Re: FBI and the counterculture

PNFPNF@aol.com
Thu, 4 Apr 1996 13:07:57 -0500

Does anyone want a personal account of the behaviors of the agents of
repression on persons in the general movement? If so, read on:
In Berkeley in 1966, while working on the Berkeley Barb and just after also
giving my name to a Marine "security guard" during a very old-style civil
disobedience demonstration at Port Chicago/Concord Naval Weapons Stateion, I
began getting obscene/heavy breathing phonecalls late at night (I lived in
an apartment just into Oakland, alone). Since these were frightening, I
would try to phone friends (even, once or twice, the phone co. or cops)--only
to find that the phone line would not work! The next day or so, I'd get the
phone co. repair in; they'd never find anything wrong. Meanwhile, I'd be
getting parking tickets on my newly-bought old car--from well before I'd
bought it--and various city departments complaining about the "public
nuisance" of my two little cats.
This sort of thing went on, and at rallies I would notice two of the
obvious agents keeping an eye on me--apparently I was one of those there on
their caseload--until sometime in the autumn, when, at one rally, I saw them
raise their eyebrows on noting I was pregnant; subsequently, their activities
against me ceased.
Surprising chivalry, n'est-ce pas?
Paula Friedman
P.S. Of course, I've been left with fear to, for example, post this
note.
P.P.S. And in October 1967, phoning from a house that happened to be
headquarters for the upcoming Stop the Draft Week, the Tuesday march of which
was being fought by U.C. Berkeley and the various police depts., I had no
sooner lifted the receiver to phone out than a voice at the end of the line
asked "University of California?"
Someone must have got his wires crossed, so to speak.