The Burglary (27 page)
Authors: Betty Medsger
The sense of urgency in the bureau increased as every lab report on fingerprints, as well as on the palm print on the cabinet by the doorâthe print that gave the Media agents hope for an early arrest that first morningâcame back from the FBI lab negative. To the investigators' great disappointment, all prints found in the Media office were those of FBI agents.
Agents questioned people who lived and worked in the immediate area of the office. They questioned more than once the people who lived above the FBI office. In the end, none of those interviews produced useful information. Other futile early efforts reported:
 â¢Â On March 12, the Friday after the burglary, there was a “canvas [
sic
] of motels within five-mile radius of RA, canvas of taverns, restaurants and drug stores in Media area having employees and customers in area late night hours.” During this canvas, agents apparently again did not notice that Davidon, an early suspect, had rented a room on March 8 in his own name.
 â¢Â Records of rental car agencies in the area were reviewed but FBI agents did not discover that Davidon had rented a car from a local agency the day before the burglary.
 â¢Â Owners of cars parked on streets near the office on the morning of the break-in were identified and “backgrounds secured. None identified as being connected with militant groups.”
 â¢Â Thirty-five post office employees on duty 2 p.m. to 11 p.m., March 8, contacted, and one all-night service station personnel interviewed.
 â¢Â Contract employees of the company that managed the building where FBI office located were interviewed.
 â¢Â Clients in community welfare office adjacent to Media Resident Agency up to 9 p.m. on March 8 interviewed without obtaining pertinent info.
 â¢Â Former commune known to include numerous Swarthmore College students at time of raid [of commune] by bureau agents October 1970 at 1442 W. Baltimore Pike, Media. “Efforts being made to determine any possible involvement these individuals.”
 â¢Â Eighty-nine pieces of [military] deserter mail reviewed. Six disclosed information relating to FBI confidential sources in telephone companies in Philadelphia, Conshohocken, a town west of Philadelphia, Raleigh,
NC, and Wilmington, DE. More confidential phone company sources revealed later.
 â¢Â South Carolina Employment Security Commission furnished “confidential employment information.”
 â¢Â A state employment agency in Delaware also provided confidential employment information.
A summary of those early efforts concluded, “All above could furnish no positive information.â¦Will maintain contact with sources on college campuses in area for any positive information.”
An unusual news story came to the attention of the investigators. It surprised not only the FBI, but also the burglars.
The
Delaware County Daily Times
, a newspaper in Chester, Pennsylvania, ran a story with this banner headline across the top of the front page on March 12: “Davidon Unveils Plot Against FBI.” A smaller headline on the story, “Reveals ransackers of office,” wasn't true. On March 11, Davidon had given a talk at the Swarthmore Presbyterian Church prior to the showing of a film,
The Holy Outlaw,
about Daniel Berrigan. Davidon had been asked weeks earlier to speak at the event. According to the news story, Davidon read the group a release he said he had received from the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI. It was the group's announcement of the burglary, the one that John Raines read to a reporter the morning after the burglary. Until now it had not been reported by any news media. Davidon announced to the audience that he
was reading this announcement of an important event “because no news media had carried word of it.” The story described the sixty-five people present at the forum as “startled” when Davidon read the “revelation.” As the leader of the burglars, Davidon often had advised his fellow burglars on the need to be silent about the burglary. After the burglary, it seemed at times, especially when he made these public remarks, that he was not taking his own advice and was skirting too close to danger.
Public remarks by William Davidon about the burglary were reported in a front-page banner headline in a local newspaper just four days after the burglary. As guest speaker at a meeting of clergy in Swarthmore, he read the commission's statement explaining why they broke into an FBI office. During the entire five-year investigation of the burglary, he was never questioned by FBI investigators.
Other reports from investigating agents in the first week:
 â¢Â “Members of Farkle Farm commune primarily engaged in drug and sex activities with little direct involvement in active resistance movement. Contacting Pennsylvania State Police and state narcotics officers regarding this commune is not sufficient. Possibility exists that members of the commune may have received information regarding this case. Immediately initiate direct contacts with members of this and other communes in your area to determine if information regarding burglary can be developed.”
 â¢Â “Locksmiths Philadelphia area being canvassed for clues â¦Â possible information regarding persons skilled in surreptitious entry.”
 â¢Â “Preliminary research under way for ex-servicemen similarly trained. Looking for those possibly associated with new left groups, having shown anti-Army bias after discharge.”
 â¢Â A commune of “unknown affinity” was interviewed. “Serious nature of burglary explained to them. They displayed extremely hostile attitude toward FBI.”
 â¢Â “Attempts being made to secure identity of unknown male who left nearby apartment at critical hour during early morning March nine last. He appears involved in illicit relationship and not related to this burglary. Further investigation required to identify him now being conducted.”
 â¢Â A resident of the Media building where the FBI office was located (her name was blacked out) “advised that she has been residing at this address with her husband since Feb. 28, 1971. She stated that she and her husband on the night of March 8, 1971, stayed up late and listened to the Frazier-Ali fight on the radio. They heard nothing downstairs. [Blacked out] advised that she is employed by the hardware store which is located to the rear of the resident agency, and that at no time has
she ever observed any unusual activist in the parking lot in back of the resident agency.”
The frequent summaries by agents in the early weeks of the probe often ended with this notation: “investigation continuing intensively.”
At the end of a March 12 report on the unknown woman, Bonnie Raines, sent by Jamieson to the director and SACs throughout the country, Hoover, in his characteristic broad handwriting, expressed a concern that he voiced repeatedly: “I don't understand why our resident agent at Media didn't get this person's name.”
On March 17, when Hoover still thought the burglars would be apprehended and the documents found and secured at any time, he appeared before the House Appropriations Subcommittee. As usual, Hoover biographer Gentry wrote, “behind these closed doors, J. Edgar Hoover was treated like visiting royalty.” He did acknowledge, though, that unusual criticism was in the air. Consistent with his past unproven assumptions, he told the members of the committee that student unrest was due to pro-Soviet and China-oriented dissident groups on the campuses, not the Vietnam War. “I think if the war in Vietnam ended today,” he said, “they would find something else.” As Hoover ended his presentation that day, the chairman of the committee, Representative
Frank T. Bow, Republican from Ohio, told him, “It is a pleasure to have you here. We have great confidence in you and your associates. I think we sleep a little better at night because of your efforts.” A short time later, Hoover learned that, as usual, he had received the increase he had asked for. Neither Hoover nor any member of the subcommittee said anything that day about the brief news reports that an FBI office had been burglarized.
IN ADDITION
to the unknown female walk-in, the agents in the Media office also remembered Susan Smith. Unlike Raines, Smith was identified by Media agents soon after the burglary. They recalled that she had visited the office unannounced in January, used her real name, and said she was there to ask if one of the agents would be willing to speak to one of her classes. Agents remembered that she didn't tell them where she taught, but after the burglary, they quickly figured that out. They had her name and remembered her face. They scoured local college yearbooks and found her photo in one of them. Before they called her for an appointment, they searched their files and found a long roster of her activities and arrests at antiwar and
civil rights demonstrations in various parts of the country, going back to the early 1960s. They found a report of an event where an agent had followed her and reported on her participation in a demonstration.
Smith was the first Media burglar contacted by FBI agents after the burglary. An agent called her at her campus office on March 17, the day before the burglars met for the last time, just as they completed copying the files and preparing them to be mailed. She didn't tell the others about the call, and she can't remember why she didn't. As she unfolds the tale, it seems evident that profound fear probably caused her to keep the visit a secret from everyone except two colleagues.
In a report on the call to Smith, she was described by an agent as “uncooperative and evasive.” She refused during the phone conversation to make an appointment to meet with agents, “stating she had full schedule, and she inquired about reason for interview â¦Â asked agents not to contact her in person without first contacting her by telephone and was unwilling to give any assurance that she would then consent to interview in the future.â¦In view of uncooperative attitude, further background will be developed prior to further attempts to interview.”
When Hoover was informed of her reaction, he ordered agents to go to Smith's office without prior notice. He gave them this advice: “This is a criminal investigation and unless some reason exists, it is not necessary to contact a suspect or a person who may have information on this case by telephone prior to conducting an interview. If interviewee is uncooperative upon initial contact, insure individual is aggressively advised on the criminal penalties involved in this case.” That was a reference to Hoover's hope that people arrested in the case would be charged with espionage, not simply burglary. Agents working on the case had been informed two days earlier that because some of the stolen files were believed to be about foreign mattersâone of the documents, for example, was about a visit to the United States by the Soviet Circus on Iceâthe burglars could be charged with espionage, a serious accusation that could lead to many years in prison.
“If person refuses interview,” Hoover continued, “develop names of relatives and associates and attempt to develop [as sources].â¦Avoid harassment but do not hesitate to re-contact uncooperative suspects.â¦It will result in the solution of this case.â¦Locate and interview Susan Smith regarding her knowledge of this burglary.”
Immediately after the message from Hoover, agents went to Smith's campus office and, following Hoover's advice, did so without calling in advance. “Bureau agents contacted Smith by surprise,” according to the report on the
visit. “She called in other staff, turned on tape recorder and refused to be interviewed.”
Any of the burglars would have been very concerned if an FBI agent had come to interview them, as happened to three others over the next several weeks. But Smith had a unique problem. By outward appearances, she was her usual self-possessed, businesslike self before and after the burglary. She arrived at the farm each evening after the burglary and studiously read and commented on scores of pages of stolen files and made recommendations about how they should be categorized. Her calm appearance was a front. Actually, she was in a state of perpetual, intense fear. She couldn't sleep. Some days it was difficult for her to eat. She had no appetite. Her nerves went on alert every time she saw a police car. That instinctâAre they following me?âhad been part of her life occasionally ever since she worked in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer in 1964, but it had pretty much disappeared. Now it was back and it was worse than it had ever been. That was true because of a question she could not answer. She was haunted by the question:
Did I take my gloves off inside the FBI office?
Two days after the burglary, the question arrived with such force and persistence that it felt like an interrogator had taken up residence in her head. She continued to be unable to answer the question. She tried repeatedly. She put herself through an exercise. In search of an accurate memory, she would try to relive every minute that she had been in the office the night of the burglary:
I touched the doorknob, I opened file cabinet drawers, I removed paper from drawers, I touched the side of file cabinets, I handled paper on top of desks, I opened desk drawers, moved chairs.
