Charlie Jones, RIP

FRIENDS ~ Longtime Isla Vistan CHARLIE JONES has passed on. Below, in the order they were sent to many of us, are some edited recollections of Charlie. More memories are in the Comments section. Please add yours by clicking "comments" at the bottom of this posting. To add comments: scroll down to the end of this memorial posting about Charlie. There is an orange hyperlink titled "comments." Click on that link and then, scrolling to the bottom of the posting page that opens, click on "Add comment," add your text, and then "login and publish."

(Image of Charlie courtesy of the Isla Vista Free Press, 1988)

(more images at http://homepage.mac.com/rhobbs67/charlie/)


From Farfalla, 8/24/2005:

I am writing with the sad news that Charlie passed away in his sleep last
Wednesday. I just heard today, so perhaps you've already heard. I've
written to Arthur to ask if a gathering is planned and will let you know.
If you already have information to share, I'd appreciate hearing back.

Peace,

Farfalla

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From Cheri, 8/24/2005:

Thanks, Falla. Here is what I know: there will be a wake for him on Aug. 30, Tue, from 5pm - ? At his apartment: 332 Elwood Bch Dr #10, Goleta 93117.
Cards or letters can be sent to his partner Maia at the same address, except #9.

According to Harriet Eckstein, he died from long-term Epstein-Barr.

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From Ed, 8/25/2005:

I was a friend of Charlie back in 1974-75, when he was the sweetest anarchist you could ever know. Of all the people that I knew then I may have respected his opinion the most. He was a island of calm in an ocean of ferment and chaos. The world is a worse place for his no longer being in it.

As a side note about the cause of his illness, while I am sure that Harriet Eckstein was doing her best to accurately state things, Charlie could not have possibly have died from "long-term Epstein-Barr." First of all, Epstein-Barr is the virus that causes mononucleosis. About half the country carries antibodies for it because they either caught the illness or were exposed and developed an immunity. There is no such disease as "long-term Epstein-Barr." Some people mistakenly believe that Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is the cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but the connection was made in a long-discredited study. There is no link between EBV and CFS. Finally, CFS is not fatal unless the person commits suicide because of the pain and other disabling effects (something that unfortunately happens too often). There are no recorded cases of death that can be attributed to CFS outside of suicide despite studies going back to the 1980s.

I say all this as a former member of the Board of Directors of The Chronic Fatigue & Immune Dysfunction Syndrome Association, the largest national group focusing on CFS (aka CFIDS). I was also President of CFIDS-Albuquerque and founder & first President of CFIDS-New Mexico. I have had CFS since December 1990.

I am cc'ing this message originally sent to Macolm to Cheri Gurse... in the hopes that she can (a) pass this along to Harriet and (b) send a correction to those she has E-mailed. While obviously her concern is for Charlie and not whether CFS is fatal or whether EBV is a disease, I think it is important that people know the facts rather than learn and perhaps innocently spread misinformation. This disease is bad enough without people thinking it can be fatal. (BTW, it affects approximately 650,000 Americans, which qualifies it as a serious health issue even if it isn't given the research resources it deserves).

I am also cc'ing Carol Cuzner and Larry Padway, the former being Charlie's roommate in 1974 and the latter being a friend of Charlie's in the same time period...

Ed Isenberg

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From John, 8/24/2005:

I think I know Charly--ddin't he work at the original Kinko's next to the Hamburger Habit? Didn't he have long hair down past his shoulders and wore John Lennon glasses? I would like to know. Thanks, John I. Gilderbloom


From Malcolm, 8/25/2005:

Hi, John ~ Yes, that was Charlie. Always kept his hair long even after many of us cut ours -- many times. Charlie took real interest in the health of the IVRPD, worked for the district for a period of time, and was also a well known juggler. His smile was infectious. ~ Malcolm


From John, 8/25/2005:

Thanks! If you ever heard the corporate version of Kinko's starting-- Charlie got zero air. But who knows if Charlie was not at Kinko's would the "Alternative" become the corporate giant? I would still like to find out what happened to Murv Glass-- so much talent and energy. I cannot make it because I am in Louisville and just got back from Isla Vista. Give my best regards to everyone. John

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From Ed, 8/25/2005:

I was just told he was a lawyer and that he supported progressive causes. I think I heard about him through Malcolm (how I know him is truly an odd story). I may have heard about Charlie being a lawyer when my old friend Steve Logan died, and I was communicating with several people in SB. I just don't remember.

When I knew Charlie in 1973-75, he was living at Das Institute, which was a former fraternity house in Isla Vista that about 20 people had taken over. I was co-owner and News Editor of the Isla Vista Town Crier, was involved with a woman who lived at D.I., and was very old friends (and still am) with another woman who lived there. I did a big expose about an FBI informant who was the biggest heroin dealer in SB County, but kept being freed by the FBI. He (the dealer/informant) started stalking me and almost shot me twice (once in public at a restaurant). Lots of fun staring at a .45 pointed at your face at point-blank range... Anyway, D.I. was made up of two groups, one of which was quite radical and expected Nixon to declare martial law at any moment, and the other basically just typical left-leaning Isla Vistans. I became friends with the more radical element, which included Charlie (who described himself as an anarchist). We loaded our own bullets and had lots of guns, and often went target practicing up in the San Marcos Pass area. At one point Charlie offered to beat this guy up, but when it came to it and he had hit the guy and knocked him to the ground, Charlie said he just didn't have it in him to hurt someone so deliberately. Eventually the crisis with this guy passed (I told one of his junkies, my next-door-neighbor and once-girlfriend, that I was carrying a gun and would shoot the informant on sight, claiming self-defense and mental impairment). However, I stayed friends with Charlie and the others, and if I remember correctly went bowling with him on many occasions at midnight. I lost track of him when I moved away from the area in November 1975.

If you knew Steve Logan I have many stories to tell about him, as he was my best friend for several years and my roommate in the early 1970s. I was so sorry to have missed his funeral, and now I have to miss Charlie's as well. :-(

There was one more story that involved Charley. On the night after this informant hit me in a restaurant while flaunting his gun, we heard a rumor that he and his drug dealer friends were going to break into Das Institute and shoot everybody. Since these guys had beaten up others to the point of hospitalization, it seemed a plausible threat. So my girlfriend and I moved into a vacant room at the end of the hall, and "non-combatants" moved to the second floor while everyone on the first floor was armed with a weapon. I had a shotgun leaning up next to the door. In the middle of the night, one woman got up to go to the bathroom, and tripped over a bicycle that we had put in the hallway as something that would make noise if someone broke in. All I remember is suddenly lying on the floor with my shotgun, head and arms out the doorway into the hall, aiming at the dark silhouette that was screaming "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" with my finger on the trigger. After what seemed forever someone turned on the hall light and there was this woman, stark naked, frozen with her hands up high, and guns, rifles and shotguns pointing at her from every doorway! If one person had started shooting we all would have, and she would have been cut to pieces. We were so scared we all got out of bed and sat around the kitchen drinking coffee (of all things) trying to calm down. That was when I moved back to my apartment and decided to threaten the dealer. Anyway, Charlie was one of those with a gun that awful night, Saturday, February 9th, 1974, my 23rd birthday.

Those were such bizarre times. I lived in a 4-plex on Pardall Rd right next to the University. The next-door-apartment was home to a stripper and also a heroin addict who as I said had been my girlfriend for a few weeks. Downstairs were Campus Crusade for Christ. Across the street was the Women's Center where several fiercely Lesbian women lived. Upstairs were my cocaine supplier friends and in another apartment someone who would later become a lawyer and has been friends with me and my wife for over 31 years. The woman I mentioned in Das Institute who was my old friend we still see at least once a year, and have been friends now for over 34 years. And if Steve Logan was still with us we would be celebrating our 35th year as friends (I saw him last just a few months before he died).

I have often said, those were not the happiest times of my life, but they were definitely the most intense. The same thing people say about their time spent in a war, which is what we looked at it as being at the time...

Ed

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From Carol, 8/25/2005:

... I am sorry to hear of Charlie's passing. I had no idea he was still living in the Goleta/IV area. I like your description of him as a "sweet anarchist" and an "island of calm" - very true.

My main Charlie story is that he was my "guide" when I took acid for the second and last time, with E [Carrol], in late autumn in, I think, 1975. He was with E and I for the first few hours, which was the best part of the trip - he did tarot readings for us and we talked and hung out. E and I then went out walking for a couple of hours, and did other activities I don't remember now. The trip went on too long for me, and by the time we got home to our apartment on Pasado in the evening, I was really tired of it and wanted it to be over. I also remember Charlie being a calm and rational presence at Das and at the credit union, his juggling, and lots of other tarot readings he did - he was the one who first interested me in tarot.

"I was particularly impressed that Charlie used an Aleister Crowley deck that he had studied carefully and learned to use with Light energy intention, instead of the Dark energy Crowley's deck was notorious for.

I lived at Das Institut (it had a longer, Germanic name, created by the founders, who were associated with Rich Applebaum, a professor in the Sociology Department at UCSB - but the name was usually shorted to Das or D.I.) from July 1974 to December 1975. Ed described Das as having a general left-leaning IV-activist faction, and I would expand on that a little by describing it as the radical arts group. This part of Das participated in local street theater, such as the Gorrilla Theater presentation in support of Isla Vista's application to the Santa Barbara Local Agency Formation Commission for cityhood. We once put on a production, in the Das courtyard, of Aristophanes' THE BIRDS, and I believe Charlie was in the cast, along with Emerson, Dean Kennedy, Dan Slick, Stan Hoffman and others. Charlie was also one of the organizers of the famous (or should I say infamous?!) F.O.D.I. Balls ("Friends of Das Institut") that we held at Halloween for a couple of years to raise money for local causes. I remained friends with my Das comrades and worked with Charlie on the Board at the credit union until I left the area in November 1977.

A final memory is of Charlie arranging a memorial service for a girl named Patti, a really sweet person, who had volunteered at the credit union for only a few months, when she was picked up at a bus-stop by someone who raped her, killed her and left her body in a canyon east of Santa Barbara. I will never forget Charlie telling us at the C.U. that Patti's school backpack had been found in the mountains and our all realizing what that must mean, and shortly afterward her body was found. That's a sad memory, but it was typical (in my experience of Charlie) that he cared enough that after she went missing he helped the police and was in contact with her family, and then he organized the local memorial service.

Thanks for letting me add to the memory book on Charlie Jones."

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From Marc, 8/25/2005:

Hi everyone... I wish I could attend his memorial service.

I remember Charlie as the only guy who worked at the Park District longer than I did, at the time, as he stayed on long after I left. He was both friendly and prickly, outraged and warm. We worked together to wreck the community center (sorry Carmen) "Save Little Acorn" election. We opposed each other's choice for IVRPD General Manager. He wanted the blonde woman and I wanted Jim Crandall. We both got our way, eventually. He was a force to reckoned with, that's for sure.

Hugs,

Marc Borgman

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From Carmen, 8/25/2005:

Marc,

It's so good to hear from you. And it was wonderful to see you at the 12/10
bash. Charlie was a potfull, that's for sure.

I visited with Jim Nicholas yesterday in SF. I don't know if that was your
IV generation or not. He was IVCC's Admin Asst in the mid-70s and was a
really good contribution. He has a Burning of the Bank Award that Mike Gold
lettered up, before Charlie starting doing them.

Regards,

C.

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PLEASE SEE COMMENTS, BELOW. Click on "Comments," go to the bottom of the page and read. If you'd like to add a memory of Charlie, click on "Post A Comment," enter text, enter your "identity," then click "Publish."

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Riot Clothes

While I was making a shirt for Carmelo, I made some other new ones with the famous Perfect Park Sit-in image and the negative print of the bank burning. Please check out the stuff at:

DBOA CafeShop

One of the new shirts:

Early Evening Bank Burn

Stephen MacLeod was an Isla Vistan who was in the loop area at the early stages of the break-in to the Bank. Here are his recollections (with some slight edits from me -- Thanks, Steve!):

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I was in the Bank of America the night it burned down. Yes,
it's true. Some friends (fellow UCSB students) and I had just seen
Fellini's Satyricon at the Magic Lantern Theater. We walked out to a
scene at the Bank that might have come straight from Fellini. Very
bizarre.

I had gone to the Kunstler talk earlier in the day, and I was
meeting some friends for an early film. I wasn't aware of any
post-Kunstler gathering until we came out of the Magic Lantern. The
doors to the Bank were wide open and people were mingling inside and
out. Later, I assumed that this was probably at the very beginning of
the Bank's demise because there were less than 50 people there...

At that point the security guard was gone,
there were no employees or cops there at all... we went
down the street to see what was happening in the Bank. The only
"violence" I witnessed was people tearing down drapes from the tall
windows that were in the Bank. Others were tossing paper files
throughout the large main room of the bank, and still others were making
long distance phone calls to friends on the Bank phones.

My recollection
is that there were no political overtones to anything that was
happening. In fact, I distinctly remember the drape-destroyers (the most
violent group there at that time) as being mainly drunk fraternity boys,
laughing and ripping. We were only in the Bank for about 15 minutes
because a friend of mine noticed that someone had a film camera and was
taking footage. There was enough paranoia then that we all decided to
leave rather than risk being filmed. We got something to eat and then
walked up to the future location of Perfect Park...

It was dark by this time. There was a record store there... and outside was an abandoned cop car that had been overturned and
was burning. I didn't see one cop, so this whole scene was (again) very
bizarre. Lots of people were roaming the streets, chants from the
crowds, but (at least at that point) no direct confrontations with cops
because they weren't there! So, we went home to our apartment.

I was
asleep when someone woke us all up about 2 or 3 in the morning. We went
to the roof to witness a huge fire, the flame must have been 200-300
feet tall and it lit up almost all of Isla Vista. I went back to bed,
but went over to the Bank in the morning to witness the remains. Clearly
the fire was huge and extremely hot. The structure of the building was
based on very large steel i-beams (maybe 2-3 feet thick) and the heat
had been such that all of these were significantly bent from the heat,
just laying in ashes bent at 10-20 degrees from normal...

[Postscript:]

Hmmm, well, to be honest, I have very little faith in my memories of that period generally, bits of rememberances from one riot may be folded in with others. The long term effects of tear gas and various other chemicals have taken their toll... I think I might want to talk to the one friend from that night that I still keep in contact with to check his memories with mine. We haven't talked about this in a very long time. The things I am fairly certain of are -- it was light outside, it was easy to get into the Bank, there was a dumpster outside the Bank, the description of the interior of the Bank with drunk fraternity boys etc, and the guy filming (who looked like a cop to us -- thus our paranoia).

-- Steve

Promise and Betrayal

Glenn Lazof gave this heads-up about email recently sent him and others from John I. Gilderbloom, about his new book, rooted in Isla Vista: "Promise and Betrayal: Universities and the Battle for sustainable Urban Neighborhoods." Thanks, Glenn!



Hey Isla Vista Friends! Can someone please post this announcement to all the kinds and good folks on the Isla Vista chatter box? I wanted to let you know that my latest book, Promise and Betrayal: Universities and the Battle For Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods, with graudate student Rob Mullins came out this week. The book has an introduction from former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, nice letters from former President Clinton and former Harvard President Derek Bo in the appendix... Its a good read that includes pictures of before and after. You are just a click away from ordering this $24.95 book. Its an upbeat story of how we turned one of Louisville's most impoverished communities into a vibrant, livable neighborhood.

I hope you like it. Best wishes, John I. Gilderbloom

SUNY Press :: Promise and Betrayal

Watergate & Today

Watergate Weighs on Today's White House

By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Tue Jun 7, 7:55 AM ET


WASHINGTON — Shortly after a 91-year-old man was revealed last week as the answer to the 30-year-old mystery of the Watergate affair, President Bush cast the scandal as something from the distant past.

"A lot of people wondered … who 'Deep Throat' was, including me," Bush said after news broke that former FBI official W. Mark Felt had been the source leaking Watergate details to the press. "It would kind of fade from my memory, and then all of a sudden, somebody would pop it back in. Some story would reinvigorate that period."

And yet, far more than Bush has publicly acknowledged, Watergate and its aftermath have exerted a strong influence on the policies and attitudes of the president and others now in the White House — some of whom had front-row seats for the scandal as members of the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who worked in the Nixon White House and served as chief of staff to President Ford, has spoken of using his current position to restore powers of the presidency that he believes were diminished as a result of Watergate and the Vietnam War. By withholding details of his energy task force meetings and advising Bush to aggressively take the reins of power after the contested 2000 election, Cheney has tried to rekindle a broad view of executive authority.

Bush was a student at Harvard Business School when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974. He watched as his father, chairman of the Republican National Committee and one of Nixon's most visible defenders, butted heads with a press the elder Bush believed was out to get the president.

Today, an arm's-length relationship with the press, a highly controlled message and a restrictive interpretation of public records laws are the norm at the Bush White House.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a Nixon aide who also served as chief of staff to Ford, tried to stop Congress' post-Watergate broadening of the Freedom of Information Act. The act requires the government to disclose certain records to citizens.

Working with Cheney, Rumsfeld persuaded Ford to veto the legislation, according to declassified documents obtained last year by the National Security Archive at Georgetown University. Congress overrode Ford's veto.

Today, Rumsfeld often expresses his distaste for leaks and for the press' handling of scandals such as the revelations of prison abuse at Abu Ghraib. Reflecting on Watergate last week, Rumsfeld made clear that he was not ready to declare Felt a hero.

"Anyone who sees wrongdoing … who works for the United States government, has an obligation to report that wrongdoing to the Department of Justice or to the proper authorities in the department," he said. "I wouldn't want to leave any ambiguity about that."

For the current president, Watergate reinforced a set of feelings that already ran deep in his family, said Peter Schweizer, co-author of "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty."

"They have always believed that secrecy and privacy were important for leadership, because they allow decisions to be made without fear of leaks or outside influences," said Schweizer, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

To the Bush family, Watergate was "a personal failing by Nixon, not an institutional failing," Schweizer said. "Their view is that weakening the executive was the wrong solution to the problem."

As the revealing of Felt as Deep Throat became a kind of political Rorschach test — with some liberals celebrating the FBI's former No. 2 official as a hero for spilling his secrets and some conservatives branding him a villain — several people noted that President Bush's first public words on the matter drew attention to Felt's relations with the press.

"I'm looking forward to reading about it, reading about his relationship with the news media," Bush said, though he also noted that he did not think it appropriate to express an opinion on Felt's place in history.

John W. Dean III, Nixon's former counsel and author of "Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush," said Bush's reaction to the Felt disclosure revealed his feelings on government whistle-blowers.

"He sort of took the line of the Nixon apologists," Dean said. "I can't imagine, given the way this administration feels about the news media, that they hold Mr. Felt in very high estimation."

One prominent Watergate historian said the president's mention of Felt's relationship with the press reflected distaste for dissent within the ranks.

"As the man who controls the whistle, Bush doesn't like when other people use it," said Stanley I. Kutler, a University of Wisconsin historian and author of "Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes." "He's not going to give any pat on the back to such people."

A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, waved off interpretations of the president's mind-set as "an academic exercise." He declined to comment further.

The scandal that forced Nixon from power prompted Congress in the months and years that followed to pursue a series of good-government reforms designed to clean up elections and make the executive branch more accountable.

Spurred by the discovery of Nixon's secret campaign funds, lawmakers imposed finance limitations and set new disclosure requirements. They moved to prevent the abuse of federal agencies after Nixon was accused of using them to monitor his perceived enemies.

One controversial measure enacted after Watergate, the independent counsel law that has been used to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch, expired toward the end of the Clinton administration.

But lingering weaknesses remain in the executive branch's authority, officials around Bush have said.

"One of the things that I feel an obligation on — and I know the president does too, because we talked about it — is to pass on our offices in better shape than we found them to our successors," Cheney told ABC's "This Week" in 2002. "And we are weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 or 35 years."

At the time, Cheney was defending his refusal to disclose information about private meetings with energy industry representatives to help formulate the administration's national energy policy. Cheney's actions were upheld by the Supreme Court, a ruling that legal experts said enhanced the powers of the executive branch.

Another boost to executive authority came a month after the 2001 terrorist attacks, when Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft ordered agencies to "carefully consider" national security, business confidentiality and privacy before disclosing records under the Freedom of Information Act. Experts said this marked a shift from the prior standard emphasizing disclosure.

Critics point to other examples of the Bush White House acting to enhance or preserve executive power. For example, the White House initially refused to let then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice testify before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. She ultimately testified. For the Bush family, Watergate was a dramatic period.

As Republican Party chairman, George H.W. Bush flew across the country defending Nixon against the growing public sentiment that the president was not being truthful.

Taped conversations between Bush and Nixon reveal Bush's skepticism toward the news media. In one 1973 exchange, transcribed in Kutler's book, Bush assured Nixon the country was with him, "in spite of some of the crap you're reading."

In a July 1974 letter to his sons, Bush extolled Nixon's virtues and laid out his faults. But he kept returning to one conclusion: "I can understand the President's hostility towards press for they despise him," Bush wrote.

Bush later was among the first to tell Nixon he should resign.

Years later, Bush's anger toward the press showed itself when the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, who forged the relationship with Felt and drove much of the newspaper's Watergate coverage, requested an interview with the former president. Bush declined.

"I think Watergate and the Vietnam War are the two things that moved beltway journalism into this aggressive, intrusive 'take no prisoners' kind of reporting that I can now say I find offensive," Bush wrote Woodward in a 1998 letter. "The new young cynical breed wants to emulate you. But many of them to do that question the word and the integrity of all in politics. It is almost like their code is 'You are guilty until proved innocent.' "

Under President George W. Bush, leaks are kept to a minimum and White House officials are rarely off-script. The president often criticizes reporters' use of anonymous sources, although his administration regularly makes officials available under the condition that they be identified only as a "senior administration official."

"On the scale of whether sources are being smoked out or not smoked out, it is clearly on the side of not smoked out,'' Bush told a group of radio and television news directors last week. "There is a lot of sourcing here in Washington, D.C., that never gets called into account. I mean, a lot. I'd say it's a million to one. That would be the ratio."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times researchers Robin Cochran and Benjamin Weyl contributed to this report.

[ LA TIMES Article via Yahoo:
Watergate Weighs on Today's White House - Yahoo! News ]

"Deep Throat" Revealed

It was so interesting watching various TV channels the day Mark Felt's role as "Deep Throat" was made public. All these former Nixon guys were trying their best to spin Felt as a criminal when, in fact, he is an American patriot. Here are some various links to the story:

PDF of the original Vanity Fair Article



2005-06-01: NPR : Complete Collection of NPR Watergate Links

2005-06-01: NPR : Daniel Schorr on the Nixon Guys Calling Felt a Criminal

2005-05-31: NPR : 'Deep Throat' Revealed as Ex-FBI Official Felt

2005-05-31: NPR: Daniel Schorr on Felt as Deep Throat

2005-06-01: NPR: Washington Post Acknowledges Felt and His Role in Watergate

2004-08-09: NPR: Recalling Nixon's Resignation 30 Years Ago

2001-12-09: NPR: Daniel Schorr Reports Nixon White House Suspected Felt



The Origins of "Deep Throat"

An excerpt from 'All the President's Men,' introducing the source known as "Deep Throat" ...

Woodward had a source in the Executive Branch who had access to information at [the Committee to Reelect the President] as well as at the White House. His identity was unknown to anyone else. He could be contacted only on very important occasions. Woodward had promised he would never identify him or his position to anyone. Further, he had agreed never to quote the man, even as an anonymous source. Their discussions would be only to confirm information that had been obtained elsewhere and to add some perspective.

In newspaper terminology, this meant the discussions were on "deep background." Woodward explained the arrangement to managing editor Howard Simons one day. He had taken to calling the source "my friend," but Simons dubbed him "Deep Throat," the title of a celebrated pornographic movie. The name stuck.

At first Woodward and Deep Throat had talked by telephone, but as the tensions of Watergate increased, Deep Throat's nervousness grew. He didn't want to talk on the telephone, but had said they could meet somewhere on occasion.

Deep Throat didn't want to use the phone even to set up the meetings. He suggested that Woodward open the drapes in his apartment as a signal. Deep Throat could check each day; if the drapes were open, the two would meet that night. But Woodward liked to let the sun in at times, and suggested another signal...

When Woodward had an urgent inquiry to make, he would move [a flower pot with a red flag to the rear of his balcony.] During the day, Deep Throat would check to see if the pot had been moved. If it had, he and Woodward would meet at about 2:00 A.M. in a predesignated underground parking garage...

From 'All the President's Men' by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster)

Bank Burn Posters

Over the years, people have asked me if there are any bank burning posters still around that can be bought. As luck would have it, a stash of them was discovered several years back in someone's garage. These were donated to the Perfect Park Peace Monument Committe as a fundraiser for the memorial. I received the following note from Bob Potter not too long ago about the posters:


Dear Malcolm,

Diane Conn now has possession of the posters, and I suggest that you direct people to contact her, at the IV Recreation and Park District. We are using the proceeds from sales to support the Park District's maintenance fund for the Peace monument.

Many Thanks,

Bob

KCSB Crew's Holloween

Ed Isenberg sent me the following. Thanks, Ed!

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I sent this by E-mail to Adrienne M. MacIain, who according to your blog wanted such memories...

Ed

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I lived in Isla Vista in 1970-1974, and was part of a group of people who worked at KCSB-FM, the campus radio station. Every Halloween we would gather at the apartment of Steve Sellman (the Chief Engineer) and have a party. Around 9 or 10 at night we (a mob of about 15) would walk through the street throwing pumpkin seeds at people. One year (I believe the Fall of 1971) we walked all the way onto campus to Chancellor Cheadle's residence, and knocked on his door. I happened to be dressed as Poncho Villa, but due to a TV commercial running at the time, I referred to myself as "The Frito Bandito." When Cheadle opened the door we all wished him a happy Halloween, but I handed him an open bag of Fritos and said, in a Mexican accent, "Eat ze Fritos." Well, he was a bit reluctant to do so since he figured we were all stoned (which was true) and the food might be drugged (not true). So I said, in a louder voice, "Eat ze Fritos!" He still demurred. So then I pointed my toy rifle at him (it was a kid's toy, and wouldn't fool anyone), and said quite insistently, "EAT ZE FRITOS! NOW!" and you know what? He ate a Frito!

Those were fun time in IV. Aside from the surfers and Engineering students, we all seemed to have a common understanding or link, about the war, drugs, sex, America.... It wasn't heaven, of course. There were a lot of rapes (apartment laundry rooms were notorious), and of course a lot of people didn't do well with their experiments with "Living Better Through Chemistry," as we used to call it. Still, I am still close with people from then, and we all agree it may not have been our happiest times, but it certainly was our most intense times of life.

Alas, Steve Sellman died of a heart attack some years ago, and one other leader who was my roommate and best friend, Steve Logan, died of Cancer a few years ago.

Ed Isenberg
former Isla Vista News Editor and then News Director, KCSB-FM (1971-1972)
former News Editor and co-Publisher, Isla Vista Town Crier (1974-75)

IV/UCSB Post-Chumash History

"... Rancho Los Dos Pueblos, a land grant of over 15,000 acres that stretched along the coast from present-day Fairview Avenue westward almost to El Capitán..."

To read about the Den brothers, go to:
history 101

Oceanside Revolution - 4

Last of 4 parts:

For Social Change, Fair Play and Peace - Daily Nexus Online

Daniel and I were both honored to be on Dick Flack's CULTURE OF PROTEST (6-7pm every Thursday) public affairs program on KCSB the night of the 35th anniversary of the bank burning. It was, of course, great to talk about those days, but Daniel provided a refreshing element to the hour-long show by giving the view of those times and events from the perspective of UCSB students today... He did a great job with the 4-part series -- the best retrospective on the riots by the DAILY NEXUS in at least 20 years.