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From: New Liberation News Service {[e-mail]}
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)