By Rob Anderson – Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 6, 1990
Who tried to kill Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney? There’s a widespread assumption by many of Judi and Darryl’s friends and political supporters that the FBI, an amorphous “they,” a nebulous “power structure,” or the timber companies, were behind the attempted assassination. Anyone of these assumptions, to the extent they are specific and verifiable, may be borne out by future investigation, though, with the FBI in charge of the investigation, a conclusion implicating its own agency would be astonishing. As of the moment, however, no-one has enough evidence to confirm them, and it’s a little embarrassing to have the Anderson Valley Advertiser friends and allies solemnly present, these theories before conclusive evidence is available.
Our friend, political ally, and one of the targets of the assassination attempt, Darryl Cherney, seems convinced, if Friday’s Santa Rosa Press Democrat is any indication, that the FBI is the culprit: “Cherney…said he thinks the letter may be part of what he has contended is an FBI-backed attempt to frame him and Bari and discredit their anti-logging movement.” Aside from the fact that what Bari and Cherney are leading is not “an anti-logging movement,” but a movement to reform logging practices on the North Coast, Cherney thinks the, alleged confessional letter to the Press Democrat by the “Lord’s Avenger” last week would let “the FBI off the hook somewhat gracefully for what I consider to be their dirty tricks, their smear campaign and their frame-up of Judi and myself.” The FBI theory would explain, for one thing, why neither the FBI nor the Oakland police have asked who he thought was trying to kill him; their claim from the beginning has been that Judi and Darryl were carrying the bomb, and it went off accidentally. This may, of course, just be stupidity…on the part of the authorities, but if the FBI was in on a frame-up, it would explain their lack of curiosity about other potential suspects.
But it’s pertinent to recall that the role of the FBI in Mississippi in 1964, for example, wasn’t to actually do bombings and killings, but instead to collaborate and cooperate with local reactionaries and law enforcement.
Cherney, however, was understandably a bit unnerved about the attempt on his life, and the peculiar behavior by the authorities. Nevertheless, we think his analysis is pure speculation, pending the appearance of confirming evidence. And Darryl’s decision to initially cooperate with the Oakland Police and the FBI investigators was naïve for a political activist in his position. Those of us who’re veterans of the sixties could have told him there are no circumstances when you have to talk to the FBI. In political cases, they should simply be told to fuck off. And the Oakland Police Department had the reputation as the worst, most violent, and repressive in the Bay Area during the sixties. It’s apparently going for a reputation as the dumbest in the nineties
The authorities naturally tried to take advantage of Darryl’s shocked and vulnerable condition following the attempted murder to extract a confession of his presumed guilt. He may now have learned his lesson too well and is accusing the FBI itself of orchestrating the whole series of events including the pipe bomb at the Cloverdale lumber mill. His interpretation may also be the official Earth First! interpretation of the murder attempt, since we saw Earth First!er Mike Roselle taking the same line on KGO-TV Friday night.
Darryl’s interpretation would explain all the facts and the behavior of the authorities. An editorial in the May 23 San Francisco Bay Guardian provides some useful history to lend plausibility to the possibility that his interpretation is correct. The Guardian refers to a book by Brian Glick, The War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It.” Glick documents many situations in the past 25 years where the FBI has used similar tactics, and the editorial refers, in particular, to the recent successful attempt by the FBI to infiltrate the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). An FBI agent was paid “to seduce an activist nun (to obtain blackmail photos and to plant guns on CISPES members so the FBI could accuse the group of terrorism.”
Some County journalists have weighed in with some near-paranoid, stale anti-establishment rhetoric. Mendocino Commentary Editor Carol Root editorializes in the May 31 edition: “Well, they got Judi and Darryl. It was only a matter of time. It had to have been high on their agenda for a while now.” We read on to learn who “they” are: “They were framed in such a way to ensure prosecution by the Federal government on charges of terrorism and thus be completely discredited…so we have Judi and Darryl framed by Big Timber interests with full, though covert, support of our own government.” Maybe, maybe not. There have been some suspicious characters hanging around local Earth First! demos, and some have been identified as people with ties to the timber industry. But, again, no conclusive evidence has been presented. Later in her column, Carol tells her readers she’s retiring from the Commentary after ten years to “some remote, isolate place to be a recluse…” It does, indeed, sound like she needs a rest.
In the same issue of the Commentary, Dean Watson says, “The frightening situation surrounding the Oakland car bombing of Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari has its roots in the climate of fear in which this nation is drowning. The power structure fears ideas and anyone who has them. People with ideas fear retribution…” Any ideas, in particular, Dean? Presumably, he means radical, left-wing, environmentalist ideas, which the “power structure” is admittedly careful to allow only sparingly on network television, for example. But rhetoric about the “power structure” is no substitute for a grounding in fact or a political analysis and critique of the local political situation, which is what we have to deal with.
What outsiders (and many insiders, for that matter)—members of the media, politicians, FBI agents, etc.—don’t understand about Mendocino County is its peculiar hothouse political atmosphere—a combination of poor law enforcement, obtuse political leadership, cowboy capitalism, and religious extremism. In this atmosphere, all kinds of twisted and malignant creatures flourish. In fact, at various times, Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Leonard Lake, Tree Frog Johnson, and Kenneth Parnell have all lived and flourished in Mendoland.
Based on our experience and on the information made public so far, we favor the lone crazed assassin theory, as exemplified by last week’s confessional letter by the “Lord’s Avenger” to the Press Democrat. Even if that particular letter isn’t authentic, it plausibly represents the mentality of a hypothetical bomber, and the County’s large fundamentalist Christian’ community would lend credibility to the Biblical references in the letter. We recall, for example, a public meeting in Ukiah some years ago: The opening of a pornographic bookstore on Ukiah’s Waugh Lane had mobilized this portion of the Christian community in opposition, and they made up a large part of the audience at the meeting we attended. We were amazed to see these people actually thumping their bibles in unison. We had thought “bible thumper” was merely a figure of speech. Maybe it is a figure of speech, but I’m telling you, folks, these people were thumping those books! Hence, the “Lord’s Avenger’s reference to his first encounter with Judi Bari at the anti-abortion, pro-choice confrontation at the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Ukiah a few years ago may have crucial significance; since the so-called pro-life crackpots have been responsible for a number of bombings at various clinics around the country in recent years.
Our sense of things is that the corporations, the media, and the local authorities sent the essential message to the crackpots and the thugs: it’s open season on Earth First!ers. The nut-pies and the psychos take it from there. There are no memos sent, no, telephone calls made, no card-carrying members of hierarchical organizations performing carefully designated functions. Indeed, right-wing terrorists probably operate much like environmental saboteurs either alone or in small groups of people who absolutely trust one another.
The corporations and their stooges, like International Woodworker Union representative Don Nelson and logger Jerry Philbrick, for example, have been indirectly fomenting violence for months without rebuke from the County’s political establishment. They’ve done this primarily by pumping up the coming Redwood Summer demonstrations as a sort of mini-apocalypse, threatening jobs, families, and the whole way of life of those involved in the timber industry. We heard Philbrick, for example, threaten Earth First!ers in front of the County Board of Supervisors several weeks ago, and the Board had no objection. At the same meeting, however, the Board jumped all over Judi Bari when she tried to tell of the threats she’d received and of her dedication to non-violence. Indeed, even after the bombing, Philbrick attended a candlelight vigil in Fort Bragg in sympathy for Judi and Darryl and threatened to “take out” 150 environmentalists if any bombs went off around any of his people or equipment. In last week’s Anderson Valley Advertiser, Philbrick told Lynne Dahl: “I’ll tell you what kind of person I am. If I know someone is going to come out to tamper with me, then I will have a defense, but I will go on the offense immediately. I will not stand around and wait for someone to come after me.”
Regardless of whether the bomber is ever apprehended, it’s the responsibility of our political leadership to rebuke people like Philbrick, and we should insist that they do so. We should also insist on a prompt, professional response by local law enforcement to all incidents of violence, and the perpetrators should be prosecuted accordingly.
The fact of the matter is that neither the justice system nor the political establishment of the County have performed to the highest standard one hopes for in a political democracy.