Ma Ying-jeou, former president of the Republic of China, and Tsai Ing-wen, current ROC president, both have thesis woes. Ma’s Harvard thesis was littered with mistakes and Tsai’s London School of Economics thesis is missing. (credit: ROC Office of President)
Tsai Ing-wen, president of the Republic of China in-exile, has one thing in common with her Kuomintang predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou. Both leaders have doctoral thesis problems. Ma’s thesis was full of errors, typos, mistakes, and footnotes that did not check out. Tsai’s thesis goes unread and missing from the three libraries where it is supposed to be on file.
Circumstance was such that I broke the story on Ma’s sloppy Harvard thesis in Boston which then got picked up by the Taipei Times. I had been approached by a retired Taiwanese school teacher who had checked out Ma’s thesis because she wanted to know his views on maritime issues. Shocked at the “sloppy scholarship” and number of uncorrected mistakes in the thesis the teacher took out her red pencil and marked the paper up. When the teacher gave me a corrected copy of Ma’s thesis I knew I had a scoop.
Ma’s thesis, which discussed issues surrounding the Diaoyutai Islands, was entitled Trouble Over Oily Waters: Legal Problems of Seabed Boundaries and Foreign Investments in the East China Sea. The manuscript contains more than 1,000 errors, including misspellings, missing words, grammatical problems and misattributed material and footnotes. The retired teacher spent a year going over the paper checking out everything comparing it the Harvard freshman writing guidebook.
Harvard University gave Ma a Doctor of Juridicial Science degree in 1981. One of Ma’s academic advisers defended the SJD to the Harvard Crimson saying that despite the thesis mistakes that Ma understood the general concepts. ROC Presidential Office spokesman Wang Yu-chi said the value of a doctoral thesis should be its viewpoints and contributions to the specific field. Wang said the fact that Harvard gave the SJD to Ma was the best proof of the quality of the thesis.
The retired teacher was unable to find evidence of plagiarism and the large number of mistakes suggests that Ma did write the paper himself. Less can be said about Tsai Ing-wen’s thesis which seems to have vanished in 1984 when it was apparently never placed on file at the Senate House Library, the London School of Economics Library, or the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library.
Despite fifteen years as a university teacher, in the publish or peril world of academia, Tsai made no scholarly work available nor did she publish to receive her promotion to professor. Tsai’s written silence in her professional life raises interest in her doctoral thesis entitled Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Actions.
Tsai could immediately end a growing controversy in Taiwan about her thesis by simply resubmitting the dissertation to her alma mater library where it already has a space reserved.
Catalog entry for Tsai Ing-wen’s doctoral thesis with no information available (credit: London School of Economics and Political Science)
The London School of Economics and Political Science Library has confirmed that Tsai Ing-wen’s 1984 doctoral thesis was not submitted as required by academic protocol. Tsai, who is now the President of the Republic of China in-exile and living on Taiwan, attended LSE in London in the 1980’s when she authored her doctoral dissertation entitled “Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Actions.” The only problem is that Tsai’s thesis upon which her doctorate degree is based is not to be found.
Ruth Orson of the library’s research services office answered questions about Tsai’s missing dissertation: “Dr. Tsai’s thesis is unavailable I’m afraid. LSE Library has never had a copy of this thesis.”
“All Ph.D.s from that period were awarded under the University of London banner and would have been sent first to Senate House Library, and this being under Law would also have gone to the IALS.”
“Unfortunately Senate House apparently never received a copy and the IALS are unable to find their copy. We had to make extensive searches when Dr. Tsai stood for election and I am sorry to disappoint.”
The Institute for Advanced Legal Studies maintains the United Kingdom’s top law library and is a national repository of doctoral thesis dissertations. A search of the IALS database failed to locate Tsai’s missing thesis.
Tsai Ing-wen had not released her thesis nor does she comment on the matter. Tsai’s views on unfair trade practices is a topic of interest to many in the business community yet her scholarship on the topic has escaped public scrutiny. While expertise on international trade is not a bad quality in a leader it is not essential to run a government as different skill sets are needed. However, good leadership does require integrity. Thus Tsai’s missing thesis has implications important to her qualification for office. Was the thesis plagiarized? Does the thesis competently explore the topic of unfair trade? Why was the thesis kept from the public?
The questions emerged in early June 2019 on Facebook when academic researcher Cao Chang-qing suggested the thesis does not exist. Cao said the missing thesis was unsettling, but the fact it had not been resubmitted by Tsai was even more baffling.
Talk show host Dennis Peng picked up the inquiry. Peng commented that Tsai’s missing thesis was the most bizarre thing he had encountered in his twenty-five year academic career.
Fear that a scandal would sour Tsai’s chances of reelection and return the Kuomintang to power have kept the lid on the story of the phantom thesis. Democratic Progressive Party loyalists have gone silent on the controversy and Tsai Ing-wen has nothing yet to say on the matter.
Taiwan, caught in political purgatory and a longstanding strategic ambiguity, continues to be a land where anything is possible and nothing is certain. Answers about Tsai’s thesis are not to be had leaving lingering questions that will not quietly go away.
The controversy over Tsai’s thesis only expanded after she turned in a faxed copy of the document. Tsai then escalated the matter by bringing a lawsuit against two professors for remarks made about the thesis. Hwan Lin, another professor facing a lawsuit has released his report on Tsai’s thesis in English.
The London School of Economics has failed to reveal the identity of the thesis examiners who reviewed Tsai’s thesis, directing inquiries to the University of London. The university has refused to release the names citing the Privacy Act. An appeal to the United Kingdom Information Commissioner resuilted in a decision the names of thesis examiners are the private business of Tsai. The matter is now pending in a court appeal to the Information Review Tribunal which has issued a preliminary ruling allowing the case to go forward. Final submissions are due June 22, 2021.
This article has been updated to reflect the role of the University of London in the thesis story and pending litigation.
A Taiwanese youth expresses himself at a Chiang Kai-shek statue with paint balloons. (credit: FETN)
Growing disillusionment with President Tsai Ing-wen over her failure to remove Chiang Kai-shek statues from public spaces is now a legislative issue in the exiled Republic of China government. Previously the dispute was carried on within the Democratic Progressive Party quietly or by minor parties like the Free Taiwan Party which urges removal of the Kuomintang icons.
However, Freddy Lim’s New Power Party, with five seats in the Legislative Yuan, is calling for a campaign against the statues. Legislator Hsu Yung-ming is leading the call by urging action from the Transitional Justice Commission. Slowly some of the past crimes committed by the exiled Republic of China regime against native Taiwanese since World War II are being revealed and an effort at restorative justice is underway.
After the United States installed ROC leader Chiang Kai-shek on Formosa, as Taiwan was then called, after World War II, the dictator quickly plastered his image on postage stamps, money, posters, and statues all over the island. With time the iconography on currency and postage has faded from conspicuous public view. However, Chiang’s statues still disgrace Taiwan public spaces and bring daily pain, especially to the elderly who remember the evil that Chiang represents.
Few issues force Taiwan’s unresolved international status into the open as does the continued display of the hero-worship statues, many of them life-sized. ROC President Tsai Ing-wen is a champion of the status quo, presumably meaning the uneasy stand-off between the People’s Republic of China and Tsai’s Republic of China in-exile. While it is easy enough to understand why Tsai does not want to offend the giant neighbor to the East, Chiang Kai-shek was a bitter foe of Mao Tse-tung. So why does the status quo have to include Chiang statues? Maybe Tsai doesn’t want to offend the Kuomintang, the opposition party she replaced in power.
When the DPP was the opposition party and the KMT was in control, it was easy to believe that the DPP would lead Taiwan to nationhood. But with the DPP in charge, and the KMT reduced to being the opposition, the Republic of China suddenly has taken on a new lustre for DPP politicians. Truth be told, the two parties are much like the two parties in the United States, they are dance partners not opponents. The purpose of the loyal opposition is to keep true opposition from developing into a serious threat to the established order. The post-martial law era that saw the birth of the DPP is now the seemingly forgotten past as Tsai Ing-wen has failed to move Taiwan toward nationhood. No more glaring example of the DPP failure can be found than the ever-present Chiang statues glorifying a brutal Chinese despot who ordered the deaths or imprisonment of countless thousands of Taiwanese who had committed no crime save that of denouncing tyranny.
Tsai Ing-wen, who now has her own picture on postage stamps, may not think the Chiang icons are that that big a deal. Mere symbols of a musty history scattered here and there. However, Chiang’s victims, those who lived, have a different view of things. Victims’ descendants are also quick to complain that Chiang is being rubbed in their face by the statues. Chiang Kai-shek was not born in Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese imperialist, helped by the Americans, whose brutal reign of terror in Formosa is a historical stain. The pain of Chiang’s crimes will not go away while his statues continue to enjoy the support of the ruling government.
Activists in the Taiwan independence movement understand the power of the statues and have been vocal in the call for their removal. Aquia Tsai’s new group, the Free Taiwan Party, was way out front on this issue. Freddy Lim understands the power of the statues. Lim, before his career in the Legislative Yuan, made thematic music videos critical of authoritarianism. Now Lim’s New Power Party is on task with the statue issue.
Hsu Yung-ming’s call for clean-up cites a study done by the Transitional Justice Commission. There are 1,064 statues of Chiang Ka-shek and 1,010 other symbols of authoritarianism, as well as 577 places named after Chiang Kai-shek or his son Chiang Ching-kuo.
Some 227 statues of Chiang Kai-shek have been relocated to Chiang’s mausoleum in Taoyuan. It seems that even in removal the statues need an audience. Why not melt down the metal ones and bust up the stone statues? Activist Richard Kuo has tried his hand with beheading a Chiang statue. Kuo received a jail term for his efforts.
Taipei leads with 129 statues of Chiang, followed by 111 in Taoyuan, 98 in Taichung, 82 in Kaohsiung, 45 in Hsinchu County, 40 in Pingtung County, 37 in Taitung County, 35 in Changhua County, 34 in New Taipei City, 30 in Hualien County, 29 in Yunlin County, 28 in Tainan, 25 in Chiayi County, 19 in Keelung, 16 each in Kinmen and Lienchiang County, 14 each in Hsinchu and Yilan counties, 13 in Miaoli County, 10 in Nantou County, nine in Penghu County and three in Chiayi City.
One statue was found at the former Hsinchu Detention Center For Mainland Chinese. Chinese interns at the center were required to salute the statue according to a report by the Commission. Among other symbols from the Chiang dynasty inventoried in the report are 104 paintings of Chiang Kai-shek and thirty-one paintings of Chiang Ching-kuo.
Why has not the Democratic Progressive Party made a priority of cleaning up public spaces? The answer is lockstep loyalty to the status quo, an amorphous vagueness that replaces public policy with an unknowing adherence to errors of the past. The status quo is the bitter fruit and logical outcome of Taiwan’s longstanding strategic ambiguity. The Chiang statues remain because Tsai Ing-wen has not supported their removal.
Michael Richardson interviewing Edward Poindexter at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in 2016. Such a recorded interview is now banned by prison officials. (credit: Mary Loan)
The restrictions on news media visits with the ban on recording equipment and requirement to be on an inmate’s personal visiting list of friends and family is a setback to prisoner access to the community. The media ban overturns a longstanding free press tradition in Nebraska that permitted news organizations access to prisoners. The ban now not only limits prisoners, but also censors the public from an independent view inside the prisons.
Claus Walischewski, from Breman, Germany has sent a message to Scott Frakes, the Director of the Nebraska Department of Correction Services, following the media ban imposed on Edward Poindexter last month. Walischewski, a longtime Amnesty International official, led a two-year investigation of Poindexter’s case in the early 1980s, which led him to declare Poindexter and the late Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa (former David Rice) were political prisoners. Walischewski is unhappy with the media interview ban which bars reporters from filming or recording Poindexter.
“I am a member of Amnesty International and have been involved with the cases of Edward Poindexter and the late Mondo we Langa for a long time. Amnesty has always had doubts about the sentence against those two and Amnesty has written on many occasions listing the facts that cast doubt on the verdict and pointing to the fact that the two had been targets of the COINTELPRO directed against prominent Afro-American and other minority group leaders. That is why Amnesty has had the demand “retrial or release” for the two prisoners.”
“After serving 49 years…Edward Poindexter deserves more attention and it would be humane as well as honorable if the American system of justice could correct a possible wrong.” Walischewski wants Frakes to know that Poindexter has an international audience.
On April 7, 1980, Group 489, a working group of Amnesty International headed by Walischewski issued a report on the Omaha Two with a stark conclusion. “They became victim of a frame-up by the police and the FBI and of the racial and political biases in court.”
“David Rice and Ed Poindexter are political prisoners. They were sentenced for a crime they didn’t commit because of their radical political beliefs. The legal system was misused and they were unjustly convicted.”
Excerpts from FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story, in print edition at Amazon and in ebook. Portions of the book may be read free online at NorthOmahaHistory.com. The book is also available to patrons of the Omaha Public Library.
Elmer Robert Cecil pictured in the early 1970’s in custody and in 2019 at the Great Plains Black History Museum with author Michael Richardson. (credits: Unknown/Eric Ewing)
Robert Cecil was a Black Panther member in Omaha during the group’s brief existence in the Midwestern city. In 1969, when the local chapter was dissolved by the national office in Oakland, California, Cecil joined up with the United Front Against Fascism, later renamed the National Committee to Combat Fascism.
Cecil had been a student activist at Technical High School and was quick to volunteer for assignments. Cecil gained notoriety in 1969 when the Omaha World-Herald published a photo of him emerging from the police station toting a shotgun and wearing an ammo bandoleer. Cecil and others had been picked up for openly carrying firearms but released because it was then lawful to carry unconcealed weapons.
Cecil entered the police investigation of Minard’s death when a search was made of NCCF headquarters shortly after the bombing. Cecil was on duty at the office and answered the door. Police Captain Bruce Hartford described the encounter.
“I pulled the door open and forced the hook in the lock and after someone told me, he has a gun in his hand, he has a shotgun, and we went in.”
“I seen the shotgun in Cecil’s hand after I entered the inside and there were rifles, numerous shells laying around in the front room and bandoleers or canvas belts and we proceeded then into the basement.”
Hartford described using Cecil as a human shield. “Right ahead of me when I went in the basement….Well, I figured if it was booby trapped, and it gave all this appearance, that I would sure as hell take him with me.”
The shotgun had a shortened barrel which led to federal firearms charges against Cecil. At a book talk at the Great Plains Black History Museum in Omaha the long-silent Cecil came forward to tell part of his story. Cecil described being held by Hartford as the police searched the headquarters.
“The Omaha Two was really the Omaha Three. I got two years for a quarter inch. I served two years in a federal prison for a sawed off shotgun. The legal length of the barrel was eighteen inches. They said my gun was seventeen and three-quarters in length.”
Cecil also explained the newspaper photo of him carrying a shotgun outside the police station. A group of Black Panthers was stopped in traffic with a car full of legal weapons. “They took us downtown and after they held us a while they had to let us go, we were breaking no law.”
At a pretrial hearing in March 1971, Robert Cecil was called to testify about the search of NCCF headquarters. Cecil denied having a gun in his hands when Captain Hartford broke the lock on the front door. Cecil testified he was handcuffed before being used as a human shield.
Prosecutor Arthur O’Leary explained the police actions were because it was an emergency search. “What I am trying to get at, there were weapons, there were signs in the house indicating danger and so forth and the police were in a hurry to do what they had to do.”
O’Leary then questioned Cecil about the term “racist pig” but Cecil turned the taunt back. “But we used fascist pig. We don’t use racist pig.”
In April 1972, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld Cecil’s conviction for a sawed off shotgun seized during the raid of the headquarters in Omaha. However, the court was critical of police search tactics.
“Hartford pulled the screen door open, breaking the lock, and the officers entered in a rush….The search, subsequent to the seizure of the gun and the defendant’s arrest, is not pertinent here and we say no more in that regard than that we disapprove of the manner in which it was conducted.”
Circuit Judge Heaney dissented, arguing that police lacked probable cause to arrest Cecil and provided more details of the search which used Cecil as a human shield. “I fail to understand why a temporary seizure of the defendant and the weapon would not have sufficiently protected the officers.”
“Instead, the police handcuffed the defendant and used him as a human shield to protect them as they searched the house, on the theory that if any occupants of the house fired on the police, Cecil would take the brunt of it.”
Robert Cecil was well known to the Intelligence Squad of the Omaha Police Department and made it onto detective Jack Swanson’s list of 39 suspects in the case. Before his death in prison in March 2016, Mondo wrote that the testimony and evidence at trial could have led to charges against four other individuals besides himself and Ed Poindexter. Mondo said that Raleigh House, Donald Peak, Jr., Robert Cecil and Frank Peak could have all been charged. Duane Peak, the confessed bomber, testified that Raleigh House supplied the suitcase and dynamite to make the bomb. One of Donald Peak’s sisters identified the voice on the 911 tape, which lured Minard to his death, as Donald’s and put him and Duane with the suitcase together hours before the bombing. Frank Peak, a cousin of Duane and Donald, was purportedly at a planning session for the crime according to Duane. Cecil’s possible role came from reports of the crime laboratory at the Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms Division in Washington.
According to Maynard Pro, the assistant chief of the ATF laboratory, dynamite particles were found in the trousers of Cecil. ATF chemist Kenneth Snow testified at trial that hand swabs from Cecil tested positive for dynamite. Cecil declines to discuss the dynamite evidence beyond a short statement.
“I’m sure it was part of the fabrication of their evidence if the other two were found not guilty. I told you I was the lucky one. They wanted us off the street, one way or another.”
“I still feel that it is not time to talk about what has happened to me. I do not talk about those days, I am reluctant as to how I was treated by both sides. Perhaps in the future.”
So how did dynamite traces show up on Cecil’s pants and hand swabs? Dynamite particles were also allegedly found in clothing of Poindexter and Mondo by the ATF lab. The clothing had been transported to Washington by ATF agent Thomas Sledge, along with three vials of dynamite particles, for testing. Sledge’s brother James, an Omaha policeman, had been injured in the bombing and Sledge is suspected of salting the clothing with dynamite particles. Sledge may have done the same with the hand swabs, cotton balls stored in a plastic bag. However, hand swabs from Poindexter and Mondo turned up negative for dynamite raising a question about Cecil’s swab test results.
Robert Cecil’s name emerged again in 1980 during post-trial proceedings. Attorney William Cunningham, representing Mondo, disclosed that the Omaha ATF office sought conspiracy charges against twenty-two black activists in four states for bombings in the 1970’s. United States Attorney Richard Dier refused to bring charges against the group, dubbed the Midwest 22, ending federal attempts to further imprison Cecil.
Robert Cecil’s reluctance to speak about his Black Panther days is understandable given the trouble that came his way. However, Cecil was a central figure in those turbulent days in Omaha and may have much to tell that has not been yet disclosed. Meanwhile, Ed Poindexter was recently denied a media interview at the state penitentiary without cause, unable to tell his story, a silence that speaks loudly about the Nebraska justice system.
Edward Poindexter giving a news media interview at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in 2016. Poindexter is now barred from such interviews, the first such ban in his 48 years of imprisonment. (credits: OPD/Mary Loan)
Edward Poindexter, Nebraska’s most controversial prisoner, and one of the state’s longest imprisoned at forty-eight years and counting, has been denied a news media visit. While on book tour to Nebraska for FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story I notified the Department of Corrections to schedule a interview with Poindexter. My request was refused and I was not even allowed to visit with Poindexter minus the recording equipment previously permitted.
Poindexter and David Rice (later Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa) were convicted in April 1971 for the 1970 bombing murder of Omaha Patrolman Larry Minard. The two men were leaders of a Black Panther affiliate group and targets of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s clandestine COINTELPRO program which targeted the black activists. Both men denied any involvement in Minard’s murder. Mondo died at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in March 2016 while serving a life without parole sentence.
Director of Corrections Scott Frakes personally vetoed my interview with Poindexter. Laura Strimple, the Corrections chief of staff cited regulation changes under Frakes that now ban all cameras and recording devices inside the Nebraska State Penitentiary.
Compounding the camera ban was my removal from Poindexter’s visitation list without notice to me or Poindexter. Strimple speculated that I was previously permitted to visit without being on a visitation list. Strimple also cited the need for a background check. However, I underwent such a check in 2016 when I last visited Poindexter.
In an attempt to comply with Frakes’ directives, I requested a background check form from Strimple, who did not supply me with the document, thus ending my attempt to visit with Poindexter during my book tour to Nebraska.
The restrictions on news media visits with the ban on recording equipment and requirement to be on an inmate’s personal visiting list of friends and family is a setback to prisoner access to the community. Frakes’ media ban overturns a longstanding free press tradition in Nebraska that permitted news organizations access to prisoners. The ban now not only limits prisoners, but also censors the public from an independent view inside the prisons.
Edward Poindexter, denied a new trial and denied parole, is now also denied an opportunity to tell his story to the outside world. A voice now surrounded by a wall of silence. Locked up out of sight, out of mind, and unheard.
FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story, in print edition at Amazon and in ebook. Portions of the book may be read free online at NorthOmahaHistory.com. The book is also available to patrons of the Omaha Public Library.
Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer has been asked to pursue justice in Ed Poindexter case (credit: Omaha Police Department)
While in Omaha, Nebraska, on a book tour for FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story, I passed Central Headquarters of the Omaha Police Department. It dawned on me that Chief Todd Schmaderer should have a copy of the book. Chief Schmaderer wasn’t even born when the August 17, 1970 murder of Patrolman Larry Minard happened. Schmaderer could indeed bring a new set of eyes to a cold case.
Unlike my requests to Governor Pete Ricketts and Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine to examine the conviction of Edward Poindexter, I had prepared no letter for Schmaderer. The duty officer at the front desk solved my problem by urging me to autograph the book. I used a dedication to urge that justice be done.
Poindexter, who is serving a life without parole sentence at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary, was convicted with David Rice (later Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa) for the bombing death of Minard. The pair were leaders of a Black Panther affiliate chapter called the National Committee to Combat Fascism and were targets of the illegal and clandestine COINTELPRO operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mondo died in March 2016 at the prison.
Federal manipulation of evidence and conflicting police testimony marred the controversial 1971 trial that led to life sentences for the two black leaders. FRAMED details the trial tampering, unknown by the jury, that included a withheld FBI Laboratory report on the identity of a 911 caller that lured Minard to his death. Questionable dynamite evidence is also reviewed in the book which took a decade to research and write making use of the Freedom of Information Act to pry out long-held secrets of law enforcement misdeeds in the case.
County Attorney Don Kleine, hired by Donald Knowles who prosecuted the two Panther leaders, has been asked to reopen the investigation of Minard’s murder. Kleine would need the cooperation and assistance of the Omaha Police Department to undertake such a task. Schmaderer could investigate the identity of the unknown 911 caller, an inquiry called off by the FBI a week after the bombing. There is no statute of limitations on murder.
Edward Poindexter steadfastly denies any role in the killing of Minard and wants justice for the Minard family, not just freedom for himself. Both Poindexter and Mondo repeatedly refused any discussion of a pardon in exchange for an admission of guilt. Poindexter sums it up, “I was falsely accused and wrongfully convicted.”
Up next, Ed Poindexter is denied a news media visit in prison.
FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story, in print edition at Amazon and in ebook. Portions of the book may be read free online at NorthOmahaHistory.com. The book is also available to patrons of the Omaha Public Library.
Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine has been asked to reopen Larry Minard murder investigation (credit: Don Kleine)
My book tour to Omaha for FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two storybegan giving a book away instead of selling books. First stop of the day was to the Douglas County Courthouse to visit prosecutor Don Kleine at his office. Kleine was busy preparing for court and unable to accept the book in person. A helpful clerk at the counter in his front office took the book and cover letter in hand promising to place it on Kleine’s desk.
If Kleine will read the book he will discover a previously unavailable account of the story behind what transpired in the courthouse nearly a half-century earlier with the trial of Edward Poindexter and David Rice for the bombing murder of Patrolman Larry Minard. The book details how competing federal agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms Division, manipulated the Omaha Police investigation of the murder. Sadly, the book documents the FBI withholding of a laboratory report on a recording of the 911 call that led Minard to his death and questionable dynamite evidence offered at trial by ATF. Unknown to local police investigating the crime, were hidden agendas of the federal law enforcement agencies.
“Misdeeds of COINTELPRO, the illegal FBI counterintelligence operation, were aimed at Edward Poindexter for his role as chairman of the National Committee to Combat Fascism, a Black Panther group. Poindexter is now serving a life without parole sentence at the Nebraska State Penitentiary for the murder of Minard after the controversial 1971 trial marred by conflicting police testimony.”
“I request that you review Edward Poindexter’s case in light of the then unknown federal role in the police investigation and state trial. I believe an innocent man is in prison while Minard’s killers walk free. There is no statute of limitations on murder. Justice has not been done in Nebraska in this case. With this book, I now ask you to reopen the Minard murder investigation.”
Kleine cannot be expected to rush at reopening a cold case fraught with unforeseen political implications and prosecuted by his mentor Donald Knowles. The letter to Kleine acknowledged the relationship between the two men.
“I am mindful that you began your long career of public service under the tutelage of Donald Knowles, who prosecuted Poindexter. The book does not answer any questions about Knowles’ knowledge of federal tampering, although his post-trial testimony that he knew of no FBI involvement in the case is difficult to square with the documentary record.”
Kleine may say that there is nothing he can do about the past. The reality is Ed Poindexter is still in prison and the past is his present. Don Kleine cannot be held to account for the errors of Donald Knowles. However, Kleine should be held to account for what he is doing about a case of wrongful conviction.
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts has been asked to examine the case of Edward Poindexter, an imprisoned Black Panther leader. (credit: Pete Ricketts)
A book tour for FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two storyto Nebraska included a stop at the State Capitol in Lincoln. Governor Pete Ricketts was out of town when I stopped by to give him a copy of the the book but his personal secretary assured me that she would see that Ricketts got the book.
FRAMED is the story of justice undone, a policeman’s murder where the guilty go unpunished, and two men were wrongfully convicted. The book is a true story of the 1970 bombing murder of Omaha Patrolman Larry Minard including the manipulation of the police investigation by competing federal law enforcement agencies and the tampering of the 1971 state trial by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and agents of the Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms Division. FRAMED is a window on a case never fully or accurately reported.
Two Black Panther leaders, Edward Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa (former David Rice), were convicted in a controversial capital murder trial where both men faced the electric chair. Poindexter remains imprisoned at the Nebraska State Penitentiary while Mondo died serving his life without parole sentence in March 2016. Duane Peak, the fifteen year-old confessed bomber never served a day in prison for Minard’s murder. Peak obtained a deal from Douglas County Attorney Donald Knowles and was judged to be a juvenile delinquent in exchange for his testimony that Poindexter and Mondo put him up to the crime.
The governor’s free book came with a letter requesting his action. “I request that you review Edward Poindexter’s case in light of the federal tampering with the police investigation and state trial. I believe an innocent man is in prison while Minard’s killers walk free. There is no statute of limitations on murder. Justice has not been done in Nebraska in this case. With this book, I now put the matter on your desk, in your hands.”
My request to Governor Ricketts is not a small one nor one he may be eager to honor. First, he has to read the book. Next, Ricketts has to square the facts of what happened with his well-known “law and order” philosophy. Then, Ricketts must stare at himself in the mirror and question his own decision to restore the death penalty in Nebraska. Had the jury not spared Poindexter’s life in 1971, Ricketts would not be faced with the prospect of letting a convicted cop-killer out of prison for wrongful conviction. Ed Poindexter’s case calls into question Ricketts own leadership role in restoring the death penalty.
Ricketts may try to dodge the issue by saying there is nothing he can do and that the courts control the matter. However, there is much Ricketts can to to bring justice to Nebraska. The governor could pardon Poindexter and release him immediately. Ricketts could also initiate a commutation investigation for wrongful conviction. Poindexter’s sentence could be commuted to time served by the Board of Pardons, chaired by Governor Ricketts.
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo is being asked by seventy-five professors, attorneys, activists, and celebrities to commute the sentence of Jalil Muntaqim (former Anthony Bottom) also a Black Panther leader imprisoned forty-eight years for the shooting of two New York policemen. In New York the issues are not about guilt or innocence but rather a fairness factor in parole decisions. Those arguments could also be applied to Poindexter’s case. However, in Nebraska a more fundamental issue confronts Ricketts, the punishment of an innocent man for a crime he did not commit while the guilty go unpunished.
FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story, in print edition at Amazon and in ebook. Portions of the book may be read free online at NorthOmahaHistory.com. The book is also available to patrons of the Omaha Public Library.
The prison book collection of Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa on display at the Aframerican Bookstore in Omaha, Nebraska (credit: Michael Richardson)
It was a return to the scene of the crime, Omaha, Nebraska. Weeds choked the vacant lot at 2867 Ohio Street where nearly a half-century ago Patrolman Larry Minard was killed by an ambush bomb at a vacant house. The occasion was a book tour for FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story, my non-fiction account of the crime and subsequent prosecution of two Black Panther leaders.
There were four venues on the schedule, two book stores, a community forum, and the Great Plains Black History Museum. Also included were stops at the governor’s office in Lincoln and the Douglas County Attorney’s office in Omaha. Books were donated to schools and libraries. Interesting people came forward at each event enriching the bittersweet experience with their personal accounts. FRAMED is a story with no happy ending, only continuing injustice.
While visiting the Aframerican Bookstore, 3226 Lake Street, there was a goose-bump surprise, the prison book collection of Mondo. Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, former David Rice, was an intellectual, but I already knew that. However, not until Mondo’s books were in my hands complete with occasional notes, did I realize the depth of his thinking and scope of his reach. It was a final visit, a last good-bye, as I paged through the collection wanting to talk with the absent owner about his books.
After Mondo’s death in March 2016, at the maximum-security Nebraska Correctional Center, the family placed the books on display to the public at the Aframerican Bookstore community room. Mondo served a life without parole sentence for the murder of Minard and died proclaiming his innocence. Mondo and Edward Poindexter had been targeted by the illegal and clandestine COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for elimination because of their roles leading the National Committee to Combat Fascism.
The book tour was to include a prison interview with Poindexter to discuss his health and appeal status. Now, almost forty-nine years behind bars, Poindexter was denied a media interview and my planned visit was banned by the director of the Department of Corrections.
The FRAMED book tour was in reality a call for justice. By putting the story of a well-orchestrated frame-up together in one place, all documented with citations to primary sources, it is now possible for me to call for a reopening of the Minard murder investigation. I believe an innocent man, Ed Poindexter, is in prison while Minard’s killers walk free.
Up next will be a public request to Governor Pete Ricketts to open a commutation investigation.
Richardson Reports 