Provocation à la FBI
O., D.
LET US INTRODUCE to our readers a fascinating character—Prince Crazy, also known by his more mundane name of George Demmerle. Prince Crazy, tottering into the advanced age of 39, was known...
...The answer is this: between the submission to the printer of the last piece of copy for a given issue and its appearance in print there is approximately a month...
...June 3, 1970...
...We try to write it with an eye toward larger issues, so that it won't depend on a passing event...
...It may have been the prospect of his testimony that led the other defendants to enter a plea of guilty...
...Wherever the talk went far and fierce about the need for bombs and burnings, there Prince Crazy stood out for his "revolutionary" boldness...
...When will the more serious people on the New Left learn that if someone starts shouting for bullets and blood he is as likely to be a secret agent as a sincere nut...
...Prince Crazy, tottering into the advanced age of 39, was known as a "character" in New Left, hippie, and East Village circles...
...Given the condition of the mails these days, it may take another week or even two before you see the magazine...
...A damage suit by the Bank of America against the FBI: that would be something to look forward to...
...Some of you have asked why we sometimes fail to comment on an event that occurs during the month an issue of DISSENT appears, or why a comment we do print is sometimes dated...
...He gained the confidence of far-left groups, he reports, by the simple expedient of imitating the antics of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin...
...everyone, these days, is supposed to do his own thing...
...The young people with whom he associated thought him somewhat strange but still...
...And if, in the course of developing revolutionary strategy with the Weathermen and other groups, he picked up a few personal pleasures—well, even a police agent is made of blood and flesh, isn't he...
...June 3, 1970 When a group of four people, including Sam Melville and Jane Alpert, was arrested several months ago on charges of bomb-throwing, Prince Crazy, as you might expect, was one of them...
...Soon, however, it became clear that he was not going to have to rot in jail, like Melville, or flee the country, like Alpert...
...Interviewed in the New York Post, May 25, 1970, Prince Crazy described his activities as COMMENTS AND OPINIONS spying—and about the picture he gives of the political circles in which he distinguished himself— one doesn't know whether to cry or to laugh...
...LET US INTRODUCE to our readers a fascinating character—Prince Crazy, also known by his more mundane name of George Demmerle...
...No one could outdo him in his verbal readiness to smite the Establishment with fire and sword...
...For he was an FBI agent who, with his loose mouth, had helped entrap desperate people with loose minds...
...Last year a group of "crazies" tried to break up a banquet held by the League for Industrial Democracy, and one of the most active figures in this attempt was the Prince...
...He understood, you see, the necessity for striking a blow at the liberals and social democrats...
...Sometimes that works, sometimes not...
...As a result our topical comment may be dated...
...In the old days, an FBI man in the Communist party had at least to pay dues and perform some party chores...
...And might not institutions that have suffered damage from recent riots consider the possibility that they were provoked by police agents...
...But there's one aspect of this sordid story that strikes us as particularly interesting...
...From now on, we will date all items in "Comments and Opinions," so that readers will be reminded of these facts.—ED...
...Which leads to some interesting questions: How many other acts of violence and disruption, undertaken by far-out elements of the New Left, were in fact provoked by agents of the FBI or the police...
Vol. 17 • July 1970 • No. 4
