Was Sla's Cinque A Police Agent?

WAS SLA'S CINQUE A POLICE AGENT?

While 2,000 mourners raised clenched fists at the funeral of slain Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) chief Donald DeFreeze in Cleveland two weeks ago, evidence was accumulating that he had once worked for the Criminal Conspiracy Section (CCS) of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), one of the most powerful and feared political-intelligence units in the nation.

DeFreeze, "General Field Marshall Cinque" of the SLA, appears to have been an undercover agent in the black militant movement from at least 1967 until 1969, and possibly up until this year. 

Was Cinque A Government Agent?

SLA Linked to LAPD & CIA

It was also reported that three members of the SLA had at one time worked for an undercover police narcotics unit in Indiana.

Information revealed by investigators thus far has been mostly circumstantial, but there is also reason to believe:

*that De Freeze may have continued his undercover work inside the California prison system, not only for state law enforcement authorities, but also for a domestic Central Intelligence Agency operation.

*that his escape from prison in March, 1973 was arranged by prison authorities.

*that police may have known about SLA plans for the assassination of Black Panther Party leader Huey Newton and the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst.

Information has even linked DeFreeze to an establishment political figure, California Attorney General Evelle J. Younger, the then-U.S. District Attorney in Los Angeles who set up the unit for which DeFreeze is alleged to have worked.

The revelations put the SLA in new perspective, that of the long war conducted by California and federal police authorities against radical groups in that state. A product of the undercover web spun by law enforcement authorities to destroy the Black Panthers, DeFreeze now appears to have been a deranged man with a penchant for arms and violence, who was turned into an executioner and provocateur by the same agencies who assassinated Fred Hampton.

Specifically, the information suggests that DeFreeze may have run guns to Ron Karenga's heavily police-infiltrated and compromised US group for use against the Panthers.

The information also lends credence to the charge, made by the Panthers and other radical groups, that the SLA itself was originally the product of a police conspiracy to attack and discredit them and other groups on the Ieft.

The connection between DeFreeze and the LAPD was first made public at a press conference in April by Donald Freed, head of a group called the Citizens Research Investigation Committee (CRIC). Joining CRIC in the investigation have been Norman Mailer's Fifth Estate group in Washington D.C., Sherman Skolnick in Chicago and the Black Panther Party.

One of the two LAPD agents who has said DeFreeze worked on the Black Desk of the CCS with him is Louis Tackwood. Tackwood is the subject of "The Glass House Tapes," a book edited by Freed in which Tackwood reveals how he and other agents infiltrated black militant groups in order to incite them to violence.

The other is an agent handler who also worked for the Black Desk of the CCS, a Lieutenant R. Farwell who reportedly has admitted that DeFreeze worked for him. Farwell has since declined to talk to the establishment press, but according to Winslow Peck, investigator for the Fifth Estate, Farwell earlier volunteered the information.

The conspiracy intelligence unit for which DeFreeze worked was set up by then-district attorney Younger in 1969 out of previous intelligence units. Organized like the CIA and funded secretly, according to CRIC the unit has operated far outside the legal boundaries of Los Angeles and maintains close contact with the attorney general's office.

Although it appears likely that Younger knows of DeFreeze's connection with the intelligence unit, at least since the Hearst kidnapping, he has recently denied that he or his office has ever had "any relationship" with DeFreeze. During the trial which put him into prison, the SLA leader unsuccessfully' subpoenaed Younger, reportedly saying that he could "embarrass" him.

The three SLA members reported to have worked as undercover police operatives include Angela Atwood, killed in Los Angeles, and Emily and William Harris, the couple with whom Patricia Hearst is thought to be travelling. According to CRIC the three worked on a mod squad for the Intelligence Division of the Indiana State Police, setting up narcotics arrests.

The circumstantial evidence for DeFreeze's LAPD connection sterns from a record of continued arrests on serious charges, cooperation with the police and lenient treatment.

CRIC asserts that according to "police sources" DeFreeze was informing as early as 1965 in matters concerning the sale of contraband and stolen firearms. However, his first publicly recorded act of cooperation occurred on December 6, 1967.

Setting up an associate with a telephone call, DeFreeze led police to a cache of more than 200 rifles and automatic pistols. DeFreeze had previously been charged with robbery of the guns from an army surplus store.

During the fall of 1968, CRIC claims, DeFreeze and other CCS agents "moved large numbers of guns and grenades" to Ron Karenga's US organization to use against the Panthers.

While awaiting sentencing on the gun rap (during the same period). DeFreeze was arrested twice more, tor burglary and grand larceny. He was also remanded for psychiatric examination. A report stated that his constant involvement with "fire arms and explosives" made him dangerous. Despite this, and despite three arrests in the preceding two years on such charges as possession of explosives, possession of concealed weapons and robbery, each of which had issued in probation. DeFreeze was again released on probation in December, 1968.

Only six months before DeFreeze's arrest for the firearms robbery, twenty members of the Black Panther Party had demonstrated with guns at the state capitol in Sacramento. The incident provoked a wave of reaction throughout the State. While law enforcement authorities, prominent among whom was Younger, were mounting an ever-intensifying campaign against the fast-growing Southern California Chapter of the Black Panthers, a black man with a penchant for arms and violence was let off the hook time and time again.

In April of 1969 in Los Angeles. DeFreeze was arrested for possession of "a military type semi-automatic M-68 9 mm rifle. ..fully loaded...attached clip contained 32 bullets," according to his probation report.

He reportedly beat the rap by telling the judge that he had "registered" the gun with the police under his own name and that the gun was actually intended for a police officer friend.

DeFreeze then left California in violation of his probation (according to CRIC, with the help of CCS agents;a bench warrant was issued for his arrest) and next turned up in New Jersey in May, 1969.

There he and another man allegedly kidnapped the caretaker of the B'nai Abraham Synagogue at shotgun point, demanding a $5,000 ransom. According to the police report, "DeFreeze 's plan was to submit a ransom communique purporting to be from the B.P.P. (Black Panther Party). Although he managed to escape Newark authorities, he was charged with "extortion by kidnapping." Charges were later dropped. according to an Essex County spokesman. because DeFreeze was in custody in California for a "far more serious crime." New Jersey authorities had earlier made strenuous but unsuccessful attempts to extradite DeFreeze from California for offenses dating back to 1965.

In October, 1969 DeFreeze was arrested in Cleveland after, according to the police record, appearing "on the roof of the Cleveland Trust Company Branch Bank with a 38 revolver, .25 caliber pistol. an eight inch dagger, a tool kit, and... a hand grenade."

Despite being wanted on a capital charge in New Jersey as well as a probation violation in California, DeFreeze was released on $5,000 bail and charges were later dropped.

His last arrest was in Los Angeles on November 26, 1969. Caught in the act of cashing a fraudulent check for $1,000, DeFreeze tried to shoot his way out but was shot in the leg by a bank guard and captured. The gun in his possession at the time was a 32-caliber Beretta automatic pistol- one of the guns stolen from the war surplus store in 1967.

Convicted on robbery and assault charges in December 1969, DeFreeze was incarcerated in the Vacaville state prison, a minimum security facility with a well-developed behavior modification program.

The possibility of DeFreeze 's connection with law enforcement agencies doesn't end with his imprisonment in Vacaville, however, although from this point on the evidence made public is entirely circumstantial.

While at Vacaville DeFreeze occupied a leadership position in a behavior modification program called the Black Cultural Association (BCA). Administrator of the program during DeFreeze's stay was a man named Colston Westbrook. Westbrook happens to have been an operative for the CIA in the Far East during the sixties.

CRIC has charged that the group was set up as a recruiting pool for an illegal domestic CIA operation. and in fact it has included many former members of the US Slaves group. However, CRIC has not yet seen fit to release the evidence--which it says it has-- that Westbrook was still working for the CIA at Vacaviile.

Speculation concerning DeFreeze's possible undercover connections in prison have also been aroused by circumstances surrounding the formation of the SLA and DeFreeze's escape from prison.

Seemingly breaking with Westbrook and the BCA over matters of policy. DeFreeze complained to Department of Corrections authorities. Although other members of the BCA said that DeFreeze was unacceptable to them because of his provocative and ultra-militant positions, the Vacaviile authorities apparently didn't find him unacceptable, because they proceeded to set him up with his own project called "Unisight."

From "Unisight," meant to help the families of black prisoners and involving contact with people outside the prison, it has long been established that the SLA grew. CRIC suggests that Unisight may have been set up as "an organization magnet for white radicals in the prison movement."

DeFreeze was transferred to Soledad prison shortly after forming Unisight. In an unusual move for a prisoner with his record, DeFreeze was given a job requiring a high degree of trust from prison authorities. Assigned to work the midnight to eight a.m. shift in the boiler room, in an unused part of the facility where no guards were posted, DeFreeze was dropped off by a guard his first night on the job, given a few instructions and left to himself. When a guard came back an hour later to check on DeFreeze, he was gone.

DeFreeze then reportedly moved underground among white people in the Bay area whose names were familiar to authorities from visitation records at Vacaville and Soledad. According to CRIC, however, none of these potential suspects were questioned by authorities.

CRIC further claims, although it hasn't said where it got the evidence:

*that in August, 1973, money and weapons began to be supplied to the SLA on a regular basis.

*that the supplier tried to involve Chicano, Indian and Black prison reformers with the SLA and promised the group $1,000,000 "from an Arab nation" if they would blow up domestic oil facilities.

*that before the Hearst kidnapping, authorities were in possession, not only of a detailed kidnap plan whose target was Patricia Hearst, but also of information concerning a conspiracy to murder Black Panther leader Huey Newton.

Although the evidence is again circumstantial, there are further grounds for linking the SLA to earlier anti-Panther police efforts. Not only did the SLA adopt the cobra symbol and five-point anti-BPP program of the US party, but the SLA's assassination of Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster came just after Foster had agreed to Panther reform demands.

Suspicion that authorities are continuing to release anti-Panther agents onto the street was heightened by the walkaway escape of Larry and George Steiner from San Quentin prison March 29.

US Slaves members convicted of murder in the 1969 slayings of Panthers John Huggins and Bunchy Carter, the Steiner Brothers made their escape during an overnight stay with their parents in a family housing project-a privilege not ordinarily extended to prisoners convicted of violent crimes.

As of April 15, documents concerning the Steiner Bros. and DeFreeze's attempted subpoena of Attorney General Younger in 1970 were removed from a public file and locked in the desk of the watch commander of LAPD intelligence. The watch commander, according to CRIC, is none other than R. Farwell, DeFreeze's former agent handler on the Black Desk of the Criminal Conspiracy Section. -pieced together by David Stoll from information supplied by the Citizens Research Investigation Committee and the Black Panther Party.