last only six months. His thinking was evolving on the utility of violence in the cause, and the distinction between man’s law and God’s law. Was history not replete with examples where man’s law required trumping by those willing to carry the torch, and weapons, for God’s law? Slavery was one example that pro-lifers most frequently cited. Jim listened to mainstream pro-life leaders take great pains to denounce violence in the cause. He felt they were not practicing Gandhi’s true satyagraha—civil resistance —which Jim thought should be active, outcome based, and sacrificial. He had a name for people who abused the concept: cowards.
Chapter 6 ~ Romanita
On December 16, 1986, smoke filled the Manhattan Planned Parenthood headquarters at Second Avenue and 22nd Street in New York City. One of the bombs was relatively small. No major damage, the carpet caught fire. But police found a larger bomb as well with a detonator designed to be triggered by the smaller explosion—it had not gone off. It was made of 15 sticks of dynamite, powerful enough to collapse the entire building and break windows blocks away. Bomb squad officers examined the blasting cap, timer and battery. Pro job. And there was something else stuck among the sticks of dynamite. It was a medal of St. Benedict, with the likeness of a monk on it, and the phrase Eius in obitu nostro praesentia muniamur (may we be strengthened by his presence in the hour of our death). A bomb squad officer gingerly defused it. No one was caught.
In February, Cardinal John O’Connor appeared on TV urging the bomber to turn himself in. A 37-year-old ex- Vietnam Marine named Dennis John Malvasi surrendered. Malvasi was also involved in a bombing in Queens in November 1985. “If the Cardinal says something and you don’t listen,” he told a newspaper, “then when you stand before the magistrate in the celestial court, you got problems. And I got enough problems without God being mad at me.”
Malvasi had fought in the bloody aftermath of the Tet Offensive, serving as a field radio operator. He later told the New York Times that he never felt more alive than when under fire. After the war, he trained as an actor at workshops on the Lower East Side, worked as an entertainer on cruise ships. He was reportedly arrested in September 1972 for stabbing a man in a traffic altercation and sentenced to five years’ probation. In 1975, two months after early release from probation, he was arrested for carrying a .25-caliber pistol and jailed for two years. He went underground upon his release, using at least five aliases. In 1984, he was thrown in jail again for two years in Florida after attempting to buy firearms in that state.
Malvasi pled guilty to the Manhattan Planned Parenthood bombing. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and five years’ probation. Two other men received jail terms as well, including his brother-in-law. Malvasi told authorities where he had stored his explosives, and police found 78 dynamite sticks, black powder, and electric detonating plastic caps. Malvasi had a sharp, angular nose and dark eyes. He was a small man, perhaps a generous fivefoot-seven, but an angry intensity radiated from him. Upon his release from prison he began dating a woman he met in the pro-life movement. She too was Catholic, and not only shared his pro-life beliefs, but also his belief in taking action to further the cause. She was 13 years his junior, and her name was Loretta Marra.
On January 5, 1987, Jim Kopp was arrested in San Francisco for unlawful entry, obstruction, resist arrest, trespass. As was now routine with pro-life agitators, he was released. The next day, he was arrested again. February 25 he was arrested in Oakland, and two days later, in Woodbridge, New Jersey, for criminal trespassing and burglary. March 11, he was tried in Florida for breach of the peace. July 25, Manchester, Missouri, and later in Houston, charged with criminal trespass, fined $500 and jailed for two weeks. On August 22, 10,000 pro-lifers rallied at the Washington Monument, and nine people who entered a clinic in the city were arrested. Jim was among them.
During lulls in protests and rescues, Jim did odd jobs, construction and welding work. He had by the late 1980s made friends in the movement across the country, there was a light in the window for him when he needed a place to stay. In Pittsburgh, that light was at Doris Grady’s place. Doris was active back then. On more than one occasion, she and her pro-life friends raided trash cans behind a health clinic in the city. Some clinics had spotty privacy protocols in place back in those days. It was a typical tactic of hardcore pro-life activists to gather up piles of garbage and see what the abortionists were up to. Doris stuffed several bags to take home. Sometimes the city garbage guys would be there, and would let them rob the trash in exchange for a case of beer, you know? So Doris got home, sorted through the stuff. The golden items were billing records, they had the phone numbers on them. Doris made some calls.
“Yes, hello, Barb,” Doris would say to the patient whose number was on a form, feigning her best soft, caring, nurse voice. “Just checking in, Barb, to make sure you know your appointment time. Uh-huh. That’s right. And we’d also like to talk to you about the procedure.”
“Procedure?” This was the payoff. You tried to talk the woman out of it. Subtly at first, then hit them with the graphic stuff. Pretty slick, Doris thought.
“Did anyone talk to you about the procedure, and what it entails?”
“Not really.” They always said that. So first you just mention that they aren’t supposed to eat before the abortion, stuff like that. And then Doris would launch into a list of the risks of having the abortion, risks to the patient’s health and mental well-being. If the listener still hadn’t caught on to the ruse, Doris went for the jugular.
“And Barb, can you please tell us what you’d like us to do with the body?”
Silence.
“Barb?” Sometimes they got angry at this point. Doris would continue—calmly, clinically. “Well, there is a baby in there, Barb. We’ve got to do something with it. What do you want us to do? Flush it, or into the incinerator, or…?”
Click. Yes, Doris was a player. But then again, she had a life. Young children. Devoted husband. She could not be a warrior, could not pay the full price. Doris knew it, too, and felt guilt about it—guilt, and fear that one day she’d be called on the carpet by the Lord for her half measures.
Jim Kopp and Doris sat in front of the TV like old friends, although that was not quite true. Not old friends, but rather acquaintances who shared a passion for the cause. Jim would also chat with her husband, Pat, a Vietnam veteran, a former Marine, wounded in action. Jim respected that greatly. Jim and Doris watched rented movies. He enjoyed classics like Gone With the Wind, Wuthering Heights. Had the occasional beer, a Stroh’s perhaps. He was a “temperate” drinker, as he put it. To Doris, Jim was a prayerful, spiritual man, someone with no personal effects, and seemingly no passion beyond his faith in God and the cause. It made him more endearing. Doris mentioned his girlfriend. Well, she wasn’t really a girlfriend, but Jim did profess to being in love, grinning in that shy way of his. Jim led a monastic life in many ways, owning few clothes and washing them by hand, embracing celibacy, or at least monogamy. But he wanted to get married some day, have kids.
“C’mon, Jim, what’s her name, anyway?” asked Doris.
Jim kept smiling. Don’t go there. Pro-life women, thought Jim with a grin, they can’t keep quiet. Give them a chance, they’ll tell all. Doris enjoyed chatting with him. He was so well read, could talk about anything, with anyone. You started talking, and before you knew it, three hours had passed in the blink of an eye. She enjoyed feeling as though she was exploring philosophy and politics with him. She felt a connection and a respect for his convictions and quiet intelligence. But Jim Kopp wasn’t connecting, not in the same way as Doris. He adjusted his conversation to whoever he was with, playing whatever role was necessary, trying to make his audience feel good about their relationship. He was always playing.
Late in the evening Jim would rise from his chair and go outside for a long slow walk, gathering his thoughts, a solitary thin figure disappearing into the gloom. Was there anyone with whom Jim could truly connect, who could appreciate his intellect and reciprocate—and who could even look into the bloody abyss and not blink like the others? That was not the case with Doris Grady, sweet as she was, and as committed, on a certain level, as she was to the cause, the mission. No, Jim could not lower the mask for her.
For a time Jim lived in Binghamton, New York, where the headquarters of Operation Rescue was located, to do further work for Randall Terry. Jim was also affiliated with a militant group called The Lambs of Christ. But he didn’t last long with any one group. God love all pro-lifers, but did any of them feel the cause in the pit of their soul like he did? Ultimately, Terry, the public face of the movement for years, would go mainstream, even run for
