Customer Reviews

Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen

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I found it hard to put the book down. It is fast paced, intensely personal, funny, and a little depressing. The author doesn't try to romanticize his life as a fugitive. He does give an honest account of his story; the story of the 1968 Columbia strike, the disintegration of Students for a Democratic Society, and the Weather Underground. If you have an interest in what happened to the Vietnam anti-war movement and the radicalization of the 60s, then I would give this a high recommendation. The book is well-written and doesn't dwell in a maze of acronyms of the political movements of the 60s. It ends on a positive note with the 40th reunion of the Columbia strike where the issues of the Black students at Columbia came out to a public setting for the first time.

Eloquent, thoughtful, honest, and unflinching. What might have been either a polemic or apologia is instead a thoroughly engaging narrative about an unforgettable moment in American history. Mark Rudd is authentic and self-effacing. What might have been a heavy lift in less capable hands is an exciting and thought-provoking tale of ideology and courage, naivete and grandiosity, hubris and humility, patriotism and crime. Above all it is a poignant story of what America was and what it became.

This is the best insider Weatherman book I've read so far. I've read most of them as they came out, mainly to try to get some insight into what the heck happened. I was on the edge of this movement and essentially turned my back on anything political as it got more violent, feeling everyone involved was tainted. This is the first one that spoke to that taint. Mark Rudd's voice has a ring of truth and, unlike some of the authors, presents a hopeful future and does not come across as self serving.

This book is much more than a true-life adventure story for anyone who has ever wondered what it might be like to risk everything for one's ideals and face the consequences, from someone the F.B.I. and associated police powers of the infamous Cointelpro could not catch. It is a must read for any American seriously seeking to understand where we are now, how we got here and what we might have to do to get the donkey out of the ditch.
Mark Rudd's personal recollections and brilliant analysis are informed by a deep sense of personal responsibility and an abiding faith in his fellow citizens to aspire to do the right thing. There is no way to avoid mentioning here that those who disdain the lessons of the past are those most likely to fail the challenges of the present. Rudd's voice is one we ignore at our peril.
Note to Amazon: You should be featuring this one prominently.

Mark Rudd's UNDERGROUND is very a very well-written, incisive, self-critical autobiography. It presents a searing
history of the Columbia Univerisity rebellion of 1968, as well as a convincing analysis of the ultra-leftism of
the Weathermen/WUO, with considerable self-criticism. Yet the book is optomistic and hopeful, written with the
conviction that to organize and struggle against US imperial foriegn policy was then, and remains now, critically important and just.

The book begs a comparison with Bill Ayer's FUGITIVE DAYS, by another Weatherman leader. Rudd's book wins hands down
as the far more honest journal. Where Ayer's makes only vague statements about the ultra-left errors of his politics and
their very negative impact on the Vietnam anti-war movement in the United States, Rudd wields a far sharper blade, recognizing
and apologizing for his ultra-leftism, while conceding not an inch on the basic righteousness of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-racist political work.

This reader waits with anticipation for a follow-up book about Rudd's activism after the 1970's.

This book is MUCH more than just a history about American radicals determined to change the world & the violence in Vietnam & corruption in the US government! This book is a profound self-reflection by the author who catalyzed the radical movement known as the Weathermen that erupted in the late 60's & into the 70's. This book is important historically to truly get under the skin of those "fighting for peace" in an era of immense violence outside our borders and within.

Mark Rudd brings us intimately into his own thinking as he gracefully and diligently dissects his own psyche, motives from as many directions as he can in order to bring a greater understanding of what motivated this movement and all that it unleashed.

Read this book with a tender awe of someone with deep regrets and the self-awareness to share what the human mind and heart is capable of doing and what enables one to make decisions of the radicle kind & so much more!! Sanctuary The Sacred Pyramid Voices of Eternity

'The Weather Underground' included Rudd both as a contemporary talking head and in archival footage as a twenty year old revolutionary. Although not on cable 'at any given moment,' it was nominated for an Academy Award and broadcast nationally on PBS some years ago, and is a useful counterpoint to this book, since it in part inspired Rudd to write this book.

I have mixed feelings about Weatherman and Rudd, who was a leader of SDS and the Weathemen. He really comes across as a kind of typical self-indulgent baby boomer--for being a 'revolutionary', the times made the man, rather than the other way around. Views of this documentary seem very different than his memoir.

Points of difference with Rudd's memoir:

1. 'Gender equality' in the Weathermen, and the Left at the time was not straightforward. For example "The sole female member of the Strike Coordinating Committee during the occupation (of Colombia by SDS), Rusti Eisenberg....told "as a woman...I was an unwelcome presence in the SCC. At the time I was hurt and stunned by the machismo and disrespect of the young men in that group." In November 1974 Weatherman Jane Alpert turned herself into the FBI. The year before, she had published a long two-part essay in Ms. magazine, hugely influential as the leading feminist publication of the time. In the first part, "To the Sisters in the Weather Underground", she described the "male-dominated Left", including the Weatherman, and attempted to persuade the Weatherwomen to abandon the Left and switch over to feminism, as if the two were totally incompatible.

As a side note, for awhile, the Weatherman 'abolished monogamy' and everybody had sexual access to everybody else on an 'equal' basis in the group, to further 'group solidarity.' I suppose that's sort of 'gender equality' but I'm not sure many feminists would think of that as 'ideal.'

2. Rudd takes a very different view of 'rigorous decisionmaking'. "The closing images of the movie show me as a befuddled, gray-haired, overweight, middle-aged guy observing that thirty years later I still don't know what to do with my knowledge of who we are in the world..." Rudd also claims in his book that a) much of what the Weathermen did had the opposite effect of what was intended b) we disorganized SDS while we claimed to make it stronger c) we isolated ourselves from friends and allies as we helped split the larger antiwar movement around the issue of violence d) we played into the hands of the FBI e) three friends died in an accidental explosion (as part of a not well thought out bomb building process).

Rudd would also describe the turgid and endless and meaningless philosophical debates among the members about small points of doctrine. 'Rigorous' I suppose--but not in a good way!

3. There have been some expressions of regret. In the documentary, Rudd says he didn't want to talk about his past because of his "guilt and shame." Maybe that doesn't count as an 'expression of regret' although it does to me. Kathy Boudin 'has expressed her regret for the deaths of the three Brink's victims and her apologies to their families.' David Gilbert has lately 'been publicly expressing his personal regret for the loss of lives.' (from the memoir, not the documentary)

4. Some Weathermen were caught by the police. The Weathermen caught by the police in the bank heist (Brink's truck job) you mention were David Gilbert, Judy Clark, and Kathy Boudin. not many, granted.

The use of violence was highly contested at some points. One founding member, JJ, was expelled from the group at one point for his views on 'direct action.'

Rudd, along with others over the years, have turned themselves in and generally, like Rudd, received probation on a few offenses.

I gather that there are ecological and animal rights groups, like Earth First, which engage in 'direct action', e.g. by 'liberating' animals from experimental facilities or burning down condo developments in order to preserve natural areas. As long as people don't get hurt or seriously inconvenienced their actions don't rise to the level of a 'national problem'--just fodder for conservative talk show hosts to fulminate about.

These are conservative times, although, thankfully, not as suffocatingly conservative as they were before the '60s. There are key factors different now for igniting movements of social change, some of which I agree with Rudd about. First, no draft, so war only affects a tiny portion of the population. Second, the greater seductions of entertainment and consumer culture drains away alot of energy. Third, the cost of higher education, and the competition to get a well paying job, is an effective shackle.

How to motivate the 'persuadable middle' on any given policy seems critical these days. For vegetarianism, for example, it seems the best that can be done is small incremental change through social policy--e.g. taxing, or at least subsidizing meat less. Maybe re-approach vegetarianism through that simple strategy: "food equality" so it isn't (apparently) about promoting vegetarianism as it is about promoting 'equality.'

On the whole I'm glad to hear his story. We need more voices from this era, to paraphrase Studs Terkel, The Bad War, when America lost its innocence (again).

Probably with the best of intentions, a young intellectual and self-admitted hedonist got caught up in a web of Marxism. Maoism, and revolutionary rhetoric--all of which caused many bad things to happen. The writing is snappy and self-revelatory with some candid insights along the way. I don't have a particulary strong interest in the high drama and historic flavor of the period, but if you do, you will most likely appreciate this work.

Reading Mark Rudd's autobiography I was struck by how fast his movement moved from peaceful demonstrations and participatory democracy to a clique that stole votes at a convention to maintain control of Students for a Democratic Society, a clique that would soon expel dissidents, ostracize critics (including Rudd and his wife), and a clique that would plan bombings and plant bombs, rob banks, and kill. SDS, which had originated in the tiny socialist left in the early 1960s, swelled within the decade to become an organization capable of mobilizing tens of thousands of students outside the South. Then under the leadership of Rudd and his colleagues, SDS imploded with a struggle between fanatical Maoists and Rudd's equally fanatical crew. After the convention, the masses evaporated and Rudd's faction, a tiny residue, sank to become the Weather underground.

How did the largest student activist organization in American history expand so quickly and ever more quickly crumble into a tiny fragment, an underground cult of terrorists? Rudd himself was the icon of the mass Columbia U. protests in the spring of 1968, but by the fall of 1969 "we were now a classic cult, true believers surrounded by a hostile world that we rejected and that rejected us in return."(p. 184) I suggest that some of the seeds of its destruction were evident during the early days of Rudd's leadership of Columbia University's SDS. He writes that in February 1968 the organization became involved with Harlem activists who opposed Columbia's plans for construction of an 11-story gymnasium in Morningside Heights Park, which separated the university from Harlem. "The building would have a separate entrance at the bottom for black Harlem residents, who had 15 percent of the space in the facility allocated to them. Under the slogan 'Gym Crow Must Go' opponents" had demonstrated against construction, and some had been arrested.(p. 50) The issue was deemed so important to SDS that during the major demonstrations at Columbia that spring the very first demand was that "construction of the gymnasium be stopped."( p. 66) But, what happened at that first, large SDS demonstration at Columbia?

Pondering Rudd's account of the large protests that made him a star - those large SDS protests of spring 1968 at Columbia - one can see how undemocratic even that "halcyon" protest was. When SDS led the students to seize the university's Hamilton Hall, the occupation steering committee called for support from other organizations and the community. Soon Blacks took over the third floor, while the SDS leaders conferred on the seventh. The whites discussed what should be done for hours into the night. When the SDS faction finally decided upon a plan of action, it came to naught because the Student Afro-American Society had decided something else - that the whites would have to leave the very building that they had originally occupied! Upon hearing of the decision by the Blacks, Rudd was "stunned and speechless."(p. 68). "A few [SDSers] tried to argue with me [about obeying the evacuation demand], but I pointed out that the discussion was over, the split was a fiat accompli."(p. 69) The whites obeyed the Black's eviction notice and retreated from the building.

And so a protest over construction of a gym that would racially segregate evolved into occupation of a university building that becomes racially segregated by floors, culminating in the expulsion of whites by Blacks! What is SDS's vaunted "participatory democracy" that privileges a minority to veto and even expel the majority? SDS types like Rudd bemoan "white skin privilege," but in truth, it was the Blacks who were privileged. Rudd's book reminds us that even in these Columbia above-ground protests, an assistant dean was held captive, a professor's notes for a book were burnt, and a policeman was permanently injured when a protester jumped on his back from above. Moreover, Rudd believed that the Blacks at Hamilton Hall had weapons.

Rudd invokes the spirit of the civil rights movement as an inspiration for his action. However, the CRM was steeped in non-violence. The Congress of Racial Equality had been founded by pacifists. SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, proclaimed its philosophy in its title. (SNCC - pronounced "snick," hearkened back to the Southern Negro Youth Congress, an earlier civil rights, popular-front organization of the 1940s that had been destroyed by Democrat President Harry Truman and his Department of Justice). Many of the successful civil rights protests of the early 1960s had been non-violent and integrated.

However, there were those who opposed the civil rights movement, who opposed non-violence, and who opposed integration. The leading spokesman of this view among Blacks was Malcolm X, who had a wide influence. If one looks at Mohammad Speaks, the newspaper of the Nation of Islam in the early 1960s, one can see a photo of Malcolm addressing students at Howard University, and one student so enthralled he jumps for joy. I think that student was Stokely Carmichael. The point is that soon the civil rights organization changed, for those upholding non-violence, integration, and the notion of equality, were replaced by those promoting Black Nationalism, violence, and preferences. As early as 1963 whites were expelled from the CORE chapter in New Orleans, and this was followed by expulsions in Detroit, Brooklyn, and elsewhere. In 1966 Carmichael, on a civil rights march in Mississippi, raised the cry of "Black Power," and the ideals of the old civil rights movement faded away. Soon national CORE and national SNCC became Black organizations. Indeed, SNCC dropped the non-violence from its title, becoming the Student National Coordinating Committee. By then the "civil rights" organizations had ceased to believe in civil rights. Though they spoke of "equality," it was clear they wanted preferences and privileges, quotas and control; and they would use posturing, bullying, threats of violence, and more to achieve those ends.

Rudd and his cohorts were so infected with white guilt, that they caved whenever Blacks demanded it. Yielding to bullying Blacks, Rudd's SDS then sought to bully other whites into yielding to them. To achieve this, Rudd exhorted violence. And the logic of his exhortations led to underground terrorist cells which resulted in at least 24 bombing and several people killed - not to mention unknown numbers of failed attempts, like one in which Rudd himself participated.

There is certainly a tragic side to Rudd's life. He showed courage on many occasions. He showed initiative in persevering under difficult circumstances. He showed many positive human qualities. But there is major flaw - he is infected with racism - anti-white racism. He mentions Cleaver's Soul on Ice, a book that practically encourages Black men to rape white women. Rudd, like the others in SDS, so feared being labeled (anti-Black) "racists," that they allowed lunatics in the Weather underground to stifle all criticism inside the cult by alleging that their opponents were "racists." But the history of the US since 1960 in some ways has been similar to Rudd's early SDS, evacuation of Hamilton Hall, evacuation of neighborhoods, of cities, whole areas, to placate the demands, the bullying, the violence, the rioting of those who are legally privileged today in America. Affirmative action is simply institutionalized racism, and the victims are white men. But Rudd sees whites as the problem and complains that Oregon as too "white bread." Now, Rudd who became a teacher, recognizes that his tactics of terrorism with the underground, were wrong. But sadly, the ideals that led him to accept a tyrannical cult as guide and god, those ideals he has retained. Those ideals belittle American and Western civilization under the rubric "imperialism," his ideals reject equal opportunity and demand privileges for pet groups under the Orwellian terms "equal opportunity and affirmative action," in short his ideals are the hate-whitey, hate-America, hate civilization, view so popular in the 1960s. One can only shudder when in the conclusion of his book he speaks of his involvement revising the curriculum.

Rudd understands that the terrorist tactics he followed in 1969 failed. Interestingly, some of his cohorts in the Weather underground were Bill Ayers and Jeff Jones, and Rudd refers to them throughout his book, which unfortunately lacks an index. Ayers and Jones - one was, at the very least, an associate of President Obama; the other an appointed official in the Obama Administration. They appear to have abandoned terroristic tactics, but have they abandoned the rigid, tyrannical thinking they accepted and fomented in the Weather underground?

One can learn from Rudd's autobiography, even if he seems not to have done so.
--------Hugh Murray-------- 5 October 2009

"I debated if I wanted to give money to this guy by buying his book. I decided to for the insight into the Weather Underground. What a phony this guy is. Advocating ( even criticizing people who wouldn't) to take up arms, while never once doing it himself. Running around like he's a big wanted man by the government ( I wonder what they would think if they knew a revolutionary was in their house ) bull. What was he wanted for. Not showing up to court for the demo at Columbia and the day's of rage ( that he didn't even really do, he was knocked down & arrested by a cop before he even got started, never fought back ). They held up three fingers praising Charlie Manson for killing ( the pigs with a fork). Sick! These people thought Che, Mao , Stalin & Lennon were great had their posters on the wall. These were people who murdered millions of their own people. They would probably have killed off these nut's in a heart beat. They would have never have gotten away with their antics in any of those country's. This guy describes one incident where white rednecks terrorize a school bus of black kids during busing. They had the time to get on the bus drag some female child off the bus and physically assault her. What does Mark Rudd the big bad revolutionary do? Nothing! He claims it happen so fast he didn't have time to react, yea right. Revolutionary my ass!