[needle screeches]
[various genres play subsequently]
[whoosh, thump]
[gunshots]
[news anchor] Here now is a special item of news.
[anchor #2] Reggae star Bob Marley has been shot.
[man] There was blood everywhere.
It looked like it had been sprayed with bullets.
[woman 1] In the shooting of Bob,
it's difficult to separate fact from fiction.
[woman 2] Everybody had a theory. Some said it was the opposition,
some said it was the CIA...
[indistinct radio communications]
[reporter] There have been charges that the shooting of Bob Marley
is part of a plot to destabilize Jamaica.
[woman 3] And if a directive was given,
did it come from the highest level?
[woman 4] Why would anybody want to hurt Bob?
He was so much a symbol of peace!
[news reporter] Authorities are still at a loss
for who was behind the shooting.
[gunshot]
While living in Trenchtown, you know...
as a young man, surviving was easy.
The only thing you'd have to really look out for was the police, you know.
Because the police could always get you, frame you,
you go to prison, and...
because you come from Trenchtown.
You know, Trenchtown…
Some of them say, "Where are you from?" You say, "Trenchtown," you're gone.
["No Woman, No Cry" by Bob Marley playing]
[guitar solo]
[man] The first time we met in Trenchtown,
Bob was around 17.
We don't have no instruments when we start.
We'd just sit down and sing.
♪ Sit, I remember when we used to sit ♪
♪ In the government yard in Trenchtown ♪
Bob lived in a government yard in Trenchtown
when we had the troubles in the '60s,
where we have a considerable amount of violence
in these inner city communities.
[man] Bob had been rejected by his family.
He was totally broke and he had nowhere to live.
So, Coxsone Dodd gave him a place to stay.
Coxsone was like a father to Bob. And he gave him a chance to sing...
But Coxsone was not gonna allow him to play any revolutionary religious music.
He just had to sing the pop songs and get hits.
When Bob started out, he was doing simple pop songs
like "Sugar, Sugar" and "What's New, Pussycat?"
He was just trying to make it in music.
["Get Up, Stand Up" by Bob Marley playing]
[Wayne Jobson] In the early days of his music
was love songs and all of that.
As his music evolved through ska into reggae,
he embraced the message of Rasta.
[man 2] Rastafari is a religious and social movement
that articulated the feelings
of oppressed black people of Jamaica,
but hooked in as well
to the ideas of African liberation.
[man 3] Rasta consciousness was about
who you are as an African.
What is your purpose here,
as a black man?
[woman 1] They were outcasts,
and the police would come down hard on these people.
Trim their hair, beat them up, lock them up for smoking a spliff.
[woman 2] Rasta was never accepted
by the middle class powers that be.
It was a religion of the poor people.
Fighting against Babylon,
the system where the few control the many.
[woman 3] Bob saw the contempt the poor were held
and he wanted them to have the courage
from his music
to continue to fight.
♪ Get up, stand up ♪
♪ Don't give up the fight ♪
Come on!
♪ Get up, stand up ♪
♪ Stand up for your right ♪
[Bob] My father's a white and my mother black.
You know, them call me half-caste or whatever.
Well, me don't dip on nobody's side.
Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side.
Me dip on God's side.
[man] He said to me one day, "The man that breed my mother
was a white man,
so you cannot really put me down as white or as black.
So I am here. And I have to bring about unity."
[man in crowd] Power for the people! Come on, people!
Power for the people!
[male reporter] Michael Manley has been Prime Minister since 1972
and says 300 years of slavery and British colonialism
have left Jamaica a nation of very few haves
and many have-nots.
[man] Jamaica permitted a small, privileged group...
to really have a very good time in life.
And some government had to come along
and challenge that oligarchy
and begin to try to lay the foundations
of an egalitarian society.
[male reporter 2] The choice for the voters is clear cut.
On one hand, they may choose to continue
with Prime Minister Michael Manley's brand of socialism.
On the other hand, they may vote for a return to a capitalist system.
[male reporter 2] In this motorcade is Edward Seaga,
leader of the conservative opposition party.
We see the PNP linking arms
with Communist organizations in this country.
And we ask of ourselves why.
[crowd cheers]
[man 1] The country was already facing bankruptcy.
And if Manley won the election,
it could make Jamaica into a totally socialist state.
So, I had to fight it.
[female reporter] This road block, erected by Seaga's Jamaica Labor Party,
is being dismantled by rival Hugh Small
for Michael Manley's People's National Party.
[man 2] Coming up to the 1976 election,
the country was getting more and more into...
a state of hostility and tension.
[Wayne Jobson] In Kingston, the two political parties
developed what you call "garrisons."
Trenchtown was a garrison,
Tivoli was a garrison.
And there would be a Don
that would control the garrisons.
So, these guys were the baddest gangsters in their area
and everybody had to answer to them.
[crowd] Socialism, yes! Fascism, no!
The name Don comes from Don Corleone,
it comes from the Mafia.
[Diane Jobson] Spaghetti Westerns and gangster movies
had a great influence on Jamaica.
We got to thank the US culture for that.
You gave us our cowboy culture!
We just did a Jamaican version.
[woman] I spent ten years in Jamaica
trying to piece together
the history of this tribal war.
Kingston was a checkerboard of war zones loyal to one party or the other.
The politicians needed the gangsters
to get out the vote
and the gangsters needed the politicians
for protection from the police,
and for money, and for guns.
[male reporter] In the lead-up to the elections,
ghetto gangs translated the campaign battle of words
into deadly armed showdowns.
[gunshot]
[Bob] When you have political violence and I see...
the youth fighting against the youth
for the politicians,
you know, I really feel sick.
"Johnny Was" is a statement about what was happening
in the ghettos at the time.
♪ Woman hold her head and cry ♪
♪ 'Cause her son had been shot down ♪
♪ In the street and died ♪
[man] Rasta never support politics.
If politician was doing the right thing, Jamaica would be more than paradise.
["Rebel Disco" by Brentford Disco Set playing]
[Laurie Gunst] By 1976, Marley had a worldwide profile.
Everybody knew Rasta, everybody knew Reggae,
and everybody knew Bob.
So, for Bob to be seen as politically engaged
was very important
to the two political parties.
They courted him, they wanted him.
Bob knew there was a lot of danger
in pursuing that path.
[man 1] Bob was very careful to be political neutral.
You could not accuse Bob Marley of being either a JLP or a PNP.
But he was political.
[announcer] Bob Marley and the fabulous Wailers!
♪ Trenchtown Rock ♪
♪ Don't call no cop ♪
♪ Trenchtown Rock ♪
♪ We can trash things ourselves ♪
[man 2] I do see Trenchtown Rock as a kind of anthem for young people
that are asserting their independence of the political system.
In a sense, it is the first statement that Bob was making
where he's going to walk between the two political parties.
[Roger Steffens] As he grew up, Bob was surrounded by local Dons.
And they all found a neutral turf
at 56 Hope Road.
And various times you could go in there
and you could find people who,
if they had met on the street,
might've blown each other away.
But Bob's place was known as a neutral spot
where everyone could come in peace.
[woman] Bob's house was on the same street
as the Prime Minister,
and I was teasing him about it
because his whole image was roots and downtown.
I said, "Oh, you're getting posh now!"
And he was like,
"No, I'm bringing the ghetto uptown."
[Diane Jobson] I first met Bob at 56 Hope Road.
And then I became his attorney...
you know, confidant.
Bob was a pied piper, you could say,
and 56 Hope Road was an exciting place to be.
[man] Bob had a recording studio in the back
and that's where they did their rehearsals.
[Michael Witter] It was a center of modern Rastafari-inspired pop culture.
[woman] I was living at 56 Hope Road,
and that movement of Rastafari,
that upsurgence of downtown making its way uptown...
had started and was growing rapidly,
and the upper middle classes were petrified of it.
People would line up in the morning.
Everybody needed help with school fees,
a job, medicine...
[Michael Witter] He wanted to help people be independent
of the hand-outs of politicians.
[Alvin Patterson] I was a Rasta man.
We don't like politicians much.
PNP and Labourite. We didn't like that.
[Roger Steffens] At Hope Road, there was a certain tension that existed
because of murderous rivals
being in the same space at the same time.
[sirens wailing]
[women screaming]
[Michael Manley] We have witnessed a type and scale of violence
unique to our history.
We have seen children being armed.
We have seen innocent people
murdered in the streets,
which has driven fear into the heart
of every decent Jamaican citizen.
We will not stand by
and allow this sabotage of our country to continue.
We are proclaiming a state of public emergency.
[man] In that time, the country was in a turmoil,
and Bob's statements to me were,
"Let's do something for free so everybody can come."
So, we went to see the Prime Minister and gave him our idea.
[male reporter] Bob Marley concert to be held on Sunday, December 5th.
The announcement was made at a press conference held by Marley,
his manager Don Taylor, and Arnold Bertram.
[man 1] I was Minister of State when Bob Marley came
to discuss the concert.
He wanted to do a benefit concert
for the people of Jamaica,
to give them an early Christmas present.
[Jeff Walker] None of us interpreted it as a political endorsement.
The election had not been announced at that point.
It was never meant to be
in support of Manley or a particular party.
[Paul Burke] Bob Marley was doing the concert
to try and bring back
a semblance of peace and unity.
[reporter] Two weeks following that announcement,
Jamaica's Prime Minister, Michael Manley,
called new general elections for December 15th.
[Nancy Burke] When Bob agreed to do the show, there was no election date.
As soon as Bob agreed,
then the PNP announced the election day to follow the show.
So, they wrapped their election right around Bob
to make it look as though he was performing for them.
[Arnold Bertram] That made the Smile Jamaica Concert
appear to be supporting the campaign
of the People's National Party.
[Edward Seaga] Michael Manley used Bob Marley's decision for that concert,
so that it would assist him to get the votes
that he knew he was lacking at the time
in order to win the election.
We wouldn't have used Bob Marley for that purpose
because we knew Bob has to be a friend of everybody.
[Arnold Bertram] There was a hell of amount of pressure on Bob Marley
not to do the concert.
He said there were people from the JLP
who were at him daily.
[Roger Steffens] Once Bob announced the Smile Jamaica Concert,
he came under death threats,
and he was placed under 24/7 guard
by forces of the PNP.
[Don] We started getting messages from the opposition.
They didn't want it held at Jamaica House
and they didn't want it held here, they didn't want...
And then finally, on Friday, December 3,
I got a message saying that they didn't want a concert, period.
[crickets chirping]
[Vivien Goldman] One morning I woke up very early,
and I looked out of the window.
I saw Bob and these three men around him.
There was a menacing aura to it,
and Bob was sort of defiant
and taking a tough stance,
but at the same time, arguing with the men.
These people would come around the house
to shake him down, and menace him, and bully him.
And I remember asking him about it.
[Bob] Jamaica's one of the best places, man.
Everybody love everybody. But them will kill you too.
Them love you so much that them kill you.
Yeah. Yes, man.
Them love you so much that them kill you.
[Vivien Goldman] Well, elaborate...
[overlapping chatter]
You mean, like, you know...
[Bob] Them love you so much that them kill you, man.
Love you plenty, and will kill you.
[Vivien] Like in the words of your song, "You always hurt the one you love,
the one you never meant to hurt at all"?
[Vivien Goldman] I was so naive.
When I listened to that tape, it sent a shiver down my spine
because Bob is literally saying,
"They're about to try and kill me."
[Diane] A couple days before, Bob told us of this vision that he had...
where he was at Hope Road,
and there were, like, soldiers shooting and guns,
and he knew that they came to kill him.
But he said somehow
Jah just took him out of it mystically.
His exact words, Jah just took him out of the whole thing mystically.
[Ras Gilly] Something about that night is like...
I just didn't feel too good, you know.
It was like something in the air.
[Nancy Burke] At about 9:00 p.m.,
I got to the front gates and they were closed.
There was nobody around.
It was really dark.
As I was walking across,
I just got this chill up my spine,
like a shudder.
And I just had a moment of total fear.
And then I had to talk to myself and say,
"No, there's nothing to be afraid of.
The house is full of Rastamen and there's nothing to fear."
[Diane Jobson] Rehearsal had just stopped
and I was in the bedroom with Bob's son, Robbie.
He was only six years old.
[Ras Gilly] The one shot a man, like a Two-Gun Kid.
They come through the door
and just turn the gun in the rehearsal room.
- [gunfire] - Pow, pow, pow.
[Alvin Patterson] Four of them come in and...
fire shots, man.
When you expect the shots to stop,
they were continuing.
[gunshots]
Firing from outside.
Through the windows.
I lie down on the ground and them run.
Some people couldn't run,
they got stuck inside.
[Nancy Burke] We were trapped in this very small room
and there was no getting out,
because you could tell it was just outside the room.
I thought they would just turn around
and come in and shoot us.
When the shooting stopped, there was just silence.
Really eerie, total silence.
So, we had no way of knowing
whether these people were still around,
whether everyone was...
gone. We didn't know.
The first sound we heard was Seeco,
who called out everybody in the house dead.
I said,"I'm going out. I'm going to see what's happening."
I saw Bob's wife. We took her along quickly.
She had blood running all down the side of her head.
But I said, "What happened to Bob?"
So, I ran up the steps to the kitchen,
and shouted "Bob!"
There was blood on the ground.
So I went around the corner and there was Don Taylor lying down...
in a pool of blood.
And then I saw Bob.
He had blood all over him.
So I said, "Are you shot?"
He said, "That's Don Taylor's blood."
[Nancy Burke] I saw Bob walking out with the police
and he was holding his arm,
and he was really angry.
And they escorted him to their car and they took him away.
Don Taylor came in minutes before the gunmen.
So when the gunmen came up the steps
and turned to shoot,
Don was between them and Bob.
That's why Don got all the shots in his back.
What seemed to have happened is Bob turned sideways,
so he didn't give a full target to the gunmen.
That's why the bullet went this way
and grazed right across his chest and lodged in his arm.
[Nancy Burke] He already was forewarned,
if you want to say.
Maybe because he had a premonition about it,
he was quick to react.
[monitors beeping]
[male reporter] Mr. Taylor is said to be in a critical position,
while the condition of Rita is not yet known.
[Vivien Goldman] Why? I just cannot conceive
that anybody would want to hurt Bob,
because he was so much a symbol of peace
and so much the hope of the island!
[plane whooshing]
[Roger Steffens] On the day of Bob's shooting,
a crew from America that had been hired to film
the Smile Jamaica Concert arrived on the island.
[Carl Colby] I was a part of that group.
"Gonna be fun, shooting a concert. It's Bob Marley! What could go wrong?"
And we get to the hotel and we find out
that Bob Marley's been shot.
[Jeff Walker] We all jumped into a car to head over to Hope Road.
We got there just as Rita was being put into a car
and taken to the hospital.
There was blood everywhere.
It looked like it had been sprayed with bullets.
[Nancy Burke] In the aftermath, everybody had a theory.
Some said it was the opposition, some said it was the CIA.
Some said it was to do with some jockey.
Doping, abduction... God knows what.
[Roger Steffens] The immediate theories
had to do with gambling debts and gangsters...
Bob Marley's best friend
was the great Jamaican soccer player,
Skill Cole.
And he was accused of fixing a horse race
and burning some people
for a huge amount of money.
And he fled the country.
[Ras Gilly] Other guys and people around us
were involved with the race horse business,
but Bob was not a race horse man.
Bob was all about his music.
[Roger Steffens] It was said that Bob was paying off
Skill Cole's debts, but...
that he had missed a payment
and that was the reason for the shooting.
But if you kill Bob,
then you're never gonna get your money.
Another theory was that in the days prior to the shooting,
Bob was being guarded by people from the PNP,
and on the night of the assassination attempt,
they just disappeared from their posts
and left the home unguarded.
[Ras Gilly] Protective forces were assigned
to be at the rehearsals at night.
Every night, every fucking night in the rehearsal.
Except that night.
Why didn't they show up for that night?
They showed up after the shooting.
[Roger Steffens] Were the PNP complicit
in the assassination attempt?
[woman] In politics, sometimes
a political party or faction
will do something against themselves
to make it look as though the other side did it.
[crowd cheering]
[Edward Seaga] It wasn't us.
[interviewer] So the JLP had absolutely nothing to do with this?
No, we were as surprised as anyone.
We were glad that Bob wasn't really seriously injured.
[Roger Steffens] In spite of the denial by Seaga,
suspicions would linger about the JLP.
[Jeff Walker] Don was in critical condition.
It looked like Rita had only been grazed in the head,
but it was a head wound.
Bob had been treated and released.
[male reporter] In an interview at the hospital,
Bob Marley said he received numerous threats
since the announcement of the Smile Jamaica Concert.
[interviewer] Did you have any threats before?
[Bob] Yeah.
[interviewer] You know where these threats have come from?
[Bob] Well, I don't feel I want to talk about that right now.
[Diane Jobson] At the hospital, it was suggested
that Bob could go up to Strawberry Hill,
as that was fairly secluded.
[Carl Colby] Jeff said, "Let's go up to Strawberry Hill and see Bob."
I didn't want it to come as a surprise,
so on the way up to Strawberry Hill, I decided to tell Jeff
and a couple of the band members
that my dad was the head of the CIA.
[Jeff Walker] Now, that was an interesting revelation to all of us.
[Carl Colby] Turned out the band members were the sons of ministers
in the Jamaican government.
And then I realized that we're all brothers in this generation.
We don't want the old world anymore.
We're struggling to get rid of the oppression.
And that was the greatest appeal that Bob had.
We came in to the property
and a couple of Bob's guards
jumped out of the trees bearing machetes.
It was a tense atmosphere
and he had been wounded.
And he was moving very slowly,
as if he was exhausted,
like he was carrying this enormous burden.
[Jeff Walker] The elder Rastas were telling him
that this was a sign from Babylon and to perform was too dangerous.
[Wayne Jobson] Bob did not want to do the concert
because he knew that with 80,000 people there,
anybody in the crowd can come up and kill you.
[Ras Gilly] He was just chillin' up there. He had time to think, you know,
to process, you know, whether to do the show or not.
[Jeff Walker] There was a council meeting up at Strawberry Hill.
There were maybe 50 people there:
Rasta elders, Bob's wife, and the family.
All of the people were against him going.
[Carl Colby] Rita Marley was the leader
of the pack that didn't want him to perform.
[Diane Jobson] Rita had not so long come from the hospital,
so she had her head bandaged,
she had a scarf,
but the bandage was under the scarf.
[Jeff Walker] I really felt I had no choice but to get up and say,
"Bob, if you don't play the concert, the people who shot you
will have accomplished what they set out to do."
Bob looked at me and said,
"There's no way I'm going onstage without a machine gun."
And I said, "Well, Bob,
your guitar is your machine gun."
[male reporter] Five hours after the concert was due to begin,
the star, Bob Marley, is still not there.
[Carl Colby] He's taking Rita's concerns for his safety into mind,
but he's looking down across the hills
and he can see the smoke and the dust
rising from All Heroes Park.
[Jeff Walker] And then, the Chief of Police
and the Minister of Defense
came up to assure Bob that if he played, it would be safe.
[Diane] At that stage, we wouldn't know where the shooting is coming from.
It could be the PNP as well as the JLP.
So, the fact that a politician is there
with a police escort don't make me feel too good
about Bob leaving with them.
[Carl Colby] Here was this tired man, who'd been shot at,
a bullet lodged in his arm,
and you can tell he's made a decision.
[Alvin Patterson] Music got to play.
You can't stop music, man!
When good music is playing,
you don't feel no pain.
[man over radio] We're comin' down.
Have the police and the cameras ready to show his arrival.
[Jeff Walker] We were struck by the fact
that there were people lining the road most of the way down.
[Carl Colby] The atmosphere got like almost mayhem when you got there.
[Jeff Walker] It grew from 5,000 to 90,000 people
over the course of the day.
So the park was a sea of people.
When they realized Bob was there, the noise was unbelievable.
[Alvin Patterson] That night was a dangerous night, man.
Nobody wanted to go onstage.
But you had to go!
[Jeff Walker] And he got up and told the people
that this concert was not supposed
to be political in any way, shape, or form,
but he wanted to come down and play one or two songs.
He ended up performing for over an hour.
[Bob] ♪ Well, everywhere is war! ♪
♪ War! ♪
♪ War in the east ♪
♪ War in the west ♪
[Michael Witter] "War" is an assertion that an injustice
has been done to him personally
and it's part of the history of injustice.
And until that stuff is done, there will be war.
[Arnold Bertram] Here is Bob recovering 48 hours after the shooting,
and he gave one of the greatest concerts of his life.
[Cindy Breakspeare] He even showed them, bared his chest,
and showed them where the bullet grazed him.
[Diane Jobson] A proud man, bearing the wounds of his battle,
showing the crowd, "Hey, you see,
they shot after me and can't no kill me."
[Cindy Breakspeare] He was even more of a hero now.
He had survived this gun onslaught,
and here he was to tell the tale.
I think it even gave him a new status.
[Vivien Goldman] After the shooting, Bob didn't feel comfortable in Jamaica.
[Ras Gilly] Bob said, "Fuck Jamaica.
No more Jamaica.
We're gonna tour the world
and spread the good love to the people of the world."
[Cindy Breakspeare] He was heartbroken.
He could not believe that anybody on either side
could have been convinced
to carry out this heinous act against him.
[Roger Steffens] He felt betrayed,
and the morning after the concert,
Bob left the island
and entered into a self-imposed exile.
When he left Jamaica, the air went out of the country,
and he was not only leaving them,
but leaving what they felt he had promised them.
A violent political campaign has ended
with a fairly orderly election,
and the winner was Prime Minister Michael Manley.
[Roger Steffens] Shortly after the concert,
Michael Manley was re-elected overwhelmingly
and the JLP doubled down on the violence.
[Laurie Gunst] The gang situation only escalated
after Bob left.
[male reporter] In dire straits, Jamaica turned to the IMF,
the global financing organization dominated by the United States.
But negotiations did not go well.
[Roger Steffens] There was a huge brain drain in Jamaica.
The middle class basically deserted the island.
All kinds of absolute essentials to life
were almost completely gone.
[Laurie Gunst] And as the scarcity in the downtown ghettos worsened,
there was more and more violence.
[Roger Steffens] The violence made it impossible
for Bob to return to the country.
[Vivien Goldman] So, he wound up spending his time in London.
It was more peaceful in London
and Bob also appreciated
that the police didn't carry guns.
[Wayne Jobson] After the shooting, he realized time was limited
and he had a lot of work to do. And so Bob was just focused,
working on music almost 24/7.
[Cindy Breakspeare] He poured himself into his music.
He just poured himself into it.
That's what he did to go and lick his wounds.
[Roger Steffens] When he was living in exile, Bob made Exodus,
Time magazine's Album of the Century.
[Vivien Goldman] I was lucky enough to be literally living down the road
from where they were recording Exodus.
The whole Exodus album is very infused
with what he'd been through.
♪ Ambush in the night ♪
♪ All guns aiming at me ♪
[Vivien Goldman] He would write very specifically
about the assassination attempt
in songs like "Ambush in the Night."
With London, it was very much a coming of age
of post-colonial, first-generation African immigrants,
and Bob was living in their midst.
[Wayne Jobson] Bob was in London, mixing with all these different cultures
and being exposed to different countries.
London kind of opened his mind
to more of what was going on internationally.
The government of South Africa said today
it is sending more of its troops
to fight in the Angolan Civil War.
[male reporter] Communists in Angola face violent opposition
from capitalists in the US and white South Africans.
[Arnold Bertram] Bob Marley is increasingly taking a stand for Africa
and the fight for social justice globally.
♪ So arm in arms, with arms ♪
♪ We'll fight This little struggle together ♪
♪ 'Cause that's the only way ♪
♪ We can overcome our little trouble... ♪
[Roger Steffens] It was very clear that Bob was opposed
to the political "shitsdom" as he called it.
Bob said, "Every government on the face of the Earth is illegal."
Those were fiery words in the 1970s.
[Arnold Bertram] We are speaking about the time of the Cold War
when there is no middle ground.
The world is divided between two superpowers
and everything you do is scrutinized from the stand point:
does it suit one or the other?
[Cuban reporter in Spanish] Long live the magnificent commander
and Prime Minister of Jamaica
comrade Michael Manley.
[man] Fidel and Manley are good friends,
and Fidel's relationship with Manley became
a big issue for the United States.
[Edward Seaga] They don't like when I call them communists,
but I have to!
Their foreign policy is the same
as the Cuban government's!
They're also craving for power, those fascist nincompoops.
[Michael Witter] The two political parties
operated as proxies in a global Cold War.
[male reporter] American support is solidly behind Edward Seaga.
On the streets of Kingston, they have their own way of spelling it.
[Paul Burke] They were starting to say that it was the CIA
who were behind the shooting of Bob Marley.
And many Jamaicans ran with that propaganda.
[Diane Jobson] This was a force to be watched,
a potential threat to the establishment.
The CIA had to have been looking at him.
[Roger Steffens] The CIA's file on Bob Marley was heavily redacted.
But the CIA labeled him as subversive.
They were watching him.
[Ras Gilly] We knew that the CIA was watching.
We felt them.
Yeah, we felt them all the time.
[people chanting]
[Osvaldo Cardenas] The CIA was all over Jamaica.
Some of the information that we got was from double agents
that we have in the CIA.
But also there was cooperation between Cuban intelligence
and the KGB.
We have information from many sources.
[Roger Steffens] There was tremendous fear in the United States
that Jamaica was going to become the next Cuba.
[Osvaldo Cardenas] The CIA was bringing the weapons
and training people to destabilize the country,
even with violent means.
The evidence of changing tactics in warfare
was obvious with the actions of the gangs in the street.
[Michael Witter] There's a lot of evidence that the CIA facilitated
the activities of street fighters
for the JLP.
[man] These gangs used paramilitary tactics.
They would go into the shanty towns
and they would seal off whole blocks
and with military tactics,
hold the police and the fire department at bay
while they burned down the whole block.
And in some cases, they would throw children and babies
back into the flames.
And this, of course, has served to turn the people
against the government of Michael Manley.
[male reporter] Opposition leader Edward Seaga
dismisses Philip Agee as a prostitute,
selling himself to any government
which might have use for his services.
[interviewer] Was the CIA working with the JLP?
I've never spoken with the CIA, man.
I really don't know.
[distorted voice] At that time, what I heard was that Seaga
wouldn't be linked with any of them.
He would deal with his people
who would deal with these people.
There's no way Seaga dealt directly
with CIA or DEA operatives.
It was part of his overall plan.
"America wants to keep Cuba out of the way,
we need the help,
come and do it but don't talk to me.
Don't implicate me.
I have people you can talk to,
but you don't implicate me."
The tentacles of the CIA,
they reached out, and they reached out,
and they reached out.
[TV announcer] Jimmy Cliff, an existential hero
as good as anything James Dean or Brando portrayed in the '50s.
[man] I was an established star in Jamaica.
And the CIA came to me at my home...
in Kingston...
asking me questions,
like what I think of this one party in Jamaica,
or that party in Jamaica,
or that political figure.
I said, "You can't ask me them kind of questions.
You can't ask me question like that!"
- ♪ Political violence fill your city ♪ - [backing vocals] ♪ Yeah! ♪
♪ Don't involve Rasta in your say-say ♪
♪ I'm sayin', Rasta don't work For no, oh no, CIA ♪
"Rasta don't work for no CIA!"
You hear? Rasta don't work for no CIA!
If a poet rise up,
or a singer who use words well rise up,
it's a threat to them.
People got afraid of Bob Marley
because he had the airwaves.
His message was sung
by every European pickney,
by every American pickney.
And there were forces that didn't like it.
[Tommy Cowan] By '78, Bob was a superstar.
He took me on a tour to Europe,
and then I realized, "This is how they really treat him."
I mean, there are police riders in Paris,
going to the walls of Germany,
and seeing soldiers put down their arms.
Seeing people just crying and weeping.
Seeing people fainting before a concert starts.
I mean, people would bring their babies and ask him,
"Can you just touch the baby for me?"
[Roger Steffens] This was the absolute height of his fame.
♪ Jah come to break down oppression ♪
♪ Rule equality, yeah! ♪
♪ Wipe away transgression ♪
[backing vocals] ♪ Set the captives free! ♪
[Bob] We do not defend Marxism nor capitalism.
- We are strictly Rasta! - [man] All right.
[Bob] We independent!
We don't have America for gwan beg anything,
nor Russia to beg anything.
We prefer to look on our own self,
which is Rasta: Black people's rights.
[Arnold Bertram] Nothing mattered more to Bob than Jamaica.
And he was yearning to go back, but he knew that he couldn't go back home
because it was too risky. It was way too dangerous.
[Roger Steffens] Back in Jamaica,
the violence reached crisis proportions.
[male reporter] The silver-sanded beaches have been deserted by the tourists,
for Jamaica's image is that of a violent, disintegrating society.
The overstretched police and army patrols
have effectively abandoned certain areas
to the warring political factions.
[Laurie Gunst] The later 1970s were really a moment
when hope gave way to despair.
There was, for example, the Orange Lane fire,
in which an old people's home
was set afire.
And gunmen shot at the firefighters
who tried to put out the flames.
There was a level of brutality
to the political violence
that no one had ever seen before.
And it just kept getting worse.
[male reporter] The Gun Court is the symbol of a nation fed up with crime.
Anyone caught on the island with an illegal firearm,
or as much as a bullet in his pocket,
will be brought here.
[Roger Steffens] 1977 was fraught with violence.
And Michael Manley decided
to put Buckie Marshall and Claudie Massop,
rival gang leaders, in prison.
It was one of those occasions when Claudie was in jail...
One of the many occasions.
[Vivien Goldman] Claudie was a well-known associate of Seaga's JLP,
and Buckie was PNP.
They would get together and realize how they were being exploited,
that they were absolutely pawns of the superpowers.
[Roger Steffens] They declared a truce between them.
By the end of the year,
Buckie and Claudie were released from prison.
And this spontaneous peace truce effort took place.
[Syd Massop] It was all about unification.
That is the reason why they came up
with the idea of the One Love Concert.
[Cindy Breakspeare] There had to be a coming together,
and there had to be somebody at the center of that
to make it happen.
And I think they felt that Bob was the only person
who really had that kind of clout.
[Roger Steffens] When Claudie and Buckie went to London
and begged him to return
to help them quell the violence,
Bob really didn't want to go back to Jamaica.
He felt it was unsafe
because many of the people who had come to kill him
were still around.
But Bob trusted Claudie.
Bob and Claudie grew up in the same community,
and they were boys together.
They kept their friendship all along.
[Vivien Goldman] Bob's message of peace was so seductive.
He was changing people's hearts and minds with music,
as he did with somebody like Claudie Massop.
And that was why Bob was such a threat.
[Roger Steffens] It was only because he got the absolute word
of both gangsters
that he would be safe
that he finally returned.
Bob, have you been told what's going to happen when you return to Jamaica?
What's gonna happen is that the people must unite.
There might be a little bit of fight,
but they must be strong and unite,
because this unity in Jamaica
is to unify the universal black people
all over the Earth.
[people chanting, clapping]
[Syd Massop] It was just such an exciting time
for everybody in the country
because many of these people
had not even spoken to each other for many, many years.
And they were all coming together to bring Bob home.
[Cindy Breakspeare] Bob returned to a hero's welcome.
The airport was just awash with people.
[Diane Jobson] People jump over the fence and they're on the runway.
A massive crowd returned to the gate,
and earthquake.
So, the next day, there was in big headlines,
"Bob Marley Returns!"
And then smaller, "Earthquake.
Jamaica experienced a... whatever... 3.5."
[Tommy Cowan] Bob called me about organizing this concert.
The various areas of the concert
was a Love section,
a Togetherness section,
and a Peace section.
And so, he coined it
the One Love Peace concert.
I used different youths from the inner city
to do all the security.
Whether they are from Tivoli or a jungle, it didn't matter.
I want to see Buckie Marshall
and Claudie Massop and Tony Welch
on stage to represent the people!
We want to see them!
[Edward Seaga] There was a massive crowd.
But what was beautiful about it was
you didn't have the PNP on this side and JLP on that side.
They were all mingling.
[Paul Burke] There was no demarcation.
People really wanted this peace thing to work.
It was just something phenomenal.
[men] ♪ Peace treaty is going on Hoorah, hoorah ♪
[man] Michael Manley!
[men] ♪ Peace treaty is going on Hoorah, hoorah ♪
♪ Tivoli is moving on ♪
♪ Buckie Marshall and Claudie ♪
♪ Say I to my brethren again ♪
[all whooping]
[man] Jacob Miller and Inner Circle, let's go, ya!
Jacob Miller and Inner Circle, ya!
[Nancy Burke] And after a long night of musical fabulousness,
at about 2:00 a.m., Bob came onstage...
♪ No bullet can stop us now ♪
♪ We neither beg nor we won't bow ♪
♪ Neither can be bought or sold ♪
...and danced on the stage in a way
that no one had ever really seen in Jamaica before.
You know, the way he performs abroad.
Leaping, and twirling, and tossing his hair.
All very dramatic under a big full moon.
And then, he paused the music.
[Bob] Could we have...
Could we have up here onstage here,
the presence of Mr. Michael Manley
and Mr. Edward Seaga? [howls]
I just want to shake hands
and show the people that we're gonna meet them right.
♪ We are gonna unite ♪
♪ We gonna meet them right ♪
♪ We gots to unite ♪
[scat singing]
[thunder crashes]
[Tommy Cowan] I'm tellin' you that a bolt of lightning
hit into that stadium
when he went into that spiritual dance,
and it could've only been God himself
that was really lookin' at that, sayin', "Well done!" [laughs]
[guitar solo]
[Jimmy Cliff] Bob called up Mr. Edward Seaga first.
And then he called up Mr. Michael Manley.
He took a little time because I guess
he was contemplating,
"Boy, is this a good idea or not?
Onstage, with my arch-rival!"
But he couldn't refuse.
[crowd cheering]
[Edward Seaga] We didn't know we'd be called up on the stage.
Or that Manley would have been called up on the stage.
Bob was supportive of a mission
that was not divisive.
[Vivien Goldman] And you could just feel him
willing to manifest these people
to bring about the peace and stop the bloodshed.
[Wayne Jobson] By trying to unite these two parties,
Bob knew that he was setting himself up as a target.
But he was gonna risk his own life to come back and unite the people.
[Roger Steffens] And he held their hands aloft
in a benediction to Rastafari.
The moment was compared
to Christ on the cross between the two thieves.
That was the night Bob went
from showman to shaman.
[music resolves, cymbal crash]
We felt it was the end of tribal war,
and that Bob Marley had done a masterpiece.
And it was symbolic that everybody wanted peace.
To say that there was suddenly peace all over the land, no. [laughs]
No. [chuckles]
He tried to bring peace.
But there couldn't be no peace.
[Laurie Gunst] After the One Love Peace Concert,
Jim Brown showed up to Bob's place on Hope Road
to deliver some of the money from the ticket sales.
[Wayne Jobson] Jim Brown was the most powerful Don in the ghetto.
His garrison was Tivoli, but he was a henchman for the whole JLP.
[Laurie Gunst] One of my most important informants,
Trevor Philips, was with Bob when Jim Brown showed up.
Marley took Trevor aside and said, "Who is this man?
What is he doing up here?"
And Trevor said to Bob,
"But don't you know Jim Brown?"
And Bob said, "Trevor, I saw that man up here
the night I was shot."
I remember once having a...
little meeting with some fellas
in which Jim Brown was present,
and we were in a back room,
because nobody was supposed to know Jim Brown was there.
What he said basically was that,
"When I went into the place and started firing,
Bob Marley said, 'Don't shoot me, don't shoot me, sir!'"
[Wayne Jobson] Bob told me, when he saw him later on,
"That was the guy who was there the night of the shooting!
I don't know if Jim fired the gun, but that is the guy who was there."
[interviewer] You never saw the gunman.
Well...
at that time, no.
- [interviewer] But you know who did it. - Yeah, I know them.
[interviewer] Were they caught?
No... Nobody called the police.
It's just, you know,
one of them things.
I recognized the gunman man who come.
It was a Labourite man.
One of Seaga's men.
[Laurie Gunst] I think that it was Jim Brown
who masterminded that shooting
because it would've been way too secure.
His bona fide is with Seaga.
It also launched Jim Brown.
[Roger Steffens] Jim Brown went on to form
the notorious Shower Posse.
The Shower Posse became one of the prime smugglers
of cocaine and heroin
into North America.
[Laurie Gunst] It took the authorities a long time to realize
how murderous this man was,
because he was under the protection of Edward Seaga,
from the beginning.
[crowd cheering]
[Laurie Gunst] Bob Marley never knew this,
but one of the tragic ironies
of the One Love Peace Concert
was that, as I learned from one of my sources,
"Is not peace we are dealin' with here, is pieces."
Meaning firearms.
Guns were brought in
in some of the sound equipment
that came in from the United States,
and they were later distributed
to gang members of the JLP.
[Vivien Goldman] For some people, peace doesn't pay.
And many of the prime movers of the peace
were killed in a very short time thereafter.
[Syd Massop] Claudie was with two of his brethrens,
and they were ambushed,
and shot, with their hands up.
When all was said and done,
his body was taken to the Ministry of Justice
and shots were fired,
I suppose to say,
"Mission accomplished."
These men were victims of the peace.
[Laurie Gunst] Claudie Massop's participation
in The Downtown Truce
sealed Massop's fate.
Massop became a liability, and so did all of the gang leaders
who participated in that truce.
[Wayne Jobson] Claudie got killed, Buckie got killed,
and everybody eventually got killed off.
In politics in Jamaica,
they can only control the people with violence.
[Laurie Gunst] By that time,
the politicians were offing their own Dons.
They would call out the Jamaican police
to liquidate anyone who got out of hand.
Peace was way too dangerous for the politicians,
and they knew it.
[people cheering, chanting]
We're here to honor one of the foremost statesmen in our hemisphere,
and certainly our good friend and my good friend,
the Prime Minister Edward Seaga of Jamaica.
[applause]
[voice trembling] It's really like a light goes out, a big light is gone,
and you're never gonna see that again...
in this lifetime.
[Wayne Jobson] The CIA was working to destabilize Jamaica,
and the political war going on pushed him
to become the political force we know today as Bob Marley.
[Tommy Cowan] One day, I was with Bob at Hope Road,
and we heard a knock.
When we answered the door,
there were two African brothers from Rhodesia
and they said they were going to get their independence.
They explained to us that when they were losing the battle,
Bob's music really gave them
so much hope and confidence.
It was Bob's music that won the war.
[Diane Jobson] When the Berlin Wall was being torn down,
they were playing Bob Marley music.
Anytime in any world crisis,
they play Bob Marley music.
It's a message that's relevant now,
even more so than 40 years ago.
[Roger Steffens] Everywhere in the world today,
Bob Marley is the symbol of freedom.
Wherever widows need solace,
wherever freedom fighters need to be convinced
of the righteousness of their tasks,
they're going to be singing the anthems of Bob Marley.
I know I am of benefit to the people, you know?
That's the only consciousness I have of myself,
that I can be beneficial to a people.
[Laurie Gunst] When I think about how the shooting
affected Bob's vision of the world and his hope for the future,
I think about the lyrics of "Redemption Song"
and the lines that go,
"How long shall they kill our prophets
while we stand aside and look?"
You realize that what Marley is talking about
is the entire history of Jamaica.
That's both a lament for the past
and a kind of hope for the future.
♪ Another song of freedom ♪
♪ Is all I ever have ♪
♪ Redemption songs ♪