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Tony Rezko
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Antoin "Tony" Rezko (born 1955 in Aleppo, Syria) is an American political
fundraiser, restaurateur, and real estate developer in Chicago, Illinois convicted
on several counts of fraud and bribery in 2008. Rezko has been involved in
fundraising for local Illinois Democratic and Republican politicians since the
1980s. After becoming a major contributor to Rod Blagojevich's successful
gubernatorial election, Rezko assisted Blagojevich in setting up the state's first
Democratic administration in 20 years. Rezko was able to have business
associates appointed onto several state boards. Rezko and several others were
indicted on federal charges in October 2006, for using their connections to the
state boards to demand kickbacks from businesses that wanted to do business
with the state. While the others pleaded guilty to the charges, Rezko pleaded not
guilty and was found guilty of 16 of the 24 charges filed against him.
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Early life and education

• 2 Business history
• 3 Legal troubles
• 4 Ties to politicians
o 4.1 Ties to Rod Blagojevich
o 4.2 Ties to Barack Obama
o 4.3 Ties with other politicians
• 5 References
• 6 External links
[edit] Early life and education

Rezko was born in 1955 in Aleppo, Syria to a prominent Catholic family.[1] After
graduating from high school there, Rezko moved to Chicago and earned an
undergraduate and a master's degree in civil engineering from the Illinois Institute
of Technology in the late 1970s. He joined an engineering company, designing
nuclear power plants, then left to design roads for the state Transportation
Department, making $21,590 in his first year there.[2][3]
[edit] Business history
Soon after beginning his career as a civil engineer, Rezko started investing in
real estate and fast-food restaurants—including the first Subway in Chicago.
Many of these properties were in lower-income African American
neighborhoods.[1][4] Then, meeting Jabir Herbert Muhammad, former manager of
heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali and son of the late Nation of Islam leader,
Elijah Muhammad, he was asked in 1983 to support the successful mayoral
candidacy of Harold Washington. J. H. Muhammad's company, Crucial
Concessions, which Rezko went to work for in 1984, won a food contract at the
Lake Michigan beaches and in many South Side parks after Washington became
the first black mayor of Chicago. Rezko put together endorsement deals for Ali,
became the executive director of the Muhammad Ali Foundation, and traveled
the world with Ali for five years.[1] In 1997, Crucial opened two Panda Express
Restaurants at O'Hare, under the city's minority set-aside program. It lost those
franchises in 2005, on the grounds that J. H. Muhammad was merely a front for
Rezko, who had been appointed trustee of J.H. Muhammad's affairs in the early
1990s because of the latter's failing health. In March 2008 Muhammad sued
Rezko, alleging that he had been swindled out of his home and business
interests.[4][5][3]
In January 1989, Rezko and Daniel Mahru, CEO of a firm which leased ice
makers to bars, hotels and restaurants and a former attorney, founded a real-
estate development and restaurant holding corporation called Rezmar
Corporation. Between 1989 and 1998, Rezmar made deals to rehab 30 buildings,
a total of 1,025 apartments, expending more than $100 million from the city, state
and federal governments and in bank loans. Rezko and Mahru weren't
responsible for any government or bank loans or the $50 million in federal tax
credits they got to rehab the buildings. Rezmar put just $100 into each project
and got a 1% stake as the general partner in charge of hiring the architect,
contractor, and the company that would manage the buildings, screen tenants
and make repairs, Chicago Property Management, also owned by Rezko and
Mahru. It also got upfront development fees of at least $6.9 million in all. Under
its deals with the Chicago Equity Fund, Rezmar promised to cover all operating
losses in any building for seven years, but had no obligation after that, although
the tax credits they sold could be recovered by the Federal government from the
holders if the projects did not survive for fifteen years or more.[3] By 1998 the
company had a net worth of US$34 million,[6][7] and it then turned to purchasing
old factories and parcels of land in gentrifying areas of Chicago and turning them
into upscale condominium complexes.[3][8]
Rezko was named "Entrepreneur of the Decade" by the Arab-American Business
and Professional Association.[9]
Rezko's investment in restaurant food chains had started with a chain of Panda
Express Chinese restaurants. In 1998, Rezko opened his first chain of Papa
John's Pizza restaurants in Chicago and by 2002, he had twenty-six stores in
Chicago, at least fifteen in Wisconsin, and seven in Detroit, part of the financing
for these stores was through GE Capital.[2] By 2001, Rezko began to fall behind
on his franchise payments and loans and he transferred the franchises to several
business associates. In 2006, during a lawsuit with Papa John's over his
franchise fees, Rezko renamed his Papa John's restaurants to Papa Tony's.[9]
Rezko also had a lien filed against his home after losing a civil lawsuit to GE
Capital.[2]
As his business ventures began failing, Rezko entered into several partnership
with Iraqi-born business executive Nadhmi Auchi, including a massive 2005 real
estate development project on Chicago's South Loop with whose value was
pegged by an observer familiar with the deal at $130.5 million.[10] It was failure to
disclose a $3.5m loan from Auchi that would lead to his imprisonment in 2008.
[edit] Legal troubles
In October 2006, Rezko was indicted along with Republican fundraiser and
businessman Stuart Levine on charges of wire fraud, bribery, money laundering,
and attempted extortion as a result of a federal investigation known as
"Operation Board Games".[11][12] Rezko and Levine were charged with attempting
to extort millions of dollars from businesses seeking to do business with the
Illinois Teachers Retirement System Board and the Illinois Health Facilities
Planning Board from 2002 to 2004. Levine pleaded guilty and agreed to testify
against Rezko and others. While the charges carry a maximum sentence of life in
prison, Levine expects to receive about a 5-1/2 year sentence in return for his
testimony.[13] The case was prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald.
Rezko pleaded not guilty, and the trial related to his charges from Operation
Board Games began on March 6, 2008.[14] He was jailed shortly before the trial
began when he received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Lebanon. Rezko had
told the court that he had no access to money from overseas. Ten weeks into the
trial, on April 18, Judge Amy St. Eve released Rezko, after friends and relatives
put up 30 properties valued at about $8.5 million to secure his bond. Prosecutors
opposed the motion for release, saying that Rezko was a flight risk.[15] On May 6,
both the prosecution and the defense rested their cases. Government
prosecutors spent 8 weeks presenting their case. Rezko’s lawyer, Joseph J.
Duffy, chose not to present any witnesses, saying that he did not believe that the
prosecution had proven the charges.[16] Prosecutors contended that they had
shown Rezko's "corrupt use of his power and influence" to gain benefits for
himself and his friends. Duffy argued that the prosecution had exaggerated
Rezko's influence in state government, and attacked Levine's credibility as a
witness.[17]
The case went to the jury on May 13 and after three weeks of deliberation, the
jury found Rezko guilty of six counts of wire fraud, six counts of mail fraud, two
counts of corrupt solicitation, and two counts of money laundering, but found him
not guilty on three counts of wire and mail fraud, one count of attempted
extortion, and four counts of corrupt solicitation.[18] According to CBS News the
"high-profile federal trial provided an unusually detailed glimpse of the pay-to-
play politics that has made Illinois infamous."[19]
While the jury was deliberating on the Board Games trial, an arrest warrant was
issued in Las Vegas for passing bad checks in two casinos and failing to pay
$450,000 in gambling debts that were accrued between March and July of
2006.[20] Another casino had also filed a civil complaint for a total of $331,000 in
2006 and was given a judgment of default in 2007.[20]
Rezko is also under indictment, along with a business associate, for wire fraud
related to the alleged sale of his pizza business to a straw buyer at an inflated
price in order to obtain millions of dollars in loans from GE Capital.[21] Rezko has
plead not guilty to these charges and the trial is scheduled to begin in 2009.[22]
[edit] Ties to politicians
[edit] Ties to Rod Blagojevich
Rezko's relationship with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and his family were at
the root of the federal corruption case which led to Rezko's conviction.[2] Rezko
donated $117,652 to Blagojevich's campaigns,[4] and is credited by the
prosecutor in his trial with having delivered bundled contributions totalling almost
$1.44 million.[23] Since 1997, Blagojevich's wife, Patricia, has made at least
$38,000 acting as Rezko's real-estate agent on several of his company's
property acquisitions. When Blagojevich won the Illinois gubernatorial election in
2002, Rezko assisted Blagojevich in setting up the state's first Democratic
administration in twenty years.[2] Rezko recommended many of his business
associates and their relatives for positions within state government, three of
whom were appointed to the state board that oversees hospital projects. the
state's development board was run by another former Rezko business associate.
Rezko and Republican fundraiser Stuart Levine were charged in a 24-count
federal indictment for allegedly using Rezko's influence with public officials to
demand millions of dollars in kickbacks from companies that wanted to do
business with the state.[2][4] Levine pled guilty and served as the chief witness
against Rezko at trial. Levine and several other witnesses implicated Blagojevich
in the schemes, although the governor has not been charged with any
crimes.[24][25]
[edit] Ties to Barack Obama
In 1990, after Obama was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, Rezmar
Corp. offered him a job, which Obama turned down. Obama did end up taking a
job with law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland,[26] which primarily worked civil
rights cases, but also represented Rezmar and helped the company get more
than $43 million in government funding and whose former senior partner, Allison
S. Davis, later went into business with Rezko and, in 2003, was appointed to
Illinois State Board of Investment by Governor Blagojevich at Rezko's
request.[7][27] On July 31, 1995 the first ever political contributions to Obama were
$300 from a lawyer, a $5,000 loan from a car dealer, and $2,000 from two food
companies owned by Rezko.[28] Starting in 2003, Rezko was one of the people
on Obama's U.S. Senate campaign finance committee, which raised more than
$14 million.[7] Rezko threw an early fundraiser for Obama, which Chicago Tribune
reporter David Mendelland claims was instrumental in providing Obama with
seed money for his U.S. Senate race.[1] Obama has since identified over
$250,000 in campaign contributions to various Obama campaigns as coming
from Rezko or close associates, and has claimed to have donated almost two
thirds of that amount to charity.[29][30]
Also, in 2005 Obama purchased a new home in the Kenwood District of Chicago
for $1.65 million (which was $300,000 below the asking price but represented the
highest offer on the property) on the same day that Rezko's wife, Rita Rezko,
purchased the adjoining empty lot from the same sellers for the full asking
price.[31] Obama acknowledged bringing his interest in the property to Rezko's
attention,[32] but denied any coordination of offers. According to Obama, while the
properties had originally been a single property, the previous owners decided to
sell the land as two separate lots, but made it a condition of the sales that they
be closed on the same date. Obama also claimed that the properties had been
on the market for months, that his offer was the best of two bids, and that Ms.
Rezko's bid was matched by another offer, also of $625,000, so that she could
not have purchased the property for less.[33] Obama's description of the purchase
was later confirmed by the previous owner of the house.[34]
After it had been reported in 2006 that Rezko was under federal investigation for
influence-peddling, Obama purchased a 10 foot (3.0 m) wide strip of Ms. Rezko's
property for $104,500, $60,000 above the assessed value.[31][7] According to
Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Mark Brown, "Rezko definitely did Obama a favor
by selling him the 10-foot strip of land, making his own parcel less attractive for
development."[35] Obama acknowledges that the exchange may have created the
appearance of impropriety, and stated "I consider this a mistake on my part and I
regret it."[33]
The London Times reported that Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi-born billionaire loaned
Rezko $3.5 million three weeks before Obama's new home was purchased.[36] In
April 2004, Auchi attended a party in his honor at the home of Rezko. Obama
also attended the party and is alleged to have toasted Auchi, according to one
guest.[37]
On December 28, 2006, Ms. Rezko sold the property to a company owned by her
husband's former business attorney. That sale of $575,000, combined with the
earlier $104,500 sale to the Obamas, amounted to a net profit of $54,500 over
her original purchase, less $14,000 for a fence along the property line and other
expenses.[38][39] In October 2007, the new owners put the still vacant land up for
sale again, this time for $1.5 million.[40]
In June 2007, the Sun-Times published a story about letters Obama had written
in 1997 to city and state officials in support of a low-income senior citizen
development project headed by Rezko and partner Allison Davis. The project
received more than $14 million in taxpayer funds, including $885,000 in
development fees for Rezko and Davis. Of Obama's letters in support of the
Cottage View Terrace apartments development, Obama spokesman Bill Burton
said, "This wasn't done as a favor for anyone, it was done in the interests of the
people in the community who have benefited from the project. I don't know that
anyone specifically asked him to write this letter nine years ago. There was a
consensus in the community about the positive impact the project would make
and Obama supported it because it was going to help people in his district."
Rezko's attorney responded that "Mr. Rezko never spoke with, nor sought a letter
from, Senator Obama in connection with that project.[41]
In the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential debate on January 21, 2008,
Senator Hillary Clinton said that Obama had represented Rezko, who she
referred to as a slum landlord.[42] Obama responded that he had never
represented Rezko and had done only about five hours work, indirectly, for
Rezko's firm.[33] Within days of the debate, a photo of Rezko posing with Bill and
Hillary Clinton surfaced. When asked about the photo Hillary Clinton commented
"I probably have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures. I wouldn’t know him if
he walked in the door."[43]
[edit] Ties with other politicians
Tony Rezko's first significant political act was hosting a fundraiser for Harold
Washington during Washington's successful campaign to become Chicago's first
black mayor.[4] He has since raised funds for many other politicians, both
Democrats and Republicans.[44] In addition to Blagojevich and Obama, prominent
Democrats that Rezko and his company, Rezmar, have contributed money to, or
fund-raised for, are Comptroller Dan Hynes, Attorney General Lisa Madigan,
Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn, former Chicago Mayors Daley and Washington,
and former Cook County Board President John Stroger.[2] Rezko has also raised
money for Republicans: former Illinois Governors Jim Edgar and George Ryan,[1]
the late Rosemont, Illinois Mayor Donald Stephens and he co-chaired a
multimillion-dollar fund-raiser for President George W. Bush in 2003.[44][3]
Rezko headed the 2002 campaign finance committee for Stroger. Stroger in turn
appointed Rezko's wife, Rita, to the Cook County Employee Appeals Board,
which hears cases brought by fired or disciplined workers. The part-time post
pays $37,000 a year.[1] A Rezko company had a contract to maintain pay
telephones at the Cook County Jail under Stroger. The Chicago Sun-Times puts
Rezko's contributions to Stroger at $148,300.[45]
[edit] References
1. ^ a b c d e f Merriner, James L.. "Mr. Inside Out". Chicago Magazone. Retrieved on
2008-05-10.
2. ^ a b c d e f g Jackson, David & Chase, John (2006-10-12), "Rezko's life a story of
pizza and politics", Chicago Tribune,
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-
0610120112oct12,0,3093652.story>. Retrieved on 2007-02-06
3. ^ a b c d e Novak, Tim (2007-04-24). "Broken promises, broken homes". Chicago
Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
4. ^ a b c d e McClelland, Edward (2008-02-01). "How close were Barack Obama and
Tony Rezko?". Salon. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
5. ^ "An Obama Patron and Friend Until an Indictment". The New York Times
(2007-06-14). Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
6. ^ "A Rezmar who's-who list", Chicago Sun-Times (2007-04-24). Retrieved on
2008-03-09.
7. ^ a b c d Novak, Tim (2007-04-23). "Obama and his Rezko ties", Chicago Sun-
Times. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
8. ^ David Schaper (2008-03-06). "Q&A: The Tony Rezko Case". Retrieved on
2008-03-09.
9. ^ a b Ray Hanania (2005-06-08). "Arabs in Chicago discover political clout and
controversy". Arab American Media Services. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
10. ^ Rezko sells Loop project for $131M
11. ^ "Indictment - U.S. vs. Levine and Rezko" (PDF publisher=Chicago Business).
Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
12. ^ Marla Cichowski (2008-04-04). "Courtroom Wire: Notes From Tony Rezko's
Corruption Trial", FOXNews. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
13. ^ Secter, Bob; Coen, Jeff (2008-03-19). "Levine weaves tawdry tale", Chicago
Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
14. ^ "One Tony, three trials", Chicago Tribune (2008-03-07). Retrieved on 2008-05-
10.
15. ^ "Rezko free on bail", Chicago Tribune (2008-04-20). Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
16. ^ Einhorn Catrin (2008-05-06). "Illinois: No Defense Witnesses for Rezko", The
New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
17. ^ Corrupt mastermind or victim of frame-up? Chicago Tribune, May 13, 2008
18. ^ "Rezko found guilty on 16 counts", ABCNews (2008-06-04). Retrieved on
2008-06-04.
19. ^ Parker, Mike (2008-06-04). "Jury Finds Tony Rezko Guilty On 16 Of 24
Charges", CBS 2. Retrieved on 2008-06-04.
20. ^ a b Korecki, Natasha (2008-05-29). "Las Vegas judge issues arrest warrant for
Tony Rezko over alleged gambling debts", Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on
2008-06-11.
21. ^ Robinson, Mike (2006-10-11). "Blagojevich Adviser Indicted on Charges", The
Washington Post. Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
22. ^ "Rezko faces next trial: Date set in pizza case", Chicago Tribune (2008-06-08).
23. ^ "FOB Chart 2" (PDF). United States Department of Justice (2008-03-07).
24. ^ Coen, Jeff; Secter, Bob (2008-03-20). "Name on Levine's lips at trial:
Blagojevich", Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
25. ^ Secter, Bob; Coen, Jeff (2008-05-01). "Ali Ata testifies he paid Rezko, donated
to Blagojevich", Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
26. ^ now Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Morain, Dan (2008-04-06). "Obama's lawyer
days: brief and not all civil rights", Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
27. ^ Novak, Tim (2007-11-11). "How reform-minded City Hall critic became a cozy
insider", Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
28. ^ Novak, Tim (2007-04-23). "Obama and his Rezko ties", Chicago Sun\Times.
29. ^ Chris Fusco; David McKinney, Tim Novak, and Abdon M. Pallasch (2008-03-
16). "Obama explains Rezko relationship to Sun-Times", Chicago Sun-Times.
30. ^ Drew, Christopher; McIntire, Mike. "An Obama Patron and Friend Until an
Indictment", The New York Times date=2007-06-14. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
31. ^ a b Ray Gibson; David Jackson (2006-11-01). "Rezko owns vacant lot next to
Obama's home", Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-03-04.
32. ^ "Asked who approached her about the house, Schwan [the seller's broker] told
Salon, 'I honestly don't remember. Tony Rezko lived across the street, so he'd
been interested in the lot.'"McClelland, Edward (2008-02-01). "How close were
Barack Obama and Tony Rezko?". Salon.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
33. ^ a b c McKinney, Dave; Fusco, Chris (2006-11-05). "Obama on Rezko deal: It
was a mistake", Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
34. ^ "Request for Information" (PDF), Chicago Tribune (2008-03-14). Retrieved on
2008-06-04.
35. ^ Brown, Mark (2006-11-02). "Obama's dealings with Rezko buy a parcel of
questions", Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
36. ^ "Obama Mansion 'mistake' piles the pressure on Barack Obama", London Times
(2008-02-26).
37. ^
"[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122005063234084813.html?mod=opinion_main
_commentaries Obama Should Come Clean On Ayers, Rezko And the Iraqi
Billionaire]", Wall Street Journal (2008-08-30).
38. ^ The $54,500 figure is before any property tax and other expenses Ms. Rezko
incurred during her ownership
39. ^ Jackson, David; Ray Gibson (2007-02-24). "Rezko sells lot next to Obama",
Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-03-04.
40. ^ Novak, Tim (2007-10-10). "Lot next to Obama can be yours for $1.5M",
Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2008-03-04.
41. ^ Novak, Tim (2007-06-13). "Obama's letters for Rezko", Chicago Sun-Times.
42. ^ Healy, Patrick; Zeleny, Jeff (2008-01-22). "Obama and Clinton Tangle at
Debate", The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
43. ^ "Photo Surfaces Showing Sen. Clinton Posing With Chicago Landlord Rezko",
FOXNews (2008-01-25). Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
44. ^ a b Sneed, Michael (2006-10-12). "The Rezko scandal ...", Chicago Sun-Times.
45. ^ "Top recipients of campaign cash". Chicago Sun-Times (2007-04-23). Retrieved
on 2008-06-04.
[edit] External links

• Eric Zorn, RezkoWebliography The Chicago Tribune, February 7, 2008
• DOJ announcement and summary of indictment, Oct 11 2006
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Rezko"

Categories: 1955 births | Living people | Syrian Christians | Syrian Americans | People
from Aleppo | American businesspeople | Businesspeople in real estate | American
lobbyists | American fraudsters | American political scandals | Political controversies |
Illinois Institute of Technology alumni | People from Chicago, Illinois | Barack Obama
controversies
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Bill Ayers
(Redirected from William Ayers)

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This article is about the professor of Education and former radical activist. For the disc
jockey and anti-hunger leader, see Bill Ayres. For the former football player and
manager, see Billy Ayre.
William C. Ayers
1944 (age 63–64)
Born
Glen Ellyn, Illinois
Residence Chicago, Illinois
Citizenship United States
Nationality United States
Fields Education
Institutions University of Illinois at Chicago
University of Michigan
Bank Street College
Alma mater
Teachers College, Columbia University
Columbia University
Urban educational reform

Known for
Former member of the Weather Underground
William Charles "Bill" Ayers (born 1944) is an American elementary education

theorist and former leading 1960s militant. He is most well known for his violent
radical activism in the 1960s and 1970s, his current work in education reform,
curriculum and instruction, and his association with 2008 Democratic presidential
candidate Barack Obama. In 1969 he cofounded the violent radical left
organization Weatherman, which was active during the 1960s and 1970s. He is
now a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at
Chicago, holding the honor of Distinguished Professor.
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Early life
• 2 Radical history
o 2.1 Years underground
• 3 Later reflections on his past
o 3.1 Fugitive Days: A Memoir
o 3.2 Statements made in 2001
o 3.3 Views on his past expressed since 2001
• 4 Ayers' ideology
o 4.1 Sexual politics
• 5 Academic career
• 6 Civic and political life
• 7 Personal life
• 8 Works
• 9 References
Early life
Ayers grew up in Glen Ellyn, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. He attended public

schools there until his second year in high school, when he transferred to Lake
Forest Academy, a small prep school.[1] Ayers earned a B.A. from the University
of Michigan in American Studies in 1968. (His father, mother and older brother
had preceded him there.)[1] He is the son of Thomas G. Ayers, former Chairman
and CEO of Commonwealth Edison (1973 to 1980), Chicago philanthropist and
the namesake of the Thomas G. Ayers College of Commerce and Industry.[2][3]
Ayers was affected when SDS President Paul Potter, at a 1965 Ann Arbor
Teach-In against the Vietnam war, asked his audience, "How will you live your
life so that it doesn't make a mockery of your values?" Ayers later wrote in his
memoir, Fugitive Days, that his reaction was: "You could not be a moral person
with the means to act, and stand still. [...] To stand still was to choose
indifference. Indifference was the opposite of moral"[4]
In 1965, Ayers joined a picket line protesting an Ann Arbor, Michigan, pizzeria for
refusing to seat African Americans. His first arrest came for a sit-in at a local draft
board, resulting in 10 days in jail.
His first teaching job came shortly afterward at the Children's Community School,
a preschool with a very small enrollment operating in a church basement,
founded by a group of students in emulation of the Summerhill method of
education.[5] After leaving the underground, he earned an M.Ed from Bank Street
College in Early Childhood Education (1984), an M.Ed from Teachers College,
Columbia University in Early Childhood Education (1987) and an Ed.D from
Columbia University in Curriculum and Instruction (1987).[6]. The school was a
part of the nationwide "free school movement". Schools in the movement had no
grades or report cards, they aimed to inculcate cooperation rather than
competition, and the teachers had pupils address them by their first names.
Within a few months, at age 21, Ayers became director of the school. There also
he met Diana Oughton, who would become his girlfriend until her death in a
bomb construction accident in 1970.[1]
Radical history
Further information: Weatherman (organization)
Bill Ayers' booking photo taken in 1968 by the Chicago Police Dept.
Ayers became involved in the New Left and the Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS).[7] He rose to national prominence as an SDS leader in 1968 and
1969. As head of an SDS regional group, the "Jesse James Gang", Ayers made
decisive contributions to the Weatherman orientation toward militancy.[4]
The group Ayers headed in Detroit, Michigan became one of the earliest
gatherings of what became the Weatherman. Between the 1968 Democratic
National Convention in Chicago and the June 1969 SDS convention, Ayers
became a prominent leader of the group, which arose as a result of a schism in
SDS.[4]
"During that time his infatuation with street fighting grew and he developed a
language of confrontational militancy that became more and more extreme over
the year [1969]", former Weatherman member Cathy Wilkerson wrote in 2001
(who characterizes the Weathermen's activity as "craziness"). Ayers had
previously become a roommate of Terry Robbins, a fellow militant who was two
years younger and "came to idolize him", Wilkerson wrote. Robbins would later
be killed while making a bomb.[8]
In June 1969, the Weatherman took control of the SDS at its national convention,
where Ayers was elected "Education Secretary".[4]
Later in 1969, Ayers participated in planting a bomb at a statue dedicated to
police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot.[9] The blast broke almost 100
windows and blew pieces of the statue onto the nearby Kennedy Expressway.[10]
(The statue was rebuilt and unveiled on May 4, 1970, and blown up again by
other Weathermen on October 6, 1970.[11][10] Built yet again, the city posted a 24-
hour police guard to prevent another blast.[10]) Ayers participated in the Days of
Rage riot in Chicago in October 1969, and in December was at the "War Council"
meeting in Flint, Michigan.
Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant in the Weatherman group from the fall of 1969
to the spring of 1970, thought that Ayers, along with Bernardine Dohrn, were
probably the two most authoritative people within the organization.[12]
Years underground
In 1970 he "went underground" with several associates after the Greenwich

Village townhouse explosion, in which Weatherman member Ted Gold, Ayers'
close friend Terry Robbins, and Ayers' girlfriend, Oughton, were killed when a
nail bomb (an anti-personnel device) they were assembling exploded. Kathy
Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson survived the blast. Ayers was not facing criminal
charges at the time, but the federal government later filed charges against him.[1]
Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in
1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and The Pentagon in 1972, as
he noted in his 2001 book, Fugitive Days. Because of a water leak caused by the
Pentagon bombing, aerial bombardments during the Vietnam War had to be
halted for several days. Ayers writes:
Although the bomb that rocked the Pentagon was itsy-bitsy -

weighing close to two pounds - it caused 'tens of thousands of
dollars' of damage. The operation cost under $500, and no one was
killed or even hurt. In that same time, the Pentagon spent tens of
millions of dollars and dropped tens of thousands of pounds of
explosives on Viet Nam, killing or wounding thousands of human
beings, causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage.[13]
He also said, however, that the book was partly fiction.[14]

While underground, he and fellow member Bernardine Dohrn married, and the
two remained fugitives together, changing identities, jobs and locations. By 1976
or 1977, with federal charges against both fugitives dropped due to prosecutorial
misconduct (see COINTELPRO), Ayers was ready to turn himself in to
authorities, but Dohrn remained reluctant until after she gave birth to two sons,
one born in 1977, the other in 1980. "He was sweet and patient, as he always is,
to let me come to my senses on my own", she later said.[1] The couple turned
themselves in in 1980.
Ayers and Dohrn later became legal guardians to the son of former Weathermen
David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin after the boy's parents were convicted and sent
to prison for their part in the Brinks Robbery of 1981.[14]
Later reflections on his past
Fugitive Days: A Memoir
In 2001, Ayers published Fugitive Days: A Memoir, which he explained in part as

an attempt to answer the questions of Kathy Boudin's son, and his speculation
that Diana Oughton died trying to stop the Greenwich Village bomb makers.[15]
Some have questioned the truth, accuracy, and tone of the book. Brent Staples,
wrote for The New York Times Book Review that "Ayers reminds us often that he
can't tell everything without endangering people involved in the story. [16]
Historian Jesse Lemisch (himself a former member of SDS) contrasted Ayers'
recollections with those of other former members of Weatherman and has
alleged serious factual errors.[17] Ayers, in the foreword to his book, states that it
was written as his personal memories and impressions over time, not a scholarly
research project.[14]
Statements made in 2001
In the months before Ayers' memoir was published on September 10, 2001, the
author gave numerous interviews with newspaper and magazine writers in which
he defended his overall history of radical words and actions. Some of the
resulting articles were written just before the September 11 terrorist attacks and
appeared immediately after, including one often-noted article in The New York
Times, and another in the Chicago Tribune. Numerous observations were made
in the media comparing the statements Ayers was making about his own past
just as a dramatic new terrorist incident shocked the public.
Much of the controversy about Ayers during the decade since the year 2000
stems from an interview he gave to the New York Times on the occasion of the
memoir's publication.[18] The reporter quoted him as saying "I don't regret setting
bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough", and, when asked if he would "do it all
again" as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility."[14] Ayers has not denied
the quotes, but he protested the interviewer's characterizations in a Letter to the
Editor published September 15, 2001: "This is not a question of being
misunderstood or 'taken out of context', but of deliberate distortion."[19] In the
ensuing years, Ayers has repeatedly avowed that when he said he had "no
regrets" and that "we didn't do enough" he was speaking only in reference to his
efforts to stop the United States from waging the Vietnam War, efforts which he
has described as ". . . inadequate [as] the war dragged on for a decade."[20]
Ayers has maintained that the two statements were not intended to imply a wish
they had set more bombs.[20][21] The interviewer also quoted some of Ayers' own
criticism of Weatherman in the foreword to the memoir, whereby Ayers reacts to
having watched Emile de Antonio's 1976 documentary film about Weatherman,
Underground: "[Ayers] was 'embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the
absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the
narcissism.' "[14]
"We weren't terrorists," Ayers told an interviewer for the Chicago Tribune in 2001.
"The reason we weren't terrorists is because we did not commit random acts of
terror against people. Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside
of Vietnam by the United States."[1] In a letter to the editor in the Chicago
Tribune, Ayers wrote, "I condemn all forms of terrorism — individual, group and
official". He also condemned the September 11 terrorist attacks in that letter.
"Today we are witnessing crimes against humanity on our own shores on an
unthinkable scale, and I fear that we may soon see more innocent people in
other parts of the world dying in response."[22]
Views on his past expressed since 2001

Ayers was asked in a January 2004 interview, "How do you feel about what you
did? Would you do it again under similar circumstances?" He replied:[23]
I’ve thought about this a lot. Being almost 60, it’s impossible to not have lots and
lots of regrets about lots and lots of things, but the question of did we do
something that was horrendous, awful? ... I don’t think so. I think what we did
was to respond to a situation that was unconscionable.
On September 9, 2008, journalist Jake Tapper reported on the comic strip in Bill
Ayers's blog explaining the soundbite: "The one thing I don't regret is opposing
the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being....'When I say, 'We didn't do
enough,' a lot of people rush to think, 'That must mean, "We didn't bomb enough
s---.' But that's not the point at all. It's not a tactical statement, it's an obvious
political and ethical statement. In this context, 'we' means 'everyone.'"[24]
Ayers' ideology
In an interview published in 1995, Ayers characterized his political beliefs at that

time and in the 1960s and 1970s: "I am a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist ...
[Laughs] Maybe I'm the last communist who is willing to admit it. [Laughs] We
have always been small 'c' communists in the sense that we were never in the
[Communist] party and never Stalinists. The ethics of Communism still appeal to
me. I don't like Lenin as much as the early Marx. I also like Henry David Thoreau,
Mother Jones and Jane Addams [...]"[25]
In 1970 Ayers was called "a national leader"[26] of the Weatherman organization
and "one of the chief theoreticians of the Weathermen".[27] The Weathermen
were initially part of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) within the SDS,
splitting from the RYM's Maoists by claiming there was no time to build a
vanguard party and that revolutionary war against the United States government
and the capitalist system should begin immediately. Their founding document
called for the establishment of a "white fighting force" to be allied with the "Black
Liberation Movement" and other "anti-colonial" movements[28] to achieve "the
destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world
communism."[29] In June 1974, the Weather Underground released a 151-page
volume titled Prairie Fire, which stated: "We are a guerrilla organization [...] We
are communist women and men underground in the United States [...]"[30]
Sexual politics
The Weatherman leadership, including Bill Ayers, pushed for a radical

reformulation of sexual relations.[31] They ran their efforts to revamp sexual
relations under the slogan "Smash Monogamy". Polyamory and homosexuality
were advocated. Ayers writes in his autobiography that he participated in both as
a matter of politics.[32]
Academic career
Ayers is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at

Chicago, College of Education. His interests include teaching for social justice,
urban educational reform, narrative and interpretive research, children in trouble
with the law, and related issues.[6]
He began his career in primary education while an undergraduate, teaching at
the Children’s Community School (CCS), a project founded by a group of
students and based on the Summerhill method of education. After leaving the
underground, he earned an M.Ed from Bank Street College in Early Childhood
Education (1984), an M.Ed from Teachers College, Columbia University in Early
Childhood Education (1987) and an Ed.D from Columbia University in Curriculum
and Instruction (1987).
He has edited and written many books and articles on education theory, policy
and practice, and has appeared on many panels and symposia.
Civic and political life
Ayers worked with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in shaping the city's school
reform program,[33] and was one of three co-authors of the Chicago Annenberg
Challenge grant proposal that in 1995 won $49.2 million over five years for public
school reform.[34] Since 1999 he has served on the nine-member[35] board of
directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty, philanthropic foundation
established in 1941.
Ayers' contacts with the 2008 Democratic Nominee for President of the United
States, Barack Obama, became controversial in the 2008 United States
presidential election. The two served together on the Woods Fund Board from
1999 until Obama left in 2002. Ayers had other contact with Obama as a resident
of Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, hosting a meet-and-greet at his house to
introduce Obama to his neighbors during Obama's first Illinois state Senate
campaign in 1995, appearing on education panels together, and donating $200
to Obama's campaign in April 2001[36][37][38]
According to Ayers, his radical past occasionally affects him, as when, by his
account, he was asked not to attend a progressive educators' conference in the
fall of 2006 on the basis that the organizers did not want to risk an association
with his past.[39]
Personal life
Ayers is married to Bernardine Dohrn, a fellow radical who he met during his time
with Weather Underground and with whom he has two adult children. They
shared legal guardianship of a third child, Chesa, who was Kathy Boudin's child
with David Gilbert. Chesa was raised to adulthood while both his parents were in
prison for the Brinks robbery. Ayers and Dohrn currently live in the Hyde Park
neighborhood of Chicago.[37][40]
Works
• Education: An American Problem. Bill Ayers, Radical Education Project, 1968,
ASIN B0007H31HU
• Hot town: Summer in the City: I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more, Bill
Ayers, Students for a Democratic Society, 1969, ASIN B0007I3CMI
• Good Preschool Teachers, William Ayers, Teachers College Press, 1989, ISBN
978-0807729472
• The Good Preschool Teacher: Six Teachers Reflect on Their Lives, William
Ayers, Teachers College Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0807729465
• To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, William Ayers, Teachers College Press,
1993, ISBN 978-0807732625
• To Become a Teacher: Making a Difference in Children's Lives, William Ayers,
Teachers College Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0807734551
• City Kids, City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row, William Ayers (Editor)
and Patricia Ford (Editor), New Press, 1996, ISBN 978-1565843288
• A Kind and Just Parent, William Ayers, Beacon Press, 1997, ISBN 978-
0807044025
• A Light in Dark Times: Maxine Greene and the Unfinished Conversation, Maxine
Greene (Editor), William Ayers (Editor), Janet L. Miller (Editor), Teachers
College Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0807737217
• Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader, William Ayers
(Editor), Jean Ann Hunt (Editor), Therese Quinn (Editor), 1998, ISBN 978-
1565844209
• Teacher Lore: Learning from Our Own Experience, William H. Schubert (Editor)
and William C. Ayers (Editor), Educator's International Press, 1999, ISBN 978-
1891928031
• Teaching from the Inside Out: The Eight-Fold Path to Creative Teaching and
Living, Sue Sommers (Author), William Ayers (Foreword), Authority Press,
2000, ISBN 978-1929059027
• A Simple Justice: The Challenge of Small Schools, William Ayers, Teachers
• Zero Tolerance: Resisting the Drive for Punishment, William Ayers (Editor),
Rick Ayers (Editor), Bernardine Dohrn (Editor), Jesse L. Jackson (Author), New
Press, 2001, ISBN 978-1565846661
• A School of Our Own: Parents, Power, and Community at the East Harlem Block
Schools, Tom Roderick (Author), William Ayers (Author), Teachers College
Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0807741573
• Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights, Cynthia Stokes
Brown (Author), William Ayers (Editor), Therese Quinn (Editor), Teachers
• On the Side of the Child: Summerhill Revisited, William Ayers, Teachers College
Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0807744000
• Fugitive Days: A Memoir, Bill Ayers, Beacon Press, 2001, ISBN 0807071242
(Penguin, 2003, ISBN 978-0142002551)
• Teaching the Personal and the Political: Essays on Hope and Justice, William
Ayers, Teachers College Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0807744611
• Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the
Classroom, William Ayers, Beacon Press, 2004, ISBN 978-080703269-5
• Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and Communiques of
the Weather Underground 1970-1974, Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, and Jeff
Jones, Seven Stories Press, 2006, ISBN 978-1583227268
• Handbook of Social Justice in Education, William C. Ayers, Routledge, June
2008, ISBN 978-0805859270
• City Kids, City Schools: More Reports from the Front Row, Ruby Dee
(Foreword), Jeff Chang (Afterword), William Ayers (Editor), Billings, Gloria
Ladson (Editor), Gregory Michie (Editor), Pedro Noguera (Editor), New Press,
August 2008, ISBN 978-1595583383
References
1. ^ a b c d e f Terry, Don (Chicago Tribune staff reporter, "The calm after the storm",
Chicago Tribune Magazine, p 10, September 16, 2001, June 8, 2008
2. ^ Obituary: Thomas Ayers Served as Board Chair from 1975 to
1986Northwestern University, June 19, 2007
3. ^ Thomas G Ayers, 1915-2007 Cinnamon Swirl, June 18, 2007
4. ^ a b c d Barber, David, "Fugitive Days; A Memoir - Book Review", Journal of
Social History, Winter 2002, retrieved June 10, 2008
5. ^ Before "going underground" he published an account of this experience,
Education: An American Problem.
6. ^ a b William Ayers University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education]
7. ^ Fugitive Days: A Memoir
8. ^ Cathy Wilkerson (2001-12-01). "Fugitive Days (book review)", Zmag
magazine.
9. ^ Jacobs, Ron, The way the wind blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
London & New York: Verso, 1997. ISBN 1-85984-167-8
10. ^ a b c Avrich. The Haymarket Tragedy, p. 431.
11. ^ Adelman. Haymarket Revisited, p. 40.
12. ^ Grathwohl, Larry, and Frank, Reagan, Bringing Down America: An FBI
Informant in with the Weathermen, Arlington House, 1977, page 110: "Ayers,
along with Bernardine Dohrn, probably had the most authority within the
Weatherman."
13. ^ Bill Ayers, Fugitive Days, pg. 261
14. ^ a b c d e Dinitia Smith, No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of
Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen, The New York Times,
September 11, 2001
15. ^ Marcia Froelke Coburn, No Regrets, Chicago Magazine, August 2001
16. ^ Staples, Brent, "The Oldest Rad", book review of Fugitive Days by Bill Ayers
in New York Times Book Review, September 30, 2001, accessed June 5, 2008
17. ^ Jesse Lemisch, Weather Underground Rises from the Ashes: They're Baack!,
New Politics, Summer 2006
18. ^ NB that although the interview was published on 9/11, it was completed prior to
that and cannot be properly construed as a reaction to the events of that day.
19. ^ Bill Ayers, Clarifying the Facts— a letter to the New York Times, 9-15-2001,
Bill Ayers (blog), April 21, 2008
20. ^ a b Bill Ayers, Episodic Notoriety–Fact and Fantasy, Bill Ayers (blog), April 6,
2008
21. ^ Bill Ayers, I'M SORRY!!!!... i think, Bill Ayers (blog)
22. ^ Ayers, Bill, letter to the editor, Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2001, retrieved
June 8, 2008
23. ^ Web page titled "Weather Underground/ Exclusive interview: Bernardine
Dohrn and Bill Ayers", Independent Lens website, accessed June 5, 2008
24. ^ Tapper, Jake In a Not-Remotely-Comic Strip, Bill Ayers Weighs In on What He
Meant By 'We Didn't Do Enough' to End Vietnam War ABC News, Political
Punch, September 9, 2008
25. ^ Chepesiuk, Ron, "Sixties Radicals, Then and Now: Candid Conversations With
Those Who Shaped the Era", McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers: Jefferson,
North Carolina, 1995, "Chapter 5: Bill Ayers: Radical Educator", p. 102
26. ^ Flint, Jerry, M., "2d Blast Victim's Life Is Traced: Miss Oughton Joined a
Radical Faction After College", news article, The New York Times, March 19,
1970
27. ^ Kifner, John, "That's what the Weathermen are supposed to be ... 'Vandals in
the Mother Country'", article, The New York Times magazine, January 4, 1970,
page 15
28. ^ Berger, Dan (2006). Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the
Politics of Solidarity. AK Press, 95.
29. ^ See document 5, Revolutionary Youth Movement (1969). ""You Don't Need a
Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows."". Retrieved on 2008-04-11.
30. ^ Franks, Lucinda, "U.S. Inquiry Finds 37 In Weather Underground", news
article, The New York Times, March 3, 1975
31. ^ Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew, p. 46.
32. ^ No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester
Talks of Life With the WeathermenNY Times, Sep 11, 2001
33. ^ Mike Dorning and Rick Pearson, Daley: Don't tar Obama for Ayers, The
Chicago Tribune, April 17, 2008
34. ^ Storch, Charles; Haynes, V. Dion (October 23, 1994). "Schools go after
windfall; Millions for reform could be holiday gift", Chicago Tribune, p. 1.
Storch, Charles; Haynes, V. Dion (January 21, 1995). "Philanthropist puts his
money on city schools", Chicago Tribune, p. 1.
Storch, Charles (January 23, 1995). "School reformers getting wish; Unity,
commitment led to $49.2 million gift", Chicago Tribune, p. 1.
Haynes, V. Dion; Heard, Jacquelyn (January 24, 1995). "A clear present;
Annenberg's millions bring hope to Chicago schools", Chicago Tribune, p. 1.
Ayers, William; Chapman, Warren; Hallett, Anne (January 31, 1995). "A booster
shot for Chicago's public schools", Chicago Tribune, p. 15 (Perspective).
Kipen, David (October 3, 2001). "Former '70s radical finds lessons in WTC
tragedy", San Francisco Chronicle, p. B1.
Weissmann, Dan (October 1994). "Reform group maps plan to spend $50
million". Catalyst: a publication of Community Renewal Society 6 (2): 24. ISSN
1058-6830.
Weissmann, Dan (March 1995). "Annenberg architects get ball rolling". Catalyst:
a publication of Community Renewal Society 6 (6): 20–1. ISSN 1058-6830.
Richardson, Lynette (June 1995). "Applications for Annenberg due out soon".
Catalyst: a publication of Community Renewal Society 6 (9): 20. ISSN 1058-
6830.
Shipps, Dorothy; Sconzert, Karin; Swyers, Holly (March 1999). The Chicago
Annenberg Challenge: The first three years. Chicago: Consortium on Chicago
School Research. OCLC 50759574.
35. ^ Burger, Timothy, J.,
[http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=adgAs9YOxRSc
"Obama's Ties Might Fuel `Republican Attack Machine' (Update2)", Bloomberg
News, February 15, 2008, retrieved August 30, 2008
36. ^ http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-
checker/2008/02/obamas_weatherman_connection.html#more
37. ^ a b Chris Fusco and Abdon M. Pallasch, Who is Bill Ayers?, Chicago Sun-
Times, April 18, 2008
38. ^ Illionois State Board of Elections,
http://www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisclosure/ContribListSearches.aspx?NavL
ink=1
39. ^ Interview with Bill Ayers: On Progressive Education, Critical Thinking and the
Cowardice of Some in Dangerous Times, Revolution, October 1, 2006
40. ^ http://billayers.wordpress.com/biography-history/
External links
• Bill Ayers—official website
o blog, CV
• Transcript of interview in 1996 with Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, PBS
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers"

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Ellyn, Illinois | University of Michigan alumni
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Weatherman (organization)

This article or section has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality.
Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page. (April 2008)
Weatherman
Or Weather Underground Organization
"Our signature was...letters of explanation....

Each letter had a logo hand-drawn
across the page...." — BILL AYERS[1]
Formation 1969–c. 1977
Type Revolutionary communist
Location United States of America

John Jacobs (center) and Terry Robbins (with sunglasses) at the Days of Rage, Chicago,
October 1969.
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather
Underground Organization, was an American radical left organization founded in
1969 by leaders and members who split from the Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS). The group organized a riot in Chicago in 1969 and bombed
buildings in the 1970s.
They took their name from the lyric "You don't need a weatherman to know which
way the wind blows," from the Bob Dylan song Subterranean Homesick Blues.
They also used this lyric as the title of a position paper they distributed at an SDS
convention in Chicago on June 18, 1969, as part of a special edition of New Left
Notes. The Weathermen were initially part of the Revolutionary Youth Movement
(RYM) within the SDS, splitting from the RYM's Maoists by claiming there was no
time to build a vanguard party and that revolutionary war against the United
States government and the capitalist system should begin immediately. Their
founding document called for the establishment of a "white fighting force" to be
allied with the "Black Liberation Movement" and other "anti-colonial"
movements[2] to achieve "the destruction of US imperialism and achieve a
classless world: world communism."[3]
The group's first public demonstration was the "Days of Rage," an October 8,
1969 riot in Chicago that was coordinated with the trial of the Chicago Eight.[4] In
1970 the group issued a "Declaration of a State of War" against the United
States government, under the name "Weather Underground Organization"
(WUO), and members adopted fake identities and pursued covert activities. They
carried out a campaign consisting of bombings, jailbreaks, and riots. Their
attacks were mostly bombings of government buildings, along with several
banks, police department headquarters and precincts, state and federal
courthouses, and state prison administrative offices.[5][6]
The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Apart from an apparently accidental premature detonation of a bomb in the

Greenwich Village townhouse explosion which killed three of Weatherman's own
members, no one was ever harmed in the extensive bombing campaign, as
WUO issued warnings in advance to ensure a safe evacuation of the area prior
to detonation.[7][8] However, according to Mark Rudd, one of the founders of the
Weathermen, the group that constructed the bomb that exploded prematurely in
Greenwich Village had planned to set it off at a dance in an Army NCO club,
which presumably would have had lethal consequences. [1] Their activities have
often been characterized as domestic terrorism,[9] including a later description by
the FBI.[10]
The evacuation warning issued in their communiqués included statements
indicating the particular event to which they were responding. For the bombing of
the United States Capitol on March 1, 1971, they issued a statement saying it
was "in protest of the US invasion of Laos." For the bombing of The Pentagon on
May 19, 1972, they stated it was "in retaliation for the US bombing raid in Hanoi."
For the January 29, 1975 bombing of the Harry S Truman Building housing the
United States Department of State, they stated it was "in response to escalation
in Vietnam."[7] The Weathermen largely disintegrated shortly after the US
reached a peace accord in Vietnam in 1973 , which saw the general decline of
the New Left.
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Terrorist Classification
• 2 Background and formation
o 2.1 SDS Convention, 1969
o 2.2 Ideology
• 3 Activities
o 3.1 "Days of Rage"
o 3.2 Declaration of a State of War
o 3.3 Anti-personnel bomb set on window-ledge in San Francisco
o 3.4 Initial New York City Bombings
o 3.5 Greenwich Village explosion
o 3.6 Underground
o 3.7 Prairie Fire
o 3.8 Timothy Leary prison break
o 3.9 Brinks Armed Robbery of 1981
• 4 Dissolution and aftermath
o 4.1 COINTELPRO
o 4.2 Dissolution
o 4.3 Today
o 4.4 Weatherman documentaries
• 5 Chronology of events
• 6 Members
• 7 See also
• 8 Further reading
• 9 References
[edit] Terrorist Classification
The neutrality of this section is disputed.

Since 1970 the Weatherman organization has often, but not always, been
classified in America as a domestic terrorist organization. "Within the political
youth movement of the late sixties (outside of Latin America), the 'Weathermen'
were the first group to reach the front page because of terrorist activities," wrote
Klaus Mehnert in his 1977 book, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements
of the 1960s and Their Legacy".[11] Neil A. Hamilton, in his 1996 book on militia
movements in the United States, wrote, "By and large, though, these
Weathermen did not rely on arming and training militia; instead, they resorted to
terrorism."[12]
Starting in 1970 newspapers covering their bombing of public buildings identified
the group as "terrorist".[13] Michael Charney, a spokesman for the rival Oberlin
Radical Coalition, told The New York Times that year that the Weathermen
resorted to terrorism because Americans were unwilling to participate in a
revolution. Thomas Powers and Lucinda Franks wrote the Pulitzer-prize-winning
news series, "Diana: The Making of a Terrorist" about the life and death of
member Diana Oughton (later expanded into a full-length authorized biography
on the subject). The group fell under the auspicies of FBI-New York City Police
Anti Terrorist Task Force, a forerunner of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces.
The FBI, on its website, describes organization as having been a "domestic
terrorist group", but no longer an active concern.[14]
Others either dispute or clarify the categorization, or justify the group's violence
as an appropriate response to the Vietnam war. In his 2001 book about his
Weatherman experiences, Bill Ayers stated his objection to describing the WUO
(Weather Underground Organization) as "terrorist". Ayers wrote: "Terrorists
terrorize, they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and agitated. Terrorists
destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut
diamond. Terrorists indimidate, while we aimed only to educate. No, we're not
terrorists."[15] Dan Berger, in his book about the Weatherman, Outlaws in
America, quotes Ayers' objection, then adds, The WUO's actions were more than
just educational — one could argue that there was a component of 'intimidating'
the government and police attached to the actions — but the group purposefully
and successfully avoided injuring anyone, not just civilians but armed enforcers
of the government. Its war against property by definition means that the WUO
was not a terrorist organization — it was, indeed, one deeply opposed to the
tactic of terrorism." Berger also describes the organization's activities as "a
moral, pedagogical, and militant form of guerrilla theater with a bang."[16]
[edit] Background and formation

The group emerged from the campus-based opposition to the Vietnam War, as
well as the Civil Rights Movements of the late 1960s. During this time, United
States military action in Southeast Asia, especially in Vietnam, escalated. In the
U.S., the anti-war sentiment was particularly pronounced during the 1968 U.S.
presidential election.
The origins of the Weathermen can be traced to the collapse and fragmentation
of the Students for a Democratic Society. The split between the mainstream
leadership of SDS, or "National Office," and the Progressive Labor Party pushed
SDS as a whole further to the left. National Office leaders such as Bernardine
Dohrn and Mike Klonsky began announcing their emerging perspectives, and
Klonksy published a document entitled "Toward a Revolutionary Youth
Movement" (RYM). RYM promoted the philosophy that young workers possessed
the potential to be a revolutionary force to overthrow capitalism, if not by
themselves then by transmitting radical ideas to the working class. Klonsky's
document reflected the growing leftist philosophy of the National Office and was
eventually adopted as official SDS doctrine. During the Summer of 1969, the
National Office began to split. A group led by Klonsky became known as RYM II,
and the other side, RYM I, was led by Dohrn and endorsed more aggressive
tactics, as some members felt that years of non-violent resistance had done little
or nothing to stop the Vietnam War.[7]
We petitioned, we demonstrated, we sat in. I was willing to get hit

over the head, I did; I was willing to go to prison, I did. To me, it
was a question of what had to be done to stop the much greater
violence that was going on.
—David Gilbert[7]
[edit] SDS Convention, 1969
At an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18, 1969, the National Office

attempted to convince unaffiliated delegates not to endorse Progressive Labor
ideals. At the beginning of the convention, two position papers were passed out
by the National Office leadership, one a revised statement of Klonksy's RYM
manifesto, the other called "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way
the Wind Blows." The latter document outlined the position of the group that
would become the Weathermen. It had been signed by 11 people, including Mark
Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn, John Jacobs, Bill Ayers, Jim Mellen, Terry Robbins,
Karen Ashley, Jeff Jones, Gerry Long, and Steve Tappis.
After the summer of 1969 fragmentation of Students for a Democratic Society,
Weatherman's adherents explicitly claimed themselves the real leaders of SDS
and retained control of the SDS National Office. Thereafter, any leaflet, label, or
logo bearing the name "Students for a Democratic Society" or "SDS" was in fact
the views and politics of Weatherman, and not of SDS as a whole. Weatherman
contained the vast majority of former SDS National Committee members,
including Mark Rudd, David Gilbert and Bernadine Dohrn. For this reason, the
group, while small, was able to easily commandeer the mantle of SDS and all of
its membership lists. For a brief time, affiliations with regional SDS cadre were
maintained from the National Office, but with Weatherman in charge the
relationships did not last long, and local chapters soon disbanded. By February
1970, the group had decided to close the SDS National Office, concluding the
major campus-based organization of the 1960s.
[edit] Ideology
The name Weatherman was derived from the Bob Dylan song “Subterranean
Homesick Blues”, which featured the lyrics “You don’t need a weatherman to
know which way the wind blows.” The lyrics had been quoted at the bottom of an
influential essay in the SDS newspaper, New Left Notes. Using this title the
Weathermen meant, partially, to appeal to the segment of American youth
inspired to action for social justice by Dylan’s songs. It appears also that the
“Weatherman” moniker used by the group may have been meant as a rebuke
against the Progressive Labor Party, whose Worker Student Alliance SDS faction
had succeeded in recruiting many former SDSers to its ranks, and had allegedly
co-opted the 1969 convention.
The Weatherman group had long held that militancy was becoming more
important than nonviolent forms of anti-war action, and that university-campus-
based demonstrations needed to be punctuated with more dramatic actions,
which had the potential to interfere with the U.S. military and internal security
apparatus. The belief was that these types of urban guerrilla actions would act as
a catalyst for the coming revolution. Many international events indeed seemed to
support the Weathermen’s overall assertion that worldwide revolution was
imminent, such as the tumultuous Cultural Revolution in China; the 1968 student
revolts in France, Mexico City and elsewhere; the Prague Spring; the emergence
of the Tupamaros organization in Uruguay; the emergence of the Guinea-
Bissauan Revolution and similar Marxist-led independence movements
throughout Africa; and within the United States, the prominence of the Black
Panther Party together with a series of “ghetto rebellions” throughout poor black
neighborhoods across the country.[17]
We felt that doing nothing in a period of repressive violence is itself

a form of violence. That's really the part that I think is the hardest
for people to understand. If you sit in your house, live your white life
and go to your white job, and allow the country that you live in to
murder people and to commit genocide, and you sit there and you
don't do anything about it, that's violence.
—Naomi Jaffe[7]
The Weathermen were outspoken advocates of the critical concepts that later
came to be known as “white privilege” and identity politics.[citation needed] As the
unrest in poor black neighborhoods intensified in the early 1970s, Bernardine
Dohrn said, “White youth must choose sides now. They must either fight on the
side of the oppressed, or be on the side of the oppressor.”[7]
[edit] Activities
[edit] "Days of Rage"
Main article: Days of Rage
Haymarket Square police memorial (1889 photo)

One of the first things the Weathermen did upon splitting from SDS was to
announce that they would hold the "Days of Rage" that fall. The event was
advertised with the slogan "Bring the war home!" Hoping to cause chaos on a
level able to "wake" the American public out of what the group saw as the
public's complacency toward the role of the US in the Vietnam War that claimed
the lives of between 3 and 5 million Vietnamese, the Weathermen wanted the
event to be the largest-scale protest the decade had seen. The Weathermen had
been told by their regional cadre to expect thousands in attendance, but when
they arrived, they found a crowd of only a few hundred people. According to Bill
Ayers, "The Days of Rage was an attempt to break from the norms of kind of
acceptable theatre of 'here are the anti-war people: containable, marginal,
predictable, and here's the little path they're going to march down, and here's
where they can make their little statement.' We wanted to say, "No, what we're
going to do is whatever we had to do to stop the violence in Vietnam.'"[7]
Shortly before the demonstrations, they blew up a statue dedicated to police
casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot (right), placing a bomb between its legs.[18]
The blast broke nearly 100 windows and scattered pieces of the statue onto the
Kennedy Expressway below.[19] The statue was rebuilt and unveiled on May 4,
1970, and then blown up again by Weatherman on October 6, 1970.[20][19] The
statue was again rebuilt and Mayor Richard J. Daley posted a 24-hour police
guard at the statue.[19]
Although the October 8, 1969 rally in Chicago had failed to draw as many
participants as they had anticipated (originally expecting 10,000), the estimated
two to three hundred who did attend shocked police by leading a riot through the
affluent Gold Coast neighborhood, smashing windows of a bank and then those
of many cars. The mass of the crowd ran about four blocks before encountering
police barricades. The mob charged the police but splintered into small groups,
and more than 1,000 police counter-attacked. Although many protesters were
wearing motorcycle or football helmets, the police were better trained and armed
and nightsticks were aimed at necks, legs and groins. Large amounts of tear gas
were used, and at least twice police ran squad cars full speed into crowds. The
riot lasted approximately half an hour, with 28 policemen injured (none seriously),
six Weathermen shot by police, an unknown number injured, and 68 protesters
arrested.[2][18][21][22]
For the next two days, Weatherman held no rallies or protests. Supporters of the
RYM II movement, led by Klonsky and Noel Ignatin, held peaceful rallies of
several hundred people in front of the federal courthouse, an International
Harvester factory, and Cook County Hospital. The largest event of the Days of
Rage occurred on Friday, October 9, when RYM II led an interracial march of
2,000 people through a Spanish-speaking part of Chicago.[2][21]
On Saturday, October 10, Weatherman attempted to regroup and resume their
demonstrations. Approximately 300 protesters marched swiftly through The
Loop, Chicago's main business district, watched over by a double-line of heavily
armed police. The protesters suddenly broke through the police lines and
rampaged through the Loop, smashing windows of cars and stores. But the
police were prepared, and quickly sealed off the protesters. Within 15 minutes,
more than half the crowd had been arrested.[2][21]
The Days of Rage cost Chicago and the state of Illinois approximately $183,000
($100,000 for National Guard payroll, $35,000 in damages, and $20,000 for one
injured citizen's medical expenses). Most of the Weathermen and SDS leaders
were jailed, and the Weatherman bank account was emptied of more than
$243,000 in order to pay for bail.[22]
[edit] Declaration of a State of War
Fred Hampton
In December 1969, the Chicago Police Department, in conjunction with the FBI,
conducted a raid on the home of Black Panther Fred Hampton, in which he and
Mark Clark were killed, with four of the seven other people in the apartment
wounded. The survivors of the raid were all charged with assault and attempted
murder. The police claimed they shot in self-defense, although a controversy
arose when the Panthers and other activists presented what was alleged to be
evidence suggesting that the sleeping Panthers were not resisting arrest. The
charges were later dropped, and the families of the dead won a $1.8 million
settlement from the government. It was discovered in 1971 that Hampton had
been targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO.[23][24]
We felt that the murder of Fred required us to be more grave, more

serious, more determined to raise the stakes and not just be the
white people who wrung their hands when black people were being
murdered.
—Bernadine Dohrn[7]
In 1970 the group issued a "Declaration of a State of War" against the United
States government, using for the first time its new name, the "Weather
Underground Organization" (WUO), adopting fake identities, and pursuing covert
activities only. These initially included preparations for a bombing of a U.S.
military non-commissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey in what Brian
Flanagan said had been intended to be "the most horrific hit the United States
government had ever suffered on its territory".[25]
[edit] Anti-personnel bomb set on window-ledge in San Francisco
Brian V. McDonnell, a sergeant with the San Franscisco Police Department who received
fatal shrapnel wounds from a Weatherman pipe bomb set off on February 16, 1970.
In a bombing that took place on February 16, 1970, and that was credited to the
Weathermen at the time,[26][27] a pipe bomb filled with heavy metal staples and
lead bullet projectiles was set off on the ledge of a window at the Park Station of
the San Francisco Police Department. In the blast, Brian V. McDonnell, a police
sergeant, was fatally wounded while Robert Fogarty, another police officer,
received severe wounds to his face and legs and was partially blinded.[28]
Weatherman leader Bernardine Dohrn has been suspected of involvement in the
February 16, 1970, bombing of the Park Police Station in San Francisco. At the
time, Dohrn was said to be living with a Weatherman cell in a houseboat in
Sausalito, California, unnamed law enforcement sources later told KRON-TV.[29]
An investigation into the case was reopened in 1999,[30] and a San Francisco
grand jury looked into the incident, but no indictments followed,[29] and no one
was ever arrested for the bombing.[30] An FBI informant, Larry Grathwohl, who
successfully penetrated the organization from the late summer of 1969 until April
1970, later testified to a U.S. Senate subcommittee that Bill Ayers, then a high-
ranking member of the organization and a member of its Central Committee (but
not then Dohrn's husband), had said Dohrn constructed and planted the bomb.
Grathwohl testified that Ayers had told him specifically where the bomb was
placed (on a window ledge) and what kind of shrapnel was put in it. Grathwohl
said Ayers was emphatic, leading Grathwohl to believe Ayers either was present
at some point during the operation or had heard about it from someone who was
there.[31] In a book about his experiences published in 1976, Grathwohl wrote that
Ayers, who had recently attended a meeting of the group's Central Committee,
said Dohrn had planned the operation, made the bomb and placed it herself.[32] In
2008, author David Freddoso commented that "Ayers and Dohrn escaped
prosecution only because of government misconduct in collecting evidence
against them".[31][33]
[edit] Initial New York City Bombings
Early on the morning of February 21, 1970 as his family slept, three gasoline-
filled firebombs exploded at at home of New York State Supreme Court Justice
Murtagh at the northern tip of Manhattan. The same night, bombs were thrown at
a police car in Manhattan and two military recruiting stations in Brooklyn.
Judge Murtagh was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,”
members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York
landmarks and department stores. The side-walk in front of his home had three
sentences of blood-red graffiti: "FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG
HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS."
Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen
blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse (see
below). The same cell had bombed Judge Murtagh's house, according to Ron
Jacobs in The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. In
late November of 1970, a letter to the Associated Press signed by Bernardine
Dohrn, now Bill Ayers's wife, promised more bombings.[34]
[edit] Greenwich Village explosion
Main article: Greenwich Village townhouse explosion

On March 6, 1970, during preparations for the bombing of an officers' dance at
the Fort Dix U.S. Army base and for Butler Library at Columbia University,[35]
there was an explosion in a Greenwich Village safe house when the bomb being
constructed prematurely detonated due to a wiring malfunction. WUO members
Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins died in the explosion. Cathy
Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin escaped unharmed, Wilkerson running naked from
the apartment. It was an accident of history that the site of the Village explosion
was the former residence of Merrill Lynch brokerage firm founder Charles Merrill
and his son, the poet James Merrill. The younger Merrill subsequently recorded
the event in his poem 18 West 11th Street, the title being the address of the
house. An FBI report later stated that the group had possessed sufficient
amounts of explosive to "level ... both sides of the street".[36]
The bomb preparations have been pointed out by critics of the claim that the
Weatherman group did not try to take lives with its bombings. Harvey Klehr, the
Andrew W. Mellon professor of politics and history at Emory University in Atlanta,
said in 2003, "The only reason they were not guilty of mass murder is mere
incompetence. I don't know what sort of defense that is."[35]
[edit] Underground
After the Greenwich Village incident, the group was now well underground, and
began to refer to themselves as the Weather Underground Organization. At this
juncture, WUO shrank considerably, becoming even fewer than they had been
when first formed. The group was devastated by the loss of their friends, and in
late April, 1970, members of the Weathermen met in California to discuss what
had happened in New York and the future of the organization. The group decided
to reevaluate their strategy, particularly in regard to their initial belief in the
acceptability of human casualties, rejecting such tactics as kidnapping and
assassinations.
They wanted to convince the American public that the United States was truly
responsible for the calamity in Vietnam.[7] The group began striking at night,
bombing empty offices, with warnings always issued in advance to ensure a safe
evacuation. According to David Gilbert, "[their] goal was to not hurt any people,
and a lot of work went into that. But we wanted to pick targets that showed to the
public who was responsible for what was really going on."[7] After the Greenwich
Village explosion, no one was killed by WUO bombs.[8]
We were very careful from the moment of the townhouse on to be

sure we weren't going to hurt anybody, and we never did hurt
anybody. Whenever we put a bomb in a public space, we had
figured out all kinds of ways to put checks and balances on the
thing and also to get people away from it, and we were remarkably
successful.
—Bill Ayers[7]
Investigators search for clues after the May 19, 1972 Weatherman bombing of the
Pentagon
On May 21, 1970, a communiqué from the Weather Underground was issued
promising to attack a "symbol or institution of American injustice" within two
weeks.[37] The communiqué included taunts towards the FBI, daring them to try
and find the group, whose members were spread throughout the United
States.[38] Many leftist organizations showed curiosity in the communiqué, and
waited to see if the act would in fact occur. However, two weeks would pass
without any occurrence.[39] Then on June 9, 1970, their first publicly
acknowledged bombing occurred at a New York City police station,[40] saying it
was "in outraged response to the assassination of the Soledad Brother George
Jackson,"[7] who had recently been killed by prison guards in an escape attempt.
The FBI placed the Weather Underground organization on the ten most-wanted
list by the end of 1970.[18] On May 19, 1972, Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, The
Weather Underground placed a bomb in the women’s bathroom in the Air Force
wing of The Pentagon. The damage caused flooding that devastated vital
classified information on computer tapes. Leftist groups worldwide applauded the
bombing, illustrated by German youth protesting against American military
systems in Frankfurt.[18]
[edit] Prairie Fire
The Weather Underground’s ideology changed direction in the early 1970’s. With
help from former Progressive Labor member, Clayton Van Lydegraf, The
Weather Underground sought a more Marxist-Leninist approach. The leading
members of the Weather Underground collaborated ideas and published their
manifesto: "Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism."[18] By the
summer of 1974, five thousand copies had surfaced in coffee houses and
bookstores across America. Leftist newspapers praised the manifesto.[41] Abbie
Hoffman publicly praised Prairie Fire and believed every American should be
given a copy.[42] The manifesto’s influence initiated the formation of the 'Prairie
Fire Organizing Committee' in several American cities. Hundreds of above-
ground activists helped further the new political vision of the Weather
Underground.[41] In the late 1970s, the Weatherman group further split into two
factions — the "May 19 Coalition" and the "Prairie Fire Collective" — with
Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers in the latter. The Prairie Fire Collective favored
coming out of hiding, with members facing the criminal charges against them,
while the May 19 Coalition continued in hiding. A decisive factor in Dohrn's
coming out of hiding were her concerns about her children[citation needed]. The
Prairie Fire Collective started to surrender to the authorities from the late 1970s
to the early 1980s. The remaining Weatherman Underground members
continued to violently attack US institutions.
[edit] Timothy Leary prison break
In September 1970, the group took a $25,000 payment from a psychedelics

distribution organization called The Brotherhood of Eternal Love to break LSD
advocate Timothy Leary out of prison[citation needed], transporting him and his wife to
Algeria. Leary joined Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria; his initial press release contains
revolutionary rhetoric sympathetic to the Weather Underground's cause. When
Leary was eventually captured by the FBI, it is alleged he offered to serve as an
informant to capture the Weather Underground members to reduce his prison
sentence. Others, such as Robert Anton Wilson, claim he was just feeding false
information to the authorities in an attempt to reduce his sentence. Ultimately no
one was charged, and Leary served a few more years in prison.[citation needed]
[edit] Brinks Armed Robbery of 1981
Main article: Brinks robbery (1981)

On October 20, 1981 the Weather Underground combined forces with the Black
Liberation Army to rob a Brink's armored truck. Two policemen and a Brink's
guard were killed. The Black Liberation Army members Jeral Wayne Williams
(aka Mutulu Shakur), Donald Weems (aka Kuwasi Balagoon), Samuel Smith and
Nathaniel Burns (aka Sekou Odinga), Cecilio "Chui" Ferguson, Samuel Brown
(aka Solomon Bouines) with five members of the Weather Underground (David
Gilbert, Samuel Brown, Judith Alice Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Marilyn Buck) stole
$1.6 million from a Brink's armored car at the Nanuet Mall, in Nanuet, New York.
All the perpertrators were eventually captured and tried. Kathy Boudin's child with
David Gilbert, Chesa, was raised to adulthood by Bill Ayers and Bernadine
Dohrn, while she was in prison.
[edit] Dissolution and aftermath

[edit] COINTELPRO
Main article: COINTELPRO

In April 1971, The "Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI" broke into an
FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania.[43] The group stole files with several hundred
pages, 98% of the files targeted left wing individuals and groups. By the end of
April, the FBI offices were to terminate all files dealing with leftist groups.[44] The
files were a part of an FBI program called COINTELPRO.[45] However, after
COINTELPRO was dissolved in 1971 by J. Edgar Hoover,[46] the FBI continued
its counterintelligence on groups like the Weather Underground. In 1973, the FBI
established the 'Special Target Information Development' program, where agents
were sent undercover to penetrate the Weather Underground. Due to the illegal
tactics of FBI agents involved with the program, government attorneys requested
all weapons- and bomb-related charges be dropped against the Weather
Underground. The Weather Underground was no longer a fugitive organization
and could turn themselves in with minimal charges against them.[47]
FBI agent W. Mark Felt, along with Edward S. Miller, authorized FBI agents to
break into homes secretly in 1972 and 1973, without a search warrant, on nine
separate occasions. These kinds of FBI burglaries were known as "black bag
jobs". The break-ins occurred at five addresses in New York and New Jersey, at
the homes of relatives and acquaintances of Weather Underground members,
and did not lead to the capture of any fugitives. The use of "black bag jobs" by
the FBI was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the
Plamondon case, 407 U.S. 297 (1972).
After the Church Committee revealed the FBI's illegal activities, many agents
were investigated. Felt in 1976 publicly stated he had ordered break-ins and that
individual agents were merely obeying orders and should not be punished for it.
Felt also stated that Gray also authorized the break-ins, but Gray denied this.
Felt said on the CBS television program Face the Nation that he would probably
be a "scapegoat" for the Bureau's work.[48] "I think this is justified and I'd do it
again tomorrow", he said on the program. While admitting the break-ins were
"extralegal", he justified it as protecting the "greater good". Felt said:
To not take action against these people and know of a bombing in

advance would simply be to stick your fingers in your ears and
protect your eardrums when the explosion went off and then start
the investigation.
The Attorney General in the new Carter administration, Griffin B. Bell,

investigated, and on April 10, 1978, a federal grand jury charged Felt, Miller and
Gray with conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens by
searching their homes without warrants, though Gray's case did not go to trial
and was dropped by the government for lack of evidence on December 11, 1980.
The indictment charged violations of Title 18, Section 241 of the United States
Code. The indictment charged Felt and the others
did unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly combine, conspire,

confederate, and agree together and with each other to injure and
oppress citizens of the United States who were relatives and
acquaintances of the Weatherman fugitives, in the free exercise
and enjoyments of certain rights and privileges secured to them by
the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.[49]
Felt and Miller attempted to plea bargain with the government, willing to agree to
a misdemeanor guilty plea to conducting searches without warrants—a violation
of 18 U.S.C. sec. 2236—but the government rejected the offer in 1979. After
eight postponements, the case against Felt and Miller went to trial in the United
States District Court for the District of Columbia on September 18, 1980.[50] On
October 29, former President Richard M. Nixon appeared as a rebuttal witness
for the defense, and testified that presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had
authorized the bureau to engage in break-ins while conducting foreign
intelligence and counterespionage investigations.[51] It was Nixon's first courtroom
appearance since his resignation in 1974. Nixon also contributed money to Felt's
legal defense fund, Felt's expenses running over $600,000. Also testifying were
former Attorneys General Herbert Brownell, Jr., Nicholas deB. Katzenbach,
Ramsey Clark, John N. Mitchell, and Richard G. Kleindienst, all of whom said
warrantless searches in national security matters were commonplace and not
understood to be illegal, but Mitchell and Kleindienst denied they had authorized
any of the break-ins at issue in the trial.
The jury returned guilty verdicts on November 6, 1980. Although the charge
carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, Felt was fined $5,000. (Miller
was fined $3,500).[52] Writing in The New York Times a week after the conviction,
Roy Cohn claimed that Felt and Miller were being used as scapegoats by the
Carter administration and that it was an unfair prosecution. Cohn wrote it was the
"final dirty trick" and that there had been no "personal motive" to their actions.[53]
The Times saluted the convictions, saying that it showed "the case has
established that zeal is no excuse for violating the Constitution".[54] Felt and Miller
appealed the verdict, and they were later pardoned by Ronald Reagan.[55]
[edit] Dissolution
Despite the change in their status the Weather Underground remained

underground for a few more years. However, by 1976 the organization was
disintegrating. The Weather Underground held a conference in Chicago called
Hard Times. The idea was to create an umbrella organization for all radical
groups. However, the event turned sour when Hispanic and Black groups
accused the Weather Underground and the Prairie Fire Committee of limiting
their roles in racial issues.[47] The conference enhanced a division within the
Weather Underground. The Weather Underground faced accusations of
abandonment of the revolution by reversing their original ideology.
East coast members favored a commitment to violence and challenged
commitments of old leaders, Bernadine Dohrn, Bill Ayers and Jeff Jones. By the
end of 1976, the Weather Underground would collapse.[56] Within two years,
many members turned themselves in after taking advantage of President Jimmy
Carter’s amnesty for draft dodgers.[18]
Mark Rudd turned himself in to authorities on January 20, 1978. Rudd was fined
$4,000 and received two years probation.[18] Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers
turned themselves in on December 3, 1980, in New York, with substantial media
coverage. Charges were dropped for Ayers. Dohrn received three years
probation and a $15,000 fine.[18]
Certain members remained underground and joined other radical groups. Years
after the dissolution of the WUO, former members Kathy Boudin, Judith Alice
Clark, and David Gilbert formed the May 19 Communist Organization, which
eventually joined with the Black Liberation Army. On October 20, 1981, in Nyack
New York, the group attempted to rob a Brinks armored truck containing more
than $1 million. The robbery turned violent, resulting in the murder of two police
officers and a security guard.[18] Boudin, Clark, and Gilbert were found guilty and
sentenced to lengthy terms in prison, considered the “last gasps” of the Weather
Underground.[57]
[edit] Today
Widely-known members of the Weather Underground include Kathy Boudin,

Mark Rudd, Terry Robbins, Ted Gold, Naomi Jaffe, Cathy Wilkerson, Jeff Jones,
David Gilbert, Susan Stern, Bob Tomashevsky, Sam Karp, Russell Neufeld, Joe
Kelly, Laura Whitehorn and the still-married couple Bernardine Dohrn and Bill
Ayers. Most former Weathermen have successfully re-integrated into mainstream
society, without necessarily repudiating their original intent.
Bill Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago,
was quoted in an interview to say "I don't regret setting bombs"[58] but has since
claimed he was misquoted.[59] Brian Flanagan has expressed regret for his
actions during the Weatherman years, and compared the group's activities to
terrorism. Flanagan said: "When you feel that you have right on your side, you
can do some pretty horrific things."[60] Mark Rudd, now a teacher of mathematics
at Central New Mexico Community College, has said he has "mixed feelings" and
feelings of "guilt and shame".
These are things I am not proud of, and I find it hard to speak
publicly about them and to tease out what was right from what was
wrong. I think that part of the Weatherman phenomenon that was
right was our understanding of what the position of the United
States is in the world. It was this knowledge that we just couldn't
handle; it was too big. We didn't know what to do. In a way I still
don't know what to do with this knowledge. I don't know what needs
to be done now, and it's still eating away at me just as it did 30
years ago.
—Mark Rudd[7]
A non-violent faction of the Weather Underground continues today as the Prairie

Fire Organizing Committee. Their official site reads:
We oppose oppression in all its forms including racism, sexism, homophobia,
classism and imperialism. We demand liberation and justice for all peoples. We
recognize that we live in a capitalist system that favors a select few and oppresses
the majority. This system cannot be reformed or voted out of office because
reforms and elections do not challenge the fundamental causes of injustice.[61]
[edit] Weatherman documentaries
The WU insisted that Emile de Antonio shoot the documentary Underground in

1976. However, a much more extensive, widespread, and critically-acclaimed
documentary emerged in 2002 with the Oscar-nominated The Weather
Underground by filmmakers Bill Siegel and Sam Green. A little seen film called
Ice had several WU members in a somewhat fictionalized revolutionary setting.
[edit] Chronology of events
This section needs additional citations for verification.

Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (May 2008)
• 18-June 22, 1969 – SDS National Convention held in Chicago, Illinois.

Publication of "Weatherman" founding statement. Members seize control of SDS
National Office.
• July, 1969 – Members Bernardine Dohrn, Eleanor Raskin, Dianne Donghi, Peter
Clapp, David Millstone and Diana Oughton travel to Cuba and meet
representatives of the North Vietnamese and Cuban governments.
• August 1969 – Weatherman member Linda Sue Evans travels to North Vietnam.
Weatherman activists meet in Cleveland, Ohio, in preparation for "Days of Rage"
protests scheduled for October, 1969 in Chicago.
• September 4, 1969 – Female members converge on South Hills High School in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they run through the school shouting anti-war
slogans and distributing literature promoting the “National Action.” The term
"Pittsburgh 26" refers to the 26 women arrested in connection with this incident.
• September 24, 1969 – A group of members confront Chicago Police during a

demonstration supporting the "National Action," and protesting the
commencement of the Chicago Eight trial stemming from the 1968 Democratic
National Convention.
• October 7, 1969 – The Haymarket Police Statue in Chicago is bombed; The

Weathermen later claim credit for the bombing in their book, Prairie Fire.
• October 8-11, 1969 – The "Days of Rage" riots occur in Chicago, damaging a
large amount of property. 287 Weatherman members are arrested, and some
become fugitives when they fail to appear for trial in connection with their arrests.
• November-December, 1969 – A small number of Weatherman members join the

first contingent of the Venceremos Brigade (VB) that departs for Cuba to harvest
sugar cane.
• December 6, 1969 – Bombing of several Chicago Police cars parked in a precinct

parking lot at 3600 North Halsted Street, Chicago. The WUO claims
responsibility in Prairie Fire, stating it is a protest of the fatal police shooting of
Illinois Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark on December
4, 1969.
• December 27-31, 1969 – The Weathermen hold a "War Council" in Flint,

Michigan, where they finalize their plans to change into an underground
organization that will commit strategic acts of sabotage against the government.
Thereafter they are called the "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO).
• February, 1970 – The WUO closes the SDS National Office in Chicago,
concluding the major campus-based organization of the 1960s. The first
contingent of the VB returns from Cuba and the second contingent departs. By
mid-February the bulk of the leading WUO members go underground.
• February 13, 1970 - Several police vehicles of the Berkeley, California, Police
Department are bombed in the police parking lot; February 16, 1970: A bomb is
detonated at the Golden Gate Park branch of the San Francisco Police
Department, killing one officer and injuring a number of other policemen. No
organization claims credit for either bombing.
• March, 1970 – Warrants are issued for several WUO members, who become
federal fugitives when they fail to appear for trial in Chicago.
• March 6, 1970 – 34 sticks of dynamite are discovered in the 13th Police District
of Detroit, Michigan. During February and early March, 1970, members of the
WUO, led by Bill Ayers, are reported to be in Detroit, for the purpose of bombing
a police facility.[citation needed]
• March 6, 1970 – WUO members Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry
Robbins are killed in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, when a
nailbomb they were constructing detonates. The bomb was intended to be planted
at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
• March 30, 1970 – Chicago Police discover a WUO "bomb factory" on Chicago’s
north side. A subsequent discovery of a WUO "weapons cache" in a south side
Chicago apartment several days later ends WUO activity in the city.
• April, 1970 – The FBI arrests WUO members Linda Sue Evans and Dianne
Donghi are arrested in New York.
• April 2, 1970 – A federal grand jury in Chicago returns a number of indictments

charging WUO members with violation of federal anti-riot laws. Also, a number
of additional federal warrants charging "unlawful flight to avoid prosecution" are
returned in Chicago based on the failure of WUO members to appear for trial in
local cases. (The Anti-riot Law charges were later dropped in January, 1974.)
• May 10, 1970 – The National Guard Association building in Washington, D.C. is
bombed.[citation needed]
• May 21, 1970 – The WUO releases its "Declaration of a State of War"
communique under Bernardine Dohrn's name.
• June 6, 1970 – In a letter, the WUO claims credit for bombing of the San
Francisco Hall of Justice, although no explosion has occurred. Months later,
workmen locate an unexploded bomb.[citation needed]
• June 9, 1970 - The New York City Police headquarters is bombed by Jane Alpert
and accomplices. The Weathermen state this is in response to "police
repression."[citation needed]
• July 23, 1970 – A federal grand jury in Detroit, Michigan, returns indictments
against a number of underground WUO members and former WUO members
charging violations of various explosives and firearms laws. (These indictments
were later dropped in October, 1973.)
• July 27, 1970 - The United States Army base at The Presidio in San Francisco is
bombed on the 11th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. [NYT, 7/27/70]
• September 12, 1970 – The WUO helps Dr. Timothy Leary escape from the
California Men's Colony prison.
• October 8, 1970 - Bombing of Marin County courthouse. WUO states this is in

retaliation for the killings of Jonathan Jackson, William Christmas, and James
McClain. [NYT, 8/10/70]
• October 10, 1970 - A Queens traffic-court building is bombed. WUO claims this
is to express support for the New York prison riots. [NYT, 10/10/70, p. 12]
• October 14, 1970 - The Harvard Center for International Affairs is bombed. WUO
claims this is to protest the war in Vietnam. [NYT, 10/14/70, p. 30]
• December, 1970 – Fugitive WUO member Caroline Tanker, who fled the country
for Cuba, is arrested by the FBI in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Fugitive WUO
member Judith Alice Clark is arrested by the FBI in New York.
• March 1, 1971 - The United States Capitol is bombed. WUO states this is to
protest the invasion of Laos. President Richard M. Nixon denounces the bombing
as a "shocking act of violence that will outrage all Americans." [NYT, 3/2/71]
• April, 1971 – FBI agents discover an abandoned WUO "bomb factory" in San
Francisco, California.
• August 29, 1971 - Bombing of the Office of California Prisons, allegedly in

retaliation for the killing of George Jackson. [LAT, 8/29/71]
• September 17, 1971 - The New York Department of Corrections in Albany, New
York is bombed, as per the WUO to protest the killing of 29 inmates at Attica
State Penitentiary. [NYT, 9/18/71]
• October 15, 1971 - The bombing of William Bundy's office in the MIT research
center. [NYT, 10/16/71]
• May 19, 1972 - Bombing of The Pentagon, "in retaliation for the U.S. bombing
raid in Hanoi." [NYT, 5/19/72]
• May 18, 1973 - The bombing of the 103rd Police Precinct in New York. WUO
states this is in response to the killing of 10-year-old black youth Clifford Glover
by police.
• September 19, 1973 – A WUO member is arrested by the FBI in New York.
Released on bond, this member again submerges into the underground.
• September 28, 1973 - The ITT headquarters in New York and Rome, Italy are
bombed. WUO states this is in response to ITT's alleged role in the Chilean coup
earlier that month. [NYT, 9/28/73]
• March 6, 1974 - Bombing of the Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare offices
in San Francisco. WUO states this is to protest alleged sterilization of poor
women. In the accompanying communiqué, the Women’s Brigade argues for "the
need for women to take control of daycare, healthcare, birth control and other
aspects of women's daily lives."
• May 31, 1974 - The Office of the California Attorney General is bombed. WUO
states this is in response to the killing of six members of the Symbionese
Liberation Army.
• June 17, 1974 - Gulf Oil's Pittsburgh headquarters is bombed. WUO states this is
to protest the company's actions in Angola, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
• July, 1974 – The WUO releases the book Prairie Fire, in which they indicate the
need for a unified Communist Party. They encourage the creation of study groups
to discuss their ideology, and continue to stress the need for violent acts. The
book also admits WUO responsibility of several actions from previous years. The
Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC) arises from the teachings in this book
and is organized by many former WUO members.
• September 11, 1974 – Bombing of Anaconda Corporation (part of the Rockefeller

Corporation). WUO states this is in retribution for Anaconda’s alleged
involvement in the Chilean coup the previous year.
• January 29, 1975 - Bombing of the State Department; WUO states this is in
response to escalation in Vietnam. (AP. "State Department Rattled by Blast," The
Daily Times-News, January 29, 1975, p.1)
• March, 1975 – The WUO releases its first edition of a new magazine entitled
Osawatomie.
• June 16, 1975 - Weathermen bomb a Banco de Ponce (a Puerto Rican bank) in
New York, WUO states this is in solidarity with striking Puerto Rican cement
workers.
• July 11-13, 1975 – The PFOC holds its first national convention during which
time they go through the formality of creating a new organization.
• September, 1975 – Bombing of the Kennecott Corporation; WUO states this is in

retribution for Kennecott's alleged involvement in the Chilean coup two years
prior.[62]
• October 20, 1981 - Brinks robbery in which Kathy Boudin and several members
of the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army stole over $1 million
from a Brinks armored car at the Nanuet Mall, near Nyack, New York on October
20, 1981. The robbers were stopped by police later that day and engaged them in
a shootout, killing two police officers and one Brinks guard as well as wounding
several others.
[edit] Members
• Diana Oughton
• Terry Robbins
• Kathy Boudin
• Mark Rudd
• Ted Gold
• Naomi Jaffe
• Cathy Wilkerson
• Jeff Jones (activist)
• Eleanor Raskin
• David Gilbert
• Susan Stern
• Bob Tomashevsky
• Sam Karp
• Russ Neufeld
• Joe Kelly (radical)
• Laura Whitehorn
• Bernardine Dohrn
• Bill Ayers
• Daniel Shakespeare
• Judith Clark
• Sam Melville
• Kit Bakke
• John Jacobs
• Brian Flanagan
• Mark Perry
[edit] See also
• The Weather Underground, documentary film
• Underground, documentary film
• Domestic terrorism in the United States
[edit] Further reading

• SDS: The Last Hurrah (DOCUMENT 4 of 5) chronicles the last tumultuous days
of the original Students for a Democratic Society and the rise of the
Revolutionary Youth Movement and the Worker Student Alliance as the two
principal SDS factions. Document 5 of 5 is the program of the section of the
RYM that would later adopt the name "Weatherman".
• Alan Adelson's, "SDS" remains the best history of the organization.
• Harold Jacobs, editor (1970). Weatherman. Ramparts Press.
• Osawatomie. Water Buffalo Print Collective. Journal of the Weather
Underground Organization. Seattle. 1975. Osawatomie Issue #2 available on line.
Retrieved July 27, 2005.
• Dan Berger (2006). Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the
Politics of Solidarity. Oakland: AK Press.
• Jeremy Varon (2004). Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the
Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies.
Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24119-3
• Ron Jacobs (1997). The way the wind blew: a history of the Weather
Underground. London & New York: Verso. ISBN 1-85984-167-8
• Bill Ayers (2001). Fugitive Days. Boston: Beacon Press.
• Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers. and Jeff Jones, editors (2006). Sing a Battle Song:
The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and Communiqués of the Weather
Underground, 1970-1974. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-58322-726-1
• Cathy Wilkerson (2007). "Flying Close to the Sun," New York: Seven Story
Press.
• Unger, Irwin. "The Movement A History of the American New Left, 1959-1972"
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1974.
[edit] References
1. ^ http://billayers.wordpress.com/2006/04/20/weather-underground-redux/
2. ^ a b c d Berger, Dan (2006). Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and
the Politics of Solidarity. AK Press, 95.
3. ^ See document 5, Revolutionary Youth Movement (1969). ""You Don't Need a
Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows."". Retrieved on 2008-04-
119.
4. ^ ""Weatherman"". Discoverthenetworks.org. Retrieved on 2008-04-19.
5. ^ Kushner, Harvey W. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE
Publications, 2002. ISBN 0761924086
6. ^ "Byte Out of History: 1975 Terrorism Flashback: State Department Bombing."
Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S. Department of Justice. January 29, 2004.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m The Weather Underground, produced by Carrie Lozano,
directed by Bill Siegel and Sam Green, New Video Group, 2003, DVD.
8. ^ a b ]All the rage | Features | guardian.co.uk Film
9. ^ The Americans who declared war on their country | Features | guardian.co.uk
Film
10. ^ "BYTE OUT OF HISTORY / 1975 Terrorism Flashback: State Department
Bombing / 01/29/04", Federal Bureau of Investigation website, retrieved June 8,
2008
11. ^ Mehnert, Klaus, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements of the 1960s
and Their Legacy", Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1977, page 47
12. ^ Hamilton, Neil A., "Militias in America: A Reference Handbook", a volume in
the "Contemporary World Issues" series, Santa Barbara, California, 1996, page
15; ISBN 0874368596; the book identifies its author this way: "Neil A. Hamilton
is associate professor and chair of the history department at Spring Hill College in
Mobile, Alabama"
13. ^ No byline, UPI wire story, "Weathermen Got Name From Song: Groups Latest
Designation Is Weather Underground", as published in The New York Times,
January 30, 1975; "On Jan. 19, 1971, Bernardine Dohrn, a leading Weatherperson
who has never been caught, issued a statement from hiding suggesting that the
group was considering tactics other than bombing and terrorism."";
Montgomery, Paul L., "Guilty Plea Entered in 'Village' Bombing: Cathlyn
Wilkerson Could Be Given Probation or Up to 7 Years", article, The New York
Times, July 19, 1980: "the terrorist Weather Underground"
14. ^ Web page titled, "BYTE OUT OF HISTORY: 1975 Terrorism Flashback: State
Department Bombing", at F.B.I. website, dated January 29, 2004, retrieved
September 2, 2008
15. ^ Ayers, Bill, Fugitive Days, Beacon Press, ISBN 0807071242, p 263
16. ^ Berger, Dan, Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics
of Solidarity, AK Press: Oakland, California, 2006, ISBN 1904859410 pp 286-
287; the book describes Berger as "a writer, activist, and Ph.D. candidate", and
the book is dedicated to his grandmother and to Weatherman member David
Gilbert
17. ^ Lader, Lawrence. Power on the Left. (New York City: W W Norton, 1979.) 192
18. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather
Underground, 1997.
19. ^ a b c Avrich. The Haymarket Tragedy, p. 431.
20. ^ Adelman. Haymarket Revisited, p. 40.
21. ^ a b c Jones, A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather
Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience, 2004.
22. ^ a b Sale, SDS, 1973.
23. ^ A Huey P. Newton Story - People - Other Players | PBS
24. ^ American Experience | Eyes on the Prize | The Story of the Movement | PBS
25. ^ Democracy Now! | Ex-Weather Underground Member Kathy Boudin Granted
Parole
26. ^
http://www.lapismagazine.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1
10&Itemid=59
27. ^ Former Weatherman Larry Grathwohl's October 18, 1974 testimony to the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
28. ^ http://www.sfpoa.org/journal/journals/20070201.pdf
29. ^ a b KRON 4, "30-Y.O. Unsolved SF Murders Reopen", November 10, 2003
30. ^ a b Zamora, Jim Herron, "Plaque honors slain police officer: Eight others injured
in bomb attack that killed sergeant in 1970", The San Francisco Chronicle,
February 17, 2007
31. ^ a b Freddoso, David, The Case Against Barack Obama, Regnery Publishing,
Inc., Washington, D.C., 2008, p 124; Chapter 7 Footnote 7: Hearings before the
Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and
Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States
Senate, "Terroristic Activity Inside the Weatherman Movement, Part 2", October
18, 1974
32. ^ Grathwohl, Larry, "as told to Frank Reagan", Bringing Down America: An FBI
Informer with the Weathermen, Arlington House Publishers, New Rochelle, New
York, 1976 pp 168, 169, ISBN 0870003350
33. ^
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ODVlZTZlM2M5NTMxMzllMjJkOD
VkNzQ3YTFjMTY0NzE=
34. ^ Fire in the Night |The Weathermen tried to kill my family | City Journal April
30, 2008
35. ^ a b Wakin, Daniel J., [ "Quieter Lives for 60's Militants, but Intensity of Beliefs
Hasn't Faded"], article The New York Times, August 24, 2003, retrieved June 7,
2008
36. ^ 020510 michael frank's essay on 11th street
37. ^ Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, (New York: Random House, 1973), 611.
38. ^ Harold Jacobs ed., Weatherman, (Ramparts Press, 1970), 508-511.
39. ^ Harold Jacobs ed., Weatherman, (Ramparts Press, 1970), 374.
40. ^ Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, (New York: Random House, 1973), 648.
41. ^ a b Jeremy Varon, Bringing The War Home: The Weather Underground, The
Red Army Faction And Revolutionary Violence In The Sixties And Seventies,
(Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 292
42. ^ Marty Jezer, Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel, (New Jersey: Rutgers
University Press, 1992), 258-259.
43. ^ David Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, The
Klan, And FBI Counterintellegence, (Berkley: University of California Press,
2004), 33.
44. ^ David Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, The
Klan, And FBI Counterintellegence, (Berkley: University of California Press,
2004), 35.
45. ^ Paul Wolf, COINTELPRO, www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm
46. ^ Nelson Blackstock, Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom,
(New York: Anchor Foundation, 1990), 185.
47. ^ a b Jeremy Varon, Bringing The War Home: The Weather Underground, The
Red Army Faction And Revolutionary Violence In The Sixties And Seventies,
(Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 297.
48. ^ John Crewdson (August 30, 1976), "Ex-F.B.I. Aide Sees 'Scapegoat' Role", The
New York Times, p. 21.
49. ^ Felt, FBI Pyramid, p. 333.
50. ^ Robert Pear: "Conspiracy Trial for 2 Ex-F.B.I. Officials Accused in Break-ins",
The New York Times, September 19, 1980; & "Long Delayed Trial Over F.B.I.
Break-ins to Start in Capital Tomorrow", The New York Times, September 14,
1980, p. 30.
51. ^ Robert Pear, "Testimony by Nixon Heard in F.B.I. Trial", The New York
Times, October 30, 1980.
52. ^ Kessler, F.B.I.: Inside the Agency, p. 194.
53. ^ Roy Cohn, "Stabbing the F.B.I.", The New York Times, November 15, 1980, p.
20.
54. ^ "The Right Punishment for F.B.I. Crimes." (Editorial), The New York Times,
December 18, 1980.
55. ^ http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/41581d.htm
56. ^ Jeremy Varon, Bringing The War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red
Army Faction And Revolutionary Violence In The Sixties And Seventies,
(Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 297-298.
57. ^ Richard G. Braungart and Margret M. Braungart, “From Protest to Terrorism:
The Case of the SDS and The Weathermen.”, International Movement And
Research: Social Movements and Violence: Participation in Underground
Organizations, Volume 4, (Greenwich: Jai Press, 1992.), 67.
58. ^ profile
59. ^ Episodic Notoriety–Fact and Fantasy « Bill Ayers
60. ^ FrontPage Magazine
61. ^ Prairie Fire Organizing Committee: About Us
62. ^ http://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000209.txt
[edit] External links

• Vietnam era political protest site (UC Berkeley) - contains online
audiorecordings, texts, and other media related to the Weather Underground
• The Weather Underground, a 2002 documentary directed and produced by Sam
Green, Bill Siegel and Carrie Lozano
o Official site
o PBS Independent Lens site
o IMDB entry
• FBI files: Weather Underground Organization (Weatherman). 420 pages.
Retrieved June 3, 2005.
• The Weather Underground: A Look Back at the Antiwar Activists Who Met
Violence with Violence. Guests: Mark Rudd, former member of the Weather
Underground, Sam Green and Bill Siegel, documentary filmmakers/directors.
Interviewers: Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman. Democracy Now!. Segment
available via streaming real audio, or MP3 download. 1 hour 40 minutes.
Thursday, June 5, 2003. Retrieved May 20, 2005.
• Jennifer Dohrn: I Was The Target Of Illegal FBI Break-Ins Ordered by Mark Felt
aka "Deep Throat". Guest: Jennifer Dohrn. Interviewers: Juan Gonzalez and Amy
Goodman. Segment available in transcript and via streaming real audio, 128k
streaming real video or MP3 download. 29:32 minutes. Thursday, June 2, 2005.
Retrieved June 2, 2005.
• Growing Up in the Weather Underground: A Father and Son Tell Their Story.
Guests: Thai Jones and Jeff Jones. Interviewers: Juan Gonzalez and Amy
Goodman. Democracy Now!. Segment available in transcript and via streaming
real audio, 128k streaming Real Video or MP3 download. 17:01 minutes. Friday,
December 3, 2004. Retrieved May 20, 2005.
• Full text of book The Way The Wind Blew, by Ron Jacobs (1997) about the
Weather Underground Organization.
• Full text of book Weatherman, ed. by Harold Jacobs, a collection of documents
by and about SDS/Weatherman. This book was published in 1970 and deals only
with WUO's early period. Out of print.
• Prairie Fire Organizing Committee
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)"

Categories: American communists | Guerrilla organizations | Clandestine groups |
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U.S. government | Defunct organizations designated as terrorist
Hidden categories: NPOV disputes from April 2008 | NPOV disputes from September
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• 1 Early life and education

[edit] Early life and education

[edit] Business history

[edit] Legal troubles

[edit] Ties to politicians

[edit] Ties to Rod Blagojevich

[edit] Ties to Barack Obama

[edit] Ties with other politicians

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(Redirected from William Ayers)

Residence Chicago, Illinois

Citizenship United States

Nationality United States

Institutions University of Illinois at Chicago

Urban educational reform

William Charles "Bill" Ayers (born 1944) is an American elementary education

Ayers grew up in Glen Ellyn, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. He attended public

In 1970 he "went underground" with several associates after the Greenwich

Although the bomb that rocked the Pentagon was itsy-bitsy -

He also said, however, that the book was partly fiction.[14]

Later reflections on his past

Fugitive Days: A Memoir

In 2001, Ayers published Fugitive Days: A Memoir, which he explained in part as

Statements made in 2001

Views on his past expressed since 2001

In an interview published in 1995, Ayers characterized his political beliefs at that

The Weatherman leadership, including Bill Ayers, pushed for a radical

Ayers is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at

Civic and political life

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"Our signature was...letters of explanation....

Formation 1969–c. 1977

Type Revolutionary communist

Location United States of America

Apart from an apparently accidental premature detonation of a bomb in the

[edit] Terrorist Classification

The neutrality of this section is disputed.

[edit] Background and formation

We petitioned, we demonstrated, we sat in. I was willing to get hit

[edit] SDS Convention, 1969

At an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18, 1969, the National Office

We felt that doing nothing in a period of repressive violence is itself

[edit] "Days of Rage"

Main article: Days of Rage

Haymarket Square police memorial (1889 photo)

[edit] Declaration of a State of War

We felt that the murder of Fred required us to be more grave, more

[edit] Anti-personnel bomb set on window-ledge in San Francisco