Chapter 33 : The Ghosts of Mississippi Will be Watchin’

By Steve Ongerth - From the book, Redwood Uprising: Book 1

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Now when the timber barons heard the news they geared up for the fight,
And we laughed away the death threats and we cried to sleep each night,
And the media walked right into our homes,
As if they really were one of our own.
Now Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney left this little racist town,
Drove down that Mississippi highway to the place they would bed down,
But in the mirror they could see the Sheriff’s light,
No, they never did make it home that night.

—lyrics excerpted from Ghosts of Mississippi, by Darryl Cherney, 2004[1]

Now Judi Bari is an Earth First! organizer,
The California Redwoods are her home,
She called for Redwood Summer,
Where the owl and the black bear roam;
Charlie Hurwitz he runs Maxxam out of Houston,
Harry Merlo runs L-P from Portland town,
They’re the men they call ‘King Timber’,
They know how to cut you down;
And Shep Tucker spewed their hatred,
As Candy Boak laid out their scam,
John Campbell called for violence,
It was no secret what they planned…

—lyrics excerpted from Who Bombed Judi Bari?, by Darryl Cherney, 1990[2]

Judi Bari didn’t have time to be frightened. Even though the organizers of the coming season of protests shortened the name “Mississippi Summer of the California Redwoods” simply to “Redwood Summer,” the situation—she thought—was starting to more and more resemble the violent and threatening conditions of the original Mississippi Freedom Summer anyway.

While the Public Interest and Environmental Law Conference was in progress in Oregon, the representatives of Corporate Timber on California’s North Coast were in the process of polishing their image. Louisiana Pacific, Pacific Lumber, and Simpson through the auspices of yet another front group known as the “North Coast Forest Industry” (NCFI)—which had existed quietly for twelve years—created a series of advertisements promoting themselves as “good neighbors”, “economically beneficial to the local economies” of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties, and “careful stewards” of the region’s forests. The campaign included radio spots and full page ads in the region’s local and corporate newspapers. The NCFI didn’t merely limit itself to representatives from the three corporations and the local gyppo firms, however. It opened up its membership to other local businesses, ostensibly because they depended upon the timber economy for their own viability, but more likely because the NCFI also functioned like the “good citizens’ leagues” of old ensuring loyalty to the dominant power. One such business owner speaking approvingly of the effort declared, “The only way that the timber industry makes the newspaper is if somebody is sitting in one of their trees or chained to the back of one of their logging trucks.”[3]

The NCFI campaign was ironic, given the fact that the north coast timber corporations had been producing such ads already for years, particularly in the Eureka Times-Standard, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Ukiah Daily Journal, and (naturally) the Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance. In fact, the bias was so blatant, that even a few readers of the last publication had already been incensed enough to accuse the editor of “shameless corporate bootlicking”.[4] The effort nevertheless brought many local employers into the fold, and following the ads, the NCFI’s membership increased by 30 to 40 members from its original membership of barely one dozen.[5]

Two days after the NCFI announced its campaign, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s, Ukiah bureau chief and head timber reporter, Mike Geniella, wrote a fairly extensive and article about the Mississippi Summer of the California Redwoods, or “Redwood Summer” as it was now being called. One week previously, Bari, Cherney, and other North Coast Earth First!ers had made their presentation to the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) who had held a conference in Sacramento. The SEAC organizers had been so inspired that they agreed to include the Redwood Summer organizing call out in their newsletter. “They (sent it) to thousands of colleges in the United States”, commented Betty Ball.[6] Over the course of the next two weeks, the story made national press wires, and thousands of people suddenly began showing interest in what was happening behind the so-called “Redwood Curtain”.[7] The Timber Association of California, a supporter of the NCFI was not pleased. Speaking on their behalf, Kevin Eckery declared, “(it) trivializes the real sacrifices made in Mississippi as part of the Civil Rights movement. The situation (here) doesn’t hardly seem to be the same.”[8] He would soon be proven very wrong, and in a sense, he was wrong from the get-go. Candy Boak continued to call Judi Bari and let her adversary know that she was still being watched, which was an ominous—even threatening—gesture. This would only be the start of things to come.[9]

* * * * *

By all appearances, however, things were going relatively auspiciously for Earth First! – IWW Local #1 in the middle of March. At the Redwood Region Logging Conference in Ukiah, which took place two weeks after the Oregon Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC), they finally had their opportunity to demonstrate against one of the two remaining Louisiana-Pacific’s feller-bunchers being used by Okerstrom Logging. The second “Killa Godzilla” was to be proudly displayed on the grounds of the event, and those that had planned the demonstration against the first feller-buncher were not going to let this opportunity go to waste.

The conference itself was the usual carnival-like display of logging equipment and technology. Thousands of people, including several local school classes attended during the event’s three-day stretch. Bosco, Keene, and Hauser all attended and again urged timber industry leaders to accept the “Timber Pact” reached with Hurwitz and Merlo. Shortly after the conference, the three lawmakers conducted an “intense and wide ranging” meeting with a group of environmentalists, most of whom were litigants in lawsuits against Maxxam, in Santa Rosa to try and urge them to support the “Timber Pact” also.[10]

The organizers of the conference expected the Earth First!ers to be coming, and so they ensured that the security at the event, including around the feller buncher, was tight, but on March 17, 1990, the Earth First!ers were able to carry out their plans anyway. A group of “hippie-looking” Earth First!ers, including Bari and Cherney, created a diversion at the base of the machine, singing songs like Where are We Gonna Work When the Trees are Gone and Tonka Toys.[11] Meanwhile, two loggers, Brent Waggie and Joe Keating[12] climbed up onto the top of the machine and hung a banner, which read, “THIS THING KILLS JOBS & FORESTS: Earth First!”. Waggie, a logger from Springerville, California, said, “This feller-buncher will put my family out of work. We can’t afford $700,000 machines, and my family is set up for saw logs, not pecker poles.”[13] The two loggers were eventually arrested and charged with trespassing.[14]

Two weeks later, this feller buncher also caught fire, while engaged in logging operations south of Chamberlain Creek in the Jackson State Demonstration Forest. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office conducted investigations which revealed that the fire started accidentally at about 2:20 PM on April 4, 1990, due to misuse. Okerstrom had been using it to log L-P property near Jackson State Forest west of Willits when it ignited and its internal fire suppression systems failed. The sheriff’s office had been asked to investigate specifically because of the growing tensions over Redwood Summer.[15] “Either this thing is a $700,000 lemon, or there are some heroic people out there in the woods,” opined Judi Bari.[16] When asked if she was responsible, Bari declared, “It wasn’t me; I was home in bed with five witnesses.”[17] She reiterated, again, that she did not know or want to know who was engaged in equipment sabotage (if that had indeed been what had happened, which it later was discovered, was not), stating, “Our approach in this area is public awareness…I neither engage in sabotage myself or want to hear about it…if it had been sabotaged, it probably would have been by loggers.”[18]

Bari added, however, that she was not saddened by the second behemoth’s demise, nor were any loggers likely to oppose the destruction of the job killing “fascist robot.” Walter Smith confirmed the appropriateness of the description, by noting that it not only replaced fallers, but choker setters also, and that the feller buncher could double production with half of the crew.[19] At least one reader of the Willits News was puzzled by the framing of the incident which, from the headline, suggested that the machine had been sabotaged by Earth First! That it wasn’t, and that this was the substance of the article, was not evident in the headline.[20] Once again, careless (or deliberately misleading) reporting had imparted sinister motives to Earth First! - IWW Local #1 that didn’t exist.

* * * * *

That’s not to suggest that Earth First!ers didn’t occasionally choose their words poorly. In early March, Darryl Cherney inadvertently served up the ultimate fat pitch to Earth First!’s detractors. While being interviewed by Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, Cherney flippantly stated, “If I had a fatal disease I would definitely strap a body bomb to myself and blow up the Glen Canyon Dam or the Maxxam building at night after everyone had gone home.” An estimated 10 million viewers witnessed Darryl’s words—at least those not in italics, which (had they been broadcast) might have lessened the seriousness of his statement. That 60 Minutes saw fit to exclude the last part was something that Cherney should have anticipated, and reportedly he was chewed out soundly by everyone in Earth First! for his careless choice of words. According to Judi Bari, Cherney would never even get close to a bomb. He had never even lit a firecracker (in fact, he was afraid of them).[21]

Indeed, the activist may have been set up. Cherney maintained that the CBS producer who interviewed him said that his initial, far more mild, response was too bland and asked for something “more punchy”.[22] Still these words had their impact, and it provided fodder to political reactionaries and apologists for corporate timber who never tired of describing Earth First! as “terrorists”.[23] It also gave Earth First! a black eye politically in the eyes of many 60 Minutes viewers nationwide. One even went as far to suggest that the tree Cherney’s guitar came from should have been saved and the guy who played it (Cherney) should have been cut down.[24] As it was, no Earth First!er was likely to do this. Dave Foreman was quite clear in his stance on the matter, stating, “I’ve always discouraged the use of explosives and guns…That’s in an entirely different realm than pulling up survey stakes.” [25] Even Ecodefense had a very short entry on the use of explosives. It simply stated: “Explosives should…usually be avoided.” [26] Furthermore, in too many places to count, Ecodefense admonishes the would-be monkeywrencher to “never hurt anyone” and to “respect all life” (including human life). [27]

Darryl Cherney did surrender to authorities at the Humboldt County Jail in Eureka on March 20, 1990 to begin a ten day jail sentence, along with fellow Earth First!er and musician George Shook. The two had pled no contest “(to) the heinous crime of tree sitting,” the previous year, after Pacific Lumber reactivated an old lawsuit against them.[28] Cherney and Shook described themselves as “prisoners of war in the fight to save the redwoods.”[29] Before the two began their internment, approximately 40 protesters rallied on the sidewalk in downtown Eureka at the jail and courthouse. Demonstrating the class bias of the justice system, Cherney read from a computer printout—based on the LSA Report—all of the convictions brought by the CDF against those that broke environmental laws over the previous two years. Most of their crimes included serious crimes against nature, such as clearcutting in riparian protection zones or logging without even filing a THP at all! In every instance, the perpetrators had their jail sentences and most of their fines suspended. Humboldt County DA, Terry farmer, was singled out in particular for his pro-corporate bias, as demonstrators shouted “Jail Hurwitz!” Bari, Cherney, and Shook led the crowd in protest songs, including Jerry Leiber’s and Mike Stoller’s classic Riot in Cell Black Nine and Oh Freedom (complete with Earth First! specific lyrics). A group of determined Earth First!ers attempted to surround Cherney and Shook, but the police twisted the would be saviors’ arms behind their backs thus preventing the tiny group from preventing the jailing of the activists.[30]

Mysteriously, Cherney and Shook only served five days of their ten day sentence. With no advance warning, the Humboldt County sheriffs released the pair at about 4:00 AM on the cold, foggy morning of Sunday, March 25. Cherney and Shook contacted their designated jail support person who did not answer. Not knowing what else to do, they prepared to hitchhike back to Arcata, six miles to the north. Just then, a woman called Darryl’s name from a nearby vehicle. It was Candy Boak. Feigning affability, Boak announced that she and her husband John lived nearby, that she couldn’t sleep, and that she’d come to town to buy a Sunday paper from a local minimarket. Then, completely contrary to her past behavior, she offered the pair breakfast and a ride to Arcata. Having few other options, Cherney and Shook obliged and climbed into Boak’s minivan. At breakfast, Boak—still pretending to be seeking a temporary truce—asked the two a large number of questions about Redwood Summer, including logistics and ideology. Though careful not to reveal any sensitive information, Cherney and Shook answered her. After all, Earth First! was planning to be aboveboard on the summer campaign anyway, so there was little sense in hiding anything. Boak then drove the two back to Arcata before returning home.[31]

Upon hearing of Cherney’s experience, Judi Bari was incensed. She was already very angry about his having mouthed off on national television. Now she had to question his sanity entirely. Had it even occurred to him that it was the least bit odd that the Humboldt County sheriffs—who had absolutely no love for Earth First!—had let them go after only serving half their sentence? Did it not seem just a bit too convenient that Candy Boak was the first person that Cherney and Shook encountered upon their release? Was it just possible that Boak had maybe, just maybe, been tipped off about their discharge? Was it not even remotely suspicious that Candy Boak who had made it a matter of pride to “monkeywrench the monkeywrenchers” had probed the pair for the entire Redwood Summer playbook? He may as well have called Charles Hurwitz and Harry Merlo and told them everything. Cherney was taken aback and told Bari that she was paranoid. This annoyed Bari even more. As a woman, she was far too used to her opinions being discounted by her male comrades. After Candy Boak called Bari again and informed the latter that she had revealed all of the plans Darryl had shared with her to her allies in Mother’s Watch and WECARE, Bari ruefully informed Cherney in no uncertain terms, “I told you so!”[32]

Relationships between activists are almost always tenuous and difficult due to the external pressures of public life that inevitably invade the private and personal realm. The strain of a rapidly increasing workload demanded by the upcoming Redwood Summer combined with the brewing backlash in all of its manifestations (Candy Boak being but one of them) was taking its toll on the couple and they were fighting often to the point which Bari doubted aloud that the two had a future as such. This drove Cherney nuts, but there was little that could be done about it.[33]

* * * * *

Publically at least, however, the two presented a united front out of necessity. Response to the call for Redwood Summer from potential supporters had been overwhelmingly positive and larger than anyone had expected. Betty Ball reported, “We’ve been inundated with calls from colleges and community activists all over the United States.”[34] Darryl Cherney described similar experiences, saying:

“Rapidly, lots of people became interested and the media started publishing reports about our plans, before we’d even finalized them…

“We also called a meeting in Ukiah that attracted a lot folks, right around the same time. We were attracting 60 to 70 people per meeting. Media was calling. You knew it was obvious that this was an idea whose time had come. There was almost no stopping it from the very beginning.”[35]

“It’s going to be a long hot summer,” stated Judi Bari; “the eyes of the nation will be watching us.”[36] Mike Roselle added, “Redwood Summer promises to be the biggest national mobilization of Earth First! activists ever,” and this was coming on the heels of over one-hundred direct action type demonstrations that Earth First! and/or the IWW had organized in Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, and Marin Counties thus far. “The destruction wrought by the timber industry is unknown to most Americans,” declared Darryl Cherney. He further added:

“Besides the wholesale slaughter of thousand year old trees, they leave toxic dumps from their preservatives and eroded soil that can barely support new growth. Reduced precipitation, ruined rivers, treeless hillsides and a decimated salmon population is the legacy the timber industry has left us. The multitude of forest fires we’ve been getting are due to the smaller, more vulnerable trees that have grown back, as well as from malfunctioning logging equipment. They’ve devastated small communities with their boom and bust logging, and when they’ve stripped the land bare, they’ll often sell to a developer for tract housing and condos.”[37]

Redwood Summer’s organizers agreed that they needed to convey unequivocally that they were going to remain steadfastly nonviolent, no matter what dangers or threats they faced. Taking a page out of the annals of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), they adopted the following code:

Greg King emphasized that all participants would be required to take a nonviolence training which addressed most of the alleged concerns raised by Don Nelson in his hysterical letter accusing the organizers of Redwood Summer of endangering students’ and workers’ safety. “Any participant not in full agreement with non-violence as the principle concern during the actions will not take part in Redwood Summer.” The incoming “freedom riders” for the forests would be required to check in at hospitality houses and then dispatched to campsites or lodgings. Sonoma County Earth First!er and IWW organizer Pam Davis stated, “We’ve had an incredible response from people opening their doors and their land, from small office spaces to 320 acre forests…there’s still a need for more lodgings and land, however, and we’re putting out the call from Santa Rosa to Crescent City.”[39]

Redwood Summer drew upon the support of locals as much as it intended to bring in support from the outside. Two of these local organizers included Anna Marie Stenberg’s son, Zack Stenz, and Supervisor Liz Henry’s daughter, Lisa. Lisa Henry recalls how she became involved in the efforts:

“It started in February…when Judi came over to Anna Marie Stenberg’s house and talked about Redwood Summer. I got a phone call on my answering machine. Zack (Stenz) said, ‘You’ve got to come over. Redwood Summer is going to be really big and we have to be in on it. Come meet Judi Bari’…

So I went over to Anna Marie’s and I met Judi Bari. Later Judi said to me she liked me from the minute we met, and all I had said to her was[brightly] , ‘Hi!’

“The ironic thing was that I had lived in this county for seventeen years (my dad’s a forester, my mom’s a politician) and I didn’t know anything about forests or forests practices.

“I assumed that the Noyo Harbor got muddy when it rained, and I took for granted all the trucks on the road that were a pain in the butt, but I’d never really made the connection between deforestation and what was going on in the harbor and on the roads.[40]

Stenberg welcomed her son’s involvement, but Liz Henry struggled with her daughter’s participation. Though she was not entirely unsympathetic to the goals of Redwood Summer, the supervisor firmly believed that the campaign would further polarize an already severely divided community. Lisa Henry’s protestations that it was Corporate Timber that was causing the polarization did not change her mother’s mind. Additionally, the supervisor felt—with some justification—that taking too strong a stand against working within the system, no matter how imperfect, could seriously jeopardize her standing as an elected official and that she was doing what she could within the confines of the system to demand reform. This divide between radical and liberal, revolutionary and reformist, perspectives was a source of great strain between many would be allied critics of Corporate Timber as Redwood Summer approached.[41]

* * * * *

In spite of the nonviolence code, the prejudice against Earth First! remained. Already, on March 8, at an environmentalist protest at the Fortuna CDF office (a very frequent target of such demonstrations), where fifty Earth First!ers had blocked the sidewalk outside the building, local high school students alternated between shouting obscenities and launching eggs and other projectiles at demonstrators. Even TEAM spokesman Ray Miller who was also present, challenging the Earth First!ers directly by giving them redwood seedlings and accusing of them of not knowing how to plant them properly—as if such knowledge qualified one to hold an opinion on P-L’s over harvesting of the old growth redwoods—waxed disdainful of the students, arguing that the environmentalists had a right to protest and that opponents of them should not “cower.”[42] Miller’s opinion was not shared by Fortuna Police Chief Lee Evanson who—rather than admonish the students to refrain from violent counterdemonstration, instead blamed Earth First!, declaring:

“These demonstrations are designed to attract media exposure. Earth First! uses unscrupulous tactics, looking to cause trouble so it will get more exposure. It’s not surprising that there will be counterdemonstrators, but we don’t want it to escalate to violence. From there it only grows, and we’ll find the city smack in the middle. With the possibilities of injuries and lawsuits and the police overtime costs, there’s no way the city, Police Department, or anyone from Fortuna can win.” [43]

His only defensive of such one-sidedness was to opine, “It’s getting very emotional. The locals here”—(as if the demonstrators weren’t local themselves, an all too common prejudice)—“see these kind of people as the enemy, because, after all, timber still puts the bread and butter on the table around here.” [44]

The City of Fortuna carried the anti-environmentalist prejudice a step further. The council instructed City Manager Robert Brown to write to Humboldt State University President Alistair McCrone, “to help with the situation.” Brown explained, “We’re not saying that all the demonstrators came from HSU, but in the letter I just want to say that the city is interested in the safety of the students and our citizens. We don’t want to deny anybody their rights to free speech. We just want to make sure no one gets hurt.”[45] HSU didn’t take very kindly to being implicated as the primary source for the protests or the suggestion that they were the breeding ground for Earth First!ers however. HSU vice president of student affairs Buzz Webb responded that it was “inaccurate” to connect Earth First! with the institution adding, “Some people unfortunately have the wrong idea (that) the university’s function is to be substitute parents,” as if political protest were equivalent to juvenile behavior and not a time-honored method for redress of grievances.[46]

Redwood Summer’s organizers set out to challenge such growing prejudice against environmental activists. Two teams of attorneys, one based in Humboldt County and the other based in Mendocino County had volunteered their services to combat legal repression against the organizers and the incoming “forest riders”.[47] The latter team was led by attorney Barry Vogel, who described civil disobedience as a legitimate form of protest, “(which) began with the Boston Tea Party (and) went on to establish religious freedoms, women’s rights, civil rights, and perhaps now the rights of people willing to defend one of the natural wonders of the world.” The legal teams were joined by San Francisco based attorney Susan B. Jordan, who expressed similar sentiments, declaring, “(Redwood Summer is) a brilliant tactic…I’m honored to be a part of it.”[48]

Mendocino County officials only seemed to watch and wring their hands anxiously at the prospect of the summer of protests. Many of them didn’t take too kindly to the increasingly apt comparisons between Redwood and Mississippi Summer. “I have no intention of becoming the ‘Bull Connor’ of California,” declared Mendocino County Undersheriff Alvie G. Rochester, “Both sides have mavericks, and these mavericks are going to create incidents…We’re just hoping cooler heads get together and get these timber issues worked out before summer comes.” Meanwhile, even Norm de Vall, a harsh critic of L-P and G-P lamented that the lack of available law enforcement might require the county to call upon the National Guard thus creating a “Mississippi Summer in Mendocino.”[49]

Redwood Summer’s organizers strongly felt that the comparison between Redwood Summer and Mississippi Summer was directly relevant, because both called for outside assistance, and both were intended to oppose bigotry. In the case of Mississippi Summer, the freedom riders challenged Southern racial prejudice against black southerners by the entrenched white power elite. In the case of Redwood Summer, the bigotry being challenged was “speciesism”. As Darryl Cherney described it:

“Many humans see the Earth and other species as something to be conquered and enslaved…We believe that the Earth deserves civil rights the same as people do…A redwood, a spotted owl, a black bear all have a right to exist for their own sake, irrespective of what value they may have for human profit.”[50]

To be certain, for their part, the Redwood Summer organizers went out of their way to emphasize that there should be no prejudice against timber workers, even those that were prejudiced against environmental activists. Judi Bari stated, “the battle is not between timber workers and the environmentalists. It’s between giant logging corporations and our community.”[51] In a guidebook being prepared for Redwood Summer participants, the organizers made it clear that it was the corporations, not the workers, who were the enemy:

“When you’re sitting in front of a bulldozer or walking a picket line and an angry logger is screaming at you to ‘Get a Job!’ and ‘Go Home!,’ it’s easy to forget that timber workers are not our enemies. And when they see thousands of college students and other environmental activists from out of the area coming to the Northcoast threatening their livelihoods (as they see it), it’s easy for them to see us as the enemy too.

“This is a tragic mistake, for workers and environmentalists are natural allies. Loggers and mill-workers are victimized by the giant timber companies. Since their whole way of life—their jobs, homes, families—depends on unsustainable forest practices, we must make the timber companies pay for the education, retraining and job placement needed to cushion the blow of conversion to ecologically health timber practices. It’s easy for us—since our future and our kids’ future does not depend on continued over-logging—to demand others to sacrifice for the good of the planet, but without concrete support to make change possible; they will not listen seriously.”[52]

As for violent behavior, the environmentalists (and IWW members) had already been on the receiving end of it, at least three times in the past year, and law enforcement had turned their heads the other way. “I don’t care what anyone says; this represents a pattern of allowing violence against radicals,” complained Judi Bari. Alvie Rochester dismissed the criticism, simply declaring, “I just don’t see that.”[53] As for violence on the part of potential loose cannons on the demonstrators’ side, Darryl Cherney stressed that the nonviolence code and trainings were specifically intended to weed them out. He indicated that one man had already been instructed to leave after the organizers learned he had incited violence at a previous, unrelated protest.[54]

* * * * *

In spite of all of these efforts, Corporate Timber and its front groups only grew more steadfast in their opposition to Redwood Summer and Forests Forever. The corporations’ rhetoric, which sought to divide timber workers and environmental activists grew steadily more violent and threatening. This was due in no small part to their very real fear that Forests Forever would be approved by the voters, that new regulations would be enacted due to the Northern Spotted Owl, and that Earth First! - IWW Local #1 might actually succeed in organizing a large swath of dissident workers. As a result, G-P, L-P, and P-L were logging at an unprecedentedly frantic pace. According to the Sierra Club state forestry practices chair Gail Lucas, “every available feller, Cat operator and log-truck driver is working full throttle. Workers are coming in from as far away as Colorado and Idaho.”[55] Judi Bari agreed, confirming that logging on the North Coast was “going full-tilt-boogie.”[56]

If anything, it was Corporate Timber who had a monopoly on violent and divisive rhetoric. John Campbell was especially full of fire and brimstone. In early April, he convened a company meeting in the Winema Theater in Scotia, addressing the assembled workers with a speech intended to incite fear and mob hysteria. The normally defiant Kelly Bettiga, this time seated in the back of the theater, could only sit and watch, his stomach churning at the witch hunt that was being stirred up in front of him. Campbell warned the workers that if the “radical Earth First! initiative”—meaning Forests Forever—were passed by the voters, there would have to be layoffs, perhaps as much as half of the workforce. He declared that Scotia had been a happy place before the Earth First!ers had stuck their bloody nose into the town’s business. He described Redwood Summer as the biggest threat to the stability of the Pacific Lumber company and its workforce imaginable. He denounced the “freedom riders for the forest” as being nothing more than watermelons, green on the outside, but all red on the inside.[57] This was a standard Corporate Timber and Mining talking point[58] , but many of the workers, including the older veteran employees who had lived through much of the Cold War, accepted it with cheers and applause. Then, Campbell revealed that he was prepared for the impending “communist” invasion: he had hired a private security firm full of former CIA and FBI agents.[59]

Not to be outdone, the Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance’s Christian fundamentalist editor, Glenn Simmons, wrote a sneering dismissal of Earth First!’s nonviolence pledge, asking “what if the Earth First! demonstrations themselves are the cause of violence?” which was akin to an apologist for rape asking “what if the victim brought it upon themselves?” and was an all too common right wing response to organized resistance to the status quo from political forces on the left.[60] Simmons, naturally, continued to accept full page advertisements from both P-L and L-P, showing precisely where his loyalties lay.

TEAM geared up for more counterdemonstrations at Earth First! rallies, particularly in Humboldt County.[61] WECARE, meanwhile, published a letter to its members entitled “A Word to the Wise” denouncing Redwood Summer with falsehoods and half truths such as:

“There are indications that the event has been in the planning stage for three years, with some 1,200 letters sent to Universities nationwide. Training sessions are now occurring and activities are to begin with the end of the school year (the last week in June)…You should be alerted to the fact that at recent protests in Oregon, films have shown the same faces as have been noted in Humboldt County. This appears to be a well-orchestrated production.”[62]

Redwood Summer’s organizers could only dream about being so lucky or fortunate. Their efforts were exceptional given their incredibly limited shoestring budgets. The notion that the organizers and demonstrators were part of some roving band of marauders that traipsed around the Pacific Northwest like a mob of heavies was a myth that had been applied to dissidents for generations, and not just environmentalists. The idea that Redwood Summer had been devised some three years previously was laughable, though, certainly the vision of being able to mobilize thousands of supporters within the area, let alone more from outside was always in the back of the minds of many Earth First!ers, though never in their wildest dreams did many think they could actually achieve it.

WECARE urged its members to not engage with demonstrators, instead suggesting that the former use surveillance to keep tabs on the latter:

“Be aware of strange vehicles in the area where you are working. Note description and license numbers.

“Note flyers announcing an activity. Notify the Sheriff’s office of these, do not assume they know about them…Keep a camera in your vehicle and take pictures of same. People occupying offices, using glue in office machinery, disrupting operations.

“We have been advised that violent reaction may do more harm than good. The authorities must remain neutral until the law is broken and you may be the target of their actions if you break the law. Earth First! would gain sympathy if they were the target of violent reaction.

“We have also been advised that the media does not have the right to trespass on your property. Landowners can notify the media in advance that they do not have permission to trespass. This can be done in writing, preferably by registered mail.”[63]

While this may have seemed like an appeal to reason, directed at the loose cannons on the right, if one read between the lines in the last paragraph it could easily be interpreted as a roundabout way to urge that the vigilante elements keep their activity “underground”.[64]

In Mendocino County, embattled IWA Local 3-469 representative Don Nelson continued his further realignment into the Corporate Timber camp by dispatching two of loyal followers, grader Dave Bowmen and machinist Richard Hargreaves, to the nonunion Harvest Market to intimidate two young women who were gathering signatures for Forests Forever. The nearby Albertsons had illegally chased away fellow signature gatherers after a mere seven phone calls from alleged loggers complaining about it.[65] Nelson claimed that Bowmen and Hargreaves were distributing educational materials and were themselves threatened by “one of the so-called IWW spokesmen” and demanded a retraction from Bruce Anderson who had alerted his readers to Nelson’s actions in the Anderson Valley Advertiser.[66] The “supposed IWW spokesman” that Nelson complained of was, in fact, Anna Marie Stenberg, who was approximately “half the size of each” of the two mill workers, and for whom Nelson had an intense dislike due to her role in exposing his collaboration with G-P over the PCB spill. Stenberg had asked the two millworkers on whose authority they were acting and was ignored, at which point she contacted one of the IWA dissidents whom the IWW had been assisting in their OSHA hearing. Stenberg’s source revealed that Nelson had not received sanction by a vote from Local 3-469’s membership and was acting autocratically. Stenberg presented this information to Bowman and Hargreaves who—lacking any further recourse—stomped off in a huff.[67]

Doug Bosco was more than willing to add his voice to the chorus condemning Redwood Summer, for numerous reasons. These included his vulnerability in the upcoming election, the increasing popularity of Forests Forever, and the threat that the campaign posed to his now increasingly vain efforts to resuscitate the failed timber “pact.” The congressmen accused the incoming “freedom riders” of increasing tensions in the timber dependent communities of the North Coast, stating, “They will be intruders and outsiders, and we don’t need them or want them. If they come, they’ll cause trouble…we have more than our supply of activists. Let them find causes elsewhere.” Dan Hauser concurred, proclaiming, “The tensions are so high now, I don’t understand why more people haven’t been hurt. Adding large numbers of people to the scene is dangerous.”[68]

Stoking the fires still further, on March 28, L-P announced that they would be laying off still more mill workers—this time in their Covelo, Ukiah, and Oroville facilities.[69] This announcement came on the heels of the company announcing yet another quarter of record earnings.[70] Joe Wheeler informed several L-P mill workers that, beginning in November, the graveyard shift would be cut from the Ukiah facility. The 93 acre Covelo mill would be shuttered for two months, and the Oroville plant would eliminate a shift. Rumors were circulating that the Willits stud mill would also close, but Tucker denied them.[71] Tucker barely even tried to deflect the inevitable chorus of resentment opining, “I know the political timing is lousy…but business and politics at this juncture don’t mix.”[72]

It was hard to see what part of this business decision wasn’t political, however. As if that weren’t bad enough, Eel River Sawmills was planning to shut down their mill in Alton, at the junction of Highways 36 and 101 in Humboldt County, near the site of the recent Earth First! log truck ambush.[73] At least the L-P and Eel River workers were warned of their plight. On April 12, the Redwood Empire owned lumber mill in Philo shut down without any notice to the workers or even a hint that its closure was imminent.[74] There were even rumors flying that the Miller-Rellim mill in Del Norte County would cease operations.[75] In a “see, we told you so!” moment, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat went in to Corporate Timber talking-point autopilot very quickly and excoriated the environmentalists for refusing to compromise, but they had spoken too soon.[76]

These mill closures came in spite of the unsurpassed logging rates then currently underway, and there is little doubt these actions served to either increase Corporate Timber’s bottom line, incite divisions between millworkers and environmentalists, or both. Not surprisingly, L-P spokesmen, including both Tucker and Wheeler, blamed the eminent listing of the spotted owl as an endangered species, challenges to THPs, and the expansion of park and wilderness areas for the closures[77] , charges that were blatantly false, and—in least in the case of the Covelo facility, easily debunked.[78] L-P even admitted that some of the jobs were being replaced by automation, which had zero connection to environmental factors.[79] “Woods” Sutherland declared that the corporation, “seem(ed) to be thumbing its nose at the rest of the industry with its patently callous decision.” Gail Lucas suggested that the actual reason for the layoffs was clearly a result of the company’s quest for cheap, Mexican labor, and she debunked L-P’s claim that it was logging sustainably, arguing, “State figures for Mendocino County clearly show industry already has been cutting at more than twice the growth rate.” [80]

As far as Hauser and Keene were concerned, these companies, especially L-P, had now pushed the envelope too far. It was bad enough that the environmentalists sought to use the initiative process to make an end run around the legislative process (and the inside deals that such implicitly allowed). Now L-P was violating the spirit of the so-called “Timber Pact” by attempting an end run around the political process from the other direction. (Couldn’t they see that this was an election year?) Incensed, Barry Keene lashed out at both L-P and Earth First!, declaring:

“(This is) an all-out war between extremists…Once again, innocent workers and their families are caught in the crossfire of hostile artillery.

“The workers and families are suffering at the hands of some pursuing profits at whatever human cost, and of others desiring to end all human activity in the woods…With its recent manufacturing moves into Mexico, L-P’s timing couldn’t be worse. I can’t imagine that people won’t regard the two events as related.

“It looks to me like the company is engaging in Kamikaze public relations…Many who live in timber-dependent areas are beginning to feel cornered by non-negotiable initiatives and strident environmentalists who they perceive are aiming to wipe out their jobs…and now the jobs are going.

“Add the recent calls by environmental extremists for a summer of civil disobedience and you begin to see the real potential for physical harm.”[81]

Dan Hauser was no less angry. He rightfully criticized L-P for its greed, stating, “These giant corporations have absolutely no notion of moral responsibility to their employees…It was a stupid move on (L-P’s) part.”[82] He too worried that the corporation’s arrogance would doom the “Timber Pact”.[83]

Doug Bosco also weighed in on the closures, and for once, did not shift the blame to the environmentalists. “L-P went out of its way to make a cut-and-dried corporate decision and then tried to use the usual whipping boys to make its case,” he declared, and he had good reason to do so; politically he had much to lose.[84] He faced political challenges from the left by Lionel Gambill, again, as well as another one of Judi Bari’s friends, Darlene Cormingore, an up and coming Peace and Freedom Party candidate from Sonoma Country. He also faced challenges ostensibly from the right by two potential Republican challengers, Frank Riggs and Tim Stoen.[85] However, Tim Stoen, a Ukiah attorney who was most famous for his association with Jonestown and the People’s Temple, argued that when a corporation like L-P makes “huge profits by extracting resources from a community, that company owes it to the community to maintain jobs, as a moral issue,” thus staking out a position to Bosco’s left politically leaving him nowhere to go, except further to the right where Frank Riggs awaited him.[86]

The revelations about L-P’s “Mexican Adventure” shocked workers (and all of those who claimed to speak for them) as well. Trucker Wally Edwards who had hauled logs around the North Coast for a quarter century angrily interjected, “I’m glad they’re leaving. A big corporation like L-P has never done anything for this country. Small businesses are what built this country, and now the corporations are tearing it down. It’s not just L-P, it’s all of them!”[87] Even TEAM spokesman Don Stamps found himself in a position of rare agreement with the environmentalists, and he expressed public disdain at Tucker’s crassness, although for entirely different reasons: L-P’s actions were driving potential recruits into the Earth First! - IWW Local #1 camp instead.[88] Sure enough, Gyppo Owner Walter Smith—though he had been grumbling about L-P privately for years—now decided to openly criticize L-P.[89] Although he seemingly stood alone, Smith knew he had the tacit support of many of his fellow timber workers:

“My position is, as part of the industry, that I’m anti-corporation and pro-industry. The industry is really us: the workers and the gyppos, not the corporations. The corporations have come here and are shipping out all the money to other places, and they’re so diversified that they’re not just timber companies; they have holdings and interests in other things. We’re really the industry, and it’s our community that’s at stake here, and the workers need to put up a united front against the corporations. They need to say, “Get out of here. We will buy you out; we will run it ourselves, and we will do a much better job, because we know what’s out there, and we know what needs to be done to keep it around.”

“The workers have to be able to control their own destiny. At this point, the corporations and the individuals that have the money and the power have all gone kind of hog wild, and they really don’t worry about us at all. We’re just incidental to their making money.”[90]

As Bruce Anderson had suggested, Walter Smith was by no means alone in his sentiment, stating, “Lots of other loggers, log haulers, millworkers, and gyppos agree with (him), but have to keep quiet because L-P will definitely not hesitate to cut them off at the knees.”[91] Smith agreed, stating, “It’s a united front when you talk on the landing, but it’s a different united front when you talk in public.”[92] Sure enough, Smith had faced blacklisting by L-P and its front groups for his criticisms.[93] So, in an effort to protect his seven workers and partner Ken Smith from further retaliation, he had sold his share of the company to his now ex-partner in January.[94]

However, in this case, more than a few L-P workers were angry enough to denounce the company secretly. One anonymous L-P employee from Ukiah even contacted Judi Bari and told her, “We need to have a demonstration and I don’t know how to organize one. Will you?”[95] As a result, Earth First! – IWW Local #1, as Judi Bari described it, officially “came out” at the April 3, 1990 Mendocino County Board of Supervisor’s meeting, reiterating the still unanswered demands that the County exercise its power of eminent domain to seize L-P’s holdings and operate them in the public interest.[96] Joining Judi Bari, Darryl Cherney, Betty Ball, Louis Korn, and Rick Cloninger was Walter Smith.[97]

Don Nelson sought a piece of the action himself, but Judi Bari wasn’t buying it. Nelson made a public appearance prior to the Board of Supervisor’s meeting, joining Bari, Betty Ball, and Supervisor Norm de Vall for a press conference condemning L-P’s move to Mexico. When Nelson reported that he had sent a letter to Doug Bosco asking the congressman to intervene to thwart the company’s outsourcing, Bari denounced him as “a wimp, a simpleton, a company hack, and an all-around corporate collaborator for being so silly as to approach a corporate lackey like Bosco for assistance.” Nelson, left in disgust, accusing Bari of lacking credibility and describing her as a liar, a charge that more accurately fit Nelson himself. Supervisor de Vall’s own performance at this event was largely inert, though he seemed mildly sympathetic to the call for eminent domain.[98] The normally more conservative Jim Eddie, by contrast, whose district included the already struggling community of Covelo, which was located near the Round Valley Indian reservation, lamented that L-P’s decision would “devastate Covelo.”[99]

The Supervisors’ meeting itself was a hitherto unprecedented public display of unity between timber workers and environmentalists. Judi Bari reminded the board about the eminent domain proposal, arguing that it was not even that radical a measure, that L-P was committing corporate crimes, and “sucking the life blood out of the community.” She declared, “You thought we were pretty much off the wall. Now (you must realize) it’s probably the only way to save our county.”[100] She also cited the case of Fortunado Reyes as specific proof that L-P treated its workers as exploitatively as they treated the forests. “It’s not environmentalists versus timber—it’s corporate greed versus the local community,” she said.[101] Bari described the inherently destructive and unsustainable nature of L-Ps “logging to infinity” forestry, warning that this year they would hit the “timber gap” where they would run out of marketable logs. She admonished the board, “Are we going to wait until they finish or are we going to stop them now?” [102]

Bari was very quickly followed by Betty Ball, who disputed the rhetoric that environmental activists were responsible for the mill shutdowns:

“It’s not the environmentalists who have been overcutting…How stupid do they think we are? There could have been forests forever here. There could have been jobs forever. Logging is one of the oldest and finest professions on the North Coast, but the industry has ruined it for everybody…It’s outrageous what they’re doing.” [103]

Anna Marie Stenberg read the Georgia-Pacific millworkers statement, issued the previous December in response to Don Nelson, to emphasize the point that the latter did not adequately represent the interests of front line mill workers.[104]

Rick Cloninger informed the Board that L-P was now shipping even its wood chips—produced primarily from pecker poles, baby trees from the local forests—to power biomass plants in Tracy and Samoa. He accused Barry Keene of being in the pocket of corporate timber and that his attempts at “compromise” were nothing but a smokescreen.[105] “Our trees are being used to provide power for the Sacramento Valley. Don’t let L-P chip their way to another year of record profits,” implored the Laytonville resident.[106] “L-P must stop seeing everything with dollar signs,” he said.[107] Cloninger noted that two trucking operations, Dutra and Poole, were most likely transporting the chips out of the county. His spouse, Kathy Cloninger, who operated a recycling center in Laytonville, said that they had learned of this, because L-P’s biomass plant in Tracy was located right next door to Owens-Rockway where the Cloiningers took their glass for recycling.[108]

True to his word, Walter Smith charged L-P with logging the land to death. He drew a contrast between land he had logged in sustainably in 1982, and L-P’s recent “moonscaping” of that very same land nearly eight years later.[109] He was eloquent in his condemnation of the corporation stating, “L-P says the reason (for closing its mills) is that environmentalists are preserving the forests. The truth is that they are logging off the land and then subdividing and selling it…The forest service is giving up as much timber as it can.” Smith submitted that the reason L-P was closing its Covelo facility is that there were no more trees there. He revealed to the board that when he had worked for L-P that they had accused him of “not being a team player.” Smith countered that his “team” was the L-P mill workers. “The latest assault is the most painful since it comes from the very people who should be most concerned for our welfare—our employers,” declared Smith. Continuing, he admonished:

“(They have) exported logs to Mexico, exported jobs to Mexico, closed mills, and (made) meaningless agreements…the Millworkers are the economic backbone of this County. The forest is the heartbeat of rural nature in this county. Join my team and ban raw log exports and stop the liquidation of our forests.”[110]

After all of this, Darryl Cherney once again proved to be the show-stopper reprising his performance of El Pio[111] , which, according to Judi Bari, made everyone, except Supervisor Marilyn Butcher, smile.[112]

Don Nelson was also not smiling in the wake of the meeting, declaring:

“In the recent article on the occupation of the Mendocino County Supervisor’s[sic] chambers by ‘Earth First’,[sic] repeated reference[sic] is made to labor leaders as being a part of that group. Did anyone in fact see any bonafide labor representative in that group?…

“The so called[sic] IWW representative has no workers to represent. She was told that quite clearly by Judge Goldstein when she tried to intervene in the Georgia Pacific PCB incident, when he said that ‘The International[sic] Workers of the World, Local Union No. 1 do not fall within the definition of a labor organization.’…

“As a matter of policy the IWW does not seek to organize workers and negotiate contracts because they believe in the complete abolition of capitalism and the complete abolition of the wage system. They are not representatives of organized labor nor of lumber workers. On the other hand, the International Woodworkers of America is a bona fide labor organization.”[113]

Nelson’s claims were preposterous and untrue. His dismissal of the IWW was no doubt lifted from the pages of various (poorly researched) history books whose command of the facts were suspect to say the least. The IWW had, in fact, negotiated many contracts over its history and still does so. The rest of Nelson’s statements were, of course, only true on paper at best. And if the IWA was “bona fide” it left a lot to be desired, even as far as class collaborationist unions go. Bruce Anderson, at least, responded to Nelson and reminded him that nowhere in his screed did he actually address any of the issues raised by Bari, Earth First!, or the IWW at the meeting.[114] Nelson spoke favorably of Walter Smith’s presence, but he might have wanted to ask the former gyppo owner before invoking his name, because the latter was in near solid agreement with Bari on the issue.[115] And, if the IWW was not a “bona fide” labor union, they sure as hell sounded a lot more like one than Don Nelson’s IWA in their declarations of support for Redwood Summer:

“The exploitation of natural resources by the lumber companies is inevitably linked to the exploitation of labor...The Wobblies are pleased to work with Earth First! and local community groups in this campaign to save trees and jobs…

“We support real democracy in the workplace by putting all decision-making (and profits) into the hands of those who actually do the work. This is also the best assurance against environmental destruction, for the workers have an overwhelming self-interest in promoting safe and sustainable forms of production. After all, it’s the workers and their families who, under our current for-profit system, suffer the worst effects from pollution and other work-related health hazards.”[116]

Judi Bari fired back against the anti-Redwood Summer rhetoric in a guest editorial in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, declaring:

“This type of doublespeak seriously misrepresents the very real and intense struggle that is going on in the redwood region. It is time to set the record straight...

“According to the Mendocino County Forest Advisory Committee, L-P is cutting at more than twice the rate of growth in our county’s forests...In 1975, the Oswald Report predicted that, if harvest rates continued, a sharp fall-down in saw-timber supply would hit in 1990. Young stands would be growing but there wouldn’t be enough mature trees to keep the area’s mills going. This prediction was right on target, but no one predicted L-P’s unconscionable response to the problem...

“The loggers know this as well as the environmentalists and are no happier about it. ‘We’re killing babies,’ one logger told me. ‘I can’t feel good about what we’re doing anymore.’

“L-P is engaged in a mop-up operation in Mendocino County, stripping our children’s trees and jobs and threatening our area with the collapse of our forest ecosystem. Earth First! could disappear tomorrow and the mills would keep closing.”[117]

Bari went on to explain the call for Redwood Summer:

“Our call for mass protest this summer is a last ditch attempt to slow the corporations down to sustained yield before there is nothing left to save. It is not directed against the timber workers—every day we slow the corporations down is another day employees can collect a paycheck before the final layoff.

“But Barry Keene, Don Nelson, and others have been portraying this struggle as a ‘war’ between workers and environmentalists. They have been making statements that would incite people to violence against us, and this must be stopped.

“We are calling only for nonviolent protest this summer. We will be providing nonviolence training and strict nonviolence guidelines. We stand by our unbroken record of four years. We have held hundreds of protests, and, although violence has been directed against us, we have never initiated violence against others...

“The real reason they are so upset with Earth First! is because we have proposed a strategy that just might work.”[118]

Don Nelson couldn’t bear to let Bari have the last word, so he fired off a guest editorial of his own, which the Press Democrat published two weeks later. Once again, however Nelson mostly engaged in ad hominem attacks and peppered those with no shortage of self aggrandizing half-truths aimed to make himself look like the real voice of the timber workers on the north coast. His first shot was to once again accuse Bari of misrepresenting the facts, which was a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black, because his very next statement was, “No one has accused Earth First! of being responsible for Louisiana-Pacific Corporation’s actions.” Evidently Nelson was unaware of the dozens of comments uttered by WECARE, Candy Boak, Harry Merlo, Glennys Simmons, Shep Tucker, and Joe Wheeler—all unsavory characters with whom he was now associating—over the course of the previous two years saying essentially just that. Nelson then took credit for publically denouncing L-P’s overcut, which was not really earth shattering news, because practically everybody had done that. He then went on to credit Barry Keene for attempting to craft legislation against over-cutting since as early as 1973. While that may have been technically true, Keene’s language was always based on the notion that corporate timber was a given, and in any case his legislation had been weak and ineffective.[119] At this point Nelson went completely over the edge, stating:

“To further insult us, they claim that they are the true representatives of the people.

Who are they? When were they elected by anyone? When have they shouldered the responsibility for their actions? Why are they trying to cause workers to lose money and work? Why are they trying to provoke the workers? Is it because they still really believe what their mentor, Dave Foreman, thinks and promotes? Bari has proclaimed herself as taking a nonviolent approach to resolving an overcut problem by L-P and Pacific Lumber. However, she attacks everyone.”[120]

This was, of course, absurd; there was absolutely no record of Judi Bari having attacked anyone, let alone everyone, unless Nelson was equating legitimate criticism of half-truths, falsehoods, and unethical behavior, something Nelson had developed a penchant for by this time. Nelson’s repeated insistence that Bari “had not been elected” deliberately distracted attention away from the open secret that Nelson had utterly lost any credibility he had with his own rank and file, let alone anyone else other than the apologists for Corporate Timber. Naturally he neglected to mention any of this in his response to Bari. Instead, Nelson regurgitated a series of statements from various Earth First!ers, including Dave Foreman, Paul Watson, and Darryl Cherney, taken from an article by Michael Parfit in The Smithsonian and quoted grossly out of context.[121]

Nelson’s attempt to isolate the Redwood Summer organizers didn’t work, however. At least one reader, M. Martin, in a letter to the editor of the Press Democrat took Nelson to task for the latter’s letter excoriating Judi Bari and attempted to remind him that it was L-P that closed the mills, not Earth First!.[122] Potter Valley resident Michael B. Ward also revealed the shallowness of Nelson’s statements, drawing attention to L-P executives’ “fancy…multi-million dollar, tan and orange, corporate jets that fly in and out of the Ukiah airport,” and the “even fancier looking Ranger helicopters L-P executives use to fly out of the local mills,” which was ironic given the corporation’s cries of poverty. He made it clear that he was, “happy to see environmentalists and loggers working together,” and guessed that “they (were) really fighting for the same thing: more trees.”[123]

Meanwhile, Don Nelson found his list of allies shrinking steadily. On April 23, the Mendocino County Democratic Party Central Committee voted 10-3 to endorse Forests Forever. The three votes against the endorsement came from Don Nelson, Harry Bristrin, and Dan Hoy. Bristrin’s dissenting vote was likely made via instructions from Doug Bosco for whom the former was a newly appointed local representative. Bristrin also excoriated the majority for not endorsing Bosco’s reelection campaign, choosing instead to support Lionel Gambill. That a majority of the committee had refused to endorse Bosco was a testament to growing rank and file opposition within the Democratic Party to his unfettered allegiance to corporate timber.[124] Nelson’s opposition to the majority was also inevitable, as he had clearly embraced the role as the “union” front-man for big timber, and to drive the point home, he made a huge production out of “resigning” from the committee, declaring the majority a collection of “non-working elitists.”[125]

Nelson’s “resignation” was no less ineffective at turning folks against either Redwood Summer or Forests Forever. Another one-time Nelson ally, Roanne Withers, who was a fellow Democratic Party Central Committee member declared (in a letter sent to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat which the latter refused to publish), that Nelson’s resignation was “the only positive thing he has done for his labor constituents in a long time”, citing all of his past betrayals of the same, from his refusal to honor the UFCW picket lines in Fort Bragg to the abandonment of the G-P mill workers hit by the PCB spill as evidence. She also debunked Nelson’s declaration of the majority’s “elitism” by pointing out that they consisted of “a union shop steward, a bookkeeper, a typesetter, (multiple) attorneys, an innkeeper, an auto-mechanic, and Mendocino County Supervisor (Norm De Vall).[126] Earth First!er Bill Evans went one step further and dismissed Nelson’s resignation as grandstanding.[127] Nelson’s bark once again proved to be worse than his bite, however, as he rejoined the committee (“slunk back” in the words of Bruce Anderson) one month later.[128]

* * * * *

There was one important figure who was swayed by the negative rhetoric against Redwood Summer, however. Shortly after the Mendocino County Supervisors’ meeting, Gail Lucas issued a public statement condemning the Mississippi Summer of the California Redwoods, proclaiming:

“While we cannot dispute Earth First!’s definition of the problem, we do not agree with their solution…We believe that what is needed is action at the polls by the people of the state of California, not recruits who, however well-intentioned or well-briefed in non-violent protest, present a potential for violence…The planned confrontations (sic) will not save trees. They instead could generate strong antagonism from a sizable portion of the community with whom environmentalists are presently trying to establish a dialog.”[129]

Lucas’s statement was quickly bolstered by a letter of support from Jerry Merrill, the executive director of the Planning and Conservation League.[130] The national Sierra Club, Sierra Club California, and the Redwood Chapter of the Sierra Club followed this up with a statement distancing themselves from “illegal acts, including civil disobedience” arguing that interested persons should channel their efforts into supporting the electoral campaign to pass Big Green and Forests Forever.[131]

Various Earth First!ers reacted to Lucas’s sudden betrayal in various ways. Judi Bari quickly accused her of “spending too much time in smoke-filled rooms with Keene, Hauser, and Don Nelson instead of listening to her own membership,”[132] and further retorted:

“This is not going to make one iota of difference in what we do, or in how many people come. We didn’t ask for their endorsement, and we don’t care if they condemn it. Although I respect the Sierra Club’s efforts, if working through the system did as well as Gail Lucas says it does, then we wouldn’t be in this desperate situation.”[133]

Greg King went as far as to accuse Lucas of “environmental imperialism”.[134]

Darryl Cherney concurred, further suggesting that civil disobedience had created the climate making Forests Forever possible in the first place.

Ukiah Earth First!er Sequoia—who was passionately outspoken even by Earth First! standards—bluntly opined that Don Nelson and Gail Lucas must have been sleeping together, elaborating “It’s clear to me. Their press releases are almost identical in spirit,” in response to which Bruce Anderson, a staunch Redwood Summer supporter, quibbled, “I dunno Sequoia. They’re already sleeping with Georgia-Pacific, Louisiana-Pacific, Bosco, Keene, and Hauser…When do they find time to sleep with each other?”[135]

Taking a somewhat more diplomatic approach, Ron Guenther and Betty Ball who were both Earth First!ers and Sierra Club rank and file members publically rebuked Lucas’s dismissal of populist resistance to corporate timber in an open letter:

“This is of great concern to us. The California State Forest Practices Task Force Chair is a position within the Sierra Club’s bureaucratic superstructure increasingly isolated from the Club’s grass roots effort, which gives it direction. The Task Force Chair does not speak for the grass roots Sierra Club, The increasing isolation of the Task Force Chair from the Club’s grass roots effort is seriously threatening the accomplishment of the Sierra Club’s basic forestry mission, which is protecting and enhancing, and acting as an advocate for the California forest environment. As leaders in the most directly affected North West California Sierra Club grass roots Groups and Chapter, we deplore the attack on Earth First! in the name of the Sierra Club.”[136]

Lucas didn’t speak for anyone other than herself and skittish middle class “environmentalists” who had a good deal more in common with Harry Merlo and Charles Hurwitz than the timber workers or Earth First!. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat, however, spun Lucas’s statement as “proof” that Redwood Summer was “losing support”.[137] Two weeks later, when the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance disassociated itself from Redwood Summer, the corporate press was quick to report that as major news also.[138] The media seemed wholly uninterested in the contrasting sentiments of G-P millworker Ken Cleaverwood, however, who stated:

“So the local Sierra Club shit-kickers are going to join hands with Earth First! I guess that’s hopeful. Guenther, Bari, Ball, &; Co. are at least honest, which is more than I can say for that corrupt, sumbitch of a union so-called business agent we’ve got here who sells us out to the Co. every chance he gets. The industry runs Nelson, who’s been in bed with the Sierra Club timber rep ever since I can remember. Anything that breaks up this cozy nut can’t help but be good for the worker. Any logger who even thinks about coming down hard on an Earth First!er this summer is one silly sumbitch. Hey, you dumb galoots, who do you think’s looking out for you, the union?”[139]

* * * * *

Earth First! on the North Coast had eliminated every halfway legitimate obstacle to their potential to turn timber workers against the corporations, save one: tree spiking. Although Judi Bari had personally renounced it at the Public Law conference in Oregon, it was not an official statement, and she knew that, in spite of the near unanimous support her announcement received it still represented, at best, a vocal minority within the Earth First! movement. Bari had other supporters outside of Earth First! however, especially the growing number of timber workers who she now could confidently count upon as allies, including Gene Lawhorn, Pete Kayes, Walter Smith, the G-P millworkers affected by the PCB spill, and the many unnamed anonymous L-P employees with whom she had numerous contacts. Without exception, all of them agreed that Earth First! would never achieve much more credibility until they renounced any tactic that potentially placed timber workers at direct risk to their health and safety.[140]

After considerable discussion and urging by Judi Bari and others who attended the conference, spokespeople for every northwestern California Earth First! Group as well as IWW Local #1 decided to call a press conference and publically renounce tree spiking. On April 11, 1990, at the Louisiana Pacific Mill in Samoa, Judi Bari (representing Ukiah Earth First!), Darryl Cherney, (representing Southern Humboldt County Earth First!), Mike Roselle (speaking as one of Earth First!’s cofounders), Rick and Kathi Cloninger (representing Laytonville Earth First!), Larry Evans (representing miscellaneous North Coast Earth First!ers), Greg King (representing the Redwood Action Team), Pam Davis (representing Sonoma County Earth First!), Annie Oakleaf, (representing Albion Earth First!), and Anna Marie Stenberg (representing IWW Local #1 officially—though more than half of the others were IWW members as well) issued the following statement:

“In response to the concerns of loggers and mill-workers, Northern California Earth First! organizers are renouncing the tactic of tree spiking in our area. Through the coalitions we have been building with lumber workers, we have learned that the timber corporations care no more for the lives of their employees than they do for the life of the forest. Their routine maiming and killing of mill workers is coldly calculated into the cost of doing business, just as the destruction of whole ecosystems is considered a reasonable by-product of lumber production.

“These companies would think nothing of sending a spiked tree through a mill, and relish the anti-Earth First! publicity that an injury would cause.

“Since Earth First! is not a membership organization, it is impossible to speak for all Earth First!ers. But this decision has been widely discussed among Earth First!ers in our area, and the local sentiment is overwhelmingly in favor of renouncing tree-spiking. We hope that our influence as organizers will cause any potential tree-spikers to consider using a different method. We must also point out that we are not speaking for all Earth First! groups in this pronouncement. Earth First! is decentralized, and each group can set its own policies. A similar statement to this one renouncing tree spiking is now being made in Southern Oregon, but not all groups have reached the broad consensus we have on this issue.

“But in our area, the loggers and mill workers are our neighbors, and they should be our allies, not our adversaries. Their livelihood is being destroyed along with the forest. The real conflict is not between us and the timber workers, it is between the timber corporation and our entire community.

“We want to give credit for this change in local policy to the rank and file timber workers who have risked their jobs and social relations by coming forward and talking to us. This includes Gene Lawhorn of Roseburg Lumber in Oregon, who defied threats to appear publicly with Earth First! organizer Judi Bari. It also includes the Georgia Pacific, Louisiana Pacific, and Pacific Lumber employees who are members of IWW Local #1 in northern California.

“Equipment sabotage is a time-honored tradition among industrial workers. It was not invented by Earth First!, and it is certainly not limited to Earth First! even in our area. But the target of monkey wrenching was always intended to be the machinery of destruction, not the workers who operate that machinery for $7/hour. This renunciation of tree spiking is not a retreat, but rather an advance that will allow us to stop fighting the victims and concentrate on the corporations themselves.”[141]

Granting that Earth First! on the North Coast never actually engaged in tree spiking, Darryl Cherney commented, “I admit it’s a bit unusual to renounce a tactic that you haven’t used to begin with, but we’re tired of being asked to answer for something that we don’t do.”[142]

The renunciation received fairly decent coverage in the local mainstream press, including the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, whose coverage of Earth First! and Redwood Summer was most favorable among the northwestern California corporate dailies.[143] Many timber workers and Mendocino County locals cheered the decision and expressed their support for Earth First!.[144] However, the Eureka Times-Standard, whose editorial policy was staunchly anti Earth First!, botched the story completely by publishing a headline which suggested the opposite of what actually happened, and this caused further tensions in Humboldt County.[145] The San Francisco Chronicle was even worse, editorializing favorably of the renunciation, albeit under the extremely inaccurate and uncalled for headline “Eco-Terrorists Abandon Spikes”, which was to suggest that even if Earth First! renounced all actions save knitting, they’d still be denounced as terrorists.[146] The national Corporate Media was equally atrocious in its coverage, and the worst example was the New York Times which called Bari an advocate of tree-spiking, in spite of Bari never having been one, even before her public renunciation in Eugene. To make matters worse, in no case did any of the press stories, even the sympathetic examples, mention Bari’s labor activism.[147]

Those that renounced tree spiking anticipated the possibility that the announcement would not be universally welcomed by Earth First!ers outside of northwestern California and southern Oregon. Darryl Cherney, who was still the most prominent local Earth First! spokesperson at the time wrote a separate statement intended to clarify the positions of those that had agreed to the renunciation stating, among other things:

“The decision was not irreversible, should the forest situation worsen, although it is hard to fathom how much worse it can get. The decision is not made for all Earth First!ers, and as a non-organization, we are entitled to our individual opinions. We take no responsibility for any prior spikings; our intent is to actively advocate not spiking trees at this point. This is not a retreat, nor is it an abandonment of monkeywrenching. It is an advance toward joining Northern California woodworkers in the fight to save the planet. Of course it will also take the wind out of the timber industry’s publicity sails.”[148]

The Corporate Media’s incompetence (or perhaps subterfuge) in handling the story confused matters for Earth First!. As predicted, many were confused by the incomplete versions of the renunciation they heard or read about, and some were outright hostile. Due to his prominence as a spokesperson for Earth First! in general, Judi Bari had contacted Dave Foreman personally and informed him of her decision. Foreman responded with an emphatic letter opposing Bari’s choice, though he still referred to her as a hero who would be remembered 100 years later.[149] The editors of the Earth First! Journal saw fit to preface their republication of the renunciation statement with a paragraph long disclaimer which began, “In a move that has left some EF!ers confused or dismayed, several West Coast Earth First! groups have renounced tree spiking,” and even listed a Colorado Earth First!er, Michael Robinson, so that those who wished to hear “a compelling letter in opposition to the…renunciation.”[150] This was typical of Earth First!’s openness, but whether intended or not, Earth First!’s lack of unity on this particular decision gave its critics plenty of ammunition to use against it.

At the same time, Earth First!’s Tree Spiking renunciation made the timber industry kulaks even angrier and louder in their denunciation of the environmentalists than ever before, no doubt because Earth First! had stolen their thunder. Speaking for L-P and WECARE, Shep Tucker called it a non-event and declared “(Earth First!) is dealing with semantics…they’re renouncing and not denouncing tree-spiking…They’re still terrorists no matter what they say.”[151]

TEAM spokesman Gary Gundlach, in a guest editorial in the Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance sunk to red baiting, arguing that the tree spiking renunciation was empty and meaningless because Earth First! had “made alliances with the International (sic) Workers of the World who has well known ties with communism.”[152]

Candy Boak spewed forth with her usual venom, regurgitating practically every “unwashed-out-of-town-jobless-hippies-on-drugs” talking pint in the book and further opining, “(Earth First! renouncing tree spiking is) like letting everyone in jail out if they said they would never commit another crime.”[153]

Irv Fletcher, President of the Oregon AFL-CIO Labor Federation argued that Earth First! had to do much more than renounce tree spiking, “They’ve got to renounce damage to workers’ equipment and what they’re doing to workers’ lives.”[154]

Mark Rey, executive director of the American Forest Resource Alliance in Oregon called the renunciation “suspiciously timed” since it came just three weeks after the infamous 60 Minutes broadcast.[155]

Jim McCauley, speaking on behalf of the Associated Oregon Loggers—another Corporate Timber front group—set new standards in hyperbole, comparing the renunciation to “the terrorists in Beirut, Lebanon (announcing that) they’re going to stop car bombings, but they’re still going to take hostages,”[156]

William W. Alexander, in a letter to the Ukiah Daily Journal called the statement “a joke” and also repeated the all too common charge that Earth First! was “a terrorist organization” (even though no Earth First!er had ever been convicted—or even tried—for the crime of terrorism).[157] Michael D Frazier compared the renunciation to the “propaganda broadcasts by Radio Hanoi.”[158] B. J. Bell was even more dismissive and sneering towards Earth First! and environmentalists in particular, denouncing all of them as “hypocrites” since they “live in houses and drive cars” (as if environmentalists want to abolish either).[159]

John Campbell dispensed with the renunciation in his usual dramatic fashion. At the invitation of the Eureka Rotary Club, the P-L exec did his best to declare the North Coast Earth First! and IWW spokespeople as blatant liars. For a visual aide as “proof” of his sincerity, he held up a foot-long section of a redwood log with an eight-inch railroad spike driven into it. A handful of the assembled Rotarians gasped.[160] Campbell then explained that this particular spike, along with two others of identical design, had been discovered in Mill B in Scotia two weeks earlier.[161] He then invoked hypothetical scenarios closely matching the real experiences of George Alexander in Cloverdale three years earlier. Although he didn’t come out and actually name Earth First!, the implications, as far as the assembled crowd was concerned, were clear, and for good measure, he reminded everyone of Darryl Cherney’s “body-bomb” quote from 60 Minutes.[162]

There was, of course, no way to prove that Campbell wasn’t lying. There were was no easy way to determine when the spikes had been driven into the logs, even if he wasn’t. Even if there were, there was no way to prove that it had been done by an Earth First!er, let alone one or more of the supporters of the renunciation. Jeff Ringwald, the company’s safety coordinator admitted that it was uncertain where the tree had been cut or how long it had been stored at the mill. He guessed that the spikes “didn’t appear to have been in the tree for a long period of time,” but by that he meant that the spikes were no more than a few years old, and he further declared, “We’re not accusing anyone,” which seemed to contradict Campbell’s speech to the Rotarians.[163]

Evidently there were others that feared the wind being removed from their sails by the tree spiking renunciation as well. Shortly after the April 11 press conference, some person or persons unknown, referring to themselves as “Arcata Earth First!” published leaflets stating that they disagreed with “non-feral Darryl” and tree spiking renunciation. The fliers described the situation as “an all-out war with the North Coast timber companies.” “Come one, come all”, said the leaflets, “We intend to spike trees, monkeywrench, and even resort to violence if necessary.”[164] Another leaflet entitled “Some Thoughts on Strategy” was anything but, as it rambled on incoherently about sabotage, randomness, and invisibility.[165] The Corporate Press treated the leaflets as genuine, spinning the situation as “infighting within the Redwood Summer Coalition”.[166] Not surprisingly the apologists for corporate timber did so as well, such as D.R. Sendak, who not only dismissed the tree spiking renunciation as “kinder gentler terrorism”:

“(T)hey now say they will emphasize the destruction, of woods equipment belonging to the local timber companies…While this may or may not come as a surprise to you, Ms. Bari, the majority of the logging done on the North Coast is by contract loggers and not directly by the large corporations you seem to despise. The monkey wrenching you encourage does not directly hurt the timber companies, but rather the small loggers who have families, monthly mortgage payments, and the desire to make a living in an honest and hardworking manner…”[167]

Judi Bari, however had nothing to do with these leaflets, and neither did any other genuine Earth First!er. There was then no such thing as Arcata Earth First! nor had their ever really been an Earth First! chapter based there. The only thing closely resembling such was HSU professor Bill Devall who had, long before the days of the Redwood Action Team and Southern Humboldt Earth First!, listed his contact information in the Earth First! Journal.[168] These leaflets were obviously bogus; they spelled Darryl Cherney’s name incorrectly as “Daryl” and incorrectly identified Judi Bari’s home town.[169]

There was little doubt among the members of Earth First! – IWW Local #1 who had been responsible. Bruce Anderson had even gone as far as to publically identify Candy Boak as the culprit, and indeed this was a logical deduction.[170] She had by now engaged in almost two years of attempting to “monkeywrench the moneywrenchers”, even to the point of publishing false press releases during the previous year’s “Earth First! National Tree Sit Week” (Boak’s forgeries proclaimed “National Tree Shit Week.”) However, in this case, Boak was not alone in her efforts. Fellow WECARE and Mothers’ Watch spokeswoman Paula Langanger revealed (later that year to the FBI), that there was a core group of wise use activists who “liked to play little jokes on Earth First!”, including publishing fake press releases. She even named local Corporate Timber apologist Dave Curzon as the author of these particular forgeries.[171]

Yet, the three timber corporations not only treated them as genuine, they actually facilitated their dissemination. Louisiana Pacific went as far as to distribute the fake press releases to their workers at the Samoa pulp mill in a mandatory meeting. There, plant manager Fred Martin encouraged the employees to intimidate environmentalists by attending their meetings “with rolled up sleeves, wearing work boots and hard hats,” according to a union grievance filed against the company for the meeting by Pulp and Paper Workers Local 49.[172] In fact, these leaflets had been distributed to their sawmills all over the U.S. Shep Tucker, however, lied to the press declaring that the company suspected, “a third party, perhaps a splinter group”, knowing full well who had distributed them.[173]

It turns out, the bogus leaflets and press releases had been circulated by Hill & Knowlton as part of their efforts to discredit Forests Forever and anything remotely associated with it.[174] Their fraudulent nature was detectable even by those not intimately familiar with these details, including San Francisco Examiner columnist Rob Morse who declared, “Things are getting pretty weird up there…Not only are the trees being clearcut, some dirty trickster is turning them into fake press releases,” and revealed that Hill & Knowlton had sent them as part of a packet at the behest of Pacific Lumber.[175] This was not just an isolated incident, however. In Olympia, Washington, a major coalition involving Earth First! and the Pulp and Paper Millworkers Union against raw log exports had been undermined when bogus “minutes,” of an environmentalist meeting that never actually took place, which mentioned “sabotage” were circulated.[176] If anyone was engaging in monkeywrenching, it was not Earth First!, but Corporate Timber.

* * * * *

The environmentalists did not let up for a second in exposing the claim that they were anti-jobs as a lie. In response to Louisiana-Pacific’s resumption of aerial Garlon spraying over 1,000 acres in the woods near the Humboldt County communities of Trinidad, Westhaven, and Fieldbrook, a group of protesters locked down to an L-P security gate on Channel Road northeast of Eureka on April 11. Several of them were arrested. The next day, several dozen activists, including Earth First!er Larry Evans, organized yet another protest in Samoa against the corporation demanding an end to the practice. The demonstrators struck a decidedly pro-worker tone by chanting slogans like, “Employ people, not poison!” These calls echoed IWA Local 4-98 representative Tim Skaggs’s call for “manual release” five years previously, but L-P was not budging. Shep Tucker again dismissed the labor intensive practice as being “too costly” (on the order of three to five times as expensive as chemical intensive brush removal). Then, he resorted to scare tactics, claiming that the company had received anonymous bomb threats in connection with the protests, but offered no substantive proof of these.[177]

The next day, the Eureka Times-Standard reported that Pacific Lumber’s sales and operating gains in 1989 had been stronger than ever. The company’s end-of-year financial report to the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that P-L reported operating income in excess of $59.8 million for the year ending December 31, in comparison to the previous two year’s totals (both of which had been records) of $53.7 million in 1988 and $50.9 million in 1987. Their lumber and log sales were likewise unprecedentedly bountiful, exceeding $171 million in 1989 as opposed to the previous years’ record totals of $160.8 million in 1988 and $150.8 million in 1987. These figures were dampened somewhat by reports of a $7.6 million net loss, including $24.2 million in debt payments. The report also stated, very candidly, that P-L’s management believed that the pending challenges to the company’s timber harvesting plans were “unlikely to have a material adverse effect on the company’s financial condition.” Whether P-L’s statement was an accurate assessment of the company’s predictions or merely a feel-good pronouncement intended to smooth-talk Maxxam’s shareholders didn’t alter the fact that it was substantially inconsistent from its claims that “unwashed-out-of-town-jobless-hippies-on-drugs” were going to destroy the North Coast’s economy.[178]

Revelation such as these only increased support for Redwood Summer. On Saturday, April 21, 1990, students at Lower Lake High School in Ukiah took a page out of Earth First!’s playbook and hung a banner across Perkins Street, one of the main thoroughfares in the heart of town, which read “L-P = LOGGER POVERTY”, a slogan which was later made into a bumper sticker, which was sold fairly widely throughout the county. That same day, over 100 demonstrators in Los Angeles, organized by Earth First! and the IWW, held a protest at Maxxam’s regional office there.[179] Meanwhile, the 400 member strong AWPPW union local based in Toledo, Ohio, who had been on strike against Georgia Pacific since March 2—in coordination with other unions, including the Teamsters—announced that they would be calling for a nationwide boycott of all of the company’s products, including redwood lumber, starting on the Pacific Coast.[180] The potential for an environmentalist and worker alliance grew larger by the day in spite of Corporate Timber’s subterfuge.

* * * * *

Yet, it seemed that the more Earth First! proclaimed its commitment to nonviolence and building bridges with the timber workers, the more violent and dogmatic the rhetoric became from Corporate Timber and its front groups, to the point where it wasn’t entirely clear if the latter would stop at mere rhetoric. As if the Yellow Ribbon Coalition, WECARE, TEAM, and Mothers Watch weren’t rabidly right wing enough, a new faction joined the fray from the Mojave Desert region of southeastern California: the Sahara Club, founded by two southern California dirt bikers, Louis “Phantom Duck” McKey and Rick “Super Hunky” Siemen.[181]

McKey and Siemen had been angered when their annual Barstow to Las Vegas dirt bike race had been prohibited, because such activity devastated fragile desert ecosystems. The two bitterly opposed the new restrictions, and their newly founded group ostensibly organized to keep public lands open to all terrain vehicles (ATVs), certainly an issue that pitted them against just about all environmental organizations, but they also had more sinister aims in mind.[182] To say that the pair disdained environmentalists was the height of understatement. McKey and Siemen had chosen the organization’s name to deliberately thumb their nose at the Sierra Club, whom both founders despised. Their opinion of Greenpeace was no less charitable, once referring to them as “a bunch of lying, evil, cretinous, scum-sucking, larcenous, vile, money-grubbing bastards.”[183] Sieman was not exactly just some random nobody either; he was the senior editor of Dirt Bike Magazine.[184]

The Sahara Club was anything but ethical or polite. Indeed, they were unapologetically violent.[185] The Sahara Club was composed mainly of ATV enthusiasts, but it also had actual terroristic tendencies, and they included distributing a completely fake “Earth First! Terrorism Manual” which supposedly described how to make bombs. They claimed that they had acquired the manual from Earth First! somehow, and were offering it to their readers at a price of $5.[186] Of course, there was no such manual; the closest thing to it was Ecodefense, and that unequivocally warned against use of any explosives.[187] Additionally, the April 1990 edition of the Sahara Club Newsletter republished a list of the entire Earth First! directory from the Mabon / March 21, 1990 edition of the Earth First! Journal, with an introduction which read, “Here is the latest up to the minute data on where the scum are and how to reach them. In many cases, they just have a PO Box listed, but with a little detective work, we’re sure you can track them down and perhaps ‘reason’ with them about the error of their ways.”[188] It was not at all difficult to infer exactly what the Sahara Club meant by that statement, because that same issue also contained the following quotation:

“The Sahara Club needs about a dozen volunteers to form a special division—the Sahara Clubbers! All volunteers should weigh about 200 pounds and have a bad attitude. Big, tall, ugly desert riders preferred…Naturally the ‘Clubbers’ will be expected to honor all laws, but if some Earth First! scum resist a citizen’s arrest in the process, it might be necessary to subdue them prior to turning them over to the authorities.”[189]

It would be easy to dismiss this as simply the acts of loose cannons on the far right, but the Sahara Club was anything but. They worked closely with Candy Boak and agreed to jointly host a workshop on how to further intimidate and harass Earth First!.[190] Boak’s Mothers’ Watch group shared members with WECARE which counted Shep Tucker among its spokespeople. The connections to Corporate Timber may have been tenuous on paper, but in reality it was no difficult task to identify the men behind the Redwood Curtain.

These coalitions weren’t just deadly serious, they were also seriously deadly. Candy Boak continued to telephone Judi Bari and issue veiled threats, but these were never specific. During the third week in April, however, a leaflet consisting of a Xeroxed photograph of Judi Bari, taken from the April 4 Mendocino County Board of Supervisors’ meeting with a riflescope and crosshairs centered on her face, was found taped to the glass door of the MEC. Stapled to the flyer was a yellow ribbon. These flyers eerily matched similar threats issued during the 1960s against leftist activists and organizers by the right wing paramilitary organization known as “the Minute Men”, which had links to COINTELPRO.[191]

This was one of several that were received by Bari, Cherney, and Greg King all within a scope of a few weeks. Bari also received a postcard, postmarked April 10, typed on a manual typewriter and sent to the MEC reading simply, “Judi Bari: get out andgo (sic) bac k (sic) to where you came from…we know every thing (sic)…YOU WON’T GET A SECOND WARNING.”[192]

Judi Bari, Betty Ball, Pam Davis, and Michelle Miller[193] also received a vile, homophobic, and hateful letter which read as follows:

Darryl Cherney, Bill Devall, Larry Evans, Greg King, and Daniel Barron received similarly themed letters, denouncing them as “Earth First! fellatio experts who suck dicks in outhouses”, with the second and third paragraphs nearly identical to the letters sent to the women (except with the word “homo” in place of “lesbian”). An additional paragraph read, “Another thing that is bothersome, is that if you were truly interested in conservation one would think you would curtail butt slamming your buddy…and spreading AIDS, thereby conserving the lives of the rest of the normal population. Think about it dick breath.”[195] These particular threats bore postmarks from San Diego, making the Sahara Club a likely suspect of their source, but it would be almost impossible to prove it.[196] The Sahara Club was violent and rabidly homophobic, but there were no shortage of other possible sources as well.

All of the death threats bore an eerie resemblance to those issued against other leftist organizations in the past, many of which were later connected to COINTELPRO. For example, on April 25, 1990, the same group of Earth First!ers received a letter purportedly from a bunch of high school students calling themselves the “Tasmanian Teens” that included a page and a half of personal attacks and concluded with a wish that a logger would “just run you over if you get in their way,” and warned them threateningly that “accidents happen.”[197] That wasn’t all. Another anonymous leaflet, featuring a hand drawn hangman’s noose simply titled “Humboldt & Mendocino Countie’s (sic) Welcomes Dirt First to A Mississippi Summer.” Considering that the hangman’s noose was often used by the Ku Klux Klan and other southern based white supremacists to lynch blacks, the implications of the threat were all too chilling.[198]

For the most part, the source of these threats couldn’t be identified, but there were exceptions. At least one group of local thugs known as the “Stompers” (who had in part been inspired by the joint workshop organized by Candace Boak and the Sahara Club and would spend much of the summer terrorizing the Redwood Summer coalition) also sent threatening letters to various Earth First! and/or IWW organizers, such as the following:

Greg King took the death threats in stride. Even before the FBI dragnet had entrapped Dave Foreman, Peg Millett, and the others the previous year, he was convinced that he and his comrades were under surveillance. It was the disinformation and the media’s willingness to swallow it that bothered him most.[200]

Meanwhile, before the tree spiking renunciation, Darryl Cherney had never received a death threat. By the end of April he had received thirty-six, and they just kept coming. Cherney forwarded copies of each to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department. After sending in a copy of the “Stompers” letter, Cherney called to ask them, in their opinion, if he and his comrades were in any danger. The sergeant who answered agreed that they were and even went as far as to respond that the activists would be lucky if all they received were a sound beating. Cherney then asked what the Humboldt County Sheriffs intended to do about it, to which the latter responded, “we’ll fill out a report.” Stunned, Cherney inquired, “That’s all?” The sergeant answered in the affirmative.[201] Evidently, Cherney reasoned, the Humboldt County sheriffs didn’t like Earth First! anymore than the timber industry did.[202] Cherney then contacted the Eureka office of the FBI who told him that they didn’t have jurisdiction.[203]

Bari had received death threats before in conjunction with her past labor activities, but even these hadn’t been this serious.[204] Bari had contacted Dave Foreman and Foreman recalls that his fellow activist had been “very frightened” about them.[205] In a separate phone conversation with IWW organizer Gary Cox, Bari recalled Cox’s warning about retaliation and asked him if she should take the death threats seriously. Cox responded by telling her that he didn’t think that the makers of the death threats or even the timber industry would go that far.[206] Nevertheless, Judi Bari brought them to the attention of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s department and Ukiah Police, but neither took any action. She reported that Lieutenant Saiterwhite responded dismissively and unsympathetically, and said to her, “We don’t have the manpower. If you show up dead, we’ll investigate.” The Ukiah police later claimed that they put the case on hold because Bari had refused to show them the evidence[207] , which is highly unlikely considering that she shared them with the press.[208] In fact, Bari had refused to surrender the originals, which Ukiah Police Chief Fred Kepplinger claimed hamstrung the investigation, because it prevented them from obtaining evidence from fingerprints. Bari’s refusal was no doubt motivated by her previous attempts to seek justice for the incidents in Philo and Whitehtorn which had been ignored.[209]

Indeed, in spite of all of the denunciations by the powers that be of the comparison between Redwood Summer and the original Mississippi Freedom Summer, the atmosphere on the North Coast was beginning to resemble Mississippi all too closely.