The Weather Underground | Extinguished | 4

It's March 10th, 1970, in Greenwich Village, New York.

Albert Seidman, the Assistant Chief Inspector for the police, stands outside what was once an upscale townhouse in one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods.

Now it's nothing more than a bombed out shell.

Four days ago, the home was rocked by a sudden explosion that brought a crumbling to the ground and a heap of ash and dust.

Firefighters initially believe the blast was caused by a gas leak, but Albert's not so sure.

Since the explosion, police and laborers have been working around the clock to sift through four stories of debris.

It's hard, stomach-churning work.

They found their first body pinned under the shattered drywall near the home's entrance.

The man was identified as 23-year-old Teddy Gold, and that's what first led to Albert's suspicions that maybe this wasn't a gas leak after all.

Teddy was a known member of The Weather Underground, a far-left militant organization bent on the overthrow of the US government.

Crucially, they're a group known for using bombs to make their point.

So once Teddy was identified, Inspector Seidman started to wonder if the group was using the townhouse as a local headquarters.

That suspicion elevated what had been a more straightforward cleanup operation into a top-priority investigation.

Now, as Albert inspects the site further, a second body is uncovered near what remains of the basement staircase.

The woman's form is scooped up in the blade of a power shovel and is in such bad shape that it may take weeks for the medical examiner to identify her.

After that discovery, Albert and his colleagues know it's likely they'll find more victims in the basement.

From what the experts are saying, the explosion originated there.

Now, they've cleared enough rubble for them to get in there and figure out why.

But no one's itching to check it out.

It's currently filled with a few feet of dirty water.

So it's up to Albert to take the plunge.

He donned several layers of protective gear and wades into the flooded basement.

His flashlight probes the darkness.

Rusty junk and flakes of singed wood bob in the water, but the light soon catches something glinting in the back of the room.

He pushes through the flood to find four 12-inch lead pipes bound together.

Wires stick out from either end, and protruding from the sticks of dynamite stuffed inside.

Albert carefully carries the pipe bomb out into the light of day.

A few minutes later, his men spot a second bundle of unexploded dynamite in the basement.

It's a chilling discovery.

There were enough shoddily built bombs here to easily demolish this four-story building.

Frankly, it's a miracle that's all that happened.

While Inspector Albert Seidman waits for the bomb squad to arrive, he gazes up through the empty shell where a townhouse stood just days ago.

A chill runs down his back as he thinks about what The Weather Underground might do next.

If this is the kind of destruction they can cause by accident, imagine what they could do on purpose.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

By the end of 1970, the Weather Underground was a little over a year old, but it was already falling apart.

What had started as a thriving network of college students protesting the Vietnam War was now a scattered group of would-be revolutionaries hell-bent on government overthrow.

And neither of their main goals seemed anywhere close to becoming reality.

The truth was that the group had never been able to build any momentum.

Their debut event, the Days of Rage protests in Chicago, had been underwhelming in size.

But it still earned the group's leaders a bunch of criminal charges that kept them all looking over their shoulders ever since.

Then, the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion shocked the group to its foundations.

Sure, the Weather Underground was committed to bringing the horrors of war stateside to showing people what it was like to have your safety threatened every day.

But that was the plan when the anti-war movement was the minority.

Now, though, public support for the war was dwindling.

But the US government was still committed to seeing it through.

And from some perspectives, the only thing the Underground had managed to accomplish during their fight to change hearts and minds was getting their own members killed.

It was a reality check for some of the Underground.

Were they really willing to risk their lives for this cause?

That questioning led to a shakeup of the group and a watered down version of their original mission.

They'd still spark revolution just without any bloodshed.

It was a compromise that caused some members to see their goals as futile.

And even the most tenured among them thought about leaving the organization behind.

But the Weather Underground wasn't finished yet.

The group still had sky-high ambitions and began targeting some truly audacious targets.

Nothing was too big or too secure.

Either they'd make their point or they'd go down swinging.

This is the fourth episode in our four-part series on The Weather Underground, Extinguished.

It's late January 1971, ten months after the townhouse explosion in Greenwich Village.

Mark Rudd stands under the aqua green canopy of Bookbinders, an upscale seafood restaurant in Philadelphia.

Through the checkered glass of the front window, he can see his parents seated at a table in the back.

The 23-year-old takes a deep breath, steals himself, and heads in.

His relationship with his mom and dad is strained, to say the least.

That's hardly surprising, since he spent the last couple of years living as a fugitive.

In their eyes, he's a reckless kid who's putting himself in danger by getting involved in radical politics.

And even if he doesn't get hurt, his future will be ruined.

So, when Mark takes a seat across from his parents, the atmosphere at the table is heavy and sad.

It's like someone died.

Mark begs his mom not to cry, but she tells him that she weeps every night.

Each ring of the phone, every breaking news report, fills them with fear.

Is this how they find out their son is dead?

That's why she wants Mark to turn himself in.

Mark bites his lip and stares down at the clean white tablecloth.

He tells his parents he just can't do it.

He won't go to prison.

But things are changing, he says.

The explosion that killed his comrades last year has made him rethink things.

He's been questioning the revolution The Weather Underground has been seeking and the methods they've been using to get what they want.

So he's finally decided that he's gonna leave the group.

Of course, he knows that he won't just be able to go back to a normal life.

He might be a wanted man for as long as he lives, but at the very least, he's gonna stop making bombs.

Hearing this gives Mark's parents some relief.

They slide an envelope of cash across the table to him.

It's $3,000, which would be almost $24,000 today.

He doesn't really want the cash, but he takes it, knowing that it's their way of offering support even if they can't do more for him right now.

After saying goodbye at the end of the meal, Mark Rudd leaves the restaurant and the underground.

He sends half of the money his parents gave him to the group's leaders, along with a goodbye letter.

Then he buys an old pickup truck, and he and his girlfriend make for Oregon to turn over a new leaf.

A hundred miles away, the Weather Underground continues its mission without Mark.

Just after midnight on March 1st, 1971, two members of the group slip into the US.

Capitol building in Washington, DC.

Just hours ago, tourists from all around the world were taking in the sights of the impressive building, their entrance unimpeded by metal detectors or sign-in sheets.

There is no need for such stringent measures here, but now that lack security allows the two intruders to walk in unimpeded.

Their shoes squeak on the polished floors, but no one's around to hear it.

As they head down the stairs beneath the Senate chamber, sweat coats their underarms.

Which makes sense, because with every step, they can feel the dynamite strapped under their clothes, pressing against their bodies.

In no time, they reach their destination, an out-of-the-way bathroom decked in gleaming marble.

Inside, they peel the tape from their skin and assemble a bomb with shaky hands.

First, they bind the dynamite together with twine.

Then they attach a stopwatch as a primitive timer.

Finally, a long fuse is twisted on top.

When they're done, they can't decide where to put it.

Carefully, the underground members pick it up, holding their breath.

It's still intact, still set to blow in less than an hour.

They decide to just leave the bomb on the ground and get out of there as fast as they can.

Around 1 a.m., a man phones the Capitol and warns security to evacuate the building.

30 minutes later, the dynamite explodes.

The blast throws the heavy bathroom doors from their hinges and spills into the hallway, engulfing seven rooms in flame and causing $100,000 in damage.

The next morning, letters taking responsibility for the bombing arrive at the desk of the New York Post and the Associated Press.

They're sealed with The Weather Underground's logo, a rainbow with a lightning bolt arcing through it.

The bombing of the Capitol makes the front pages of papers across the country, but the public reaction to the attack is oddly restrained.

One senator calls it sacrilegious and tragic, but the conversation about the explosion doesn't stretch to the ongoing war in Vietnam.

Instead, politicians and journalists dismiss the event, simply calling it extremism.

By the following afternoon, sightseers once again fill the Capitol's halls, and life goes on.

So, though the bombing is initially shocking, it fails to generate the major shift in opinion the Underground is hoping for.

In effect, it's similar to the group's last major action, when they freed psychedelic advocate Timothy Leary from prison.

Breaking Timothy out five months ago netted the group around $20,000 from his supporters, and the Underground's leadership assumed it would also earn them the allegiance of the counterculture youth.

But that support never arrived, from hippies or anyone else.

They don't even have the other anti-war advocates on their side.

They worry that the bombings will only undermine the cause.

Truth be told, the government is ignoring opposition to the war, no matter where it comes from.

By 1971, the US has been involved in the Vietnam War for 15 long years, and public sentiment is firmly against the conflict.

In fact, Richard Nixon was elected two years ago on a platform that opposed the war.

Yet once he took office, Nixon expanded the destruction.

The reality is that Nixon actively ruined peace talks in the months before his election.

He just wanted a problem he could tell voters he'd fix.

Now, despite occasional rhetoric to the contrary, the government's commitment to the conflict is clear, and the cost of human life has been catastrophic.

Estimates vary, but even the lowest approximations put the total casualties at well over a million by this point.

Of those, roughly a quarter are US and allied forces.

Civilians account for about half of the remainder.

So, from The Weather Underground's perspective, they're willing to try anything.

They can see that marches and protests aren't helping stop the slaughter.

And while their bombings aren't moving the needle either, they're still hoping that their acts will inspire a sudden revolution that turns the tide.

When the attack on the capital doesn't spark that fire, the underground isn't phased.

They'll try again, as many times as it takes, and their next target will be their biggest one yet.

For about two months, beginning in March 1971, the underground works to infiltrate the center of the US war machine, the Pentagon.

Operating from a shabby rented apartment nearby, three underground members prepare diligently for the biggest operation of their lives.

Deep undercover, they go by aliases.

Anna, Erin and Zeke.

Anna is the one doing most of the heavy lifting.

Every workday, she dons a dark wig, heavy glasses and a silk blouse.

She carefully paints her fingertips with clear nail polish to obscure her prints.

Then, she heads right through the front door of the Pentagon, lost in the stream of regular morning commuters.

All she carries is a worn briefcase and a practiced air of authority.

Over a period of weeks, she carefully maps the halls, eats in the cafeteria and leaves by 11 a.m.

every day.

No one ever stops her.

While Anna does recon, Erin designs the explosive.

He uses a sophisticated timing device secured by fishing line, wrapped around a stick of dynamite about a foot long.

The third guy, Zeke, handles logistical support.

He watches over Anna as she goes to and from their rendezvous points, and refines the details of their plan as she feeds him more information.

By mid-May 1971, two months after the explosion at the Capitol, they're ready.

On the 19th, Anna prepares for her morning trip as usual.

This time, stocking her briefcase with Erin's explosive and a set of tools.

A stack of official-looking papers sit on top, bearing a forged government seal just in case anyone happens to look inside.

Once she's ready, Zeke escorts Anna to work, getting her there right on time at 9 a.m.

As planned, she makes her way to the Air Force wing of the building.

It takes her 10 minutes to navigate the maze-like hallways and descend into the basement, where she finds a tiny, forgotten bathroom.

In all her weeks of infiltration, she's never once spotted anyone else there, and today is no exception.

Heart-pounding, she locks the door, hangs up her jacket and rolls up her sleeves.

She pops open the briefcase and dons a pair of latex gloves.

Then she crouches over a drain in the floor and uses a screwdriver to pop the cover off.

She slides the tube into the drain, turns on the timer and replaces the lid.

The whole thing takes only a few minutes.

With that done, all that's left is to escape.

She throws her supplies back into her briefcase, smooths her blouse and flushes the toilet, just in case someone's waiting outside.

After making her way out of the building, she takes a roundabout route to meet Zeke at a bookstore.

They spend the rest of the day and deep into the night walking aimlessly around the city in case they're being watched.

Meanwhile, Aaron is back at the apartment.

It takes him all day to clean the place, get rid of their belongings and basically obliterate all evidence that they've lived there.

At 11 p.m., he leaves and uses a payphone to call in a bomb threat to the Pentagon.

But he's not the only one alerting the press.

Across the country, other Weather Underground members phone their local newspapers to take responsibility for the bombing and spread the word.

The bomb explodes 25 minutes after Aaron calls in the initial threat, doing tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage.

No one is injured or killed, but the attack shocks the nation.

Had they wanted to, the Underground could have done much more harm, but that wasn't their game.

It hasn't been since Greenwich Village.

Still, in the span of two months, the Underground has bombed two of the country's most significant symbols of authority and power.

And that's after years of bombing everything from memorial statues to courthouses and military facilities.

By this stage, everyone in the organization knows they're on thin ice.

The FBI has been after them for years, but these recent attacks could make the authorities desperate.

So whatever they do next, they have to be very, very careful.

It's May 20th, 1972.

Somewhere in Middle America, Bill Ayers answers a payphone a few blocks away from his apartment.

Bill's one of The Weather Underground's remaining leaders, so he's happy to hear from his comrade, alias Aaron.

Yesterday, Aaron and two others pulled off the successful bombing of the Pentagon, and now he's calling to let Bill know he's safe.

The two guys are giddy, overjoyed, they can't believe they did it.

They feel like real revolutionaries, real soldiers.

But after a few moments of celebration, the mood turned somber when they discussed the public reaction.

The press is basically unanimous in its condemnation of the bombing.

And no matter how many Americans are against the war in Vietnam, no matter how long it drags on, it doesn't seem like anyone outside the underground believes the blowing up the Pentagon is the answer.

After telling Aaron to stay safe, Bill returns to his flat above a tiny local bar.

Bernadine Dorn, his girlfriend and fellow underground leader, is sitting on the couch watching the news.

He's just sat down to join her when the doorbell rings.

It's their landlord, Sylvan, a gruff middle-aged man who looks haggard from tending the bar downstairs all night.

He's come to fix a leak in their bathroom.

Bill and Bernadine show him the problem and return to the couch.

Unlike most of Bill and Bernadine's friends, Sylvan's not involved in radical politics or interested in the finer details of the war in Vietnam.

So both of them are surprised to hear him chuckle as he overhears the news coverage.

That surprise turns to utter shock when Sylvan announces that he supports whoever bombed the Pentagon.

The politicians aren't listening to the people he says and he hopes this will be a wake up call.

When Sylvan finishes fixing the leak in Waves Goodbye, Bill and Bernadine shriek with laughter.

Sylvan's comments feel like a victory to them.

They've won someone over to their side.

It's the only evidence they've got that they're accomplishing what they want, that they're changing people's hearts and minds.

The thing is, they don't know what they can do with that kind of momentum.

Most of the remaining members of the Underground live in constant fear of being caught.

They live under assumed names and scrape by with low-paying jobs.

From what Bill's heard through the grapevine, even former members like Mark Rudd are in the same situation.

The hard truth is that even as they're pulling off these dangerous bombings, the group is barely holding it together.

And shedding its few remaining members all the time.

So, after the Pentagon, Bill and Bernadine lay low, they can't afford to do more than that right now.

Meanwhile, the US government is facing some hard truths of its own.

The war in Vietnam is unwinnable.

The politicians can see that now.

Not only has a weary public eroded their resolve, but strategic mistakes in recent years have set Southern Vietnamese forces back.

So, eventually, after several false starts and scuttled peace talks, a treaty is ready.

It only needs to be signed.

On January 27, 1973, 18 months after the Pentagon bombing, US.

Secretary of State William Rogers enters a ballroom at the luxurious Hotel Majestic in Paris.

The massive space, lit by a crystal chandelier, feels cramped because of the enormous roundtable filling the room.

Every inch of it is surrounded by politicians, bodyguards and journalists, hundreds of them in all.

Cameras snap as Rogers threads his way through the mob.

He pauses for a moment, his eyes flashing to the other side of the table, where the Foreign Minister for North Vietnam stands.

The men take their seats simultaneously.

A stack of papers and a smooth wooden block stuffed with pens sits in front of them both.

An aide hands Rogers a document and he signs it with a flourish.

Just like that, direct US involvement in the Vietnam War is over.

Celebratory bells peal all over Paris and people across the world cheer.

Thousands of miles away, in a tiny Pennsylvania kitchen, Mark Rudd listens to the live radio broadcast of the signing.

His girlfriend brings out a bottle of wine and they open it at a table made of scrap wood.

They listen to the bells over the radio and collapse into each other's arms.

Elsewhere in the country, Bill and Bernadine watch the signing on a small black and white TV.

Neither of them say anything.

Silent, happy tears fill their eyes.

It's over.

That day, the United States begins pulling out of Vietnam.

Though fighting will continue in the region for years without US involvement, the anti-war movement in the states chalks this up as a win.

Many Weather Underground members also see it as a vindication.

The US certainly hasn't swung to the far left the way they'd hoped, but the Vietnam War was one of their biggest points of contention.

It didn't happen exactly the way they envisioned, and they were only a small part of the anti-war movement, but still they got what they wanted.

Of course, that doesn't mean they're free to return to society.

All the Underground members, especially the leaders, still have targets on their backs.

Most have active warrants out for their arrest in multiple states, and the FBI remains committed to flushing them out and sending them to prison.

It doesn't seem like they'll ever be able to live normal lives.

But the Nixon administration has problems of its own.

In 1972, the Watergate Affair shocked the nation and seriously eroded public trust and politicians.

On top of that, revelations about the FBI's covert operations against left-wing organizations have begun to become public.

Known as Co-Intel Pro, many of these tactics violated the law.

In some operations, agents installed wiretaps without warrants, engaged in illegal mail searches, and even committed burglaries and arson to cover their tracks.

The federal government knows that if it ever tries to prosecute organizations like The Weather Underground, it will be forced to reveal the illegal methods it used to obtain its evidence.

It would be yet another PR disaster, one they decide isn't worth the effort.

So, in late 1973, the federal government suddenly drops all charges against members of The Weather Underground.

Now, hypothetically, this means the group's fugitives can rejoin society.

But, many of the members have a hard time trusting the government to stick to its word.

And plenty of the state-level charges are still active.

Finally, and most importantly, the underground's biggest objective remains elusive.

Sparking a violent revolution to overthrow the capitalist authorities.

It turns out that even with the Vietnam War over, the radicals in The Weather Underground don't want to stop fighting.

They won't settle for anything less than total revolution.

So, instead of abolishing the group, they decide to reconstruct their ideology.

Again.

The main result of the restructure is a new manifesto, which they call Prairie Fire and release in 1974.

It's a long document, but in brief, Prairie Fire announces the group's commitment to classical communism.

While they've always supported communist rebels around the world, few of their public communications quoted directly from Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels.

Instead, they usually spoke in vague terms about overthrowing capitalist imperialism.

Well, not anymore.

In order to circulate the manifesto, members spend months building an underground print shop.

Then, they secretly ship thousands of copies to leftist newspapers and independent bookstores.

That distribution is the underground's biggest triumph over the next couple of years.

Otherwise, members across the country work to build above ground support for their mission while continuing their sporadic bombings.

For these, their targets are smaller objectives than before.

They mostly hit the offices of attorneys general and police stations in response to perceived injustices.

But it's the same old story.

None of their efforts ultimately move the needle or grow their ranks.

They're spinning their wheels and getting absolutely nowhere.

And eventually, their resolve starts to soften.

By 1977, 30-year-old Mark Rudd hasn't been an official member of The Weather Underground for years, but he's still living as a fugitive to avoid the state charges that remain against him.

He's raising a child, he's desperate to reconnect with his family, and he wants to get back to doing good in the world.

He knows there's only one thing he can do.

In September of that year, he decides to turn himself in.

He arranges for the elaborate process through a lawyer.

Thanks to these preparations and his status as a former underground leader, he's fast-tracked through the courts.

By this stage, his charges are old, and no one seems all that interested in twisting the knife after so long.

So, after a couple of court dates, Mark agrees to a plea bargain that reduces his felony charges to misdemeanors.

After years on the run, the only punishment he receives is probation.

After that, he moves to New Mexico, where he takes a job as a math teacher at a community college.

He continues being active in left-wing movements, but makes efforts to separate himself from his past.

In 1980, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn follow suit for the sake of their three-year-old son.

All charges against Bill are dropped, and he starts working on earning a master's degree in education.

Eventually, he becomes a professor.

Bernadine is slapped with a fine and sentenced to three years of probation.

In the following years, she pursues a career in law and also enters academia.

Looking back just a few years, it's a huge transformation.

These fugitive militants hell-bent on government overthrow have become quote-unquote normal, law-abiding citizens.

But time changes a lot.

Not only are they all older and more tired, they've also lost their central rallying cause, the Vietnam War.

But despite their move towards conformity, none of them completely stop resisting.

They simply change their tactics.

The fact of the matter is that The Weather Underground wasn't accomplishing its stated goals.

And while living as wanted men and women made them feel righteous, it wasn't bringing the country any closer to revolution.

With perspective and maturity, many of them have come to believe that organizing above ground in the daylight is a better way to get what they want.

That said, not everyone agrees with that decision.

A few underground members, maybe a couple dozen in all, remain scattered across the US even after their leaders turn themselves in.

They're among the most radical and now the most desperate.

And they're willing to do anything to continue the fight, no matter who gets in the way.

It's October 20th, 1981, in Rockland County, New York, about a year after Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn turned themselves in to the authorities.

While Bill and Bernadine are enjoying their lives of relative normalcy, some of their former comrades are still in the fight.

11 and a half years ago, 38-year-old Cathy Boudin survived the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion.

Now she's sitting in the driver's seat of a U-Haul in a quiet mall parking lot, ready to go to war again.

Beside her is her partner David Gilbert, another former underground member.

They're trying to look nonchalant, but their pulses are racing.

At 3:45 p.m., the reason for the tension appears.

A Brinks armored truck pulls into the lot.

For the last year, the underground has been basically defunct.

Some of the remaining members are still lone fugitives, working menial jobs and squeaking by as best they can under assumed names.

They're not interested in living normal lives.

Maybe they've forgotten how.

Some of them remain committed to the movement, though, working with a variety of leftist groups to continue their lifelong mission of sparking revolution.

That's Kathy.

She's never stopped wanting to make a difference in the world, but lately, she's felt adrift.

So, when a group called the Black Liberation Army, or BLA, came to ask for her help with their cause, she was all ears.

Here's how they pitched it to Kathy.

The BLA wants to expatriate a large sum of money, which they'll use to found a new country in the Southern US., a country populated solely by African-Americans.

Exactly how much money they'll need and where this hypothetical country will exist are questions for another day.

For now, they just want to bring in funding, and they feel that robbery is justified no matter where the cash comes from because of the slave labor forced on their ancestors.

It doesn't sound like a plan likely to succeed, but then again, the Weather Underground's roadmap to revolution was always a long shot too, and Kathy was all in on that, so futile or not, she and David agreed to play their parts.

A few hours ago, they dropped their infant son off with a babysitter and came to this parking lot to wait.

Now that the armored truck has arrived, things start happening in a blur.

First, the guards, Joseph Trombino and Peter Page, start loading the armored truck.

As Joseph emerges from the mall with three huge sacks of cash, a cherry red van pulls up beside him.

Inside are M16 toting VLA soldiers.

They jump out and open fire, killing Peter and wounding Joseph.

The Brinks driver takes cover under the dashboard.

He fires his pistol from a hidden gun port, but doesn't hit his targets.

With the guards down, the VLA members rush to grab the cash.

It's the armored truck's final stop for the day, so the hall is a staggering $1.6 million.

Today that sum would be closer to $6 million.

The gunmen throw the money in their van, then race over to the other side of the parking lot, where Kathy and David are waiting in their U-Haul.

With the sound of sirens growing louder in the distance, Kathy and David get out and start transferring the cash to the getaway vehicles.

Half goes in the U-Haul, half in a yellow Honda parked beside it.

A few of the BLA soldiers take shelter in the back of the truck and give the signal for Kathy to start driving.

Since all the gunmen are black, the hope is that having a white couple in the front will throw the cops off their trail.

The plan might have worked if a woman across the street from the mall hadn't seen the entire ordeal through her living room window.

She calls the police and tells them that the gunmen have switched vehicles.

So while Kathy puts distance between them and the scene of the crime, she doesn't make it very far.

Four cops pull Kathy and David over and start to place them under arrest.

As they do, six members of the BLA erupt from the back of the truck and open fire, killing two of the officers.

A third is clipped in the arm and dives behind a tree.

The fourth is stuck, pinned inside of his patrol car.

By this point, it's just chaos.

Everyone scatters.

Some of the remaining BLA members' car jack ran to motorists to get away.

Others join their comrades in the yellow Honda, which promptly crashes after a bad turn.

Kathy tries to escape on foot but runs right into an off-duty officer who happens to be passing by.

Eventually, all of the gunmen are caught and arrested.

Because of the robbery's circumstances, felony murder laws apply to everyone involved, whether they pulled a trigger or not.

In 1983, David Gilbert is convicted on three counts of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Kathy's lawyers negotiate a plea bargain for her.

She pleads guilty to one count of felony murder and receives a sentence of 20 years to life.

Their son, who was only 14 months old when they were arrested, is raised by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn.

The Weather Underground had already fallen apart by the time of the 1981 Brinks robbery, but that bloody fiasco put the final nail in the coffin.

Though some former members continued to live as fugitives in the years afterwards, the organization itself was defunct.

45 years later, even with the benefit of hindsight, the Weather Underground's legacy is complicated to parse out.

At their core, they were activists who advocated for violent revolution.

Like many radical groups, some of their stated goals were noble.

Their original cause to end the US's involvement in the Vietnam War was a call to stop a conflict which killed millions.

But their methods were sketchy at best.

And today, no one, not even former members, defends the Underground's methods.

People were left hurt and terrified by their attacks, and three of their own were killed.

And for what?

The tangible results of the bombings were minimal.

They separated the Underground from most of the anti-war movement as did their divisive rhetoric.

Before the Students for a Democratic Society became the Weathermen, it was the largest organized group of protesters against the war.

It's possible that had the SDS not split in two, its members could have made a bigger cultural impact than the Weather Underground ever did.

Instead, though, this group played right into the hands of the leaders they wanted to remove from power.

The politicians who carried out the war were able to paint the entire anti-war movement as radical and violent.

Everyone was tarred with the same brush.

At the same time, corruption was rampant at the highest levels of the US government.

From Cointelpro to Watergate, few public officials ever paid a price for crimes that far exceeded those of the Underground.

And, in some cases, those actions are still reverberating around the world today.

So what's left at the end of this story of young men and women who turned their back on everything they knew?

Their families, their friends, their normal lives, to fight injustice?

Well, you can take it as a cautionary tale of good intentions leading people down crooked paths, or you could look at it as an artifact from a different time that's not too far away from our own.

But no matter what you take from it, it's a story that should be remembered.

From Airship, this is the final episode in our series on The Weather Underground.

On the next series, a devoted mother's obsession with her daughter's cheerleading aspirations take a deadly turn in a small Texas town.

If you'd like to learn more about The Weather Underground, we recommend Fugitive Days, Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist by Bill Ayers, and Underground, My Life with SDS and The Weathermen by Mark Rudd.

This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details.

And while in most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing by Mohammed Shahzid.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Terrell Wells, managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson, and Lindsey Graham.