1 Statement, Port Huron, Teodori, Massimo, The New Left, Jonathan Cape, London, 1970, pp. 166–7Google Scholar.

2 Communiqué I, Harold Jacobs (ed.), The Weatherman, Ramparts, 1970, pp. 509–10.

3 New Morning Communiqué, International Herald Tribune, 25 January 1971.

4 Gilbert, James, ‘The Left Young and Old’, Partisan Review, Vol. 36, 1969, p. 352 Google Scholar.

5 Port Huron Statement, Massimo Teodori, op. cit., p. 164.

6 James Gilbert, ‘The Left Young and Old’, op. cit., p. 352.

7 Lewis, Roger, Outlaws of America, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1972, p. 157 Google Scholar.

8 Popov, Milorad I., The American Extreme Left: A. Decade of Conflict, Conflict Studies, No. 29, 12 1972, p. 4 Google Scholar.

9 SDS groups engaged in such projects as the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP) or the Newark Community Union Project (NCUP).

10 The SNCC through its community work in the early 19605 became increasingly militant and the alliance between itself and SDS accordingly weakened. The split came in 1966.

11 Abbie Hoffman.

12 Jerry Rubin.

13 ‘The yippies … attempted to offer a TOTAL event, one which simultaneously attacked all aspects of conventional society and offered its own version of community living.’ Peter Buckmann, The Limits of Prolest, Gollancz, Letchworth, 1970, p. 251. The Yippies increased and intensified the cultural content of the still ‘political’ SDS, and taught the organization to begin to consider politics as just another repressive and ‘mindless’ agent of society.

14 Brooks, Thomas R., ‘Metamorphosis in SDS’, New York Times, 15 06 1969, p. 22 Google Scholar.

15 Harold Jacobs, op. cit., p. 2.

16 Harold Jacobs, op. cit., pp. 6–7.

17 RYM II did not agree with the RYM I (Weatherman) view that students were a potential revolutionary force.

18 lawyer, Anonymous, Daily Telegraph, 12 02 1971, p. 19 Google Scholar.

19 Dylan, Bob, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, Writings and Drawings by ‘Bob Dylan, Jonathan Cape, London, 1973, p. 160 Google Scholar.

20 The Weathermen took as axiomatic that domestic (USA) and international problems were caused by American imperialism. They thus indentified with the internationalist ideas of Lin Piao.

21 Karin Ashley, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn etc. ‘You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows’, Jacobs (ed.), op. cit., p. 53.

22 Ashley, Ayers, Dohrn, ‘You Don’t Need …’, Jacobs, op. cit., p. 75.

23 Ibid., p. 89.

24 Ibid., p. 8o.

25 Ibid., p. 90.

26 Shin’ya Ono, ‘You Do Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows’, Jacobs, op. cit., p. 227.

27 Ibid., P. 237.

28 Kifner, John, New York Times, 4 01 1970, VI, p. 14 Google Scholar.

29 ‘Days of Rage’ became significantly the accepted name for the events in Chicago.

30 Michael Miles, The Radical Probe, op. cit., p. 265.

31 Shin’ya Ono, ‘You Do Need…,’ Jacobs, op. cit., pp. 242–3.

32 John Kifner, New York Times, op. cit., p. 28.

33 Ibid., p. 28.

34 Weatherman Song, Jacobs, op. cit., p. 352.

35 Ball, Ian, Daily Telegraph, 12 02 1971, p. 20 Google Scholar.

36 John Kifner, New York Times, op. cit., p. 18.

37 ‘We think it’s been a tremendous success, a total success. For the first time in this country white people are showing they’re willing to fight against imperialism.’ Cited in the New York Times, 14 October 1969.

38 Walton, Paul, ‘The Case of the Weathermen’, Politics and Deviance, Taylor, and Taylor, (eds.), Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, p. 175 Google Scholar.

39 Irving Horowitz, The Struggle is the Message, Glendessary, Berkeley, p. 72.

40 Roger Lewis, Outlaws of America, op. cit., p. 175.

41 Martin Walker, The Guardian, 27 October 1970, cites ‘Look we are costing The Man money’.

42 Kirk Sale, J., ‘Political Violence: Awakening from the American Dream’, Evergreen Review, 05 1971, p. 19 Google Scholar.

43 Ashley, Ayers, Dohrn, ‘You Don’t Need …’, Jacobs, op. cit., p. 52.

44 Hayden, Tom, The Trial, Ramparts, 1970, p. 42 Google Scholar.

45 Different estimates of actual Weathermen and supporters are given, by different commentators. FBI naturally estimated numbers in the hundreds.

46 Bob Dylan, ‘New Morning’, Writings and Drawings, op. cit., p. 291.

47 As usual with information pertaining to the Weathermen we encounter difficulties with dates. The International Herald Tribune published the New Morning Communiqué on 25 January 1971 but J. Kirk Sale, op. cit., refers to the date of release as December 1970.

48 Daniel Berrigan is a non‐violent radical priest ‐who engaged in anti‐war activities and lived ‘underground’ for a while. He thought that the Weathermen had initially been non‐violent but that ‘their violent rhythm was induced by the violence of society’. See ‘A Dialogue Underground’, New York Review of Books, 11 March 1971, p. 19.

49 Time Magazine, 22 February 1971.

50 ‘The New Sensibility has become a political factor’, Marcuse, H., An Essay on Liberation, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1972, p. 31 Google Scholar.

51 Marcuse, Herbert, interview in Psychology Today, 02 1971, p. 64 Google Scholar.

52 The town‐house explosion killed Terry Robbins, Ted Gold and Diana Oughton.

53 Further confusion. The ‘military error’ is not stated in the communiqué printed in the International Herald Tribune, but is quoted by Paul Walton in his ‘The Case of the Weathermen’, Taylor and Taylor, Penguin, 1973, p. 178.

54 ‘New Morning Communiqué’, International Herald Tribune, 25 January 1971.

55 Walker, Martin, The Guardian, 28 10 1970 Google Scholar.

56 Michael Miles, The Radical Probe, op. cit., p. 265.

57 See David Horowitz, in Ramparts, op. cit., p. 33.

58 International Herald Tribune, 16 October 1971.

59 Tom Hayden, The Trial, op. cit., p. 42.

60 Catter, April, Direct Action and Liberal Democracy, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1973, p. 10 Google Scholar.

61 Again we can find varying statements supposedly uttered by Bernadine Dohrn in response to the news of Manson’s murders; see Daily Telegraph, 12 February 1971, p. 19, for quotation in text. See also Paul Walton in Taylor (eds.), op. cit., p. 167.

62 A statement from Dave Dellinger, a non‐violent revolutionist and not a supporter of the Weathermen, indicates the logic behind the action. ‘All the violence of the movement in the last five years had not equalled the violence of a single 6–52 bomber vomiting death and destruction on Laos.’ Oz magazine No. 33.

63 April Carter, Direct Action…, p. 83.

64 Tankersley, Anthony, Time, 22 02 1971 Google Scholar.

65 Apple, R. W., ‘Reflections on Violence’, New Statesman, 4 09 1970 Google Scholar.

66 J. Kirk Sale, ‘Political Violence…,’op. cit., p. 55.

67 Michael Miles, The Radical Probe, p. 266.

68 Moss, Robert, Urban Guerrillas, Temple Smith, London, 1972, p. 74 Google Scholar.

69 April Carter, op. cit., p. 84.

70 Carlos Marighella, Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, in Adelphi paper 79, p. 24.

71 See Guevara, Che, Guerrilla Warfare, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969 Google Scholar.

72 ROTC = Reserve Officers Training Corps. These buildings were ‘popular’ during the militancy of the 19605 and became frequent targets for the guerrilla bombs.

73 The Weathermen began by observing this principle, e.g. the statement put out after the simultaneous bombings of Chase Manhattan, Standard Oil, and General Motors. ‘The giant corporations of America have now spread themselves all over the world, forcing the entire foreign economics of the world into total dependence on American money and American goods.’ BAMN, Outlaw Manifestos, Peter Stansul and David Zane Mairowitz (eds.), Penguin, 1971, p. 254. The principle however soon deteriorated and the political education aspects of the Weathermen work was forgotten.

74 Carlos Marighella, op. cit., p. 31.

75 The Weathermen considered Timothy Leary as a ‘political prisoner’. Here we can see the cultural aspects of the movement and the preoccupation with notions of personal liberation ‐ especially through the use of drugs as advocated by Leary ‐ ‘Tune in, Turn on and Drop out’. Also significant in this area is the. fact that the Weathermen later became known as the Weatherpeople in order to avoid accusations of male chauvinism.

76 PFLP: Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine.

77 How Does It Feel To Be Inside An Explosion, Weather song/poem, Jacobs, op. cit., p. 508.

78 Debray, Regis, Revolution in the Revolution, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1968, p. 82 Google Scholar.

79 Carlos Marighella, of. cit., p. 39.

80 Regis Debray, op. cit., p. 121.

81 The move to the country was inspired by what could be loosely described as anarchistic ideas. The move to the country was seen as a necessary prerequisite to the ‘simple’ life through which the individual and the community could be saved.

82 Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, op. cit., p. 59.

83 The vanguard, composed as it was only of students had no real experience of ‘life’. A broader based vanguard not only would have given greater credibility to its revolutionary theories, but might have prevented such a decline into self‐indulgent activity. The guerrilla theorists all suggested that students should play a minor part in the struggle, if any.

84 Without a revolutionary mass, the movement was destined to failure. As Moore, Barrington Jr. points out, ‘The main factors that create a revolutionary mass are a sudden increase in hardship coming on top of quite serious deprivations, together with the breakdown of the routines of daily life ‐ getting food, going to work, etc.—that tie people to the prevailing order.’ New York Review of Books, 30 01 1969, p. 8 Google Scholar. The Weathermen were no doubt hoping to be able to create such conditions.

85 Ball, Ian, Daily Telegraph, 12 02 1971 Google Scholar.

86 The Weathermen were constantly obsessed with symbolism ‐ they thought a scattering of Vietnam veterans in the North Dakota hills would constitute a guerrilla force. However the Weathermen do appear to have had some contact with the armed forces as suggested by their extensive armoury.

87 David Horowitz, op. cit., p. 28.

88 See Roszak, Theodore, The Making of the Counter Culture, Faber & Faber, London, 1971 Google Scholar.

89 Port Huron Statement, Teodori, op. cit., pp. 166–7

90 Communiqué 4, Jacobs (ed.), op. cit., p. 516.

91 Communiqué I, Jacobs (ed.), op. cit., p. 510.

92 For an exposition of this argument see Paul Walton’s, ‘The Case of the Weathermen’, in Taylor and Taylor, op. cit., pp. 157–81.

93 Communiqué 1, Jacobs (ed.), p. 510.

94 Author of the Politics of Experience who sees the whole as corrupt and advocates that we can save ourselves only by a total restructuring of society.

95 Dohrn, Bernadine, ‘New Morning Communiqué’, International Herald Tribune, 25 01 1971 Google Scholar.

96 Why a decline in political activity? Firstly the war was being wound down and the issues of the 1960s no longer commanded attention. Secondly many would‐be militants turned away from politics in revulsion at the Weather tactics.

97 The Weathermen admitted that they had made a mistake in thinking that the only way to revolution was through armed struggle. They did not however totally disavow the use of violence: ‘The political effect against the enemy has been devastating. The world knows that even the white youth of Babylon will resort to force to bring down imperialism.’ Cf. J. Kirk Sale, op. cit., p. 56.

98 Huey Newton, cited in April Carter, op. cit., p. 85.

99 Tse‐tung, Mao, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse‐tung, Peking, 1967, p. 88; p. 61Google Scholar.

100 Malraux, André, Man’s Estate, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1961, p. 57 Google Scholar.

101 Camus, Albert, ‘The Just Assassins’, in Caligula and Three Other Plays, Random House, New York, 1958, p. 258 Google Scholar.

102 Cited in Hentoff, Nat, ‘Dangerous Games: Playacting at Violent Revolution’, Evergreen Review, 05 1971, p. 22 Google Scholar. ‘We accept the terrible responsibility. But ‐while we mourn an unnecessary death we celebrate the blow to U.S. imperialism’ ‐ Weather statement re the death of Robert Fassnacht, killed at the Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin.

103 Symbionese Liberation Army known as the SLA. According to Time magazine, 4 March 1974, the SLA appears to have been formed from members of the Venceremos group, the Black Panthers and the Black Cultural Association. (Their numbers are given as ‘probably no more than 20 to 50’.)

104 Dutschke’s SD S (Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund) used provocation and direct action tactics in its campaigns ‐ notably in the attempt to ‘close down’ the Springer press. According to Dutschke, ‘The aim is that today we terrorize that machinery in order to regain it and make it human and controlled.’ Cf. The Students and Revolution, Spokesman Pamphlet, No. 15, p. 14.

105 The enragés notably the Situationistes and Cohn Bendit’s M22 grouping believed, and acted accordingly, in the theory of contestation ‐ the permanent challenge.

106 Robert Moss, Urban Guerrillas, op. cit., p. 68.

107 Ginsberg, Allen, ‘interview’, Partisan Review, 3, 1971, p. 304 Google Scholar.