The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground (Haymarket Series)

Rating:
Summary: A rehash of old sources; unanalytical
Review: Many of the issues discussed are framed in a rather negative and unanalytical context. While I agree that mistakes were made and lots of weird things happened, the author's recounting does little to help one figure out why things happened the way they did, in the context of the times.

1. The book contains a litany of weird things done by the Weather Underground, with very little effort at understanding or explanation, or attempt to place in context. I don't think there are easy answers for what happened and what went wrong, but what I would like to see in a study is something that helps one understand. What we have here is not much more than a review of old newspaper stories and some books. Much more primary material is needed, namely, frank interviews with people who were there. That's not easy, because the people are dispersed and not necessarily anxious to talk. But the book fails without some serious first-hand views. And it should be noted that not everything published at the time, by Weather or others, was necessarily reliable or accurate.

2. The author uses a lot of the rhetoric and slogans of the era without definition or explanation. Examples: fascism, imperialism, nationalist (page 3); black colony (page 27); ultra-leftism (page 146).

3. I don't agree that the original Weatherman paper did "little else" than define the role of black people in the U.S. (page 27).

4. I thought the reference to the Weather sign about GE workers (page 75) was peculiar. Perhaps it's accurate, perhaps it's not. To the extent it represents an actual syndrome, more supporting material would be helpful.

5. There are many glaring misspellings and errors of fact. Examples:

Pages 4, 6: Fairmont Hotel misspelled.

Page 5: Herbert Marcuse was at San Diego, not San Jose.

Page 7: Terry Robbins was from Ohio (as noted on page 100), not Michigan.

Page 23: Dean Rusk misspelled (note 4).

Page 62: Richard Elrod was not a corporate attorney; he was a city attorney, as noted on the next page. The story of what happened to Elrod is an interesting one, but the book doesn't really have it.

Page 84: The date of the War Council is wrong in the last paragraph; it was at the end of December, 1969.

Page 114: The lawyer's name is incorrect.

Page 116: First paragraph, incorrect name of Tom C. Huston.

Page 135: Leslie Bacon was called as a grand jury witness but I don't think she was charged with the Capitol bombing.

Page 137: The Georgia Straight was not an Atlanta newspaper; it was from Vancouver, B.C.

Page 146: Van Lydegraf was in his fifties, not his sixties. I'm not certain that he was expelled from either the CP or PL. He may have quit.

Pages 174-178: This section has numerous errors of fact and interpretation regarding PFOC.

Page 175: Mark Perry misspelled.

Page 179, top paragraph: The use of the passive voice here is not responsible. Who suggested this?

Page 180: Grace Fortner was not the name of the "woman originally identified as Esther."

Page 186: PFOC did not exist in Seattle in 1990-91.

All of these errors, and many more not mentioned, demonstrate two things: the author was not really familiar with the subject, and the book was poorly edited.
--Roger Lippman

Rating:
Summary: Dylan was right after all
Review: The young activists of the Weather Underground were inspired by the National Liberation Front in Vietnam and the Black Panthers at home. And more than anything else they were fueled by a righteous rage against imperialist, racist 'Amerika'. When the dust settled on 20th century history they wanted to be counted on the side of the revolution, not with the oppressors.

The book begins at the end of the 60s with the protests at Columbia University and Weatherman's emergence from the splintering New Left group, Students for a Democratic Society. It follows the group's progress from public protest and pitched battles with police, to its decision to wage war on Amerika as an underground revolutionary movement. Jacobs covers the landmark events in the group's history: the jail break of counter-culture guru Timothy Leary, the bombings of the Pentagon and the Capitol and the eventual death, apprehension and surrender of many of Weather's key members.

It's a sad and disturbing story. It is hard to credit Weather with any lasting positive achievements. They unleased mayhem and destruction in the name of justice but retired from the struggle defeated. One of most harrowing episodes in the book is the Greewich Village townhouse explosion. The result of an accident, it killed three of Weather's members (Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robins). The group were building bombs out of dynamite and nails when one exploded, destroying the building and sending the two survivors, Cathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin, running half naked into the street. The book's photographs are a reminder of how young the three activists must have been at the time they died.

Jacobs states his sympathies up front. He writes that he "admired [Weather's] style and its ability to hit targets which in my view deserved to be hit." But even as an inspired observer he admits that even he doesn't understand the group's politics. Jacobs is objective enough to cover some of the less flattering moments in Weather's history. For example, although she's depicted like movie star on the front cover, between the pages Weather spokeswoman Bernadine Dohrn is caught gloating over the Manson murders in a 1969 speech.

The major shortcoming of the book is a lack of fresh first-hand material. Jacobs' sources seem to have been mostly archival. I finshed the book wanting to know what Weather's survivors thought now about the riots, the bombings and their years underground. I wanted a glimpse inside their heads, to understand a little of what they thought they were going to achieve.

If you want to know what the Weather Underground was, what it did, and what happened to its members, this book gives a history from begining to end. No other book does that. But if you want to know what it all means, you're going to have to figure that out for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Those Wacky Leftists
Review: This short book attempts to outline the rise and fall of the Weatherman Organization. Weather, as it came to be known, was an offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). When the SDS fragmented in the late 1960's, Weather became its best known survivor. Weather quickly went "underground" and engaged in a series of bombings that stretched well into the 1970's. Probably the most recognizable event in the history of Weather was the explosion that occurred in a townhouse in New York in 1970, when three members died while constructing bombs. The group bombed the United States Capitol building, banks, police stations and other "symbols" of what they deemed the imperialist-capitalist system. Most members of the Weather group eventually were arrested and sentenced to prison (unfortunately brief) terms. The last action concerning Weather was an armored car robbery in 1981 in New York.

Ron Jacobs, the author of this book, really could have done a better job. For one thing, he sympathizes too much with his topic. This causes serious problems with his objectivity and taints the book. His research is lacking as well. He relies exclusively on news clippings and documents. I believe I saw only one citation concerning an interview with a figure involved in the actual events. Errors abound as well, mostly concerning editing problems that should have been rectified before reaching publication. The book resembles a laundry list of events more than a historical narrative. In short, Jacobs takes a subject that has the potential for interest and turns it into cerebral novacaine. I'd like to see a more serious treatment of this topic, preferably written by a professional historian.

There is still some value to be found here, however. Even a car wreck of a book can't hide the fact that Weather was made up of serious wackos. The conflicts within Weather about the direction the group should take would be hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous. All the talk about revolution and women's roles in the group become ridiculous when you remember that we are talking about an organization made up of at most a few hundred people. Actually, I hesitate to call Weather an organization because hierarchy was seen as a symptom of the "imperialist pig" system. I also have problems with using the term "underground" in referring to Weather. Most of the group lived openly, albeit under assumed identities, for years. Bernardine Dohrn, who praised the Manson killings and wrote most of the Weather invective, lived with hubby Billy Ayers in New York. They raised children and worked jobs like any other people. When I think of underground, I think of hiding out and moving from safe house to safe house. This definitely didn't happen here. It's unimaginable that members of the Order, a neo-Nazi insurrectionist group active in the 1980's, would have lived the comfortable life many Weather members enjoyed while on the run. Unfortunately, instead of rotting away in prison, most of the former Weather members lead comfy lives today. Billy Ayers is a university professor at UI in Chicago (parents, remember this when looking for schools for your kids) and wife Bernardine works at a legal foundation. Since we can't seem to throw these people in prison, I think the best thing to do is constantly throw light on them and never forget what they did. Marginalize them as much as possible.