Editing Weather Underground (section)

==Dissolution==
Despite the change in their legal 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 Organizing Committee|Prairie Fire]] Committee of limiting their roles in racial issues.{{sfn|Varon|2004|pp=292–298}} The Weather Underground faced accusations of abandonment of the revolution by reversing their original ideology.

The conference increased divisions within the Weather Underground. East coast members favored a commitment to violence and challenged the commitments of old leaders, [[Bernardine Dohrn]], [[Bill Ayers]], and [[Jeff Jones (activist)|Jeff Jones]]. These older members found they were no longer liable for federal prosecution because of illegal wire taps and the government's unwillingness to reveal sources and methods favored a strategy of inversion where they would be above-ground "revolutionary leaders". Jeremy Varon argues that by 1977 the WUO had disbanded.{{sfn|Varon|2004|pp=292–298}}

[[Matthew Steen]] appeared on the lead segment of CBS's ''60 Minutes'' in 1976 and was interviewed by [[Mike Wallace]] about the ease of creating fake identification, the first ex-Weatherman interview on national television.<ref>United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Crime. (1984). False identification: hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, on H.R. 352, H.R. 6105, H.R. 6946, and S. 2043 false identification, May 5, 1982. Washington: U.S. G.P.O.. p. 55</ref><ref name="babel.hathitrust.org">{{cite book |title=False identification hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, on H.R. 352, H.R. 6105, H.R. 6946, and S. 2043 false identification, May 5, 1982.|year=1984|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |location=Washington, D.C.|hdl = 2027/mdp.39015082323240}}</ref> (The House document has the date wrong, it aired February 1, 1976, and the title was Fake ID.)

The federal government estimated that only 38 Weathermen had gone underground in 1970, though the estimates varied widely, according to a variety of official and unofficial sources, as between 50 and 600 members. Most modern sources lean towards a much larger number than the FBI reference.<ref>{{Cite book |title=State Department bombing by Weatherman Underground: hearing 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, Ninety-fourth Congress, first session, January 31, 1975 |year=1975 |publisher=US Government Printing Office |location=Washington, D.C. |pages=43–45 |url=https://archive.org/details/statedepartmentb00unit }}</ref> An FBI estimate in 1976, or slightly later, of the current membership was down to 30 or fewer.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://foia.fbi.gov/weather/weath2a.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090320174944/http://foia.fbi.gov/weather/weath2a.pdf|title=Weathermen Underground Summary <!-- Dated .. --> Part #2 |date=August 20, 1976 |archive-date=2009-03-20 |publisher=FBI}}</ref>

===Plot to bomb the office of a California State Senator===
In November 1977, five WUO members were arrested on conspiracy to bomb the office of California State Senator [[John Briggs (politician)|John Briggs]]. It was later revealed that the Revolutionary Committee and the PFOC had both been infiltrated by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] for almost six years. FBI agents Richard J. Gianotti and William D. Reagan lost their cover in November when federal judges needed their testimony to issue warrants for the arrest of [[Clayton Van Lydegraf]] and four Weather people. The arrests were the results of the infiltration.<ref name=g38>Gilbert 38</ref><ref>{{cite news |title= Nation: Infiltrating the Underground
|newspaper= [[Time (magazine)|Time]]
|date= January 9, 1978 |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912056,00.html
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091204151846/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912056,00.html
|archive-date= December 4, 2009
|access-date=December 26, 2009}}</ref> WUO members Judith Bissell, Thomas Justesen, Leslie Mullin, and Marc Curtis pleaded guilty while Van Lydegraf, who helped write the 1974 Prairie Fire Manifesto, went to trial.<ref>{{cite news |title= Radicals Admit Bomb Attempts |agency= Associated Press |newspaper= Spokane Daily Chronicle |date= December 20, 1978 |url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1338&dat=19781220&id=4MUSAAAAIBAJ&pg=6874,794947 |access-date= December 29, 2009 }}{{Dead link|date=October 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Within two years, many members took advantage of President [[Jimmy Carter]]'s amnesty for draft dodgers by turning themselves in.{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}} Mark Rudd turned himself into authorities on January 20, 1978. Rudd was fined $4,000 and received two years' probation.{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}} Bernardine 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.{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}

===Brink's robbery===
{{Main|Brink's robbery (1981)}}
Some members remained underground and joined splinter radical groups. The U.S. government states that years after the dissolution of the Weather Underground, three former members, [[Kathy Boudin]], [[Judith Alice Clark]], and [[David Gilbert (activist)|David Gilbert]], joined the May 19 Communist Organization, and on October 20, 1981, in [[Nanuet]], New York, the group helped the [[Black Liberation Army]] [[Brink's robbery (1981)|rob a Brink's armored truck]] containing $1.6 million. The robbery resulted in a shootout and the deaths of Brink's Guard Peter Paige, Police Sergeant Edward O'Grady Jr., and Police Officer Waverly Brown, the first black police officer on the [[Nyack, New York|Nyack]] police force.{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}
<ref>{{cite web|last1=Batson|first1=Bill|title=Nyack Sketch Log: The Brink's Robbery|url=http://www.nyacknewsandviews.com/2011/10/bb_brinksrobbery20111018/|website=nyacknewsandviews.com|date=October 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230604032832/https://nyacknewsandviews.com/blog/2021/10/bb_brinksrobbery20111018/|archive-date=2023-06-04|url-status=live}}</ref>
<ref name="mark-gado">{{cite web|author=Mark Gado|title=The Agony of Parole|url=https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2100019/posts|publisher=TruTV.com|website=freerepublic.com|date=October 2008|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230604033002/https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2100019/posts|archive-date=2023-06-04|url-status=live}}</ref>
<ref name="memorial-Grady">{{cite web| url=https://www.odmp.org/officer/10136-sergeant-edward-j-ogrady-jr|title=Sergeant Edward J. O'Grady, Jr. | publisher= The Officer Down Memorial Page, Inc|date=2023|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230604034235/https://www.odmp.org/officer/10136-sergeant-edward-j-ogrady-jr|archive-date=2023-06-04}}</ref>
<ref name="memorial-Waverly">{{cite web| url=https://www.odmp.org/officer/2372-police-officer-waverly-l-brown |title=Police Officer Waverly L. Brown | publisher= The Officer Down Memorial Page, Inc|date=2023|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130415113857/http://www.odmp.org/officer/2372-police-officer-waverly-l-brown|archive-date=2013-04-15}}</ref>

Boudin, Clark, and Gilbert were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy terms in prison.<ref name="mark-gado"/> Media reports listed them as former Weatherman Underground members<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/brinks/1.html |title=The Brink's Robbery of 1981 – The Crime Library  |publisher=TruTV.com |date=1970-03-06 |access-date=June 2, 2010 |archive-date=November 16, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116084903/https://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/brinks/1.html }}</ref> considered the "last gasps" of the Weather Underground.<ref>[[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, Vol. 4, (Greenwich: Jai Press, 1992.), 67.</ref> The documentary ''The Weather Underground'' described the [[Brink's robbery (1981)|Brink's robbery]] as the "unofficial end" of the Weather Underground.<ref name="PBS-Lens-2010">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/movement.html |title=The Weather Underground. The Movement |publisher=Independent Lens |website=PBS |access-date=June 2, 2010 |archive-date=September 14, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180914160355/http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/movement.html }}</ref>

===May 19th Communist Organization===
{{Main|May 19th Communist Organization}}
The Weather Underground members who were involved in the [[May 19th Communist Organization]]'s alliance with the Black Liberation Army continued to perpetrate a series of jail breaks, armed robberies and bombings until 1985, when most of them were finally arrested and sentenced for their involvement in the Brink's robbery and the [[Resistance Conspiracy case]].<ref>{{cite news|title=May 19 Communist Order|url=http://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/may-19-communist-order-m19co?ip_login_no_cache=601a108ae35afef68dde7a0db31c0683|newspaper=Trac}}</ref>