Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski PDF
Preview Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski
MARINCOUNTYFREELIBRARY 3 1111 01882 2757 The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski His 25 Years by Chris Waits arid Dave Shors H^ Civic Center New Books 364. 152 Waits i Waits, Chris Unabomber the secret : life of Ted Kaczynski 31111018822757 UK)%>Hsei^ DATE DUE W The Sec^ O ^- -L- JUL 1 7 AU6 U 1 1333 AUG 3 1999' 1 WTJ7 ma- 27mq DEC by Ch "ADGTTZOOir OCT 3 ziWR. 1 FEB 7 2002 / g 2002 AUG 2 MAR ? R 7nn^ Cat No 23-221 Dedication ToAmerirdfis h:'/io L:rrrliterallyheldhostagehythenotorious Vnabomberfor eighteenyears:tothehomhingvirtimsandtheirfamilies L^hoselivesh:rre shattered:andtothoseinLincolndirectlytouchedhythevengefulacts. All deserveandhavetherightto knovi'thetruth andthedetails. Chris M. Waits Acknowledgment Ourthankstothe UpperBlackfoot Valley HistoricalSocietyfortheircontribu- tionsaboutLincolnhistory,fromtheirbookGold Pans and Singletrees. ISBN 1-56037-131-5softbound: 1-56037-139-0hardbound ©1999HelenaIndependentRecordandMontanaMagazine Text©1999ChrisWaits PrintedinCanada Thisbookmaynotbereproducedinwholeorinpartbyanymeans (withtheexceptionofshortquotesforthepurposeofreview) withoutthepermissionofthepublisher. Contents The Discovery 12 Welcome to Florence Gulch 28 Lincoln, Ted's Haven 59 Changes in McClellan Gulch 69 The Lincoln Mysteries 77 The Arrest ..110 : The Investigation Begins 119 Tug ofWar ..!... ':....: :....: ...|,,......,.i25 The Secret Cabin and the FBI I U4 Secrets Revealed 152 Ted's Bed and Breakfast 164 Caught in His Ov^n Trap 178 Interviews and Trial Strategies ....213 The "Queer'^ Scale .....228 A Closer Look 264 Digitized by the Internet Archive 2010 in http://www.archive.org/details/unabombersecretlOOwait Introduction Ted Kaczynski is a master illusionist, a sleight-of-mind artist who based his life on deception. He shrouded his violent acts beneath the gentle facade ofa Montana hermit, pulling doves ofinnocence out of his scruffy beard, smellyclothes, and non-intrusive lifestyle while he injured and killed people with his deadly bombs. Who would have thought on the morning ofApril 3, 1996, when the springChinookwinds were thawing the small mountain commu- nityofLincoln outofthe grips ofa longwinterfreeze, that Kaczynski's deadly bag oftricks would be exposed that very day. By mid-day, Lincoln was abuzz. In the middle ofthe morning, Kaczynski had been tricked into coming out of his one-room cabin and was in the custody of federal agents. In the early evening dusk he was being transported along the same gravel Stemple Pass Road where he had often walked and ridden his bicycle, on his way to a small FBI office in Helena. By midnight, when he was safely incarcerated in Lewis and Clark County Jail in Helena, the town ofLincoln had been jolted into the million-watt limelightofworld attention, never to be the same again. ChrisWaits awoke that sameApril dayin nearbyMcClellan Gulch, knowing dozens of federal agents were in Lincoln scrutinizing his friend and neighborofnearly twenty-five years. At firstWaits thought the investigation mightbe related to huntingviolations, since Kaczynski lived offthe land, and had shot deer and elk out ofseason for many years. But there was too much attention, too many federal agents lurk- ing in the Lincoln area for a mere poacher to warrant. The Unabomber, though.^ Never. Waits was as shocked as the rest ofthe communitywhen he learned Kaczynski was a suspect, and even defended his iniioecnee until the oxerwhehiiin^ physieal evidenee mounted. Kaezynski's arrest shook Waits to the eore and initially made him fear that he mi«!;ht e\en be a suspeet in the ease. As the in\estimation unfolded and Waits was eleared ofany pos- sible inxolvement, the FBI's evidence search extended far beyond Kaczynski's small Lincoln cabin. Agents played a cat-and-mouse game with Waits while searchingthe rugged mountain terrain nearhis home. What were they looking for.^ Waits determined it was something critical, somethingthat would help prove the government'scase against Kaczynski. And Waits was certain the evidence was hidden in the thousands oftimbered acres behind his house in McClellan Gulch. FBI agents were reluctant to involve outsiders, so Waits decided to start his own search, and spent all his free time combing the back- country. He hiked many back-countrygame trails lookingforevidence that included Kaczynski's secret hunting camps. Summer wound down, and Waits still hadn't discovered the key evidence everyone was after. By late Novembera major arctic cold front threatened to turn the rugged mountain terrain into a no-man's land. Waits decided to take one last trip into the backcountry. As the day wore on, it seemed to be another futile search. Trudging through the snow in the late after- noon, Waits decided to drop offthe mountain and return home. Yet a strange premonition pushed him farther into the mountains as dark- ness settled. Something forced him to cHmb one last steep slope. He looked through the stands of lodgepole pine in the dimming light and saw the ghost image ofa small log cabin. It was a secret shack and hide- out Ted had built years earlier. The discovery opened many doors with the FBI, as Waits later became a confidant and was tagged as a trial witness. Who would have thought Lincoln could be the lair ofone ofthe most threatening domestic terrorists in our history.^ The mere threat of his bombs could paralyze the nation or close down airports. He deceived two of the country's most prestigious and powerful news- papers into publishinghis 35,000-word manifesto. In return, he wrote. he would stop killing people. But he continued to build more sophis- ticated devices and plot further acts ofrevenge. As millions ofAmericans and the entire human community hun- gered for more information about Kaczynski after his arrest, sketchy details portrayed him as a mathematical genius and former Berkeley math instructorwho had left academia to become a mountain hermit. Stories focused on his early years in the Heartland, academic suc- cesses at Harvard, Michigan, and Berkeley, his reclusive childhood and failed forays into the world oflasting relationships. But then in 1971, when Kaczynski built his cabin on a heavily tim- bered 1.4acres in Florence Gulch within a mile ofStemple Pass Road, he literally dropped offthe face ofthe earth. During the next twenty-five years, almost halfofhis life, he sur- vived as a primitive hunter-gatherer, much like the early miners and settlers who moved into this untamed part ofthe West in the mid- 19th century. But this was not Henry David Thoreau, living the peaceful life at Walden Pond. This was TheodoreJohn Kaczynski, a criminal willing — to kill at the slightest provocation ofthe technological arm or ten- — tacle ofan octopus, as he would describe it ofour society. He lusted for revenge. He wanted to rub his hands in the blood ofmodern technocrats. Only the death ofa scientist, businessman or a Communist would ease the pain ofhis hatred. How do we know this.^ Not because Ted's secret twenty-five years were scrutinized dur- ing a public trial. The details of his twisted logic and hatred would have been aired before a shocked world-wide audience had he faced twelve jurors in Sacramento Federal Court. His thoughts, plans of revenge, and descriptions of his life would have amazed the people he threatened. The FBI and the prosecution team had a detailed description of Kaczynski's life ofcrime, because hewas aprodigious writer. His small cabin, heated onlybya wood stove and with none ofthe conveniences ofourtime, was an archive ofhis written word. Organized in volumes of scratchpads, pocket notebooks and three-ring binders were some 22,000 pages ofhis life's script. Most of his work was handwritten in English, some in Spanish. The most incriminatin<j; descriptions of his crimes were disguised in numerical code. But it was all there, in conversations with himself, the thoughts ofa would-be mass murderer, spelled out in detail. When the FBI returned to Lincoln during the summerof 1997 to study the evidence found in the secretcabin and to search otherareas ofMcClellan Gulch, Waits guided them through the terrain he knew so well. During the search Waits became the first outsider to see and study many of Kaczynski's documents, w^hich included hundreds of pages from the Unabomber's personal journals. As he worked with the FBI, Waits compiled notes daily and com- mitted as much ofthe material to memory as possible. Kaczynski'sjournals also described buried caches ofammunition, bomb parts, and food on W^aits' land. W^aits was sure Kaczynski also had a cache hidden in McClellan Gulch containing copies ofjournal notes and his bomb experiments. After FBI agents returned to Sacramento to prepare for the trial, Waits continued his search for the hidden caches and otherevidence. Through his searches, and several unnamed sources, he finallyobtained — the motherlode literally hundreds ofpages ofKaczynski's personal journals and notes. All the information would have become public record if the Unabomber had been tried. Instead, Kaczynski and federal prosecu- tors worked out a plea agreement in which he admitted his guilt in exchange for sentences oflife in prison. Ted's plea bargain was a disservice to the American people and his victims, because no one otherthan a few- professionals had achance to study the inner face ofthis modern-day terrorist. The plea saved the country the great expense of a long public trial, one that promised to be a circus, but it also meant Kaczynski's written admission in his personal journals to dozens ofcrimes w^as locked away in some evidence room. Much ofhis self-analysis w^on't be seen for years, probably until after his death. Some short excerpts have found their way into the mainstream press. But only bits and pieces until this point. Waits was probably the only outsiderwho had seen the Kaczynski journals. Certainly, he was the only person outside the select group 8
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