The Weather Underground | Inferno | 2

It's March 6, 1970, in Greenwich Village, New York.

25-year-old Cathy Wilkerson pushes a heap of debris off her battered body.

Just moments ago, three huge explosions transformed a stately townhouse into a smoldering pile of rubble.

Wilkerson hacks and coughs as she staggers to her feet.

It's hard to see anything through the dust and ash.

Everything has turned a dingy shade of white like soiled gauze.

Minutes ago, Wilkerson was watching TV while her comrades, members of the radical left-wing Weather Underground, were in a basement making bombs.

Then one of the bombs went off.

Wilkerson calls out for her friends in a hoarse voice.

Seconds pass and she doesn't hear anyone calling back to her.

Her blood runs cold until she hears shaky footsteps nearby.

Relief floods her as she finds her friend, 27-year-old Kathy Boudin climbing out of the crater.

Boudin was showering during the explosion and she's stark naked.

She's also panicking.

The smoke is so thick that Boudin thinks she's gone blind.

Wilkerson manages to calm her down though, and as they stand there taking stock, they realize how lucky they are to have survived more or less unharmed.

The two women carefully pick their way through the debris, searching for the rest of their friends.

The red brick archway that used to lead to the front door is the only part of the façade that's still standing.

Shattered bricks and glass shards litter the steps and sidewalk beyond.

Remarkably, a thin tree right outside the smoking ruin is still standing.

It's leaves are burnt to cinders and the smaller branches folded like broken wings, but everything else is buried under feet of plaster and rock.

There are no signs of any other survivors, no voices calling for help, only heavy, dead silence.

A few moments later, a neighbor runs out of her house to check on the commotion.

She notices the two women and ushers them into her house.

Understandably, she's totally shocked that the house next to hers has been blown up, and she seems more panicked than both Boudin and Wilkerson.

Rushing about tending to the young women, she offers them fresh clothes, has them sit at her kitchen table and brings them a pot of tea.

Then she calls the police while her housekeeper keeps anxious watch over the guests.

Wilkerson and Boudin sneak looks at each other when she turns her back.

They both know that they're in big trouble.

Once the police find out that they're in The Weather Underground, it won't matter that the explosion was an accident.

And because Wilkerson's father owns the townhouse, there's no way they won't be identified.

They have to get out of here.

Now.

While the neighbor is still on the phone, Wilkerson approaches the housekeeper and makes an excuse to leave.

She says they're going to the pharmacy down the block for some first aid supplies.

Then they'll be right back.

Before anyone can stop them, they're out the front door and running.

On the street corner, Wilkerson and Boudin pause for a moment.

Their minds reel as they try and process what's just happened to them.

The police will be on their tails soon.

Their home is destroyed and their friends are dead.

They know what they're supposed to do now.

There's a contingency plan in case of emergencies, but this feels bigger than anything their group could have ever imagined.

They're not sure if it's still the right thing to do.

But what else is there?

They're revolutionaries.

They have to make hard decisions.

They nod at each other and take off running once again.

They can't stop now.

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

In the late 1960s, a group of far left anti-war activists decided that peaceful protests weren't enough to stop US involvement in Vietnam.

The Weathermen, as they called themselves, have been demonstrating against the United States government for years, but it felt like they weren't making any headway.

And each day, more innocent people died overseas.

The most radical among them pushed for stronger, more violent action.

They wanted to bring the war home, to give people in the US a taste of the violence and uncertainty the people of Vietnam faced every day.

To do that, they organized the Days of Rage in Chicago, a series of protests designed to cause chaos all over the city.

But when things didn't go exactly to plan, the Weathermen decided to take things up a notch.

They re-branded, came up with a new, more violent mission, and split into small cells across the US.

They were preparing to wage war on the government.

From there, the movement only got more radical, and in many ways, started to resemble an insular cult.

Members were isolated, their schedules were tightly controlled, and leaders even demanded couples be separated to encourage more sexual experimentation throughout the group.

All the while, the Weather Underground struggled to bring about the national revolution they wanted.

And some people's desperation to make that happen led to a deadly explosion in New York City.

The blast was a turning point for the group.

But by that stage, the Underground was already on a path that would end in its own destruction.

Only a few people still thought there was time to hit the brakes.

This is episode 2 in our four-part series on the Weather Underground, Inferno.

It's October 8th, 1969.

Twilight falls over Lincoln Park in downtown Chicago.

23-year-old Bill Ayers strides through the chilly mist to meet with the Corps of the Weathermen for the first of the days of rage.

Around him, a few hundred people mill about, dressed in Army surplus helmets and motorcycle gear, carrying crowbars, steel pipes and slingshots.

They're young people from all over the US., some of whom have traveled hundreds of miles to be here.

Bill knows he should be inspired by this sight.

Today is supposed to be the spectacular debut of the Weathermen's new revolutionary strategy.

Three days of chaotic demonstrations designed to turn the tide, to force the government to take the anti-war movement seriously.

But the turnout is disappointing, to say the least.

Bill and his girlfriend, Diana, oughtn't trade grim expressions.

They expected thousands of workers and students to join them.

They spent months recruiting new members, trying to amass an army to smash up the city, to bring the war in Vietnam home.

This isn't even a tenth of the fighting force they need to make that happen.

And to Bill, the people who did show up look more like trick-or-treaters than soldiers.

Even so, he stifles his doubts.

He squints and peers into the fog, dyed yellow by the street lamps.

To the north, he can make out the silhouettes of policemen, maybe a thousand of them.

That doesn't include the plainclothes officers he knows have to be hidden among the crowd of protestors.

Bill swallows.

They are not only seriously outnumbered, they are outgunned too.

But they can't turn back now.

While the cops watch from a distance, Bill rallies a group of protestors around him to kick things off.

They start small, using their makeshift weapons on park benches, prying boards loose and gathering them in the center of the clearing to start a bonfire.

The tightly gathered flames spread and roar to life, attracting the rest of the protestors and lifting their spirits.

By this point, it's 9 p.m., which is an hour since the protest was supposed to start, but no one knows what to do next.

Finally, one of the inner circle, 25-year-old Bernadine Dorn, steps up and begins a rousing speech.

She's one of the most passionate members of The Weathermen, the de facto leader of the Women's Coalition.

She's charismatic, beautiful and totally fearless, the type of person who commands every room she enters.

In seconds, she's drawn the crowd's attention and begins calling up other speakers to stoke the mobs in her fire.

Eventually, the final speaker gets the crowd screaming and then sets off running, fist in the air.

The young men and women follow behind him heading south, away from the mass of waiting police.

The cops are totally caught off guard.

They've spent the last couple hours setting up barricades in the north.

Protesters always march that way through the park, so right away they're on the back foot.

While the police scramble to catch up, the weathermen get to work executing their plan.

Well, as much as there is a plan, for the most part, it's just a free-for-all.

Though the group has spent months preparing for the demonstration and recruiting protesters, there's no specific schedule or targets.

Their goal is only to shock and awe the city government, to cause as much chaos as they can.

In the minds of the weathermen, they're giving the city a taste of the uncertainty and violence that the United States inflicts daily on the people of Vietnam.

The reality of this is just a lot of vandalism from the protesters.

Bill pulls out a wooden club and smashes the windows of a Mercedes.

Next comes a Cadillac, a sign of empty wealth.

Other weathermen and their supporters bust shop windows and surround and batter a Rolls Royce.

The mob makes it four blocks before the police recover from their mistake and organize a new barricade.

And once they catch up, things escalate fast.

It's chaos.

The mob splits in two when it reaches the barricade, and the cops seize on the divided weathermen.

A couple of officers plow their patrol cars directly into the mob, breaking bones and sending people spinning to the asphalt.

With nowhere else to go, the crowd pushes forward and collides with the barricades.

Protesters swing chains and cops use their nightsticks.

People on both sides are choked out and blood spatters the pavement.

Then, gunshots start ringing out from all directions.

That's when Bill freezes.

They've been expecting a brawl, hoping for it even, but not a gunfight.

And from what he could see, none of the protesters were carrying firearms.

Then comes the tear gas.

Huge heavy clouds of it erupt in the midst of the mob, making the demonstrators choke and cry.

Bill is separated from Diana and the rest of his friends, lost in the blinding smoke.

He shouts for Diana, but it's no use.

His throat is burning.

Through watery eyes, he sees the shadows of his comrades being pinned to the ground.

He knows this is how they always expected it to end, but not so soon.

Plus, there were supposed to be thousands of protesters, too many for the police to arrest all at once.

They have three days of demonstrations planned, and they can't afford to lose everyone now.

As fear clutches his gut, Bill decides to run.

He zigzags through alleyways and leaps over bodies, searching for an escape.

Eventually, the sounds of sirens fade into the distance.

He slows to a walk, clutches his side, and looks around at the eerily quiet streets.

He has no idea where he is, somewhere by the docks, maybe in between two identical warehouses.

Another protester Bill doesn't recognize, a man in a too big trench coat, catches up to him and leads him deeper into the city.

They come upon a homeless encampment, and the inhabitants welcome them with open arms.

They aren't too fond of the police either, and that's enough to make them allies.

To Bill's amazement, he finds Diana already there, taking care of an injured girl in one of the tents.

She's a high school student, bleeding from police buckshot that grazed her left side.

Luckily, her wounds aren't serious.

Looking down at the girl, Bill realizes he's at a crossroads.

He wonders if he'll ever be able to live a normal life again.

He just helped incite a riot.

There's a price to be paid for that sort of thing, even if he doesn't know what it is right now.

Uncertain about what comes next, Bill and Diana hold each other and talk deep into the night.

The next morning, they read about the protest and the news.

28 police officers were injured, none seriously.

8 weathermen were shot, all survived.

And 68 protesters were arrested, though no one knows how many more were injured.

Bill and Diana find a ride to a safe house where they meet up with the rest of the groups in her circle.

Mark Rudd, the organization's national secretary, is planted in front of the phone, jotting down names and numbers.

While a student at Columbia University, he found minor fame as an activist.

Since he has the highest public profile, the group decided he would stay out of the demonstrations until the final day, so he wasn't at Lincoln Park.

Instead, he's tasked with using his clout to raise bail money.

Like everyone else, Mark is disappointed by the low turnout, but he's determined as ever to follow through on their days of rage.

The second day of protest goes forward as planned.

This time, the women form the vanguard.

Bernadine Dorn leads the Women's Militia, a group of between 60 and 70 into Chicago's Business District.

They try to storm a military induction center, the place where new recruits are examined and assigned to boot camps.

It's a feudal mission.

Just like the day before, the police are already gathered and ready.

The weathermen are starting to see the downside to spending months advertising and loudly recruiting for their demonstrations.

They've lost all element of surprise.

It's taking their legs out from under them before they even get going.

Still, the women run head first into a squadron of cops and are hurled to the ground.

Bernardine and some of the others are beaten, arrested and carted off to jail.

Meanwhile, Mark and the men spend their time bailing people out and trying to raise more funds.

They call everyone they can think of, reaching out to leftist groups all over the country to ask for donations.

Things only get worse on the final day of the protests, Saturday, October 11th.

The morning of, police raid church basements all over the city and arrest 43 more weathermen.

By now, the number of protesters has been drastically reduced by dozens of arrests and injuries, but the events have also drawn a lot of attention.

People are interested in the cause, and with one final protest scheduled, more fresh faces head into the streets to see what's going on.

And maybe even do their part.

That afternoon, more than 200 show up to Haymarket Square, the site where the weathermen blew up a police memorial statue a week earlier.

The cops start rounding people up almost immediately.

Mark is among the first to be grabbed.

Within a couple of hours, 120 more arrests are made, and Mark joins about 300 comrades in jail.

The Days of Rage are officially over.

Two weeks later, most of the weathermen in her circle had been bailed out.

They meet in an Illinois park for a post-mortem.

The official line from the group has been that the Days of Rage were a victory.

The first stone launched in a grand war on the establishment.

But it sure doesn't feel like a win to Mark Rudd When he mentions the staggeringly low turn out, he shouted down, accused of defeatism.

Bernadine Dorn insists the experience was a symbolic triumph, but even she thinks they need to adjust their tactics moving forward.

Street fights against the cops clearly aren't a path to overthrowing the US government.

Instead, she thinks the group should go underground, stop fighting with steel pipes, and start a real arms struggle.

They need to become fugitives, she says.

Guerrilla soldiers in an all-out war.

A chill runs down Mark's spine as he thinks of giving up his future.

Not so long ago, he went to an Ivy League university.

At one point, he imagined growing up and living the kind of life his parents raised him for.

Now he's on a different path, but he's not sure if it's what he wants.

He looks around the room waiting for someone to tell Bernadine she's crazy.

They might be revolutionaries, but they're not soldiers.

Yet no one speaks up.

Seems like everyone else is on board with the idea.

Mark thinks everyone else must just be braver than he is.

He's supposed to be one of the leaders of the group, yet he feels completely paralyzed by his doubts, his fears.

They're already the targets of undercover cops and government agencies.

This will only make it worse.

But he doesn't want to be the one to tell the group they shouldn't be taking action, and it's not like he has a better idea.

So he keeps his mouth shut and gives a grim nod.

And so, with hardly any debate, the weathermen change forever.

Now they're the Weather Underground.

Now they're going to war.

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It's December 29th, 1969, almost three months after the days of rage.

300 members of the newly christened Weather Underground fill a rundown dance hall in Flint, Michigan.

A cardboard machine gun hangs above the stage.

To its left and right stand portraits of the Underground's heroes rendered in psychedelic colors, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Ho Chi Minh, Vladimir Lenin, and Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver.

In fact, an entire wall has been turned into a memorial to the popular Panther Fred Hampton, who was murdered by police just three weeks ago.

One of the Underground's core members take center stage to call the meeting to order.

But the word meeting doesn't really describe what the group has planned.

The official name for the gathering is a war council, while the pamphlets they hand out to advertise the event call it a wargasm.

It's gonna be five days of political tirades, protest songs, wild dancing and even karate practice.

No votes, no debates, just incitement to revolution.

One of the speakers on the first night is Mark Rudd, one of The Weather Underground's most famous leaders and a prominent member of the Inner Circle.

Since the disappointing turnout at the days of rage, Mark has had some misgivings about the direction the group is heading.

But he pushes those aside, giving a speech as violent and dramatic as the rest of his comrades.

He's furious at his government, not just for dragging the country into the conflict in Vietnam, but for its crimes against civil rights leaders here at home.

He wants to avenge Fred Hampton.

He wants to wake up his fellow white Americans to get them on the side of black revolutionaries.

He talks about how good he feels when he punches a cop, how much he yearns to blow up buildings.

Bernadine Dorn goes even further.

She's the one who suggested their group transform into a guerrilla force in the first place, and she's clearly all in.

She tells the crowd she wants to terrify honky America, to burn, loot and destroy.

She wants to become her mother's worst nightmare.

From there, Bernadine kind of goes off the deep end.

She starts praising the Manson family because their murderous rampage frightened the establishment.

After Bernadine's speech, raising four fingers in the air becomes the new Weather Underground salute.

It symbolizes the fork that was plunged into Sharon Tate's pregnant belly.

In case it's not already clear, by this point, the Weather Underground has moved beyond the realm of overzealous activists.

It's probably more accurate to describe the group as a cult cloaked in noble intentions, or terrorists.

As it progresses, the wargasm lays the foundation for the future of the organization.

Members are broken up into small squads and distributed at safe houses all over the country.

These collectives are tasked with bombing police cars, vandalizing federal buildings, and causing any other havoc that might infuriate the powers that be.

Mark Rudd is assigned to one of two groups in New York.

He used to be the face of the Weathermen, but lately his star is fading.

He's also feeling depressed and unsure about the direction the group is heading.

While Mark scrambles to find a new place for himself in the group he helped found, the members who embrace the most violent rhetoric take charge.

And although one of the group's new key goals is to lie low, some members have a harder time doing that than others.

Like Mark, Bill Ayer starts in one of the New York cells.

As a member of the Inner Circle and someone who helped plan the days of rage, his name and face is somewhat well known, especially among law enforcement.

One day, Bill's grabbed off the street and shoved into the back of a police car.

For two hours, a cop drives him up and down the darkened alleys of New York.

Finally, once he's good and scared, the cop pulls over and beats Bill until he pees himself.

He's certain he'll be killed.

But then, the cop lets him go without a word.

After that, Bill transfers to a collective in Chicago.

But the New York cops don't stop.

After Bill's gone, officers break down the door of an apartment, terrify three underground members living there, and dangle one of them, Terry Robbins, out the window by his ankles.

The group's solution to this kind of intimidation is to turn insular.

They want to make sure the authorities can't find them, which starts with rooting out potential undercover officers.

So, they get stricter.

Everything is determined by the collective, including personal schedules.

Members are expected to attend meeting after meeting.

Sometimes they're studying and discussing communist theories, other times they're making action plans for the days and weeks ahead.

Then there are the hours they devote to local organizing.

Members go to high schools to hand out pamphlets to young impressionable teens.

Others write for the group's official propaganda paper or volunteer with other left-wing groups.

They give food to the hungry, tutor kids, and generally try to make good with community leaders.

Then they come home to do military drills.

They jog and march and get their bodies ready for warfare.

The group asks more than just a lot from its members.

It asks everything.

They must consider the organization in their every action, from what they want to eat to how long they sleep.

Always, competition simmers beneath the surface.

The only way to win, the only way to prove yourself, is by giving up more and more.

Not that there's much more people can give up.

Few members have jobs, so money's always tight.

A lot of the group's funding comes from the contributions of individuals who draw on their own savings, or from well-meaning parents.

Members lie to their relatives, even staging fake weddings to wheedle money from their families.

The collectives who can't pull this off turn to theft to fund their operations, from petty shoplifting to armed robbery.

They're already living like fugitives, so why not really earn it?

The most cult-like aspect of The Weather Underground, though, is something called self-criticism sessions.

That's when a collective gathers in their safe house and selects one unlucky member to be in the hot seat.

The chosen one has to sit there, encircled by their peers, and face the most personal and hurtful accusations the group can muster.

The idea is to tear away a person's psychological defenses, their ego, their rationalizations, their secret desires, doubts and prejudices, and expose their heart for all to see.

But these sessions do more than just put members through the wringer.

They're a useful way of exposing undercover cops who can't take the insults, and they also make for a harsh penalty when people step out of line.

Punishments can be earned for anything, from leaving the house without permission to more extreme infractions, like promoting sexist attitudes.

One night, Mark Rudd visits a collective in Brooklyn and walks in on one of their criticism sessions.

He recognizes the guy in the hot seat.

It's someone he knew at Columbia.

While Mark watches, the young man is driven to tears, forced to admit that he has doubts about whether the Underground can achieve its desired revolution.

They go further, making him confess that he's a sexist and that deep down, he's a racist too.

Watching a session as an outsider gives Mark a new perspective on the whole thing.

All of a sudden, it seems so brutal and unfair.

He wonders how far this sort of behavior can really get them.

How much can they truly expect people to achieve as a group if this is the environment they're living in?

They're supposed to be overthrowing the government.

Now, it seems like their goal is to remake their members from the inside out too.

Surely, they can't do both, can they?

Yet, Mark watches without ever speaking up.

Because even though it's unfair, even though it's psychological torment, he believes that this whole process is necessary.

People will come out stronger in the end.

And he's sure of it.

They'll be tougher and harder.

They'll be prepared to do what's necessary for their cause.

Unless, they're just not.

Two days later, the guy from Colombia leaves the group.

He can't take it anymore.

The collective shrugs off the departure and soldiers on.

Survival of the fittest.

That young man is by no means the only one who leaves The Weather Underground because of the group's radical new expectations.

But that's not the only issue the group is facing.

See, The Weather Underground is supposed to be a revolutionary organization.

But to meet their own expectations of what that means, they have to address power imbalances within their own ranks.

Mainly, they gotta take care of the sexist gender divide.

Some of the members argue that they can make progress on this front by doing away with monogamy.

Their thinking is that straight romantic relationships ultimately lead to the man dominating the woman reinforcing patterns of female subservience.

The solution they come up with is twofold.

First, couples have gotta be separated.

This does not go down well with many members of the group.

Suddenly, their romance is at odds with their lofty dreams of revolution.

So, to help people come around to the idea that monogamy is holding them back, the group institutes the second part of the solution, sexual experimentation.

Members are encouraged to let their wildest desires guide them, and the group facilitates exactly that.

One night after a protest in Washington, Bill joins a hundred others in a gigantic orgy at a loft downtown.

The next issue of The Weather Underground newspaper features a comic strip depicting the event taking place beneath an enormous Viet Cong flag.

It's free love, or it's supposed to be.

In reality, sexual tension rages at the Weather Underground houses, and things rapidly spin out of control.

Jealousy becomes far more intense than it ever was before the new rules.

Some couples leave the organization rather than stay apart, and for others, the obligatory casual attitude towards sex feels more confining than liberating.

Plus, all the group's sex leads to STIs spreading all among the ranks.

Everything from gonorrhea to crabs.

After a few months, the directive to smash monogamy fades out, and honestly, none of the members feel sorry when it dies.

But it's not a complete loss.

The women of the group have made their point, and many are elevated to leadership positions.

Slowly, the collectives start to feel much less male-dominated than they were.

It's progress, but only in this one specific area.

The truth is that The Weather Underground is still trying to find its footing after the failed days of rage.

Most of the leaders say they're eager for a more violent approach, but they've been slow to actually pull the trigger.

Terry Robbins is different, though.

He's the self-taught explosives expert who blew up a statue before the days of rage, and he's always been among the most militant of The Weather Underground.

He's the head of a collective in New York, and his radical beliefs seem to intensify every week.

He's always arguing for more action, more violence.

There are signs of deeper issues, too.

Terry's an arrogant guy who's obsessed with gory movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Wild Punch.

Behind closed doors, he abuses his girlfriend, Kathy Wilkerson.

In short, he's not the kind of person who should be in charge of anything, much less a revolutionary group.

But by the time the rest of the Underground realizes Terry Robbins is a loose cannon, it's already too late.

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It's February 21, 1970, around 4.30 in the morning.

John Murtagh, the nine-year-old son of a New York Supreme Court judge, sleeps soundly in his bed.

Outside the three-story pale brick home, snow blankets the grass.

Young John Snowman, painstakingly built the previous afternoon, slumps over the lawn near the driveway.

Scattered footprints surround John's father's car and split off.

Two pair lead up to the front door.

There, crouching under the knob, a couple of weathermen dressed in black fiddle with bottles of gasoline.

They hold their breath to avoid inhaling the fumes and stick two-inch firecrackers in the mouths of the bottles.

They look at each other, nod, and then one of them pulls out a lighter.

The fuse crackles to life and the weathermen split, careful not to slip on the icy stairway.

A third hovers near the car in the driveway.

He waits for his friends to pass, then lights a firecracker of his own and stuffs the bottle under the car's gas tank.

A fourth finishes spray painting the sidewalk and follows behind his comrades.

Moments later, young John is woken up by the sounds of two explosions, one after another.

It feels like someone lifted up his bed and then dropped it all of a sudden.

He sits up and rubs his eyes.

He can hear his parents shouts from the next room.

Seconds later, his mother's at his bedside, picking him up and taking him to the kitchen where his father is staring out the bay windows at the front yard.

It's bright outside.

Flames bloom over the icy lawn.

A neighbor emerges from his house and sees the fire spreading underneath Justice Murtaugh's car.

He rushes to the snowman and decapitates it, hurling the frozen head under the vehicle to douse the blaze before the car explodes.

Back inside, Justice Murtaugh and his family are paralyzed with fear.

They want to run outside, but for all they know, assassins are waiting for them to finish the job.

They opt to stay in the kitchen, caught in limbo until the police and fire trucks arrive.

By the time they do, two of the home's front windows are broken and smoke is squeezing through the cracks.

The wooden eave above their front door is burnt to a crisp, and the paint on the garage has turned black.

But no one's hurt, and all things considered, it's minor damage thanks to the fast actions of their neighbor.

The next morning, John walks past the scorched lawn to see crimson graffiti still emblazoned on the sidewalk.

Viet Cong have won, it reads, and free the Panther 21.

The last message makes the purpose of the firebombs clear.

Justice Murtaugh is currently overseeing a high-profile trial of 21 Black Panthers who were accused of plotting a string of bombings and rifle attacks.

The Panthers claim they've been set up.

They insist the attacks were planned and incited by three undercover police agents who infiltrated their ranks.

The Panthers' cause has swept the nation, inspiring large-scale fundraisers for bail money and legal representation.

And most radically, the story inspired members of The Weather Underground to take action.

Specifically, it was the collective run by Terry Robbins who targeted the judge.

When Mark Rudd, leader of a second New York collective, reads the news about the Murtaugh firebombs, he knows immediately who's responsible.

He gets in touch with Terry, who tells Mark that he's only sorry the bombs didn't do any real damage.

More than that, he's ashamed of his collective and their incompetence.

Meanwhile, Bill Ayers is carrying out a mission of his own.

He and a group of weathermen steal 125 pounds of explosive from a construction site.

Then, in early March 1970, Bill travels to Cleveland, Ohio, and he brings some of the dynamite with him.

The news recently reported that police there dragged a group of unarmed black men from the hotel and shot them in cold blood.

When Bill and his comrades arrive in Cleveland, they head straight to the precinct of the cops accused of the crime.

They tell the police they want to report a stolen bicycle.

Then, while the officers are distracted, two of Bill's groups sneak down an empty hallway.

One stands watch while the other pulls a screwdriver from their bag and goes to work on an air vent.

When the lid is loose, they stuff some dynamite inside the vent and attach a fuse made from a cigarette.

Once it's lit, they grab their friends and book it out of the station.

They race to their car and speed out of town.

Fueled by adrenaline and feeling like righteous, untouchable outlaws, they drive through the night to put distance between themselves and the scene of the crime.

But the improvised bomb never goes off.

Stuffed in the vent, the fuse was deprived of oxygen and went out just a millimeter from the detonator.

Bill's group failed.

But that's nothing compared to what's coming.

Just days later, all hell breaks loose.

On March 6, 1970, Terry Robbins and Diana Auten are building a bomb in the basement of a townhouse in Greenwich Village when they make a mistake.

Something goes wrong and the bomb, which was intended for a military event in New Jersey, explodes in their hands.

Terry and Diana die in the blast, as does their comrade Ted Gold.

Kathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin survive and flee to a temporary safe house elsewhere in Manhattan.

The explosion changes the Weather Underground once again.

It's a tragedy, sure, but it's also a wake-up call, a reminder of the risks of pursuing their violent new strategy.

A couple of days after the explosion, Bill's sitting in a ratty truck stop diner along Route 12 near Chicago.

It's 7 in the morning, but the sky is dark.

Lightning flashes outside, throwing shadows from the rain-striped windows onto grubby tabletops.

Bill's wired, too much coffee and not enough sleep, and his mouth's going a mile a minute while the woman across from him just listens.

She's patient with him because she knows he lost more than most of them in that explosion.

Diana Auten was the love of Bill's life.

Now she's gone.

But Bill tells the woman that even if he doesn't know what to live for anymore, he's determined to make Diana's death mean something.

Exactly what that looks like, he doesn't know yet.

They have to wait for a couple more people from the Chicago Collective to arrive before they make any big decisions.

They keep waiting.

And waiting.

And eventually Bill walks to the payphone in a corner of the diner and calls his missing comrades.

He knows something is wrong as soon as they pick up.

They're both crying into the receiver as they tell him they're not coming to meet him.

They can't be a part of this anymore.

Not with everything that's happened.

They're running away to Canada.

They're done.

Bill can't help it.

He starts crying too.

He's losing more friends.

Still, he wishes them luck and hangs up.

He trudges back to the table, barely holding himself together.

He's lost his girlfriend.

The Weather Underground feels like it's falling apart, and for all he knows, the police are out there hunting each of them down right this minute.

Revolution feels further away than ever, but he's not done yet.

From Airship, this is Episode 2 in our series on The Weather Underground.

On the next episode, with fewer comrades than ever, the Weathermen change their tactics once again, still determined to wage war against the US.

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 of our dramatizations are based on historical research.

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

Audio editing by Mohammed Shahzeed.

Sound design by Matthew Filla.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Terrell Wells.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

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