Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, was a brilliant Harvard graduate. He left his job as a math professor at UC Berkeley to become among the most infamous people in America, with hundreds of FBI agents working full-time to find the elusive terrorist. Kaczynski was discovered dead around 8 a.m. this Saturday in his cell in North Carolina. It was a reported suicide.
Named after the FBI code name “UNABOM,” which derives from “university airline bomber,” Kaczynski wanted to gain attention for his ideas that attacked technological advances. He wrote, “To get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we’ve had to kill people.” The Unabomber directed his anger at people involved in ‘industrial society,’” which he believed was destroying the environment.
Kaczynski became a craftsman of lethal bombs built from everyday materials that were practically impossible to trace, all within his primitive cabin in Montana. He would discreetly deliver bombs either in person or through the mail.
Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942, and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. Kaczynski was a math prodigy, effortlessly skipping two years ahead in school and receiving a Harvard scholarship.
“Ted was quietly solving open problems and creating new mathematics,” classmate Joel H. Shapiro said. “It was as if he could write poetry while the rest of us were struggling to learn grammar.”
After receiving his doctorate, Kaczynski worked as a math professor at UC Berkeley but resigned after only two years on the job. He told his family he didn’t want to be part of “the war machine,” referring to the protests at Berkeley during the Vietnam War. Kaczynski then estranged himself from his family, refusing to show up at his father’s funeral.
For 25 years, he lived near Lincoln, Montana, without power or water. Kaczynski traveled around the neighborhood on a ramshackle bicycle, sported a beard down to his chest, and always appeared unkempt. Here, after watching the degradation of the environment near his home, he chose to oppose the destructive nature of industrialism by targeting its participants using bombs.
Kaczynski sent an insulting letter to a Yale computer scientist two years after he sent him a bomb that shattered his right hand. It read, “People with degrees aren’t as smart as they think. If you’d had any brains, you would have realized that people resent the way you are changing the world, and you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to open a package from an unknown source.”
In 1995, the Unabomber promised to discontinue his killings if big news journals published his manifesto on the negative impacts of technology. The Washington Post did so on September 19 of that year. In it, Kaczynski explained the reason behind the killings: “If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted.”
Eventually, Kaczynski’s family became suspicious. His brother and sister-in-law, David Kaczynski and Linda Patrik, were concerned about the manifesto. Patrik was familiar with Kaczynski’s letters to them, usually filled with complaints against technological advances, and implored David to read the Unabomber’s statement.
The similarities between the Unabomber’s manifesto and Kaczynski’s writings were startling. There were even phrases that they both shared, such as “cool-headed logicians” and “you can’t eat your cake and have it too,” an unusual way of saying “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” unique to Kaczynski’s writing.
“One morning, I would say to myself, ‘There are 280 million people in our country; what are the chances that Ted could be guilty? Very small.’ Another morning, I would say, ‘David, the truth is staring you in the face, and you’re in denial about it. Who else could it be?’” David told WAMC in an interview.
Ultimately, David decided to turn his brother in and run the risk of his brother receiving a death sentence to prevent future bombings. On April 3, 1996, FBI and law enforcement personnel swarmed Kaczynski’s run-down cabin. Soon, the Unabomber was in custody.
On January 1, 1998, at a court in Sacramento, Kaczynski pleaded guilty to evading a death sentence for charges of killing 3 people and injuring 23 more by distributing 16 bombs in total. He was put in solitary confinement.
Kaczynski spent the rest of his life in prison and died at 81 by suicide. Throughout his life, he was best known for his ideas on nature-centered anarchism and for the lives he took or changed forever.
Named after the FBI code name “UNABOM,” which derives from “university airline bomber,” Kaczynski wanted to gain attention for his ideas that attacked technological advances. He wrote, “To get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we’ve had to kill people.” The Unabomber directed his anger at people involved in ‘industrial society,’” which he believed was destroying the environment.
Kaczynski became a craftsman of lethal bombs built from everyday materials that were practically impossible to trace, all within his primitive cabin in Montana. He would discreetly deliver bombs either in person or through the mail.
Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942, and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. Kaczynski was a math prodigy, effortlessly skipping two years ahead in school and receiving a Harvard scholarship.
“Ted was quietly solving open problems and creating new mathematics,” classmate Joel H. Shapiro said. “It was as if he could write poetry while the rest of us were struggling to learn grammar.”
After receiving his doctorate, Kaczynski worked as a math professor at UC Berkeley but resigned after only two years on the job. He told his family he didn’t want to be part of “the war machine,” referring to the protests at Berkeley during the Vietnam War. Kaczynski then estranged himself from his family, refusing to show up at his father’s funeral.
For 25 years, he lived near Lincoln, Montana, without power or water. Kaczynski traveled around the neighborhood on a ramshackle bicycle, sported a beard down to his chest, and always appeared unkempt. Here, after watching the degradation of the environment near his home, he chose to oppose the destructive nature of industrialism by targeting its participants using bombs.
Kaczynski sent an insulting letter to a Yale computer scientist two years after he sent him a bomb that shattered his right hand. It read, “People with degrees aren’t as smart as they think. If you’d had any brains, you would have realized that people resent the way you are changing the world, and you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to open a package from an unknown source.”
In 1995, the Unabomber promised to discontinue his killings if big news journals published his manifesto on the negative impacts of technology. The Washington Post did so on September 19 of that year. In it, Kaczynski explained the reason behind the killings: “If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted.”
Eventually, Kaczynski’s family became suspicious. His brother and sister-in-law, David Kaczynski and Linda Patrik, were concerned about the manifesto. Patrik was familiar with Kaczynski’s letters to them, usually filled with complaints against technological advances, and implored David to read the Unabomber’s statement.
The similarities between the Unabomber’s manifesto and Kaczynski’s writings were startling. There were even phrases that they both shared, such as “cool-headed logicians” and “you can’t eat your cake and have it too,” an unusual way of saying “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” unique to Kaczynski’s writing.
“One morning, I would say to myself, ‘There are 280 million people in our country; what are the chances that Ted could be guilty? Very small.’ Another morning, I would say, ‘David, the truth is staring you in the face, and you’re in denial about it. Who else could it be?’” David told WAMC in an interview.
Ultimately, David decided to turn his brother in and run the risk of his brother receiving a death sentence to prevent future bombings. On April 3, 1996, FBI and law enforcement personnel swarmed Kaczynski’s run-down cabin. Soon, the Unabomber was in custody.
On January 1, 1998, at a court in Sacramento, Kaczynski pleaded guilty to evading a death sentence for charges of killing 3 people and injuring 23 more by distributing 16 bombs in total. He was put in solitary confinement.
Kaczynski spent the rest of his life in prison and died at 81 by suicide. Throughout his life, he was best known for his ideas on nature-centered anarchism and for the lives he took or changed forever.
