Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence

by Bryan Burrough

Overview

From the bestselling author of Public Enemies and The Big Rich, an explosive account of the decade-long battle between the FBI and the homegrown revolutionary movements of the 1970s
 
The Weathermen. The Symbionese Liberation Army. The FALN. The Black Liberation Army. The names seem quaint now, when not forgotten altogether. But there was a time in America, during the 1970s, when bombings by domestic underground groups were a daily occurrence. The FBI combated these and other groups as nodes in a single revolutionary underground, dedicated to the violent overthrow of the American government.
 
In Days of Rage, Bryan Burrough re-creates an atmosphere that seems almost unbelievable just forty years later, conjuring a time of native-born radicals, most of them “nice middle-class kids,” smuggling bombs into skyscrapers and detonating them inside the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, at a Boston courthouse and a Wall Street restaurant packed with lunchtime diners. The FBI’s fevered response included the formation of a secret task force called Squad 47, dedicated to hunting the groups down and rolling them up. But Squad 47 itself broke many laws in its attempts to bring the revolutionaries to justice, and its efforts ultimately ended in fiasco.
 
Drawing on revelatory interviews with members of the underground and the FBI who speak about their experiences for the first time, Days of Rage is a mesmerizing book that takes us into the hearts and minds of homegrown terrorists and federal agents alike and weaves their stories into a spellbinding secret history of the 1970s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143107972
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/05/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	624
Sales rank:	266,569
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of five previous books, including The Big Rich and Public Enemies. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, he is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for excellence in financial journalism.

Read an Excerpt

01

“THE REVOLUTION AIN’T TOMORROW. IT’S NOW. YOU DIG?”
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Days of Rage"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Bryan Burrough.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Author's Note xi

Cast of Characters xvii

Prologue 1

1 "The Revolution Ain't Tomorrow. It's Now. You Dig?": Sam Melville and the Birth of the American Underground 9

2 "Negroes with Guns": Black Rage and the Road to Revolution 26

Part 1 Weatherman

3 "You Say You Want a Revolution": The Movement and the Emergence of Weatherman 55

4 "As to Killing People, We Were Prepared to Do That": Weatherman, January to March 1970 87

5 The Townhouse: Weatherman, March to June 1970 106

6 "Responsible Terrorism": Weatherman, June 1970 to October 1970 132

7 The Wrong Side of History: Weatherman and the FBI, October 1970 to April 1971 152

Part 2 The Black Liberation Army

8 "An Army of Angry Niggas": The Birth of the Black Liberation Army, Spring 1971 173

9 The Rise of the BLA: The Black Liberation Army, June 1971 to February 1972 199

10 "We Got Pretty Small": The Weather Underground and the FBI, 1971-72 218

11 Blood in the Streets of Babylon: The Black Liberation Army, 1973 236

Part 3 The Second Wave

12 The Dragon Unleashed: The Rise of the Symbionese Liberation Army, November 1973 to February 1974 259

13 "Patty Has Been Kidnapped": The Symbionese Liberation Army, February to May 1974 284

14 What Patty Hearst Wrought: The Rise of the Post-SLA Underground 304

15 "The Belfast of North America": Patty Hearst, the SLA, and the Mad Bombers of San Francisco 333

16 Hard Times: The Death of the Weather Underground 361

17 "Welcome to Fear City": The FALN, 1976 to 1978 380

18 "Armed Revolutionary Love": The Odyssey of Ray Levasseur 407

19 Bombs and Diapers: Ray Levasseur's Odyssey, Part II 425

Part 4 Out with a Bang

20 The Family: The Pan-Radical Alliance, 1977 to 1979 447

21 Jailbreaks and Captures: The Family and the FALN, 1979-80 471

22 The Scales of Justice: Trials, Surrenders, and the Family, 1980-81 492

23 The Last Revolutionaries: The United Freedom Front, 1981 to 1984 513

Epilogue 537

Acknowledgments 549

A Note on Sources 553

Notes 557

Bibliography 561

Index 569

What People are Saying About This

Yale University; author of The Day Wall Street Exploded - Beverly Gage

A fascinating portrait of the all-but-forgotten radical underground of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. Burroughs gives us the first full picture of a secret world where radical dreams often ended in personal and political tragedy.

author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back - Mark Harris

Bryan Burrough gives the story of America's armed underground revolutionaries of the 1960s and 1970s what it has long desperately needed: Clarity, levelheadedness, context, and reportorial rigor. He has sifted the embers of an essential conflagration of the counterculture, found within it a suspenseful and enlightening history, and told it in a way that is blessedly free of cant or point-scoring.

From the Publisher

William D. Cohan, author of House of Cards, Money and Power, and The Price of Silence: 
“In spellbinding fashion, Bryan Burrough’s Days of Rage brilliantly explicates one of the most confounding periods of recent American history—the era when a web of home-grown radicals and self-styled anarchists busily plotted the overthrow of the American government. Rarely has such a subject been matched with a writer and reporter of Burrough’s extraordinary skill. I could not put the book down; you won't be able to, either.”

Beverly Gage, Yale University; author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: 
“A fascinating portrait of the all-but-forgotten radical underground of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Burroughs gives us the first full picture of a secret world where radical dreams often ended in personal and political tragedy.”

Mark Harris, author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back: 
“Bryan Burrough gives the story of America’s armed underground revolutionaries of the 1960s and 1970s what it has long desperately needed: Clarity, levelheadedness, context, and reportorial rigor. He has sifted the embers of an essential conflagration of the counterculture, found within it a suspenseful and enlightening history, and told it in a way that is blessedly free of cant or point-scoring.”

Paul Ingrassia, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Engines of Change and Crash Course: 
“Bryan Burrough has delivered a terrific piece of research, reportage and storytelling. Those who lived through the period of America's radical underground, as I did, will be amazed to learn how much they didn’t.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Engines of Change and Crash Course - Paul Ingrassia

Bryan Burrough has delivered a terrific piece of research, reportage and storytelling. Those who lived through the period of America's radical underground, as I did, will be amazed to learn how much they didn't.

author of House of Cards, Money and Power, and The Price of Silence - William D. Cohan

In spellbinding fashion, Bryan Burrough's Days of Rage brilliantly explicates one of the most confounding periods of recent American history—the era when a web of home-grown radicals and self-styled anarchists busily plotted the overthrow of the American government. Rarely has such a subject been matched with a writer and reporter of Burrough's extraordinary skill. I could not put the book down; you won't be able to, either.

Editorial Reviews

Boston Globe:
 “Burrough has interviewed dozens of people to compile what is surely the most comprehensive examination of ‘70s-era American"terrorism". . . Burrough, a longtime Vanity Fair correspondent, recalls story after story of astonishing heists, murders, orgies, and wiretaps. Few of his subjects are sympathetic, but all are vividly drawn. He refrains from making moral judgments, which makes the material he presents all the more powerful . . . this book is as likely as a definitive history of Vietnam-era political violence as we are ever likely to get.”
 
Washington Post: 
“[A] rich and important history. . . deep and sweeping. . . .  wide-ranging and often revelatory interviews with many Weather alumni.”
 
LA Times: 
 “Impressively researched and deeply engrossing."
 
Seattle Times:
“In “Days of Rage,” Bryan Burrough, author of “Public Enemies,” provides a fascinating look at an almost forgotten era of homegrown"terrorism"#160; . . . . The book is utterly captivating, coupling careful historical research with breathless accounts of the bombings and the perpetrators’ narrow escapes.”

Chicago Tribune: 
“Burrough's scholarly pursuit of archival documents and oral histories does not result in an academic tome. Stories are told in a compelling, novelistic fashion, and Burrough doesn't have to stretch to get plenty of sex and violence onto the pages. The descriptions of bloody shootouts and bodies dismembered in bombings are impressively vivid. If you ever wanted to know what it felt like to be at an awkward Weathermen orgy, here's your chance.”
 
Vanity Fair: 
“Days of Rage is bound to alter the conversation about this crucial topic of our time.” 

History News Network:
“This is a vivid, engrossing, and far-ranging work that provides a detailed glimpse of a half-dozen underground radical groups in the Vietnam era and its aftermath ...represents a heroic work of reportage...His work on the lesser-known revolutionary groups of the period, such as the Black Liberation Army, is in fact unprecedented; they never have received such detailed and exhaustive treatment. And to the extent that he goes over familiar territory, Burrough does a nice job of demythologizing his subjects. To his credit, the reader gets warts-and-all portraits and not hagiography.”

Publishers Weekly: 
“Burroughs’s insights are powerful. . . 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"rdquo; 
 
Booklist: 
“A fascinating, in-depth look at a tumultuous period of American unrest.” 

Kirkus Reviews:
"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 . . . [DAYS OF RAGE] is thoroughgoing and fascinating . . . A superb chronicle. . . that sheds light on how the war on terror is being waged today."

William D. Cohan, author of House of Cards, Money and Power, and The Price of Silence: 
“In spellbinding fashion, Bryan Burrough’s Days of Rage brilliantly explicates one of the most confounding periods of recent American history—the era when a web of home-grown radicals and self-styled anarchists busily plotted the overthrow of the American government. Rarely has such a subject been matched with a writer and reporter of Burrough’s extraordinary skill. I could not put the book down; you won't be able to, either.”

Beverly Gage, Yale University; author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: 
“A fascinating portrait of the all-but-forgotten radical underground of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Burroughs gives us the first full picture of a secret world where radical dreams often ended in personal and political tragedy.”

Mark Harris, author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back: 
“Bryan Burrough gives the story of America’s armed underground revolutionaries of the 1960s and 1970s what it has long desperately needed: Clarity, levelheadedness, context, and reportorial rigor. He has sifted the embers of an essential conflagration of the counterculture, found within it a suspenseful and enlightening history, and told it in a way that is blessedly free of cant or point-scoring.”

Paul Ingrassia, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Engines of Change and Crash Course: 
“Bryan Burrough has delivered a terrific piece of research, reportage and storytelling. Those who lived through the period of America's radical underground, as I did, will be amazed to learn how much they didn’t.

From the Publisher

What is new and valuable in Days of Rage is the comprehensive overview it provides of the violence perpetrated by would-be revolutionary vanguards from the end of the 1960s through the mid-1980s, including the Weather Underground (initially known as Weatherman), the Black Liberation Army (B.L.A.), the Symbionese Liberation Army (S.L.A.), Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (F.A.L.N.), as well as a host of freelance desperadoes. They left behind a trail of bodies, including both their victims and, sometimes, themselves. And they also left behind shattered movements, ideals and hopes.

The New York Times Book Review - Maurice Isserman

02/23/2015
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. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 03/15/2015
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 Liberación 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

Library Journal

This audiobook has a lot of detail on a phase of recent U.S. history of great interest to many people and is generally well narrated by Ray Porter. But, annoyingly, accurate pronunciation of place names was not a priority, and careless production left the mistakes. Maine’s “Calais” is not France’s “Calais.” To be fair, such jarring notes are few, and Porter does manage to convey tension and excitement as needed. And it often is, for this is a book about deluded violence. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

JULY 2015 - AudioFile

★ 2015-02-04
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.

Kirkus Reviews