0:01

Last time on Snapoo.

0:03

We had picked the time to begin

0:05

the actual action, timing it

0:07

to begin with the Ali Fraser

0:09

fight.

0:11

So I went to the door, mister confident,

0:13

and there's a second lock on the

0:15

door that wasn't there like two weeks before.

0:18

We got this far, and we're just not going to

0:20

give up. And that's when I remembered

0:23

the second door.

0:26

Who anonymous.

0:36

I was really jacked up.

0:38

Can you believe it? We pulled it off

0:41

without a single hitch?

0:49

Now, were you the first to a rhyme the

0:51

morning?

0:52

Yes?

0:53

Yes, about seven seven

0:55

thirty in the morning.

0:56

Frank McLaughlin was an FBI agent based

0:59

in Media, Pennsylvania, in nineteen seventy

1:01

one. On March ninth of that year,

1:03

he was the first one to arrive for work,

1:06

where his investigative acumen immediately

1:09

told him is something wasn't

1:11

right.

1:14

I could tell the lock had been tampered

1:16

with. I could tell by looking at it. So then I

1:18

automatically looked at the second door, and

1:21

that was that.

1:22

You are.

1:25

What do you think I suspected that

1:27

there was a Berkeley? I

1:29

mean, yeah, I've been in this business a lot of years.

1:33

Inside, he astutely noted a few more

1:35

telltale clues. For example,

1:38

all of the documents in the

1:40

entire office were missing.

1:43

The doors were open and the files were gone.

1:46

And I walked into my office a destroyers

1:48

were rifled. It's a place

1:50

that was ramsacked.

1:53

From there, a series of bewildered g

1:55

men passed the message up the chain of

1:57

command. Before

1:59

Whover even arrived at his office that morning,

2:01

his underlings had already enlisted one of

2:03

his most trusted agents, Deputy Associate

2:06

Director Mark Felt. If

2:09

that name sounds familiar, it's because a few

2:11

years later, Felt would leak evidence about

2:13

Watergate to the Washington Post. For

2:15

that he's better known to the world as Deep

2:17

Throat.

2:19

That was after a famous porn movie

2:22

at the.

2:22

Time, Thanks

2:28

Betty. Anyway, in nineteen seventy

2:30

one, Felt was a highly respected g man,

2:32

the kind the other g men turned to when

2:35

the unthinkable happened.

2:37

Mark Felt was in New York and he

2:39

was shaving in his hotel room

2:42

when he got a call telling

2:44

him that there was an emergency in

2:46

the FBI.

2:48

Felt canceled his meetings in New York. He

2:50

caught the next train down to Philadelphia. He

2:52

hustled from Philly's thirtieth Street station to

2:54

the FBI office at one Veteran Square

2:57

in Media. He strode into the office,

2:59

took charge, and immediately got to work

3:01

covering his own ass.

3:04

So when Mark Felt arrived

3:06

that morning, he immediately focused

3:09

on the safe in the office.

3:12

That safe was the only unburgled

3:14

thing in the whole office. It contained

3:16

the agent's firearms, but no

3:18

files.

3:20

He thought that this was ridiculous, this is where

3:22

the papers should have been kept.

3:24

Yeah, funny thing about that the lead agent and

3:26

media had put in a request for a larger safe

3:28

just the year before. He specifically

3:31

noted that not having one left his office vulnerable

3:33

to burglars. That

3:36

request landed on the desk of Deputy

3:39

Associate Director Mark Felt.

3:41

The other thing that he asked Felt for

3:45

was an alarm system, an

3:47

alarm system that would be connected

3:49

to the police. Felt

3:52

had turned him down on both

3:54

of these things. When he asked

3:56

why they couldn't have an alarm system, he

3:59

said that they were so close

4:01

to the local police station that

4:03

that just wasn't necessary.

4:05

You're close to a police station. If you get burgled,

4:08

just scream, they'll hear you.

4:10

And instead of a very large safe,

4:13

he provided them with a very small safe.

4:18

We'll never know. I Felt realized in that moment

4:20

that this whole snapfoo was kind

4:23

of his fault. But before

4:25

he got to work searching for the culprits, he

4:27

found something more important, someone

4:30

to take the fall the lead

4:32

agent in Media, who was

4:34

sadly reassigned to Atlanta.

4:37

Hoover, urged by Mark Felt,

4:40

had gotten rid of the person in the office

4:42

who knew the most about the area

4:45

and probably could have been most helpful

4:47

in conducting the investigation. Instead

4:51

of Deep Throat, they were considering a

4:53

nickname that morning. It would be deep

4:55

Scapegoader.

4:59

Suffice to to say, this was not the

5:01

FBI's finest hour. A reporter

5:04

later described Hoover as quote apoplectic

5:06

when he heard about the burglary. Within hours,

5:09

the director had assigned over two hundred agents

5:11

to a new operation to track down

5:13

and arrest the culprits. The

5:16

secret code name for this operation medburgh

5:20

medburg.

5:21

I mean it was just a combination of media,

5:24

meed, and burglary.

5:26

What a cute portmanteau. For

5:30

the first time in its history, classified

5:33

Bureau documents had fallen into

5:35

outside hands, but for

5:37

now, at least those documents remained

5:39

secret. Hoover's FBI was

5:41

in a race against the clock, and

5:43

the orders were clear, find

5:46

these anonymous burglars before

5:48

an embarrassment became a catastrophe.

5:54

I'm Ed Helms and this is Snafu,

5:56

a show about history's greatest screw

5:59

ups. This is Season two

6:01

Medburg the story of a daring

6:04

heist and the colossal FBI

6:06

snaffoo it exposed. Today,

6:10

the FBI hunts the burglars

6:13

Todd.

6:22

Haof Hao.

6:30

In the dead of night, hours before

6:32

Frank McLaughlin would even discover the crime

6:34

scene. The burglars sat in a Quaker

6:36

farmhouse in the Pennsylvania Woods with

6:39

pages and pages of loot. As

6:42

the adrenaline wore off, it was time

6:44

to see what they had scored. They

6:46

separated the documents into piles and

6:48

dug in.

6:49

I think we all trusted each other to

6:51

know what was important and what wasn't. Judy

6:54

and I worked together. They had a little shed

6:56

off of the main cabin. But

6:58

I remember Judy and I spending a lot

7:01

of time in that shed and holding

7:04

hands and but

7:08

working too.

7:09

I thought it was very romantic to go through

7:11

the files and decide, you know, which ones

7:14

you weren't gonna copy.

7:19

Yeah, some files

7:21

were boring and some were strange, like

7:24

the memo that informed overweight agents

7:26

they'd be subject to weekly weigh ins until they

7:28

lost the extra pounds, or the

7:30

one that instructed agents on the proper protocol

7:32

for observing j Edgar Hoover's birthday.

7:36

Who would have guessed this guy was more of a birthday

7:38

diva than my five year old niece. An

7:42

hour passed, and the burglars

7:44

were undoubtedly feeling nervous that they

7:46

had just risked everything to steal a

7:48

bunch of nothing.

7:52

And then.

7:53

I remember someone in the other room said, you've

7:56

got to come and see this.

8:00

The whole team stopped what they were doing and gathered

8:03

around one document. Hearts pounding,

8:06

they took turns reading. It

8:08

was a memo from headquarters to all FBI

8:10

agents. The memo instructed agents

8:12

to conduct interviews with anti war activists,

8:15

not for the purpose of investigating any

8:17

illegal activity, but rather

8:20

in.

8:20

Order to enhance the paranoia. They

8:23

were to give the impression that there was an

8:25

FBI agent behind every mailbox.

8:29

And it was like, at last something,

8:32

That's what they wanted. They wanted people

8:34

to think that there was a boogeyman behind

8:36

every mailbox.

8:38

We had some idea that this was pretty explosive.

8:43

They kept reading, and soon

8:46

the floodgates opened.

8:49

It was just a constant stream of people

8:51

saying, oh, man, look at this, and then

8:53

everybody would stop and look up and they would

8:55

read something, you know, and then a couple of minutes

8:58

later somebody would say, holy Macro, you're

9:00

not going to believe this.

9:02

One file detailed the movements and

9:05

grades of a congressman's daughter.

9:07

The records indicated that during the spring

9:09

semester of nineteen sixty nine, she attended

9:11

the AutoMac.

9:12

Who was being surveilled because she, like

9:14

her parents, opposed the Vietnam

9:16

War.

9:17

Where major is fringe and as many courses.

9:19

Another conversation was picked up by a phone

9:22

tap on the Black Panther Party's Philadelphia

9:24

office. The tap didn't appear to have picked

9:26

up anything illegal, but agents

9:28

had taken scrupulous notes. As one

9:30

panther phoned his mom to ask for bus

9:32

fare, he.

9:33

Asked his mother to send him seventeen dollars

9:35

to get home.

9:36

They'd also intercepted a letter from a Boy

9:38

Scout troop leader asking the Soviet embassy

9:40

about the possibility of taking his troop

9:42

to Russia for a camping trip next

9:44

summer.

9:45

We would like very much to go to the Soviet Union

9:47

to travel through your country and meet our counterparts

9:49

in the USSR, if possible.

9:51

Another file alleged quote communist

9:54

infiltration of a local women's.

9:56

Group, Martin Luther King Junior, who

9:58

will address the fiftieth anniversary banquet?

9:59

Be the nature of that infiltration. Martin

10:02

Luther King Junior had been invited to

10:04

speak at their upcoming banquet.

10:06

Copies of the names and biographical data

10:08

are attached here too.

10:10

A local civil rights leader, Mohammad Kanyata,

10:12

was also being surveiled.

10:14

There are two persons authorized to sign checks

10:16

on this account, and they are Mohammed Kanyata

10:18

and Mary Kenyata.

10:20

Again, there was zero evidence

10:22

of criminal activity in his file, but

10:24

the FBI had obtained records of his phone

10:26

calls and bank transactions.

10:29

The Peltan's account was forty four dollars

10:31

and thirty two cents.

10:33

As they kept reading, the burglars realized

10:35

banks, employers, landlords,

10:37

utility companies, local police, and

10:40

individual busybodies had all

10:42

happily collaborated with the FBI

10:45

to surveil their friends and associates,

10:47

no subpoenas, no warrants, and absolutely

10:50

zero consideration for privacy.

10:53

Will continue to monitor bank account of National

10:55

Black Economic Development Conference in Southeast

10:57

National Bank, followed by copies of bank statements.

11:00

Kiseled chicks

11:03

and While the targets ranged from women's lib

11:05

groups to boy Scout troops, the

11:07

FBI was clearly preoccupied

11:09

with black activists. They

11:12

weren't just tapping the phones of the Black Panthers

11:14

and leaders like Kenyata. Every

11:17

single black student at Swafmore

11:19

College was under surveillance. When

11:27

they finally got through all the files, the burglars

11:30

tallied up what they'd found. Forty

11:32

percent of the cases in the Media office

11:35

dealt with surveillance of legal political

11:37

activity. By contrast,

11:39

investigations of murders, rapes, and interstate

11:42

crimes constituted just twenty

11:44

percent of the files, and a measly

11:46

one percent dealt with organized

11:48

crime. If the Media office

11:50

was any indication, spying

11:53

on law abiding citizens was the FBI's

11:55

number one priority, The

11:58

stolen files mostly FBI surveillance

12:01

activity in the Philadelphia area.

12:03

Oh, it was all horrifying. It

12:05

was horrifying, but.

12:07

It was clear that the mandates were being sent

12:09

to FBI offices nationwide.

12:11

I think we all felt disgusted.

12:13

One memo came directly from Hoover, directing

12:16

all offices to surveil black student

12:18

unions on every single college campus

12:20

in the country.

12:21

I had no particular admiration for

12:23

the FBI at that point, but that

12:26

was a new low not even I had

12:28

imagined.

12:29

And Hoover said their activity posed a quote

12:32

definite threat to the nation's stability

12:34

and security. They

12:39

didn't realize it yet, but the single most

12:41

important document the burglars had stolen

12:43

was a simple routing slip at

12:46

the top in big block letters was a code

12:48

word, which at the time meant nothing

12:51

to the burglars. Co intel

12:53

pro A single code

12:55

word on a single page in

12:57

a mountain of files, a needle

13:00

in a haystack, A needle so dangerous

13:02

that Hoover was prepared to do anything

13:05

to catch these burglars before

13:07

that code word could see the light

13:10

of day.

13:25

I must have been about what six point thirty in

13:27

the morning, and I stopped to a

13:29

paypall on at Chestnut Hill at

13:32

a gas station. The whole place

13:34

was empty.

13:35

I before they could finally return

13:37

home to their children. John and Bonnie Rains

13:39

had one more task. They pulled up

13:41

to a gas station and Bonnie waited in the car

13:44

as John made a phone call. In

13:46

his hand was a statement announcing

13:48

what the Citizens Commissioned to Investigate the

13:50

FBI had just done.

13:53

We'd written a common statement and

13:55

this was to be read to the writer's fellow.

13:58

Well, I was dead the

14:00

phone.

14:02

That's Bill Winzel, the reuters fella, Yeah,

14:05

the phone.

14:05

And the voice said,

14:07

this is a Citizens Commission to investigate

14:10

the FBI. I thought,

14:12

oh, this is going to be interesting.

14:16

Good Bill.

14:17

On the night of March eighth, nineteen seventy one,

14:20

the Citizens Commissioned to Investigate the FBI

14:22

removed files from the media Pennsylvania

14:24

Office of the FBI. These files

14:27

will now be studied to determine the

14:29

nature and extent of surveillance.

14:31

John was on the phone with the reporter reading

14:34

the statement, and I was waiting in the car and

14:36

a police car pulls up into

14:38

the gas station. He was curious,

14:40

I guess about what we were doing at that time of the

14:42

night on a public phone.

14:45

The police car crept by. The

14:48

officer peered at John. John

14:50

spotted the car, but he kept reading. His

14:53

hand trembled holding a piece of paper

14:55

that contained his confession to a federal.

14:58

Crime, and we

15:00

just absolutely freaked out.

15:03

The police car kept moving and slowly

15:06

drove away. John continued

15:08

reading, we have taken this

15:10

action because we believe that democracy

15:12

can survive only in an order

15:14

of justice, of an open society

15:17

and public trust. And

15:19

then the police car returned, driving

15:22

even more slowly this time.

15:25

I was really afraid at that point, because

15:27

John had that piece of paper right there in front

15:29

of him in the phone booth.

15:32

She leaned over and banged on the window to get

15:34

John's attention, her expression clearly

15:37

conveying a message every spouse understands,

15:40

hurry the up. But

15:42

even with the cops checking him out and

15:44

Bonnie glaring at him, John dictated

15:47

the entire letter. He had a cover

15:49

story just in case if the police bothered

15:51

him, he'd just pretend he was on the phone with his

15:53

bookie. He catched the fight last night. Officer

15:56

John continued reading the statement. In

15:59

doing this, we know full well the legal

16:01

jeopardy in which we place ourselves. We

16:03

feel most keenly our responsibilities

16:05

to those who daily depend on us, and

16:07

whom we put in jeopardy by our own

16:09

jeopardy. But under the present circumstances,

16:13

this seems to us our best way of loving

16:15

and serving them, and in fact,

16:17

all the people of this land, the

16:20

citizens commissioned to investigate the FBI.

16:24

As John finished and hung up the phone, the police

16:27

car drove off and disappeared.

16:29

This time it did not come back.

16:32

Mission accomplished, John

16:35

and Bonnie drove home.

16:37

We tore the statement up and threw it out the window

16:39

and went home to our kids.

16:45

As the scraps of paper fluttered to the ground,

16:48

John and Bonnie laughed with glee or

16:50

perhaps sleep deprivation. Meanwhile,

16:53

Bill, the Reuter's fellow, was wide

16:55

awake. He just had a bombshell

16:58

dropped right into his hands.

17:00

I knew I was going to have to call

17:02

the FBI to tell them

17:05

I had gotten the call, and

17:08

I needed confirmation that

17:11

all your files had been stole.

17:14

Bill expected the FBI to give him

17:16

the run around, or a simple no comment.

17:19

You know, they could have said

17:22

what not answering questions, but they

17:25

didn't. They confirmed

17:27

it, and trustfully, at

17:29

this point they're looking pretty bad.

17:32

He laughs now. But Bill would soon realize

17:35

this phone call made him a suspect.

17:37

In the coming weeks, he'd be stalked by FBI

17:40

agents. According to him, one actually punched

17:42

him in the stomach. Bill

17:47

could only corroborate basic details

17:50

with the FBI. His story ran

17:52

in The New York Times the next day, around fifty

17:54

words in total, buried on page seven. The

17:56

story acknowledged that a burglary had taken

17:59

place, but said nothing about the nature of the

18:01

records that were stolen. Hoover

18:03

still had time to catch the burglars

18:06

before they spilled his secrets.

18:17

After the burglars sorted through the files, it

18:19

was time to share them with the world. They

18:21

packaged up copies of the documents, addressed

18:24

them to two congressmen and three reporters,

18:26

and dropped them in the mailbox. The

18:29

return label read Liberty Publications

18:31

Media, Pennsylvania. At

18:33

that point, Bonnie says, it

18:36

was out of their hands.

18:38

We had to depend on courageous

18:40

journalists and editors to do their

18:42

job. Then that was just one

18:44

more thing to be anxious about. Would they So

18:47

we just had to hope, and we had

18:49

to wait and see what the reaction of

18:51

the general public would be to the truth

18:53

about the FBI.

18:57

The burglars would later learn that the congressmen

19:00

and who'd received the files had immediately

19:02

turned them right back over to the FBI,

19:05

but not Betty Metzker. She retrieved

19:08

her mail at the Washington Post, found

19:10

a mysterious envelope, and

19:12

met the moment head on.

19:15

FBI records stolen from the media

19:17

Pennsylvania office showed that one

19:19

goal of a bureau was to spread that very impression

19:21

among left wing organizations that

19:24

there was an agent behind every mail box.

19:28

The FBI was falling out of public favor

19:30

for pretty much the first time ever, not

19:33

only for its questionable ethics, but also

19:35

for its questionable effectiveness. A

19:38

New York Times editorial read quote, little

19:40

confidence is inspired by the security

19:42

measures of a security agency

19:44

whose files can be so easily burglarized.

19:48

Here's burglar. Ralph Daniel I

19:50

was also real excited, because we did

19:53

have some concern that this funky

19:55

little outpost for the fbi't

19:57

wasn't going to have much.

19:59

But we knew, we knew this

20:01

was dynamite stuff.

20:03

After we mailed the documents,

20:06

our job was done.

20:07

This was moving along unbelievably

20:10

well. When

20:20

the Citizens commissioned to investigate the FBI

20:22

met at the farmhouse for the last time. They

20:25

renewed the vow they had made at the start

20:27

they would never tell a living soul what

20:29

they had done.

20:31

We decided we're not getting together as a group ever

20:33

again. We really

20:36

parted ways.

20:38

Apart from John and Bonnie, who continued

20:40

to be married, the rest of the crew

20:42

knew their best chance of staying safe was to

20:44

stay apart. No more dinners, no

20:47

more phone calls, no returning to

20:49

media every March for a reunion barbecue.

20:52

We absolutely could not be in contact

20:54

with each other at all.

20:57

I'm sure that bothered me to

20:59

some extent, but that's the way

21:01

it had to be. It's just the way it had to be.

21:06

And so the burglars left the Quaker Farmhouse

21:08

in the Woods one last time.

21:11

The Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI

21:14

was effectively dissolved,

21:17

but the FBI's hunt for them, code

21:19

named Medburg, was just

21:22

getting started, and

21:24

soon the g men would come

21:27

a knocking. When

21:34

the Washington Post published the contents of those

21:36

first media files, j Edgar Hoover was

21:38

livid. His only consolation was

21:40

that the story could have been way worse.

21:43

The story revealed the FBI wanted to make

21:45

activists paranoid to think there

21:48

was a quote FBI agent behind

21:50

every mailbox. But the article

21:52

made no mention of Hoover's biggest

21:55

liability, the code word

21:57

co intel pro. For

21:59

all he knew, it was just a matter of time. Hoover

22:02

needed to catch those burglars fast.

22:06

The document containing the infamous agent

22:08

behind every mailbox line was

22:10

basically an instruction manual for how to

22:13

interrogate anti war activists. It

22:15

also included the following quote,

22:17

some will be overcome by the overwhelming

22:19

personalities of the contacting agent

22:22

and volunteer to tell all. So

22:26

there you have it. All the g men had to do was

22:28

contact some activists, overwhelm

22:30

them with personality, and the suspects

22:33

would spill their guts. Let's

22:35

see how that went. I'm going to read

22:37

you some of the actual reports agents

22:40

sent to headquarters. Two

22:44

director from Indianapolis checked

22:46

on the whereabouts of a man from Bloomington who agents

22:48

thought might quote do such a thing.

22:51

Two director from Newark possible

22:54

suspect found by the Red Bank, New Jersey

22:56

office a long haired person sitting

22:59

in a car. Two

23:01

director from Philadelphia visited

23:04

local commune Farkal Farm.

23:06

The commune is primarily engaged in drug

23:08

and sex activities. However,

23:11

they could definitely still know something.

23:16

Okay, buddy, better stay put there at Farkel

23:18

Farm, see if you can get

23:20

some good inter court I mean. Intel

23:25

agents had recovered a partial palm print

23:27

from the media office, found on the side

23:29

of the large filing cabinet. They

23:31

sent it to the lab and waited for results.

23:34

Their strongest lead was the Unknown

23:36

walk In, a college girl who had

23:39

visited the office weeks before the burglary,

23:41

ostensibly for a newspaper article.

23:44

They had to call her the unknown walk In, of

23:46

course, because none of the agents

23:48

thought to ask for her name. That

23:52

really pissed Hoover off. He made

23:54

it objective number one for the agents to find

23:56

that woman.

23:58

Find me that.

24:02

The agents who saw Bonnie in the office that day

24:04

worked with a Philadelphia sketch artist to

24:06

drop a picture to distribute to agents

24:09

nationwide. The quality of

24:11

the sketch was well, just

24:13

imagine someone handed you a picture of an oval

24:15

and said, go find this egg.

24:18

I laughed. I just laughed and laughed.

24:20

It was pretty funny. It's

24:23

almost like a cartoon.

24:25

Accompanying the sketch was a written description

24:27

apparently Bonnie's coat was quote soiled

24:30

and in need of cleaning and pressing,

24:32

and her hair was quote apparently

24:35

not well combed or well kept. Were

24:38

you offended by their description?

24:40

Yeah, I was a little offended. We

24:47

just knew that Hoover was beside

24:49

himself that this had happened.

24:51

Well, I mean, that was no surprise.

24:54

I mean, two

24:56

seconds after Bill suggested the idea,

24:58

I'm like, they really gonna be pissed

25:01

if we pull this off.

25:03

He dispatched two hundred agents to

25:06

flood the Philadelphia area to find

25:08

us.

25:12

Powelton Village is a neighborhood in West

25:14

Philadelphia filled with red brick townhouses.

25:17

In nineteen seventy one, it was a hotbed

25:19

of anti war activism. Hoover

25:21

was certain that if the burglars were to be found,

25:24

they'd be found here, and he

25:27

was actually right. More than half

25:29

of the burglars did live in Powelton Village

25:31

at the time. Judy was one of them.

25:34

We knew that we were poking

25:36

the hornet's nest.

25:37

I mean we knew it.

25:39

We had a lot of heat, you know,

25:41

everybody was being intimidated.

25:44

Mostly the g men just sat in their cars

25:46

for weeks on end, equipped with long lens

25:48

cameras watching, and

25:51

whether or not somebody was actively involved in

25:53

anti war protests didn't really

25:55

seem to matter to these agents. At

25:58

least one resident learned that the heart Way,

26:01

I.

26:01

Haven't been active in resistance politics or anything,

26:03

and yet you know, twelve armed agents

26:05

broke into my house.

26:08

Throughout that time, very seldom

26:11

did they figure out actual

26:13

information that could lead to

26:15

arrest. They really

26:17

lost their ability to be sharp

26:20

at solving crimes, and

26:22

they did outrageous things instead.

26:26

And this kind of just massive

26:29

surveillance. By sitting in the cars,

26:31

it's very unlikely you're going to

26:34

get information that tells

26:36

you anything about who broke

26:38

into that FBI office.

26:41

This approach was classic Hoover.

26:43

It was more or less the same tactic that had been

26:45

revealed in the media files. Surveil

26:48

everyone all the time in

26:50

what's known as blanket surveillance. It

26:53

was exhaustive, time consuming, and generated

26:55

so much information that it became

26:57

impossible to suss out which bits

27:00

actually mattered. Blanket surveillance

27:02

is great for intimidation, but

27:04

for crime solving not so

27:06

much.

27:08

So.

27:08

There were so many agents hanging around village

27:13

that somebody in the community

27:15

decided the way to fight

27:17

back was to make fun of them.

27:19

For example, when agents inevitably fell asleep

27:21

in their cars, a.

27:23

Local resident would stand beside

27:25

an FBI car and

27:27

blow a bullhorn as

27:30

another residence stood

27:32

on the other side of the FBI car

27:35

with a tray of freshly baked cookies

27:38

and milk ready for

27:40

the agents as they jolded

27:42

awake after the bullhorns

27:44

sound. I don't know if

27:46

any agents ever accepted the cookies

27:49

into milk.

27:50

Somebody also had the brilliant idea to go around

27:53

and slap bumper stickers on all the surveillance

27:55

cars that said this is an FBI

27:57

car. And

28:01

then there was the street fair.

28:05

They called it Your FBI in

28:07

Action Street Fair.

28:09

The fair was a spectacle planned by the residents

28:11

of Powellton Village to make a mockery of Hoover's

28:14

FBI. Copies of the stolen media

28:16

files, which by now had gotten around, were

28:18

nailed to trees. You could

28:20

get your picture taken with a life sized cardboard

28:23

cutout of j Edgar Hoover. There

28:25

were skits too, yes

28:27

open up FBI wa

28:32

kids assembled jigsaw puzzles depicting

28:34

FBI agents sleeping in their cars. What

28:36

can I say? It was a family affair. There

28:40

were even musical performances captured

28:42

by a film crew from the Educational Broadcasting

28:44

Corporation.

28:45

They know it you are,

28:48

They know if you are streets,

28:51

they know if you.

28:53

Are land all right, And if

28:55

you plan to smash the state.

29:00

Better are not crown.

29:01

You better not smiled, You better.

29:03

Not see love me while

29:08

Edgar Hoover's hanging. Oh

29:13

no, no, no, you

29:16

know. I never really thought about the similarities between

29:18

Hoover and Santa before, but I guess they

29:20

were both surveillance experts, both

29:23

pretty demanding bosses. But

29:26

then again, no one's ever accused the g men

29:28

of being jolly.

29:30

I've never heard anybody say that an FBI

29:33

agent was observed laughing at

29:36

any feings.

29:37

My experience was that FBI agents

29:39

did not have a sense of humor. At

29:42

least they didn't think my jokes were funny.

29:44

It may have been silly, but the residents of Palellton

29:46

Village were making a point. They now

29:48

knew every tactic in the FBI's paranoia

29:51

playbook, and it wasn't going to work

29:53

on them. And at

29:55

that fair, posing for a picture with his family.

29:58

Alongside the cardboard cutout j

30:00

Edgar Hoover was none other than

30:02

Bill Davidan, the mastermind

30:05

of the burglary. As

30:07

the FBI bumbled its way through the investigation,

30:10

Bill created a new role for himself the

30:12

unofficial burglary spokesperson. He

30:15

talked to the press and discussed the files

30:17

at academic conferences. He'd never admitted

30:20

to being a burglar, let alone the mastermind,

30:23

just a concerned citizen who wanted to spread

30:25

the word about what was in those

30:27

files. Bill Davidan was

30:29

hiding in plain sight. It

30:33

was kind of brilliant, definitely

30:35

ballsy, but also a bit baffling

30:37

to his accomplices, who felt that a better

30:40

place for him to hide might have been. I

30:42

don't know, out of sight entirely.

30:45

Here's Bill.

30:46

I thought it was important to

30:49

have outreach, and John was very opposed

30:52

to that. You know, he was very uneasy about

30:54

sort of being publicly involved

30:56

in discendating information about media.

30:58

And I guess my feeling is something illegal

31:01

about doing that, so why not?

31:04

Yeah, but it

31:06

also seems as though it might

31:09

attract it's

31:11

important to avoid this cloak and dagger

31:14

atmosphere.

31:16

But for the rest of the burglars. The heat of the

31:18

Medburg investigation was more

31:20

menacing, and soon some of

31:22

them would come to face the agents hunting

31:25

them.

31:33

We were trying to go back

31:36

to our normal lives, but it was just it

31:38

was the elephant in the room. As they

31:40

say, there were things to be scared

31:43

about. You don't know for sure, you

31:45

don't know one hundred percent, so you worry about

31:47

that.

31:48

But I'm at home. I

31:50

thought I never loved that I had started

31:53

with.

31:55

The Day after the burglary, Sarah Schumer

31:58

realized she had lost one

32:00

of her gloves.

32:01

Did that mean that I had put

32:03

my hand on door jams and whatnot? Without

32:06

it on the head fingerprints?

32:08

For weeks, Sarah couldn't think of anything

32:10

else. Day by day, hour by hour,

32:12

she retraced her steps in her head, again

32:14

and again. At what point that

32:16

night did she lose that glove? She

32:20

couldn't sleep. Some days, she couldn't

32:22

eat. Sarah describes it like

32:24

the feeling you have when you're far from home and

32:27

suddenly start wondering if you left the oven on.

32:29

But this time she couldn't go back and

32:31

check. Sarah didn't yet know

32:33

that the FBI had recovered a partial

32:35

palm print from the office.

32:38

And then the next morning, I got a phone call

32:40

from the FBI that they wanted to

32:42

interview me, and

32:45

I called two faculty

32:47

friends to come down to my office.

32:49

Sarah told the agents she talked to them, but only

32:52

in the presence of her friends, and only if

32:54

they let her use a tape recorder.

32:56

And I said no, that would not be acceptable.

32:59

They said, well, then you don't have any questions for you.

33:02

So yeah, they clearly weren't the world's

33:04

best burglar catchers, but

33:07

when it came to sewing fear, the

33:09

FBI was the best in the game.

33:12

So I'm at my job and

33:15

I get page downstairs.

33:18

Bobby have two visitors. They have crew

33:20

cuts and wingtip shoes.

33:23

So I went downstairs and my visitors

33:25

were these two FBI agents,

33:28

and you know, they suggested that we go outside

33:31

and talk, and they escorted me to a

33:33

car that was parked right outside the office.

33:38

They asked Bob to get in the car. Then

33:40

the agent stirred to him and asked, Bob,

33:43

do you know anything about this burglary and

33:45

media?

33:47

You know, I'd read all those documents. I knew

33:49

what they were doing. If they're going to arrest you. They're

33:51

going to arrest you right away. And

33:53

if they're not going to arrest you, they just want to see if

33:55

they can get information out of you. And your

33:58

best strategy is to

34:00

refuse to say anything. That's another

34:02

one of those pesky constitutional rights. You

34:05

don't have to talk to them

34:10

in this case, I said, Fellas, I'm

34:13

sorry to disappoint you, but I'm just not

34:15

going to say anything that you

34:17

guys want to hear. You might as well

34:19

just take me home.

34:22

Bob waited for the agent to ask for directions,

34:24

but instead the agent

34:27

merely nodded to the driver. He

34:29

drove right up to the spot.

34:31

They knew exactly where I lived, and

34:34

I hope we've lived there for a couple of weeks.

34:39

One day, not long after the burglary,

34:41

John and Bonnie Rains had an unexpected

34:44

visitor.

34:45

The ninth member of the group who

34:47

dropped out showed

34:50

up at our front door nine

34:53

and so we invited him in and

34:56

he said that he wanted

34:58

to talk to us because he had

35:01

heard from someone that there were

35:03

documents that had to do with missile

35:05

silos and he was very concerned

35:08

about that.

35:09

John and Bonnie promised him there was nothing about

35:11

missile silos in the media files, but

35:14

the ninth Burglar was convinced. He

35:16

said he was worried the group would leak sensitive

35:18

files that would threaten national security.

35:21

And then he said, I'm thinking

35:23

of turning you in.

35:26

Didn't want him to see us freak out, but we were freaking

35:29

out.

35:30

I don't know what you'd do in this situation, but I can

35:32

pretty much guarantee you would not do

35:35

what John did hire the

35:37

guy to come back the next weekend to

35:40

paint his kitchen.

35:41

The kitchen didn't need painting, it.

35:44

Was, in fact a ruse. The

35:46

ninth Burglar returned the following weekend,

35:49

and as they spent the afternoon rolling on a fresh

35:51

coat of yellow, John tried to find

35:53

out where Number nine's paranoia

35:56

was really coming from.

35:57

So, John, how

36:00

did you hear this? And he said

36:02

that his girlfriend told him

36:05

that. And John said, well,

36:07

how long has she been your girlfriend? And

36:09

he said, oh, I don't know, three or four months. And

36:12

John said, have you thought about the fact

36:14

that she might be an FBI informant?

36:18

And his eyes sort of popped

36:20

wide open like that, and

36:23

John said, I can assure you that there were

36:25

no documents of that nature whatsoever.

36:30

Number nine left covered in paint

36:33

and seeming to trust that his

36:35

friends wouldn't endanger the safety of the nation.

36:38

At least for now. John

36:43

and Bonnie's nerves were fried. They

36:45

weren't out of the woods. There was still

36:47

the possibility they could be caught, that

36:49

their children might be left without parents over

36:52

the coming weeks. They worried that Number

36:54

nine might still turn them in. And

36:57

then there was a knock on the door.

37:02

There were two of them, you know, the nice guy

37:04

on the mean guy, And it was exactly

37:06

at the game.

37:07

John had just returned from playing tennis, which

37:10

was lucky because he needed a minute to think.

37:13

When I first came in, I was

37:15

assuming that my tennis clothes.

37:16

I was all swear.

37:18

I'd gone upstairs to shower and

37:20

left them alone downstairs for

37:23

fifteen times WHI I was shower.

37:25

He came downstairs, fresh as a daisy and

37:28

ready to bluff.

37:29

They were investigating the media break yet, and

37:33

they want to know, do I know anything about

37:35

that?

37:36

John being? John launched into a

37:38

filibuster. Did he know about the files?

37:41

Of course he did. Everybody knew about him.

37:43

He turned the interrogation into a lecture,

37:45

you gm in ought to be ashamed of yourselves,

37:49

and you need to be out.

37:50

There, you know, looking at major crimes.

37:52

And at the end of the interview, they said,

37:54

by the way, you didn't have

37:56

anything to do with this, didue? But my answer

37:58

was I said, well, I

38:01

feel so angry.

38:02

About what I found out from

38:04

the papers that I don't want to

38:07

make your search for people any

38:10

easier, So I'm not going to say

38:12

what I was or not.

38:14

Just minutes after the agents left, probably regretting

38:17

talking to John in the first place, Bonnie

38:19

rains the unknown walk in walked

38:22

in. If John had kept the agents

38:24

even longer, they would have run right into their

38:26

number one target, the Get Me

38:28

That Woman woman. She

38:30

and John spent the next twenty minutes making sure the

38:32

agents hadn't left any secret recording devices.

38:41

As the weeks passed and the FBI continued

38:44

to circle, John and Bonnie

38:46

decided to take a step back. This

38:48

incredible heist, which so far they'd

38:50

gotten away with, would be their last

38:53

criminal enterprise. Meanwhile,

38:55

Sarah Schumer continued to lose sleep

38:58

thinking about that glove.

39:01

I didn't know whether anybody else

39:03

was being questioned by the FBI or

39:05

whether I was the only one that they were tracking

39:08

down, and if I was the only one,

39:10

why was that? And as was it because I left

39:12

Prince and nobody else did so

39:15

is isolating.

39:17

The burglar's secret and their fear of it getting

39:19

out created a special kind of isolation.

39:22

There was simply no one for them to turn to

39:25

to process this intense experience. This

39:27

isolation, and the ever present threat

39:30

of the FBI led Judy Finegold

39:32

to make the most drastic choice of all.

39:35

She left Philadelphia forever. She

39:37

and her new love interest, sorry Bob,

39:40

simply packed up and headed west.

39:44

I just wanted to get out

39:46

of town.

39:47

I didn't have a plot or a plan.

39:50

We just went wes.

39:53

Judy found her way to New Mexico and began

39:55

living under an assumed name, severing

39:57

connections to everyone she knew, even

40:00

her parents. After everything

40:03

that had gone down, she says

40:05

she just had a feeling that sooner or later

40:07

someone might slip up.

40:09

I really didn't trust that. After a

40:11

while, like people would start

40:14

getting relax and say, oh, yeah, you

40:16

know, You're at some party and somebody'll say,

40:18

oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember,

40:20

you know, Bob said, you know, and they

40:22

got the media files, you know, so

40:26

I just decided to leave,

40:29

and it was absolutely terribly

40:32

painful, you know.

40:35

It was.

40:37

After a few months, the media files

40:39

were no longer making news. By

40:42

May, the burglars had released all of the relevant

40:44

stolen documents. Betty Metzger

40:46

had nothing new to report on, and

40:49

to make matters worse.

40:50

Senator Dole, the Republican chairman, accused

40:53

the Democrats of trying to make the FBI

40:55

look like an American guestapo.

40:59

Congress declined to investigate. Hoover

41:05

had avoided a congressional investigation

41:07

for now, but President Nixon

41:10

had started to view him as a liability.

41:12

So one day in late nineteen seventy one, Nixon

41:15

decided he'd had enough. He was

41:17

finally going to fire J. Edgar Hoover.

41:20

Here's Professor Daniel Chard.

41:22

He arranged his whole special breakfast

41:24

with Hoover where he was going to try

41:27

to break the news.

41:28

Hmm, you smell that. That's

41:31

just the scent of waffles and bacon

41:33

and me finally getting rid of your

41:35

ass. Nixon didn't actually

41:37

tell Hoover he was fired. He offered

41:39

him the opportunity to retire with dignity

41:42

and let a new FBI director make a fresh

41:44

start. But even at the age of seventy

41:46

six, coming off the worst scandal of

41:49

his career, Hoover called

41:51

Nixon's bluff.

41:52

And Hoover was just too slick. Hoover

41:54

said, I would be happy to

41:57

go into retirement if you

41:59

would put in that you would like me to

42:01

do that, And Nixon realizes

42:03

he's not going to do that. He doesn't want to put that in writing

42:05

because Hoover is so popular,

42:08

especially among the conservative

42:11

base.

42:11

When the breakfast ended, Hoover was still

42:14

the director of the FBI. Nixon

42:16

had even agreed to increase the bureau's

42:18

personnel budget. Even

42:20

now fighting for his job, as

42:22

his men flailed around desperately

42:24

interrogating every hippie in the greater Philadelphia

42:27

area. Hoover was a force

42:29

to be reckoned with. And even

42:31

though his g mens blanket surveillance tactics

42:34

had allowed most of the culprits to slip

42:36

right through their fingers undetected, they

42:39

still had some tricks up their sleeves.

42:41

And then I hear this guy

42:43

yelled.

42:44

Freeze coming

42:46

up on snappho.

42:49

They came to the doors, guns drawn

42:51

and put us up against the wall.

42:54

The FBI arrested twenty persons

42:56

in Camden.

42:56

New Jersey, early today and charged them with

42:58

trying to steal draftra and the federal

43:00

building there.

43:02

Forty seven years would have been

43:04

the maximum.

43:05

There was this feeling that nothing

43:08

actually would happen in terms

43:10

of Hoover having to face the music. It

43:12

felt like the end at that time,

43:15

but it wasn't the end.

43:23

Snafoo is a production of iHeartRadio,

43:25

Film Nation Entertainment, and Pacific Electric

43:27

Picture Company in association with Gilded

43:30

Audio. This season of Snafoo

43:32

is based on the book of the Burglary, The Discovery

43:34

of j Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, written

43:37

by Betty Metzger. It's executive

43:39

produced by me Ed Helms, Milan

43:41

Papelka, Mike Valbo, Whitney Donaldson,

43:44

Andy Chug, Dylan Fagan, and Betty

43:46

Metzger. Our lead producers

43:48

are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa Martino.

43:50

Producer is Stephen Wood. This

43:53

episode was written by Albert Chen, Sarah

43:55

Joyner, and Stephen Wood, with additional writing and

43:57

story editing from Alissa Martino and Ed

43:59

Helms. Tory Smith is our associate

44:01

producer. Nevin Calla Poly is our

44:03

production assistant Facts checking

44:06

by Charles Richter. Our creative executive

44:08

is Brett Harris. Sensitivity consult

44:10

from Oloa Kemi Ala de Sui, Editing,

44:13

sound design and original music by Ben Chugg,

44:16

Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley.

44:18

Additional editing from Kelsey Albright, Olivia

44:21

Canny and Jimma Castelli Foley theme

44:24

music by Dan Rosatto. Special

44:26

thanks to Alison Cohen, Daniel Welsh and

44:28

Ben Riizak. Additional thanks to director

44:30

Joanna Hamilton for letting us use some of the

44:33

original interviews from her incredible

44:35

documentary nineteen seventy one.

44:37

Finally, our deepest gratitude

44:39

to the courageous Citizens Commission to Investigate

44:42

the FBI, Bill Davidon, Ralph

44:44

Daniel, Judy fine Gold, Keith Forsyth,

44:47

Bonnie Rains, John Rains, Sarah

44:49

Schumer and Bob Williamson,