Underground 'Exciting' to Gokr . • a••4, By MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN I Know Now I'm Not aga in asked not to be identified, Two weeks before his body it —was—learned- that in late was found in the rubble of a August-ler-early September Mr. Afraid to Die,' He Gold traveled to ,sonlaP,Igign dynamite-blasted townhouse on country,fig141P/PAtingiw%VP-, -a West 11th Street, Theodore Told a Friend reenta4iNeAudJfeottt% Gold, a 23-year-old Weatherman 4 Liberalacal werit tho revolutionary, told an old col- e was rbpcnIed-:i'l on Mr. Gold's longstanding Jttli by KattiY'''T lege friend: mania for sports. At Columbia "I've been doing a Iot of ex- I citing underground things, and he used to revere the baseball believed' a thdmi I know now I'm not afraid to Giants and would read box house when' tge'Lrii 86 scores every morning. Did he curred and is thoug f1 die." escaped with Miss Wilkerson. The friend had known Mr. still do that, the friend asked. Mr. Gold laughed and an- Robert Siegel is now a sully' Gold for years. He had seen dent at ') him become vice chairman of swered: "Sometimes I think I'll have to wait for Willie Graduate School of Journalism.I:3 the Columbia chapter of Stu- He had known Mr. Gold dents for a Democratic Society Mays to retire before I become since' -; a good Communist" both of them were juniors 60'3 in 1967 and a year later he saw . TheY;v± the intense sociology major take The conversation sketched out what Mr. Gold had been met in a group called Friends a leadership role in the strike of the Student Non Violent:4f that immobilized the Morning- doing in the years after the Columbia trouble. Conversa- Coordinating Committee, whieie'rg side campus. Mr. Gold had helped to orgari::-1-: After their class was gradu- tions with others who knew ize. On weekends, back in 1963; ated in June of 1968, the friend him provided a bit more in- formation. they would go off to solidit:1 saw Mr. Gold only intermit- food for shipment to black'', tently. He learned that his class- A group of younger Columbia radicals tried a few days after communities in Mississippi. . _ • mate was teaching at a school Called Hard Worker 7 , 7 for disabled children and that his death to lower the campus he was organizing a group flag to half staff. Before they Mr. Siegel, who accompanied called Teachers for a Demo- were dispersed by campus Mr. Gold to Columbia, regarclW, cratic Society. guards they succeeded in writ- his friend as a hard wor He knew that Mr. Gold was ing a crayon inscription on the student. In his first years a Is in close contact with base of the flagpole. It said: college he talked of going tor, and perhaps a dozen others "In Memory of Ted Gold. Fight law school. "He was serio eia who had evolved revolutionary like him.' and conunitted," Mr. Siegel- roles in the turbulence of that Some of those who took part said. "He had a lefist orient- in that action said that Mr. tion but it was then within the ,1 Columbia spring. framework of acceptable sttir,,g But then thre weeks ago, the Gold had been at the Wilkerson House writing a history of the dent activism." friend, who asked that his During the summers of his name not be used, was sitting S.D.S. with Cathlyn P. Wilker- son. They understood that a sophomore and junior yeaVal in a snack bar at Columbia Mr. Gold worked as a counseloto when Mr. Gold approach and number of publishers were in- terested in the work as a text- for groups slum children taking .1. talked freely about his life as part in Project Double Disee a Weatherman. book covering the group from its birth with the Port Huron covery, a live-in tutorial proall Headed Commune Statement to last summer's gram on the Columbia campus. His superior in the program„i He said he was the head of Weatherman Manifesto. The only other literary effort Roger Lahecka, now an asasist- a Chicago commune and that ant the group was no in the process of Mr. Gold's that they knew dean at the college, remem-,,a about was a series of lyrics set hers Mr. Gold as one of the of breaking out of their large most dedicated counselors 'ha ,., collectives in which 30 or 40 to popular songs and issued sometime back as the Weather- the program. "He was tough on persons lived together and that the kids but they respected hint... for security reasons they were man Songbook. There was one called, "I'm Dreaming of a for it." _ banding together in fours and Mr. Siegel says that Mr. Gold fives. White Riot," and another to a rock time that began, "We was something of a "frustrated He remembers Mr. Gold say- jock." He was a good schoOL- (-1 ing "the communes were an ef- need a red party so that we can learn to struggle." yard ballplayer and had been,: fective experience, they robbed a miler on his high school team' us of such bourgeois hang-ups Puzzled by Explosion but quit when he learned like privacy and monogamy!' The three young people who the Ethiopian marathon charn-k, At one point in the conversa- talked of Mr. Gold were all pion averaged a better time for tion, the friend remarked on members of a now defunct rad- a mile in running 26 of them how happy and content Mr. ical group called the Mad Dogs, than he did just running one. Gold appeared. The Weather- which had some tactical differ- In his first two years Qqci man smiled and responded: ences with the Weatherman campus, Mr. Siegel recalledta "We don't think in terms of faction. Mr. Gold had been active .ita_r being happy. We think in terms "We had our differences Columbia Congress of RaciaL of being strong people." with Ted," said one young girl, Equality, which was the pti;pa Mr. Gold asked his friend if "but we loved him and we cursor of the S.D.S. Chapter,t he knew of any apartments knew he was dedicated to the A year after the chapter waqo that could be used for Weather- struggle." formed he was chosen its vicerf man meetings in What puzzled the three peo- chairman, while his roommatera and he asked if his classmate ple was how there had come to Ted Kapchuk, was chose could land him any money to be an explosion. They Insisted chairman. Two weeks afte",~ help him get to Chicago. The that Mr. Gold was an important that the group held what WaS,,` friend said all he could spare at enough Weatherman to assume the largest demonstration up to the moment was a dollar. that he was being watched and that time to protest marine XI-, At the time, Mr. Gold was that it is a dictum of the move- cruiting. presumably living in the $275,- ment that "you keep your un- The following year the leader; 000 Wilkerson home at 18 derground and overground ship passed to Mr. Rudd, whose' West 11th Street. His classmate work separate." style was more dynamic and asked him how he survived One of the youths offered the angry. Mr. Gold was charier and how the Weatherman sup- conjecture that the dynamite terized by those who knew hitt. ported themselves. "We steal,'' had been planted in the build- as a forceful speaker, but faV-- was the response. ing by provacateurs. less emotional than was Ml?!rrl The conversation also touched From other sources, who Rudd. n