#SLA Shootout

[straylight09]

I Remember May 17, 1974 (SLA Shootout)

I grew up in a different time. A time before van pools, cell phones, and play dates. The term for me then was a latchkey kid. Meaning, that I walked to and from school and was unsupervised until my parents got home from work.

Officially, upon arriving home, I was supposed to do homework and study. Unofficially, I turned on the tv and semi focused on homework until it got close to the time my mom would come home.

So it was, on May 17th 1974, when I arrived home at about 3:30. I likely got a drink and a snack, settled down behind the coffee table with my school work and turned on the television. On a Friday afternoon in ‘74, my options would have been limited, to reruns of Gilligan’s Island, the Banana Splits or Bugs Bunny, but on that Friday in 1974, all the channels presented, without preamble or permission, the shootout between the Los Angeles Police Department and a leftist terrorist group called the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Let me say, that Los Angeles, back in the day, had a staggering number of broadcast channels; 7 VHS and at least 5 or 6 UHF. Beyond the major affiliates, NBC (4), CBS (2), and ABC (7), there were local channels, KCOP (13), KTLA (5), KHJ (9), and KTTV (11). To give you a perspective, I lived a couple of years in Wisconsin, where only one channel, NBC, had a clear signal. On a good day you could get CBS in from La Crosse, some 80 miles away. For a kid raised on TV, it was like a prison sentence.

Also, it was the early 70s, was when local TV news came into its own. The innovation is portable cameras allowed for Mobile news crews to canvassed LA, and news choppers to roam the skies.

Interesting side note, Gary Francis Powers, the U2 pilot that the Russians shot down in the early 60s. He died in ‘77 while flying a news chopper for LA’s NBC affiliate.

But, on that afternoon in ‘May ‘74, when I turned on my TV, I found to my dismay that the Local News teams had taken over the airwaves. Every channel was showing different images of the same event. I know this seems commonplace now, when channels will break from their regular programming for a random police pursuit, or a hot bit of celebrity gossip. And yes, to be fair, breaking news was not new. The assassinations of JFK and others had impacted viewers in real time. But back in ‘74 live on-scene video coverage of events as they were unfolding was relatively new territory for both news crews and for we the viewing audience.

For one thing, all the channels jumped to cover the event. The only other option was to switch off the TV. Also, the rules of engagement for live TV coverage was in its infancy. Today’s live broadcasts are time delayed and crews are trained to switch to wide shots and ready to cut away to avoid transmitting horrific scenes to an unprepared audience.

We want to see, but don’t be gross.

In the golden age of television we had already witnessed Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. But that was presented in fuzzy black and white. Over time the resolution improved. In ‘95 a man in San Diego stole a National Guard tank. He went on a rampage crushing cars before being shot by police, all captured live on-air.

I can’t back this up with any fact, but it’s my belief that the death of Daniel Jones in April of ‘98 was the tipping point for live broadcasts. Jones had been diagnosed with HIV. Upset with his treatment, or lack there of, by his health organization, he stopped his pick-up truck on the transition ramp between the 110 and 105 freeways, again in Los Angeles. To get attention he wanted, he began waving a shotgun at cars as the passed. The police were called and shutdown freeway and, while a squadron of TV choppers circled overhead, the Police tried to reason with Daniel. Sometime near 4PM, after setting his truck a blaze and with news cameras zoomed in tight close up, Daniel suddenly shoved the shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

The public’s reaction to the images splashed across their screens was immediate and intense. The real concern being that it had been broadcast in the late afternoon, during peak of Children’s viewing. The latchkey kids were traumatized.

It was also late afternoon back in ‘74. While I too, watched unsupervised. As every available channel had their cameras focused on a small house in south LA. Over the next few hours, I watched spellbound as the Los Angeles Police department laid siege. Flipping through the channels I watched from multiple angles as the LAPD fired somewhere near 5000 rounds and dozens of tear gas canisters into that small building. While the people barricaded inside responded with improvised grenades and 4000 rounds of their own.

At some point, some two plus hours in to the battle, the house caught fire. I remember thinking now, surely, the people inside would surrender. The reporters said as much. My cadre of journalists were in agreement. But instead, we unflinchingly watched as six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army perished in the flames.

Last May 17th, 2024, was the 50th anniversary of that shootout. From time to time, whenever a channel I’m watching cuts to “Breaking News” I think of that afternoon in ‘74. The bouncing images, the plumes of smoke and dancing tendrils of flame that poured from the windows of that small house. The reporters and their random descriptions, perspectives and conjectures. Clearly indicating they had no more idea what was going to happen next than I did.

I think about how innocent I was and maybe how naive the news crews were, having so little experience as to presenting and curating that unplanned exhibition of violence. We drank from the visual fire hose without any semblance of restraint. Like combatants dealing with the fog of war we took friendly fire from our very own trusted TV.

Today, when I see a stand off or a barricaded suspect I’m aware of the nuances. Today’s news crews are now seasoned professionals. The slow cautious move in to close up and the sudden shift to wide shots. The quick panning away of the camera or abrupt cuts back to the studio. We’ve all grown up since then. Our media, at least from a technique and procedural standpoint, have greatly matured.

I, unfortunately, still have the images in my mind of the burning house and the knowledge there were people inside. Strangely, I still know nothing about the SLA, other than they kidnapped Patty Hearst, the newspaper heiress. I don’t know anything about their ideology. I could not tell you what they fought and died for all those years ago.

That is to say, I know more about how and why I was able to watch them die, than what fleeting ideals they died for.

Though, I guess I’m applying some noble purpose to their actions. Maybe they were just misguided bad people. Otherwise, I might know more. I mean, when I think of Hearst, I think of Citizen Kane. Still, a part of me wants to believe that what I witnessed had some meaning or purpose.

I’m left with one question. Did they knew they were on live TV? Did they know about the portable video cameras and the tele-choppers in the skies above them, capturing their last moments? Could they conceive of their massive audience, many children like myself, watching with a glass of Kool-aid and a PB&J as they burned to death?

Had the SLA shootout happened today, would it be different? In as much as they would be aware of the cameras and their audience? It’s been said, on 9/11 the second plane hit the South Tower sometime after the North Tower to allow time for news cameras to be set to capture the impact.

We may never know about 9/11, but I highly doubt media was a consideration back on that day in ‘74, but as I said on the outset, it was a different time.

[groovyhistory]

May 17, 1974 – Symbionese Liberation Army shoot-out with Los Angeles police kills six SLA members in the gunfire and resulting fire. One of the largest police shootouts in US history, with more than 9,000 rounds fired...

[transgenderer]

Patricia Campbell Hearst (born February 20, 1954)[1] is the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. She first became known for the events following her 1974 kidnapping by the��Symbionese Liberation Army. She was found and arrested 19 months after being abducted, by which time she was a fugitive wanted for serious crimes committed with members of the group. She was held in custody, and there was speculation before trial that her family's resources would enable her to avoid time in prison.

At her trial, the prosecution suggested that Hearst had joined the Symbionese Liberation Army of her own volition. However, she testified that she had been raped and threatened with death while held captive. In 1976, she was convicted for the crime of bank robbery and sentenced to 35 years in prison, later reduced to seven years. Her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and she was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

Hearst's kidnapping was partly opportunistic, as she resided near the SLA hideout. According to testimony at trial, the group's main intention was to leverage the Hearst family's political influence to free SLA members Russ Little and Joe Remiro, who had been arrested for the November 1973 murder of Marcus Foster, superintendent of Oakland public schools.[citation needed]

After the state refused to free the men, the SLA demanded that Hearst's family distribute $70 worth of food to every needy Californian, an operation that would cost an estimated $400 million. In response, Hearst's father obtained a loan and arranged the immediate donation of $2 million worth of food to the poor of the Bay Area for one year in a project called People in Need. After the distribution descended into chaos, the SLA refused to release Hearst.[9]

According to Hearst's testimony at her trial, she was held for a week in a closet, blindfolded and with her hands tied. During this time, SLA founder Cinque (Donald DeFreeze) repeatedly threatened her with death.[10] She was allowed to leave the closet for meals, still blindfolded, and began to participate in the group's political discussions. She was given a flashlight for reading and SLA political tracts to memorize. Hearst was confined in the closet for weeks. She said, "DeFreeze told me that the war council had decided or was thinking about killing me or me staying with them, and that I better start thinking about that as a possibility. ... I accommodated my thoughts to coincide with theirs."[10] In an April 1974 account, Hearst claimed that she had been offered the choice of being released or joining the SLA.[11]

When asked for her decision, Hearst elected to remain and fight with the SLA. The blindfold was removed, allowing her to see her captors for the first time. After this, she was given daily lessons on her duties, especially weapon drills. Angela Atwood told Hearst that the others wanted Hearst to experience sexual freedom within the unit. Hearst later claimed to have been raped by William "Willie" Wolfe and DeFreeze.[10][12][13][14]

The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (commonly referred to simply as the SLA) was a small, American militant far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. The FBI and wider American law enforcement considered the SLA to be the first terrorist organization to rise from the American left. Six members died in a May 1974 shootout with police in Los Angeles. The three surviving fugitives recruited new members, but nearly all of them were apprehended in 1975 and prosecuted.

The name 'symbionese' is taken from the word symbiosis and we define its meaning as a body of dissimilar bodies and organisms living in deep and loving harmony and partnership in the best interest of all within the body.

hmm

[rachaelhanel]

50 years ago today: Six SLA members killed in shootout with Los Angeles police

https://rachaelhanel.wordpress.com/2023/05/17/may-17-1974-camilla-is-killed/

[fakenigel]

The Domestic Cold War and Reagan’s California (1967-1975)

It got by George Washington

The ideas of justice, liberty, and equality

. . .

Ronald Reagan, it got by him

Hollyweird

Acted like a actor

Acted like a liberal

Acted like General Franco when he acted like governor of California

Now he acts like somebody might vote for him for president

-Gil Scott-Heron, “Bicentennial Blues,” The Mind of Gil Scott-Heron (1975)

Reagan’s California

      Ronald Reagan is associated with many of the most fundamental changes that have taken place in American politics over the last five decades. The “Reagan Revolution” (along with Thatcherism, the UK’s counterpart) is often seen as being responsible for the neoliberal turn that American politics and economics have taken since the 1980s. Reagan ushered in anti-union and pro-business policies that fall under the banner of supply-side economics, or more euphemistically, “trickle-down economics.” Reagan also did his part to revolutionize the American security state. The Iran-Contra scandal, in which Reagan administration officials were caught selling arms to Iran (who was under an arms embargo) in order to fund the Nicaraguan anti-communist Contra fighting forces, went a long way in institutionalizing the use of private military contractors and defense companies.[1] Reagan accomplished all of this as the president of the United States, an office he held from 1981 to 1989.

               A less examined portion of Reagan’s political career, but one in which he and his political associates also affected extensive political change, is his tenure as the governor of California. Reagan served two consecutive terms as the governor of California, from 1967 until 1975. The Watts riots in Los Angeles occurred two years prior to his first term in 1965. Thus, as a Republican, law-and-order governor, Reagan presided over some of the most tumultuous moments of California and the United States’ history. These include, but are not limited to:

1967 - Summer of Love; thousands of youths migrate from around the United States to California’s Bay Area to be a part of a burgeoning counterculture movement

June 6, 1968 - Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy; occurs roughly five years after his brother’s, John F. Kennedy’s assignation, three years after the assassination of Malcolm X, and just over two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

January 17, 1969 – Black Panther shootout with rival United Slaves (US) organization; shootout left two Panthers (Bunchy Carter and John Huggins) dead, US and their leader Ron Karenga believed to possibly be opportunistically working with state and federal security apparatus to neutralize the Black Panther Party.

August 9, 1969 – Manson Family murders Sharon Tate and four others; Charles Manson and his white youth followers lead to association of the psychedelic, hippie and drug counterculture with violence.

December 9, 1969 – LAPD instigates an early morning shootout by initiating a surprise raid on the Los Angeles Black Panther Party headquarters; raid comes only 5 days after Fred Hampton was assassinated in Chicago by a similar early morning unannounced “raid”; Panthers survive shootout by shooting back and holding their ground until media and the public arrive to scene.

August 7, 1970 – Jonathan P. Jackson killed in attempt to kidnap and take hostages from a Marin County, California courtroom, which he planned to trade for the release of his brother and their transportation to a county supportive of the Black Panther Party;

August 21, 1971 – George Jackson, probably the most well-known face of California’s revolutionary prisoner movement, is killed by guards in San Quentin prison during an alleged escape attempt; controversy exists over the facts surrounding the escape attempt, particularly how he supposedly smuggled in a pistol without the guards seeing, as well as the circumstances of the guard’s gunshots that took his life.

December 16, 1971 – California Correctional Officers Association (CCOA) in conjunction with Attorney General Evelle Younger’s office attempt to frame Soledad psychiatrist, Dr. Frank Rundle (a self-ascribed “New Republic liberal”[2]) for two killings of Soledad guards after he publicly advocated for prison reform, especially for prisoners in need of mental health treatment; conspiracy is discovered because the prisoner (Tony Pewitt) who was used by the state to frame Rundle refused to go through with the plan and alerted him, at which point Rundle contacted private detectives and media.

1973-1975 – Rise and demise of the Symbionese Liberation Army; a Maoist group led by an escaped black convict, Donald DeFreeze, and comprised of majority white student radicals goes on a highly publicized string of violent acts in the name revolution, including the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, the college-aged heir to the Hearst family fortune.

This small list of political violence during Reagan’s governorship is by no means exhaustive, but it does comprise many of the better known incidents. One trend that is clear is that as time went on, the radical left became associated with greater amounts of violence, both as the supposed aggressors and as recipients of state violence. All of this contributed to the sentiment that many participants in the 1960s and 1970s radical left today hold themselves, that America’s radical left was predisposed toward counterproductive and self-destructive violence. This violence soured the view of the radical left in the eyes of the general American public and led to defeat of the movement. The trend of increasing violence applies to all sects of the radical left—the black power movement, the youth student movement, hippies, Maoists, radical prisoners, and even “defectors” from wealthy families who ended up involved in radical left activities (like Patricia Hearst). The combined effect of all of this violence was the delegitimation and sundering of radical left politics.

Charles Manson was associated with the hippie youth counterculture.[3] His crimes marked a shift from the initial, positive, psychedelic Summer of Love to the mood after the Manson murders and into the 1970s which was much darker. By the time Manson was arrested, the psychedelic positivity associated with LSD in the late 1960s had been replaced by a heroin and amphetamine fueled paranoia and pessimism. In the case of the Black Panther Party, it is more evident that authorities were attempting to eliminate the organization and that instigating violence against the Panthers (such as the LAPD shootout) was a method toward this end.

The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) came along in the mid-1970s and seemed to synthesize these separate currents into one organization. The SLA was a self-described Maoist insurgency group headed by a black escaped prisoner (Donald DeFreeze) and composed of radical students from multiple ethnic backgrounds (but primarily middle class whites). The group kidnapped Patricia Heart and forced her to commit crimes with the organization, such as bank robbery and car theft. The SLA provided the final proof to the public that the radical left had devolved into something unnecessarily violent, shortsighted, and counterproductive. These are ideal circumstances for a conservative law and order governor to prosper. And prosper Reagan did. Reagan won two elections and chose not to run for a third term before eventually becoming the country’s president in 1980.

Amidst this period of sustained political violence and turmoil Governor Reagan greatly increased the power of domestic police and intelligence in the state of California. To be more specific, it appears that Reagan (with assistance from Richard Nixon’s presidential administration) ran a counterinsurgency program designed to neutralize and delegitimation the radical left opposition throughout the state. The term counterinsurgency, a term primarily associated America’s foreign military operations, is important here. While domestic police are, in theory, not supposed to care about private citizens’ political beliefs, military counterinsurgency doctrines are precisely concerned with the political beliefs of their targets. In fact, in a counterinsurgency warfare, elimination of an ideology may be seen as more important and vital than elimination of particular individuals and leaders.

 This reality is ignored because of an American exceptionalist attitude and bias that tends to whitewash the nature of domestic intelligence practices and operations. This whitewashed view says the government security apparatus (from the federal agencies to local police) operates by different rules domestically than it does internationally. One way this manifests itself is in the idea that anyone who is victimized or killed by the domestic security apparatus deserved such treatment on some level, even if the public still widely condemns the action. It is understood that in modern warfare, beginning primarily with Vietnam, the United States and its allies assassinate important enemy officials outside of direct engagement and that these assassinations are carried out to hamper the enemy’s effectiveness (a macro consideration)—not in response to particular actions carried out by the individuals (a micro consideration). For example, the 2008 joint Israeli and U.S. car bomb assassination of Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyah, known to be a particularly intelligent and effective military tactician, did not come in the course of combat, it was carried out clandestinely away from an active battlefield. The assassination received condemnation from some Western allies,[4] but the methodology was clear. Mughniyah was killed for simply being a highly skilled leader for the enemy. In the academic literature on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, such tactics are vividly referred to as attempts at “leadership decapitation.” There is hesitation from domestic observers within the United States to ascribe such simple and undemocratic motivations for the repression (via assassination and incarceration) that the Black Panther Party and others faced, but the facts of the situation suggest that the Panthers faced a concerted leadership decapitation effort from the United States government, and much of this was executed by and through Reagan’s gubernatorial administration.

I argue that the sustained counterinsurgency operations against California’s radical leftists in the 1960s and 1970s have more in common with the American intelligence community’s counterinsurgency efforts overseas in theaters like Italy, Latin America, and Indochina (where the Vietnam War was raging) than they have in common with more sanitized narratives that take the purported actions and statements of groups like the SLA at face value. Historical investigation has shown that the Western powers, as well as lesser powers like the authoritarian Latin American regimes of the era, operated under the same general counterinsurgency doctrine. This doctrine was developed by a myriad of anti-communist hardliners from a variety of countries, but British, French, American, and former-Nazi intelligence and military personnel seem to have been key in the intellectual development of the doctrine. Declassified documents and information gathered from governmental and non-governmental investigations have revealed that a key element of this doctrine was that Western intelligence operatives ought to implicate communists (and the wider radical left) in terrorism and indiscriminate violence. The function of this violence would be to strengthen the existing status quo by discrediting the left and driving a scared and disoriented public into the arms of the state and its security apparatus. The existence of such activities in the so-called Second and Third Worlds are well established (Operation CONDOR in Latin America and the Phoenix Program in Vietnam and Indochina), but irrefutable evidence of similar tactics was discovered by Italian parliamentary investigators in the early 1990s. Italian investigators concluded that neo-fascist elements of the Italian state and security apparatus committed terrorist attacks in the 1960s through 1980s that were wrongly attributed to anarchists and communists, as well as clandestinely encouraging other terrorist attacks and forms of political violence.

There is an immense value to this type of inquiry. There is an obvious and inherent value in gaining a deeper understanding of how modern states (and private organizations) engage in repression and stamp out dissent. This ought to interest anyone with even a passing interest in radical, left, or anti-capitalist politics. Further, these tactics were deployed against non-revolutionary liberal reformists, not just radical leftists. Thus, this research should give anyone who is interested in genuine democracy, representative or otherwise, serious pause. This research also challenges existing narratives of the decline of the American radical left. By challenging the basis of California’s political violence of the 1960s and 1970s and suggesting that the state played a more prominent role in committing and encouraging violence than is commonly understood, one challenges the narrative that the radical left caused its own downfall by sliding toward violence. Such an investigation into American political violence of the 1960s and 1970s is overdue. I hope to spur such an investigation and conversation.

The American security apparatus invests in public relations perpetuate the myth that organizations like the FBI and CIA operate within the confines of the law domestically. Juan Bosch, the democratically-elected president of the Dominican Republic who was deposed in a coup orchestrated by Lyndon Johnson’s administration, argued that America had developed a government with power and decision-making bifurcated along domestic and international lines.[5] Bosch argued that the Pentagon (he uses the term as a catch-all for the American security establishment), what he saw as the ultimate power in the United States, had accepted to stay out of domestic affairs as long as it was given absolute supremacy in international affairs. But incidents like the Watts riot (and the other urban ghetto uprisings), as well as growing radicalism in America’s middle class white youth, led the American security establishment to conceive external and internal “insurgency” as one and the same. Churchill quotes Lawrence from The New State Repression (1985) concerning this conceptual shift in security and intelligence:

[I]nsurgency [was no longer viewed as] an occasional erratic idiosyncrasy of people who are oppressed and exploited, but a constant occurrence—permanent insurgency, which calls for a strategy that doesn’t simply rely on a police force and a national guard and an army that can be called out in an emergency, but rather a strategy of permanent repression as the full-time task of security forces.[6]

Churchill presents the quote from Lawrence in the context of domestic politics, but this shift in counterinsurgency strategy was taking place globally, in part because the United States (after World War II) was in a position of power and coordination over the rest of the world’s capitalist countries and their security agencies. The shift was simply that insurgency was no longer viewed as an episodic threat. The threat of insurgency, specifically communist, was constant, and thus required constantly active repressive forces to combat it. Reagan takes control of California amidst conceptual shift. The individuals that Reagan goes on to appoint to various position within California’s security apparatus reflect this conceptual shift as well as its international scope. California’s security apparatus under Reagan employed many international Cold Warriors. They brought their counterinsurgency expertise from theaters of “hot” war back home; not enough attention has been paid to how this expertise was deployed domestically. If there is an “American exceptionalist” conception of domestic policing, then these activities would be precisely the type that would be missing from, or obscured within, the mainstream historical record and popular consciousness. These are a few of the Cold Warriors and intelligence veterans that worked in California within Reagan’s administration:

Evelle Younger. Younger served as California’s Attorney General from 1971 until 1979. He began his career as a promising young FBI Special Agent under J. Edgar Hoover. He joined the precursor of the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), at the age of 24. Prior to his appointment to the position of California’s Attorney General, Younger was Los Angeles’s District Attorney and presided over the prosecution of Sirhan Sirhan for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Younger was directly involved in the establishment and operation of governmental programs like the California Organized Crime and Intelligence Branch (OCCIB) as well as LAPD’s notorious Criminal Conspiracy Section (CCS).

Louis Giuffrida. Giuffrida was chosen by Reagan to head the California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI), a program established by Reagan during his final gubernatorial term to develop and disseminate

effective methods of neutralizing California’s then-vibrant radical left and to ‘train police forces from all across the U.S. and from many other countries in counterinsurgency . . .  tasks that could not, at that time, be conducted at FBI headquarters or the International Police Academy, or other federal police training institutions.’[7]

Giuffrida had been an army counterintelligence officer, and according to Churchill, had long been “associated with organizations on the extreme right.”[8] For a thesis he wrote while attending the US Army War College, Guiffrida discussed and planned for “the establishment of concentration camps to imprison potentially millions of black Americans in the event of a revolutionary uprising in the United States.”[9]

William Hermann. Herrmann is a mysterious figure. He served as the primary counterintelligence advisor for Reagan while he was governor, but he held a multitude of positions over his shadowy career. According to Schreiber, Hermann also worked for the System Development Corporation, the Stanford Research Institute, the Rand Corporation, and the Hoover Center on violence.[10] Hermann also worked with another Reagan confidante, Dr. Earl Brian (Reagan’s Secretary of Health), at the controversial Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence, a behavior modification program hosted at UCLA.[11] Hermann was publicly opposed to the kinds of social protest that were taking place within California’s black and youth populations at the time.[12]

Dr. Earl Brian. Brian was Reagan’s Secretary of Health. Brian was a proponent of behavior modification (what Schreiber suggests is a euphemism for mind control which was something of an obsession for intelligence agencies during the 1960s) in the pursuit of crime prevention.[13] Under Reagan’s securitized California, open advocates for racial and economic equality were essentially criminals, not to mention the actual radical prison reform movement that was taking place.

Colton Westbrook. Westbrook is unique. Unlike the other characters listed previously, Westbrook did not have a personal relationship with Reagan. He was also black. But Westbrook is important because of his background and role that he played within California’s security and intelligence apparatus. Westbrook appears to have been the undercover handler of Donald DeFreeze prior to his escape from formation of the Symbionese Liberation Army and escape from prison. This occurred while Westbrook was creating and running the Black Cultural Association (BCA) at Vacaville Medical Facility. Schreiber describes the BCA as

ostensibly an education program designed to instill black pride in Vacaville inmates. In reality, it became a cover for an experimental project to explore the extent to which unstable or susceptible prisoners could be controlled for the purpose of infiltration of Bay Area radical groups.[14]

Westbrook is alleged to have been a CIA agent, though he denied this charge. Other aspects of Westbrook’s known employment history suggest that he was employed with the CIA in some fashion. From 1967 to 1969, Westbrook was an advisor to the South Vietnamese Police Special Branch. Westbrook’s cover was that he was working for the Pacific Architects and Engineers (PA&E), a known CIA front corporation. Westbrook’s time in South Vietnamese overlaps with the time period when the Phoenix Program was active. The Phoenix Program was a Vietnam War-era clandestine American counterinsurgency, assassination, and psy-ops program designed to weaken the Vietcong through methods like assassination. If overseas methods of counterinsurgency were transmuted back to the domestic front, then individuals like Westbrook would have been the personnel capable of completing such a transportation.

A fair rebuttal to concern over the presence of foreign intelligence operatives finding employment in Reagan’s administration is that domestic law enforcement is a perfectly logical career for any veteran of the armed services. If one looked at the demographics of individuals in high ranking domestic law enforcement officials across the country during this era, one would find many veterans of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. But Schreiber poignantly describes the likelihood of someone like Colston Westbrook ending up as the head of the Black Cultural Association:

Of all the “outside guest coordinators” that could have been chosen for the Black Cultural Association, such as people with experience in social work, criminal justice, or organizations advocating prisoner rights, Vacaville wound up with Colston Westbrook, undercover liaison for the CIA during the Phoenix Program. And he was handpicked by former psy-ops officer William Herrmann, then advising Governor Ronald Reagan on counterintelligence. And it happened at the height of the black prisoner reform movement, right after the CIA’s Operation CHAOS provided funds to Vacaville, which was an ongoing MKULTRA and MKSEARCH site for experimentation on prisoners.[15]

Several of these individuals continued working with Reagan during his time as POTUS, indicating that these were actual relationships, and not disinterested political appointments. In 1981 Reagan appointed Guiffrida to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Brian and Hermann were both also given positions in Reagan’s White House administration, but both would end up marred by scandal.[16] Given these individuals roles in America’s foreign military and intelligence apparatus, and given Lawrence’s suggestion that insurgency went from being conceived of as an episodic problem to a constant threat during this time, the presence of such counterinsurgency experts in close proximity to one of the “ground zeroes” of America’s radical left and left counterculture is striking. Clearly Reagan’s gubernatorial administration prioritized the black power movement (generally represented by the Black Panther Party) and largely white, student, youth radical movement (personified by Students for a Democratic Society and the hippies) as threats to state and national “public order.” The backgrounds, skills, and expertise of individuals who held security and intelligence positions during Reagan’s tenure reflect this prioritization.

Belew discusses the way that many right-wing, anti-communist paramilitary organizations during this time were populated with Vietnam veterans who wanted to continue the anti-communist effort at home in the United States.[17] If Belew’s convincing analysis is correct, then it is reasonable to suspect that law enforcement may have been seen by some superpatriotic veterans as a way to continue the war against communist subversion at home. While civilians tend to see a clear distinction between the purpose of (and tactics utilized by) domestic police and the military when its engaged in conflict overseas, the domestic law enforcement personnel with overseas military and intelligence anti-communist backgrounds may have seen their purpose as a continuation of their overseas efforts, just with a different set of constraints and rules of engagement, rather than as a distinctly different activity.

[1] Erik Prince, perhaps America’s (and the world’s) best known private warrior, learned much of what he knows from Oliver North, the Reagan official who supposedly masterminded the Iran-Contra strategy.

[2] Don Jelinek, “The Soledad Frame-Up,” The San Francisco Bay Guardian, June 22, 1972, 4.

[3] Despite Charles Manson espousing racist beliefs and the notion that he hoped to start a race war with his murders, Manson and his crimes were associated with the white youth counterculture.

[4] Meron Rapoport, “Italian FM Says Mughniyah Killing in Damascus Was Act of ‘Terror,’” Haaretz, February 22, 2008, https://www.haaretz.com/1.4994953.

[5] Juan Bosch and Helen Lane, Pentagonism: A Substitue for Imperialism (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1968), 51.

[6] Ward Churchill, “The Security Industrial Complex,” in The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 47.

[7] Churchill, 48.

[8] Churchill, 48.

[9] Matthew Cunningham-Cook, “Contingency Plans,” Jacobin, Spring 2018, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/contingency-plans.

[10] Brad Schreiber, Revolution’s End: The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control, and the Secret History of Donald DeFreeze and the SLA (New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing, 2016).

[11] Schreiber

[12] Schreiber

[13] Schreiber

[14] Schreiber

[15] Schreiber

[16] “Eventually, both Brian and Herrmann worked with Reagan when he became president. In a highly complex and internecine case, Brian was accused by former Attorney General Elliot Richardson of stealing software from a company called Inslaw. Brian was also an alleged accomplice in the Reagan attempt to undercut President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free Americans kidnapped by Iran. Brian was never indicted on either charge. Herrmann, who was later affiliated with the CIA and FBI, also participated in the aforementioned Iran arms-for-hostages deal, the “October Surprise,” on behalf of Reagan.” (Schreiber)

[17] Kathleen Belew, “Theaters of War: Mercenaries, Paramilitarism, and the Racist Right from Vietnam to Oklahoma City” (Yale University, 2011), 13.

[itunesbooks]

Revolution's End - Brad Schreiber

Revolution's End The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control, and the Secret History of Donald DeFreeze and the SLA Brad Schreiber Genre: Political Science Price: $16.99 Publish Date: August 2, 2016 Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC ��� A stunning and chilling expose of . . . the rise of the Symbionese Liberation Army and the kidnapping of bad-girl heiress Patty Hearst” (David Talbot, founder of Salon ).   Revolution’s End fully explains the most famous kidnapping in US history, detailing Patty Hearst’s relationship with Donald DeFreeze, known as Cinque, head of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not only did the heiress have a sexual relationship with DeFreeze while he was imprisoned; she didn’t know he was an informant and a victim of prison behavior modification.   Neither Hearst nor the white radicals who followed DeFreeze realized that he was molded by a CIA officer and allowed to escape. His secret mission was to infiltrate and discredit Bay Area anti-war radicals and the Black Panther Party, the nexus of seventies activism. When that failed, DeFreeze was alienated from his controllers and decided to become a revolutionary, since his life was in jeopardy. The kidnapping of Hearst sparked one of the largest shootouts in U.S. history—which killed six members of the SLA in South Central Los Angeles—and ended when the LAPD set fire to the house and incinerated those six radicals on live television, nationwide, as a warning to American leftists.   “A gripping read—a persuasive, well-researched and detailed interpretation of what is known about the SLA kidnapping of Patty Hearst.” —Peter Dale Scott, author of The American Deep State   “This book careens to its bloody ending with all of the inevitability of a train wreck. Schreiber . . . ignites the past in chilling detail and at the same time shines an uncanny and unsettling light on who we are today.” —T. Jefferson Parker, New York Times –bestselling author http://dlvr.it/R5FJBv

[hiimles]

25 Years Ago

I heard the verdict over the radio as I was driving home. I turned on the TV and watched the mayor of Los Angeles incite a riot. I watched as the LAPD abandoned its post and turned the city over to the lawless. I sat on the couch with guns on the coffee table in front of me. A guy was arrested outside my ground floor apartment after having broken into Western Surplus, site of the SLA shootout. I watched as cops from El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and Torrance flood Hawthorne, where I lived, to stem the tide of violence from sweeping through the city. I could see the glow from the burning city of Los Angeles over the horizon.

[gleefulmayhem]

The SLA shootout happened here. (at Los Angeles, California)

[breakingnewslive]

Photos: SLA shootout on this date deepens Patricia Hearst mystery

On May 17, 1974, a shootout and fire at a Los Angeles house ended with the deaths of six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army — the group that had kidnapped San Francisco newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst three months earlier. Hearst was not among th http://breakingnewslive.net/news/photos-sla-shootout-on-this-date-deepens-patricia-hearst-mystery?uid=263361&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[addcrazy-blog]

New Post has been published on Add Crazy

New Post has been published on https://addcrazy.com/google-doctors-on-android-has-an-interesting-hidden-choice/

Google Doctors on Android has an interesting hidden choice

I befell to be looking through the settings of Google’s Doctors app for Android the opposite day when I spotted something exciting — something I might by no means earlier than observed.

Sitting amidst all the app’s normal alternatives is a quietly great characteristic, disabled with the aid of default: the capability to create general Phrase files in the app with a unmarried tap — to begin a document that is within the DOCX layout from the get-cross, in other phrases, rather than in Google’s very own proprietary layout.

Huh. How ’bout that?

This will appear inconsequential — and in case you’re one hundred% devoted to Docs and the greater Google atmosphere, it very well may be. But for people who nevertheless have ties to the Microsoft Workplace universe (as maximum enterprise customers do, at the least to a point), the presence of this selection is absolutely pretty essential.

Google has increasingly more been running to make its mobile Workplace imparting greater compatible with the Microsoft Workplace popular, as I found out once I tackled my modern day in-depth evaluation of Android’s Workplace options earlier this year. However in spite of this, maximum of the efforts have felt greater like begrudging attractiveness than true local support — more of “Okay, in case you absolutely ought to cope with that form of report, we’re going to make it feasible” instead of “Whats up, appearance, we’re providing you with a fully Phrase-pleasant Phrase processing customer.”

Maybe it changed into just a matter of time. Or Perhaps it turned into Microsoft’s impressively speedy upward thrust to excellence with its very own Android Workplace apps that pressured Google to step up its stance.

Either manner, Google Medical doctors for Android is in reality now aiming to exist as a non-myopic Word alternative — an app that supports the universally desirable Word format now not simply as a tacked-on afterthought But as a center part of its capability, for those who want it. You can still create files in Doctors’ personal format and then convert them to DOCX later, of direction, However if and while you’re in a function in which DOCX is the predicted norm, you now not ought to take that more step.

To make certain, Google’s Doctors app is still nowhere close to as completely featured as Microsoft’s personal Word app for Android. As I concluded in my aforementioned Workplace app shootout, Microsoft’s Android Workplace suite is actually the quality standard choice for all people who needs all the laptop-level bells and whistles or the assure of wonderful Office document compatibility.

But for the ones folks who decide on the Google productiveness approach — an equally legitimate setup in which simple functions are supplemented through incredible structures for collaboration, sharing, and platform-agnostic interplay — managing the pesky realities of a Word-dominated international is slowly However surely becoming much less painful.

Online commercial enterprise App Answers: Microsoft Workplace 365 Vs Google Doctors

2011 became a great yr for net-primarily based “software as a provider” suites. Even though those are not new technologies, now more than ever people seem inquisitive about using and taking benefit of the cloud and of the cloud computing file-sharing services. If in January 2011, Google has introduced that it’s going to gives its users unfastened facts garage of documents as much as 1GB for Google Doctors, on June the same yr, Microsoft released to the public its “industrial software program plus services” called Microsoft Office 3665.

Both services encompass a suite of desktop apps which may be accessed and brought over the Internet and offer users with mobility and instantaneous get right of entry to their documents irrespective of where they, so long as they have a compatible tool and an internet connection.

Such gear copes with special groups, However also users who paintings in a crew and for whom collaboration equipment are an essential part of their paintings. So that you can have a top-quality verbal exchange among users, the sort of communique device wishes to be well suited with all of the hardware and software program additives of all contributors. So it’s crucial to know what devices (Laptop, smartphones, pills, and many others.) your colleagues use and what software program merchandise. The pleasant approach could be that the complete group uses the equal net-based software program provider and avoid running across a couple of hardware and software program systems.

In phrases of familiarity and wider compatibility, Microsoft Office 365 is the first-rate solution, But in case your team prefers Online ease of use, Google Doctors gives an inexpensive alternative. Concerning the consumer’s enjoy, Microsoft solution relies on regionally installed copies of Workplace (as opposed to web apps), whilst Google moves the complete action into browsers. So let’s have a look at what these internet-primarily based Workplace suites ought to provide:

• Microsoft Workplace 365 comes with: e-mail, Phrase, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneNote, Lync, and calendars. Alternatively, Google Doctors affords customers with e-mail, Word processor, Drawing app, Presentations, On-line spreadsheet

• In terms of rate, Google Doctors is free (consisting of Gmail, Google Speak, and different Google merchandise), however for $5 according to consumer, consistent with month ($50 according to year) You could get Google Apps which comes with Google Doctors + help + greater storage + SLA (service level agreement). Microsoft comes with an extra complicated license plan which incorporates diverse options, consisting of Plan E4: for $27 a month you get full Microsoft Office license + agency voice functionality, and so forth.

• Medical doctors suite is quite smooth to put in, and all of the information you want is on the Google site. We can’t say the equal component about Office 365, as you need to put in a browser plug-in, in addition to Microsoft Lync.

• Doctors are compatible with a most vital browser, while Office 365 doesn’t add Google Chrome.

• Both tools have a smooth to use UI, however, Workplace 365 offers a familiar touch: you may be operating with files (as traditional), However, those will be stored to Workplace 365 and now not on your nearby gadget.

• When it comes to spreadsheets, Google permit’s you right-click in the app and resize conceal/unhide rows. also, Google spreadsheets provide more superior capabilities, along with charting, photo embedding, pivot tables, and so forth.

• Alternatively, In relation to Shows/PowerPoint, Workplace 365 has a clear advantage: the internet app offers the equal experience and results because the computing device application

Google Docs has the gain it is clean to install, is inexpensive, and is well matched with almost any device with a browser. So regardless of if you work from your home Computer which has installed Linux, or away, from your Android phone, the enjoy could be the same. however, Medical doctors have a sequence of boundaries as well, which includes: wrong integration with nearby apps, scarce compatibility with PowerPoint files, etc.

Microsoft Office 365, Although is more highly-priced, gives a complete set of superior capabilities, in addition to full compatibility with offline Workplace apps.

So, I cannot certainly say that one tool is better than the opposite, But that Each has a sequence of benefits in addition to barriers, and that before making your desire you must first bear in mind the needs and requirements of your team.

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[rachaelhanel]

Reblog: The grief-stricken families left behind after SLA shootout

Reblog: The grief-stricken families left behind after SLA shootout

via The grief-stricken families left behind after SLA shootout

Today (May 17) is the 45th anniversary of the shootout with Los Angeles police that killed Camilla Hall and five other members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

I’m thinking a lot about energy and the reverberation that traumas like that create through the years. Though Camilla’s immediate family has passed away, she has extended…