A THREAT OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE

The RCP, RSB, and its front groups, identified as the VVAW, UWOC, and USCPFA, represent a threat to the internal security of the United States of the first magnitude.

We began to convince ourselves that we were the greatest threat to American imperialism. We were down to about 40 people.

In 1976 the FBI declared the recently formed Revolutionary Communist Party – formed out of the Revolutionary Union – a threat of the first magnitude to the United States. That assessment, while containing the hyperbole necessary for the government to justify the legal and extra-legal operations against the organization, was not without substance. As the largest Maoist entity to emerge out of the upheaval of the previous decade, the RU/RCP was a relatively large, disciplined, national organization, with ties to the largest communist country in the world. The irony is that the Bureau’s assessment was written three days before the death of Mao.

Mao’s death marked the definite end to the viability of the New Communist Movement. However, the collapse of the National Liaison Committee that preceded had already marked the end of that movement’s ascent.

The collapse was followed by a dizzying array of events; groups splintering, allying, seeming to ascend only to splinter again. At the same time the FBI – which had locked on to the New Communist Movement as the most important threat confronting the republic – found itself under an unprecedented scrutiny, subject to constraints unthinkable just a few years earlier. Both entities were entering a far different world than the one that had locked them in confrontation in the previous decade. They would come out the other side either in tatters, if at all, or fundamentally different from what they had been up to that moment.

THE DESCENT OF THE PRRWO

In the aftermath of the breaking apart of the National Liaison Committee, both the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization and the Black Workers Congress, in 1974, joined with the Communist League in something called the National Continuation Committee. The undertaking did not make it to the end of the year.³

Next up, in the fall of 1975, the PRRWO joined with the Revolutionary Workers League (RWL), a primarily Black organization, the Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO), a mainly East Coast Asian organization, and the August 29th Movement (ATM), a Chicano organization based in California, New Mexico, and Colorado. Together they called themselves the “Revolutionary Wing.” That entity too lasted less than a year.⁴

In its wake, the PRRWO, under the leadership of Gloria Fontanez, “split into two armed factions and violence became its own end.” One of the consequences was that two prominent PRRWO members, Richie Perez and Diana Caballero – a married couple – were kidnapped by an opposing faction and tortured.⁵ Perez described the incident:

Now is my turn to experience the kind of interrogation that we’ve done with other people. But this time, it takes a twist that I was not prepared for – I’m accused of being a police agent. I’m being told that I got to confess, that if I don’t cooperate, my wife will be killed. This begins a night of interrogation and physical beatings. Overpowering everyone there was pretty much out of the question; in addition, I still didn’t know where my wife was. It was a very long night, and the beating was relatively severe.⁶

Perez, in recounting his story, pointedly notes that “the most enthusiastic participants, among our leadership was Gloria Fontanez Wright [she took Don Wright’s name following their marriage], who changed her name a number of times.” In that respect, it is worth noting a Bureau report, issued in the aftermath of the NLC collapse: “[Don] WRIGHT does appear to have maintained an excellent rapport with IBWC and PRRWO leaders in New York City and could be expected to capitalize on his influence with these organizations once he moves to New York, which is expected to be within the next few months.”⁷ In other words, Wright was slotted to move back to New York to live with his wife. Wright did indeed live with Fontanez after leaving the RU, a period of time worthy of further exploration.⁸

Regardless, the internal violence in the PRRWO accelerated the corrosion and diminishment of the group. By June 1976 the FBI was recommending that the investigation of the PRRWO be closed – both in light of new restrictive Attorney General Guidelines and because “an informant who was close to captioned organization has advised that the organization no longer has a headquarters.” That informant also reported that PRRWO’s newspaper, Palante, had not appeared for several months and that “PRRWO is currently not giving any indication that it is active in NYC.”⁹

IBWC SPLITS FOUR WAYS

The Black Workers Congress, which at its apex had never been more than several hundred people, if that, continued to lose membership throughout the Seventies. It too would not last long. In 1975 it split, not into two, but four factions: the Revolutionary Workers Congress, the Revolutionary Bloc, the Workers Congress (Marxist-Leninist), and the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee (MLOC).¹⁰ Ironically, the Revolutionary Workers Congress (RWC) and its small membership would finally reconcile with the now formed (from the RU) Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. The RCP in turn proclaimed the RWC to be the “the most significant of the organizations that survived a series of splits within the BWC.”¹¹ The obvious question in that respect would seem: Why if the differences were so intractable between the two groups in 1973, were they not so in 1977? Of course the principals involved would argue that it was ultimately a matter of line and a certain “coming around” in the thinking of the former IBWC comrades; however one does have to wonder to what degree the discussions with the former IBWC comrades were made a good deal easier without the presence of Don Wright. Regardless, within months of the RWC joining, the RCP itself broke into two in what would be its final schism over the matter of China after MAO Zedong.

OCTOBER LEAGUE/CPML

The schism in the Revolutionary Communist Party and the shift in direction in what had been Mao’s China created a certain moment in the sun for the RCP’s long-time nemesis, the October League. By 1977, the OL had transformed itself into the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) and was now recognized by China as the communist party in the US. It was unfortunately for them a matter of getting to the party as it was ending. The October League/CPML leader Mike Klonsky did garner a photo opportunity, sitting at a banquet table in the Peoples’ Republic with Hua Guofeng, Mao’s ostensible successor, in 1977. However, Hua would soon be removed from power – accused of too closely adhering to “whatever” MAO had argued. By 1979 Deng Xiaoping would assume the reins of power and China would embark on a starkly different path than the one it had previously traveled. Soon after Deng’s ascent the Chinese effectively withdrew their recognition of CPML. What ensued in telescoped fashion was a hemorrhaging of members. By the end of 1981 the group was no more – though some of its cadre would continue on joining other formations.¹²

FROM RU-RCP TO RCP/RWH

After Don Wright was purged from their ranks, the Revolutionary Union went forward in its efforts to form a single multi-national Party, but those efforts were severely constrained by the positions they had adopted coming off the Wright episode. In 1975 they declared themselves the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA – an effort unaccompanied by the fusing of any other organizations into their own, aside from Bay-Area-based Wei Min She, a Maoist Asian-American organization.

At the same time their hold on the “China franchise” slipped away as they refused to fall uncritically in line with the position the Chinese put forward that the Soviet Union was the “main danger” of a new world war, ultimately more dangerous than the United States.¹³ While the RCP for a time jumped through hoops in an effort to reconcile China’s pro-US foreign policy with their own position as domestic communist revolutionaries, it was a losing battle. The entire question became moot with the death of MAO in September 1976 and China’s ensuing rapid reconciliation with Western capitalism.

Over the course of little more than two years, the RCP would go from the largest Maoist organization in the US, holding the China franchise, to an organization split in two, one side being the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters which sought to hold onto the vanishing socialism in China, and the RCP, which doggedly held the position that the four politburo radicals (the Gang of Four) were the true representatives of socialism and Maoism in China – their arrest constituting a defeat of the socialist project in that country. Amid much sound and fury, the two sides, and the wider New Communist Movement, debated all this. Meanwhile China moved deliberately toward a market economy and a geopolitical alliance with the United States.¹⁴

The RCP soldiered on however, losing members throughout the late Seventies and taking a particular hit in the aftermath of their undertaking on May 1, 1980, which was to have rallied ten-thousand workers to “take history into our hands,” but rallied less than one-thousand nationwide instead. Under Bob Avakian’s unquestioned – and exalted – leadership, it maintained a hardcore of diminishing cadre that kept the group going, which still exists as a small ultra-left sect.

CLOSING SHOP ON DOMESTIC SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS

Ironically the FBI – which had mounted massive investigations on these groups and launched extreme efforts to ensure they would not unite – was effectively forced to close up shop on their domestic security operations as they had been constituted for much of the twentieth century.

By 1976 the FBI was subject to an extraordinary amount of attention. Gone were the days when J. Edgar Hoover had carte blanche to undertake any investigation he saw fit, under any justification. The new attorney general, Edward Levi, in the wake of the extensive Congressional hearings, set out new guidelines that went into effect in April 1976, that set limits on domestic security investigations. Mere advocacy of violence in the abstract was no longer sufficient for the FBI to snap into action; instead the FBI could commence a full domestic security investigation only on the basis of “specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that an individual or group is or may be engaged in activities which involve the use of force or violence.”¹⁵

They also set guidelines on “factors to be evaluated in using informants.” Specifically they outlined instructions for informants “and the steps to be taken in the event the FBI learned that an informant used in investigating criminal activity had violated the instructions or learned of the commission of a crime.” Informants were not being abandoned, but it was outlined that “special care be taken not only to minimize [the use of informants] but also to ensure that individual rights [were] not infringed and that the government itself did not become a violator of the law.” Here the matter was not so much a moral one, but that of restoring credibility to a badly damaged system. Nonetheless it was not ethereal. The Bureau went from 21,414 open investigations in July 1973 to 4,868 in March 1976. By May 1978, it was said that the Bureau was “practically out of the domestic security field,” an overstatement to be sure, and things would change over time, but things were significantly different.¹⁶

For the Revolutionary Communist Party the implications were immediate and far-reaching – though the group itself was oblivious to the change. The FBI began instructing its various Field Offices to begin closing down its domestic security investigation against the RCP. A missive to their Albany Field Office is exemplary of the orders going out:

For the information of recipients, the full domestic security investigation of the RCP is being discontinued because the activities of the organization no longer fall within the current Attorney General's Guidelines governing domestic security investigations. Although in the past the RCP has encouraged its membership to acquire weapons and engage in firearms training, the RCP has discontinued this practice. Since June 1976, when the Statue of Liberty was taken over by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and supported by the RCP, there have been no reported incidents where force or violence was used or the violation of Federal law resulted for the purpose of overthrowing the Government.¹⁷

As for as what this meant, the orders were unambiguous. Investigations based solely on membership were to be stopped and “[i]nformants reporting on the activities of the RCP should be redirected to report on the activities of organizations and individuals who are of investigatory interest to this Bureau.” Those informants the Bureau could not justify redirecting were to be “discontinued.”¹⁸

This corresponds to the instructions the FBI was issuing to its various field offices. For example, in August 1976 they closed their investigation on Jan Ford, who was the RCP leader in Seattle.

FORD has maintained a proprietary interest in the Portland chapter, and wields some regional control over its policies, particularly in expressing concern for any members who engage in any criminal activities, advocate violence, or in any other way ‘cause trouble’. He has recently urged the ousting [of] a member of the Tacoma chapter, despite-that member’s long tenure, because of the ‘trouble making label.’¹⁹

The conclusion offered by the FBI was firm: “In view of the above, this investigation is being closed at Seattle.”²⁰

Ironically, the RCP was about to head in a different direction from that outlined in Ford’s file. The remains of the RCP mounted an effort to make a political statement against the new Chinese Premier, Deng Xiaoping, when he visited Washington in January 1979. The subsequent demonstration saw the group attempt to create an international incident in which various objects were to be tossed at the Premier and the President, Jimmy Carter. Contrary to their plan they were directed away from the White House lawn and instead let lose their objects against the sizable police contingent that was tracking the march. The result was a bloody melee, one that lasted minutes, but made national news. It saddled the Party and its leaders with considerable legal troubles that would take years to resolve.

It is notable that, given the changes the government instituted, the FBI does appear to have been caught off-guard. This can be seen in the following testimony assessing the effect of the Levi Guidelines. The Chief Counsel for the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism asked the Chief of the Interior Department’s US Park Service, Lynn Herring, about instances of the government being called up short, specifically if they knew about the Deng demonstration:

We were caught completely by surprise. Most of these participants were carrying water-soaked handkerchiefs and missiles. They carried clubs with railroad flares affixed to the ends and bags of marbles that they used against our horse-mounted officers to hinder the effectiveness – of the horses. The demonstrators threw rocks, bottles, fish hooks, fish hook weights, and metal fragments. They had nails made which were soldered together like stars, so that regardless of the direction that they were thrown, you would be pierced with a pointed nail. We also discovered two Molotov cocktail pipe bombs which did not ignite during the attack. In this particular incident, we also had many officers who were injured.²¹

For their part the RCP characterized their actions as self-defense against an unprovoked police attack, one that aimed to silence the political message of the demonstration. Regardless, seventy-eight of the demonstrators had been arrested. Initially they were charged with misdemeanors, but over the course of the next couple of days the government leveled felony charges – and targeted the group’s leader, Bob Avakian, with multiple felonies. Though those charges were ultimately dropped, the change in tack from misdemeanor to felony does appear consistent with the government being caught offguard and initially not clear on how to respond. Further, Freedom of Information requests relating to the RCP that have been satisfied in the period after 1977 show a stark diminishment in results. While there are notes of prior arrests, copies of flyers, and letters from concerned citizens, there are not detailed informant reports, reports on meetings, surveillance reports, or political assessments that would accompany a major domestic security investigation.

THE FELT-MILLER TRIAL

The Levi Guidelines represented the high watermark in the government’s effort to constrain the reach of the FBI. For the few years they were in place they appear to have led to a severe curtailment of the Bureau’s overall reach. It was a very peculiar time in the history of the Bureau, one that would not last long.

The elements of reversal had been set in motion almost as soon as the rules fully took hold. This can be seen in the investigation and prosecution of W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, two FBI agents who sat at the top of the Bureau hierarchy in the Seventies. In April 1978, Felt and Miller, along with former FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, were indicted, charged with conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens. Gray’s case never went to trial and was dropped for lack of evidence in December 1980.²²

Felt, the former Associate Director, and Miller, the former Assistant Director of the Intelligence Division, were brought to trial in 1980, and charged with conspiracy to violate the civil rights of their targets.²³ They each faced ten years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Much of the trial revolved around the authorization of illegal break-ins and wiretaps of the Weather Underground in the 1972-73 period, though there was also extensive testimony on the so-called “Bergman Investigation,” leveled against Leibel Bergman, which included what the Bureau called “sensitive techniques” (break-ins and illegal wiretaps).²⁴ The two were convicted in December of that year and fined the modest sums of $5,000 and $3,500 respectively. However in March 1981 President Ronald Reagan granted the two full and unconditional pardons.

The middling penalty followed by the pardon made clear that the ruling apparatus was not going to punish the FBI at any leading level for doing their work. The guiding sentiment is perhaps best expressed in a comment made in a 1971 Congressional hearing by Representative Frank T. Bow of the House Subcommittee on Appropriations for the Department of State, Justice, Commerce, and the Judiciary. The occasion was testimony by J. Edgar Hoover, about the FBI budget:

Mr. Director, I again appreciate your testimony. It is a pleasure to have you here. We have great confidence in you and your associates. I think we sleep a little better at night because of your efforts.²⁵

The statement reflects a largely unspoken assessment of the role of the FBI in this highly contentious period. In that respect, it goes a long way in explaining why so many of the Bureau’s secrets, even after all this time and so many scandals and revelations, remain hidden.