Eyes on the Prize; Interview with William O'Neal, Part 5

My recruitment by the FBI was very efficient, very simple really, I stole a car and went joy riding over the state limit and they had a potential case against me and I was looking for an opportunity to work it off. And a couple of months later that opportunity came when the FBI agent Roy Mitchell asked me to go down to the local office of the Black Panther Party and try to gain membership. I did so and became a member of the Black Panther Party. Were you aware specifically of the program called Colontel Pro, the counterintelligence program? At the time no. I had no idea of any national program out to get the Panthers, I had no idea. In retrospect I can determine, I have determined from the type of information that I probably contributed greatly to it.

You told the story before I just like to have you repeated about Mitchell telling you that they had other issues giving you information and how you made it, you know how you been checked. Well I think early on in the game he let me know that the information, most of the information that I was supplying him was information he had already had been developed by his squad already. He kind of indicated that the information I was supplying was being cross referenced with other informants. He always felt like it was best to tell the truth in talking to him because he had his own methods. It was very little information that I gave him that he seemed surprised of, okay. I just assumed the FBI is not the FBI for nothing, you know. Once again I want to ask you about your feelings when you learned about the raid for an anti-standard walk in the apartment with Bobby Grosch.

I can't do it again, I just can't, I just won't jail. Well it didn't really hit me then, it hit me after I walked into that house. It was cold and it was blood everywhere and it was holes in the wall and then I just began to realize that the information that I supplied leading up to that moment had facilitated

that raid. I knew that indirectly I contributed and I felt it and I felt bad about it. Then I got mad, you know, I had to, and then I had to conceal those feelings which made it worse. I couldn't say anything, I just had to continue to play the role and I think it was at that point that I lost something, I lost something, I mean everything that I thought we were doing to fight crime had a different message after that, you know, it was a blow, it's a blow.

Yes, I did, but it came later for me, the movement came later. Well, you get to understand I was looking, I was inside of the Black Panther Party looking out at the moment. Stop the camera in a minute, please. Well, I always understood the movement from Martin Luther King's angle. In my view, he was the movement.

The Panther's, their perspective was as black revolutionaries, black nationalists. They really didn't want this government, they wanted to overthrow this government, they wanted to embarrass this government, they wanted to punch holes in the system, they wanted to investigate and illustrate its shortcomings. That was their purpose. They were a vanguard. At one point, the party members embraced the European Newton's writings, it was a theory of revolutionary suicide. They felt like their job was to get out there and basically die to set an example. They were sacrificial lambs, okay, for the people. That was their position, it was a phase. They were not really in the mainstream civil rights movement, in my opinion. I thought Fred Hampton was pretty idealistic, it was pretty dedicated to the black struggle.

I felt like he gave a lot, he gave his life and out of 16 months that I knew him, I don't have anything bad to say about him. I'm sorry that he died like he did. He was in my opinion, he was murdered by the Chicago Police Department and I felt bad about that. I felt like he was a person who died for what he believed in. Had he lived a day, he probably would be a politician, a successful politician. No, I think he felt after he got out of prison, he was a target, unfairly. I think he felt like he was going to jail for five years and nobody else was. All he had done was basically gave speaking engagements, so I think he felt used.

I think there was always a friction, a little bit of jealousy between the price that the local chapters were paying and the splendor and the notoriety that the national leaders were getting, such as Eldritch Cleaver and hearing Newton and those guys. We felt like we were paying, the Panthers felt like they were paying a heavy price to be Panthers and I think at one point Fred felt like he was a focal point of a national agency to getting and they were going to get him one way or the other and he felt pretty much taken out of the game with five years. I think he was resigned to going to prison, he was resigned to not being a Panther anymore. I do, I definitely do. I definitely draw a distinction between the FBI and the Chicago police. I have known quite a few FBI agents and I've worked with them for the last five or six

years and they've never asked me to compromise my morals or my principles. Contrary to public belief, I haven't been instructed to commit crimes or provoke crimes or conduct burglaries or inject drugs in people who are to commit murder. I haven't been. If anything, my association with the FBI made me a better person. How did they treat you when you were relaxing with Mitchell, did they ever, any other agents there, did you treat us up here? Not only was I treated, I had been to Mitchell's home. I have held his child in my hands in my arms when he was one years old. I have been through the offices of the FBI, away in sneakers and a dirty t-shirt with Mitchell. I've rode around with him in his car during that time, three or four months after I became a Panther, I've eaten at his dinner table.

We had a very, at one point, he was a role model for me when I needed one. I mean, we had very few role models back then. We had Malcolm X, we had Martin Luther King, we had Muhammad Ali, and I had an FBI agent. Do you want to be a policeman? Not anymore, no, not a policeman. I've never wanted to be a policeman. The FBI, I think, are much more efficient and much more effective organization than a policeman. Yeah, Chicago Police is one thing. The FBI is another. Yeah, I see a distinction. Was there a loss?

Yes, I think that the slaying of Fred Hampton was definitely a loss to black people in general. He would have made a fine, he was a fine leader then, and he would have made a better leader. He was only maturing then. He was 22 years old. We tried to develop negative information to discredit him, just like we did everybody else. We, meaning the FBI, I tried to come up with signs of him doing drugs or something, and never could. He was clean. He was dedicated. I've had private conversations with him. We got along pretty well. For about seven months, I was just a personal bodyguard. He wouldn't go anywhere without me. I know Fred Hampton.

Better than anybody can tell you the truth. He was dedicated. That's all I can say to it. He was 22 years old, and we tried to develop negative information to discredit him, just like we did everybody else. We, meaning the FBI, I tried to come up with signs of him doing drugs or something, and never could. He was clean. He was dedicated. I've had private conversations with him. We got along pretty well. For about seven months, I was just a personal bodyguard. He wouldn't go anywhere without me. I know Fred Hampton. Better than anybody can tell you the truth. He was dedicated. That's all I can say to it.