[Ppnews] Fred Ho Refutes Claim that Richard Aoki was an FBI Informant

[Political Prisoner News]

FRED HO REFUTES THE CLAIM THAT RICHARD AOKI WAS AN FBI INFORMANT August 
21, 2012

I knew Richard Aoki from the period of the late 1990s to the end of his 
life in 2009. Prior to the publication of Diane Fujino's book, /SAMURAI 
AMONG PANTHERS/ (University of Minnesota Press), I probably was the main 
person who had published the most about Aoki (c.f., /Legacy to 
Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific 
America/, AK Press).


  In fact, Richard Aoki and I spoke on the telephone a day or two

before he killed himself. During the Spring of 2009 we were in regular 
contact via telephone (as he was in the Bay Area and I in New York City) 
as I had undergone another surgery in the cancer war I have been 
fighting since 2006, and he was facing major illness and deterioration, 
hospitalized during this time. Richard regularly contacted me as he was 
very concerned about my dying, and I was concerned for him as well.

We had a very special relationship that allows me to easily, comfortably 
and assertively rebut the claims made by the two proponents of the 
accusation that Richard Aoki was an FBI informant.

What was our special relationship? Richard was exasperated at how 
creative, revolutionary ideology had seriously waned, both from Panther 
veterans and from the younger generation stuck in the Non-Profit 
Industrial Complex mode of organization and their "activistism" (or what 
I humorously proffer as "activistitis", the political tendency to be 
tremendously busy with activism but failing to have a revolutionary 
vision guide and dominate that activism). As Fujino remarks, Aoki viewed 
me as someone with creative revolutionary ideology and he sought me out 
and we shared many discussions and a special closeness. (Note: Aoki did 
not know the brilliant political prisoner, Russell Maroon Shoatz, 
someone who now at age 68, could go toe-to-toe ideologically with 
Richard Aoki!)

Why would an FBI agent do this, almost 50 years past the hoorah days of 
the Sixties? It is implied by the calumnious assertions by journalist 
Seth Rosenfeld (whose book is opportunistically coming out today: 
/Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicalism, and Reagan's Rise to 
Power/, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) that Aoki was probably still an agent 
even to the time of his death, though, like the rest of the "evidence" 
or assertions by Rosenfeld, never substantiated or clearly documented.

That is because Aoki NEVER was an agent, and unlike many of the 
prominent Panthers (notably Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton), remained a 
revolutionary for life and never degenerated into self-obsession and 
egomania. To the end of his life, Aoki could go toe-to-toe with any 
revolutionary intellectual, theorist or organizer on the complexities 
and challenges of revolutionary theory, including the U.S. "national 
question," socialism, etc.

Here is my rebuttal to Seth Rosenfeld and to former FBI agent Wes 
Swearingen, the two main proponents of the Aoki-was-an-FBI-agent claim.

1. The written FBI documents are very vague and much is redacted. The 
T-2 identification has Richard Aoki's middle name incorrectly listed. 
All other identities of other informants are redacted. Why? Why was only 
Aoki "revealed"? This is the only real factual evidence that Rosenfeld 
has to offer. The rest is supposition and surmise.

2. Scott Kurashige asserts in his contextualization and weak challenge 
to Rosenfeld that perhaps Aoki during the 1950s had agreed to be an FBI 
informant during a period in Aoki's life when he wasn't interested in 
politics or "communism." But that later, in the '60s, when Aoki, as so 
many of that generation got radicalized, that he couldn't admit to what 
he had done earlier as it would have cast huge aspersion and suspicion 
around him among the Panthers who were quick to be intolerant and 
unwilling to accept such past mistakes. However, Kurashige falls short 
here. Even if this were the case, that Richard had naively agreed to be 
an informant in his youth, prior to being radicalized, and couldn't 
admit to it later, what is impossible to reconcile is that the entire 50 
year arc of Richard's life and work has helped the Movement far more 
than hindered or harmed it.

3. If Richard was a FBI agent, how did he help the FBI? By training the 
Panthers in Marxist ideology, socialism? By leading drill classes at 7am 
daily and instilling iron-discipline in their ranks? By being one of the 
leaders to bring about Ethnic (Third World) Studies in the U.S.? Other 
questions that aren't answered by Rosenfeld: How much was Aoki paid if 
he was an agent? What did Aoki get out of it? How long was he an agent 
for? There is no evidence that Aoki sabotaged, foment divisions, incited 
violence, etc. The over-emphasis upon Aoki providing the Panthers their 
first firearms is sensationalist fodder. What is conveniently ignored is 
what he contributed most to the Panthers and to the legacy of the U.S. 
revolutionary movement: promoting revolutionary study, ideology and 
disciplined organization. That's why he was Field Marshall because the 
cat could organize and tolerated no indiscipline and lack of seriousness.

4. How does a FBI agent acquire the super-Jason Bourne-equivalent 
ideological skills to influence so many radicals both of the Sixties and 
continuously to his death, including myself? There is no Cliff Notes or 
Crash Course FBI Training Academy 101 on Revolutionary Ideology on the 
nuances of debates on "peaceful transition to socialism as revisionism", 
or "liberal multi-culturalism as the neo-colonialism within U.S. Third 
World communities," etc. You get the picture. Richard Aoki 
intellectually had the brilliance that surpassed any professor of 
radicalism at any university or college. Could a FBI agent really be 
this? We see from the FBI agent who helped in the assassination of Mark 
Clark and Fred Hampton, that he was paid around $200, that he was 
primarily head of security for the slain Panther leader Fred Hampton, 
and that he committed suicide ostensibly for the guilt that he had over 
his role in the murder of Hampton and Clark. There is no evidence of 
this for Aoki, in fact, Aoki remained a committed revolutionary to the end.

5. The supposed admission that Rosenfeld has on tape, shown on the link: 
http://californiawatch.org/public-safety/man-who-armed-black-panthers-was-fbi-informant-records-show-17634 
is typical Aoki humor in answering "Oh." The subtext, as Aoki knew he 
was talking to a reporter, is really: "Oh, you motherfucker, so that's 
what he said, well, stupid, then it must be true!" Rosenfeld notes that 
Aoki laughs (which is laughing AT Rosenfeld!). Anyone who really knew 
Richard Aoki knows that he used humor often to turn someone's stupid 
questions back at them, saying to the effect: well if you are stupid to 
think that, then it must be true for you!

6. The corroboration offered by former FBI agent, now turned squealer, 
Wes Swearingen, is not evidence. Swearingen only thinks that it is 
likely Aoki was an informer for the FBI because he was Japanese! How 
stupid! Would fierce black nationalists accept someone more easily 
because he was Japanese? If that were so, there would have been more 
Asians in the Panthers! Yes, Richard personally knew many of the 
founding Panther members, including Seale and Newton, precisely because 
these hardcore guys truly trusted Richard because Richard could do the 
do! Again, the question must be asked, what benefits did the FBI get 
from having Aoki as an informant to lend credibility to this assertion? 
At best, Swearingen can only offer speculation and surmise, as he can't 
testify that he actually KNEW Aoki to be an agent or witnessed FBI 
encounters with Aoki.

7. The one FBI agent who might have actually encountered Aoki, an agent 
named Threadgill, is now (conveniently) deceased, who claimed in 
mid-1965 he was Aoki's handler. We have no way of verifying this except 
relying upon Rosenfeld's claims. When Rosenfeld asked Aoki point blank 
if he knew this guy, Threadgill, Aoki flatly denies knowing such a 
person and jokes about it (again, in the Aoki style: "Oh, if that's what 
he claims, and you think it so, then it must be so, stupid!")

8. Lastly, what is to be gained by this accusation of Aoki as FBI 
informant, a day before Rosenfeld's book hits the bookstores? To sell 
books via this hype and sensationalism. Aoki did more to build the 
student movement in the Bay Area than many others. Let's ask the 
question, how much was Rosenfeld paid for his book deal? We should ask 
that same question about the late Manning Marable, whose 
supposition-filled and sloppy "scholarly" account of Malcolm X is 
equally reprehensible. Besides the obvious gain to Rosenfeld directly of 
hoping to increase book sales and his wallet, we must ask the larger 
political question, how does this accusation against the deceased Aoki 
affect the larger politics of today?

Well, here's how: it fuels doubt on so many levels to building radical 
politics, sowing dissension between Black nationalists and Asian 
American radicals, distrust of our revolutionary leaders of past and 
present, fear for the police-state and its power to extend itself into 
the core leadership of revolutionary movements, and as witnessed by 
Scott Kurashige's capitulation to the reformist politics of 
non-violence, to elevating Martin Luther King, Jr. above the Black 
Liberationists (Kurashige calls for a re-look and re-examination of MLK, 
implying this is safer and more amenable than the "violence" advocated 
by Aoki and the Panthers). And this is simply the tip of an iceberg 
building to stave off the growth of radicalism generated by the Occupy, 
eco-socialist and anti-globalization movements both in the U.S. and 
across the planet.

Here is the initial reaction by most people not cowered or shocked by 
Rosenfeld's accusations, who either personally knew Richard Aoki (as I 
did) or who are accustomed to or familiar with such "dirty tricks" as 
employed by Rosenfeld: If Aoki was an agent, so what? He surely was a 
piss-poor one because what he contributed to the Movement is enormously 
greater than anything he could have detracted or derailed. If it is 
implied that Aoki promoted firearms, and violence, to the Panthers, 
well, here's some news: the Panthers were well on that direction as part 
of the trajectory set by Malcolm X, Robert F. Williams, the Deacons of 
Defense (who the Panthers modeled themselves upon), Harriet Tubman, 
Geronimo, Tucemseh, Crazy Horse, and so many others.

And if you are gullible to believe these "dirty tricks" (which isn't 
surprising given how media hype today is so powerful and influential), 
and rely upon the internet instead of actual experience in struggle and 
revolutionary organizing, then you need to get real, get serious, and 
deal with counter-hegemonic consciousness-raising for yourself. But most 
of us who never were shocked by this accusation towards Richard simply 
took the attitude, PHUCK THEM (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux; Swearingen, 
Rosenfeld, and anyone who swallows this crap!)!

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20120821/373c1527/attachment.htm>