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Black Ex - Agent -- Provocateur: “F.B.I. PLOTTED TO ELIMINATE B.P.P. LEADERSHIP”

(Oakland, Calif.) - A Black former agent-provocateur, admittedly employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1968 through 1975 to "inform on and observe the activities of the Black Panther Party," has stated in a sworn affidavit that the FBI plotted "to eliminate local and national leadership of the BPP during the month of December, 1969. The plan was to eliminate all of the national leadership based in Oakland, including the planned assassination of Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and others."

The Black ex-agent, whose identity must remain anonymous at present, due to the fears of federal police retaliation against him on the part of his attorney, Charles R. Garry, asserts that:

(1) The chief of the Los Angeles FBI office, Brandon Cleary, told him that a Black agent-provocateur in Chicago put seco-barbital sleeping powder in some kool-aid he knew Fred Hampton was going to drink the night the 21-year-old BPP leader was slain on December 4, 1969. "The seco-barbital had been given to him by his supervising agent of the FBI."

(2) He provided the FBI with a layout of the Southern California Chapter BPP's office, located at 4115½ Central Avenue in Los Angeles, just prior to a police raid on December 8, 1969. "It was my work and the work of known informant Melvin 'Cotton' Smith which caused the raids to happen," the affidavit asserts.

To corroborate his statement, the Black ex-agent has turned over to attorney Garry several 3" × 5" file cards, each with a set of instructions on them, which he says is the way the FBI contacted him. All the file cards are signed with the name "Will Heaton," once the No. 2 man in the Los Angeles FBI hierarchy.

One of these cards, dated January 15, 1969 reads:

"(name) make sure on the 17th that you are

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on UCLA campus to observe meeting between Panthers and US organization. Make sure to call US."

Southern California BPP leaders Alprentice "Bunchy." Carter and John Jerome Huggins were slain by three members of the Ron Karenga-led US organization at the meeting referred to. The ex-agent has previously declared that he saw L.A. FBI chief Brandon Cleary drive the three away from UCLA in the gateway car.

To further substantiate his claims, the Black ex-agent has provided Garry's office with copies of teletype received by the Los Angeles FBI's "Black desk" from Bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C.

One such teletype reads:

"Re, Raid BPP Headquarters ser Dec. 8. Make sure (name) has layout by Dec. 3."

Two other teletypes list the names of several individuals -- many of whom were Black Panther Party members, but including the names of such prominent activists as Tom Hayden, Herbert Marcuse, Dave Dellinger, Allen Ginsberg -- against whom the U.S. attorney general had approved secret electronic surveillance.

In the sworn affidavit, which is signed on every page, the agent-provocateur states:

L.A. RESIDENT

"1. I was a resident of Los Angeles, California, during the years 1968 through 1975, and became an Intelligence Gatherer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation some time during the fall of 1968. As an Intelligence Gatherer, I was to inform on and observe the activities of the Black Panther Party as it operated in the Los Angeles area during all of 1968 and through all and parts of subsequent years up to and including 1975.

"2. I worked with Brandon Cleary who was in charge of Black radicals for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I am informed and believe that Cleary was the superior to William Otto Heaton and Michael Quinn, named below. To my knowledge, Cleary is still active in that capacity with the FBI in Los Angeles.

"3. I also worked with William Otto Heaton, a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. To my knowledge, Heaton is no longer with the Bureau in Los Angeles, but, is employed by the Bureau in an area near Los Angeles, possibly Van Nuys.

"4. I also worked with Michael Quinn, a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. To my knowledge, Quinn is still a special agent in Los Angeles.

"5. I was paid on a bimonthly basis from some time in 1968 to 1975 in cash by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its agents. I was paid approximately $100 every two weeks for the information I would gather regarding the organizations and individuals, all of the information being requested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My pay increased over the years of my employment for the FBI. By 1975 I was receiving approximately $2,400 per month. Customarily I would telephone Cleary, using the name (deleted), and would arrange to meet in an arbitrary location, a restaurant, bar, street corner, etc.

"6. Very often my work involved the Los Angeles Police Department, specifically, the Criminal Conspiracy Section. I did on several occassions assist Lt. Castretas of the LAPD, Criminal Conspiracy Section and the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States government. I am informed and believe that he is the primary connection between the CIA and the Los Angeles Police Department.

"7. I met with the above named employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, namely Cleary, Heaton and Quinn, on the street, in automobiles, and at the Wilshire Boulevard office (known as the V.A. Center in Westwood) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the 14th floor, during this period of time, and spoke with them on the telephone.

"8. Through information and belief, I have knowledge that William O'Neal lied in his sworn deposition dated January 12, 1974, and in his testimony in the ensuing civil case involving the death on December 3, 1969, of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark of the Black Panther Party in Chicago, Illinois. Brandon Cleary told me that the same William O'Neal had administered the seco-barbitol sleeping powder by placing it in some kool-aid he knew Fred Hampton was about to drink. The seco-barbital had been given to him by his supervising agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"9. I participated in getting the layout of the Black Panther office in Los Angeles, located at 4115 1/2 Central Avenue, plus the simultaneous raids on three to four apartments. These raids occurred on December 8, 1969, and the events resulted in the trial known as the "L.A. 18" trial. It was my work and the work of known informant Melvin "Cotton" Smith which caused the raids to happen.

"10. Through information and belief, I have knowledge that the same Melvin "Cotton" Smith was an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation from the time he entered the Black Panther Party. This information was given to me by my supervising agent William Otto Heaton.

"11. Through information and belief, I have knowledge that the raids were part of a plan by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to eliminate local and national leadership of the Black Panther Party during the month of December, 1969. The plan was to eliminate all of the national leadership based in Oakland, California, including the planned assassination of Huey P. Newton and Bobby G. Seale, and others.

"12. Through information and belief, I have knowledge that Charles R. Garry received a telephone call from someone claiming to have knowledge that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would soon raid the Oakland offices and kill more of the leadership. Mr. Garry immediately called a press conference announcing the intention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, thus preventing the raid in Oakland, California.

"I certify and declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed February 10, 1978, at San Francisco, California."

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MISTRIAL IN OAKLAND COP BRUTALITY CASE

(Oakland, Calif.) - A mistrial has been declared after the jury deadlocked last Tuesday in the assault trial of three White former Oakland police officers charged in the bloody beating of a 26-year-old Black man.

The mistrial was ruled after the jury, composed of eight Whites and four Blacks, had voted 10-2 to acquit Jack Landeros, and 7-5 to acquit Ted Gully and Melvin Perreira, according to jury foreman Anne L. Beeson, a Piedmont English teacher.

Gully was also charged with a second misdemeanor -- making a false report to his superiors about the incident.

Beeson said the jury was confused about "the time sequence" involved in the incident. Eyewitnesses testified that the ex-cops beat Stanley Hendrix, who subsequently lapsed into a state of unconsciousness, for about five minutes. The defendants, offering police radio communications evidence, alleged that Hendrix was quickly "subdued" in less than a minute.

Municipal Judge Roderic Duncan scheduled proceedings for a possible retrial for March 20, at 1:30 p.m. He also postponed a

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contempt of court decision against attorney James Crew until that date.

The three White cops were fired September 20 by Police chief George Hart after a department investigation of the incident.

The attack took place in the early morning hours of July 18 when Gully attempted to make a "routine" check on Hendrix who was driving a girlfriend home. The Black Ban, who testified, "I was tired of being stopped," led the cops on a high-speed chase before he stopped and was senselessly beaten.

Before both sides rested their cases last week, the jury visited the site of the attack. Defense attorneys called the visit an action that was "irrelevant" to the case and "prejudicial" to the defendants.

Two prosecution witnesses testified during the nine-day trial that they viewed the beating from their nearby apartment windows, aided by the dawn light and an electric light bulb near the arrest scene.

Judge Duncan disclosed last week the names of two citizens who had filed complaints on July 7 against Perreira. The names were taken from confidential files produced under protest from records in the police internal affairs section.

The state charged that the cops "lost their tempers," kicked Hendrix and pummeled him with their fists and a flashlight. The defense contended that following the beating, another police officer, Stanley Lowe, kicked Hendrix in the head -- and that the beating by their clients was conservative by comparison.

FELONY CHARGES

Lowe, an Asian, faces felony assault charges in another case for his part in the incident, while the three White cops stood trial on misdemeanor charges.

A police sergeant called as a prosecution witness declared under cross examination that a suspect, although down on the ground, should be "disabled" quickly by whatever means it takes.

The jury appeared shocked when he added: "If they (the officers) see something in his hands, they had better shoot him and kill him."

The defense contended that the officers had to consider Hendrix armed and dangerous. Hendrix and witnesses testified that the Black man was unarmed and offered no resistance during the attack.

One of the officers on trial disclosed that the entire squad had been commended or its work in the arrest.

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Editorial: BLACKS STILL LAG

The statistics expose the myth of Black progress.

Today, one out of four Black workers in America is unemployed. The rate is 40 per cent for Black youth. Forty-eight per cent of Black families have only one wage earner, with 39 per cent of them women. The annual median family income for Blacks is a scant $9,252.

While Blacks in their mid-20's generally have completed an average of almost 12 years of school, a recent test revealed that 42 per cent of 17-year-old Blacks are illiterate. Black college enrollment has more than doubled in the last decade, but 80 per cent of Black students attend two-year community colleges or traditionally Black colleges.

The rise of the Black middle class has been widely publicized by government officials and White sociologists. Yet, in the words of the New York Times, "For every Black who fights to the top, another is stuck at the bottom." And let it not be forgotten that those "stuck at the bottom" far outnumber those who "fight to the top."

The very fact that Blacks have to fight in order to provide their families with decent housing, food, clothing and education underscores the shakiness of the Black middle class's position. Malcolm X once said, "A nigger with a Ph.D. is still a nigger" -- as far as White society is concerned. Today's $20,000-a-year Black executive may be in the unemployment lines tomorrow due to the racism of this country's job market.

Reflecting on the decade since the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders issued its findings on the causes of the 1967 urban Black rebellions, the National Urban League's report on The State of Black America 1978" notes:

"For a moment, the American people seemed to listen to the cries of pain and anguish that rolled up from the streets of Detroit and Newark; for a moment, there seemed to be a stirring of conscience throughout the nation…" But in 1978 "the picture…of Black America is a somber one…clearly warning that the absence of the violence that aroused and alarmed the nation a decade ago should not be interpreted as a sign that all is well in Black America."

When will it be well?

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COMMENT: Disabled Vet Remembers 10 Years After Tet

The following commentary is written by Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran and author of Born On The Fourth Of July, a stinging indictment of this country's treatment of disabled Vietnam veterans.

It is the morning of Jan. 20, 1978. I couldn't sleep last night because today is my anniversary. It was 10 years ago on this day that I was shot and paralyzed in Vietnam.

Even after 10 years it is still hard to forget that day. I get up, dragging my body into my wheelchair by the side of my bed as I have done every day for 10 years.

I cannot hold back the memory of that day in the war any longer. Images come flashing back into my mind. I remember the sun is shining and there is an argument with the major whether or not we should wear flak jackets and helmets. My team is used to going out very light with a minimal amount of equipment, but the major says it is bad up north and finally we agree with him, cross the river with the others and march north through the sand in the terrible heat, holding our rifles tightely in our hands, our helmets and flak jackets weighing us down, bending us over like men in a gale. Like a mob of armed men we cover the beach, hundreds of us dragging ourselves north. Where a lieutenant and his men were ambushed and killed the day before.

At noon we are suddenly ordered to turn back. The men are angry and curse the order openly. There will be no time for rest, no stopping for chow. We are going back, turning around, moving in the heat from where we came, back to the northern bank of the river. Someone says a squad from the South Vietnamese Army is pinned down and needs our help. I can hear the rounds going off south of us, by the river, like strings of fireworks, and the pop of the mortars coming out of their tubes and crashing into the

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ground.

We are riding on top of the Amtracs (amphibious tractors), their enormous engines roaring and backfiring in the sweltering heat of the afternoon.

The men all around me have suddenly become strangely silent. The laughing is gone and there are no more jokes. The tracs have stopped. We are at the river, and the men begin climbing down from the tops of the Amtracs, jumping off the sides, hitting the sand with their jungle boots. I hear the sound of their weapons locking and loading, slamming the bolts shut, chambering their rounds, the clicks of their safeties going off. My heart beats faster now.

We are moving. Seven of us in a perfect line, sweeping toward the village across the wide and open area of sand. We will be the point of the attack for the captain and the battalion behind us. Others already forming will sweep south from the graveyard north of village. It all seems so incredibly easy. We move through the sand slowly with our weapons at the ready.

I feel the small Bible in the top pocket of my utility jacket and touch the rosary beads around my neck. I kiss the crucifix, saying a short prayer to myself that I may make it through the attack alive. We are halfway across the open area.

Suddenly there is firing coming from the graveyard. The company is getting hit. There are loud cracks and explosions of automatic-weapons fire coming from the village, raking the men on the Amtrac. They are like tiny toy soldiers now, running and crawling in panic for cover. I stand suddenly frozen with the six other men detached. We are watching it all silently.

Then, suddenly, rounds are cracking all around my head. We are getting hit. I fire back, full automatic bursts, into the village. Some of the others run for the tree-line near the river diving for cover. I keep moving forward, changing magazines, dropping empty ones into the sand, firing again and again. There is nothing to shoot at but I keep firing anyway, rounds still crackling around my head and ripping into the sand all around my feet. I keep firing from my hip, standing up, then take a round in my foot.

There is a sudden shock. I feel that for a moment in the war time has stopped. I am hit. My leg is numb. I can't feel anything from my knee down. I look at my foot. There is a gaping hole in the back of my heel. I think of running back, but I stay there out in the open with the bullets still cracking around my feet.

I cannot retreat. I fall into a prone position. I am trying to fire my rifle but it is jamming -- filled with sand. I try to put a round into the chamber fire it one at a time, but it is all useless. I am caught out in the open with a rifle that no longer works. There is nothing left, but to get out of here. I start to get up. A loud crack explodes next to my right ear. A bullet tears through my right shoulder and lung, smashing into my spine, slamming me backwards, my face in the sand.

VOICE

I can hear the voice of a man coming up from behind to save me. "Are you hit sarge. Hey, sarge, are you okay?" Then the crack of the bullet through his chest. He cries out, twists and falls behind me on the legs that I can no longer feel, moaning softly like a child, then dying as rounds still crack above our heads.

Someone else is now coming up from behind. I shout for him to get away. I shout again and again. He's coming anyway. A tall Black Marine grabs me with his enormous arms, sweeping me up in one smooth motion of his shoulder.

He's got me now. I'm getting out. Oh, Jesus, I'm getting out of here. More rounds cracking above our heads. The Black man curses as he turns and runs with me toward the rear. The sky and the sun, the earth all swirling now, my body bouncing and jangling like a puppet. We roll and dive, twisting through the sand -- the deafening cracks bursting all around us. We are moving back, I am going to live.

The Black marine throws me into a hole in the sand. I am safe. In the hole the bullets won't hit me anymore. After dropping me, the tall Black Marine disappears. His work is done. I will never see his face again. I will never know who he is. But that doesn't matter. The only thing that is important is that I am alive.

Now, as the attack dies down. I quietly wait in the hole. There is no reason for me to panic or get excited. I must try to live. I am helpless, there is nothing I can do but wait it out. I try to calm myself, sucking the air in slowly. Someone will come soon. I'm sure, and get me out of this hole and back across the river.

They come, quickly laying me on the stretcher. They must strap me down because me legs keep flopping off. They put me into the Amtrac cramming me in with scores of other wounded men. A man with his intestines spilling out into his hands cupped below his waist, trying to shove them back inside, crying for someone to help him. A man without a leg. A young boy without a face, waving his hands wildly in the air screaming, as we move back across the river.

LAST RITES

I'm in the intensive-care ward in Danang. I am given the last rites by a priest, and the doctors tell me that I will never walk again. All around me I see others wounded: some without legs, a boy without arms.

A young Vietnamese baby who has been burned by our napalm. Men with their brains blown out -- living vegetables fouling their clean white sheets. A Korean civilian who has lost both legs and an arm. I watch him die, swinging his remaining arm crazily over his head. A Green Beret sergeant who screams each night deliriously for his mother. He will die of spinal meningitis. I watch a Black pilot go into convulsions next to me, his body bloating up beyond recognition.

It is all a nightmare and each day I try to survive. I dream of my backyard and my mother and father, my family back home. There is no time in this place, only the lights that are bright and always on. I keep asking for the morphine shots which bring me the darkness and numbness of sleep, where I can forget the madness and pain all around me, and that my body will never feel or move again.

The expressionless faces of nurses and doctors, the priests and the U.S.O. workers, the dead, with the sheets over their young faces, being carted out again and again, the new wounded beginning to come into the ward and more and more each day like a flood. Head wounds, leg wounds, amputations, napalm, boobytraps. It is the beginning of the Tet offensive.

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FORMER SAN FRANCISCO F.B.I. CHIEF SPEAKS TO RIGHT-WING GROUP: “I'M PROUD I HARASSED THE B.P.P.“

(San Leandro, Calif.) - Charles Bates, former high FBI official, has no regrets about his role in the Bureau's COINTELPRO operations against the Black Panther Party. "I'm proud I harassed the Black Panther Party," Bates told the 7th annual midwinter luncheon meeting of the ultra-conservative Citizens for Law and Order, convened in San Leandro, an Oakland suburb, on February 24th.

Bates was reacting to the Black Panther Party's $100 million lawsuit against the FBI, CIA and other federal intelligence agencies for their campaign to "discredit, disrupt and destroy" the Party. Counterintelligence operations against the Black Panthers began in March, 1967, and have continued to the present.

Bates, the former head of the San Francisco FBI office, was field director of COINTELPRO actions against the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area between 1967 and 1975, except for a brief period in 1972 when he was recalled to Washington to direct the FBI's initial cover-up investigation of Watergate. In 1975, Bates, a 31-year FBI veteran, "retired" to become investigations director for the private Burns Detective Agency.

Characterizing the Black Panther Party as a "terrorist" organization, Bates told his audience that, "we're not in this business to play by the rules." Bates added a quick rationale for this FBI lawlessness -- "Soviet KGB activities in this nation." He did not bother to explain the connection between supposed Soviet espionage and Black Panther Party community organizing activities.

As Bates spoke, his all-White audience of 175, nearly all over 50, munched on the leftovers of their meal (fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green peas). The Citizens for Law and Order (CLO) is a Bay Area organization which agitates against "lenient judges" and endorses conservative political candidates. Bates himself is on the executive committee of the CLO branch in San Mateo county.

The electoral push of CLO is strong. In his opening remarks, CLO president Earl Hunting complained about Oakland's new mayor, who he described as "that lenient judge, Lionel Wilson, who just fulfilled his campaign promise of forcing Oakland's fine city manager out of office." Hunting rhetorically asked whether Oakland police chief George Hart would be fired next.

Hunting also denounced the "infamous Peralta Collese District decision," which allowed Huey P. Newton to teach a class. This elicited audible grumblings by his listeners. Hunting called for an "aroused citizenry" to force the Peralta board to reverse its decision.

Bates did not restrict his fire to the Black Panther Party. Denouncing current elected officials in Sacramento and Washington, he complained, "There are very few people in Washington with guts." He was particularly bitter about the Justice Department and Senator Frank Church's Senate Intelligence Committee.

Bates recounted how FBI officials reacted to FBI Director Clarence Kelley's public apology for the Bureau's illegal activities during the COINTELPRO years. All of the station chiefs from FBI field offices across the country met in Washington and, as Bates described it, "violently opposed Kelley."

In Bates opinion, federal officials have been "treating police and intelligence agencies in an ungrateful, shoddy fashion." But Bates let it be known that the

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professional secret police will disregard any efforts to curb their activities.

"I still consider myself part of the FBI," the supposedly retired Bates stressed. "It is my FBI. Before they tear it down it will be over my body."

As his audience was served dishes of strawberry ice cream. Bates stepped up the tempo of his address. "I am all for the death penalty and always will be."

Then: "We should have restrictions on freedom of the press -- and restrictions on the actions of federal judges."

APPLAUSE

But the line which gained the most applause was Bates' anecdote of a New York judge who stepped off the bench during a sentence hearing, punched the defendant in the face, and then kicked him as he doubled up on the floor.

The audience loved it.

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COURT RECORDS VERIFY “PANTHERGATE”: Huey Receives Death Threat

(Oakland, Calif.) - Three East Bay media outlets received anonymous telephone calls last Monday afternoon announcing death threats against Black Panther Party President Huey P. Newton.

"Bones are in the pot, African style," an anonymous caller told Berkeley radio station KRE. "Newton will never teach at Merritt."

A Black male caller told Oakland radio station KDIA he was "a conduit" delivering a message from the "United Black Revolutionary Front."

However, the person calling Oakland TV station KTVU said the threat came from the "United Black Revolutionary Army."

Huey was variously maligned as a "sellout" and "a traitor to the Revolution."

Meanwhile, a review of court documents substantiates charges of a "Panthergate" cover-up by the Alameda County District Attorney's office of crimes committed by a key prosecution witness in exchange for her continued false testimony against the BPP leader.

At a press conference held on the steps of the Alameda County Superior Court on Friday, February 24, Huey and his attorney, Sheldon Otis, blasted the D.A.'s office for refusing to sign a complaint against Ms. Raphaelle Gary, a.k.a. "Crystal Grey," after she first claimed to have shot a reputed drug dealer in an argument, but later retracted her statement after she flunked a lie detector test.

Ms. Grey, an admitted prostitute who claims to be a witness to the murder charges against Huey, has a long history of being aided by the D.A.'s office since she was recruited in 1974 into the case. A review of court transcripts from Huey's November, 1977, preliminary hearing reveal that Ms. Grey:

- Admitted calling Assistant D.A. Tom Orloff, the prosecutor in the case, for help following an April, 1977, arrest on a 1975 felony prostitution charge, a failure to appear in court and a parole violation for two prior convictions.

- Claimed she didn't think a "deal was made when the case went to court in July, 1977, (shortly after Huey's return) and she was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct (one year probation), with the two "priors" dropped.

- Admitted she again contacted Orloff when she was arrested in July, 1977, in Emeryville on charges of receiving stolen goods.

- Admitted that after her phone call to Orloff, she and her companion, Mosell Mitchell -- who last week was arrested on attempted murder charges for the crime Ms. Grey said she committed -- were released from jail on their own recognizance, the initial $3,000 bail being dropped.

Ms. Grey is not the only person aided by the D.A office in return for their testimony against Huey.

Another alleged eyewitness in the case. Michelle Jenkins, was arrested for prostitution in San Francisco just two days prior to her testimony at the preliminary hearing. She admits calling Orloff and being immediately released on O.R. despite previous convictions.

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PROJECT ORGANIZED BY DAPHNE MUSE, CONCERNED FOR BLACK CHILDREN: RARE BLACK BOOKS ON EXHIBIT AT MILLS COLLEGE

(Oakland, Calif.) - Mills College instructor Daphne Muse was browsing in a used book store in Berkeley when she found a first-edition copy of a rare, out-of-print anthology of short stories, essays and poems by Black American authors.

Muse had been collecting books for a long time and she had been searching ten years for the anthology, Negro Caravan, whose value she estimates to be about $100.

She could hardly suppress her glee in purchasing the book for $5 from the unwitting owner.

The book is now part of an unusual exhibit -- inspired by Ms. Muse, English and Ethnic Studies instructor, and others on the Mills campus -- of old and rare books by Black writers. It and 124 other volumes will be on display through March 13 in the Bender Room of the Mills College library in Oakland.

The exhibit contains mostly first-edition works, many of them signed by their authors, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The oldest book in the collection was published in 1850. It is a narrative of the life of an ex-slave named Isabella who was emancipated in New York in 1828 and took the name Sojourner Truth.

There are both popular and lesser-known works by widely acclaimed writers such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Countee Cullen.

The exhibit also includes the obscure and familiar works of authors Mercedes Gilbert, an actress who appeared in the movie Green Pastures, and Frances E.W. Harper, whose novel published in 1892 was one of the first by a Black American woman.

Ms. Muse said she decided about two years ago to organize the showing because of the dearth of knowledge about Black authors she found among her students.

"One of my personal objectives is to have people understand that Black people have been literate for a long time," she said.

"When I made references to books by Black authors (in my classes), my students queried me about whether these people really existed or whether I conjured them up in my mind."

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SMALL GROUPS

Introducing the exhibit to a small group last Thursday, Ms. Muse commented, "We can no longer allow our children to be misinformed of destroyed by the racism that runs rampantly through the pages of our children's literary diets. We must have relevant literature which allows our humanity to emerge … past narrow-minded stereotypes."

Some topics, such as protest themes, are prevalent in books of every period represented in the collection. But some themes are more common in a particular era.

Several works of fiction deal with the emotion-charged subject of fair-skinned Blacks passing for White, a common topic in books from 1900 to the 1930's.

Many of the works were loaned by Bay Area collectors.

Several are from the collection of Eugene White, a retired military veteran, who has a library of 3000 volumes by Black authors in his East Palo Alto home.

A few are from Ms. Muse's own collection of 700 books by Black authors that include 100 she considers unusual or rate.

Although the exhibit is almost exclusively a showing of works by American writers, a handful are by Caribbean authors.

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Move To Ban Tarzan From Bay Area TV

(Oakland, Calif.) - The African Scientific Institute here is initiating a petition campaign demanding the discontinuation of the Tarzan series on Bay Area TV.

According to Carlos Jones, public relations director of the African Scientific Institute (ASI), the character of Tarzan has "done more to degrade Blacks than any other character that I know of in the American mind, for both Blacks and Whites."

Jones adds: "Psychologically this White 'lord of the jungle' satisfies many yearnings and prejudices White Americans harbor in regards to Black people.

"In Tarzan movies Blacks were and still are cast as being stupid, child-like, animal-like and totally without any purpose, without the direction of Tarzan. Africa, the homeland of Black Americans, is shown as jungle, animals and diseases. It is extremely difficult for a Black child to have any type of pride in his or her African heritage, if he or she sees their people as weak and dependent upon the guidance of the White man," Jones said.

Many TV stations have discontinued regular Tarzan series, but not in the Bay Area where the Tarzan series is aired on Channel 44, Saturdays, at 10:30 a.m. and on KTVU Channel 2, Oakland, at 1:00 p.m. Saturdays," Jones.

He said interested persons should write ASI at: P.O. Box 12161, Oakland, Ca. 94604.

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This Week In: Black History

March, 1963

Emancipation Proclamation protests throughout the U.S. began with a massive voter registration campaign in Greenwood, Mississippi, in March, 1963.

March 9-15, 1965

Three White Unitarian ministers were savagely beaten by racists on March 9, 1965 while participating in a civil rights march led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. James J. Reeb, a 38-year-old White Boston minister, was critically injured and died in a Birmingham hospital on March 11. Over 2,000 mourners held a memorial service on March 15 under protection arranged by a federal judge.

March 13, 1965

On March 13, 1965, the head of the Alabama Highway Patrol, Colonel Al Lingo, admitted that Jimmy Lee Jackson, who was found dead after being clubbed and shot on February 26, 1965, was killed in Marion, Alabama, by a state trooper.

March 8, 1971

FBI files stolen from a Pennsylvania office in November, 1970, and released to the press on March 8, 1971, revealed that J. Edgar Hoover ordered an investigation of all groups "organized to project the demands of Black students, because they posed a threat to the nation's security and stability."

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JUDGE McM. WRIGHT: Police Attack Return Of “Turn 'em Loose Bruce”

(New York, N. Y.) - The Transit Patrolmen's Benevolent Association said last week that it would file a complaint against a Black judge because he dismissed charges against a suspect in a case involving an alleged attempted robbery.

Judge Bruce McM. Wright returned last week to Manhattan Criminal Court for the first time since December, 1974, when, in what he describes as "banishment," he was transferred to Civil Court. In the years preceeding that transfer, Judge Wright had become the most controversial judge in the city and had been nicknamed "Turn 'em Loose Bruce" by the predominantly White Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which was infuriated by a series of cases in which he set low bails.

The suspect in last week's case, Lance Manley, 18, had been arrested by a transit police decoy team. The police charged that Manley had tried to remove a wallet from the satchel of an officer posing as an elderly man.

According to the district attorney's office, which defended Wright's decision as "within his right," there had been major discrepancies between the officers' written affidavits and the testimony they had given at a pretrial hearing.

Wright, 59, said that his return to Criminal Court was a result of a "legal battle in the federal court to expose the discriminatory and wrongful motives of those in the judicial administration who

-- 25 --
sought…my removal from Criminal Court."

Wright's lawyers charge that the move was made because some of the stat' stop judges were about to be questioned in pre-trial proceedings related to Wright's lawsuit, whose chief demand was his return to Criminal Court.

The original transfer caused an uproar in the legal community. The City Bar Association, in a report highly critical of the state's chief judge, Charles Breitel, and his top aides, called for the immediate re-transfer of Wright.

Wright said his transfer was "instigated" by Judge Breitel, "Because of his displeasure with my bail decisions and my criticism of the judicial system as racist."

Wright's first and most controversial bail case involved a man who had been convicted of shooting a policeman five years ago. The defendant, Joseph Gruttola, had twice been released on case bail of $500 by Wright.

Former Mayor John Lindsay expressed "dismay" at the low bail, and Mayor Koch, who must decide if Wright is to be reappointed in 1979, joined in the chorus of criticism at the time.

Last November, an appeals court upheld the conviction of Gruttola, but three of the seven judges, sharply criticized the police and strongly suggested that the wrong man may have been arrested an convicted.

-- 5 --

“THE GLASS IS HALF FULL AND HALF EMPTY”: DESPITE GAINS, BLACKS STILL LIVE IN POVERTY

(Washington, D.C.) - Despite important economic gains made among Black Americans in the last decade, "The glass is half full and half empty. For every Black who fights to the top, another is stuck at the bottom," the New York Times reports.

Pointing out the fallacy in the widespread belief among White Americans that Blacks are making major progress (see last week's issue of THE BLACK PANTHER), the Times notes:

"[There are] two faces of Black America today…One group is rapidly acquiring more education, better jobs and higher income; another remains mired in poverty, an unyielding 'underclass' with few qualifications and little motivation."

In 1976 -- 10 years after the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders issued its report -- Black families in America had a median income of $9,252. In that same year, 30 per cent of all Black families earned $15,000 or more. Only two per cent were at that level in 1966.

Thirty-one per cent of all Black people were living below the poverty line in 1976 as opposed to 42 per cent 1966, Black families headed by women numbering 36 per cent in 1976, had a poverty rate of 55 per cent. A decade ago the poverty rate was 65 per cent.

While Whites are quick to point out the minimal gains made by Blacks -- Black women clerical workers now earn 99 per cent of the average salary for their White counterparts, for example -- the gap between Whites and Blacks continues to widen.

The median Black family income of $9,252 is only 60 per cent of the average White family median income of $15,537.

In the area of health care, Blacks are twice as likely to die of diabetes and seven times as likely to be victims of homicide than are Whites.

Black Georgia state Senator Julian Bond said on a recent Public Broadcasting System (PBS) program: "…although undeniable progress has been made in this country on the question of race over the last 77 years,…the country must be reminded again and again and again that things aren't what they should be."

Unemployment for all groups varies according to the business cycle, but over the last 10 years the rate for Blacks has consistently been twice as high as that for Whites.

At the end of last year, the jobless rate was 6.3 per cent for Whites, 13.2 per cent for Blacks.

-- 21 --
For White teenagers it was about 15 per cent, for Black youth, about 40 per cent.

Analysts generally agree that a large part of the unemployment problem in the Black community is structural, and not easily solved by an upturn in the economy. Many jobs, from assembly lines to corner groceries, are leaving the inner cities for the suburbs, and many Blacks do not have the education to compete for the technological jobs.

Like many other Blacks, Representative Parren Mitchell believes that racial discrimination still influences hiring practices. "It's a more subtle form of racism, that's replaced the more overt, naked forms," he said.

Younger working Blacks are moving steadily into better jobs. In a recent study, the Congressional Budget Office noted that, as of 1974, 32 per cent of all Black workers held white-collar positions, up from 14 per cent in 1959. In the same period, the percentage doing domestic household work had dropped from 15 to 5.

Among better paid workers, the gap between Blacks' and Whites' income narrows. In 1974, the median income for Black male professionals was a low $11,088 or 82 per cent of the figure for Whites. For Black female professionals the median was $8,376, or 15 per cent more than for comparable White women.

On the other end of the spectrum, the poverty rate for Blacks is generally put at more than three times that for Whites.

Another key variable in Black income is family status. The number of Black households headed by women spurted to 36 per cent in 1976, as opposed to 11 per cent in the White community.

And 17 per cent of all Blacks living in families headed by men were below the poverty line, as opposed to 55 per cent in families headed by women.

Jobs and income are closely related to education, and it is in this area that Blacks have made their biggest strides. In 1973, Blacks in their mid-20's had completed an average of almost 12 years of schooling, only one year less than the Whites and an increase of four years over Blacks in the '50's.

-- 5 --

Racist Hastings Admissions Policy Protested

(San Francisco, Calif.) - Minority students and numerous supporters staged a two-day boycott last week at Hastings College of Law, breaking up a faculty meeting last Friday, protesting a new admissions policy which will seriously threaten the goals of the school's minority admissions program.

Over 70 per cent of the school's 1,500 students stayed away from classes on Thursday and Friday of last week to demand that Dean Marvin Anderson, the operating head of the school, overturn a blatantly racist faculty decision which reduces the voice minority students have on admissions to the school.

Representatives of the Hastings Special Admissions Coalition, which called for the boycott, said the new admissions policy, adopted at a January 27 faculty meeting, "eliminates all student input, White and minority, into the admissions decisions process."

About one-fifth of each 500-student entering class at Hastings is admitted under the program. Black, Latino, Native American and Asian student groups assign representatives to review the files of special admissions students accepted under the program.

Each of these student represenstatives

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comprise half of a two-person, faculty-student reviewing team. In the past, the student member has had veto power over each applicant under his or her consideration. If the faculty member of the team objected to an applicant fovored by the student member the applicant's file was sent to a third person, appointed by the dean, for a final decision.

However, at the January 27 meeting, the faculty voted to strip the student reviewers of their veto power and to replace the arbiter appointed by the dean with a faculty member.

Students point out that the action will surely lead to a decrease in the number of community-oriented students admitted to the elitist, yet publicly-supported, law school. They claim that the faculty favors students with high grades and formal academic backgrounds and is overtly prejudiced against those with community work experience or grassroots political involvement.

DEMANDING

The Hastings Special Admissions Coalition is demanding that the school's faculty and administration:

(1) Restore the student reviewer's veto power and reaffirm the right of minority students to choose these reviewers:

(2) Reinstate "race" as an admissions criteria to determine the extent of disadvantageness;

(3) Place primary emphasis on non-standardized objective criteria in the admissions of minority students; and

(4) Expand supportive services for minority students by hiring a full-time tutorial staff and increasing the amount of financial aid grants and scholarships.

One of the boycott leaders, Peter Speaks, commented, "Race isn't the sole focus. We want to reinstate student input into the admissions process and deemphasize the reliance on the law school admission examination.

"Race should be considered as part of disadvantagement, says Speaks, "but the other factors are equally important."

-- 7 --

CARTER INVOKES TAFT-HARTLEY, CITIES IN TROUBLE: COAL MINERS DEFIANT, TALK TOUGH

(Washington D.C.) - Refusing to yield to White House pressure, striking coal miners overwhelmingly rejected a sellout agreement to end their crippling, 13-week walkout and have vowed to defy strikebreaking provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act invoked by President Carter last week.

"How long can we hold out?" said a typically defiant miner named Angelo DeRaimo. "How long can they hold out? They just want to get us back to work for 80 days so they can build up their stockpiles again. We can't let them do that," said DeRaimo in summing up sentiments voiced in the mining village of Miami, West Virginia.

The 166,000-member United Mine Workers (UMW) union has ignored the 80-day Taft-Hartley "cooling off" period three times in the past. With this fact in mind, the White House has already threatened to call out federal marshalls or the National Guard, while Pentagon sources said military commanders are reviewing contingency plans to use troops in case they are needed to get the mines operating.

BAORD OF INQUIRY

Carter appointed a three-member board of inquiry required by the Taft-Hartley Act and ordered the Justice Department to seek a federal injunction ordering the miners back to work The President's actions came about 18 hours after a union tally showed that a second tentative agreement had been rejected by all but one of the 18 districts by a landside 74,957 to 32,641 margin.

Carter's use of the Taft-Hartley Act was coupled with a threat of contempt-of-court fines and imprisonment for lower-level union leaders and miners who defy a court order. The fines would strike at the heart of the union whose treasury is nearly exhausted.

Carter also persuaded coal owners to give miners who return to work an immediate $1 an hour wage increase that was included in the rejected contract in an attempt to undermine the miners' efforts to keep the mines closed.

The miners will lose their eligibility for food stamps in any "household that has a member in an illegal work stoppage" starting next month, announced Joe Shepherd, deputy director of the federal food stamp program.

A Labor Department source said invocation of the Taft-Hartley Act would be tantamount to calling an impasse in the industry-wide negotiations, opening the way for company-by-company or regional bargaining, a move strongly advocated by the Bituminous Coal Operators Association, the industry's bargaining arm.

Scattered settlements, combined with heavy production of non-union coal, would have a devastating effect on the UMW, which is in open rebellion against its president, Arnold Miller.

The militant miners have twice rejected proposed contracts agreed to and strongly promoted by Miller.

Miner outrage over provisions of the industry's latest offer focuses on disciplinary action against wildcate strike leaders; deductibles of up to $700 a year per family for health care that was previously free; continuation of the disparity between pensions for younger and older miners; and company takeover of the union's trustee-run health care

-- 20 --
system.

According to the Lobor Department, layoffs related to power cutbacks have reached 22,000 nationwide. However, officials predicted that one million people could be out of work by the end of March and 3.5 million by late April.

"I'm really upset because people are down on the coal miners," says Marcia Shields, whose husband, Scott, 27, is a section mechanic at the Raccoon No. 3 mine in Meigs County, Ohio, and an official of a UMW local. "The public thinks the miners are out to make a killing. I don't see it that way."

"We've gone this long, we might as well finish it out," Mrs. Shields said, despite the fact that her family's electric bills are piling up; house payments are overdue; and her husband hasn't received a paycheck in three months.

Striking UMW members received a big boost last week from striking farmers of the American Agriculture Movement who gave away free bags of groceries to miners at a massive solidarity rally attended by over 7,000 people in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, the heart of District 23 of the UMW, one of the largest coal regions in the nation with over 10,000 miners.

Over 200 farmers who participated in the rally came from Missouri and brought food gathered from farms in a dozen states.

"It's all labor organizing and we need to support each other," said Rondal Staples of Utica, who has been a miner for nearly five years. "If we don't get united, all of us are going to be out of it pretty soon."

Meanwhile, in Norton, Virginia, millionaire Jim Brown, whose scab coal shipments have been effectively curtailed by angry UMW members, has hired members of a motorcycle gang called the Fugueros.

Toting rifles, clubs and pistols, they ride shotgun on coal trucks from Brown's non-union firm, the Paramount Mining Corp. Paramount has hired David Martin, 24, and his sidekicks at $50 a day after a number of company drivers quit.

Since hiring the Fugueros, Brown said, none of the shipment of his 20 trucks has been stopped.

-- 7 --

RIZZO LAYS SIEGE: Philly Police Blockade Black Group

(Philadelphia, Pa.) - City authorities here accelerated their efforts to force members of a self-proclaimed revolutionary group to surrender and evacuate the house they have turned into an armed fortress.

At least 50 plainclothes policemen surrounded the house from a distance of 10 or 20 yards last Thursday, waiting to set up a blockade of the immediate area on orders from Mayor Frank Rizzo. The Mayor was waiting for court approval before issuing his order.

The blockade, with wooden police barriers, would isolate the group of about 20 people from sympathizers who have been supplying them with food and other goods since last May when there was a tense but nonviolent confrontation with the police.

The blockade would also include cutting of utilities to the house.

At least a dozen members of the group, which calls itself Move but does not explain the name, are accused of illegal weapons possession as well as breaking health and housing laws.

Move members, who boast that they have rifles and pistols and

-- 8 --
are ready to use them, spent the day cursing the Mayor and the police over a loudspeaker in a carnival atmosphere that attracted several hundred spectators, the New York Times reported.

On Tuesday, the Mayor appeared to have reignited the situation when he said the blockade would force the evacuation of the group.

Rizzo said that the police would not start shooting at the group but added. "If they come out using automatic weapons, that will be the last time they will. They will see more firepower than they've ever seen in their lives. If they fire at any of our police, then we will retaliate."

The situation, which at first seemed to be approaching a possible violent clash, took on an air of confusion as the city attempted to get court approval for its blockage plans.

Mayor Rizzo had announced that the group would have to surrender by 9:30 a.m. Thursday or be blockaded. This resulted in hundreds of people taking boxes of food, clothing and blankets to the group Wednesday and Thursday morning.

The confusion began to amount when the City Solicitor, Sheldon Albert, obtained an order in Common Pleas court authorizing the blackade, which would include the cutoff of a gas, water and electricity to the group's house in West Philadelphia.

But a lawyer for the group, Joel Todd, challeged the order and a State Supreme Court judge ruled that members of Move had the right to attend a hearing before the blockage order could be enforced. The group then demanded that Andrew Young, the chief United States representative to the United Nations, come to Philadelphia to mediate.

When Young did not appear, Move agreed that three of its members would attend the hearing if driven to the court in a city limousine with a promise not to be arrested. Then members of the group decided not to accept the limousine ride and to demand that they be represented at the hearing by one of their jailed members.

The conflict between the predominantly Black group and the city authorities began last May when Move members appeared on a platform behind a thick wooden fence around their house displaying weapons and threatening neighbors. They defied the police to attack.

In recent months, two of the group's members, all of whom have "Africa" for a surname, were convicted in Federal court of making explosive devices at the house.

Since May, the are a around the group's house has been surrounded 24 hours a day by at least 50 plainclothes policemen.

-- 7 --

JOSEPH WALLER IN BAY AREA: Shots Fired At Visiting Black Activist

(San Francisco, Calif.) - A Black political activist currently in the Bay Area on a fund-raising speaking tour charged at a press conference last week that he was the intended target of an assassination attempt.

Joseph Waller, chairman of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP), said last Thursday that two shots from a high-powered rifle were fired at him during a speaking engagement at the Edison School here in San Francisco on February 18, and that 10 days later, on February 27, he and a companion were arrested on the dubious federal charges of passing and receiving counterfeit currency.

"We are convinced that the incidents…are neither coincidental nor unconnected, but are a continuation of the FBI's infamous and illegal counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO," Waller said, "and are designed to smash the reemerging Black proindependence movement and/or assassinate me."

Concerning the shooting incident, Waller said he first noticed an open door at the end of the auditorium, directly in front of the speaker's podium, but disregarded its significance when

-- 10 --
he saw two security moniters moving to close it.

Shortly after, Waller said, two shots were fired from behind the stage.

Waller commented that he is no stranger to San Francisco police chief Charles Grain, since Gain -- whom Waller labeled as a "terrorist" -- was the chief of police in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the APSP maintains its headquarters, prior to coming to San Francisco. Before going to St. Petersburg, Gain was police chief in Oakland, where he overtly instigated attacks against the Black Panther Party.

In his press statement, Waller charged:

"The past attacks by the FBI on Black nationalist organizations generally and our Party in particular are clear and well-known evidence of the FBI's capacity and need, as the arm of the U.S. North American ruling class state, to destroy any effort by African people colonized within current U.S. borders to claim our just and deserving independence from foreign and alien U.S. colonial domination.

"It is also clear to us that the U.S. government depends on secrecy and the ignorance of the people to carry out its murderous schemes against the Black movement and our people, therefore, we are attempting to put out this information before the people and expose this attempt by the U.S. government to smash the movement for political independence and the revolutionary aspirations of our people for peace, dignity and independence in our lifetime.

"We are here to say today that our movement and our people have come too far today to be intimidated by the threat of arrest or even death. The Struggle for independence is just and righteous struggle which can only be satisfied by complete independence for our people and the destruction of the rule for profit by aliens and foreigners."

"This world for African people is one that has our women victimized by forced sterilization, our men, women, and children crushed by unemployment, our leaders assassinated in the streets, our communities terrorized by police, and our youth shoved into the ever increasing numbers of prisons across this country. [We must] rid ourselves of this oppressive government and the bloody system upon which it rests."

-- 8 --

PEOPLE'S PERSPECTIVE

Brooke: "Inner
City Worse"

(Washington, D.C.) - Senator Edward Brooke, the only Black member of the Senate, said last week that the nation has failed to achieve the twin goals of integration and urban renewal as envisioned by the Kerner Commission 10 years ago. Brooke, who was a member of the Commission, cited high unemployment for Blacks, urban deterioration and cutbacks in housing and education programs as factors and concluded, "Certainly the inner city situation is worse than it was in 1968…"

Texas Cop
Gets Life

Waco, Texas) - A federal district court judge here sentenced a former police chief to a life prison term for the brutal shotgun murder or a Chicano man in 1975. Castroville police chief Frank Hayes was given a 10-year prison sentence in 1976, but the rage of the Chicano community over the killing of Richard Morales forced the federal government to ease regulations barring federal prosecution when state trials prove inadequate. Hayes reportedly told Morales just minutes before be pumped a fatal shotgun blast into him, "I've killed me one Mexican. I'm fixing to kill another."

Ban Apartheid
Investments

(New York, N.Y.) - The pension fund of District 1199, the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, AFL-CIO, recently became the first national labor-management pension plan to ban investments aiding the South African apartheid government. Maintaining assets of $236,000,000, the fund joined the growing number of organizations and unions which have decided to withhold all investments from South Africa.

Commando Unit

(Washington, D.C.) - A U.S. commando unit, officially named "Project Blue Light," has been designed by President Carter to act as an antiterrorist force protecting American citizens and investments abroad. The nucleus of the force has been drawn from the Army Special Forces Green Berets and is headed by Col. Charlie Beckwith. Beckwith headed the secret Project Delta guerrilla force during his three Vietnam combat tours.

Benefits For
Domestics

(Sacramento, Calif.) - A new state law, effective as of January 1, 1978, extends unemployment insurance coverage to certain employees who do domestic work in a private home, college club or a local chapter of a college sorority or fraternity. An individual or employing unit who pays $1,000 or more per quarter for those services becomes liable for unemployment insurance contributions and must register with the Department of Benefit Payments.

S.F. Violations

(San Francisco, Calif.) - A recent report released by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Revenue Sharing found that San Francisco had violated federal laws by discriminating against minorities and women and gave the city 30 days to demonstrate that it is moving to correct the violations or jeopardize $18 million in federal funds. The report uncovered numerous practices which constitute discrimination. Among the violations cited were written tests that eliminate 45.6 per cent of the minority candidates versus only 2.8 per cent of the Whites, unnecessary requirements for entry-level jobs, virtually no advertising of available jobs and the disproportionate assignment of minorities and women to low-paying jobs.

Civil Service
Proposal

(Washington, D.C.) - President Carter asked Congress last week to abolish the 95-year-old Civil Service Commission and enact two legislative packages he had proposed. Carter's proposed legislation consists of a reorganization plan and a new Civil Service law to be administered by two new agencies, the Office of Personnel Management and a Merit System Protection Board.

Farmers Fight

(McAllen, Texas) - Members of the militant American Agriculture movement have vowed to continue their fight for better financial returns on their farm produce. A nationwide food strike is planned to show the public the crisis facing small farmers in America. The farmers plan to stop train and truck shipments and already have the cooperation of an independent trucking association.

-- 9 --

K.K.K. Organizing New “Dens” In Southern California

(Oxnard, Calif.) - Describing this community as an "occupied city teeming with illegal aliens to prey on White citizens." California state Ku Klux Klan head Tom Metzger - recently held a meeting here with local bigots in an attempt to start to a new KKK "den".

At a meeting at a local motel Metzger scheduled secret recruitment meetings in the future to get a Klan organization in the area off the ground, continuing a statewide organizing push initiated last year by KKK "Imperial Wizard" David Duke.

According to police, quoted in local papers, the Klan representatives at the meeting appeared to be well-organized and in possession of expensive and technically-advanced "equipment."

"We are encouraging Anglos [Whites] to organize themselves and start sticking together to defend themselves," said Metzger when asked why the Klan had come to Oxnard. According to Metzger, he had found several

-- 25 --
"good organizers" for the future Oxnard "den."

The arrival of the Klan here has angered the Black and Chicano communities of this city. Gabriel Serrano, chairperson of the La Raza Unida Party, has organized an anti-Klan campaign, the United Peoples for Human Rights, to oppose a "racist, Anglo element in Ventura County."

Opponents of the Klan point to the KKK's campaign to physically halt undocumented workers entering the country through the use of a border watch manned by bigots.

Serrano's group is planning to got before the county Board of Supervisors, city councils, and high school boards demanding that they publicly adopt resolutions against the racist KKK organizing efforts.

In a recent public television interview "Imperial Wizard" Duke boasted that "a lot of our people have rifles, weapons and shotguns…so that While people can fight back when the time comes."

-- 9 --

REFUSE TO NAME INFORMANTS: JAIL FOR STUBBORN F.B.I. OFFICIALS?

(New York, N.Y.) - A federal district court judge here has warned the Justice Department that he will consider imprisoning officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or other persons who defied a court order to disclose the names of informers.

Judge Thomas P. Griesa told lawyers representing the Justice Department in a $27 million Lawsuit by the Socialist Workers Party that he would reject government attempts to forfeit the case rather than disclose the names.

"I want to give you advance notice that I will seriously consider contempt or imprisonment of defiant officials," he said.

Griesa was responding to an government lawyer's suggestion that the FBI and the Justice Department might defy court orders as high as the Supreme Court and forfeit all or parts of the lawsuit to avoid disclosing the names of informers without their consent.

This is the second time in a mouth that government lawyers have been in a confrontation with a federal court over disclosure of FBI records.

Attorney General Griffin B. Bell has issued a statement affirming "that it is the policy of this Department of Justice to obey court orders." Bell said, however, that it was important to protect the identity informers.

Judge Griesa strongly criticized the government for filing what be called "incomplete and misleading" answers under oath to interrogatories in the case. He also said that when he reviewed the files of informers working in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) he found that one had reported discussions about this particular case.

Judge Griesa said that the informer records he had reviewed showed that "what they provided the FBI with was a consistent recital of peaceful, lawful, political activities, and a total absence of any criminal activities or plans of any nature whatever."

Over government objections, the judge last week released the transcripts of several sealed hearings on the suit. Leonard Boudin, a lawyer for the SWP, sent the records to the Senate Judiciary Committee so they might be the basis for questioning of Benjamin R. Civiletti, who has been nominated for the No. 2 post in the Justice Department.

"The essence of the situation is this," Boudin wrote in an accompanying letter. "The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department have threatened to defy the Supreme Court should it order disclosure of material from 'confidential informant' files." He called it a "potential Constitutional crisis."

DAMAGE SUIT

Nearly five years ago, the Socialist Workers Party filed a damage suit to prevent the FBI from burglarizing, wiretapping, infiltrating, tampering with the mail or of harassing the group. In 1976, Edward H. Levi, then attorney general, ruled that the SWP could no longer be the target for counterintelligence operations.

The Bureau acknowledged that there were had been 1,300 secret informers in the party over the 40 years of its existence. Fewer than 100 are still in place on the grounds that removing them would identify and endanger them.

On January 27, Judge Griesa said that the intended to make the names and files of nine informers part of the trial record, and presumably public, so the SWP

-- 25 --
could examine their activities as evidence in the case. He did so under his powers to give the plaintiffs in a lawsuit, "discovery" from the records or files of the defendants.

The government said that five of the nine did not want their names disclosed and opposed the judge's plans.

On February 10, Frank Wohl, an assistant United States Attorney, told the Court: "We are very serious when we say that this position at the Bureau is not lightly held. It is not likely at this stage of the case that they would agree to produce the name of any informant whose consent has not been obtained."

If the government forfeited the case, however, any damages assessed and paid to the SWP would come out of public funds.

Last month, a federal judge in Chicago held two lawyers for the FBI in contempt for refusing to turn over records of certain organizations that were the target of FBI infiltration and surveilance. The contempt was later purged when the lawyers compiled with aspects of the order.

Judge Griesa said that in reviewing the files he had found that "commending during the time of this lawsuit was pending, this informant provided the FBI with information about discussions, about the so-called political rights defense fund. This informing went on for a period of 10 months before the FBI said that it should be stopped."

-- 9 --

DRUG ABUSE CENTER FIGHTS SMEAR TACTICS: Synanon Sues Time For Libel -- $77 Million

(Badger, Calif.) - Synanon, the nationally-acclaimed Bay Area drug and alcohol treatment center, has labelled a recent Time Magazine article "the vilest, most contemptible hatchet job in our history" and has filed a $77 million libel suit against the prominent publication.

"It is clear that (Time) intended that readers understand that Synanon has abandoned its charitable. tax-exempt purposes," Synanon said in demanding a retraction last December, "and has become an insane, false and monolithic religion, the adherents of which are treated…inhumanely, forced by the ambitions of Charles E. Dederich (Synanon's founder) into a life of sexual promiscuity."

"Worst of all," Synanon said, Time led its readers to believe "that Dederich actually profited from the death of his wife.

"Through innuendo, twisted statements and outright lies, Time smeared me and the organization I founded, and besmirched the memory of my late wife, Betty," said Dederich.

Synanon had categorically denied various discrediting Time allegations alleged to have taken place within the group such as encouraging wife swapping; withholding food from its members; forcing male members to sterilize themselves; ordering William Dederich to break up his marriage of 37 years; and abusing and isolating its children from the community.

"By deliberately slanting the article to appeal to people's prurient interests, especially the

-- 25 --
ignorant and the sexually maladjusted," said Dederich, "youngsters have been pulled out of Synanon by their parents…Alaska cancelled a $5,000 contract which retained Synanon to inspect and advise the state on its drug addiction programs; at least one major investor has withdrawn a loan"; and "Synanon itself has lost contributors…throughout the United States.

"This is hardly our first brush with this type of reprehensible journalism," said Dederich. "In 1972, the San Francisco Examiner sought to destroy Synanon by labeling us 'the racket of the century.' Their charges were as false and as slanted as the current Time smear."

The Examiner was forced to pay Synanon $600,000 -- the largest settlement ever paid for libel, according to Synanon.

-- 10 --

BEHIND THE WALLS: Jacksonville Inmates Win Suit

(Jacksonville, Fla.) - Inmates Incarcerated in the county jail here won a major victory recently when the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court upheld a lawsuit over abominable jail conditions, stating that the facility was "like a dungeon.

The court found that prisoners were placed in racially segregated holding cells upon arrival at the jail. The cells were so crowded that there was not enough room to sit down, even when eating.

"Vomitus, feces and urine were sometimes on the floor of the cells. At night, inmates slept in their clothes, without bedding of nay kind. On benches or on dirty floors." After a week, prisoners were transferred to cells where "mice and rats were so numerous that inmates passed their idle time trapping these vermin."

The jail was extremely overcrowded, described as "almost shoulder-to-shoulder housing." There were no rules governing prisoner behavior; no hearings were held before punishment.

-- 11 --

H.E.W. REGULATIONS THREATEN BLACK COLLEGES

(Washington, D.C.) - For the past eight years, the survival of Black colleges and universities has been threatened by proposed desegregation guidelines of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW).

The government agency wants publicly-supported colleges and universities to have proper acceptance of White students enrolled in Black institutions and Black students in White institutions so that there would not be a 95 per cent or 96 per cent Black or White student body, the Howard University student body paper, Hilltop reports.

HEW also want to increase the resources and programs for Black institutions and increase the number of Blacks on the faculty and governing boards of White institutions.

Black universities are predominantly located in southern states. Arkansas, Florida and Oklahoma have submitted desegregation plans which have been approved by HEW. However, the plans of Georgia and Virginia have been rejected. North Carolina's plan for desegregation has been partially approved.

The major stumbling block for North Carolina appears to be a requirement that more special degree programs be offered at the Black campuses. HEW said its system must eliminate duplication of courses at the predominately Black and predominately White schools, with the elimination designed to improve the predominately Black school and draw more White students to the Black schools.

State officials of North Carolina argue that placing special degree programs at Black campuses for the sake of desegregation would lead to needless program duplication. As a result of the disagreement, HEW stipulated a few weeks ago that it would cut off as much as $75 million in federal funds if some agreement was not reached soon. However, President Carter said recently that there would not be any massive withholding of federal funds that would hurt all the students in the university system or even a single college.

Many Blacks as well as Whites oppose HEW's desegregation guidelines. Blacks say that they don't want to go to predominately White institutions, and the Whites say that they don't want to go to predominately Black institutions.

Tony Brown, host of Tony Brown's Journal, spoke on the desegregation issue at the National Press Building recently: "Look what happened to Tennessee State University when it merged with the University of Tennessee system in an effort to integrate. Roy Nicks, chancellor of the Tennessee system, said that Tennessee State University would no longer be run by Blacks; and after four weeks, he gave its Black president six months to get rid of 33 per cent of his Black student body."

According to news sources, Black presently make up 7.6 per cent of the faculty at the state's publicly-supported colleges and universities. Most of those faculty members are at the two predominately Black institutions, Norfolk

-- 26 --
State College and Virginia State College which have 97.5 per cent and 97.6 per cent Black enrollment respectively.

Many Blacks of Virginia oppose the desegregation guidelines because they feel that the position, pay and prestige of Black educators would go down.

In developments last week concerning the desegregation issue. Carter and HEW Secretary Califano were criticized by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund for "retreating" on plans to withhold federal funding from institutions in violations of federal civil rights laws.

"That is a civil rights retreat," Joseph Rauh, a NAACP attorney told news sources. "Califano has not complied with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. I think the way to enforce the law is to enforce the law…It's time to stop playing patty-cake with people who violate the law."

According to Rauh, the NAACP has asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to order Califano to suspend aid within 30 days to traditionally White institutions of public higher education in Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina until the states submit an acceptable plan for desegregation.

-- 11 --

Sweeping Cutbacks Endanger Black Historical Research

(New York, N.Y.) - The very ability of many Black organizations and individuals to continue their historical research and dissemination is being challenged by a wave of cutbacks sweeping the institutions that are the pillars of Black historical research.

Efforts to promote the study of Black culture and struggle have a long history. Since 1915, the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History has been one of the strongest proponents of Black history. It was the association that initiated Black History Week, which eventually became Black History Month.

Its founder, Carter Woodson, "always felt there should be no need for the study of Negro history," association researcher Nerissa Milton told the Guardian. "But there should be the study of the Negro in History. But that history has been distorted or omitted from the history books."

Restoring those gaps has been the mission of a number of institutions. One of the largest and most prominent is the Schomburg Center for Black Culture in New York City.

The Schomburg, one of the nation's most extensive Black research facilities, has had to scramble for funds throughout most of its 50-years existence, although it is part of the New York City Public Library system. Last winter, for example, the library was forced to close its doors many days because of leaks, heating failures and other structural difficulties.

"Our existence is a year-to-year thing," a Schomburg employee said. "It's agonizing at times."

These cutbacks erode the accessibility of the materials, which are "in boxes, in bins, under tables, here and there. It's a tragedy," she maintained. Several Schomburg employees have lost their jobs in the fight for better facilities.

A different type of center, the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts, in Boston, has faced equally serious hardships. The Lewis school, which offers courses in Black music, dance and other cultural areas, is considered among the largest of its kind in the U.S. But last year the school was put into temporary receivership because it could not pay its bills. At one point, the institution's debt reached &700,000.

The lack of funding for such facilities is due to racism, one Schomburg employee said. "They don't consider our history worthy

-- 26 --
of the same financing as Lincoln Center (New York City's widely acclaimed performing arts research center) or (the main library) at 42nd Street," she said.

Ima Zawadi of the New Muse Community Museum of Brooklyn told the Guardian, "We don't seem to be important to the people who are on top. We just seem to get the end of things, which is little or nothing." The New Muse serves mostly Blacks and Latinos with workshops and other educational and cultural programs.

The Schomburg has also had to stretch beyond the confines of traditional preservation efforts. According to a Schomburg publication, "The collection policy, simply stated, was to collect materials about Black culture throughout the world wherever Blacks existed."

This may have broad implications since Black history cannot always be found in rare books and manuscripts. Much of it is found in oral accounts, song or through other means.

One folklorist, blues musician John Davis, for example, said that he learned much from children's games. "I learned some of these old Southern games from old performers like Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Island Singers," he said.

"These are many islands off the coast of Georgia and the people are cut off from the mainland. Their culture hasn't changed since the pre-Civil War days and the great thing about their games, like most traditional Black games, is that they are cooperative in nature. In other words, they can't work unless everybody takes part. It's not a case of winning or losing."

-- 13 --

HUEY P. NEWTON TALKS WITH SEVEN DAYS MAGAZINE

The following interview with Black Panther Party President Huey P. Newton is reprinted from the February 24, 1978, issue of Seven Days magazine.

Seven Days: You've said recently that the chief goal of the party today, full employment, is possible under capitalism. In 1969, you didn't hold that view. What's changed?

HUEY: I think it's possible to have full employment under capitalism but it's highly improbable at this time…I think this should be viewed as a tactic, in order to mobilize people. In the process of trying to gain full employment, it's my prediction that the system itself will start to change.

Q: In the Black Panther newspaper, you told readers that jobs "are just the first step." What might the other steps include?

HUEY: Well, I think we have to develop a strong union that's really concerned about the workers and controlled by the people involved in the work…Many existing unions are so much a part of the established system that all they can think of is to keep people out of work for the purpose of raising the salary of the few that are in the organization.

Q: What do you think that a union of a new type should be like?

HUEY: The first thing is that it should start out with a sensitively to other people who are unemployed, with the goal of having (a lot of) participation in on-the job decisions and also social benefits. And I think that that will turn the energies away from the very individualistic thing, sort of like a private fraternity with no political viewpoint other than a higher wage…(Newton also indicated that the Panthers want to work in coalitions with established unions on the employment issue, with a shorter workweek as key goal for opening more jobs.)

Q: Elaine Brown has cited the Panthers' Free Breakfast for Children program as a positive example of how the party has influenced state programs in the United States. Is your primary goal with the survival programs to force the government to provide these services?

HUEY: That's one of the goals…we provide basic services, in order to influence the community as well as force the government to compromise. (We organize) the people in such a way that they will be a power that politicians can't claim for their own, but must listen to.

We're putting a lot of effort into organizing the elderly, providing services for them, and also educating children. We have a food conspiracy now and also a medical program where we send people out to test the elderly for high blood pressure; we take them to hospitals for their appointments, and help them generally with various agencies. We also register them to vote.

Q: Urban League director Vernon Jordan said last summer: "The nation's Black leadership is stronger than ever because of the inroads into corporate hierarchies." Do you agree?

HUEY: No, I think that Black leadership really suffered through the 60s, by assassinations, by jailings, and that Black organizations have generally been dispersed and White progressive organizations are also weaker.

Q: Do you think that men like Jordan and Andrew Young are still able to connect with the masses of Black people in the cities?

HUEY: No, I think it would be difficult…In this country we suffer from class stratification and much of the time political leaders address only a small portion of the people, have an interest that's different from the poorest in the country.

Leaders like Jordon and Young only represent the interests of a portion of the people…We try to carry to demands of not only the "underclass" Jordan speaks of but of Blacks in general who are discriminated against and exploited. So I'm not making a blanket condemnation of their position.

Q: Does the "third party" movement attract the Panthers"

HUEY: I've always been interested in a third party. Until we have a third party that's strong, we have to deal with every institution and (electoral) parties are part of those institutions. We deal with individuals in the Democratic Party as well as in the socialist parties but I think it's essential to start thinking about a third party.

Q: What about Tom Hayden's Campaign for Economic Democracy?

HUEY: I'm impressed by the work of Hayden. I think at this time that it's taking a realistic view of things that can possibly be accomplished, as distinguished from what ought to be accomplished. In our maturity, we must work with concrete conditions, things as they are, and try to develop them in a progressive way…If your ideology is not well developed, then the electoral arena is very dangerous because you become too dependent upon it…I don't think we run that danger because we realize that one politician or one office will not solve the problem.

Q: Do you see any parallels between the strategy of the Eurocommunist movement and some of the things you believe in?

PROVINCES

HUEY: Yes, I do. In many of the provinces they have elected mayors and city councilmen who are socialist and I think it's a good lesson for North Americans…organizing the total community and engaging in electoral politics on a local basis…I think the French and Italians finally found out that they would have to develop an ideology which was home-sprung and that they could no longer follow the dictates of the Soviets as far as strategy that was used in 1917. It's a different place and a different time.

Q: Finally, do you have anything to say about Cuba, after spending three years there?

HUEY: Cuba is a developing country, and the life is very simple -- it's a family life and each family and community of people is aware that their government -- and the Communist Party -- are interested in all the families in Cuba. It was the first time I didn't need to be suspicious of the state administration …It's a life that's free of the need to build all sorts of defense mechanisms and I felt that I didn't have to use my energies to avoid setups, having been accustomed to that all my life here…I felt free and safe and comfortable for the first time in my life.

-- 14 --

Urban League Report cites “Decade Of Lost Opportunities”: “THE STATE OF BLACK AMERICA 1978” PINPOINTS GROWING CRISIS

(New York, N. Y.) - Education, employment, housing, welfare, electoral politics -- down the line, the status of Black people in the U.S. has deteriorated in the last 10 years.

This conclusion by the National Urban League (NUL) was the unifying theme in its 204-page report, "The State of Black America," released last week. The NUL's third such annual report, it is once again a shocking survey of the conditions faced by the country's over 30 million Blacks.

In listing the numerous problems confronting the Black community, the NUL also opened fire on President Carter, concluding that he was a sore disappointment for the Blacks who were so instrumental in giving him his Presidential slot.

The NUL report touched a wide variety of issues. One of its main emphases, however, was on jobs: what is widely viewed as the single, most serious problem facing Blacks. The NUL is noted for its quarterly computations of Black unemployment, computations far more realistic than the government's figures. In viewing 1977, the NUL said:

"Indeed, by some measures, the situation among Blacks in late 1977 was worse than at the beginning of the year." The NUL found that "for the third consecutive year (1975-77), one out of every four Black workers in the nation remained unemployed.

Significantly, the League noted that "Black women in general and Black female family heads in particular are receiving the brunt of the continuing recession/depression."

Despite the populist rhetoric of the Carter administration, the number of poor Black families continues to grow. Few Black families have two wage earners, with only one member able to find work. Although 51 per cent of Black families had two wage earners in 1971 by 1976 the proportion had declined to 48 per cent.

"Thus, a review of the American economy in 1977 reveals a disturbing duality in the pattern of economic progress. Conditions among members of the majority population, while not ideal by any measure, showed evidence of continuing improvement. In contrast, conditions in the Black community showed stagnation and economic decay.

TROUBLESOME PROBLEM

"This duality in economic progress is one of the nation's most troublesome domestic problems, and one that demands a bold and imaginative public policy response," the report said.

The group's extensive report also touched on issues of education, the Black family, welfare, housing and electoral politics. It argued, for example, that new means of financing public education must be found it Blacks are to receive quality education.

"It is estimated that by 1980, 15.4 per cent of the public school enrollment will be Black," the NUL estimated. "But Black Americans are concentrated in comparatively few, poorly financed, urban public school systems."

NUL also stressed the financial difficulties of Black colleges and the inaccessibility of medical, dental, engineering and other professional schools to Black students.

"…Blacks and other minorities." the report further said, "are concentrated in public schools located in cities and the urban areas of this country and these are precisely the areas beset with major problems, among which finance is one. But we must also confront the fact that the education too many children receive in these classrooms is nothing short of a national scandal, an absolute disgrace.

"In too many schools achievement levels are three, four, even five years below the average nationwide. High school graduates are unable to read, write or perform mathematical functions at the sixth or eighth grade level. Many are unable to perform simple, everyday tasks such as filling in an application for employment or writing a simple coherent paragraph."

Regarding the Black family, the League pointed out the strains produced by increasing oppression and financial difficulties. The harassment of Blacks by welfare caseworkers, soaring instances of wife battery, obstacles to caring for Black children thrown up by institutional adoption agencies -- all have taken their toll.

EXTENDED FAMILIES

Among the most significant findings of the NUL study of the Black family is the number of Blacks forced to return to extended families. In 1969, 22 per cent of Black children lived with their mother but not their father in homes headed by other relatives. By 1975, 39 per cent of Black children lived under such arrangements.

"Clearly, increasing numbers of Black women heading families with children found it necessary to move in with relatives, most often their own parents, in order to pool or stabilize their limited economic resources." according to the report.

"Such 'doubling up', however, makes it more difficult for subfamilies with children in these extended family arrangements to qualify for public assistance," the report continued. "Unfortunately, many poor families are unjustly being denied public assistance because they have had to move in with relatives."

In fact, the administration's welfare policies and proposals as a whole were strongly attacked in the report. In a lengthy analysis, welfare researcher James Dumpson criticized inequities inherent in Carter's welfare reform proposals, including the lack of employment rights and welfare proposals and the dead-end nature of the token jobs proposed. Such problems. Dumpson said, make Carter's plan "undesirable."

"A policy that forces a work search for the 40 per cent of Black youth unemployed in the Harlems of this country, in a system that continues to deny them access to the economic structure, is not only immoral but borders on insane social policy development," Dumpson charged.

But this was not the only dissatisfaction

-- 15 --
voiced by the NUL. Repeatedly, it pointed out Carter's shortcomings:

- "Little progress was made [in 1977] in designing new and more effective ways to get at systematic discrimination…"

- "During the summer of 1977…the Department of Labor reported that Black youth participation in summer programs was actually lower than the year before."

- The watered down Humphrey-Hawkins employment bill, supported by Carter in late 1977, "does not contain specific programs to fulfill the promises expressed in the policy declaration."

- "The greatest threat to an effective federal urban and housing program -- and to Blacks in particular -- is the Carter administration's essential fiscal conservatism."

"From the evidence presented, an almost inescapable conclusion emerges -- that this report, "The State of Black America 1978,' could with more than enough justification, be subtitled, 'A Decade of Lost Opportunities' …Opportunities lost in the sense that the momentum to improve the quality of life in the ghettos of America that grew out of the Civil Rights Movement of the '60's, the urban riots that followed, and the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders was allowed to falter and eventually disappear.

"Programs were started, underfunded, and then killed when they did not produce spectacular results. Commitments were made, honored for a short time, and then forgotten. The media gave unaccustomed attention to the condition of Blacks, and then went on to other matters. Almost as quickly as the plight of Black America became a priority item, the priority was withdrawn.

"What is clearly apparent is that the illnesses that afflicted Black communities in 1967 -- unemployment, poverty, alienation, and the entire litany of the endemic problems of the ghetto -- have not cleared up, and indeed, the patient has grown sicker."

-- 15 --

3,500 Attend 5th National People's Congress: NEW CHINESE CONSTITUTION STRESSES ECONOMY AND UNITY

(Hong Kong) - A revised constitution for the People's Republic of China, designed to make the country "a great powerful socialist country by the end of the century," was presented in Peking last week to the Fifth National People's Congress.

The official Chinese agency Hsinhua did not release the text of the proposed constitution -- a revision of the 1975 constitution drafted by the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung -- but rather gave a summary of the address describing the document delivered by Yeh Chien-ying, vice chairman of the Communist Party and vice premier and defense minister of the country.

"In all factories, villages, schools, army units and government organizations, we should establish good order, characterized by stability and unity, which is indispensable for revolution, production, work and study," Yeh declared.

The 83-year-old Chinese official added, "Then the masses of cadres and people can work in an atmosphere of unity, alertness, earnestness and liveliness."

Yeh promised the 3,500 delegates to the People's Congress, who must approve the constitution before it becomes law, that it will include provisions for "developing productive forces at high speed," and that separate articles will concern "vigorously stepping up our scientific and technological work" and improving education.

For the first time since 1959, the opening of the People's Congress, meeting for the first time in three years, was announced in advance. Prior meetings in 1964-65 and 1975 were held in secrecy, their results not being announced until after the close of the Congresses.

Western diplomats believe that in China's push for the "Second Great Leap Forward" -- the campaign to achieve industrial modernization in the next 22 years -- Chinese leaders are seeking to unite the country's 800 million people.

An indication of this new direction is that several authors and performers "disgraced" during the Cultural Revolution have been reinstated and the government is emphasizing everyone's right to criticize their superiors.

One of China's three leading newspapers, the People's Daily, declared that it was "impermissible for anyone to suppress criticism or to retaliate."

Hua Kuo-feng, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and premier of the People's Republic, was in the spotlight at last week's Congress. There have been rumors of a pending shake-up in the party hierarchy, specifically that Hua, 57, is under pressure to yield the premiership to 73-year-old Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping. The twice purged and reinstated Teng is widely believed to be the architect of the country's current modernization drive.

No mention was made by Yeh or in the Chinese press, however, of any major changes in personnel.

Addressing the delegates on the opening day of the Congress -- technically the highest level of the Chinese government -- February 26, Hua said, "The Chinese People's Liberation Army must make all preparations necessary for the liberation of Taiwan (National China)."

"Hua's speech, an upbeat recital of political and economic conditions in China, contained no surprises," the Los Angeles Times reports.

The New York Times reports that Chinese officials have begun to review several cases in which people have been unjustly persecuted for political reasons or abused by corrupt officials. "…Peking's interest lies…in restoring normal, orderly government and regaining popular confidence after a decade of turmoil induced by the Cultural Revolution," the Los Angeles Times said.

Yeh described one of the most significant changes in the proposed constitution, the restoration of the national network of prosecutors's offices that was abolished in 1975.

Called "procurators" in China, the officials "fell into disfavor with Mao's radical followers because they had tried to bring criminal charges against the Red Guards and other leftist elements during the Cultural Revolution …" the L.A. Times reports.

"In view of the extreme importance of fighting against violations of law and discipline," Yeh explained, "the draft stipulates the establishment of people's procurators."

He did not detail their exact function, but if they operate as they did in the 1950's and 1960's, the procurators will issue arrest warrants, decide whether sufficient evidence exists to prosecute and act as an external check on the police.

DEFENSE MINISTER

The Chinese defense minister was critical of the government bureaucracy for ignoring the grievances of the people. He said that the new constitution "sets strict and necessary demands" on govenment personnel, of which "the most essential…is to maintain contact with the masses.

"To maintain contact with the masses, it is necessary to…earnestly heed their criticism and complaints, particularly their criticism of leading bodies and leading cadres. All well-meant criticism from the grass roots… should be warmly encouraged," he said.

On the subject of the country's military, Yeh announced that the constitution provides for the local militia and regional military forces to be combined with the regular army, thereby centralizing control of the armed forces.

-- 16 --

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY PROGRAM: MARCH 29, 1972 PLATFORM: WHAT WE WANT, WHAT WE BELIEVE

1. WE WANT FREEDOM. WE WANT POWER TO DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.

We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our communities.

2. WE WANT FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR OUR PEOPLE.

'We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every person employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the American businessmen will not give full employment, then the technology and means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. WE WANT AN END TO THE ROBBERY BY THE CAPITALIST OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.

We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make.

4. WE WANT DECENT HOUSING, FIT FOR THE SHELTER OF HUMAN BEINGS.

We believe that if the landlords will not give decent housing to our Black and oppressed communities, then housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people in our communities, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the people.

5. WE WANT EDUCATION FOR OUR PEOPLE THAT EXPOSES THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS DECADENT AMERICAN SOCIETY. WE WANT EDUCATION THAT TEACHES US OUR TRUE HISTORY AND OUR ROLE IN THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIETY.

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else.

6. WE WANT COMPLETELY FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE.

We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventative medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give all Black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide ourselves with proper medical attention and care.

7. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER OF BLACK PEOPLE, OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR, ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE INSIDE THE UNITED STATES.

We believe that the racist and fascist government of the United States uses its domestic enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against Black people, other people of color and poor people inside the United States. We believe it is our right, therefore, to defend ourselves against such armed forces and that all Black and oppressed people should be armed for self-defense of our homes and communities against these fascist police forces.

8. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO ALL WARS OF AGGRESSION.

We believe that the various conflicts which exist around the world stem directly from the aggressive desires of the U.S. ruling circle and government to force its domination upon the oppressed people of the world. We believe that if the U.S. government or its lackeys do not cease these aggressive wars that it is the right of the people to defend themselves by any means necessary against their aggressors.

9. WE WANT FREEDOM FOR ALL BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE NOW HELD IN U.S. FEDERAL, STATE, COUNTY, CITY AND MILITARY PRISONS AND JAILS. WE WANT TRIALS BY A JURY OF PEERS FOR ALL PERSONS CHARGED WITH SO-CALLED CRIMES UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY.

We believe that the many Black and poor oppressed people now held in U.S. prisons and jails have not received fair and impartial trials under a racist and fascist judicial system and should be free from incarceration. We believe in the ultimate elimination of all wretched, inhuman penal institutions, because the masses of men and women imprisoned inside the United States or by the U.S. military are the victims of oppressive conditions which are the real cause of their imprisonment. We believe that when persons are brought to trial that they must be guaranteed, by the United States, juries of their peers, attorneys of their choice and freedom from imprisonment while awaiting trials.

10. WE WANT LAND, BREAD, HOUSING, EDUCATION, CLOTHING, JUSTICE, PEACE AND PEOPLE'S COMMUNITY CONTROL OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, when ever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

-- 17 --

Intercommunal News: PATRIOTIC FRONT CHARGES U.S. AND BRITAIN WITH RACISM: AFRICAN NATIONS DEMAND U.N. CONDEMN RHODESIAN PACT

(United Nations, N.Y.) - The African nations last week called on the United Nations Security Council to denounce the bogus Rhodesian "internal" settlement signed on March 3 by "Prime Minister" Ian Smith and three Black sellout "leaders."

Tanzania's chief delegate to the world body, Salim A. Salim, acting as spokesperson for the 49 African member countries of the Council, said that the Smith plan would not end the armed struggle but might widen it by bringing in outside forces.

"We would do anything to block it (the internal settlement), if not here with words, then it will have to be done militarily," Salim declared.

Nigeria was the main force behind the African nations' request for the Security Council meeting on Rhodesia, which began here on Monday, March 6. In a letter the African group explained that such a meeting was necessary because of the "cynical maneuvering" of Smith to secure a "so-called internal settlement."

The African countries are united in their support of the Patriotic Front. Speaking at a press conference in Lusaka, Zambia, Joshua Nkomo, co-leader with Robert Mugabe of the Front, charged that the U.S. and Britain have adopted a racist attitute toward the Rhodesian situation.

"…We are fighting British imperialism assisted by the Americans," Nkomo charged.

At talks held on the island of Malta last month by Mugabe, Nkomo, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young and British Foreign Secretary David Owen, the two Western powers alleged support for the Patrotic Front, and said they would oppose any Rhodesian settlement in which the Front was not included.

Smith's "internal" settlement was made with Black turncoat leaders Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Jeremy Chirau. The Patrotic Front is excluded from participation in the future Black-ruled Zimbabwe.

While neither the U.S. nor Britain have given their official approval to the Smith scheme, the Carter administration has supported statements by Owen that the plan was a "significant step" toward "solving the Rhodesian question."

Nkomo characterized the Smith plan as "a sellout, the greatest in the history of Africa. It entrenches apartheid in our constitution. We, the Patriotic Front, cannot be party to a settlement that entrenches discrimination and gives away, in effect, our country to a minority of settlers."

Both Mugabe and Nkomo have vowed to intensify the armed struggle. Mugabe said that in the event puppet "elections" are held, "polling booths will be regarded as military targets. Our independence and dignity will only be restored through armed struggle."

Nkomo further said, "We don't love war. War is very destructive. This man Ian Douglas Smith, this man, the son of a butcher -- I suppose he really wants to see butchery going on."

In Salisbury, Rhodesia, Smith, Muzorewa, Sithole and Chirau agreed that the Black-ruled "Republic of Zimbabwe" will officially take over on December 31 of this year.

The documents signed by the four men stipulate that the "transitional" government -- expected to begin functioning within the next few weeks -- will be composed of a two-tier government.

The four-member Executive Council that will control the interim government will be composed of Smith, Muzorewa, Sithole

-- 24 --
and Chirau, with Smith remaining as head of state. The Council of Ministers, which will be half Black and half White, will carry out the day-to-day functioning of the country until December 31.

During the interim period, the present White-dominated Rhodesian Parliament would only be called into session to act on important legislation.

The composition of the "Republic's armed forces would include the military wing of the Patriotic Front, the Zimbabwe People's Army (ZIPA). Smith arrogantly claimed that the freedom fighters would lay down their arms once his bogus plan was signed.

The new constitution also provided for a 100-memeber Parliament, with 28 seats reserved for Whites for 10 years so they can block any constitutional changes not in their interests.

-- 17 --

KISSINGER PROMISE: Smith To Seek End To Rhodesian Sanctions

(Salisbury, Rhodesia) - "Prime Minister" Ian Smith officially will ask the United States and Great Britain to lift economic sanctions against Rhodesia as soon as he signs an agreement with three Black Rhodesian leaders providing for the establishment of Black majority political rule.

In an interview with William Randolph Hearst, Jr., editor-in-chief of the Hearst Newspapers," Smith disclosed that he received a "guarantee" from the Ford administration and formal assurances from the present British government that if the White Rhodesian government agreed to transfer political power to the Black majority, economic sanctions would be lifted and the United States and Britain would strive to bring an end to guerrilla warfare against Rhodesia.

Smith believes that despite the changes of administration in Washington, the United States has a moral obligation to fulfill the commitment made to him by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on behalf of the American government.

Because James Callaghan is still prime minister of the British government that made the commitment to him, Smith considers that government duty-bound to respect its pledge.

As soon as the majority rule agreement is signed, Smith thinks the U.S. and British governments are obligated to introduce a resolution immediately in the United Nations

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Security Council calling for the end of the economic trade embargo imposed on Rhodesia in 1968.

If the Soviet Union vetoes that resolution, as it undoubtedly would, Smith expects the United States and Britain to lift their own restrictions on trade with Rhodesia.

While the U.S. and British governments have described the agreement as a "significant" step forward, both governments continue to insist the leaders of the Patriotic Front, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, who are waging guerrilla warfare from neighboring Zambia and Tanzania, must be brought into the settlement.

INVITED

Smith said that Nkomo and Mugabe have been invited to participate in the settlement negotiations, providing they renounce terrorism, accept free elections and agree to abide by the final agreement reached with the other Black leaders. Nkomo and Mugabe have refused to do so. They want power transferred to a Black government in which they would play dominant roles before elections for a new constitution are held.

1976 PLAN

Speaking of the 1976 U.S. -British plan calling for Black majority rule within two years. Smith said:

"Dr. Kissinger persuaded us to accept it. He made it clear that if we didn't do so then, even our friends in this world could no longer support us. We reluctantly came to the conclusion that under those circumstances our hopes for survival were nil.

"Under the proposal Dr. Kissinger submitted to us, we were assured that if we accepted, sanctions would be removed and terrorism would be curbed if not completely stopped.

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“FIVE COUNTRIES SEEK “RETURN TO DEMOCRACY”: WEST AFRICA'S PUSH FOR RETURN TO CIVILIAN RULE

(New York, N.Y.) - Five West African regimes say they are preparing their nations for a "return to democracy" between now and 1979. The forms of "democracy" are as varied as the proposals for achieving them.

The five countries involved are Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Upper Volta, which together contain a population of over 112 million. All are currently under military rule, with the exception of Senegal, whose ruling Socialist Party has been in power since the country's nominal independence from France in 1958.

Nigeria and Upper Volta have had military governments since 1966, and the former has gone through a three-year civil war, from 1967-70. Ghana's first military regime, which lasted from 1966-69, set up a civilian parliament which was toppled in 1972 by the present ruling junta, the Guardian reports.

Mali's military regime overthrew the progressive anti-imperialist government of the late President Modibo Keita in 1968 and has since held power in a particularly bloody fashion.

SENEGAL

Senegal's proposed new democratic forms were proclaimed as a goal in a 1976 constitutional amendment by the single-party parliament under President Leopold Senghor's Socialist Party. They are to be institutionalized in nationwide general elections to municipal and national assemblies.

This program limits the number of parties permitted to participate. According to the constitutional amendment, only three political parties can be legal, with each said to represent one of three ideologies: "liberalism, socialism and Marxism-Leninism."

Senghor's party identifies itself as social-democratic and is a member of the Socialist International, a body composed mainly of the ruling social-democratic parties in Europe and Israel. A Democratic Party stands for "liberalism," while a revisionist, pro-Moscow African Independence Party is the official representative of "Marxism-Leninism."

A mass-based, pro-working-class party -- the National Democratic Union -- is outlawed and barred from the national elections. The pretext for the banning was the party's refusal to accept a government-imposed definition of its politics as "communist."

UPPER VOLTA

Upper Volta's return to civilian rule is to come through an April 30 parliamentary election, to be followed by a May 4 presidential contest. The road to civilian rule in this former French colony located in the drought-stricken Sahel region has been extremely rocky.

In 1971, five years after it came to power, the ruling junta supervised a national election for a civilian-dominated legislature with a military cabinet. The civilian assembly was dissolved three years later. Two months of militant anti-government actions in 1976, led by Upper Volta's trade unions, forced Lt. Col. Sangoule Lamizana's regime to form a civilian cabinet under military hegemony.

MALI

Of the military regimes in West Africa, that ruling Mali is considered among the most brutal and repressive. When it seized power in 1968 the junta, headed by Lt. Col. Moussa Traore, eliminated by execution or death in labor camps hundreds of cadres of the leftist Keita government.

But resistance has been developing as well, and a workers and peasants party -- the Mali Labor Party (MLP) -- is operating clandestinely. MLP organizing has sparked open protests, with many battles erupting in the past year between the police and army, and students, workers, the unemployed and peasants, who fought with stones, sticks and other homemade weapons.

The government's response has been to establish a single party to which every citizen must belong. The military had set up a referendum in 1974 to gain endorsement for a constitution which was not publicly debated. The MLP organized a widespread boycott of the referendum. The constitution is to be the basis for a "representative government" that is to be formed "in the near future."

GHANA

Ghana's decision to opt for a form of civilian rule is also largely a response to mass pressure. The new regime envisioned by the military regime of Gen. Ignatius Acheampong is termed a "nonparty union government" under which all political parties will be banned. Candidates are to run for office as "individuals." The plan was polished in the wake of nationwide protests led mainly by students and professional groups.

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Opposition forces have termed the plan an effort to unite the "forces of the national and comprador bourgeoisie and feudalism." But strong opposition to the proposed "union government" has also developed from the right.

NIGERIA

Nigeria's progress toward a civilian parliamentary government has been more consistent than that of its neighbors, and the military has shown far more restraint in regard to democratic rights.

The return to civilian rule is scheduled for October, 1979, and is being carried out in a five-step process which began in 1976. In an effort to lessen tribal antagonisms and secure "future political stability," the regime has reorganized the country's administrative districts. There are 19 new federal states, which in some cases extend across tribal lines. Administrative councils in these districts were elected last year on the basis of universal adult suffrage.

These local councils are described as "modern, functional institutions" that will accomodate "traditional authority" as represented by the tribal chiefs. The chiefs, according to government guidelines to local governments, are to serve as presidents of the coun