◆ SpookStack

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the ~ Federal Bureau of Investigation when it tried to disrupt the Black Panther Party’s New York chapter. Black Nationalist field as well as divore- ing B.P.P. from C.P.U.S.A. and Militant New Left groups.” 3 The bureau was repeatedly disturbed by the apparent success of the newspaper The Black Panther, both as an instru- ment of propaganda and a fund-raising vehicle. His New York office told Mr. Hoover in May 1970 that the paper would be “most vulnerable to an attack on its production or distribution.”” -. -- -- In November 1970, seeking to create a boycott by union members handling the newspaper’s shipments, Mr. Hoover di- rected 3 of his field offices to mail copies of a column about the Panthers by Victor Riesel to “unions such as the teamnsters and others involved in handling ship- ments of B.P.P. newspapers.” The col- umn was also to be sent anonymously to “officials of police associations who might be in a position to encourage boy- cot.” on ee a . In 1968, apparently trying to aggravate friction between the Black Panther Party and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the bureau’s San Francisco field office suggested in a memorandum that information on the resignations from the Panther Party of Stokely Carmichael ,and James Forman, both S.N.C.C. offi- ‘Aials, be given to Carl’Rowan, a syndi- cated columnist, b wes aay. . .He, “might use this material as a ree te pee “eee RASS Re TERE kant nh Oe AA aie phat OOP ee eh hak Pern, eee Oy mente ee _ oe sponsible Negro,” the memorandtim said, Mr. Rowan, who had been an Am- bassador to Finiand and a director of the United States Information Agency, sald last week that “J, Edgar Hoover hated my guts; nobody from the F.B.1. ever fed me any information.” - . Other black journalists were men- tioned in a memorandum written by a bu- reau agent identified as T. J. Harrington Jr. After writing that “the following Negro reporters are known to the writer,” the agent listed six journalists: Bill McCreary of WNEW-TV, Gil Noble of ' WABC.TV, Melba Tolliver of WABC-TY, | Lester Carson of The Associated Press, ! Denton Watson of United Press Interna- tional and Stanley Scott of radio station . Mr. Nobile said last week that he could not identify “Harrington” and that he did not remember any contact with val agent. Mr. Scott, now a vice president of the Philip Morris Corporation, said the name Harrington “doesn’t ring a bell.” * Mr. Carson and Mr. Watson, no longer’ with the news agencies, could not be ‘reached for comment. Mr. McCreary _ Said Jast week that he had “never heard of Harrington.”’ Miss Tolliver, now with WNBC-TV, said, “I may have been known to him, but he was not known to me.” to The documents discussed attempts to contact Earl Caldwell, a black reporter ‘working at the time for The New York Times. In 1968, agents visited him at The Times to.discuss an article he had writ- ten, He declined to discuss it. In 1970 bu- reau agents in San Francisco tried re- peatedly to reach him at The Times’s bu- reau there to ask about an interview he had apparently taped with David Hil- lard, 2 Panther Party official. He re- ” Then the Department of Justice sub- poenaed him to bring his. notes and tapes before a Federal grand jury investigating the Panthers, He continued to refuse, and his refusals led to the 1972 decision by the Supreme Court that journalists had no special right to conceal the identities of their sources from a grand jury. Mr. Caldwell, however, was never required to in one memorandum, the New York of- fice said that “nothing has occurred which would highlight any infidelity upon the part of the members, although it must be assumed that this group is generally a low moral outfit and general misconduct | might be rampant.” It was then sug- |: gested that “discreet pretext phone calls, |: using a Negro accent, be made to the spouse suggesting various things con- cerning her husband.” The bureau aise tried to plant suspicion in minds of some New York Panthers, in routine interviews with them, that their chapter’s leader, Joudon Ford, who had recently traveled overseas extensively, | was an agent for the Central intelligence’ ‘Agency. ? i sat Meee eer, Do tee ed pain soar?