It was only the second day of the year when it began. An explosion at an electrical substation in Oakland, Calif., damaged some transformers but did not succeed in disrupting the electrical grid. No one was ever arrested.
The very same day members of an anti-war group threw a bomb at the ROTC offices in Madison, Wis. During that week there were other bombs thrown at the primate lab and a number of military installations.
Less than two weeks later, someone firebombed a department store in Seattle in retaliation for the owner killing someone attempting to rob the store. Later that month, several other bombs were thrown at police, and in a shooting incident two cops were injured.
In March, two supporters of a national Black leader were killed by a car bomb, and a director of a state civil rights commission was shot and killed in an attack police believed was politically motivated. Earlier that month, a four-story townhouse in New York City was leveled and three were killed when a bomb being assembled went off prematurely.
In May, anti-war protests turned deadly when several unarmed students were shot and killed by law enforcement, setting off a series of riots and protests. Puerto Rican nationalists also detonated bombs that month, injuring 10 in New York City.
In October, a bomb exploded outside a church in San Francisco, injuring those attending a funeral for a police officer killed in a bank holdup.
The year that was
The year just described was 1970. The source for this chronology was the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). Their database includes dozens of additional, mostly non-fatal, politically-motivated bombings and shootings from that year.
In other words, there was a pace of terror attacks going on in the United States that was much higher than we are currently experiencing.
There are some other significant differences between 1970 and today.
Differences
First, notice how non-lethal many of these attacks were. Of the dozens of incidents in the START database, most had no fatalities and no injuries. The quality and size of the bombs were much less sophisticated than what terrorists use now.
There also is no doubt that the sophistication of law enforcement has also improved since then. Those hostage situations would be handled better now, and much better forensics – to say nothing of much more extensive surveillance – would yield more arrests.
Many of the 1970 incidents have never been solved. And while there was outrage recently over a pepper spray incident at a California college campus, that is different than two unjustified shootings leading to the death of six students. The pepper-sprayed students have received compensation and an apology. Those killed at Kent State and Jackson State (and at Orangeburg in 1968) had to fight a lot longer to receive less.
Perhaps somewhat depressingly, the motivations of the terrorists of 1970 could still exist. Black nationalism, White supremacy and anti-war groups all still have their grievances.
Panicking
But perhaps the biggest difference is in the lack of panicked policy responses. People were upset in 1970 over the wave of terror, of course, and certainly people felt that the society might be coming unglued. But just consider how our country would react now if every week there was an attempted bombing on U.S. soil of the type of the recent Boston attacks.
It seems safe to say that the entire society would be on lockdown and that gun sales, surveillance, intrusive checks and ramped-up security would be off the charts. Given how our liberties are being limited now, could our democracy survive the level of political violence of the 1970s?
The rule of law
Each terrorist attack now seems to produce a wave of desire in officials to abandon our democratic traditions. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) has been leading the charge this time, demanding the surviving Boston bomber be declared an “enemy combatant” and thus tried in military courts with limited rights. A New York state senator seemed to be advocating torture. TV pundit Sean Hannity echoed that call, but claimed waterboarding wasn’t really torture.
Of course people are angry after a bombing – but when elected officials and those with a national audience advocate undermining our democratic institutions and the very rule of law itself, it is appalling.
Terror is itself an attempt to bypass the rule of law. What cannot be gained by debate, lobbying, campaigning and the courts is sought by bombs and bullets. To respond to the terror committed by individuals and small groups by a state-sponsored undemocratic crackdown is to further unravel the institutions that make terror both unnecessary and wrong. Limiting democracy will lead to more violence, not less.
Our leaders should know that.