Today's Stories

June 7 / 8, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Obama Goes Over the Top

June 6, 2008

Frank Barat
An Interview with Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky on the Future of Israel / Palestine

Patrick Cockburn
U.S. Extorts Iraq to Approve Military Deal

Gary Leupp
Cheney Enrages Iraqis Over Security Deal

James Abourezk
Name That Terrorist

Peter Morici
Recession Grips the Jobs Market

Faheem Hussain
What is NATO Doing in Afghanistan?

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Britons Go on Hunger Strike

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
How Will Musharraf Go? Impeachment or Safe Exit?

Dave Lindorff
Congress Needs to Defend Itself

Website of the Day
Backstage with Bo Diddley

June 5, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Bush's Secret Deal Would Ensure Permanent U.S. Occupation of Iraq

Sharon Smith
Hillary's Wreckage

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's Electoral Dilemma: Latinos or Reagan Democrats?

Linn Washington, Jr.
Police Brutality and Cover-Up in Philly

Omar Barghouti
60 Years of Nakba, 41 Years of Occupation ...

Scott Pellegrino
Jim Crow Radio: Bob Grant's Lifetime Achievement Award

John Walsh
Obama Woos AIPAC

Dan Bacher
The Parching of California

DC Larson
Nazi Rockers ... F-Off

Robert Jensen
Masculine, Feminine or Human?

Website of the Day
Ohio Cops Attack Long Walkers

June 4, 2008

Eric Walberg
Princess Patricia and the Taliban

Gary Leupp
Iran and EFPs: Chronology of a Lie

Ralph Nader
Disenfranchised Youth

Dave Lindorff
Of Whiners and Poor Losers

George Wuerthner
Farm Economics

Victor M. Rodriguez
The Puzzle of Race and Politics

Remi Kanazi
Why a Cultural Boycott of Israel is Needed

Stephane Luçon
Renault's Romanian Fairyland Suspended

Farzana Versey
The Tablighi Jamaat Movement

Laray Polk
The Militarization of Space

Website of the Day
Red State Rebels

June 3, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts /
Lawrence M. Stratton
Legislating Tyranny

Mike Whitney
The Withering Economy

Steve Early
San Juan Showdown

Manuel Otero
Why Hillary Won Puerto Rico: the View from the Colony

George Bisharat
The Hope of a Victimized People

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's VP Quandry

Dan Bacher
Death on the Salmon Highway

Website of the Day
Censoring Bill Knott?

June 2, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Olmert Scandal

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's Latino Problem Getting Worse

Allan J. Lichtman
Revisionist History: Bush, Borah and Hitler

Malini Johar Schueller
The Color of Randomness: Returning to the US From Beirut Via Syria

Robert Weissman
What's Driving Skyrocketing Oil Prices?

Peter Morici
Bailing Out Wall Street

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Don't Get Burned: How to Protect Yourself From Raytheon's Pain Gun

John Ross
Celebrating Catholic Fanaticism in Mexico

Ahmad Al-Akhras
Encounters with the Watch List

Website of the Day
Man on Earth

May 31 / June 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Worst is Yet to Come

Jeffrey St. Clair
Arkansas Bloodsuckers

Gary Leupp
How McClellan Prettifies Bush

Stan Cox
Broken Agriculture

Rannie Amiri
Lebanon: the Domino That Wouldn't Fall

P. Sainath
A Guaranteed Day's Work--in the Fields, at 110 Degrees, for $2 a Day

Binoy Kampmark
Going Bankrupt in Vallejo

Robert Fantina
Bush, Rice and McClellan

Seth Sandronsky
Will There be Water Riots, as Sacramento Goes Dry?

Corporate Crime Reporter
Death Penalty for Bush?

Anthony DiMaggio
Gaming the Ghetto: Grand Theft Auto IV, Racist Media and the Concrete Jungle

Karl Grossman
A Half-Trillion for Nukes

Matt Reichel
From Vegas to the Heartland and Back Again

Paul Myron Hillier
Of Gas and God

Andy Worthington
Suicide at Guantánamo

David Yearsley
And the Winner is ... Wayne Shorter

Daniel Cassidy
Free Lunch

Charles Thomson
If Hitler Had Been a Hippy ...

Gary Corseri
A Dream Deferred: Activism and the Arts

Wajahat Ali
Sex and the City Through a Man's Eyes

Ron Jacobs
Robins Weep

Poets' Basement
McNeill and Davies

Website of the Day
Last Charge of the Light Horse

May 30, 2008

Bassam Aramin
Here's the Truth You've Been Running From

Andrew Cockburn
Petraeus' Iran Obsession

Saul Landau
How We Got Into This Mess

Nikolas Kozloff
Meet South America's New Secessionists

Robert Sandels
Turning Back the Clock on Cuba

Dave Lindorff
Talk is Cheap

Martha Rosenberg
Raiding Big Meat; Arresting the Wrong People

Harvey Wasserman
Lieberman & McCain: Linking Internet Censorship and Atomic Reactor Terror

Doug Giebel
A Plague on Both Your Houses (of Congress)

Shaun Harkin
The Trial of the Raytheon 9

Website of the Day
The Once and Future Environmental Movement

May 29, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Bill Clinton and the Rich Women

Nikolas Kozloff
Puerto Rico, Obama and the Politics of Race

Col. Dan Smith
Deceiving the Dead

Karl Grossman
The Most Lucrative Incentive for Nuclear Power in the History of the United States

William S. Lind
Inside the Washington Game

Robert Weissman
What to do About the Price of Oil

Dave Lindorff
Why Puerto Rico Won't Matter

David Macaray
A Union Fable

Chris Genovali
Fear and Loathing in the Northern Rockies

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Battle Over Oil

Website of the Day
Support Antiwar.com

May 28, 2008

Wajahat Ali
The Libertarian Dark Horse: An Exclusive Interview with Ron Paul

Ralph Nader
What's Really Driving the High Price of Oil?

Brian McKenna
Why I Want to Teach Anthropology at the Army War College

Corporate Crime Reporter
Why Vincent Bugliosi Wants to Prosecute George W. Bush for Murder

Brian Cloughley
The Attack on Damadola

Eric Walberg
Opium for the Masses from Afghanistan

Michael Dickinson
Raytheon's Pain Ray: Coming to a Protest Near You

Ijaz Khan
Opening Windows in Pakistan

Website of the Day
Older Than America

May 27, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Her Mind She's Killed Before: the Plot to Assassinate Ralph Nader

Greg Kafoury
Is Obama Turning (Further) Right?

Jean Bricmont
Western Delusions

Tim Wise
Farrakhan is not the Problem

Ricardo Alarcón
Puerto Rico's Turn

Stephen Soldz
APA Supports Psychologist Engagement in Bush Regime Interrogations

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo 16

Alan Singer
Vapid, Stupid and Insulting: Chuck Schumer Speaks to the Graduates

Richard Neville
Storm in an A-Cup

Susie Day
Gone with the W

May 26, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Syrian Option

Bill Quigley
War Immemorial Day

Col. Dan Smith
Retreating from Hell: a Different Memorial Day

Cindy Sheehan
Why Memorial Day is a Double-Whammy for Me

Marjorie Cohn
Hillary's Assassination Politics: Her Last Shot?

Fred Gardner
Does the VA Care?

Raymond J. Lawrence
Pain Pays: Getting Rich at NY Presbyterian Hospital

Harvey Wasserman
Mugging the Election System

Moncia Benderman
Truth Matters

David Rovics
In Praise of Utah Phillips

Website of the Day
Fox News Jokes About "Knocking Off" Osama and Obama

May 24 / 25, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Death-Wish Hillary Primes Manchurian Candidate

Jeffrey St. Clair
Yellowstone: How Sununu Shrank the Ecosystem

Barbara Rose Johnston
Dam Legacies, Damned Futures

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan Waters

Adriana Kojeve
The Environment and the 2008 Elections

Robert Fantina
Justice Department's Revelations on Torture

Dave Lindorff
Bush's War on Children in Iraq

David Yearsley
The War on Kitsch

Nelson P. Valdés
The Buying of "Democracy" Agents in Cuba

Kathleen M. Barry
Celebrating Ethnic Cleansing

John Ross
Mexico's Narco Opera Reaches for High Point

Allison Kilkenny
Apathy Doesn't Live in Bronx

Fred Gardner
Orangeburg, 1968

Elizabeth Schulte
Can the Whole World be Fed?

Daniel Gross
Remembering the Wendy's Massacre: the Dangerous Side of Retail Work

Christopher Brauchli
The Search for a Token Right-winger

Richard Rhames
A Nation of Sheep

Daniel Cassidy
My Mother

Poets' Basement
Davies, Klipschutz and Willson

Website of the Weekend
Happy Birthday, Bob

May 23, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
War Abroad, Poverty at Home

Alan Farago
The Radical Extremists of the Building Industry

Conn Hallinan
Ballots and Bullets: From Beirut to Bolivia

Mark Engler
The World After Bush

George Wuerthner
Cars and Cows: Living Large in America

Kamran Matin
The Kurds and American Neo-Imperialism

Sandy Boyer /
Shaun Harkin
The Long Incarceration of Pol Brennan

Robert Weitzel
A "Holey" Instrument of Peace in Iraq

Cindy Sheehan
An Uphill Battle

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Futile Constitutional Amendment

Website of the Day
A Message from the Moral Compass of the McCain Campaign

May 22, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Racist Grammar

Joanne Mariner
A Military Commissions Cheat Sheet

Sharon Smith
60 Years of Apartheid

Jeff Birkenstein
Disaster Redux: Some Early Thoughts on the Earthquake in China

Brendan McQuade
From Obama to the PRTs in Iraq

Peter Morici
The Sorry State of the Banking Industry

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Restoration Boulevard

Dave Zirin
What I Want to Ask Mary Tillman

Ron Jacobs
CPR for the Antiwar Movement

Stephen Lendman
Immoral Hazard

Website of the Day
Hagee: God Sent Hitler to Drive the Jews to Israel

May 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Military Bases in South America

Alan Farago
Miami, Cuba and the Presidential Campaign

Dave Lindorff
Big John and the Scary, Scary Iran Threat

David Model
Genocide in Iraq?

Eric Walberg
Afghanistan: Who is the Enemy?

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Gets a President

Kenneth Couesbouc
Tax Against Tyranny

Website of the Day
Child Labor and War-Affected Children: a Photo Essay

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

Patrick Irelan
The Empire and the Fleet

Ray McGovern
Come Out, Admiral Fallon, Wherever You Are

David Macaray
The UAW Strike Against American Axle

Chris Genovali
Big Oil on the Water: Skating Around the Tanker Issue

Ibrahim Fawal
Birmingham, Israel and the Nakba

Christopher Ketcham
Let Us Now Praise Famous Suicides

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo Trial Delayed

Martha Rosenberg
Merck is a Repeat Offender

Website of the Day
Defend the Students Who Pied Tom Friedman

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
Whose War is It?

John Mohawk
The Warriors Who Turned to Peace

Remi Kanazi
When Free Speech Doesn't Come for Free

Robert Day
I Get a Horse

Website of the Day
Evolve or Die

May 17 / 18, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The View from the Crusaders' Castle

Tim Wise
Testosterone is Not to Blame: Why Sexism isn't the Reason for Hillary's Loss

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trials: Betrayal, Backsliding and Boycotts

Robert Fantina
The Double-Talk Express Derails

Karim Makdisi
In the Wake of the Doha Truce

Harry Browne
Only Ireland Can Vote on EU's Future

John Ross
Suicide by Taco? The Demise of Mexico's PRD

Dave Lindorff
Fear at the Pump

Robert Weissman
Pharmaceutical Payola

Laray Polk
Bush Family Appeasement

David Yearsley
Puritans in Seattle

Ron Jacobs
Riot Squads, Privatization and the National Front

Paul Quinnett
My Last Flight

Sam Bahour
Refugees are the Key

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Poverty Wages

Dr. Susan Block
The Groom May Kiss the Groom

Kim Nicolini
Paranoid Park: Inside the Fractured Landscape of Male Adolescence

Jeremy Scahill
John Cusack's War

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Dominguez, Gerard and Davies

May 16, 2008

Stephen Soldz
Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Jonathan Cook
Police Attack Al-Nakba March

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies of Aggression

Christopher Brauchli
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pharmacy

James L. Secor
Olympic Torch China: the View from Shaoxing

Franklin Lamb
Did Hezbollah Thwart a Bush/Olmert Attack on Beirut?

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Price of Protecting Racist Cops

Dave Lindorff
What West Virginia Means

May 15, 2008

Stan Cox
Big Brother Close Up

Jeff Halper
Rethinking Israel After 60 Years

Greg Moses
Living for the Children of Palestine

John Ross
Why Mexican Justice is a Euphemism

Ron Jacobs
Go to Work, Go to Jail

Binoy Kampmark
Indian Jailbirds: the Case of Binayak Sen

Eve Spangler
We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession

Martha Rosenberg
Meat Wars with South Korea

Website of the Day
Idaho Wolf Killers

May 14, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars

Reza Fiyouzat
Torture, a Bully's Creed

Felice Pace
California Water Politics: Of Dams and Water Buffaloes

Hamdan A. Yousuf / Dania S. Ahmed
A Generation Defined by War

Robert Weitzel
Hillary's "Final Solution" to the Persian Problem

Ralph Nader
You're Either with the American People or the Big Auto Bosses

Dave Lindorff
Hillary, McCain and the Stupid Vote

Missy Comley Beattie
White Heaven: Hillary's W. Virginia Idyll

Neve Gordon
Israel as a Site of Struggle

Dr. Susan Block
A Washington Witch Hanging

Website of the Day
Hillary's Downfall

May 13, 2008

David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror

Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?

Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home

Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution

Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber

Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him

Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing

David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die

Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America

May 12, 2008

St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran

Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost

Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton

Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors

Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott

Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More

Peter Morici
Recession Watch

Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere

Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

May 10 / 11, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees

Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée

Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Alan Farago
The Social Engineers

Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos

Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush

Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On

David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80

Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine

John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?

David Michael Green
It's So Over

Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep

Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman

May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut

Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo

Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia

Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off

Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now

Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism

Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty

Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint

Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.

May 8, 2008

Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables

Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom

Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico

Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans

Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response

Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret

George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements

Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War

Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell

Website of the Day
State of the Air

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My Career as a Police Informer

1968: Year of the Rat

By JAMES T. PHILLIPS

The first automobile I owned was a 1959 Triumph TR-3. It sat low to the ground, and featured sloped doors, bug-eyed headlights and a tachometer mounted on the dashboard. The car wasn’t old, but it was all beat up. The canvas top was missing, the bucket seats were ripped, and the brakes weren’t very good. The TR-3 was painted bright yellow and, when I stomped on the accelerator, looked like a lightning bolt streaking down the highway. I loved driving that car, but burned out the engine in less than six months. I was more careful and considerate with my second sports car, a red 1963 Triumph TR-4 that I bought in February of 1968. I was twenty years old, shared an apartment with my new girlfriend, worked as a disc jockey doing live rock and roll shows on weekend nights and, whether performing in bed, onstage, or in the driver’s seat of my car, I thought I was cool.

As the Year of Revolutions played out around the globe, I would learn that I was just a dreamer, a boy who wanted to be - in no particular order - Alan Freed, James Dean and Sterling Moss. Freed was America’s top disc jockey, Dean was the epitome of cool, and Moss was the best race car driver of his generation. I was a kid who listened to the Beatles playing Revolution #9, but thought only about revolutions per minute. When I was onstage, I introduced records and rock bands. I talked about music. The only slogan of the era that I knew and understood was Make Love, Not War. I was living an undisturbed, easy life in the fast lane. I didn’t pay any attention to the political landscape of America when I cranked up the motor (and radio) of my Triumph and drove all over the Maryland countryside. Yet, like when I raced my car at night along narrow roads in crazy abandon, 1968 would be an exhilarating wild ride through the darkness.

On the day I picked up my ’63 TR-4 from the dealer, I filled the gas tank and headed southwest out of Baltimore, intending to take a short drive on Route 40 to Patapsco State Park. Six-hundred miles later, not far from the city of Knoxville, I began to understand that I was also enjoying a free ride, living a life without any hazards other than sharp curves, inconvenient stop signs, and un-plugged microphones. In my world, images of dead or wounded soldiers were only characters from the movies, and small photographs in newspapers and magazines.

A few miles outside of Baltimore, I noticed a hitchhiker standing on the shoulder of the road. I skidded to a stop and offered him a ride. He was about my age, neatly dressed, wore his hair in a crew cut, and walked with a limp as he approached my car. Joe was a traveling soldier, and he paid for the lift by teaching me about Tet. I don’t remember if Joe fought at Hue before the North Vietnamese offensive began, or if the friends he left behind were dying there as we traveled south, but I do remember that he lived in Tennessee, a land where, for Joe, rolling hills would soon replace rolling thunder. I drove him home on a cold winter day in 1968. Joe limped because he left a leg in Vietnam, but his sense humor and dignity had stayed with him. I laughed out loud, and listened in stunned silence, as Joe told me stories about his participation in the Vietnam War.

Like most Americans, I learned about the war by watching evening news broadcasts on the three television networks, and glancing at newspaper headlines. Although I was a prime candidate for the draft - teenager, working class, uninformed, willing - what little interest I had concerning the war had ended in 1966 after spending three days at the Fort Holabird induction center. On the morning after I attended a Rolling Stones concert at the Baltimore Civic Center, I was one of dozens of young men from my neighborhood ordered by the Selective Service to bend over, grab ankles, and cough on cue. I was tested, questioned, and showed enough balls to prove I had the courage to kill. But, I failed my physical. The United States Armed Forces didn’t want me. Three military doctors, one at a time, looked me in the eye and confirmed that I was indeed blind in the other. I was free to go.

I dropped Joe off near his home, then headed back home knowing that I wanted to learn more and, even though I wasn’t able to kill gooks in the jungles of Vietnam, I wanted to do something that would make a difference. The hours I spent listening to Joe had opened my eye to what was happening in Vietnam. He was a proud soldier, told me so, and convinced me to support the troops. One the trip back to Baltimore, I thought about Joe and his stories. But, the feeling of brotherhood burned out quicker than the engine of my first car. I continued on with my life. My career as a disc jockey was at its peak, my girlfriend wanted to be a wife (and a mother), and I was taking corners at sixty miles per hour on dirt roads. Not much changed after my trip to Tennessee with Joe. I was still blind in my left eye, but my vision had improved: I began thinking about what I was seeing on the evening news.

During the spring and summer of 1968, all hell broke loose in the United States. The body count, however, was much less in America than it was in Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson was wounded, felled by a failed foreign policy. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were killed by lone assassins (or, perhaps, nefarious conspirators employed by the Mafia, the military, the Cubans, or the CIA). Thousands of protesters were gathering in the streets of America, where they fought against racism, the war, the police, and public opinion. A diverse crowd, the protesters included Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, Yippies, and individuals with personal agendas. The mobs of anti-protesters manning the barricades included the FBI, the media, union workers, and the police. The closest I got to the action was when I’d get stuck in traffic in downtown Baltimore during a protest demonstration, and was forced to listen to the drive-by shouting of grid locked, frustrated drivers.

My girlfriend and I decided to get married at the end of August, not long after I performed at three different shows on one night. I’d been a disc jockey since the age of fifteen, turned professional when I was sixteen and, for four years, worked at hundreds of venues in and around Baltimore. It was a good career, and I thought I was ready to add a wife to my life. In 1968, an eighteen year old could join the army and kill for his country (and drink beer, legally, in the nation‘s capital). But, to get married at the age of twenty, I needed a permission slip signed by a parent. With that coveted document in hand, my girlfriend and I drove (slowly and safely, in her VW Beetle) to northern Virginia, got married in a court house, then continued on to our honeymoon destination, Williamsburg. My new wife and I booked a hotel room, ate dinner at a faux-colonial restaurant, toured the town, returned to our room, turned on the television, and tumbled into bed. We didn’t get much sleep that night, though. It was August 28, and Walter Cronkite was reporting on the news out of Chicago.

My wife and I watched, along with the whole world, as ranks of Chicago policemen, swinging black batons, cut swaths through scattering crowds of antiwar demonstrators in a downtown park. The fear and panic of the fleeing people was palpable when their agonized faces flashed across the television screen. Bloodied young men and women were dragged by their hair to waiting police vans, then tossed violently inside the vehicles. A few angry protesters fought back. They were beaten to the ground, handcuffed, and then whacked a few more times. The Democratic National Convention was a bust. Inside the convention hall, reporters were assaulted and knocked to the floor as they tried to report on the turmoil. The American people would also get a good thrashing when convention delegates nominated Hubert Horatio Humphrey as their presidential candidate. The Chicago police riot lasted for days, directed by Mayor Richard Daley wielding his middle finger like a police truncheon. I was entranced as I listened to Walter Cronkite describe what I was seeing. The CBS anchorman was in a television studio in New York City, and I was in a hotel room in Williamsburg, but we were both able to observe - live - scenes of brute force. The newsman would soon speak out against violence and the Vietnam War. I would act out a role.

In Baltimore, the police were led by Commissioner Donald Pomerleau, a former Marine and tough administrator. As hot and humid weather settled over the city during the summer of 1968, Pomerleau worried about riots and out-of-control demonstrations. To keep things cool, Pomerleau initiated a few covert operations designed to infiltrate the peace movement. The Baltimore City Police Department had already de-fanged the Black Panther Party by using informants, and Pomerleau wanted to do the same to the leadership of peace organizations operating in the city. The Commissioner was aware of the acts of civil disobedience perpetrated by the Baltimore Four in 1967, and the Catonsville Nine on May 17 (in a small town near Baltimore), and he responded by approving plans to spy on peace activists and organizers. He had enough trouble dealing with scorched buildings and hot tempers ignited in the aftermath of the King and Kennedy killings. Pomerleau didn’t want draft records burned or bloodied in City Hall Plaza. Efforts were made to recruit new agents and, a few weeks after the city of Chicago exploded in violence, I met with two police officers in a dimly-lit corner tavern filled with off-duty cops slugging back bottles of Natty Boh, a brand of beer favored by Baltimore’s sports fans, steelworkers and policemen.

Jim and Ed were detectives. Ed was a dapper dresser. He was tall, thin, and looked sharp in the lightweight windbreaker that he wore when working undercover. I never saw Ed in a uniform, but I always noticed the large bulge under his left armpit. Ed wore a size .38 Special. Jim was a rumpled and overweight mess. We sat at the bar, toasted the Baltimore Colts and Johnny Unitas, then talked about sports, women, and beer. The conversation turned to the recent demonstrations against the war. I told them about Joe, the road trip to Tennessee, and the increasing concern I felt for my peers, in Vietnam and Baltimore. I mentioned the television coverage of the trouble in Chicago and, ignoring the flashing red lights in the rear view mirror of my mind, blurted out a really silly and presumptuous comment: “I wish I could do something to help.” Jim and Ed exchanged glances. Like a spider to the fly, I was being recruited by two of Baltimore’s Finest. It was a fateful meeting, an encounter that entangled me in a web of deceit, crime, and punishment. We continued to drink and talk, and I was drunk and disordered when I finally agreed to work as an undercover police agent. I wanted to do something. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to be James Bond. I thought I was cool.

During the months following my first meeting with Jim and Ed, I lied and spied my way into a minor position of responsibility in one of Baltimore’s most active peace and justice organizations. I was more mole than rat. I participated in many covert actions during the autumn of 1968, but my role in the peace movement was insignificant and limited (and fraudulent). I attended demonstrations, marches and meetings, and sat in on planning sessions - listening and learning - when leaders of the peace and justice group gathered to discuss peace and justice. My police handlers, however, were pleased with my work. It didn’t matter that I often produced paltry results, Jim and Ed believed all was going well until I discovered a bomb plot that blew up in our faces.

* * *

I approached the house on Howard Street through the alley. It was nighttime, dark, and difficult to see. I crept up to the back entrance, hesitated, then opened the door and entered the home of a peace group responsible for many protest actions in the city of Baltimore. The kitchen lights were off. I flicked on my flashlight. Stacks of paper were spread out on the kitchen counter. I was looking for one particular pile of documents. Earlier in the day, while snooping around in the house on Howard Street, I had noticed the mimeographed sheets of paper, and realized I‘d uncovered something important. But, there were other people hanging around in the kitchen. I didn’t want to raise suspicions by stealing a copy in broad daylight, so I waited for the night.

I could hear muffled voices coming from the front of the house. Members of the group were holding a meeting, but they had no idea that I was also in attendance. I moved silently. Jim and Ed were in an unmarked police car, parked a block away, but close enough to keep the house under surveillance. It didn’t take long to find the pile of documents. I grabbed a copy, stuck it in my coat pocket and headed for the door. I left the building, walked down the alleyway, turned a corner, and waited in the shadows until the police car stopped in front of me. The entire operation lasted less than three minutes. I got into the car. Ed and I held on tightly when Jim stepped hard on the gas pedal. We sped off, out of the alley, onto the streets of Baltimore, on our way to police headquarters. Thrilled with the success of our mission, we shared grins and handshakes. I gave the document to Ed. It was filled with chemical symbols, written instructions, diagrams and mathematical equations. The document was titled The PBJ Bomb. Ed stopped smiling as he skimmed the contents. He told Jim to go faster. I wasn’t oblivious to the implications of what we had stolen, and I could see that Ed was upset, but there was only one thought on my mind as Jim maneuvered the car around large potholes and slow pedestrians: I should be driving.

After arriving at police headquarters, I sat in the car while Jim and Ed took the PBJ Bomb document inside the building. I didn’t have to wait very long, though. My partners returned in less than an hour. They got in the car, and we drove off, heading out of the city. Ed was smiling again. He told me that the document caused quite a commotion within the Baltimore City Police Department. Bombs were being detonated all over the world in 1968, so it wasn’t difficult to believe that one or two could be planted in Baltimore, especially if the bomber obtained, from their local peace organization, printed instructions on how to make an improvised explosive device. I had stolen only one copy of the PBJ Bomb document, from a stack at least six inches in height. The pile of papers that I discovered was a weapon of mass dissemination, and an immediate response to any potential attack was being organized. The information in the document was being examined and analyzed. The upper echelons of the police department were pleased that we had uncovered the PBJ Bomb plot and, for our good work, we were given the rest of the night off. We drove to a bar near Jim’s home and settled in for a night of drinking, back-patting and self-congratulations. In the morning, we learned the truth, and suffered the consequences.

The document was a hoax. The leadership of the peace group believed they were being targeted by the police, and decided to find out the truth by ferreting out the mole. Someone was feeding the beast by passing on information to the police, so the leaders decided to change the diet by creating a recipe, using scientific terms, on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They titled their concoction the PBJ Bomb.

Although my methods were amateurish and crude - Inspector Clouseau as spy - the leaders didn’t realize that I was the culprit they were trying to uncover, and their attempt to learn the identity of the mole failed. Yet, the PBJ Bomb ploy was successful. I fell into the trap when I stole the document and gave it to Jim and Ed. The police were ensnared when they spent a long, sweaty night worrying about an assault that would arrive, if at all, hidden in the lunch boxes of children. Jim, Ed and I felt stupid, but were consoled by the fact that we did our job. It wasn’t our fault that the peace leaders were smarter. I worked covertly, and didn’t have to face the humiliation unless I looked in a mirror. Jim and Ed, though, had to confront the anger of their superiors and the jokes of their colleagues. I would continue working for the Baltimore City Police Department, but I stayed away from the Howard Street house, and faded away from Jim and Ed. The PBJ Bomb was fake, but our relationship took a direct hit. Eventually, as the winter of 1968 approached, the incident was forgotten. Richard Nixon was elected as the thirty-seventh president, and the activities of peace activists and police spies, like the bombing of Vietnam, escalated.

I had started working with Jim and Ed in September of 1968. Spying for the police so dominated my life during the following five months, I didn’t realize that I was ignoring my wife, and my career as a disc jockey. My wife and my audiences drifted away. Nor was I paying attention when I lost traction on a curve and crashed my Triumph into a tree, crumpling the front end of the vehicle, ending my nighttime jaunts on the back roads of Maryland. I didn’t even notice that I was absorbing the message of peace and justice. There was no epiphany when I realized I was on the wrong side of the barricade separating the American people. It was more of a gradual dawning, like when the morning sky slowly lightens, bringing on a new day. I crossed over the unseen barrier in Washington D.C., during the days of demonstrations accompanying the inauguration of Richard Nixon. I was on my final assignment working as a spy. Jim and Ed remained in Baltimore. I was standing outside the tent where Phil Ochs was singing his songs and, although I don’t remember the lyrics, the music seeped into my soul. I knew that it was time to quit working with the police. I stopped being a mole, and turned into a rat.

I had nothing more to say to the police, but I wanted to talk to the people who were part of the peace organization. I asked for a meeting with the leadership. I told them I had something important to communicate. I returned to the Howard Street house one last time, and was confronted by a dozen activists sitting at a large table, waiting for me to speak. I knew most of the people. I had worked with a few of them during protest demonstrations, and recognized others, including a member of the Catonsville Nine. For a young dreamer waking from a nightmare, it was a formidable group. I was blunt and forthright, though, admitting that I had been spying on them for the Baltimore City Police Department. They let me continue, and I talked about what I had done to subvert their cause. I explained the tactics used by the police. I named names, places, and events of importance. I was open and honest for the first time in five months. When I finished, I looked at the people sitting around the table, expecting to be yelled at, cursed, demeaned and, possibly, laughed at by those who knew details about the PBJ Bomb. Instead, their reaction, as a group, was brilliant, instructive, and deserved: silence, followed by all of them getting up from the table and walking out of the meeting. I left the room alone, and scurried out of the building.

A few weeks later, I was arrested by a cop in Baltimore County. I only mouthed off during a traffic violation, but the charge against me was a felony. I was facing jail time, but an appearance in court on my behalf by Jim and Ed kept me out of the slammer. When we talked to the judge, my former police partners didn’t know that their spy had ratted them out. I wasn’t sure, however, if other cops had learned about my confession from more adept (and loyal) police spies. I started looking over my shoulder. I avoided looking in mirrors. I stayed at home while my wife worked, listening to Jimi Hendrix and the Doors on an old hi-fidelity phonograph player. I played the music very loud. When the paranoia struck deep, I moved my family to a farming community north of Baltimore, needing to distance myself from what I perceived as police harassment, and the uncomfortable knowledge of having participated in spying against the peace movement. I continued living with my wife (and baby daughter, born nine months after the Chicago police riot) in a tiny mobile home parked in the woods, surrounded by cornfields. My career was dead, and the carcass of my Triumph sat rusting in the yard. It was a sad, dismal time and, when my wife decided to leave and return to the city of Baltimore, I was left behind. I was cool with it, though. I walked to the highway that passed near our home and, like the soldier from Tennessee, stuck out my thumb and disappeared into America.

James T. Phillips is a freelance reporter who has covered wars in Iraq, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Kosovo. His is a contributor to Imperial Crusades, edited by Cockburn and St. Clair. He can be contacted at jamestphillips@yahoo.com.

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