At a lecture in the San Francisco Public Library today, author Peter Richardson presented his book about Ramparts magazine, "A Bomb in Every Issue."
A number of the people who worked at the iconic '60s magazine were in the audience; at the very end of the lecture, the editor who secured many of its biggest stories, Warren Hinckle, made an appearance.
Richardson spent time on the Betty Van Patter case, the unsolved murder of the former Black Panther Party bookkeeper -- a murder that the best evidence indicates was ordered by party leaders once she discovered irregularities in their financial records.
Van Patter had worked at Ramparts when one of the editors, David Horowitz, introduced her to the Panthers.
Richardson is one of the few writers who have written about the era besides Horowitz to recognize that until Van Patter's murder is solved, the political circles still emanating from that time can never be closed.
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2 comments:
what a tragedy- the death of Betty Van Patter. Why is it in a country with so many technological resources there is no answer to how she was murdered?
I read an article by David Horowitz from Dec 1999- and he actually credits you as one of the people who have helped to keep this story alive despite media blackouts. This is commendable. It will be admirable if someone will step up to do some indepth investigation into this unsolved murder.
Today, the day after you wrote this post, is the anniversary of the funeral for Betty Van Patter. Again and again over these past 35 years, the timing of people's inquiries, articles/books, lectures, and investigations coincides with her expression of concern about her employers, the Party's leaders and management at the Lamp Post, and then her disappearance, being found, and subsequent investigations. The fact that this homicide of my mother continues to be brought up, particularly by journalists, is a very clear sign that her murder did not merely end her life but opened the door to a clear perspective of history, and a different definition of what "being political" meant then and means now. Tamara
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