Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

WHITE HAND • 699Chi Minh, the Weathermen bombed a lavatory in the Pentagon, causingwater damage and destroying magnetic tapes holding classifiedmilitary information. The group also bombed the headquarters of theU.S. State Department on 29 January 1975. All, told the Weathermenconducted 23 bombings from 1970 until 1975.Sometime during 1970–1971 the group changed its name to theWeather Underground, or Weather Underground Organization, partlyto emphasize the members’ voluntary decision to go underground butalso because of an increasing sensitivity within the group to feministconcerns about sexism. An internal purge destroyed the organizationsometime in 1976–1977. The decision to go underground in 1970 leftthe members isolated from society at large, while the abovegroundsupport network, known as the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee,faulted the underground cadre for lagging in their commitment tocombating sexism and racism, which had filled the vacuum in theNew Left’s agenda once filled by the antiwar movement. WeatherUnderground members then turned upon one another in internalideological purges of the insufficiently “committed.” Those originalWeathermen leaders who were banished eventually gave themselvesup to law enforcement officials: Mark Rudd on 20 January 1977, andBernadine Dohrn and William Ayers on 3 December 1981. The ideologicalhard-liners, among whom were David Gilbert and KatherineBoudin, formed the May 19 Communist Coalition, which createdthe Revolutionary Armed Task Force by merging the remnants ofthe Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army. Boudinand Gilbert were arrested shortly after the 20 October 1981 Brinksarmored car robbery by themselves and members of the Black LiberationArmy, in the course of which two police officers and oneBrinks guard were killed and for which Boudin and Gilbert were laterconvicted and sentenced to prison terms of at least 20 years. With thesurrender of Jeffrey David Powell on 6 January 1994, the last of thesix Weathermen wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation hadsurfaced. Ayers and Dohrn were released from custody after the casewas dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct.WHITE HAND. “Mano Blanca” was a state-sponsored vigilantegroup established in 1966 to suppress the Communist insurgencyin Guatemala. The organization was supposedly founded by ColonelEnrique Trinadad Oliva and later led by the national police chief. It