Screed 18 TELL IT, TELL IT, GET IT RIGHT
After sending out their angry Screed 17, the Symbionese observed two weeks of silence. During this period the attention of the press and electronic media shifted away from the organization itself and focused on the Hearst food giveaway. In the early days of March, Bay Area news people went from the Symbionese to other newsworthy events especial ly towards new setbacks to President Nixon in his Watergate troubles, towards new developments in the gasoline crisis, and towards a crippling strike by municipal workers and teachers in San Francisco. The silence of the Symbionese contributed to the burial of their own plans behind these emerging new events.
Predestined to failure by its rationale and by the wrong ideas of its leaders, the Hearst food program produced news-comedy rather than the news-portentousness planned for it. In early days of the free.food distnbution, riots occurred in Oakland and San Francisco. In several locations, Black recipients looted the Hearst supplies, broke into adjacent stores, and looted liquor and tobacco from neighboring supermarkets. In an Oakland location, canned food and frozen turkeys were thrown back and forth and there were scores of injunes An incredible service claim of $lOO.000 was made by a small Black Muslims bakery, and paid. Much was pilfered by the "volunteers" who bagged the produce. In San Francisco some of the thefts were on a grand scale At one distnbution location, almost a hundred thousand dollars worth of food was burglarized overnight, and a truck carrying fifty thousand dollars worth of fresh meat was mysteriously emptied en route to its destined distribution point. Since no identification was required, and no policing permitted, thousands of individuals were able to collect one sack after another.
Many recipients sold off their food, and sacks of the Hearst ransom were to be had for a few dollars apiece in the streets and parks.
A. Ludlow Kramer, whose authority was now eclipsed by the power of the Coalition and its leading figure, Arnold Townsend, continued to make terse statements about the success of the program. In particular, he reiterated that PIN was operating in the spirit of the demands of the SLA. and that its efforts were hastening the release of Patricia Hearst. His name, and his program, gradually became a joke to articulate Bay Area people. Meanwhile, predictably, "the poor" and "the people" who came to claim the bags of food were losing their respectability. This develop. ment unfairly hurt all Black people in the eyes of other citizens. The program had now become a basically Black program, and since it looked bad Blacks also looked bad.
On March 9, after their long silence, the Symbionese sent forth a three-part communication, their longest one, in order to mark the end of this phase of the contest. The three parts of this tape, reprinted as the next three screeds, included a long diatribe by a new voice, "General Genina", a long supporting diatribe by Patricia Hearst, and a medley of chant-like messages by Marshal Cinque and two faked Black female voices. The pressures on the SLA were by now very serious. Their programs were going badly, their clients "the poor" and "the people" had lost face, and the attention of the media was steadily dwindling. The careful production and meticulous delivery of their new messages reveal a real dread of losing everything.
Three separate copies of the tapes were delivered. One was of bad quality, and one may have gotten into the wrong hands. For the very first time, the SLA felt forced to follow their transmission with a covering explanation.
This is Information and Intelligence Unit Four. On March 9, 1974, this unit was directed to deliver a taped communique to the news media.
Due to intelligence reports received by the federation in regards to FBI attempts to intercept and suppress any communications between the SLA and the people, a double decoy system was set up.
One tape with a gasoline credit card was sent to radio station KDIA Oakland, and another tape enclosed with an automobile credit card was sent to KSAN. We of Unit Four notified KDIA first as to the location of this tape, which allowed one of two things to happen:
Either KDIA, without telling the public or the Hearst family,turned it over to FBI who in turn suppressed it, keeping it from the Hearst family and public, or the FBI intercepted it before
KDIA got it and suppressed it from getting to the Hearst family and the public.
In any event, this allowed the second tape to get through to KSAN, because the FBI thought that the tape they had already intercepted was the only one sent out.
We of Unit Four are sending our copy of the tape because it is more audible. Please pass it along.
