Editing Weather Underground (section)

=={{Anchor|Major activities and suspected activities}} Major activities==
{{Main|List of Weatherman actions}}

===Haymarket Police Memorial bombing===
[[Image:HaymarketPoliceMemorial.jpg|right|thumb|The [[Haymarket affair|Haymarket Square]] police memorial, seen in 1889]]
Shortly before the [[Days of Rage]] demonstrations on October 6, 1969,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohistory.org/dramas/epilogue/toServeAndProtect/monumentOnTheMove.htm |title=To Serve and Protect |publisher=Chicagohistory.org |access-date=2015-01-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150501192936/http://www.chicagohistory.org/dramas/epilogue/toServeAndProtect/monumentOnTheMove.htm |archive-date=May 1, 2015 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> the Weatherman planted a bomb which blew up [[Monuments relating to the Haymarket affair|a statue in Chicago commemorating the deaths of police officers]] during the 1886 [[Haymarket Riot]].{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}} The blast broke nearly 100 windows and scattered pieces of the statue onto the Kennedy Expressway below.<ref name=Avrich431>{{cite book |last=Avrich |title=The Haymarket Tragedy |page=431 }}</ref> The city rebuilt the statue and unveiled it on May 4, 1970, but the Weathermen blew it up as well on October 6, 1970.<ref name=Avrich431/><ref>Adelman. Haymarket Revisited, p. 40.</ref> The city rebuilt the statue once again, and Mayor [[Richard J. Daley]] posted a 24-hour police guard to protect it,<ref name=Avrich431/> but the Weathermen destroyed the third one, as well. The city compromised and rebuilt the monument once more, but this time they located it at Chicago Police Headquarters.<ref>{{cite book|last=Green|first=James|title=Death in the Haymarket|url=https://archive.org/details/deathinhaymarket00gree|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/deathinhaymarket00gree/page/316 316]|publisher=Pantheon Books|year=2006|isbn=0-375-42237-4}}</ref>

==="Days of Rage"===
{{Main|Days of Rage}}
One of the first acts of the Weathermen after splitting from SDS was to announce they would hold the "Days of Rage" that autumn. This was advertised to "Bring the war home!" Hoping to cause sufficient chaos to "wake" the American public out of what they saw as complacency toward the [[Role of the United States in the Vietnam War|role of the U.S. in the Vietnam War]], the Weathermen meant it to be the largest protest of the decade. They had been told by their regional cadre to expect thousands to attend; however, when they arrived, they found only a few hundred people.<ref name="The Weather Underground"/>

According to [[Bill Ayers]] in 2003, "The Days of Rage was an attempt to break from the norms of kind of acceptable theatre of 'here are the anti-war people: containable, marginal, predictable, and here's the little path they're going to march down, and here's where they can make their little statement.' We wanted to say, "No, what we're going to do is whatever we had to do to stop the violence in Vietnam.'"<ref name="The Weather Underground"/> The protests did not meet Ayers' stated expectations.

Though the October 8, 1969, rally in Chicago had failed to draw as many as the Weathermen had anticipated, the two or three hundred who did attend shocked police by rioting through the affluent [[Gold Coast Historic District (Chicago)#Gold Coast|Gold Coast neighborhood]]. They smashed the windows of a bank and those of many cars. The crowd ran four blocks before encountering police barricades. They charged the police but broke into small groups; more than 1,000 police counter attacked. Many protesters were wearing motorcycle or football helmets, but the police were well trained and armed. Large amounts of [[tear gas]] were used, and at least twice police ran squad cars into the mob. The rioting lasted about half an hour, during which 28 policemen were injured. Six Weathermen were shot by the police and an unknown number injured; 68 rioters were arrested.{{sfn|Berger|2006}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}{{sfn|Sale|1974}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}<ref name="Jones">Jones, ''A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience'', 2004. {{ISBN?}} {{page?|date=December 2024}}</ref>

For the next two days, the Weathermen held no rallies or protests. Supporters of the RYM II movement, led by Klonsky and Noel Ignatin, held peaceful rallies in front of the federal courthouse, an International Harvester factory, and Cook County Hospital. The largest event of the Days of Rage took place on Friday, October 9, when RYM II led an interracial march of 2,000 people through a Spanish-speaking part of Chicago.{{sfn|Berger|2006}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}<ref name="Jones"/>

On October 10, the Weathermen attempted to regroup and resume their demonstrations. About 300 protesters marched through [[Chicago Loop|The Loop]], Chicago's main business district, watched by a double line of heavily armed police. The protesters suddenly broke through the police lines and rampaged through the Loop, smashing the windows of cars and stores. The police were prepared, and quickly isolated the rioters. Within 15 minutes, more than half the crowd had been arrested.{{sfn|Berger|2006}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}<ref name="Jones"/>

The Days of Rage cost Chicago and the state of Illinois about $183,000 ($100,000 for National Guard expenses, $35,000 in damages, and $20,000 for one injured citizen's medical expenses). Most of the Weathermen and SDS leaders were now in jail, and the Weathermen would have to pay over $243,000 for their [[bail]].{{sfn|Sale|1974}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}

===Flint War Council===
{{Main|Flint War Council}}
The Flint War Council was a series of meetings of the Weather Underground Organization and associates in Flint, Michigan, that took place 27–31 December 1969.<ref>Federal Bureau of Investigation. (1976) Weather underground organization. Retrieved [from http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080312225151/http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm |date=March 12, 2008 }} Foia.fbi.gov], pp. 382–383</ref> During these meetings, the decisions were made for the Weather Underground Organization to go underground{{sfn|Varon|2004|pp=158–171}} and to "engage in guerilla warfare against the U.S. government."<ref name="foia.fbi.gov">Federal Bureau of Investigation. (1976). Weather underground organization. Retrieved from [http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm Foia.fbi.gov] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080312225151/http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm |date=March 12, 2008 }}, pp. 382–383</ref> This decision was made in response to increased pressure from law enforcement,{{sfn|Jacobs|1997|p=41-43}} and a belief that underground guerilla warfare was the best way to combat the U.S. government.<ref name="foia.fbi.gov"/>

During a closed-door meeting of the Weather Underground's leadership, the decision was also taken to abolish Students for a Democratic Society.<ref name="Rudd, M. 2009">Rudd, M. (2009). Underground: my life with sds and the weatherman. New York, NY: HarperCollins. pp. 185–193.</ref> This decision reflected the splintering of SDS into hostile rival factions.<ref name="Rudd, M. 2009"/>

===New York City arson attacks===
On February 21, 1970, at around 4:30&nbsp;a.m., three gasoline-filled [[Molotov cocktail]]s exploded in front of the home of [[New York Supreme Court]] Justice John M. Murtagh, who was presiding over the pretrial hearings of the so-called "Panther 21" members of the [[Black Panther Party]] over a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores.<ref name="Murtagh">{{cite news|last1=Cotter|first1=Joseph P.|last2=Dembart|first2=Lee|date=February 21, 1970|title=Four bombs at Murtagh home; Panther hearing judge|newspaper=New York Post|page=1|url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/B%20Disk/Blacks%20Miscellaneous/056.pdf|access-date=January 6, 2014}}<br/>{{cite news|last=Perlmutter|first=Emanuel|date=February 22, 1970|title=Justice Murtagh's home target of 3 fire bombs|newspaper=The New York Times|page=1|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/22/archives/justice-murtaghs-home-target-of-3-fire-bombs-judges-home-target-of.html|access-date=October 12, 2008}}<br/>{{cite news|date=February 24, 1970|title=Police investigate Law firebombing|newspaper=Columbia Daily Spectator|page=1|url=http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs19700224-01.2.3&srpos=&dliv=none&e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN-----|access-date=January 6, 2014}}</ref> Justice Murtagh and his family were unharmed, but two panes of a front window were shattered, an overhanging wooden eave was scorched, and the paint on a car in the garage was charred.<ref name="Murtagh"/> "Free the Panther 21" and "[[Viet Cong]] have won" were written in large red letters on the sidewalk in front of the judge's house at 529 W. 217th Street in the [[Inwood, Manhattan|Inwood]] neighborhood of Manhattan.<ref name="Murtagh"/> The judge's house had been under hourly police surveillance and an unidentified woman called the police a few minutes before the explosions to report several prowlers there, which resulted in a police car being sent immediately to the scene.<ref name="Murtagh"/>

In the preceding hours, Molotov cocktails had been thrown at the second floor of [[Columbia University]]'s International Law Library at 434 W. 116th Street and at a police car parked across the street from the Charles Street police station in the [[West Village]] in Manhattan, and at Army and Navy recruiting booths on Nostrand Avenue on the eastern fringe of the [[Brooklyn College]] campus in Brooklyn, causing no or minimal damage in incidents of unknown relation to that at Judge Murtagh's home.<ref name="Murtagh"/>

According to the December 6, 1970, "New Morning—Changing Weather" Weather Underground communiqué signed by [[Bernardine Dohrn]], and [[Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson|Cathy Wilkerson]]'s 2007 memoir, the fire-bombing of Judge Murtagh's home, in solidarity with the Panther 21, was carried out by four members of the New York cell that was devastated two weeks later by the March 6, 1970, townhouse explosion.<ref name="New Morning">{{cite book|last1=Weather Underground|last2=Dohrn|first2=Bernardine|year=1970|chapter=New Morning—Changing Weather|editor1-last=Ayers|editor1-first=Bill|editor2-last=Dohrn|editor2-first=Bernardine|editor3-last=Jones|editor3-first=Jeff|publication-date=2006|title=Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and Communiqués of the Weather Underground, 1970–1974|location=New York|publisher=Seven Stories Press|isbn=978-1-58322-726-8|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=X2OJhrWo6PcC&pg=PT190 163]}}</ref><ref name="Diana">{{cite book|last=Powers|first=Thomas|year=1971|title=Diana: The Making of a Terrorist|location=Boston|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|isbn=0-395-12375-5|page=217}}</ref><ref name="Seedman">{{cite book|last1=Seedman|first1=Albert|last2=Hellman|first2=Peter|year=1974|title=Chief!|location=New York|publisher=Arthur Fields Books|isbn=0-525-63004-X|page=285}}</ref>{{sfn|Jacobs|1997|p=125}}{{sfn|Berger|2006|p=340}}<ref name ="Barber">{{cite book|last=Barber|first=David|chapter=Leading the Vanguard: White New Leftists School the Panthers on Black Revolution|year=2006|editor1-last=Lazerow|editor1-first=Jama|editor2-last=Williams|editor2-first=Yohuru|title=In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement|location=Durham, N.C.|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-3837-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780822338901/page/243 243], [https://books.google.com/books?id=mi2G28ZcmvsC&pg=PA250 250]|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780822338901/page/243}}</ref><ref name="Wilkerson"/>{{rp|324–325}}

===Greenwich Village townhouse explosion===
{{Main|Greenwich Village townhouse explosion}}

Weather Underground members [[Diana Oughton]], [[Ted Gold]], [[Terry Robbins]], [[Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson|Cathy Wilkerson]], and [[Kathy Boudin]] were making bombs in a [[Greenwich Village]] townhouse on March 6, 1970, when one of the bombs detonated. Oughton, Gold, and Robbins were killed; Wilkerson and Boudin escaped unharmed.

These bombs were made to target a Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) dance at [[Fort Dix]], which would be attended by non-commissioned officers and their companions, as well as [[Butler Library]] at Columbia University.<ref name="djwnyt82403" /> An FBI report stated that they had enough explosives to "level&nbsp;... both sides of the street".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/arts/my-manhattan-this-side-of-heaven-please-in-the-village.html|title=My Manhattan; This Side of Heaven, Please, in the Village|author=Michael Frank|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 10, 2002 |access-date=July 22, 2018}}</ref>  Weather Underground leadership members Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and Jeff Jones claimed the planned bombings of the Fort Dix NCO dance and Columbia University building were a rogue operation led by more extreme Greenwich Village townhouse residents, Ayers singling out Terry Robbins.<ref  name="ArthurEckstein1" /><ref name="NPR-interview-Burrough" /> However, later researchers concluded Weather Underground leaders planned and approved the bombings of an NCO dance, a Columbia University building, and several bombings in Detroit which were defused by the Detroit Police aided by informant [[Larry Grathwohl]].<ref  name="ArthurEckstein1">{{cite video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFVORAsspf8&t=1315|time=22:00|author=Arthur Eckstein|publisher=WoodrowWilsonCenter|website=www.youtube.com|date=2013|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230603234320/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFVORAsspf8|archive-date=2023-06-03|url-status=live|title=The Way the Wind Actually Blew: Weatherman Underground Terrorism and the Counterculture, 1969–1971}}</ref><ref  name="ArthurEckstein2">{{cite video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFVORAsspf8&t=2181|time=36:00|author=Arthur Eckstein|publisher=WoodrowWilsonCenter|website=www.youtube.com|date=2013|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230603234320/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFVORAsspf8|archive-date=2023-06-03|url-status=live|title=The Way the Wind Actually Blew: Weatherman Underground Terrorism and the Counterculture, 1969–1971}}</ref><ref name="NPR-interview-Burrough">{{cite interview  | url=https://www.npr.org/2015/04/05/396359930/explosive-protests-u-s-bombings-during-days-of-rage | publisher=NPR | title=Explosive Protests: U.S. Bombings During 'Days Of Rage' | date=April 5, 2015 | interviewer=NPR Staff | subject= Bryan Burrough | archive-url=https://archive.today/20230604213721/https://www.npr.org/2015/04/05/396359930/explosive-protests-u-s-bombings-during-days-of-rage |archive-date=2023-06-04 | url-status=live | quote=Especially when you look at the Weather Underground the myth has arisen, largely propagated by alumni of the Weather Underground, that they never intended to hurt a soul; that they only bombed ... symbols of American power. In fact I think I show persuasively through on-the-record interviews with former Weatherman leaders that the first 90 days up until that explosion, it's very clear now that they had intended to kill – not just anyone, but their intent was to kill policemen.}}</ref>

The site of the Village explosion was the former residence of [[Charles E. Merrill|Charles Merrill]], co-founder of the [[Merrill Lynch]] brokerage firm, and the childhood home of his son [[James Merrill]]. James Merrill memorialized the event in his poem ''18 West 11th Street'', the address of the brownstone townhouse.<ref name="GussowHouse">{{cite news|author=Mel Gussow|url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E4DB1638F936A35750C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all|title= The House On West 11th Street|newspaper=The New York Times|date=March 5, 2005|access-date=April 24, 2013}}</ref>

====Underground strategy change====

After the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, per the December 1969 [[Flint War Council]] decisions the group was now well underground, and began to refer to themselves as the Weather Underground Organization. At this juncture, WUO shrank considerably, becoming even fewer than they had been when first formed. The group was devastated by the loss of their friends, and in late April 1970, members of the Weathermen met in California to discuss what had happened in New York and the future of the organization.

In 2003, Weather Underground members stated in interviews that they had wanted to convince the American public that the United States was truly responsible for the calamity in [[Vietnam]].<ref name="The Weather Underground"/> The group began striking at night, bombing empty offices, with warnings always issued in advance to ensure a safe evacuation. According to [[David Gilbert (activist)|David Gilbert]], who took part in the [[Brink's robbery (1981)|1981 Brink's robbery]] that killed two police officers and a Brink's guard, and was jailed for murder, "[their] goal was to not hurt any people, and a lot of work went into that. But we wanted to pick targets that showed to the public who was responsible for what was really going on."<ref name="The Weather Underground"/> After the Greenwich Village explosion, in a review of the documentary film ''[[The Weather Underground (film)|The Weather Underground]]'' (2002), a ''[[The Guardian|Guardian]]'' journalist restated the film's contention that no one was killed by WUO bombs.<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite web|url=http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,990399,00.html|title=All the rage|author=John Patterson|work=The Guardian|date=July 4, 2003|access-date=February 15, 2015}}</ref>

{{blockquote|We were very careful from the moment of the townhouse on to be sure we weren't going to hurt anybody, and we never did hurt anybody. Whenever we put a bomb in a public space, we had figured out all kinds of ways to put checks and balances on the thing and also to get people away from it, and we were remarkably successful.|[[Bill Ayers]], 2003<ref name="The Weather Underground"/>}}

===Declaration of war===
In response to the death of Black Panther members [[Fred Hampton]] and [[Mark Clark (Black Panther)|Mark Clark]] in December 1969 during a police raid, and the [[Kent State shootings|Kent State Shootings]] 5 months later, on May 21, 1970, the Weather Underground issued a "Declaration of War" against the United States government, using for the first time its new name, the "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO), adopting fake identities, and pursuing [[covert]] activities only.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Alimi |first=Eitan Y. |date=January 2011 |title=Relational dynamics in factional adoption of terrorist tactics: a comparative perspective |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41475683 |journal=[[Theory and Society]] |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=95–118 |doi=10.1007/s11186-010-9137-x |jstor=41475683 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> These initially included preparations for a bombing of a U.S. military non-commissioned officers' dance at [[Fort Dix]], New Jersey, in what [[Brian Flanagan]] said had been intended to be "the most horrific hit the United States government had ever suffered on its territory".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/21/1441247|title=Ex-Weather Underground Member Kathy Boudin Granted Parole|work=Democracy Now!|access-date=February 15, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114020010/http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03%2F08%2F21%2F1441247|archive-date=November 14, 2007|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

{{blockquote|We've known that our job is to lead white kids into armed revolution. We never intended to spend the next five to 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 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.|[[Bernardine Dohrn]]<ref>[[s:Weather Underground Declaration of a State of War|Weather Underground Declaration of a State of War]]</ref>}}

Bernardine Dohrn subsequently stated that it was [[Fred Hampton]]'s death that prompted the Weather Underground to declare war on the U.S. government.

{{blockquote|We felt that the murder of Fred required us to be more grave, more serious, more determined to raise the stakes and not just be the white people who wrung their hands when black people were being murdered.|Bernardine Dohrn<ref name="The Weather Underground"/>}}

In December 1969, the Chicago Police Department, in conjunction with the FBI, conducted a raid on the home of [[Black Panther Party|Black Panther]] Fred Hampton, in which he and [[Mark Clark (Black Panther)|Mark Clark]] were killed, with four of the seven other people in the apartment wounded. The survivors of the raid were all charged with assault and attempted murder. The police claimed they shot in self-defense, although a controversy arose when the Panthers, other activists and a Chicago newspaper reporter presented visual evidence, as well as the testimony of an FBI ballistics expert, showing that the sleeping Panthers were not [[resisting arrest]] and fired only one shot, as opposed to the more than one hundred the police fired into the apartment. The charges were later dropped, and the families of the dead won a $1.8 million settlement from the government. It was discovered in 1971 that Hampton had been targeted by the FBI's [[COINTELPRO]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/people/people_other.html|title=A Huey P. Newton Story – People – Other Players |publisher=Pbs.org|access-date=February 15, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/17_panthers.html|title=American Experience|publisher=Pbs.org|access-date=February 15, 2015|archive-date=March 1, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301134853/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/17_panthers.html}}</ref> True to Dohrn's words, this single event, in the continuing string of public killings of black leaders of any political stripe, was the trigger that pushed a large number of Weatherman and other students who had just attended the last SDS national convention months earlier to go underground and develop its logistical support network nationally.

On May 21, 1970, a communiqué from the Weather Underground was issued promising to attack a "symbol or institution of American injustice" within two weeks.{{sfn|Sale|1974|p=661}} The communiqué included taunts towards the FBI, daring them to try to find the group, whose members were spread throughout the United States.<ref>Harold Jacobs ed., ''Weatherman'', (Ramparts Press, 1970), 508–511.</ref> Many leftist organizations showed curiosity in the communiqué, and waited to see if the act would in fact occur. However, two weeks would pass without any occurrence.<ref>Harold Jacobs ed., ''Weatherman'', (Ramparts Press, 1970), 374.</ref> Then on June 9, 1970, their first publicly acknowledged bombing occurred at a [[New York City]] police station.{{sfn|Sale|1974|p=648}} The FBI placed the Weather Underground organization on the ten most-wanted list by the end of 1970.{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}

===Activity in 1970===
On June 9, 1970, a bomb made with ten sticks of dynamite exploded in the [[240 Centre Street]] headquarters of the New York City Police Department. The explosion was preceded by a warning about six minutes prior to the detonation and was followed by a WUO claim of responsibility.<ref>{{cite book |title = The Weather Underground |year= 1975|publisher= US Government Printing Office |location= Washington, DC |pages= [https://archive.org/details/statedepartmentb00unit/page/n33 31]–32 |url= https://archive.org/details/statedepartmentb00unit |access-date=December 20, 2009}}</ref>

On July 23, 1970, a Detroit federal grand jury indicted 13 Weathermen members in a national bombing conspiracy, along with several unnamed co-conspirators. Ten of the thirteen already had outstanding federal warrants.<ref>{{cite book |title = The Weather Underground. |year= 1975|publisher= US Government Printing Office |location= Washington DC |pages= [https://archive.org/details/statedepartmentb00unit/page/n33 32], 131–132 |url= https://archive.org/details/statedepartmentb00unit |access-date=December 20, 2009}}</ref>

In September 1970, the group accepted a $20,000 payment from the largest international [[Psychedelic drugs|psychedelic drug]] distribution organization, called [[The Brotherhood of Eternal Love]], to break [[LSD]] advocate [[Timothy Leary]] out of a California prison in [[San Luis Obispo, California|San Luis Obispo]], north of [[Santa Barbara, California]],<ref name="The Weather Underground"/> and transport him and his wife to [[Algeria]], where Leary joined [[Eldridge Cleaver]].

In October 1970, [[Bernardine Dohrn]] was put on the [[FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1970s|FBI's Ten Most Wanted List]].<ref>{{cite book |title = The Weather Underground. |year= 1975|publisher= US Government Printing Office |location= Washington D.C. |page= [https://archive.org/details/statedepartmentb00unit/page/n33 36] |url= https://archive.org/details/statedepartmentb00unit |access-date=December 20, 2009}}</ref>

===United States Capitol bombing===
On March 1, 1971, members of the Weather Underground set off a bomb on the Senate side of the United States Capitol. While the bomb smashed windows and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of damage, there were no casualties.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/02/a-look-at-the-history-of-attacks-in-the-u-s-capitol-44-years-after-the-weather-underground-bombing/|title=A history of attacks on the U.S. Capitol, 44 years after the Weather Underground bombing|newspaper=Washington Post}}</ref>

===Pentagon bombing===
[[File:Searching for Clues After Blast in Pentagon.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Investigators search for clues after the May 19, 1972, Weatherman bombing of [[the Pentagon]]]]
On May 19, 1972, [[Ho Chi Minh]]'s birthday, the Weather Underground placed a bomb in the women's bathroom in the Air Force wing of [[the Pentagon]]. The damage caused flooding that destroyed computer tapes holding classified information. Other radical groups worldwide applauded the bombing, illustrated by German youths protesting against American military systems in [[Frankfurt]].{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}} This was "in retaliation for the U.S. bombing raid in [[Hanoi]]."{{sfn|Berger|2006|p=330}}

===Withdrawal of charges===
In 1973, the government requested dropping charges against most of the WUO members. The requests cited a recent decision by the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] that barred electronic surveillance without a court order. This Supreme Court decision would hamper any prosecution of the WUO cases. In addition, the government did not want to reveal foreign intelligence secrets that a trial would require.<ref>{{cite book |title = The Weather Underground. |year= 1975|publisher= US Government Printing Office |location= Washington DC |pages= 40, 47, 65, 111–112 |url= https://archive.org/details/statedepartmentb00unit |access-date=December 20, 2009}}</ref> Bernardine Dohrn was removed from the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List on 7 December 1973.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Dohrn |first1=Bernardine |title=FBI "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" Program Frequently Asked Questions |url=https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/ten-most-wanted-fugitives-faq/ |website=Wayback Machine |access-date=21 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151013164420/https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/ten-most-wanted-fugitives-faq/ |archive-date=October 13, 2015 }}</ref> As with the earlier federal grand juries that subpoenaed Leslie Bacon and [[Stew Albert]] in the U.S. Capitol bombing case, these investigations were known as "fishing expeditions", with the evidence gathered through [[Black bag operation|"black bag"]] jobs including illegal mail openings that involved the FBI and [[United States Postal Service]], burglaries by FBI field offices, and electronic surveillance by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] against the support network, friends, and family members of the Weather Underground as part of Nixon's [[COINTELPRO]] apparatus.<ref>{{cite book |title=U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence, Report on Illegal Domestic Intelligence Gathering Activities (1974) ["Church Committee"]}}</ref>

These grand juries caused Sylvia Jane Brown, Robert Gelbhard, and future members of the [[Seattle Weather Collective]] to be subpoenaed in Seattle and Portland for the investigation of one of the first (and last) captured WUO members. Four months afterwards the cases were dismissed.<ref>{{Cite web|title=In the Matter of Sylvia Jane Brown, a Witness Before The United States Grand Jury, Appellant, v. United States of America, Appellee, 465 F.2d 371 (9th Cir. 1972)|url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/465/371/290087/|website=Justia Law}}</ref><ref>Gelbard vs. United States, 408 U.S. 41, 92 S.Ct. 2357 (1972), reversing [https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/108596/gelbard-v-united-states/ United States vs. Gelbard, 443 F.2d 837 (1971)]</ref><ref>"New York Times.com/archives/1972/"Barnard Coed Subpoenaed to Seattle"</ref> The decisions in these cases led directly to the subsequent resignation of FBI Director, [[L. Patrick Gray]], and the federal indictments of W. [[Mark Felt]] or "Deep Throat" and Edwin Miller and which, earlier, was the factor leading to the removal of federal "most-wanted" status against members of the Weather Underground leadership in 1973.

===''Prairie Fire''===
With the help of [[Clayton Van Lydegraf]], the Weather Underground sought a more [[Marxist–Leninist]] ideological approach to the post-Vietnam reality.{{sfn|Jacobs|1971}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}} The leading members of the Weather Underground (Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn) collaborated on ideas and published a manifesto: ''Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism.''{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/PrairieFireThePoliticsOfRevolutionaryAnti-imperialismThePolitical |title=Prairie fire : the politics of revolutionary anti-imperialism : the political statement of the Weather Underground. : Weather Underground Organization. : Free Download & Streaming: Internet Archive |date=2014-12-31 |access-date=2015-01-30}}</ref> The name came from a quote by [[Mao Zedong]], "a single spark can set a prairie fire." By the summer of 1974, five thousand copies had surfaced in coffee houses, bookstores and public libraries across the U.S. Leftist newspapers praised the manifesto.{{sfn|Varon|2004|pp=292–298}}

[[Abbie Hoffman]] publicly praised ''Prairie Fire'' and believed every American should be given a copy.<ref>Marty Jezer, ''Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel'', (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), pp. 258–259.</ref> The manifesto's influence initiated the formation of the [[Prairie Fire Organizing Committee]] in several American cities. Hundreds of above-ground activists helped further the new political vision of the Weather Underground.{{sfn|Varon|2004|p=292-298}} Essentially, after the 1969 failure of the Days of Rage to involve thousands of youths in massive street fighting, Weather renounced most of the Left and decided to operate as an isolated underground group. Prairie Fire urged people to never "dissociate mass struggle from revolutionary violence". To do so, asserted Weather, was to do the state's work. Just as in 1969–1970, Weather still refused to renounce revolutionary violence for "to leave people unprepared to fight the state is to seriously mislead them about the inevitable nature of what lies ahead". However, the decision to build only an underground group caused the Weather Underground to lose sight of its commitment to mass struggle and made future alliances with the mass movement difficult and tenuous.{{sfn|Jacobs|1971|pp=76–77}}

By 1974, Weather had recognized this shortcoming and in ''Prairie Fire'' detailed a different strategy for the 1970s which demanded both mass and clandestine organizations. The role of a clandestine organization would be to build the "consciousness of action" and prepare the way for the development of a people's militia. Concurrently, the role of the mass movement (i.e., above-ground Prairie Fire collective) would include support for, and encouragement of, armed action. Such an alliance would, according to Weather, "help create the 'sea' for the guerrillas to swim in".{{sfn|Jacobs|1971|pp=76–77}}

According to Bill Ayers, writing in 2001, by the late 1970s, the Weatherman group had further split into two factions—the [[May 19th Communist Organization]] and the Prairie Fire Collective—with Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers in the latter. The Prairie Fire Collective favored coming out of hiding and establishing an above-ground revolutionary mass movement. With most WUO members facing limited criminal charges (most charges had been dropped by the government in 1973) against them creating an above-ground organization was more feasible. The May 19 Communist Organization continued in hiding as the clandestine organization. A decisive factor in Dohrn's coming out of hiding was her concerns about her children.{{sfn|Ayers|2008}}{{page needed|date=November 2024}} The Prairie Fire Collective faction started to surrender to the authorities from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The remaining Weather Underground members continued to attack U.S. institutions.