I'll let Emmett tell the story himself. He told it to me the day it happened. This excerpt is from Grogan's book "Ringolevio", which is posted in its entirety at the digger archive for any to read. Yes, he wrote in the third person.
Step into the time machine, and be whisked off to summer of 1967 in San Francisco…
One day a strange thing happened which afforded Emmett a golden opportunity to scare the living shit out of a man who might have been and still may be elected President of the United States. It was late in the afternoon, and he had just finished delivering most of the Free Food with only a few more stops to make before he completed his rounds, when he turned south of Buena Vista Park and drove down to Broderick Street, where there was a giant crowd gathered in front of Huckleberry House, the referral center for runaways. The street being blocked by the throng, he pulled over to have a look at what was taking place.
As soon as he stepped from the pickup, he heard someone calling to him from atop the front stairs of Huckleberry House, insisting, "Emmett! Emmett Grogan! Come on up here! Come on!" It was one of the ministers and leading officials of Glide Church which administered the referral center, (note: This was probably Rev. Cecil Williams. - claude) and Emmett did what he was told and went up the stairs and inside where he was introduced, with the usual reference to his being a "legendary myth," to none other than the then Governor of Michigan, George Romney, and his pert, little wife Lenore, both of whom were touring the country to test the water for his upcoming campaign as a candidate in the Republican primary elections for President of the whole goddamn country~
Emmett was impressed when George Romney told him that he'd been hearing about his fine charitable work among the poor and misguided youth who found themselves alone and hungry and away from home on the streets of Haight-Ashbury, and he had the utmost respect for the alms-giving services that Emmett and his fellow "What do you call them? Oh, yes, Diggers!" were doing for the young people of the nation who strayed to San Francisco.
A coincidence popped into Emmett's mind, and he couldn't pass up the chance to see if he could pull off a fabulous score--the kidnapping of the governor and his wife. In the most sincere and charming tone of voice he could muster, Emmett informed George and Lenore Romney that coincidentally, at that very moment, there were more than one hundred Indians from his home state of Michigan eating in the park with the "hippies," and it would be wonderful and extremely thoughtful of the governor and first lady to stop by and visit with the people from home. He didn't have to say anything about what good publicity it would be for the folks back in the Midwest. The good governor had already weighed its value, and Emmett watched as it registered with a click of his eyes and a cluck of his tongue.
What happened next, Emmett didn't exactly expect, but immediately picked up on it. The governor threw his arms around him and said with a smile, "Emmett, suppose you take me and my wife over there to meet with your people and the Indians from our state. What about it?"
"My truck's right out front, Governor, and I'd be more than happy to oblige. In fact, sir, it'd be an honor."
The three of them moved quickly outside, and George Romney helped his wife, Lenore, into the cab of Emmett's Free Food pickup, just like a midwestern farmer would've helped his wife into a pickup truck, all dressed up for Sunday and on their way to church. Maybe that's when Emmett decided not to do what he didn't, and then again, maybe not.
Besides the three of them, everybody else was confused; the state troopers, the city cops, the FBI, the reporters, the Methodist ministers, everyone, and the only thing they all could think of doing was to go along with the three, in the flatbed open back of the pickup truck. They all started climbing onto the rear of the truck at once. There were over a hundred of them, all fighting for a place to stand, with the reporters pushing and shoving each other but remaining very careful to avoid nudging any of the FBI men, who were already standing up straight in each of the four corners of the truck's rear. They had everything covered.
The half-ton pickup was just about to collapse under the weight of the maddening crowd, when Emmett yelled to the governor to "please tell all them suckers to get off o' the truck, Governor, sir, 'cause it's the only one still running good 'nough to deliver the Free Food, 'n they're gonna break it down for keeps!" George Romney didn't hesitate for a moment. He stood right out up there on the running board and told all them guys to "get down out of this man's truck, immediately! Can't you see what you're doing to it? He needs this pickup more than any of you need a ride, so get off, 'n get off now! You hear me?" Then he waited until every last one of them got out of the vehicle, including the heat, before he sat back down in the front seat, slammed the door closed, and put his arm 'round his wife, Lenore. And maybe that was when Emmett decided not to do it.
A man in a blue suit and sunglasses popped his face into the window on the driver's side and asked where they were going. Emmett looked at the governor, and the governor looked back at him, asking, "Where are we going?" Emmett answered, 'Golden Gate Park. We'll meet them there!"
Emmett must have been at least two or three blocks away when the security man realized that Golden Gate Park was a very, very big place and turned back to ask "Where in Golden Gate Park?" only to find that they had already gone with no one following them or anyone knowing where they went except him, and all he knew was that they were going to Golden Gate Park which is thousands and thousands of acres square and extremely easy to get lost in, and practically impossible to find someone in if you have no idea in what direction they're headed. The guy got sick, and hysterically hurried the Greyhound coach carrying the governor's entourage of reporters to Golden Gate Park where he dispersed the cops on motorcycles and in squadrols throughout the huge area, ordering them to search every goddamn inch, "But find the governor!'~
Emmett had purposely not specified where in Golden Gate Park, because they didn't drive to Golden Gate Park. At least, not what was considered by most to be the Park proper, but was known as its Panhandle. It was to that long strip of green ground that extends about a dozen blocks from the park's entrance between the two main avenues in and out of town, that Emmett brought George Romney and his wife to meet not a hundred Indians from Michigan, but one Indian, who was or claimed to be a hundred years old, and about five hundred stone-street-freaks and crazies who didn't like the governor very much.
It was only a short, ten-block drive from Huckleberry House tthat place in the Panhandle where the Free Food had been eaten every day at 4:00 P.M. for over a year by then. But Emmett didn't go directly there. Instead, he swung around in the opposite direction to make sure none of the cops or the Greyhound would find or catch up to his '~6 green Chevy pickup truck, because he wanted to be alone with Governor George Romney and his petite wife for a while or maybe even longer than that, but definitely for as long as it took him to display what he knew about power.
It only took Emmett a couple of sentences to stop the governor's enthusiastic attempt to appear sincerely concerned about the plague he considered Haight-Ashbury to be and to halt the stream of hollow questions that were sure to follow.
"Governor, do you always take these kinds of risks?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you don't know me. Nobody knows me. And yet here you are with your wife, being driven in a pickup truck by me without even knowin' where you're goin' and with no one following us to make sure we ever get there. You see what I mean?"
The governor abruptly turned his head around to look through the cab's rear window back along Oak Street to see if what he just heard was true. And it was. There was no Greyhound bus and no cops anywhere behind them or even within sight.
"Technically speaking, Governor 'n Mrs. Romney, I've just kidnapped both of you. Don't worry about it, though. I ain't gonna do nothin' but talk to you for a minute 'n try to explain something that I think I ought to. Then we'll go eat some corn on the cob with your home folks, okay? Good. Now listen careful, 'cause we only got a minute or two, 'n don't interrupt me until I finish, because I want to say it to you."
Emmett shot a look at the two of them and saw that they were no longer smiling, and the way both of their faces were set told him that they knew whatever happened next was entirely up to him-- which was the thing Emmett wanted to show the governor about power.
He talked plain and clear for two solid minutes and one red light about how there will sooner or later no longer be any need for politicians like Governor Romney, because the people, meaning those people who didn't already know and needed to know more than anyone, were going to realize, understand, be educated to the truth, the fact that politics wasn't supposed to be the business of just a few who claimed to be representing the many. It wasn't supposed to be a business! "Politics is life! All our lives, 'n not no profession like you guys make it out to be, 'n want to keep it, so you won't lose your jobs!" And he went on to explain how and why the professional politicians' days were numbered and the games they played in every country in the world, except maybe one, were going to be phased into extinction.
"You see, what you got sitting next to you here ain't just a man, a plain old homo sapiens; he's a political animal. And a political animal is anyone who knows whatever the score is and still refuses to submit to someone else's rule. Anyone who wants to live his own life, and be the only one to control the way he wants to live without messin' over anyone else's right to live the way they damn well want, and vice versa. Now in order to become a political animal, you gotta understand that politics isn't just everyone's business, it's every one of our lives, and it's never been anyone's vote!
"After learnin' that, then you have to figure out how you can get hold of enough power to live your life the way you want. And you can't get that kind of power by making a whole lotta money, or by stealing a whole lotta money, or by joining a club that allows you to transcend your blues once a week, or by getting yourself into public office where you can exercise control over the way others live their lives. No, that's all make-believe. It does satisfy quite a few people, but it's never gonna be able to satisfy a whole lotta young people who are just now growing up, and a whole bunch more whose fathers and mothers haven't even met yet. And that goes for all the races, all over the world.
"We're gonna get the power to live our lives the way we want through revolution. And not the same kind of revolution like it's always been, where the few rich people are killed and their property taken away and redistributed among the ones who get there first. Ours is going to be a revolt against power and against leaders and against property. We want it to be free, autonomous, and classlessly equal! All of it! And how we achieve that will be entirely up to you and those like you, because we only believe in defending ourselves when attacked, and we don't want anything from you, except to be left alone! We meaning those people sitting on the grass out your window, over there."
Emmett pulled the truck into a space alongside the Panhandle and told Governor George Romney and his wife, Lenore, that they were now where they should be, and he had nothing more to say, except "Let's go 'n eat some corn!" The man and his wife stepped out onto the grass and began walking towards the seated crowd, but before Emmett himself got out of the truck, he tugged his revolver from its brackets and called for the governor to return to the pickup for a second. When he did, Emmett pointed to the .38 Iying on the seat inside the cab and asked Governor Romney if he'd forgotten something.
"No . . .
"Well someone did, and it sure looks like they're not fooling," Emmett said, as he led the governor back to his wife and toward the hundred-year-old Indian from Michigan and the five hundred or so people who were going to keep the governor and his wife in the state of near panic that Emmett had induced. He decided, however, not to exaggerate their panic by holding them, say, for the exchange of unquestionably political prisoners like John Sinclair, a Detroit poet sentenced to ten years for one marijuana cigarette and his radical, political leadership, and many, many others, too numerous to list. Emmett didn't feel like it.
As soon as Emmett moved the governor and his wife into the center of the still-seated circle of a thousand faces, he introduced them, got someone to get each of them a cob of hot, buttered corn, and left them standing there, all alone, to be terrified by the intense sincerity of the contempt that each of those young, surrounding faces had for him, Governor George Romney, and for her, his wife Lenore. The two of them were forced to stand there for twenty minutes heavy with abuse and accusations regarding "his" and "her" roles in the continuing Vietnam genocidal war, and in the police riot in Detroit, and in the Algiers Motel executions, and everything else that the political animality of those young people told them the governor and his first lady were responsible for, or had participated in.
A squad car noticed the scene and radioed to the others that they'd found Governor Romney. The Michigan state police with their siren blaring led the Greyhound bus down Oak Street to the spot in the Panhandle where the shouting and waving of clenched fists had reached the point where it looked like there was going to be a hanging with somebody having already gone to get the rope. The governor's aides arrived none too soon and whisked him away without so much as a goodbye, but with about a dozen joints that kids shoved in his coat pockets, hoping for god-knows-what to happen.
Emmett hadn't seen any of that go down, but heard about it later from Slim Minnaux whose photo was in all the papers during that week, standing tall above the seated crowd pointing his long outstretched arm and a stern finger at Governor George Romney, his face all on fire and his mouth shouting, "J'accuse! J'accuse!"