A look back: Baltimore FBI took down violent radicals

The election race between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain renewed media coverage of a 1960s domestic terrorist group known as the Weathermen, or the Weather Underground. The New York Times and other publications have reported about a former member, William Ayers, who has been an associate of Obama’s in Chicago.

I’ll leave the politics of the moment to the candidates and stick to how Baltimore FBI agents, working with agents based in Philadelphia, New York and New Haven, Conn., arrested Weathermen wanted in the killing of police officers, the robbing of armored cars and banks, and bombings of public buildings including the U.S. Capitol.

The Weathermen broke off from the Students for a Democratic Society, whose primary activity was protesting against the Vietnam War. The Weathermen, however, wanted to use violence to overthrow the U.S. government.

From the late 1960s to the late 1980s the Weathermen were locked in an intense game of cat and mouse with the FBI and local law enforcement agencies. They were primarily white middle- or upper-class students who attended the best colleges, such as Columbia University and University of California at Berkeley. Some joined forces with the Black Liberation Army and the Black Panthers.

Two events defined the Weathermen and their commitment. The first occurred March 6, 1970, in New York City, where the home of James Wilkerson was turned into a Weathermen bomb factory by his daughter, Cathy Wilkerson. An explosion there killed three members. Cathy Wilkerson and another woman survived, disappearing for more than 10 years.

The next major incident was the armed robbery of a Brink’s armored car on Oct. 20, 1981, in Nanuet, NY. Members of the Weathermen and Black Liberation Army killed one guard and wounded two others. Two officers were killed when the robbery team came to a roadblock set up by the Nyack Police Department. Marilyn Jean Buck, a getaway driver, shot herself in the leg during the confusion. Another Weatherman, Dr. Alan Berkman, may have treated her wound.

Buck disappeared with another Weathermen getaway driver, Susan Lisa Rosenberg. Berkman also became a fugitive. Five members of the Weathermen/Black Liberation Army team were caught, tried and convicted. In 1983 and 1984 they were sentenced to 20 to 75 years in prison.

Identity theft backfires

Using a false identity proved to be the fugitives’ downfall. In 1984 Weathermen rented a storage unit in Cherry Hill, N.J., using the name and address of a New York City woman. After the facility’s manager wrote to tell the woman about a change with the unit, she called to say she hadn’t rented it and had never been to Cherry Hill. The manager called police, who told him to call back if someone visited the space.

On Nov. 29, the manager noticed Rosenberg and Timothy A. Blunk delivering weapons and 740 pounds of old dynamite to the unit and called the police. Baltimore Division FBI agents were told afterward that the dynamite was leaching nitro and was unstable. When Rosenberg noticed one of the arriving officers smoking a cigarette, the Weatherman told the officer to put it out or they’d all be dead. The police immediately arrested Rosenberg and Blunk, setting off events that led to the arrest of five more members and recovery of more dynamite and weapons.

A search of Rosenberg’s car turned up a receipt for a purchase in Connecticut. The FBI’s New Haven Division found several places where Buck, Rosenberg and other Weathermen had been living. This led to information indicating the Weathermen were somewhere in Maryland. Baltimore Division FBI agents determined that Buck and possibly Berkman and others were likely to be in northeast Baltimore.

A limp and a wig

Within 30 minutes of beginning surveillance Buck was seen walking down a northeast Baltimore street. She went into a store, pulled a wig from her purse and put it on. Buck was conducting counter-surveillance to evade capture, but the limp caused by the bullet wound from the Brink’s robbery gave her away.

A car picked up Buck. Authorities watched it move around northeast Baltimore, then park. Buck got out and walked several blocks to an apartment complex. Because Buck was so conscious of surveillance, authorities hung back to avoid being seen. Agents didn’t see which apartment she went into, so they watched the parked car and put a tracking device on it.

The next morning Buck and Linda Sue Evans drove to New York, followed by Baltimore FBI agents. There, New York agents took over the surveillance. They lost Buck and Evans, but regained contact through the tracking device.

That evening Buck and Evans stayed in a New York hotel after parking blocks away. An emergency court order gave agents permission to put a microphone in the car. Through the bug agents could hear Buck and Evans talk as they drove around the city. From this agents learned about several safe houses to search for evidence.

Buck and Evans picked up on the FBI surveillance and talked about the “pigs” following them. FBI agents and New York police officers assigned to a joint terrorist task force arrested them on May 11, 1985, at a diner in Dobbs Ferry, north of New York City. The pair were armed with handguns.

Agents in Baltimore found the apartment that Buck, Evans and possibly others had used and arrested a woman there. The place was like a Weathermen archives: terrorists tend to document their activities with photographs, reports and other incriminating evidence.

After getting a search warrant, agents found items there that indicated the Weathermen had set off a bomb at the U.S. Capitol and planned to bomb the Naval Academy. The Baltimore Division created a large inventory of evidence.

An informant’s help

That evening an informant reported seeing someone resembling Elizabeth Duke driving a rental truck in Baltimore. The informant provided the license tag number and followed the truck to an apartment complex. Agents found the truck and showed neighbors photos of Weathermen, but no one recognized the suspects.

The next day, agents got the name of the truck’s renter from an office in Pennsylvania. The name matched one on a log of false identities recovered from the first apartment. Agents rushed to the apartment complex, but the truck was gone.

Philadelphia Division FBI agents watching the truck rental office saw Duke return the truck and Berkman pick her up. A dog brought in to check the truck for signs of explosives went berserk. Agents caught up to Berkman and Duke and arrested them. Both were carrying handguns.

The remaining question: Did the Weathermen carry dynamite to Pennsylvania in the truck?

The second Baltimore apartment complex was searched again. Tissue copies from money orders found in trash dumpsters showed the name and address of a person in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia agents who went to the address found a garage the Weathermen had rented to store the dynamite.

The FBI had an incredible streak of luck during the investigation. If luck is defined as the ability to take advantage of opportunity, then the FBI demonstrated ability in this case.

Dan Dreibelbis is a retired FBI Special Agent who is teaching fraud investigation and investigative interviewing in Stevenson University’s graduate forensic program.