94TH CoNobasg let eeio#8 00MMITTEN PRINT THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND REPORT OF TH7 SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS OF THn COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE NINETY-FOURTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION JANUARY 1975 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OF110 39-242 WASHINGTON : 1975 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents U.8. Government Prnting Office, Waohington, D.C. 2040a Pice $1.60 jJ54QC~ -.3 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY JAMES 0. EASTLAND, MIsisppi, Chbaimon JOHIN L. McCLELLAN, Arkansas ROMAN L. 71 It USKA, Nebraska PHILIP A. HART, Michigan III RAM L. FONO0, Hawali EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Mamaohusmtts H1UOH SCOTT, Pennsylvania BIRCH BAYH, Indiana STROM TiUItMON D, South Carolina QUENTIN N. BURDICK, Nmth Dakota CIJA RLES McC. MATHIAS, JR., Maryland ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia WILLIAM L. 8('OTT, Virginia JOHN V. TUNNEY, California JAMES ABOUREZK, South Dakota SUnCOMMiTTIv To INVKSTIOATH TIe ADMINISTrATION o0 THE, INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS JAMES 0. EASTLAN ), MAisissdppi, Chairman JOHN L. McCLELLAN, Arkanras STROM TIHURMOND, South Carolina BIRCH BAYJI. Indiana J. 0. SOURWINH, Chief Cownsel ALYONUO L. TARADOCHIIA, Chief InIVtesgalor MARY DOOLEY, Adcng Director of Research RESOLUTION Resolved, by the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, that the attached report entitled "The Weather Underground," shall be printed for the use of the Com- mnittee on the Judiciary. JAMES 0. EASTLAND, Chairman. Approved: January 30, 1975. (n) CONTENTS Pan Foreword ......................................................... v The Weatherman Organization 1 Overview ......................................................... 1 Weatherman Political Theory-----------------------------. 9 Weatherman Chronology ........................................... 13 National War Council .....---------------------------- 20 The Faces of Weatherman Underground ............................. 43 Persons Identified With Weatherman Faction-----------------.. 46 Appendix I. "Prairie Fire" ------------------------------ 117 Appendix II. Individuals Attending Flint War Council ................ 125 Appendix III. New Left Terrorism ............................ 129 Appendix IV. Chicago and Detroit Weatherman Indictments......... 181 Appendix V. Source of Explosives in Townhouse Blast ................. 133 Appendix VI. Weatherman Helps Leary Escape .................. 136 Appendix VII. Documents From Vacated Apartment ............... 136 Appendix VIII. Cuba Meeting With Vietnamese ............... 187 (M) - I m FOREWORD This report is the result of an inventory and analysis of all informa- tion in the ifies of the subcommittee with respect to the Weatherman organization, its members and former members. The material pre- sented does not purport to be encyclopedic, but it is hoped the report will be helpful in any consideration of legislative proposals designed to deal with violent, terroristic or other subversive organizations. It should also have interest and value for law enforcement agencies. Since completion of this report the subcommittee has taken testi- mony from a young man who nfifltrated the Weatherman organization for the FBI. This testimony will be published soon. JAMES O. EASTLAND, Clzrm.an (T) U THE WEATHERMAN ORGANIZATION Launched in. 1,969 aa paroi-military offshoot of SDS the Weather Undergroundfirst became IaWtivists" (itnder the name "Wi'eatherman") in Chicapio in October 1969, went from trashing, burning, and street fighting in Chicago to the. group decision, (in Cleveland, Ohio) to kill police and violently attack military and inulutrial sites. Weathermen muggled arms and explosives in various parts of the country. They established contact with terrorist organitzons abroad including Al Fatah and the Irish Reputblican Army (IRA). Weathermen trained, in Al Fatah camps in the Middle East, in use of weapons and explosives. -Penthouse, July 1973, pages 150-151 OVERVIEW "Weatherman"-now known as the Weatherman Underground- is a revolutionary organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of established power in the United States through "armed struggle". It is a para-military offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society, which grew out of a faction within SDS. Students for a Democratic Society was founded in 1960. Its "Port Huron Statement" in 1962 called for an alliance of blacks, students, peace groups and liberal organizations and publications, to serve the announced objective of progro•ssivo realignment of the Democratic Party. In June 1963, a SDS document "America and the Now Era" criticized what it called the inadequacy (in areas of disarmament, social justice and racial eqy 2lIiLy) of the Kennedy "New Front" program, and urged the independent organization of "emerging in- sutgent forces" (within iLe civil rights, peace and student movements). December 1963 saw 8DS sponsoring its education research action project involving organization of poor whites and blacks in ten cities of the United States. The first "anti-Vietnam War" march to Wa&shington was organized by SDS in the spring of 1965. One prompt result was a sudden growth of SDS membership. Local chapters increased from about 35 to over 100 within 6 months. At a national convention at Clear Lake, Iowa, in August 1906, SDS stressed need for political work on college campuses, calling for a "student power" strategy. In Decemiber 1966, SDS made draft resistance its top-prionty political activity, and inaugurated campus protests against the "military-industrial complex." The foUowing year (at its 1967 national convention in Ann Arbor, Michigan) the SDS made a call for a "new working class" as the rucial agency of revolution (deliberately setting this concept against the Progressive Labor Partvy's emphasis on its "industrial working class" theory). (I) 2 In April and May 1968 came the occupation of Columbia University by students, both black and white, effectively closing the campus. In the action at Columbia, Mark Rudd gainednational prominence. Rudd later became an early and important leader of the Weatherman organization. controversy marked the national convention of SDS in East Lansing, Michigan, in June 1968. The Progressive Labor faction was in the minority. At Boulder, Colorado, in October of 1968, the SDS National Council threw out a plan (for joint student-labor action projects) sponsored by the Progressive Labor faction. But three months later, in December, at the Ann Arbor National Council meeting, the Progressive Labor faction made a comeback, securing approval of a resolution on racism. At the same time, a resolution presented by a group headed by Mike Klonsky and Les Coleman, and supported by Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrm, John Jacobs, Howie Machtfingr, Jim Mellen and Mark Rudd, was approved by the Council. Entitled "Toward a Revolutionary Youth Movement", and known as the R YM Resolution, this paper brought its backers to a prominence which helped some of them, later, to coalesce the Weatherman organization. At its March 1909 meeting in Austin, Texas, the SI)S National Council threw out the Progressive Labor resolution on racism which had been approved only four months previously, substituting SDS alliance with the Black Panther Tarty. At the Austin meeting it became obvious there wore serious internal differences within the group which had sponsored and won approval of the R YM Resolution in December 1968. In 1968 and 1969 the RYM I faction of SDS, in the course of its evolution into Weatherman, was actively seeking to recruit youngsters in their early teens, as well as older youths. (One of the earliest precepts of the Weatherman organization was that from the reservoir of "underprivileged youth" would emerge "'the true revolutionary vanguard".) a An example of high-school recruiting by SDS, in which the growing Weatherman faction took such extremely active part that the recruit- ment effort at many individual high schools became "Weatherman" operations, is the so-called "Niagara Liberation Front" program in Buffalo, New York. Aimed primarily at minorities and especially at students with Puerto Rican backgrounds, the "Niagara Liberation Front Program for Action" was set forth in a 12-page brochure circulated from the "General Movement Work" headquarters of SDS in Buffalo. This pamphlet referred to the United States as "Amerika" and began on the first inside page: "We are 0ll outlaws in the eyes of amerika-all of your private properties target for your enemy and your enemy is we. We are obscene, low, dirty, dangerous, and angry. In order to survive, we steal, fight, lie, forge, f-, hide and deal." The slogan of the pamphlet was "Revolution in our lifetime". Other pages included such statements as: "We will fight Amerikan imperial- brothersism", "We and must sisters weaken in theAmerica's Third World";capacity andto wa 'Until e wars capitalism against our i destroyed, we shall fight against any American Army opposed all institutions (like the universities, high schools and corporations) that train men and women to support imperialism. And we shall attempt I 8 to bring the international war home by engaging in continual actions that disrupt the business-as-usual fabric of American life." Other excerpts from the pamphlet: We support draft resistance and 01 rebollions within the Armed Forces. By organizing at induction centers, we will encourage men to resist the draft or else go Into the army to foment rebellion. For over 300 years white America has brutalized black,