Days of Rage

February 23, 2015
Doggedly pursuing former radicals who’ve never spoken on the record before, Vanity Fair special correspondent Burrough (The Big Rich) delivers an exhaustive history of the mostly ignored period of 1970s domestic terrorism. He explores how middle-class whites joined African-American and Latino youth in turning their disaffection with the U.S. government into an open rebellion against local police and a furious urban bombing campaign, much to the horror of the White House and the FBI. Groups such as Weatherman (which later came to be known colloquially as the Weathermen) focused their activism on conditions facing blacks and managed to bomb high-profile targets including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, but they failed to make inroads with the larger mass of anti-Vietnam protesters. Driven underground, Weatherman and other radicals such as the Black Liberation Army barely survived through the help of family, friends, and other sympathizers until they slowly disappeared from headlines. Female leaders, such as Weathermen’s Bernardine Dohrn and the Black Liberation Army’s Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur), figure prominently. Patty Hearst’s kidnapping and indoctrination into the Symbionese Liberation Army, one of the era’s more bizarre episodes, is also included. Burroughs’s insights are powerful, though long-winded and repetitive, as he uncovers the “well-meaning if misguided”—and ultimately futile—push to shake up the system by any means necessary.

February 15, 2015
A stirring history of that bad time, 45-odd years ago, when we didn't need a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing, though we knew it was loud.The 1970s, writes Vanity Fair special correspondent Burrough (The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, 2009, etc.), saw something unknown since the American Revolution: a group of radical leftists forming "an underground resistance movement" that, as his subtitle notes, is all but forgotten today. The statistics are daunting and astonishing: In 1971 and 1972, the FBI recorded more than 2,500 bombings, only 1 percent of which led to a fatality. In contrast to the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, which killed 168 people, the "single deadliest radical-underground attack of the decade killed four people." The FBI, of course, took this very seriously. As Burrough records, it embarked on a campaign of infiltration and interdiction that soon overstepped its bounds, legally speaking. The author takes a deep look into this history on both sides, interviewing veterans of the underground on one hand and of the FBI on the other. He traces the bombing campaign back to the man he deems a "kind of Patient Zero for the underground groups of the 1970s," who began seeding Manhattan with bombs in the year of Woodstock and provided a blueprint for radicals right and left ever since. It is clear that the FBI has Burrough's sympathy; after all, many of those who went underground got off lightly, while overly zealous federal agents (the man who would later be unmasked as Watergate's Deep Throat among them) were prosecuted. The author's history is thoroughgoing and fascinating, though with a couple of curious notes-e.g., the likening of the Weathermen et al. to the Nazi Werewolf guerrillas "who briefly attempted to resist Allied forces after the end of World War II." A superb chronicle, long-but no longer than needed-and detailed, that sheds light on how the war on terror is being waged today.

March 15, 2015
With so much contemporary focus on terrorist threats abroad, Burroughs looks back to the anarchic violence of the 1960s and 1970s posed by radical groups mounting protest bombings of strategic targets. Burroughs focuses on six groups: the Weather Underground, which targeted the Pentagon; the Black Liberation Army that assassinated policemen; the Symbionese Liberation Army, kidnappers of Patty Hearst; the FALN Puerto Rican independence group that attacked Wall Street; the United Freedom Front, behind several bombings and bank robberies; and the Family, former Weather and BLA members responsible for several bank robberies, including the infamous Brinks robbery in 1981. Drawing on exclusive interviews with former members of the radical groups, many of whom served prison sentences, some of whom now live quiet, ordinary lives, Burroughs reveals the passion and ideology behind the violence as well as the deep regrets expressed by some. One bomb guru from the Weather Underground went on to teach in the New York City public schools. Others relate regrets about their targets, a BLA member wishing the group had aimed higher up the chain of law enforcement. A fascinating, in-depth look at a tumultuous period of American unrest.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

March 15, 2015

Burrough (special correspondent, Vanity Fair; Public Enemies) performs monumental research to tell the tale of underground revolutionaries in the United States between 1970 and 1985. The author is the first to convey the complete story of the six major terrorist groups during those years in one monograph. Interviewing founding and influential members of the Weatherman (later, Weather Underground), the Black Liberation Army, the Symbionese Liberation Army, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), the United Freedom Front, and the Family--as well as FBI agents who pursued these groups--Burrough's narrative provides new and updated information about the actions, participants, outcomes, and punishments meted to these radicals. Included is a "Cast of Characters," which readers will find valuable. Although the stories are told chronologically, this account occasionally reads more like a textbook than a journalistic take owing to its vast number of names, acronyms, and places. However, the concluding bibliography and index provide informative references. VERDICT While Burrough successfully details the history of these groups, the narrative could be too dense for the layperson. Highly recommended for history buffs, readers who remember these times, and students investigating the latter 20th century. [See Prepub Alert, 10/13/14.]--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll., Elkhorn Lib., WI

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2014

In the early 1970s, with groups like the Weathermen, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Black Liberation Army committing routine acts of violence, the FBI established a secret task force called Squad 47 to counter them. Its efforts, at times illegal, ended mainly by winning it a bad name. A three-time winner of the John Hancock Award for excellence in financial journalism, Burrough (Public Enemies) aims to redress the balance by portraying a desperately unsettled time as he reconstructs the battle between radicals and the FBI.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2015

Burrough (special correspondent, Vanity Fair; Public Enemies) performs monumental research to tell the tale of underground revolutionaries in the United States between 1970 and 1985. The author is the first to convey the complete story of the six major terrorist groups during those years in one monograph. Interviewing founding and influential members of the Weatherman (later, Weather Underground), the Black Liberation Army, the Symbionese Liberation Army, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), the United Freedom Front, and the Family--as well as FBI agents who pursued these groups--Burrough's narrative provides new and updated information about the actions, participants, outcomes, and punishments meted to these radicals. Included is a "Cast of Characters," which readers will find valuable. Although the stories are told chronologically, this account occasionally reads more like a textbook than a journalistic take owing to its vast number of names, acronyms, and places. However, the concluding bibliography and index provide informative references. VERDICT While Burrough successfully details the history of these groups, the narrative could be too dense for the layperson. Highly recommended for history buffs, readers who remember these times, and students investigating the latter 20th century. [See Prepub Alert, 10/13/14.]--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll., Elkhorn Lib., WI

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.