Thursday, October 17, 1968
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page Three
Thursday, October 17, 1968 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three
HIT VARIETY OF TARGETS
Ca. fornia
bombings
remain
a
mystery
By The Associated Press
Dynamite, black powder, ker
osene, gasoline-these are th
weapons of the secret bomber
l who do their mysterious wor
of blast and" fire in the Cali
fornia night.
Less than ftwo weeks ago.
restroom in the Oakland polic
headquarters was wrecked b
a dynamite blast and window
shattered. in the Alameda Coun
ty Court house a few hour
later.
There were no arrests. Detec
tives gave no hint on the pro
gress of the investigation. That'
been; the general pattern.
To the north in the San Fran
cisco area, and the south, aroun
Los Angeles, the bombers hav
left no group immune from thei
packages and bottles of destruc
tion.
The targets have been on th
political right, left and middle
scholastic, military and indus
trial. At least one attempt defie
attempts to put it in any cate
gory at all.
With apparently no one talk-
ing, and the evidence mostly
e obliterated by fire or blast,
s there have been no arrests in
k California.
- However, the FBI seized some
Cuban exiles last Friday in Mi-
a ami and charged them in con-
e nection with a nationwide series
y of bombings that included some
's in Los Angeles. There, police
- have blamed Cuban anti-Castro
s terrorists this summer for a
quick series of dynamite explo-
sions at widely divergent targets
- spaced minutes apart.
s But a lot of other explosions
or firebombings have not so far
- been linked to any group.
d On Sept. 13, a youth was seen
e- depositing a black satchel on
r the front porch of the Naval
ROTC building on the Univer-
sity of California's Berkeley
e campus. He took off in a car.
; Shortly, the unoccupied one-
- story structure was ripped by a
s dynamite blast.
Doors, windows and furniture
were shattered, shaking up
some 200 alumni banqueting in
nearby Harmon Gym. It was
the latest assault on the ROTC
building, to some a symbol of the
Vietnam war.
Last February, four home-
made firebombs - wick - stuffed
bottles of inflammable fluid
were tossed at the building,
starting a $2,000 fire.
That same month, 50 miles
away on the Stanford Univer-
sity campus, the Naval ROTC
building was set afire by an ar-
sonist, and three months later
the job was finished. It was
burned to the ground.
Chief Gordon R. Davies of the
campus police department, said
the methods employed in the
setting fire of the two fires
seemed the same-"in each case
the smell of gasoline was re-
ported"-but there is no hard
evidence they were connected.
In an untidy apartment soith
of the Berkeley campus-the na-
tion's "capital" of university un-
rest and activism-police in
September discovered a do-it-
yourself mayhem cache of 12
guns, 11 charged firebombs, a
bullwhip, a straight-edge razor
and assorted knives.
"Someone." understated Ber-
keley detective Lt. Dareell Hick-
mano "gathered these in prepa-
ration for possible disturbances."
Less than a week earlier, a
powerful blast from a "relative-
ly sophisticated" bomb ripped
open a store under construction
on Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue
-virtual "ground zero" of dem-
onstrations, speechmaking and
battles with police.
The manufacture of crude
bombs, or even fancy ones, isn't
much of a problem, according to
Ben Huber, general manager of.
the products division of the Ex-
plosive Technology Co.
He pointed out that anyone
interested in blowing up some-
thing can spend under $3 on a
handbook that explains the
whole thing.
Primitive black powder can be
put togethere in a short time
with the simplest materials
easily available, he said, adding
that dynamite bombs are tough-
tthe
news today
by T he Ass~ociated Press and College Press Ser vice
INCREASING SPECULATION of an impending
bombing halt in Vietnam was backed up by reports
yesterday from a number of sources.
In Paris, a U.S. spokesman reported "movement" in the
peace talks. "I cannot characterize it as progress," he said,
but nevertheless, his report of activity was interpreted by
listeners to mean that a major breakthrough may come
soon.
In Saigon, U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker met three
times yesterday with President Thieu, reportedly to discuss a
bomb halt. After the meetings, Thieu met with his cabinet
and told them no bombing halt could be imposed without'
the approval of the Saigon government.
In addition, Le Duc Tho, special counsellor for the North
Vietnamese delegation to the Paris negotiations, flew home
recently for a policy reappraisal with Hanoi leaders. He con-
ferred with Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin in Moscow
before making the trip home.
Despite the speculation, President Johnson told the three
major presidential candidates there has been "no basic
change in the situation." In a four-way telephone confer-
ence, he said there has been "no breakthrough" in the Paris
negotiations and America's position on Vietnam remains un-
changed.
Some of Johnson's advisers had attempted to persuade
him to interpret the recent lull in ground fighting in South
Vietnam as the sign he needed to declare a complete bombing
halt.
Infiltration from the North and ground activity have both
dropped off markedly.
Not a single ground action involving American troops took
place yesterday. South Vietnamese forces engaged in only
one skirmish.
MADALYN
MURRAY
speaks on
ATHEISM
-Daily-Andy Sacks
UNEXPLAINED BOMBINGS are not unique in California. Detroit has had a string of mystery blasts.
In Ann Arbor recent dynamite explosions outside an office rented by the Central Intelligence Agency
and the building housing the Institute of Science and Technology (above) are still under investigation
by the police.
0
"
Sunday,
2:00 P.M.,
October 20
Hill Auditorium
TICKETS ON SALE WED., OCT. 16
$1.00 at Diag (11-12) and
Union Desk (all day)
TICKETS ON SALE AT DOOR
BEFORE PERFORMANCE
;i
Tonight: BROKEN BLOSSOMS
7:00 & 9:05
D. W. Griffith, "rightly credited with the
75cinnovation of nearly all technical facets of
today's movies," made "Broken Blossoms in
ARCHITECTURE 1919, as the first release of United Artists,
AUDITORIUM organized by Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary
S662-887 1Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the "Big
Four of American film. Perhaps the most
Get your free beautiful film Griffith ever made.
Griffith booklet
er, requiring blasting caps to go
off.
Last July, a police guard shack
was blown up near a Berkeley
campus entrance; the previous
month the Berkeley draft board
-another symbol of the Viet-
nam war-was attacked for the
third time in a year by a bomb
that shattered windows and
made flak out of metal blinds.
The other two times firebombs
were used.
Without apparent motive, a
$45,000 tractor was blasted last
June in the East Bay.
That same day, some 30,000
Almeda Count homes and busi-
nesses were blacked out by sab-
oteurs who blasted three 70-
foot-high Pacific Gas & Elec-
tric Co. power towers on the
Oakland outskirts.
Three months before, a pair
of rapid-fire blasts severed main
PG&E power clables between
the Oakland-Berkeley area and
Contra Costa County. These
jobs were apparently done by
highly expert bombers who
used the right amount in the
right place.
The felled towers, said one po-
liceman, even were topped in the
apparently desired direction. Po-
lice feel the PG&E blasts were
related but "we have no proof."
The immediate response would
be that dynamite is far more
dangerous for the amateur to
fool around with than the fire-
bomb, a mere flaming wick in
a bottle of gasoline.
"Think again," says Oakland
detective St. Bill Fugler.
"It is safer for a bomber to
use dynamite than a Molotov
cocktail," *he said, adding that
the fire department's arson
squad had refused to take part
in a test of the firebomb because
safety to the man doing the
throwing couldn't be guaran-
teed.
Last July 5, perhaps the most
tragic of the arson-caused fires
struck a two-story building on
the Stanford campus which
housed the offices of now-re-
tired President Wallace Sterling.
In pne stroke, the firebugs,
destroyed Dr. Sterling's collec-
tion of rare books, paintings and
treasured momentoes of a 40-
year career.
At dawn, flames lept 15 feet;
witnesses reported "a strong
smrell of gasoline." Replacement
cost of the building is $200,000.
No one could figure out the
motive. A campus policeman
sAuggestedthat Dr. Sterling was
chosen because he was a "sym-
bol of the university" where
picketing and demonstrations
raged not long before.
The leftwing Vietnam Day
C o m m i t t e e headquarters in
Berkeley and the W.E.B. DuBois
Club in San Francisco were
blasted by explosives in Spring
1966.
During the summer, dynami-
ters hit the Shell Oil Company
offices, M e x i c a n government
tourist department, the Mexican
Tourist Council, an Air France
ticket office and a Japan Air
Lines ticket office, all in Los
Angeles.
In each case the explosives
were deposited in the front door
mail slot. Ten days later a bomb
wrecked a door and corridor to
the offices of the British consul
general in Los Aigeles. Here as
at some other Los Angeles
cases, red-white and blue stick-
ers were found that said in
Spanish' "Unite Cuban Power."
A week later a two-foot fuse
was found sputtering in a bomb
at a Beverly Hills travel agency.
Another Cuban sticker.e
To police, the bombings and
the one attempt demonstrated a
common method that pointed at
one source: the anti-Castroists.
These bombings followed by
about a month the detonation of
a powerful bomb at California's
biggest draft center in North
Hollywood. Shrapnel peppered
file cabinets containing records
of the San Fernando Valley's
165,000 draft registrants.
This bomb was a particularly
vicious one, having been filled
beforehand with scrap metal,
ball bearings and gears.
The employment office of
Valley State College in the San
Fernando Valley was bombed
during a spring protest this year
over recruiting by defense con-
tractors.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA last night officially signed a
treaty with the Soviet Union legalizing the presence of
Soviet troops on Czech territory.
The agreement set "conditions for the temporary stay of
Soviet armies on our territory," the Czechoslovakian state
television reported.
The specific nature of the conditions was not made public
immediately.
At the signing of the treaty, Soviet Premier Kosygin made
clear he expects the Czechoslovak leaders to take further
measures to return their country to old line Communism
The Soviet leader called for "normalization of the situa-
tion", a term which he has employed in the past to refer to
press censorship and suppression of dissent.
THE APOLLO 7 ASTRONAUTS passed the halfway
point of their planned 11 day mission last night.
Their three-man space capsule passed directly over the
eye of Hurricane Gladys yesterday, now located over western
Cuba. Astronaut Schirra -told mission command in Houston
to "Tell them to get it out of the way by next Tuesday." The
Apollo 7 is scheduled -to land in the Atlantic Ocean near
Bermuda Tuesday.
THE 1968 HIGHER EDUCATION and Vocational Edu-
cation aid bills were signed into law yesterday by Presi-
dent Johnson.
The bills authorize nearly $10 million in financial aid
to college students and trade school students, and increase
funds for work training programs designed to break young-
sters away from slum-poverty cycles.
A SPECIAL MEDIATION PANEL was created yester-
day by New York's, Mayor John Lindsay in an attempt to
end the current teachers walkout.
The move came under pressure from distraught parents,
whose children have already missed more than two weeks
of school this year due to teacher strikes.
The current walkout, the third in less than six, weeks,
followed the refusal of the directors of the experimental
"community-controlled" Ocean Hill - Brownsville school dis-
trict to reinstate 80 ousted teachers.-
Another community-controlled district, Two Bridges, has
threatened to join the Ocean Hill district and hire permanent
replacements for its 240 striking teachers. Both: districts are
predominately Negro and Puerto Rican, and have called for
replacement Of many white teachers.
"Kubrick provides the viewer
with the closest equivalent to
psychedelic experience this side
of hallucinogens!." M a."A fan
tastic movie about man's
future! An unprecedented psy-
chedelic roller coaster of an ex-
perienceg!"-"znKubrick's '2001'
is the ultimate trip II"-ffs en"
2 EXCITING' NEW PLAYS!
A powerful and prophetic An imaginative and
play by the daring;young provocative new play by
Czech liberal leader. the author of
1967 Prague success--..-"Blackboard Jungle:
glow wned J~
THE WORLD PREMIERE OF
4~I
07
ULAJs
eD
by
EVAN HUNTER
MON., FEB. 3-SAT., FEB. 8
Directed by
Distinguished Ir adway Casts! MARCELLA CISNEY
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