ustxtxb_obs_1970_11_13_50_00011-00000_000.pdf

Bombed again Houston Despite the Nixon Administration’s rhetoric about bearing down on terrorism, Pacifica Radio, the Houston listener-sponsored FM station that was bombed off the air for the second time Oct. 6, found it more than a little difficult to get the wheels of federal justice rolling on its case. The F.B.I. finally received authorization from the Justice Department to enter the case Oct. 29, but only after a vigorous, public campaign that involved the chairman of the F.C.C., the Pacifica Foundation, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other broadcast biggies \(Obs., The dynamiting, the second act of sabotage against controversial KPFT-FM in the past six months, partially destroyed the stations transmitter in Stafford in east Harris County. The Harris County Sheriff’s Department, which has jurisdiction in the case, repeatedly refused the informal help of the F.B.I., according to Mrs. Rose Zamaria, a Washington aide for Houston Cong. George Bush, who made inquiries with the Justice Department and the F.B.I. Mrs. Zamaria said she was informed that Harris County investigators repeatedly told F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover that they were within days of arrest and needed no help. Sheriff’s deputies also spoke of impending arrests to a Time Magazine reporter. It was not until Oct. 27, three weeks after the second bombing, that Harris County investigators started going through KPFT’s thick file on hate letters and threatening calls and hostile acts against the station. WHEN CONGRESSMAN Bush, U.S. Dist. Atty. Anthony J. P. Farris of Houston, and many others had called for an F.B.I. investigation, the F.B.I. said it could not enter the case until it was asked to do so by the Justice Department and Justice Department representatives made vague statements questioning its authority to enter the case. Adding to the general confusion, Will Wilson, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, wrote letters to at least 16 individuals saying that the two separate bombing incidents “are currently being investigated by the F.B.I. under federal statutes prohibiting coercive practices which affect federal broadcasting’ Jordan of the Houston F.B.I., and District Attrtrney Farris, however, said they had received no orders to enter the case at the time Wilson was sending out his letters of reassurance to concerned Pacifica supporters. Larry Lee, KPFT station manager, released a statement to the press Oct. 28 accusing Wilson and the Justice Department of lying. On Oct. 29, the F.B.I. entered the case. A Justice Department spokesman in Washington said: “Whenever a bombing occurs the F.B.I. makes initial contact with local law enforcement authorities to determine whether federal assistance is needed. In addition, a request was made by the Criminal Division for a preliminary investigation. Evaluation of the situation by the Criminal Division and the Civil Rights Division, both of which have jurisdiction in this. matter, has led to a request today for a full and complete investigation to determine whether criminal and civil laws have been violated.” The Justice Department statement added, “Confusion over the preliminary investigation seemed to have led to the belief by KPFT that there was no investigation, despite letters to the contrary.” NOTHER HOUSTON radio station, KNUZ-AM, received a bomb threat at 4:40 a.m. on Oct. 29. Police dispatched to the area saw two men in a car a block from the station. When the car began to move without lights on, the officers curbed it and arrested the occupants. In the car the police found three rifles, a quantity of ammunition, a small amount of gasoline, four safety flares, copies of The Texas Observer and the Fiery Cross \(a Ku Klux armed men in hooded garments. The two men, James Hutto and Louis Beam, were taken to headquarters and released without charges later in the day. Both identified themselves as members of the Ku Klux Klan. A man named Beam, possibly the same man, was implicated in an incident at the Pacifica development office more than a year ago \(Obs., approximately eight men tried to break into the Pacifica office. They were unsuccessful, but before they departed in two cars, someone threw a brick through a large window. The landlord, David Baer, who lives in the building, saw the men and hailed a passing police car. The officers gave chase and apprehended two men in one of the cars. Although Baer positively identified the men as among the group that had tried to enter the building, the police apparently did not take them to headquarters. Police records reflect that one of the men stopped was named Beam, but the descriptions of the two men on the police blotter did not at all correspond to the two men picked up near the Pacifica office. Pacifica asked Houston Dist. Atty. Carol Vance to file malicious mischief charges against the men. Vance never responded to the written request. Beam, a former helicopter door-gunner in Vietnam, was in the news in another context recently. The Navy League of Houston, the civilian arm of the Navy, presented him with a good citizenship award Oct. 27, for wrestling a Viet Cong flag away from a demonstrator in a peace demonstration. \(After Beam grabbed the flag, he was put into police custody. Later at police headquarters Houston’s finest presented him with the flag and he burned it on the spot, Beam says, with police FRANK CONVERSE, the Grand Dragon of the Texas branch of the United Klans of America, told a Pacifica Radio reporter that although he does not know Hutto and Beam personally, their names are familiar to him. Concerning the bomb threat to KNUZ and the successful bombing of KPFT, Converse said, “We do not believe in this type of tactic. I do not know that these boys are guilty of anything, but when you are speaking of unnecessary violence in the way of bombing people and tearing up public property, I certainly don’t condone it in any matter. If these people are guilty of it, they certainly should be tried by the city.” After the F.B.I. was authorized to enter the Pacifica station case, manager Lee commented, “In an age of growing terrorism, most of the terror in Houston seems to be directed from the right to the left, and it’s a little bit chilling when you see reports like that in the Chronicle week before last of Sheriff Kern and Police Chief Short praising the law and order stand of the Klan.” K.N. Nov. 13, 1970 11 GROUP SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscriptions to the Observer can be bought by groups at a per person cost of $5.00 a year, provided ten or more subscriptions are ordered at one time and the copies can be mailed in a bundle to a single address. For subscriptions to be mailed to each individual’s home address, if ten or more are ordered at one time the cost for each is just $6.00 a year. 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