Biography
Rodney Johnson, a member of the Communist Workers Party, was one of the "NASSCO 3," three San Diego shipyard activists convicted in 1981 in what their supporters — and their attorney, Leonard Weinglass — denounced as an FBI and company frame-up. All three were linked to the militant Iron Workers Local 627 at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) and to the Communist Workers Party, and were charged with conspiring to pipe-bomb the shipyard's electrical transformers. The supposed plot had been organized and pushed by Ramon Barton, a paid informant and agent provocateur who infiltrated the union for the San Diego police and the FBI — agencies that, evidence at trial showed, had met with NASSCO management weeks before any plot surfaced. On June 6, 1981 the three were convicted of conspiracy and explosives-possession counts and sentenced to six months each.
