The Pirate and the Prophet
Story Mane #2098
Pub Date 4/24/94
HD: PIRATE AND PROPHET
AH: RADIO, RELIGION: The story of two rebels who say they were mistreated.
KE: Pirate
BY: TONY BARTELME
Of the Post and Courier- Paper from Columbia S.C.
A powerful shortwave transmitter beamed the Last Day Prophet's gruff voice into the heavens where it slammed into a layer of electrically charged gas and bounced back to earth.
"When I speak, he thundered, it's the word of God!"
Soaked in shortwave static, his voice quieted. I've told this over and over again that God gave me , in the spiritual realm, authority over this church- the true church- in all these Southern states. And my influence reaches to the far corners of the world. He was pleading now, almost crying.
We're getting very close to the final countdown, Call 1-803-538-4202, and you'll be on the air with the Last Day Prophet of God.
Everyday, R.G. Stair, 60, can be heard on more than a dozen shortwave and AM radio stations from Sacramento, California to Conway.
During one recent broadcast, he said listeners sent him nearly $1 million last year to proclaim his warnings of the coming apocalypse. And he said he's increasing his presence on the airwaves. Today I wrote three checks for 31,000 dollars signing up radio stations, he told his listeners.
But not too long ago, Stair hoped to have his own shortwave radio station.
From a ship anchored off the coast of Belize, he planned to broadcast his messages of doom across the world.
But those hopes were dashed in January.
In January, while the ship was being prepared at a local yard, federal agents stormed the vessel, claiming transmitters aboard were broadcasting illegal test tones.
The Federal Communications Commission called his vessel a pirate radio ship. Stair and his controversial radio expert, Al Wiener, called the government's action a crime- the work of the devil- sometimes mentioning in the same breath last year's violent bungled raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
The story of the seizure sheds light on two very different subcultures: One is the world of shortwave broadcasting, where stations broadcast programs across the globe and unlicenced pirates try to hijack the airwaves.
The other is the doomsday movement, which some observers believe will grow dramatically as the year 2000 draws nearer- and possibly trigger potentially dangerous police actions against nontraditional religious groups and Christian extremists.
The Pirate
On any given night, pirates are on the air. Mostly kids, they broadcast music, skits and their own shows, usually on shortwave frequencies. They are called pirates because they don't own FCC licenses. Some are more energetic than others. One pirate group that calls itself 'Radio Airplane' reportedly has a transmitter on the back of a small aircraft.
It's sort of a game to see if they get caught, said Glenn Hauser, a columnist for Monitoring Times', a radio magazine popular with shortwave enthusiasts.
Radio piracy isn't always fun and games though. In Roanoke, VA, a man posing as an air traffic controller broadcast fake instructions to pilots for several weeks before the FCC nabbed him. But the nation's most famous radio pirate is Al Wiener. As a teenager, Wiener aired music on AM and FM stations from his basement. He had no license, and the FCC eventually arrested him. He was sentenced to one year probation.
Wiener, a lanky man with long brown hair, eventually moved to Maine, opened a natural food store, and bought a legitimate AM station. But, like many small AM stations, he was not allowed to broadcast at night. Wiener went on the air after dark anyway, usually once a month. He did so for three years before the FCC shut him down again.
But Wiener's real claim to fame was his pirate radio ship, the Sarah. In 1987, he installed radio transmitters aboard a trawler, moved the ship four miles off the coast of New York- outside U.S. territorial waters- and broadcast alternative rock programs.
Once again, the FCC moved in. Agents boarded the ship, seized radio equipment, and arrested Wiener on charges of obstructing government function, charges they later dropped. We want to give him a chance, explained FCC official.
Al is a folk hero to a lot of people who want to open up the airwaves, said Anita Louise McCormick, author of Shortwave Radio Listening for Beginners.
There's no question the FCC hates my guts, Wiener, 41, said recently. Without the FCC, there would be anarchy on the airwaves, so I think they have an important role. I'm not an anarchist. I love my country. But I think the FCC attacks things they shouldn't.
About 18 months ago Wiener received a call from a friend, Scott Becken, who operated satellite network. Becker said he had spoken with a radio preacher, R. G. Stair, about financing another radio ship.
"I said, Oh no, not another one" I said I wouldn't be involved this time unless it was all on the up and up.
The Prophet
During his programs, Stair often reminds listeners he was born in Bethlehem- Bethlehem, PA.
Since he was a teenager, Stair has traveled the country, making the rounds on the evangelist circuits, doing radio shows.
In the late 1970's, he drove past the Carolina Motel on S.C. Highway 15, four miles north of Walterboro. It was a modest motel, a single story row of rooms, the kind that became obsolete when the interstates were built. In 1978, he paid $45,000 for it.
Stair attracted a small band of followers who moved into the motel and several mobile homes behind it. He also bought a nearby farm. He called his group the "Overcomer Ministry'
He hoped to live a simple life there, like the Mennonites or the Amish. No drinking, swearing, smoking or television. No buying on credit and no doctors. They would live off the land. Women would wear hair long, men would keep it short. Women would wear dresses, men pants.
In 1987 and 1988, not long after Wiener makes the fronts pages with his pirate radio exploits, Stair also began to attract national attention.
He made dramatic predictions: By the end of 1988, the U.S. economy would collapse and the country would be destroyed in a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union. In his broadcasts, he announced he was creating, 'cities of refuge', small farms throughout the South where believers might weather the catastrophe.
The message hit home with some, and a handful of listeners across the country sold many of their possessions and moved to the motel and farm.
Among them were David Foltz and his wife. The one thing that struck me was that there were no big cars. No one was living an outlandish lifestyle, said Foltz, who lived in Stair's community for two years before moving to a home nearby. He still attends services.
If you had gone to (Jim and Tammy Bakkers) PTL at this time, the dog houses would have been air conditioned, but with Brother Stair, all the money that was coming in was going into radio ministry.
As the contributions poured in, Stair was able to buy more radio time. By mid-1988 he was on nearly 100 stations.
That year, Stair's predictions and allegations that his group was a cult drew hordes of reporters and television people to the small motel. Foltz said the cult label was unfair.
It hurts the public that reads it, because it creates a stereotype. Just because an organization does something different, it doesn't mean it's a cult. I wasn't brainwashed into their beliefs. I came down there on my free will.
The media scrutiny intensified in July 1988 when a couple from Pennsylvania left Stair's group after the woman's baby was born dead. Stair had discouraged her from going to a doctor, even though she had trouble delivering her first child. The Colleton County coroner said the baby probably would have lived had the woman gone to the hospital.
William Alnor, an evangelist and free-lance writer, covered the story for a Pennsylvania newspaper.
He's always proclaiming the idea of doom, and this serves as a catalyst. They were drawn to him by fear, said Alnor, author of 'Soothsayers of the Second Advent'.
There are a number of groups out there like this, and they're popping up more and more because of the year 2000. In the year 1000, people were so worried they were living in caves.
But Foltz said it wasn't fear of Stair or the end of the world that attracked followers. It's really about what's happening with the country. You look around and see what's going on, and it makes you wonder if maybe the Amish have the right idea.
After Stairs predictions failed to come true, he began to appear on fewer radio stations. For the most part, he stopped talking to reporters. In his broadcasts, he calls them perverted. (He refused repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.) He still preaches that the world will end, but instead of setting dates, he simply says the jig is up soon.
And, he never gave up his goal of spreading this message across the world.
The Plan
The pieces fell together quickly. Within a few months, Stair, Wiener, Becker, Wiener's friend in the satellite business, had a 140-foot-long ship called 'The Fury' and four transmitters from Boston to Halsey and Cannon Boat yard on the Wando River.
Becker, who also run the business side of the ship, renting three transmitters to anyone who wanted air time. Stair would have exclusive use of one shortwave transmitter. They would move the ship to Belize or another Caribbean country. Wiener was in charge of building the radio station. Stair's followers chipped and sanded paint and did other work on the ship itself.
Wiener said the ocean would act like a huge reflector dish, increasing the power of the shortwave transmitters. Shortwave radio transmitters are beamed 150 miles from the transmitter. Wiener said Stair's broadcast from the ship would be heard throughout North American and possible in large areas of South America and Europe, where shortwave radio stations are more popular.
Honestly, I saw the hand of God work on that ship, Wiener said. But in less than a year we were able to throw together the people, equipment, and the boat, which was incredible.
Becker and Wiener estimate that Stair pumped $250,000 to $300,000 into the ship. Stair told 'Monitoring Times' that he spent $125,000 on the transmitter installation.
Wiener enjoyed working with Stair's group. The best time we had was at supper, he said. They were people who seemed at peace with themselves. We could be talking about generators and bilge pumps one minute and the glory of God in another breath.
Becker was less enthusiastic. The only way I can describe this group is bizzare.
He said he saw members looking for scraps of food in the trash bin behind a grocery store. He scares people to come and live with them. It gives me the creeps. The women dress in long Quaker or Amish dresses. They walk around like zombies. He's a David Koresh waiting to happen.
The Bust
It was late December when Johnny Lightning came on the air. One of the FCC's monitoring stations picked up the transmission. 'Johnny Lightning was the announcer. He was playing music and there was some chatter said Lawrence Clance, the FCC assistant bureau chief for law. Johnny Lightning was on a frequency normally reserved for government communications, one that's often used by pirates.
We knew right away we had a pirate radio station, Clance said. The monitoring stations traced the transmission to South Carolina.
In January, FCC agents were dispatched to Charleston. For two weeks they drove around the area in cars packed with equipment that track down radio broadcasts.
At 12:15 a.m. on Jan 14, FCC engineers heard something. It wasn't Johnny Lightning. It sounded more like test tones. Their direction-finding gear guided them to a dirt road leading to the Halsey & Cannon Boat Yard- and the Fury. They seemed to be tuning it, said Richard Breen, an FCC engineer who tracked the transmission.
Breen and the other FCC engineers didn't board ship that night. Instead, after discussing their findings with their superiors in Washington, they went to the federal judge and asked for an order allowing them to seize the Fury's radio equipment.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Griffith Jr. said at 8 a.m. on Jan. 19, gun-totting U.S. Marshals and Coast Guard officers raided the ship. There was no resistance. No one was hurt or arrested. Only one firearm was found.
The FCC paid electricians and neighboring shipyard crew $7,500 to remove the transmitters. Wiener was on board when the raid happened. It felt like evil attached the boat, he said.
The Aftermath
Wiener said the feds went overboard, that seizure was a personal vendetta against him. The station was destroyed, he said, because someone in Washington, D.C. apparently doesn't like Brother Stair or me.
He said he was asleep during the time the illegal transmissions were alleged to have been made. Besides, the transmitter and generators weren't working, so it was physically impossible for anyone to broadcast, he said.
The charges are totally unfounded, he said. Even had there been transmissions, he said, the punishment did not fit the alleged crime.
Prosecutors could have sought either a restraining order or a fine.
Why was an entirely legal radio station destroyed without a hearing and due process? What is going on here? Wiener said. A radio station, a printing press of the air, has been smashed.
Stair has since filed a motion in federal court asking the government to return the equipment.
The FCC out of Washington takes a strong view of this kind of deal, particularly in light of who was on board. Griffith answered. The seizure was done entirely at the FCC's request. I would like to think there were no personal animosities involved.
He said the agency considered criminal prosecution but was concerned it would make Wiener a martyr. Taking equipment was a middle road approach.
Said Clance, "We're simply in the business of shutting down pirate radio stations.
Apocalypse Later
Immediately after the bust, Wiener left Charleston. We didn't know if we were going to get shot or arrested. He returned to New York and began working at another radio station. He began writing to newspapers and communications magazines criticizing the FCC's action.
The bust didn't slow Stair down either. He bought more air time on radio stations. During these broadcasts Stair asked for more and more money.
My dear friends, Stair told his listeners, this message of hope to the people of God is being heard. They are responding! They are doing it! This is what stirs my heart. They are obeying! I know that makes me enemies. So be it.
A listener from Canada said he put a money order for $1000 in the mail.
Like Wiener, Stair lobbed verbal darts at the government and armed forces, you, you are the Antichrist.
And he hints at future battles with the government. They will come after me. I'm sure they are going to, because I'm a voice out here that they're going to have to reckon with.
eply | Forward Message #16 of 28 < Prev | Next >
In May, 1920, Charles A. Stanley, president of the Cosradio Company
and operator of amateur radio station 9BW in Wichita, Kansas, was
told by his minister, Dr. Clayton B. Wells, that if Stanley's daily
broadcasts were going to include Sundays, he should at least be
promoting religious activities. So Stanley began broadcasting Dr.
Wells' sermons on Sunday evenings. (The Cosradio Company would later
operate broadcasting station WEY in 1922-1923).
This article uses a number of radio operator abbreviations: QST--
General transmission of interest to everyone (i.e. a broadcast); QSA--
Strong signals; CUL--"See you later", O. M.--"Old man", "the 'bug'"--
enthusiasm for the radio hobby. Also, some of the oddly spelled
words, like "droppt" for dropped", are due to Radio News' advocacy of
phonetic spelling.
Radio News, November, 1920, pages 270, 312:
Enter--The Radio Preacher
How a Preacher in Wichita, Kansas, Broadcasts Sermons via
Radio
By C. A. STANLEY*
YE olden time circuit preacher in Kansas who rode from parish to
parish, little dreamed that twenty years hence his more modern
followers would step to the radio transmitter, close the switch and
for twenty minutes preach to a greater number of listeners than his
complete circuit preaching ever reached. Even the average layman,
quite well read in scientific subjects, does not always realize the
wonderful strides made in radio telephone and telegraph research
work.
THE FIRST AND ORIGINAL "SKY" PILOT
From my private station in Wichita, Kansas, there is transmitted
every evening, at a specified hour, such radio news and data as may
be of interest to the local amateur and experimenter. On a certain
Sunday evening in May, as I sat in my station ready to send out my
evening "Q S T," Dr. C. B. Wells, who by the way, is teacher of Bible
at Fairmount College as well as pastor of the Fairmount
Congregational Church, chanced to pass, droppt into the station, took
me to task for not having attended morning service, and then and
there suggested that the use of the radio station on the Lord's day
should henceforth be devoted to the Lord's work. I immediately took
down Dr. Wells' sermon and transmitted it to the hundreds of stations
within hearing; and it has now become an established practice to send
out these sermons every Sunday evening at 7:30. Letters of
appreciation addressed to the "Radio Preacher" and the "Wireless
Parson" have been received from all parts of the middle west.
A jeweler located in a small town in northern Kansas, where
little ever occurs to disturb the country folk, goes to his store
every Sunday evening, copies the sermon on his jewelers receiving set
and posts it on a bulletin board in front of his store where a goodly
number of non-churchgoing people gather to read the Doctor's sermon.
THE "BUG" CAUSES SEPARATION OF MAN AND WIFE
On July the 18th this year, Dr. Wells' sermon was sent out as
usual, a portion of which follows:
The subject for tonight is 'Love One Another.' This sounds rather
mushy to some people, but in these three words is found the secret of
success for the nation, the firm and the individual. Without love
life is a failure. Did you ever stop to think that love is simply a
desire to help the other fellow play the game fair and look the world
square in the face with a feeling of pity for the man who is crooked?
Shortly afterwards I received the following letter from southern
Texas:
Radio Preacher, 9BW,
Wichita, Kansas.
Dear Sirs Was listening in tonight and working a number of
hams, when I heard for the first time your "Q S T." I tuned the old
receiver in until you were very QSA and copied your sermon. Say O. M.
that's the first sermon I have listened to for ten years. Am station
agent here for the -------- Railroad, and four years ago I acquired
the wireless bug. Put up an aerial and constructed a receiver. Sure
enough, I soon got the fever in real shape, sat up nights until long
after midnight. For awhile everything went 0. K. but after a while
the late hours became an old story to friend wife, and she accused me
of neglecting her and the baby. Well, maybe I did, so I laid off for
awhile; but alas, I couldn't keep away from the old set. Well O. M.
the story's a long one, and to cut it short, wife and baby left me.
They now live with her mother over the other side of town. I see them
about every week. Yes, I guess I love them, but I sure love to hear
the old "sigs" come in. I am wondering tonight what I am made of,
your sermon O. M. has sure torn a hole in me, I just don't seem to
care to listen in, don't know what's the matter, guess I am out of
sorts. Well I will listen for your sermon next Sunday. Cul. O. M.
REUNITED
On July 25th the QST was sent out in the regular manner and we
were told that Dr. Wells was out of the city. We therefore listened
to a venerable Preacher, whose subject was an old one yet ever new--
"And a little child shall lead them." The little folks were all
dresst in their best bib and tucker. He spoke in part of the
innocense and beauty of the child in the home, of the influence for
good on the parents. "How often the little child takes the parents'
hands and looking up into their care worn faces, says. 'Good Papa,
Kind Mamma.' What a soothing effect this little Heaven-sent angel has
on our home relations. Boys, if you are a family man, how is it with
you are you letting the little one in the home lead you?"
Then, on July 28th I received another letter from our radio
friend in southern Texas which, was of a very pathetic nature and
speaks for itself. The letter follows:
Radio Preacher, 9BW,
Wichita, Kansas.
My dear Radio Preachers Last night I listened-in as usual,
copied your sermon, which was very QSA. That was sure some sermon. I
never before thought that I would have any use for preachers, but I
have changed my mind. Your sermon reached the right spot in my heart
if I have any. Say, O.M. I must confess that when I finished copying
your QST I was a mess. I bawled like a kid. Well, I'll tell you, I
threw the old receivers on the table and beat it for the Methodist
Church a couple of blocks away; the preacher had just started his
sermon, and strange to say his subject was "Home the Sweetest Place
on Earth." I tell you O.M. I just swallowed that sermon whole and
after the service I went down front took the old preacher aside and
told him my troubles. Well, we talked it over and then we went over
to my mother-in-law's house, wife had not gone to bed yet. We had a
little prayer together, and today we are all back in our little home
again the three happiest kids you ever saw; and best of all radio did
it. Well, I guess you had had enough of this, so CUL."
HOW I DRIFTED INTO THE GAME
It may be of interest to the reader to learn how I first started
in radio work. Some sixteen years ago when the Electro Importing Co.
put out its first catalog; a little paper covered book which
contained descriptive matter on spark coils, coherers and the like. I
became keenly interested and like the boys of today it was not many
years before I found myself sitting up late at night over a simple
tuning coil and a piece of silicon. About all that could be heard in
those days was NAA on time and weather, and the fellow who got time
signals from Arlington was "going some." There were but few stations
in New England then, but whenever I found a station I did not fail to
visit it and gain all possible knowledge of this wonderful phenomena.
I spent many spare hours in a station installed by the National Tel.
& Tel. Co., where I helped to construct what we believed to be the
first rotary gap. It was made by mounting brass balls on brass rods
which were inserted in a steel hub. This was quite a novel gap for
those days and produced a very peculiar tone as compared to the old
stationary gap.
In conclusion I want to say that I am not the only person who
believes that radio--amateur radio, mind you--is far from having
reached the limit of new and distinct uses. Preaching by radio is but
one of the many things which the radiophone of the future will do.
-------
* President Cosradio Co.
Part 1
It should come as no surprise that government agencies routinely
discourage, ignore, and speciously reject complaints of human rights
violations in America. Coverup is, and some would say always has been,
the norm. This writer can document a long history of such devious and
sophistic trickery as is experienced by many a victim and many a
whistleblower in this land, but that is not the primary subject that
concerns us here.
The supposed remedy for government's stonewalling and coverup is
public exposure by the media and the non-governmental organizations
mandated to uncover such scandals and advocate for the helpless
oppressed. Given the stated intentions and frequent good works of such
organizations, one assumes a certain reliable level of integrity and
disinterested compassion. It is hard to imagine the American Civil
Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Center
for Constitutional Rights, or Pacifica Radio engaging in the same
kinds of evasion employed by public agencies in suppression of human
rights, but, sadly, that has been my experience.
America is a nation in denial, the dominant force in a world that
daily closes its eyes to the hard realities of corruption,
discrimination, and outrageously specious rationalization. There are
things no major publication dares to print, no major broadcaster dares
to discuss. Working largely through dummy "private" agencies, American
law enforcement, military, and intelligence authorities violate human
rights with absolute impunity, using 21st-Century technology to
advance an inhuman, totalitarian agenda. Those who know won't speak.
Those who speak are not heeded. Those who hear do not listen. Those
who listen will not act.
I am a whistleblower. From 1975 until 1988, I worked as a Speech and
Hearing Therapist for Manhattan Borough Developmental Services Office
(currently known as Metro New York Developmental Disabilities Services
Office), a facility for the mentally retarded operated by the State of
New York. In 1975, I had no idea that what was then known as the
Department of Mental Hygiene had been involved in classified contracts
with US military and intelligence agencies, that it had caused the
wrongful death in 1953 of one Harold Blauer, that it had participated
in what US Judge Constance Baker Motley described in 1987 as a
"20-year conspiracy" to conceal the fact that Mr. Blauer had died as a
human guinea pig in an experiment to test hallucinogenic drugs as
weapons of war (1).
In the 1980s, MBDSO at 75 Morton Street in New York's Greenwich
Village became a hotbed of covert law enforcement and intelligence
activity involving CIA, military intelligence, federal, state, county,
and municipal law enforcement and corrections officials, dummy
"private" agencies, and, apparently, the Republican National
Committee. In alignment with Reagan Administration policies, these
forces concerned themselves primarily with "fighting terrorism" and
the "war on drugs." They defined "terrorism" loosely (2), bringing
under its umbrella peaceful, humanitarian activists such as the
Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and
the Sanctuary movement, a group of religious persons who tried to
prevent the involuntary return of refugees to El Salvador (a deadly
policy clearly violative of International Law). Among Sanctuary's
leaders was Jack Elder, who had been my fraternity brother at the
Catholic University of America in the early 1960s (3). At the
suggestion of Colonel Oliver North (of Contragate notoriety), Philip
Mabry, a former CIA agent who headed a right-wing think-tank in Texas,
wrote to the Director of the FBI naming individuals and organizations
as Communist sympathizers. As a result, the FBI appears to have
investigated a college classmate of mine, actress Susan Anspach, as
well as Susan Sarandon, who attended Catholic University after we
graduated but who had grown up in my home state of New Jersey (4). Few
Americans then were aware of such Mc Carthyite witch-hunts, and still
fewer, here and abroad, will acknowledge them now.
The power and influence of these law enforcement and intelligence
agents became weapons in the hands of egregiously unscrupulous
administrators. I heard them laugh about the tragedy and disgrace of
others. I could almost hear the saliva dripping from their jowls as
they gleefully spoke of arrests and strip-searches. I was sickened by
their utter contempt for the law -- their strutting, swaggering,
snickering arrogance. Through the administrative areas adjacent to my
office roamed conscienceless monsters whose callous ruthlessness
bordered on the demonic and who were able to get away with anything
they chose to do. They planted evidence. They falsified crime reports
at will and with impunity. They suborned perjury. They bribed and
intimidated, harassed and terrorized. They may have killed. Claims of
"national security" and "police business" assured universal
cooperation and secrecy.
Obscenely intrusive, unbelievably extensive "lifestyle" investigations
became a powerful administrative tool for staff reduction through
intimidation -- blackmailing, blackballing, and blacklisting. When the
"evaluators" could not unearth real evidence, they simply invented it.
The concepts of due notice and due process occupied no place in their
lexicon.
Manhattan Borough Developmental Services administrators, in their
absolute contempt for the civil liberties of workers, including
myself, involved themselves with corrupt law enforcement personnel
like Sergeant Richard Pike and Officer Jeffrey Gilbert of the 106th
Precinct in Queens, accused and later convicted of using electric
stun-guns to torture a marijuana suspect (5). My employers made it
clear that they found nothing wrong with such practices. For some of
us, the dreaded "1984" arrived right on schedule (6).
Letters to my union, Public Employees Federation, AFL-CIO, produced
only futile grievances that encountered delay, obfuscation, and
arbitrary denial. Union representatives refused to appeal these to the
highest possible level. Their lack of support likewise truncated the
progress of several more grievances filed personally by myself, which,
in the end, they joined the State in actively suppressing (7).
I then tried the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, writing
several letters to ACLU summer intern Mary James. I described a
pattern of political repression starting in the late 1960s, when I
first wrote letters to the editor against the war in Vietnam. I noted
the intensified harassment consequent upon my participation in a 1982
demonstration sponsored by the Committee in Solidarity with the People
of El Salvador (CISPES). I told of unconstitutional investigative
techniques, break-ins of my home and car, secret, non-adversarial
"evaluations," interception of mail, possible phone taps, suspected
drugging and poisoning, electronic surveillance at the workplace and
at home, and a campaign of ridicule and defamation among my neighbors
[scan of my last letter to Ms. James].
On December 4, 1984, Daniel D. Schechter of ACLU of NJ wrote to me: "I
believe that your action in retaining your union's services is proper
and, I hope, effective. If, however, you are dissatisfied with their
progress, I suggest that you retain private legal counsel of your own
selection. Thank you for writing to us [scan]." In other words, get lost.
In 1985, I began writing to the New York State Special Prosecutor (8)
and, later that year, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil
Rights of the US Department of Health and Human Services, triggering a
campaign of unimaginably vicious retaliation that continues to this day.
My July 22, 1985 correspondence with ACLU's New York office [scan]
supplied copies of my letters to the Special Prosecutor, accusing the
State of New York of maliciously and relentlessly utilizing the
immense powers of government to harass targeted employees out of their
jobs. It noted also the union's ineffectiveness and the State's
obstruction of the grievance process. Experiencing already the
disabling health problems -- probably maliciously-induced -- that have
impeded me ever since, I wrote: "I simply do not know where to turn. I
have fought well, but I can't fight alone any more. Please help me, or
tell me who can."
A card arrived, postmarked July 26, acknowledging receipt of my
request for assistance, telling me that it had been forwarded to the
National Prison Project in Washington, DC and suggesting that I should
henceforth contact that office directly [scan].
On August 1, 1985, however, Mr. Ed Martone of New Jersey ACLU wrote to
me that my letter to New York ACLU had been redirected to his office
[scan]. "As the incidents occurred in New York State, it is out of the
jurisdiction of the ACLU of NJ," he advised, appending the further
insult: "Additionally, there don't appear to be questions of
constitutional law in your complaint which would warrant ACLU
intervention." My August 2 response [scan] insistently reminded Mr.
Martone that incidents had occurred in both states and that my
complaint involved very clear constitutional issues. He never answered.
Notes
1. Associated Press, Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ, May 6, 1987, p. 5.
2. Ross Gelbspan, Break-ins, Death Threats, and the FBI, (Boston:
South End Press, 1991), pp. 87-95.
3. Robert Tomsho, The American Sanctuary Movement, (Austin Texas:
Texas Monthly Press, Inc., 1987), pp. 137-143.
4. Gelbspan, pp. 186-187.
5. Associated Press, Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ, July 18, 1986.
6. On July 6, 1984, at my workplace, Manhattan Borough
Developmental Services Office at 75 Morton Street in New York
(currently known as Metro New York Developmental Disabilities Services
Office), I met with Mr. Darlton Haskins, my supervisor's supervisor,
and Mr. Robert Shaut of the Governor's Office of Employee Relations.
They will deny that the meeting took place. I expressed concern over
the "lifestyle investigations" conducted against employees, including
myself. These involved stalking, spying at work and at home, and
burglary. Mr. Shaut, whom I had seen months earlier in my next-door
neighbor's backyard apparently talking about me and my personal
habits, menacingly voiced his intention to launch a probe of my
fitness for duty. Thus began a relentless campaign of psychiatric
discreditation that continues to this day. While trying to make me
crazy by terrorizing me, New York State officials and their associates
have sought to convince others that I am out of contact with reality
and should not be taken seriously. This is similar to much-condemned
practices that took place in the Soviet Union (see "When Justice is
Just Another Form of Insanity: Case Histories in Soviet Psychiatry,"
New York Times, January 24, 1988).
7. I eventually filed an Improper Practice Charge under New York
State's Taylor Law, Case Number U-10571, submitted on December 17,
1988 to the New York State Public Employment Relations Board. The
complaint received highly irregular treatment. My charges were
arbitrarily dismissed without a hearing, in violation of the Board's
own Rules of Procedure. The Board then denied my appeal, also without
a hearing. My Brief In Support of Charges, dated May 10, 1989, and my
Brief In Support of Exceptions, dated June 5, 1989, clearly delineate
this eccentricity of process and set forth my arguments and observations.
8. The Special State Prosecutor was mandated by law to prosecute
cases of corruption within the Criminal Justice System. I wrote ten
letters to this office, the first to Special Prosecutor Thomas Duffy,
the second and third to his successor William Dowling, and the rest to
his successor Charles J. Hynes. The Special Prosecutor's office no
longer exists. Mr. Hynes is presently the Brooklyn District Attorney.
On to Part 2
Part 2
I consulted in October, 1985 with Sanford Oxfeld, Esq., whose father,
Emil Oxfeld, was then President of ACLU of NJ. At work on October 16,
someone spoke the name Oxfeld just outside my office. Nancy Iris
Oxfeld and Barry Aisenstock, law partners, were paged several times on
the public address system. In the office adjacent to mine, a male
voice using the telephone complained that he couldn't handle
something. "I'm up to my ears in ACLU work. Maybe we should have Mark
handle it" (possibly a reference to law partner Mark Blunda, Esq.). In
another call, he pleaded with someone else to take the case. "Somebody
broke into his car," he said. In all of this, no-one saw fit to speak
to me, the plaintiff. At five o'clock, however, the security guard at
the reception desk nudged a companion, nodded in my direction, and
said: "He brought his lawyer to work with him."
Sanford Oxfeld's letter to me dated that same day, October 16, 1985
[scan], told me, essentially, that he was too busy to take my case. He
offered to refer me to Michael Shen, Esq. [scan]. Mr. Shen, the only
private lawyer that ever expressed willingness to represent me,
stopped returning my phone calls shortly after my employers learned
his name [scan]. When I finally got in touch with him, he insulted me.
I relieved him of responsibility [scan]. My former employers and their
associates can "reach" just about anyone with their intimidative
tactics and their slanderous cock-and-bull stories.
New York's Center for Constitutional Rights gained fame largely
through the work of its most illustrious officer, the late William
Kunstler. My letter to the Center on August 10, 1986 asked for help in
finding legal counsel. I supplied some documentation and stated: "In
brief, the State of New York is committing crimes against its own
employees, involving itself in gross violations of
Constitutionally-guaranteed rights and of federal, state, and
municipal statutes, enjoying, in the process, the active cooperation
of government at all levels, including law-enforcement and
intelligence-gathering agencies."
Associate Legal Director Randolph Scott-McLaughlin responded on August
21 that, "due to understaffing and CCR's present financial situation,
we are unable to provide legal representation to the many people who
write to us." He suggested contacting New York ACLU [scan].
I wrote back to Mr. Scott-McLaughlin on August 23, informing him of
the "royal run-around" that ACLU had inflicted on me the year before,
stressing that the CIA was involved and that persons at my workplace
were exerting influence to prevent me from obtaining legal counsel. He
wrote on August 28, 1986: "Please be advised that I do not know of any
lawyer in New Jersey that I can refer you to. Please contact the New
Jersey Bar Association for a referral [scan]." In other words, get lost.
The program of defamation and intimidation intensified, with an
increase in illegal break-ins, on-the-road harassment, and "set-ups"
designed to provide falsified "evidence" to be used against me in
secret, non-adversarial "evaluations" that would brand me as crazy or
criminal. The New York State Special Prosecutor, Charles J. Hynes,
would not acknowledge my letters or take any action. The US Attorney's
Office for the Southern District of New York, then headed by Rudolph
Giuliani, likewise refused to take action.
On the afternoon of September 9, 1987, my dog Storm cried out from the
area behind our backyard shed, near the fence separating our property
from the neighbors' yard. By the time he reached the patio, we could
see a gash in his chest that spurted blood when he exhaled. My wife
brought him to the veterinarian's office, where his punctured lung
proved fatal. Everyone, including my wife and the vet, described it as
an accident. I saw the wound. It was no accident. Having conspired for
months to "set up" my dog and me, persons associated with my employers
had viciously stabbed him.
With this ghastly act of terrorism -- not the only such crime
committed that autumn in Iselin, New Jersey (9) -- there commenced a
horror that is difficult to describe and not likely to be believed.
The terrible technology predicted in Gary Selden's October, 1981
Science Digest article "Machines That Read Minds" had, indeed, become
a reality (10).
On October 24, 1990, President George H.W. Bush's White House
spokesman Marlin Fitzwater discussed Republicans who had opposed the
President's policies, threatening: "If they can sleep with their
conscience, let them try." He cautioned that while they were free to
"say whatever they want," penalties might ensue, "but we never discuss
it in public." He suggested that they would "suffer in their private
purgatories." Pressed for an explanation, he responded: "I can't tell
you. If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise (11)."
Mr. Fitzwater later denied that actual retribution would occur, but he
never did explain what a "private purgatory" is or by what means
President Bush's critics would be thrust into it. His listeners never
learned how someone acting according to the dictates of conscience
would then find his sleep disturbed by the very conscience he had
obeyed. The President's own spokesman had obviously leveled a threat
that day, but its precise nature remained a mystery.
Marlin Fitzwater's cryptic comments were no mystery to me, and the
"surprise" of his "private purgatories" had long since worn off. You
see, I had already spent more than three years in a "private
purgatory." It consists of electromagnetic brain-invasion and mental
torture. In addition to other forms of cruel, inhuman, degrading
treatment, it involves the use of sophisticated electromagnetic
devices that violate the privacy and dignity of a victim's mind and
body, as well as "directed energy" broadcast techniques that force the
victim to hear inhuman, repulsive professional mental torturers from
whom he cannot escape (12). This virtual demonic possession is the
hell on earth that I have known ever since my torturers softened me up
by killing my dog in 1987. It is not a paranoid delusion. It is real.
On November 15, 1987, about three weeks before realizing the source of
the "voices" that assailed me -- and not yet willing to mention them
-- I wrote to the publishers of Mother Jones magazine, suggesting that
the "corrupt obstruction of those societal mechanisms that are
supposed to prevent and correct" rights violations might be of
interest to one of MJ's investigative reporters. My letter was
"Returned to sender. Forwarding order expired." I re-mailed it on
December 23 to the correct address.
The result was a postcard dated January 12, 1988 from Jo Ann Cabello,
Editorial Coordinator [scan]. Ms. Cabello wrote: "Thank you for
thinking of Mother Jones and sending us your extensive documentation
of your case. After careful review, I regret that there is little we
can do to help at this time. We hope the other organizations you've
contacted can be of more help and we wish you luck with your case." I
surreptitiously sent Mother Jones several items in the following
months enclosed in subscription-renewal envelopes, and followed up
with a certified letter on June 4, 1988 disclosing the existence of
brain-invasion technology, but there was never any response.
As a member of Amnesty International USA, I wrote a letter to the New
York office on December 8, 1987, stressing that I was not asking for
material assistance or advocacy, but only bearing witness: "My
experience, however, sheds light on the extent to which Constitutional
guarantees of human liberty may with impunity be circumvented in this
nation, at this time. The documented failure, in my experience, of all
those checks and safeguards that are supposed to prevent arrogant
abuse of public power provides an evil omen that society ought not
ignore."
My follow-up phone call on December 14 was switched from extension to
extension. No one would confirm receipt of my letter. Staff were, by
turns, impatient and patronizing. For months, no response was
forthcoming. Finally, on April 18, 1988, I hand-delivered another
copy, with accompanying materials, to the New York office. Then came
Marika Brussel's response, dated April 14, 1988 [scan], which
explained AIUSA's mandate and said: "Unfortunately, your situation
does not fall within this mandate and therefore there is nothing
Amnesty can do. You may wish to contact the American Psychological
Association as they deal primarily with psychological abuse."
Note, please, the presumption of self-interest. Despite my best
efforts at presenting the issue objectively, others all-too-frequently
choose to perceive me as a pitiful supplicant, begging for mercy and
assistance. I am, to be sure, the victim of a kind of torture few
could begin to understand, in need of help and relief from suffering
and indescribable indignity, but I am also a whistleblower. My letters
consistently stress that my primary objective is to inform, to advise,
to warn, to admonish. There is nothing wrong with begging for help
under torture, but to presume that I have no other purpose is to add
insult to injury.
Should society, moreover, become aware of the reality of
round-the-clock "internal surveillance," such treatment will, indeed,
be seen to constitute a form of imprisonment. What loss of liberty is
greater than the lack of mental privacy? Something from which one
cannot escape is a prison, is it not? Anyone enduring cruel, inhuman,
degrading treatment from which no escape is possible must be
considered a prisoner. Were Amnesty International to acknowledge this
reality, there would be no excuse for refusing assistance to its
victims. In any event, a callous response that says "That's not my
department" to complaints of torture is, in my opinion, unjustifiable.
Notes
9. It started, apparently, with the torture and death of a cocker
spaniel on or before July 23, 1987, blamed on me in order to control
people with revenge fantasies. I believe, but cannot prove, that the
same criminals also tortured several other dogs in my community,
apparently to terrorize myself and others in what MBDSO Director of
Education and Training Rocco Menta described as a "Mafia operation in
New Jersey." Many persons knew, but kept quiet about it. The
authorities did nothing. The coverup was, and is, total.
10. See John St. Clair Akwei, "Covert Operations of the US National
Security Agency," Nexus, Volume 3, Number 3 (April-May, 1996), p. 17.
This link leads to the text. I have experienced everything Mr. Akwei
describes, and more. The mind-reading technology appears to have
developed from Robert G. Malech's 1976 device for the remote detection
of brainwaves (US Patent Number 3,951,134).
11. Associated Press, Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ, Thursday, October 25,
1990, p. 13.
12. Broadcasting intelligible speech into the human brain was
possible as far back as 1974. See Dr. Don R. Justesen, "Microwaves and
Behavior," American Psychologist, Journal of the American
Psychological Association, Volume 30, Number 3 (March 1975) for a
report of Dr. Joseph C. Sharp's achievements.
On to Part 3
