City Police Spied Broadly Before GOP Convention


Report: NYPD Conducted Extensive National, International Spy Campaign on Protesters Before GOP Convention

the presumed rationale is that police infiltrate dissident organizations to learn if they plan to break laws.

no one can dispute the validity of that, but amy goodman astutely pointed out the real danger: that infiltrators will act as provocateurs.

jim dwyer seemed unaware of the possibility, but i know of a case of an undercover cop who—apparently out of ideological motives—attempted to destroy a group that never broke local or state laws:

an anti-draft group called the resistance formed during the vietnam war. its logo was the greek letter omega, the international symbol for an ohm, the unit of electrical resistance.

the philadelphia branch had offices on the top two floors and operated a printing press in the basement of a beautiful old walnut street building used since 1946 as headquarters of the women's international league for peace and freedom (WILPF).

starting in the summer of 1968 the resistance shared some of its space with a direct action group called committee for nonviolent action (CNVA) that lacked funds for rent on the storefront they used till then, and several other peace groups also used the building.

the cop called himself bob thompson. he was 30ish, stocky, blond-haired, and had what might be called all-american good looks. saying he was an ex-marine who opposed the war and wanted to help, he began working in the office in '68. he said he had no income, so the group scraped together a small subsistence allowance. before long he struck up a relationship with one of the female volunteers and moved in with her.

when "law'n'order" (white supremacist) 3rd party presidential candidate george wallace held a rally in philly, thompson prominently wore his omega pin and made sure witnesses saw him put dirt in the gas tanks of some parked motorcycles belonging to members of an outlaw bike gang called the warlocks, who were attending the gathering. when the bikers learned what happened they blamed the resistance, which they considered a club like themselves, so it shouldn't give its pins to anyone but its members and was responsible for anything done by someone wearing its symbol, just as the warlocks would've been responsible for something done by anyone wearing their colors.

confrontations and assaults followed.

one of the quirkiest sequences of events of those strange days ensued. ira einhorn, a beer-bellied, longhaired humbug who for a few years successfully passed himself off as a hippie 'guru' and activist (and later became the 'unicorn killer' and fled to europe for 20 years thanks to the intervention of former DA and soon-to-be senator arlen specter), persuaded the jewish Y to let him use their building to stage a fundraiser to appease the violent racist gang—several of whom often wore german ww2 helmets—by buying them off with money to repair their bikes. the event produced a few thousand dollars. it's hard to say if the bikers were satisfied.

two acts of arson occurred, the first a small one in a filing cabinet in the resistance's 3rd floor office, the other on the first floor, where the WILPF had its front office. the second fire wasn't till march 1970. it gutted most of the building. the perpetrator(s) remain(s) unknown.

some time before the second fire the group planned a protest to take place during a political event at the luxurious bellevue-stratford hotel on broad street. at a planning session thompson suggested resisters enter the gathering wearing bloody garments. he told police his proposal would be followed. that brought about a massive cop presence on the street outside, including publicity hungry commissioner (and future mayor) frank rizzo, who told tv viewers what was planned, but the bloody clothes never materialized.

thompson's cover was blown when he got sick and checked into the old philadephia general hospital. his girlfriend went to visit him. it's not clear if he realized his bed was in the police ward.