The FBI and the Weather Underground

Two former adversaries, Bill Ayers, a founding member of the Weather Underground, and Don Strickland, a former FBI agent assigned to the Weather Underground case, reflected on an incendiary time in American history. In the late 1960s and early 1970s long-simmering public unrest over the Vietnam War, social reform, and civil rights erupted into violent radical protest. When the Weather Underground Organization began a series of bombings, including strikes on the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, as acts of war against the United States, its young members became the target of one of the largest FBI manhunts in history. Bill Ayers, recounted the origins of the Weather Underground, also known as the Weathermen, its purpose, as well as his own evolving feelings about its actions and legacy. Don Strickland discussed the bureau’s wide-ranging efforts to deal with the Weathermen’s violent acts and track down the fugitive members, many of whom had become skillful in adopting aliases, forging ident close