◆ SpookStack

PNA Fe ee Abbott Howard Hoffman (unintelligible) more than just a bungaling baffoon who's you know at his desk, did you, did you do the story about s desk, how he has an agent come in and make a map of every iittie item on his desk with a ruler, remove the jtems, shine the desk top and put the items....... Jack Anderson: No, that's not my story but I'll tell you the one that is my story. The one that is my story, the one that I aid write was the time that he was down in La Jolla watching the races, And he was going to be gone for three or four weeks and an FBI agent with a cup of coffee came into the inner sanctvm, and I suppose apparently sat in the great man's chair and probably had a Walter Mitty dream or two and in the course of it he spilled some coffee on the rug. Well, that caused one of the greatest crisis that you ever had at the FBI. They tried to sop up the coffee stains and they couldn't get it out. They went to the FBI, this happened, they went to the FBI Laboratory and with all] their modern techniques, they can identify Abbie Hoffman from a hair pulled out of his head probably, but they couldn't take the coffee stain out of the rug. Well, they couldn't afford to have coffee stain on the rug when the old man came back so some, by this time, the problem had gone right on up almost to the top and everybody was equally concerned about the coffee stain so they decided to replace the rug. Well, they located the company that had put it in, as I recall it was a Baltimre company. They went to the company and the rug was out of stock and so they told them it was an urgent FBI mtter and they got the old pattern and they weaved a new rug. Now this really happened. And they put it, they installed it in Hoover's office and until I wrote about it he hasn't heard. Abbie Hoffman: Must have been away at the racetrack. The first time I was busted by an FBI agent I had read the book, “The FBI Nobody Knows" and there had been a story in there that I was interested in and J said to the agent, how come your hands are sweaty? As I had read that J. Edgar Hoover (unintelligible) believe that if sweaty palms is a sign of subversion so....the agent had two hankies, one in here which has to be folded in a certain three pointed way for purity, boldness and truth, I guess, and they have to have another one for greeting the chief. -13-