When News Corporation, the parent company of book publisher HarperCollins and the Fox network, canceled publication of the O.J. Simpson murder book and television special “If I Did It,” chairman Rupert Murdoch issued a statement saying: “I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”

Since Murdoch has shown that he can be sensitive to the victims of murder, and their families, he should reconsider his decision to publish through HarperCollins the book, Undergound: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen, by Weather Underground terrorist Mark Rudd. Like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Rudd was a member of the Cuban-trained Communist gang that waged violence and murder in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. In the book Rudd talks with pride of his involvement in terrorist acts, including the planned bombing of a servicemen’s dance at Fort Dix, where hundreds of military personnel and their wives and girlfriends could have been injured or killed. He says in the book that our U.S. military personnel deserved a “taste” of what the Army had been doing during the Vietnam War.

Although the bomb prematurely exploded, accidentally killing three of Rudd’s “comrades,” the book constitutes nothing less than a celebration of attempted murder. Indeed, one could argue, even at this late date, that Rudd should be charged and prosecuted for conspiracy in connection with this bombing plot. After all, if he had not “assented” to the plan, as he says in his book, he could have acted to save lives.

The book is scheduled to go on sale on March 24 and Rudd’s national speaking tour, also advertised on the HarperCollins website, begins about the same time. In fact, the HarperCollins publicity department says there will be a major marketing campaign for the book, including:

•  National broadcast and print media campaign
• 25-city national radio campaign
• College marketing, including mailings to college bookstores and newspapers
• Online promotion, including E-mail notifications, excerpts, and social networking sites

This is nothing less than an effort by Murdoch’s company to use its resources to promote this communist terrorist and his communist views to millions of Americans, especially young people and students. It is morally wrong and runs the risk of setting the stage for the creation of another violence-oriented student movement. In fact, Rudd brags in his books that there are already some 200 chapters of a “new SDS” on college campuses. The SDS was the communist student organization that spawned the Weather Underground. Today, Rudd, Ayers and Dohrn have come together in a new Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS).

Ominously, the so-called Campus Progress arm of the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress ran a very sympathetic interview with Rudd, who now describes himself as a liberal Democrat. The Campus Progress website featured a photo of then-Senator Barack Obama speaking at one of the organization’s conferences. Rudd is a member of “Progressives for Obama” and has predicted that “progressives” from the Center for American Progress will be filling important slots in the Obama Administration. 

I have informed Murdoch and his top lieutenants, as well as personnel at his Fox News Channel, which is another News Corporation subsidiary, that the book is extremely offensive to the victims of Weather Underground terrorism and their families. In preparation for a March 12 news conference on the violent history of the Weather Underground, I have talked to more than a dozen retired police officers who are outraged that those involved in the February 16, 1970, bombing murder of San Francisco Police Sergeant Brian V. McDonnell have so far escaped justice. McDonnell was killed after a bomb containing heavy metal staples exploded at the Park Station where he was serving. Members of the Weather Underground have been accused of involvement in that murder. In fact, former FBI informant Larry Grathwohl, who will speak at the March 12 National Press Club event, has testified under oath that Ayers told him that Bernardine Dohrn had planted the bomb.  

Rudd does not acknowledge involvement in that murder, but he does describe how he was involved in casing a California courthouse so that a bomb could be planted there. The FBI says that his fingerprints were discovered in a bomb factory in San Francisco.

Despite my letter, and follow-up calls and emails to Murdoch’s office and other News Corporation executives, I cannot get an answer about why they are inflicting this despicable terrorist “memoir” on the public. However, Murdoch was quick to issue a personal apology recently when his New York Post newspaper published a cartoon that was considered derogatory to President Obama.  

Perhaps you can get an explanation of why Rudd’s pro-terrorist book is being published by News Corporation. Contact information for top executives is available here. Murdoch should do the right thing and kill this book.

Share This

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

About the author