That was impossible, because my position at the time, was that I 
was not going to work for any flag. He understood that and 
respected my point of view.

As it turned out R.G. was not Russian at all. He was a German. He 
was a young man during the second world war. Joined the Wermacht 
(German Army) or was drafted, I don't remember which and was sent 
to the Russian front. Just surviving there during the war being 
incredible. He was captured by the Russians and sent to a P.O.W. 
camp in Siberia. During this time his mom and dad sisters and most 
of his family were wiped out. They lived in Dresden, the night the 
allied forces firebombed it off the face of the map. Hundreds of 
thousands of innocent people were murdered by that bombing, 
including most of R.G.s family.

When the war ended in 1945 the cold war started. The Russians, 
Americans, British, French, and just about everybody else wanted 
to recruit spies to work for them. The KGB were looking for material 
in the German P.O.W. camps in Siberia. R.G. was picked up and sent to 
spy school. He was good with languages and quickly learned his job. His 
motivation was great. His hate of those who were responsible for the 
deaths of his entire family.

He came or rather was sent to the United States and successfully 
built up a cover as a small business man in oil. This gave him a good 
front. He infiltrated the F.B.I. and for years worked them for the 
Russians until he got caught and was sentenced to, in reality, a 
lifetime prison sentence.

One time when we were rather drunk. Oh yes, there is booze in prison 
also. R.G. said to me that he did not regret his life. He became a 
Communist because of his hate and his working class background. I 
had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Later on in life I would 
remember those words well. My sister came to visit me in exile in the 
seventies. She had married a jockey and had a house, furcoat, a 
diamond ring on her finger and two lovely children, whom she was 
sending to Catholic school. We drank a couple of bottles of wine 
and I asked her about this stuff. She said that                              


"bobby you remember how we had it when we were little. 
I am never going back to that"

This was my sisters answer to being poor. 

A bit selfish, however I understand it. She also said                        


"that she thought I was a fucking Communist, but your 
my brother and I love you".


However, back to R.G. R. G. and I did a spectacular action while we 
were at Lewisburg. Wepurposed publicly and to the United States 
government that we were prepared to exchange ourselves for two B-52 
pilots being held captive in North Vietnam! Alive or dead because 
we believed that the Vietnamese were correct in fighting for their 
independence. The United States government was a bit pissed off 
about that. We were in the newspapers with pictures and all. The 
official response to this purposal was that the government was         

"not prepared to exchange two hawks for doves"!                              


Oh well, we tried anyway. This probably was one of the reasons the 
government indicted me for conspiracy a couple of months later 
before my release from Lewisburg.

R.G. loved his family, families, he had two. One German and one 
in the United States. The American family was part of his cover, 
but he loved them just as well. Later on when underground on my way 
to exile in Sweden I went by the way of East Germany. Thus keeping a 
promise of delivering a message to R.G.s family. I remember very 
well crossing the border into the east and trying to explain my 
reasons to the guards. A helicopter ride more discussions,leaving 
a message only after another helicopter ride and futher discussions. 
Finally a free ticket and meals to the boat to Sweden. However that 
is another story. Besides if the Americans want to know about this 
stuff they can find it in the Stasi files. Ha, Ha,Ha!

Jimmy Hoffa...Occupation: leader of the powerful Teamsters Union...     
Serving time for tax evasion.

Jimmy Hoffa was a little man in size. Perhaps he had a Napoleon 
complex. But he was a powerful trade union leader loved by his 
members. He was accused of having connections with the Mafia, 
of being a gangster, and the Kennedy boys wanted to put him away 
forever. I had the privilege of eating dinner with Jimmy in Lewisburg 
one time along with his bodyguards. In our discussions one realised 
that Jimmy was a working class kid. He was tough and extremely angry 
for being put behind bars at the height of his career. I have not 
seen the film about Hoffa as of yet. I have however, two clear and 
lasting impressions about Jimmy who soon would disappear never to 
be found again.                                                              


The first incident was out in the prison yard one day. The prison 
yard is where we could exercise, play sports, or just walk around, 
all under the watchful eyes of the guards in the guntowers. All of 
a sudden Jimmy, who was walking out in the yard,  grabbing his balls 
in one hand and shaking his fist at    the sky with the other he 
screamed,     

"I am gonna grab America by the balls!".                                

I looked at Jimmy,s face. His face was a mixture of fear, rage and 
desperation. He was going crazy. He was at the top of his career, 
rich, powerful and in jail for a very longtime for the government. 
However the last was not to be.

Richard Nixon pardoned Jimmy Hoffa! 

He walked scott free!                   

My theory about this is that the government new very well that 
political activists in Lewisburg were trying to get Jimmy to join a 
anti-war coalition. Serious discussions were going on and the 
possibility of a coalition was a real threat to Tricky Dick. The 
consequences could have been devastating for the Nixon administration. 
There are other theories. That Hoffa made a deal which in reality 
mean,t selling out the union in the negations in exchange for 
freedom. Irregardless of all this, the fact is that Jimmy Hoffa 
made a deal! By doing this I believe that Jimmy betrayed the poor 
and working class people.                                  

I saw Jimmy leave prison.Soon after he disappeared. Some say the 
Mafia killed him. Others the government. Both had good reasons to 
see him out of the way. What does the reader think? Anyhow I don't 
know how the film about Jimmy Hoffa ends. But I personally have no 
tears for Hoffa. His deal with the government mean,t that poor and 
working class people would have to pay for his freedom. 

This brings to mind a man who slept in the bed next to mine. A 
chief in one of the powerful Mafia families. A man who I felt a 
great deal of respect for. A man who perhaps had a long line of 
crime in his background. But a man who I saw as a class conscious 
union man. He knew what it was like to be raised on the streets of 
New York City. He was smart, tough and fought, probably killed some 
people on his way to the top. But one thing you never did was make 
deals with the government.            

He fought the scabs as a kid.

He new that the government was no friend of the working man.

There was a big difference in the Mafia back in those days. There 
were the guys who were raised on the streets and the docks. There 
were the guys like Myer Lansky who wanted to become more respectable. 
Casino,s politics and all that. Cuba is a perfect example of the Mafia 
division at this time. On the one hand people allied with Batiste 
and the casinos, on the other those who were running guns to Castro 
in the mountains. This was a blood line! and a class line. My friend 
represented those who supported Castro. Jimmy Hoffa crossed that 
line in making a deal with Nixon. But as to who killed him. Who 
knows, both the government and the Mafia had very good reasons.

Then there was the big conspiracy case against Phil Berrigan the 
Catholic priest and others. They were charged with conspiracy to bomb 
the White House and take out the B-52,s on Guam. This case was built 
up by the F.B.I. with an informer named Boyd Douglas sent into the 
prison to get the goods on people.                                           


Anyhow the government claimed that numerous people sitting in 
Lewisburg along with people on the outside were planning all this 
stuff. I remember well the charges coming down. It caused quite alot 
of discussions and planning. I won't delve into to this stuff to 
deeply, because many of the participants in this drama are alive and 
well today. Unlike Jimmy Hoffa they did get a pardon from the 
government. One of the aspects of this case however I can take up.  
I could have been a defence witness for Phil Berrigan. However I was 
to be charged with my own conspiracy case. I think the government 
realised  that prison at Lewisburg did not stop people like myself, 
nor others, from  fighting the government and its insane policies 
and criminal politics, in the war  against the Vietnamese people...

This was surpose to be a short story. The phone just rang and it 
was a friend from Australia. He told me a little more about 
McNamara,s book. The book has been on the front pages in the 
Australian newspapers! And in the United States also. Well, McNamara 
should have known what was going on. Perhaps people after reading 
his book and mine! will realise that people like myself were right 
in doing the things we did to protest and try to stop the war. 
Perhaps they will even go one step futher and let people like me 

WHO STILL CAN'T COME HOME, 

because we face prison for our actions, which by the way we always 
took responsibility for. 23 years now I have been living in exile. 

Mom died in the late seventies and I could not attend her funeral. 

The F.B.I. were waiting there!                                               



I will never say I am sorry, I am proud of my actions. I can look 
my children in the eyes and answer them if they ask me "What I was 
doing during the war!". Unlike creeps climbing out of the walls today 
claiming they knew all along that the war was all wrong. McNamara 
that is a cheap and cowardly act. However better late then never. But 
there are people still out here , that still can not return to the 
United States today. How about us? McNamara. If you had  any real 
guts you and that draftdodger Bill Clinton would get us a pardon 
or amnesty!