Sanford’s son (continued)

IN THE MIDDLE of November, there he was on my answering machine, just like he had said. We met at Ruski’s to talk about the article. Levasseur is extremely media-savvy. Until 2000, when the government had given him a presumptive release date of 2004, he had written extensively about his own experiences as a revolutionary and political prisoner (as he described himself), maintaining as high a profile as a point man or spokesperson on his issues as he could manage, but after receiving the presumptive release date he dialed those efforts way down because he didn’t want to take the chance that too much political activity would give someone reason to deny his parole. The release date was presumptive, after all.

He was keenly interested in whether the article I was planning would be Q&A or a feature, how long it would be. He wanted me to know how seriously he takes his parole, and the conditions therein, because he will be on parole for the rest of his sentence, another 25 years. Sitting at the corner table at Ruski’s, he explained his parole conditions: He cannot possess firearms or use illicit drugs; he cannot leave the state without permission, although he can move freely within Maine; he has to maintain a job. It was obvious to me right away that Levasseur had given a couple hundred more interviews in the course of his career than I had ever conducted in mine. In fact, Levasseur had already sat for several hours’ worth of interviews and sat for photographs with students from the SALT Institute for Documentary Studies. (Their fall 2004 exhibit, "In This Moment . . .," which has an opening reception this Friday, December 17, from 5 to 7 p.m., at the SALT Gallery, will feature this work.)

Eventually, we met in my apartment and spoke twice for the record about many topics, including the war in Iraq, the recent election, and, more personally, his association with SCAR, an early-’70s political group in Maine that pressed for prison reforms and ran several programs for released prisoners and other related segments of the community. SCAR established a bail fund. They taught martial arts classes. In a bid to generate media exposure for their cause, they once ran a prisoner named Danny Trask for governor of Maine. This was back when Levasseur owned a bookstore on Congress Street called the Red Star North, a gathering point for much of his political community. The things Levasseur and I discussed, not all of which can be represented here, are in turn only a fraction of what the man has to say.

"WAS THE sacrifice worth it?" I asked.

While sitting on my couch, he considered carefully. "To me it was, in terms of how I view my life, both in terms of activism and in terms of fulfillment. I did make a great sacrifice. Twenty years in prison and a lot of it in the worst prisons created a tremendous burden for my family. But the way that I look at anything I’ve done political through the course of my life, whether it was underground or in a community setting, I kinda look at it in terms of . . . the analogy that I like to use is with a coral reef. Coral reefs are such that they begin with something infinitesimal, called a coral. You can barely see it. It’s no bigger than the head of a pin, and that coral by itself is relatively nothing, but what happens is, as each coral progresses, and goes through its entire life cycle, their contribution to that reef comes about through the course of that cycle, and as they die that miniscule limestone skeleton gets left behind. It drops to the bottom of the sea, followed by millions and millions of others. Gradually the base of the reef forms, and then from that base the reef develops. As you know, a reef is a living organism, and as the reef grows it sustains and nourishes all kinds of life, from fish to crustaceans to plant life. And it grows larger and larger, and it essentially develops its own ecosystem. One could say it is an affirmation of life, deep within the depths of the ocean. And when it gets to a certain size, like with the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, it has taken a form that has the power to change the course of the sea, which it does."

Does he think that his work underground did had any impact?

Levasseur smiled. "Only history can be the judge of that. When Fidel Castro was tried for the Moncada Attack in Cuba and sent to prison, he said that history will absolve him, and history has absolved him, because the Cuban Revolution followed. I’m not the one that can be the judge of what, if anything, was accomplished, but what I am saying is that I was on the right side of history. When we took action to oppose apartheid in South Africa, I think that history books as they’re currently being written attest to the fact that we were on the right side of that struggle, and the United States government and various corporations and European countries were on the wrong side.

That’s kind of been my basic philosophy of how I evaluate my role in political change."

He understands that question of impact, and why someone would ask it, but for him it is illustrative of thinking that clouds the larger truth. "A big part of the story is left out by focusing too much on the individual. That’s why, although my story as an individual is interesting, I think just as interesting, if not more so, is what I am a part of, the larger context. My two comrades that are still in prison are the only two people in this country, and part of a very small number left in the entire world, that are in prison for anti-apartheid activities. I’m sure Mandela got asked a number of times over the years, was his sacrifice worth it, as his imprisonment went from one decade into another, into another. But I doubt he ever questioned his own commitment. The difference in South Africa was that there was always a very significant anti-apartheid struggle based among the African people. That struggle supported him and held him close to their hearts for the entire ordeal of his imprisonment, and that goes a long way towards sustaining political prisoners. This country has not had a strong movement like that."

I asked what he would say to people who would support him and his cause were it not for the death of the New Jersey state trooper. This was the one part of his story that was cited again and again when his name came up in Sanford after his release from prison. For so many people, it was the deal-breaker.

"I was never charged or tried for that," Ray said. "And the two that were, their defense was that it was self-defense. Tom Manning’s defense was that he shot the police in self-defense. The policeman tried to kill him. Richard Williams’s defense was that he was never there. He wasn’t there at all. I believe them, and Rich Williams’s first trial resulted in a mistrial because the jury locked in favor of acquittal. They couldn’t decide the case, couldn’t render a verdict. When he was retried he was convicted under a completely different jury. Tom Manning’s position was that he shot the police in self-defense and what came out at trial was that that police emptied his entire gun, a .357 revolver. They also found that he had what you called a drop gun, a little .25 automatic, unlicensed as I remember, which he wasn’t authorized to carry. What was he doing with that? We call it a drop gun because it’s not uncommon for police to plant a weapon, be it a gun or a knife or whatever, on somebody that they have killed.