Northwest Washington

The picture today is the third in your e-mail. Behind my head is the street sign N.W. R - The R is the intersection of 16th St. and R St. N.W, in Washington. I had set out that morning (FBI agent that I was) to get pictures of a subject in an internal security case. (I should add that this was the last or second last year of my "service" in the bureau. So it would have been 1969 probably but maybe 1968.)

Anyway, two young college students lived in an apartment in a building on 16th street and I had gone to the lab to get (shades of james bond - but much less lethal) a briefcase camera. 35 mm Camera mounted inside a normal briefcase with a vent in one end for the lens and a push thingy on the handle to operate the shutter. Talk about antique. Anyway, the buddy who was working with me and I can't remember his name, big tall fellow, short curly blond hair, I have seen him in another picture) took the case and went down the street. I went to the sub's apartment and rang the bell downstairs. Couldn't even buzz me in in those days had to come down and open the door. He lived on the sixth floor. Anyway after buzzing and buzzing I determined that there was no one home, so I headed back to the corner where my backup was waiting and he snapped me with the camera. Notice my FiBi clothes.

I was working the IS (internal security) squad S-6 (security squad no 6) Nos. 1-5 had to do with foreign intelligence. Eg. one was for Russians, two for other soviet bloc countries etc etc etc. S-6 did internal security which meant things like the Communist infiltration in the labour movement, the Communist party itself and its various offshoots like the Young Socialist assiance to which the young couple I was bothering belonged to.

At this time, we were living in Cheverly Maryland in the brick house with the little play house, (shed - with the termites in the floor and walls) in the backyard. This was around the time that we have pictures of you in a blue coat and bonnet type hat playing with plastic Easter eggs. Also around the time that you fell and cut your forehead where you still have the scar. Joe was already born then but I'm pretty sure that Kate wasn't so It was more likely spring-summer 69 or summer-fall 68. Probably the 68.

Charlie Ferguson was supervisor of the squad...he later hung himself in his basement wearing his wife's underpants...FBI - go figure. I was riding in a car pool with a guy who shortly after this jumped out of the fifth floor of the FBI headquarters. Go figure FIBI. Not quite the picture you get on the tube these days/

genug, I'm getting maudlin....It was an exciting time. The antiwar protests were in full swing. Marches on Washington, surrounding the Pentagon and chanting OM OM OM OM OM etc to levitate the evil spirits from it's confines. Hippies, yuppies and yippies marched, chanted, used expletives on their picket signs (which was the thing that got the PD all upset) and made love on the lawn of the Capitol building under the bushes and anywhere else they could think of. One couple was arrested for "fornicating on the steps of the Washington monument"...37th landing...like who was watching???

Go figure...Life is a series of chuckles interspersed with an insane, lunatic bout of real down to earth laughter...if only you can look at the lighter side...

Love you Hope this is not too far out to make the book