Squeaky

I've been doing these Masonic minutes for several years now, since 2015, to be exact. So, just this once, allow me the indulgence of telling a personal story. My dad, Robert, Was a member of Noblesville Lodge 57 in Indiana. The Indianapolis Scottish Rite and Murat Shrine, where he was a fixture at lunch for many years. In the early 50s he took a job in Indianapolis as a purchasing agent for a large tool and die company. That company, Wallace Tool and Die, invented a metal expansion process that revolutionized the industry. By the mid-1960s the company was using that process to manufacture all the car doors for Ford Motor Company, all washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher casings for Westinghouse and Kenmore, most Ford car consoles and many other such parts. In other words, the company hit the big-time and incorporated as Wallace Expanding Machines, making Dad its secretary-treasurer.

One evening in the fall of 1975, Dad came home to find two men in suits standing on his front porch. One of the men had just taped a note to his front door and they had turned to leave. The note said simply, "Please call Bob Sabol, FBI," and gave a phone number.  Dad stopped the car halfway down the drive, got out and greeted the men. Sabol introduced himself as an agent with the Indianapolis office of the FBI. Then he asked, "Mr. Harrison, what do you know about Lynette Fromme?"

Dad knew exactly who she was. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was all over the news. Earlier that week she had aimed a gun at President Gerald Ford and was apprehend without firing it.  Other than that, Dad knew nothing of her.

Agent Sabol asked Dad a few other questions wanting to know where he worked and what his position was with the company.  Dad told him about his position at Wallace.

It turned out, Dad's position at Wallace, now an important player in the manufacturing industry, had earned him a listing in Standard and Poor's Directory of Corporate Executives, national edition.

Sabol went on to explain that in searching Squeaky's apartment after the incident, they found a mass mailing she was preparing and all of the envelopes used Dad's home address as the mailing's return address. The mailing also listed Dad's title as "President, US Natural Resources." Dad told them he had never heard of that company.  Sabol informed him their investigation had determined the Standard and Poor's directory had shown Dad as its president. It didn't take much in the discussion that followed to determine Dad had no relationship with either Squeaky or US Natural Resources. S&P affiliating him with the USNR was, in fact, a clerical error.

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, aside from being a kooky follower of Charles Manson, was a rabid environmentalist. In fact, she had gone to the Ford rally where she was arrested to try to plead with him to stop harvesting redwoods. Apparently, she thought US Natural Resources had something to do with the environment, had looked it up in the S&P directory and that is how she got Dad's name.

The conversation with the FBI sent Dad to his office where he had filed the proof copy of his S&P listing without paying much attention to it. Sure enough, right there under "Other Current Affiliations" he found himself listed as the Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of US Natural resources. He filed the note from the FBI with it as a souvenir.

Courts found Squeaky guilty of the attempted assassination of the President of the United States and sentenced her to life. She was paroled in 2009. The great irony for her is US Natural Resources is a company that deals in sawmills and equipment to harvest trees, not save them, as the Squeakster must have assumed. The FBI was easily convinced Dad had nothing to do with Squeaky Fromme and her misguided antics and never bothered him again about it… but the affair always made a good story at cocktail parties… and podcasts.

For the Whence Came You podcast, this is Steve Harrison with the Masonic Minute.