Rads: The 1970 Bombing of the Army Math Research Center at the University of Wisconsin and Its Aftermath |  | Author: Tom Bates
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
List Price: $25.00
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Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 845805
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 465
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.7
ISBN: 0060167548
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.164
EAN: 9780060167547
ASIN: 0060167548
Publication Date: September 1992
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
An account of the 1970 bombing of the Army Math Research Center at the University of Wisconsin sheds light on the event while also chronicling the anti-war movement. 50,000 first printing. $60,000 ad/promo. Tour.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
 A must read for anyone you can trust < 30 that is. April 11, 2006
Jess H. Rosenblatt
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Judy (pal to some) sent this book to me. she like me went to Madison during the late 60's. you did not go to the UW you went to Madison. The school was just part of the place, you grew up in. some never left. I started to read it while reading all my Neuro-Science stuff, my latest kick. then it consumed me. especially the last 100 pages.
this non-fiction book is incredibly well researched and written. history is not easy, nor is reality. of course it is special to me since this bombing took place one month after I graduated and left Madison. it was the exclamation point on my experience. as they say many changes took place.
I think it is a must read for any young person of today. with the war in Iraq it is so timely to see the difference in generations. to see that the generation of then is now the silent majority sitting back and watching history repeat itself, as they say always happens. but then again history is hard to grasp.
I think this book would be the foundation of a monster screen-play and movie. the whole situation has so many angles and levels.
I lived thru this but I did not know anything about this bombing. it was so interesting to me to learn now about it in such detail. but at the edges I shared the same experiences: the Mendota State Hospital for the Insane, professors Mosse and Goldberg, the politicos like Soglen, Mates, the celebrities coming thru town, to disappoint, etc.
I think this book more then any other I have read explores how a young generation was traumatized. back then the terrorists were in the White House. perhaps they still are? out of this trauma came the utter materialism of the last 20 years, this is a perspective as to why. many dreams exploded before and with that building.
Jess, aka Henry Dribble, class of 70
A major episode in 1960s American radicalism. July 23, 2005
Walter K. Ezell (SC USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I knew bombers David Fine and Leo Burt as fellow members of The Daily Cardinal staff and figuratively crossed swords with them at editorial meetings over the strident content of staff-written editorials.
Bates manages to weave together an number of parallel narratives so the book reads like a novel. To do this he gives colorful, sometimes cruel physical descriptions of his characters, reconstructs conversations that took place years earlier, and describes the thoughts of characters, including Leo Burt, who has never been found and whom, we must presume, Bates never had the privilege of interviewing. But Bates understands his role as journalist and historian and with the above reservations, I believe he performed it well.
He documents the role of the Army Math Research Center in advancing the military capabilities of the U.S., and does so with a lucidity and economy of words that I never found in the exposes of Jim Rowen, who investigated the AMRC in the late '60's and helped inspire the bombing.
Rads traces the influence of three well-known UW history professors, including the Marxist Harvey Goldberg. Their conflicting views illustrate the diversity of thinking about anti-war tactics and revolution.
It is interesting to note in this book how many radicals turned to violence after being beaten by police at anti-war demonstrations.
At last this book is the story of Karl Armstrong. The narrative reveals Karl as confused, ambivalent and in every instance incompetent as an anti-war terrorist, fugitive and defendent, whose achievements were made possible by the countervailing bungling and in-fighting of the authorities. I can at the drop of a hat regale people with hilarious episodes of Karl's stupid criminal tricks, but of course that shortchanges the gravitas and the tragedy of this major episode in 1960s American radicalism.
I do not fault this book for proposing that abuse by his father laid the psychological groundwork for Karl's venture into violence. Bates did not weave this interpretation into his narrative, and I would be disappointed if an author did not offer his interpretation of events after devoting years to their study. The result is that Karl comes across as a sympathetic character, and his anti-war motivations are not discredited.
Rads really is a true story of the 60's February 29, 2004
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
There are many accounts of the sixties which romanticize the activism against the war in Vietnam. RADS provides a sober account of the events surrounding the bombing of the Army Math Research Center in 1970. With the meticulous insight of an historian, Bates provides an overview of the events relating to the bombing without the bias of left or right-wing ideology. His riveting account has the ring of journalistic accuracy rather than stooping to advance a particular political point of view.
 Such details... February 1, 2003
Timothy P. Scanlon (Hyattsville, MDUSA)
3 out of 9 found this review helpful
I read this about five years ago after finding it as a remainder in a supermarket.What I recollect most about it was the uncanny detail the author came up with. In fact, it reminded me somewhat of at least one of Halberstram's books in that such detail MUST have been contrived. So, while well-written, there were some credibility problems. To this day, I'm not absolutely sure where I stand on the bombing. I would recommend it, though, as NOT romanticizing the radical left of that era. There are, of course, some from that time still living in Madison (and Berkeley, and Stanford, and...) reminiscing the period. They're kind of a radical 60s equivalent of the VFW and are just too naive to realize in how much of an Ivory Tower they reside . But there were down sides, not the least of which is graduate students whose entire careers were altered, finished because of this bombing.
 My hometown Madison September 2, 2001
Mark Runlee (Milwaukee, WI)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I lived in Madison at the time of the legal procedings of the three captured bombers. Rads is the most comprehensive account of the bombing that I have personally read. However, I agree with a previous review that Bates mistakingly attributes Armstrong's actions to his family history. I believe that Armstrong was motivated personally from his experiences in Chicago during the 1968 convention, and seeing the escallation of the war. I went to the Madison Public Library and read the newspaper files on Armstrong and the others, and there were important events especially after Armstrong's return to Madison that were ommited. I believe that the single most important lesson from this book or from other events of that era i.e. Kent State, is that it was local people, hometown people that were involved in the anti-war movement. These people included both yound and old. They were not communist-sympathizers or professionals from out of town. Young men from Karl and Dwight Armstrong's east-side Madison neighborhood were much more likely to fight and die in Vietnam than men from David Fine's or Leo Burt's background. True, Fine did not light the fuse, but he got off much eaiser than the Armstrongs
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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