Asking support against D. C. bomb probe
By KEN KELLEY
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Ken Kelley has
been subpoenaed to testify before
a grand jury in Detroit concerning
the bombing of the Capitol build-
ing in March, aod the :Mayday de-
monstrations. The hearing,origi-
nally sehedule' for today, has been
postponed to June 15.)
LAST WEDNESDAY, May 26,
at 3:37 p.m., two hulking
godzillas, armed with J. Edgar
Hoover's autograph, r a ng the
doorbell at Terry Taube's apart-
ment in Detroit, to present him
with a subpoena to testify at a
Federal Grand Jury in Detroit.
Terry was not home, but I
was there, and it just so hap-
pened that they had one for me,
too. "This is by order of the
United States Attorney General
and his wife," one of them in-
toned. "Harrumph," added the
other.
What it boils down to is that
the government is increasingly
reluctant to operate political
trials in open court, where they
have 90 per cent control of the
situation, because of their spec-
tacular defeats of late - the
Panther 21 and Ericka and Bob-
by being the two most recent
examples. So they have decided
to rely on a system where they
have 100 per cent control by
way of the insidious device
known as the Grand Jury.
A week before the Mayday ac-
tions in Washington, they used
this ploy to snatch up Leslie
Bacon, a beautiful sister work-
ing in the Mayday Collective in
D.C. They then removed her to
Seattle, Washington, a n d, de-
claring that one of their under-
cover slime had said that Leslie
knew someone who knew some-
one who knew a friend who had
a cousin who knew a Weather-
man, they slapped her with
$100,000 bail. They announced
that she was a "key witness" in
the Capitol bombing of March
1, and the press crucified her.
After refusing to answer a list
of questions, they then put her
in a dungeon in Seattle for con-
tempt of court. Tried, judged
and sentenced in one neat ma-
neuver, without even having to
resort to the sticky business of
constitutional rights or open
trial or any of that other obso-
lete nonsense.
They're now trying to do the
same thing in grand juries in.
Washington, New York City,
and Detroit. When he first
heard that he and Judy Gumbo
had to appear before a grand
jury in New York, Stew Albert
burned his subpoena - a fitting
show of theatrical respect for
the government's latest script in
it's attempt to annihilate the
peace movement. T h e only
thing grand about this jury is
that it's a grand ruse,
Mitchell's snatching of Leslie
was perfectly timed to smear
the Mayday actions and portray
the members of the peace move-
ment as violence-prone subver-
sives. That is not to, say t he
bombing was wrong - most of
the people in the Mayday Col-
lective dug it, especially in light
of the Weatherletter published
the next day, which ran down
the reasons for the bombing. It
occurred at the height of the
invasion of Laos, when there
was a total media blackout on
the latest murderous actions by
the only Mad Bombers - Nixon
and his quislings. It served as a
creative dramatization of t h e
airwar slaughter (t h e equiva-
lent of more than three Hiro-
shimas per week) being waged
in Indochina by U.S. imperial
pilots.
BUT THE POINT IS, as the
Weather underground pointed
out in their New Morning com-
munique, that many levels of
struggle are necessary to stop
the war and bring down the Ma-
chine - and mass actions of
the kind the Mayday Collective
were engaged in is one of the
most important. It is foolish
and counter-productive to mix
above-ground, mass actions with
the kind of tactics employed by
the underground - and a n y
serious revolutionary realizes
this. Millions and millions of
people are going to have to be
convinced that this government
is a cruel sham bent on destroy-
ing freedom all over the planet
before we can mobilize to change
it.
That is why it is crucial to re-
sist on all levels and show
Mitchell that we aren't going to
his ovens peaceably. Our resis-
tance, coupled with Mitchell's
increasingly blatant flaunting of
constitutional rights, will be a
powerful stroke in radicalizing
the American people. And show
what REAL violence, that kills
thousands of PEOPLE every
week, is. He is perfectly aware
of who bombed the Capitol -
anyone who read the Weather-
man admission is. In fact, ten
days after the event, he declar-
ed that there was "obviously no
conspiracy involved." So he had
to invent one.
On Tuesday, June 15, G u y
Goodwin, one of Mitchell's top
assistants who travels from city
to city (he delivered the Wea-
thermen indictments here last
July) trying to nail people in
front of his grand juries (hav-
ing just put Leslie in j ail in
Seattle), will be down at the
Federal Building. He will at-
tempt to question myself, Terry
and at least one other person,
Colin Neiburger from Boston.
He will ask us all sorts of ques-
tions about how we conspired
with Leslie and other folks who
were in Washington prior to the
bombing, putting out a mass-
circulation paper designed to
encourage people to c o m e to
Mayday. He says he has issued
three other subpoenaes to peo-
ple still unnamed.
This will be a secret hearing.
The only people allowed inside
his interrogation chamber will
be himself, the jury, and us -
one at a time. The nearest
you're allowed to come to a law-
yer is outside t h e courtroom
walls. We will refuse to answer
his questions, not because we
have anything to h i d e - we
don't. The government is the
only one interested in hiding,
making their jury SECRET be-
cause grand 'jury procedures
don't even make an attempt to
clothe their hackings in the us-
ual constitutional-rights-guar-
antee facade of an open court.
We will not submit to Mitchell's
imperial summons, but will treat
it with the lowly contempt that
it merits.
No one in the Mayday Col-
lective had anything more to do
with bombing the Capitol than
Phillip Berrigan had something
to do with kidnaping Heinrich
Himmler (or whoever) or John
Sinclair had something to do
with blowing up Ann Arbor's
CIA building. But the mere fact
that the government has invent-
ed these hoaxes puts them in
jail, just as it put Leslie in jail.
NONE OF US wants to go to
the slam, but if we do, we at
least want the strength from
seeing our sisters and brothers
with us outside the courtroom,
showing Mitchell that we aren't
isolated, that he can't intimi-
date us. Please come to the Fed-
eral Building at 9 in the morn-
ing Tuesday, June 15, and show
your support. This latest fascist
routine is just the beginning of
many more grand juries, which
is why we've got to start fight-
ing NOW, or a lot more of us
will get ripped off if Michell's
convinced he can get away with
it. Don't be Good Germans.
I
More from the White House news conference
By JONATHAN MILLER
MR. PRESIDENT, could you please in-
form us if - in the light of your
recent decision to make the final judg-
ment in the case of Lieutenant William
Calley - you will make a decision to
make a final decision in the case of Juan
V. Corona, picked up last week for killing
at least ten drifters, none of them either
women or children, in Yuba City, Cali-
fornia?
"Well, let me make myself perfectly
clear. Captain Calley, as you know, was
in fact a member of the army, and in my
capacity as commander-in-chief of the
armed forces I am in fact able to do
what I did, and have the final decision on
matters of that kind.
"However, circumstances differ in the
case of Corona. Mr. Corona was not a
member of the army, in fact he was not
even a United States citizen at the time
at which he committed the crime."
"If you will recall, you will remember
that in recent times there have been a
number of mass murders. In 1955, when I
was the Vice-President, John Gilbert
Graham was executed for planting a
bomb in a plane on which his heavily in-
sured mother was travelling - killing
forty-four people. That man was execut-
ed, and I believe it to have been a justi-
fied execution, but even if. I hadn't and I
was President, instead of just Vice-Presi-
dent, I would not have intervened in the
case.
"So, as there is no precedent for me as
President to observe, I can do what I like.
Therefore I will not make the final de-
termination in the case of this Mexican
murderer.
"I know the people in California and I
am sure there will be justice in the case,
even without my intervention.
Mr. President, you said that Corona is
guilty even though he has not yet stood
trial for the crime.
"NO, I SAID he is a murderer, not
that he is guilty.
"Now I know, that of all presidents, my
relations with the press are not excep-
tional - and that is no reflection on any
of you gentlemen - the press and I
haven't always seen eye-to-eye on many
of the issues that confront us.
"In this particular case, it is the de-
cision of the President, not the press, how
to proceed with this murderer; you know,
whether to execute him, like the criminal
that blew up the plane with his mother
on it, or throw him in the slam for the
rest of his life, or whether or not to
simply shoot him outright - after all
the police know that he did it.
Mr. President, how do the police know
he did it?
"Because they say so, that's how. I
do not subscribe to the 'I hate the pigs'
mentality. Take, for example, the recent
arrests here of lawbreakers gathered to-
gether to disrupt the Nation's Capital.
In that case the criminals were firmly
dealt with."
Well, Mr. President, perhaps you could
tell me if you expect Corona to be re-
leased and charges against him dropped
- just as the Mayday protesters were re-
leased?
"ABSOLUTELY NOT, I will person-
ally see to it that foreign murderers are
dealt with. I'm sorry gentlemen, tim e
is up. There's just one thing I'd like
to. add at this time: In light of Mrs.
Mitchell's recent comments, and the re-
fusal of the Senate to appoint a southern
constructionist to the Supreme Court, I
herely announce a new nomination.
Washington police chief Jerry V. Wilson.
0
lA Midigan Daff-H
420 Maynard Street, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Edited and managed by students at the
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual
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Thursday, June 3, 1971 News Phone: 764-0552
NIGHT EDITOR: ROSE SUE BERSTEIN