Ted Kaczynski
Letters to Earth First! & Live Wild or Die!
1993–1998
Advocating that EF! publish the addresses of ‘ecocriminals’
Suggestions for Earth First!ers from FC
Asking to publish his manifesto
Cliff Notes
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On Day 11 of Ted Kaczynski’s Jury Trial the prosecutor in the case said: “during the search of the defendant’s cabin, the Government found a letter written to Earth First!ers. Its title was ‘Suggestions for Earth First!ers from FC.’ That letter stated in part, ‘As for the Mosser bombing’ — and I’m quoting now — ‘our attention was called to Burson-Marsteller by an article that appeared in Earth First!, Litha,’ which is the way of describing the edition of that journal, ‘June 21st, 1993, page 4.’”
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Ted’s Suggestions for Earth First!ers from FC letter contained an Appendix which was a response to debates within the journal about how best to link up some Environmentalist & First Nations campaigns.
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An anti-natalist current within the environmentalist movement was given a platform in the Earth First! Journal and one amusing response to this current was a letter to the editor that argued not for reducing births, but increasing deaths by wild animal predators. Ted Kaczynski also wrote a letter that was either not sent or not published, under a pseudonym, where he argued environmentalists should have as many kids as possible to increase the burden on the global techno-industrial system. Ted hoped technological society would collapse, meaning if his advice was taken up it would lead to an increased number of people starving. However, Ted had a utilitarian mindset about these deaths being worth it to increase the chance of techno-industrial society collapsing sooner rather than later, because he viewed technological society as on a track towards increasingly reduced autonomy.
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Ted Kaczynski wrote a letter asking EF! to publish his manifesto, under his Freedom Club pseudonym, where he offered EF! the same deal as the major newspapers; that if “Earth First! is willing and able to get the manuscript ... distributed nationally and well publicized, then we will abide by the promise to desist from terrorism.” Also, a peculiarity of note, is that Ted sent a letter to a zine series called “Live Wild or Die!” which was advertised in the Earth First! Journal. In this letter, Ted encouraged LWOD editors to print his manifesto nationally. Ted’s appeal to LWOD editors was that; if they could be the first person to get the manifesto well distributed nationally and well publicized, that they would be gifting him the opportunity to carry on bombing without in the publics eyes breaking any promises to the major newspapers.
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In May 1999, Ted wrote a short note to John Zerzan in which he advocated a split within Earth First!, Ted thought the ‘real revolutionaries’ should withdraw and form their own movement. He suggested passing this note on to the principal editor of the Earth First! Journal, Theresa Kintz. The note was published, making this note I think the only writing of Ted’s ever published by the Earth First! Journal.
Letters to Earth First!
Advocating that EF! publish the addresses of ‘ecocriminals’
Date: Mailed from Helena in late summer of 1993
EARTH FIRST! JOURNAL
POB 5176
Missoula, Montana 59806
Dear SFB,
It seems to me that the EARTH FIRST! JOURNAL is neglecting an important tactic. The JOURNAL should regularly publish lists of ecocriminals, stating the environmental crimes of each, and giving their home addresses and phone numbers. An entry in the list might read, for example, “H. Greed Moneygrubber, member of board of directors of Arborophagous Lumber Company, which has aggressively lobbied for more timber-cutting in national forests, regularly engages in irresponsible logging practices, and is currently cutting in the Wilderness Mountain area of the Pristine National Forest. Office; Suite 1000A+, Collosal Building, Metropolis, Washington 99999, phone (000) 000–0000. Home: 69 Woodland Way, Rich-bitch Hills, Washington 99999. phone (000) 000–0069.”
Publishing the home addresses and phone numbers of these people is important. They usually have unlisted phone numbers, for obvious reason. If they get angry phone calls from environmentalists at their office, or if protesters gather outside the company building, that is only a minor annoyance. But if protesters gather at the homes of these ecocriminals or phone them at 2:00AM, that hits them where it hurts.
The problem is how to find out their addresses and phone numbers so you can publish them. Maybe you could hire a private detective to teach you how to dig up such information. (Best not to tell him you’re from EF! though.)
C.U. Laatter
Suggestions for Earth First!ers from FC
Source: A photocopy of some version of this essay was archived at the The Michigan University Archive and typed up by someone who visited the library. A photo of the essay was then found on the U.S. Marshals Auction website. Finally, the earlier draft was found in an FBI document called A Review and Compilation of the Writings of Ted Kaczynski. Evidence the earlier draft is from the same letter can be found in the court transcript of Day 11 of the Jury Trial:
“... during the search of the defendant’s cabin, the Government found a letter written to Earth First!ers. Its title was ‘Suggestions for Earth First!ers from FC.’ That letter stated in part, ‘As for the Mosser bombing’ — and I’m quoting now — ‘our attention was called to Burson-Marsteller by an article that appeared in Earth First!, Litha,’ ...”
Note: A version of this letter was found in Ted’s cabin upon his arrest. It’s unclear whether he sent the letter. The essay from the Earth First! Journal Ted referred to in the earlier draft can be found here: Earth First! Litha (1993)
Date: After June, 1993.
Earth First! wants to eliminate the industrial form of society. This is clearly a revolutionary goal. Yet it seems that many or most Earth First!ers still think and act like reformers, not like revolutionaries.
This is illustrated by Darryl Cherney’s response to the bombing in which we assassinated the president of the California Forestry Association. According to newspaper reports Cherney was upset by the bombing because he was afraid that there would be retaliatory attacks on Earth First!ers. Now we respect (with certain qualifications) the nonviolent principles of Earth First! (even though we don’t think it would be practical for everyone to abide by them) and if any Earth First!ers get beaten up in retaliation for our bombings we certainly sympathize with them. But Cherney’s reaction shows that his mentality is that of a reformer, not a revolutionary.
To a revolutionary, what is important is not the short-term goal of saving this or that bit of wilderness or securing some grudging tolerance from the timber industry sympathizers. What is important is the long-term goal of weakening and destabilizing industrial society so that a revolution against it may become possible. From this point of view it is desirable that timber industry sympathizers should make physical attacks on Earth First!ers, because such behavior tends to increase the social stresses in industrial society and helps to turn people against the system.
It is important to distinguish between what the industrial system “wants” and what certain people who claim to represent the system may want or may do. By what the system “wants” we mean that which helps to assure the survival and growth of the industrial system. This corresponds approximately with what is desired by the most rational, self-restrained and “responsible” members of the systems [sic.] controlling elite. But people who believe themselves to be supporters of the system often behave in ways that are harmful to the system and thus serve as unwitting allies of those who want to overthrow the system.
Take police brutality as an example. The most rational and “responsible” members of the system’s elite are against police brutality. They want the police to use just enough force (and no more than just enough) to insure [sic.] public order and obedience to the system’s rules, because they know that police brutality increases social stresses and tends to break down respect for the system. Bad cops (or timber industry goons) who beat people up regard themselves as pro-system and hate those who are against the system, but the behavior of such cops actually helps to undermine the system. Thus police brutality is not really a part of the system, but is a kind of disease of the system.
Similarly, the irresponsible politicians who are currently repealing environmental laws may be acting as unwitting allies of revolutionaries. If their actions lead to a few more cases like Love Canal and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, they will be helping to destroy respect for the system. Moreover the actions of these politicians help to weaken the standards of decent, “responsible” political behavior on which the stability of the system depends.
Footnote [In their own way, Rush Limbaugh, reckless right wing politicians and their like are rebels against the industrial system even though they do not regard themselves as such. They want the technology and “prosperity” that the system provides but they reject the restraint and social discipline that are required for the long-term health and stability of the system. These people think they are for social discipline, but their concept of social discipline is primitive: pile more homework on the kids and make everybody click their heels and salute the flag. The kind of social discipline the system needs would include temperance in the expression of political opinions, and realization that what is good for the long-term health of the system is not always what brings the biggest profits right now, and that psychological techniques are more sophisticated than just “getting tough” are needed to make children behave in conformity with the needs of the system. Through their irrational antics and lack of self-restraint Rush Limbaugh & Co. are helping to weaken the system. Our most dangerous enemies are not reckless right-wingers but those leaders who take a rational and balanced approach to promoting the growth and power of the system. That is why we of FC always make it our policy to vote for those politicians who are most corrupt, incompetent or irrational. They are the ones who will help us break down the system. Pete Wilson said we deserve to die for blowing up the president of the California Forestry Association. He shouldn’t be so ungrateful. We voted for him.]
What the rational, self-controlled, “responsible” members of the system’s elite want is not reckless repeal of environmental legislation; they want enough environmental legislation to preserve the system’s image of benevolence but not enough to interfere very seriously with economic growth and the increase of the system’s power. They want exploitation of natural resources that is rationally planned for long-term economic growth and stability, and that takes into consideration social needs (e.g. health, esthetics) as well as economic ones. Like police brutality, environmental recklessness is not really a part of the system, but is a disease of the system.
Needless to say, police brutality and environmental recklessness make us sick at the stomach, and we know that Earth First!ers react the same way. And of course we have to stand against these things. But at the same time it has to be recognized that ending police brutality and environmental recklessness are goals of reformers. The goal of revolutionaries is to undermine the system as a whole, and to this end police brutality and the grosser forms of environmental recklessness are actually helpful.
The trouble with Earth First!ers is that, like reformers, they devote their attention almost exclusively to fighting evils that are peripheral outgrowths of the system rather than fighting those institutions, structures and attitudes that are central to the system and on which the system most depends. We’ve only read about 6 or 8 issues of Earth First!, but if these can be taken as a fair sample then EF! articles are devoted almost exclusively to wilderness and environmental questions. These are extremely important matters, but if you devote your attention exclusively to them you will never overthrow the industrial system, and as long as the system survives the most you can hope to do is slow, not stop, the taming or destruction of wilderness. Therefore we argue that the Earth First! journal should devote at least half of its content to questions that have central relevance to the development of the industrial-technological system. How about some articles on genetic enigineering and its probably consequences for life on earth? How about some articles concerning the tremendous powers that computer technology is putting in the hands of the system? What will be the consequences if the computer scientists ever succeed in developing machines that are more intelligent than human beings? How about some articles on propaganda and other psychological tools that help to induce behavior that conforms to the needs of the system?
Most importantly, you need to develop a coherent ideology that opposes technology and industrialism and is based on analysis and understanding of the industrial system, and you need to develop plans and methods for weakening, undermining and destabilizing industrial society.
As for action, with only one exception all the actions we’ve seen reported in Earth First! have been focussed on environmental and wilderness issues. But as long as you fight only on environmental and wilderness issues you are fighting defensively. The best defense is a good offense, and to fight offensively you’ve got to get out of the woods and attack the structures that make the system run. For example, instead of demonstrating (or monkeywrenching) at a logging site, you might demonstrate (or monkeywrench) at a chemical plant. And the issue that you demonstrate about should not be a particular case of environmental destructiveness but the very existence of the chemical industry itself. You have to use your ingenuity to devise some forms of action that will weaken the system as a whole, not just slow its destruction of the environment.
* * *
Another indictaion of Earth First!’s essentially reformist mentality is your attitude about the paper industry. You want to stop the cutting of trees for paper by finding alternative sources of fiber, such as hemp. This is a reformist attitude. The revolutionary attitude would be: Stop cutting trees for paper, and if that means that the system comes grinding to a halt for lack of paper, so much the better. To hell with the system.
You will answer that if your program implied an end to the mass production of paper, then you would have no chance of putting that program into effect, because few people would support a program incompatible with the continued existence of industrial society.
But of course! That is the difference between the reformer and the revolutionary. The reformer seeks to bring about some improvement in conditions NCW, by means that are compatible with the survival of an existing system of society. The revolutionary advocates measures that are incompatible with the existing system, knowing that those measures cannot be put into effect now . But by advocating such measures he plants in people’s minds the idea that doing away with the existing system is a conceivable alternative. In this manner he helps to prepare the way for a future revolution that may occur when the time is ripe.
* * *
Some Earth First!ers think they can change the system just by providing, through their own actions, examples of noble, nonviolent, passive, environmentally nondestructive behavior. But it won’t work. Look at history! It’s been tried before, repeatedly. The earliest Christians, the Quakers, certain Hindus and Buddhists relied on passive, nonviolent loving-kindness, but they had little or no lasting effect on the behavior of the human race in general. people of the saintly type may have an important role to play in a revolutionary movement, but their kind of action by itself cannot bring down the industrial system. For that, revolutionaries of a tough, practical type are needed.
* * *
It is a big mistake to complain about “capitalism.” To do so gives the impression that industrial society would be OK if it were run according to some other ideology, such as socialism. Actually socialism in Eastern Europe did more damage to the environment than any capitalism did in the West. Our enemy is not capitalism, socialism, or any other ideology that may pretend to guide the system. Our enemy is the industrial-technological system itself.
* * *
The Earth First! journal should have a section in which successful monkeywrenching operations are reported. Reading about successful operations will encourage and stimulate other monkeywrenchers. Those who have carried out successful operations should report their action to the journal in an anonymous letter. Such letters will constitute evidence in “criminal” cases, so the journal will have to turn them over to the police to avoid prosecution for obstruction of justice. Therefore senders of the letters should make sure they bear no evidence such as fingerprints or handwriting.
Also, after every major successful monkeywrenching operation, the saboteurs should send anonymous letters to the mainstream media explaining both the reasons for that particular monkeywrenching attack and the long-term goals of the radical environmental movement.
The effectiveness of monkeywrenching operations will be greatly increased if they are systematic and coordinated rather than random and sporadic. Each monkeywrenching group should plan not just one operation but a campaign of operations lasting several months. Such a campaign is best designed not to attack a lot of unrelated targets, but to concentrate pressure on some particular class of targets. For example, the monkeywrenching group might select a particular logging or mining company, or a chemical or electronics firm, and attack a series of targets belonging to that particular organization. It would be difficult to coordinate the efforts of different monkeywrenching groups without compromising security. But some degree of coordination might be achieved by passing the word through the grapevine that a certain week is to be a week of intense sabotage. A lot of sabotage concentrated into one week would be more effective than the same amount of sabotage spread out over an extended period.
FC
Appendix
... for a leftist, Goldberg is fond of certain catch-words.... In her brief article she uses “capitalism” once, “genocide” twice and ... “(neo-)colonialist” or “(neo-)colonialism” thirteen ... claims that “genocide (against Indians) is current and ... This is absurd. The word “genocide” was originally ... describe the extermination of the Jews by the nazis. The ... reasonably be applied to some nineteenth century events in ... tribes were relocated through forced marches in which the ... was extremely high. But to apply the word “genocide” to ... treatment of Indians by whites is to compare it to the treatment of Jews by the nazis, and that is ridiculous in the eyes of ...
Earlier Draft
... As for the Mosser bombing, our attention was called to Burson-Marsteller by an article that appeared in Earth First!, Litha, June 21, 1993, page 4. According to this article, “The BC Forest Alliance (a timber industry trade group) has retained the services of the world’s largest public relations firm, Burston-Marsteller Ltd. of New York. This company practices a highly sophisticated form of conflict management, and has previously represented the Argentinean government, Union Carbide after Bhopal; and Exxon after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Burston-Marsteller has apparently had quite a bit to do with shaping the provincial media’s coverage of forest and other environmental issues.” We realized that this article was not necessarily an unimpeachable source of information, but we didn’t bother to try to verify the above statement because, as we mentioned in our last letter to the NY Times, our attack on Burson-Marsteller was based mainly on general principles rather than on any specific actions of the company. Now it turns out that though Burson-Marsteller has been representing Exxon, it did not do so specifically in connection with the Exxon Valdez incident. To us it makes little difference. The technique of public relations is part of the system of propaganda that is one of the slimiest aspects of modern society. Today people’s buying habits, their voting choices and their attitudes to a significant extent are ...
... no longer results of their own spontaneous decisions but are molded by skilled propagandists: advertising agencies, public relations firms, political campaign managers and so forth. It stinks.
Someone raised the question of why we didn’t attack an Exxon executive. Actually, at one time we had planned to do so, but after the Reso kidnapping we figured that Exxon execs would be too suspicious and cautious....
Asking to publish his manifesto
Date: April 1995
Earth First!:
This is a message from FC. The FBI calls us “unabom.” We are the people who recently assassinated the president of the California Forestry Association. We know that most radical environmentalists are non-violent and strongly disapprove of our bombings. But we have some things to say that should be of special interest to radical environmentalists. Even if you disagree with our conclusions you can hardly deny that the issues we raise are important ones that radical environmentalists should think about and discuss.
We are enclosing a copy of a manuscript that we are sending to the New York Times, also a copy of the letter that we are sending to the Times with the manuscript. We have reason to hope that the NY Times will either publish the manuscript or arrange for its publication elsewhere. However, if neither the NY Times nor any other major periodical has published the manuscript, or begun to publish it in serialized form, or had it published elsewhere, or announced a definite date for its publication, within 5 months of the day this letter is postmarked, then the Earth First! Journal can publish the manuscript. You can publish it either serialized or in the form of a small book, and you will be welcome to [crossed out] keep any profit you may make from it. Contact NY Times for information concerning what is being done about publication of the manuscript.
We offered the NY Times a promise to desist from terrorism in exchange for publication of our manuscript in a widely read, nationally distributed periodical. Earth First! does not qualify as widely read, so we offer no such promise in [crossed out] exchange for publication in Earth First! However, if Earth First! is willing and able to get the manuscript published in book form, and if the book is [crossed out] distributed nationally and well publicized, then we will abide by the promise to desist from terrorism. Contact the NY Times [crossed out] for information concerning conditions that we laid down in our letters to that newspaper.
Whoever may first publish the manuscript, after a period of 6 months has elapsed since that first publication, anyone [crossed out] (including Earth First!) will have the right to publish the material freely. However, the period might possibly be extended beyond 6 months. See enclosed letter to NY Times.
In any case, you can immediately make up to 5 copies of the manuscript for your own use. If you wear gloves while making the copies you won’t mess up any fingerprints or anything, so the FBI won’t be able to claim you have damaged any evidence.
How do you know this letter really comes from FC? Some part of the letter we are sending to the NY Times will probably be published in the newspaper, and you can [crossed out] compare it with the copy we are sending you. The authenticity of the material that we are sending to the NY Times will be confirmed by means of our secret identifying number.
FC
On population control
Source: The Michigan University Archive, Box 91, Folder 11.
Note: Ted wrote two versions of essentially the same essay for two different audiences, Earth First! and Live Wild or Die! that were found in his cabin on his arrest, but it’s unclear whether he sent copies of either of them. An anti-natalist current within the environmentalist movement was given a platform in the Earth First! Journal and one amusing response to this current was a letter to the editor that argued not for reducing births, but increasing deaths by wild animal predators. Ted Kaczynski also wrote this letter below that was either not sent or not published, under a pseudonym, where he argued environmentalists should have as many kids as possible to increase the burden on the global techno-industrial system. Ted hoped technological society would collapse, meaning if his advice was taken up it would lead to an increased number of people starving. However, Ted had a utilitarian mindset about these deaths being worth it to increase the chance of techno-industrial society collapsing sooner rather than later, because he viewed technological society as on a track towards increasingly reduced autonomy.
Date: Post April 1995(?)
I share the disgust of other Earth First!ers at the sight of somebody with four or five kids. But in refraining from having children, Earth First!ers may be making a disastrous blunder. In careful statistical studies of identical twins and adopted children, a number of investigators, working independently, have found that social and political attitudes tend to be inherited. Of course, no one suggests that there is a gene for liberalism, for conservatism, or for radical environmentalism. But it appears that children inherit personality traits that make them likely, in the context of the present society, to adopt this or that attitude or ideology. It is true that some scientists question these results, but their objections are rather flimsy and appear to be ideologically motivated.
By refraining from having children, Earth First!ers may be handing the world over to the growtHs. (“GrowtH” is my private word for anyone who favors economic growth and all that crap.) Because the growtHs have as many children as they like, while EF!ers and other environmentalists restrict their reproduction, it is likely that with each successive generation the proportion of growtHs in the population with increase.
It is vitally important to reduce the Earth’s population as much as possible, but the best way to reach a goal is not always to head directly toward it.
What the Earth’s population will be 50 or 100 years from now depends entirely on the form of society that will then exist. The present economically oriented form of society, based on industrialism, tends inexorably to grow to the limit of the available resources. By creating new genetically altered plants, or maybe through some type of artificial photosynthesis, this form of society will greatly increase the world’s food producing capacity, and will allow or encourage its population to grow to the limit of that capacity. So if the present form of society survives, we can expect for the future an incredibly, horribly overcrowded world in which no room will be left for wild nature.
Therefore, the important goal is to eliminate the present form of society and destroy the industrial base that makes it possible to support an abnormally inflated human population.
If Earth First!ers give a reproductive advantage to the growtHs by refraining from having children, they will be slowing present population growth only slightly, and they will be increasing the likelihood that the growtHs will win out, that the present form of society will survive, and hence that the world of 50 or 100 years from now will be horrifyingly overcrowded.
If Earth First!ers have as many children as they can, they will be accelerating present population growth only slightly, and they will be increasing the number of radical environmentalists, hence the probability that the present form of society can be eliminated, and consequently the likelihood that the Earth’s population can be greatly reduced in the future.
It could even be argued that rapid population growth now will be advantageous in the long run, because if population expands rapidly in the immediate future, this will increase the likelihood that economic and social problems will overwhelm the present form of society, so that it will not survive and will be replaced by something else. If population increases at only a moderate rate in the the [sic.] immediate future, the present society may have time to adjust, to develop new methods of food production and so forth, so that it will have a better chance of surviving. If it does survive, you can be sure that 100 years from now no wild nature will be left and the world will be jam-packed with people.
So it would be best for Earth First!ers to outbreed the growtHs until the present form of society has been done away with.
Fabius Maximus
Note advocating a split
Source: Earth First! Journal Beltane 1999, Vol #19, Issue #5, May-June.
<environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/ef_19_5_sm_0.pdf>
Date: November 29, 1998
Ted Kaczynski to John Zerzan
November 29, 1998
Dear (John),
Yes; send me a copy of your new book.
Concerning EF!, my suggestion is that the real revolutionaries among them should with-draw from the existing EF! and form their own movement, which would exclude mere reformers, liberals, leftists, etc. who are afraid of “alienating the middle class.” (Imagine how the war against Hitler would have turned out if Allied soldiers had been afraid of “alienating the Nazis.”) Such a splinter EF! movement might start small, but I have a feeling that it would glow pretty rapidly.
I suggest that one of the biggest mistakes modern American revolutionaries make is that, in the name of “tolerance,” they let anyone and everyone of a vaguely rebellious disposition join their movements. The result is that they get diluted, or even swamped, by large numbers of make-believe revolutionaries for whom rebellion is only a game. Even if it sounds “intolerant,” revolutionaries must form a movement that is exclusive to the extent that it incorporates none but real revolutionaries. Only in this way can the movement have cohesion and the capacity for vigorous action.
Feel free to pass this note on to the editor of the EF! Journal. She can publish it if she likes.
Best regards,
--Ted Kaczynski
04475–046
Administrative Maximum Facility,
PO Box 8500, Florence, CO
81226–8500.
Letters to Live Wild or Die!
Asking to publish his manifesto
Source:
<https://archive.org/details/unabom-collection-c-documents/28.%20Letter%20to%20LWOD%20C-262/>
& <archive.org/details/unabom-collection-c-documents/27.%20Letter%20to%20LWOD%20with%20codes%20C-261>
Date: April 1995
To LWOD: This is a message from FC Anarchist Terror Group. We are the people who have been blowing up computer scientists, biotech specialists, public relations experts and so forth. The FBI calls us “Unabom.” About the time you receive this letter you should hear through the media about another bombing, if everything works OK. Notice that this letter was postmarked either before or about the same time as the bombing hit the news, which proves that the letter is authentic. As a means of proving the authenticity of any further communications we may send to you, we give you an identifying number: 14962. Keep this number secret, so that when you receive a letter bearing it you will know that the letter comes from us. This is different from the identifying number that we gave to the New York Times.
We have a manuscript of between 29,000 and 37,000 words that we want to have published. We are writing to the New York Times to try to make a deal over it. We are telling the Times that if they will publish the manuscript serialized in their newspaper, or [crossed out] if they can get it published in book form, we will agree to stop blowing up scientists and corporate execs. For the moment we are more interested in propagating anti-industrial ideas than in killing another exec or biotech nerd.
However, we may find it useful to blow up more biotechnicians and the like at some time in the future, so we would prefer not to be bound by a promise to stop bombing. If we made such a promise we wouldn’t want to break it. So we are looking for some way to get our material published without having to make any promises or deals.
Would LWOD be willing to publish our manuscript in serial form? Or, better, could you get it published in book form and widely distributed to the general public? If you published it in serial form, how long would it take you to publish the whole thing? If you could get it published in book form, how widely would you distribute it and how long would it take you to get it published once we have sent you the manuscript? You’d be welcome to keep any profit you might make on the book and use it to propagate anti-industrial ideas.
The manuscript contains: (1) an analysis of what is wrong with the industrial system; (2) a demonstration that the industrial system cannot be successfully reformed but must be destroyed; (3) appropriate strategy for revolutionaries seeking to destroy the industrial system.
Please give us your answer by placing a classified ad in the San Francisco [crossed out] Chronicle, preferably on May 1, 1995. The ad should begin with the words “Personal to MCHVP.” We ask you to answer in SF Chronicle instead of LWOD because we know of only one place where we can get to LWOD, and if the FBI gets hold of this letter they will be able to watch the few places where it is possible to get LWOD and maybe catch us that way.
We enclose a copy of our letter to the NY Times.
Place the ad in the classification #420, “Personals.” To place ad contact
San Francisco Newspaper Agency
Classified Dept.
925 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
toll free phone (800) 227–4423
Best Regards,
FC
Confidential note
Enclosed is a letter that presumably will require general discussion by the LWOD staff. But this confidential note contains material that should be known to as few people as possible. So whichever LWOD person opens this envelope, he or she should hide this note and reveal its existence to no one, except when absolutely necessary. Read the other material in this envelope before reading the rest of this confidential [crossed out] note.
The material in this envelope constitutes evidence in a felony case, so LWOD might get in trouble if it doesn’t [crossed out] turn this stuff over to the FBI. It is always possible that your group may contain an FBI infiltrator who will report our letter to his bosses. And if you do publish our manuscript the FBI will know about it. So LWOD may want to give these documents to the FBI (except this confidential note, which can safely be kept secret).
This creates a possible problem, because the FBI will be able to confuse you or us by sending LWOD a fake manuscript or placing a fake ad in the SF Chronicle or some such COINTELPRO trick. Or the FBI may ask the Chronicle not to print your ad on the grounds that it would contribute to “criminal” activity. To get around that, we should have some completely confidential way of communicating. This can be established as follows.
Place an ad in the classified section of the Los Angeles Times, classification #1660, “Personal messages.” The ad should preferably appear on May 9, 1995, but in any case leave a few days between the time when the Chronicle ad appears and the time when the LA Times ad appears. This ad should begin, “Dear Stargazer, the mystic numbers that control your fate are ...” and it should be signed “Numerologist.” In between there will be a sequences of numbers conveying a coded message.
The code works this way. It will be random number code and therefore unbreakable. Use the series of random numbers that we have given on another sheet. Begin by encoding your message according to the following system: For A put 1, for B put 2, for C [crossed out] put 3, etc. up to 26 for Z. For space between two words put 27, for period put 28, for comma put 29, for question mark put 30. When you have your message coded by this system you will have a series of numbers that we can call the basic sequence. You then change the basic sequence by adding to it the numbers of the random sequence. To the first number of the basic sequence add the first number of the random sequence, to the second number of the basic sequence add the second number of the random sequence and so forth. Whenever the sum is greater that 30, subtract 30 from it. The resulting sequence of numbers is what you publish in the LA Times. See example on other sheet.
In your coded ad please give us an address to which we can send you messages with assurance that they will be [crossed out] completely safe and confidential. (We won’t send you any uncoded message that could get you in trouble if it got into the wrong hands.) Also please tell us in your coded ad whether your open ad in SF Chronicle is authentic and can be taken at face value.
Your coded ad probably won’t use up all the numbers of the random sequence. Have the rest of the sequence in case we want it for future use. NEVER USE ANY PART OF THE RANDOM SEQUENCE TWICE. To do so would enable the FBI to decode the message.
We give a separate, confidential identifying number for verification of any messages we may send you: 82771
Legally the FBI can’t open first class mail without a warrant, but there’s always a chance they might have opened the present envelope anyway, so this system of passing confidential messages isn’t 100% secure.
FC
Los Angeles Times Classified Ads Phone Numbers
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On population control
Source:
<archive.org/details/unabom-collection-c-documents/27.%20Letter%20to%20LWOD%20with%20codes%20C-261>
Note: Ted wrote two versions of essentially the same essay for two different audiences, Earth First! and Live Wild or Die! that were found in his cabin on his arrest, but it’s unclear whether he sent copies of either of them. An anti-natalist current within the environmentalist movement was given a platform in the Earth First! Journal and one amusing response to this current was a letter to the editor that argued not for reducing births, but increasing deaths by wild animal predators. Ted Kaczynski also wrote this letter below that was either not sent or not published where he argued environmentalists should have as many kids as possible to increase the burden on the global techno-industrial system. Ted hoped technological society would collapse, meaning if his advice was taken up it would lead to an increased number of people starving. However, Ted had a utilitarian mindset about these deaths being worth it to increase the chance of techno-industrial society collapsing sooner rather than later, because he viewed technological society as on a track towards increasingly reduced autonomy.
Date: Post April 1995(?)
LETTER TO EDITORS OF LWOD. We urge you to print this in LWOD.
Many of the people who want to destroy the industrial form of society are concerned about the population problem and therefore refrain from having children. We believe this is a serious mistake. Scientific studies have shown that social attitudes tend to be inherited. No one suggests that a person’s social attitudes are directly determined by his or her genetic constitution, but there is good reason to believe that children inherit personality traits that make them likely, in the context of the present society, to develop one or another set of social attitudes. Some scientists question this conclusion, but their arguments are rather flimsy and are ideologically motivated. Anyway, if social attitudes are not inherited then they are passed on through childhood training, because it is certain that a person’s attitudes tend, on the average, to resemble those of his parents; allowing of course for frequent individual exceptions and for changes in the social situation that occur between one generation and another. Unlike us, earlier generations of rebels tended to attack particular social evils rather than industrial society as a whole, because in their day it had not yet become evident that evil was inherent in industrialism itself. But the general tendency to a rebellious attitude toward modern society is commonly passed from parents to children, whether genetically or through training.
By refraining from having children, rebels against the industrial system may be handing the world over to the growtHs. (“GrowtH” is our word for anyone who favors economic growth and all that crap.) Because the growtHs have as many children as they like, while many radicals refrain from having children from concern over the population problem, there is danger that with each successive generation the proportion of growtHs in the population will increase and the proportion of rebels will decrease.
We too are disgusted at the present grossly overpopulated state of the world and we agree that it is necessary to reduce the earth’s population as much as possible. But the best way to reach a goal is not always to head directly toward it.
What the earth’s population will be 50 or 100 years from now depends mainly on the form of society that will then exist. The present economically oriented form of society, based on industrialism, tends inexorably to grow to the limit of the available resources. By creating new genetically altered plants, or maybe through some type of artificial photosynthesis, this form of society will greatly increase the world’s food producing capacity and will allow or encourage its population to grow to the limit of that capacity. Or, even if the population does no grow to the limit, the demands of the ver expanding industrial system will stress the earth’s resources to the maximum. So if the present form of society survives, the world that it creates will be a horrible one.
Therefore the important goal is to destroy the present form of society and its industrial base.
If anti-industrial rebels give a reproductive advantage to the growtHs by refraining from having children, they will be slowing present population growth only slightly and they will be increasing the likelihood that the growtHs will win out, that the present form of society will survive and that the world of the future will be a horror.
If rebels have as many children as they can, they will be accelerating present population growth only slightly and they will be increasing the number of anti-industrial rebels, hence the probability that the present form of society can be eliminated, and consequently the likelihood that the world’s population can be greatly reduced in the future.
So it would be best for those who hate industrialism to outbreed the growtHs until the present form of society has been done away with.
FC Anarchist Terror Group
First public statement since his arrest
Source: Live Wild or Die! no. 7 (1998) & Green Anarchist #51 Mar 1998
Date: January 26, 1998
For a matter of months preceding the beginning of my trial on Nov. 12, 1997, I had been aware that my attorneys wanted to use a defense that would be based on supposed evidence of mental impairment. However, my attorneys had led me to believe that I would have a considerable measure of control over the defense strategy, hence I was under the impression that I would be able to limit the presentation of mental evidence to some items that at that time I thought might have some validity.
The first weeks of the trial were devoted to selection of a jury, a process that told me little about the defense that my attorneys planned to use. But in late November I discovered that my attorneys had prepared a defense that would virtually portray me as insane, and that they were going to force this defense on me in spite of my bitter resistance to it.
For the present I will not review in detail what happened between late November 1997 and January 22, 1998. Suffice it to say that the judge in my case, Garland E. Burell, decided that my attorneys had the legal right to force their defense on me over my objections; that it was too late for me to replace my attorneys with a certain distinguished attorney who had offered to represent me and had stated his intention to use a defense not based on any supposed mental illness; and that it was too late for me to demand the right to act as my own attorney.
This put me in such a position that I had only one way left to prevent my attorneys from using false information to represent me to the world as insane: I agreed to plead guilty to the charges in exchange for withdrawal of the prrosecution’s request for the death penalty. I also had to give up al right to appeal, which leaves me with a virtual certain of spending my life in prison. I am not afraid of the death penalty, and I agreed to this bargain only to end the trial and thus prevent my attorneys from representing me as insane. It should be noted that the defense my attorneys had planned could not have led to my release; it was only intended to save me from the death penalty.
By concealing their intentions from me and discouraging me from finding another attorney before it was too late, my attorneys have done me very great harm: they have forced me to sacrifice my right to an appeal that might have led to my release; they have already made public the opinions of supposed experts who portray me as crazy; and they have caused me to lose my opportunity to be represented by a distinguished attorney who would have portrayed me in a very different light.
Perhaps I ought to hate my attorneys for what they have done to me, but I do not. Their motives were in no way malicious. They are essentially conventional people who are blind to some of the implications of this case, and they acted as they did because they subscribe to certain professional principles that they believe left them no alternative. These principles may seem rigid and even ruthless to a non-lawyer, but there is no doubt that my attorneys believe in them sincerely. Moreover, on a personal level my attorneys have treated me with great generosity and have performed many kindnesses for me. (But these can never compensate for the harm they have done me through their handling of my case.)
Recent events constitute a major defeat for me. But the end is not yet. More will be heard from me in the future.
Theodore J. Kaczynski
January 26, 1998
P.s. Feel free to publish this message.
