Well, according to Nicosia's (oft-interally contradictory) account, Barnes wasn't even allowed to attend the final discussion and vote.
An instantaneous decision was made to move again - to Common Ground, a Mennonite hall used by homeless vets as a "crash pad," on 77th Terrace. This time a vote was taken to exclude anyone but regional coordinators and members the national office. The rest of the members, even trusted leaders such as Randy Barnes and John Upton (who had earned their credibility in the mud and tears of Dewey Canvon III), were forced to wait outside on the grass, where messengers brought frequent word of what was going on inside. According to Barnes, everybody knew that the discussion in that hall "was grounds for criminal indictment of conspiracy."So how would Barnes know what happened during the vote?
Prairie
Is he the guy who was reading from his notes the other night on TV slamming the reporter from NY sun?
The Phoenix plan, like the rest of Camil's proposals, was voted down in Kansas City, but its specter had only begun to haunt the organization; and, ironically enough, among those whose imaginations it enflamed were those very agents who had been charged with finding a way to destroy VVAW.It also immediately made Camil himself a government target, perhaps for the very sort of elimination he had envisioned for some of the diehard supporters of the war. On December 22, 1971, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a classified memo to the director of the Jacksonville office, dealing specifically with Camil. It read in part: "Information developed to date regarding subject [Camil] indicates clearly subject is extremely dangerous and unstable individual whose activities must be neutralized at earliest possible time."
Several other memos that followed used that same word, neutralize, in an even less ambiguous context, such as: "Jacksonville continue to press vigorously to insure that all necessary action taken to completely neutralize subject without delay." As Camil later explained: "When you pin the government down, they'll say, Well, "neutralize" just means to render useless.' But if you talk to guys in the field, they say it means to kill."
When Camil returned to Florida from Kansas City, despite his failure to get any of his programs adopted, he took with him a goodly measure of respect from many coordinators and much of the membership.
In typical Nicosia fashion he quotes from FBI files to try to make Camil look like a target for a hit (preposterously), and yet he ignored the FBI files that placed Kerry at the KC meeting.
Nicosia also got it wrong that none of Camil's proposals were carried out--for Camil had proposed contacted POW families and using them in their agit-prop--which Kerry went on to do for future photo-ops and press conferences, while still calling himself a spokesman for the VVAW.