It Looks Just Like a War Zone

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Mayor W. Wilson Goode immediately accepted full responsibility for everything that happened. He was prompt to pledge, in a visit to the emergency shelter at St. Carthage Church, that the city would rebuild the houses lost in the fire, and at no cost to the owners. He promised to make the neighborhood residents "whole again." With perhaps too much optimism, he promised that reconstruction would be completed by Christmas. Goode insisted that the fire, one of the worst in Philadelphia's history, was simply the result of an accident, not bad judgment. According to the mayor, Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor and Managing Director Leo A. Brooks decided at the site of the action to use the explosive device, then obtained his approval some 20 min. before the drop. The mayor waved aside criticism as mere "second- guessing" and declared that, facing the same situation, he would make the same decision "again and again and again." Yet postmortems turned up reasons to wonder whether the drop-a-bomb decision had been thoughtfully made.

The fire was the culmination of a drama that had long been fraught with danger -- and even the possibility of disaster. For more than a year the mostly black middle-class neighborhood residents had been pressing the city to act against Move. Founded in 1972 by a former handyman who changed his name from Vincent Leaphart to John Africa and gave his surname to all his followers, Move professes to be a back-to-nature movement but has always struck outsiders as an exotic cult enamored of rancid, anarchic practices. Membership has probably never exceeded 100. Move has pretended to reject modern technology, but has embraced it readily enough in the form of weapons. Move's beliefs have never seemed quite comprehensible, manifested as they are in an unfocused principle that natural processes should not be disturbed. Translated, that means anything from eating raw meat to forgoing artificial heat.

The Move property on Osage Avenue had become notorious for its abundant litter of garbage and human waste and for its scurrying rats and dozens of dogs. Bullhorns blared forth obscene tirades and harangues at all times of day and night. Move members customarily kept their children out of both clothes and school. They physically assaulted some neighbors and threatened others. Move members in two other Philadelphia houses have not earned any similar notoriety (though they have been watched recently by police).

The Osage block association arranged a meeting with Move members on Mother's Day last May. "We were trying to give and take, and there wasn't any give and take," recalls Oris ("Buck") Thomas, 42, who lived not far from Move. "They said, 'If you do anything to hurt us, we're going to kill you.' " The cultists said their aim was to win freedom for the nine Move members imprisoned for murder after the slaying of a policeman in a 1978 confrontation. Said Thomas: "They said they'd been through the courts but . - . . that the only way to get them out of jail was through confrontation." Added Donald Graham, 20, who lived down the street from Move: "I heard them say if they had to leave, their house wouldn't be the only one to go."