Actually, the ugly side of the Black Panthers was clear to the publisher of Ramparts Magazine by the early 1970s...

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"...I suggested a solution. Betty Van Patter, who was already doing the books for the Learning Center, might be of help in handling the general accounts. This was to be my last act of assistance to the Party. The crises of the fall had piled on one another in such swift succession, that I was unable to assess the toll they were taking. But in November, an event occurred that pushed me over the edge.

There had been a second teen dance, and this time there was a shooting. A Panther named Deacon was dead. His assailant, a black youth of 16, was in the county hospital. When I phoned Elaine to ask what had happened, she exploded in the kind of violent outpouring I had become used to by then, blaming the disaster on "the police and the CIA." This stock paranoia was really all I needed to hear. (Years later, I learned from other Panthers that the shooting had been over drugs, which the Party was dealing from the school.)

When I walked into the school auditorium where Deacon lay in state (there is really no other term for the scene in front of me), I suddenly saw the real Party to which I had closed my eyes to for so long. Of course, the children were there, as were their parents and teachers, but dominating them and everything else physically and symbolically was the honor guard of Panther soldiers in black berets, shotguns alarmingly on display. And, added to this spectacle, mingling with the mourners, there were the unmistakable gangster types, whose presence had suddenly become apparent to me after Elaine took over the Party: 'Big Bob,' Perkins, Aaron, Ricardo, Larry. They were fitted in shades and Bogarts and pinstripe suits, as though waiting for action on the set of a B crime movie. In their menacing faces there was no reflection of political complexity such as Huey was so adept at projecting, or of the benevolent community efforts like the breakfast for children programs that the Center provided.

Underneath all the political rhetoric and social uplift, I suddenly realized was the stark reality of the gang. I remember a voice silently beating my head, as I sat there during the service, tears streaming down my face: "What are you doing here, David?" it screamed at me. It was my turn to flee.

Betty did not attend the funeral, and if she had would not have been able to see what I saw. Moreover, she and I had never had the kind of relationship that inspired confidences between us. As my employee, she never really approved of the way Peter and I ran Ramparts. For whatever reasons — perhaps a streak of feminist militancy — she didn't trust me.

Just as a precaution, I had warned Betty even before Deacon's funeral not to get involved in any part of the Party or its functioning that she didn't feel comfortable with. But Betty kept her own counsel. In one of our few phone conversations, I mentioned the shooting at the dance. She did not take my remark further.

Later it became obvious that I hadn't really known Betty. I had counted to some extent on her middle class scruples to keep her from any danger zones she encountered in Panther territory. But this too was an illusion. She had passions that prompted her to want a deeper involvement in what she also perceived as their struggle against oppression.

There was another reason I did not express my growing fears to Betty. The more fear I had the more I realized that it would not be okay for me to voice such criticism, having been so close to the operation. To badmouth the Party would be tantamount to treason. I had a wife and four children, who lived in neighboring Berkeley, and I would not be able to protect them or myself from Elaine's wrath.

There were other considerations in my silence, too. What I had seen at the funeral, what I knew from hearsay and from the press were only blips on a radar screen that was highly personal, dependent on my own experience to read. I had begun to know the Panther reality, at least enough to have a healthy fear of Elaine. But how could I convey this knowledge to someone who had not been privy to the same things I had? How could I do it in such a way that they would believe me and not endanger me? Before fleeing, my Panther friends had tried to warn me about Huey through similar signs, and I had failed to understand. My ignorance was dangerous to them and to myself. Finally, only the police had ever accused the Panthers of actual crimes. Everyone I knew and respected on the left — and beyond the left — regarded the police allegations against the Panthers as malicious libels by a racist power structure bent on holding down and eliminating militant black leadership. It was one of the most powerful liberal myths of the times.1

One Friday night, a month or so after Deacon's funeral, a black man walked into the Berkeley Square, a neighborhood bar that Betty frequented, and handed her a note. Betty, who seemed to know the messenger, read the note and left shortly afterwards. She was never seen alive again..."