S2E4: The Heist of the Century

Last time on Snafu.

We cased the place for at least two maybe three months.

I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. There were no cameras, there were no alarms over the doors. I couldn't see any security measures whatsoever.

Somebody wasn't me. Somebody suggested what about the night of the Ali Fraser fight? And it was like a brilliant suggestion.

In nineteen seventy one, Muhammad Ali was the most famous athlete in the world. He was an undefeated boxing champion who just happened to be facing jail time.

How do you stand there with the possibility of going to jail.

Oh, I don't know.

I'm just waiting in a day now.

After refusing to serve in Vietnam as a conscientious objector to the war, Ali had been stripped of his heavyweight championship title. He had his boxing license revoked and was banned from the sport by the Boxing Commission. He was convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in prison. He stayed out of prison while he appealed the conviction to the Supreme Court. Ali being Ali wasn't going down without a fight.

White America right now spending thirty million dollars a day in age of black and white boys are dying unjustly for nothing, just to free somebody else. So why should I worry about going to little old jail to free my pole people who's been catching ail here for four hundred years.

While Ali was away from the ring, Joe Fraser had taken the heavyweight title belt. But on the night of March eighth, nineteen seventy one, a reinstated Ali would finally have his chance to take it back.

And the big fight is coming up Ali and Fraser.

Muhammad Ali Ak.

That's George Carlin on the Ed Sullivan Show. Of course, the anti establishment icon had something to say about the big fight. But it's good that.

He's been allowed to work again. As you know, he couldn't work for three years. Of course, he had a strange job beating people up, but that was you know, he is right, he could have that job. Govman wanted him to change jobs.

Goubman wanted him to kill people.

He thought it over and he said, no, that's where I draw the line. I'll beat him up, and I don't want to kill him, and the government told him, well, if you won't kill him, we won't let you beat him up.

During his hiatus, Ali had become a vocal activist, a hero to the anti war movement. Fraser, meanwhile, was embraced by supporters of the war. Among Fraser's biggest fans, President Richard Nixon. Before the fight, Fraser and Nixon even met up at the White House and smoking Joe, Fraser promised the President that he'd give his draft dodging rival a quote good old beatdown. And so the Fight of the Century kruscheted into something bigger than just a contest between

The kids had no reason to be suspicious that anything that was.

Not normal was going on. They had no reason to suspect anything at all.

It was just another meeting that mom and dad were going to.

But this wasn't just another meeting, because this time the rains is new. They might not come back.

We were very, very worried about what would happened to our children if we were arrested put in prison, So in planning for that possibility, we talked to John's brother Bob and his wife and my parents about this jeopardy that we were going to encounter. We had to have them reassure us that the children would be taken care of if we were in federal prison.

Through dinner, John felt sick to his stomach as he contemplated the possibility that both he and Bonnie could be arrested that night. He would later say that if Bonnie had suggested that they drop out now, he would have agreed. A part of him maybe even hoped that she would back out, But Bonnie didn't waver, and now it was time to leave. The babysitter arrived, John and Bonnie cleared the table. They kissed their kids and told them good night.

That was our base of operations. It had a phone because you know, remember this was long before cell phones and we didn't really think walkie talkies were secure.

We have to be careful not to alert the hotel people that there was you know, seven or eight people in this room at that point, and there was a lot of nervous tension, excitement.

One final time, the eight burglars talked through their plans for the burglary and each of their roles. There were four phases to the heist. Phase one, the break in. Keith, barely twenty years old and having mastered the art of lock picking, would embark on his solo mission, putting his assiduously owned lock picking skills to the test.

My job was to get the door open by myself, and then I leave and then the inside crew comes in.

Phase two belonged to the inside crew, which included Ralph the graduate student, Sarah Schumer, the professor, Bob Williamson, the social worker and jokester, and Judy Finegeld, the nineteen year old professional pacifist. This foursome would enter the unlocked office carrying empty suitcases. Once inside, their job was pretty simple. Stuff every file they could get their hands on into

They would have seen the hood up and just assumed that I was a damsel in distress.

Phase three, the getaway. The inside team would exit the building suitcases in hand and load them into the two getaway cars. Then they'd drive to Swathmore College, where John Rains would be waiting in the family station wagon.

We would transfer the suitcases into our family station wagon.

Switching vehicles would create a smoke screen for anyone who might be on their trail. Through all this, their fearless leader, physicist and father of two, Bill Davidon, would stay stationed at the motel, calling the shots from mission control, coordinating departure times, answering calls, making any necessary snap decisions. Bill's philosophy, keep it simple.

Just sort of check on readiness of everything was the rule that I played. I waded a car for the day.

Bill had booked the car rental using his own name and real driver's license. He'd reserved the motel room under his own name too. It was part of a strategy to avoid a cloak and dagger vibe, which had the potential to attract attention in and of itself. Last up the final phase of any heist, counting the money, or in this case, analyzing the documents, would they find just a bunch of legitimate case files or records of nefarious political surveillance? Start to finish, they estimated the job would

We had picked a time to begin the action, timing it to begin with the Ali Fraser fight.

By eight o'clock in New York City, Manhattan was gridlocked, with tens of thousands descending upon Madison Square gardenp with Mohammed.

Today is my birthday and my maid's name is Clay.

I'm not on Fraser. The red carpet into the arena was bursting with celebrities in zoot suits, mink hats, full length fur coats. Remember it was the seventies.

Fight, Well, it's gonna be a great fight Ali.

That prediction was courtesy of Diana Ross, just one of twenty thousand fans squeezing into the arena. With the eyes of the world focused on Madison Square Garden, Bill Davidon gave the green light. Phase one of the media burglary began. John departed for Swathmore to wait for the handoff. Keith headed straight for the FBI office, lock picking tools in hand. Inside Madison Square Garden, Muhammad Ali faced the cameras oh a lot, dressed in an iconic red robe that would

Keith joked that he had to get a haircut, and Bill directed him to a thrift store on the Mainline, where he got a Brooks Brother's sport coat for five dollars.

He was very proud of that.

The burglars understood they couldn't draw attention to themselves looking like anti war hippies. They needed to blend in.

It was March, so I had a trench coat and then I could put some small tools in the pocket of that without being obvious.

Keith arrived at one Veteran Square. He glocked his surroundings. Not a soul in sight, accept the security guard at the courthouse across the street. But that was perfectly normal.

So I went in. I went through the front door, went up the stairs.

He was careful to tread lightly.

The building manager lived in the apartment directly underneath the FBI office.

Keith was relieved to hear sounds from what he assumed was the fight broadcast emanating from downstairs.

So I went to the door, mister confident, and there's a second lock on the door that wasn't there like two weeks before. I mean, I just about had a heart attack. Not only was there a second lock, but it wasn't a front door type lock. It was cylindrical tumblr lock, which A it's much harder than a regular lock, and B you can't do it with the kind of tools. I had, special tool.

And now Keith was feeling like a real special tool for not bringing one.

You know your mind, you always go to the worst thing first. Either they know we're coming, and if they know we're coming, the only way they can know we're coming is if we've got a leak. So somebody's talk if there's a leak.

Keith's mind went straight to Burglar number nine. No, no, no, but no, the man who abruptly ditched the group a week earlier. Could he have turned into an informant for the FBI? Or was he won all along? Keith imagined a brigade of armed agents right on the other side of the door, waiting for him.

I like took some deep breaths, and I'm like, all we know is that there's a new lock on the door. That's the only thing we know for sure. And the only other thing we know for sure is that I cannot pick this lock tonight. So I just turned around and went out and I used a payphone to the room. I would love to have a tape of that call, because I'm not sure how much sense I made.

Since I was at the motel, I knew from Keith's phone call that there were problems.

That was one of the people on the call, and he said something like we might have to cancel or reschedule the event because we can't get in.

It was like, oh shit, you know, this is just terrible. It was a huge left down. I think there probably was a few minutes when we thought we had to had to give up.

I mean, there was just no plan being.

The burglars were crestfallen. They looked to their leader, Bill Davidan. He was not ready to give up. After all, there was no conclusive evidence that the FBI was on to them.

We've got this far and we're just not going to give up. We're going to figure out something else. And that's when I remembered the second door.

She said, well, what about the other door, And I'm like, oh, yeah, the other door. Did that have a high security lock on it? No, just has the regular lock, And you know, there's some cabinet or something on the other side of it.

In fact, it was a ginormous filing cabinet. Bonnie had seen it during her casing mission, and that gave.

Me the chance to see another door from the hallway in that third office, and that the door was blocked by this huge metal file cabinet.

But now that door might be their only hope.

So I go back. I go up to the second door, and I could tell already before I even picked the lock that there was a dead boll on the door. I had a short sixteen inch Prie bar with me, so that wasn't going to be a problem. But the only thing that worried me is that I could hear sounds coming from the room directly underneath me.

A let's turn back to the instance. Like for I'm gonna thirty.

Five inns, I used the crowd noise to my advantage when I popped the dead bowlt, I waited for a loud moment to do that. So I put the pride bar in the jam and you know, snapped the dead bowled off all at once. It seemed quite loud to me. And then I just stood there and.

Listened, listening, listening, and thank god, not a peep from the building manager.

I pushed the door and it went like an inch and stopped, and so I could feel that it was the doorknob that was hitting something heavy. So I put my pride bar in and tried to scoot it and I couldn't get it to budge. It was like, oh shit, now what am I going to do? And then I thought, well, obviously I need more leverage, and I've got a jack

Keep in mind any of the building residents could have walked by at any moment.

And so I laid down on the floor of the hall and worked the jackstand in there against the bottom of the thing and started moving it. And you could only move it like a fraction of an inch at a time. I was basically laying on the floor of the hallway with my feet against one side of the hall, you know, working on this lever and slowly moving it away.

For what seemed like an eternity. Keith was sprawled across the floor in the hallway outside the FBI office in a position that can only be described as a cartoon caricature of a cat burglar.

At some point during the whole process, I heard a banging noise inside, and that stopped me for a second. I'm like, well, that was either the FBI or the heating system, and there's only one way to find out which.

We were all probably watching our watches because it was taking so much more time than we expected it too. I don't think I cried, but we were so worried about about Keith.

We were really worried about his safety.

So just worked. It worked, at worked, at worked, it worked. It finally got it enough that I could squeeze in. So Luckily I'm not very wide.

So.

He squeezed through the door and immediately took in his surroundings. The office was dark and, to his relief empty, There was no crew of FBI agents with guns drawn.

I taped the door so it wouldn't relock and pulled it close and left. Then I called him and said I am next.

Against all odds and a ridiculously large filing cabinet, Keith prevailed.

I imagine myself in that situation, and I honestly do not think that I would have risen to the occasion the way that he did.

There was this huge, huge relief, so I think we had a little guardian angel on our.

Side and Mary.

Next Phase two, the Inside crew enters the office. The door of the FBI office was now open. It was approaching eleven PM at Madison Square Garden, Ali and Fraser were still slugging it out our burglars. In Media were behind schedule, way behind. John Rains, sitting in a parking lot in Swathmore, was starting to sweat. He wondered why the hell they were taking so long.

He thinks they've been busted. I mean, he's that's what He's having a nervous breakdown.

Back in Media, the Inside crew was just arriving at the office building.

The men had suits and the women were dressed up.

You know, we wanted to make it look like maybe we were visiting or that we were going on a vacation or something like that, and that's why we had suitcases.

I remember thinking, I'm not breathing, but I've got to be breathing because I'm functioning. I can just imagine, you know, some FBI guy sitting in the meet the office, right, and he decides to work late because or maybe he wants to watch the fight, and his wife won't want to watch the fight, right, so he sit in the office that we all break in, right, the four of.

Us break in, He'll shoot us. What do you think he's gonna do.

He's got a gun.

I remember the tight squeeze getting past the cabinet through the door, but we all did that no problem.

Once we were in there, we shut the door.

I think the real sentament was like, holy shit, we are really here, This is really happening, This is phenomenal and in some ways unbelievable. It was like, let's get the job done.

I had a little flashlight, but we taped it up with black electrical tape so that only a little pinpoint of a hole was allowing light through.

They gingerly crept through the office, opening every desk, drawer and cabinet. They could find thousands of top secret and confidential files just sitting there right for the taking.

I think you were tre you right in the range of twenty minutes inside.

That's Sarah Schumer.

The focus was on.

Doing it as quickly as possible and making as little noise as possible, and being as undetected as possible, and to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Apart from one small safe they couldn't unlock. They cleaned the place out, stuffing the suitcases until all the files were removed. Periodically, Bob walked over to the window to see if the guard at the courthouse across the street was looking their way. He never was. With the files packed up, it was time to get out of Dodge, so they called the getaway cars, and just to add a little insult to injury, they used the FBI off.

His phone and there was just a one word thing, like a pre arranged code.

Word to let them know were ready. So we knew we had ten more minutes.

Ralph saw this big teletype machine, giant machine that it was a means of communication between that office and the rest of the FBI system, particularly in Washington. I mean it was a direct line to Washington. But the cord on this thing was the biggest court I think I've ever seen, and we had a pair of both cutters. So he wanted to disable the machine by cutting the cord, which was plugged into a live socket.

And I was a little.

Nervous about that. I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted. The sparks going all over the place. It was quite a show there. For about five seconds.

There was a photo on the wall of Hoover, and one of the burglars slid the photo out of the frame and took it with them for a souvenir.

Cut the communication cord and grab the portrait of the head honcho on your way out the door. Now that's how you leave a heist with style. Next phase three the getaway down.

I stand, the round fourteen and one another great round.

It was.

Now if you look over at joe'spoto, is something wrong with his face?

The Fight of the century was living up to its billing. The first championship fight ever between two undefeated heavyweights had become an epic, bloody slugfest. Then in the fifteenth round, a jaw dropping turning point. There that gasp you here, that's the sound of tens of thousands of fans who can't believe what they just saw. A brutal left hook from Fraser and Ali tumbling to the mat.

They only go on the bike.

Ahamad Ali was hot on his back, but he's a welcome doesn't that late?

However, it's real fired.

Meanwhile, in media, two men and two women strolled out of an office building at one veteran square, each carrying two full suitcases. He'th watched from his car. He looked across the street and his heart stopped. Someone was looking directly at the burglars leaving the building.

The security guard in the courthouse. The front door of the courthouse is glass, and he's standing right inside the glass, looking directly across the street in our direction, just standing there with his hands folded, looking right. And he is a security guard, of course, so he's supposed to be watching for stuff. And here comes the inside crew out the door, each carrying two suitcases full of FBI files, and the guy's watching them.

For a tense moment. Keith watched the guard watching the burglars, and then nothing.

I used to joke to my kids, there's a very important object lesson there. If you're a white man in a suit, you can get away with anything.

I just got in the backseat of the car and just you know, breathed a huge sigh of relief.

And we're all excited too, you know, in the car.

Once we got in the car on the road, we're like, at least I was just complete relaxation with some euphoria along with it.

The two ghetaway cars zoomed off in different directions, One headed straight for the farmhouse, the other to Swapmore College, where John Rains was starting to panic. The drop off should have happened by now, it had been hours. John was now convinced that something had gone horribly wrong and that he and Bonnie wouldn't be back for dinner with the kids for a very long time. Then suddenly headlights emerged from the darkness. John held his breath. Was it

We hogged and we'd laughed a little bit.

They worked fast, transferring the suitcases from Bonnie's getaway car to the Rains's station wagon. Then it was off to the final rally point, the farmhouse.

I drove and we took back roads, you know, and by then it was the middle of the night.

I was really jacked up. Leave it. We pulled it off without a single hitch.

I don't know, without a hitch might be stretching it a little given the whole lock fiasco, but considering what could have gone wrong, yeah, you bet.

We were feeling incredibly relieved and also a lot of adrenaline was flowing.

A lot of adrenaline was flowing.

It was nearing midnight, and inside Madison Square Garden it was bedlong now ring it started to cloud up. The fight was over. It was pandemonium. As the judges revealed their decision. Anonymous for the first time ever in his professional career, Muhammad Ali lost. His supporters around the world were shattered.

Oh here we are in metithisquat God, and the people are still standing around. Nobody seems to want to go home. I think everybody has been treated to one of the greatest fighting evenings I've ever seen. The crowd is getting to be very oddly now they're quieting down. For a while there they looked like I'm going to tear the place up.

As the world processed Ali's defeat, the burglars and their various cars were headed north. The drive took them through suburban neighborhoods and along dark, winding country roads. The drivers and passengers kept a wary eye on their rear view mirrors, constantly glancing behind them, wondering if they were being followed. It took an hour to reach their safe house.

I was familiar with the farm just from knowing the people there over the years.

As part of a Quaker retreat conference center kind of out in the country.

I had made arrangements for the use of the farm.

Fellowship Farm was a meeting place for local activists. Martin Luther King had even visited once it was isolated and surrounded by woods. One by one, the cars pulled up to the house. To their relief, no one had been stopped on the way. All eight were safe and sound.

Once I realized that everything was working okay and that the other cars involved, we're okay, then there's a relaxation.

I was just.

Certainly, I was relieved. You know, here we were, everybody was there. There were no police.

Oh my god, that was beautiful. I mean, you're in the country.

You put our sleeping bags down, and that It's not that anybody slept. It was because we were all so punchy and the adrenaline was just going. We were just trying to come down, down and down from being up up, up, up and hyped and feeling relieved that we were successful.

After the fight in New York, Fraser fans and the Warhawks celebrated President Nixon who watched the fight in a private screening room at the White House, reportedly jumped up and down, cheering the defeat of quote that draft dodger asshole. Meanwhile, Ali supporters were devastated.

And there's nothing to cry and complain about. You know, I've been always handing out the defeat. So now I'm defeated now, and see how the people felt. And when I do come back, if I ever do, I'll have a more of a hungred determination, which is.

Something The loss was crushing, not only for Ali but also for his millions of fans in the anti war movement. They had no way of knowing that about one hundred miles away they might have just won an even bigger victory.

Oh yeah, we had a little champag.

Then there was this tension about what we would actually find in those documents.

The citizens commissioned to investigate. The FBI had risked everything to remove all the files from the media FBI office, and now they were about to find out if it had all been worth it.

It didn't take long before someone in the other room said.

Holy Macro, you're not going to believe this.

Next time on snafoo, we had some idea that this was pretty explosive.

I went downstairs and my visitors were these two FBI agents, and you know, they suggested that we go outside and talk.

And then the next morning I got a phone call from the FBI that they wanted to enterview me.

Snafoo is a production of iHeartRadio, Film Nation Entertainment, and Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. This season of Snafoo is based on the book The Burglary, The Discovery of Jay Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, written by Betty Metzger. It's executive produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka, Mike Walbo, Whitney Donaldson, Andy Chug, Dylan Fagan, and Betty Metzger. Our lead producers are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Producer