To clarify, the terrorist acts for which Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground are being demonized targeted only property damage and resulted in no casualties. Here is a list of 25 bombings attributed to the WUO, with notes from the FBI files, and the original communiques.
BOMBINGS BY WEATHERMEN / WEATHER UNDERGROUND
October 7, 1969
Haymarket Police Statue in Chicago. The Weathermen later claim credit for the bombing in their book, Prairie Fire.
December 6, 1969
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.
May 10, 1970
National Guard Association building in Washington, D.C. is bombed.
June 6, 1970
San Francisco Hall of Justice. (WUO claims credit for bombing although no explosion occurred. Months later, workmen locate an unexploded bomb).
June 9, 1970
New York City Police headquarters. The Weathermen state this is in response to “police repression.”
July 27, 1970
United States Army base at The Presidio in San Francisco, on the 11th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.
September 12, 1970
California Men’s Colony prison break for Timothy Leary.
October 8, 1970
Marin County courthouse. WUO states this is in retaliation for the killings of Jonathan Jackson, William Christmas, and James McClain.
October 10, 1970
Queens traffic-court building. WUO claims this is to express support for the New York prison riots.
October 14, 1970
Harvard Center for International Affairs. WUO claims this is to protest the war in Vietnam.
March 1, 1971
United States Capitol. WUO states this is to protest the invasion of Laos.
August 29, 1971
Office of California Prisons, allegedly in retaliation for the killing of George Jackson.
September 17, 1971
New York Department of Corrections in Albany, New York. In protest of the killing of 29 inmates at Attica State Penitentiary.
October 15, 1971
MIT research center, William Bundy’s office.
May 19, 1972
Pentagon. “in retaliation for the U.S. bombing raid in Hanoi.”
May 18, 1973
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 28, 1973
ITT headquarters in New York and Rome, Italy. WUO states this is in response to ITT’s alleged role in the Chilean coup earlier that month.
March 6, 1974
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
California Attorney General office. WUO states this is in response to the killing of six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
June 17, 1974
Gulf Oil Pittsburgh headquarters. WUO states this is to protest the company’s actions in Angola, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
September 11, 1974
Anaconda Corporation. WUO states this is in retribution for Anaconda/Rockefeller’s alleged involvement in the Chilean coup the previous year.
January 29, 1975
State Department. WUO states this is in response to escalation in Vietnam.
June 16, 1975
Banco de Ponce, NYC. WUO states this is in solidarity with striking Puerto Rican cement workers.
September, 1975
Kennecott Corporation. WUO states this is in retribution for Kennecott’s alleged involvement in the Chilean coup two years prior.
WUO COMMUNIQUES:
Communiqué #1, May 21, 1970
Hello. This is Bernardine Dohrn.
I’m going to read A DECLARATION OF A STATE OF WAR.
This is the first communication from the Weatherman underground.
All over the world, people fighting Amerikan imperialism look to Amerika’s youth to use our strategic position behind enemy lines to join forces in the destruction of the empire.
Black people have been fighting almost alone for years. We’ve known that our job is to lead white kids into armed revolution. We never intended to spend the next five or twenty-five years of our lives in jail. Ever since SDS became revolutionary, we’ve been trying to show how it is possible to overcome the frustration and impotence that comes from trying to reform this system. Kids know the lines are drawn revolution is touching all of our lives. Tens of thousands have learned that protest and marches don’t do it. Revolutionary violence is the only way.
Now we are adapting the classic guerrilla strategy of the Viet Cong and the urban guerrilla strategy of the Tupamaros to our own situation here in the most technically advanced country in the world.
Ché taught us that “revolutionaries move like fish in the sea.” The alienation and contempt that young people have for this country has created the ocean for this revolution.
The hundreds and thousands of young people who demonstrated in the Sixties against the war and for civil rights grew to hundreds of thousands in the past few weeks actively fighting Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the attempted genocide against black people. The insanity of Amerikan “justice” has added to its list of atrocities six blacks killed in Augusta, two in Jackson and four white Kent State students, making thousands more into revolutionaries.
The parents of “privileged” kids have been saying for years that the revolution was a game for us. But the war and the racism of this society show that it is too fucked-up. We will never live peaceably under this system.
This was totally true of those who died in the New York townhouse explosion. The third person who was killed there was Terry Robbins, who led the first rebellion at Kent State less than two years ago.
The twelve Weathermen who were indicted for leading last October’s riots in Chicago have never left the country. Terry is dead, Linda was captured by a pig informer, but the rest of us move freely in and out of every city and youth scene in this country. We’re not hiding out but we’re invisible.
There are several hundred members of the Weatherman underground and some of us face more years in jail than the fifty thousand deserters and draft dodgers now in Canada. Already many of them are coming back to join us in the underground or to return to the Man’s army and tear it up from inside along with those who never left.
We fight in many ways. Dope is one of our weapons. The laws against marijuana mean that millions of us are outlaws long before we actually split. Guns and grass are united in the youth underground.
Freaks are revolutionaries and revolutionaries are freaks. If you want to find us, this is where we are. In every tribe, commune, dormitory, farmhouse, barracks and townhouse where kids are making love, smoking dope and loading guns—fugitives from Amerikan justice are free to go.
For Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins, and for all the revolutionaries who are still on the move here, there has been no question for a long time now—we will never go back.
Within the next fourteen days we will attack a symbol or institution of Amerikan injustice. This is the way we celebrate the example of Eldridge Cleaver and H. Rap Brown and all black revolutionaries who first inspired us by their fight behind enemy lines for the liberation of their people.
Never again will they fight alone.
/May 21, 1970/
Communique #2, June 9, 1970
SLIP NR 12 / 1909 / JUNE9-70 / POLICE HDQTRS / 77 BOMB EXPLOSION-240 CENTRE ST-POLICE HDQTRS-UNK
DAMAGE AND INJURIES AT THIS TIME — DETAILS LATER
Tonight, at 7 P.M., we blew up the N.Y.C. police headquarters. We called in a warning before the explosion.
The pigs in this country are our enemies. They have murdered Fred Hampton and tortured Joan Bird. They are responsible for 6 black deaths in Augusta, 4 murders in Kent State, the imprisonment of Los Siete de la Raza in San Francisco and the continual brutality against Latin and white youth on the Lower East Side.
Some are named Mitchell and Agnew. Others call themselves Leary and Hogan. The names are different but the crimes are the same.
The pigs try to look invulnerable, but we keep finding their weaknesses. Thousands of kids, from Berkeley to the UN Plaza, keep tearing up ROTC buildings.
Nixon invades Cambodia and hundreds of schools are shut down by strikes. Every time the pigs think they’ve stopped us, we come back a little stronger and a lot smarter. They guard their buildings and we walk right past their guards. They look for us—we get to them first.
They build the Bank of America, kids burn it down. They outlaw grass, we build a culture of life and music.
The time is now. Political power grows out of a gun, a Molotov, a riot, a commune … and from the soul of the people.
WEATHERMAN
Communiqué #3, July 31, 1970
From the /Berkeley Tribe/, July 31, 1970. The Red Mountain Tribe.
July 26, 1970
The Motor City
This is the third communication from the Weatherman underground.
With other revolutionaries all over the planet, Weatherman is celebrating the 11th anniversary of the Cuban revolution. Today we attack with rocks, riots and bombs the greatest killer-pig ever known to man—Amerikan imperialism.
Everywhere we see the growth of revolutionary culture and the ways in which every move of the monster-state tightens the noose around its own neck.
A year ago people thought it can’t happen here. Look at where we’ve come.
Nixon invades Cambodia; the Cong and all of Indochina spread the already rebelling US troops thin. Ahmed is a prisoner; Rap is free and fighting. Fred Hampton is murdered;
the brothers at Soledad avenge—”2 down and one to go.” Pun and several Weatherman are ripped; we run free. Mitchell indicts 8 or 10 or 13; hundreds of thousands of freaks plot to build a new world on the ruins of honky Amerika.
And to General Mitchell we say: Don’t look for us, Dog; We’ll find you first.
For the Central Committee, Weatherman Underground
Communiqué #4, September 18, 1970
From /San Francisco Good Times/, September 18, 1970. /San Francisco Good Times/.
September 15, 1970. This is the fourth communication from the Weatherman Underground.
The Weatherman Underground has had the honor and pleasure of helping Dr. Timothy Leary escape from the POW camp at San Luis Obispo, California.
Dr. Leary was being held against his will and against the will of millions of kids in this country. He was a political prisoner, captured for the work he did in helping all of us begin the task of creating a new culture on the barren wasteland that has been imposed on this country by Democrats, Republicans, Capitalists and creeps.
LSD and grass, like the herbs and cactus and mushrooms of the American Indians and countless civilizations that have existed on this planet, will help us make a future world where it will be possible to live in peace.
Now we are at war.
With the NLF and the North Vietnamese, with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Al Fatah, with Rap Brown and Angela Davis, with all black and brown revolutionaries, the Soledad brothers and all prisoners of war in Amerikan concentration camps we know that peace is only possible with the destruction of U.S. imperialism.
Our organization commits itself to the task of freeing these prisoners of war.
We are outlaws, we are free!
(signed) Bernardine Dohrn
BagnewsNotes has juxtaposed two photos of African colonialism. One taken more than a century ago shows a white bwana being ferried by two porters, the second is the recent image at left. The difference is that today’s servants are trusted with weapons because they have to double as security, the continent being more dangerous now than when it was darkest Africa. According to photographer Paolo Woods, the colonial industrialist beneath the umbrella, stands before a 544 villa development in Nigeria, built on the Lekki Peninsula to suit Chevron Oil. For this go-round of postcards from the outlands, could anti-imperialist venture capitalists raise funds to give these Nigerian servants more than pieces of silver? The-world-is-watching age of the internet could offer these henchmen several times more their pay to gun down the light-skinned slave masters point-blank, instead of defending them against Nigeria’s oppressed victims.
I found this travel poster for Ethiopia, the African ally with whom the US harasses Somalia and Sudan. But it features pictures of lynched black men, and was circulated by OSPAAAL, Cuba’s Tri-continent alliance.
I spotted this schematic on BagNews. He put it together to suggest what thoughts might be foremost in a GOP legislator’s mind right now.