Chicago City Wire

Fifty years after its final known bombing, the Weather Underground’s legacy continues to spark debate, as critics argue the radical group's ideology lives on in modern institutions and public figures.

On Sept. 6, 1975, the Weather Underground, a now-defunct American militant organization, claimed responsibility for bombing the Salt Lake City headquarters of the Kennecott Copper Corp., citing the company’s ties to the Chilean government. 

It was the last known attack by the group, which carried out a series of bombings in the late 1960s and early 1970s before disbanding soon afterward.

Bill Ayers | Wikipedia

But the ideology of the Weather Underground lives on through people and organizations that now garner public recognition, according to Ken Braun of the Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center (CRC).

Among those he names are the Chicago-based People’s Law Office, the New York-based National Lawyers Guild, and the group’s co-founders Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.

“In a just world, Ayers, Dohrn and their cabal of bombers would have served long prison terms and finished their lives as ostracized terrorists,” Braun told Chicago City Wire. “Instead, the incompetence of Hoover’s FBI and the ongoing indulgence of the American Left allowed them to become university instructors and celebrated thinkers.”

After years on the run, Dohrn became an associate clinical professor at Northwestern University School of Law and, for 23 years, was the director of its Children and Family Justice Center.

Ayers, Dohrn’s husband, later became a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Both are now retired.

"The Weather Underground (also known as Weatherman or the Weathermen) was a radical-left violent extremist group that was active from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s. What became known as the Weather Underground began in 1969 as 'Weatherman,' a dominant faction within Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a left-wing-turned-revolutionary Communist organization that split apart shortly after founding of Weatherman," states CRC's InfluenceWatch.

InfluenceWatch cites books by historian Arthur Eckstein and Vanity Fair journalist Bryan Burrough who used law enforcement documents and personal recollections of numerous former Weathermen leaders to demonstrate that through at least May 1970 the organization aggressively promoted efforts to kill police officers and military personnel as part of its goal of sparking the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.

“While no murders have been conclusively tied to the Weathermen, police officers were injured in at least two Weathermen attacks," InfluenceWatch states. "As late as 2003, several former Weathermen leaders were the subject of a federal probe into the February 1970 bombing-murder of a San Francisco, California, police officer that occurred two days after a known-Weatherman bombing that injured police in nearby Berkeley.”

"Despite a significant investigation, costing an estimated $86.6 million in 2020 dollars, the FBI was never able to catch and secure prosecution of any major Weatherman participants, two of whom appeared on the Bureau’s list of ten 'Most Wanted' fugitives. In its desperation, the FBI resorted to unconstitutional methods to pursue the Weathermen, including warrantless break-ins and electronic surveillance of family members of Weathermen leaders. This behavior compromised the ability of federal law enforcement to prosecute the Weathermen, leading the U.S. Department of Justice to drop the most serious charges in 1973 and allowing nearly all the Weathermen leaders to come out from hiding and avoid serious felony prosecutions."