8
bu Je# r Atb d
The government's intelligence ap-
paratus spends some six billion
dollars a year, so u underground
fugitive can afford few mistakes. As
Sports Writer Big Boy Medlin put it,
"For Abbie it's always the bottom of
the ninth with two outs. He can't
afford any mistakes...Tbe govern-
ment has just begun the ball game."
It was bow Abbie Hoffman had
withstood a year and a half of
hitchhike in the midwest and
survive,"was how Abbie described
her.
There was a poignancy in meeting
Jane because I had known Abbie's
wife Anita, and Anita and Abbie had
been as tight a couple as movement
couples can be. Their rules hadn't
been standard, but their closeness
had been undeniable. When Abbie
chose to adopt an underground life,
the FBI and IRS descended upon
"The relationship of friendship is a far
more interesting relationship than love."
constant pressure that most intrigued
me. When you know how people
withstand stress, you begin to
understand the essence of their
character. The changes Abbie under-
went mirror that mysterious and
shadowy entity broadly descn'bed as
the Underground. The atmosphere af
the Underground has been colored, of
course, by the gun-toting, fast-shoot-
ing image of the SLA. But the quieter,
longer running tradition of the
Weathermen was another example
altogether. Flagrantly daring in the
beginning, the Weather people
embarked on a period of sell~ritlcism
and emerged as a believable pol/tical
force ready to put thought into action.
When the Weather people attacked a
government strong point such as
breaking Timothy Leafy out of jail in
Calitornia, they did so with the cool
finesse of professionals.
Abbie was confronted with the
choice between adventurous elem-
ents, and those who had achieved
discipline. I was never to be allowed
the secret of what groups be was a
member of, but I knew his personality
and actions would be an almost
anthropological telescope to operat-
ional styles and values hidden from
my view. So while I knew most people
would be curious about Underground
operations in Texas, the state of his
politics and his reactions to Patty
Hearst, I was more fascinated with
how he lived.
BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER
WE WERE LOVERS,
WE REMAINED FRIENDS.
Jane, Abbie's new wife, was
chewing on the, tough chicken fried
steak I'd recommended. She sat with
the self-possessed composure that
women secure in their attractiveness
often have. The first night Abbie had
pulled me aside and whispered "She's
my Guru", which I thought was taking
infatuation a step too far. But in a
day's time I'd begun to respect her.
"She can go to debutante balls or
Anita and their child america. Their
bank account was immediately tied
up, and Anita was forced to go on
welfare.
Of course there was no privacy
for" her. Everywhere she went, she
was followed. Everything she said,
even in the privacy of her bedroom,
was the purvue of snoops. Electronic
evesdropping has reached the point
that a person has absolutely no
privacy anywhere, if the government
is willing to put in the effort. (I
remember a woman saying in the
heavy anti-war days, "Let's make love
well, so if they're listening they'll
wish they'd joined us." A life of
involvement must be learned to be
lived onstage.
Here in Texas, I didn't know
anything that had happened between
Abbie and Anita until I read in the
paper one day that Abbie had a new
wife. Reporters had scurried to get
grown. You know, sometimes when
people spend years together, five, six,
seven, there's an habituation that
starts to form, and as humans grow,
they grow into different life-patterns
and styles. Unless they aUow space
for that growth they're going to start
turning on one another. Luckily we
never had to reach that point."
Then with a laugh and a twist of
irony he continued, "The government
was nice to us in that way. We had to
rise to the occasion because the
problems we had to face were so real,
particularly the break-up with a kid,
and everything." He paused, remem-
bering, and added, "We had a
humanly wrenching break-up, but we
were determined it wasn't going to
wreck our lives. We had to continue
growing, so naturally she has a
boyfriend. We don't experience
jealousy."
People whose lives are tuning forks
for the rest of us seem to bear special
responsibilities. And in an era of
enormous confusion about love, an era
in which the Sun runs a year-long
series on Sexuality & Relationships
and just begins to scrape the surface,
I thought it appropriate to push the
subject of jealousy and love further.
Abbie's views on romantic involve-
ment seemed as important as his
views on politics because he'd been
forced into a daring and unconven-
, tional lifestyle.
I told him about a radio interview I
did with Joan Baez some years ago, at
the time her husband, David Harris,
was jailed for draft resistance. The
interview took place in her motel
room, and it was clear she'd spent the
night with a rather nice fellow in the
same anti-draft organization. I asked
"The Western concept of love is like a
bottle of Coca-Cola you find in the desert
after wandering around for about eight
days. Once you've drunk it, it's gone."
Anita's reaction and she replied that
it was goOd. Then full of an un-Ann
Landers sense of strength and love,
she observed, "I'm sure anyone that
Abbie would love, I would love too."
So I'd looked at Jane with careful
eyes...and liked her.
When I asked Abbie how he
marshalled his sense of love and trust
against the difficulties of separation,
he replied without dodging, "Anita
and I were friends, before, during ~nd
after we were lovers. The relationship
of friendship is a far more interesting
relationship than love. Love is very
hard to define and so easily
commercialized. So, I like to think in
terms of the notion of friendship."
It was clear that his underground
life had forced him to understand his
feelings exactly. "I think our love has
how she handled the problem of her
sexuality with her lover in jail, but
she tried to maintain a discreet pose
and replied, "It's a private matter."
Private, crap. She was asking people
to go to jail rather than to Vietnam,
but was unwilling to discuss some of
the human consequences.
Abbie listened, and then I asked
him about jealousy.
"I don't feel jealousy. No, no, no.
One time we had a sort of double
standard, but then I went through
some consciousness changing because
of the new ideas coming from
women's liberation. I started taking
care of the kid, cleaning up the floors,
while Anita would go into the city. We
tried to reverse roles to a large
extent. I got a vasectomy during that
period because Anita had a problem
with an IUD, and that hurt me. I did
some investigating and began analyz-
ing gynecologists and why most birth
control products like pills and IUD's
had been aimed at women."
"It was another liberation battle. I
don't know how it will affect the
world, but it affected me very
personally. I was trying to feel my
way around. Some qualities like
bravery and courage were being put
off as macho, but they were good
qualities and I was trying to look at
things in a new way and decide for
myself. All that helped to create my
new life, which is really interesting...
and I still do all the cooking."
In this vein I'd said that anyone I
ever loved I never stopped loving--an
attitude that's commendable on the
surface but difficult in the practice--
and Abbie revealed his university
training by saying he'd been heavily
influenced along those lines by
"Maslow." "Who?"
"The psychology professor I stud-
ied with at Brandeis. He believed in
the notion of unlimited and growing
love. In essence, when you fall in love
with yourself, you're capable of loving
a number of people and entering into
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