october 1-15, 2008

Remembering George Demmerle his fifteen minutes of fame. He talked more like a hippie from Hair than a hip- Portrait of a Police Informer pie from real life. Shortly after we met, he told a Dallas newspaper: “I loved By David Bonner Jerry and Abbie. I don’t want the ideals they stood for – love and freedom – to hen Frank Zappa died in Simon called him “the craziest person I die with them. The ideals of the Yippies 1993, I wrote his obituary in ever met.” According to the newspaper’s are the last hope for America.” I do think the Dallas Morning News. editor Jeff Shero, “Whenever there was he really believed his rhetoric, but I also WThe next day, I got a phone call from a a meeting, he’d get up and say to people, believe that his politics ultimately were total stranger named George DeMerle, ‘Anyone who wants to get arrested, come more about himself than anything else. who claimed that my article touched with me.’ A lot of people thought he was For George, politics were something to his psychedelic heart. It turned out that very cool and very radical.” He would dress up to. this George fellow happened to live only “sit at Yippie planning meetings playing And that he did. The Rat described a couple of miles from where I did, so I with his own toy bombs,” reported the George as a “familiar sight on 8th Street invited him over. He was about 65 then East Village Other. Dave Dellinger re- and 6th Avenue, strutting in his lavender – some 30 years my senior: a kindly , hag- membered him bringing a “bloody pig’s jeweled Nehru shirt and Day-glo pink gard old hippie, who projected a vibe of head” to an anti-war meeting, and then helmet with two feather dusters on top peace and love at all times. accusing everybody there of being capi- like a Roman guard.” He would “show up Having begun our acquaintance with at demonstrations in a purple cape and an obit, it seemed only fitting that I end it The Rat described plumed helmet,” noted Jane Alpert in her with one following his death last October. George as a “fa- memoir Growing Up Underground. The But I never got around to it until now, East Village Other recalled the time he one year later, as George comes back to miliar sight on 8th appeared at a demonstration “dressed as mind, thanks to the McCain campaign Street and 6th a dead Green Beret.” suddenly discovering Barack Obama’s Shortly after Jerry Rubin died in 1994, ex-Weatherman “pal,” Bill Ayers. Upon Avenue, strutting Paul Krassner devoted an issue of his meeting, the first thing George told me satirical magazine The Realist to the was that he “used to run with Abbie and in his lavender jew- theme “Who Killed Jerry Rubin?” One of Jerry.” Being something of a Sixties buff, I eled Nehru shirt and the imaginary conspiracy theories that of course knew who Hoffman and Rubin Krassner concocted was “The George were, even though I (like Obama) was Day-Glo pink hel- Demmerle Connection.” This was unreal, only a child during their heyday. George met with two feath- of course, but he did preface it with a continued by saying that he had founded truthful and useful summary of George’s an offshoot of the Yippies, called “The er dusters on top background: “Demmerle had started out Crazies.” Then he topped it off by reveal- like a Roman guard.” with the reactionary John Birch Society, ing that he had been an FBI informer all switched to an ultra-right-wing militia, the while. talist dupes. Apparently, George was also the Minutemen, then tried to join the Naturally, I thought he was full of shit. the inspiration for the “Quick Kill Merle” FBI, which took him on as a volunteer However, after he went home, I went to character in Ed Sanders’ hilariously pro- – and later paid – informant ... When my shelves and consulted Jerry Rubin’s fane Yippie novel, Shards of God. the Yippies held a pre-Chicago event on 1971 book We Are Everywhere – and there During our first meeting, George pre- a pier at the Hudson River, nominating a was George, pictured in full glory on page sented me with a fairly rare pressing of pig for president, Demmerle played the 217. His name was spelled “Demmerle” Mothermania, an ironic “greatest hits” role of a stereotypical anarchist, using for back then, and he was “the craziest yippie LP by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of his prop a black bowling ball complete of them all,” according to Rubin. “George Invention. But it was quickly apparent with fuse. Before he could carry out his was the craziest cat around. If you want- that he really didn’t have much under- mission to assassinate Pigasus, he was ed anything flippy done, call George. He standing of what Zappa was all about. thrown into the water. After a while, the lived on the streets and worked with the He was visibly disappointed, for example, role began to play him.” people. He never took off his yippie but- when I mentioned that Frank was anti- His double role as informant and ton. When the Crazies were born, in an drug and didn’t get high. George did get Crazie couldn’t last. Here, in a nutshell, attempt to get an identity distinct from high, and over the next few months he is what happened. In the summer and yippie, George nicknamed himself ‘Prince would come over regularly, as I would fall of 1969, a collective of Weathermen- Crazy, Son of Yippie.’“ try to extract details of his former life, in type radicals – Jane Alpert, Sam Melville, Further research lent support to return for me providing him with a safe Dave Hughey, and Patricia Swinton – Rubin’s account. Bill Etra, a photogra- haven for smoking pot, which was pro- perpetrated several politically motivated pher for the Manhattan-based under- hibited in his own home. bombings of prominent targets in New ground newspaper Rat, said that George As with his take on Zappa, George York City. (They targeted property only, “always went around as if he were on one seemed to have only the slenderest un- but one attack did cause minor personal big, big trip.” The Rat’s art director Paul derstanding of the scene which gave him injuries.) At the Woodstock Festival in

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August of that year, Melville struck up turn out as they did? That seems highly and finally making headlines in 1969. a friendship with Demmerle, who was implausible. On the contrary, I see him Change a few variables and Demmerle manning the Crazies booth; soon there- as typical of the dubious characters, who might’ve become Manson, or vice versa. after, Melville revealed to Demmerle in- regularly appear as informants “of known Once exposed, being useless to the FBI criminating secrets about the bombings. reliability” (meaning reliably unreliable) and hated by his former radical associ- In due course, Melville enlisted him in in the average FBI file. Jane Alpert, de- ates, George began drifting again, even- one of the collective’s bombing plots, spite her comment about George cleverly tually ending up in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Demmerle, in turn, snitched to his laying a trap, knew that Sam “couldn’t suburb of Arlington. By the time I met FBI handlers. The two men were busted have made it easier” for him. By the time him, he was living the life of a small-time as they attempted to place bombs under George stumbled into Sam’s life, I think artist, creating weblike installations out Army trucks at the 69th Regimental he had evolved to the point where Prince of some sort of synthetic material, upon Armory in Manhattan. Crazy was, indeed, his primary passion, which he would project multicolored “Then a day later,” wrote Jerry Rubin, but his self-perceived James Bond role lights. (He had constant health problems, “I read that George was released with- as an informer remained too irresistible perhaps due to the chemicals involved in out bail on the prosecution’s motion and to give up. Stew Albert: “George was the creating his web works.) Occasionally, he he was going to testify for the govern- ego maniac Prince Crazy. Even Jerry and would have an art exhibit, showing up ment. My heart stopped. I felt so shitty. Abbie didn’t pose that much (they let dressed as Prince Crazy, complete with George’s emergence as an FBI informer Hendrixian coat and other psychedelic ... dealt a temporary blow to the freaky The arc of his life attire. He was a regular at anti-war and movement in New York.” had much in com- other protest rallies, and generally wher- GEORGE DEMMERLE: THE PIG ever Dallas-Fort Worth weirdos were – WORE A DAY-GLO HELMET. That’s mon with his con- such as the rites held by something called how the headline in the East Village temporary, Charles the Eulessyian Hot Tub Mystery Religion. Other summed it up. Among movement His odd behavior and unusual past was people, the reaction of Bill Etra was typi- Manson. Both were a big hit among the young people who cal: “I just can’t believe that he was an born to broken fam- shared his company. agent all along. It’s really hard for me to What did this George – the George I conceive of a police agent being tripped ilies during the early knew – think of his earlier self? He readily out constantly.” Nor could Paul Krassner, Great Depression, admitted that “I am not innocent of being who flatly admitted, “I was fooled by a slimeball” for betraying people he pro- Demmerle.” As Jane Alpert noted, “Very condemned to foster fessed to admire. However, he attempted few actually suspected him of being an homes, then end- to justify the betrayal by claiming that he agent,” though her co-conspirator Dave was “trapped” in his role as an informer Hughey “actually believed he was an ing up immersed in a – an excuse that never rang true. And I undercover agent” and was furious with counterculture, and never perceived much remorse from him Melville for having entrusted him. In a regarding the fate of Sam Melville, who 1998 email to me, Stew Albert professed finally making head- ended up in Attica Prison and was shot to the same: “I suspected him, so we didn’t lines in 1969. death during the 1971 uprising there. Jane hang out ... I actually suspected he was a Alpert bitterly observed, “Sam Melville cop (and this was the only time I wasn’t other people name them). Narcissists like never killed anyone, intentionally or oth- fooled by infiltrators).” George don’t have loyalties – they only erwise, while George bears some ultimate Once his cover was blown, Demmerle’s follow their ego.” Even though his heart responsibility for Sam’s death.” To which reputation as a superspy commenced was almost certainly with his countercul- George would respond, sensibly: Who’s – a reputation that has been preserved ture associates, once he perceived that more to blame – the bomber or the one in memoirs, counterculture histories, it was for his own good to betray them, who snitches on the bomber?” and academic sociological studies. Jane that’s what he did. And, in the immediate Given his history, I’ll never be cer- Alpert believed that “Sam fell completely aftermath, he even managed to publicly tain that the George I knew was 100 per for the trap George had been laying for berate Abbie and Jerry and the rest, while cent “son of Yippie,” as he liked to claim. three years.” Jerry Rubin worried that “the basking in right-wing adulation of what Maybe he fooled me, as he fooled so goal of undercover pigs like George is to he’d done. many others. demoralize us and make us so paranoid Not surprisingly, George had a rotten In a Krassnerian myth, he might have that we suspect each other and become childhood. At some point it occurred to infiltrated the Dallas chapter of the totally ineffective.” Stew Albert, many me that the arc of his life had much in Committee in Solidarity with the People years later, was still contemplating the common with his contemporary, Charles of El Salvador (CISPES), whose rights extent of George’s reach. He told me to Manson. Both were born to broken fami- were being infringed by G-Men about the “ask Demmerle about Leslie Bacon and if lies during the early Great Depression, time George moved to town. And I can’t he had any role in her troubles. Also Judy condemned to foster homes and orphan- prove that he didn’t. Gumbo and me.” ages, decades of rambling, then ending But I do know that the George I knew Was George really a devoted spook, up immersed in a counterculture with was well liked – something that was ap- whose goal all along was for things to people much younger than themselves, parently not true back in the day. As

 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED october 1-15, 2008 CockBurn/St.Clair cont. From p. 2 hudson/Sommers cont. From Page 5 Jane Alpert explained, other than Sam he surrender power even before he gained and living standards. The effect has Melville, “none of us liked or respected it. The next day, he told reporters in been to decouple saving from tangible Demmerle, and “no one else thought very Clearwater, Florida, that “issues like bank- capital formation. They need to be re- highly” of him. By the end of his life, how- ruptcy reform, which are very important coupled, and this can be achieved only ever, George had an adoring wife, Carol, to Democrats, are probably something by restoring the kind of mixed economy and a large circle of friends who palled that we shouldn’t try to do in this piece by which North America and Europe around with him. I don’t regret being one of legislation.” In addition, he said that his achieved their economic growth.CP of them. CP proposed economic stimulus program “is not necessarily something that we should Michael Hudson is professor of David Bonner is the author of have in this package.” Then he worked Economics at the University of Missouri Revolutionizing Children’s Records: The the phone, hectoring recalcitrants in the (Kansas City) and chief economic ad- Young People’s Records and Children’s Congressional Black Caucus to vote for visor to Rep. Dennis Kucinich. He has Record Guild Series, 1946-1977. He can be the bailout, whose paramount importance advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican reached at [email protected]. was as a show of force, as dramatic as and Latvian governments, as well as the nineteenth-century cavalry cutting down United Nations Institute for Training demonstrators at Peterloo. As an instiga- and Research (UNITAR). He is the au- tor of beneficial change, the Clinton ad- thor of many books, including Super ministration was over six months after Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of election day 1992, when Clinton turned to American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, Al Gore and said, “You mean my re-elec- 2002). He can be reached via his website, tion hinges on the Federal Reserve and [email protected]. some f---ing bond traders?” Gore nod- ded, and Clinton promptly abandoned Jeffrey Sommersis a professor at Raritan his economic plan to follow the dictates Valley College, NJ, visiting professor at of Wall Street tycoons like Robert Rubin, the Stockholm School of Economics in now a top advisor to Obama. Assuming Riga, former Fulbrighter to Latvia, and he wins, Obama beat the speed of Bill fellow at Boris Kagarlitsky’s Institute for Clinton’s 1993 collapse by almost seven Global Studies in Moscow. He can be months. CP reached at [email protected]. www.counterpunch.org

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