Weather Underground - Dissolution 1977 - 1981

1981

Despite the change in their legal status (1973 dropped charges), the Weather Underground remained underground for a few more years. However, by 1976 the organization was disintegrating. The Weather Underground held a conference in Chicago called Hard Times. The idea was to create an umbrella organization for all radical groups. However, the event turned sour when Hispanic and Black groups accused the Weather Underground and the Prairie Fire Committee of limiting their roles in racial issues. The Weather Underground faced accusations of abandonment of the revolution by reversing their original ideology.

The conference increased divisions within the Weather Underground. East coast members favored a commitment to violence and challenged commitments of old leaders, Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers and Jeff Jones. These older members found they were no longer liable for federal prosecution because of illegal wire taps and the government's unwillingness to reveal sources and methods favored a strategy of inversion where they would be above ground "revolutionary leaders". Jeremy Varon argues that by 1977 the WUO had disbanded.

Another factor in the surfacing of the Prairie Fire/WUO members was an appearance by Matthew Landy Steen on the lead segment of CBS' 60 Minutes in November 1977 about Weather Underground and logistical support, the first ex-Weatherman interview on national television. Steen, in the interview with Dan Rather, stated that "it was necessary" for Weathermen fugitives "to re-emerge and engage change at the community level in a post-Vietnam, post-draft era." This was viewed by more than 45 million households, including President Jimmy Carter, who later granted amnesty to some WUO members as well as by David Byrne, composer for the popular rock band Talking Heads, who wrote a song "Life During Wartime" encapsulating the episode into popular mass culture. This 60 Minutes segment also provoked a new Congressional inquiry into the practices of the U.S. Passport Office and directly led to the resignation of the head of this Office for issuing passports that ended up in Weather Underground . Within 60 days of the 60 Minutes interview, Weather Underground leader, Mark Rudd turned himself in to authorities; and within 18 months the entire WUO leadership had surfaced.

The federal government estimated that only 38 Weathermen had gone underground in 1970, though the estimates varied widely, according to a variety of official and unofficial sources, as between 50 to 600 members. Most modern sources lean towards a much larger number than the FBI reference. An FBI estimate in 1976, or slightly later, of then current membership was down to 30 or fewer.