Just Finished Reading: Days of Rage – America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence by Bryan Burrough (FP: 2015)

Having already dipped into America’s age of radicalism I thought I was ready to appreciate the fascinating story the author laid out in just shy of 550 pages. Obviously I was aware of the Black Panthers and that was pretty much where the author started his narrative. I was pleased to see that I had remembered and understood how and why they arose and how they fell from grace with the authorities and will their followers. The shadows cast by both Malcolm X and Eldridge Clever are never, it seemed, far from events throughout the late 60’s and into the early 80’s as groups – both black and white – reinvented or rediscovered the driving force behind the radical movement and its deep roots within the underground made up of students, ex-criminals and Vietnam draft dodgers.

What very quickly came as a surprise was a combination of the number of groups involved – quite a few I had never heard of – for example the Black Liberation Army, the length of time they operated for (until the early 80’s) and the relentless regularity of their attacks. If something like that happened today – if it could! – it would surely feel like the world was coming to an end. Literally HUNDREDS of bombs were going off in New York, San Francisco, Washington, Chicago and many other towns and cities across America. Bombs went off in department stores, Army recruiting offices, Armouries, Police stations, power stations, Headquarters of major corporations and even the Pentagon. Looking back with the experience of later urban terrorism I was amazed at the almost complete lack of security measures in place in government buildings. I couldn’t help but think that in 40 years’ time our children would look back at today and wonder how we managed with so few adequate security measures in place. When it was possible to walk into a government building with a bomb, casually find the best place for it, hide it, walk out calmly and then phone in a warning without (seemingly) the slightest risk of detection I guess it wasn’t surprising that so many bathrooms in so many buildings exploded in the 70’s. When you could buy boxes of dynamite from a store with little more than money and fake ID it was hardly surprising that people tried their hands (and sometimes lost their hands) building bombs.

Initially without metal detectors, sniffer dogs, visitor searches and much more that we take for granted these days plus lack of joined up policing, lack of central databases (or any databases) it should come as no surprise that law enforcement struggled to understand these attacks never mind counter them. What arrests were eventually made happened, more often than not, by accident or radicals turning informant as groups experienced unamicable split ups and sort revenge on their previous partners in the revolution. Mostly, like Weatherman (later Weather Underground), they were idealistic young white students who had little knowledge of the real world and little experience in the radical business of revolution. Learning much of their craft from classic revolutionary texts their early mistakes were both comic and tragic. But eventually through trial, error and occasional ‘own goals’ Weatherman and other groups eventually became more active, more professional and much more effective. Although overall few people died – often by accident more than design – millions of dollars’ worth of damage was caused. Their effect on the government and on public opinion was, however, limited in the extreme. They wanted and expected that the people and oppressed minorities in particular would follow their lead but few did. The antics of the alphabet of radical gangs – the BLA, SLA, FALN and more besides – faded into the background for most people who became used to bombings and the murder of police officers that hardly made headlines never mind the first few pages of even local newspapers. As the years went by the Vietnam War fizzled out and with it much of the impetus for a radical response. The underground seemed more desperate, more disconnected and more irrelevant with each passing year. As more and more radicals made mistakes, got sloppy and got arrested the few remaining either faded forever into the background or gave themselves up. By the early 80’s it was all over.

This is a well-researched, well written and much needed review of a period in American political history that few remember and fewer seem to care about. It was a time of great passion and equally great delusion where a handful of people thought that they could save America by blowing parts of it up. A good part of the book is an attempt to understand why the radicals themselves thought they could achieve their aims through the use of dynamite and why they thought they failed. It was interesting to hear from the people themselves – interviewed many years after the events what they thought they were accomplishing in their youth. My knowledge of American radicalism is certainly more fleshed out than before reading this impressive tome. It will be interesting to contrast the American with the European experience of 70’s radicalism. But that’s for another time. Certainly recommended for anyone interested in the era or the politics of revolt.