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<font face="Verdana" size=2><b>September 9, 2008 at 11:03:17<br><br>
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<a href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/COINTELPRO-memo-reveals-J-by-Michael-Richardson-080909-307.html">
COINTELPRO memo reveals J. Edgar Hoover gave order to withhold evidence
in 'Omaha Two' case</a><br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><i>by
<a href="http://www.opednews.com/author/author3874.html">Michael
Richardson</a> <br><br>
</i></font><font face="Verdana" size=1>
<a href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/COINTELPRO-memo-reveals-J-by-Michael-Richardson-080909-307.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.opednews.com/articles/COINTELPRO-memo-reveals-J-by-Michael-Richardson-080909-307.html<br>
<br>
<br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>J. Edgar Hoover,
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for forty-eight years,
was one of the most feared men in Washington, D.C. while he was alive
because of his extensive files into the private lives of the rich and the
famous and the powerful. Hoover was also feared because of his
violent responses to those he considered threats.
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>In the late 1960's,
Hoover declared a clandestine war on the Black Panthers and other
"black nationalist" groups as part of Operation
COINTELPRO. A secret directive dated August 25, 1967 both
authorized and mandated illegal harassment and targeting of domestic
groups and U.S. citizens deemed a racial or political threat by
Hoover.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>In Omaha, the war on
the Panthers was directed at a chapter of the party called the Nebraska
Committee to Combat Fascism headed by Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa
(then-David Rice). The attack on the two activists was personally
directed by Hoover and his inner circle at the top of the FBI command
structure.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Poindexter and Langa
had been targets of COINTELPRO for their leadership roles in the Black
Panther affiliate and were disliked by most local police for their sharp
criticism of the shooting death of 14 year-old Vivian Strong by police in
the summer of 1969. Both men further inflamed police hostility by
their repeated use of the word "pig" to describe police
officers.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>On August 17, 1970 at
2:07 a.m. a powerful blast killed patrolman Larry Minard and injured
seven others officers at a vacant house the police had been called to
investigate. While uniform officers ran a dragnet arresting dozens
of people in the hours and days following the bombing, the man in charge
of the investigation, Asst. Chief Glen W. Gates, was meeting with the FBI
to hatch a plot to convict Poindexter and Langa rather than find Minard's
actual killers, betraying his fallen fellow officer.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Two days after the
bombing, before Larry Minard's body was even buried, Hoover gave a
command to drop the search for Minard's killers and instead make a case
against the NCCF leaders, a plan agreed to by Gates. Hoover's
verbal directive to rig the investigation was recorded by Ivan W. Conrad,
the head of the FBI Laboratory, on a COINTELPRO memo issued the day of
the bombing. Conrad called Hoover to discuss the recommendation of
the Omaha Special-Agent-in-Charge that police be only provided an
informal, oral report on the lab's vocal analysis of the deadly phone
call rather than a full investigatory report.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>The voice of a killer,
whose identity was unknown, presented a problem to what was now a police
conspiracy. The headline in the <i>Omaha World-Herald </i> blared out
"Voiceprint in Bombing to FBI Lab". According to the
newspaper an Omaha Police spokesman said the voiceprint would be a
"good investigative tool" to identify the man who made the call
luring police to the deadly ambush.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Conrad, who apparently
understood the implications of not issuing a formal lab report, asked
Hoover about the Omaha SAC recommendation that, "an exception should
be made in this case in order to assist the Omaha Police in developing
investigative leads." The exception Conrad asked Hoover about
was, "The results of an examination will not be furnished directly
to the Police but orally conveyed through the SAC of Omaha."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Conrad scrawled on his
copy of the COINTELPRO memo, "Dir advised telephonically & said
OK to do" followed by his initials. Hoover gave approval to
withhold the FBI Laboratory analysis and the lab director was able to
keep the results permanently hidden. However, Conrad did keep up
his end of the plot and gave the results to the Omaha SAC who in turn
shared them with Gates. <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Ultimately, 15 year-old
Duane Peak confessed to planting the bomb that took Minard's life.
Peak also claimed he made the emergency call and that Ed Poindexter and
Mondo we Langa helped him build the bomb. Peak was offered a deal
and became the state's chief witness against the two Panther leaders in
exchange for a short sentence and his freedom. To keep the case
from unraveling it was necessary for Peak to have been the caller as he
claimed. However, there was one catch, the voice on the tape did
not sound like Duane Peak but rather that of an older man.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>On October 13, 1970,
the Omaha SAC sent a memo directly to Hoover: "Assistant COP GLENN
GATES, Omaha PD, advised that he feels that any use of this call might be
prejudicial to the police murder trial against two accomplices of PEAK
and, therefore, has advised that he wishes no use of this tape until
after the murder trials of PEAK and the two accomplices have been
completed."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Mondo we Langa says,
"This is pretty clear indication of cloak and dagger stuff. We
want you to do the analysis but we don't want you to put the results in
writing. Communicate to us this way. So I suspect that
somewhere between that memo and the prior one, the decision was made that
the tape would not be part of the trial. A vital issue, a critical
issue."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>The tape recording was
successfully kept from the defense and the jury that convicted Poindexter
and Langa never got to hear the voice that made the fatal call. The
original recording was destroyed several years after the trial and then
in 1980 a reel-to-reel copy of the tape was found, quietly made by a
dispatcher. In 2006, the recording was submitted to modern vocal
analysis. Expert Tom Owens determined the voice on the tape was not
that of Duane Peak, a conclusion apparently also reached by Conrad's
technicians at the FBI Laboratory back in 1970 when the tape was
withheld.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Peak served several
years of juvenile detention and then gained his freedom. The
unknown caller whose voice was captured on tape was never identified or
brought to justice. Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa are serving
life sentences at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary.
Both men deny any involvement in Minard's murder.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Poindexter has an
appeal pending before the Nebraska Supreme Court. Oral argument is
scheduled for October. No date for a decision has been
announced.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Michael Richardson is a freelance
writer based in Boston. Richardson writes about politics, election law,
human nutrition, ethics, and music. Richardson is also a political
consultant on ballot access.<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
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