The Communications of Ted Kaczynski as part of his Terror Bombing Campaign

Letter to San Francisco Examiner (December, 1985)

Quoting Ted Kaczynski:[1]

TO THE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

The bomb that crippled the right arm of a graduate student in electrical engineering and damaged a computer lab at U. of Cal. Berkeley last May was planted by a terrorist group called Freedom Club. We are also responsible for some earlier bombing attempts; among others, the bomb that injured a professor in the computer science building at U. of Cal., the mail bomb that injured the secretary of computer expert Patrick Fischer at Vanderbilt University 3 ½ years ago, and the fire bomb planted at the Business School at the U. of Utah, which never went off. We have nothing against academics as such. We could have attacked businessmen or scientists working for private corporations. But academics are easy targets because anyone can walk into college buildings without being questioned, and academics are less likely to be suspicious of a package received in the mail than someone in the business world would be.

We have waited until now to announce ourselves because our earlier bombs were embarrassingly ineffectual. The injuries they inflicted were relatively minor. In order to influence people, a terrorist group must show a certain amount of success. When we finally realized that the amount of smokeless powder needed to blow up anyone or anything was too large to be practical, we decided to take a couple of years off to learn something about explosive and develop an effective bomb.

First, we had to learn some basic physics, chemistry and mathematics, since none of us had any scientific background to start with. Then we had to go through some time-consuming experiments. That we now have an effective bomb is shown by what we did to that electrical engineer’s arm with less than two ounces of explosive. He would have been killed if he had been standing so as to take the fragments in the body instead of the arm. You can imagine what we will be able to do when we have worked out ways to use this explosive in larger quantities, say ten, twenty five or fifty pounds. We hope those computer freaks over at the university like fireworks, cause they are going to see some good ones.

To prove that we are the ones who planted to bomb at U. of Cal. last May, we will mention a few details that could be known only to us and the FBI men who investigated the incident. The explosive was contained in an iron pipe of nominal ¾ inch (actually about 13/16 inch) inside diameter. The ends of the pipe were closed with iron plugs secured with iron pins, of 5/16 inch diameter. One of the plugs had the letters FC (for Freedom Club) marked on it. (There was a metal disc attached to the plug to help assure a good seal. If this was not blown off it would be necessary to remove it in order to see the letters FC.) The bomb was ignited by electricity passing through a fine steel filament. The load-wires passing through the plug to the filament were 18 gauge with green insulation. The rest of the wiring was 16 gauge with flesh covered insulation. Six Duracell size D batteries were used. This should be enough to prove that we planted the bomb.

We enclose a brief statement partly explaining our aims. We hereby give the San Francisco Examiner permission to print in full any and all of the material contained in this envelope. We give ANYONE permission to print it. We want the material to be in the public domain so that anyone can print it. We don’t know if this note is legally adequate to put our statement in the public domain, especially since we are not going to sign our names to this letter, but you can be sure we are not going to sue anyone for infringement of copyright for printing this material, so you might as well go ahead and print it.

– THE FREEDOM CLUB

1. The aim of the Freedom Club is the complete and permanent destruction of modern industrial society in every part of the world. This means no more airplanes, no more radios, no more miracle drugs, no more paved roads, and so forth. Today a large and growing number of people are coming to recognize the industrial-technological system as the greatest enemy of freedom. Many evidences of these changing attitudes could be cited. For the moment we content ourselves with mentioning one statistic. “According to a January 1980 poll, only 33 percent of the citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany [West Germany] still believe that technological development will lead to greater freedom; 56 percent think it is more likely to make us less free.” This is from “1984: Decade of the Experts?” – an article by Johanno Strasser in 1934 revisted: Totalitarianism in our century, edited by Irving Howe and published by Harper and Row, 1983. (This article as a whole helps to show the extent to which technology is becoming a target of social rebellion.)

2. The hollowness of the old revolutionary ideologies centering on socialism has become clear. Now and in the future the thrust of rebellion will be against the industrial-technological system itself and not for or against any political ideology that is supposed to govern the administration of that system. All ideologies and political systems are fakes. They only result in power for special groups who just push the rest of us around. There is only one way to escape from being pushed around, and that is to smash the whole system and get along without it. It is better to be poor and free than to be a slave and get pushed around all your life.

3. No ideology or political system can get around the hard facts of life in industrial society. Because any form of industrial society requires a high level of organization, all decisions have to be made by a small elite of leaders and experts who necessarily wield all the power, regardless of any political fictions that may be maintained. Even if the motives of this elite were completely unselfish, they would still HAVE TO exploit and manipulate us simply to keep the system running. Thus the evil is in the nature of technology itself.

4. Man is a social animal, meant to live in groups. But only in SMALL groups, say up to 100 people, in which all members know one another intimately. Man is not meant to live as an insignificant atom in a vast organization, which is the only way he can live in any form of industrialized society.

5. The Freedom Club is strictly anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-leftist. One reason for this is that the left has a consistent record of unintentionally (when not intentionally) subverting rebel movements of any kind and turning them into leftist movements. Until now, leftism has had an image as THE ideology of rebellion, so that many persons who join any rebel movement are likely to be left-leaning. When enough leftists have joined such a movement it acquires a leftish aroma which attracts still more leftists until the movement becomes just another socialist sect. Therefore the Freedom Club must completely disassociate itself from any form of leftism. This does not imply that we are in any sense a right-wing movement. We are apolitical. Politics only distracts attention from the real issue.

6. Don’t think that we are sadists or thrill-seekers or that we have adopted terrorism lightly. Though we are young we are not hot-heads. We have become terrorists only after the most earnest consideration.

The foregoing statement gives only a very incomplete indication of our goals and motives. We will explain ourselves more fully in later communications.

Letter to Warren Hodge of the New York Times (June 24, 1993)

Quoting Ted:[2]

We are an anarchist group calling ourselves FC. Notice that the postmark on this envelope precedes a newsworthy event that will happen about the time you receive this letter, if nothing goes wrong. This will prove that we knew about the event in advance, so our claim of responsibility is truthful. Ask the FBI about FC. They have heard of us. We will give information about our goals at some future time. Right now we only want to establish our identity and provide an identifying number that will ensure the authenticity of any future communications from us. Keep this number secret so that no one else can pretend to speak in our name.

553-25-4394

Letter to Earth First! advocating that EF! publish the addresses of ‘ecocriminals’ (late summer 1993)

Quoting Ted in a letter mailed from Helena in late summer of 1993:[3]

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

First big batch of letters: Offer to stop bombing if a major newspaper publishes his manifesto (April 1995)

Letter to Warren Hoge of the New York Times

Quoting Ted:[4]

This is a message from the terrorist group FC. To prove its [sic.] authentic we give our identifying number (to be kept secret): 553-25-4394.

We blew up Thomas Mosser last December because he was a Burston-Marsteller executive. Among other misdeeds, Burston-Marsteller [sic.] helped Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdes incident. But we attacked Burston-Marsteller less for its specific misdeed than on general principles. Burston-Marsteller is about the biggest organization in the public relations field. This means that its business is the development of techniques for manipulating people’s attitudes. It was for this more than for its actions in specific cases that we sent a bomb to an executive of this company.

Some news reports have made the misleading statement that we have been attacking universities or scholars. We have nothing against universities or scholars as such. All the university people whom we have attacked have been specialists in technical fields. (We consider certain areas of applied psychology, such as behavior modification, to be technical fields.) We would not want anyone to think that we have any desire to hurt professors who study archaeology, history, literature or harmless stuff like that. The people we are out to get are the scientists and engineers, especially in critical fields like computers and genetics. As for the bomb planted in the [crossed out] Business School at the U. of Utah, that was a botched operation. We won’t say how or why it was botched because we don’t want to give the FBI any clues. No one was hurt by that bomb.

In our previous letter to you we called ourselves anarchists. Since “anarchist” is a vague word that has been applied to a variety of attitudes, further explanation is needed. We call ourselves anarchists because we would like, ideally, to break down all society into very small, completely autonomous units. Regrettably, we don’t see any clear road to this goal, so we leave it to the indefinite future. Our more immediate goal, which we think may be attainable at some time during the next several decades, is the destruction of the worldwide industrial system. Through our bombings we hope to promote social instability in industrial society, propagate anti-industrial ideas and give encouragement to those who hate the industrial system.

The FBI has tried to portray these bombings as the work of an isolated nut. We won’t waste our time arguing about whether we are nuts, but we certainly are not isolated. For security reasons we won’t reveal the number of members of our group, but anyone who will read the anarchist and radical environmentalist journals will see that opposition to the industrial-technological system is widespread and growing.

Why do we announce our [crossed out] goals only now, through we made our first bomb some seventeen years ago? Our early bombs were too ineffectual to attract much public attention or give encouragement to those who hate the system. We found by experience that gunpowder bombs, if small enough to be carried inconspicuously, were too feeble to do much damage, so we took a couple of years off to do some experimenting. We learned how to make pipe bombs that were powerful enough, and we used these in a couple of successful bombings as well as in some unsuccessful ones. Unfortunately we discovered that these bombs would not detonate consistently when made with three-quarter inch steel water pipe. They did seem to detonate consistently when made with massively reinforced one inch steel water pipe, but a bomb of this type made a long, heavy package, too conspicuous and suspicious looking for our liking.

So we went back to work, and after a long period of experimentation we developed a type of bomb that does not require a pipe, but is set off by a detonating cap that consists of chlorate explosive packed into a piece of small diameter copper tubing. (The detonating cap is a miniature pipe bomb.) We used bombs of this type to blow up the genetic engineer Charles Epstein and the computer specialist David Gelernter. We did use a chlorate pipe bomb to blow up Thomas Mosser because we happened to have a piece of light-weight aluminum pipe that was just right for the job. The Gelernter and Epstein bombings were not fatal, but the Mosser bombing was fatal even though a smaller amount of explosive was used. We think this was because the type of fragmentation material that we used in the Mosser bombing is more effective [crossed out] than what we’ve used previously.

Since we no longer have to confine the explosive in a pipe, we are now free of limitations on the size and shape of our bombs. We are pretty sure we know how to increase the power of our explosives and reduce the number of batteries needed to set them off. And, as we’ve just indicated, we think we now have more effective fragmentation material. So we expect to be able to pack deadly bombs into ever smaller, lighter and more harmless looking packages. On the other hand, we believe we will be able to make bombs much bigger than any we’ve made before. With a briefcase-full or a suitcase-full of explosives we should be able to blow out the walls of substantial buildings.

Clearly we are in a position to do a great deal of damage. And it doesn’t appear that the FBI is going to catch us any time soon. The FBI is a joke.

The people who are pushing all this growth and progress garbage deserve to be severely punished. But our goal is less to punish them than to propagate ideas. Anyhow we are getting tired of making bombs. It’s no fun having to spend all your evenings and weekends preparing dangerous mixtures, filing trigger mechanisms out of scraps of metal or searching the sierras for a place isolated enough to test a bomb. So we offer a bargain.

We have a long article, between 29,000 and 37,000 words, that we want to have published. If you can get it published according to our requirements we will permanently desist from terrorist activities. It must be published in the New York Times, Time or Newsweek, or in some other widely read, nationally distributed periodical. Because of its length we suppose it will have to be serialized. Alternatively, it can be published as a small book, but the book must be well publicized and made available at a moderate price in bookstores nationwide and in at least some places abroad. Whoever agrees to publish the material will have exclusive rights to reproduce it for a period of six months and will be welcome to any profits they may make from it. After six months from the first appearance of the article or book it must become public property, so that anyone can reproduce or publish it. (If material is serialized, first instalment becomes public property six months after appearance of first instalment, second instalment, etc.) We must have the right to publish in the New York Times, Time or Newsweek, each year for three years after the appearance of our article or book, three thousand words expanding or clarifying our material or rebutting criticisms of it.

The article will [crossed out] not explicitly advocate violence. There will be an unavoidable implication that we favor violence to the extent that it may be necessary, since we advocate eliminating industrial society and we ourselves have been using violence to that end. But the article will not advocate violence explicitly, nor will it propose the overthrow of the United States Government, nor will it contain obscenity or anything else that you would be likely to regard as unacceptable for publication.

How do you know that we will keep our promise to desist from terrorism if our conditions are met? It will be to our [crossed out] advantage to keep our promise. We want to win acceptance for certain ideas. If we break our promise people will lose respect for us and so will be less likely to accept the ideas.

Our offer to desist from terrorism is subject to three qualifications. First: Our promise to desist will not take effect until all parts of our article or book have appeared in print. Second: If the authorities should succeed in tracking us down and an attempt is made to arrest any of us, or even to question us in connection with the bombings, we reserve the right to use violence. Third: We distinguish between terrorism and sabotage. By terrorism we mean actions motivated by a desire to influence the development of a society and intended to cause injury or death to human beings. By sabotage we mean similarly motivated actions intended to destroy property without injuring human beings. The promise we offer is to desist from terrorism. We reserve the right to engage in sabotage.

It may be just as well that failure of our early bombs discouraged us from making any public statements at that time. We were very young then and our thinking was crude. Over the years we have given as much attention to the development of our ideas as to the development of bombs, and we now have something serious to say. And we feel that just now the time is ripe for the presentation of anti-industrial ideas.

Please see to it that the answer to our offer is well publicized in the media so that we won’t miss it. Be sure to tell us where and how our material will be published and how long it will take to appear in print once we have sent in the manuscript. If the answer is satisfactory, we will finish typing the manuscript and send it to you. If the answer is unsatisfactory, we will start building our next bomb.

We encourage you to print this letter.

FC

P.S. Mr. Hoge, at this time we are sending letters to David Gelernter, Richard J. Roberts and Phillip A. Sharp, the last two being recent Nobel Prize winners. We are not putting our identifying number on these letters, because we want to keep it secret. Instead, we are advising Gelernter, Roberts and Sharp to contact you for confirmation that the letters do come from FC.

Letter to David Gelernter

Quoting Ted:[5]

Dr. Gelernter:

People with advanced degrees aren’t as smart as they think they are. If you’d had any brains you would have realized that there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world and you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to open an unexpected package from an unknown source.

In the epilog of your book, “Mirror Worlds,” you tried to justify your research by claiming that the developments you describe are inevitable, and that any college person can learn enough about computers to compete in a computer-dominated world. Apparently, people without a college degree don’t count. In any case, being informed about computers won’t enable anyone to prevent invasion of privacy (through computers), genetic engineering (to which computers make an important contribution), environmental degradation through excessive economic growth (computers make an important contribution to economic growth) and so forth.

As for the inevitability argument, if the developments you describe are inevitable, they are not inevitable in the way that old age and bad weather are inevitable. They are inevitable only because techno-nerds like you make them inevitable. If there were no computer scientists there would be no progress in computer science. If you claim you are justified in pursuing your research because the developments involved are inevitable, then you may as well say that theft is inevitable, therefore we shouldn’t blame thieves.

But we do not believe that progress and growth are inevitable.

We’ll have more to say about that later.

FC

P.S. Warren Hoge of the New York Times can confirm that this letter does come from FC.

Letter to Phillip A. Sharp

Quoting Ted:[6]

Dr. Sharp: It would be beneficial to your health to stop your research in genetics. This is a warning from FC.

Warren Hoge of the New York Times can confirm that this note does come from FC.

Letter to Richard J. Roberts

Quoting Ted:[7]

Dr. Roberts: It would be beneficial to your health to stop your research in genetics. This is a warning from FC.

Warren Hoge of the New York Times can confirm that this note does come from FC.

Letter to Earth First! Journal

Quoting Ted:[8]

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

Material Sent to LWOD

Letter to LWOD

Quoting Ted:[9][10]

To LWOD [Live Wild or Die]: 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

Copy of letter sent to New York Times. You can print it in LWOD if you like. …

Confidential note to LWOD

Quoting Ted:[11]

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 verbatim>[213]</verbatim> 629–4411
(800) 234–4444

Address of Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times
Times Mirror Square
Los Angeles, CA 90052

Second batch of letters: Threatening to blow up an airliner, delivering the fmanifesto & other letters (June 1995)

In June, he took what was possibly his last coach out of the sleepy town of Lincoln, Montana for possibly a week long trip before he’d be arrested in just under a year.

No parcel bombs this time though. He had with him four thick 64 page envelopes of his manuscript, three of which went out to the New York Times, Washington Post and Penthouse.

As well as a prank letter to the San Francisco Examiner warning that he planned to blow up an airliner flying out of Los Angeles during the next six days. He would send a letter a day later before heading back to the cabin to acknowledge it was a prank, so the media didn’t think I had just failed to build or send the bomb somehow.

Threat to blow up an airliner (June 27)

Quoting a letter from Ted to the San Francisco Examiner:[12]

WARNING

The terrorist group FC, called Unabomber by the FBI, is planning to blow up an airline out of Los Angeles International Airport sometime during the next six days. To prove that the writer of this letter knows something about FC, the first two digits of their identifying number are 55.

This is in reference to the false Social Security number sent to Warren Hodge of the New York Times.

Quoting The Washington Post:[13]

Officials today imposed extraordinary security at California airports and temporarily held air mail to and from the state after the Unabomber threatened to blow up an airliner leaving Los Angeles International Airport in the next six days.

However, at the end of a day of statewide confusion in air travel and mail delivery, senior law enforcement officials said that a letter had been sent by the Unabomber to the New York Times claiming that the initial threat was a hoax. The Times published portions of the letter in its Thursday editions that said the threat was “one last prank.”

Letter to the Washington Post (June 27)

Quoting Court TV:[14]

The same day, Michael Getler, deputy managing editor at the Washington Post, receives a letter “from the terrorist group FC.” The letter mentions the bomb at the Forestry Association and repeats the offer to desist from terrorism if an enclosed manuscript — a carbon copy of the one sent to Warren Hoge — is published.

Quoting Ted in a letter to the Washington Post:[15]

This is a message from the terrorist group FC. The FBI calls us “unabom.”

In a letter that we sent to the New York Times at the time of our bombing at the California Forestry Association, we offered to desist from terrorism if a manuscript we were preparing were published in accord with certain stated conditions. We are now sending that manuscript to the NY Times and we are sending copies to you, to Penthouse magazine and to a few other people.

If the NY Times is unwilling or unable to publish our manuscript (or arrange for its publication elsewhere) then we offer the Washington Post the same bargain that we offered the NY Times. NY Times has first claim to the right to publish the manuscript, after that the Washington Post and after that Penthouse. If NY Times gives permission, we have no objection to simultaneous publication in NY Times and Washington Post.

By the way, to verify that this letter really comes from FC, compare the enclosed copy of our letter to the NY Times with the original that we sent to the Times. The original bears our secret identifying number. We apologize for sending you such a bad carbon copy of our manuscript. We can’t make copies at a public copy machine because people would get suspicious if they saw us handling our copies with gloves.

FC

The Manifesto

The contents of the manifesto are surprisingly cogent to many:[16]

At 35,000 words, Industrial Society and Its Future lays very detailed blame on technology for destroying human-scale communities. Kaczynski contends that the Industrial Revolution harmed the human race by developing into a sociopolitical order that subjugates human needs beneath its own. This system, he wrote, destroys nature and suppresses individual freedom. In short, humans adapt to machines rather than vice versa, resulting in a society hostile to human potential.

Kaczynski indicts technological progress for its destruction of small human communities and the rise of uninhabitable cities controlled by an unaccountable state. He contends that this relentless technological progress will not dissipate on its own, because individual technological advancements are seen as good despite the sum effects of this progress. Kaczynski describes modern society as defending against dissent an order in which individuals are “adjusted” to fit the system and those outside the system are seen as “bad”.

This tendency, he says, gives rise to expansive police powers, mind-numbing mass media, and indiscriminate promotion of drugs. He criticizes both big government and big business as the inevitable result of industrialization, and holds scientists and “technophiles” responsible for recklessly pursuing power through technological advancements.

He argues that this industrialized system’s collapse will be devastating and that quickening the collapse—before industrialization further progresses—will mitigate the devastation’s impact. He justifies the trade-offs that come with losing industrial society as being worth the cost. Kaczynski’s ideal revolution seeks not to overthrow government, but rather, the economic and technological foundation of modern society. He seeks to destroy existing society and protect the wilderness, the antithesis of technology.

Quoting John Zerzan, a primitivist author who for a time became friends with Ted after his imprisonment:[17]

[B]y the way he told me he got his ideas from Elull, it’s an American vernacular version of the technological society, that’s his great gift, that’s his great plus, he made it very readable, … the original translation in English is hard to read, it has that abstract classical mode of the way French are taught to write and it’s very off-putting I think in the rest of the world.

I think almost everyone can agree that it’s good to get more variation in digestible versions of philosophy books and essays. However, Kaczynski didn’t include some central elements of Ellul’s politics which are wholly sensible. Ellul valued using more minimal viable use technologies where practicable for one’s own mental health and the environment, but he wasn’t for destroying all industrial level technology:[18]

If we see technique as nothing but objects that can be useful (and we need to check whether they are indeed useful); and if we stop believing in technique for its own sake or that of society; and if we stop fearing technique, and treat it as one thing among many others, then we destroy the basis for the power technique has over humanity.

Ellul is a very admirable person for having played a very active role in the French Resistance. Similarly to how George Orwell talks about getting to experience a glimpse of a more ideal world in anarchist Catalonia, Ellul writes fondly of the communalist caring society the bravest in society were able to build together under the noses of the fascist regime:[19]

In 1944, at the Liberation, I was part of the Movement of National Liberation, I even held certain positions in it, and had begun to believe the dream we had been dreaming during the last few years of the Resistance, often expressed by the saying that we were going to move from Resistance to Revolution. But when we said that-and I would like to point out that Camus first used it in 1943 in combat groups-we did not mean a Communist, Stalinist, Soviet revolution. We meant a fundamental revolution of society, and we made great plans for transforming the press, the media, and the economic structures. They all had elements of socialism, to be sure; but I would say it was more of a Proudhonian socialism, going back to grassroots by means of a federative and cooperative approach.

The main problem with Ellul is simply that he infused many of his sensible arguments against technological overconsumption with fundamentally irrational Christian premises that were entirely unnecessary and make the argument fail for anyone who isn’t a believing Christian.

For example, he often posits that only Christian culture has been able to help with the problem of technological overconsumption in the past, and that only through more dedication to a peaceful Christian culture can we be saved from the problems we exist with today.

These weak arguments then inevitably lead to someone like Kaczynski to come along who buys the religiously apocalyptic vision, but not the proposed solution.

So, I wish Kaczynski had picked up a book that had a more secular critique of technological overconsumption that was harder to dismiss in its prescriptions, but it may have just been a case of finding almost any book to justify his desires.

Ellul did in fact predict someone might try to twist his tech minimalist philosophy to justify violence and dedicated many books to arguing how we simply need a peaceful avoidance of engaging with high tech society in situations where we can use the minimum viable technology for the task we want to get done. But obviously Kaczynski dismissed these arguments:[20]

There are several ideas that Kaczynski takes from Ellul. One is that human beings are maladapted to life in a technological society I discussed that at the beginning the basic idea is that human beings evolved in a primitive Stone Age environment we’re still genetically hunter-gatherers but now we’ve been thrust into this world of concrete and steel and we’re psychologically ill-equipped to deal with that....

Now it’s notable though that for Ellul the mismatch between human beings and the technological society was more social than biological and Elull thought that the problem was that our norms and morals and social structures and communities can’t evolve fast enough to keep up with technology, whereas Kaczynski wasn’t concerned so much about those things he was concerned about our biology, so already there they diverge but the basic idea that we’re maladapted or maladjusted to technology comes from Ellul ...

The problem with technology is that it has outstripped the evolution of our social structures and communities and norms ... and I think judging by the first part of the technological society Ellul thinks that in the past we were perfectly capable of resisting the pull of technique. So, he talks about several different societies that resisted the urge to prioritize means over ends. First he says look at the ancient Greeks, the ancient Greeks were incredibly sophisticated philosophically and scientifically, but he claims they had contempt for practical application, they could have used their knowledge to manipulate the world, but they didn’t, they wanted to understand it, so he says for the Greeks there was a stark division between science/understanding of the world and technique/application.

Letter addressed to Warren Hodge of the New York Times (June 28)

Quoting Court TV:[21]

Warren Hoge at the Times receives another letter from “FC” that offers the identifying number used previously and includes a 65-page manuscript, referenced in the April 1995 letter and conditions for publication. The message ends by stating that the group has “no regret” that the April bomb blew up Gilbert Murray, whom it calls “the ‘wrong’ man,” and not William Dennison.

Quoting Ted in a letter to The New York Times:[22]

This is a message from FC,

If the enclosed manuscript is published reasonably soon and receives wide public exposure, we will permanently desist from terrorism in accord with the agreement that we proposed in our last letter to you.

In that letter we stated that whoever agreed to publish the manuscript was to have exclusive rights to it for six months, after which the material was to become public property. We are willing to be flexible about the six month limit. The reason we offered exclusive rights (temporarily) was to provide an incentive for publication of the manuscript. Presumably, whoever published it would hope to profit by doing so. We assume that the six month limit should be ample if the material is published in a periodical, but if it is published in book form we don’t know how long the publisher would need exclusive rights in order to have a reasonable expectation of making a profit. So if the NY Times arranges for publication in book from, we leave the period of exclusive rights to your discretion. But it should be no longer than necessary and in any case must not exceed one year, unless you publish in the Times good and convincing reasons for making it longer than that. We don’t want our material to remain locked up by a copyright, especially if it is published in the form of a book and the book doesn’t sell.

----------

Contrary to what the FBI has suggested, our bombing at the California Forestry Association was in no way inspired by the Oklahoma City bombing. We strongly deplore the ind of indiscriminate slaughter that occurred in the Oklahoma City event. We have no regret about the fact that our bomb blew up the “wrong” man, Gilbert Murray, instead of William N. Dennison, to whom it was addressed. Though Murray did not have Dennison’s inflammatory style he was pursuing the same goals, and he was probably pursuing them more effectively because of the very fact that he was not inflammatory.

A letter from an anarchist to the editors of the NY Times made us realize that we owe an apology to the radical environmentalist and non-violent anarchist movements. Statements we made in our letters to the NY Times would tend to associate us with anarchism and radical environmentalism and therefore might make the public think of anarchists and radical environmentalists as terrorists. So we want to make it clear that there is a NONVIOLENT anarchist movement that probably includes most people in America today who would describe themesleves as anarchists. It’s a safe bet that practically all of them strongly disapprove of our bombings. Many radical environmentalists do engage in sabotage, but the overwhelming majority of them are opposed to violence against human beings. We know of no case in which a radical environmentalist has intentionally injured a human being. (There was one injury due to a tree spiking incident, but the spiking was probably intended only to damage equipment, not injure people.)

We decided to call ourselves anarchists not in order to associate ourselves with any particular anarchist group or movement but only because we felt we needed some label to apply to ourselves and “anarchist” was the only one that seemed to fit. The term “anarchist” has been applied to a wide variety of attitudes and about the only thing these attitudes have in common is opposition to the power of governments and other large organizations. That certainly fits us.

For an organization that pretends to be the world’s greatest law-enforcement agency, the FBI seems surprisingly incompetent. They can’t even keep elementary facts straight. Many news reports based on information provided by the FBI are incorrect and even contradict each other. Maybe some of these errors and contradictions are the result of journalists mistakes, but it appears that most are the fault of the FBI.

Examples: It was reported that the bomb that killed Gilbert Murray was a pipe bomb. It was not a pipe bomb but was set off by a home made detonating cap. (The FBI’s so-called experts should have been able to determine this quickly and easily, especially since we indicated in an unpublished part of our last letter to the NY Times that the majority of our bombs are no longer pipe bombs.) It was also reported that the address label on this same bomb gave the name of the California Forestry Association incorrectly. This is false. The name was given correctly.

The FBI’s theory that we have some kind of a fascination with wood is about as silly as it can get. They apparently base this theory mainly on the fact that we’ve used a lot of wood in the construction of bomb packages, and several of our targets have lived on streets that are named after trees or have names that include words like “wood,” etc. As for our use of wood in construction, what other material is so light, so easy to work and so readily available in large chunks (such as a 2x4) from which suitable pieces can be cut? One FBI agent mentioned in support of the wood theory that we had used wood to make parts that could have been made out of metal. But why use metal where wood can be used? Wood is much lighter and easier to work. One of the reasons why we use wooden rather than cardboard boxes for mail bombs is that cardboard boxes crush easily and rough handling in the mail could cause damage to trigger mechanisms, possibly resulting in premature detonation. As for our use of “exotic” woods, we’ve used hickory from old tool handles, and we recognized redwood from its color, but apart from that we usually don’t even known what kind of wood we are working with since we just use pieces of scrap lumber that we pick up here and there. As for the “polished” wood, it was only sanded. We sanded the outside of wooden boxes to remove saw marks so that packages would have a smooth, factory-made appearance, less likely to arouse suspicion. Some inside parts were sanded to remove possible fingerprints. Since wood is porous, sweat from the fingers probably penetrated the surface a short distance, so we assume that merely wiping wood does not reliably remove fingerprints. Some metal parts also were scrubbed with sandpaper or emery paper for a similar reason. It is well known that old fingerporints on metal can sometimes be brought out by treating with acid, so presumably the sweat affects the surface of the metal chemically and merely wiping is probably not a reliable method of removing prints. As for the streets named after trees, wood, etc., that’s only chance. Just check a street map of any suburban area and see how many of the street names include as a component either the name of some species of tree or a word such as “wood,” “forest,” “arbor,” “grove” etc. The FBI must really be getting desperate if they resort to theories as ridiculous as this one about the supposed fascination with wood.

-----------

What about the morality of revolutionary violence? To the extent that the word “morality” refers to a code of behavior laid down by society, it is senseless to apply moral criteria to the actions of revolutionaries. Each society prescribes a system of morality that is designated to preserve the existence and facilitate the functioning of that society. Since revolutionaries work to overthrow the society in which they live, they have no reason to abide by its moral code. Of course, those who want to preserve the society always regard the revolutionaries as immoral.

But the word “morality” might also refer to consideration for others as motivated by sympathy or compassion (which exist independently of any socially prescribed code). In this sense one can ask about the morality of revolutionairy violence. Do the revolutionairies goals outweigh the harm they cause to others? Do the people they hurt “deserve” it?

Such questions can be answered only on a subjective basis, and we don’t think it necessary for us to do any public soul-searching in this letter. But we will say that we are not insensitive to the pain caused by our bombings.

A bomb package that we mailed to computer scientist Patrick Fischer injured his secretary when she opened it. We certainly regret that. And when we were young and comparatively reckless we were much less careful in selecting targets than we are now. For instance, in one case we attempted unsuccessfully to blow up an airliner. The idea was to kill a lot of business people who we assumed would constitute a majority of the passengers. But of course some of the passengers would have been innocent people-maybe kids, or some working stiff going to see his sick grandmother. We’re glad now that the attempt failed.

But even though we would undo some of the things we did in earlier days, or do them differently, we are convinced that our enterprise is basically right. The industrial-technological system has got to be eliminated, and to us almost any means that may be necessary for that purpose are justified, even if they involve risk to innocent people. As for the people who willfully and knowingly promote economic growth and technical progress, in our eyes they are criminals, and if they get blown up they deserve it.

Of course, people don’t kill others and risk their own lives just from a detached conviction that a certain change should be made in society. They have to be motivated by some strong emotional force. What is the motivating force in our case? The answer is simple: Anger. You’ll as why we are so angry. You would would do better to ask why there is so much anger and frustration in modern society generally. We think that our manuscript gives the answer to that question, or at least an important part of the answer.

We encourage you to print this letter, but we don’t require it as part of the condition for our promise to desist from terrorism.

FC

P.S. We want to add a qualification to our (temporary) grant of exclusive rights to whoever publishes our manuscript. We are sending copies of the manuscript to several other parties besides the NY Times. We want everyone to whom we have sent a copy to have the right to make a small number (say 5) of copies of their copy, for personal use or for private circulation.

FC

Note. Since the public has a short memory, we decided to play one last prank to remind them who we are. But, no, we haven’t tried to plant a bomb on an airline (recently).

Letter to Mr Guccione of Penthouse Magazine

Quoting Time Magazine:[23]

Three national publications — The New York Times, Time and Newsweek — are now struggling with an offer from the so-called Unabomber: publish a long article detailing his views, and he’ll end his 17-year terror campaign. But Penthouse may take them off the hook. TIME New York correspondent Jenifer Mattos reports that Bob Guccione, chairman of General Media International, on Thursday issued an open letter to the Unabom suspect offering to publish the 37,000-word manuscript himself in Penthouse, or another magazine he owns “in the hope that it will receive the widest possible dissemination by the media so we can save lives.” Guccione told TIME today that he couldn’t understand other editors’ uneasiness about the issue: “I would do it in an instant.... In this instance, we should indulge him 100 percent. No censorship, no discussion with editors and the FBI and all that crap. Just publish and be damned.” So far, Mattos notes, the Unabomber hasn’t called.

Quoting Court TV:[24]

June 29, 1995 — Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione also receives a letter in response to an earlier offer by his magazine to publish FC’s manuscript. The letter states conditions for publication in Penthouse, but expresses a preference for publication in the Washington Post or New York Times, which it considers “respectable” publications. Among the conditions are a statement that the group reserves the right to one additional bomb after publication in Penthouse if other media do not publish it.

Here is the full letter by Ted. The ellipses are included in the original:[25]

Mr. Guccione:

This is a message from FC. The FBI calls us “unabom.” You offered to publish our manuscript in Penthouse in exchange for our promise to desist from terrorism, and that is what we are writing to you about.

We have not made any phone calls to you. No communication from FC should be accepted as authentic unless it is verified by means of our secret identifying number, which is known only to the New York Times and the FBI. With the present letter we are sending to the New York Times. That letter carries our identifying number (cut out on your copy) and you can confirm the authenticity of the present letter and accompanying material by comparing your copy of the NY Times letter with the original that we’ve sent to the Times.

We are also enclosing a copy of our manuscript. We are very pleased that you’ve offered to publish our stuff, and we thank you. We aren’t in the habit of reading sex magazines ourselves, but we don’t have anything against those who do read such magazines or those who publish them. However, it will obviously be to our advantage if we can get our stuff published in a “respectable” periodical rather than in Penthouse, because many people do consider sex magazines to be disreputable or worse. Moreover, if we’re not mistaken, Penthouse is basically an entertainment magazine that contains also some serious commentary. In such magazines the serious commentary to some extent serves as part of the entertainment. We are down on the entertainment industry because it is an “opium of the masses” (see paragraphs 147, 156 of our manuscript). So we don’t like the idea of playing footsy with that industry by allowing our writings to be used as entertainment. Therefore, if possible, we’d like to get our stuff published somewhere other than in Penthouse.

We are sending copies of our manuscript to the New York Times and the Washington Post. The NY Times is to have first claim on the right to publish the manuscript (or to arrange for its publication elsewhere), then the Washington Post, and after that Penthouse. If either the New York Times and the Washington Post is willing and able to publish our material (or arrange for its publication elsewhere) reasonably soon, then they will have exclusive rights to the material for a period that will probably be six months (see our letter to NY Times).

If neither the NY Times nor the Washington Post has published the material, or begun to publish it in serial form, or caused it to be published elsewhere, or announced a definite date for its publication, within 3 months from the day the present letter is postmarked, then Penthouse can publish the material, and will have exclusive rights to it for six months in accord with the conditions stated in our letters to NY Times. BUT, Penthouse must publish the material (or publish the first instalment, if it is to be serialized) within two months after the expiration of the 3 month period we’ve just mentioned, and publication of the entire manuscript must be completed within about six months after the first instalment appears.

Also, the deal we offer Penthouse will have to be a little different from what we offered the New York Times. If we offer Penthouse the same promise we offered the Times (to desist permanently from terrorism) then the NY Times will have no incentive to find a “respectable” outlet for the manuscript. They may just say, “What the heck, let Penthouse publish it and that will stop the bombings.” So to increase our chances of getting our stuff published in some “respectable” periodical we have to offer less in exchange for publication in Penthouse. Therefore, if our manuscript is published in Penthouse, and is not published and widely distributed through “respectable” channels, then we promise to desist permanently from terrorism, in accord with conditions specified in our letters to the NY Times, EXCEPT that we reserve the right to plant one (and only one) bomb, intended to kill, AFTER our manuscript has been published.

Since we are grateful for your offer to publish our manuscript, we are sending you an “exclusive” that you can print in Penthouse if you like.

Prior to June, 1993, when we sent a letter to the New York Times, the FBI led the public to believe that “the unabomber” had never explained his motives or claimed credit for any bombings. Since June, 1993 the FBI has maintained that our letter of that month was the first one from “the unabomber,” and they have implied that the significance of the letters “FC” is unknown.

The FBI is probably lying. In December, 1985, shortly after we planted the bomb that killed a computer store owner, we sent a letter to the San Francisco Examiner in which we outlined our motives. This letter revealed that several bombs we’d planted were part of a series, not unrelated events, and it gave enough information about one of the bombs so that the FBI could be sure the letter was authentic. That letter was never mentioned in the Examiner.

Now it is conceivable that the letter was lost in the mail, but that doesn’t seem likely, because in late December, 1985 there was an article in the Examiner about the bombings; this was the first news report that gave any indication that our various bombings were part of a series, and the article stated that it had not previously been realised that the bombings were related. So if the FBI is telling the truth, if they never received that letter, then we have to assume that the letter was lost in the mail and that the FBI just happened to discover on its own at that time that the bombings were related. THis is too much of a coincidence to seem likely. It’s more probable that the Examiner did receive the letter and turn it over to the FBI, and that the FBI, for some obscure reason of its own, asked the Examiner to suppress the letter.

We never followed that letter up with any further communications before June, 1993, because we discovered that the type of bomb we were using then was unreliable. It was a kind of pipe bomb that often failed to detonate properly unless made in a form that was so long nd heavy that it might easily arouse suspicion. So we decided that before attempting again to make a public statement we ought to go back to experimenting and develop a type of bomb that would enable us to be adequate terrorists. That we now have such a bomb is indicated by the success of our last four attacks. By the way, contrary to statements made by the FBI, these are not pipe bombs (except in the case of the Mosser bombing).

We give below some excerpts from our December, 1985 letter to the Examiner. We won’t give the whole letter, because there is just a chance that the FBI may be telling the truth, that they never received the letter, and in that case, if we gave them the whole letter now some parts of it conceivably might be slightly useful to them in their effort to track us down.

The letters FC stand for “Freedom Club.” We now think this name, which we adopted early, is rather inane, but since we’ve already been marking FC on bomb parts for a long time we may as well retain these letters as our signature.

EXCERPTS FROM 1985 LETTER TO SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

The bomb that crippled the right arm of a graduate student in electrical engineering and damaged a computer lab at U. of Cal. Berkeley last May was planted by a terrorist group called the Freedom Club. We are also responsible for some earlier bombing attempts; among others, the bomb that injured a professor in the computer science building at U. of Cal., the mail bomb that inured the secretary of computer expert Patrick Fischer at Vanderbilt University 3½ years ago, and the fire bomb planted in the Business School at U. of Utah, which never went off....

We have waited until now to announce ourselves because our earlier bombs were embarassingly inaffectual. The injuries they inflicted were relatively minor. In order to influence people, a terrorist group must show a certain amount of success. When we finally realized that the amount of smokeless powder needed to blow up anyone or anything was too large to be practical, we decided to take a couple of years off to learn something about explosives and develop an effective bomb. …

… The ends of the pipe were closed with iron plugs secured with iron pins of 5/16 inch diameter. One of the plugs had the letters FC (for Freedom Club) marked on it. …

We enclose a brief statement partly explaining our aims. We hereby give the San Franisco Examiner permission to print in full any and all of the material contained in this envelope. …

1. The aim of the Freedom Club is the complete and permanent destruction of modern industrial society in every part of the world. …

2. The hollowness of the old revolutionary ideologies centering on socialism has become clear. Now and in the future the thrust of rebellion will be against the industrial-technological system itself and not for or against any political ideology that is supposed to govern the administration of that system. All ideologies and political systems are fakes. They only result in power for special groups who just push the rest of us around. There is only one way to escape from being pushed around, and that is to smash the whole system and get along without it. It is better to be poor and free than to be a slave and get pushed around all your life.

3. No ideology or political system can get around the hard facts of life in industrial society. Because any form of industrial society requires a high level of organization, all decisions have to be made by a small elite of leaders and experts who necessarily wield all the power, regardless of any political fictions that may be maintained. Even if the motives of this elite were completely unselfish, they would still HAVE TO exploit and manipulate us simply to keep the system running. Thus the evil is in the nature of technology itself.

4. Man is a social animal, meant to live in groups. But only in SMALL groups, say up to 100 people, in which all members know one another intimately. Man is not meant to live as an insignificant atom in a vast organization, which is the only way he can live in any form of industrialized society.

5. The Freedom Club is strictly anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-leftist. … This does not imply that we are in any sense a right-wing movement. We are apolitical. Politics only distracts attention from the real issue.

This was now the third letter in which he attempted to mislead investigators about his age and education, in this case quoting the first letter, whilst pretending to believe he thought it likely the original letter was lost in the post. The missing parts he wanted investigators to focus on were quote:

… First, we had to learn some basic physics, chemistry and mathematics, since none of us had any scientific background …

… Though we are young we are not hot-heads. …

Quoting Time Magazine:[26]

Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione told TIME today that he has offered the Unabomber a regular column in the magazine. Guccione, who claims to have spoken briefly by telephone with the Unabomber four days ago, plans to announce the offer on the magazine’s Internet site. The Unabomber had said that if The New York Times, the Washington Post, TIME and other major news organizations refused to carry his 35,000-word manifesto, he would accept Guccione’s offer to publish it in Penthouse. But in a bizarre turn as media critic, the Unabomber said in that case he would reserve the right to kill one more person, since publishing in Penthouse would not be as prestigious as appearing in the other publications. “I can’t do it under those circumstances,” Guccione told TIME’s Jenifer Mattos today. But he came up with a counter-offer: “In place of killing one more person, a one-page monthly column in the magazine, where they can continue to communicate with the American public in a kind of interactive way, where they could answer letters and respond to critics. It would begin immediately as soon as they gave me the go-ahead, and go on indefinitely.” Guccione, who described the Unabomber as sounding “subdued, quiet, quick, tentative” during their 15-second conversation, says he also received a four-page letter, half of its contents exclusively sent to him, which he will publish in the October issue of Penthouse.

Quoting Buffalo News:[27]

In a full-page advertisement titled “An Open Letter to the Unabomber”, published in today’s New York Times, Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione offered the Unabomber a monthly column in his magazine if he agrees not to strike again.

Quoting Bob Guccione:[28]

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE UNABOMBER

I am a little miffed and a whole lot disappointed by your recent communication. In your first letter to the New York Times ( date ) you categorically undertook to “desist from all terrorist activities” if the Times or “some other nationally distributed periodical” agreed to publish your manifesto. Well .... I agreed! I agreed immediately and without reservation. Within 24 hours of your letter appearing in the New York Times, I put out a press release saying that I believed your offer was genuine and that on the basis of that belief, I was prepared to publish you fully and without censorship in the next available issue of Penthouse.

Not everyone in the media agrees with that position. Many think that any attempt to strike a deal with you is journalistically unethical and contrary to the proposition that government, big business and the press do not negotiate with terrorists. I answered those and other accusations in the following manner:

1. You held no individual newspaper or other periodical hostage. You did not insist on publication in any one particular forum failing which you would continue to kill. Had you done so, the New York Times would have turned its back and so would I.

2. I disagreed with the popular belief that you are a serial killer and should be treated like one. I pointed out that serial killers derive the whole of their satisfaction from the act of killing ...... that killing was an end in itself. In your case, I suggested that killing was merely a means to the end. Your objectives are much bolder and infinitely more elaborate. You want to change the world! Killing people was your way of attracting attention to a personal philosophical doctrine with vast socio-political change at its center.

3. I further held that anyone who has taken the trouble to write a literate, 37,000 word, philosophical manifesto and who set about killing people to get it published, is most unlikely to destroy the credibility of his thesis by publicly going back on his word. For this reason alone, I do not believe that you would kill again.

In your recent, personal letter to me, however, you have already begun to change the rules. You now say that simple publication in the New York Times or the Washington Post is no longer enough to stay the killings. You are asking for the additional publication of three new statements or “up-dates” annually for three successive years. A commitment to publish something, sight unseen, well into the future is unlikely win favor at either the Times or the Post. Nor would anyone in our industry blame them!

Furthermore, if both the Times and the Post eventually decline to publish you and the rights fall to Penthouse, you will permit publication in these pages but you will penalize us all by taking one more life. That, you say, is the price of appearing in a somewhat less than “respectable” periodical.

You are wrong! Over the years, Penthouse has won just about every distinguished, journalistic award a magazine could win. It has attacked and exposed elements of every, well entrenched power base in the country from government and religion to big business and organized crime. Our weapons are truth, dedication and an utterly fearless disregard for retaliation. I have been featured on presidential “hit-lists”; I’ve ben the object of retaliatory, I.R.S. audits; I’ve been bugged, sued, pursued and shot at, but I haven’t killed anybody ...... yet!

The demographic mix of our audience is virtually the same as that of the New York Times and the Washington Post, but our total readership is many millions more than the total readership of the Times and the Post combined.

Penthouse is one of the biggest and most quoted magazines in the history of our industry. For 25 years it was and continues to be the single, biggest selling magazine in the Pentagon. If it’s attention you want, you’d be hard pressed to do better.

To further tempt you from extracting one additional “penalty” should publication fall to me, I propose to offer you one or more unedited pages in Penthouse every single month for an indefinite period of time. Consider it a regular column in which you may continue to proffer your revolutionary philosophy, answer critics and generally interact with the public. Surely this would be preferable to the three annual updates you are requesting from the New York Times, et al.

In return, I am asking you to put an end to all terrorist activities now and forever. I’m still the only friend you have in the media. Don’t let my willingness to publish you make fools of us both!

Satisfying an itch to write letter responses to news articles

At the same time as mailing the manifesto to the major newspapers, he wrote two letters responding to articles he’d read. The first was to a psychologist who’d been quoted in an article about him, who he also sent a photocopy of the transcript. The second was a simple response to a Scientific American article.

Writing letters to small newspapers was a past time he must have enjoyed returning to, only this time anonymously under the terror group named ‘Freedom Club’ he knew his ideas could reach a wider audience.

Thankfully he made the mistake of firstly using his real name when corresponding with newspapers back in the 70s about his anti-technology philosophy, and secondly leaving copies of all the letters in his family house, which his brother would discover later and hand over to the FBI.

Quoting Ted:[29]

The next major remission of the insomnia came in late June of 1995. Then the most important part of my work was done and I felt I could really relax. For a month or so I took it easy — I worked on my subsistence chores but did other work only to the extent that I felt like doing it. And I enjoyed the luxury of beautiful, sweet sleep, eight hours or more on most nights.

Tom Tyler Article, Letter & Open Letter Response

April 19, 1995: The San Francisco Chronicle publishes an article about the Oklahoma City bombing and the lengthy spate of bombings attributed to the Unabomber.

The first person quoted in the Chronicle article is Tom Tyler, a social psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

June 30, 1995: Tyler receives a letter from the Unabomber, along with a copy of the manifesto.

Quoting Tyler:[30]

I said in the article that the Oklahoma City bomber and the Unabomber were examples of people who had exaggerated feelings that the government was out to get them ... The Unabomber objected to that characterization of him.”

July 4, 1995: Tyler then went onto publish an open letter in the San Fransico Chronicle that he knew the Unabomber read, where he said he welcomed Kaczynski’s suggestion that revolution “need not be violent or sudden,” he also said that Kaczynski is not alone in feeling discontented with today’s society, and that “it is wrong to simply say that people who are dissatisfied are in some way non-rational.” However, he also argued that industrial-technological society can be reformed.

The Initial Article Quoting Tom Tyler

Quoting the San Francisco Chronicle:[31]

LOSS OF FAITH IN INSTITUTIONS / Bombings Linked To Social Malaise

In a letter to one of his victims, the mysterious terrorist called the Unabomber warns of the evils of technology.

On a Michigan farm, as he is allegedly plotting the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh complains bitterly to neighbors that the U.S. government has become a tyrannical force.

They operate at very different extremes — the Unabomber declaring himself a left-wing anarchist, and McVeigh drawn to the growing militia movement on the right — but they seem to share a fundamental fear: A monolithic world order is robbing individuals of control.

“Whether it’s the technological elite or the government, it’s the same basic idea,” said Tom Tyler, head of the social psychology group at the University of California at Berkeley. “It’s an exaggerated idea of a kind of secret, all-powerful group that’s controlling people’s lives.”

Although such views are typically marginalized as paranoid or fringe, some experts say they are merely the extreme expressions of a broader social malaise that also drives more “mainstream” movements, such as the backlash against immigrants.

Americans, the analysts say, feel rootless and powerless. Faced with worrisome changes brought about by rapid technological advances, economic upheaval and the end of the Cold War, they are losing faith in basic social institutions — government, big business and the media.

“This kind of extremism usually comes during times of perceived threat and ambiguity, where people are not exactly sure what’s happening,” said social psychologist John Dovidio of Colgate University. “We have a society that’s in moral chaos. Our values are shifting in ways it’s hard for anybody to feel comfortable with.”

Experts often relate such anxieties to turbulent economic times, when people feel shut out of job opportunities or excluded from the mainstream. Economic insecurity is a common explanation for the recent rise of citizens’ militias and hate groups.

Although the Unabomber seems less motivated by economic worries, his vision of computers taking over the world manifests a similar fear of being left behind, said sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset at George Mason University in Virginia.

Disdain for big business, big government — and by extension, “big technology” — is nothing new in America, said Lipset.

“It declined sharply during the Depression and the New Deal,” he said. “But since the Second World War, things have been reverting back to the classic American fear of the state.... This is the most anti-statist country in the developed world.”

Most people cope with troubled times without resorting to violence. But their fears may emerge in other ways.

“If we looked at more typical citizens who might be distrusting their government, the way that’s getting manifested are things like the anti-immigration initiative, and ‘three strikes, you’re out,’ the idea that we’ve got to have order and stop these people from destroying our society,” said Tyler at UC Berkeley.

Psychologists typically distinguish between normal people and a small number of individuals who make some claim to the moral high ground to justify harming others. But, some warn, these extremists are really on a continuum with the rest of society and cannot simply be dismissed.

“I get nervous when it is said that these people are nuts, it doesn’t reflect anything, it’s just these crazies,” said University of California at Santa Cruz psychology professor Thomas Pettigrew. “They said the same thing about people who desecrated Jewish synagogues. They always said that about the Klan.”

While most experts agree that the recent acts of terrorism on U.S. soil are somehow a sign of the times, there is little consensus about what they portend.

One school of thought predicts that society will grow increasingly intolerant — and violent.

“We know that in Germany, the hyperinflation of the 1920s produced enormous insecurity in the middle class, then the depression broke open, the boundaries of society fell apart and the Nazi party came to power,” said social psychologist Raphael Ezekiel at Michigan University.

“A big part of what they were doing was creating violence in the streets, then saying, ‘Look, the government can’t protect us from violence in the streets.’ ”

Others, such as Dovidio, say that the current rise in extremism reflects the ebb and flow of society and that tragedies like the Oklahoma bombing may actually inspire a search for greater harmony.

“Society has in general a self- corrective nature,” said Dovidio. “Crises develop, kind of the flash points, and those crises help to bring people together again and develop a new sense of direction and coherence.”

Letter to Tom Tyler

Quoting Ted:[32]

Dr. Tyler:

This is a message from FC. The FBI calls us “unabom.” We read a newspaper article in which you commented on recent bombings, including ours, as an indication of social problems. We are sending you a copy of a manuscript that we hope the New York Times will get published for us.

The trouble with psychologists is that in commenting on what people say or do they often concentrate exclusively on the non-rational motivations behind speech or behavior. But human behavior has a rational as well as an irrational component, and psychologists should not neglect the rational component. So if you take the trouble to read our manuscript and do any further thinking about the “unabom” case, we suggest that you should not only consider our actions as a symptom of some social or psychological problems; you should also give attention to the substance of the issues that we raise in the manuscript. You might ask yourself, for example, the following questions:

Do you think we are likely to be right, in a general way, about the kind of future that technology is creating for the human race?

If you think we are wrong, then why do you think so? How would you answer our arguments? Can you sketch a PLAUSIBLE scenario for the future technological society that does not have the negative characteristics indicated by our scenario?

If you think we are likely to be right about the future, do you consider that kind of future acceptable? If not, then what, if anything, do you think can be done about it?

Do you think our analysis of PRESENT social problems is approximately correct? If not, why not? How would you answer our arguments?

If you think we have identified some present social problems correctly, do you think anything can be done about them? Will they get better or worse with continual growth and progress?

We apologize for sending you such a poor copy of our manuscript. We can’t make copies at a public copy machine because people would get suspicious if they saw us handling our copies with gloves.

FC

Tom Tyler’s Open Letter Response

Quoting Tyler:[33]

An Open Letter — Professor to Unabomber / Response addresses concerns of ‘FC’ by Tom Tyler

On May 1, The Chronicle published an article using both the Oklahoma bombing and the actions of the Unabomber (FC) as examples of general social malaise in America. I was one of several psychologists interviewed for the article.

I have received a letter from FC commenting on that story, along with a copy of his manuscript, “Industrial Society and its Future.” I have read the manuscript and am writing this open letter to address the concerns raised by FC, both in his letter to me and in the manuscript itself.

I regret that we cannot communicate more directly. Hopefully, you will read this reply to the questions you have raised. In your letter, you suggest that we look beyond the questions of whether you have social or psychological problems and consider the substance of the issues you raise in your manuscript. This seems to me a fair request.

There is a widespread feeling of social malaise in our society today and we need to consider why people have those feelings. It is wrong to simply say that people who are dissatisfied are in some way nonrational.

We should also consider whether the structure of society is hurting people and needs to be changed. The manuscript you prepared directly addresses this issue.

I agree that it is important for all Americans to talk about what is wrong with our society and to try to find ways to improve it. By circulating your manuscript you are encouraging us to think about these important issues.

I have tried to read and consider your arguments with an open mind. I think violent actions are wrong, and I am pleased that you have decided to communicate your ideas by sending me (and others) your manuscript.

I cannot completely present or comment on all of the issues you raise in your lengthy manuscript within this letter. But I would like to note what seems to me to be several key arguments. The central point of your manuscript is that the economic and technological changes in our society have had a negative effect on people’s lives.

Your concerns about widespread feelings of inferiority and over-socialization into conformity with society’s rule are widely shared, as is your suggestion that many people do not find their lives very satisfying. Many people today do feel that they have little control over their lives and few opportunities for autonomy.

As you say, they do not feel that they have power over their lives. I think that your feelings and concerns are widely shared. Many people in America are searching for ways to make their lives more fulfilling. I agree with you that technology is resulting in many social problems and that our society has to address those problems and their solution.

You also argue that industrial-technological society cannot be reformed. Here I am less certain that I agree. There have been increasing signs that people are making choices that create individual freedom and local autonomy for themselves.

People quit jobs in corporations to start their own small businesses, people move from large cities to the country, people voluntarily conserve water, recycle their trash, and lower their use of electricity and natural gas.

People are finding many ways to change their lives in positive ways. It seems to me that the revolution you advocate is already occurring. Instead of being trapped in the system through psychological or biological manipulation, people are finding ways to live better lives. People are developing the type of anti-technology ideology that you advocate in your manuscript.

Of course, many people’s lives continue to be difficult, and change takes time.

But, given evidence that people are able to make choices that give them a sense of control, does it not seem possible that society can change?

You suggest two ways of creating social change: Developing an alternative ideology and promoting social stress and instability.

As I have noted, there is already evidence that people themselves are developing an alternative ideology that lessens the importance of technology and increases their control and autonomy over their lives.

But how is it useful to promote social stress and instability, especially through acts of violence?

My impression is that people react to violence by becoming less willing to change. Instead of encouraging social change, threats of violence make people fearful and unwilling to consider new ideas.

How can you encourage people to think about your alternative ideology by creating fear and insecurity?

I think that education is the key to changing people. Would it not be possible to try to develop the core group of intelligent, thoughtful, rational people that you describe in your manuscript?

That core group could articulate and develop a new ideology that allows us to move beyond the problems of technological-industrial society. Many members of our society would welcome new ideas about how to deal with the problems created by technology. That group could change society by showing people a better way to live their lives. Do you have thoughts about how such a group could be formed? Who should be on it? What the most important issues for it to address might be?

Let me close by saying that I especially welcome your suggestion in the manuscript that a “revolution” that changes the economic and technological basis of our society need not be violent or sudden. It can occur peacefully and over a period of decades. In that spirit, I think our society should consider the important issues you raise in your manuscript.

Finally, Ted made a note of having read Tylers’ open letter response in his journal:[34]

[He] doubts my claim that the system can’t be reformed, and suggests that my revolution is already in progress. As evidence, he mentions that people are moving to the country and recycling their trash.

An Article Theorizing a Tech Induced Apocalypse is Written & The Unabomber Responds

June 28, 1995 Scientific American also receives a letter whose author claims to be “the terrorist group FC” which references a 1993 article in the magazine on particle accelerators and discusses negative aspects of scientific advances on society.

The Initial Scientific American Article

Quoting ‘Strange Matters; Can advanced accelerators initiate runaway reactions?’ By Russell Ruthen:[35]

If you have trouble sleeping, you don’t want to know about the physicist’s worst nightmare: an atom smasher produces a new form of matter even more stable than everyday protons and neutrons, thereby triggering a cataclysmic, self-sustaining reaction that consumes the earth.

Although no serious scientists believe an atomic collision could ever lead to a global meltdown, they still want to be very, very sure it will never happen. Since the beginning of the nuclear age, researchers have met many times—usually behind closed doors—to discuss whether there was any chance that a proposed experiment might initiate a catastrophic event. Physicists rarely discuss the issue openly, fearing bad public relations, but recently some have given candid accounts of the secret meetings. “It’s a real concern,” observes Henry J. Crawford of the University of California at Berkeley. “Whenever scientists have started a new accelerator program, one of the first talks is always on this topic.”

Indeed, one of the most astonishing debates of this subject was revealed by Subal Das Gupta and Gary D. Westfall in Physics Today. The story began some 30 years ago, when the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory was planning to build a particle accelerator called the Bevalac. At the time, two theorists, Nobel laureate Tsung Dao Lee and the late Gian-Carlo Wick, raised the possibility that conditions of extreme energy and density could create a new phase of dense and stable nuclear matter. If this substance, known as Lee-Wick matter, existed and could be generated, the physicists feared, it would quickly accrete every atom around it—namely, the laboratory, California and the rest of the planet.

Researchers realized that the Bevalac had a shot at making Lee-Wick matter, and under no circumstances did they want to prove the theorists right during a test run of the machine. “We took the issue very seriously,” comments Westfall, who was a member of the Bevalac’s scientific sta› at the time. “We appointed a blue-ribbon committee to make sure there was no chance it would happen.”

The committee, which included Miklos Gyulassy, who is now at Columbia University, met several times. Together they concluded that the Bevalac had no chance of initiating a nuclear disaster. The physicists reasoned that nature had already performed the relevant experiment: the earth, moon and all celestial bodies are constantly bombarded with an extraordinary number of high energy particles that are produced by stars. Some of the particles collide with atoms on the earth and create conditions that equal or surpass anything the Bevalac could do. Yet the planet was still reassuringly here. Nor had any such event destroyed the moon, which had been struck by countless high-energy particles for at least a few billion years.

In the 1970s the operation of the Bevalac and other accelerators confirmed that Lee-Wick matter did not exist. This happy state of affairs can be explained. When an atomic nucleus collides with another and is compressed into a volume about one fourth its normal value, it expands in about a thousandth of a billionth of a billionth of a second. Nuclear matter that has been compressed somewhat is simply not stable.

But what happens if nuclear matter is compressed to more extreme densities? If two nuclei collide at energies a bit beyond those that modern atom smashers can achieve, the nuclei should transform into so-called strange matter. The protons and neutrons of an atom are themselves made up of quarks, and when the quarks collide at high energy, they may yield a heavier particle: the strange quark. The consensus among theorists is that certain combinations of strange quarks with others are stable. Strange matter should grow through the accretion of ordinary atoms. But not to worry. The droplet of matter should not get much larger than a few million strange particles, theorists think. All such particles should carry a relatively large quantity of positive charge that should ultimately cause the droplet to burst apart. “The basic idea is that at equilibrium the stuff has a net positive charge, and as a result it would turn its own reactions off,” Crawford says.

So how can theorists be absolutely certain that an accelerator will never spawn a voracious clump of strange matter? The question was first posed seriously in 1983, when researchers were designing the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The collider, now under construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory, promises to be the world’s most powerful smasher of heavy atoms and could quite possibly generate strange matter. Piet Hut of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., put everyone’s fears to rest. Applying the same logic his predecessors had used, Hut showed that innumerable cosmic particles collide with atoms on the earth and moon, creating conditions far more extreme than those of RHIC. Calculations similar to Hut’s have been done “for all the accelerators that have been built so far,” Crawford says, and therefore physicists know they are “not going to be walking in any dangerous territory.”

Although there is no instrument yet built that could cause the earth to become a lump of strange matter, such transformations may occur in other celestial bodies. If a droplet of strange matter forms within a star made of dense neutral matter, it might initiate a chain reaction that would create a strange-matter star. Physicists say such events can occur only in the heavens. Let’s hope they are right.

Letter to Scientific American

Quoting Ted’s letter response:[36]

We write in reference to a piece by Russel Ruthen, “Strange Matters: Can Advanced Accelerators Initiate Runaway Reactions?” Science and the Citizen, Scientific American, August, 1993.

It seems that physicists have long kept behind closed doors their concern that experiments with particle accelerators might lead to a world-swallowing catastrophe. This is a good example of the arrogance of scientists, who routinely take risks affecting the public. The public commonly is not aware that risks are being taken, and often the scientists do not even admit to themselves that there are risks. Most scientists have a deep emotional commitment to their work and are not in a position to be objective about its negative aspects.

We are not so much concerned about the danger of experiments with accelerated particles. Since the physicists are not fools, we assume that the risk is small (though probably not as small as the physicists claim). But scientists [crossed out] and engineers constantly gamble with human welfare, and we see today the effects of some of their lost gambles: ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, cancer-causing chemicals to which we cannot avoid exposure, accumulating nuclear waste for which a sure method of disposal has not yet been found, the crowding, noise and pollution that have followed industrialization, massive extinction of species and so forth. For the future, what will be the consequences of genetic engineering? Of the development of super-intelligent computers (if this [unreadable])? Of understanding of the human brain and the resulting inevitable temptation to “improve” it? No one knows.

We emphasize that negative PHYSICAL consequences of scientific advances often are completely unforeseeable. (It probably never occurred to the chemists who developed early pesticides that they might be causing many cases of disease in humans.) But far more difficult to foresee are the negative SOCIAL consequences of technological progress. The engineers who began the industrial revolution never dreamed that their work would result in the creation of an industrial proletariat or the economic boom and bust cycle. The wiser ones may have guessed that contact with industrial society would disrupt other cultures around the world, but they probably never imagined the extent of the damage that these other cultures would suffer. Nor did it occur to them that in the West itself technological progress would lead to a society tormented by a variety of social and psychological problems.

EVERY MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE IS ALSO A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT. These experiments are performed on the public by the scientists and by the corporations and government agencies that pay for their research. The elite groups get fulfilment [sic.], the exhilaration, the sense of power involved in bringing about technological progress while the average man gets only the consequences of their social experiments. It could be argued that in a purely physical sense the consequences are positive, since life-expectancy has increased. But the acceptability of risks cannot be assessed in purely actuarial terms. “(P)eople also rank risks based on ... how equitably the danger is distributed, how well individuals can control their exposure and whether risk is assumed voluntarily.” (M. Granger Morgan, “Risk Analysis and Management.” Scientific American, July, 1993, page 35.) The elite groups who create technological progress share in control of the process and assume the risks voluntarily, whereas the role of the average individual is necessarily passive and involuntary. Moreover, it is possible that at some time in the future the population explosion, environmental disaster of the breakdown of an increasingly troubled society may lead to a sudden drastic lowering of life expectancy.

However it may be with the PHYSICAL risks, there are good reasons to consider the SOCIAL consequences of technological progress as highly negative. This matter is discussed at length in a manuscript that we are sending to the New York Times.

The engineers who initiated the industrial revolution can be forgiven for not having anticipated its negative consequences. But the harm caused by technological progress is by this time sufficiently apparent so that to continue to promote it is [crossed out] grossly irresponsible.

---------------

This letter, which we invite you to print in Scientific American, is from the terrorist group FC. To prove that this letter does come from FC, we quote below the entire fourth paragraph of a letter that we are sending to the New York Times. The authenticity of the letter to the Times is confirmed by means of our secret identifying number.

FOURTH PARAGRAPH OF LETTER TO NY TIMES:

Contrary to what the FBI has suggested, our bombing at the California Forestry Association was in no way inspired by the Oklahoma City bombing. We strongly deplore the ind of indiscriminate slaughter that occurred in the Oklahoma City event. We have no regret about the fact that our bomb blew up the “wrong” man, Gilbert Murray, instead of William N. Dennison, to whom it was addressed. Though Murray did not have Dennison’s inflammatory style he was pursuing the same goals, and he was probably pursuing them more effectively because of the very fact that he was not inflammatory.

Other letters found in Ted’s cabin

It’s unknown whether or not whether Ted sent different versions of these copies found in his cabin or whether he sent them at all.

Letter to the ACLU

Quoting Ted:[37]

ACLU Privacy and Technology Project:

This is a message from the terrorist group FC. The FBI calls us “unabom.” We are sending the New York Times a manuscript that contains a good deal of material that is relevant to the problem of technological invasion of privacy. We think this manuscript ought to be of interest to the ACLU Privacy and Technology Project. We have reason to hope that the NY Times will arrange for publication of the manuscript, but if they do not, we imagine they would be willing to provide you with a copy of it if you asked for one.

FC

Suggestions for Earth First!ers from FC

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,’ ...”

Quoting Ted:[38]

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

Quoting Ted:

... 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

Quoting Ted:

... 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....

Letter to Earth First! on population control

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 wrote this letter below 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.

Quoting Ted:[39]

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

Letter to Live Wild or Die! on population control

Quoting Ted:[40]

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

Appendix: First public statement after his arrest

Quoting Ted in a letter sent on January 26, 1998:[41]

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.

[1] Ted Kaczynski. Message to San Francisco Examiner C-248 [Letter]. Original link. Archived link.

[2] Ted Kaczynski. U-3: Letter and envelop from FC to Warren Hoge [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[3] archive.org/details/b.-letters-before-his-imprisonment/BH2.%20Ted%27s%20First%20Letter%20to%20Earth%20First%21%20as%20part%20of%20his%20Bombing%20Campaign>

[4] Ted Kaczynski. U-7: Letter and envelop from FC to Warren Hoge (Assistant Managing Editor, NY Times) [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[5] Ted Kaczynski. U-4: Letter and envelop from FC to David Gelernter [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[6] U-6: Letter and envelop from FC to Phillip A. Sharp. archive.org/details/d-the-bombings-communications-of-ted-k-as-part-of-his-terror-campaign/D7.%20Letter%20and%20envelop%20from%20FC%20to%20Phillip%20A.%20Sharp%20U-6/>

[7] Ted Kaczynski. U-5: Letter and envelop from FC to Richard J. Roberts [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[8] Ted Kaczynski. Letter to Earth First! C-258 [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[9] Ted Kaczynski. Letter to LWOD with codes C-261 [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[10] Ted Kaczynski. Letter to LWOD C-262 [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[11] Ted Kaczynski. Letter to LWOD with codes C-261 [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[12] Ted Kaczynski. U-8: Letter and envelop from “Frederick Benjamin Isaac Wood” (“FC”) to Jerry Roberts (Editorial Page Editor, San Francisco Chronicle) [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[13] William Claiborne. Unabomber Threatens, Then Calls It a Prank [Essay]. Washington Post. June 29, 1995. Original link. Archived link.

[14] Multiple Authors. The Unabomber: A Chronology [Essay]. Court TV . archived on February 07, 2009. Original link. Archived link.

[15] Ted Kaczynski. U-10 : Letter from FC to Washington Post [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. 1995-06-24. Original link. Archived link.

[16] Multiple Authors. Ted Kaczynski [Essay]. Wikipedia . 22 June 2022‎. Original link. Archived link.

[17] Theo Slade. A Conversation with John Zerzan on Direct Action, School Shootings, Authenticity, Veganism & More [Video Interview]. Activist Journeys. Aug 9, 2021. Original link. Archived link.

[18] Jacques Ellul. Perspectives on Our Age: Jacques Ellul Speaks on His Life and Work [Book]. House of Anansi Press Perseus-PGW. 2004. Original link. Archived link.

[19] Jacques Ellul. Perspectives on Our Age: Jacques Ellul Speaks on His Life and Work [Book]. House of Anansi Press Perseus-PGW. 2004. Original link. Archived link.

[20] Griffin Kiegiel (Host). The Anti-Tech Cast [Podcast Interview]. The Ted K Archive. July 30, 2021. Original link. Archived link.

[21] Multiple Authors. The Unabomber: A Chronology [Essay]. Court TV . archived on February 07, 2009. Original link. Archived link.

[22] Ted Kaczynski. U-9: Letter and envelop from “FC” to Warren Hoge [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[23] The Penthouse Connection [News Story]. Time. 28 Apr 1995. Original link. Archived link.

[24] Multiple Authors. The Unabomber: A Chronology [Essay]. Court TV . archived on February 07, 2009. Original link. Archived link.

[25] Ted Kaczynski. U-11: Letter and envelop from “FC” to Rob Guccione (Penthouse) [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[26] Time Staff. Exclusive ... The New Penthouse Offer [Essay]. Time. June 30, 1995. Original link. Archived link.

[27] Arthur Spiegelman. Unabomber Excerpts Show State of Mind 2 Papers Publish 3,000 Words From Mainfesto Reflecting His Concerns’ [Essay]. Buffalo News. Aug 3, 1995. Original link. Archived link.

[28] Robert Graysmith. Unabomber: A Desire to Kill [Book]. Regnery Publishing; Distributed to the trade by National Book Network. 1997. Original link. Archived link.

[29] Ted Kaczynski (Author) & Kelli Grant (Curator). An attack of desire for women [Letter]. Yahoo News. Original link. Archived link.

[30] George Lardner and Lorraine Adams. To Unabomb Victims, a Deeper Mystery [Essay]. Washington Post. April 14, 1996. Original link. Archived link.

[31] Pamela Burdman. LOSS OF FAITH IN INSTITUTIONS / Bombings Linked To Social Malaise [Essay]. SF Gate. 1 May 1995. Original link. Archived link.

[32] Ted Kaczynski. U-13: Letter from “FC” to Dr. Tom Taylor [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. 1995-06-24. Original link. Archived link.

[33] Tom Tyler. An Open Letter — Professor to Unabomber / Response addresses concerns of ‘FC’ [Essay]. SF Gate. July 4, 1995. Original link. Archived link.

[34] Ted Kaczynski. C2: Checks papers for publication of manuscript; lists hiding places for various articles with maps; list of names at Orvana Mining; serial numbers of guns; location of telephone boxes [Journal]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[35] Russell Ruthen. Strange Matters. Scientific American, August 1993, Page 17. Original link. Archived link.

[36] Ted Kaczynski. Letter to Scientific American (U-12) C-260 [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[37] Ted Kaczynski. Message to ACLU C-259 [Letter]. California University of Pennsylvania Special Collections. Original link. Archived link.

[38] The Michigan University Archive

[39] The Michigan University Archive, Box 91, Folder 11.

[40] archive.org/details/unabom-collection-c-documents/27.%20Letter%20to%20LWOD%20with%20codes%20C-261

[41] Live Wild or Die! no. 7 (1998) & Green Anarchist #51 Mar 1998.