The Tennessee ConserVOLiance

Than Barry and Bill.

One of the international experts on terrorism, Walter Laquer, reports that the German anti-terrorist commando unit GS9 had concluded that in any rescue attempt where both male and female terrorists were holding hostages the proper tactical choice was to “shoot the women first.” Studies of previous rescue raids had established that male terrorists were more likely to return fire and engage rescue commandos. Female terrorists were more likely to begin immediately executing hostages.

In today’s mail, I received a copy of a book that I identified last week as a key source on the Weather Underground in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The book is The Big Dance by John Castellucci (copyright 1986). The book’s subtitle is “The untold story of Weatherman Kathy Boudin and the terrorist family that committed the Brink’s robbery murders.” Castellucci was a Gannet reporter in Rockland, New York where the bloody 1981 Brinks Robbery took place. A Brinks guard and two police officers were killed, and members of the Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army were arrested, tried, and sentenced to long prison terms. The terrorist cell’s code name for the Brinks robbery was “The Big Dance.”

One has to wonder whether this was an inside reference to the most spectacular terrorist act ever planned by the Weather Underground – the bombing of an officer’s dance at Ft. Dix, New Jersey in March of 1970. The bombs that were being prepared for that attack detonated prematurely at a townhouse in Greenwich Village, Manhattan killing three of the weathermen, including Bill Ayer’s best friend and his girl friend. AFTER the Greenwich Village explosion, the Weather Underground, including Ayers and Dohrn went on to plant several dozen bombs across the country – including symbolic targets like the Capitol Building and the US Pentagon. The FBI credits them with 25 bombings from 1970-1976. The Weathermen may have been founded in 1969, when Barack Obama was eight years old, but their terrorist attacks continued throughout the 1970’s when Obama was a teen-ager, and culminated in a violent shootout with police in 1981, when Obama was twenty.

In the mid-1970s, some of the Weathermen (friends of Bill & Bernadine) joined with an offshoot of the Black Panthers, a militant revolutionary cell in New York City known variously as “The Family,” and also as the “Black Liberation Army.” This particular cell began a series of bank and armored car robberies to finance the revolution. Here’s a list (taken from Castellucci’s book) of their actions:

• Dec 1976 Pittsburgh, PA - armored car robbery attempt fails - 2 arrested, 1 escapes
• Oct 1977 Mt. Vernon, NY - robbery of Citibank branch - no arrests
• Oct 1978 Lower Manhattan, NY – robbery of Chase Manhattan branch – no arrests
• Dec 1978 Livingston, NJ – armored car robbery at a mall – no arrests
• Sep 1979 Paramus, NJ – armored car robbery at a mall – no arrests
• Feb 1980 Greenbugh, NY – failed attempt to rob armored car at mall – no arrests
• Apr 1980 Inwood, NY – armored car robbery at bank – no arrests
• Sep 1980 Nanuet, NY – two failed attempts to rob armored car at bank – no arrests
• Jan 1981 Danbury CT – two failed attempts to rob armored car at mall – no arrests
• Mar 1981 Danbury CT – failed attempt to rob armored car at a Ramada Inn – no arrests
• May 1981 Bronx, NY – two failed attempts to rob armored car at bank – no arrests
  May 1981 Nanuet, NY – two failed attempts to rob armored car at bank – no arrests
• Jun 1981 Bronx, NY – armored car robbery at Chase Manhattan branch, one guard killed – no arrests
• Oct 1981 Nanuet, NY – two failed attempts to rob armored car at a bank – no arrests
• Oct 23 1981 Nanuet, NY - “The Big Dance” $1.6 million stolen from armored car at Nanuet Mall. One guard killed. Two police officers killed

Now comes the interesting part. What’s the connection between this particular cell and Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? There are a number of references to both in Castellucci’s book as he recounts the history of the Weathermen. One of the connections is Kathy Boudin who had been in the Greenwich Village townhouse when the homemade bombs blew up. She was a friend of Ayers & Dohrn. She was also driving one of the getaway vehicles in the Oct 1981 Brinks Robbery. After her arrest and conviction (charged with felony murder, she eventually pled guilty to lesser charges), Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn became guardians for Boudine’s infant son, Chesa, and eventually adopted him. Chesa, now 27, refers to his birth parents as “political prisoners.”

But there’s another, more startling connection.

According to Castellucci, one of the operational problems identified by The Family was the need for multiple fake id’s. These were needed to rent safe rooms, rent cars, and in case of traffic stops by the police. The Family had no easy way to obtain fake id’s. Enter Bernadine Dohrn.

“In September 1979 a heavy-jawed, attractive woman became manager of an Upper West Side children’s boutique called Broadway Baby. The boutique, at 2244 Broadway near Eighty-second Street, sold a high-quality line of children’s clothing, accessories, and toys. The woman, who was working there under an alias, was thirty-six-year-old Bernardine Rae Dohrn. She stayed at Broadway Baby until February 1980 and, although she later denied it, law enforcement officials believe that Dohrn used her position at the boutique to help the Family obtain false identification.” (Castellucci, The Big Dance, page 151)

At least three, and perhaps as many as six, women who shopped at Broadway Baby later discovered that someone had requested duplicate ID’s in their names and that those ID’s had later been used by The Family in their criminal activities.

After the 1981 Brinks Robbery, a federal grand jury was convened to investigate the string of robberies carried out by The Family. Dohrn was investigated for her suspected role in facilitating the families fake id’s. She was subpoena’d and refused to testify. She was ordered to submit handwriting samples so that they could be compared with the requests for duplicate id’s of the women who had shopped at Broadway Baby. She refused. She served seven months in jail for refusing to cooperate. Eventually the grand jury was disbanded and she was released. (See this 1993 profile of Dohrn in the New York Times)

These things didn’t happen when Barack Obama was eight. They happened when he was in his early 20s. And a student at Columbia University in New York City.

There’s no evidence that he met Ayers and Dohrn in those days.

But is it plausible that he didn’t know who they were?

And that he remained ignorant of their past as he was hosted in their home in 1995, and worked with Ayers on two charitable boards in Chicago for over a decade?

- RedHatRob