From: New Liberation News Service Subject: This Week in History: 9/2/70 >From LIBERATION NEWS SERVICE #285, September 2, 1970 "OUR ACTIONS WERE DEEMED NECESSARY" -- A CLOSER LOOK AT THE MADISON BOMBING" By Jackie DiSalvo and Roger Keeran LIBERATION News Service (Editor's note: On Aug. 24, a massive pre-dawn explosion destroyed the Army Mathematics Research Center [ARMC] on the University of Wisconsin campus, doing an estimated $6 million damage. Despite a telephone warning to the police, one man was killed in the blast. The AMRC, entirely funded by the Army, does the "pure" and "neutral" research so important for the deadly work of imperialism. The following article counters AMRC's claim to the mass media that they are not engaged in any "defense" work. It also shows how the bombing was no isolated incident but grew out of a lengthy campus struggle. A statement released to Madison's undergroung paper, _Kaleidoscope_, by the New Year's Gang, who claimed responsibility for the bombing, points out the clear political nature of the sabatoge.) MADISON, Wisc. (LNS)--The day after the Aug.24 explosion which demolished the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC), Dr. Ben Noble of ARMC told the press, "We don't work on projects for the Army as such, but merely on long range mathematical problems that may be helpful to anyone." Noble further contended that the center was not involved in secret work since all projects were reported in public annual reports. The AMRC was created in the late 1950s by the Defense Department and is the only such research center in the country. It is funded by the Army with $1.4 million annually. In 1968, ARMC had 12 research fellows and 75 staff members proudly described by AMRC as "specialists in areas of value to the Army." In its report to the Army, quite different from its public pronouncements, the AMRC boldly declared that these specialists "furnish instruction to Army personnel, advise and assist them with respect to the solution of math problems, make technical studies of the use of mathematics in Army activities and participate in Army sponsored mathematical meetings...." The director of the Center, J. Barkley Rosser, has clear ties to the military, including a stint with the Institute for Defense Analysis. Rosser, who has helped develop the Polaris missle, has openly stated that he "very definately" thought "that the work we do is useful to the Army." AMRC's protests notwithstanding, its research is, in fact, shrouded in secrecy. And this secrecy is protected by the University Board of Regents, which, in 1965, passed a resolution introduced by Regent Helen Laird (mother of the Secretary of Defense) which stated that even all Regents and officers of the university, except the university president and one specified Regent, "can be effectively denied access to stop secret classified information in the conduct of business of the Army Math Researcch Center." Due to this secrecy it is impossible to obtain accurate and complete information on the nature of AMRC research. Nevertheless, the information unearthed indicates that the AMRC has played a crucial role in the maintenance and protection of the American empire. In 1967, the AMRC advised and assisted the Army's Project Michigan. This program developed the high altitude infra-red surveillance equipment that was used to track down Che Guevara and the Bolivian guerrillas, and which is still employed against insurgents throughout Southeast Asia. As the ARMC director has admitted, the Center's research was also indispensible in improving and reducing the cost of the Safeguard ABM system. The AMRC's contribution to the development of ABM was made possible by a graduate student, Frank Loscalzo, whose work on differential equations made possible, according to AMRC, an "accurate, fast, and stable" method of predicting missle trajectories. Loscalzo now works for Bell Telephone Labs, the prime contractor for ABM. Loscalzo, while at Wisconsin, strongly opposed the war in Vietnam. This only shows the irrelevance of personal opinions within a system where "pure" research is encouraged, financed and channeled for ends of which the researcher is indifferent or ignorant. It also shows that though such research "may be helpfull to anyone" its most important benefactor is U.S. imperialism. ************************************************************ Demonstrations demanding the abolition of the AMRC kept the campus in turmoil all last year with repeated confrontations between students and police. The demand for the abolition of AMRC, along with ROTC and the Land Tenure Center at Wisconsin, which does government research on Latin America, was supported by the student government. There were public hearings on the functions of the AMRC. In November, student anger was further fanned when Davis Siff, a young English professor who had researched the activities of the AMRC, was summarily dismissed. For months, debate raged in the _Daily Cardinal_, the campus newspaper, over the ties of the Math Center to the Army, beginning with a freshman orientation supplement on imperialism and the university, and followed by symposiums, pamphlets, and departmental meetings which brought the issue before virtually every member of the university community. Action began in November with a march declaring that "so long as there is a war in Vietnam, there will be a war at the University of Wisconsin." A week of demonstrations planned for December brought down injunctions barring supposed leaders from activities ranging from entering classes in which they were not enrolled to "voluntarily singing in public buildings." Radicals continued their protests, however, taking over classes to discuss the issues and engaging in confrontations with police in marches against ROTC and AMRC. Within a single week during the Christmas holidays, an unidentified group, now called the New Year's Gang, firebombed an armory housing ROTC offices, attempted to bomb ROTC classrooms, ransacked the local draft board, bombed a monkey lab suspected of doing nerve gas research, and attempted an arial bombing of the nearby Baraboo munitions plant with a stolen ROTC plane. The later attempt failed when the bombs failed to explode. The bombers gave ample warning and took credit for the acts in messages which declared their supprt for the campus anti-imperialist demands. During the second semester, demonstrations against General Electric recruiters, the Conspiracy 7 convictions and in support of the Spring Moratorium were all linked to the attack on AMRC and were accompanied by window-smashing and attempts to set fire to the building. By then, newly installed plexiglass windows bounced small boulders back at the attackers. The student strike in response to the Cambodia invasion, endorsed by a broad spectrum of student groups, made one of its central demands the end to university complicity with the military, particularly the end to ROTC and AMRC. The scenario played out in over a week of street actions involved thousands of rock-bearing students trying to get at these targets through a cordon of bayonet-weilding National Guardsmen and a haze of tear gas. Several departments, including English, Zoology and Genetics, voted for an end to AMRC, and a number of biological sciences voluntarily cancelled their own defense contracts. At no point did the university respond to the demands with anyhting but brutal repression. ************************************************************ The following is the text of the statement released to _Kaleidoscope_ by the New Year's Gang the day of the bombing: "Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism....Wherever death may surprise us, let it be our welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons. -- Che Guevara "Today, (24 August) the battle cry against imperialism was raised once again, as the mathematics research center of the U.S. army was struck by revolutionary cadres of the New Years Gang. "The AMRC, a think-tank of Amerikan militarism, was a fitting target for such revolutionary violence. As the major U.S. army center for solving military mathematical problems, it bears full responsibility for amerikan military genocide throughout the world. While hiding behind a facade of academic "neutrality," the AMRC plays a vital role in doing the basic research necessary for the development of heavy artillery, conventional and nuclear bombs and missles, guns and mobile weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons, and much more. "Its neutralist facade is exposed even by its self proclaimed policy of operation: "To anticipate the needs of the army, and when it is able to develop or learn of new techniques to meet these needs, it should forthwith call these to the army's attention and help it find the area in which these techniques can be used." "Today's (24 August) explosion was the culmination of over a year's effort to remove AMRC ominous presence from the Wisconsin campus. Previous efforts to even negotiate were met with indifference. Such is the response of imperialistic authority to public sentiment. Our actions, therefore, were deemed necessary, for with every passing day, the AMRC takes its toll in mutilated bodies. "We see our achievement as more than just the destruction of one building. We see it as part of a world wide struggle to defeat amerikan imperialism, that monster which is responsible for the starvation and oppression of millions over the globe, that monster which is a direct outgrowth of corporate capitalism. "For this reason, we declare solidarity with our revolutionary brothers in Uraguay, the Tupamaros, who are struggling to loosen the U.S. military and corporate grasp on their continent. We also declare our solidarity with the San Rafael four, revolutionary black brothers who died fighting the racist court system. But more importantly, we declare our solidarity with each and every peasant, worker, student and displaced person, who, in his day-by-day existence, struggles against the oppressive conditions heaped upon him by the monster. "The Vanguard of the Revolution demands the immediate release of the Miwaukee 3, the abolition of ROTC, and the elimination of male supremacist women's hours on the Wisconsin campus. If these demands are not met by October 30th, revolutionary measures of an intensity never before seen in this country will be taken by our cadres. Open warfare, kidnapping of important officials, and even assassination will not be ruled out. Although we have sought to prevent any physical harm to all people in the past, we cannot be responsible for the safety of pigs if our demands are not met. "Power to the People!" *********************************************************** The movement has circulated a wallposter at supermarkets and near workplaces attempting to explain the bombing and pointing out distortions in the mass media. But university and government officials have branded the saboteurs as insane, deranged anarchists, and newspaper headlines have flaunted the word "murderer"--managing to create an atmosphere of terror in the community. Police Chief Emery has called for the formation of vigilante bands -a "watchman force" to protect the community from "terrorists." ------------------------------ 30 ------------------------- THE WAR It sulks between lovers at the diner table; it is in the soup. No one speaks of it any more -- what is there to speak of any more? -- it has settled on the land; the unspoken news, the not news, the news no one hears on the radio anymore, it has been with us as long as life, longer than seasons, longer than the wind. The weight -- the body adjusts, the frame bends-- has settled on the eve, it is behind the glasses, it is on the retina, it is before everything, it is no longer seen, we do not live it, it lives us. --Todd Gitlin (LNS)