[AGL] Scoop on Sixties Surveillance!

Wed Oct 25 10:36:15 EDT 2006

Having been in the USArmy myself, i say you exaggerate
what they were capable of.

I went to Ft Hood once in the 70s when US was still
in Veetnam. They had an anti-drug display for the visiting
folks (open base day) which was in a truck trailer with
a ramp up and down and at the back of the trailer there
was a hippy pad with a grotty rug and posters on the
wall and a soldier dressed as a hippie lolling about
on a mattress trying to catch your eye. I think he had
either been instructed to or decided on his own hook
to see if he could guess which visitor was a dope
smoker like himself. Takes one to know one.

The mind-set of USArmy officers was right wing +
almost total ignorance about the world. And presumably
still is.

A few years after the fall of the USSR, in the early
nineties, i ran into a retired Air Force officer who
told me that he was attending a class at Bergstrom
where it was being explained that the fall of the USSR
was a ruse. I laughed as this is how it was when i
was in the peacetime army in 1957.

Old subscribers here will remember the xeroxes
of some of the UT police reports that Sarah Clark
unearthed. It was proposed that it be put on the
http://www.texasghetto.com web site which Karen
maintains. But some of us who were actually
named refused that proposal. You know who you
are.

One of the named ghettoites (not a subscriber here)
was described as participating freely in promiscuous
couplings (not an exact quote).

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Igor Loving" <lovingigor at hotmail.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 8:51 AM
Subject: **JUNK** Re: [AGL] Scoop on Sixties Surveillance!

> What G says is true. I too was in 1st LT Military Police in the Tex Guard
> and we had a plan to make IH35 the main line of defense against the 
> rioting
> East Austinites and the looters. We had an MP Company that would block all
> the roads from the river north to MLK before the other units would move 
> into
> the bario.
>
> It was to me unworkable but then I was really stupid in those days and 
> never
> believed a word of any of it. We had some really gungho racists in the 
> upper
> officer corps and strangely there were no people of color in the
> headquarters unit I was in. I was a meteorologist in the Air Force in NAM
> and somehow ended up an MP when I came back and went from the AF to the
> Army. The idea was that at some point I was going to the helicopter force
> but that never happened and I blew the whole thing off after six months 
> and
> went to work for Ken Jehn at KTBC and Jimmy Fiddler.
>
>
>
> Charlie Loving
>
>
>
>
>>From: michelemason <coltrane at ev1.net>
>>Reply-To: survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the
>>60s<austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
>>To: survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the
>>60s<austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
>>CC: michelemason <coltrane at ev1.net>
>>Subject: Re: [AGL] Scoop on Sixties Surveillance!
>>Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:16:07 -0500
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>><20061023173636.28215.qmail at web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com><01c501c6f6cf$cc0b3eb0$23daead8 at gerrywq5612s9x>
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>>
>>I know there were some "dirty tricks"-like my phone was tapped and family
>>members arrested when I worked with CISPES in the late '70s, early 80's,
>>during Reagan's regime, but I must have played innocently along during the
>>'60's. How freakin scary-then and now.  mm
>>
>>On Oct 23, 2006, at 1:19 PM, Gerry wrote:
>>
>>>Thorne,
>>>A high school buddy of mine became an officer in the Texas National 
>>>Guard.
>>>He was not a radical, a rather straight family man who worked as a
>>>bureaucrat for the federal government (not in law enforcement). We met
>>>again in the mid-80's and over a few beers recalled our respective pasts.
>>>When he learned that I had been an Austin hippy in the '60's he told me
>>>the following:
>>>
>>>The Texas National Guard had a plan in place to swoop into the Austin
>>>hippy neighborhoods and arrest everyone in sight. The victims were to be
>>>bussed to an abandoned air force base in West Texas which had been fixed
>>>up for the occasion. My friend was with a planning group that drove to
>>>Austin several times and patrolled the neighborhoods, putting details 
>>>onto
>>>a master map. "You guys don't know how close you came to being residents
>>>of West Texas," he told me. "Why didn't the deal go down?" I asked him.
>>>"Don't know," he said, "Guess it was tabled when LBJ decided not to run
>>>again."
>>>
>>>I immediately recalled all the rumors of "The Big Bust" we used to joke
>>>about in the '60's. Turns out it was not a joke and presumably came 
>>>pretty
>>>close to being a fact. The rumors were strong enough to serve as a major
>>>factor in the decisions of many of us to move to San Francisco and also 
>>>to
>>>Berkeley where some of us lived during the People's Park episodes in 
>>>which
>>>the California National Guard did, in fact, invade the town and conduct
>>>mass sweeps in which hundreds of people were arrested and bussed to a
>>>former air force base where they were held in legal limbo for a time.
>>>G
>>>
>>>
>>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>>From: thorne dreyer
>>>>To: austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net ; GHETTO2 at LISTS.WHATHELPS.COM
>>>>Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 11:36 AM
>>>>Subject: [AGL] Scoop on Sixties Surveillance!
>>>>
>>>>Friends,
>>>>
>>>>I am working on an article for the Texas Observer and I'd appreciate
>>>>input from you guys.
>>>>When Allen Hamilton died (he was UT campus police chief in the sixties),
>>>>his son discovered boxes of papers and sold them to Half Price Books who
>>>>in turn donated them to the UT library. Most of the stuff was about
>>>>Whitman and it was delivered immediately; the remainder was records of
>>>>surveillance by campus police: of sds and other activists, of dopers,
>>>>lots of mentions of the Ghetto ("a haven for campus Jews"), etc. Anyway,
>>>>the good folks at Half Price, fearing that this stuff would be buried by
>>>>UT, contacted Alice Embree and offered us access to the materials before
>>>>turning them over. So we went to Dallas and scanned and copied the whole
>>>>kit 'n caboodle. There are lists and memos and photos. Janis Joplin
>>>>shows up lots! Billy Lee Brammer. Shelton. Jerry Jeff Walker. Richard
>>>>Friedman. As do a number of people on the ghetto list.
>>>>
>>>>I'm doing a story on these materials, but also tying them into the 
>>>>larger
>>>>picture of harassment and surveillance in the sixties, including the
>>>>Cointelpro activities of the FBI.
>>>>I'm interested in any memories, stories, inside poop any of you may have
>>>>regarding the campus police, Bert Gerding and the Austin red squad, 
>>>>other
>>>>law enforcement agencies and so on. Any direct harassment, provocateur
>>>>actions, dirty tricks. Anything about the murder of George Vizard
>>>>(Hamilton was a suspect at first!); I may be doing a sidebar looking 
>>>>back
>>>>at that. Also, if anybody knew a guy named Jeff Gardner. He was
>>>>apparently Austin SDS treasurer for a while, and was an informant.
>>>>
>>>>And, of course, I need stuff right away! This week. My deadline's the
>>>>30th.
>>>>
>>>>Respond onlist or to my rr. email site below.
>>>>
>>>>Thanks for your help,
>>>>
>>>>Thorne
>>>>
>>>>tdreyer at austin.rr.com
>>>>512-436-9968
>>>>713-210-9608 (cell)
>>>>
>
> 