Capitol Bombers: America's Forgotten Domestic Terror Campaign

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November 1983, Washington DC. A bomb rips through the Republican cloakroom of the United States Capitol, shattering the illusion of security at America's seat of power. No casualties, just destruction - a pattern that would repeat again and again as federal buildings fell target to a series of precisely placed explosives.

Through a dramatized narrative following fictional FBI Special Agent Jack Connors, we unravel the forgotten story of a domestic bombing campaign that struck the National War College, Navy Yards, military installations, and government buildings throughout the mid-1980s. Behind these attacks stood a group of radical communist revolutionaries - Linda Sue Evans, Marilyn Jean Buck, Susan Rosenberg, and Laura Whitehorn - former anti-war activists who had gone underground to wage their own war against what they viewed as American imperialism.

What makes this chapter of American history so remarkable isn't just the audacity of bombing the heart of government, but how thoroughly it's vanished from our collective memory. These weren't random acts of violence but calculated strikes designed to damage institutions while avoiding casualties - revolution by demolition. After years of meticulous investigation, the FBI finally closed in with synchronized raids across the country in May 1985, ending a bombing spree that had mystified authorities for years.

Though fictionalized for dramatic effect, this episode explores the real events, organizations, and revolutionary figures behind a domestic terror campaign that targeted the symbols of American power at the height of the Cold War. What drives idealists to violence? How does a nation forget attacks on its most sacred institutions? And where is the line between political action and terrorism? Email your thoughts to [e-mail].

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you ad-free by FMS Studios.
This is a special presentationin coordination with Things I
Want to Know and Paul G's Corner.
Washington DC in November of1983 moves like clockwork.
Routine dictates every hour.

(00:23):
Us armed forces, fresh fromGrenada, stand as a reminder of
America's reach.
Beirut burns in a distant fire,but there within the capital,
everything is predictable until10.58pm.
The moment the illusionshatters.
The Republican cloakroom is thefirst to go.

(00:52):
A wall of pressure surgesoutward, hurling debris through
the hall.
Plaster splits, glass shatters.
History itself is torn from thewalls.
As Daniel Webster's portraitcrumbles in a storm of fire and
dust, the air turns toxic smokecurling through the wreckage

(01:13):
like a living thing.
A security guard stumbles, hisradio crackling uselessly in his
grip.
He coughs, blinking against theacrid fog.
Bombs aren't supposed to go offin the US Capitol.
Across the city a phone rings.

(01:35):
Fbi Special Agent Jack Connorswakes with a start Half dreaming
, half dazed.
His office couch is still stiffbeneath him, his suit wrinkled
from another night of chasingghosts.
The glow of his desk lampbarely cuts through the shadows
and he rubs his face as hereaches for the receiver.
Special Agent Jack Connor.

(01:56):
We have an emergency at theCapitol.
The voice on the phone isalmost in a panic.
Jack grabs his gun, car keysand credentials.
Jack isn't real.
There is no record of JackConnors.
He is a creation, a theatricaldevice, a stand-in for every
agency tangled in the case FBI,atf, cia, nsa.

(02:19):
Their priorities intersect,their jurisdictions blur.
He is the faceless hunterWashington deploys when ghosts
need tracking.
He moves fast and practiced,yanking on his jacket as he
strides out the door.
The chase has begun.
The drive it's a blur.
Tires skidding throughrain-slick streets, sirens

(02:42):
wailing in the distance.
When he arrives, the Capitol isa smoking ruin of shattered
glass and crumbling marble.
The acrid scent of burningupholstery hangs heavy in the
air.
Security lights flicker,casting jagged shadows across
the floor.
A massive section of theRepublican cloakroom is simply

(03:02):
just gone.
Nothing but a jagged wound ofexposed beams and torn fabric
where history used to hang.
He steps forward, crunching overbroken plaster and charred
debris.
The security guard standsnearby, his hands still shaking
his face pale.
It just blew up.

(03:25):
The man whispered.
One second it was quiet.
The next, jack kneels, runninghis fingers over the splintered
remains of a wooden desk.
The explosion had been precise,calculated.
Whoever did this knew exactlywhere to place it.

(03:47):
He exhales, scanning thedestruction.
Thank God there's no bodies, noone's dead, just devastation
left behind like a signature.
He takes one last look at thewreckage before turning away and
knows that the hunt has begun.
And knows that the hunt hasbegun For three months.

(04:07):
The FBI chases ghosts.
Thousands of threats, eachleading to nothing.
The investigation drags everypromising lead, dissolving into
another dead end.
The damage fades from theheadlines, washington barely
stirs.
No casualties, no lasting scars, another political debate,

(04:29):
another round of rhetoric andthen another bomb.
It's a February night in 1984.
The National War Collegedoesn't expect company at 3 am.
Its walls are lined withportraits of dead generals,
windows blacked out, papertrails locked behind steel

(04:52):
drawers.
Security here is quiet, notbecause nothing ever happens,
but because it's the kind ofplace where people believe
nothing ever will.
And then the floor rips open.
The blast starts low, apressure swell, a rumble through
concrete, and then it cracksthe eastern wing like a rifle

(05:13):
shot.
Fire follows smoke, smokefollows silence and silence
follows everything.
No alarms, no warning, justsudden sharp ruin.
No one dies, but that wasn't aguarantee.
A surprise meeting, anoff-schedule cleaning crew, a

(05:36):
birthday party that got moved tothe wrong room Any of it could
have turned this from astatement into a massacre.
And yet it wasn't.
And that's what scared Jack themost.
Not the planning, not theprecision, but the blind luck.

(05:58):
By morning the building isstill standing, but barely.
Burn marks claw through thefloor like roots, looking for
something else to destroy.
A junior officer walks out ofthe smoke looking like he was
dragged through the end of a war, and Jack watches the security
footage later, no casualties,once again, just a message

(06:22):
written in smoke and silence.
Jack leans against the frame ofhis office window watching fog
rise off of Potomac.
It's 1984, and the war roombehind him glows, the walls

(06:47):
covered with maps, pinssignifying leads.
Just as the trail starts to gocold, there's more, another and
another August 1983, the NavyYards Computer Center, then
April in 84, the Officers Club,then the South African Consulate
in New York City.

(07:08):
Each strike more confident,more precise.
Jack traces them with a red pen, circles tightening around
something he can't yet name.
This isn't noise, it's doctrine.
They're all federal sites,military posts, power, targeted
like a pressure point.

(07:28):
And always afterwards, thecommuniques, hand-delivered,
cold, not threats butexplanations, justifications
Wrapped in revolution, speak,written in the language of
someone already convinced thathistory has vindicated them.

(07:49):
But the city forgets fast andJack brings it up in a briefing
Blank stares.
Even some in his own unit lookconfused.
The War College blast isalready a ghost.
The files fade, but heremembers.
So he stays up, builds the roompiece by piece, threads, photos

(08:09):
, timelines scratched intodrywall.
He plays back to security tapes, the intercepted chatter, the
muffled voices from old bugs,fragments mailed in from safe
houses that are already burned.
It's static, it's nothing, butit's starting to sound like it

(08:31):
may be breathing.
By 1984, jack has built patterns.
There was a wiretap in Chicagothat mirrors a communique mailed
to the DC paper.
A van near the Capitol turns upwith chemical traces.
Nothing definitive, but notnothing either.
Somewhere in a DA report, arental address crossed paths

(08:53):
with a forgotten name from a1971 protest list.
Not anything that can hold upin court just yet.
But the threads keep tightening.
Jack works until the soles ofhis shoes begin to wear thin.
It's not yet clean, but damn it, it's something.
After months of digging deepinto the paper and a long

(09:15):
fruitless steakhouse, a voicebegins to surface, and then
another.
The names start to line up andfind their way to the top of
Jack's suspect board.
Linda Sue Evans, an SDS member,vanished years ago.
Her name, half erased,whispered through a bugged phone
line.
Then Marilyn Jean Buck, sharp,methodical and quietly dangerous

(09:37):
.
A former anti-war activistturned underground operative.
Her links to weapons caches andsupport operations for military
groups start to bring thingsinto clarity.
And Susan Rosenberg, a courierknown for her role in moving
materials and people across theunderground network.
Her alias is numerous andbehind all of it, the one name

(09:57):
that surfaces later in theinvestigation, but without
ambiguity as it rises to the top, a radical communist forged in
the unrest of the 1960s LauraWhitehorn.
She came of age when theprotests filled the streets and
revolution felt like adestination, not just an idea.
Her convictions weren't born intheory, they were formed in

(10:18):
conflict, tear gas.
To her, that was the sound ofhome.
While she's not completelyfront and center, her presence
seems to always be the oneeveryone else orbits.

(10:41):
Then a break comes.
Jack orders a raid on asuspected location outside
Boston.
Everything lines up Phone taps,car rentals, chemical trace but
the house is empty, spaceheater, still warm, like someone
had just left.
Despite this, jack keepsworking the files and keeps
working the case.
He's sure that he'll find hisanswer.

(11:05):
And then Jack gets it A realsolid lead.
On May 11th 1985, jack standsoutside a weathered and worn
duplex, breath fogging in thecold.
The sky still dark, not a hintof dawn on the horizon.

(11:26):
The wind cuts low through thealley, biting through his coat.
Then the quiet sounds ofmuffled boots shifting behind
him, the static buzz of a radioturned low.
Jack starts to wear.
Thin from the waiting, everysecond, feel like it's daring
someone to move first.
He pauses.
Thin from the waiting, everysecond, feel like it's daring
someone to move first.
He pauses, considers the moment.

(11:47):
Then he gives the signal, justa nod.
The team stacks tight againstthe outside frame of the duplex,
shoulders aligned, bootsanchored, eyes locked.
The ram swings, adult thwack,then again the frame splits,

(12:07):
wood shears and the latch snapsin with a final screech.
The door swings open like awound.
Flashlights cut through thedark like blades.
Shouts tear through the silence.
Fbi Hands Show me your hands.
Boots slam across the warpedfloorboards, the kitchen flashes
past.
Hallway, closet, bedroom.

(12:27):
Each corner swept withprecision, each moment, rigid,
with purpose.
Plaster dust hangs in the air.
Every breath, tight.
The sound of someone runningdown a hallway is replaced by
stillness, controlled,suspicious, ready to turn
violent if the air shifts wrong.

(12:48):
Each second presses like atrigger, half-full.
Inside, laura Whitehorn iswaiting at a second-hand 1970s
metal kitchen table, blackcoffee cooling in the cup.
She doesn't flinch, she doesn'tspeak, but she watches, still

(13:09):
and unbleeking, as Jack enterslast.
Here he is in the moment, theweight of seven years hanging
between them, the arrests, thebombs, the warnings scrawled in
fire and silence.
None of it spoken, but all ofit understood.
The entire room holds itsbreath.

(13:31):
Jack steps forward, his handsmove with the steadiness of
muscle memory, but his eyesdon't leave hers.
She doesn't resist, she justwatches, unblinking, as he
reaches for the cuffs.
The cold click of metal fillsthe room like a punctuation.

(13:53):
At the same time, across thecountry, they take down everyone
at once.
The others fall Evans in a quietPhiladelphia suburb, buck in
the river town of Dobbs Ferry,just north of Manhattan.
Rosenberg, somewhere off theGolden State Parkway.
None resist, none give anyspeeches, just doors cracked

(14:19):
open, wrists bound and namesscratched off, a list that Jack
had memorized by heart.
Seven minutes, seven years, andall of it folded shut in the
same feeling of quiet that comesafter a detonation.
The press called it a victory,but there were no parades, no

(14:44):
celebrations, just sealedevidence bags and silent reports
that have still yet to see thelight of day.
Linda Sue Evans was sentencedto 40 years, rosenberg received
58.
Buck was given 80 because of abank robbery gone wrong where
two guards were killed, andWhitehorn would be sentenced to

(15:04):
20 years.
After serving the majority oftheir sentences, most of them
eventually walked out.
Jack doesn't talk about theraids, though the case files
what exists are thin, sparsenotes, incomplete records, some
details never making it into thepublic domain.
Others were lost in thebureaucratic fog.

(15:26):
There's more redaction andrecollection, and even now
trying to piece together who didwhat and when is like
assembling a map with mostcountries missing.
Still, though, these peoplereally weren't revolutionaries.
To him, they were arsonistswith a manifesto.
The fact that no one died wasactually an accident, the kind

(15:50):
of accident that doesn't changethe charge.
It only changes the body count.
This story is actually adramatization.

(16:11):
While many events, names andorganizations are actually real,
the characters and dialogue arefictionalized for dramatic
effect.
Jack Connors does not exist.
His investigation is acomposite of many.
This is not a documentary.
It's more like a thrillerBrought to you ad-free by FML

(16:33):
Studios in collaboration withThings I Want to Know, and Paul
G's Corner.
If you want to respond, debateor dig deeper or just complain,
just email me, paulg atpaulgnewtoncom.
Thanks for listening.