Persistent divisions
News media have on the whole erected insurmountable hurdles to anyone wanting to advertise anything not already on their agendas. AP's reporter, a trim and energetic man, was very serious about his work, and pushy in that stressed-out successful reporter kind of way. Like any writer he smelled a story. Presumably, being at AP, he was going to tell it like it is. He said straight out he needed to know if what I was telling him had ever transpired, which didn’t make sense at the time, since we had been put together by mutual friends.
It took a long time for him to establish the facts, he said. Getting the story onto the international wire – our only shared goal – met with endless hurdles. Ooops – the Dept of Justice had never heard of me. Well, maybe he could contact Ramsey Clark. Ramsey (who I met the first time when he and Senator Edward Kennedy were touring the Robert F. Kennedy Youth Center in West Virginia, an experimental facility for federal offenders between 18 and 26) told it like it is, but our reporter was still not sure. Understandably, we were at cross-purposes: I saw him or any other journalist as a pivotal step on my way to a pardon. He saw me as a penny-ante reason to fill a few inches of column, as it turned out doomed to hit the wire well after Clinton’s exit.
On the wire
Finally, with Clinton safely out of his regal slot in history, AP’s story went out on the international wire. On March 14, 2001, it was picked up by a few thousand papers, and within a few days showed up all over the net as well, from the New York Times, to car sales sites, porno sites - you could read about me anywhere. Radio talk shows, for instance on Oliver North's first station in Virginia, had folks call in and say what they thought, or at least make talk. One important point AP's March 14, 2001 article failed to mention was that I didn't have the bundle of cash (50,000 George Washingtons would open the door, we were told) to trade for the “access” Clinton's Little Rock friend was offering.
Jimmy Carter might have helped
Needless to say, AP’s article also neglected to mention Jimmy Carter's reply to me in the fall of 2000. I had miraculously managed to reach him at the Carter Center with a plea of help, where, a few weeks before Clinton’s departure, according to a medical colleague there, at the time one of Carter’s senior assistants: "The chief said 'Tell him he doesn't need my help, this case is cut and dried, he can count on a pardon'. The former President’s well-meaning note was unfortunately off the mark, even though Carter, who reportedly brought Patty Hearst to Bill's attention (successfully), would probably have been able to deliver a miracle.
AP's reporter wrote that we poured black paint on draft registration papers; he forgot to mention we spilled our own blood there as well - 3 bags full – drawn a few days earlier by a rebellious and amiable Mary Moylan. Well, it couldn't have been proven one way or the other, no more than the paint come to think of it, though in these AIDS-conscious days it might have drawn a few more eyes. I remember pouring those three bags into a single container the night before we walked into the draft board – spooky, in retrospect.
Shake it up baby
AP's reporter wrote "Bransome fled prison while on a furlough, in fear, he says, of death threats from other inmates." This is not bad reporting, this is twisting and shouting. Here’s what happened: shortly before my first unescorted furlough, to prepare for parole in DC a few months later, I was accosted one day by two other inmates (living in the so-called "psychotic cottage") who informed me that they planned to kill me, graphically describing the act, in which field they planned to bury me, etc.
AP's reporter again: "...in fear, he says..." - how low can you go? One of the few who I was told heard about this threat before I left the US died a few years ago: Phil Berrigan, though I don’t recall if I told Phil directly or if it went to him from Dan – Dan and I had spent one jittery evening together while we were both underground in the summer of 1970. In fact, Dan was taken by the FBI a day or two after we sat together in Massachusetts, which spooked me full tilt, since Dan and I were being coached by the same man: Eqbal Ahmed. He had supposedly disobeyed one of Eq’s rules - "Avoid islands" - but Dan's capture spooked me enough to make me shift itinerary, and get to Canada as soon as possible, via Cleveland, which is another story.
Anyway, while putting the pardon application (the 2nd time? third?) together back in 1995, Ramsey mentioned that Phil had told him about me having told him and others about the death threat in the summer of 1970, while I was being spirited around the Catholic underground in the months after my escape. So Ram relaxed a bit about it, since he also thought that wherever it all ended up, in a court scene I might have a good chance to beat any escape charges because of the death threat.
AP's reporter again: "Bransome says a pivotal event that shaped his life was the threat of violence in prison that he thought authorities could not prevent." He makes it sound like some sort of generic "threat of violence in prison" was hanging in the air, when in fact, as I told him (a fact he could have fact-checked), violence was rare in the prison (Robert F. Kennedy Youth Center in Morgantown, West Virginia) where I was threatened. But here I was faced by two guys with real faces and ugly histories (one of them supposedly a Minuteman, both supposedly incarcerated for something to do with deadly weapons), both dead serious about me becoming seriously dead. So who can prove what? This threat took place, it was a real threat made by real wackos on a real morning in a real prison: it would have been stupid to not return from the furlough otherwise, when parole was a few months off.
Then there are details the reporter can be excused for not getting straight. Like how many children I have (not two - six, but maybe he wanted to skip wife #1 and wife #2). Like that I was a high-school dropout (nope: expelled for truancy, for spending too many afternoons riffing on a bass, rather than a slide-rule)...
Copyright © 2008 Michael Bransome
