The Gainesville Eight were a group of anti-Vietnam War activists indicted on charges of conspiracy to disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida.
After learning from FBI informants and agents within the VVAW about possible plans for disruption and violence, the Department of Justice initiated a grand jury investigation.
They were also going to raise the five drawbridges so that antiwar demonstrators would be trapped on Miami Beach and shot by police and soldiers during the commotion.
These plans were typed up and distributed among the rest of the group by a VVAW member and undercover FBI agent, Bill Lemmer.
Bill Lemmer, the Southern regional assistant coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, revealed himself as an undercover FBI operative in May 1972.