A3Mania

 In the spring of 1969, the A3Movement came to prominence at Stanford, starting with a meeting on April 3rd, 1969, thus naming the movement. As listed on http://www.a3mreunion.org, the sponsoring organizations were SDS, Resistance, Peninsula Observer, Stanford UCM Staff, Peninsula Red Guard, Junior Faculty Forum, United Student Movement, New University Conference, Committee for New Politics, Palo Alto Concerned Citizens, Midpeninsula Free University, North Santa Clara Peace and Freedom Movement, and American Federation of Teachers Local No. 1816. At that meeting, the A3M issued demands to Stanford President Pitzer and the Stanford Trustees.

At 1 am on May 1, 1969, the April 3rd Movement occupied Encina Hall. By 4:30 am, there were about 200 students, as reported by the Stanford Daily in their issue of the same day. 

The Daily story continued that the seizure of Encina Hall was the most serious student demonstration in Stanford’s history, as protesters occupied the Universities Business and Payroll Offices, News and Publication office, Personnel office and several others. Encina had been chosen during a long meeting the previous evening where more than 900 people voted to occupy Encina, beating out Hoover Tower, the Space Engineering Building and Stanford Business School. 

As I read the May 1 Stanford Daily coverage, I was fascinated to see the article was written by Daily reporter and future Chappie Old Boy Michael Sweeney.

As reported by in the May 2, 1969, Stanford Daily, by daylight on May 1 the cops arrived, a lot of cops in full riot gear, and Stanford issued injunctions and restraining orders. The cops moved in around 7:15 am. 

Unbeknownst to the cops, the students had voted to get out of there, but they still delayed ten minutes to “gather their belongings.” Sometime after 7:30, the last students left.

Whether the university knew that records had been stolen is unclear. Reports of damage to Encina were listed at about $1,000, mostly due to broken windows. It was noted that files cabinets had been opened, and they were being inspected. Files had indeed been stolen, and they would play a big role the following fall.

At the very end of the school year, a meeting was called regarding the dormant Chaparral.

Dawn of a New Era

Over the summer of 1969, the Chaparral was revived! A group of “50 odd people,” led by Michael Sweeney, got the Hammer & Coffin Society to agree to the new management plan–they would pay off the Chaparral’s debt of approximately $16,000, and float the magazine over $3,500 more for operations. Remember, these are in 1969 dollars when a brand-new VW Bug cost $1,799.

It was described that the Chaparral would be a “literary magazine.” I suppose one could argue that since it had printed “words” on “paper” it was indeed “literary magazine,” but that is about the extent of it. The 1969 Chappie staff was off to the races, but they produced a radical publication in an underground press style, on newsprint in a tabloid format, like the Berkeley Barb, Berkeley Tribe, and yes, like the San Francisco Good Times.

It was not just a publication. The Chaparral became a focal point of campus and mid-peninsula protests, and certainly the center of the OFF-ROTC protests of spring 1970. The Chaparral office became a sort of a headquarters of the protest movement.

The old Hammer & Coffin guys were NOT amused. In fact, they were livid.

From the very beginning of the school year in September 1969, the Chaparral was in the news with much more frequency than it had been earlier, with mentions in the Stanford Daily, references to individuals associated with the Chaparral, and regular listings for Chappie meetings. It is clear that the Chappie of fall 1969 was a very active student group.

In the October 16, 1969, Daily, there were two letters to the editor that mentioned the Chaparral. One lamented the Chaparral’s new radical format and said it wasn’t funny anymore. The other letter mentioned Reagan, the SDS, George Meany and the Chappie, signed by the obviously fake name Noknox. The Chaparral was mentioned in the October 17 , 21 and 22 Daily issues as well.

Of course, October 24, 1969, is the date of the Message To The Zodiac Killer editorial in the Daily.  For what it’s worth, the Chappie was NOT mentioned in that issue

The Secret Salaries

Do you remember the Encina protest on May 1, 1969? Well not the actual protest, but my writing about it a few pages earlier? It turns out the protesters DID take some files while they were in Encina. Personally, I’d wager they were taken during the ten minutes they needed to gather their things. Regardless, they appear, sort of out of the blue, but also happening right in the middle of this story!

On the morning of October 27, 1969, mimeographed copies of salary data, Stanford payroll data that was stolen during the protest, showed up at locations around campus. Copies of the 31-page document containing potentially explosive revelations about internal university workings were left randomly around Stanford. The document was signed “Underground Press.”

On October 28, the Daily ran a front-page story about it, but didn’t print individual salaries, except for the President’s. Instead, they present averaged data for various departments at Stanford, including the budget for police salaries.

Also on October 28, copies of the salary documents showed up in the mail at the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury, the Stanford Daily, and… the Stanford Chaparral.

Now I am honored that the Chaparral was included with these three other bastions of print. But all jokes aside, as the children’s game goes, one of these things is not like the other.

The Chaparral sticks out as strangely suspicious. I mean, one could argue that the Chaparral was a student publication, just like the Daily, and that would be somewhat true. But then, as now, the Chaparral was not as well-known as the Daily, would not be considered a news source like the Daily, and moreover, an average student would not think to include the Chaparral on a list with the Chronicle, Mercury, and Stanford Daily. And it is almost a certainty that no Daily staffer would send the scoop to the Chaparral. But, a Chappie WOULD send it to the Daily, because that is what everyone reads, and it provides plausible deniability and cover for your prank.

As an old Chaparral prankster, I conjecture: This looks a lot like a Chappie prank. At minimum, it got the San Francisco Examiner to report that the Daily and the Chaparral were Stanford’s humor magazines!

The Empire Strikes Back

Stanford wasted no time publicly threatening legal action against any publication of the secret salaries.

As I wrote in The Chappie – 125 Years of Issues, page 237:

It was a big shitstorm…. Some of the New Left movement even saw this episode as a distraction to their main goals of cessation of the war in Vietnam, ending of the draft, and the removal of ROTC and other Stanford ties to the military-industrial complex.

Stanford made the move to put out “official” salary data, but it is aggregated and averaged by department, not by individual professor. The Daily printed that data in their November 5 issue, sharing the front page with the small article at the bottom stating Zodiac had called.

On some of the copies of this issue, a pronounced spot appears on this article, mostly on the chart of salary data.

The Chaparral did not waste time exploiting their “fortuitous receiving” of the salary data via the mail. The cover of the November 6 Chaparral was titled Should We Print the Secret Salaries? with a cartoon of three Jesters doing speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil on the cover. Inside, the issue there is an article that discussed the salaries, and asked why it was such a big secret. It promised an in-depth analysis in a future Chaparral issue.

On November 13, the Daily, with much fanfare, printed secret salaries, but they were making a joke. They printed not the professors’ salaries, but the salaries of the Daily staff. The list includes many names, including some likely involved with this story. Of pop-culture note is that Sigourney Weaver is on the list, she earned $10 from working at the Stanford Daily.

Then in the November 20 Chaparral, letters from individual professors were printed that fully disclosed their salaries and other income arrangements. On some of these issues, a pronounced circular spot appears on the title page of the multi-page section where the salary letters appeared. The spot looks similar to the one in the Daily on November 5,

Further examination of the November 20 Chaparral CONFIRMED that it was the same spot, and even further examination revealed that the blemishes created on October 31 were also on this issue. Furthermore, paper copies of this issue have be found with these blemishes.