At NOC (National Office Central) it was six and a half hours of sleep a night. The U.S. military standard was a minimum of seven hours of sleep a night, it was explained, and we as committed party members could do with less as our commitment to the revolution. Shutdown (bedtime) was at 3:30 a.m. and reveille (wake up) at 10:00 a.m., to align the National Office schedule with the West Coast (for strategic considerations). The schedule only varied if an FC lecture went exceptionally late. The lectures occurred twice a week.

Original apartments rented were 1107 2A, back to 1971. You are correct that additional apartments were rented in 1980 or 1981, 1107 1A (the law firm) and the sublet 1107 1C (the field commander offices), 1115 1A (the doctor's office). They did not start using 1111 1A (Barbara Elcombe's apartment) until either the late 80's or early 90's, I don't remember when. Originally as the building superintendents, Foxfire Enterprises secured access to the basements. The contract used to include 1119 but failure to maintain the building resulted in losing the contract. When Foxfire purchased the properties, modifications to the basements occurred. Foxfire lost the buildings (went into receivorship) but then the Organization formed Carroll Street Properties and reacquired the buildings.

The distinction between 1107 1A and 1C was for legal purposes. 1C was a legitimate sublease, two rooms part of the 1A apartment with one room having a door access to the common hall. 1C was Gino's office. In the event of a warrant execution, the authorities would not be legally allowed to enter the 1C portion unless it was included. But Gino wasn't found there during the raid; he tried to make his escape down the dumbwaiter, in the kitchen of the 1A portion of the floor. The ladder broke, he fell, that is how he sustained his injuries in 1984.

During its heyday of capacity, 80 cadres lived in residence in the metropolitan arena, with 70 or so at any given time working directly out of the Carroll Street facilities. Every area of workspace was utilized including the "bedrooms", and even the basements served as additional space (but not preferred because of concerns of intruders). Most of those cadres were recruited through field entities.

After the raid, the organization suffered depleted ranks unilaterally. More cadres were working at NOC that had been recruited through Women's Press Collective, thus no field experience. Cadres with less than a year under their belt issued blind orders based on extensive briefings, to field cadres with 10-15 years experience. At least the entity I was liaison to appreciated the fact that I had four years of field experience. I could relate our successes with the jail strike, our failures with the Grucci fireworks factory explosion, I was there. Eventually that didn't matter, the field cadres burnt out by inexperienced leaders talking straight out of the EO with no realization of how to actually do it.

The ranks at NOC eventually diminished to around 30 persons, still a lot of people, but many entities reduced to just one person or two. The purges continued to reduce those numbers, yet the organization then took over 1111 2A (Maria Perales). Many cadres sent out to the field had to face the reality that despite years of issuing orders, they could not actually do the work and were severely criticized. I do not know today how many of the apartments the organization has taken over, but the loss of rental income requires a greater financial obligation on the field entities to support the effort.

You'd be surprised at some of the lengths cadres resorted to trying to escape the environment. Not everyone stuck around to be with the one they loved, they left anyway, and the partner suffered the repercussions. Two persons that were arrested and imprisoned during the trials did not return after their release, two did, one (as far as I know) remains imprisoned in Massachusetts.

This is just some of the realities of being a NOC cadre.

What happened when you guys got sick?

Under conditions like that, people's health must have suffered. If you bunched together
in apartments, and without suffient sleep, you'd be getting colds and flu all winter.

What did they do for health care or for conditions requiring hospitalization?

The heyday of cadre forces included two doctors (1115 1A the doctors office, Steinman & Berkowitz Associates). Eventually both left after the raid, but other doctors rotated through. Some say dad's habit caused them all to eventually leave. In the late 1980s the practice was run by physician assistants, until finally medical recruitment to that facility burnt out. That was when Gino hired two doctors for his medical needs, neither one knowing the other was also on the payroll. The doctor's office became just a sleeping space somewhere around 1991 on. Perhaps Margaret reopened it, I don't know. The community missed it -- sometimes it was the best care for the least money or a bill or two even being overlooked.

Community sickness was actually incredibly rare back in those days. Cleanliness was a major necessity. There was certainly the manpower to see to it, and even the revolution could not afford sickness to take over. If you were assigned the task of cleaning the bathroom, it was as vitally important as typing traffic to the entities.

When there was sickness, especially of such a scale that shut down the complex, the available medical personnel tended to the needs of the cadre. And I mean everything shut down. Only the basic necessities occurred (meal preparation, sentry assignment, etc.). There was an entire protocol dedicated to it, complete with sterilization of dishes with bleach.

The latter days, sickness was more of a problem and there was lack of trained medical persons on site, but I am one that believes more of that sickness was due to psychosomatics, people just not wanting to do the work anymore, people just shutting themselves down. This is a matter of opinion. There were some with legitimate illnesses, a couple that died from untreated cancer (as example) and becoming accidental martyrs to the cause. There were also cadres that acted in the role of medical personnel with little to no training, including the unlicensed physician's assistant.

I hope you are appreciating this. Sickness and implementing the "Sick Protocol" is actually something that does crop up in the various discussions from time to time. But unless you were a NOC cadre, it's difficult to understand the extent. I started re-creating floor plans and posted on my site. So far I just have 1107 1A, 1C and 2A. Still need to do 1111 1A, 1115 1A and the three basement areas.

Y'know, that sounds like a transferable skill. The ability to keep a large community of people healthy, especially during winter is something that would be valuable to other
long term projects where people live in.

I used to work at a homeless shelter and volunteered at a free clinic, and the rate of upper respiratory infections, especially in wintertime, was phenomenal. For my first six months working at the homeless shelter, I had horrible sinus infections and feverish colds about every 3 weeks until my immune system got used to it.

Prior to that time, Id get possibly one cold a year and it was not even a feverish one.

So the ability to keep food preparation, bathrooms and living areas clean enough to support community health--all that is a valuable transferable skill.

How well were the fieldworkers fed? That too is of the utmost importance in maintaining health and...morale.

The cadres in the field -- I have heard stories about hunger. I only experienced it once in Suffolk. After the Grucci fireworks factory blew up, the entity invested all time and energy in meeting the emergency needs of the membership. Several lost their homes from the shockwave of the detonation. The shockwave radiated from Bellport to Riverhead and beyond. After a month, all resources were burnt out, along with volunteer activity. There were about 15 cadres that worked out of Office Central at the time.

Back then, I was still going to high school and lived with my mom. Despite her limited income, even she was trying to buy extra groceries for the cadres. Eventually, things picked up in terms of recruitment, monies, donations, etc. It was the only time while I was in Suffolk it was that bad. I heard entities like New Brunswick, Atlantic City and WMLA constantly suffered.

This is an interesting point that was sometimes discussed at NOC. If they were doing the work of organizing, there should have been no reason for starving cadres in the field. In other words, it was something that could bring about harsh criticism of those in the field.

I'm going ahead and suggesting on my blog that maybe this site isn't so bad. Portland IMC is a burnt out discussion area. That is the fate of many discussions via the web, I have noticed. The very few I have noticed activity come from the same group of people; maybe the ex-cadres are burnt out from the bitterness, the same old same old. That is why I am trying to use a different approach.

Do not mistake my intent. I am not organizing the anti-NATLFED. If I were, I would not rely on the internet as a recruiting ground. People just don't know what the heck really went on or what's going on now. Even the occasional newspaper article that hits the web draws the attention of the dedicated few who rehash the same old stuff. As far as I know, I'm the first one to post floor plans to the NOC complex. It's hard to describe it to someone who was never there. I just added a survivor story, this one is password protected because the ex is not ready for any old person to read it. We have unresolved issues...

One thing that I have learned is that many former cadres are reluctant to post to discussion forums anymore. Even my own blog, I have rapport with several persons right now but it is "behind the scenes" as they don't want public comments. They are concerned their comments will be attacked. There are a lot of "venomous" and "toxic" discussions on the web including Portland IMC. I may "joke" about unresolved issues but the reality is that there are more ex-members than current members. Not everyone can afford to seek the help of a professional. I am not a professional. I believe that discussions have value, both from a therapeutic point of view as well as educating people about the inside.

Another thing that I have learned is that under the assumption of command by Margaret Ribar, cadres that act contrary to the nature of the organization are encouraged to leave. This seems un-cult like (if that's even a legitimate phrase) but I have also learned it is designed to make the organization not appear as a cult. You can call a shovel a spade but it is still just a shovel. I haven't anything on the web that describes this phenomenon.

Other site recommendations are encouraged. I am linking to Ross and Hassan currently. If there is another site where a person could go looking for help, if it's a good site with real people, I'd like to hear about it so I can check it out and possibly add a link.

PS: Learned about a sock puppet invasion (whoa!).

If anyone is interested, the San Francisco Weekly is getting ready to do an expose on Physicians' Organizing Committee, an organization that is part of the Provisional Party and tied to National Labor Federation. The reporter's name is Matt Smith. At least three former members that I know of have communicated with the reporter, including my sister.

Mary Struggler

The SF Weekly published the article.

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the comments section is here

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2009 11:58AM by corboy.

The comments on the San Francisco Weekly article are starting to build. The ex-NATLFED community is taking interest but most are burnt out from commenting.

Mary Struggler