Eyes on the Prize II; Interview with William O'Neal

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The Panthers I had heard of only from a recent article, I think that it occurred in the paper. Huapid Newton had just been in a shootout with the Oakland Police Department and one of them had died. And there was a lot of press about that. But prior to the articles I had read about Huapid Newton, I knew nothing of the Black Panther Party. In fact, the day I joined, I was pretty sure it was just another gang. Unlike, not unlikely, the Black Stone Rangers or other co-workers or something. I had no idea of anything about their politics.

What is your intent to learn as you did join and what kind of information were you? Were you well able to give back to measure? Almost immediately after I joined the Panthers probably within 10 days, I began to realize that the Black Panther Party was a little bit more sophisticated than a gang. The orientation process, the attention they gave to the political climate around the country, had me going there for a while. And at one point, well... And also if you could look at me. Yeah, okay. I think the first set of reference books I saw inside the Black Panther Party was the Selective Works of Monsei Tongue, which I had beginning associated with Communism.

And it wasn't too long thereafter that I started seeing books like the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, and then the Selective Works of Linnon. And every night after the office would close, the Panthers would sit down, and they would study these books. We'd go through political orientation. We'd meet certain paragraphs, and then Fred Hampton and Rush would explain to us the new membership, basically what it meant, and what was happening, and they'd draw parallels to what was going on in the past revolutions in the various countries, like, for instance, China or Russia. And it was drawing parallels to what was going on in the current political scene within the United States. So they were drawing associations between the revolutions in the communist countries, as I understood it, as to what was happening in the United States.

And so I understood them to be a little bit more sophisticated than a gang. I expected that it would be weapons, and we would be out there doing turf battles with the local gang members, but they weren't about that at all. They were into the political scene, the Warren Vietnam, Richard Nixon, and specifically, Free and Hewitt. That was a thing. Now, you would ask and report this information back to Mitchell, did he have a response, and you react to this? Well, initially, Agent Mitchell requested very little information for me. It was one way street for probably about six months. I think he was in every meeting that I had with him. He listened more than he asked questions. The typical meeting would be, okay, what are they doing today? And then I would just tell him what was going on around the office and general conversation.

He said, okay, and what are you doing? And then I tell him what I was doing. And then he'd make mental notes. Sometimes he took a short hand notes, and then we'd depart. He said, okay, just keep being formed. And so we had a very loose relationship at that point, because the Panthers weren't too active militarily. They were politically organizing at that point. They were recruiting at that point. The Panthers were trying to... Well, they had speaking engagements at the different colleges and so forth. So we were in an organizing process. And it was very little criminal activity. It was active determinants going on. Very little to report to the FBI, in my mind, you know, because I felt like since the FBI was an investigative body, investigating federal crimes that crimes were what they were looking at. So...

Tell me a little bit about how you felt about working for the FBI. What motivated you? And what you saw... What did you saw? You were certain? Well, in my community, the policemen were... I mean, it was the quickest way to gain respect. I mean, I think I grew up wanting to be a policeman, admiring and respecting policemen, although I always thought it was outside of my reach. My neighborhood was not unlike most people that grew up in Chicago. Young people were very mischievous, and did a lot of juvenile type pity criminal type things. But stealing a car and all of a sudden having the FBI, having a case with the FBI, they thought it would be having really going to jail got my attention. And so when he asked me to join the Black Panther Party, and he used terms, he never used the word informant. He always said, you're working for me. I associated him as the FBI. So all of a sudden, I was working for the FBI,

which in my mind at that point, I associated with being an FBI agent. So I felt good about it. I felt like I was working undercover for the FBI, doing something good for the finest police organization in America. And so I was pretty proud. Can we roll number three thousand eighty-nine? Did you ever think or did Mitchell ever try to convince you that the Black Panther's war threat to national security? Did you understand what the FBI's interest was? Well, I think Mitchell, the relationship between I and Mitchell, concentrated on the local activities. We talked very, very little about what was going on nationally, early on in the game.

Later on, when Bobby Seale and the guys would come to town, it took on a national scope. But right then and there, we were concentrated on the local chapter. Later on, I understood that his thinking in that regard, he wanted me to build up some credibility within the Black Panther Party. So he gave me a lot of room, a lot of leash at that point. He let me become a Panther before I became an FBI informant. I mean, I just didn't go right in, rifling draws. He directed me into the Panthers, and then when I got there, he backed off, and he let them work on me a while. And slowly it worked, I became a Black Panther in a way. I forgot the scope of me being there. In fact, I didn't really know why I was there. I just knew I was to report. But I really didn't have anything to report early on in the game.

So I concentrated mainly on Panther duties. I lived the life of a Panther. How did you, how did you, what was the work that you did? How did you rise up from the ranks of the party? Well, mainly from day one, we had very little personnel, a lot of spots to feel. There were a lot of activity, a lot of things to do. And so naming positions at that point and feeling those positions were really the leadership's responsibility at that point. And because of my knowledge of electronics, you know, I was just a handyman basically around the office. And we had this office building that they felt like wasn't too secure. I started working right away to secure the building. And in that regard, I felt right into the security position. And it got more sophisticated as donations started to flow. As the membership increased,

as a result of speaking engagements on the school campuses, and so forth, my responsibilities doubled. And so I was given a staff of security people. And then I just advanced from that point on. What was the major developments during that year of the Panther Party? As you saw, was it the programs? Was it the alliances in the party? What was the Panther agenda as you can understand it? To free Huey. Basically was the agenda of the Black Panther Party all along. Let it be no mistake. Huey P. Newton was locked down. The Black Panther Party was Huey P. Newton and Huey P. Newton was the Black Panther Party. And no matter how powerful or strong our membership got in the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, no matter how many speaking engagements Hampton had,

how many donations we had, how many papers. There was always a national office out there to remind us that we were subservient to the national office. That we were just a chapter and we weren't the Illinois Black Panther Party. We was the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. And their goals at that point was to free their leader who was locked down in Alameda County jail, facing the death penalty for killing a police officer. The party recognized that at that point that they needed liaisons, they needed alliances with various groups in order to survive, basically in the climate in Chicago. So they embraced the various political issues that was of the day. They got involved in all types of causes, mainly to fortify their position and to free their leader, Huey P. Newton. And he was effectively running the Black Panther Party from inside of the jails.

Most of our political direction was mandated, came out through his lawyers and was passed on nationally through the chapters. It was Huey Speaks. Yes. Stop him now. Okay. You tell me about how things changed. Well, I said from February 1969, the activities within the party was high speed. We were in our bloom. We had about 500 members. We were selling probably about 25,000 newspapers in the city of Chicago every week of the Panther newspaper that is. We had various members of our party, of the Black Panther Party, go into the colleges all over the state, speaking engagements, donations were coming in to the tune of about $1,500, $2,000 a day. But at the same time, the Chicago police had stepped up their activities.

Also, a lot of our, a lot of the members were being arrested on petty charges. The money we were bringing in on one hand and donations, money that came through the mail and announced the blank checks and money orders was going right out and bail money. So it was intense. And in that regard, the Black Panther Party was everywhere and doing everything. We hit 500 members and everybody was aggressive. And it was hard for me to report on all of the activities that were occurring. I could only concentrate on what my little group was doing. I was, as security captain, I was in what was called the defense cadre. It was technically under Bobby Russia's command because he was the deputy minister of defense. And then doing that year, we considered we were in a state of war. Our leader was locked down. The police was attacking offices all over the country. They were trying to break us financially through bail. And so the minister of defense takes over in a situation like that.

Fred Hampton was charged mainly with speaking engagements with public relations reaching to people recruiting and things of that nature. He was a chief spokesman. He was the one that the cameras saw all the time. But Bobby Russian, our group was the operations. We were activities at that point. It was our job to defend the offices against the police, to get members out of jail, to discipline the members, to kind of maintain the police control of the organization, to deal with informants and so forth. Well, Mitchell was part of a squad, in my opinion, of about five or ten agents. And each one of them had their little activities within the Black Panther Party. Mitchell's questions were defined mainly to my area. He never asked me how many newspapers,

that someone else was selling our house, who got the Kellogg's for the back of the children program, and who's going to open up the medical center. He wasn't concerned with that. He was concerned with my activities in the Panther's, which at that point was exclusively for the security issues. We were buying weapons at that point. We didn't have any type of work in relationship with the largest street gang at that time, which was the Black Stone Rangers. They had about 2,000 members and were well armed. And at some point, the meeting was arranged. We met with Jeff Fort, other Black Stone Rangers. And at that meeting, we were in a Catholic church. I remember that night, we were setting up in Jeff Fort, told Fred Hampton, there is not going to be any Black Panthers in the city of Chicago. You guys either join the Black Stone Rangers or get out of the city. Hampton came away from that meeting, feeling like we were going to eventually have to do battle with these guys.

There was no compromise. They couldn't associate the Black Stone Rangers, couldn't associate our purpose politically with their gang turf thing. So we were going to have to deal with them. So the word went out to me to basically start buying weapons. We also knew that the state's attorney had declared war on us. And pretty soon, we were going to face a raid at one of our offices. And the mentality at that time was that we know it's coming. Our job is to set an example for the people. We must be ready. And so we started fortifying the offices and buying guns and training our soldiers to security people. I want to talk now about the events. Oh, all right. That was just about that. Stopped up?

Yes. Stopped up? Yes. Thank you for opening it to me. You want to know. Right now, you're focused on why I went to the first connection. You stole the car and he called you back and told you. He could get you off the hook. Yes. Okay. Well, he didn't say that. Okay. Well, I'm already now. Well, simply, I stole the car and took it across the state line. The FBI had a case on me. They could either prosecute me and put me in jail or declined to prosecute because I assisted them in one of their investigations. I think I understood that. So the day he called and asked me to join the Black Panther Party, I understood what my role was to be. And that's what I did. How's it going to? It's okay. It's okay. Okay.

It's simple. I stole the car and went across the state line. The FBI had violated federal law. Mitchell, from the FBI, had a case on me. He had a choice of either prosecuting me and sending me to jail or declining to prosecute as a result of me aiding him in another case. And I decided to take the letter. When he asked me to join the Black Panther Party, I did so and I understood what my role was to be. Why don't we do it again? Tell me about it. Tell me how to get ambitious in the FBI. One of the typical meetings between my FBI contact Mitchell would be downtown Chicago at 11, 12 noon, down in the basement of at some bar. Some dog bar. And I would meet him at the bar. He'd already be there when I got in there. And he'd have a drink. And I'd have a drink.

And we'd sit there and talk for 15 to 20 minutes. And it was very casual. I mean, it was like, I'd come in and he said, oh, what you up to? And then I'd say, well, I'm going down to Champagne and I'm speaking and engaging with Fred. And I'm taking such and such with me. And we're carrying guns. And we're driving this car. And I'd just rattling off 10 to 15 minutes. I tell him everything I knew. He didn't have to say very much. Because when I joined the Black Panther Party, most of the information that I was giving him at that time was new information to him. So as I grew inside of the party and began to learn things, he grew also. So he knew the members better than I did. We talked about the girlfriends and who was, you know, pregnant and who had a venereal disease. It was just casual conversation between he and I. He wasn't always writing. What he put in his files, I still don't have the benefit of. But I know after a while he and I became friends. And we talked in casual conversation about what I was doing

in the Black Panther Party. Well, the whole nature of that relationship changed right around November, maybe November 13, when two police officers were killed by a Black Panther member and Jake Winners on the south side of Chicago. That night, as I understand the gun battle, Jake Winners straddled one of the officers who were wounded in the shootout and performed a coup de gras. A mercy killing. He straddled the officer after the officer was down and put a shotgun to his head and put him out of his misery. Or at least that's the way the newspaper described it. And I think the whole city, I think the Black Panthers took the rap for that one when they really didn't deserve it. Because Jake Winners was out there on his own. He wasn't out there on any official member mission for the Black Panther Party.

He was out there on his own. And he got into an altercation with a guy. And the guy called the police and the police came and the shootout broke out. And two police officers were killed and Jake Winners were killed. Well, the Panthers took the heat because Jake Winners was a Black Panther. And past that point, I noticed maybe a couple of days after this officer were killed. Mitchell had this grim, solemn atmosphere about itself. And I could tell he was looking for specific, he wanted specific criminal violations. He wanted something that he could move on. And I think he may have implied or even expressed that at one or two points. He expressed his anger over what had happened. I mean, the total disregard for life. And I mean, it was the first time I ever saw him express his personal opinion about what he thought the Black Panthers were doing. On August 8th, November 1969,

can you describe to me the kind of information you were giving Mitchell about what was going on? Well, he started Mitchell. He became more specific during that time. He wanted to know the locations of weapons, caches. He wanted to know if we had explosives. He needed to know who was standing at what locations, who spent the night where. His information didn't change so much as he requested more detail. And I knew why. The shootout on the south side pretty much laid the foundation within the party. Within the Black Panthers, we knew that the police would react some type of way. We could just feel the stepped up surveillance.

We could feel the pressure all the way around. And we knew something bad was going to happen. And I think we were all prepared for it. During that time, Fred was conducting quite a few speaking engagements. But even his attitude had changed somewhat within the Black Panther Party. He was becoming more reluctant to speak in engagements, to make in those outward appearances. He became more reserved, more protective of himself. He very seldom traveled anywhere by himself. And he began taking five and six bodyguards to him. And so he felt it also. Also, he felt like he was going to present. He was pretty sure that the Robert Conviction was going to take him out of the game. So he started preparing other members to take his role. Pretty much.

There's a floor plan of the apartment. I'm a role street. And there are FBI demos that I've seen and opened your neighborhood. But the implication has always been that some of the information came from you on reports about weapons being in the military room. Did you get that information from the patrol? Well, I routinely supplied whatever floor plans or diagrams I could to the FBI. That started in June 1969. I mean, they had a floor plan and keys to the Black Panther headquarters. The specific apartment on Monroe. I supplied that floor plan. Perhaps not the one you saw. But I do remember meeting with Mitchell at one point and drawing up a diagram of the apartment. The one I've seen in court that was a little bit more fine-tuned than the one that I drew. So you're happy to meet the meeting where you remember giving information to Mitchell?

Well, the meeting was not unlike the other meetings we've had. It was always at the same location, was always doing the daytime. And it was routine. Here again, in my mind, I knew that a raid was being planned. In my mind, I knew it. I knew also from the type of information that it would be probably a top raid, meaning the leader, one of the leaders' apartments. I also knew that the most vulnerable spot was Hampton's house because it was the one that had all the weapons in it. It was the one with the weapons. Very few of the other apartments had the kind of weapons he had at that apartment. So when he asked me for the diagram, it didn't surprise me. I knew the raid was going to be planned.

I felt like at that point what they wanted to do was catch him with weapons and seal his conviction. If he'd have been caught with the weapons, I don't appeal. He wouldn't went straight to jail. And I can't recall it being expressed. I can't recall any specific conversations I've had with Mitchell about the raid. But we had such a unity of mind, so to speak. Our efforts were basically one. I understood what was going on. He didn't have to tell me. He described to me going to the funeral of two police officers that got killed. And I knew he was hurt by that. And I knew he was going to do what he could to help the police department do something about it. The night at December, I'm sorry, we need to stop for a second. How were you paid and how much were you paid?

Normally I was paid in cash and normal amounts would have ranged from three to five hundred dollars depending on my needs. If I requested a specific amount, I knew that I could get it. But the payments were very infrequent. I mean, Mitchell determined, aged mental determined early on in the game that spending money was the quickest way to blow your cover. Also, I was living in the Panther environment. I was living in the Panther house, which they call the crib. I was eating with them and sleeping with them. I was 24 hours a day, so I had very little need for money. So I was always assured that my money was being held in trust. And that I could draw from it, draw down on it any time I got ready. Any time I had a legitimate need that wouldn't compromise my security. I suppose at any point, if I needed a thousand dollars or two thousand dollars from the FBI, I couldn't have gotten it. How often did you meet with Mitchell? Depending on my travel schedule and later on within the Black Panther Party,

I was traveling around a lot as a bodyguard to Hampton and so forth. And every way he went, I went. So the meetings became infrequent as the activities picked up. Normally once a week, in the fall of 1969, it got down to about once a week. And past that point, it was just telephonic contact. Yes. That's all out? Yes. Talk me through the events of the evening of December 3rd, what you did, where you were. December 3rd. It was cold that day. It was really a slow day. We were at the office. Hampton was there, Rush was there. The general staff was there. It wasn't too much activity going on streetwise because the weather was so cold. It's a melancholy kind of day.

It just came and went. It got down to the evening. We all decided to walk the block from the office to Hampton's house and eat dinner. The women were cooking dinner. I think we had chili and big products spaghetti. Most of us had it labelled at the office. We were looking forward to just going over there and eating dinner and reading and just being together. It was just a slow day. It was the last day we... It was the last type of day, but we think that anything was going to happen. It was just too quiet. Nothing was happening. Totally off guard. There are conflicting autopsy reports that Fred Hampton may or may not have been drugged. There are stories about whether or not you brought Fred Hampton food or drink. Do you have any information about whether he's drugged? Fred Hampton drugged.

I've never known Fred. I knew him for about 16 months. I've been with him in a lot of different situations. We've been in hotels together. We've been out here and I alone in the car. I've never known Fred to take drugs. And to take it a step further, Fred would not tolerate anyone even smoking marijuana around him. And I don't think any of us in the hierarchy of the Black Panther Party would dare get drunk or drink. So alcohols and drugs were unknown. As far as the rumors that he was drugged that night, unless he was on some type of medication, I think it was just rhetoric. I think it was fabricated. As far as the insinuation that myself or someone else in the house would have drugged Fred Hampton. I don't buy it.

It was just no way. Fred was the type of person that you didn't have to drug anyway. Fred was always tired. He could get in a car and we couldn't ride two blocks without him delzing off. I mean, he just, he was a high energy person that ran on very little fuel. And wherever he sat down, he was well rested. I've never, I've never believed that. I mean. In a day's prior to December 3rd, had you given visual specific information about what this is that we're at the Black Panther Street Party? Well, I can recall we had a couple of conversations, but where I told him basically what was in various apartments. And yeah, the apartment on the road was not unlike the office and so forth. A running knowledge, pretty much of where the weapons were, what weapons were there, and so forth. I can recall probably around the second or third verifying that certain weapons were still as previously reported. Yeah, I can recall having a conversation to talk about weapons.

Had you learned about the police raid on that road street car? Well, the following day, I went directly to the office and the office was empty, unusually empty. It was one girl said behind the desk and she was on the phone and there was just no people there. And I walked in, I guess it was about 10 o'clock in the morning. And I walked in and I was waiting on her to get off the phone to ask, you know, what was up? And I saw some times, copy of some times, Leonard and had his picture on there and had Panther leaders slaying on it. And boy, I felt bad. I felt just, oh, let me... And I remember walking out of the office and looking through a little clearing over on the next block, which was right in front of the Monday road street address and seeing a lot of police cars over there.

And at that time, Bible Rust came to the office, so he had just come from over there or maybe the coroner's office. In any case, we walked back over there and we both were speechless. We just walked through the house and saw where, what had taken place and where he died and it was shocking. That was... Well, you know, that was... I think it was that morning that I began to feel that I felt really... I mean, everything that I had done flashed before me, I began to... I began to put it all together pretty much. And I couldn't believe it. I mean, it was just shocking. That he had died. The information, the information leading up to the raid, the attitudes and the whole thing.

I mean, he just felt it in the wind. You know, something bad was going to happen. I felt like it would be a raid. I knew it would be a raid. I mean, two police officers that had got killed. I knew it would be a raid. But I didn't feel like anyone would get killed, especially not for it. So, yeah, I was shocked. I felt a little... I didn't feel like I had done anything. I didn't walk in there with guns. I didn't shoot him. If I didn't do it, I felt somewhat like I was betrayed. I felt like if anyone should have known it was going to be a raid that morning, I should have known. Also, I felt like I could have been caught in that raid. I was there that night. And I felt like if I had laid down, I probably would have been a victim. I felt betrayed. I felt like I was expendable. I felt like perhaps I was on the wrong side.

Yeah, yeah, I had my misgivings. I'm not going to... No, I'm not going to sit here now and take the responsibility for the raid. You know, I'm not going to do that. I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't shoot a warrant. I didn't put the guns in the apartment. So, I'm not going to take responsibility for that. But I do feel like I was betrayed. I felt like I should have known the raid was coming down. I felt like it was probably excessive. I felt like it was a surgical strike. And I was real angry for quite a few days. Quite a few days. I refused to have any contact with Roy, Mitchell, at that point.

But I think he pretty much understood too. We got together and had a few drinks. He didn't take any responsibility for it either. He said basically he didn't know it was going to occur, which at that point was hard for me to believe. I just began to understand basically how serious and deadly the game we had all been playing for 16 months. The reality of what we were doing just came to bear on us that morning. I think the membership was automatically decreased by 300 members that never showed up again. When that happened, I think that all of our enemies, all of the Black Panther parties, enemies came out of the woodwork to capitalize on the situation. Bobby Rush was angry for quite a few days about all of the national leaders that showed up to lend support to the Black Panthers

who wouldn't sit down and have a conference with him early in the game. All of those people that showed up at Fred Hampton's front wall and looked over his coffin didn't give him 10 minutes of their time when he was alive. My recruitment by the FBI was very efficient, very simple, really. I'd stolen a car and went to a ride in over the state limit. They had a potential case against me and I was looking for an opportunity to work it off. 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 a program called Co-Tel Pro for 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 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 him that other agents give you information and how you know how you can be checked. 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 referenced with other informants. So I 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. I just assumed the FBI is not the FBI for nothing. Once again, I want to ask you about your feelings when you learned about the reigning Fred Hampton's death or walking the apartment with Bobby Grascha. I can't do it again. I just can't. It won't jail. You went to the office that morning and you saw the headline and then suddenly it hit you. 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. 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. 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. I think it was at that point that I lost something. Everything that I thought we were doing to fight crime had a different message after that. It was a blow. It's the best I can do with that one. Did you ever think about the movement or the civil rights movement?

Yes, I did. But it came later for me. The movement came later. You get to understand that I was inside of the Black Panther Party looking out at the movement. How many of you know? Stop the camera for a minute. I always understood the movement from Martin Luther King's angle. In my view, he was the movement. The Panther's 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 Hueping 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 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. He was pretty dedicated to the black struggle. I felt like he gave a lot. He gave his life. 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, murdered by the Chicago Police Department.

I felt bad about that. I felt like he was a person who died for what he believed in. Had he lived the day, he probably would be a politician. Successful politician. I think he felt after he got out of prison like 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. 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, heavy price to be Panthers. I think at one point Fred felt like he was a focal point of a national agency to get him. 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 it was resigned to go into prison. He was resigned to not be in a path or any more. 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 and the 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, wearing 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.

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. Chicago Police is one thing. The FBI is another. I see a distinction. Was there a loss? 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. You think of yourself as a hero? Absolutely not. I'm not a hero. No, I don't think of myself as a hero for what I've done. But at the same time, I don't feel ashamed. It was my role doing that time. There were a lot of different roles, a lot of different positions. There were actually a lot of blacks fighting in Vietnam that felt like they should have been there. It was proud to be there.

Fight for the country. I felt like there was a war in the street, and I was recruited early, and I joined sides early, and I didn't straddle defense. I gave it all I could, as long as I could. And then when I felt like I couldn't give anymore, I left. I excused myself. Do I feel like I betrayed someone? Absolutely not. I had no allegiance to the Panthers. I didn't even know what they were about when I joined. I joined at the instigation of the FBI, where I had scant knowledge of. So, no, I don't feel like I betrayed anybody, and I feel like I'm a hero. Am I proud? I'm proud of some of the things that I done. There were certain things that we'd done that prevented a lot of violence. There could have been more shootouts between the gang members.

Every now and then suspected informant inside the Black Panther Party would be unearthed, or detected, and we passed on information to get that informant out of the game. And so, we avoided some violence, yeah. What do you think members of the Black community at that period that have perceived what you're doing? Well, those members of the Black Panther Party, those members of the community that weren't informed, I'm sure that they would understand, but it was quite a few informants back then. Quite a few. I mean, what am I supposed to do, feel guilty right now about it? I didn't feel guilty then. I was hurt because Fred Hampton died. I was hurt because a lot of other people died in the Panthers. There were a lot of Panthers that died in Chicago. I got killed needlessly and senselessly.

At this point, I questioned the whole purpose of the Black Panther Party. It got a lot of people hurt, and they did very little else. I mean, if you associate the Black Panther Party with the Civil Rights Movement, that's a mistake. In my thinking they were necessary, it was a shock treatment for White America to see Black men running around with guns. Just like Black men, it saw a white man running around with the gun. Yeah, that was a shock treatment. It was good in that extent. But it got a lot of Black people hurt. The personal cost was a personal cost during that period in terms of relationships with all men or friends? No, because the Black Panthers were communistic, and basically everything we had was within the party. When I joined the Black Panther Party, I developed friendships. I developed new friends within the party.

I was closely aligned with what they were doing. It was only certain individuals that were of any interest to the FBI. The FBI never asked me about the breakfast for children program. They never asked me about the free medical program. They never said anything other than ridicule the Black Panther newspaper. They never questioned their right to have firearms. They were only interested in Panthers that were doing other things. Panthers aligned to SDS and the weatherman back then. Panthers that were smuggling guns into the city. Every now and then I'd pick up a locker full of composition C4, and the FBI was interested in tracking that type of weapon to find out where it was destined to. They were only interested in basically the communications we had with other militant divisions, plenary groups outside of the city.

They never asked me about free clothes for children and stuff like that. Did you ever develop any hard evidence of Panthers weren't involved in the coalition with SDS? The Panthers had a public coalition with SDS, but the weather underground was a different ballgame. But then I knew Merlandine Dorn and those people before they became weathermen when they were just SDSers. And I knew the relationships we had then. And the relationships were pretty tight. There was always... Oh, there was no hard proof. But who needed proof? I didn't need it. FBI didn't need it. What would you tell your son about that you didn't tell him? I think I'll let your documentary put a cap on that story. I don't know. I don't know what I'd tell him other than...

I was part of the struggle. That's a bottom line. I wasn't one of those armchair revolutionaries. One of those people that want to sit back now and judge the actions or in actions of people. When they sit back on the sideline and did nothing. At least I had a point of view. I was dedicated and then I had the courage to get out there and put it on the line. And I did. I think I'll let history speak for me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. We weren't worried about the Chicago police. Like I said, we had guns. They knew we had guns. Every since we were there in the office. And nobody expected the Chicago police to just blatantly come up in there.

And sure, if we were to shoot out the window or something or somebody run up in there and they're in hot pursuit, yeah. But we didn't expect the police department to come at 4 o'clock in the morning and raid the apartment. I mean, they knew guns were there. Hampton was out on appeal. I think they were suspecting that he would probably try to flee the state or something. So they had cars on him constantly. I mean, he was tailed constantly. Like I said, it was a game. It was a game we were playing. The leather jackets, the beret, the military format, the guns. It was all to impress the people, really. We never intended to take on the police department to overthrow the government. The black panthers wasn't all about that. It was rhetoric. It was, like I said, it was shock treatment for white America. Well, I knew that it was kind of serious. Well, the game turned into reality when I saw him, when I saw Fred Hampton's body.

Yeah. When I walked through that house and saw those bullet holes in that blood laying on his mattress, yeah, it hit home then. I knew we were we were in the real world. And that there were people out there that was going to kill us. That was about a mile. It was real. But before that time it was, you know, we used to walk around packed. I mean, I carried two guns every day for seven, eight months. We used to walk in the University of Illinois Circle campus, man. On the speaking engagement at two o'clock. You

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