Posted on 03/24/2004 7:09:26 PM PST by Sabertooth
Recent weeks have seen revelations of the Phoenix Project, a plot to assassinate six US Senators that was once debated and brought up for a vote by high-ranking members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, including presumptive 2004 Democrat Presidential nominee John Kerry, then a leader of the VVAW.
The plot was conceived and promoted by VVAW member Scott Camil, and though it was voted down at a secretive November, 1971 VVAW meeting in Kansas City, about which Senator Kerry has no recollection, many questions remain.
One of the targets was Senator John C. Stennis, who was shot by two assailants outside his home on January 30th, 1973, three days after the cease fire between the U.S. and North Vietnam went into effect.
While the shooting of Senator Stennis was immediately judged to be part of a robbery attempt, the new information that he was a potential assassination target of members of the VVAW have warranted a second look.
Interestingly, the atmosphere of the VVAW in the early 1970s was so radicalized that another former member actually did carry out a well-known assassination of a government official on American soil.
On November 6th, 1973, former VVAW member Joseph Remiro, by then with the Symbionese Liberation Army, teamed with SLA member Russell Little to assassinate Oakland Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster as he left the Oakland school district administration building in Oakland, California.
Some background…
VietNam Veterans Against The War
Part One: 1967 to 1975
by Steve Hassna
`67,`68,`69,`70 and VVAW grew as the war went on. By 1972, when I joined, the population of VVAW across the country had grown to 25,000 very noisy members. Now that may not seem like much, given the whole number of people involved in VietNam, but it was a first, and an outspoken one at that. Most veterans just went home and tried to forget, which at times was impossible. The mood of the country and the nightly coverage of the war wouldn't let them. This is what happened to me and many others.
Edwin Star's song, "War, What Is It Good For", was straight to the point. I got my come-uppance in May 1970, watching the nightly lie on the tube. Richard (I am not a crook) Nixon, announced to the world that US forces had invaded Cambodia to wreck the supply bases of the V.C.(Viet Cong), and N.V.A.(North VietNamese Army) for the first time. I sat straight up in my chair and told my wife Cindy that that was a lie. My unit, 1st. Bde. 101st Airborne Div., had been in the same exact place in 1967. There's one lie, more to follow. Then a few days later, Kent State, Ohio. My feelings were, they have stepped over the line and will gun down students, thinking that they (students) will shut up and go home. Kind of like throwing gasoline on a fire, then being surprised when it blows up in your face. Which is just what it did; all over the country, campuses were in chaos.
The same thing happened at Jackson State, Mississippi, barricaded students were fired on by troops of the Mississippi National Guard. Not much coverage on Jackson State though, it is mainly black students. All this sent me over the edge. I had, for about a year after I was out if the Army, just tried to fit in at home in the S.F. Bay Area. That was over now.
< -snip- >
During this time VVAW was, as it had been doing for some years, working to stop the war, and deal with the attitudes of its members. VVAW became a brotherhood of war survivors. Veterans that had been there and had no one else to turn to. The common goal: Stop The War, and survive till it is over. Whether you remember it or not, the VietNam Veteran in the early `70s took heavy casualties from suicide, drug and alcohol, murder, and incarceration. This was due to society's rejection, blame for losing the war, and guilt for giong, and coming back. Welcome home Johnny, now die! VVAW was a group that cared for the Vietnam Vet. Most chapters became extended families, based on mutual survival.
< -snip- >
In 1970 -`71, two events occurred that sent a message to the government that they were not dealing with the run of the mill Veteran. On Sept 4, 1970, VVAW set out on a 90 mile march from Morrsitown, New Jersey to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania(is this symbolic or what!). About 100 VVAW personnel took part in the march. During the march everyone was decked out in jungle fatigues, swamp hat, plastic M-16s and moved in formation as if on search and destroy missions back in the Nam. They would enter small towns on the way and, to the citizens' dismay, they would secure the area, search buildings at will, detain, search, and generally harass the population, just like the good old Nam. Then move on to the next town. VVAW was aided by Quakers and pacifists who volunteered to be the detainees, and subjects of the harassment. They were also jeered at and threatened by, this time, the local VFW and American Legion posts in the area. This sent a somber message to the government. Here were the boys that fought the war, out showing for all to see, how it was conducted. Another problem for the gov. was the fact that not all these people were privates in the military. NCO's and Officers were members of VVAW, which just added to its credibility.
(I was an E-6 Staff Sgt. Drill Sgt. when I left the Army, and I knew an E-6 Marine Gunnery Sgt. and an Air Force Captain who were also members of VVAW when I joined in 1972.)
Then in 1971 the chickens came home to roost, so to speak. From April 19 to 23, 1971, 1,500 members of VVAW decended on the capitol in Washington D.C. In the days that they were there, VVAW lobbied Congressional members to stop the war, staged guerrilla theater, occupied various government buildings. Oh yeah, and got arrested, bad vet...Go to jail...
Finally the Chief of police for D.C. said he was not going to arrest any more vets. Hurrah for our side. Then at the end in a very solomn and emotional display, these same vets threw their medals, discharge papers or parts of their uniforms over a fence and onto the steps of the U.S. Capitol. We are the ones who fought for you, we are the ones you lied to, now take back your awards, and to hell with you and your war! This, folks, was not what the government was looking for in the way of P.R. image in 1971, 1,500 veterans saying, Stick it, gov., where the sun don't shine! VVAW then moved to a new position of government outlook. In one fell swoop, VVAW became, in the eyes of the government, a serious danger and threat to the U.S. government and social order, right behind the Black Panther P
arty, and Weather-Underground (Weathermen). Gee, isn't it nice to be noticed for your achievements. Now the fun started, OK little boys you want to play hard ball, try on the F.B.I. and see how that fits. (James McCord of the Nixon plumbers, during the Warergate hearings in `73, when asked why he got involved in that mess, replied,"Because of the danger from VietNam Veterans Against The War". I saw this live on TV.) With the F.B.I involved, sending in agents, provocateurs, and infiltrators, the scenerio went from nuts to surreal. At the same time, the left was trying to court VVAW for its own exploitation. VVAW was, from the veiwpoint of the radical left, to become the vangaurd of the revolution. I even had one leftist meathead tell me that it made sense to him. Nam vets were, after all, highly trained killers; who better to lead the masses in the glorious proletariate revolution against the capitalist, pig running dogs? Oh, he did not mean as in politically or from a leadership position. He meant from the position of point man in the trenches. We vets were not politically astute enough to make decisions, leave that to the people with Marxism on their side.
By 1972 the situation was nuts, the F.B.I. was running amok, (see my column on Republicans in Miami, 1972) and the left was doing their best to screw up the whole thing. Unfortunately some vets were buying the radical left's outlook. Which if you look at it, makes sense. These people were disillusioned with the existing U.S. politics, had been rejected by the society as a whole and were looking for a new way to do things, with an end to war and more social justice. Picking up the gun and shooting the man, with a Marxist spin on it, wasn't really the way to go about enacting change. But hell, to most of these people, if not all, this was OJT (On the job traning), in its worst form. Here is an example of stupid symbolic gestures. I joined the San Francisco chapter of VVAW in August `72. Shortly before I joined, a plan was hatched by a few members to, now get this, take the beach on the west side of the city, with their backs to the Pacific Ocean. Make demands that San Francisco become a war free zone, or else. The problem with this is that there is a sea wall running along the beach protecting Hwy.1. The police could, from this position, then throw rocks down on the liberators of the Haight Ashbury. The images of Omaha Beach and the Normandy invasion come to mind here. Or maybe better put, the suicide squad of the " Peoples Liberation Army of Galilee" from the Monty Python movie, "The Life of Brian". You have seen this movie? No? Well check it out. This plan was resoundingly poo-pooed by the majority of the chapter membership, thinking too much beer was involved in the planning stage of the event. Unfortunately, one of the planners of this event went on to ride with the SLA (Symbonese Liberation Army) and is doing life in prison for his part in the killing of Marcus Foster, Oakland Superintendent of Schools.
< -snip- >
By the end of 1972 things were, politically and emotionally, around the country, about to come to a rolling boil. And troops, VVAW was about to spin into self-destruction. A debate started in the organization in mid `72 about the future and what to do when the war was over. By this time everyone knew that, in fact, the war was going to end soon, just not sure when. One train of thought was we "struggle", (that's a leftist term, for "fight the good fight") to see the war end. Then decide what we were all about. The other was, "We need to build an organization for the revolution, be the vangaurd, and all that other crap. Continue the fight against the capitalistic power structure and embrace a Marxist- Leninist analysis for a people's revolution, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!! This sort of thinking really gave most of the members in VVAW a headache, and many left in disgust. This type of thought train was coming from VVAW members and non-veterans working in the organization who had adopted that Marxist analysis. The one thing to remember is that these people were coming into VVAW to push their special agenda. They were not there to stop the war, they were there to advance their political thought. Everything from the R.U.(Revolutionary Union),R.S.B (Revolutionary Student Brigade),Venceremos, October League, S.W.P.(Sociallist Workers' Party), CPUSA (Communist Party United States of America) and last but not least, the one, the only,the RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party). Though small in numbers, they were able to get into positions of power that would let them set VVAW policy. One thing you should remember, is that when all this was going on the Feds were trying their damnedest to wreck VVAW. They (FBI,ect.) were sending in agents to stir the pot and get VVAW to do something stupid. At the same time members were contacted by the FBI to inform on, and keep the FBI abreast of, what VVAW was up to. With the reward of money for services rendered. One can only wonder how nuts it was being a member of VVAW at that time. The general membership of VVAW was caught between a rock and a hard place, with the Feds on one side and the leftist loonies on the other. The going joke was guessing how many agents were at the different demonstrations VVAW attended.
The Feds were one thing, but the leftists were something else altogether. With the different political lines all trying to get VVAW to pick up their banner,what resulted was a whirlwind of dogma and jargon. And this caused a major split in the organization. In 1973 VVAW got a new name, and a whole new set of headaches. Now it was VVAW/WSO, VietNam Veterans Against the War/ Winter Soldier Organization. The addition of WSO meant that non veterans could join and be in positions to set policy. The left played on the guilt and pain that members had from the war. We (members) had to embrace Marx and bare our souls to our crimes against humanity. Meetings turned into political education classes, with criticism / self- criticism periods thrown in to help us move forward for the revolution. Do I need to say how much of a royal pain in the ass all this was? On top of all this, there were people who took this crap seriously.
< -snip- >
You can imagine how myself and other grunts felt about these new turn of events. We were expected to accept leadership from someone, (woman, man, color or not), on face value, whether they were qualified to lead or not. Now I learned in the Nam that rank does not make a leader, officer or NCO. There were competent officers and NCO's and there were also incompetent ones. The incompetent people got others killed, plain and simple.Now if you are a competent leader I will work with you and follow your stead; if not, forget it. And now myself and others were going to have to accept new leadership, period. I'm not talking a bake sale or a quilting bee, oh no, not that simple. We're talking the great proletariate revolution, with guess who as the point men. Nam grunt, one each, expendable! Revolution, yeah right. Most of these people could not lead themselves to the toilet, let alone know what to do once they got there, without a steering committee to analyse the situation. With this in mind, you can imagine the fight that resulted within the organization.And what a fight it was! This did not happen overnight; from late `72, through `73, and into `74, the bullshit raged. Funny thing is, US involvement ended in `73, which took a lot of wind out of the revolutionary's sails. Many members went home, now that the war was done, and got on with their lives. The population of VVAW dwindled rapidly, but still many held on to see the war through to its conclusion, the total unification of VietNam. That was a year away. In the meantime let's just keep kicking this political crap around.
The "Split", as it was known, started in early `74. VVAW just splintered in all directions. The war was over for the US , it would be a year more till the guns fell silent for good. The good folks from Southern California, Berry Romo and crew, decided to take over the National Office in Chicago. This was basically a RU/RCP takeover, under the guise of reshaping VVAW for the future. Somewhere along the line Berry Romo realized that the RCP would be in control and not him. He was, after all, an officer in Nam and was supposed to be in charge, now wasn't he? I think that Berry had his eye on running the RCP also, but Bob Avakien, said no, no, no, me lead, you follow. This is only my speculation on what came down, but it sure rings true, as you will see. What did Berry and crew do, being good Marxist-Leninist-Stalinists? Why they had themselves a good old fashioned coup and purge. Berry renounced his wicked Stalinist ways and became a Democrat again. Now seeing how the membership by now was down to nill, this didn't mean much. There were small chapters around the country, but nothing like a year and a half earlier. VVAW/WSO was what was going on and that didn't last long.
By mid `75 VVAW was dead completely on the west coast. The fall of Siagon in April and the final unification of Vietnam helped a lot: party over, time to go home. There was one more thing that put the last nail in the coffin for VVAW on the west coast. A group called the SLA got itself barbequed in a shoot-out with the police in Compton, Ca. (L.A. area). Seeing how the radical left was connected to VVAW, whether we liked it or not, the Feds landed on the San Francisco Bay Area like a bad rash. Joe Romero was a member of VVAW, also Venceramos, and finally the SLA. The SLA was formed in the Bay Area, and their members were from a variety of leftist and anti-war groups. Many people who were associates of, or knew SLA members without knowing what they were up to, or even that there was a group called the SLA, had their lives turned upside down. I was a member of VVAW in the Bay Area, and knew Romero. After a short time I got to disliking him, and had no use for his brand of politics. Well, guess whose name was in little Joey's address book, when he and Russel Little were busted in Concord, Ca. (East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area)? Yours truly, thanks a lot!
Here are two"revolutionaries" driving around a white middle class neighborhood in the suburbs late at night. When stopped by the police, a shoot-out ensues and Little and Romero are arrested. Not only did Romero have his address book with all the names and addresses of people he knew on him, but he also had the gun that killed Marcus Foster, (Oakland Schools Superintedent), on his person. Not too smart! He is currently doing life in prison for that killing. Also in the van were literature and posters of the SLA. Why were Little and Romero driving around Concord late at night? Because they could not find the safe house the other members of the SLA had rented. If you haven't noticed, most houses in any subdivision look pretty much the same. Gee, is that the one? Don't know, let's ring the bell and see. These people didn't have a clue what they were doing, but they were going to lead everyone else in the glorious Revolution. Yeah right, I think I will pass. The SLA violated every rule of guerrilla warfare and paid for those mistakes with their lives. Romero and Little's arrest was followed by the Patty Hearst kidnapping , then the final shoot-out in Compton. With each of these events the left in the Bay Area and in Southern California ran for cover. With the final shots, the left decided to take long vacations out of the area, and the streets of Berkeley were as deserted as a church at midnight on a Tuesday. It was not long after that, that VVAW was done on the west coast, and what remained was in the midwest and New England states. But even then, it wasn't much, compared to what it had been.
VietNam Veterans Against The War
Part One: 1967 to 1975
Sonoma County Free Press
Steve Hassna | November, 1999
Some details on the arrests of Joseph Remiro and Russell Little:
The History of the SLA Part 2 - The Murder of Marcus Foster On January 10, 1974, Officer Dave Duge stopped a suspicious van which had been cruising slowly through Concord, a neighbourhood mere blocks away from the Clayton house. The driver, Russell Little (using false ID under the name "Robert Scalise") and his passenger, Joe Remiro, explained nervously that they were looking for the DeVoto residence.
Although their ID checked out, the dispatcher reported that there was no DeVoto residence in the area. Duge asked Remiro to step out of the vehicle, and Remiro came out firing. A short gun battle ensued in which neither was hit. The van took off into the darkness, as did Remiro on foot.
After a short chase, "Scalise" was caught and placed under arrest. Upon frisking him, the officers discovered that he had been hit in the shoulder by one of the shots meant for Remiro. He was taken immediately to Contra Costa hospital. A search of the van produced weapons and stacks of SLA flyers. The seven-headed cobra emblazoned on the head of each leaflet drew an immediate connection with the Foster murder, and the search for Remiro intensified.
Four hours later Remiro was spotted ducking between two houses. He surrendered without incident. Upon searching him, officers found the Walter PP .380 automatic that had been used in the murder of Marcus Foster.
As soon as Remiro and Little were booked into Concord City Jail, an extra shift of guards was called in to surround the building. No one got in or out without being thoroughly checked. The two were transferred almost immediately to Contra Costa County Jail, where armed guards on the roof were joined by extra street patrols. New and more serious charges were filed against the pair, bringing their bail to almost three-quarters-of-a-million dollars each. Not wanting to allow any chance for escape or for an assisted breakout, it was decided that Remiro and Little would be transferred to California's most secure penitentiary, San Quentin. This move was unprecedented, as suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and only the guilty are housed in penitentiaries.
By January 12, Remiro and Little were locked away in San Quentin's Adjustment Center, the "jail within a jail" where George Jackson was gunned down. Prison officials stated that Remiro and Little were placed in this super-secure setting to keep them safe from reprisals in the name of Marcus Foster. They were held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in "strip cells" with almost no furniture and only a hole in the floor to serve as a toilet.
On January 18, Remiro and Little attempted to release a communiquÈ, which was seized by prison authorities. A copy finally reached the Phoenix newspaper, which published it in full. It read in part:
"We are not guilty of crime and will not become so by failure to stand as politically conscious and socially motivated men. Our crime is the realization that as revolutionaries it is our duty to totally support and recognize all those struggling for national liberation and the construction of a more humane and egalitarian society. This is our only crime. We have already been convicted and sentenced to on their worst hell-holes, San Quentin's 'Adjustment Center' even before railroading us thru court. But we still grow stronger every day--the spirit of Lolita Lebron and George Jackson thrives here! We feel like the rabbit who was thrown into the briar patch for punishment."
The History of the SLA Part 2 - The Murder of Marcus Foster
Even the New Left took notice (of course, future conservative David Horowitz was one of the Editors of Ramparts):
The Symbionese Liberation Army: At about 7 PM on November 6, 1973, three armed figures emerged from the darkness of a parking lot behind the Oakland school district administration building and opened fire. In a scenario that seemed straight out of a Hollywood B-release, the black superintendent of Oakland's public schools was cut down in a hail of cyanide bullets and shotgun blasts. As the killers fled, Marcus Foster lay dead on the pavement, near the writhing body of his seriously wounded white aide.
The following day, "Communique # 1" from a group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army Western Regional Youth Unit was received by the media. The communique contained a "Warrant Order" for the execution of Foster and his aide, and a three point "indictment" of the Oakland School Board. It concluded with a phrase made popular by Eldridge Cleaver: "Death to the Fascist Insect that Preys Upon the Life of the People."
Up to that time, few, if any, had heard of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Moreover, while the rhetoric of the
"Warrant" and "Indictment" bore resemblances to some Left rhetoric, the act itself was so brutal, so morally unjustifiable and so politically incomprehensible, that most Bay Area radicals assumed the "SLA" to be a cover for some right-wing or police group, or perhaps even a criminal gang seeking to settle an obscure debt, and throw suspicion onto the Left in the process.
For two months, there were no leads in the Foster case. And then a chance encounter between two SLA members and police during a routine traffic check led to a gun battle and the subsequent arrest of Russell Little and Joseph Remiro (who turned out to have been one of the founders of a local VVAW chapter). In their possession, the police found the weapon alleged to have murdered Foster.
A week later, the press received an open letter from Nancy Ling Perry, who was being sought in connection with an arson attempt on the house where Remiro and Little had been staying. Her letter began with a set phrase
that was to open all subsequent SLA communications: "To those who would bear the hopes and future of the people, let the voice of their guns express the words of freedom." Perry said that she was a "freedom fighter" in an SLA intelligence/information unit, that she had adopted the name "Fahizah," and that the killing of Foster was not indiscriminate, but stemmed from his support for "political police state programs," similar to the one in South Africa, in Oakland's schools. Killing him, she said, was "the only means left open to us to demand that the people's wishes be met, and that all such dangerous, genocidal programs be stopped."
Terrorism and the Left – The Symbionese Liberation Army
by the Editors | Ramparts Magazine | May 1974
Biographical information on Remiro, from a Congressional investigation:
THE SYMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY
A STUDY PREPARED FOR THE USE OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNAL SECURITYJoseph Michael Remiro, 27, was a member of the 101st Airborne Division and served two voluntary hitches in Vietnam. Released from the Army in 1968, he returned to San Francisco where he was born and where his family still lives. Remiro gave his family's address and the occupation "machinist" when purchasing a .380 Walther, in July 1973, from the Traders Gun Shop in San Leandro.
Remiro was arrested in San Francisco in 1970 on a charge of desecrating the American flag by wearing it sewn on the seat of his pants. The charge was reduced to disorderly conduct and he was given a 30-day suspended sentence. Reports state that he was charged with smuggling marijuana in 1967 when he was in the Army, but no disposition is known of that case.
A founding member of the East Bay chapter of Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization (VVAW/WSO) in 1972, Remiro took an active role in that organization until March 1973. He worked in the VVAW/WSO office at 4919 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, where the telephone was installed and listed in his name.
While living at 4614/4616 Bond Street, Oakland, Remiro, who had lived with known Venceremos organization members, was also involved with the Oakland electoral campaign of former Black Panther Party leaders Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown; with boycott activities of the United Farm Workers; and other "community" activities. He studied auto mechanics and made the dean's list at the College of Alameda, a part of the Peralta District campus in the spring of 1973.
THE SYMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY
A STUDY PREPARED FOR THE USE OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNAL SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES | FEBRUARY 18, 1974
Of course, Joseph Remiro wasn’t the only member of the Symbionese Liberation Army with a VVAW background…
SLA LOST YEAR, PART TWO III In October 1974, Bill Harris wrote a friend that he and the other SLA fugitives considered themselves at war with the system. But they were not "mad revolutionaries," he claimed—they were urban guerrillas training to fight on "sanely, calculatedly."
At the same time, Harris added the title "General" to his adopted name Teko. Emily and Patty had accepted Bill as the group’s leader after the death of Donald DeFreeze, the SLA field marshal known as Cinque. But Harris’s new title signaled a renewed emphasis on militarism.. He now was the official commander in charge of his own army.
Harris had been born 29 years before on an Army base at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. From there he had become an Episcopal acolyte, a golfer, a thespian, a postgraduate in urban education and a U.S. Marine in Vietnam.
Vietnam was his introduction to violence. He came home bitter and no longer sure of his goals. With his wife, Emily, a school teacher he’d married while both were students at Indiana University, Harris moved to Oakland in 1972 and became active in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). There he met Joseph Remiro, a vet seemingly so deranged by Vietnam he used the antiwar movement to show off his combat training. Remiro once almost blew himself up while lighting gasoline he’d splashed around the fuselage of a display Air Force jet in a city park.
But Harris was different. Friends remember him as quiet and rational, more interested in serious organizing than in violence. The Harrises began visiting Bay Area prisons where both were profoundly affected by the black men in cages. In the spring of 1973 they met Cinque, a street tough from Los Angeles who had just escaped from Soledad prison. Cinque was being harbored by Remiro and other people they knew from their work in the VVAW and the prison reform movement. To some old associates Cinque was an unimpressive thug who once had robbed a prostitute of ten dollars, turned in a buddy to the police and frequently got drunk on plum wine. But to Remiro, the Harrises and a few close friends, Cinque was a charismatic prophet whose talk of killing and kidnapping somehow made sense.
Meeting Cinque became a decisive juncture for the Harrises. Emily was completely entranced. "I am in love with a beautiful black man," Emily wrote in a letter to her mother.
Suddenly Bill had to confront his own latent feelings of jealousy and racism. His response was dramatic. Bill began affecting a black slang that mimicked the accents and ideas of Cinque. He became Cinque’s right-hand man in an army of four white men and five white women that included Emily and Remiro.
Harris helped lead the nascent Symbionese Liberation Army through boot-camp drills in the secluded hills above Berkeley and taught the women members how to load, shoot and break down Army carbines that Cinque secured on the black market.
Cinque divided his tiny militia into even smaller units: medical, intelligence, combat, communications. He might have been game playing had his soldiers no taken him so seriously.
In the fall of 1973 Cinque began selecting targets for political assassination. His first choice was Charles 0. Finley, the Oakland A’s owner depicted on many sports pages as the petty tyrant of baseball. Cinque expected Finley’s execution to produce a media splash for the SLA. But Cinque changed his mind when he heard that the Black Panthers were criticizing the conduct of Marcus Foster, the first black superintendent of Oakland’s schools. "We’re gonna waste that nigger," Cinque announced.
In January 1974, two months after Foster’s execution with cyanide-tipped bullets, Remiro and roommate Russell Little were arrested while carrying one of the murder weapons. (According to what Bill Harris later told his above ground supporters, Remiro and Little had scouted out the murder site but had not pulled any triggers.) The two SLA soldiers were jailed and charged with the killing.
SLA LOST YEAR, PART TWO
Howard Kohn and David Weir | RollingStone | November 20th, 1975
Thanks for the post and ping, Saber !! ...Joseph Remiro - From VVAW member to 1973 SLA Assassin
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.
Thank you ...
Oh, I see you remember them too. See my #9.
The Stennis shooting was never solved.
|
Through Venceremos, the VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War), and prisoner support programs, this diverse group of people slowly came together to form the Symbionese Liberation Army. In August of 1973 Donald DeFreeze and Patricia Soltysik began to draft documents and plans for the formal structure of the organization. They were joined and trained by Joseph Remiro, a Vietnam Veteran very active in the VVAW, but unhappy with its pacifist policies. The SLA began planning its first action: the assassination of Oakland School Superintendent Marcus Foster. Not liking the direction the SLA was taking, Thero Wheeler pulled out, as did Mary Alice Siem.
No doubt breaking loose from that Hindu temple caused the loss of the fourth arm.
The Jonestown Report, November 2000, Volume 2
Richard Williams, an independent researcher in North Carolina, is studying the ideological, political, and possible direct connections between Peoples Temple, MOVE, and the Symbionese Liberation Army
Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project : Transcripts
Newscaster: The Peoples Temple Christian Church of Redwood Valley, led by Pastor Jim Jones, has voted to contribute $2000 to meet the demands of Patricia Hearst, who was taken hostage recently by the Symbionese Liberation Army. This morning, I asked uh, Jim Jones about this situation. . .
[SNIP]
Newscaster: Pastor Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple Church in Redwood Valley. A member of that church now telling us that Jim has made that offer because of similar circumstances which he has been personally involved with. . .have offered themselves as hostages to the Symbionese Liberation Army in exchange for kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. The offer was made to the Hearst family several days ago privately by Jones, and has since leaked out to the public. In commenting on the offer, Jones says, they were not trying to hide anything, only do that which they thought was right, and he again deplored the tactics of the SLA in the kidnapping.
To put this in context, Jim Jones had extensive political connections to the California Democratic Party on both local and state levels--for instance:
Brown had accepted People's Temple contributions and the help of the church's children in his electoral campaigns. He had known, too, the potential votes Jones's "troops" commanded for future campaigns for higher office.
Source: Kenneth Wooden, former reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times
Importantly, many weren't even veterans. And not all the veterans had actually done a tour in Viet Nam. Nor had all the Viet Nam veterans in the group even seen combat.
VVAW has no claim whatsoever on the consciousness of the vast majority of Viet Nam veterans. To purport that VVAW was any kind of a "representative group" is to give them (and Kerry) far more credit than they deserve.
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