Spies Bragging About Their Infiltration
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

“MR. WEINGLASS: Do you remember Jerry Rubin talking about the oppression of black people in America?
BOB PIERSON: I think he did make reference to that, yes, sir.
MR. WEINGLASS: Do you remember Jerry Rubin saying these words: "We're not interested in protecting the privileges of the white race because white people in this country have been oppressing blacks for the past hundreds of years, and we're a white generation that says finally, 'No, you're not going to continue.' If the cops are going to beat on blacks, they're going to beat on us, too." Do you recall Jerry Rubin saying words to that effect?
BOB PIERSON: In essence, sir, yes, sir.” – Transcript from the Chicago 7/8 Trial

In Jerry Rubin’s classic book, “Do It!,” published in 1970, Chapter 31 talks about a “bodyguard” for Rubin, whose name is Bob Pierson. This bodyguard turned out to be a state spy, and bragged about his infiltration later with exaggerated sensationalism in the press. Jerry Rubin was involved with the yippie side of the Chicago Democratic Convention protests of 1968, which is how Bob got assigned to Rubin. With the current unabashed return of Hoover-esque, unregulated, FBI spying activity on Americans, looking back 35 years to the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, shows us not much has changed.

The five page chapter on Rubin’s “pig” as he calls Bob, starts with Rubin being introduced to Bob by a tall woman named Sunny, who “had tattoos on her arms and legs.” Rubin describes Bob as wearing “a black leather jacket, black t-shirt, black vest, boots, black helmet, sunglasses and a two-day beard.” In the court testimony at the Chicago 7/8 Trial, (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/Pi...), Pierson says he bought “the attire of a motorcycle gang member” for infiltration purposes. The court testimony has Bob saying he hung out with the Headhunter cycle group for a few days, and then Sunny, a woman biker, led him to the yippies and Rubin. The court records also show a protection of every question asking if Sunny knew Bob was a cop. Rubin says Sunny and Bob bought him ice cream. And over time Bob started telling Rubin to “eat and sleep well.” Rubin complained he was like “a Jewish mother.”

Bob would later recount this period of his life to the press; Jerry quotes Bob as saying, “By that time, it had been several days since I’d had a bath, and the stench alone was enough to put me in solid with the demonstrators.” Bob further expounded on his spying techniques; “I arranged with my police contact to leave notes in the men’s room in Lincoln Park, because many of the yippies don’t bother to use toilets, but dispose of their human waste out in the open.” Sounds like the trash talk we hear the feds saying about anarchists nowadays. The police talked about hippies in the 1960-70’s almost in the exact same terms that they talk about anarchists and environmentalists today in 2000. With disgust and inflammatory generalizations.

Rubin recalls one night during the summer of 1968, in Lincoln Park, when the police shot tear gas into a crowd of protesters, and “Bob zoomed out of there like a scared mutherfucker.” Rubin then goes on to tell a frightening tale of how he was walking down the street at around 10 PM from a protest area and a car pulled up, and 4 men jumped out. They grabbed Rubin by the hair, and forced him into an unmarked car and took off. Rubin says they said, “We’re going to put you in a bag and drop you in the river, Rubin. Whenever you’re on the streets, Rubin, there’s trouble.” Rubin recounts, “One porker radioed: “We got Jerry Rubin.” They took me to pig headquarters. A small room…those overweight dudes who hang around the fringes of demonstrations with cameras and tiny tape recorders, sport shirts falling over their pants to conceal their guns. They try to act real chummy to us (“Hi, Tom! How you doing, Martin!”) while they collect dossiers and plot our destruction. They shouted questions at me: “Who won, Jerry? Who won?” :You guys ever take baths?””You each have your own girl friends or do you sleep with each other’s?”…”Why not get your guns and fight it out now? We’re ready.” “You communicate with the Chinese commies?””

Jerry recalls after all these questions, they accused him of causing the Chicago riots, and he said he could not have caused the riots because he did not know enough people for that. Jerry recalls the police asking him, “How many people do you know?” Jerry replied, “124.” And the cop said, “It shoulda been 123.” Jerry then recalls cops pouring into the room to watch, he says about 30 were in the room watching. Then, out of nowhere, in walks Bob! But now Bob was “slick-haired, clean shaven, dressed in a suit.” A few hours later, Jerry Rubin was charged with a felony, “solicitation to commit mob action,” and jailed on $25,000 bail, based on Bob Pierson’s testimony!

And reading Bob’s account of his spying adventures with the yippies, you can see that this guy fell for every spoof thing the yippies threw at him. It reminds me of snipe hunting as kids! When I was a teen in the 1970’s, the Los Angeles police came to our school and gave us these ridiculous comic books entitled, “Users Are Losers” about how pot would ruin your life. When we looked inside, the names the police said “kids” used for pot were insane. So insane, that the stoners at my school started referring to pot by the insane names the cops said people use, as they were so funny. I remember kids at my high school thinking that stoned kids were arrested and asked by cops, “What names do you call pot?” and the stoned kids would think up the craziest stuff and tell it to cops, who would write it down as fact. Kids at my school began referring to pot as “bobo bush” after reading the “Users Are Losers” comic book, for instance. I remember “got any lettuce?” was another one. So, it is not surprising to me that spies have not only gotten things wrong in the past regarding cultures they know nothing about and cannot tell therefore, when they are being played with, and that same type of cultural misconception is happening now with the gross mischaracterizations of environmental activists and anarchists in America.

So, with that context, read what “Do It” quotes Bob Pierson saying to the press about the protest culture he spied on in Chicago 1968: “I saw yippie leaders stuffing narcotics into cream-filled cookies to be fed to demonstrators when they confronted the police. I didn’t even know what the drug was, but I was told that it would give the young people the kind of jolt that would make them ferocious when they fought the pigs.”

The day after Rubin’s arrest, the Chicago Tribune headline was, “How Cop Spied on the Yippies: Unshaven, Unbathed, He Infiltrated Top Ranks to Gain Secrets, Made Bodyguard and Chieftan.” Rubin recalls shortly thereafter, “The New York Daily News revealed that Bob copped my “secret dairy” and “turned it over to his superiors.” Then came, “Bob’s own sensational fantasy,” as Rubin calls it, in the December 1968 issue of “Official Detective” Magazine. This article in Official Detective Magazine came up in the testimony at the Chicago 7/8 trial and in court, Bob claims the editors misquoted him. Bob is quoted further as saying in print, “If these were children, where were their parents? Why weren’t they at home, instead of in a far-off city with the avowed purpose of stirring up trouble?” I can only respond with my own feelings about this. Right, Bob…since these kids were not home, they should be beaten and assaulted with chemicals by rogue police in this far-off American city. Bob went on to brag of how he “joined in with the chants and taunts against the police” and how he “taunted the police into hitting (him) with their clubs” to try to gain street cred.

Jerry finally sums up this spying bodyguard episode in the end of the chapter: “An undercover cop is some trip! To glorify his own fantasy, he glorifies the people he spies on and makes us 1,000 feet tall. Pierson turned us all into Superfreeks.” Rubin says Bob exaggerated the yippies’ powers, saying they were capable of doing grander crimes than all of the “regular freeks” put together. Much as today, the crazy stories of conspiracy the FBI are making, using words like “calls” to describe friends, “aliases” to describe pen names, and “eco-terrorism” to describe nonviolent civil disobedience where no one is killed, is very similar to the mind set we see in Bob Pierson 35 years prior. Rubin ends the chapter with: “If there is ever a Hollywood movie about the yippies, Bob Pierson should write the screenplay. Big Bob is a yippie. He takes his fantasies for reality.”