50 Years After Columbia SDS Vice-Chair Ted Gold's Death: Part 4

Spying On Columbia SDS Members and Weathermen by NYPD, FBI or CIA Prior to Ted’s Death

Professor Eckstein’s Bad Moon Rising book noted that less than 2 months before Fred Hampton’s early December 1969 assassination, “the FBI…in mid-October 1969…received word that” a Weatherman group member named “Brian Flanagan was” purportedly “threatening to lead his collective in an attempt to kill Richard Nixon;” and “the information had originated from Flanagan’s friend the journalist Dotson Rader (who unknowingly told an FBI informant).” According to Professor Eckstein’s book, “the threat was immediately sent to Nixon himself” since “Rader’s predictions of Weatherman actions had proven correct in the past.” A fourth former Weatherman faction member, however, characterizes Dotson Rader’s relationship to National SDS movement activists during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s as friendly, personally supportive, and principled; and feels that Dotson never asked for anything nor engaged in any manipulative behavior in relationship to National SDS organizers during this same historical period.

In late October 1969, according to Professor Varon’s 2004 Bringing the War Home book, the FBI had “alerted its field offices that New York City’s Weathermen were `going underground and forming commando-type units which will engage in terroristic acts, including bombings, arson, and assassinations;’” and “within days, it ordered all offices to `follow the activities of any Weatherman group in their respective areas.’” The same book also observed that in mid-November 1969, “twenty-three Boston Weathermen were arrested on spurious attempted murder charges after someone fired shots at a Cambridge police station” but “the charges were dropped when the only witness, a teenager, confessed that the police had coerced his false testimony.” As a Dec. 1, 1969 article in the Harvard Crimson reported, “a 16-year-old ninth-grade dropout testified that the Cambridge police had forced him to sign a false statement that he had witnessed the Weathermen planning and executing the shooting;” and after he had signed the false statement, the twenty-three Weathermen were then arrested “in three separate raids on houses in Cambridge.”

And in a de-classified FBI document [on the subject “Theodore Gold, SM-SDS (Key Activist)”], dated Nov. 24, 1969 (contained in Ted’s de-classified FBI file) for example, the FBI labeled Ted a “Key Activist” and falsely accused him of participating in “terroristic acts” during the Nov. 14-15, 1969 antiwar protests in Washington, D.C. (which included a march on the Department of Justice in support of Bobby Seale, Dave Dellinger and the other Chicago 8 Trial defendants). In this same document the FBI indicated why (according to a later Dec. 15, 1969 de-classified FBI document) the FBI secretly conducted a special investigation of Ted and his political activity between Nov. 19, 1969 and Dec. 11, 1969--three months before Ted was killed:

“At the recently held New Mobilization Committee demonstration in Washington D.C., 11/14-15/69, Gold was one of the principal tactical leaders for the Weatherman faction of SDS and participated in some of the terroristic acts this group was involved in.

“In view of Gold’s leadership in the Weatherman faction of SDS he is being designated as a Key Activist. Promptly submit FD-122 placing him in Priority 1 of the Security Index. The last report submitted concerning Gold was dated 8/14/68. It is desired by 12/15/69 eight copies of a current report concerning Gold be furnished to the Bureau…”

In addition, in another de-classified FBI document, dated Dec. 19, 1969 (contained in Ted’s de-classified FBI file), “the Bureau noted that…positive steps must be taken to develop informant coverage…to insure that the Bureau is in a position to have advance knowledge of all plans and future activities…” So, not surprisingly, Professor Varon’s Bringing the War Home book also observed that the Weatherman organization’s late December 1969 “War Council” meeting in Flint, Michigan “also attracted the interest of the FBI, which just days before the meeting compiled its initial field reports on the Weathermen, identifying approximately 270 members, 85 of whom were already on its special `Security Index’;” and agents there apparently “diligently recorded the identities of most of the 300 or so people in attendance.” According to Professor Eckstein’s 2016 Bad Moon Rising book:

“The Bureau had a keen interest in the `War Council’ held in Flint, Michigan, at the end of December [1969]. The Flint police photographed every person who entered the dingy ballroom where the meeting took place, and the photos were sent directly to FBI headquarters in Washington; the informant Larry Grathwohl reported in detail on the meeting…”

In his testimony before an Oct. 18, 1974 U.S. House of Representatives sub-committee, the now-deceased Grathwohl (who was with the U.S. military’s 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam for a year, prior to working as a drill instructor at Fort Knox when he returned from Vietnam) stated that after he returned to his Weatherman collective in Cincinnati, Ohio following the Flint, Michigan meeting, the FBI then paid him “approximately $200 [equal to $1,322 in 2019] in the middle of January” 1970. At this same October 18, 1974 hearing, Grathwohl also testified:

“In February [1970], when the Weathermen went underground, the FBI said OK you are going to have to leave Cincinnati and go to various other cities wherever they want you to go, we will pay you and it will be either $100 [equal to $661 in 2019] or $150 [equal to $991 in 2019] a week while you are gone. So that held up until the middle of March [1970]…I also was getting somewhere in the vicinity of $300 [equal to $1,983 in 2019] or $500 [equal to $3,306 in 2019] a month in expenses.” (end of part 4)