Sla's Atwood--a Trusted Friend

SLA's Atwood – A Trusted Friend

Ann Arbor SUN collective:

While travelling this week through Ann Arbor from Oakland to New York, I read your front page story and editorial "Was SLA's Cinque a Police Agent?" and feel that much of what the article said or implied deserved criticism.

For the past four years I've lived in Oakland, California, and have witnessed the moribund state of the movement there. Until recently, I was a severe critic of the Symbionese Liberation Army. I felt, and still feel, that the murder of school super-intendant Marcus Foster was a cold-blooded atrocity; by people whose ideology supposedly values human life. If political murder is to be countenanced at all, it would have to be an actual practitioner of state murder, not a hapless bureaucrat.

I also feel that the choice of a symbol of a seven-headed cobra was hideous, and would like to know the full details of the wounding of the two elderly men shot during the SLA bank robbery in San Francisco. Your paper, using several sources, pointed out the nebulous career of Cinque, the fact that he may have a record of informing and provocatuering.

But the one fact I must dispute personally is the "report" that Angela Atwood, killed in the Los Angeles shootout, ever "worked as police operatives," or "worked on a Mod Squad for the Intelligence Division of the Indiana State Police, setting up narcotics arrests."

I knew Angela Atwood slightly; more importantly, I had close and trusted friends, longtime political activist friends, who knew her and loved her. I can't conceive of her being an informer or agent earlier, and, by inference, that her recent politicalization should be in any way suspect.