(4 of 6)
THE CHICANO LIBERATION FRONT. With at least 15 hardcore members, the group apparently is centered in the barrios of Los Angeles. Last year a message purportedly from the front claimed responsibility for the slaying of Police Chief William Cann of Union City, Cal., but a subsequent communique denied it. This year the group said that it was behind the bombing of four buildings on the night of March 10 in San Jose and the San Francisco area.
TRIBAL THUMB. With 25 members, predominantly men, the group is centered in Palo Alto. Its leader is Earl Satcher, a reputed black karate expert and ex-con with an 18-year criminal record. When some members were arrested for parole violations recently, they were found to have quantities of revolutionary tracts. But one member said that the pamphlets were for show; he asserted that the organization sought money from radicals but actually is chiefly interested in nonrevolutionary crime.
BLACK GUERRILLA FAMILY. An offshoot of the terrorist Black Liberation Army, the family has several hundred members inside California prisons. After being released, some former family members have gravitated to other underground radical groups but have found the transition difficult. Explains a state law official: "They often bristle at the notion that the leadership is likely to be female. Some of them just can't hack it and move out of the radical scene."
The underground life is austere and squalid. Using phony names, many hard-core radicals collect welfare payments and food stamps. Their time is largely spent shoplifting food and other necessities, stealing purses, cashing forged checks, searching for new hideouts and plotting. "It's a tough, dirty life," says Larry D. Grathwohl, 27, a San Francisco area resident who is the only FBI informant known to have successfully penetrated the Weather Underground. Although his experiences took place from November 1969 until April 1970, law officials believe that they still accurately reflect underground life in California and elsewhere. Last week TIME Correspondent John Austin interviewed Grathwohl. His report:
hile living in Cincinnati, Grathwohl was recruited after a chance meeting with two Weatherpeople. He was just the type of person that the organization, which was overloaded with upper middle class members, wanted to recruit. His background was working class, and the recruiters wrongly believed that he had become a munitions expert during four years in the Army.
During the next six months, he met many of the radical organization's top members. He recalls one memorable strategy session in Flint, Mich., when Bernardine Dohrn exulted over the grisly details of the murders committed by the Manson family. At one point, she exclaimed: "Not only did they kill those pigs, they shoved a fork in [Sharon] Tate's stomach and then sat down and ate dinner there." Dohrn's details were wrong—it was Leno LaBianca who was stabbed with a fork—but her enthusiasm was catching. Says Grathwohl: "For the next several days, we all went around giving a sign of three fingers extended. It was to symbolize the fork."