August 24, 2020

Ten years ago, I did a special piece on the University of Wisconsin-Madison bombing and Leo Burt on CBS. Watch it by clicking here.

The devastating and tragic explosion two weeks ago of improperly, illegally stored ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut reminded me of another explosion, with essentially the same materials used.

It was 50 years ago this morning, before 5 a.m., on a quiet, deserted campus in Madison, at the University of Wisconsin. A stolen panel truck loaded with nitrogen fertilizer and fuel oil detonated. The explosion was aimed at the U.S. Army Math Research Center, a target of the anti-war movement and a forbidding building on campus where no students were even allowed. It was a facility that provided information to the U.S. military on how to more effectively fight the war in Vietnam, and in many cases, how to kill more people. At almost every student demonstration, the protests focused on that building and why such a “research facility” would even be allowed on campus.

On August 24, 1970, a few of those protestors decided to take aim in a different way.

The explosion killed a physics researcher in a next door building, shattered buildings and blew out windows all over the campus. The destruction was front page news, the pictures of the damage indelible. A worldwide manhunt was launched for the bombers. And within days, four young men were put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for murder for orchestrating the bombing. Two of them — David Fine and Leo Burt, I knew well. I worked with them on the Daily Cardinal, the college paper. Of the four bombers, three were eventually caught, sentenced and served time in prison. But one, Leo Burt, had disappeared. He is still missing on this 50th anniversary.

Leo Burt, photo from FBI

Ten years ago, on the 40th anniversary of the bombing, I interviewed one of the bombers — Karl Armstrong, who had returned to Madison following his prison sentence. Present at the interview was a woman I didn’t know. It turned out that she was the daughter of the man killed in the explosion. She was about a year old at the time her father died, but had subsequently — and surprisingly – become friends with Armstrong. Such were the intense politics of Madison. The daughter had come to believe that Karl never wanted to kill her father —  he simply wanted to end the war in Vietnam in deciding to blow up the Army math center. I did a special piece on the bombing and Leo Burt for CBS News.

 

And now, 50 years after that explosion, the campus in Madison is again quiet on August 24, 2020…this time, thanks to Covid-19. Leo Burt is still a mystery. No one knows where he is or if he’s even alive. He remains on the Ten Most Wanted list, with a $150,000 reward still attached for any information leading to his capture and arrest. But for those of us who were there at the time might still argue, the issues that led up to the bombing remain just as strong as ever.