“9/21/1981 Bombing of ERU in Schenectady. Suspected of being BLA or WUO.
“10/20/1981 May 19 Communist Group (fomer WUO) and Black Liberation Army (BLA) members rob Brinks truck killing 2 police officers and guard. Some black suspects who participated escape authorities.”
Great work, bluecat6! The above entries are of particular interest to me.
I don’t give any credence to any CIA connection for Barry as a trusted agent, asset or employee of any kind, as I was screened by CIA in this exact timeframe (1983 under Bill Casey) and Red-Diaper Barry would be the last person they would let in the door. If anything Barry was trying to keep an eye on what the CIA was doing on behalf of KGB agents Ayers and Dorhn.
Remember, BLA was originally a west cost based organization that came of out the Black Panthers in the Oakland area.
Here some good background.
http://icsr.info/2012/04/the-black-liberation-army-and-homegrown-terrorism-in-1970s-america/
“What was to become known as the Black Liberation Army emerged from the Black Panther Party, the pre-eminent “Black Power” organisation of the late 1960s. From its founding in Oakland, California in 1966, a clandestine wing existed inside the party.
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But the BLA did not emerge as a separate entity until 1971, when the West Coast central committee expelled the New York Panthers. Banished party members went on to form the nucleus of an independent BLA.
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During the next three years, the BLA wounded or murdered policemen in New York, New Haven, Philadelphia, Atlanta and St. Louis. The BLA’s area of operations extended as far as San Francisco. In August 1971, members carried out a string of bank robberies, attempted to murder a policeman, and mounted a nine-person attack on a precinct house that left a police officer dead.
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Although the BLA’s reach extended across the country, New York was the center of BLA operations. Attacks on the police fostered a climate of fear within the ranks of the NY Police Department. As one patrolman said in early 1972, “I’m carrying my police special plus two non-reg weapons and I’m still scared shtless to walk on my beat.” As far as the New York police were concerned, the BLA was a criminal, cop-killing enterprise—despite whatever revolutionary rhetoric it chose to spout.
The FBI saw things differently. The BLA was criminal, to be sure, but it was not a gang of ordinary lawbreakers. In the bureau’s view, the BLA was a national security threat, primarily domestic in nature, but with possible links to hostile governments in the Middle East.
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However, according to a 1983 FBI memo, various “black and white ‘revolutionaries’ of several radical/terroristic groups” continued to invoke the BLA’s name, which apparently retained some vestigial incantatory power.
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Former BLA members also took part in a botched Brinks armored truck robbery in upstate New York in October 1981 that left two policemen and one guard dead. The group responsible for the failed heist (the “Revolutionary Armed Task Force” in a subsequent communiqué, but among themselves, the “Family”) included ex-BLA members as well as stars of the 1970s terrorist firmament, including Kathy Boudin, Judith Clark, Susan Rosenberg, David Gilbert, (all former WUO members) and Marilyn Buck, who the press described as “the chief gunrunner and the only white member of the BLA.””
Lets recap some interesting statements above:
New York was the center of BLA operations
Attacks on the police fostered a climate of fear within the ranks of the NY Police Department.
possible links to hostile governments in the Middle East.
retained some vestigial incantatory power.