LAW # 33: DISCOVER EACH MAN'S THUMBSCREW
Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying. -Robert Greene
Darthard Perry was a navy veteran from Los Angeles, CA. Perhaps he had hopes and dreams of being a scientist. Maybe he aspired to be a Hollywood movie director. For after all, he would be called a fictional character from one of Shakespeare's greatest plays: Othello. We may never know what his dreams and aspirations truly were. What we do know is that in 1968, he was preyed upon by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations). He was entrapped by the government through the purchase, and subsequent pawning, of a stolen oscilloscope. The FBI knew that Perry was a veteran. They also knew he was claustrophobic. They also knew he had a deep fear of prison. So when they had his terms of his parole changed, they knew they had him exactly where they wanted him. All they had to do was tighten the thumbscrews and he would do whatever they wished. And that's exactly what happened. The FBI used this threat to get Perry to go down and become a member of the Black Panther Party. They wanted him to inform them (the FBI), of all activities of the Party. Not only did he comply with their wishes, he went ever further.
According to Perry, at the behest of the FBI, he burned down a cultural center in South Central Los Angeles that was the hub of black artistic expression in film and literature. Perry was such a reliable party member and thereby FBI informant, that he was dispatched by party officers to go across the country to assist in creating chapter offices. Informing along the way, Perry would run into his counterparts in other chapters that were performing similar functions. His name has been changed so many times that he no longer knows who he is anymore. He tried to redeem himself in later years by coming clean and blowing the whistle. His subsequent revelations have only elicited rage and disgust from the community in general, and movement veterans in particular. He is revolting, repulsive and sadly pathetic in the winter years of his existence. He's not even allowed around his own children. This sad pathetic man is now a remorseful recluse. But he was not the only one.
William O'Neal was just another lil ghetto boy in Chicago without proper supervision. However, when he caught an auto theft charge and was threatened with a prison stint, he eagerly became an FBI informant. Like Perry, he joined the Chicago Branch of the Black Panther Party with the intention of informing the Bureau of Party activities. Also, like Perry, his actions went beyond just simple snitching. He routinely brutalized party members. The joke was, he did this under the excuse that these party members were police informants. O'Neal went so far as to construct an electric chair to deal with these alleged informants. He continued his path of destruction until Chicago Chairman Fred Hampton finally checked him on his abusive practices. Tragically, he did this while making O'Neal his Chief of Security. O'Neal would repay Hampton's confidence by providing the FBI a layout of his(Hampton's) apartment. He also drugged Hampton to prevent him from responding to the subsequent raid of the apartment. The result was that Hampton was totally vulnerable to the raid, and his subsequent murder at the hands of the Chicago Police Department.
The FBI knew the psychological make-up of men like Perry and O'Neal. They understand that in an impoverished community, such men are easy pickings because they are inevitably involved in something illegal. They also understand that these men usually have very little personal convictions beyond their own small petty self interests. While the no snitch law seems to pervade the popular culture of the black community, these men sing so regularly, you'd swear they come accompanied by Steinway pianos. By understanding their environments and petty self interests, they can easily make them into compliant and obedient snitches. Evidently the G code is not as powerful as a 20-yr prison sentence. It is easy to categorize these men as weak and bitch-made, but the truth is that if you have unlimited resources, virtually no checks on bureaucratic power, and enough time to discover someone's weaknesses, there aren't many you can't bend to your whim. Intelligence agencies are masters of finding the thumbscrews of diplomats, military officers and even other intelligence agents. This is their greatest advantage; their most powerful strategy. Former CIA Director Allen Dulles called it, "the craft of intelligence".
