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'''Bernardine Rae Dohrn''' (born [[January 12]], [[1942]]) is an American former leader of the [[1969]]–[[1980]] radical leftist organization [[Weatherman (organization)|Weather Underground]].  She is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the Director of Northwestern's [http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cfjc/ Children and Family Justice Center].

==Personal life==
(contracted; show full)thers, he wrote: "In 1980, I taped interviews with thirty members of the Weather Underground who were present at the Flint War Council, including most of its leadership. Not one of them thought Dohrn was anything but deadly serious."<ref>Horowitz, David, [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=63512670-BF7C-42A0-B41D-5D0FB9E09C09 "Allies in War"], FrontPageMagazine.com, [[September 17]], [[2001]], accessed [[June 10]], [[2008]]</ref>

==Later radical history==


[[Weatherman (organization)|The Weathermen]], as they were known colloquially, conducted a series of bombings against the U.S. government and symbols of authority in the early 1970s, bombing federal buildings and police stations. Dohrn was a principal signatory on the group's "Declaration of a State of War"  in 1970 that formally declared "war" on the U.S. Government, and completed the group's transformation from political advocacy to violent action. Dohrn also co-wrote and published the subversive manifesto ''[[Prairie Fire]]'' in 1974, and participated in the covertly-filmed ''[[Underground (documentary film)|Underground]]'' in 1976. 

The Weathermen and Weather Underground were suspected in various bombings
&mdash; police cars, the National Guard Association building, the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, and took credit for a number of them. Dohrn allegedly participated in many of [[Weatherman (organization)#Chronology_of_events|the group's revolutionary activities]].<ref name=nsnyt120580>Sheppart, Nathaniel, Jr., "Chicago Home of a Friend was Refuge for Miss Dohrn", ''The New York Times'', [[December 5]], [[1980]], p A22</ref>  

Dohrn has said that despite her sometimes inflammatory language, she never approved of violence and asserted that the Weatherman organization didn't favor it. Asked in an interview published in 1995, "Did you come to the conclusion that violence ws the way to go?", she replied in part, "I never thought violence was a good thing in a strategic sense. [...] We were trying to find ways to act that were nonviolent but more militant. [...] [A]ctually our behavior was temperate and restrained. Ours was a very decentralized and anarchistic movement, but with one or two exceptions; for over a decade, the militancy remained symbolic. [...] Millions of people chanted 'Off the pig,' but that didn't mean they were going to go out nad shoot a policeman in the head. The language was inflammatory on both sides, but the reality stayed in the realm of protest. I reject the notion that we were violent." Asked about bombings in the same interview, Dohrn said, "We only did a couple, and they were carefully done. They involved property and were not meant to harm anybody."<ref>Chepesiuk, Ron, ''Sixties Radicals, Then and Now: Candid Conversations with Those Who Shaped the Era", McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1995, pp 235, 236, ISBN 0899507786</ref>

In the two months before the March 6, 1970, [[Greenwich Village townhouse explosion]] in which three members of the group were killed as a bomb was being constructed, all members of Weatherman went [[Underground culture|underground]]. At about the same time, the group changed its name to [[Weatherman (organization)|Weather Underground]].While Dohrn led [[Weatherman (organization)|the Weathermen]], the organization conducted a series of bombings against the U.S. government and symbols of authority in the early 1970s, bombing federal buildings and police stations. Dohrn was a principal signatory on the group's "Declaration of a State of War"  in 1970 that formally declared "war" on the U.S. Government, and completed the group's transformation from political advocacy to violent action. Dohrn also co-wrote and published the subversive manifesto ''[[Prairie Fire]]'' in 1974, and participated in the covertly-filmed ''[[Underground (documentary film)|Underground]]'' in 1976. 

The Weathermen and Weather Underground were suspected in various bombings &mdash; police cars, the National Guard Association building, the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, and took credit for a number of them. Dohrn allegedly participated in many of [[Weatherman (organization)#Chronology_of_events|the group's revolutionary activities]].<ref name=nsnyt120580>Sheppart, Nathaniel, Jr., "Chicago Home of a Friend was Refuge for Miss Dohrn", ''The New York Times'', [[December 5]], [[1980]], p A22</ref>  

In the two months before the March 6, 1970, [[Greenwich Village townhouse explosion]] in which three members of the group were killed as a bomb was being constructed, all members of Weatherman went [[Underground culture|underground]]. At about the same time, the group changed its name to [[Weatherman (organization)|Weather Underground]].

Dohrn has said that despite her sometimes inflammatory language, she never approved of violence and asserted that the Weatherman organization didn't favor it. Asked in an interview published in 1995, "Did you come to the conclusion that violence ws the way to go?", she replied in part, "I never thought violence was a good thing in a strategic sense. [...] We were trying to find ways to act that were nonviolent but more militant. [...] [A]ctually our behavior was temperate and restrained. Ours was a very decentralized and anarchistic movement, but with one or two exceptions; for over a decade, the militancy remained symbolic. [...] Millions of people chanted 'Off the pig,' but that didn't mean they were going to go out nad shoot a policeman in the head. The language was inflammatory on both sides, but the reality stayed in the realm of protest. I reject the notion that we were violent." Asked about bombings in the same interview, Dohrn said, "We only did a couple, and they were carefully done. They involved property and were not meant to harm anybody."<ref>Chepesiuk, Ron, ''Sixties Radicals, Then and Now: Candid Conversations with Those Who Shaped the Era", McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1995, pp 235, 236, ISBN 0899507786</ref>

Dohrn has been suspected of involvement in a February 16, 1970, bombing of the Park Police Station in [[San Francisco]], which kllled a police officer and partially blinded another, who was forced to retire on a disability.<ref name=jzsfc>Zamora, Jim Herron, [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/17/BAGPRO6J7J1.DTL&type=printable "Plaque honors slain police officer: Eight others injured in bomb attack that killed sergeant in 1970"], ''[[The San Francisco Chronicle]]'', February 17, 2007</ref> At the time, Dohrn was said to be living with a Weatherman cell in a houseboat in [[Sausalito, California]], unnamed law enforcement sources later told [[KRON-TV]]. An investigation into the case was reopened in 1999,<ref name=jzsfc/> and a San Francisco grand jury looked into the bombing, but no indictments followed,<ref name=kron>KRON 4, [http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1519460 "30-Y.O. Unsolved SF Murders Reopen"], November 10, 2003</ref> and as of 2008 no one was ever arrested in the bombing.<ref name=jzsfc/> An FBI informant, Larry Grathwohl, who successfully penetrated the organization from the late summer of 1969 until April 1970, later testified to a U.S. Senate subcommittee that [[Bill Ayers]], then a high-ranking member of the organization and a member of its Central Committee (but not then Dohrn's husband), had said Dohrn constructed and planted the bomb. Grathwohl testified that Ayers had told him specifically where the bomb was placed (on a window ledge) and what kind of shrapnel was put in it. Grathwohl said Ayers was emphatic, leading Grathwohl to believe Ayers either was present at some point during the operation or had heard about it from someone who was there.<ref name=dftcabo>Freddoso, David, ''[[The Case Against Barack Obama]]'', Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington, D.C., 2008, p 124; Chapter 7 Footnote 7: ''Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate'', "Terroristic Activity Inside the Weatherman Movement, Part 2", October 18, 1974</ref> In a book about his experiences published in 1976, Grathwohl wrote that Ayers, who had recently attended a meeting of the group's Central Committee, said Dohrn had planned the operation, made the bomb and placed it herself.<ref>Grathwohl, Larry, "as told to Frank Reagan", ''Bringing Down America: An FBI Informer with the Weathermen'', Arlington House Publishers, New Rochelle, New York, 1976 pp 168, 169, ISBN 0870003350</ref> In 2008, Grathwohl's testimony was quoted by David Freddoso in his book ''[[The Case Against Barack Obama]]''. "Ayers and Dohrn escaped prosecution only because of government misconduct in collecting evidence against them", Freddoso wrote.<ref name=dftcabo/>  

In late 1975, the Weather Underground put out an issue of a magazine, ''Osawatamie'', which carried an article by Dohrn, "Our Class Struggle", described as a speech given to the organization's cadres on September 2 of that year. In the article, Dohrn clearly stated support for [[Communism|Communist]] ideology:<ref name=fbi74>[http://foia.fbi.gov/weather/weath1a.pdf "Weatherman Underground / Summary Dated 8/20/76 / Part #1"], 1976, pp 23-24, FBI website, (contracted; show full)[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:People from Milwaukee, Wisconsin]]
[[Category:Members of Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)]]
[[Category:Weather Underground]]
[[Category:COINTELPRO targets]]
[[Category:Terrorism in the United States]]
[[Category:Northwestern University faculty]]
[[Category:University of Chicago alumni]]