{"id":77964,"date":"2018-02-05T10:23:59","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T18:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=77964"},"modified":"2022-03-05T14:19:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T22:19:29","slug":"q417-transcript","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=77964","title":{"rendered":"Q417 Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

To return to the Tape Index, click here<\/a>.
\nTo read the Tape Summary, click here<\/a>. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1<\/a>,\u00a0Pt. 2<\/a>,\u00a0Pt. 3<\/a>).<\/p>\n

[Editorial note<\/strong>: Much of this transcript consists of the reading of an article published in <\/em>New Times, a biweekly magazine. Jim Jones offers commentary throughout. The commentary during the reading of the article is set off in green type.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Jones:<\/strong> \u2013does not want to assist without trying to impose its capitalistic controls on the economy, and Guyana is firmly<\/em> resisting that. The same applies to England, so they\u2019re going to accept the aid from the only country that\u2019s willing to give it, with no strings attached. That is China. China\u2019s asking for no controls or nothing at all. It\u2019s just a long-term loan. So that\u2019s where it is. Things look good for us on that front, and we\u2019re certainly glad to hear that China has made this assistance offer. We\u2019re glad for its aid to Zambia, that\u2019s standing up against USA, perhaps China at least is manipulating the vacuum\u2013 power vacuum in the Caribbean, because USA is preoccupied with Africa. In the long run, it will certainly still aid\u2013 aid an independent course for the Third World nations in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

The book \u2013 and that\u2019s really what it is \u2013 New Times<\/em> [magazine] all devoted to the destruction of Huey [Newton]. \u201cThe Party\u2019s Over<\/a>,\u201d written by Paul Avery, who used to be a liberal, who spent several days in Redwood Valley, and secretly checked out all of our healings and found that I had unusual miraculous powers, he said. In those days he talked against the Vietnam War, and seemed to understand our socialist course. But he sold out. Even [Steve] Gavin, the editor of The Chronicle<\/em>, who has now left The Chronicle<\/em>, is very friendly to us, is back with the Baltimore Sun<\/em>, said that Paul Avery had questionable connections. The inference was he was with the CIA. He spoke at our congregation one time, as you know, championing a Chinese young man, but that uh, group the Chinese young man was with, had uh, unquestionable Mafia connections. Anyway, Paul Avery and Kate Coleman write this book. The last we saw Paul Avery, he was trying to debate with his conscience as to whether he should come into Peoples Temple, but he was high on dope and drinking all the time. So now he\u2019s sold his soul to the white company store. The beginning of the article:<\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral weeks ago, a thirty-year-old black woman went to police in Oakland, California, to report she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. She said the incident had occurred two days earlier, in the afternoon. The woman gave this account.\u201d Again, no names, so it makes it so easy to destroy a man.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile waiting for a bus in crowded downtown Oakland\u201d \u2013 crowded<\/em> downtown Oakland, note that \u2013<\/span> \u201cshe had stepped into a phone booth to make two quick calls. She spoke first with her fianc\u00e9, and was about to call her mother, when a gold Cadillac pulled up nearby, and a huge man got out. The woman later guessed he stood six feet, seven inches, and weighed about 400 pounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018Mr. Newton would like to see you,\u2019 gesturing towards the late-model Cadillac.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I don\u2019t know any Newton,\u2019 the woman replied.\u201d That\u2019s hardly likely, in that Huey Newton is a word that anyone<\/em> would know in Oakland.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA light-skinned black man with a large Afro got out of the Cadillac and beckoned to her. Then the big man, indicating a gun in his pocket, said, \u2018You\u2019d better come with me.\u2019 He pressed up against her, and she could feel the barrel. He warned that if she yelled for help, \u2018I\u2019ll blow your brains out all over the phone booth.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth men then shoved her into the back of the car, and the big man took the wheel, leaving the other man in back with the woman. \u2018You know where to go,\u2019 he told the driver. And the car sped off toward the industrialized section of West Oakland, where it pulled in behind a building and stopped. The man in back snorted some white powder\u201d \u2013 there again, indicating he\u2019s a coke freak \u2013<\/span> \u201cand began bragging to the woman about his sexual prowess, about what a superior man and lover he was. He started to unbutton her blouse, then tried to lift up her tee shirt underneath. She shoved him away. \u2018No bitch pushes me around!\u2019 he yelled, smacking her back and forth across the face. He went for her shirt again, pulled it up and began fondling and kissing her breasts. When she resisted, he burned her left wrist severely with a cigarette, and called her a street whore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe driver turned around in his seat. \u2018Huey, can\u2019t you see she isn\u2019t a street woman?\u2019\u201d Imagine, kidnapping and raping a woman that he would call Huey by his first name?<\/span> \u201cHe said\u2013 he urged that they let her go, but the man in back told the driver that he should just follow orders.\u201d They always appeal to\u2013 to people in a movement, by such tactics. They paint the driver not quite as bad as Huey<\/em>, so if he ever wants to turn against Huey, he can feel that he won\u2019t get<\/em> it in the end. However, after they use all finks \u2013 they either disappear, get killed, or end up jailed themselves. Note that is one of the clever tactics that they use.<\/span> \u201cAt that, the driver pulled out a pistol and directed the woman to do what she was told.\u201d She\u2019s just painting the driver as brainwashed, but not really mean, because he was asking for mercy for the woman. And of course it\u2019s really rather resistance\u2013 or rather\u2013 rather, ridiculous that Huey is a very short man, much shorter than myself, and he\u2019s supposed to be able to order a man around, that has the gun, behind the wheel, 400 pounds. Quite unlikely.<\/span> \u201cShe stopped all resistance then, and when the man in the back seat ordered her to fondle his penis through his pants, she obeyed, but he was dissatisfied with her efforts. He ordered her to excite him. Yet despite her attempts, he failed to get an erection. Finally he pulled the woman\u2019s slacks down to her knees and ordered that she spread her legs while he performed cunnilingus,\u201d using his tongue on her vagina.<\/span> \u201cIt lasted about five minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfterward, he went through the woman\u2019s purse and took out $46 in cash.\u201d Now imagine, a man with a late-model gold Cadillac needs to steal?! And $46? Now he\u2019s a rapist, a kidnapper, and a thief? Anybody with a right mind can see through these lies, but people don\u2019t, or these magazines wouldn\u2019t sell.<\/span> \u201cHe carefully examined her wallet and warned her, \u2018Now I know who you are, and where you live. If I hear anything about this, you\u2019ll be taken care of.\u2019 Seeing pictures of her three children, he threatened to kill them too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big man h\u2013 h\u2013 h\u2013 the big man headed the Cadillac for North Oakland, where the woman was released. Later she estimated the ordeal had lasted about two-and-one-half hours. The man in back handed her five dollars \u2013 \u2018to catch a cab,\u2019 he said \u2013 and threatened to kill her if she took action.<\/p>\n

\u201cBadly shaken, the woman went to her mother\u2019s house. Her brother and her fianc\u00e9,\u201d her boyfriend,<\/span> \u201carrived soon after. She had been so affected by the experience that she fainted several times that evening, until finally her family brought her to the emergency room at Doctors Hospital in Oakland, where she told the examining physician the whole story. The doctor urged her to call the police.\u201d I think the doctor would have done more than that, because a doctor is a criminal<\/em> unless they demand<\/em> that the police be brought into such things.<\/span> \u201cBut the woman was too frightened. It was two days before she reported the incident\u201d \u2013 My, my, my, how convenient \u2013<\/span> \u201cand then only at the urging of her boyfriend, her fianc\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe woman told Oakland Police that her assailant was Huey Newton \u2013 founder and leader of the Black Panther Party. She said she had recognized him \u2018from seeing him on TV and in the papers,\u2019 but she identified him again from police photos, and from the sheaf of photos she unhesitatingly identified the big man as Robert Heard, Newton\u2019s six-foot-eight-inch bodyguard, who has been variously described as weighing between 380 and 470 pounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice began the paperwork on her complaint, anticipating the arrest of Newton and Heard on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault, but the woman refused to press charges. She remembered the threats and was terrified<\/em>.\u201d My, my. See, that\u2019s so convenient, there\u2019s no police record, uh, (chuckles) so they can use all kinds of lies. No, this woman certainly was perfectly safe to do that. Black power \u2013 the P\u2013 Panther Party \u2013 had no clout, and if it had been that she really didn\u2019t want to, the police<\/em> could have done so, on the complainant themselves. They had the right, and as much as they hate Huey, hi\u2013 his socialism, they certainly would\u2019ve done it. Anyone can see through that lie, that has any sense, but USA public has no sense.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter various parts of the woman\u2019s story surfaced locally, Newton and his law-lawyer, Sheldon Otis, insisted that Newton had nothing to do with her\u2013 with the attack, \u2018assuming, of course, that it even took place,\u2019 Otis said. They said he had been exonerated,\u201d freed, that is,<\/span> \u201cby a privately commissioned lie-detector test.\u201d He\u2019d been freed of any\u2013 uh, he\u2019d been shown to be innocent.<\/span> \u201cBut in a source close to the district attorney\u2019s office\u201d \u2013 now imagine, \u201csource close\u201d \u2013 what the hell does that mean, wastebasket?<\/span> \u201cBut a source close to the district attorney\u2019s office says the test was poorly<\/em> conducted, that only four questions were asked, and that the two dealing with sexual assault were unspecific enough that Newton might have been able to pass a test he would otherwise have failed.<\/p>\n

\u201cNevertheless, Newton\u2019s defense team made copies of the lie detector test available to reporters as a way of refuting the woman\u2019s story. But a refutation or denial was unnecessary. Even with prodding from the police and assurances of protection, the woman still refused to press charges, fearing Panther retribution,\u201d retaliation. I never heard of Newton ever being charged. There was certainly no news<\/em> about it. And if he\u2019d done<\/em> it, or been accused<\/em> of it, we\u2019d have read something about<\/em> it. They send me all such clippings. These lies are too much.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe woman had good reason to be afraid. Over the last few years, Huey Newton and other Panthers have moved like a street gang of hoodlums through the Oakland area,\u201d says the so-called socialist New Times.<\/em> It\u2019s just a ruse to make U.S. look like they\u2019re liberal, to have these magazines, New Times<\/em>, New West<\/em> \u2013 they\u2019re sisters, you know. New West<\/em> is the one that was used to detra\u2013 to try to destroy us.<\/span> \u201cThey have, say reliable sources\u201d \u2013 again, what are these reliable sources? No names \u2013<\/span> \u201ccommitted a series of violent crimes, including arson,\u201d setting buildings on fire with people in them,<\/span> \u201cextortion,\u201d threatening people to kill them if they don\u2019t give them money,<\/span> \u201cbeatings, even murder. Unlike the skirmishes that marked the Party\u2019s infancy in the late sixties, the recent incidents appear to have no political ex\u2013 explanation whatsoever. The Panthers are no longer under siege by the police.\u201d Oh my God! That\u2019s too much, uh, being that he\u2019s been, since he got back from Cuba, charged with four more (chuckles) murders, even one on a\u2013 a young woman that didn\u2019t even exist, according to record.<\/span> \u201cAnd this is not self-defense. It seems to be nothing but senseless criminality, directed in most cases against other blacks.\u201d See how clever, to get the black population divided from Huey.<\/span> \u201cAnd sometimes<\/em> it\u2019s done against Panthers themselves,\u201d to cause the Panthers then, there\u2019re still the few of them left, to be paranoid.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost of these crimes remain open on police ledgers. The victims are too frightened, or the evidence is too circumstantial, to bring Newton or his Panther subordinates to trial.\u201d Circumstantial means there\u2019s no evidence. (chuckles)<\/span> \u201cOnly a few of the incidents, in fact, have been covered in the Oakland and San Francisco press.\u201d Naturally that\u2019s what we\u2019re gonna say now, and how anxious the San Francisco press and<\/em> Oakland, have been to destroy<\/em> him, and the murders, they surely mentioned all of that, so\u2013 and all these other stupid set-ups and frame-ups. But now this is the way they covered it, because be\u2013 even the incidents were not covered in the Oakland and San Francisco press because there were no sources. Hell, you don\u2019t have to have sources. This is being written entirely<\/em> without sources or evidence.<\/span> \u201cSome have never been reported to the police,\u201d even. Oh, now that\u2019s nice, convenient.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow, after six months of interviews with disaffected Party intimates, the police and others, it is imposs\u2013 it is possible to learn the scope of recent Panther violence. It is possible, too, to see how the wave of brutality has affected the Black Panther Party, and the effect has been great. Already the Party support\u2013 the Party support (Pause) \u00a0in the community has diminished\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s exactly what this magazine wants to do, to stop it all \u2013<\/span> \u201cits grant money has dried up, and valuable workers and supporters have left\u201d, for good cause. Oh, how beautiful this New Times<\/em> is used by the establishment to destroy progressive forces, while all the time, New Times<\/em> magazine has appeared<\/em> to be progressive. But now it\u2019s showing its true colors, in this horrible murder in press against Huey.<\/span> \u201cThe Panthers\u2019 day care center\/grade school, is still operating, as is the free health clinic. But these institutions exist side-by-side with another Newton creation of an entirely different\u201d criminal<\/span> \u201csort.\u201d They want to even close those down, you can see.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNew Times<\/em> has learned had\u2013 that there is a secret wing of the Party, assembled originally by Newton as his own palace guard, loyal to him personally, against any contender. Within the Party, the group is known as \u2018the Squad.\u2019 By all appearances, the Squad is simply a team of Newton\u2019s bodyguards, but they often operate like underworld hit<\/em> men.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn uncanny duality has grown up around the Panthers, a myth and a reality, difficult to penetrate and sort out. Over the years, many supporters have regarded Panther militancy as a legitimate response to police brutality, and the country, USA\u2019s, long history of racism. Now confronted by Panther behavior that seems to defy<\/em> explanation, some Bay Area blacks and leftists nevertheless continue to protect and defend the Party.\u201d That\u2019s why they\u2019re writing this article, to stop all<\/em> defense.<\/span> \u201cThere has been a fear that any expos\u00e9 of the Panthers would play into the hands of reactionary fascist forces and hurt the entire black community. Party support has dwindled, but to many people, still, Panthers, and above all Huey Newton, are liberators of oppressed blacks, heroes standing up to malignant police forces, great teachers in the vein of Mao Tse-Tung and Che Guevara. Also, illegal government actions aimed with particular zeal at the Panthers by the FBI and other agencies, as revealed two years ago by the Senate Intelligence Committee and s\u2013 subsequent Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, created a well of sympathy for the Party, and suspicion of efforts to expose it.\u201d It ought to, because the FBI was using dirty tricks and lies and crimes to discredit them under their COINTELPRO program. That\u2019s my commentary. Anything decent<\/em> about Huey will be my commentary, because this is nothing but a total<\/em> smear.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut there is growing sense among many sympathizers and<\/em> ex-Panthers that it is Huey Newton himself who has discredited the Party, and by seemingly gratuitous violence, uncalled for, betrayed the principles on which it was founded.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry to have to read, and you\u2019d to hear my voice, but I on\u2013 only have one copy and I\u2019m afraid it\u2019ll get destroyed, so I want you all to hear it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was in the fall of 1966 that Huey Newton, the son of a Baptist minister [Walter Newton]\u201d \u2013 who I healed, by the way, and \u00a0healed his mother [Armelia Johnson] of cancer \u2013<\/span> \u201cfounded the Black Panther Party, along with his friends Bobby Seale and David Hilliard. The Oakland-based Panthers marked a departure from the trend of black cultural nationalism then on the rise in the ghetto, and nationalism that declared all whites the enemy. The Party argued that black liberation could not be won without the support of white revolutionaries and radicals, and is welc\u2013 it welcomed them to the fight against a common ruling-class enemy.\u201d And that\u2019s why the system is after him. They didn\u2019t mind black nationalism, separatism, but oh my, integrate the working class, black and white? No, no, Huey. You had to be killed<\/em> for that.<\/span> \u201cThe Panthers\u2019 \u2018Ten Point Program\u2019 went further than any nationalist group demand by calling for \u2018all power to the people,\u2019 and the armed self-defense of blacks\u201d and Indians and minorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Oakland, particularly, blacks had little power. That predominantly black city was run, until very recently, by a white,\u201d right-wing \u2013 I\u2019m calling it that, they don\u2019t call it that, they call it Republican, but it was right-wing \u2013<\/span> \u201cRepublican administration, and a police department described by a local black politician as \u2018no different from the most rabid, white cracker police force in a small Mississippi town.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cTo keep an eye on the police, Newton and his fellow Panthers began patrolling Oakland ghetto streets on weekend nights, (Pause) defiantly toting shotguns, pistols, and a copy of the California Penal Code. The Panthers, (Pause) though, were careful to remain within the law. They advised Oakland residents of their legal rights, and acted as an armed presence to prevent police brutality. The effect on the left was electrifying. The outcry on the right\u201d \u2013 fascist, that is, ri\u2013 fascist right-wing that\u2019s growing night and day in USA \u2013<\/span> \u201cprompted state legislators to draft a bill in California that made it illegal to bear unconcealed arms.\u201d You couldn\u2019t even carry them openly, as all white people do in every little country town.<\/span> \u201cIn May 1967, a delegation of Panthers went to the California State Capitol carrying their weapons. They were lobbying against the bill, but the furor unleashed by their disciplined military presence assured<\/em> its passage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trip to the Capitol was well publicized, but the incident that would catapult Newton to national prominence came later, on October 28, 1967. Newton\u2019s car was stopped by Oakland Police that night, leading to an exchange that ended with Newton shot in the somach\u2013 in the stomach, charged with murdering the other officer, John Frey. Newton pleaded innocent. His story was that Frey had called him \u2018nigger\u2019 and probed his genitals while searching him. He said that he had been shot point blank in the stomach\u201d \u2013 and he had many witnesses to that too \u2013<\/span> \u201cand had not shot back. But in 1968, a jury convicted Newton of voluntary manslaughter and he went to prison.\u201d In fact, in the face of the evidence that a policeman had shot a policeman\u2013 that\u2019s what they\u2019ll do, the ruling class, to get at someone like myself or Huey, an activist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile in prison, Newton became a political martyr. \u2018Free Huey\u2019 buttons cropped up everywhere, and the West Coast-based Peace and Freedom Party dedicated itself to support the Panthers in a black-white coalition, adopted \u2018Free Huey\u2019 as its principal slogan. The Peace and Freedom Party also made Eldridge Cleaver its candidate for president of the USA in 1968. Cleaver, the celebrated Soul on Ice<\/em> author,\u201d now born again to Jesus,<\/span> \u201chelped run the Panthers when Newton went to prison.\u201d It was Cleaver\u2019s idea, too, to parade those guns in California. He might have been a provocateur even then. Who knows? It was certainly a\u2013 a stupid thing to do when they were trying to get a bill to ban<\/em> the carrying of arms, to march into the legislature at that point in time, openly, with arms. Whatever, it was a mistake, however well-intentioned.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this period, white leftists and liberals flocked excitedly to the Black Panther Party, because they saw it as a nonracist revolutionary vanguard. The Party was self-consciously modeled after the Algerian FLN\u201d \u2013 that we saw in that moodie\u2013 movie, The Battle of Algiers<\/em>. It was modeled\u2013 Huey modeled directly after them \u2013<\/span> \u201cwith its urban guerilla warfare tactic of deliberate skirmishes with police. Leftists saw Newton as the only black leader dedicated to Marxist\u201d Leninism<\/span>, \u201cbut also capable of transforming ghetto blacks into a disciplined revolutionary army. Newton affected a swagger stick to go along with the Party\u2019s militarism, and went by a variety of lofty titles over the years, showing his ego, including Minister of Defense, The Supreme Commander, Supreme Servant, The Servant, and most recently, President.\u201d Nothing wrong with that. Sound like necessary titles. The DOP, uh, the dictatorship that represents the people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn predominantly black Oakland, only two percent of the police force was then made up of minorities,\u201d even though better than half of Oakland is black. I\u2019m s\u2013 making that point.<\/span> \u201cPanther claims that the police were an occupying army, and that the law enforcement agencies were out to crush the Party\u201d \u2013 obviously, even with the help of so-called progressive magazines now, like New Times <\/em>\u2013<\/span> \u201cwere concepts embraced immediately by white leftists,\u201d of course, because it was easily seen that Oakland Police were<\/em> racist and an occupying army in a black community.<\/span> \u201cWhen in 1968 and 1969, these law enforcement agencies raided Panther offices across the country, resulting in hundreds of arrests, and a long list of dead and wounded blacks\u201d \u2013 I might mention killed by the police \u2013<\/span> \u201csee \u2018The Unquiet Grave of Fred Hampton,\u2019 New Times<\/em>, May 31, 1974.\u201d That\u2019s put in there to make them appear liberal and concerned about blacks being killed<\/em>, to m\u2013 dignify them as liberals, but n\u2013 of course no one is gonna go back to 1974 in a library to find a New Times<\/em> magazine.<\/span> \u00a0\u201cPanthers and many white leftists alike viewed armed struggle as coming very soon, imminent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe money began to flow into Panther coffers as never before, and prominent white liberals and leftists, including such people as then-Yale University\u2013 (Pause) He was the then-Yale University uh, head, uh, president Kingman Brewster\u201d \u2013 Wasn\u2019t too clear, now I\u2019ve got the, I can read through it \u2013<\/span> \u201cAnd author Jessica Mitford,\u201d former member of the Communist Party, noted leftist now,<\/span> \u201craised money. Both of those raised money or spoke publicly in support of the Party. It was the era of Radical Chic\u201d \u2013 C-H-I-C \u2013<\/span> \u201cof Leonard Bernstein\u2019s swank New York cocktail party for the Panthers, and everywhere lib\u2013 liberals and leftists were demanding that Huey be freed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the summer of 1970, he was freed, his conviction reversed, because the judge had erred in his instructions to the jury.\u201d Fact\u2013 In fact, witnesses even stepped forward \u2013 they don\u2019t mention that \u2013 to s\u2013 show that Huey was innocent.<\/span> \u201cNewton faced two more trials on the charge, both ending in jury deadlocks. Finally the district attorney declared that any further attempt to prosecute Newton would be futile, and the case was dismissed.\u201d Futile, with that district attorney being a known racist in Oakland, it only can be futile because there was no evidence, because he certainly has hounded Huey to death. And this ought to show you as black, in this community, that if a man like Huey with powerful connections with Jane Fonda and all this rich set, and the president of Yale University, that he\u2019s gone down to the dust, that you wouldn\u2019t have a snowball\u2019s chance in hell.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he came out of prison in 1970, Newton brought with him plans for major changes in the Black Panther Party. He reversed the stand on armed insurrection that was being preached by Eldridge Cleaver, saying there was little support for it in the black community\u201d \u2013 and he was wise at that time, there was no mood for armed struggle \u2013<\/span> \u201cand that the cost to the Party in lives and resources had been staggering. Instead, Newton called for \u2018survival<\/em> programs, pending the revolution\u2019\u201d \u2013 until the revolution came \u2013<\/span> \u201cand began putting Party resources into projects such as the Black Panther School, the free health clinic, food giveaways, and sickle cell anemia testing\u201d \u2013 free, all of this.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn style, as well as content, Newton backed away from the militant, violent posturing of Eldridge Cleaver. Cleaver used\u2013 used to visit local black churches, accompanied by his leather-jacketed Panther bodyguards, and stand in the pulpit, addressing the congregation as \u2018motherfuckers,\u2019 demanding support for the Party.\u201d Now the church has accepted him, although they don\u2019t trust him. He was to speak at a religious convention of whites, and they wouldn\u2019t have him, even though now he\u2019s waving the American flag, praising motherhood, flag, apple pie, and capitalism.<\/span> \u201cAs with the Panthers \u2018off the pig\u2019 rhetoric, the obscenity, the cuss words, were a part of revolutionary style. But when Newton was released, he ordered Panthers to clean up their language and attend church regularly, a move to win over mainstream blacks. Cleaver, meanwhile, had fled the country well before Newton\u2019s release, to avoid trial on charges stemming from a 1968 shootout with Oakland Police. From Algeria\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s often been a haven for black people oppressed by the United States \u2013<\/span> \u201che ran the international wing of the Panthers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut as the Panthers assumed a nonviolent stance, there flared within the Party an intense power struggle between two factions, and it threatened to destroy the Panthers. Ideologically, the split came over Newton\u2019s orders to back away from \u2018military\u2019 skirmishes with the police.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe underground military wing of the Party was committed to immediate armed struggle, viewing Panther survival programs as symbolic alternatives to existing institutions, useful primarily as propaganda to build support for the Party. But Newton pushed through his changes, despite the underground\u2019s objections. And to solidify or unify his position, he expelled<\/em> the Party\u2019s violent militants who formed the only organized group within the Panthers tough enough to challenge him. One of the first to go was leading Los Angeles Panther Elmer, known as \u2018Geronimo,\u2019 Pratt,\u201d P-R-A-T-T.<\/span> \u201cIn his wake went the entire New York Chapter. Cleavler\u2013 Cleaver protested strengous\u2013 strenuously from Algeria, but Newton\u2019s break with Cleaver went beyond ideological matters. It was a public battle between two titanic egos, exac\u2013 exacerbated by Newton\u2019s fears after nearly three years in prison, that the Party had slipped beyond his control.\u201d That\u2019s ridiculous. It wasn\u2019t a matter of ego, he saw it as a matter of survival<\/em> for the Black Panthers.<\/span> \u201cHe worried that even in Algeria, Cleaver posed a threat to his leadership. The FBI, it was later learned, exploited<\/em> this fear by forging defamatory letters from Newton and Clever\u2013 Cleaver\u201d \u2013 I might mention \u2013<\/span> \u201cas a way to play on their mutual paranoia.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo ensure his authority\u201d \u2013 the argo\u2013 the New Times<\/em> s\u2013\u00a0smear goes on \u2013<\/span> \u201cNewton closed most of the thirty Panther chapters nationwide, calling loyal members to Oakland, but warring between the factions continued, and people on both sides were murdered. Newton loyalist Sam Napier, for example, the national distributor of the Panther newspaper, was cut down by bullets in New York.\u201d I might mention it was ordered done by Eldridge Cleaver<\/em>. Cleaver had many<\/em> murders committed, and now he\u2019s accepted, cleaned up, whitewashed, but unhappy, grossly<\/em> unhappy. It\u2019s reported that he\u2019s now drinking excessively.<\/span> \u201cThe atmosphere became so volatile that when Geronimo Pratt\u2019s pregnant wife [Saundra Pratt] was stabbed repeatedly and killed in 1971, many attributed the murder to the ongoing internecine warfare, \u201d the inner war between the old Panthers under Cleaver and the new Panthers wanting to do peaceful, progressive work that could bring change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, Newton prevailed, beefing up his one-man rule of the Party. But he remained plagued by insecurities for years<\/em>, sometimes doubting his oldest and closest lieutenants. In early 1974, in a move that puzzled, [and] upset supporters, he expelled co-founder David Hilliard from the Party. So great was New\u2013 Newton\u2019s displeasure, that he went into the Panther School and personally pulled\u201d and pushed<\/span> \u201cout all four of Hilliard\u2019s children.\u201d Didn\u2019t do it \u2013 another lie.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHilliard, Newton\u2019s friend since childhood, was in prison at the time for his role in the 1968 shootout with Oakland Police, the same incident that forced Eldridge Cleaver to flee the country. According to Panther insiders, Newton told Party members that Hilliard had orchestrated a coup against him; and Newton charged Hilliard\u2019s wife, Pat, a tireless Party worker, with misusing Panther funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid Hilliard\u2019s expulsion sent out severe shockwaves. He was widely loved and regarded\u201d \u2013 said the smear \u2013<\/span> \u201cas the heart of the Party.\u201d That\u2019s not true.<\/span> \u201cHilliard was the organization man who ran the Panthers when both Newton and Bobby Seale were in prison, and Cleaver<\/em> was out of the country. He had worked unflaggingly for Newton\u2019s release.\u201d To try to make Newton appear ungrateful, and not even have pity on the children of a poor man in prison. It\u2019s all a bunch of shit.<\/span> \u201cTo those who knew Hilliard, the \u2018coup\u2019 story put out by Newton seemed preposterous. And to this day, even to close friends outside the Party, Hilliard professes bewilderment about the real reasons for his expulsion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was against this backdrop of insecurity, and to guarantee his dominance over the Party, that Newton created \u2018the Squad.\u2019\u201d I might mention too that Hilliard has become a capitalist religious apologist. Maybe he was a police<\/em> agent. I\u2019m sure the magazine would not give the true reason why he was expelled. That Newton created the Squad, was in the backdrop of all of the insecurity and what they call schizophrenia and paranoia, and they try to make him look like a nut. It\u2019s the same tactic they use on all of us.<\/span> \u201cBut the Squad was\u2013 (clears throat) was also an outgrowth of a much earlier fascination Newton had with small-time gangsterism: pimping, running card games, and burglarizing houses of the poor in the Berkeley Hills\u201d and surrounding areas, and the rich too,<\/span> \u201cactivities he has acknowledged in his autobiography\u201d \u2013 And oh, what a distortion that is! \u2013<\/span> \u201cRevolutionary Suicide<\/em>. Newton selected Squad members himself.\u201d They\u2019re even using his own book where he said he had done crimes against the rich<\/em>, and now they\u2019re trying to make him look like a gangster by his own book. And it\u2019s a terrible<\/em> distortion. He does<\/em> not portray himself as someone harming poor people or black people, but they claim he does here in his own book.\u00a0<\/span> \u201cNewton selected Squad members himself. A source\u201d \u2013 another source, no names \u2013<\/span> \u201cfamiliar with the initiation rites described the process.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018There would be some guy who would come into the Party off the streets. He\u2019d work his ass off doing the hard day-to-day stuff that keeps the Party going \u2013 you know, standing on the corner with the sickle-cell anemia cans, or hawking the paper. After a while he\u2019d get the summons to go up to Newton\u2019s\u201d large expensive<\/span> \u201cpenthouse. That alone would be very flattering, because those people lived in dire poverty. But then he\u2019d be up there with Huey, and they\u2019d snort cocaine together \u2013\u2019\u201d And I don\u2019t approve of Huey livin\u2019 above the people, and I don\u2019t approve of this shit.<\/span> \u201c\u2018\u2013 and then he\u2019d be told he had been selected for the Squad. For somebody low down in the Party, the whole thing would wow them \u2013 the coke, the good liquor, and just being able to hang out with Huey.\u2019 Party members have also related stories about the Squad sharing woman\u2013 women with Newton.\u201d Now remember, they\u2019re doing this to Newton, who took a peaceful<\/em> course and denounced violence. I don\u2019t know why individual blacks here, who never had any power or clout with any rich actors and rich presidents of universities, white liberal supporters, I don\u2019t know why you think you could make it back in USA.<\/span> \u201cThe carousing together with the accoutrement of good cocaine was a major reward of Squad service.\u201d Now they make \u2018em all look like drug<\/em> addicts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Squad itself has always been small, reportedly made up of two \u2018fire teams,\u2019 usually with five or six men each. The duties of Squad members varied, but frequently they accompanied Newton when he ventured out into Oakland\u2019s tough nightlife, into the bars and after-hour joints. It was during such forays, say the police and other sources, that Newton and the Squad began the practice of extorting money from bars, pimps, and dope dealers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe practice appears to have had its roots in the legal fundraising effort begun by Huey Newton in the summer of 1971. The Panthers began a boycott of black-owned liquor stores when recalitrant \u2013 recalicant [recalcitrant] owners, those who refused to accede to Newton\u2019s demands that they pay reparations to the black community for all the things they were doing to them by pouring liquor and taking their money instead of giving them real services, and they were to pay their \u2018reparations,\u2019 the\u2013 the Panthers insisted, by contributing money to Panther programs. Negotiations ended the boycott in early 1972, and although no money ever changed hands, in Newton\u2019s mind, the pr\u2013 the principle was firmly established: the Panthers were entitled to a piece of the action from businesses selling liquor to the black community.\u201d By the way, all the pictures are an appeal to leftists to get them to read it. Good pictures, like they were of me in the New West<\/em>, showing pictures with me with important people. And they\u2019re showing all of the people with free food programs, to suck people in to read it. There\u2019s only one bad, negative picture of Huey, that makes him \u2013 it\u2019s exaggerated, it obviously has been uh, doctored up to make him look like a b\u2013 a beast.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow with the Squad, these payments from bars and clubs began to look suspiciously like protection money. The amounts paid by different owners varied, but some clubs were said to be shelling out as much as $500 a week.\u201d That shows how much these abominable, petty, bourgeois, black, Uncle Tom business people were shaking down the black community, if they were able to give $500 a week donations.<\/span> \u201cYet none of the owners were willing to come forth and testify against Huey Newton or Squad members. It has been a neppling [nettling] problem over the years for law enforcement officials.\u201d Oh yes, I\u2019m sure they want to do justice so bad, the police.<\/span> \u201cThey know what is going on, the black community knows what is going on, but no one can do anything about it because victims won\u2019t go to the police.\u201d An appeal looking like (pause) uh, black leader has so much power, Huey has so much power, when obviously<\/em> he doesn\u2019t have any power, because this magazine\u2019s destroying<\/em> him in a smear<\/em>, with no evidence given from anybody, just calls it \u201csources.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne clo\u2013 club owner did have his nephew contact the office of Representative Ron Dellums.\u201d See how our good Dellums, once a socialist, now the Democrat congressman from California, see how he\u2019s<\/em> selling out. So of\u2013 Dellums\u2019 office said, for this newspaper smear\u2013<\/span> \u201c\u2018The man\u2019s uncle had just opened a bar,\u2019 says Dellums\u2019\u201d chief<\/span> \u201caide, Don Hopkins, \u2018and he said that it appeared that the bar was not going to be successful because of the terrible extortion demands of the Black Panther Party. I raised the possibility,\u2019\u201d said Dellums,<\/span> \u201c\u2018of him going to police, but he discounted that as a choice.\u2019\u201d Now Dellums is on the side of the white establishment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNewton enjoyed the tough nightlife in Oakland and Berkeley. He bragged once of being a \u2018two-fisted drunk\u2019 [drinker].\u201d Now that\u2019s rather ridiculous<\/span>. \u201cAnd he was a two-fisted fighter as well. A lawyer who had worked for the Party says fighting \u2018is one of New\u2013 Newton\u2019s forms of recreation.\u2019\u201d That shows how lawyers just don\u2019t respect confidentiality, and they come out later to haunt you and destroy you, it making it tough to fire a lawyer. Uh\u2013 The lawyers are one hell of a breed. No wonder our two lawyers here [Euene Chaikin and Harriet Sarah Tropp] don\u2019t want to be considered as lawyers. And this lawyer, past lawyer of his, said Party, (stumbles over words) fighting, is one of Newton\u2019s forms of recreation,<\/span> \u201c\u2019like the fastest gun in the West.\u2019 His rap sheet bears this out,\u201d said the lawyer, pointing it [out] to them,<\/span> \u201cbeginning with his arrest at sixteen for beating a schoolmate with a hammer.\u2019\u201d Now that makes him sound like cruel, inhumane.<\/span> \u201cNewton has subsequently said he used poor judgement. \u2018I was immature then.\u2019 But there were other scrapes in the years that followed,\u201d the magazine smear goes on.<\/span> \u201cAt 22, for example, he stabbed an unarmed black youth in the head with a steak knife. Newton could be particularly<\/em> violent when crossed, or when he felt himself to be,\u201d from his paranoia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis streak of vengefulness would become characteristic of the Squad too, as those who didn\u2019t comply with extortion demands would learn. There were the fires at the Fox Oakland Theater in 1973. The first blaze occurred on August 10, the second on December 5, 1973. Both were arson\u201d \u2013 purposeful fires set by the Panthers, they\u2019re saying.<\/span> \u201cIn the opinion of investigators, they were arson.\u201d Opinion now. What the hell is an opinion?<\/span> \u201cThe estimated property damage came to $89,000\u201d on one occasion alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe fires were set within two days of scheduled rock concerts promoted by Oakland businessman Ed Bercovitch\u201d \u2013 a Zionist, by the way, who is not a friend of black liberation.<\/span> \u201cHe had leased<\/em> the theater from its absentee owners, and finally secured an Oakland City Council special permit<\/em> to put on live en\u2013 live entertainment. The city council gave its approval in part because Bercovitch had worked out a deal with local youth groups to hire unemployed teenagers in Oakland, a large majority of them black, to clean up the theater, sell tickets, and usher.\u201d I remember the damned incident. There were about five blacks hired at horribly cheap labor by this Zionist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNewton resented it. The Black Panther Party had once had a subletting arrangement at the Fox Oakland, to show movies. Newton had dreams of taking over the theater, and turning it into a black cultural center, with the kind of live entertainment that Bercovitch had succeeded in lining up.\u201d Well now, if Hue\u2013 Huey was ever so strong<\/em> in Oakland, why did a white man get the option on a theater instead of him<\/em>? Kind of contradictory, if he\u2019s supposed to have all that power.<\/span> \u201cBut the theater\u2019s owners weren\u2019t interested in Newton\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cShortly after one of Fox\u2019s fires\u201d \u2013 the Fox Theater fires \u2013<\/span> \u201cNewton intimated to a penthouse visitor that the blaze had been set by the Panthers as retal\u2013 retaliation.\u201d I\u2019m sure he would brag of that. That\u2019s ridiculous. He wouldn\u2019t indi\u2013\u00a0indict himself.<\/span> \u201cBut he left out another part of the story: Bercovitch had refused to pay extortion money to the Party.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonths before the first show was even scheduled, Bercovitch says, he was approached by a Panther go-between, the owner of a bar frequented by Newton, where he always was drinking with his friends.\u201d Now they\u2019re trying to make him look like a drunk, wasting time.<\/span> \u201cThe go-between urged Bercovitch to come to some kind of agreement with the Panthers. He offered to set up the meeting, telling Bercovitch the Panthers wanted \u2018a piece of the action.\u2019\u201d You see, that\u2019s criminal talk. They want him not to look not like a revolutionary, but a criminal.<\/span> \u201cAnd he warned that if a deal wasn\u2019t made\u201d \u2013 the Panther spokesman warned this white man, Bercovitch \u2013<\/span> \u201cnot one show would go on, \u2018they would burn the place down,\u2019 as Bercovitch remembers<\/em> it.\u201d Oh, now he conveniently remembers it.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Everything he said would come true, came true,\u2019 Bercovitch says, shaking his had\u2013 his head sadly. \u2018And I had all those kids working for me.\u2019\u201d Poor, poor white man, liberator of the\u2013 of the black youth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven as he and the Squad acted like thugs, Newton continually tried to conceal his \u2018bad-ass nigger\u2019 side from his educated friends, just as he submerged his intellectual\u2013 intellectuality beneath a macho\u201d \u2013 I mean, uh, machismo \u2013<\/span> \u201cexterior when he sorted\u2013 sortied out with Squad members among the bars of Oakland. One former intimate characterizes\u2013\u201d Now who is this? One former intimate? No name. Never. Never.<\/span> \u201cOne former intimate characterizes Newton as a \u2018schizoid\u2019 paranoid, chiding himself for having taken so long to realize it.\u201d Oh, now he just realizes it, after all these years.<\/span> \u201c\u2018He had different faces for different people,\u2019 he says. \u2018I never saw him crazy, never saw him brutalize people. I only saw him in his intellectual mode. He\u2019d talk about Zen Buddhism or dialectics. It was always intellectual questions. It\u2019s interesting, because I have a non-intellectual friend, and when Huey ran into him at a party, the only thing he would talk about was dope, street stuff, and fights, like bragging about the last fight he was in. Huey would never talk politics to this guy. Never. With me, he never talked about anything else.\u2019\u201d Accusing then, Newton, of being many faces of Eve, having opportunism, not really believing in anything. That\u2019s what they\u2019re trying to get across now.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNewton managed his image most of all with wealthy or intellectual supporters, and while such people sometimes caught glimpses of the high-handedness, his criminality with which the Party was run, they told themselves that Newton stood outside such practices. But most of these sympathizers were not around when Newton meet [met] Party members\u201d \u2013 of course \u2013<\/span> \u201csometimes ordering Squad members to hold their guns on them when he did. An eyewitness says \u2013 \u201d There again, \u201can eyewitness.\u201d Who is this eyewitness? \u2013<\/span> \u201csays that when Newton beat Seale, bodyguard Carl Colar, he even ordered Len Colar\u201d \u2013 C-O-L-A-R \u2013<\/span> \u201cCarl\u2019s brother, to train his gun on the victim. Newton then pummeled Carl with fists and a lead pipe, beating him over and again. And most sympathizers did not see the harsh disciplinary actions of the Squad, which over the years included, according to a number of sources\u201d \u2013 Ain\u2019t this too much, not one name \u2013<\/span> \u201cbeatings, bull whippings, \u2018mud-holing.\u2019 The mud hole, a deep pit dug on the site of the Party\u2019s first school in Oakland, was filled with cold water before the Panther being punished was thrown in. When he or she tried to climb out, the others would beat the Panther back down\u201d into the cold freezing water again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne former Party member traces the severe discipline to the Panthers\u2019 sense of themselves as an army of war. In that context, infractions real or imagined had to be dealt with swiftly. Long after the Party abandoned urban guerilla warfare, the corporal punishment remained.<\/p>\n

\u201cFew sympathizers saw the cramped dormitories where the Party\u201d \u2013 Isn\u2019t this too much? Cramped dormitories. Have we heard that before? \u2013<\/span> \u201cthe cramped dormitories where the Party rank and file lived. They saw only the inside of Newton\u2019s apartments or took tours of the school.\u201d There, the same thing we, would they accused us of beautiful things in our church. Yes, but the people really crammed up like mackerel, they don\u2019t have enough to eat, we don\u2019t have enough to eat here. Same damned tactics. It looked like they have a file, they just pick it out and put whoever\u2019s name on it they want to get: Joe\u2019s one time, Huey another time, and who\u2019s next? You<\/em>, if you were there.<\/span> \u201cThere always seem to be cadres willing to do the work of the Party, but supporters may not have known that many Panthers left over the years, slipping away from Oakland in secrecy, lest they be caught and beaten.\u201d No, they left because they were cowards, like a lot of people of our own traitors, that can\u2019t sta\u2013 take the heat for being a socialist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPanther sympathizers may have seen little of this, but to others, Newton\u2019s erratic side, his insane side, was more visible, and experiencing it tested their activism sorely<\/em>. Such was the case when Newton single-handedly destroyed a potential chapter of the Party in Texas in early 1974, according to a Bay Area activist who traveled there a year after the incident.\u201d Another, again\u2013 a \u201cBay Area activist.\u201d Who in the hell is this activist? All these sources that they\u2019re destroying this man with? Just this powerful capitalist magazine that\u2019s trying to act like it\u2019s liberal and left.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe group in Texas, People\u2019s Party II, was a grassroots organization that operated several enterprises, including a store and a nightclub, to raise money<\/em> for service projects\u201d \u2013 so-called \u2013 \u201cin the black community. The group was considering becoming a chapter of the Black Panther Party, and Newton in turn wanted to bring the Texas business operation under the Panther aegis\u201d \u2013 under its control.<\/span> \u201cSo far along was the proposed merger, that Newton and a small entourage flew to Texas to inspect the local set-up\u201d that was doing so much good for the people. Yeah, they\u2019re doing good now, because they\u2019re being used to speak out against the Panthers.<\/span> \u201cOne of the former leaders of People\u2019s Party II told a visiting Bay Area activist that from the start of Newton\u2019s visit, the Texas people found his behavior disturbing. It seems to his hosts\u2013 it seemed to his hosts that Newton was on drugs.\u201d Well, they\u2019re gonna accuse him of everything: rape, drugs, killin\u2019 little children, brutalizing children.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn Newton\u2019s last night in Texas, he met with the group in its nightclub. Decked out in a cape, he strutted around the room screaming, \u2018I am the Supreme [note: word \u201cServant\u201d deleted]!\u2019 He made a play for the women [woman] leader of People\u2019s Party II,\u201d the chief woman leader,<\/span> \u201casking her to dance. She told him she was there with someone else. An argument ensued. In the course of the altercation, Newton hit the woman, delivering a severe beating to her escort, and threatened to kill another person who tried to intervene.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe incident ended as quickly as it had begun.\u201d Now it\u2019s amazing that the white press has never told us about this, the capitalistic newspapers, before.<\/span> \u201cNewton left the bar and headed back to Oakland in the morning. But the woman told the Bay Area activist\u201d \u2013 this unknown activist \u2013<\/span> \u201cthat the man Newton had beaten flipped out shortly afterward, and was still institutionalized\u201d in an insane asylum. Oh, isn\u2019t this outrageous? Hot damn, this is outrageous.<\/span> \u201cThe woman herself admitted to being so devastated that she had not done anything<\/em> political since the incident.\u201d Oh, uh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. That gives reason for her being not involved in liberation any longer, just because of the devastation. Well, that\u2019s too bad, dear lady, that your commitment was so little, even if it had been the case that you would allow one man to devastate you and give up your civil rights views and your socialistic views.<\/span> \u201cMoreover, she said, the local Party was demoralized and weakened by the startling affair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis behavior was in sharp contrast to Newton as a genial host to scores of luminaries\u201d \u2013 now they want to get these rich luminaries away from him \u2013<\/span> \u201cwho answered his summons to share fine cognac and long rambling conversation. Visitors would arrive at Newton\u2019s\u201d expensive<\/span> \u201cpenthouse apartment in Oakland\u201d \u2013 they never talk about his expensive penthouse of the rich<\/em>, but oh my, they\u2019re gonna [unintelligible phrase] with him in that penthouse. That\u2019s why he always thought he shouldna been there, although he claimed he had to be on the top floor to be safe, and there\u2019s no doubt some truth in that.<\/span> \u201cNewton\u2019s penthouse apartment. They would arrive, expensive penthouse in Oakland, and find themselves ushered into a modern, expensively-furnished living room of brown leather couches and stark walls. They would breathe in the heavy scent of gardenias floating in a brandy snifter. And Newton would flatter his guests with attentiveness. \u2018When I was up there,\u2019 says Alameda County Supervisor John George, a black lawyer boosted into office with Panther support, \u2018he would serve me. He\u2019d bring me a drink or a sandwich, and he would fix it himself. He didn\u2019t ask Gwen [Fontaine], his secretary, to do it. He would sit sipping R\u00e9my Martin, and we would talk. He always seemed so happy to have someone to talk with.\u201d Well, that seems to be the only name they can come up with thus far.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of Newton\u2019s charm, guests such as John George willfully ignored the dark rumors they heard about him. \u2018I like him,\u2019 George says, shaking his head in a troubled manner. \u2018That is why I may continue to excuse and excuse.\u2019\u201d Well, naturally he\u2019s gonna have to be a little apologetic, with all the white press and police and all the capitalists after him. But here George, you see, even though he\u2019s a supervisor, can\u2019t accuse him of anything really bad.<\/span> \u201cAmong some of Newton\u2019s former intimates too, there is a tendency to excuse his violence, or even to deny it. Take the case of Bobby Seale, who founded the Party with Newton and Hilliard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1974, Seale, who was then the Party\u2019s chairman, reportedly was beaten and had to be treated by a doctor for his injuries.\u201d Now, no name for the doctor, no one named that saw the beating.<\/span> \u201cBy several accounts, Newton ordered his bodyguards to train their guns on Seale to insure he did not fight back while Newton administered the terrible beating. After the attack, Seale left the Party and disappeared from public view, emerging only within the last year to publish a book,\u201d on some kind of new stupid form of religion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cReached by phone in Philadelphia, where Seale now lives, Seale denies he was ever beaten. \u2018It\u2019s not true,\u2019 he says, \u2018the police put all\u2013 put out a lot of crap initially. I\u2019ve even heard that off and on, but I don\u2019t pay any attention to it. Whoever said that is lying.\u2019\u201d Now\u2013 Now why would this Bobby Seale, who\u2019s also got involved in religion, not say he was beaten? He\u2019s far away in Philadelphia, there\u2019s no Panthers left. Every Panther headquarters been destroyed all over the nation. The only thing left is a little handful in Oakland. If he was beaten, he should talk<\/em> about it. No, he doesn\u2019t. But this uh, magazine is outrageous. Even with Seale denying it,<\/span> \u201cwhoever said that is lying,\u201d him saying, the magazine goes on and says,<\/span> \u201cbut it was said by many<\/em> who were not police, who were in a position to know, including someone who treated his injuries.\u201d Jesus Christ! Everybody, these unnamed people, know more about it than Bobby Seale, who says it\u2019s a big lie, it never happened?!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018What injuries?!\u2019 Seale screams into the phone. \u2018I had no injuries whatsoever. I don\u2019t give a damn who said it. Tell them I said they\u2019re a flat, black-assed, motherfucking liar,\u2019 or \u2018white-assed liar, whoever the hell they are.\u2019\u201d I guess maybe Bobby Seale\u2019s now being picked up, because Bobby Seale\u2019s in religion, and very straight. I guess they want to ha\u2013 haunt him. It\u2019s not good enough that he\u2019s changed. That\u2019s why you people ought to take a look at the finks, when\u2013 if you decide you ever want to be a fink, to save your ass. They never let you get\u2013 they never get you by, uh, by. This very\u2013 screaming, and making him look insane, and calling white-assed liars and so forth, is a scenario set up to go after Bobby Seale later, probably.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSeale\u2019s departure came in July 1974, just as Newton, according to the Alameda\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s in Oakland \u2013<\/span> \u201cCounty District Attorney\u2019s Office, police, and various witnesses, was embarking on a bizarre rampage of intermittent violence that would stretch over 18 days. It began on July 30 with a run-in he had with two plainclothes cops in the Fox Lounge in Oakland. Newton accused them of following him simply to harass him. He turned belligerent, the police said, and pointing a finger gun-like at one of the officers, screamed for bodyguard Robert Heard to shoot him. \u2018Shoot the pig-ass, motherfucker. Shoot him!\u2019 When Heard slipped his hand into the briefcase he carried, the policemen drew their weapons. Inside the briefcase was a loaded .38 caliber revolver and one thousand dollars in cash.\u201d Now you know damned well they\u2019re not gonna pull a gun on a bunch of police.<\/span> \u201cHeard was busted. Later that night, with other officers for reinforcement, Newton was also arrested, along with Panther heavies Larry Henson and Flores\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s F\u2011L\u2011O\u2011R\u2011E\u2011S \u2013<\/span> \u201c\u2019Fly\u2019 Forbes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just the kind\u201d \u2013 he went by Fly, his nickname \u2013<\/span> \u201cit was just the kind of event to jack Newton up. It heightened his schizoid paranoia, \u2018made him crazy,\u2019 as one of his friends said.\u201d Again, who\u2019s \u201ca friend\u201d? \u201cSix days later, Kathleen Smith, a 17-year-old prostitute\u201d \u2013 who they\u2019ve never been able to find under that name as existing \u2013 that\u2019s my commentary \u2013<\/span> \u201cand her friend Crystal Gray were standing on an Oakland street corner, hustling johns\u201d \u2013 prostitute, in other words.<\/span> \u201cThere were other prostitutes in the vicinity as well. It was a slow evening, a Monday before midnight. Crystal and Kathleen, or Kathy as she was called by the other woman, smoked a joint together. They were both feeling \u2018mellow,\u2019 as Crystal later testified at a preliminary hearing, when a big, fancy, metallic-colored car cruised by their corner. Crystal hailed the occupants with a \u2018Hey, baby.\u2019 The car kept going and stopped at the light. Both women noted with some appreciation that the car was a Might\u2013 Mark IV Lincoln Continental. Ten or fifteen minutes later, Crystal noticed the same car again, parked at the corner on a side street. She saw one of the occupants, \u2018the light-skinned one,\u2019 get out.\u201d He\u2013 he got out of the car.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Which one of you ladies called me?\u2019 Crystal later quoted him as saying.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two women exchanged glances, those, ah, \u2018what\u2019s\u2013 what\u2019s his trip?\u2019 expressions, and stepped back, sensing trouble. The man star\u2013 stared hard at them. Suddenly, Crystal said, he lunged forward and struck Kathy. \u2018Her eyes got big,\u2019 Crystal later recalled, \u2018and Kathy stumbled backwards.\u2019 Crystal was angry and said to the man, \u2018Say, brother, why did you hit my girlfriend? She didn\u2019t do nothing to you.\u2019\u201d Everything to make people feel that he\u2019s oppressing people, picking on prostitutes now.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe man\u2019s chilling, cold response, she said, was to draw a small silvery gun from his breast pocket. Crystal yelled to Kathy to run, and she herself made for the nearby Ebony Plaza Hotel. Hearing her cries, the other prostitutes ran inside the hotel. All except for Kathy. Crystal went back outside to see what had happened to her friend. As she did, a shot rang out. Rushing to the sidewalk, Crystal saw the same man standing over Kathy\u2019s slumping body. The Mark IV slid out of its berth and swung over toward the tableau of the wounded Kathy, held in Crystal\u2019s arms. The light-skinned man jumped in the car and it sped off.\u201d\u00a0 Now why in the hell\u2013 who is a guy who is supposed to be picking up prostitutes, gonna step out and shoot<\/em> her, and look, uh, with all the world to see, over her slumping, dying body? Uh\u2013 It\u2019s ridiculous. It\u2019s just totally ridiculous.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKathy had been shot in the jaw, and was unconscious, in a coma. The trauma from the wound damaged her spinal con\u2013 column and put her in an immediate coma. It was a half-death that lingered for 96 days. When hospital authorities finally decided to move Kathy\u2019s inert,\u201d paralyzed<\/span> \u201cbody to a nursing home to continue life-sustaining treatment, the shock of the move was too great for the small spark of life still left in her. She died.\u201d I\u2019m sure, that if she did exist, they would want her to die, because if she lived many more days, they couldn\u2019t\u2019ve charged her [him] with murder, because if you don\u2019t die within a certain amount of time after<\/em> you\u2019ve been killed \u2013 which laws are now being changed all over the United States, because of black crime. The Boston Globe<\/em>, that was something that came over the news last night, that if someone dies five years later, the person can be \u2013 if they some\u2013 somehow injured them \u2013 they can be charged with murder. It\u2019s an open, blatant, fascist law. If someone hits somebody in the head, and five years later they died, or even had an innocent brawl, they could be charged with first-degree murder. But not then. The law wouldn\u2019t enable them to get Huey unless she died. So it\u2019s very convenient that she dies en route to a new nursing home.<\/span> \u201cThe small spark of her life that was still left in her couldn\u2019t take the move and she died.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree prostitutes identified Huey Newton as the man who pulled a gun on Kathy. One of them was Crystal Gray, and her testimony, authorities believed, would be the most convincing to a jury.\u201d Yeah, that\u2019s what they want, frame him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEleven days after the shooting of Kathleen Smith, two young women stopped in at the Lamp Post, an Oakland bar nominally owned by Newton\u2019s cousin, Jimmy Ward, but run by the Panthers. They ordered hamburgers, and then according to one\u2013 according to the police statement of one of the women, Helen Robinson, Robert Heard came to the table and began to \u2018get smart\u2019 with her friend, Diane Washington. Washington sassed back, and it turned mean. Heard whispered something to a \u2018little guy,\u2019 and the next thing they knew, the \u2018little one\u2019 came over and grabbed the other woman, Helen Robinson, by the jacket. He yanked her off her chair, and Heard began pushing her back and forth. They each socked her whenever she came within their grasp. The \u2018little guy\u2019 was Huey Newton\u201d \u2013 Again, they\u2019re beating on poor innocent women \u2013<\/span> \u201cthe two women said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to Robinson\u2019s statement, the two men then knocked her to the floor. Eventually someone in the bar \u2013 Robinson is not sure who \u2013 grabbed her by the collar and threw her into the street.\u201d That\u2019s amazing, this prostitute will uh, name\u2013 give her<\/em> name, when business<\/em> people will not give theirs<\/em>. Obviously business people would have more protection than a\u2013 uh, a\u2013 a street p\u2013 prostitute. Uh\u2013 She\u2019s probably getting a lot of money, and she\u2019s surely not very afraid, uh, \u2018cause she\u2019s giving her name here, to\u2013 to back these lies.<\/span> \u201cBut eventually someone in the bar \u2013 Robinson\u2019s not sure who \u2013 grabbed her by the collar and threw her into the street.\u201d Trouble is, you see, the Panthers did<\/em> own businesses like this lounge, and they were getting too big, giving too much encouragement to uh, movements of liberation, so they had to be destroyed.<\/span> \u201cSeveral times she tried to return, to get Washington out, but each time she was rebuffed,\u201d thrown out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was seven or eight minutes before Washington managed to escape from the bar. Robinson noted that Washington\u2019s lips was \u2018big and bleeding, her jaw was swollen, and her eye was kind of black.\u2019\u201d Jesus, uh, you\u2019d think that a little of this would be enough to destroy this man. They just keep it goin\u2019 on and on.<\/span> \u201cRobinson said that Washington had actually made her way out of the bar at one point, but that Huey Newton came out after her and \u2018dragged her right back in.\u2019 The women called police that night and six days later made a complete report and identified Newton and Heard from a series of 12 photos marked with numbers, no names.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lamp Post Bar incident had occurred in the early morning, about 4\u00a0a.m. Later that day, in the afternoon, there was more bloodshed, this time in Newton\u2019s own apartment.\u201d Yes, he\u2019s a murderer, he even sheds blood in his own apartment.<\/span> \u201cThe victim was Preston Callins,\u201d C-A-L-L-I-N-S,<\/span> \u201ca handsome, middle-aged, middle-class, black tailor. His account of the incident, two days after it happened\u201d \u2013 oh, yes, always after it happens \u2013<\/span> \u201cwas tape-recorded by police.\u201d I notice he\u2019s<\/em> not afraid to talk.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCallins said that three weeks earlier he had been intro\u2013 introduced, he had been introduced to Newton at The Lamp Post by a mutual friend. The two had met before, but didn\u2019t really know each other. Callins did know, however, that Newton ordered his clothes from [a] men\u2019s store in San Francisco, and that the store in turn farmed its orders out to Callins. Callins told Mr. Newton uh, in The Lamp Post and suggested they eliminate the middleman \u2013 that Callins,\u201d Callins, C-A-L-L-I-N-S,<\/span> \u201cmake Newton\u2019s clothes for him directly. Newton agreed, gave Callins his phone number and suggested he give him a call.\u201d Again, a little old tailor, not afraid to give his<\/em> name, because he\u2019s paid well enough. Why are all these other sources so afraid?<\/span> \u201cAfter trying for several days, Callins finally reached Newton and was invited to come over and measure him for a suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tailor arrived with his materials packed in a sample case. Newton greeted him and began showing him around the penthouse apartment. \u2018He did everything but get down to business,\u2019 Callins later told police. \u2018He was drinkin\u2019 some cognac. I think he s\u2013 paid $19 a bottle for his cognac.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 (chuckles) God, they\u2019re always trying to make him look like he\u2019s wasting the people\u2019s money.<\/span> \u201c\u2018And he was drinking the whole time, and drunk as a skunk. Very potent stuff. I asked him to pour me just a little taste. I wanted to see how it tastes, you know.\u2019\u201d Yeah, this poor tailor, he\u2019d never tasted expensive litter\u2013 liquor. (Stumbles over words)<\/span> \u201cIn a show of hospitality, Newton told Callins he would order a bottle of the same cognac for him to take home, and he did so by speaking into an intercom to a woman in another room.\u201d It doesn\u2019t sound like he\u2019s too unfriendly then. And why would<\/em> he be unfriendly with this man? He was going to offer to tailor his clothes and cut out the\u2013 the big businessman, the middleman. That would be to Newton\u2019s advantage<\/em> to be kind<\/em> to this man. But let\u2019s go on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSeated comfortably now in the presence of another man whom Callins said was Newton\u2019s brother-in-law, or possibly his uncle, the two began to talk. He says, \u2018I\u2019ll tell you what. Everybody\u2019s been rippin\u2019 me off, Preston, on getting clothes made,\u2019 Callins recalled. \u2018Now if you give me a full price on a suit, one price,\u2019 he said, \u2018I\u2019ll have all<\/em> my clothes made from you.\u2019 I said, \u2018I can make you a suit for $180 with my material.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Callins said he never got around to showing Newton the materials in his sample case. \u2018I had a suit, that I had on, that he kept telling me he didn\u2019t like, and I said, \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t bring this suit over here for you to like. I\u2019ll show you some samples.\u201d But he wouldn\u2019t let me show him any. He said something like \u2013 he said, \u201cOh God damn it, I\u2019ve been ripped off, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.\u201d\u2019\u201d Now what\u2019s that supposed to mean?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019I said, \u201cOh, baby, don\u2019t feel that way.\u201d And when I said \u201cbaby,\u201d that\u2019s what started the whole thing, because I have a habit of calling my friends \u201cbaby.\u201d You know, my wife, my mother, my other friends, I call \u201cbaby,\u201d and he didn\u2019t like that.\u2019\u201d Now trying to imply that he\u2019s ho\u2013 homosexual, and insecure, and can\u2019t stand uh, to be called \u201cbaby,\u201d because he\u2013 he has an effeminate sort of face, you know.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018He jumps up and he goes buggy. \u201cNobody calls me no damned baby.\u201d\u2019 Then Callins said Newton marched from his dining area, where they had been sitting, and returned with a .357 Magnum revolver. \u2018I\u2019m sitting, talking to his brother-in-law across the table,\u2019 Callins said, \u2018and he\u2019 \u2013 Newton \u2013 \u2018whacked me several times, I mean hard blows right across the back of my head while I was sitting at the table. Blood shot everywhere. Then he turned around and whacked me on the other side again and again. Then he said, \u2018I\u2019m gonna shoot you.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Aw man, you gonna invite me to your home to start some stuff for nothing? What\u2019s wrong with you?\u2019\u201d I\u2019m sure that\u2019s the way a man\u2019s gonna talk if he\u2019s been beaten<\/em> all that many times. He wouldn\u2019t be able<\/em> to talk.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019So he says, \u201cOh, man, you called me a baby, and I don\u2019t like you no way. You\u2019re a little bit yellower than I am.\u201d\u2019\u201d Now ain\u2019t that pitiful? Try to make him look like he notices people\u2019s color of their skin. This is outrageous. Jesus Christ! Overkill.<\/span> \u201c\u2018\u201cI don\u2019t like you.\u201d I said, \u201cAw, man, get off of this shit.\u201d So then he hit me again, and he hit me and knocked me on the floor. He kicked me in the mouth. And by that time I was tired of being hit.\u2019\u201d Amazing! This guy\u2019s still tired of being hit, he\u2019s not unconscious.<\/span> \u201c\u2018I jumped up and hit him in the mouth, knocked him upside the wall. By that time I was bleedin\u2019, I was bleedin\u2019 a lot. I had lost, I betcha, three or four pints of blood.\u2019\u201d Ain\u2019t this ridiculous? Three or four pints of blood! Outrageous! Co\u2013 He wouldn\u2019t\u2013 wouldn\u2019t even be able to get off his feet with the loss of three or four pints of blood. Outrageous damned stuff. I mean\u2013 And they never think the American people \u2013 \u00a0uh, this is what it says!<\/span> \u201c\u2018I was bleedin\u2019, I\u2019d lost three or four pints of blood. I couldn\u2019t be no match for that little youngster there.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cCallins managed to make it to the apartment door.\u201d It makes it look like he picks on middle-aged or older people, too.<\/span> \u201cCallins managed to make it to the apartment door.\u201d With four pints of blood gone! Jesus Christ!<\/span> \u201cUnlocked it and stumbled out into the hallway, but Newton followed him. Now he had a different gun. The first was of no use to him anymore.\u201d I wonder why. Why wouldn\u2019t it? A gun\u2019s a gun.<\/span> \u201cThe first was of no use to him anymore. The grips, Callins told police, had broken on his head.\u201d Oh, I see. \u201cCallins tried to hide in a small recess of the hallway.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019He said, \u201cI\u2019m gonna kill you, motherfucker.\u201d He came and he followed me and he made me go back, and by that time I was just bleeding everywhere. By the time I got to the door, I just fell on the floor, blood all down the hall and all in his apartment. I saw his brother-in-law. I told him, I says, \u201cYou\u2013 You\u2013 You must be out of your mind. Can\u2019t you stop this maniac from doing what he\u2019s doing?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other man tried to calm Newton down. In the meantime, Callins said Newton had called in two of his bodyguards.<\/p>\n

\u201cNewton beat him again and again, according to Callins\u2019 statements, (chuckles) and then brought out a tape recorder and tried to pressure Callins into making statements that would exonerate him and prove him innocent. \u2018He asked questions like, \u201cDid you come in my house and molest me?\u201d\u2019\u201d Oh, this is the same\u2013 same lies they said we do \u2013 same old scenario.<\/span> \u201c\u2019I said, \u201cNo,\u201d and each time he hit me, each time he slapped me. Boom, boom. He said, \u201cDid you do me wrong in my house?\u201d I said, \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t do no wrong. I came here in peace. I came to make you clothes\u2013 your clothes. You offered me a drink.\u201d\u2019\u201d Now I imagine the man about to die, he\u2019d say anything if uh\u2013 if Huey had really done this. He\u2019d have said, \u201cYeah, I\u2013 I did do wrong.\u201d He\u2019da been glad to get out of there.<\/span> \u201c\u2018\u201dI took a little shot, and you got drunk, and then you started hitting me upside the head with your pistol, and I couldn\u2019t stand it. That\u2019s why I hit you back.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cCallins said the two bodyguards then brought a car around from the garage. Callins was ordered out of the building.\u201d Now, why wouldn\u2019t they just murder him? Because he says he resisted them, wouldn\u2019t say he was innocent, and that he was uh, guilty, on the tape recorder. He was supposed to\u2019ve killed everybody else. Why\u2019d they let him go home?<\/span> \u201cHe asked for his sample case, and the big fellow, whom he later identified as Robert Heard, retrieved it, got it back for him. Oddly, Callins said Newton ordered Heard to get the gift bottle of cognac for Callins to take home.\u201d Now that, uh, that\u2013 Jesus Christ.<\/span> \u201cThe two bodyguards then ushered Callins downstairs, placed newspapers on the floor of the car so Callins wouldn\u2019t bleed on the carpet, and drove him home. They ordered him out and chuckled\u2013 chucked his sample case onto the sidewalk beside him. Threw it out on the street. As Callins fumbled with his garage door lock, he fainted. His wife called the police and an ambulance.<\/p>\n

\u201cCallins was taken to Kaiser Hospital in Redwood City, where his four depressed skull fractures required neurosurgery. When police visited him in intensive care to take his statement\u201d \u2013 Now he\u2019s in intensive care. This is too much.<\/span> \u201cCallins told him, \u2018Every time he hit me with that pistol, you could hear the bones crash.\u2019\u201d And yet he managed to walk home and unlock his garage door before he faints.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn a preliminary hearing last fall, three years later, Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Tom Orloff\u201d \u2013 noted racist, I\u2019m saying that \u2013<\/span> \u201ccalled Callins to the stand to give testimony against Newton on the pistol-whipping charges. The tailor shocked the courtroom when he said that while he remembered the beating, he could no longer recall the perpetrator who did it.\u201d Oh, now, that\u2019s convenient.<\/span> \u201cHe said his memory loss was a result of the injuries he suffered. Despite the playing in court of his tape-recorded statement to police shortly after the beating, in which he clearly described Newton as the sole assailant, C\u2013 Callins could not be shaken from his testimony.\u201d Hell, maybe the police<\/em> is the one that did him\u2013 beat him up to try to get him to talk.<\/span> \u201cWhat Callins failed to tell the court, New Times<\/em> has learned, was that he had recently received $6,000 from the Newton side.\u201d Oh? He\u2019s a rich tailor. Why would he need $6,000? That\u2019s not very (stumbles over words). That\u2019s not very much money at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCallins refused to comment on his testimony. When asked about the money, his lawyer, Howard Moore\u201d \u2013 He\u2019s a\u2013 the Communist, uh, he is\u2013 he defended Angela Davis \u2013<\/span> \u201cHoward \u2013 When he asked about the money, his lawyer Owar\u2013 Howard Moore denies Callins was paid off for his silence. \u2018Anybody has the right to sue anybody in civil court,\u2019 he fumes, implying that the $6,000 represented settlement of claims<\/em> Callins had against Newton.\u201d And no doubt it did.<\/span> \u201cAlameda County records, though, show that Callins never filed suit<\/em>.\u201d Well, that\u2019s often the case. You don\u2019t have to file it, they threaten to do it, and they pay off<\/em>.<\/span> \u201cSheldon Otis\u201d \u2013 O-T-I-S \u2013<\/span> \u201cNewton\u2019s lawyer, says that Callins passed along \u2018verbal demands for civil damages for injuries to his person.\u2019 Beyond that, Otis refuses to comment on the matter. He was not involved in arranging for the payment. Howard Moore puts it this way: \u2018Mr. Callins had a claim against Mr. Newton for personal injuries, and that claim has been resolved.\u2019\u201d Howard Moore, by the way, is an attorney who wants to visit here. We want to remem\u2013 remember\u2013 remember that, maybe invite him along with some others.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of August 1974, police had filed a variety of felony counts against Newton.\u201d \u2018Course, we\u2019ll check him out too, to see if he\u2019s<\/em> not an agent.<\/span> \u201cThere was the assault charge stemming from the Fox Lounge altercation or fight with the plainclothes cops, which was later amended to include charges uh relating to the shooting of Kathleen Smith.\u201d Yeah, amended. Whenever they want more\u2013 they didn\u2019t feel they had enough, so they add something else to it.<\/span> \u201cThe beating of Preston Callins also was added to it, and the incident with the two young women. That was also added to it, at The Lamp Post,\u201d that was owned by the Panthers.<\/span> \u201cWhen Kathleen Smith died nearly three months later, the charges were amended again to include a murder count.\u201d Of course!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut Newton was long gone by then, sources saying he had fled to Mexico, and from there, by boat, to Cuba. The Cubans granted him sanctuary on the condition that he keep his nose clean, live modestly, and work. Newton agreed.\u201d When I was there, he wasn\u2019t doing much work. He was just setting in an apartment, a defeated man, because he needed to be back in the United States. And we all know that conflict. But there was more. I think Huey did like the taste of the bourgeois too much, or he would have appreciated Cuba. Jesus, how I\u2013 I\u2019d loved to have lived in peace in that beautiful apartment they provided him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Newton failed to show up for a preliminary hearing in late August\u201d \u2013 the reason I say I know<\/em> he didn\u2019t go back f\u2013 to action or to fight, because I painted the picture just as clear as it was, that there was no hope. But he\u2013 he could see that, but he said if he didn\u2019t believe there was hope, he couldn\u2019t live. That\u2019s why I distrust all socialists who commit themselves without the acceptance of a possibility of defeat. It\u2019s a full rich life you live when you\u2019re a socialist. Whether you\u2019re defeated or killed uh, is no difference. The purpose uh, is to live by conscience<\/em>. That\u2019s the only thing gives peace or dignity to your life, or any meaning \u2013 and everybody dies. It\u2019s said uh\u2013 even the people here who I\u2019ve resurrected look forward to that<\/em> on occasion. Everyone dies except somebody close to me. And then we have such a rich life, if it were just one day, standing up for what we believe, giving people hope, helping so many babies, as we have here. Saved a baby and a mother\u2019s life a couple of days ago. Every week we save some baby. We got a new baby, you know, beautiful new baby [likely Ebony Duncan, born July 7, 1978].<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPanther August\u201d \u2013 uh, uh, well, let\u2019s see,<\/span> \u201cWhen Newton failed to show up for a preliminary hearing in late August, Panther lawyer Charles Garry, met with reporters\u201d \u2013 Charles Garry is our<\/em> lawyer \u2013<\/span> \u201cmet with reporters to announce that Newton had jumped bail and fled because pimps in Oakland had put out a contract on his life.\u201d Well, that\u2019s very likely too.<\/span> \u201cTo prove it, Garry played a tape-recorded phone conversation he had had with then-police chief Charles Gain. Gain had called Garry to say that an underworld source had tipped off police to the contract. But Gain\u2019s phone call had actually taken place almost a year before Newton left the country.\u201d So they try to make out Charles Garry a liar now. And Charles Garry no longer works for Huey. Some force inside of the Panthers got him to give up Charles, and Charles said it was Elaine Brown, Garry says it was Elaine Brown, and she\u2019s been proved to be an agent provocateur<\/em>. But even though she uh, uh, came out and offered evidence against the Panthers, she too<\/em> now has been charged with murder, of some woman floating in the East Bay in Oakland.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs Newton fled to Cuba, it seemed to many in Oakland that the Party was breathing its last gasp, but that judgment was premature.\u201d That must make the\u2013 that\u2019s why this magazine\u2019s so sad, he\u2019s back again. And they\u2019re so vindictive. They never, never, never forget, no matter what you do. They are a vengeful people, capitalists, white capitalists. They\u2019re all capitalists.<\/span> \u201cThere were to be three years of impressive and previously unimaginable Panther inroads into the Oakland political establishment. This would all occur under Elaine Brown, Newton\u2019s successor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe glamorous 34-year-old Brown had come to Oakland four years earlier from Los Angeles, where she had interrupted a singing career.\u201d I hope you will listen to this and study it. You\u2013 Some said you wanted to hear it. And I can\u2019t risk the only copy. And this is like hell, for me to read all this. And I\u2019m the one that knows some of the history, that can give you interpretation, which is important, because some of you<\/em> even believe everything you read.<\/span> \u201c \u2013where she had interrupted a singing career. She came from where she had interrupted a singing career in Los Angeles, to work for the Party, the Panthers. She was smart, articulate\u201d \u2013 \u00a0that means well able to speak \u2013<\/span> \u201cand completely loyal to Newton, qualities that helped her rise quickly through the ranks. With Newton\u2019s blessings as he left the country, Brown became chairperson of the Party. Even from Havana,\u201d the beautiful capital of Cuda\u2013 Cuba,<\/span> \u201che remained Number One, conferring regularly with Brown by telephone, monitored by the CIA, and more private messages delivered by trusted couriers.\u201d Even this magazine admits it was monitored by the CIA. Well, interesting.<\/span> \u201cBut it was Elaine Brown who engineered the Party\u2019s sudden acquisition of respectability.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrown buzzed about Oakland in a red Mercedes\u2013 Mercedes\u201d \u2013 big car too, rich car \u2013<\/span> \u201cand always (unintelligible word) dressed.\u201d What is it? (pause) Uh\u2013 Well, uh,<\/span> \u201cthe panache\u2013 uh, the panache\u2013\u201c uh, the elegance \u201cof a young woman executive. She had a flair for public relations, using the Panther School, begun under Newton, to gain favorable poli\u2013 to gain favorable publicity for the Party, and to impress state and county officials.\u201d Even the governor, [Jerry] Brown, was about to give her a post like uh, he offered me<\/em>. Then when it came out that she was (chuckles) an agent, and the Party was under attack, he acted like he never knew<\/em> her. That\u2019s always the case.<\/span> \u201cAnd from Alameda County, the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, State of California, as well as private donors, she led in a series of service and educational grants for the Party that came to over $300,000. Part of the grant money funneled into the Party came from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, LEAA\u2013\u201d Hell, even trying to make it<\/em> look, I guess, like it\u2019s a communist source, and it\u2019s one of the most right-wing agencies in the world. The only way they could have gotten any<\/em> money from that was because G\u2013 uh, Mrs. Brown had\u2013 They wouldn\u2019t give that money to Huey, uh, it was because Elaine Brown was an agent.<\/span> \u201c\u2013and was earmarked\u201d \u2013 this LEAA assistance \u2013<\/span> \u201cfor a Panther program to help juvenile delinquents. Bay Area leftists noted with amusement that the LEAA, formed in the days of law and order to aid local criminal justice systems, was a favorite agency of the [Richard] Nixon administration.\u201d Now I notice me, myself a pure socialist, nobody ever offered us<\/em> any money. When you\u2019re really a pure socialist, they never offer you any money. We never were offered a dime, not a dime<\/em>. We never got a penny from anybody. I had to earn it by the sweat and blood of my brow \u2013 and other things in my body. Jesus Christ! Only that proves Elaine Brown was indeed the agent that has come out by press to say she was.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring Elaine Brown\u2019s tenure, Oakland\u2019s first black mayor, Lionel Wilson,\u201d Judge Wilson,<\/span> \u201cand Alameda County\u2019s first black supervisor, John George, were both helped into office by the crucial campaign support of the Black Panthers. One year before his election, John uh, George had been Brown\u2019s campaign chairman when she herself ran for a seat on the city council [in] 1975. She waged an impressive campaign and finished\u201d only<\/span> \u201csecond. \u2018She got all the Democratic groups\u2019 endorsements,\u2019 George says. \u2018They recognized that the Panthers were moving into the legitimate political arena, and it was better to go to work with them than against them.\u2019 In previous Panther attempts at public office, most Democratic politicians had been skittish about forming alliances with the Party that had Newton at the helm. In Newton\u2019s absence, the way was open for cooperation and tradeoffs.\u201d Yes, because Elaine Brown was a sellout. But remember, they don\u2019t pay their finks well. She now too is charged with murder.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cElaine Brown\u2019s rapport with politicians didn\u2019t stop at the Alameda County line. In 1976, she went to the Democratic National Convention as Jerry Brown\u2019s delegate, and the governor couldn\u2019t\u2019ve failed to notice that when nearly all<\/em> of his other California delegates had switched their votes to Jimmy Carter in a show of unity once his nomination was assured, Elaine Brown remained steadfast in voting for him<\/em>. Perhaps that is why the governor agreed to see her when she came to Sacramento to lobby for completion of the Grove Shafter Freeway in Oakland, a project stalled by his freeze on highway construction funds. Speaking on behalf of an ad hoc organization formed largely by Republican businessmen in Oakland, Elaine Brown argued that without the Grove Shafter Freeway, a huge downtown development plan for Oakland would not be built. Thousands of jobs were at stake, she said, and she had won a guarantee from the development\u2019s backers that a percentage of the jobs would go to hard-pressed minorities.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018She said she didn\u2019t give a damn about the freeways, all she wanted was the jobs,\u2019 says J.L. Anthony Cline, legal affairs secretary to the governor, who attended the meeting. \u2018She was very convincing. We did what she wanted done, we agreed to complete the freeway.\u2019\u201d This is an effort to get Brown<\/em> now, I suppose, making him a part of something illegal. Even Brown<\/em>, a sellout, is gonna pay because he worked with some liberals that he thought was to his advantage, \u2018cause he never had any principles, but they\u2019re getting uh, the stage set for him to be defeated by the attorney general, right-wing fascist who\u2019s tried to frame me openly, and reveal it to the public. He\u2013 uh, I don\u2019t even know his ugly name\u2013 the attorney general of the State of California. Evel\u2013 Oh, it\u2019s Evelle Younger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut despite the high regard in which she was held by officials in Oakland and Sacramento\u201d \u2013 Elaine Brown \u2013<\/span> \u201cthere were others who uh, quietly referred to Elaine Brown as the \u2018Dragon Lady.\u2019 Sources say she had a pronounced vengeful streak\u201d \u2013 (chuckles) sources say, again.<\/span> \u201cA local television reporter, for example, says Brown, who was then press spokeswoman for the Party, called him after he had broken the story of Bobby Seale\u2019s disappearance and \u2018resignation.\u2019 The reporter says Brown told him, \u2018We know who you are, and if you ever come to Oakland, you\u2019re in trouble.\u2019 After that, he says, he stopped pursuing the Seale story, and has not wanted to cover the Panthers since.\u201d My, my, my, I never knew any news people that were discouraged. With all of our power, and we had plenty of it, they don\u2019t get discouraged. They are a vicious bunch. It\u2019s a lie.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cElaine Brown\u2019s precise relationship to the Squad is not clear. It is known, though, that the group continued its criminal activities during her administration.\u201d And now why would they do this to her<\/em>, good fink that she was?<\/span> \u201cAnd there are no reports that she moved against it. Some Squad members served as her bodyguards, but unlike Newton, Brown did not tour the streets and bars with the Squad on shakedown runs.\u201d And it could be even that this is the schizophrenia of Paul Avery who don\u2019t like finks. Nobody likes a fink, even though he\u2019s willingly doing the establishment\u2019s biddings in destroying the threatening symbol that Huey Newton represents, he\u2013so he\u2019s going s\u2013 to take slaps at Elaine Brown too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring Newton\u2019s three-year absence, there were a series of robberies, shootings, and murders that police regard as the work of the Squad.\u201d The murderous Squad again.<\/span> \u201cOther sources close to the Panthers\u201d \u2013 See, all this \u201cother sources.\u201d How easy it is to destroy anyone. Don\u2019t have to name a person, just say, \u201cother sources\u201d \u2013<\/span> \u201cclose to the Panthers share that belief. Witnesses in most of these cases refused to make formal identifications.\u201d Of course. That\u2019s convenient.<\/span> \u201cIn others, identifications were impossible because the assailants, the murderers, wore ski masks.\u201d\u00a0(chuckles) Jesus Christ, going through the town with ski masks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll the cases are unsolved, save one murder for which a Panther, George Robinson, was convicted. The conviction was later reversed because of an illegal police search. But Oakland and Berkeley Police who are careful not to simply list any unsolved crime as Panther-related, see Squad involvement in the following cases.\u201d Oh, now this is convenient. They\u2019re gonna \u2013 all their unsolved murder cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTommy Johnson [Jackson]\u2013 .\u201d There\u2019s a big black sign uh, pointing to these people, so you\u2019ll all \u2013 all the public \u2013 will believe that Huey Newton is a senseless killer.<\/span> \u201cTommy John\u2013 Johnson was a doorman at The Brass Rail, a Berkeley after-hours bar operating as a private social club, and regarded in the surrounding community as a headquarters at the time for cocaine dealers. At 6\u00a0a.m. on August\u00a027, 1974, the nineteen-year-old Jackson was admititing\u2013 uh, admitting a customer when a car pulled t\u2013 to the curb, and several black men inside opened fire with shotguns.\u201d You\u2013 All the students should take note of this \u2013 uh, the teachers too \u2013 of how they destroy anybody they want to in the press, the arm of capitalism, uh, the fist that reaches out to destroy first, then the authorities come later and finish it off, or assassins.<\/span> \u201cJackson was killed and several customers in the bar were wounded. Club owners Wilbert LaTour had reported\u2013reportedly balked at Squad demands for money, although he denied it to the of\u2013 uh, police.\u201d Now, let\u2019s see, he denied it to the police.<\/span> \u201cCase still unsolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Brass Rail was the scene of two other murders: Willie Ralph Duke, twenty-four, was a heroin dealer who police informants say was making payoffs to the s\u2013 Black Panther Squad.\u201d \u201cThey say, they say,\u201d anything. (Stumbles over words) They can say what they want.<\/span> \u201cHe had reportedly missed a payment because he had lost his money. While Duke was drinking at The Brass Rail on January 25, 1975, with three Panthers and club owner LaTour, Billy Carr approached Duke and suggested they step outside. Police have theorized\u201d \u2013 theorized now \u2013<\/span> \u201cthat the twenty-one-year-old Carr was attempting to warn Duke that he was going to be killed. As both men began to walk away from the bar, say witnesses\u201d \u2013 here again, \u201cwitnesses,\u201d not named \u2013<\/span> \u201cthe three Panthers suddenly pulled guns. Two of them opened fire and shot Duke. Carr tried to stop them, and was also shot. Both men died. Neither LaTour, who saw the shooting, nor the other witnesses, would name the three gunmen.\u201d Would name! Uh\u2013<\/span> \u201cCase unsolved.\u201d Oh, God.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLaTour himself was found murdered four months later. Oakland Police, acting on a tip that he was dead, went to LaTour\u2019s apartment and found his car gone. A week later another tip was received that LaTour\u2019s car could be found in the San Francisco International Airport garage, with his dead body inside. It was long dead. The body had been stuffed head first into a sleeping bag and jammed into the trunk of the car. Case unsolved.\u201d Another big black mark by this.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn April 26, 1975, Vernon McInnis, a dope dealer, known on the streets as Preacher Man, was gunned down by two shotgun blasts, and five .45 caliber shots. Several days before his murder, McInnis had been approached in The Lamp Post to buy a copy of the Panther newspaper. He refused, reportedly saying the Panthers \u2018rip people off.\u2019 The remark led to an argument with Panthers Robert Heard and George Robinson, both Squad members. McInnis was bounced from the bar and killed several days later. George Robinson was convicted of the murder, but the conviction was reversed because police had improperly conducted their search of his car when he was arrested.\u201d Making the police look like their hands are tied, when they\u2019re living in a police state USA.<\/span> \u201cThe district attorney\u2019s office is appealing the reversal. Although the motive established at the trial was the Lamp Post altercation or fight, several sources familiar\u201d \u2013 Here again, several sources, unnamed \u2013<\/span> \u201care familiar with the case believe the killing had much more to do with drug-related payoffs to Panthers.\u201d Now they got the Panthers involved in pushing dope. Anything to tear their image up.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTwo other shootings involved shot\u2013 involving shotguns were thought to be the work of the Panthers.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThought to be\u201d \u2013 what a hell of a way to\u2013 The magazine becomes juror and judge, becomes the court. I thought innocents were not to be (chuckles) judged, were not to be executed in the press. I thought that was one of the guarantees of the Constitution, but it doesn\u2019t work anymore.<\/span> \u201cSo two other shootings involving shotguns were thought to be the work of Panthers because the spent shells found at the scenes had markings almost<\/em> identical\u201d \u2013 almost<\/em>, now \u2013<\/span> \u201cto those in the McInnis case. Police could not act on the evidence, though, because there were no eyewitnesses\u201d \u2013 oh, shit \u2013<\/span> \u201cas there were in the McInnis case, and because shotgun casing marks are not as specific as those from handguns.\u201d It\u2019s true, but if they wanted to do it, they could\u2019ve framed him.<\/span> \u201cOne case involved Phillip Cole, an owner of the Black Knight Bar. Cole was reported to have been the victim of Panther extortion, although he angrily denies it. On September 12, 1974, he was shot at on the street. The bullets missed. Cole could not identify his murdering assailants, or attempted murderers. In the other case, the week before the Vernon McInnis murder, two men were shot\u201d \u2013 (Pause) This is a long<\/em> damned thing. Oh, Lord \u2013<\/span> \u201cS\u2013 These\u2013 Two men were shot soon after leaving The Lamp Post. Willy White lost both an arm and a leg in a shotgun blast, and James Harris died from the wounds he received in the back of his head. Both men had been in an argument with a Lamp Post cocktail waitress that had widened to include others. Case unsolved.\u201d Just because they had a fight with a Lamp Post wi\u2013 waitress, that\u2019s supposed to mean that he was mur\u2013 they were murdered by the Black Panthers. What a reasoning!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn February 1975, one dope dealer was robbed at his home by two armed blacks in ski masks, and another dealer was kidnapped by three black men and killed. Police suspect the Panthers because of the reports\u2013 of reports that both men were being shaken down by the Squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, there\u2019s still the unexplained (Pause) murder of Betty Van Patter, the Party\u2019s attractive, 45-year-old white bookkeeper. She was a Berkeley liberal who dabbled in the more faddish aspects of the occult, but was nevertheless described by a former associate as \u2018a first-rate bookkeeper, very responsible.\u2019 Van Patter landed her job in the summer of 1974. She was hired originally to keep books for the Panther School, but her duties expanded soon after to include bookkeeping for the Party itself, and for The Lamp Post Bar. Although pleased to be working for the Panthers, Van Patter told some friends that The Lamp Post was not paying its taxes, and that money was taken directly out of the cash register and passed along to the Party Squad members. Van Patter\u201d \u2013 capital V-A-N, capital P\u2011A\u2011T\u2011T\u2011E\u2011R \u2013<\/span> \u201cwas known to be fastidious about her work, and she didn\u2019t like going along with accounting procedures she considered\u201d illegal or<\/span> \u201cshaky.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetty Van Patter disappeared on Friday, December\u00a013, 1974\u201d \u2013 even appealing to people\u2019s superstition, Friday the 13th\u00a0\u2013<\/span> \u201cafter having stopped in at one of her favorite Berkeley bars. She had entered alone, saying uh\u2013 said acquaintances, and\u2013 (tape edit; page from article not recorded)<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2013out of bed, although usually she [Mary Matthews] is slow and considered, uh, in her movements\u201d \u2013 In other words, she\u2019s normally slow, but this time she was very fast \u2013<\/span> \u201cShe retrieved her .38 revolver, and without wasting a gesture, dialed Richmond Police. While holding the phone, she heard the sudden round [sound] of ripping metal, and realized the screen door had been torn completely off its hinges.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone was out to kill her. It had\u201d \u2013 it had<\/em>, of course \u2013<\/span> \u201cto be that, she thought, because there was so little in the house that anyone would want to uh\u2013 to steal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first she recited her address to the police\u2013 As she rece\u2013 recited her address to the police, the first shot was fired outside. The lock, she thought, he\u2019s shooting off the lock.\u201d Oh, he\u2013 she knows it\u2019s a he.<\/em><\/span> \u201cShe dropped the telephone receiver on the floor.\u201d Well, of course that\u2019s\u2013 she\u2019d heard a voice, so that would fit in.<\/span> \u201cShe dropped the telephone receiver on the foo\u2013 the floor, pointed the gun at the back door and fired. The very act of firing the gun she had kept for so long but never used, panicked her further. That, and a fusillade\u2013 fusillade of return fire, the muzzle flashes coming through the doorway and lighting up her kitchen. She ran to a small room in the rear of her house to hide, locking the door behind her, cowering in there behind the furniture, this poor little lady. S\u2013 It seemed forever before she heard the crackling of police radios that indicated she might finally be safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutside Mary Matthews\u2019 door was a pool of blood and a 12-gauge shotgun. On the sidewalk lay the dead body of a black man. From the trail of smeared blood, police could tell the man had been dragged and then dropped, and the blood went beyond the dead body, indicated\u2013 indicating another assailant had been wounded. In searching the area along the Richmond ghetto street, a block of corrugated metal warehouses interspersed with a few houses and vacant lots, police found a second shotgun, an automatic rifle, and ammunition. They also found discarded clothing similar to that worn by the dead man. From these items, police surmised there were at least three assailants, and that the discarded blue overalls and watch caps were probably donned to be shed after the killing in order to make eyewitness identification difficult. It was a cold, planned murder attempt.\u201d Now, how did Mary Matthews, firing one shot, kill one man, and wound another? Rather strange.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut why Mary Matthews? It didn\u2019t make sense.\u201d They don\u2019t even bother to get into that. Now this is uh\u2013 this is so damned wild, that it\u2019s outrageous, that this senior lady is able\u2013 never shot a gun before, never used it before\u2013 she\u2019s able to hit right<\/em> directly, with one shot \u2013 yes, I\u2019m gonna check back here \u2013 yes, one shot, and she k\u2013 kills one man and uh, wounds another.<\/span> \u201cBut why Mary Matthews? It didn\u2019t make sense. What would anyone have\u2013 have against this middle-aged mother and grandmother who worked as a bookkeeper out of her own modest home?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer came from the pink clapboard house directly behind Mary Matthews. She owns that house as well, renting its two apartments to a single\u2013 to single mothers with children. One of the women was dark-skinned and pretty, barely five feet tall. She approached the police and said she was one of the gun\u2013 uh, she<\/em> was the one the gunmen had come to kill, not Mary Matthews. She identified herself as Rafael Garry, done\u2013 known on the streets as Crystal Gray.\u201d Oh my. Now you know if the Panther Squad was gonna kill somebody, they would certainly<\/em> find out the exact address. This is a s\u2013 bull corn.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNewton was due in court the very next day, October 24, for a preliminary hearing in the Kathleen Smith murder case. Crystal Gray was also scheduled to be there to testify against him. The charges involving the altercation, the fight with plain-clothes cops at the Fox Lounge, and the beatings of the two young women at The Lamp Post, were eventually reduced to misdemeanors, and severed from the Smith and Preston Callins case. All<\/em> charges were still pending.\u201d They wanted to get Huey there on another murder and conspiracy.<\/span> \u201cThe Smith-Callins trial will probably begin in August or September.\u201d Another chance to get at Huey.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hours before Richmond Police verified the fingerprints of the body in blue overalls outside Mary Matthews\u2019 house\u201d \u2013 where this good little senior grandmother, who\u2019d never fired a shot, was able to kill one man and wound another. That\u2019s my commentary.<\/span> \u201cThe dead man was Louis T. Johnson, a 27-year-old Black Panther, who lived in Berkeley, in a house with other Party members. In a preliminary autopsy performed later that day\u2013\u201d [15 seconds of faint, unintelligible reading] \u201c\u2013Squad well-trained, couldn\u2019t keep from shooting one another?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a botch. They had attacked the wrong house, and they failed to kill anyone but one of their own. Moreover, another of the assailants had been wounded in the hand, judging by one of the gloves police found on the scene. It was ripped and bloodied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened\u2013 what had happened in Richmond was not publicly revealed until the following morning, when Deputy District Attorney Tom Orloff\u201d \u2013 as I said, a racist, real reactionary \u2013<\/span> \u201cbroke the bizarre news in Oakland\u2019s Municipal Court. In an outraged voice Orloff called the incident in Richmond, \u2018planned assassination\u2019 attempt of the \u2018most important witness\u2019 in his case against Huey Newton. Orloff linked the uh\u2013 the dead assailant to Newton directly, saying, among other things, that Johnson had recently visited Huey Newton\u2013\u201d Where at? Oh,<\/span> \u201c\u2013when he was briefly jailed after returning from Cuba. But outside the courtroom, free on $80,000 cash bail, Huey Newton denied any<\/em> involvement in, or knowledge of the Richmond affair.\u201d It was carried, by the way, on every front page of The Chronicle, The Examiner<\/em>, on every TV. So (sighs) uh, he denied involvement. There\u2019s no doubt he was not invol\u2013 volved in what was clearly a police set-up, in the Richmond affair \u2013<\/span> \u201chinting at nefarious doings by the police.\u201d And quite correct in doing so.<\/span> \u201c\u2018At this point, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if the police set up\u2013 set anything up,\u2019 he said. He claimed not to know Louis Johnson. Crystal Gray\u2013 Ke\u2013 Gray, the prostitute, was given police protection, and began her testimony later that week.<\/p>\n

\u201cNewton\u2019s suggestions of the police septing\u2013 a set-up looked unlikely, when four days later it was revealed that Flores Forbes\u201d \u2013 spelled the same as our beloved Prime Minister Burnham, F-O-R-B-E-S \u2013<\/span> \u201ca Squad member arrested with Newton at the Fox Lounge, had sought emergency treatment at an Oakland hospital for a gunshot wound in the hand, consistent with the torn, bloody glove found in Richmond.<\/p>\n

\u201cForbes arrived at the hospital with his hand bandaged, using an old music book as a crude splint. Unwrapping the bandages, the attending physician saw that the whole back of Forbes\u2019 hand had been torn away. Forbes told the doctor he had been injured in an industrial accident with a rivet gun. The man who accompanied Forbes\u2013 Forbes, Panther Nelson Malloy, backed his story, but the doctor knew a bullet wound when he saw one, and said he would have to report it to the police. At that, the two men fled the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublicity about Richmond was potentially so<\/em> damaging to Newton\u2019s case, and the Party itself, that Newton finally agreed to meet with two reporters.\u201d Now you can imagine these guys, they\u2019re not gonna go to that hospital seeking repair of the hand and give their names, until they see what\u2013 what the doctor\u2019s attitude is gonna be about<\/em> it. Or they\u2019d give false<\/em> names. But they didn\u2019t, no, no, they have\u2013 they\u2019ve gone to this hospital and given their own names. This is such bullshit. Anyway,<\/span> \u201cthe publicity about Richmond was potentially so damaging to Newton\u2019s case and the Party itself, that Newton finally agreed to meet with two reporters. Looking thinner than before he left for Cuba, Newton was attractively decked out in a pinstriped three-piece suit donned for a courtroom appearance\u201d so he could look straight. Now they would make him look evil all the way earlier that day.<\/span> \u201cHe tried to convince the reporters that Panther Flores Forbes was only peripherally\u2013 uh, only connected on the outside to the Party, but local newspapers had already revealed that Forbes was on the payroll of a Panther youth services program, and was intimately involved in some of the Party\u2019s violent criminal activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cSipping cognac\u201d \u2013 Yes, gotta make him look like a\u2013 splurging the people\u2019s money again \u2013<\/span> \u201cNewton conceded that the gunmen may have been \u2018overzealous and figured that they would hunt down a witness,\u2019 but he nevertheless denied that he or the Party were involved.\u201d Now, I read the article before in The Chronicle<\/em>. He didn\u2019t even indicate a\u2019tall that uh, they may be overzealous. He completely<\/em> disowned them.<\/span> \u201cHe insisted that both Johnson and Forbes had quit the Party a few weeks before the trial started. \u2018I don\u2019t remember exactly what date, but in any event,\u2019 Newton said, they were no longer Panthers at the time of the Richmond attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few days after the interview, several tourists in the Nevada desert, about forty miles from Las Vegas, heard a moaning sound a few yards off the road.\u201d I know how people [are] just so anxious to get out in the Nevada desert and uh, listen for anything. They\u2013 They wouldn\u2019t get out [if] they saw a man dyin\u2019 on the side of the road. But they hear a moaning, and they get out \u2013 conveniently.<\/span> \u201cThey heard a moaning sound a few yards off the road. Then they noticed a man\u2019s feet sticking out from under a pile of rocks. The tourists snapped a Polaroid picture of the shallow grave and brought it to local rangers, who rushed to the site and unearthed a seriously<\/em> wounded black man buried alive and left for dead.\u201d The only thing that does<\/em> sound real is that that\u2019s what tourists would do: they would take a picture, rather than help<\/em> the moaning person under the rocks.<\/span> \u201cHe had been shot twice and was paralyzed from the neck down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Las Vegas Police questioned him in the hospital, the man gave a fake name and said he had been robbed and shot while hitchhiking. Eventually, though, he admitted to police that he was Nelson Malloy, the man who had accompanied Flores Forbes to the Oakland hospital the day after the Richmond assault. The story that Malloy finally told sounded like something out of the annals of the Mafia \u2013 loyal soldiers turning on other loyalists then ordered from above.\u201d Why would a man crippled from his waist down sell out from police pressure? Amazes me, amazes me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cForbes, Malloy said, had come to his house\u2013 Forbes, Malloy said, had come to his house after the attempt on Mary Matthews\u2019 life. Malloy had only recently arrived in Oakland, summoned by Newton bodyguard Robert Heard. Before that, Malloy had worked in the Panthers\u2019 small Winston-Salem, North Carolina, chapter, to set up a free ambulance service for poor blacks in the community.\u201d Trying to make him look good now. When he\u2019s\u2013 becomes a fink, they\u2019ll make him look good, until they get ready to kill him.<\/span> \u201cHe was dedicated, a believer. After moving west, Malloy (clears throat) went to work at the Party\u2019s free health clinic in Berkeley, impressing clinic personnel with his diligence and aptitude. (coughs away from mic)<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps Forbes\u2013 Forbes went to Malloy for help because of his paramedic skills. Malloy bandaged Forbes\u2019 shattered hand, and wrapped it in the music book splint, but his medical experience was insufficient, and he knew it\u2013 insufficient, and he knew it. He told Forbes that surgery was necessary, and he would not<\/em> perform it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was then that the two men went to the hospital in Oakland, (clears throat), only to flee in the fear that the doctor would turn them in. According to Malloy\u2019s account to police, they remained in hiding until Oakland Panther Rollin Reid drove them to the airport the next day. Forbes and Malloy took a Western Airlines flight to Las Vegas\u2013 Las Vegas. (Pause) There, they were met by Panther Allen Lewis, who drove Forbes to a Las Vegas hospital, where he was treated under a phony name.\u201d Why didn\u2019t he use a phony name in the Oakland hospital? They had all that know-how there, they could\u2019ve done it then. A lot of things just don\u2019t jibe in this story, but the people, all they care is to discredit everything, because nobody wants to see goodness. Then that excuses them from living like the animals when\u2013 which U.S. are more animalistic than any people on earth, even the Uncle Toms and Aunt Janes. Well anyway, it went under the hi\u2013 the phony name.<\/span> \u201cMalloy told police that both Reid and Lewis arrived several days later at his hotel room with orders to drive him to Houston, because Las Vegas was getting too hot. Malloy du\u2013 dutifully climbed in the back of a rented van, and the three left Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 45 minutes later, Malloy said, Reid and Lewis stopped the van for a rest break. Malloy said he was standing beside the van when the two men pulled pistols and shot him in the back and left arm. He dropped to the ground but remained conscious while they dragged him off the roadway and piled rocks on top of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMalloy believes that police in the Bay Area agree\u2013 and police in the Bay Area agree, that Flores Forbes was executed by Lewis and Reid. Police describe the shooting of Malloy, and the probable murder of Forbes, as a housecleaning effort to prevent any possible implication of the Panther higher-ups, and particularly Huey, who (stumbles over words) ordered the Richmond assassination attempt.\u201d Oh, how they just simply (Pause) uh, charge, prosecute\u2013 trial by news media, instead of trial by court, as supposedly guaranteed to everyone in the Constitution. Anyway, now it has uh, Newton, with no evidence, ordering the Richmond assassination attempts.<\/span> \u201cLewis and Reid, being sought for the shooting of Malloy, have disappeared.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of the support for Huey Newton prior to Richmond began to seriously erode when the dead gunman outside Mary Matthews\u2019 home proved to be Panther Louis Johnson. The chilling account told by the permanently paralyzed Nelson Malloy about Forbes, Lewis, and Reid seemed to confirm the pa\u2013 Party\u2019s involvement in Richmond. When the Bay Area press heavily covered Malloy\u2019s release from the Las Vegas hospital in a wheelchair, and his return home to Winston-Salem hospital ward aboard a plane chartered by his aggrieved family\u2013\u201d Oh yes, I\u2019m sure they would give attention to this black man for a little while in his wheelchair, and then dump him in Carolina, where he\u2019ll go back to his (Pause) loneliness without friends. Anyway, (Clears throat)<\/span> \u201cThe Panthers had never looked worse. Alameda County Supervisor John George, for example, a long-time Newton supporter, was deeply troubled by the direction the Party had taken.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut suddenly there was another blow, and it had the potential to harm Newton\u2013\u201d Of course, it was planned<\/em> to do so, destroy him.<\/span> \u201c\u2013and the Party in the local political arena, as much as the Richmond and Molloy incidents. Party chairperson Elaine Brown had disappeared.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe disappearance triggered rumors that Brown might be dead. She wasn\u2019t. But there were other accounts that she had been physically beaten in a clima\u2013 climactic power struggle with Newton after his return. So persistent were these reports, that in Los Angeles, where Brown had reportedly fled after a speedy exodus from her Oakland apartment in the middle of the night, police circulated to local hospitals\u2013 circulated to local hospitals \u2013 a description of her alleged injuries: severe swelling of one eye, and a broken nose.\u201d Wonder how they knew all about that, unless they participated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNearly a month after her disappearance, Brown\u2019s letter of resignation from the Party was finally made public in the Bay Area press. Saying her decision to quit was made with Huey\u2019s understanding\u2013\u201d But before that, there\u2013 it was\u2013 she spore\u2013 spelled out a lot<\/em> of Panther information\u2013 was supposed to have even been over in Iran.<\/span> \u201c\u2013she wrote of \u2018unhappiness in personal matters, my mental and physical strength after ten years were waning, in fact nearly collapsing.\u2019 The doctor who has treated Party members says, however, that colleagues in Los Angeles told him that Brown did receive the injuries described in police circulars, and that she was treated for them. Repeated attempts to reach Elaine Brown were unsuccessful. She did not respond to messages left for her at an office in Los Angeles where she is reportedly editing film scripts and writing songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe theories surrounding Brown\u2019s sudden departure have run the gamut from unrequited love for Newton, who married his long-time secretary, Gwen Fontaine in Cuba, to opposition to the Richmond assassination attempt, to the reassertion of male dominance of the Party now that Newton had returned. But whatever the reason, her resignation, along with Newton\u2019s return, the Richmond attack, began to signal the end of the Party\u2019s era of legitimacy. Richmond especially was a jolt to many sympathizers, who now found it impossible<\/em> to overlook reports of Panther brutality.\u201d That\u2019s what the press smear and the conspiracy of police and law enforcement, FBI, government, wanted done. Break them off from their sources, like they\u2019ve tried to do us, cut us off from our sources in USA. And it\u2019s taken my sweat night and day, with a devoted staff, to keep us afloat, I\u2019ll tell you.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Party\u2019s problems were soon compounded by disclosures that Panthers had mismanaged investments and government grants. The grants had been administered by an offshoot of the nonprofit Educational Opportunities Corporation, EOC.\u201d We\u2019re about to the end, my dears, about to the end. Uh\u2013 Well, co\u2013 I\u2019ve got a page left \u2013 a page left, and uh, it\u2019ll be to the end, and you have heard\u2013 uh, you\u2019ve had uh, given to you uh, 44 pages up \u2019til now. That\u2019s how many pages they\u2019ve used to destroy this man.<\/span> \u201cThis offshoot, the EOC Service Corporation, was created under Elaine Brown\u2019s leadership to run the Party\u2019s school. One man formerly close to the Panthers says that funds channeled through the EOC Service Corporation were used to \u2018keep the Squad sweet,\u2019 needing to establish steady income and fringe benefits (Pause) for the heavies. This was confirmed in part by a newspaper account that grant dollars approved for Panther programs paid the rent for Robert Heard, and Squad member Larry Hensen, in an expensive, luxurious apartment.\u201d Uh, see how they paint that? They don\u2019t mind at all the rich dogs are in expensive and luxurious apartments. Yes.<\/span> \u201cAn expensive, luxurious apartment on Oakland\u2019s Lakeshore Avenue. Oakland Tribune<\/em>\u201d \u2013 always known for its<\/em> fascism<\/span> \u2013 \u201cReporters Pearl Swartz [] and Lance Williams.\u201d Remember, the Oakland Tribune<\/em> owner found life so empty he had to commit suicide<\/em>. That\u2019s what capitalists [capitalism] does for people, it doesn\u2019t give them any happiness. He had no loved ones. His own family turned against him. But it\u2019s still being run uh, by his son, who just recently sold it to another real capitalistic right-wing chain. Anyway,<\/span> \u201cOakland Tribune<\/em> reporters Pearl Stewart and Lance Williams broke the story and also reported that Heard and Hensen, as well as Flores Forbes and another<\/em> Panther facing serious charges, were all on the payrolls of the Party\u2019s grant-funded projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearned\u2013 When he learned of the Panthers\u2019 financial irregularities last fall, Oakland mayor,\u201d former judge<\/span> \u201cLionel Wilson, resigned from the board,\u201d even though they\u2019d elected him,<\/span> \u201cof the Party\u2019s school, where he had served even before his elections. A city audit of publicity\u2013 publicly-funded Panther programs, meanwhile showed a wide pattern of irregularities. For example, investigators could find no evidence that Panthers on the program payrolls were even \u2018physically in attendance,\u2019 although their paychecks were cashed, bearing signatures that looked like possible forgeries to city auditors.\u201d Oh, now they\u2019re for\u2013 guilty of forgery, fraud of governmental funds for the poor.<\/span> \u201cThese irregularities might have been overlooked or allowed to be rectified by the Party, were it not for (Pause) the controversy surrounding Newton and the Richmond affair. Eventually when the city council voted to cancel Oakland\u2019s con\u2013 contract with the Panthers, the move was uncontested. Mayor Wilson abstained because of his former board position. Some in Oakland think the city council action still might not have been so drastic, if the Panthers had not, on one particular p\u2013 application for school grants, listed Newton as the head of the EOC. \u2018It was just plain stupid of the Party,\u2019 one observer says. \u2018They should have kept Huey completely out of it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMismanagement and misappropriation,\u201d fraud<\/span>, \u201care old charges against the Panthers when it comes to money. One doctor who formerly worked at the Party\u2019s free health clinic says bitterly that \u2018the clinic always comes last.\u2019 Funds awarded to the health facility by the City of Berkeley were frequently siphoned off and used for other projects, like Bobby Seale\u2019s campaign for mayor of Oakland, in 1976\u2013 uh, 73, the doctor said.\u201d Whoever the doctor is.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing that the Party was maintained\u2013 has maintained a steady flow of money over the years despite grumblings from some other supporters that money went only to the highest echelon of the Party, and that Newton let other members rot in jail\u201d \u2013 There, now he\u2019s uh\u2013 he\u2019s inhumane, he let his own members rot in jail \u2013<\/span> \u201cwhile he and ranking Panthers always made bail.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering all the money donated to the Panthers, the Party by now could\u2019ve been financially solid if there had been careful investment and moderate spending \u2013 but there wasn\u2019t. \u2018They could have been big, big, real big, as rich as the Muslims,\u2019 one former supporter says, \u2018but they blew it. They were several fucking up with money.\u2019 Several weeks ago the IRS put a $200,000 lien.\u201d That\u2019s always the way it goes, along come the taxes after the newspapers cut you down.<\/span> \u201cA $200,000 lien against the new\u2013 the now-defunct Stronghold Consolidated Productions Incorporated, the New York-based Panther corporation was uh\u2013 that was set up to handle the flow of money from Newton\u2019s books. The corporation which also purchased real estate for the Party, was accused by the IRS of not paying its corporate taxes from 1971 to 1973. There is even some indication that the IRS might hold Newt\u2013 Newton personally accountable for the money.\u201d Oh yes, I\u2019m sure!<\/span> \u201cIf he or the Party as a whole must pay the lien, it could well bankrupt both.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow there\u2019s no one left in the Party with any power\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s what you wanted, magazine \u2013<\/span> \u201cto challenge Newton\u2019s supremacy. The identification of the Panthers with Newton, and Newton alone, is complete. \u2018I am we,\u2019 he has sometimes said, and one suspects he sees himself as inseparable from the Party. What he does, Newson\u2013 Newton has written, he does in the name of all black people.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what he has done, in fact, is to destroy the Party he created. The grants are gone now, the clinic and school still have their doors open, but the Panther newspaper has published only intermittently in recent months. Each week brings more defections from the already decimated, destroyed Party.\u201d That\u2019s what you wanted, magazine!<\/span> \u201cThey often take place unnoticed, but the impact is great. That\u2019s when newspaper editor Michael Fultz quietly slipped out of town in May. It was people like Fultz who did the back-breaking legitimate work of the Party.\u201d They\u2019re probably gonna use him<\/em> for a fink for a while.<\/span> \u201cNow what remains is an isolated Huey Newton, surrounded by his muscle and his lawyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Times<\/em> recently asked Newton for an interview, but he declined. He would grant one, he said, if the story concerned the Panther School and only<\/em> the school.\u201d He\u2019s getting wiser, at least, about the press.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven as Newton awaits trial on the Smith-Callins charges, violence continues to swirl around him. And the party at 4 a.m. on Sunday in late March\u2013 at a party at 4 a.m. on Sunday in late March, two days after an Alameda County Board recommended to the Oakland City Council that grant money for the Panthers be cut off, a 5000 Datsun 260Z belonging to Oakland Tribune<\/em> reporter Pearl Stewart was fire-bombed. Two hours earlier, a separate fire had been set in a boxcar next to a Tribune<\/em> warehouse. The door of the boxcar had been pried open, and the newsprint storied\u2013 stored inside, were torched.\u201d I remember how they tried to s\u2013 accuse us of that and the Examiner<\/em>. Same old lines<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStewart had been writing articles critical of the Panthers for months. Coincidentally, she lived in the apartment building where Panthers Hensen and Heard had lived, until it was revealed in one of her stories that their apartment was paid for with poverty funds from the EOC grant money.\u201d Trying to make all poor people resent them now.<\/span> \u201cStewart says the locks on the security garage where her car was parked had not been changed since Heard and Hensen moved out, although she points out that the garage could be entered without a resident key if someone were intent upon doing so.\u201d But clearly trying to make the Panthers responsible for the bombing of the reporter\u2019s car.<\/span> \u201cThe fire-bombing incident was a chilling reminder of Richmond, and it was not lost on the Oakland City Council, which acted the following day to halt all funds for the Panthers.\u201d Yes, the ones they\u2019d help elect now destroy them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNewton spends much of his time these days in Santa Cruz, where he is working toward a doctorate at the University of California. He is in a program called \u2018History of Consciousness.\u2019 Enrolling at Santa Cruz shortly after returning from Cuba helped bolster his public image, and Newton also scored points by landing an appointment in February as a student teacher at Merritt College, a non-paying job that will count towards his Ph.D. Newton\u2019s brother, Melvin, runs the school\u2019s liberal arts department. It didn\u2019t matter that Newton showed up late for his first class.\u201d Even with a Ph.D., they\u2019re making hi\u2013 Newton look like a\u2013 a mass murderer.<\/span> \u201cDidn\u2019t matter that he showed up late for his first class, looking and s\u2013 looking and sounding as if he had a hangover. He had been celebrating his thirty-sixth birthday the night before. It mattered only that the job carried respectability.\u201d They\u2019re going to probably try to get his brother for getting him the job now.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut even as he pursues his Ph.D.\u201d \u2013 his doctorate of philosophy \u2013<\/span> \u201cthere are reports that Newton has returned to his old routines. Once again he is said to be frequenting the bars in Oakland and Berkeley, accompanied by Squad members. And once again stories of extortion demands are making the rounds. \u2018He\u2019s back to his same old criminal stuff,\u2019 one source says\u201d \u2013 again, nameless \u2013<\/span> \u201c\u2018hitting up the clubs, the pimps, and the dope dealers.\u2019 Not all the barroom sorties involve extortion. On May 11 of this year, in the small town of Seacliff, twenty miles south of Santa Cruz, Newton and Robert Heard got into a barroom fight with a 26-year-old white, Kenny Hall.\u201d Naturally they name him white<\/em>, to whip up prejudice of white people.<\/span> \u201cThe sheriff\u2019s office had been unable to reconstruct the events precisely, but he has determined he\u2013 that during the fight at least one handgun was drawn, and at least two shots were fired.\u201d See, they have to be sure at the end \u2013 we\u2019re right at the end now \u2013 that whites hate him too. This is the first time they named a poor white soul that\u2019s been hurt by Huey and his big 400-pound bodyguard.<\/span> \u201cHeard and Hue\u2013 and Newton were both seen with a gun, according to the sheriff\u2019s office. Hall was unarmed. Afterward, Newton and Heard fled the bar but were arrested later that night. Kenny Hall was treated for a minor head injury suffered when he was knocked into a glass divider.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice in the Bay Area find the situation frustrating. Their hands are tied.\u201d Oh yes, I know how the white police\u2019s hands are tied in USA.<\/span> \u201cTheir hands are tied because victims and witnesses will rarely step forward to testify against Huey Newton or his friends, out of fear. Police cite the recent incident at the Caf\u00e9 d\u2019Elegance, an after-hours club in Berkeley. Newton was there, making his rounds, when a pimp reportedly accosted him and complained about the shakedowns of his women. Newton, said one witness, ordered his bodyguards to draw their guns. No one was permitted to leave while Newton ranted and lectured his captive audience on political theory for about an hour.\u201d Isn\u2019t this ridiculous?<\/span> \u201cBut nobody in the club that night ever pressed charges.\u201d No\u2013 Nobody in that whole club, being held there, hostage against their will.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUndoubtedly, much of the reluctance to testify against Newton stems from fear. But there is also a lingering feeling among some blacks and white radicals that Newton was once an important leader in the fight for equality, and that sending him to prison would serve the interests of racists.\u201d Which it wouldn\u2019t. This bastard, New Times,<\/em> socialist magazine ought to be of itself. It\u2019s just a front for capitalist conspiracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Seacluff\u2013 Seacliff brawl made local headlines\u201d of course,<\/span> \u201cand prompted Deputy District Attorney\u201d racist<\/span> \u201cTom Orloff\u201d \u2013 I\u2019m calling him racist, \u2018cause he is \u2013<\/span> \u201cback in Oakland, to ask that Newton\u2019s bail in the Smith-Ca\u2013 Callins case be raised from $80,000, which Newton had posted in cash, to $200,000. Panther watchers were already amazed at the speed with which Newton had raised the $50,000 cash bail for the Seacliff incident. After several days, the judge in the Smith-Callins case set an additional cash bail for Newton at $75,000. Newton showed up in court on May 19, the day the bail decision was to be handed down, with a slew of supporters from the Party, including Panther schoolchildren to face the crowd of reporters. At his side was his wealthy, long-time supporter, Hollywood producer Bert Schneider,\u201d which he\u2019s supposedly having a homosexual affair with.<\/span> \u201cNewton was placed in custody for a scant fifteen minutes before the extra $75,000 surety bond came through. When it did, he was released. On June 15, news broke that Newton lawyer, Sheldon Otis, had bowed out of the case, and had been replaced by Michael Kennedy, a close friend of Schneider.\u201d Probably Otis was threatened, too, to get out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow it appears to be a waiting game all around, the police stymied.\u201d Oh, how humane they are, and their hands are tied, they want to do justice.<\/span> \u201cThe police, stymied by reluctant witnesses, won\u2019t move against Newton without solid evidence, for there is a sensitivity about Panther cries of police harassment. Besides, law enforcement officials believe that they have a solid case against Newton on the current charges, and that he will be put away.\u201d I would think<\/em> so, they\u2019ve got him with five murder charges and conspiracy.<\/span> \u201cVictims of continuing Panther extortion are also waiting. Their attitude is, why bother doing something about it now? Why risk trouble, when it will be resolved in the courts? Huey will be convicted, and the rest of them will be too weak to continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut some<\/em> believe that Newton will do anything to avoid prison, despite his boast years ago that he could do hard time because there was a side of him that liked solitude, being alone. These observers believe\u201d \u2013 never named, of course \u2013<\/span> \u201cThese observers believe Newton will jump bail and leave the country once again, although it is not certain whether Cuba would receive him so readily this time.\u201d Yeah, they\u2019re trying to dirty his name politically so he\u2019ll have no place to go. I hope Cuba will not be taken in by it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there are others who think Newton is intent on self-destruction.\u201d And how do they deduce this? As I told you in the Peoples Rally,<\/span> \u201cI\u2019m going down in a blaze of glory.\u201d They conclude he\u2019s going to commit suicide, because of this.<\/span> \u201cLook at the titles of his books,\u201d says this smear magazine.<\/span> \u201cThey say To Die for the People<\/em> and Revolutionary Suicide<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

And Paul Avery ought to be sick in his gut, because he knew what those historic words meant. To die for the people means to give up your life for the people you love. And revolutionary suicide is an act of giving yourself \u2013 if it even sacrifices yourself \u2013 to bring down the corrupt racist capitalist system. Thus ends this horrible smear, the new means in which USA assassinates anyone that represents hope for the people. Even though Huey Newton had been playing it very safe, and talking nonviolence like Martin Luther King. Thus\u2013 the\u2013 the title of the uh, magazine that covers the entire New Times<\/em>, \u201cThe Party\u2019s Over.\u201d And indeed the press has assured that the party\u2019s over, so the law enforcement can move in now and put him away, and probably even put him in the gas chamber.<\/p>\n

Sorry to have to give you such depressing news, but some of you don\u2019t wake up to the evil manipulations and conniving of the U.S. press and how impossible<\/em> it would be for you<\/em> to go back there, even if you wanted to sell out and let your lips drip with the blood of the people that are being oppressed by U.S. capitalism in<\/em> USA and all over the world. They\u2019re being killed every moment by our tax day\u2013 dollars, which should cause no small amount of guilt.<\/p>\n

Thank you. I love you very much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you. To return to the Tape Index, click here. To read the Tape Summary, click here. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1,\u00a0Pt. 2,\u00a0Pt. 3). [Editorial note: Much of this transcript consists of the reading of an article published in New Times, a biweekly magazine. Jim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":27291,"menu_order":238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-77964","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77964"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113754,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77964\/revisions\/113754"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}