The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, November 23, 1977-Page 3
FBI waged 15-year campaign
F Ou SEE it1J HPPEN CALLZ)ALtY
The test of champions
The "breakfast of champions" could make a champion into breakfast
for a hungry lawyer in San Francisco. The champion in question is Bruce
Jenner, winner of the Olympic decathalon. Joseph Freitas, district at-
torney in 'Frisco, is licking his chops and posing a hefty spoon over Jen-
ners' head. The charge? False advertising. Freitas says ads in which
Jenner promotes General Mills' Wheaties saying "a good breakfast with
Wheaties has always been important to me" are false. Real athletes
wouldn't eat the stuff, he says. He's filed suit against General Mills and
the advertising agency which designed the ad. But Jenner, not denying he
is a real athlete, says he does too eat Wheaties. Not only that, but he said
he downs a bowlful or more two to three times a week. "My only regret,"
he says, "is that I didn't save all those boxtops - I would be in for a pretty
good prize by now." Perhaps Olympic gold coupled with ad contracts
aren't enough for the champ.
Gone, but not forgotten
In the time marches on dep't.: Word has reached the friendly con-
fines of the Daily newsroom that Grace Preston, the information lady in
the lobby of the LS&A Building, is retiring today. Grace, who for the past
three years has cheerfully given directions, answered questions and of-
fered a smile to many a harried line-stander, tells us that she is packing
up and heading for warmer climes. So long, Grace, we'll miss you.
"
Looking for Mr. Goodbook
Theresa Dunn, of Looking for Mr. Goodbar, used to take books to the
bars she'd frequent as a means of keeping her occupied while picking up
men. Betty Simmon, of Lone Tree, Iowa, has her friends bring books to
the bar so her husband can read them. She said she couldn't keep enough
books around the house to keep her husband happy, and there isn't a
public library in town. So she's making due by devising a book exchange
in her tavern, Little B's. "Some people think it's a little unique or odd to
have a book exchange in a bar," she said. "But there's been a good reac-
tion to it." She said she has about 200 paperbacks in boxes in the
backroom, and would accept any book - other than porno - in exchange.
"The idea spread by word of mouth and we got it going last week. There's
no checking out or fines," she said. "It's an honor system." But somehow,
she forgot to explain how booze, books and honor fit together neatly. It
never worked that way for Dunn.
"
Happenings .. .
.. just because the students, etc., are all skipping town in search of
turkey dinners doesn't mean everything comes to a standstill here in old
A ... for instance, WCBN, 88.3 FM, is planning special programming
from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. each and every day of vacation ... and the Com-
mission for Women will meet at noon in 2459 LS&A building ... the Baha'i
Student Association will meet this and every Wednesday for the re-
mainder of the term at 7:30 p.m. at the International Center ... but the
movie "Warum Lauft Herr R Amok?" which was to be shown at Max
Kade German House has been cancelled in favor of turkeys ... skip along
over the holiday and into the weekend when on Saturday the Veteran's Ice
Arena, and Buhr and Fuller outdoor ice rink programs will begin for the
season ... that should keep you occupied for most of Saturday, get some
sleep, then attend a meeting of the citizens for Gay Human Rights at 7:30
p.m. at Canterbury House ... go home and sleep it off. Monday is the
deadline for submissions to the International Center Newsletter ... and a
noon lecture "An Art Historian's Perspective of Ladakh" sponsored by
the Museum of Antropology at 2009 Museums Buildings ... later that same
evening, a showing of experimental film and video will be shown at 8 p.m.
at the Canterbury House ... while Martha Griffiths will speak on "The
ERA and legislative aspects of Women's Rights at 8 p.m. in the Rackham
Amphitheatre. Then you can slip casually back into the student routine
and the rest of the week.
"
Yams, Schams
It's no skin off Robert Jenkins' potatoes if you insist on calling your
turkey-day sidedish "yam," but the executive secretary of the North
Carolina Yam Commission has a Thanksgiving Eve confession to make
- he doesn't sell yams at all, he sells sweet potatoes. "... Some of our
brethren up North just like to call them yams," Jenkins said. "It's im-
possible to convince them they're (yams and potatoes) two different
things. So we use the terms interchangeably now." Jenkins thinks the
confusion between yams and sweet potatoes began with African slaves
who ate yams in their homeland and thought the sweet potatoes they
found here were the same thing. "We're not trying to justify it," he said.
"I'd like to call it a sweet potato." How about Son of Yam?
On the outside..
Mother Nature is taking us all for turkeys, using her weather forces
as a (very effective) means to get us all out of town for the weekend. And
grim it looks, folks! For Wednesday, those of you who make it to the last
classes before taking off will see mostly cloudy skies, and some rain and
snow as you gaze out the windows daydreaming of Thursday's dinner.
The high will be 41 degrees, with a low in the high 20s for a dandy sendoff.
For dessert, on Thursday, the high will be 410, again, but the day should
include some snow showers and flurries falling like feathers from the
heavens. But don't expect any accumulation, just tricky driving. The high
for Friday will be in the low 30s, with a possible weekend warmup on the
way.
to disrupt dissident
grou
WASHINGTON (AP) - Wildly im-
aginative tactics, some of doubtful le-
gality, marked a 15-year FBI campaign
to disrupt dissident groups. But many
of the operations were failures even by
the bureau's own standards.
The operations are detailed in 52,648
pages of counterintelligence files the
FBI released Monday under terms of
the Freedom of Information Act.
THE HEAVILY censored files, cover-
ing activities from 1956 to 1971, describe
the FBI's attempts to harass and
disrupt groups ranging from the South-
ern Christian Leadership Conference
and the Ku Klux Klan to the Black Pan-
thers and the Students for a Democratic
Society.
The bureau already has released
much material on the programs, dub-
bed Cointelpro by the bureau. Both the
Justice Department and the Senate In-
telligence Committee have said many
of the activities were illegal, but
department officials concluded that
criminal prosecutions were unwarrant-
ed.
What the latest files made clear was
that the bureau launched Cointelpro
with little apparent thought to its effec-
tiveness, much less its legality.
A FAVORITE Cointelpro tactic was
anonymous letters and leaflets. Paren-
ts of student protesters received mys-
terious missives, often signed "Con-
cerned Friend," warning of drug use
whether it was true or not. Black Mus-
lims in New York received comic books
ridiculing Muslim leaders. Communist
Party members received unsigned leaf-
lets designed to foment dissension with-
in the party.
But the FBI had no way of judging
what impact such activities were hav-
ing. Field offices frequently reported to
headquarters that "no tangible results"
were produced.
In 1966, for example, the FBI plotted
to stir up a battle between the Mafia
and American communists on the
theory that neither side could do much
harm if both were engaged in battling
each other.
NEW YORK agents tried to get a
phony letter attacking a Mafia leader
published in the party newspaper, the
Daily Worker, but it was never printed.
Another fake letter was sent to Team-
sters Union locals in Philadelphia, pur-
portedly from a party member angered
by mobsters' alleged union infiltration.
For all the FBI agents knew, nobody
paid any attention to the letters. The
New York office concluded two years
later that the operation had been fruit-
less.
FBI agents in several offices told of
efforts to pit one protest group against
another. But often they reported that
rivalry and internal dissension already
were rampant and that no help from the
bureau was needed.
SAN FRANCISCO agents, however,
claimed success in 1971 for an effort to
split the Black Panther Party into
warring factions supporting Eldridge
Cleaver, in exile in Algeria at that time,
and Huey Newton.
The Cleaver-Newton split was widely
reported at the time. Although the FBI
took credit for it in internal memos, the
reports listed no factual evidence to
back the claim.
Other memos show that Washington
officials often rejected field office pro-
posals with a strong potential for dis-
ruption, not because of qualms about'
the propriety of such acts but because
of fear that the FBI involvement would
be publicized and would "embarrass
the bureau."
OTHER IDEAS were rejected
because headquarters officials consid-
ered them unnecessary, such as a pro-
posal to install an FBI man as imperial
wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. That idea
was shelved in 1967 on grounds that the
FBI already had enough informers in
the Klan.
Various protest groups became Coin-
telpro targets after Director J. Edgar
.ps
Hoover and his chief aides concluded
that they were threats to domestic se-'
curity. The protests had erupted in nu-
merous violent incidents, and the
bureau was under pressure to stop the
disorders.
The memos reflected little sympathy
for or understanding of the geals of the
civil rights and anti-war protests.
FOR EXAMPLE, San Francisco
agents in April 1968 discussed what sort
of rumors they should spread about the
city's black activists. The white agents
relied on racist stereotypes for their
analysis.
"In seeking effective counterintelli-
gence, it should perhaps be borne in
mind that the two things foremost in the
militant Negro's mind are sex and
money," the memo said.
"The first is often promiscuous and
frequently freely shared. White moral
standards do not apply among this type
of Negro. You don't embarrass many
Negroes by advertising their sexual ae-
tivity -or loose morals. Money is not as
freely shared. . .
The FBI campaign should focus on ef-
forts to stir up internal squabbles over
money and power, the memo continued.
Birth defects. cited
in alcohol abuse
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food
and Drug Administration has asked the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire-
arms to require labels on alcoholic bev-
erages warning women that heavy
drinking during pregnancy may cause
birth defects in their babies.
In a letter released yesterday, Com-
missioner Donald Kennedy told bureau
director Rex Davis, "Quite frankly, if
the FDA retained jurisdiction over the
labeling of alcoholic beverages, it
would waste no time in commencing
proceedings to require labeling warn-
ings" for pregnant women.
"THIS IS A problem not only for
women who habitually abuse alcohol
but also for those who consume alcohol
in moderation but might occasionally
imbibe more than two drinks a day,"
Kennedy said.
Dr. Ernest Noble, director of the Na-
tional Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism, cited recent scientific evi-
dence that both regular heavy drinking
and occasional "binge drinking" are re-
sponsible for a variety of birth defects.
The most serious symptom associa-
ted with fetal alcohol syndrome is
severe mental retardation. One study
found that "the IQs of affected indi-
viduals average 35 to 40 points below
normal," according to information cir-
culated in the medical community by
the FDA and the Center for Disease
Control.
OTHER SYMPTOMS include hyper-
activity, heart murmurs and other car-
diac abnormalities, small head, low-set
ears, small eyes, flat nose with up-
turned nosteils, carp-shaped mouth,
poorly developed limbs, fingers or toes
joined together, stiff fingers constantly
extended or bent at the joints, minor
genital abnormalities and
"strawberry" birthmarks that are
common in infancy but usually disap-
pear during childhood.
A spokesman for the Distilled Spirits
Council, an industry group, said the sci-
entific evidence is inconclusive regard-
ing moderate drinkers. And he said the
people whose babies would be harmed
by so-called fetal alcohol syndrome are
alcoholics for whom warning labels
would be ineffective.
A spokesman for Davis, who was out
of town yesterday, said the letter had
been received and turned over to the
general counsel's office for study.
AN FDA SPOKESPERSON said the
agency agreed nearly 40 years ago to
let the Treasury Department's alcohol
bureau regulate alcoholic beverages to
avoid the problems of two, agencies
overseeing the same product. The
Treasury Department handles the
,taxes on alcohol.
The FDA since has tried to abrogate
that agreement and require ingredient
labeling on alcohol beverage contain-
ers. But it has been rebuffed by the
courts.
Kennedy told the National Academy
of Sciences last month he would like to
require the pregnancy warnings on
alcoholic beverages but conceded he
lacked jurisdiction. The alcohol bureau
spokesman said it is not clear whether
the bureau would have legal authority
to require such warnings.
Daily Photo by ALAN SILINSKY
That fickle autumn moon
Not really. Fickle this one is, because it isn't a moon at all. Rather, it is
a reflection of one of Ann Arbor's street lamps, shining brightly an a window
of Alumni Memorial Hall on South University.
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Volume LXXXVIII, No. 66
Wednesday, November 23, 1977
is edited and managed by students at the University
of Michigan. News phone 764-0562. Second class
postage is paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
Published daily Tuesday through Sunday morning
during the University year at 420 Maynard Street,
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109. Subscription rates:
$12 September through April (2 semesters); $13 by
mail outside Ann Arbor.
Summer session published Tuesday through Satur-
.Anv. ia. sscwrintinn rates- $.SO in Ann Arbor:
Alfred Hitchcock's 1933
THE LADY
VANISHES
Vintage Hitchcock thriller starring
MICHAEL REDGRAVE and MARGARET
LOCKWOOD. A young lady aboard a
train strikes up a friendship with a
witty old woman, Miss Froy. In the
mjrdle ni the inurnev. Miss Frov