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From: training@rtech.UUCP (Training account)
Newsgroups: net.motss,net.movies
Subject: Re: Times of Harvey Milk
Message-ID: <482@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Jun-85 13:16:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.482
Posted: Tue Jun 11 13:16:17 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Jun-85 06:04:37 EDT
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Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
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> > > A moving documentary about San Francisco's first openly gay Supervisor,
> > > who was murdered in city hall in 1978 by a homophobic fireman ...

> > Dan White, who assassinated Harvey Milk and
> > Frank Moscone, was not just a fireman, he was an ex-city councilor.

> White was a policeman.  (He may have been a fireman also, but he
> was most recently a cop, and it was this previous occupation which
> was highlighted in the trial).

The story is...

Dan White was an right wing ex-fireman and ex-policeman who ran for 
city council in 1975.  He won, but was trying to support his wife and kid 
on his City Supervisor income of $9,600 a year.  Finding himself under a lot
of pressure (a fact that was repeated often during the trial), he 
resigned his post.  Immediately after resigning, his friends and family
begged him to try to get the position back.  

White appealed to the Mayor, George Moscone, to ignore his resignation, 
but Moscone, who was a very liberal mayor, wanted to give the
supervisorship to someone more liberal.  In White's mind, Supervisor
Harvey Milk was also to blame for White not getting the position back -
Milk, an openly gay city supervisor, was a political opponent of White's,
and a friend of Moscone's.

The day White found out that he wasn't going to be reappointed, he called
an aide of his and asked her to drive him to City Hall.  He took
his police service revolver, which was loaded, and some extra rounds of
ammunition.  When he got to City Hall, he started to enter, and then
noticed that a metal detector had been installed at the top of the
stairs (this was right after the Jonestown massacre, and death threats
had been made against San Francisco city officials).  He left the main
entrance, went around to the side of the building, and climbed in 
through a basement window.  He went up to Moscone's office, waited
five minutes for Moscone to see him, went into Moscone's office, and shot
Moscone 5 times.  He reloaded his gun in Moscone's office, crossed City
Hall to Milk's office, and killed Milk (but didn't reload after killing
Milk).  Then he called his wife, met her at Doggie Diner, and walked
to Police Headquarters and turned himself in.

He was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter, an offense that carries
a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.  The defense successfully
contended that he didn't mean to kill Milk or Moscone; that it was
not unusual for White to carry his revolver with him, that it was
not unusual for people to enter City Hall through the basement windows,
that it was White's police training that made him reload after killing
Moscone.  The basic case that his lawyer set up was that White was 
a good man, and that good men just don't kill people unless they
are temporarily mentally unstable.  Why was White temporarily unstable?
He'd eaten a lot of twinkies and other junk food, and it caused
sudden and drastic mood changes.

Anyway, White is free now...he was released on parole in l984, and the
parole expired in l985, leaving him completely free.  A few more points  
should be made: although he disliked homosexuals, he did not kill Milk because
Milk was gay. He killed Milk for the same reason he killed Moscone:
Milk was a political enemy who was actively working against White's
getting his post back.  For a short time at the beginning of his
political career, White and Milk were friends.

This is only a capsule description of what was a very complex case.
If anyone wants more information, "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk"
does a real good job of covering all the basic issues.  However, the best
work on the subject is a book called "Double Play" by Mike Weiss.  It's
the only treatment of the case I've seen that digs up anything beyond
the basics of the trial...it goes into the history of San Francisco,
Moscone's background, Moscone's whoremongering, etc. etc.

Robert Orenstein
Relational Technology