William Rosenau - Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol: The Explosive Story of M19, Americas First Female Terrorist Group

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Copyright 2020 by William Rosenau

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Interior design by Dana Sloan

Jacket photographs AP Images

Author photograph by Sarah E.T. Billingsley

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rosenau, William, author.

Title: Tonight we bombed the U.S. Capitol : the explosive story of M19, Americas first female terrorist group / William Rosenau.

Description: New York : Atria Books, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019014374 (print) | LCCN 2019016421 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501170140 (eBook) | ISBN 9781501170126 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501170133 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: May 19th Communist Organization. | Women terrorists United StatesHistory20th century. | Domestic terrorism United StatesHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC HV6432.5.M155 (ebook) | LCC HV6432.5.M155 R68 2019 (print) | DDC 363.325082/0973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019014374

ISBN 978-1-5011-7012-6

ISBN 978-1-5011-7014-0 (ebook)

For Annie and Hanes

El sueo de la razn produce monstruos.

Goya

May 19th Communist Organization

Silvia Baraldini (born December 12, 1947), aka Louise

Alan Berkman (born September 4, 1945; died June 5, 2009), aka Leonard Cohen, William Lunderman, Kenneth Abrams, David Levy

Timothy Adolf Blunk (born May 21, 1957), aka William Bassler, William J. Hammond

Donna Joan Borup (dates of birth used: August 5, 1952; March 5, 1947; April 10, 1950), aka Donna Austopchuk

Marilyn Jean Buck (born December 13, 1947; died August 3, 2010), aka Delia Richards, Louise Harmon, Eve Mancuso, Dee

Judith Alice Clark (born November 23, 1949), aka Alex

Elizabeth Betty Ann Duke (born November 25, 1940), aka Bess J. Lunderman, Loretta Polo, Janice Adams

Linda Sue Evans (born May 11, 1947), aka Christine Porter, Louise Robinett, Katherine Orloff, Christine Johnson

Susan Lisa Rosenberg (born October 5, 1955), aka Elizabeth, Barbara Grodin, Susan Knoll

Laura Jane Whitehorn (born April 16, 1945), aka Milagros Matese, Anne Morrison

The Family

Kuwasi Balagoon (formerly Donald Weems; born December 22, 1946; died December 13, 1986), aka Maroon

Cecilio Ferguson (born November 16, 1946), aka Chui

Edward L. Joseph (born January 17, 1953), aka Jamal Baltimore, J.R.

Sekou Odinga (formerly Nathaniel Burns; born June 17, 1944), aka Big Daddy

Tyrone Q. Rison (born February 9, 1947), aka Osedrick Lalupe, Little Brother

Mutulu Shakur (formerly Jeral Wayne Williams; born August 8, 1950), aka Doc, Donnell Jackson

Mtayari Shabaka Sundiata (formerly Samuel Smith; born February 18, 1944; died October 23, 1981), aka Sonny

Others

Sundiata Acoli (formerly Clark Edward Squire; born January 14, 1937)

Kathy Boudin (born May 19, 1943)

David Gilbert (born October 6, 1944)

William Morales (born February 7, 1950), aka Willie, Guillermo

Assata Shakur (formerly Joanne Deborah Chesimard; dates of birth used: July 16, 1947; August 19, 1952), aka Sister Love, Cleo

WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 26, 1983

The U.S. National War College occupies a chunk of riverside real estate at Fort Lesley J. McNair. Up-and-coming military officers, diplomats, and spies from all over the world compete for coveted slots at the school with its rich campus, complete with tennis courts, a bowling alley, and even a three-hole golf course. In 1982, it was also an open base. No mandatory ID checks, no X-ray scanners, no security waving wands across visiting backsides. Anyone who wasnt obviously deranged or disorderly could expect to stroll in, hassle free.

The young couple who walked onto campus the afternoon of April 26 didnt appear outwardly disturbed. Maybe the woman stepped a little gingerly, as though she were carrying something fragile in her bulky purse, but they set off no alarms among the military personnel who they most likely passed as they headed toward Roosevelt Hall, a hulking granite-and-brick building named after the twenty-sixth U.S. president.

The intentionally ordinary couple walked up to the front of the building. Their compatriots who had scoped out the place on a reconnaissance run had mentioned a large concrete planter just outside the front door. The planter was more than big enough for the bomb that was in the womans purse.

The raw materials for the bomb were simple enough; the whole rig fit compactly in a purse.

The bomb had been built using stolen Hercules Unigel Tamptite dynamite, a Dupont blasting cap, and a Westclox pocket watch used as a timer that was set to detonate later that night.

At 9:45 p.m., a faint voice, probably prerecorded, called the Pentagon and United Press International, lashed out about events in Central America, the military, and U.S. imperialism, and warned that an explosion would be coming in fifteen minutes.

The blast blew out windows in Roosevelt Hall and sent Fort McNair into lockdown mode. Nobody was hurt, but no one was meant to be. Rather, the bomb was intended to deliver a thunderous message.

A group calling itself the Armed Resistance Unit, or ARU, took credit for the Roosevelt Hall attack. Shortly after the operation, the ARU issued Communiqu No. 1, which announced that the bombing was carried out to support the liberation movements fighting U.S.-backed regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador. El Salvador will win, the ARU predicted. Guatemala will win, the people of Latin America and the Caribbean will be free, U.S. imperialism will be defeated.

The ARU wasnt a band of foreign terrorists. These revolutionaries were homegrown, and, as the communiqu made clear, they were fervently committed to fighting U.S.-backed war, fascism, and genocide.

We inside the U.S. are in the belly of the beast, they wrote.

The terrorists revisited the nations capital later that year. On August 18, the Armed Resistance Unit struck at another military installation: a computer center at the Washington Navy Yard.described the damage as massive. Then the ARU started plotting additional attackssomething that would strike at the heart of the American state.