at the daycare center where she worked.
“They just missed me,” she recalls years later. The memory brings back how she felt that day—frightened and also extremely lucky.
As of that day, the Raineses knew John was a suspect. They had no idea whether his unusual response to the agents convinced the agents he was not involved, or, they wondered, did the agents think—or know—that he was involved? And did they have a plan for approaching him again? The questions that came to mind were all frightening and impossible to answer.
Later that evening, after the children had gone to bed, they searched the downstairs rooms for hidden listening devices. John Raines’s shower had given the agents time to move about on the first floor with ease. They could not be sure, but they saw no sign of listening devices. Finally, at the end of the day there was something to laugh at. In the kitchen, the one recently painted so beautifully by Raines and the man who dropped out of the group, they noticed the newspaper clipping they had taped to the refrigerator door weeks earlier. It was a boldly drawn editorial cartoon of a melting J. Edgar Hoover—a meltdown caused by the burglary of the Media FBI office. They liked that cartoon. Years later it was still on their refrigerator, a daily reminder of their big secret—and of their hope that the FBI agents didn’t wander into their kitchen that day while they waited for John to finish his shower. They also wondered if their kitchen painter had had anything to do with the agents’ visit.
The Raineses had another visitor in early summer, someone whose presence at their house must have raised the antennae of the FBI. John Peter Grady, the affable Catholic peace movement leader, showed up in late June or early July asking for a place to stay for a few days. They readily obliged. Though they had agreed with the other Media burglars that Grady should not be invited to be part of the Media burglary because of the need for especially tight security, they liked him very much and welcomed him into their home. He had just been mugged at 30th Street Station, the major railway station in Philadelphia, and felt pretty down and out by the time he knocked on their door. The warm family atmosphere of the Raineses’ home must have been a healing balm during the few days Grady stayed there to rest and recover.
Within the space of a few weeks, they had been visited by two FBI agents and by two people who were prime suspects in the MEDBURG case—the man who dropped out and now Grady. The FBI investigators were still convinced that Grady not only was involved in the Media burglary but was its leader. Because the Raineses had no idea that Grady was a suspect in Media, nor that the FBI thought he was the leader of the Media burglars, they didn’t realize that at that moment he was a radioactive guest in their home. To them, Grady was just a friend from the peace movement who needed a place to sleep and a calm and peaceful atmosphere. It never occurred to them that FBI agents might be stationed outside their home looking for him in connection with the Media burglary.
They also had no idea that a major recent development in the Media investigation had convinced Hoover and FBI investigators that the Media burglars would be arrested soon. New life had suddenly been breathed into the investigation when someone walked into the FBI office in Camden, New Jersey, with a tip about a draft board raid being planned for late that summer. He wondered if the FBI was interested.
Were they interested?!?
Does a cat chase a mouse?
This news again prompted the FBI to dramatically shift its MEDBURG investigation in a new direction. Now massive resources were focused on what they thought was going to happen in Camden. Ultimately, this decision would reveal one of the FBI’s major weaknesses, then and now—excessive manipulation of informers to produce desired results. The bureau immediately went out on a limb, supporting one crime in order to solve another: MEDBURG.
Because Grady was deeply involved in planning the Camden raid, he probably was under constant surveillance at the time he was staying with the Raineses. The bureau must have taken a keen interest in the fact that John Raines, whom they had interviewed after a tennis game in May, and Grady were associated so closely that Grady stayed at Raines’s home for a few days. Ironically, though, they still did not know Bonnie Raines was the “UNSUB,” the other Media suspect they were searching for as intensely as they were searching for evidence directly implicating Grady in Media. Just as the Raineses did not know that Grady was a suspect in Media, Grady had no idea they had been involved in the break-in. Many other people in the Catholic peace movement had heard the rumors about a connection between Grady and Media, but the Raineses had not heard the rumors because at the time they were then staying away from gatherings of activists.
Actually, there was confusion about Grady’s role in Media not only in the FBI but also among his fellow activists. Sometimes he responded to questions about rumors that he was involved in Media in ways that gave the impression he enjoyed hearing them. At such times, he often smiled his wide smile but was silent. He never said yes. He never said no. Many people close to him, even some family members years later, assumed that meant he was involved in Media. The FBI was sure he was, and later that summer they went after him in a very powerful way.
IN JULY, the Raineses’ thoughts turned to Glen Lake, the beautiful spot in the Michigan woods where they had met ten years earlier and returned nearly every summer since then. The investigation of Media was like a continuous tornado in Philadelphia that summer. They were never at the center of the storm, but they never knew when it might edge toward them. They were eager to escape its ever-present threat. As a result, they were looking forward to their annual trip to Glen Lake more than they ever had before. It turned out that being a burglar was exhausting, especially in the aftermath. The time at the lake was also going to be special because it would be the first summer in several years that they would be there without a baby. Nathan, two and a half by the time of the trip, walked on his own now and didn’t require constant attention.
As they did each year, they started the twelve-hour drive to Grand Rapids late one evening. They did it that way so the children, and their two dogs, Coco and her son Catcher, could sleep through the night in the back of the maroon Ford station wagon (a.k.a. the Media getaway car) all the way to Bonnie’s parents’ home, where they would spend three days before driving to the lake. They took turns driving that first night. The children and the dogs snuggled in the backseat, sleeping soundly. As they tunneled through the darkness of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana before turning north toward Michigan, they talked about what they would tell her parents about the burglary. They had a lot to tell them, as well as a big question to ask them.
They had decided before the burglary that they would ask the Muirs if they would be willing to raise the children if John and Bonnie were convicted and went to prison. They didn’t like the idea of burdening them with their dangerous secret, but they also wanted to make sure that John’s brother Bob and his then wife, Peggy, were not the only people willing to care for the children if they went to prison. They had wanted to discuss these important matters with the Muirs earlier, but they felt they couldn’t risk discussing them on the phone or in letters that might be intercepted if they were under surveillance.
They felt safe telling Bonnie’s parents what they had done. The Muirs had come a long way in their thinking since 1964, when they expressed concern about their pregnant daughter, Bonnie, going to Washington to protest the filibuster against the civil rights bill. Now, seven years later, they accepted, even approved, of their daughter and her husband being deeply involved in the peace movement. Now they themselves were very opposed to the war. They were worried in the summer of 1971 about whether their son, their only other child, would be
drafted and sent to Vietnam.
Still, it seemed remarkable that Bonnie Raines’s parents were not particularly surprised when Bonnie and John told them they had burglarized an FBI office. They told them about some of the important revelations in the files and that there was a national search for the burglars. Trying not to be alarmist, they told them they had no idea what the outcome would be, but they wanted to be prepared in case the worst—their arrest—happened. In case agents ever questioned her parents, they revealed few details about the burglary. They tried to convey this news in a way that would not cause Bonnie’s parents to be consumed by worry. Bonnie remembers expressing more optimism to her parents than she and John actually felt at the time.
The Muirs readily agreed that they would raise the children if John and Bonnie went to prison. John and Bonnie talked with them about what might happen if they were arrested. Bail would be set by a judge and probably would be raised on their behalf, and then they would be free while waiting to go to trial. “We wanted them to know everything wouldn’t come crashing down at one time,” Bonnie recalls. “We wanted them to know that we had talked with Bob and Peggy. We also let them know that we had not told John’s parents. We were protecting them as much as possible and did not share as much with them as we did with my parents. We thought his parents would be quite upset, particularly about my involvement, so we didn’t want to tell them unless something happened.”
Before John and Bonnie and the children left Grand Rapids, they were assured again by the Muirs that if they were arrested, they could be confident that the Muirs would care for the children as long as necessary. Bonnie recalls sensing at the time that “my folks assumed that everything was fine, that we could handle things.” Her parents wished them a happy time at the lake, and her mother said, “Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that nothing happens.” Many years later, Dorothy Muir expressed great pride in what her daughter and son-in-law did in 1971. “I believed they wouldn’t do it unless they thought it was important, and unless they thought they could get away with it. But I knew there was a risk.”
The Burglary Page 28
