Days of Rage
Page 64
At Penguin Press, Scott Moyers edited this book with his typical sure hand. Mally Anderson orchestrated the prepublishing process with aplomb. Karen Mayer provided valuable guidance. My friend Kurt Eichenwald read the first two chapters and made useful suggestions. Daisy Prince and Ben Kalin tracked down hard-to-find news clippings. Melissa Goldstein gathered the photos. Joyce Pendola handled the fact-checking, a grueling six-month process that saved me severe professional embarrassment.
And then there is Liz Fink. I should pause here to offer a special word of thanks to the estimable Ms. Fink, who is probably best known in New York as one of the lead attorneys on the long-running litigation springing from the Attica riots in 1971. There is a word journalists use for a person who knows everything about his or her subject matter, and who offers unlimited help: the “rabbi.” Over time, Liz became the rabbi for this book. Her knowledge of the 1970s-era underground is encyclopedic, and her memory is superb. It was Liz who introduced me to many of the important figures of the era, people like Ray Levasseur, Dhoruba bin-Wahad, and Silvia Baraldini, none of whom had ever publicly discussed details of their underground careers. I am deeply grateful to Liz and to the other radical attorneys, especially Dennis Cunningham and Robert Boyle, who gave me guidance along the way.
A number of people lent a hand gathering documents used in Days of Rage. These include Claude Marks at the Freedom Archives in San Francisco, who did so despite the fact that he clearly never trusted me; and James Mathis and the wonderful archivists at the Library of Congress and also at New York University’s Tamiment Library, an incredible repository of left-wing history.
A far-flung network of retired FBI agents was indispensable, especially Don Wofford and Lou Vizi, who pursued the FALN; Stockton Buck, who pursued the New World Liberation Front; Leonard Cross, who pursued Ray Levasseur’s group; Max Noel, William Reagan, and Donald Shackleford, the Weather Underground; and Danny Coulson, Jim Murphy, and Bob McCartin, the BLA. Perhaps the most generous of these men was Richard Hahn of Southern California, who laid out the entire story of the FALN, directing me to many of the sources he had made researching his own as-yet-unpublished book. A huge thanks to Rick, and to all those who took the time to offer guidance.
This book was produced during a challenging period in my life, a time when I have leaned on family and close friends as never before. My deepest thanks go to Winnie O’Kelley, who always gave wise counsel; to Brett Haire, who has looked after me like a member of his own family; to Ed and Marybeth Leithead, who always had steaks and a bottle of red at the ready; and especially to the two young men I am proud to call my sons: Griffin Burrough, today a freshman and budding writer at Kenyon College; and Dane Burrough, a rising scholar of Russian history at Rice University. Thanks also to my parents, John M. and Mary Burrough of Temple, Texas, who were never too busy to listen, no matter the hour, and to Margaret Walsh.
Bryan Burrough
Austin, Texas
Winter 2015
A NOTE ON SOURCES
I produced Days of Rage much the way I wrote and researched my previous books. Much of the information in these pages comes from one of three main kinds of sources: previously published books, contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, and personal interviews. Documents generated by the FBI and the NYPD, along with an oral history or two, were also used.
Like many history writers, I have made books written by other authors the foundation of my research. They’re the first items I collect, and are often the most authoritative version of public events. Some sections of Days of Rage, especially those dealing with Sam Melville, the SLA, and the Family, rely heavily on books written in the 1970s and 1980s. Other sections, especially chapters dealing with the Weather Underground, the BLA, the FALN, and Ray Levasseur’s group, rely much more on personal interviews augmented by contemporary news coverage. Below I’ve sketched out the principal sources of information for each chapter. Full details on the books I mention can be found in the bibliography.
Chapter 1: The main sources for the story of Sam Melville and Jane Alpert are Alpert’s excellent 1981 memoir, Growing Up Underground, and Albert A. Seedman and Peter Hellman’s uproarious 1974 book, Chief! I also used information from the three major New York newspapers and Melville’s FBI file, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. Jane Alpert declined an invitation to be interviewed.
Chapter 2: To chart the rise of the Black Power movement, I relied on dozens of books. Probably the best single source of information was Peniel E. Joseph’s 2007 Waiting ’til the Midnight Hour, a history of Black Power.
Chapter 3: The story of Weatherman’s birth has been told in a number of books and memoirs, but perhaps the best account is one that few of them reference, Peter Collier and David Horowitz’s trailblazing 1981 article in Rolling Stone, from which I drew liberally. The best of the SDS books by far is Kirkpatrick Sale’s SDS. I’ve augmented these sources with contemporary news coverage and interviews of more than a dozen Weathermen.
Chapter 4: The story of Weatherman’s initial ninety days underground is the first chapter derived largely from personal interviews, as are the following seven chapters. Among the most helpful interview subjects for this chapter were Howard Machtinger, Joanna Zilsel, Cathy Wilkerson, Jon Lerner, Paul Bradley, Mark Rudd, Ron Fliegelman, Brian Flanagan, Rick Ayers, Robert Roth, and Elizabeth Fink. Thai Jones’s book, A Radical Line, gives information on Jeff Jones’s introduction to the underground. Wilkerson’s memoir, Flying Too Close to the Sun, gives the best account of Terry Robbins and the Townhouse. The late Larry Grathwohl’s memoir, Bringing Down America, is an important source for the Midwest collective’s exploits.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7: These three chapters, which constitute the story of Weatherman’s rebirth and most significant political actions, draw on many of the same sources as Chapter 4, including personal interviews with those mentioned above. William Dyson’s story is told in an oral history given for the Society of Retired Special Agents of the FBI. The story of Squad 47 is told in contemporary news accounts, by onetime federal prosecutors, and by retired agents. Marvin Doyle’s story is told in an unpublished monograph that Doyle shared with the author. Robert Greenfield’s biography of Timothy Leary provides details of Leary’s escape. Wesley Swearingen’s story is told in his memoir, FBI Secrets. The story of the FBI investigations leading to the Encirclement is told with the help of newly released FBI documents on file at the National Archives, along with interviews of Dennis Cunningham, Max Noel, and William Reagan, among others.
Chapters 8, 9, and 11: The story of the BLA was pieced together from a variety of sources, including FBI documents on file at the National Archives; copies of wiretapped conversations between BLA operatives and Algeria provided by Robert Boyle; NYPD reports shared by a retired New York detective; parts of several histories of the Black Panther Party; contemporary news accounts, especially those in the New York Daily News and New York Times; as well as personal interviews with Sekou Odinga, Cyril Innis, Dhoruba bin-Wahad, Oscar Washington, Thomas McCreary, Danny Coulson, Jim Murphy, and Bob McCartin. A New York–area detective still investigating old BLA cases was also interviewed extensively. Also helpful were copies of the BLA organ, Right On!, on file at New York University’s Tamiment Library. Assata Shakur’s background is related in her memoir, Assata.
Chapter 10: This chapter draws on many of the same sources noted above. The story of the Cunningham-Mellis family’s involvement was provided by Dennis Cunningham; his daughter, Delia Mellis; Elizabeth Fink; Cathy Wilkerson; Paul Bradley; Marvin Doyle; and William Reagan.
Chapters 12 and 13: The story of the SLA was principally derived from three histories of the group, especially Patty Hearst’s memoir, told to Alvin Moscow, Every Secret Thing, and The Voices of Guns by Vin McClellan and Paul Avery. Also helpful were contemporary news accounts and several long articles in Rolling Stone. The story of George Jackson and the radicalization of California prisons is told i
n several books, especially the superb The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement by Eric Cummins.
Chapter 14: The sections on the SLA were derived from the sources cited above, and those on the Weather Underground from internal Weather documents as well as the author’s interviews. The opening section of the FALN story was first outlined to me by the retired FBI agent Richard Hahn. The FALN section in this chapter is largely derived from contemporary news accounts and extensive personal interviews with Don Wofford and Lou Vizi.
Chapter 15: The story of the New World Liberation Front was pieced together from contemporary news accounts and the author’s interviews, especially those with Tony Serra, Stockton Buck, and three retired federal and local prosecutors. A 1978 master’s thesis by Baron Lee Buck (no relation) contains the most detailed list of NWLF bombings.
Chapter 16: The story of the Weather Underground’s demise was told largely via the author’s interviews with alumni of Weather and the Prairie Fire Operating Committee, especially Russell Neufeld, Jonathan Lerner, Howie Machtinger, Silvia Baraldini, Elizabeth Fink, Cathy Wilkerson, Paul Bradley, and Ron Fliegelman. The story of Squad 47’s demise and subsequent prosecution was assembled from contemporary accounts and personal interviews, especially those with Bill Gardner, Stephen Horn, and Donald Strickland.
Chapter 17: The story of the FALN’s middle years was derived from contemporary news coverage and the author’s interviews, especially those with Don Wofford, Lou Vizi, Roger Young, Richard Hahn, and Elizabeth Fink. The story of José and Oscar López’s upbringing was adapted from a long essay written by José López and posted on the Internet.
Chapters 18, 19, and 23: The story of Ray Levasseur’s group is derived largely from the author’s extensive interviews with Levasseur and Pat Gros Levasseur, augmented by contemporary news articles and voluminous court records kept at the National Archives branch outside Boston (since closed).
Chapters 20, 21, and 22: The story of the Family is told in John Castelluci’s definitive book The Big Dance and augmented here by information contained in news accounts, court records, and the author’s exclusive interviews with Sekou Odinga and Silvia Baraldini.
NOTES
PROLOGUE
1.Joseph P. Fried, “Eleven Hurt by Bombs in 2 Movie Houses,” New York Times, May 2, 1970.
CHAPTER 1: “THE REVOLUTION AIN’T TOMORROW. IT’S NOW. YOU DIG?”
1.Jane Alpert, Growing Up Underground, p. 179.
2.New York Times, Nov. 16, 1969.
CHAPTER 2: “NEGROES WITH GUNS”
1.Peniel Joseph, Waiting ’til the Midnight Hour, p. 17.
2.Eldridge Cleaver, Target Zero, p. xiv.
3.Curtis J. Austin, Up Against the Wall, p. 95.
4.Nikki Giovanni, “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro (For Peppe, Who Will Ultimately Judge Our Efforts),” The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968–1998.
CHAPTER 3: ”YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION”
1.Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, p. 335.
2.Peter Collier and David Horowitz, “Doing It: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of the Weather Underground,” Rolling Stone, Sept. 30, 1982, p. 87.
3.Cited in Tim Weiner, Enemies, p. 284.
4.Collier and Horowitz, p. 87.
5.Ibid., p. 88.
6.Ibid.
7.Sale, p. 603.
8.Collier and Horowitz, p. 91.
9.Mark Rudd, Underground, p. 181.
10.Collier and Horowitz, p. 91.
11.Cathy Wilkerson, Flying Close to the Sun, p. 303.
12.Bill Ayers, Fugitive Days, p. 179.
CHAPTER 4: “AS TO KILLING PEOPLE, WE WERE PREPARED TO DO THAT”
1.Collier and Horowitz, p. 98.
2.Larry Grathwohl, Bringing Down America, pp. 138−39.
3.New York Times, Feb. 22, 1970.
4.Wilkerson, p. 336.
5.Ibid., pp. 338−40.
6.Rudd, p. 194.
7.Wilkerson, p. 343.
8.Ibid., p. 344.
9.Thomas Powers, Diana, p. 142.
CHAPTER 5: THE TOWNHOUSE
1.Susan Braudy, Family Circle, p. 205.
2.New York Times, Mar. 12, 1970.
3.This version of the first minutes after the explosion has not previously been told. It results from a close reading of two sources. In his 1974 memoir, Chief!, Albert A. Seedman described the actions of Officers Waite and Calderone and included Calderone’s description of someone calling for “Adam.” However, Seedman believed that the two survivors, Wilkerson and Boudin, had already left the site; writing four years after the incident, when many details remained unknown, Seedman mistakenly assumed that the person calling for Adam must have been another, unidentified survivor. There were no other survivors. In her 2007 memoir, Wilkerson remembers calling for Adam. The Wilkerson and Seedman accounts agree that this happened immediately before a third and final explosion. The only conclusion to be drawn is that Wilkerson and Boudin were still in the wreckage when Calderone came to the back door. When they crawled free, no officers were present; Calderone was in the rear, and Waite had run for help. By the time officers returned to the front of the house, the women were gone. How differently events might have unfolded had the NYPD arrested Boudin and Wilkerson when, in those first few minutes, they had their opportunity.
4.Seedman, p. 257.
5.Ibid., p. 269.
6.Ayers, p. 201.
7.Thai Jones, A Radical Line, p. 219.
8.Rudd, pp. 214−15.
9.David Gilbert, No Surrender, e-book.
10.New York Times, June 14, 1970.
CHAPTER 6: “RESPONSIBLE TERRORISM”
1.New York magazine, Feb. 18, 1991.
2.Rudd, p. 226.
3.Robert Greenfield, Timothy Leary, p. 386.
4.Thai Jones, p. 223.
5.Greenfield, p. 394.
6.Terry H. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, p. 353.
7.New York Times, Oct. 13, 1970.
8.New York Times, Aug. 16, 1970.
CHAPTER 7: THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY
1.Wesley Swearingen, FBI Secrets, p. 72.
2.Washington Post, Jan. 6, 2008.
3.New York Times, Feb. 7, 1971.
4.Cited in Rick Perlstein, Nixonland, p. 542.
5.Anderson, p. 357.
6.Collier and Horowitz, p. 109.
CHAPTER 8: “AN ARMY OF ANGRY NIGGAS”
1.New York Times, Nov. 7, 1972; Daley, Target Blue, pp. 75−76.
2.Frank J. Rafalko, MH/CHAOS, p. 110.
CHAPTER 10: “WE GOT PRETTY SMALL”
1.New York Times, Aug. 19, 1976.
CHAPTER 11: BLOOD IN THE STREETS OF BABYLON
1.New York Times, Jan. 26, 1973.
2.New York Daily News, Jan. 9, 1974.
3.Danny Coulson and Elaine Shannon, No Heroes, pp. 73−77.
CHAPTER 12: THE DRAGON UNLEASHED
1.Eric Cummins, The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement, p. 159.
2.Ibid., p. 164.
3.Ibid., pp. 240−41.
4.Les Payne and Tim Findley, The Life and Death of the SLA, p. 7.
CHAPTER 13: “PATTY HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED”
1.Payne and Findley, p. 267.
CHAPTER 14: WHAT PATTY HEARST WROUGHT
1.“FALN Terrorists Tied to 10 Bombings in Region,” New York Times, Feb. 7, 1975.
CHAPTER 15: “THE BELFAST OF NORTH AMERICA”
1.Patty Hearst, Every Secret Thing, p. 370.
2.Ibid., p. 385.
3.San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 14, 1976.
4.San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 4, 1977.
1.Dan Berger, Outlaws of America, pp. 216−17.
CHAPTER 17: “WELCOME TO FEAR CITY”
1.“Episcopal Leaders Badly Split over Hispanic Issue,” New York Times, Mar. 22, 1977.
2.“Sifting Through Rubble and Rage of Blasts,” New York Daily News, Aug. 4, 1977.
3.Molly Ivins, “100,000 Leave New York Offices as Bomb Threats Disrupt City,” New York Times, Aug. 4, 1977, pp. 1, 26.
CHAPTER 19: BOMBS AND DIAPERS
1.Waterbury Republican, Mar. 3–4, 1978.
CHAPTER 20: THE FAMILY
1.New York Times, Sept. 17, 1977.
2.New York Times, Jan. 17, 1973.
3.John Castellucci, The Big Dance, p. 73.
4.Richard Hahn, unpublished FALN manuscript, p. 185.
5.Richard Esposito and Ted Gerstein, Bomb Squad, p. 82.
6.Castellucci, p. 74.
CHAPTER 21: JAILBREAKS AND CAPTURES
1.New York Daily News, May 23, 1979.
2.Milwaukee Journal, Dec. 26, 1979.
3.New York Times, Dec. 22, 1979.
CHAPTER 22: THE SCALES OF JUSTICE
1.Castellucci, p. 153.
2.Ibid., p. 197.
CHAPTER 23: THE LAST REVOLUTIONARIES
1.Brattleboro Examiner, Oct. 5, 1981.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
A collection of biographies and Safiya Bukhari. Can’t Jail the Spirit: Political Prisoners in the U.S. Chicago: Editorial El Coqui, 1988.
Ahmad, Muhammad. We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960–1975. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 2007.