Page 6-Sunday, February 12, 1978-The Michigan Daily
The Michigan Daily-Sunday, Febr
INKLINGS bert hoinback
The FBI's top
-secret v
This week the Sunday Magazine
initiates Inklings, a column which
grants equal time to the faculty and
gives our classroom mentors a chan-
ce to meander through print along
the lines of our ever-popular Ram-
blings. We extend our heartfelt
thanks to English Prof. Bert Hor-
nback for stepping into untested
waters.
I'M STUDYING Greek in class this
term. It's an odd feeling, after 14
years on the faculty here,. to be
taking quizzes and tests instead of
giving them, to be memorizing
paradigms and doing homework
every night. Oh, it's not that I don't
do homework every night for the
classes I teach - but this is a
different kind of homework. And
doing it, though odd, is fun.
Ordinarily I teach long novels.
David Copperfield is my favorite.
I've taught it to more than 30
different classes here in 14 years, and
have read it at least once a year since
1962. It's 950 pages long in the
Penguin edition.
And the reason I'm studying Greek
this term is partly because of David
Copperfield, though Dickens didn't
know any Greek.
A few years ago, as I was reading
David's novel through again, I
started puzzling in my head over why
Dickens - or David - kept writing
about being "happy". He says it so
often and so earnestly toward the end
that you have to take it seriously -
and I did. Then, suddenly, in the
middle of my puzzling, I realized that
I didn't know what "happy" really
means.
I have been interested in words for
a long time. When I was small I used
to listen to all that Latin at church,
and make up sentences out of it -
English sentences - for myself.
Maybe all sorts of kids used to do
that. "Rita has a snotty nose." "How
many got some wishes?" Anyway, I
grew up listening to words, playing
with them. Maybe I even became
particularly interested in fiction
because there are so many words in a
nice long novel. (Oh, I like poems, too
- partly because there are so few
words in a good poem that you can
deal with them one by one!)
W HEN I looked up "happy" in the
Oxford English Dictionary, I
found to my surprise that it means
something like "to hold all the pieces
together." Etymologically, it comes
to us through the Old Norse and Old
English words for "chance" or "co-
incidence" or "coming together".
"Happen" is the same word. I say,
"What's happening?" And you an-
swer, "Oh, I'm happy." That trans-
lates, etymologically, as something
like "How are things coming togeth-
er?" "Oh, they're coming together -
they fit."
No wonder David - or Dickens -
is so interested in the word: that "to
be happy" means "to bring every-
thing together" is a really radical
idea!
"Radical." You know, that doesn't
mean something wild or extreme;
rather, it means "pertaining to the
root" - from "radicalis". Do you
see?
"See." Maybe it's from "say", as
in "to tell." Or maybe it's from
"sequor," meaning "to follow" - as -
in "to follow with the eye." If it's
from "sequi", then it's a pretty
interesting word. "Socius" is the
Latin word from which we get the
"friend" words, "social" and "so-
ciety" (not that stupid non-word,
societal, thanks), and "sociu" itself
comes from "sequor." But if we go
all the way back to Sanskrit, to "sak"
and "sakis", we discover that the
person I "follow" is my "friend."
How's that? "There were these two
people," the language says, "follow-
ing each other down the street." And
for saying that, the language is
smarter than we are - a lot more
intelligent than we are.
"Intelligent." That means "to hold
all the pieces together within" -
within the head, of course, or with the
mind. It also says that if you're going
to get all-the-pieces-together out of
your head - out into society, my
friends - you'll have to put them
back into words. That's practically
the law, and it may even be religion.
"Lego" is the Latin word behind all
our "legal" words, and words like
"intelligent." "Law" itself actually
comes up the other side, through the
Germanic languages, from "lag"
and "lagh", words for "something
laid down" or a "partnership" kind
of connection. But "legislation" is
literally what is supposed - by the
language - to bind us together. And
according to Augustine and most
etymologists since, "religion" comes
from "lego" too. It means "to put all
the pieces together again" and
presumes that tlhey were all together
to start with!
"Lego" says even more than this,
though. Its Greek root means "to
say", "to call", "to call by name."
It's the word for "word" or "to
word." (It's also the source of our
word for the kind of bean that grows
in bunches.)
See INKLINGS, Page 7
URING 1968 and 1969, the na-
tional headquarters for the
Radical Education Project
(REP) was housed in a
bulky, green-brick building on Ann Ar-
bor's west side. From the printing
presses in a roomy second floor office,
Stuart and Janet Dowty, two tireless
slogan-spewing firebrands, prepared
anti-war pamphlets for REP's parent
organization, Students for a
Democratic Society.
The Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion was uneasy about the project's
activities, and plotted a covert
program to disrupt the organization.
In May of 1969, the FBI's Detroit
office sent a memo to its national
headquarters in Washington, sug-
gesting that the anti-war activities of
REP, whose financial condition was
borderline, could be crippled by
forcing the project from its Ann
Arbor home.
... .REP, as a national project,
has national mailing commitments,
plates, printed materials, with
return addresses, etc. A required
move should cost them both time
and money in making necessary
administrative adjustments. They
are known to be in a marginal con-
dition, financially, presently, and
space of the amount price range
Dan Oberdorfer is a Daily staff
writer.
By Dan Oberdorfer
they are presently paying should
prove hard to come by. "
The memo also noted that REP's lan-
dlord-"a completely reliable,
discreet, thoroughly trustworthy in-
dividual" would not be displeased with
the departure of his controversial
tenants, and could prove an effective
tool in the Bureau's plan.
Later, that spring, REP's rent was,
doubled and Dowty moved the project
to Detroit. Dowty says he spent a small
fortune switching REP's letterheads
and mailing plates to accommodate the
change of address he now
knows-nearly nine years later-was
instigated by FBI.
The FBI's harrassment of REP and
the Dowtys was a small and com-
paratively mild part of 'its
notorious - and frequently illegal
-counter-intelligence programs
directed against numerous political
groups of varying size and slant. Known
as Cointelpro, the Counter-Intelligence
Program worked nationwide to disrupt
such organizations as the Boy Scouts of
America, the NAACP, Martin Luther
King's Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and other groups with a far
more militant outlook.
A report by the Senate Intelligence
Committee in May, 1976 concluded that
Cointelpro was aimed at a "staggering
range of targets" and capped off by ef-
forts to cripple "students demon-
strating against anything." The report
stated that some of the operations
"may have violated criminal statutes,'
while others "involved the risk of
serious bodily injury or death to the
targets . . . The unexpressed major
premise of Cointelpro is that the
Bureau has a role in maintaining the
existing social order. . . and combatting
those that threaten that order."-
N OW,~nearly a decade later,
the public finally has an ink-
ling of the scope of the FBI's
political harassment. Last
Thanksgiving week, the FBI released
53,000 pages of heavily censored
documents, and what some had suspec-
ted all along, was now known for sure.
This reporter spent three days visiting
FBI headquarters in Washington,
mesmerized by the mountain of papers
and paying special attention to FBI ac-
tivities in the Ann Arbor area. _
Because of their position as centers of
student activism, the FBI's campaign
against the anti-war movement in
'
U
GOOD COMPANY:
POETS AT MICHIGAN
edited by Jeanne Rockwell
Noon Rock 70pp. $5.00
50 CONTEMPORARY POETS:
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
edited by Alberta T. Turner
Longman, Inc. 355 pp. $12.50
A FTER SLOGGING through in-
numerable time-line poetry an-
thologies in innumerable, pedantic,
time-line literature courses at
Michigan, it's a great relief to see a pair
of editors come up with fresh approach-
es to the organization and study of
poetry.
Jeanne Rockwell, who earned her
M.A. in journalism here and who cur-
rently resides in Ann Arbor, has come
up with a collection that should be of
particular interest to anyone in the
Literary College - most of the writers
represented-are tied in some way to the
University, including a number of
current or former faculty members and
poets who have read and lectured here.
Alberta Turner, meanwhile, came up
with the simple, ingenious idea of sen-
ding a questionnaire to 100 contempor-
ary poets - some well-known, some ob-
scure - and asking them to answer a
series of questions about one of their
recent works. The fifty who responded
provide a number of revelations about
their poetry, and their feelings and atti-
tudes towards the craft.
Rockwell's book does a bit of the
same for the University poets. The
poems, along with accompanying pho-
tographic portraits and capsule
biographies, create their own kind of in-
sight without analysis. It humanizes
just a little those people you hear at oc-
casional readings, or those faculty folk
whose work you were unfamiliar with
Tom0'Connel/(. is Co-g4itor , qf
the Sunduy Magzi,
Poetry scene.
Nationwide and
local microcosm
By Tom O'Connell
or unaware of. Lemuel Johnson, an as-
sociate professor in the English depart-
ment and a poet whose work I had
never encountered, has contributed a
fascinating piece, clashing brutal,
primitive images against a Christian
influence. And who would suspect the
same department's mild-mannered
Bert Hornback of producing "Wringing
Necks," a savagely droll poem about
the death of a chicken. The University's
recently departed Donald Hall comes
back to entertain with "0 Cheese," a
very witty work that explores some
rarely considered attributes of this
dairy product:
"Reblochon openly sexual; Bresse
Blue like music in October;
Caerphilly like pine trees,
smallat the timberline;
Port du Salute in Love;
and Caprice des Dieux
eloquent, tactful, like a
thousand-year-old hostess. "
All in all, the majority of the poems
are of a: high, ealiber, and Good, Com-
.pany.,lives-Up to its name. With such
fine resources, Ms. Rockwell will, I
hope, produce a second edition some
time in the future. This paperback may
be a bit difficult to find; it is only on sale
at Border's Books, the Paper Mill at
Kerrytown and the Hopwood Room in
Angell Hall.
ALBERTA TURNER'S study of con-
temporary poets has been out for a
while, but it was not until last week that
Longman, Inc. broke down and came
across with a review copy. It is just
being released in paperback.
This work is weighted down by the
legendary millstone with its primer-
like introduction, although one should
perhaps be grateful that its very super-
ficiality lends the introduction its sole
redeeming value - brevity. However,
if one has great fortitude and slogs
through the introduction (or, displaying
wisdom which I must lack, skips over it
entirely) one will arrive at the reward-
ing heart of the work: the thoughts of
some of today's finest poets.
The hundreds of essays that have
been written, about the . creative
process, rand about the emotions,
rational thought, and instincts that
guide it, all lead to one inescapable
conclusion. And the conclusion is that
we don't have the faintest idea of how
the process really works, so that
writing essays about it is very silly.
Every artist, actor, writer and com-
poser' approaches his work in a dif-
ferent fashion, developed according to
his own unique needs. The main con-
tribution that 50 Contemporary Poets:
The Creative Process makes, then, is
not the provision of a key to creativity;
rather it provides the chance to discov-
er a bit more about one's favorite poets,
a chance to explore their own nature
and the nature of their work.
The aforementioned Donald Hall, for
example, describes his approach to
"The Town of Hill," a poem about a
town abandoned and flooded to allow"
construction of a darn some forty years
ago. This 24-line piece, according to
Hall, went through a remarkable 50 or'
60 drafts before he was finally satisfied
with it. "I felt that there was something
to pursue," Hall writes, "some quarry
to be hunted, if I pursued the implica-
tions of these words in this rhythm."
P HILIP BOOTH, in discussing
I"Dreamscape," describes the dif-
ficulty of maintaining momentum and
power in poetry. Asked how "Dream-
scape" began, he replies, "From the
beginning. Always from the beginning,
trying to recover the original impulse
and move the poem with it. Always,
back to the beginning, to be moved by
the impulse, to make the poem move."
Questioned on. what techniques he con-
sciously- uses, Booth answers that "a
poet in the process of writing need be no
more or less aware of "techniques"
than a skijumper approaching the lip of
a jump ... he has already learned by ex-
ample, practiced every possible
technique ... what may once have felt
mechanical becomes, in process,
organic."
_Jon Andersn's despription of his
SeeBOOKS, Page 7
On campus:s
Dirty tricks,
FBI style
TO
FROM
SUBECT:
T:
DIRECT R, FBI (100-449698)
SAC, DETROIT (100-35576)
COINTELPRO - NEW LEFT
Re Detroit letter to the Bureau, dated 7/22/69.
UNI TED STATES (NMENT
Memorandun
By Dan'Oberdorfer
POLITICAL DIRTY TRICKS, FBI style, required
a preponderance of vicious imagination,
never-ending preparation, and an arrogant dis-
regard for the victims of the pranks.
In late 1970, the Detroit office of the FBI-in an
effort to thwart the distribution of information
published by the Black Panther Party and the Radical
Education Project-planned to stage a stink bomb at-
tack on the groups' newspapers and pamphlets. Accor-
dingly, a bizarre series of requests was relayed to the
FBI laboratory in Washington. One memo stated:
"The Bureau is requested to prepare and
furnish to Detroit in liquid form a solution
capable of duplicating the scent of the most foul
smelling feces available. In this case it might be
appropriate to duplicate the feces of the specie sus
scrofa. " This devilish substance is otherwise known
as pig excrement.
Detroit wanted a quart supply of the liquid along with
a dispenser which could squirt a narrow stream
roughly three feet-presumably to contaminate the
"numerous virulent revolutionary treatises" which
freely floated into the public domain. However, when
FBI headquarters wanted to know more about the
operation-especially security plans to avoid being
publicly embarrassed by the exploit-Detroit decided
to cancel its scheme.
This prank and other abuses were part of the FBI's
notorious and frequently illegal three-year Counter In-
telligence Program (nicknamed Cointelpro) aimed at
uprooting the anti-war movement. A favorite ploy was
to send anonymous letters to the parents of students
protested against the Vietnam war.
Under this program, the Bureau was advised pre-
viously of the results of COINTELPRO action directed against
New Left leaders among the younger faculty members at the
University of Michigan (U of 11), Ann Arbor. Michigan.
The au was advised that two such individuals,
W former professor of sociology,
Uformer professor orchemistry,
U of M, both were dropped from the U of M faculty on the
completion of the school year, 6/69. A t * E en
New Left sponsor at the U of M, Professor
is now added to that list, inasmuch asj~L has terminated
his employment at the U of M and commenced employment 9/69
with the University of California,
It was learned through CSDE l htIile
on was not required to terminate this em jgpyrent and
had the option of remaining at the U of M, priva tely
made it known to source that he decided to leave the U of M
faculty in view of the repression setting in at the U of M,
am evidenc e h~Ie termination of employment there by
prof essors ,and I
It would appear from the above that three faculty
members may have therefore been removed from the V of M
faculty as a conseq~uence of Detroit's earlier COIN'VELPRO
activity.
2 - Bureau (RI)
2 - Detroit
JRC/klh
(4)
REC /
DATE: 9/22/69
Michigan focus
Lansing and
areas. The tacti
groups against
ted; the Burea
Dowtys, for ex
their eviction.
While local
spiring with RE
bor, FBI agent,
ted the Internal
and instigated a
personal finan(
with what Do
matory, unsub
accusing him o
the financially
hoped the adde
send REP sta
audit conclude
were in scrupu
the midwest ir
People's Frie:
learn of the IR
the agency sen
could obtain a
the Freedom of
"It's slander
ned," Dowty
maneuvers ag
were, living or
savings Janet
working for wh
thwhile couse,
cop accuses us
,in one documen
in marginal
which it always
they accuse us c
Until 1971, e
operations, Cc
- guarded secre
FBI. In May o
wary vigilante
Commission t
burglarized the
Pennsylvania.
nation includi
ts, sat glued to
pionship bout o
mission made o
files, bulletins,
ts-everything1
The group off
booty to the p
faced with wha
tial time bomb
later, in a dire(
FBI director J.
all Cointel prog
screeching hal
the directive,
where it is
telligence acti
(which will) b
dividual basis;
HE N]
closure
Then
group,
of Informatio
cessfully sue
behalf of NBC
and obtained c
tives that initia
programs a
movement, w
"New Left.'
documents the
of six other Cc
because the do
telpro-New Le:
following:
-Cointelpro-
-Cointelpr
Hate Groups
-Cointelpr
USA
-Cointelpro-
See
22 SC?
EP30196 - s
I~ U.S. Saving -iv,yI ad mi Pye IProll Sau,',t Plan
In this memo, dated Feb. 22, 1969, the FBI claims credit
for the University's refusal to grant tenure to two profs.
and for a third teacher's decision to quit.
ne letter, delivered to the parents of an Ameri-
can University student who spent the summer
of 1969 living inta Detroit co-op, warned that
their daughter had contracted "a serious infection"
while keeping house with a group of "morally bankrupt
people" in the "sexually mixed collective."
At other times, the FBI scoured The Michigan Daily
to report on campus activities and to keep an eye on the
staff, which according to the FBI, wrote "disparigingly
of the Bureau and its Director." However, the FBI in
Ann Arbor was most concerned with manipulating the
University administration to insure it handled student
disruption with the appropriate tactlessness.
See DIRTY TRICKS, Page 8
I' % N r .t k 1 ' :tF aq 4 e f . .. ! f a.i S. !x.g