Porter takes
Eachus-FBI
issue
to
national
prosecutor
By SCOTT SPITTAL
Of The Emerald
Ron Eachus may never be called before a
Senate investigative committee, but the release of
an FBI file concerning him to a local broadcaster
may bring a whiff of the Watergate-political
espionage stench to Eugene.
The leak of Eachus’ file to former Eugene
Broadcaster Ray Camay of KPNW (Camay now
edits the Valley News) prompted former
Congressman Charles Porter to write to an old
friend and classmate, the special investigator for
election mispractices (Watergate), Archibald Cox.
Porter brandished the reply Thursday at the
Demo Forum.
He said Cox promised to have his staff in
vestigate the matter, and if the results warrant,
perhaps bring criminal charges. “There may be a
prosecution by Mr. Sidney Lezak (the U.S. Attorney
for Oregon),” said Porter.
The file on Eachus, former Emerald editor and
ASUO president, was compiled by the FBI in con
junction with Eachus’ 1969 trip to Hand with a
radical peace group.
An FBI agent gave the file to Camay during a
period in 1969 when Camay was broadcasting
editorials against Eachus’ actions and the peace
movement in general.
Subsequently, the file found its way into the
hands of the Emerald, which reported the existence
of the file this April.
Porter said he had also talked to Sen. Dan
Inouye (D - Hawaii) and that Rep. Phil Burton (D -
Ca) is querying the FBI as to whether it is common
policy for an FBI agent acting on his own to release
a file to a newsman.
Porter called the release of the file “regret
table-we should go after it in court” and stated he 1
knew of only one other similar incident — J. Edgar I
Hoover’s leak to Southern newspapers of a dossier |
on Martin Luther King’s sex life.
Porter made his remarks in the context of a
rambling talk he delivered on how he believes
America is “proceeding down the road to a police .
state.”
He said that the recent developments about
Watergate only serve to underline the growing
danger of mushrooming executive power. He cited
presidential impoundment of funds, the bombing of
Cambodia against the express wishes of Congress,
and Nixon’s “misuse of secret police” as the “most
fearsome aspects in the development of a police
state.”
He also cited “lack of public disclosures” and
the present system of campaign funding as in
dicators of what he believes is an American
government trend towards a police state. Porter
spoke following the news of Cox’s intention to
consider filing extortion charges against the
Committee to Re-Elect the President.
Blaming the trend on an increasing sense of
moral decay in the higher levels of government,
Porter said “It’s a small step from cover-ups,
burglaries, buggings, preventive detention and
political espionage to where the government will
knock on someone’s door in the middle of the night
and march him away.”
“If you can justify one, you can justify the
other.”
Photo bv Phil Waldstein
Ron Eachus
According to Ben Holman,
director, the Community
Relations Service (CRS) is an
unusual organization . “There is
no agency in Washington that
operates exactly like ours,” he
says.
Holman recently gave this
account of the role of the CRS.
The CRS is a government
agency with a social goal. It
operates out of the Justice
Department. Four out of five of
the organization.'s top officials
are from minority groups.
Developed nine years ago as a
result of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
the CRS is an organization
created to help control racial
tensions and reduce
discrimination on the basis of
race, color or national origin
(not, however, on the basis of
sex). It deals with ap
proximately 200 racial conflicts
each year.
The organization is a simple
one, according to Holman.
“There simply isn’t any red
tape” he says. Problems brought
to the CRS offices by mail or by
phone are responded to im
mediately.
The CRS relies heavily on the
use of both mediation and con
ciliation. Conciliation is mainly a
temporary measure to reduce the
tensions of the situation, while
mediation is more permanent.
When CRS members hear of a
situa t ion or conflict in which they
might want to intervene, such as
a prison riot, a case of a
policeman shooting a Black
man, school desegregation
problems, they first assess the
situation. They determine the
magnitude of the crisis, and
whether the grievance is long
standing or the result of a par
ticular event or series of events.
They determine which law
enforcement agencies are in
volved and how the local officials
are reacting to the situation.
They examine the lines of
communication between the
adversaries in the conflict and
determine what demands, if any,
are being made. From there,
they attempt to determine
whether the difficulties are those
which CRS is authorized to deal
with and if they can be helped by
CRS, whether the resources are
available to solve the problem,
whether an agreement once
made, can be implemented.
Also, if mediation is used, the
CRS attempts to discover
whether onflicting parties will
negotiating parties to agree to
predetermined conditions of
negotiation and to put the results
of the negotiations in writing.
CRS tries to set up mechanisms
to avoid new conflict.
Although the CRS does not have
enforcing or policing power, it
can refer cases of discrimination
to other branches of the govern
ment. Some of the negotiations
too, can be self-enforcing. Prison
officials who break the terms of
met with schools to form a school
contingency plan. It set up a
citizen’s information center to
help parents who were
frightened or threatened or
simply uninformed about the
situation.
CRS encouraged clergymen to
make their resources available;
it aranged for workshops to
prepare teachers to deal with the
problems that the switch would
provide. The organization’s
CRS: an unknown federal agency
that cools off domestic hot spots
By Gale Rohde of the Emerald
accept them as mediators and
whether the parties will keep an
agreement, once they make it.
Mediators share
negotiations, clarify the issues,
and act as a third party in
termediary between the con
flicting parties. They arrange
meetings among adversaries,
help to list - the resources
available to solve the problem,
consult with and advise the law
enforcement agencies with an
eye to reducing violence.
The CHS intervenes in and
constructively redirects the
discussions, clarifies and helps
everyone to understand the
nature of the conflict. CRS also
helps the conflicting parties with
self-policing and internal
discipline.
The CRS tries to get the
their agreement risk having a
riot on their hands.
Holman gave two examples of
actual cases in which the CRS
was involved. One was on the
tension in Prince Georges County
as a result of a court decision to
desegregate the schools. Another
was the Wounded Knee situation.
Prince Georges County,
Holman said, has had a history of
racial violence. When the
decision to desegregate the
schools came out, there seemed
to be a great probability of
violence. CRS set up a con
ciliation task force. It developed
a county-wide contingency plan
to coordinating the groups and
agencies involved. It met with
the leaders of both sides in order
to find ways to avoid violence. It
workers acted as observers and
monitors of the situation. In this
way, the probability of a violent
situation was decreased.
On February 27, about 250
Indians, many of them members
of AIM, the American Indian
Movement, occupied Wounded
Knee, S.D. They demanded a
change in their tribal govern
ment, as well as complaining
about treaty violat ions and
corruption in the Bureau of In
dian Affairs (BIA). TheCRShad
50 people there and were often,
according to Holman, the only
commuication link between the
opposing forces. The 50 CRS
members policed cease fire
agree'ment, clarified grievances
and ser.cd as intermediaries in
channeling food supplies. CRS
officials acted as escorts in and
out of Wounded Knee for various
people. And it was finally the
CRS to whom the Indians agreed
to surrender their arms.
It was a complicated operation
because there were so many
conflicting sides. There were
three sets of blockades. The CRS
had to deal with Richard Wilson,
the official tribal chief, the FBI
and marshalls and the AIM
forces.
Richard Wilson had threatened
to kill the first CRS official that
appeared on the scene and
refused to let anyone but FBI
members through his blockade.
The job of the FBI was prin
cipally to uphold law and order
and not necessarily to avoid
violence. AIM members were
very careful about whom they
would let behind their lines. They
wouldn’t let anyone in unless they
knew them personally or unless
they were certified by CRS.
Although AIM occupied the Wou
nded Knee area for more than 70
days before they surrendered
their arms, Holman popnted out
that only two people lost their
lives.
Very few people seem to have
heard of CRS. Holman says that
CRS didn’t really want to be well
known. CRS people were afraid
that if their viewpoint were
known their effectiveness with
people of different beliefs would
be impaired.
Now, however, due to a
threatened cutback in funds,
proposed by the President and
already passed by the House, the
CRS has decided to change its
policy. CRS is threatened with
having its staff of 341 cut down to
103. Out of 42 field officers, only
10 will remain. The 6.8 million
dollar budget will be cut to 2.8
million doll ars.
The CRS members seem to
hope that if the organizations
function and its actioras become
better publicized, people will
recognize its worth and seek to
maintain it.