On September 29, 1968, the Ann Arbor office of the Central Intelligence Agency was bombed.
Sources
On September 29, 1968, Chief Krasny was sound asleep in his home, when he was startled out of his sleep by an explosion. This explosion occurred at the CIA office, which was located at 450 S. Main. The CIA had a local office to recruit prospective employees from the University.
A little more than a year after the bombing of the Ann Arbor CIA office, a federal grand jury indicted three members of the White Panther Party based on Valler's testimony. White Panther Minister of Defense Pun Plamondon was charged with having set off the bomb, and White Panther Minister of Education Jack Forrest was charged with conspiracy to commit the bombing. The biggest name, though was White Panther Minister of Information - and MC5 manager and general counter-culture icon - John Sinclair, who was also charged with conspiracy. When the indictment was handed down, Sinclair was already in prison on his infamous 10-year sentence for possession of two joints. Plamondon, meanwhile, went underground for nearly a year after hearing the indictment on the radio, winning himself a spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.
During pretrial proceedings, the defendants moved to compel the United States to disclose certain electronic surveillance information and to conduct a hearing to determine whether this information "tainted" the evidence on which the indictment was based or which the Government intended to offer at trial. In response, the Government filed an affidavit of the Attorney General, acknowledging that its agents had overheard conversations in which Plamondon had participated. The affidavit also stated that the Attorney General approved the wiretaps "to gather intelligence information deemed necessary to protect the nation from attempts of domestic organizations to attack and subvert the existing structure of the Government." The logs of the surveillance were filed in a sealed exhibit for in camera inspection by the District Court.
