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UNABOMB3.TXT
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1995-09-19
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Unabomber _ Manifesto
Unabomber Text Published, Feds Hope It Leads To Terrorist
By SANDRA SOBIERAJ, Associated Press Writer
Copyright 1995, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Washington Post and The New York Times cited "public
safety reasons" in their extraordinary agreement to publish in today's
editions of the Post the so-called Unabomber's 35,000-word manifesto.
The bomber had said in June he would kill again unless the Post or the
Times printed his densely written treatise within three months. The deadline
is Sunday.
The Justice Department hopes the publication finally will lead
investigators to the man whose 16 mail bombs have killed three and injured 23
others since 1978.
The newspapers said their decision to print the manifesto, which calls for
worldwide revolution against modern industrial society, followed a meeting
with Attorney General Janet Reno.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said Reno and FBI officials recommended
publishing the full manuscript because investigators were encouraged by the
leads generated from earlier-published excerpts.
"Recent publications of excerpts by newspapers and other publications, as
well as the review by selected academicians, have resulted in numerous
investigatory leads which continue to be followed," spokeswoman Lee Douglass
said late Monday.
Michael Rustigan, a criminologist at San Francisco State University and an
expert in serial killers who has studied the Unabomber for almost two decades,
agreed that today's publication may be the only hope investigators have for
breaking the case.
"Basically, it's going to be the public that solves it _ a neighbor, maybe
a former professor, or employer, saying Yeah, I remember that phrase,"'
Rustigan said.
Still, he was skeptical the publication would silence or stop the bomber,
adding: "The Unabomber has already said he's going to ask for follow up
articles. Now he's in control, and how do we know what he's going to ask for
next?"
Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. acknowledged the risk and said any
decision on printing future works by the Unabomber would depend on his
abstention from violence.
"It's difficult to put complete faith in the word of someone with the
record of violence that the Unabomber has," Sulzberger said of the decision to
publish the document under threat of continued terrorism.
"But the best advice available, from the FBI and others, is that the
Unabomber may well not bomb again if his material is published. ... I'm
convinced we're making the right choice between bad options," he told the
Times.
An FBI task force heading the Unabomber investigation planned a news
conference today in San Francisco. The Unabomber is suspected to operate out
of northern California.
In a statement, Sulzberger and Post publisher Donald E. Graham said they
made the joint decision to print the massive manifesto "for public safety
reasons" after lengthy deliberations. The Times and the Post had published
excerpts of the manifesto on Aug. 2.
The full text was printed in today's Post, which unlike the Times, has the
mechanical ability to distribute a special section in all copies of its daily
paper, the publishers' statement said. The Times shared the $30,000-$40,000
cost of the eight-page special section.
One media expert said he was stunned by what he called the "unprecedented"
publication.
"That's just one of the most inviolate rules of American journalism, that
when you have a paper the responsibilities are grave and great and no one _
not the government, law enforcement, local prosecutors _ no one should dictate
what you cover," said William Serrin, chairman of New York University's
journalism department and a former Times reporter.
But Ben H. Bagdikian, a former Post editor and former dean of the graduate
school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, defended the
papers' decision, saying it was clearly in the public's interest.
"That kind of blackmail is always a dilemma," he said. "But this case is
obviously unique."
The newspaper officials were clearly uncomfortable with their predicament.
"Neither paper would have printed this document for journalistic reasons,"
Graham said in an interview with the Post. "We thought there was an obvious
public safety issue involved and therefore sought the advice of responsible
federal officials."
In the Post's eight full pages of dense columns of type, the manifesto's
author rails against technology and derides the mass media, saying they are
controlled by large organizations and people with money.
"To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost
impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us for example. If we
had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a
publisher, they probably would not have been accepted," he writes.
"If they had been accepted and published, they probably would not have
attracted many readers, because it's more fun to watch the entertainment put
out by the media than to read a sober essay."