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CELEBRATIONS TO MARK OPENING: INTERCOMMUNAL YOUTH INSTITUTE AND SON OF MAN TEMPLE

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Editorial: AGNEW: IN WHOSE BEST INTEREST?

So, the highest placed and most vocal advocate of "law and order" in the country, Spiro Agnew, turns out to be the highest placed crook in the country. Forty pages of charges gathered by the Justice Department, and he gets off with a tap on the wrist for income tax evasion.

Now it should be clear to all. Justice in America is NOT blind. She peeks out from behind that rag across her eyes before deciding on punishment. If the criminal is poor or Black, the scales tilt heavily against him. If the criminal is rich or highly placed, the scales tilt mightily in his favor.

There are those who would have us believe that Agnew has been sufficiently punished. "After all", they argue, "he did give up the high office of Vice President". In Agnew's case the very act of holding office was a crime against the American people. The evidence shows that throughout his political "career" he won and held office through criminal behavior.

Consequently, how can the plea bargaining deal, worked out to save Agnew from jail, be in the best interest of the country? It is in the worst interest of the country because it further conceals from the American people the depths to which the Nixon Administration has sunk in its effort to consolidate power in the hands of gangsters, crooks, pimps and liars.

This deal is simply and only in the best interest of Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon and the Gemstone/Watergate conspirators, many of whom are yet unmasked. Keeping Agnew out of court helps to keep some of them masked and dulls the edge of concern of the American people.

The speed with which Nixon moved in nominating Agnew's successor was no accident. This and the Middle East war have effectively pushed Agnew and his infamy off the front pages and the TV screens, and, the conspirators hope, out of the minds of the people.

The American people must not allow this gang of conspirators to continue drawing the country deeper and deeper into degradation, shame and dishonor. If we fail to act to stop them, in effect, we become their co-conspirators.

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Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I just want to tell you how much I like your newspaper. Before I read your newspaper I was blind and was hanging with the White's all the time, But now that I knew that there are some Brothers out there in the world that really care about one another, I am for you and I say, RIGHT ON to the Black Panther Party and all it stands for.

I was put in the penitentiary for a crime that I did not do. I was not in the state when it happened. I don't have anyone to send me letters, but I know there is some nice. Black sister that will. I hope that some sister reads this in your paper and writes me…

Steve McWayne Taylor (99862) Southampton Farm Capron, Virginia 23829

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THE GLASS HOUSE TAPES: BY THE C.R.I.C. AND LOUIS E. TACKWOOD

The Glass House Tapes is not only the confession of a Black exagent provocateur but it is a story of the American power structure's desperate attempts to prevent an inevitable transformation of society. In this excerpt Louis Tackwood recounts how he became a police agent. Prepared by the Citizens Research and Investigation Committee and Louis E. Tackwood, The Glass House Tapes is available in paperback at local bookstores or write: Central Distribution, Black Panther Party, 8501 E. 14th St., Oakland, Calif., 94621.

PART 3

McCarthy and Tackwood greeted each other and sat down at the table. "How would you like us to refer to you?"

"As Red." "Is `Red' your nick-name?"
"No, my code name with the Criminal Conspiracy Section downtown. I have a code name and a file number." "What is your file number."
"C-14." McCarthy broke in, "What is your real name?"
"Louis E. Tackwood."

Duggan resumed, "Fine, Red, why don't we begin with some background? We understand that you have worked for the police for nearly ten years in both criminal and political activities, but there must be a history to your becoming a police agent. Do you want to talk about the early years when you were first recruited by the police?"

Soon the tapes would be telling his story:

"My first introduction to the Police Department was in 1962 and `63. I was part of a car stealing ring that operated in Los Angeles, and ran them across the Mexican border. In late 1962 I was busted in a stolen car. The arresting officer took me aside and offered me a deal to work with the police department. He said that if I would help them catch another car ring I could continue walking the streets. In fact, he promised that if I cooperated fully with the department I could continue operating without fear of arrest In exchange for my freedom, though, I had to name my two partners. So they were arrested

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and convicted of car theft. Then I was asked to help break up another car ring as part of my agreement. My second job for the L.A.P.D. came in 1963 when I was asked to get evidence on a big narcotics pusher, who lived on Illth and Avalon. I knew most of the people he knew, so I was asked to get an agent close to him. I was supplied with some narcotics which I used in a number of sales to members of the narc ring. Then I made contact for the ring with the narc agent who made some large purchases from the ring. Afterwards all the members of the gang were busted.

"In 1964 I was still operating in a car ring when I was busted along with some of my partners. I was taken to University Police Station where Williams, the arresting officer, got very pushy and threatened to convict me behind this latest car syndicate bust. After hours of arguing, Williams brought in Sgt. Eddie Watkins and Larry Brown. Watkins and Brown proposed that I go to work for them full time. They promised that I would make more money working for them than I would hustling in the streets, and it would be a lot safer. I did some work in robbery. I was responsible for a set-up in an Inglewood robbery that turned into a shootout and one of the robbery gang members was killed. I only remember his name as Baby Brother."

CONSCIOUSLY ELUSIVE

When they began to enter the area of his political activities, Tackwood suddenly resorted to broad generalizations. When Duggan or McCarthy tried to corner him on details he would slip through their fingers like mercury. He was consciously elusive, the more they pressed the more evasive he became.

McCarthy and Duggan were obviously amateurs in comparison to him. Tackwood was a professional in the ether world of the agent-provocateur. He understood well the art of the innuendo, the subtleties of estimating the personality of an adversary. Ten years of experience stood behind him, and he was still alive. This in itself was incredible, given the fact that he had worked for so many years in criminal activity; had set up and sent to prison so many dope pushers, car thieves, "candy stickers" and a few supposed murderers. Tackwood had survived them all. May be it was because you could not help but like him. He was clever and persuasive. He was at ease in any grouping; always careful to estimate the situation whether it was with the "red-neck-vultures" of C.C.S. or with his "partners" in the streets.

He said: "I think I'm smarter than any of the officers I've come in contact with. I can survive out there where they can't. I can play the double game. Yet they looked down on me, and all the time it was tickling me to even play counterplots on them and counterplots on the other side too. These are people who think they can conspire against me - and they're playing with a master of conspiracy. They're just feeding my appetite for conspiracy…I finally found somebody who is willing to play a game."

McCarthy asked, "When did you transfer from common criminal activities to political organizations?"

"Let me tell you how it all came about. In 1965 Eddie Watkins and Larry Brown were transferred downtown to a special squad called S.I.I., Special Identification and Investigation; I was transferred right along with them. I worked in that special section for approximately eight months.

"The Watts uprising of August 1965 caused a great shock inside the Los Angeles Police Department. Nobody believed the niggers had it in them. Right away Intelligence Division began a reorganization of the Police Department. I was involved from the beginning. At the time I was still working with S.I.I. under Sgt. Watkins. Watkins called me and told me, `Hey, man, they're putt'n together a new squad. I've got some people down here who want to talk to ya.' This was a new squad that the L.A.P.D. put together that was to work in the streets and infiltrate militant organizations and they promised me a lot more money.

CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY SECTION

"My first meeting was held at the Glass House on the third floor where I met the head man in charge of a new department called Criminal Conspiracy Section. His name is Lieutenant Keel. His partner was a Sgt. Sherrett. Before they started talking, they gave me a hundred dollars. Lt. Keel said, `Listen, man, you're just the man we want. You have all the experience we need. Stop working for S.I.I. and come to work for us.' I said, `Well, yeah, the money looks good. Who are you?' Keel said, `Criminal Conspiracy Section.' I found out later that's just what they're doing too. They spend all their time cooking up criminal conspiracies against militants, particularly groups like the Panthers, Angela Davis, and people like that.

"I served as a key instrument to these conspiracies, as did Melvin Smith and lots of others. They elevated a selected number of informers to the level of agents. They no longer called us informers, but special agents who were paid a lot of money for our assignments. One of these early agents to go to work for the special department was Melvin Smith, better known as Cotton, third man in command of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panthers. Supposedly, the man in charge of weapons, yeah, he was their weapons expert. He's the one who brought the automatic weapon to the Panther office the day before the raid. It was in his hands all the time when the shootout took place.

"A select group; that's what we were. We were an elite corp. Everything looked great."

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

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In Memorium Walter “Toure” Pope Assassinated: October 18, 1969

The subject of special and constant harassment by Los Angeles police because of his effectiveness as Distribution Manager for the Southern California Chapter of the Black Panther Party, Walter "Toure" Pope knew that his life was in danger.

Yet, without hesitation he continued to struggle. On October 18, 1969, Toure was brutally gunned down by L.A. Metro Squad police who suddenly came upon him and opened fire. According to eyewitness reports, Toure was never given a chance.

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OAKLAND SCHOOL STRIKE THREATENED: COMMUNITY UNITES AROUND TEACHER'S DEMANDS

(Oakland, Calif.) - (Editors Note: Because of publication and printing schedules, the following article does not contain the results of the strike vote by Oakland teachers. Be sure to get next week's issue of THE BLACK PANTHER for full coverage of the strike vote and other information regarding the struggle over who actually controls Oakland's schools.)

With the strong possibility of this city's first major school strike looming on the horizon, the Black Panther Party has joined hands with a community parents group, the Coalition to Save Our Schools, and Oakland's only teacher's union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 771, in a common effort to achieve quality education for this city's school children.

It had been hoped that an unprecedented display of community unity around the strike issues, based upon the nearly city-wide unanimous and vehement opposition to the proposed police-in-schools plan, might have averted the strike. However, the negligent failure of Oakland's school administrators to act on the unquestionably justified teacher and community demands at their Tuesday, October 9, school board meeting all but made the strike inevitable. Even as last-ditch negotiations continue throughout the weekend, the strike vote remains scheduled for Monday, October 15, at 4:00 p.m.

The basic AFT demands are: (1) A cost-of-living salary increase for Oakland's 2,500 school teachers with no reduction in fringe benefits; (2) Increased instructional supplies and materials, updated textbooks, new and better classroom equipment; (3) No police patrols in Oakland schools.

Additional demands include a reduction in class sizes, particularly in schools located in Oakland's predominantely Black and Chicano flatlands area and a sizeable salary increase, from $2.90 to $3.79 an hour for all instructional assistants.

OVERWHELMING POPULAR SUPPORT

First signs of the overwhelming popular support for the teachers demands appeared on Monday, October 8. In an early morning press conference Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown joined with Walt Swift, president of AFT Local 771 and Doll Lewis, AFT Instructional Assistant Representative, to clarify the issues and to call for a large turn-out at the school board meeting the next day. (Darlene Lawson, chairperson for the Coalition to Save Our Schools was unavoidably absent.) Bobby and Elaine also announced the Black Panther Party's support for the AFT demands.

The joint press statement read, in part: "We don't need drugs (referring to the wide-scale use of the drug Ritalin in Oakland schools to control "hyperactive children"), police and volunteers to control our children. We need more community people hired by the schools and paid a living wage to serve as instructional assistants, campus student advisors and crisis center people. We need more Black,

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Chicano, Asian and Native American teachers and counselors to reduce class size and counselling loads so that students get more informed and sympathetic individual guidance and attention. The demands of the AFT are reasonable and necessary."

The statement ended: "We need a quality education for our children and we know the money is there ($8.4 million in school money is held in "undistributed reserves") to provide it. We do not want a school strike in Oakland, but if the school board does not act, a strike is the only alternative."

The call for unity and support worked well. On Tuesday, October 9, over 500 concerned parents, teachers, community people and school children themselves jammed into a small auditorium to confront the Oakland School Board.

Speaker after speaker left no doubt as to where their sympathies lie. Vera Means Silverman, a community leader and parent, and Darlene Lawson protested the board's secretive practices: "Before you pass any more proposals, (the police plan), let the community in on it." AFT staff organizer Michael Bradley exposed the administration's "plantation politics" and Doll Lewis explained that Oakland school officials must learn to "respect" non-professionals working in the schools.

Elaine Brown took the podium and explained simple facts of life: "The main thing is that we did not come here today to talk to one another… We want the demands to be met because we have a unified body here, united around the issues. We did not come to play."

When Bobby Seale finally rose to speak an expectant silence fell over the hall: "I want to try to connect a few things here and look at a few things more concretely and in a way which makes sense…People from the community are here today to demand that you deal with the funds in a proper way. Before you spend more money on more police, put that money into more school buildings so we can cut down on classroom sizes…I'm not going to ask you for a hearing on this so-called police proposal for schools. I'm asking for a vote from this board to drop this whole idea altogether. Just stop it!"

And then there were two young school girls, who in timid voices, asked the school board, "Is it 1984 already?"

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ILLINOIS: FLAT GRANT WELFARE PROTESTED

(Chicago, Ill.) - Amid wide-spread protest, the state of Illinois boldly ushered in its hotly contested "flat grant" welfare system on Monday, October 1. Immediately massive picketing of state offices by irate welfare recipients broke out in many cities, the largest and most vocal demonstrations occuring here in Chicago.

In last minute appeasement moves to forstall community outrage, state welfare department officials made several minor modifications to the plan. But opposition continues to center around the almost blanket withdrawal of special needs and allowance funds. Recipients strongly contend that standardized checks, along with a small monthly increase, is in no way the same as having the special funds on hand. Under the flat grant, no monies will be given out for over 90 special needs and allowance items.

Affected by the state's move are over 205,000 families in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program.

Despite the publicized increase, over 1/4 of the families will be actually receiving less money than before.

Among the modifications were: -- Extra money will still be given to families who can prove their need for larger than normal rents or who are authorized to buy federally subsidized housing.

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-- Recipients with "usual" medical needs will get extra payments for transportation.

-- A special $5 monthly allowance for high school juniors and seniors will be given through the end of the school year.

-- One-time payments to cover such things as moving expenses and appliance replacement will continue on a six month "transitional period".

The Public Welfare Coalition, one of the groups fighting the flat grant plan, said that the modifications were "a small step forward after a major step backward".

In a closely related event, the courts have begun to play ping-pong with people's lives, as a circuit court judge flatly rejected another petition to immediately halt the implementation of the flat grant system.

The decision, made on October 5, was based on the grounds that the suit could not be considered a class action and that specific recipients, rather than all AFDC families, would have to be expressly named in the suit.

The previous week, one of three other suits seeking a similar ban against the flat grant system was thrown out of U.S. District Court on grounds that it was a matter for the state courts to decide.

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DEDICATION / CELEBRATION TO MARK OPENING OF YOUTH INSTITUTE AND SON OF MAN TEMPLE

(Oakland, Calif.) - The Educational Opportunities Corporation, a non-profit organization, invites the community to the dedication/celebration ceremonies of the opening of the Intercommunal Youth Institute and the consecration of their new church, the Son of Man Temple, on Sunday, October 21, at 10:30 a.m. The location is 6118 E. 14th Street in Oakland.

The Intercommunal Youth Institute, Oakland's only community-based alternative school, is entering its third year in operation. The new location represents a positive step for ward for the school, with its 25 classrooms, and meeting rooms, an auditorium that seats 300 people and kitchen facilities capable of serving over 200.

The opening of the church promises to be a joyous occasion. Huey P. Newton will deliver the keynote address. Reverend Cecil Williams, the controversial pastor of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, will speak. Bobby Seale will deliver the dedication message.

The Voices of Christ, the Polytechnic Inspirational Choir and the Son of Man Temple Choir will lead the people in song, with the Intercommunal Youth Institute Choir blending in their young voices during the event. Elaine Brown will sing and Ericka Huggins will deliver a poetry recitation. High Tide Harris and his blues band and the Bishop Norman Williams Quintet will add to the celebration.

There will be tours of the Intercommunal Youth Institute (housed in the same building) after the ceremonies. Displays and tables for visitors to obtain information about and sign up for the services offered by the Temple will be available. Sickle Cell Anemia tests will be given and the Senior Citizens S.A.F.E. program will transport the elderly to and from the church. Seniors will be able to register for the S.A.F.E. Program.

The "Each One, Teach One" Tuition Club of the Educational Opportunities Corporation which sponsors the Youth Institute, will have a display table describing the activities of the Institute.

Following the services, a homecooked meal will be served free to everyone.

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COURT RULES: DETROIT EDISON TO PAY $4 MILLION FOR DISCRIMINATING

(Detroit, Michigan) - An unprecedented court decision against corporate racism was handed down here recently. In the decision, believed to be the first of its kind, District Judge Damon J. Keith assessed $4 million in punitive damages against the Detroit Edison Company for discrimination against Blacks.

Punitive damages are assessed only when the judge believes that a defendant has acted deliberately and with malice. The evidence in this case, said Judge Keith, a Black, was "overwhelming". It showed that "invidious racial discrimination in employment practices" permeated Detroit Edison.

"Upward mobility" among Blacks employed by the public utility was "almost nonexistent". Judge Keith said that Blacks had systematically been refused employment; that all of this was "deliberate and by design" and that the company "repeatedly and callously disregarded or rejected the numerous appeals of Blacks" who asked that the practices be reformed.

Although the company has continued to deny the existence of racial discrimination and announced that it would appeal or ask for a new trial, the employment statistics clearly show the discriminatory pattern. There were 832 Blacks among Detroit Edison's 10,630 employees, in a city where Blacks make up half the population.

In addition to the $4 million in punitive damages, Judge Keith ordered the company to pay restitution in the form of back pay to Blacks who had been kept out of better paying jobs within the company and to persons who had sought jobs within the company but had been turned down solely because they were Black. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, will be affected. The Judge also set quoteas for future hiring and promotions.

Judge Keith found that systematic discrimination was taking place because of the "myopia" (nearsightedness) of corporate leaders who could not see what was, in fact, happening at lower levels in their company. He said that Black employees had been told that they could not be promoted to better jobs because of their race.

White persons with lesser qualifications than Blacks had been promoted to higher paying jobs, while Blacks had not, he said. Recruiting for jobs was done largely on a friends and relatives basis that effectively shut out Blacks.

Furthermore, the judge found union Local 233 of the Utility Workers of America, through its seniority and grievance policies, was abetting the company's discrimination. $250,000 in punitive damages was levied against the union.

Plaintiffs in the case were three individuals and the federal government.

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INSIDE OUT

ROOSEVELT JOHNSON
DIVIDES TO CONQUER
… AND PROFIT

Roosevelt Johnson, Black Director of the Dallas Urban League, knows who pays his check. Recently, the Black community organized a Black United Fund (BUF), to provide monies for various community programs and projects.

Johnson, however, would have none of it. Proudly, with a civic zeal before unparallelled, he pushed a resolution through the Urban League's Board of Directors soundly condemning the BUF because it "divides the city"; that is, it would be used for the good of the Black community. It seems that another moneyed group, the White-controlled United Fund, which rips off the Black community yearly through coerced "contributions", graciously funds the Urban League as well. "Brother" Johnson is not a popular man nowadays in Dallas, …at least not popular in the Black community.

DALLAS' ALLEN
FRONTS FOR
COUNCIL RACISM

George Allen, one of two Dallas, Texas, Black City Council people, is challenging Berkeley's Wilmont Sweeney for the title of "Mr. Black City Councilman". Recently, following the tragic slaying of 12 year old Santos Rodriquez by White patrolman Darryl Cain, the Mexican-American community expressed their outrage in the streets of downtown Dallas. Never known for his humanism, and chavacteristic of his conduct on the Council, Allen read the Council's racist denouncement of the Chicano community's actions. To complete his performance, Allen, a few weeks later, protested and vehemently argued against the Black community's request to re-open the case of Michael Moorehead, an 18 year old brother also murdered by Cain. Allen claimed that the case was "moot", that Cain was "already being tried for one murder" and that the "timing was wrong".

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SAN QUENTIN 6 SEEK TRIAL TRANSFER

(San Francisco, Calif.) - On Thursday September 11, hearings opened in federal court here on the latest suit filed by the San Quen-Six. The suit charges that the Six -- Johnny Spain, Hugo Pinell, David Johnson, Luis Talamantez, Fleeta Drumgo and Willie Tate -- cannot and will not receive a fair and impartial trial in a state court and lists numerous violations of their civil rights. These include: the grand jury, appointed by a state judge, which reflected systematic discrimination against prospective Black jurors; being shackled and chained in court, which, coupled with the presence of protective glass, prejudges their guilt; denial of their right to a speedy trial.

They were indicted over two years ago and have yet to go to trial. The suit seeks transferral of the trial from a state court to federal court.

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PEOPLE DEFEAT HOUSTON RAPID TRANSIT PLAN

(Houston, Texas) - The people of this city have just scored an overwhelming victory against their decietful city government officials by voting nearly 3 to 1 against the proposed Houston Area Rapid Transit Authority (HARTA) in a special election held October 6.

The proposed measure called for the formation of an appointed board that would have had power to tax the people of Houston and Harris County for funds to build a mass rapid transit transportation system. The board would have had unlimited taxing power, would not have been responsible to the public and would have full rights of condemnation of homes and businesses.

The board would also have had the power to set up its own police force which would not have been responsible to the public. HARTA could place tracks, trains or transportation routes on anyone's property.

In the forefront of the fight to defeat this measure were Operation Breadbasket, the Urban League, City Controller Leonel J. Costillo, and the Houston Branch of the Black Panther Party.

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Prior to the election the Party held a press conference to denounce the plan and to expose the mayor of Houston, Louie Welch, for withholding a public document which told of the faults of the proposed transit system. The Party accused the Attorney General of Texas, John Hill, of acting in direct opposition to the people by ruling that the proposed "emissions tax" on automobiles was constitutional when an almost identical tax had earlier been ruled unconstitutional.

If the Transit Authority board had been formed, it would have had a blank check to increase the phoney "emissions tax" by obtaining permission from the legislature without having the people vote on it. (The "emissions tax" was a ploy which led some people to think that it would reduce pollution, when actually all it would have done would be to tax all automobile owners according to the size of the car engine.) HARTA would have overseen

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a budget larger than both those of the city of Houston and Harris County.

The Transit Authority board would have chosen a proposed mass transit system which includes an elaborate network of trains, buses, and subways, or would have had to pay for a study to develop another system. The original Voorhees Plan would have offered little or no service to the poor, Black and minority communities.

The Black and minority community was not fooled. Over 80% voted against the proposal. The citizens of Houston are not totally against the creation of a rapid transit system. They simply refuse to allow government officials, led by Mayor Welch, to fool them into voting in a "frightening, unsound, and unrepresentative" system.

An alternative method proposed by Leonel Castillo, the City Controller, is a more sound plan for mass transit. He calls for a system actually expanding the current bus, taxi, and rental car services, and for the development of a fixed guideway and busway system along existing and projected railway and freeway routes. Castillo's proposal would not need the creation of a new governmental body, would serve the poor inner-city communities, and could go into effect almost immediately.

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EXTORTION: 19 CHICAGO COPS CONVICTED

(Chicago, Ill.) - Nineteen Chicago policemen, including a high-ranking officer, were found guilty by a federal jury last week for shakedowns totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from this city's North Side "Glitter Gulch" of nightclubs and saloons. Eleven were also found guilty of perjury for lying to the grand jury which indicted them.

Found guilty was Clarence E. Braasch, a captain, who, when indicted was head of the Chicago police 1,000-man traffic department. Braasch is the highest-ranking police officer ever convicted by a federal jury in U.S. history.

The charges against the nineteen men originate from 1966 when Braasch commanded the East Chicago Ave. police district. They all served in the district vice squad, which carried on the so-called "little club" shakedown operation.

Membership in the "little club" meant that the club and tavern owners were assured from being investigated or harassed by vice squad police. Between them "the collectors" received a minimum of $100 per man per month.

Five former policemen in that unit testified against their former colleaguesas the government called a total of 76 witnesses. Several owners who participated in the pay-off plan also testified, providing additional proof of guilt.

One key witness, former Lt. Robert Fisher, testified that a smaller group of nightclubs, all having big crime syndicate connections, made up the so-called "big club". Fisher further testified that he acted as Braasch's personal collector from these spots and that "big club" money deals, sometimes over $3,000 per month, also went to Braasch's supervisors at police headquarters. For his testimony, Fisher was granted immunity by the prosecution.

The guilty verdicts, which took over 15 minutes to read, were the culmination of what is believed to have been the largest federal crackdown ever on a large metropolitan police force. Undoubtedly, the verdicts are a severe blow to the once solid regime of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, whose administration was already buttressed against a threatening county grand jury investigation of local government corruption and crime.

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BLIND, AGED, DISABLED SUE REAGAN - SEEK TO MAINTAIN WELFARE AID

(San Francisco, Calif.) - A group of nine organizations and two individuals are filing suit against California governor Ronald Reagan, charging that he is illegally impounding money allocated to aid aged, blind and disabled citizens. Reagan's plans call for cutting the meager $246 per month allotted by state and federal law for senior citizens on welfare to the sub-survival amount of $221 per month.

The so-called cost-saving measure will unlawfully deny $120 million in benefits to 500,000 eligible citizens as of January of next year. Similar cuts are envisioned by Reagan for impoverished blind and disabled welfare recipients. According to state and federal laws, blind persons should recieve $251 per month in benefits and disabled persons are entitled to $250 per month. The governor's plan would allow only $237 per month for sightless recipients and only $221 for the disabled.

The lawsuit charges that in addition to planning illegal monetary cutbacks that the state is entering into administrative and fiscal agreements with the federal government that are in violation of state law.

The plaintiff groups collectively represent 140,000 members and include senior citizens, blind and disabled people and other concerned Californians. The suit was filed in the Calif. Supreme Court with the assistance of the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation.

AT A DISADVANTAGE

Aged, blind and disabled welfare recipients are already at a disadvantage because of their inability to function in normal life situations with the same ease available to other people. Special diets, transportation costs and corrective devices and procedures are added to the financial burden they must face. Reagan's "cost-saving" measures will effectively shove the poor, elderly, blind and crippled citizens of California out of the pot and into the fire, denying basic human needs and ordinary modest desires.

Reagan's cutback plans follow the same pattern that many recent state and federal cutbacks follow. Those who are least able to protest, least vocal and most helpless are the first and hardest hit victims. Reagan's plans follow similar reductions in benefits to crippled and disabled war veterans on the federal level and New York State's slashes in aid to families, children and the disabled.

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PEOPLE'S PERSPECTIVE

FASCIST TRAINING SCHOOL UNCOVERED

(Los Fresnos, Texas) - Bomb and booby-trap experts from the Central Intelligence Agency have been quietly training foreign police to make explosive devices at an isolated federal school in Texas. The Agency for International Development runs the school at the Border Patrol Academy here. The existence of the school was first depicted in the film "State of Siege". In this film foreign police were shown being trained to use bombs and booby-traps against political opponents. In an investigation South Dakota Democratic Senator James Abourezk obtained documents which show that most of the 165 policemen trained at the school came from military-backed regimes such as those in Brazil, Guatemala, Thailand, Uraguay, Panama and El Salvador.

FOLSOM'S "HOLE" CLOSED

(Sacramento, Calif.) - The closing of Folsom prison's maximum-security solitary confinement unit announced by the Assembly Select Committee on Prison Reform and rehabilitation recently will not mean an end to solitary confinement. It will be moved to other facilities in the prison. The closure of the solitary confinement unit followed a recent committee report highly critical of the cells, describing them as "rodent or insect infested cages, unfit for human habitation".

MAJORITY BLACK SCHOOL BOARD

(Atlanta, Georgia) - As a result of the recent city elections in Atlanta, the predominantly Black school system here will be governed for the first time by a majority Black school board.

FRAT TO DISCUSS "BLACK RIGHTS"

(New York, N. Y.) - The 59th Annual Anniversary Convention of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity will discuss the deterioration of "Black Rights". "The thrust of this year's conclave", said Dr. Parlett Moore, president of the Black collegiate fraternity, "is to seriously discuss these inroads on our hard-won Black rights which are being corroded because of this apparent disregard for `Black Rights' by the Nixon administration." Black scholars, economists, businessmen, scientists, politicians and "some White brothers" will discuss the problem for three days starting December 30, 1973, at the Shamrock Hilton Hotel in Houston, Texas, site of the convention.

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DELLUM'S CORNER: ON AGNEW RESIGNATION

"I have learned through news reports that Vice-President Agnew has tendered his resignation, and that it has been accepted by President Nixon. My reactions to this development are mixed. On the one hand, it seems to me that the country faces a crisis of major proportions. The fact that one of the highest elected officials in this country has, through circumstances of his own making, been forced to leave office, further points out the degree of decay at the highest levels of government.

"The Vice-President, during his term of office, took every opportunity to divide people onimportant issues; issues that should have been used to bring people together. It is not without serious thought that I say his term of office and the legacy that he leaves is certainly not one that American citizens can be pround of. We must do, from this moment forward, whatever is necessary to protect against the kind of unbridled assault on institutions and people that has characterized the Nixon-Agnew regime."

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IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND: CONVERSATION WITH ERIK H. ERIKSON AND HUEY P. NEWTON

Huey P. Newton's conversations with Erik Erikson explain, much of the Black Panther Party's guiding theory in the words of the Porty's chief theoretician. The just published book, In Search of Common Ground, is a transcript of that conversation. As Huey explains in this excerpt from the book, the Party's goal is the "essentially human culture" of revolutionary intercommunalism.

PART 4

The settlers' control over the seized land and people grew to such an extent that it wasn't even necessary for the settler to be present to maintain the system. He went back home. The people were so integrated with the aggressor that their land didn't look like a colony any longer. But because their land didn't look like a free state either, some theorists started to call these lands "neocolonies". Arguments about the precise definition of these entities developed. Are they colonies or not? If they aren't, what are they? The theorists knew that something had happened, but they did not know what it was.

Using the dialectical materialist method, we in the Black Panther Party saw that the United States was no longer a nation. It was something else; it was more than a nation. It had not only expanded its territorial boundaries, but it had expanded all of its controls as well. We called it an empire. Now at one time the world had an empire in which the conditions of rule were different - the Roman Empire. The difference between the Roman and the American empires is that other nations were able to exist external to and independent of the Roman Empire because their means of exploration, conquest, and control were all relatively limited.

EMPIRES CONTROL ALL

But when we say "empire" today, we mean precisely what we say. An empire is a nation-state that has transformed itself into a power controlling all the world's lands and people.

We believe that there are no more colonies or neocolonies. If a people is colonized, it must be possible for them to decolonize and become what they formerly were. But what happens when the raw materials are extracted and labor is exploited within a territory dispersed over the entire globe? When the riches of the whole earth are depleted and used to feed a gigantic industrial machine in the imperialist's home? Then the people and the economy are so integrated into the imperialist empire that it's impossible to "decolonize," to return to the former conditions of existence.

If colonies cannot "decolonize" and return to their original existence as nations, then nations no longer exist. Nor, we believe, will they ever exist again. And since there must be nations for revolutionary nationalism or internationalism to make sense, we decided that we would have to call ourselves something new.

DISPERSED COMMUNITIES

We say that the world today is a dispersed collection of communities. A community is different from a nation. A community is a small unit with a comprehensive collection of institutions that exist to serve a small group of people. And we say further that the struggle in the world today is between the small circle that administers and profits from the empire of the United States, and the peoples of the world who want to determine their own destinies.

We call this situation intercommunalism. We are now in the age of reactionary intercommunalism, in which a ruling circle, a small group of people, control all other people by using their technology.

At the same time, we say that this technology can solve most of the material contradictions people face, that the matieral conditions exist that would allow the people of the world to develop a culture that is essentially human and would nurture those things that would llow the people to resolve contradictions in a way that would not cause the mutual slaughter of all of us. The development of such a culture would be revolutionary intercommunalism.

LIBERATED TERRITORIES

Some communities have begun doing this. They have liberated their territories and have established provisional governments. We recognize them, and say that these governments represent the people of China, North Korea, the people in the liberated zones of South Vietnam, and the people in North Vietnam.

We believe their examples should be followed so that the order of the day would not be reactionary intercommunalism (empire) but revolutionary intercommunalism. The people of the world, that is, must seize power from the small ruling circle and expropriate the expropriators, pull them down from their pinnacle and make them equals, and distribute the fruits of our labor that have been denied us in some equitable way. We know that the machinery to accomplish these tasks exists and we want access to it.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

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OPERATION GEMSTONE: “THE GREAT WATERGATE CONSPIRACY”: FLIGHT 553: THE WATERGATE MURDER?

President Nixon and his fellow Watergate conspirators have been implicated in a scandal in which almost every deceitful crime imaginable has been committed. Although their misuse of power and money has indirectly caused thousands of deaths, none linked in the conspiracy have directly been implicated for murder. However, evidence points toward premeditated foul play in the deaths of the wife of Watergate criminal E. Howard Hunt and 43 other persons who died in the horrible crash of a Chicago-bound jetliner last December.

This week's installment of "Operation Gemstone: The Great Watergate Conspiracy" by the Citizens' Research and Investigating Committee describes the actual crash of the jetliner that had been placed on the fatal approach to Midway Airport by a crew given "mistaken" landing information from the airport.

Among those who died with Dorothy Hunt, were attorneys for Northern Natural Gas Company, who were threatening Attorney General John Mitchell's Justice Department with payoff exposure. The autopsy report has shoun that the bodies of some of the crew contained high levels of poisonous cyanide.

A major radio and navigational ground instrument, that 553 was also depending on, was the Localizer. This electronic ground device is identified by the street it stands on. The Midway Localizer was in the vicinity of 87th and Kedzie streets and is called the "Kedzle Localizer". This crucial piece of Midway's guidance equipment (necessary to any pilot flying blind in distress) ceased working as 553 approached it! Could this also be coincidence? Did the Aero Commander preceeding 553, going on to make a perfect touch down, have any bearing on the equipment's failure?

Two voices from 553's cockpit: (one of the few vocal remains left intact on the cockpit voice recorder for documentation):

"Is Kedzie Localizer off?…off the air. Is that it?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Is Kedzie Localizer off the air…there's an inbound on …ah, there's an inbound on 31."

The broken question to Midway Tower from the cockpit of 553, regarding the failure to function of the "Kedzie Localizer", received no documented answer.

THE DOOMED JETLINER

The doomed twin engine 737 jetliner, United Air Lines Flight 553, had shot out from beneath the cloud cover. Visibility now was excellent, as witnessed by surviving passengers and stewardesses. To be exact, visibility was one mile. The ceiling was 500 feet. The passengers saw the clear sky, saw the rooftops, the schools and churches, saw the wintery tops of trees. Then within moments the stewardesses heard a totally illogical sound for such a low altitude - the engines rev up and go full bore. Those in the cockpit took what action they could, in their last desperate split-second attempts to survive.

Did Dorothy Hunt, in the last vertiginous seconds, picture in her mind's eye the Operation Gemstone charts that her husband and Gordon Liddy had designed: the charts that diagrammed the illegal control of air-to-ground flight signals? Did she picture the other Watergate women victims - Dita Beard and Martha Mitchell - who had been kidnapped and drugged by her husband, Liddy and other agents? Poor Dita Beard who had suffered a "heart attack" on a United Airlines flight to Denver.

The Aero Commander had called an unexplained "missed approach" to Midway Tower and had been given an O.K. or what is called a "wave-off".

An aircraft may request a "missed approach" and be or not be granted permission. But when a tower calls "missed approach" to an aircraft, they are obliged to obey and accept the tower's "wave-off".

Midway Tower claims that they ordered a "wave-off" for 553 when she was 3.3 miles southwest of Midway's Runway

-- 11 --
31-Left. The reason given is the Aero Commander's position of landing priority, and her belated set-down as a consequence of the "missed approach". For what conceivable reason had the small, maneuverable private plane, the Aero Commander, retained priority, when there were 61 people aboard commercial Flight 553, hurtling through blind space in a maelstrom of guidance and equipment failures?

"Officials" later said, "the turn and wave-off from Midway disappeared from view on Midway's radar screen." Had Midway been tracking Flight 553's fatal error-ridden approach all along?

Overhead, 1.7 miles from Midway Airport, between Queen of Universe and Hurley Schools and Holy Cross Hospital, just beyond Marguette Park, Flight 553 stopped dead in the air; shuddering in her death throes. (Inside a stewardess screamed at the top of her lungs, partly drowned out by the engine's roar, "Get down in a crouchl") The nose of the plane tilted terrifically in a "spool-up". The engines wound laboriously. 553 was still, suspended in an awful moment of stall. Then the Boeing 737 plummeted to earth.

Seven adults and two little girls huddled around a small television set in a room at the Sheraton Midway Motel on Cicero Avenue, not far from the airport: waiting.

At first a supervisor had come out to tell the twelve people waiting for the flight from Washington to accompany him into a private room. The supervisor told them that the tower had lost contact with the plane and that there were reports that a plane had crashed but there was no immediate information that the two were the same. Five minutes later he told them it was the same plane and the limousines were ready to take them to the motel four blocks north of the airport. There they began their vigil.

Among those waiting stood Harold C. Carlstead, 57, of 2245 Evans Avenue, Flossmoor, Illinois, the cousin-in-law Dorothy Hunt had hoped to greet upon her arrival. Harold Carlstead is a Chicago C.P.A. He does his certified accounting and tax work for organized crime owned businesses in the Chicago area. He operates two Holiday Inn Motels in Chicago's south suburbs, at 174th and Torrence, Lansing, Illinois, and at 171st and Halsted, Harvey, Illinois. Carlstead's motel on Torrence is a notorious hangout for gangsters and dope traffickers such as "Cool" Freddie Smith, Grover Barnes, and the late Sam De Stefano.

The plane did crash, a block and a half from Queen of the Universe School and two blocks from Hurley Elementary, pancaking down in the 3700 block of West 70th Place. In its nearly straight down plunge, the United Boeing severed two power poles and sheared through 12,000 volt utility lines causing a power blackout in a two mile square area affecting 5,000 homes. All electrical and telephone service in the area was knocked out. It was an hour before even partial service was restored.

The plane scraped a bungalow roof on 71St., struck the upper part of a tree, ripped off three roofs, wobbled on to 70th Place smashing garages, damaged three more houses and utterly demolished one house as she ploughed to a halt. Her mangled and smoking nose struck finally into the bungalows across the street.

The shattered aircraft lay jammed down over several smashed houses, her towering tail section had split off and now rested on the sidewalk.

THE DREADFUL REMAINS

The street was clogged with wreckage. Sections of plaster had been crumbled onto front yards. Naked stairs stuck out of walls going nowhere. Metal was twisted like tinsel. Pieces of airplane and rain gutters crossed over a smouldering Santa Claus. The pilots' cabin was split in half lengthwise and there was a gaping, smoking rent between first class and the coach section. Black smoke poured from the wreckage. The fusilage was engulfed in flame as were the demolished houses underneath. There lay the dreadful remains, machine and human.

The fatal crash of the Boeing 737 was the first since the craft had been put into service by United and six other airlines in 1968.

Those fortunate passengers who had been knocked unconscious or only stunned were beginning to scramble in the dark for egress. Children going home ran screaming, yelling and terrified in the streets. A woman crawled through a wall of rubble and flame that once was her house to collapse in the arms of a numbstruck neighbor. There was the repetition of phrases like a litany - "Oh no, oh no"; "My God, my God!" The calling of names, "Mommie, Mommie"; "Ruth", "Barbara", "Frank", "Cindy". There were quick scenes of valor and courage from people in the area doing their human best to extricate survivors as the flames increased.

"I SAW A WOMAN'S BODY"

Nineteen year old Edward Kello ran to the window, his small sister was yelling, "There's a fire, there's a fire". He dashed outside: "I saw a woman's body hanging from a corner of a garage. I knew she was dead because she wasn't moving. Then I heard what sounded like a little girl. It was muffled, `help, help', I couldn't see where she was because of the flames. She had to be either in the nose or under the plane. I couldn't get in there. There wasn't much you could do with your bare hands. Another guy and I tried to put the metal away with our hands but we couldn't. There wasn't anything we could do."

Then "police" were on the scene, in time to hustle Kello away from his brief, bare-handed attempt to rip the scalding metal away and free the little girl whose voice he had heard. The thin voice was left calling from the flames.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

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PETITION SEEKS GAY PRISONERS' RIGHTS

(San Francisco, Calif.) - A petition is being circulated throughout California demanding fair treatment and human consideration for homosexual male prisoners in the state's institutions. The petition was drawn up by a group of gay men, but it seeks the signatures of everyone, male or female, gay or "straight", who see the need for protecting and insuring the rights of all prisoners.

The demands are being circulated by the Inside Out newsletter in San Francisco. The group's goal is 20,000 signatures on petitions to submit to California Director of Corrections Raymond D. Procunier.

Gay prisoners are consistently abused and insulted by prison administrators and guards. The seven demands in the petition basically call for the same rights accorded other prison inmates. The demands do not threaten prison security and, in fact, should decrease prison tensions and disturbances.

For more information or additional petitions, contact Inside Out P.O. Box 42531, San Francisco, Calif. 94142.

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PETITION FOR GAY RIGHTS IN CALIFORNIA MEN'S PRISONS

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, DEMAND AN IMMEDIATE END TO
THOSE RULES, REGULATIONS AND PRACTICES OF THE
CALIFORNIA MEN'S PRISONS WHICH DISCRIMINATE AGAINST
ANY PRISONERS ON THE BASIS OF RACE, RELIGION, OR
POLITICAL OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION.

Specifically, we demand of the Adult Authority and of the California Department of Corrections:

1) an end to using a prisoner's gay sexuality as a basis for postponing parole.

2) that gay prisoners be allowed to choose between being housed in all-gay units and being housed in the general prison population;

3) that gay prisoners have full access to all recreational facilities and programs;

4) that no gay prisoner be barred from any job or vocational training program in the prison system, and that new programs be started that meet the needs of gay prisoners;

5) that gay prisoners be allowed to organize officially recognized social, political, and religious organizations, with regular meetings, and the right to invite outside speakers;

6) that prisoners be allowed to receive and read any literature they want -- including gay books and newspapers from any source;

7) that gay prisoners be allowed to receive and use clothing and makeup with which to express themselves.

-- 13 --

Intercommunal news: MIDDLE EAST: U.S. PRESS DISTORTS NEWS OF WAR

The American press, almost without exception, has been hard pressed in its reporting of the Middle East war. Conditioned to believe that the Israeli military machine was invincible, it has found the Arab victories difficult to believe and more difficult still to report.

Most of this press has relied solely on Israeli war communiques for their information on the progress of the war, initially leaving the impression with their readers that 1973 was going to be a repeat of June, 1967. It has religiously headlined Israeli claims of planes shot down, tanks destroyed, Arab troops killed or captured.

But the Syrian and Egyptian war communiques and official statements were carefully ignored, or buried on back pages. When forced to report Arab victories which Israeli reports admitted, there was a clear and obvious apology and careful effort to make these victories appear temporary or accidental.

The Israelis even went so far as to claim that the initial Arab victories were only made possible by Israel's refusal to reply immediately to the alleged Arab attack, graciously giving the Arab armies the advantage. The U.S. media has repeated this lie as well as the Israeli assertion that the movement of Egyptian troops across the Suez Canal began the war.

THE BLACK PANTHER reported last week that first reports of fighting in the Middle East came from Egypt, at least two hours before any report of Egyptian crossing of the Canal. Cairo Radio broke into its regular programming at one-thirty on the day of the attack to announce that Israeli fighter planes and gun boats had attacked the Red Sea town of Ain Sukhna.

What did the Israelis expect the Egyptians to do? Nothing? One of many lessons learned by the Egyptians in June, 1967, was the foolhardiness of being unprepared to respond to Israeli aggression. The June war "victory" for Israel was only possible because Israel's unexpected blitzkreig attack caught Egypt's air force on the ground and systematically destroyed it before the Egyptians could respond.

When questioned about the apparently well planned and executed crossing of the Suez Canal by Egyptian forces, Mohammed El Zayyat, Egypt's representative at the United Nations replied: "What do you think we have been doing all this time?" Clearly, the Egyptian armed forces was prepared with a contingency plan should Israel launch a new war. It was this plan that was put into operation when the attack was made against Ain Sukhna. Because of this and because the Egyptian people are determined to regain their own territory of Sinai, Egyptian forces have once again raised the Egyptian flag over the occupied Sinai peninsula.

The Arab governments have consistently demanded the return of their lands seized by Israel in the aggression

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of June, 1967. This demand was reiterated in the United Nations resolution of November 22, 1967, unanimously adopted by that body. This action was taken by the United Nations because it was clearly established and ultimately admitted that Israel was the aggressor. The United Nations Charter forbids the acquisition of the sovreign territory of one nation by another through armed aggression.

But the United Nations has been unable to compel Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories of Egypt's Sinai, Syria's Golan Heights and Jordan's West Bank largely because of U.S. government support of Israel.

This intransigence and arrogant disregard for the will of the world community by Israel has left this paper-created state with two friends: the United States and the Republic of South Africa. This explains in part the refusal of the United Nations to interfere with the present conflict. "Let the Arab armies teach the Israeli aggressors and their U.S. sponsors a measure of humility", the world community says secretly in its heart.

The awful loss of life is tragic for the world. But the tragic loss of life through armed aggression did not begin in the Middle East. In the Middle East today it is merely the continuation of the imperialist aggression which began with the European disputes over control of Africa's wealth with World War I and has continued through and included the unsuccessful attempt to conquer or destroy Southeast Asia.

The impending threat to the Wests' oil supply in the Middle East today prevents a reckless move by the U.S. in open and massive support of Israel in the present conflict. Further, the threat to the relaxation of tensions arrived at between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., which essentially supports the Arab position, urges caution on the U.S. administration. For these and other reasons the war is likely to go on for some time in the Middle East.

It is highly unlikely that the Egyptians will be uprooted from their regained positions in the Sinai without massive U.S. military assistance. Peace and justice in the Middle East compels the American people to resist what will be powerful efforts within this country to provide that assistance, and thus ignite a major world conflagration.

-- 13 --

GUINEA'S SEKOU TOURE ON REVOLUTIONARY UNITY - WELCOMES CASTRO, BURNHAM, MANLEY

(Conakry, Guinea - West Africa) - "The most relevant fact in this second half of the 20th century is the class struggle on a universal scale", President Ahmed Sekou Toure told a crowd of 60,000 at a mass meeting recently held in the 28th of September Stadium here.

The meeting was held in honor of three visiting Prime Ministers: Cuba's Fidel Castro, Guyana's Forbes Burnham and Jamaica's Michael Manley. The three were on their way to their respective homes following the recent conference of non-aligned nations in Algiers.

"We revolutionaries know that when we speak of the inevitablility of the victory of the revolution, we should organize ourselves to accelerate it. This is why", President Toure continued, "we should always examine the general situation of the present forces very closely indeed."

The Guinean president then analyzed the actions of imperialism in Africa, Latin America and Asia, stating that in the course of the two world wars imperialism "managed to encircle almost all our planet in an inhuman network composed of sordid interests, of alliances of bandits, of groups of corrupt elements, of military bases, of deceitful agents, of mercenaries of all ilks and also of poor fools."

President Toure said that although it is evident that contradictions exist in the heart of the imperialist system, these don't affect its fundamental unity, which has at its disposal enormous material strength, power of corruption and subversion and aggressive and destructive might, comparable only to its awful barbarity.

In the face of this brutal system, the President continued, the peoples

-- 16 --
that have been exploited and subjected by imperialism belong to a single class which is opposed to the reactionary class of imperialism, its agents and its instruments among the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie. "Only organization and education effectively create class consciousness, as all the peoples victimized by imperialism are not organized and educated as the enemies of imperialism."

President Sekou Toure referred to the existence of the movements of anti-imperialist struggle, progressive parties and revolutionaries, some of whom are even in power. But stated that "everything is going on as if these organizations, the reverse of imperialist organizations, were still unaware that the stuggle which the peoples as a whole are putting up against imperialism is the class struggle on a world scale in its most decisive form."

This situation, he stated, "obliges the revolutionary movements in Africa and America to coordinate their struggle in a joint combat organization … At present we think that while indicating that we are not aligned with respect to imperialism, some of us should go beyond this affirmation and organize ourselves as nations that are aligned in the revolution and against imperialism".

"Imperialism", President Sekou Toure said, "is one. We cannot demolish it as long as we are dispersed -- and even less, remaining neutral between the true and the false, the revolution and imperialism. The Guinean President concluded calling for uniting and organizing solidarity in a common strategy, articulated in regional, continental and worldwide structures.

-- 14 --

EYEWITNESS REPORT OF FASCIST REPRESSION IN CHILE

(Santiago, Chile) - Mass murders, systematic tortures, house-to-house military searches, arbitrary arrests and murders, bodies taken to the crematorium. This is Chile since the coup. A report given to THE BLACK PANTHER by a North American living in Chile tells of this severe repression, the policy of Chile's new fascist military dictators.

Best estimates for the total dead are 10,000, the report says. In the rural areas peasants have been attacked by air and by land, resulting in hundreds of deaths. At the Mapuche Indian reservation, all the male Mapuches the military could catch were killed or severely beaten. These are examples of the kinds of stories half of Chile's people can recount first hand.

Arrests are made on the basis of denouncements by neighbors, for the possession of left-wing literature, for being a foreigner, "or for just about anything". The military government, of course, denies all this. According to the government its coming to power was not a coup, but rather "national reconstruction".

In a futile attempt to persuade the world of the "popularity" of the new regime and dispel the widely held opinion that Dictator Pinochet and his cohorts are the most brutal military junta to have come into power in Latin America's history, the government has sent out eleven so-called national leaders on a world "good-will" tour.

The people of the world certainly won't be persuaded by statements such as one "good-will ambassador", Manuel Valdez, made recently about the philosophy of the new military regime.

"The masses (in Chile)", he said, "have to suffer more pain, hunger and misery before they will understand the need for an intelligent elite to have control over their lives."

This mentality is responsible for the mounting internal opposition and resistance to the regime. The formation of Unified Resistance Commandos carrying out armed resistance and sabotage has been reported. The junta itself acknowledged on October 4, an attack on the national police barracks as well as continuing guerrilla activities. It also announced the arrest of numerous people for resistance and said an armed resistance group had been formed in Santiago by a former member of President Allende's personal guard.

It has also been disclosed that 80 non-commissioned officers of the national police, who resisted the coup, had succeeded in breaking the seige of their barracks to join or form resistance groups. Many rebellions in the army have occurred as well. Many soldiers have been so sickened by the massacres which they have been ordered

-- 18 --
to carry out that they are ready to join the left.

Although many leftist leaders have been executed, the junta admits that it has not captured the major leftist party leaders. But whatever the condition of the Chilean left, Mrs. Hortensia Bussi de Allende, widow of the late president, points out that the people must have the army at their service in order to succeed.

"The people should have been armed", she said, speaking to a Mexican newspaper shortly after the coup. Mrs. Allende said: "I miss the women who have always been firm with the President. Give us arms, they demanded. Now we have seen that the people are really right, because we were unarmed. We were not prepared for the bombings."

Another aspect of the military repression is the campaign against foreigners. The military junta blames foreigners for having implanted Marxism in the minds of Chileans, thereby ignoring the 50 year history of Chilean Socialist and Communist parties. Many Latin American political exiles had sought refuge in Chile.

Informed sources reported that Brazilian intelligence agents have recently arrived in Chile. The instruments of torture perfected by the Brazilians with U.S. aid are now to be used in Chile. In an attempt to defend Chile's foreigners, the head of the United Nations Commission for Refugees has arrived here, however, little help is expected from him.

-- 14 --

Africa In Focus

SOUTH AFRICA

Even South Africa's hand picked Black "leaders" of the reservation type "homelands" of apartheid are showing some measure of independence. "Chief Minister" of the Zulus Gatsha Buthelezi, "Chief Minister" of the Transkei, Kaiser Matanzima and the "Minister of Justice", George Matanzima have all publicly called for the release from imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, leader of the banned African National Congress, his colleague Walter Max Sisulu and Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, leader of the banned Pan Africanist Congress. The three are serving life sentences for nationalist activity.

UNITED NATIONS

The Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its 92nd session recently has decided to associate UNESCO's activities with every African liberation movement recognized by the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

SOUTH AFRICA

The United Nations Special Committee on Apartheid has urged U.N. Secretary General Waldheim to use all means at his disposal to achieve an inquiry into the police killing of 12 Black miners at the Carltonville gold mine last month. The committee suggested that non-governmental organizations associated with the U.N. should be invited to join in the inquiry and also that a representative be sent to South Africa. Mr. Nzo Ekangaki, Administrative Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity commenting on the killings told a press conference at U.N. headquarters that the greatest single obstacle in bringing justice to South Africa was the uncooperative and at times hostile attitude of the Western powers, notably the U.S., Britain, France and the Republic of Germany.

ETHIOPIA

The Ethiopian government is maintaining, for political reasons, a silence on the 50,000 victims of starvation there. Starvation is wide spread because of a drought and the feudal structure of agriculture. The Ethiopian Coptic Church, a tool of the feudal oligarchy, explains the starvation as "the punishment of God for the sins of humanity".

-- 17 --

EMTERTAINMENT & SPORTS “KIND & USUAL PUNISHMENT”: BY JESSICA MITFORD: REVIEWED BY VACAVILLE PRISONERS

A book about prisons should be read by the masses, in general, and all progressive groups and organizations concerned with prison reform in particular. Kind & Usual Punishment (The Prison Business), written by Jessica Mitford must be read by all decent forces concerned with the transformation of the "Clockwork Orange" practices now common in America's prisons and so-called "correctional and medical facilities".

This work is a tour de force on the "1984" conditions of prisons, the keepers and the kept in present-day society. While it includes historical perspectives of the origin and intent of prison as a social institution, it is nonetheless apocalyptic in its revelation of the modern scientific methods of control and exposes the medical means of repression.

KNOWLEDGEABLE MATERIAL

This author gained her knowledgeable material not only from prison officials and prisoners but supports her candid information with her own "workshop" experience as an inmate in a women's jail. The example of her undaunted action should be employed as the method of inquiry by all seeking to uncover the atrocious nature of prisons. For even her eyeopening accounts must necessarily fall short of the shocking accuracy in the actual experience of discovering first-hand that science and technology have made of prison a "concrete test-tube" filled with involuntary guinea pigs and victims of psychological and biological warfare.

In the past, works on the business of prison could be limited to political and economic manipulations, exploitation of prison labor, and inhumane practices of abuse such as beatings, poor medical care and bad food. However, Jessica Mitford's book clearly reveals that no treatise on prisons in 1973 can possibly be complete and up-to-date without dealing with the scientifically modernized versions of these conditions and practices as they are manifested in the forms of menticide and genocide.

For example, political - business pacts involving millions of dollars between prison officials and pharmaceutical companies and medical concerns for the use of prisoners as human subjects (otherwise difficult to find) in extremely dangerous experimentation and research; horrible dehumanizing practices of behavior modification with such techniques as therapeutic violence, aversion therapy (electrical and/or medically induced pain and fear), chemotherapy (drugs that render one to stupor-like helplessness), neurosurgery or "brain lobotomy" (removal of portions of the human brain) and sensory deprivation (long periods of isolated confinement); specially prepared diets of food intended to be as distasteful as possible.

These are the "Clockwork Orangetype" practices that are common in today's prisons, coupled with fraudulent programs such as work furlough, half-way houses, inmate clubs and funds and the deceptive information given the masses by prison officials and politicans. These conditions unfold their own conclusions and manifest implications that make Jessica Mitford's book a prediction of horrors greater than those that now exist.

The author concentrates her attention on the prison system entirely, both at the federal and state level, especially one of its pacesetters, the California Department of Corrections, and specifically, the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, California. Yet, within the confines of CMF there are but two copies of Kind & Usual Punishment which,

-- 18 --
in fact, further evidences the character of its practices in the employment of thought control and its stated policy of attrition.

While interest in reading the book is repeatedly expressed throughtout its fourteen hundred population, the result of such limited (imposed) availability of its keeps its information confined to the source of book reviews and excerpts that can be found in major newspapers and magazines. These articles are passed around among the prisoners for lack of access to the full volume.

In her efforts to distribute her book to the largest possible reading audience, it is hoped that Ms. Mitford will include in her focus the prisoners in the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, as well as other prisons throughout the country.

VOX POPULI (Voice of the People) C.M.F. Population-Vacaville, California

-- 17 --

A's vs MIRCLE METS

(Oakland, Calif.) - Proving themselves not only the "best in the West" but in their league as well, the Oakland A's have culminated a fine baseball season with a convincing defeat of the Baltimore Orioles in the American League playoff series, three games to two. Now, the A's must face the "Miracle Mets", who surprised everyone by leaping from last place to first place in the hectic month of September and then swamping the "Big Red" Cincinnati machine in the National League playoffs.

THE BLACK PANTHER extends its congratulations to both teams in reaching baseball's showcase, the World Series, and places its bet on the Oakland A's to bring home the pennant, proving themselves "the best in the land".

-- 19 --

A PROGRAM FOR SURVIVAL

PEOPLE'S FREE MEDICAL
RESEARCH HEALTH CLINICS

Provides free medical treatment and preventative medical care for the people.

PEOPLE'S SICKLE CELL ANEMIA RESEARCH
FOUNDATION

Established to test and create a cure for Sickle Cell Anemia. The foundation informs people about Sickle Cell Anemia and maintains an advisory committee of doctors researching this crippling disease.

PEOPLE'S FREE DENTAL PROGRAM (Being Implemented)

Provides free dental check-ups, treatment and an educational program for dental hygiene.

PEOPLE'S FREE OPTOMETRY PROGRAM (Being Implemented)

Provides free eye examinations, treatment and eyeglasses for the people.

FREE FOOD PROGRAM

Provides free food to Black and other oppressed people.

FREE BREAKFAST PROGRAM

Provides children a free nourishing hot breakfast every school morning.

PEOPLE'S FREE COMMUNITY
EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM

Provides free job-finding services to poor and oppressed people.

FREE PEST CONTROL
PROGRAM

Free household extermination of rats, roaches and other disease-carrying pests and rodents.

PEOPLE'S FREE PLUMBING
AND MAINTENANCE PROGRAM

Provides free plumbing and repair services to improve people's homes.

DAVID HILLIARD PEOPLE'S
FREE SHOE PROGRAM

Provides free shoes made at the David Hilliard Free Shoe Factory to the people.

PEOPLE'S FREE CLOTHING PROGRAM

Provides new, stylish and quality clothing free to the people.

INTERCOMMUNAL YOUTH
INSTITUTE

Provides Black and other oppressed children with a scientific method of thinking about and analyzing things. This method develops basic skills for living in this society.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER

Provides 24-hour child care facilities for infants and children between the ages of 2 months and three years. Youth are engaged in a scientific program to develop their physical and mental faculties at the earliest ages.

LIBERATION SCHOOLS

Provides children free supplementary educational facilities and materials to promote a correct view of their role in the society.

SENIORS AGAINST A
FEARFUL ENVIRONMENT
(S.A.F.E.) PROGRAM

Provides free transportation and escort service for senior citizens to and from community banks on the first of each month.

INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS
SERVICE

Provides news and information about the world and Black and oppressed communities.

LEGAL AID AND
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Provides legal aid classes and full legal assistance to people who are in need.

FREE BUSING TO PRISONS PROGRAM

Provides free transportation to prisons for families and friends of prisoners.

FREE COMMISSARY FOR PRISONERS PROGRAM

Provides imprisoned men and women with funds to purchase necessary commissary items.

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