>> next, seth rosenfeld reports on the fbi's covert actions at the university of california berkeley in the 1960s. the author reports that the j. edgar hoover-led agency attempted to weaken activist student groups including the free speech movement. this is about an hour and a half. >> good evening. my name is lowell bergman, and i'm the david and reva logan distinguished professor of investigative reporting here at the graduate school of journalism at the university. um, and on behalf of the journalism school and university, i want to invite all of you to what i think is an extraordinary, special event, especially for me personally. um, tonight we have the honor of

having seth rosenfeld here who's an alum of the journalism school as well as the daily cal and went on to enjoy a long career as an investigative reporter at the san francisco chronicle. and all that time -- and i stayed in touch with seth all those years, i've known him for at least 30 year, going on 40 years -- and for all that time almost seth was involved in his own personal quest for the question of what was really going on here at berkeley during the 1960s when all those events were taking place. and the result is this book, "subversives: the fbi's war on student radicals and reagan's rise to power." it's an extraordinary book, and when i read it finally -- and, by the way, i was waiting for

years to read it and hearing about it -- it's an extraordinary book because it's written primarily from the perspective of the fbi, a voice that we rarely hear in public and one that when we hear it, we're not sure what to think until we see their documents. and this book is based, as i understand it, on 250,000 documents, some of which i've seen myself and some of which you're going to see tonight. if you've never seen an fbi document, you might be shocked. you might want to close your eyes when you see it. [laughter] it includes, in fact, some handwriting by j. edgar hoover himself. and looking out here in the audience, give me -- let's do a poll. how many people remember j. edgar hoover? [laughter] okay, good. so we don't have to do a lot of explaining about who we're talking about and what was going on. we're going to try to have a conversation, seth and i, and go through some of this material for about 45 minutes. if we have time, we'll show you

a short video at the end that's been produced by the center for investigative reporting. and, you know, this is -- i realize that this book is very heavy. it's 504 pages long, a narrative based on the documents. surprisingly easy read. but you have to wait til page 505 of this volume to get a glance at what the daunting process was that seth went through when he was trying to put in this together. and there is a narrative about that on page, starting at page 505. now, just to give you an idea of his accomplishment here, i think, is you can take a look at the reviews. they range from publishers weekly that says fairtive nonfiction at its -- narrative nonfiction at its best, that's 250,000 documents. in case you've forgotten or you're too young to know, the 1960s were the template for

today's political divisiveness. seth rosenfeld chronicles how the book formed, and his book -- how the world formed. and even "the wall street journal" said that even though they were prepared to hear all kinds of things in their review, seth's work provides a unusual insight into what actually happened in america. and, hopefully, we have time a little bit at the end of this, i'm going to reflect a little bit about what i think, i myself think is going on, and you'll see we may even have an example from my fbi file before we get done. [laughter] so we have a lot of ground to cover. we'll do about a 45-minute discussion, then we'll have an equal amount of time for questions. there are microphones in the audience. i do ask two tings, that you -- things, that you identify yourself, and i'll repeat this

when you ask questions, no speeches, please, and also seth will be signing books when we're done afterwards. so with that, let me start with a question as i sate -- as i sit down. tell us, seth, what was going on, and give us a sense of what this book is all about. >> thank you very much for that wonderful introduction. [applause] well, this book is a history of the '60s. it's a secret history, or i should say the history of the secret of the fbi's secret activities concerning the university of california during the cold war, and mostly during the '60s. and the book tells that story by examining the fbi's activities in regard to three main characters; mario savio, the leader of the free speech movement, clark kerr, the president of the united universf

california who turned out to be in a great dispute with mario savio and other students, and then ronald reagan who was running for governor at this time and made campus protests a major issue in the his campaign -- in his campaign and who was at odds with both clark kerr and mario savio. and what you can see in the book is that behind the seens of many of these -- scenes of many of these well known events, the fbi was deeply involved with these people and with the university of california and was secretly tampering with history, trying to influence public policy behind the scenes. >> so why don't you give a little background, how did you start this quest? what got you going? because i remember you as a young undergraduate living next door to me on herr street. >> yes. >> innocent. [laughter] >> those were the days.

well, i first got interested in this when i was a student here at berkeley in the late '70s. i was a reporter for the daily californian, and my editor asked me if i was interested in taking a look at some fbi documents that the daily cal had gotten under the freedom of information act, and i jumped at the chance to do this because i knew that the fbi had been deeply involved in domestic surveillance elsewhere as a result of hearings before the u.s. congress, a lot of information had come out. and i knew we berkeley had beena hotbed of student protests during the '60s, so i was very intrigued to know what was the fbi up to behind the scenes at berkeley. so i looked at these documents and consulted with people about them and wrote several stories for the daily cal looking at the fbi's activities concerning the free speech movement and also an anti-war group called the vietnam day committee. but in researching those

stories, i realized that there was much more there. i could see that there were many more fbi files that had yet to be released. so even before i had finished those stories, i submitted a much-expanded freedom of information act request that sought information on more than 100 different organizations and individuals, very specifically requesting certain categories of records. i thought i'd get these records in maybe a year or so and finish up the project and move on to the next story. i had no idea that i was embarking on what would be a 30-year legal odyssey that would lead me to bring fife lawsuits -- five lawsuits against the fbi and force the bureau to release more than, ultimately, 300,000 pages of records. even though the fbi spent more than a million dollars in taxpayer funds trying to suppress those records. >> so where the story given in the fbi files in terms of their interest in berkeley and what they ultimately did? >> the fbi got interested in

berkeley and student protests at berkeley dating from before world war ii, but where i started the book is right after world war ii when the fbi is investigating soviet espionage in perk berkeley at -- in berkeley at the university of california. soviet intelligence agencies were trying to get nuclear secrets through members of the communist party who lived in the bay area. j. edgar hoover ordered a massive investigation into this in an effort to find out who these soviet spies were. but what you see in the documents is that in the years following that, the fbi veered from this very important be national security mission and instead came to focus on professors and students who were involved in dissent and can that the fbi went even beyond gathering information and tried to get the professors, get

certain professors who it deemed too radical fired from the university of california. >> but they did using, as i -- reading your book, they did using wiretaps, they did pick up people in oakland, for instance, who were conspiring to get secrets. >> yes, this is true. the fbi did find evidence of soviet espionage in berkeley directed at the nuclear labs. and as i say, that was a very important national security mission. one that the fbi properly should be doing. but the files make it abundantly clear that the fbi veered from that mission and came to focus on people involved in first amendment activities and lawful dissent. >> now, they, they did their investigation, they used surveillances, they used electronic surveillance, but they used informers, they developed informers and informants. maybe just so to make it clear to everybody as we go through this and through some of the documents, what's the difference

between an informer in their lingo and an informant? >> yeah. well, it's a term of art. an informer would be anyone who provides information to the fbi. an informant would be somebody who had a more formal relationship with the fbi who was probably paid, in most cases would be paid but not necessarily, who was somebody that the fbi believed to be under their control and their direction in gathering information on political organizations. >> so the most startling part of your book really is that -- to me, anyway, having written about ronald reagan, having covered ronald reagan was to see documents that say ronald reagan is an informer. not an informant, but an informer. how did that start, and maybe you could show us how you could determine that. >> yeah. that began in hollywood right after world war ii.

one night in 1946 fbi agents knocked on ronald reagan's door or and told him that there were communists in some of the liberal groups that he was involved in. and as reagan wrote in his memoir, these fbi agents opened my eyes to a good many things. what the fbi documents show is what reagan only hinted at, that reagan proceeded to become an active informer in hollywood, that he provided information about fellow actors and about his opponents in the screen actors guild and that in subsequent years j. edgar hoover repaid those favors by giving reagan personal and political help even though it was beyond the fbi's jurisdiction to do so. and here's one document about reagan and the fbi.

>> can you read that out there? >> no. >> can't read it? >> i'll summarize it and go to the pertinent part. this is from august 4, 1937, and it's a report on the report on alleged communism in hollywood. and one of the areas the fbi was looking at was labor unions in hollywood. and, of course, one of the main unions is the screenactors' guild. you can see here this is the index or table of contents of the document, and here is the screen actors' guild. and i'll fast forward to that part of it. what this document says is that on april 10th, 1947, two fbi agents interviewed ronald reagan and his wife, jane wyman, at their home in hollywood. reagan at this time was president of the screen actors' guild, and jane wyman had been

active in the guild. and it says that reagan and wyman had requested that they be interviewed by bureau agents in order that they might furnish information regarding the activities of some members of the guild whom they suspected were carrying out communist party work. and the document goes on to say that reagan advised the screen actors' guild had 12 officers, he provides some background information about the guild, and then he goes on to name names. among the people he named was ann revere, a well known actress, and karen morley, another actress. and he claimed that on all questions of policy that confront the guild, they follow the communist party line. reagan stated that revere and morley do not appear to be particularly close, but whenever an occasion arises necessitating the appointment of some member to a committee or to an office,

the two cliques that they had invariably either nominate or support the same individual. and reagan and wyman go on to list several more actors and actresses including alexander knox, howard desilva, hume cronin, dorothy tree, and selena royal. reagan also mentions larry parks, and this document struck me for several reasons. reagan had said several times, including in his memoir, that he never pointed the finger at anybody. [laughter] but what you can see here is quite clearly he secretly did that. there are other documents also in which reagan names people

sometimes on the scantiest of evidence. and i believe this information shows a different side of reagan, different from the popular, avuncular, easy-going president who sort of takes a kindly view of people. >> everyone. >> yes. you see reagan here naming people who are his opponents in the guild, and he's, of course, benefiting personally by bringing his opponents to the attention of the fbi. and what's also significant is he offers no real evidence. he's just saying they seem to follow the communist party line. so -- >> and he became a favorite of hoover's. >> he did. reagan is president of the screen actors' guild, and under his tenure the fbi had wide access to guild records on dozens of actors and actresses who had no idea that the

president of their guild was making this information available to the fbi. initially, j. edgar hoover was suspicious of ronald reagan because he'd been involved in some liberal groups. but the more reagan cooperated with the fbi's investigationing, the more hoover came to trust him, and certain documents say that reagan and the fbi have what they call a close and cooperative relationship. this -- in later years hoover repaid these favors. >> he's not getting paid money or anything like that as an informant. >> no. no, no evidence that ronald reagan was a paid informant or that he was under the control of the fbi. the documents suggest that reagan was operating not for pecuniary reasons, but out of personal and political motives. >> but for this he got some favors. you know, the favors are pretty

interesting. >> yes. well, one favor occurred in 1960. reagan and his by then former wife jane wyman, were very concerned about their eldest daughter, maureen. she had gone to live in washington, d.c., she was 19 years old, and they had heard she was living with an older, married policeman. but rather than call her up and ask her about this, they turned to the fbi -- [laughter] through a mutual friend, and hoover personally authorized an investigation of maureen reagan's romantic life even though he act knowledged in fbi -- acknowledged in fbi records that this was beyond the bureau's jurisdiction. so in short or order, one fbi agent posed as an insurance salesman and interviewed neighbors. another one interviewed the cleaning lady at maureen reagan's rooming house. a third agent talked to some

other police officers about this officer. and they confirmed that she was, in fact, living with this older, married policeman, and they confidentially furnished the information to the reagans who agreed to keep it secret. it's unclear how today used this information and -- how they used this information and whether it helped their relationship with their daughter in any way. [laughter] then in another incident in 965 -- 1965, reagan received -- >> this is on the eve of him becoming governor. >> yes. this is just as reagan is deciding to run for governor, um, reagan gets more personal help and political help from j. edgar hoover, this time concerning his adopted son michael reagan. the fbi at time had been investigating the bonanno crime family, and agents in phoenix where bonanno had a home were conducting surveillance. and they saw that michael reagan was hanging out with the son of

joe bonanno, the mafia leader. the agents wanted to interview ronald reagan about this. they thought maybe he'd heard some useful information from his son that could help them in their investigation which, after all, was a high priority. but j. edgar hoover interceded. he refused to let the agents interview ronald reagan and instead ordered that they warn him that his son, michael reagan, was hanging out with joe jr. and one of the most interesting documents that i saw is a report that summarizes ronald reagan's reaction to this, and i can show that to us. let's see. >> you can't make this up. [laughter] >> this document is what the fbi calls a summary memorandum, and

it actually summarizes other fbi documents. so this is the serial number of the original document, and then what we have here is the summary of that. in my lawsuit under the freedom of information act, the fbi claimed that the original documents had been destroyed, so this is all we have. and what it says, it says, it's summarizing this letter. the letter states that ronald reagan was advised by special agent william l. burn jr. on february 1, 1965, concerning his son's association with joseph bonanno jr. in phoenix, arizona. he was most appreciative and stated he realized that such an association and actions on the part of his son might well jeopardize any political aspirations he might have. he, of course, expressed concern for his son's behavior and reputation.

reagan stated he would telephone his son and instruct him to dissociate himself gracefully and in a manner which would cause no trouble or speculation. he stated that the bureau's courtesy in this matter would be kept absolutely confidential. it continues. oops. reagan commented that he realizes that it would be improper to express his appreciation in writing and requested that special agent burn convey the great admiration that he has for the director and the bureau, and to express his thanks for the bureau's cooperation. so this document is now almost 20 years after reagan first become an informer in hollywood, and it shows the evolution of reagan's relationship with the fbi. here you have an example of ronald reagan who by this time in his life has defined himself politically as somebody who with believes that people should not

be overly reliant on government -- [laughter] the taxpayer dollars are being wasted on entitlements. but he has no hesitation taking this kind of personal help regarding his son and his daughter. and i should add that going forward reagan's relationship with the fbi became closer, and when reagan became governor in late 1966, one of the first things he did after taking office was to phone the finishing bi and request a briefing -- the fbi and request a briefing about student protests at berkeley, and particularly about mario savio, the free speech movement, and clark kerr, the president of the university, and liberal boards -- liberal members of the board of regents. and hoover personally authorized that briefing as well. >> so you have the coming together of a new governor of california and the director of the fbi, and from your book it

appears that they -- the target, if you will, for hoover was clark kerr, the president of the university. >> yes. >> why clark kerr? and why would he be so fixated on what had become the largest public university in the world? >> well, j. edgar hoover had long been concerned about berkeley dating to the days of the investigation into atomic espionage here. and can he'd been concerned about -- and he'd been concerned about radical professors, he'd been concerned about professors who refused to sign a loyalty oath in the late '40s and early '50s -- >> that's not the loyalty oath we all have to sign to work here. >> no. this is a different loyalty oath. this was a loyalty oath that was adopted just for university employees and which the professors who refused to sign it and who were then fired, um, and then sued over it --

>> sued to get reinstated, you mean. >> yes. they won reinstatement, and the, this particular loyalty oath was declared unconstitutional. but hoover considered their reluctance to sign the oath as further evidence that they were potential subversives. >> and clark kerr? >> let me find one other document first. here we go. thank you. this document is dated october 16, 1958, and it's just after clark kerr has become president of the statewide university of california. and it sheds light on hoover's view of clark kerr.

it says dr. clark kerr has recently been formally inaugurated as president of the university of california, and as a consequence as the head of all eight campuses of the university located in both northern and southern california. dr. kerr has always given the impression that he is a, quote, liberal, end quote, in the educational field, that he is not in sympathy with loyalty oaths by state and university officials, and that he's also not in complete accord with the fact that various branches of the state and local government must conduct security investigations of individuals on the various campuses of the university of california, especially where those individuals take part in classified contracts. with this background in mind, the following is being brought to the attention of the bureau merely for its information. and in the event that the bureau may receive some inquiry concerning dr. kerr who at best is a highly controversial figure

in california education. so that's 1958, and a few years later there's another document which even more pointedly expresses clark kerr -- j. edgar hoover's view of clark kerr. this one is dated march 20th, 1961, and it concerns a visit to the campus of somebody named frank wilkinson who had been a housing official, a public housing official in los angeles and had been called to testify before the house un-american activities committee and had refused. and is wilkinson was going to come to the campus and give a speech. and certain people were very unhappy about that. this memo summarizes that. and then we see on the last page hoover's handwriting in his

characteristic, jagged scrawl. he writes here, i am absolutely opposed to this crowd of bleeding hearts at berkeley using the fbi to get off the hook. i know kerr is no good, and i doubt cragen -- who was a vice chancellor -- i doubt cragen is. that, to me, was an astonishing document. here was the head of the nation's largest law enforcement agency saying very bluntly that the head of it leading public university and one of the most eminent educators in america was rotten to the core, essentially. so this reflected the fbi's view of clark kerr. >> and he later intervened, as i understand it, with lyndon johnson as he was considering clark kerr for a cabinet position. >> he did. what led up to that, this was as of 1961.

in 1964 the free speech movement erupted at uc berkeley. students, including mario sario, who were very involved in the civil rights movement were very, very upset that the university had a rule that prohibited them from engaging in political activity on campus. and to appreciate how upset they were, you have to understand that the previous summer mario savio and other students had been in mississippi helping to register blacks to vote as part of mississippi freedom summer, that they had been attacked by the ku klux klan, they had risked their lives for something they believed passionately about, and they came back to berkeley to find they could not hand out a leaflet on campus or collect a quarter for a civil rights group. for that matter, they couldn't hand out a leaflet for goldwater for president who was the

candidate that year and had been nominated at the cow palace in san francisco. so the students tried to negotiate with the university, the university refused, and then in the defiance some of the students set up a card table right in front of the plaza at the administration building and handed out leaflets. well, in short order a police cruiser pulled into the middle of the plaza and arrested somebody named jack weinberg who was behind the table. but before they could go anywhere, students began to sit down around the police car, and soon the entire plaza was filled with students sitting down around the police car, and they held it captive for the next 33 hours, and that was the beginning of the free speech movement. [applause] and the fsm went on to stage a number of protests, tried to negotiate with the university. ultimately, put on what was the

biggest sit-in in the nation's history, more than roughly 800 people were arrested for sitting overnight at the hall. and in the end the regents revoked this rule, essentially admitting that it was an unconstitutional infringement on free speech rights. but when this happened, hoover -- who already viewed kerr with suspicion -- became convinced that kerr was absolutely untrustworthy and unreliable because he believed clark kerr failed to crack down on the free speech movement. and at this point hoover went beyond collecting information about clark kerr and began to actively try to get him fired. and the way hoover tried to do this was by leaking information to certain members of the board of regents who were opposed to clark kerr with the idea that they could then use these allegations against kerr to

convince other regents to fire him. >> and they recruited informers in the administration, in the university administration. >> one of the most astonishing things i found in my research is the extent to which the fbi involved itself in university affairs over a long period of time, and the extent to which the fbi developed informers. at every level of the campus community from student activists to professors to vice chancellor to members of the board of regents. and those were just the ones that were in the documents. but ultimately, hoover's efforts failed. he could not get members of the board of regents to fire clark kerr. pat brown, jerry brown's father, was governor, and he was a staunch supporter of clark kerr, and fbi officials realized that as long as pat brown was governor, clark kerr would remain as the university of california president. so when ronald reagan was elected in november 966, j.

edgar hoover and other fbi officials viewed this as a breath of fresh air. today believed they finally had an ally -- they believed they finally had an ally in the golf's mansion, and they began to work closely with reagan to crack down on student protesters and radical professors. >> so what happened? >> well, what the documents show is that over the following years -- well, what happened first is that one of the first things reagan does after he's elected is to phone the fb, and i request this briefing which hoover personally authorizes. two weeks later at the first board of regents meeting attended by ronald reagan, the board of regents votes to fire clark kerr. the board's balance of power had shifted because reagan was now a member, and he'd made several appointments to it. one of the fbi documents that was released indicates that the board members were aware of certain fbi information that ronald reagan had at the time.

and in the following months and years, the documents show that the fbi continued to cooperate with reagan and to secretly provide him reports on certain professors and students where the goal of stifling their first amendment activities. >> so give us an idea of how many fbi agents -- what was going on here? the fbi had an outpost here? permanent outpost, right? >> yes. the fbi's regional office was in san francisco. that was the san francisco field office. and it already had a pretty large what they call resident agency, a satellite office in oakland. but in the 1950s the fbi opened another residency organization in what was then the great western bank building and is today the wells fargo building. and this was a sign that the fbi was increasingly focusing on events at the university of

california. and in particular first amendment activities. and one way we know this is through the work force. one of the former fbi agents i interviewed was a man named cur lis lineham who was actually the special agent in charge of the office, and he provided me the personnel roster. and what it showed is that approximately 40% or 50percent of agents were devoted to security type investigations, and a much smaller proportion were devoted to traditional, investigating traditional crime or espionage. so hoover's priorities were very clear. he was focusing onty dissent at that time. >> so i wanted to move on before -- if we can briefly, and you discovered and have expanded since the book came out the role of informants, that is paid

people operating at the direction of the fbi. and one of them you develop in the book, and you've gotten some subsequent documents, maybe you could explain how you discovered this and what it means. >> right. i believe you're referring to an informant named richard ao kick,. aoki. well, the way i learned about richard aoki was one day i was interviewing a former fbi agent named bernie, and i had met threadgill in the course of doing my research, i had spent many hours with him over a period of months, and i -- this process where i would bring fbi documents to him, and we would review them and discuss them, and i would take notes about this. well, one day i showed him some fbi records without any prior notice, and as we're going through them bernie said, he

noticed richard aoki's name, and he said, hey, i know that guy, he was my informant. and i was surprised to hear this. but we talked more about it. and can eventually i obtained a detailed, on-the-record, tape recorded statement from bernie threadgill about richard aoki. i had never heard of him before, so i then began to research who he was. i read everything i could find about him, i interviewed people who knew him, and then i interviewed him too. in 2007 i interviewed him twice on the telephone for about an hour each time and tape recorded it with his permission. and during the second interview i asked him if he remembered a man named bernie threadgill. and his initial reaction was, who's that? and i said, well, isn't it true that you used to work for the

fbi? and he said something like who said that? and i said, well, bernie threadgill told me that. he said, he did? and we talked some more, and i pressed him for a direct response of whether he'd actually worked for the fbi or not, and eventually he denied it. but then as we talked he said something else. he said, people change. it's very complex. layer upon layer. so when i later reported the story, i included both his denial and the subsequent statement which i thought was significant. but even at that point i didn't think i had enough evidence to write a story. so after richard aoki passed away in 2009, i submitted a freedom of information act request for my and all records on him -- >> if you could explain, when you die, what happens? >> yes. well, when you die, legally

speaking, you have a much-diminished right to privacy. [laughter] so you're able to get more information. i'm sure if i had submitted that request when he was still alive, the fbi would have not released a single page. but they, in this case he had passed away, and the fbi eventually released about 1800 pages or so. one of the documents that was released identified him as informant t2. this was november 16, 1967, report on the black panther party. based on my experience in reviewing fbi records and having gone through the court process several times, i was quite confident in my interpretation of what that record said. but just to be sure i consulted with another fbi agent, a man named wes swearingen who had served 25 years in the fb, and i

later became a critic of j. edgar hoover and particularly of hoover's practice of illegal break-ins to gather evidence. swearingen had played a key role in vacating the murder conviction of a black panther named geronimo pratt. the fbi had failed to disclose that one of the key witnesses against pratt had been an fbi informant. so swearingen reviewed some records that i had obtained, and he came to the same conclusion that i did, that richard aoki was an informant -- >> and by that, you mean someone who was paid regularly by the fbi for how many years? according to the record? >> well, at this point we were just examining whether he'd been an fbi informant at the time of this particular document. >> uh-huh. >> and swearingen gave me a sworn declaration that was filed in court stating that he believed aoki had been an

informant. but i took this evidence and tested my thesis that aoki was an informant by examining many more records looking for anything that would contradict it. and i also compared it several case studies of activists who had been revealed as informants. so based on this information i reported in my book that richard aoki had been an fbi informant and also reported this in a news story and a video that i prepared with the center for investigate i have reporting. -- investigative reporting. >> we could key it up, but maybe -- i don't think we have time right now to look at it. you guys are -- if you want to see a video a little bit later in the program, we can show you what i -- what went on in the video itself. why don't you go on with the narrative. >> well, i knew that this information would be somewhat controversial because richard aoki is a very revered figure

within the activist community in berkeley and also within the asian-american activist community nationally. and i expected people to be skeptical, i expected some debate, but i was not prepared for some of the personal attacks that were made on me as a result of reporting that story. my motives were questioned, it was suggested that i was involved in framing richard aoki as an fbi informant. there's not a shred of evidence for that false charge. so there was a bit of a controversy over this. i obtained some additional records after that first story was prepared. these records were released as a result of the lawsuit that i had brought to force the fbi to release more information on richard aoki. the fbi took the position in court that it had no more tile

files on aoki. but after i submitted evidence in court and with the help of my attorneys, the court reversed the fbi and said, well, fbi, you have to make an additional release of records. one of the documents that i submitted as evidence was the document that identified richard aoki as 2. so they released 221 pages of the informant file, and these additional records showed that aoki had been a paid fbi informant from 1961 through 1977. >> now, his importance, and this is clear in cir, center for investigative reporting, video that you can see online. one of the main reasons he's of so much interest is his involvement with the black

panther party. >> yes. aoki had been a student at merit college in the mid 1960s, and there he met two fellow students, huey newton and bobby seale. and he became friendly with them. later when they formed the black panther party in late 1966, they went to richard aoki's apartment in berkeley and talked to him about it and asked him for guns. they knew aoki had a gun collection, he'd been in the army, and he was a gun officionado. and aoki agreed. he gave them some of their first guns and firearms training and then he gave them more weapons in early 1967. there's no dispute about this. bobby seale has written about it in his memoirs,s, and richard ai confirmed it in several interviews. so here was a situation that at the same time richard aoki was

providing the black panthers with guns and firearms training, he was a paid fbi informant. and i want to make clear that i have no evidence that the fbi knew that aoki was arming the panthers or that the fbi was involved in any way. nonetheless, this raises a question; what did the fbi know about this, if anything, and did the fbi have any kind of involvement? ..

and ronald reagan joined in that process contrary to his image he did point dillinger of people -- point a finger at people and report people to the fbi because they have been evolves and every activity and that raises the question who were the real problem subversives? >> with that, thank you. [applause] we have questions, we have some microphones people will be walking around with microphones,

and i see some hands up right behind you. if you could identify yourself, please. >> jeff brooks. i did encounter there were 150 people and you said the bedrock principles of checks and balances. anybody else with the government? >> i would like to talk to you after. here we have approximately 6,000 years of people being screwed by the government and they haven't sued the government. what you call these core american principles. why is that? >> is the question why they haven't? >> don't they believe and checks and balances and that power corrupt squawks why don't more people sue the government? >> i don't know if i have an answer. >> i can tell you at least from

my experience suing the government is a lot of trouble. [laughter] it's very time-consuming and it can be very expensive and fortunate to have the assistance of the pro bono attorneys who handle my cases for more than two decades. [applause] a lawyer in oakland has given me great hope in a matter and tom steele for many years carried the case. [applause] i have had financial support from several foundations and from steve silverstein, and i am very grateful for that. so, it is a major undertaking and i think that that maybe the reason many people don't do it. >> i reflect on this when we start talking about the fbi

documents the freedom of information act and we now know it is also true that this is the only country -- i know the brits just sign the freedom of information act this is the only country i know of in the world where you can actually get the documents of what we have to call the secret police and their own documents and their own words produced for us to look at. so, it is an unusual experience to be able to do this even though it is a pain in the ass. [laughter] >> my name is steve jacobson and first of all, i don't know how anybody can believe anything the fbi says with a record. second, it's kind of a key time where the occupied movement has derived coming into this discredited can be -- make a lot

of present day activists distrustful, a paranoid, however. i went to a meeting ten days ago with 200 activists including myself, a lot of black panthers, and no one believes this they feel you have been used by the fbi to discredit. in other words i'm not saying you're guilty but i'm saying you're being used by the fbi. everybody believes that. i'm saying to defend himself. that's all. >> okay. i am happy to respond to that. >> i spent a lot of time examining fbi records and i examined the record keeping and i've been very careful in doing my research. i think i described to you the many steps i went through before i felt i had enough evidence to

report that richard was an fbi informant. the other thing you should remember is the time that these fbi records created there was very little likelihood that they would ever see the freedom of information act was incredibly weak and was and will use that the time. so, i just don't believe the fbi would create these records and give them to me now in an effort to. i am well aware that the fbi in some cases has framed people as fbi informants. however, there isn't a shred of evidence that that is what happened here and the people that have made that allegation have done so in an irresponsible way. i don't believe they have examined the evidence in an open way. and i think that when this is

all over they will have to revise their estimation of who richard was. >> first i am proud to say that i exist in a footnote in your book. i would like to clarify something about the timeline on goblet aoki thing. in the chronicles you said that aoki's first contact with the fbi was a result of his friendship with dog walker at berkeley high in the context of the fbi tapping the phone of saul and billy walker.

can you give a time line as to when they first made contact with aoki with regard and how that worked itself out chronologically? because as you probably know, dug in 1961 is one of the people called before the house un-american activities committee during the whole marching down the stairs operation. >> i spoke with doug about this by the way. according to the former fbi agent, the fbi had a wiretap on the hone of saul and billy walker and the stick to the conversation between doug and richard aoki. doug and richard were fellow students at brusquely high in the mid and late fifties. subsequent to that, the fbi approached richard and asked him

if he would become an fbi informant, and the documents that were released from the informant files are consistent with that. they contain references to richard aoki associating with certain people during the late 50's, and they showed if he was approached at least by 1961. and these documents, which the fbi tried very hard to cover up and were released only as a result of the court order turnout to have the initials in the bottom, so they are consistent in the essential ways and what these documents show is starting in 1961, richard aoki became active in the various left-wing groups in putting the young socialist alliance and the socialist workers party, leader the vietnam committee, the

asian-american political alliance world war strike and as we already mentioned the black panthers. so, that would be the rough chronology of aoki's engoulvent in the fbi. >> apparently what happened according to the fbi records, aoki, we know independently aoki enlisted in the army immediately upon graduating from high school. according to the fbi records, she spoke with an army official and discussed some of his associations at berkeley high school. this army officials been reported this to the fbi, and then the fbi contacted aoki and enlisted him as an informant. so, if that answers your question. okay. it's?

>> just two things before the question, the republicans have made ronald reagan an icon as the great defender of freedom information and private rights and thanks to your good work, that should be thoroughly debunked and i hope it is well promulgated. the other thing is we know how during the mccarthy era the right wing accuse people of being communist ducs. now the left is engaged in the same certain. we heard tonight in chongging to do the same thing to you. and i regret that profoundly. you are an extraordinary researcher. the question i have also deals with the black panthers. the black panthers needed some help with their books and ramparts magazine editor was asked to send a bookkeeper over. she saw the panthers to a

wonderful works by the great african american author pearson, former publisher of ramparts come excuse me, was the acknowledged and we now know that the panthers if you can across any further evidence the fbi perhaps being privy to that information. >> i haven't seen any information like that and with regard to your earlier comment the perspective of the information about reagan, his previous biographers and putting ed wind morris all say in their biographies they were frustrated by the very few pages that the fbi had released about ronald

reagan. we have at this point is the most complete record of ronald reagan's involvement in the fbi and the years prior to becoming president and this sheds light on the evolution of ronald reagan's politics and helps explain his term from being a liberal in his early hollywood days to being a staunch anti-communist in the years that followed. >> i'm curious whether you have any idea they were operating in and around the various student groups say from 64 to 70. a vietnam committee, and high draft unions. how extensive of a network of

people did they have working for them? do you have any idea? estimate the fbi informers and informants regularly attended campus events we have a question here in the front. >> [inaudible] i would like to say in response to the last comment [inaudible] the left and general whatever it is has not and i don't think that is a fair comment.

[inaudible] >> did everybody here the question? >> okay. the question is did aoki give the fbi any significant information particularly about the black panthers? unfortunately the records that were released were very heavily redacted. the summaries of information are all deleted, which i think is in a few under the freedom of information act. so, we don't know what he told them. however, we know that the fbi reviewed the information in many instances as being of extreme value or unique value because that information was released in these records.

islamic jay edgar hoover's notes of some of the documents? >> there was a note on one document by an fbi official that said be sure to remind aoki that his informant paid in come. there was another note that says they report their income. [laughter] >> my name is tony pilat. first of all may be in retrospect in taking the few pages all of your books that deal with richard aoki and making that lead article to the book in retrospect maybe wasn't the best choice. >> actually, that isn't what happened. i had to articles that can out about the same time focusing on ronald reagan. the aoki story was 1i did around the release of the book.

>> i didn't know that, so thanks for clarifying that. so, as somebody who taught at the school of chronology in berkeley in the late 60's and the early 70's and who did research and who's looked at the fbi records five done on another academic i would say that the work that you did was thorough and careful and there is no question that i think you made an accurate investigation, and i think we have to treat seriously the information that you have provided us with. i think the many problems with a left reflecting our history and past and not wanting to deal with some aspects that might discredit us and hang our dirty laundry out for everybody to see. i think in terms of tacking on the movement and what we were involved in we have to look at that and scrutinize it and overcome the kind of denial that is around the case going on now. my question is the peace in your

book, one where you say in 1966 ronald reagan was considering asking the fbi and working with the people to set up an fbi kind of academy in berkeley, and that was just before it becomes to being investigated and closed down i have fbi agents in my class. the first reports that i see of informants and agents are in my fpi folder in 1969, and i wondered if that -- if you followed that from that particular lead to see if there is any connection between that proposal in 1966 and what eventually happened imposing on the school chronology. >> it's a very interesting question. i don't -- i didn't see information on that. what struck me is particularly interesting about ronald reagan's announcement in 1966 that he would open a school dedicated to fighting crime and subversion near berkeley in the

midst of his campaign was that jay edgar hoover had been publicly stated policy in which he would not get involved in any kind of political campaign. but he sent ronald reagan a letter saying that he had endorsed his idea for this crime-fighting academy and that ronald reagan then used it through his campaign. >> my name is liz and i have two questions. i'm wondering is there any possibility that aoki is a loyal activist milking the fbi and for information and manipulating them? [applause] and then my other question that most shocking thing that i've heard you say tonight is that in the middle of the cold war, jay edgar hoover can't just say fire and everybody falls in line. but there were in fact people that stand up to that pressure. and i am curious to know pat brown and everyone else how they

manage that. >> as i have stated before, the fbi redacted the summary so we don't know what information you provide or what he didn't provide coming and we don't know whether the fbi was involved in any way or even knew that he was forming the black panthers so why can't speculate that. as a journalist i don't want to speculate on that i just want to report the facts that i could determine and then in regards to hoover, i think things are more complex even at the height of the cold war hoover cannot simply issue and eject and have some on fire. there were waves of politics and different agencies involved, and what the documents do show very clearly is that in the 1960's and 1965, hoover mounted a concerted effort to get clark retired and it's not just me saying this in the course of my freedom of information act case, the fbi tried to withhold this

information on the ground they concern the law enforcement and i challenge that in the courts and the court ruled that no this is not law enforcement the evidence shows the fbi was abusing its powers in an effort to get clark removed because officials disagreed with his politics and campus policies. >> i have a comment for steve jacobson in the back. if there were 200 people together in the meeting you could be absolutely certain that some of them were informants, and if i were one of those informants, i would have attacked the idea that the fbi could have recruited aoki. [applause] my question is about the pros in the area i regret i haven't always certainly will.

the plan to a personal privilege by the way i was looking at the documents but there were copies distributed to other files and one of the files i've not been able to locate cents was along the bay area institute which i helped found that institute. there were only four of us and we were all academics. it led to the creation and the service which is now the american media, but there were quite a few stories about people who penetrated the entire war movement in a -- in berkeley in specifically. could you say something about the clientele prosing your book if they exist? >> it was a secret program with

response to u.s. supreme court decision. the u.s. supreme court had reversed the convictions of communist party leaders on the ground that it wasn't illegal just to be on the communist party. the government needed to show that the communist party members were actively involved in trying to overthrow the government. so this put a big crimp in hoover's operations, and he began the clientele program the counterintelligence program. a secret operation was aimed at the fbi's own words disrupting and neutralizing people and the first was focused on the communist party.d onthat startes on the socialist workers party. there wa new left and another one on white hate groups, and another one, the fbi called the black nationalist hate groups. in the files concerning the

university of california, do you see the documents where, for example, on mario the fbi goes beyond collecting information and using that information to try to disrupt and neutralize people who were engaged in a non-violent civil disobedient. >> i'm over here. how're you doing? i was involved in the occupied movement for a little while, and not here at berkeley but in oakland, and i want to hear about any parallels you might see if you follow the occupy movement between what happened in the 60's and 70's and what happened now and if you see any parallels in how they conduct itself like what they may have done now to prevent those kind of things from happening and

just what we can learn from all of this. >> there are some parallels to occupy on the current or to occupy the free speech movement of 1964 in that they were both mass movements, both conducted openly, protested against government policy. and in both cases, you see the university has an institution reacting and trying to limit those protests. i think the best lesson that occupied people could learn from the free speech movement is organizations and activists can protect themselves against infiltrators and to disruption by operating openly and non-violently, and that was the free speech movement model and

perhaps there is something to be learned. there's been another subject that hasn't come up yet i would like to mention and that is the freedom of information act. i've had the opportunity to do research in the records under six different presidential administrations starting with jimmy carter. i've had the opportunity to see how different administrations respond, and i think it is true that the democrats are somewhat friendlier to the freedom of information act. but by and large consistently no matter who wins in office, the fbi withholds improperly withholds public information that should be released. it's been personally disappointing to me that when president obama keen into power one of the first things he did was to issue a memo in support of the freedom of information act and he was very strong about this. but it apparently never reached the fbi.

[laughter] because to this day the fbi continues to withhold what is public information and this then involves an expensive court fight that tax using taxpayers' dollars. it's very disappointing to me. >> one comment about the past and present. the fact is that if the fbi is focused on any community to do that is implicated but informants and is into the debate instituted programs looking for patterns of behavior as opposed to evidence of crime, the islamic community in the united states and that's not affecting necessarily many of you here in this room. there's work we've done at the investigative reporting program at berkeley and there will be a book called the terror factory, and really it is the story of the fbi manufacturing terrorist conspiracies within the islamic

community nationally and which was 98% of their faces, so it's not happening in berkeley in that way, it is happening with other communities in the country >> my name is gary aguilar. i'm very much and that admirer of your work and for those of us that are concerned about privacy rights and about our right to a certain amount of transparency which i am jury despondent about with obama what recommendations do you have for us to encourage this and to try to prevent the government from continuing to escalate what appears to be police states in this country? >> well, i did say that today's fbi is very different than jay edgar hoover's fpi.

there is more public oversight and congressional oversight. jay edgar hoover there was virtually no congressional oversight. robert mueller is a different devotee than jay edgar hoover was. especially depends on the accommodation of secrecy and power to do its job and that combination of secrecy and power pos is inherent threats to democracy it is incumbent on citizens and lawmakers to demand transparency and accountability, and that's probably the best way to make sure there is transparency to be actively involved. >> i love to know you think the prospects are for the redacted information in all of the

documents and most interesting information, the most vital information being released in the future. >> you mean specifically in their richard aoki documents? >> most of the documents that are redacted then released and i just wonder if there is anything in the original that was 15 years after, 100 years down the line where everyone has said there would like that information to be filed. ..

>> in effect, trying to alter history by tampering with people's first amendment rights, by leaking information, by shaping how people viewed events at the university. and all these decades later, you see the fbi, today's fbi withholding information, public information from records which is, in effect, once again interfering with our understanding of history. in effect, shaping what we know to be our history. >> microphones are where? we've got -- >> hello? hi. my name is samantha, i'm a third-year asian-american studies major here at berkeley, and my question is, if you have

no way to verify what information richard aoki provided as an informant, then what reason do you think he had for doing this, and if it's possible, he may have been doing it as a way to protect the organizations he was a part of. >> right. well, i think i've described the steps i went through to double check my information, and it was based on that research that i concluded that richard aoki was an fbi informant, okay? so that's an answer to the first part of your question. as to what aoki may have told the fbi, we simply do not know because the fwi has deleted that information -- fbi has deleted that information. >> threadgill never told you? >> he did tell me that richard aoki would attend meetings, he would report who was there and what was said. but as to the specifics, we just

don't know those details. and many people have speculated that aoki may have been a double agent, or he was working both sides of the fence. we just don't know. >> i'm tom, and was your life ever in danger? did you ever feel that? [laughter] >> the only time i felt my life was in danger is if a stack of fbi records would fall on me. [laughter] >> which was a real hazard. [laughter] there's a microphone back there. >> hi. my name is casey, i am also an asian-american studies major here on campus, and i wanted to few clarification questions. so when did you start your research on these activist movements? >> um, i started my research that led to this book in 1981. >> and what year was it when you found out about richard aoki

through your, the fbi agent, threadgill? >> sometime around 2002, roughly speaking. >> okay. so my question is, how is it that, um n doing research about -- in doing research about student activism, richard aoki is a very large figure, he's very prominent, especially here on the berkeley campus. how is it that in such a large time span you didn't -- and i believe you said it yourself -- you didn't know about him until you talked to threadgill in 2007, 2002? so how is it that his name escaped your research for such a long amount of time? >> sure. actually, richard aoki was well known within the activist community in the 1960s and 1970s. but he was not well known outside of that community. it's only in late 2009, early 2010 with the release of a documentary called "aoki" that

he started to get more prominence. and then again earlier this year when a biography of him was released. so that's when richard aoki became more well known beyond the activist community itself. and there are actually many activists who i never heard of until i started doing my research and learned about them along the way. >> hi. my name is liza -- i'm over here -- and i'm a science journalist. and my question goes to the, i mean, so it's so difficult to get at any of the information even on richard aoki, and your question about we know the documents show that, um, aoki was providing guns to the panthers at the same time he was an informant. so my question is -- and then the next logical question is what did the fbi know. so if they're redacting so much information on all the people they have information on, how on earth do you get to the information on what their own

doings? their documents, obviously, are not going to be revealing that information on themselves, so what other strategies do you use as an investigative reporter to get that information? because that's the next logical story, and i'm sure you're working on it. so how are you doing? >> sure. well, as i explained, when i was researching aoki, i used a variety of methods. i used interviews of former fbi agents, of people who knew him at the time. i read everything that was published about him. i went through court records. i filed freedom of information act requests, a lawsuit. so all these were methods that i used to conduct that research, and i think they're all fairly typical journalistic methods. >> what are you going to do now? >> what will i do now? >> [inaudible] >> yeah. are you going to get beyond the redactions? >> are i'm going to try. [laughter] using these same methods. >> my name is --

[inaudible] and i am with the irp program here at the school, investigative reporting program, and you started your talk by saying that the fbi have veered from its original mission, but you didn't tell us how that happened, what was the mechanism that led the fbi to veer from its original mission. how did they rationalize it? what was it? did they suspect that dissent equals being a spy for a foreign country? how did they come, how did they move from the original mission to whatever they were doing at the time? >> with -- right. hoover was fixated on the communist party, and he believed anybody in the communist party was a potential threat to the united states. and as the years went by, he expanded that definition of subversive. in fact, no legal definition of subversive -- >> [inaudible] >> yes. >> one more document. >> let's see. where are you?

>> you can see it up here. i have a hard copy of it. he, seth explains in his book one of the things the fbi did was they created a list of 15,000 people who were to be rounded up in the event of a national emergency. and they called it a security index. you get a security index card, and you might also have what they called an agitator index card that we believe the with it, and it's -- that went with that, and that's not a reference to a washing machine. [laughter] and i have one up here. that shows that i wasn't on the list. for my freedom of information request for my file. and went from actually over a number of years went from the second group to be rounded up to the third group and then they finally dropped it in 1975. but in 1975 in the wake of congressional hearings, a lot of these activities ended. they simply stopped, the fbi stopped doing them domestically.

at least as far as we know. >> next question? >> um, yeah. i guess i've got the microphone here. i'd like to know whether it's possible, whether you could make a logical jump from the fbi or to the place of the fbi providing these weapons. because that's, that seems to me to be critical information. did the fbi do stuff like that? is this a kind of tactic where you could say the fbi could definitely do that, arrange with one of their informants to provide weapons. >> yeah. yes, that did happen x you can read about it in the reports of senator frank church's committee. these are the same reports, they're the same congressional hearings lowell was just

mentioning in the mid '70s. >> so you would say that it, you would say that it -- that is a logical jump? could we -- would you suggest that we could assume given the behavior of the fbi that they would, of course, support the idea of giving guns to the black panthers because that would be a reason to crush them? >> no. that's not what i'm saying. i'm saying something very more specific than that. i'm saying what we know about richard aoki is that he was a paid fbi informant at the time he armed the black panthers. we also know at the same time j. edgar hoover was intent on destroying the black panthers. that's the context in which that happened. but what i've also said is we do not know whether the fbi had any involvement or even knew what richard aoki was doing, so it's actually a little more complicated. >> one more question. over here. >> hi. my name's katherine, and i've

heard you speak tonight and also on npr the other day, and it reminded me of my life, um, in the '60s when there was an awful lot of shooting of black panthers and how disturbing that was and to now, um, hear what you have to say, that it may have been fbi involvement having armed the panthers and led to some of these incredible assassinations. so i'm wondering if you're making any of those kind of connections here. >> um, no, i'm not going that far. i can only report what i know, which is that aoki was a paid fbi informant at the time he armed the black panthers, and anything beyond that would be speculation. >> i think if you're curious about it, you may even go back to the original church committee hearings and reports. they did extensive reports, and they did an extensive report on this operation, and it primarily

involved secretly trying to incite various groups against each other and in some cases that resulted in people being killed. but i don't know of any evidence of them supplying weapons directly in those reports to any domestic group. >> like they do today. [laughter] >> i don't know what they're doing today in that regard at all. i do know of one incident where they did, where they, you know, white supremacist organization which did a shooting in san diego and shot an innocent person in an office in a drive-by shooting, and they did hide the weapon afterwards. but in the end those people actually, well, they were dismissed from the fbi for that. but i don't know of any incidents where they actually supplied weapons. >> if anybody is interested in seeing richard aoki's fbi informant file, i would invite you to visit the web site of the center for investigative reporting where we have posted the entire file. >> and there's also --

[applause] and there's also a ten-minute video on ifiles on youtube with seth in it discussing the case, and you can actually hear the video, you can hear the audio of some of the interviews he did both with aoki and with the fbi case agent, mr. threadgill. so with that, seth, thank you very much. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction to have or book you'd like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@cspan.org, or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> full body burden growing up in the nuclear shadow of rocky flats, is a book, um, about my childhood and in colorado. i grew up there about seven miles from the rocky flats nuclear weapons plant, um, and actually our first house was

about seven miles away, and then in 1969 we move today a subdivision called bridledale which was closer to the plant, about three, three-and-a-half miles away from rocky flats. my sisters and brother and i, we had an idyllic childhood in the sense that we had horses and dogs, and we spent a lot of time outdoors riding our horses in the fields around the plant and swimming in the lake. and we never knew what went on at rocky flats. we had no idea what it really was, um, and we had no idea of the environmental contamination that was happening in the area. plutonium and trade yum and a number of different things in the environment. we had no idea. later, like many kids in my neighborhood, i worked at the plant myself, and, um, got a sense of what it was like to be on the inside of the plant. there was one evening when i came home from working at rocky

flats and turned on the television, and there was a show on nightline that it was an expose of what was really happening at the plant, and it was the first time that i really had an awareness, that i really had an understanding of what was happening at rocky flats and how extraordinary the contamination was. it was on that day that i decided to quit my job at rocky flats, and the day that i quit was the day that i decided i would write a book about it. it took me about ten years of research and writing to pull this story together, and i wanted to write a book that reads like a novel; but it's very heavily footnoted, and everything in the book is factual, so you can check in the back and see where the information comes from. but i wanted to write this story from the perspective of all of the different kinds of people whose lives had been affected by rocky flats. not just residents like me and my family, but workers at rocky flats, some of the activists, all the different people,

thousands and thousands of people in colorado and beyond who were affected by rocky flats. another reason why i felt very passionate about this story is that there is, um, we are, we are -- we continue to deal with the legacy of our nuclear weapons production in this country, and so many different ways. the environmental legacy and then, also, the cultural legacy of how important this plant was and the way it affected people, people who weren't aware, um, how they were being affected. when i worked at the plant, it was very common for workers to refer -- we'd call ourselves cold war warriors, the people who worked right on the line. but for the people who grew up near rocky flats, we also were cold war warriors. no one told us. we didn't know what was happening at the plant. the rumor in the naked was the plant -- neighborhood was the plant was operated by dow chemical and they were making household cleaning supplies. it wasn't apart for quite a long

time what was going on. and what's happening now is there has been a clean-up, but a very controversial clean-up with controversial levels of contamination remaining in the soil, and 1300 acres of that site are so profoundly contaminated that they can never, ever be opened for human habitation. and the rest of the site is slated to open as a national waild -- wildlife refuge for hiking, biking and possibly even hunting. so even though there's still a great deal of contamination on the site, and there's a lot of home building and shopping malls and highways and all sorts of things going on out there. i felt that even though in colorado and in the country as a whole i think we would like to forget rocky flats ever happened, it's a story we would like to put in the past and pretend it's all fixed and we don't have to deal with it anymore, but the truth of the matter is that it's a very important story that we will have to continue to deal with into this future. plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years. it's not going away anytime soon. >> you can watch this and other

programs online at booktv.org. >> host: and here on booktv on c-span2 we continue our coverage of freedomfest 2012 from will have, a libertarian gathering that's held annually out in this city. and we've been talking with several different authors, and we want to introduce you to another author right now, and it's wendy mcelroy whose book is called "the art of being free: politics versus the every man and woman." >> guest: indeed. >> host: wendy mcelroy, first of all, tell us about yourself. >> guest: well, i'm an individualist feminist, i've been active in libertarianism for about 40 years now, i've been writing since i was 15 years old. this book is my reaction to 9/11, basically. when 9/11 happened, i started to rethink everything about libertarianism and everything

about my belief system. i wondered, had i wasted my life to work in freedom for the decades i have, because i saw a police state arise so quickly after 9/11 and so effortlessly. it seemed no one resisted it. it seemed that america gave up on freedom all at one moment, and i did a lot of thinking about my relationship to the state, what the state was, how important be it was to my life -- how important it was to my life and how the main thing that responsibility of life, if you want, is what henry david thoreau used to call the business of living. and as a result, i wrote a book, "the art of being free," that gave the theory, the history and the psychology, if you would, behind my response to that whole system of thinking after 9/11

where i basically am tired of dealing with freedom as an abstraction. i'm sick to death of debating the abstraction, and i'm not dissing or disrespecting anyone who wants to debate liberty. i just want to be free. i want to know how to be free in my own lifetime, especially given the rise of what i consider a police state. >> host: and what, what did you change in your thinking after 9/11, and what did you find about your previous thinking? concrete examples. >> guest: okay, concrete examples. um, one attitude towards the state, if you want, was best expressed by david friedman one time in this a speech where he said there was an italian saying that if you translated it into english went something along the lines of it's raining again, pig of a government, which is you blame everything on the state, you rail, and you talk, and you

work against the state. on the other hand, i mentioned henry david thoreau who has been pivotal in my thinking. he basically had the idea not merely of the business of living, but he had the idea, he went out on to a hill in his essay of civil disobedience, he went onto a hill and looked around at the absolute beauty that surrounded him and said here there is no state. i want to look inside myself and say here there is no state. i try to do that increasingly, every day, by making sure i pursue, um, everything from alternate currencies, interacting with my neighbors in terms of alternate methods of exchange, privatizing my life, taking my life back from the state and privatizing it to the

extent possible. do not deal with the state. do not interact with the state. make sure that you go into businesses that are privatizing government services. do not interact with the state. we are going to an unprecedented period of state control of our lives. all you have to say is, no, and i'm not saying that you should say it -- and martyr yourself, martyr your family. i'm not saying anything like that. that would be reckless. what i'm saying is to the extent possible, privatize your own personal life. >> host: so duds -- does that mean you're living off the grid, you're not flying on airplanes because of tsa and all the different regulations? are those the types of things that you're not doing anymore, or is it something -- >> guest: well, i'm here. [laughter] so i flew. and i cannot tell anyone what to do in their lives. and i'm not trying to. what i'm saying is that to the extent it's possible, use

alternative currencies, use the gray markets, go private, do not use government. and this book, and i don't mean to misrepresent it because it is not -- it is more theoretical, it is more historical and a background and the underpinning of everything i'm saying. i'm actually writing another book right now that will be more of a how-to. the whole idea that people have to fight -- this is, basically, psychologically preparing people for the fact that they are living in a police state. they are now -- we are not coming to a police state, we are living in it. you must ask yourself a lot of questions and prepare yourself how far are you willing to obey? what are you going to do if certain situations come up? the -- being free is to longer something that you can take for granted. it is something that you are going to have to develop the art

of being. >> host: who is beatty chadwick? >> guest: who is who? >> host: beatty chadwick? >> guest: beatty chadwick is a man who was in jail for many, many years even though he had committed no crime. he had been convicted of nothing. what it was was it was an imprisonment due to a civil contempt. there are many, many people are not aware of the complexities that have developed in the american court system. in the american family court system, you go in and you are divorcing your wife, and your wife alleges that you have hidden assets. the judge says, yes, i think he does even though it's not proven. beatty chadwick went to jail for

something like 10, 12 years because he basically refused to turn over records to a judge. that's civil contempt. he was -- and the damnable thing is you can be imprisoned for far longer on a civil contempt charge than a criminal one because civil contempt, you don't have the right to appeal. you don't have the right to have a judge -- to have a lawyer. you don't have any rights that are the due process rights that you would have in a criminal case. so there are many situations in the system that people are unaware of that are creeping up on average people like you and me. >> host: is it just the state that concerns you? what about in today's world corporations when we do searches on the internet, or we use credit cards and can our behaviors are tracked, or use cell phones and all that information is out there?

>> guest: i, i'm, of course, concerned with the ordinary citizen being a criminal, which is what you're talking about. if you're saying that i'm concerned with corporations, i have a very hard time drawing a line between the state and corporations. i don't think corporations as they exist today could exist billions -- billions they had state privilege, unless they had certification by the state and many other -- and when i say it sounds like i'm slamming big business, aisle not slam -- i'm not slamming big business. business should get as big as it possibly can, you know, in a free market context. you know, let it flourish, let it prosper. if you're asking about the privacy issue, yeah. of course, everyone will go after my data because -- not mine in particular like it's particularly precious, but your data, my data -- because they can make a buck off it. and that's -- as long as i have

the ability to say, no, as long as i have the ability to shut the door which the state does not let me do but which i would have the ability to do in the free market, as long as i agree to do that, then it's up to me. the responsibility now devolves upon me to slam that door and say mind your own god damn business. [laughter] >> host: wendy mcelroy, why do you think the post office is harmful? >> guest: oh, the post office. well, first of all, it's considered to be a benign institution usually. it's the one that's thrown up like, you know, at least they perform a service. yeah, the service they have performed throughout the decades from the very beginning in, when it was established after the founding fathers was to censor, they censored the federal -- the anti-federalists were censored, the, and in a wartime if any goth agency -- government agency is going to serve a government

purpose beyond the service that it purports to provide to the public, any government agency is a government agency. privatize it. get rid of that. >> host: um, are most libertarians anarchists? you describe yourself as an anarchist/libertarian/feminist. [laughter] >> guest: how many legals can i -- [laughter] >> host: is an anarchist the same? i mean, is there a lot of overlap between libertarians and anarchists? >> guest: um, there's a lot of overlap, and anarchists often just describe themselves as libertarians. i am an anarchist in a henry david thoreau sense of the word. i really keep invoking him in this interview. he said the government that governs best is the one that governs least. and the least government you can have is no government. so i have that kind m called by.

most libertarians i know if they were in power and they were able to establish the minimal government that they want to put into power, i would hang up my anarchist credentials, i'd go in my backyard and grow tomatoes for the rest of my life. and i wouldn't have to go to the grocery store and buy the tomatoes that the state is making me too busy to grow. so i don't have an argument with most libertarians. i'd love to see their government. if they had their government, they wouldn't see me again. >> host: wendy mcelroy is the author of "the art of being fair," and in the back of this book this is an invitation. what is this? >> guest: the invitationing is to the laissez-faire book club. it's something i've very excited about. if you go to the cite,