The Last Undercover

by Bob Hamer

  A few moments later, I continued the conversation about travel just as Dick Stutsman joined us poolside. Trying to elicit criminal admissions, I said Jeff Devore had mentioned a place in Mexico and I also heard about a place in Costa Rica. Todd immediately said he remembered Jeff, “the minister.” And David said he was aware of a place in Costa Rica called Big Ruby’s and, since American Airlines flew there, he could get “twenty-four passes a year.”

  Even as Jeff’s name was leaving my lips, I realized that in my haste to discuss travel, I made a major undercover blunder: I lied in such a way that I could be caught. Undercover agents lie often and lie well, but this was not a good lie, since my story could be checked out if one of my hearers was so inclined. I mentioned Jeff’s name, and to my knowledge, Jeff never traveled to Mexico. Certainly, he had not told me about any such venue. Todd knew Jeff and might have even had a contact number for him.

  As all these thoughts ran through my head, I realized I should have corrected myself on the spot, or at least hedged, saying I thought it was Jeff who had told me. The moment passed, though, and I decided to let it ride. Interestingly, Jeff’s name never came up again. No one caught me in the lie or the subsequent inconsistency. As the investigation progressed, I was able to attribute all my travel details to an imaginary friend. Another bullet dodged, even if it was one of my own making.

  When Dick joined the conversation, I asked him if he traveled. He told us of the only two trips he ever made overseas in nauseating detail.

  Well, I found . . . a so-called House of Boys in Amsterdam, not too far from the train station. There’s just a door on the street. It actually said “House of Boys” on the door. You ring the doorbell. Someone—a boy—comes in. You go upstairs and it’s a little bar with two or three bedrooms and a lounge.

  Dick then continued the torture by detailing another success.

  There was one, in what country was that? It was a brown-skin country. Turkey or something . . . yeah, Turkey. I think he was around eleven. Then there was someone in France. But they were peak experiences. . . . I gave my partners as much pleasure as I had. . . . Sure, they’re supposed to pretend, but I really truly think this kid had never had his armpits licked, and for some reason, I suddenly thought this would be a great thing to do. You know, it turned me on, but it turned him on, too. Anyway, I had success!

  David shared his experiences on the gay beaches of Mexico and in Thailand, a topic he would repeat several times during the investigation. He said he “virtually never” did anything in the United States.

  The break-time conversation was a gold mine of admissions, but was unfortunately interrupted by Peter’s call to return to the matters at hand. Groaning inwardly, I raised myself off the lounge chair and headed inside with the others.

  The Saturday afternoon session was no more thrilling than the morning. James, the newly anointed moderator, noted that Chris did a lot of “thoughtful research and was a repository of information about political, legal, and social events related to us in the press.” David looked at me and rolled his eyes and I had to agree with his assessment. I never claimed to be the brightest bulb on the tree, but I’m not sure I was ever able to follow any line of reasoning Chris proffered. If he was the best hope for the next socialist uprising, I was putting my money on capitalism.

  At one point during the discussion, Chris enlightened us with the fact that Israeli intelligence determined Yasser Arafat was having sex with the Palestinian boys who threw rocks at Israeli tanks. Peter, who is Jewish, smiled. “Oh, is that so? Now I’m changing my mind about him.”

  Peter spoke of commissioning a former member who was a talented cartoonist to depict the boy-lover struggle in an art form readily understood by millions. Peter wanted the cartoon, consisting of several panels, to depict how society was led to hate Jews, blacks, gays, and BLs. Yet society had been proven wrong, he said; many great people from these groups contributed so much to the world. Peter wanted the final panel of the cartoon to show NAMBLA and what contributions its members made. He never actually filled us in on the identities of the great, influential members of NAMBLA and their world-changing contributions. I guess we’ll have to wait for the cartoon.

  James suggested the theme of this conference should be reenergizing the membership and getting more involvement from those in attendance. From my perspective, he had a point: three or four people were doing 95 percent of the work. Peter Herman, aka Peter Melzer, age sixty-five, served in a CEO-like capacity. Floyd, age sixty-eight, was the “filter and censor” for the NAMBLA Web site and, along with Joe P. from California, performed most of the editorial duties for the Bulletin. The situation was ripe for an ambitious undercover agent to assume management responsibilities and wreak havoc on the organization. But, as I said often and under oath, the scope of our mission was to identify the criminal activities of those networking at the NAMBLA conference, not to target the organization as such. It was for this reason I kept my involvement at a minimum.

  Peter worked hard to garner support and encourage attendees to contribute beyond the payment of the annual dues, but most of his lobbying efforts were wasted. I almost felt sorry for him as he floated projects and ideas and continually failed to find takers. Peter admitted that last year his goal was to issue a press release about NAMBLA’s twenty-fifth anniversary, an opportunity to let the world know NAMBLA was alive and well. Celebrating twenty-five years as a “liberation” movement was an achievement worthy of attention, he said. But the press release never materialized. As the discussion languished, Peter asked James to write an article for the Bulletin about seeking more involvement from the membership. James reluctantly said he would get with Sam to discuss it. The next two issues of the Bulletin failed to sound the call. The organization was big on plans and poor on follow-through—perhaps because its members were primarily focused on networking and justifying their sexual agendas.

  During an afternoon break Bob, the Atlanta attorney, lashed out at the gay community and its supposed hypocrisy.

  They don’t like us. They don’t want our publications even to exist. They don’t want to even afford us the opportunity to speak out in discourse in an attempt to convince people. . . . We were part of the gay liberation movement . . . a different flavor of gay. . . . The irony is that they tried to sweep us off the table to make one closer to the center more palatable and they haven’t succeeded. . . . The same kind of people who will go to the Supreme Court to protect the right of the fifteen-year-old girl to abort her fetus without having to tell her parents don’t want to allow that fifteen-year-old to choose her own sex partner. . . . We support the right of kids to have self-determination. You want to choose the partner of the same sex, that’s great. You want to choose a partner in the same grade, that’s great. All of a sudden, you want to choose a partner who’s twice your age—can’t have it!

  Bob was on a roll and somehow the issue of consent was broached. Needless to say, he had an opinion.

  There’s a lot of boys and girls over the years who said yes at the time, and who claim to have been molested sometime later, when it was found out. . . . I think the question is really whether there was consent. . . . I still say if they want to put an age off-limits, let them put it off-limits . . . let it be like you sold alcohol to an underage person. . . . The kid is punished for going after the booze and the cigarette. The merchant is punished for giving it to him, but there’s no suggestion that there wasn’t consent.

  During a break in which Bob was pontificating on the life of the BL, I spoke briefly with Steve Irvin, a tall, thin special education teacher in his mid-forties, from Pittsburgh. Steve said he attended the 1988 conference in Baltimore. He met Bob Rhodes there and they went down to Santo Domingo for a week and “had a great time.” Steve admitted that one of the reasons he came this year was because he wanted to travel again, and hoped he would meet someone who could provide information on where to go and where to stay. I suggested Steve check with David, since “he’s thinking about tryi
ng to put something together in Costa Rica . . . a less restricted environment down there.” In our brief conversation, Steve said his age of preference was “eleven or twelve.”

  Peter set up a table with various publications available through NAMBLA. During the afternoon break, I purchased two: Diary of a Pedophile by D. J. Davis and a magazine called Made in the USA. The magazine had disturbing photos of boys in various poses, displaying full-frontal nudity. I bought it, hoping its distribution by Peter would be a violation of child porn laws. Later, however, one of our analysts reviewed the magazine and declared the pictures “erotica,” but not federally prosecutable images rising to the level of child pornography under the current state of the law. I still think most Americans would find it pornographic.

  26

  JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PARANOID DOESN’T MEAN I’M NOT OUT TO GET YOU

  Much of the remainder of the day’s discussion revolved in some way around NAMBLA members’ frustrations and fears—frustrations over the organization’s lack of social cohesiveness and opportunities, and fears about being infiltrated or otherwise sanctioned by the authorities or society at large.

  Following the break, Peter spoke of the holiday card program and asked that attendees volunteer to send cards for the coming holiday season. Almost everyone agreed to participate except John, the “gaythiest.” His reasoning made sense: a twice-convicted sex offender cannot afford to have his name on any prison mailing list, especially one linking him to other convicted sex offenders. Peter and others tried to reassure him no one had ever been “outed” for participating in the program. But John’s concerns went deeper than the potential social stigma, apparently. Frustrated, Peter finally asked James to move on to the next item on the agenda.

  James suggested taking a page from other liberation movements by developing a theme and sticking with it throughout the entire conference. I’m sure several assented to this noble idea, but my BL buddies had a persistent habit of straying off the beaten path into various philosophical, social, and cultural thickets. I’m certain that for the guys who really just wanted to talk about having sex with boys, it was especially maddening.

  This conflicting need may have been what prompted Chris, the resident philosopher, to launch into a monologue about some information he turned up about the sexual practices of certain primates that somehow was supposed to lend credibility to the BL lifestyle. James, who previously referenced his respect for the odd ideas bouncing around in Chris’s fuzzy head, suggested that such “research” could be used to refute the findings of such anti-BL groups as the American Family Council. I’m surprised Peter didn’t call for a committee to draft a pamphlet on the topic. After all, monkey sex seems like a great justification for the BL’s proclivities.

  Some discussion began about reviving the regional meetings. The topic would be explored on Sunday as an actual agenda item, but the issue ignited a great deal of discussion on Saturday as well.

  Chris advocated social support groups at some sort of regional level. He complained, “We talk at these national meetings about everything but sex. I mean everything but sex.” Chris wanted to start the regional support groups with “people we have here or people from last year. Not people I don’t know.”

  Quickly, however, the theme of unsuccessful experiences in the past arose. Such negative events generated apprehension in some longtime members. They cautioned that each chapter would have to have a leader who could be counted on to screen the list of invitees to the regional chapter meetings.

  David R. Busby said, “Peter can vouch for everyone here,” but with local chapters we would have to count on the local leader to be an extension of Peter Herman. “Peter has a handle on who’s here,” he said, and the chapter president would then have to have a handle on who was there. Peter, David, and the others would eventually learn, however, that Peter’s screening process wasn’t as foolproof as they thought.

  Peter said that years ago people came to the conferences whom NAMBLA knew little about. He advocated learning more about all members, including where they lived and where they worked. “We should know everything about you.”

  “I agree,” I shouted. Hey, I had to maintain my camouflage, right? Besides, it well suited my fine sense of irony.

  Peter believed anyone who was going to be an activist should agree to that kind of scrutiny.

  We’re not worried about police and such because at none of these meetings do we do anything illegal, and they would be wasting their time coming here. What we’re worried about is people who do stupid things, and there are people with emotional problems that can, you know, do stupid things and betray everything.

  I also didn’t miss Peter’s oblique reference to “people who do stupid things”—people like Jeffrey Curley’s murderers.

  Chris even suggested patting down attendees, like the government does at the airport. This was actually the most practical thing I remember hearing him say.

  Peter said he was “upset by Paul [Zipszer] bringing a friend [Brian]. We don’t know who that guy is. I hope you are aware of that. . . . Paul brought a friend, and that person was not one of us. . . . Even if he knows somebody for twenty years and is totally confident, you never know.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  James added, “This is why we don’t have chapters today and it needs to be thought through if it’s going to happen at all.”

  Peter interrupted, saying he wasn’t dismissing the idea of regional meetings; he just wanted to insure that anyone invited to a regional meeting was carefully screened. Peter considered participation in the holiday card program, where a member had to have a return address, as a critical component. From there, Peter believed in a “slow buildup,” lessening the vulnerability of the organization to an infiltrator. Once again, my credentials were passing muster with the “brains” of the outfit; I was golden, as far as Peter Herman was concerned.

  Apparently, though, my reputation as an upstanding BL didn’t give me carte blanche. When I suggested a regional social meeting limited to those who had been members for several years, Peter said prior to doing that “we must set up protocols.” As David R. Busby pointed out, even with rules in place, problems could occur.

  James waxed passionate.

  This is an organization with its own peculiar difficulties, and setting up regional things of any kind is going to be difficult . . . because, like Chris was saying, we talk about the business of philosophy and politics, but we don’t talk about sex. This organization doesn’t exist to be a network of child molesters; that’s not why we’re together. And that’s why people would want to take this organization down, for that very reason.

  Clearly, James’s caution had not been diminished by the allure of warm-and-fuzzy regional gatherings where pedophiles could just be themselves.

  Peter recommended that David R. Busby and James meet to set up a protocol and guidelines for establishing regional groups. Once it was set in place, then Peter would set up groups in Southern California and the Chicago area. Peter asked me if that was acceptable. As the facilitator of a Southern California regional chapter, I would have had a tremendous opportunity to gather information on the membership in that part of the country and a potential means to destroy the organization . . . but that was not my mission. Had it been, we should have put the investigation of the various members on hold and waited for the implementation of the regional chapters. But there was never any thought to slowing down our investigation—the FBI was interested in catching criminals, not in social engineering.

  As a housekeeping matter before breaking for the day, Peter warned us management knew we were NAMBLA; we were not allowed to have boys in the room. Even at a hotel that catered to the gay trade, it seemed, NAMBLA’s reputation preceded it.

  After the Saturday session was over, several of us waited in the sitting area of our “chateau” as we determined dinner plans for the evening. David, Peter, James, and Tim joined me for casual conversation.

  Discussi
ng the membership rolls, Peter said NAMBLA had a mailing list of 6,000 and at one time had about 1,200 members. He put the current membership numbers at approximately 250, a reduction of approximately 100 since the New York conference. It would have been reasonable to attribute the declining numbers to the Jeffrey Curley lawsuit, but Peter refused to minimize the actual number of boy lovers. He believed the numbers were growing and would continue to grow in an “enlightened society.”

  I brought up the topic of the Jeffrey Curley wrongful-death lawsuit. Peter said, “The thing is, I sleep comfortably at night when I think about it. . . . You know, I mean, working your whole life and then having everything you work for pulled out from under you . . .”

  I asked him whether the two who killed the ten-year-old were NAMBLA members. Peter seemed confused about the facts.

  [They were] members in the sense that they sent in thirty-five bucks. The one who actually killed the kid wasn’t a member. We believe that the guy who was . . . the member was a real decent person who somehow got, you know, hooked up with this strange guy. . . . [Charles Jaynes, the NAMBLA member] was kind of fat, a mulatto, you know, sort of black and white, you know . . . and somehow got in with this idiot.

  It had perhaps slipped Peter’s mind that, by all accounts, Jaynes, the NAMBLA member, sat on ten-year-old Jeffrey Curley, shoved a gasoline-soaked rag into his mouth, killed the child, sexually assaulted the deceased youngster, stuffed the dead body into a garbage can, poured lime in the can to speed up the decomposition, then dumped the body over a bridge into the river. Yet, according to one of the most prominent leaders of NAMBLA, he was “a real decent guy.”

  About this time, we made our way to the parking lot, waiting for everyone to assemble. James, the local resident, was offering suggestions for where we could go.