This is how the news broke across America ...

Throughout the day, news organizations in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco began reporting about a plot to take property hostage. By the time the network anchors came on the air, the rest of the country heard the news.


The images below come from the FBI file of legendary Chicago columnist, Mike Royko  (Part 2 of 2, p.33 - 36).  Other versions were published in the New York Times, January 8, 1972 and other newspapers, however the accompanying transcription below is by me (all spelling of the note writer, the book version retains his annoying punctuation too):

Prototype Bombs In Symbolic Banks, January 1972

Prototype Bombs In Symbolic Banks

During July 1971 nine unusual prototype bombs were planted in different banks across the country.  These bombs were placed in safety deposit boxes in the vaults of the banks listed below.  Enclosed is one key to one of these boxes.

* [Key No. 305637 to Box No. 47440 in First National Bank of Chicago, attached with clear tape]

New York City
1. First National City Bank - 107 William St.
Box No. 6160, Key No. ____
2. Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. - 40 Wall St.
Box No. 215, Key No. 59
3. Marine Midland Grace Trust Co. of N.Y. - 140 Broadway
Box No. 1716, Key No. 372
Chicago
* 4. Continental Illinois National Bank - 231 S. LaSalle St.
Box No. E-396 Key No. E-396.
5. The First National Bank of Chicago - 1 First National Plaza
Box No. 47440  Key No. 305637
6. The Northern Trust Company - 50 S. La Salle St.
Box No. 7936  Key No. 2002
San Francisco
7. Bank of America - Market - New Montgomery
Box No. 1508  Key No. R537
8. Crocker-Citizens National Bank - 1 Montgomery St.
Box No. 2511  Key No. ____
9. Wells Fargo Bank - Market – Montgomery
Box No. 3114  Key No. 3114

2.

What makes these demonstration time bombs unusual are the long-range tuners in them.  Clock timers used in time bombs typically have a cycle of 12 hours and can therefore only be set up to 12 hours in advance.  The timers used in this demonstration bombing have a cycle of 7 months or 217 days.  With such a functioning timer a bomb can be planted up to seven months in advance of the intended time of detonation.

The principle is simple.  Calendar clocks and watches have seven-day weeks and 31-day months.  Any given day and date combination represents itself only once every 217 days.  Let say that day be any given day and date (e.g., Sunday the 31st), then the time piece “day” and “date” of any future day can easily be calculated.  Every time the target “day” comes up on the time piece, one switch is closed for 24 hours.  The same happens to another switch when the target “date” comes up.  Only when the target “day” and “date” come up together are both switches closed at the same time, completing the detonation circuit.

The prototype timers were made of low quality cordless electric clocks.  In future bombings, they will be highly reliable, nearly silent electronic watches.  Similarly, the slow-burning powder

3.

placed in these safety deposit boxes would, instead, be compact plastic explosive.

Kidnapping people and demanding property (or money) in exchange for their lives exemplifies the anti-Life property value of our sick and brutal society.  The Movement in Amerika would do better to kidnap property and offer it in exchange for the freedom of our people.

How would one kidnap a Luxury hotel, a corporate office building or a superhighway and demand the release of political prisoners as ransome?  Simple again.  A seve month time bomb could easily be embedded in the structure of a building under construction (e.g., the new FBI building in Washington) [Ed. not sure who underlined that] or under the roadway of a highway not yet paved over.  In 3 or 4 months continued construction would make the device virtually undetectable.  The authorities and the public would then be told who is to be freed in exchange for the exact location of the device.  They would also be told how much time remained on the timer.  In case the authorities should claim to not beLieve that the threat is real, then planting two devices and telling the media where one of them is Located would cure the misconception.

4.

Of course, the power structure could refuse to meet our demands.  They would then have the option of sitting around for months waiting for some portion of one of their empty toys to blow up.  Who wiLL want to vacation in that hotel, meet in that boardroom, or drive on that super highway for the next few months?

FREE ALL POLITICAL
PRISONERS

Remember George Jackson And Sam Melville.

***

Below is the list of news people and organizations who received the notes by the time of the indictment, image from the indictment:

Walter Jacobson, the WMAQ-TV (Chicago NBC affiliate, channel 5) news anchor I watched broadcast the news in January, 1972.  He was at WMAQ for only about two years.

David Brinkley, NBC Network News anchor.

Tom Fitzpatrick, Chicago Sun-Times writer.

Nicholas Von Hoffman, Washington Post.  I have been trying to contact him about this story.

The Seed, Chicago "underground" newspaper outlet of the Weather Underground.

Paul Jacobs, KQED TV (PBS affiliate, San Francisco channel 9)

Mike Royko, Chicago Daily News.  The full letter featured above is from his FBI file.

Tim Findley, San Francisco Chronicle.  He was featured in the January 17, 1972 issue of Time as a letter recipient.

Jack Mabley, Chicago Today.

Ron Dorfman, Chicago Journalism Review, now on the board of In These Times.  I am trying to contact Mr. Dorfman about this project.

Walter Cronkite, CBS News anchor.

Additionally, Dave McQueen of KSAN News, San Francisco was mentioned as having received a note from the bomber.

Not mentioned in the indictment, but mentioned in several wire service articles, the Weather Underground connected Berkeley Tribe, received a letter too.  As reported by the Associated Press and the New York Times, they sent a transcript to KPFA-FM, a favorite station of the Weather Underground.

Posted also on this page of this blog.

Book Chapter: JANUARY 7, 1972: THE BEGINNING OF AN EXCITING MONTH

- Full First Chapter: January 7, 1972: The Beginning of an Exciting Month -

This short chapter could have been an introduction as well.  This chapter is now the introduction.  It covers what was going on at the time this story erupted across America on television and in print.

This is the only chapter of the book that is posted here in full.

B

ack in January 1972, I was a 10 year old technology and news geek in Matteson, Illinois.  It was a remarkable time to be a lad with those interests.  For years, it seemed, every single day the news mentioned a hijacking,[1] bombing, attempted bombing, the occasional domestic biological warfare plot,[2] or high-profile kidnapping.  For many of you reading this today, I am here to tell you, post 9/11 America is pretty darn calm.  Even the week of 9/11/2001 was calm compared to January 1972, and you really should count your blessings.
Knowledge of terrorism from that period is not only lost on the young.  A few years later, when I left Chicagoland for the Tennessee Valley, I discovered that much of this terrorism news was ignored or forgotten outside of the larger cities. 

The institutional amnesia effect was confirmed yet again at the family Independence Day picnic the year I write this, 2013.  I asked one of my aunts if she remembered the November 1972 hijacking of Southern Airways flight 49, a flight that made national news when the hijackers wanted to crash the plane into the nuclear reactor at Oak Ridge National Labs.[3]  One of the hijackers, Louis Moore, was from Knoxville, Tennessee (where I write) and still lives here.  Nope, she did not remember a bit of that, but she remembered the “streaking” craze on the University of Tennessee campus. 

I remembered the hijacking, as a youngster in the Chicago suburbs, because my mother’s family is from the area targeted by the hijackers.  I remembered the streaking craze too, but I just don’t find that as important an issue as hijackings, bank bombings, and home grown biological warfare attacks. 

It was not just here in East Tennessee, throughout my life I’ve met people reared in every corner of the country who had no idea that between January 1, 1969 and April 15, 1970 there were over 8,200 bombings, attempted bombings, and bomb threats attributed to “student unrest” alone.[4]  In 1970 there were over 450 terror attacks in the USA, and the next year, just a shade over half that many.[5]  Of course, different people “score” these events differently.  So, for every number I reference, other sources have different numbers.  Dennis Sodomka, of the Chicago Daily News, reported in January 1972 that in California alone “more than 100 bombs explode every month.”[6]  The fact remains, whatever source you use, that era was very active in bombings, attempted bombings, and hijackings. 

Perhaps the reason this case stood out for me, the case of the time bomber, is because it was near the end of a long series of terrorist events, and it was so different from the others in the US. 

These days, never a terrorist attack goes by that I don’t mutter, “That is not as unique or new as they are making it out to be.”  I said that about the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013, and I said it about the beheading of a British Soldier the same year. 

In this case, an instance of a bomber setting seven-month long time bombs in banks, or on other property, and holding said property for ransom, I have not noticed replicated yet, but I am sure that it is just a matter of time before someone dusts the idea off and it is reported as “unprecedented.”

---

[1] http://bit.ly/16xtF5x “Airliner Hijacked by Armed Pair Lands in Florida,” The Evening News, Beacon, NY, January 7, 1972. Accessed June 25, 2013.
[2]http://bit.ly/UCV0Al “The terrorist mind—a look back at a 1972 plot to poison Chicago,” Chicago Reader, Michael Miner, September 25, 2012. Accessed June 25, 2013.
[3] http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=170845 “Convicted hijacker shares story, details 1972 threat to Oak Ridge,” WBIR-TV May 25, 2011. Accessed July 6, 2013.
[4] http://bit.ly/12olRPc Congressional Quarterly, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, p. 2726, Volume 28, Part 4, 1970. Accessed June 25, 2013.
[5] http://bit.ly/12mmwod “Four Years of US Terror Attacks Listed and Detailed,” Guardian UK, April 17, 2013. Accessed June 22, 2013
[6] “Militants show bomb know-how,” Chicago Daily News, p. 11, January 7, 1972

 Note: This is the only blog post where the footnotes are the same as the book.  They do not reset by chapter, they continue to the end sequentially.

Book Chapter: TIME BOMBS ACROSS AMERICA

- Chapter Opening: Time Bombs Across America -

This chapter covers the news of the bomb plot as it was reported on January 7, 1972.  It tracks closely to the way I remember hearing and reading about it.

Beyond this preview, the chapter continues with early connections that could have been made between the bomber and others.  Information that was in the notes appears here, as well as information about the bombs that was not widely reported.

Update: Moving photos of the bomber's 4 page note along with a transcription, to this chapter.  The bomber's punctuation will be corrected in the transcript.  If anybody wants to read the annoying version as he wrote it (the letters A and L are capitalized throughout the note), they can look at the note itself.  I will place the annoying version of the transcript in another page on this blog.

The embeded news clip on this page is the same one referenced in the book.

O

n Friday January 7^th a particular story grabbed my attention.  Harry Reasoner announced[1] on the ABC Evening News that someone had planted time bombs in safe deposit boxes of prominent banks across the country.  Instead of sending audio tapes to the Marxists at KPFA-FM ala the Weather Underground, this bomber sent hand written notes.  Not to them, but to other Marxists and the rest to more mainstream outlets in Chicago, New York city, and the San Francisco Bay area.  He printed in block letters and had a quirky capitalization of the letters A and L no matter where they appeared in his text. 

Use of the scribe method usually results in some differences in notes, which may account for some differences in transcription; even though newspaper reports said the notes were “identical,” save for the notation to which safety deposit box an included key belonged.  The version sent to the Berkeley Tribe ― then edited by Matthew Landy Steen of the Weather Underground ― was transcribed, distributed by the Associated Press wire service, and printed by papers from the New York Times to the Geneva Times.[2]  The Chicago Daily News transcribed and published the copy sent to their columnist Mike Royko.[3] 

All were mailed from the Lincoln Park postal station in Chicago, located at 2643 North Clark Street, all stamped Special Delivery.  The letters destined for Chicago addresses were postmarked within a few minutes of 4:35 PM, January 6, 1972.[4]  The letters for San Francisco addresses were mailed one day earlier, all were delivered on January 7, 1972 to the following recipients: 

·         Dave McQueen, news anchor KSAN, San Francisco
·         Tim Findley, San Francisco Chronicle·         Walter Jacobson, news anchor for WMAQ-TV Chicago (NBC)
·         Walter Cronkite, CBS Network News Anchor, New York city
·         David Brinkley, NBC Network News anchor, New York city
·         Tom Fitzpatrick, Chicago Sun-Times writer
·         Nicholas Von Hoffman, Washington Post·         Seed, Chicago "underground" newspaper outlet of the Weather Underground
·         Paul Jacobs, news anchor for KQED-TV, PBS affiliate, San Francisco channel 9
·         Jack Mabley, Chicago Today·         Ron Dorfman, Chicago Journalism Review·         Mike Royko, Chicago Daily News[5]
While not included in the criminal complaint, the Berkeley Tribe received a letter too.
The selection of recipients was a calculated move.  Sending to network news anchors in New York increased the chances that the news would hit the national airwaves.  Although nobody at ABC received a copy, they appear to have obtained one from a newspaper. 

The mainstream newspaper selections, especially one morning paper and one evening paper in Chicago, were papers whose articles were regularly reprinted across the country. Of course, the “underground” papers would spread the news across the country from their Chicago and San Francisco centers. In those days, newspapers ruled the news, and if you wanted to get the word about something out there, you needed to get it into the big papers of the big cities.

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video?id=4100228 ABC Nightly News, “Jan. 04, 1972: Terrorist Bomb Threats.” Title and page note the wrong date.  Video shows correct date. Accessed June 21, 2013
[2] http://bit.ly/19cqkhl “Text of the plot to free prisoners,” Geneva Times, January 7, 1972, p. 2 from the Fulton History collection.  Clip of headline featured on the cover.  Accessed June 21,  2013
[3] “Text of letter on bombs,” Chicago Daily News, p. 2, January 7, 1972
[4] “6 bomb letters mailed at Lincoln Pk. station,” Chicago Daily News, January 14, 1972
[5] Recipient list from Ninth District Court complaint, see Documents chapter.

 Note: The footnotes here begin at 1, but in the book they do not reset by chapter.

Book Chapter: WEATHERMAN PLOT OR NOT?

- Chapter Opening: Weatherman Plot or Not? -

I noticed a Seinfeld episode that unintentionally captures my take on Weatherman, as a pack of brats who should be ridiculed.  My Fair Use (satire) edited version on YouTube appears in this post.  The book references a page on this blog that includes the same clips.

This chapter deals with the question of wether this set of bombs were part of a Weatherman action.  My view of Weatherman should be apparent, I do not want any reader to get the wrong impression about my thoughts, or of what the Weathermen really were.

I did find it necessary to include, because almost from the start the FBI linked this series of bombs to the Weathermen.

If you are looking for why the Weathermen chose their club name, look anywhere else but here.  That reference has been copied and pasted so many times, that no article about them is written without it (some writers actually rearranged the words a little, bully for them).  Except this one.

O

ne item that leans away from a Weatherman plot is where the bombs were planted. Nine bombs and not a one found in a bathroom!  Weatherman, Weathermen, Weatherpersons, Weatherpeople, Weather Underground,[1] no matter what their name of the month was, they had a thing for bathrooms.
Before I continue, if you are looking for yet another repeat of where Weatherman took their name, you will not find it here.  Every single story on this Soviet sponsored terrorist organization tells the tale of the minstrel and the song where these disaffected suburban youths got their club name.  What I have prepared is closer to reality, and it comes from “The Jacket” episode of Seinfeld.  A fair-use clip can be viewed here:
 http://timebomberbook.blogspot.com/p/weatherman-worlds-most-prolific.html and the relevant dialogue goes like this:

Alton Benes: “I don’t need anybody to tell me it’s gonna rain. All I gotta do is stick my head out da winda.”

Alton Benes: “All right, you boys get yourselves together. We’ll head out to the restaurant. I’ll leave a note for Elaine. I’m goin’ to da batroom.”

They blew up a bathroom in the Pentagon, they hit a couple bathrooms in the State Department, they got one in the US Capitol, and the list goes on. 

However, there were quite a few similarities.  The mention by the bomb-note writer of a “nearly silent” timing mechanism is interesting.  Electric clocks of the day had a faint hum, even the cordless variety hummed.  Electric watches had a hum too, but it was more faint, since a smaller motor equals less noise. 

If you want to hide a bomb well, you want the thing to be as quiet as possible, especially if you plan on taking a building “hostage” for months on end until your demands are met. In these bombs, there was no remote activation. Radio remote detonation did not come into vogue for a few more years,[2] and it is questionable if that technique would work with a bomb intentionally buried under tons of reinforced concrete. 

[1] They never used the name “Weathergirls,” but Paul Schaffer of The Late Show with David Letterman produced a singing group by that name a few years later.
[2] http://bit.ly/yHIqoe Cleveland Magazine, “The Bombing Business,” Edward P. Whelan, April, 1977.  Accessed June 28, 2013

Note: The footnotes in the book begin in chapter 1 and continue sequentially throughout.  They do not reset by chapter.

Book Chapter: MANHUNT FOR CHRISTOPHER C. MOHR: SEPTEMBER 1971

FBI photo

- Chapter Opening: Manhunt for Christopher C. Mohr: September 1971 -

This chapter covers when the manhunt for the bomber actually began.  No spoilers here, the bomber's real does not appear until a later chapter.  The chapter continues to reveal more details of what the bomber was doing, where he was living, and various deceptions used.  "Mohr" was one of his aliases, and the actual person the bomber stole this identity from is revealed.

A

s it turns out, the manhunt actually began four months earlier, on the morning of September 7, 1971.  A bomb planted in safe deposit box #1508, in the San Francisco Bank of America branch at Market―New Montgomery, blew up around 12:35 AM. The box was rented to Christopher C. Mohr, 560 West Arlington Place, Chicago, Illinois.  From all accounts, it appears that the FBI kept news of the explosion quiet.  There was nary a peep in the press about the explosion until after they were alerted on January 7 to the existence of that already exploded bomb, and eight more, through the hand written notes mailed to them. 

The Bank of America box was rented in January 1971 for a yearly fee of $7.  The last visit to that box was by Mr. Mohr, recorded as July 16, 1971.  Incidentally, that was the same date someone visited all three of the safety deposit boxes he rented in Chicago, Illinois.  One of the signature cards of that date for a Chicago bank is in the Documents section, and it is signed Christopher C. Mohr. 

After the bomb at Bank of America exploded, fingerprints were recovered on documents related to the box, as well as on remnants of the bomb.  On the bank documents, Mr. Mohr described himself as a 25-year-old writer from Los Angeles.  As it turns out, this became part of the charges in his indictment.  Lying to bankers in an FDIC insured bank is a felony, even if you are paying for one of the few services that the FDIC has nothing to do with,[1] renting a safety deposit box. 

FBI agents questioned the building manager at 560 West Arlington Place, the address Mohr gave eight of the nine banks.  The exception: He gave a non-existent “500 W. Arlington Place” address to the Continental Illinois National Bank.  Dan Madori, president of the American Management and Maintenance Corporation,[2] told the FBI, the IRS, and the press that “Mohr” only lived there (560 W. Arlington) for a few days in December 1970.  Mohr described himself to Madori as a physicist from Boston, Massachusetts, and the building manager said Mohr had impeccable references and that he was working with a good company. 

Mohr moved in some furniture and introduced another young man, presented as a student who would be Mohr’s part-time roommate.[3] Both men were described as being in their 20s, although Mohr was over 30 at the time.

---

[1] http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/information/fdiciorn.html Accessed July 17, 2013
[2] “Suspect sought for 6 months,” Chicago Daily News, p. 10, January 7, 1972
[3] “Who’s Mystery Man Mohr?,” San Francisco Examiner, p. 5, January 7, 1972

 Note: The footnotes here begin at 1, but the footnotes in the book do not reset by chapter.  They continue sequentially until the end.

Book Chapter: PRIVATE JAMES EDWARD JENSEN, US ARMY

- Chapter Opening: Private James Edward Jensen, US Army -

This chapter opens with a bit of what was going on in the country at the time.  Jensen is one of the several aliases used by the bomber, and this is how he spent his fall and early winter in 1971.

The notion that ending the slavery of conscription is some Rightist plot to undermine protests is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard, and it took me by complete surprise when both Mark Rudd and Peter Coyote said the same thing, using almost the same words, in book promotion appearances for their various books.  I highly encourage everybody to read their books, their support of slavery notwithstanding.

I do not include the links to their video statements here, partly because the only versions of their videos are not easily queued to the supporting statement.  The links should be here and in the book before publication.

I

n 1971, conscription was still a part of life for men of a certain age in America.  The US was still fighting the war in Vietnam, as well as keeping the Soviets out of Western Europe and the Chinese out of South Korea.  The Gates Commission had published their report the previous year, recommending Dr. Milton Friedman’s idea of an all-volunteer military.[1]  However, in 1971 the Congress extended conscription another two years, into 1973.

One slogan that those on the squishy Left, and us True Right Minarchist libertarians can agree on: Conscription is Slavery.  For the hard Left Marxists (or just hard Left without Marx), you can hear the distress in the voices of Mark Rudd, Peter Coyote, and others, that conscription is gone.  They believe, and vocally complain, that an all-volunteer military is a Rightwing plot to thwart student protests. 

For those of us on the Right, it is not just a slogan, we really mean it and everyplace that has adopted the libertarian, free-market approach to manning their military has eliminated conscription.  As for the Marxists regimes, they never eliminate conscription until they eliminate their Stalinist modeled governments.  The Soviets continued their draft long after we ended ours, and it continues to this day in Russia, as well as Red China, North Korea …
Just in time for the 1971 draft season, the US Congress changed the draft system eliminating deferments and instating a lottery-type system.  I suppose the idea was to make the slavery “fair.” 

The draft lottery was televised that year, if I recall I watched a bit of it, but it did not make much sense to me as a nine year old.  However, it made perfect sense to Mike Martin and Harold Harris.  Harris had an undergraduate degree from North Carolina, and Martin was on the verge of completing his Architecture degree from Oklahoma State when his birth date drew a low lottery number.  Martin ran right out and joined an Oklahoma National Guard unit, did his active duty training, finished school and completed his National Guard commitment. 

The two became friends in Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri in August 1971, along with another fellow.  A tall, scrawny, pale college dropout by the name of James Edward Jensen.[2]

---

[1]http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/MG265/images/webS0243.pdf Accessed June 23, 2013
[2] http://mikesslowroad.blogspot.com/2008/04/remembing-i-knew-radical.html Accessed June 23, 2013.

 Note: The footnotes here begin at 1, where in the book they begin at 1 in the first chapter and continue incrementally to the end.  They do not reset by chapter.

Book Chapter: PASSPORT NUMBER B-2362296

- Chapter Opening: Passport Number B-2362296 -

I

n late December 1971, armed with his new US Army issued identification card and accompanying piles of Army paper with the Jensen name and Social Security numbers all over them,[1] Private Jensen stopped off in Berkeley, California with a panel truck, to clean up his belongings from the rooming house owned by Leonard Coats[2] at 1314 Poe St.[3] and on December 20 he also picked up a new passport. 

From a Brazilian Federal Police document, their government and presumably others were not informed until August 10, 1972 that Jensen (Passport No. B-2362296) might be stopping by or passing through.

---

[1] In 1979, every Army anything I had was emblazoned with my name and SSAN, even my duffle bags.
[2] New York Times, January 14, 1972.
[3] San Francisco Examiner, “Bay Address – Alias Traced Bank Bomber”, January 15, 1972.

Note: The footnotes here begin at 1, but in the book they begin at 1 in the beginning and increase throughout the book, they do not restart by chapter.

This chapter continues with a translation of the Brazilian Federal Police documents.  Images of the original are in the Documents chapter of the book.