by Waits, Chris
better I could still strive for, some corner of the world where there's still some wilderness, or other things, but again, I'm so terribly—tired—of struggling.)
For those reasons, I want to get my revenge in one big blast. By accepting death as the price, I won't have to fret and worry about how to plan things so I won't get caught. More over, I want to release all my hatred and go out and kill. When I see a motorcyclist tearing up the mountain meadows, instead of fretting about how I can get revenge on him safely, I just want to watch the bullet rip through his flesh and I want to kick him in the face when he is dying. You mustn't assume from this that I am currently being tormented by paroxysms of hatred. Actually, during the last few months (except at a few times) I have been troubled by frustrated hatred much less than usual. I think this is because, whenever I have experienced some outrage (such as a low flying jet or some official stupidity reported in the paper), as I felt myself growing angry, I calmed myself by thinking—^just wait till this summer! Then I'll kill! Thus, what I've been feeling in recent months is not hot rage, but a cold determination to get my revenge. But I want to be in my home or hills in Montana, not here in the city. Death in the city seems so sordid and depressing. Death in these hills—well, if you have to die, that's the place to do it! However, it would have been very tempting to just hang onto my job at Prince Castle indefinitely, even though I have nothing to look forward to.
The truth is, I don't want to die!
When Ted returned to Montana in 1979, he had resolved his inner battle over whether he wanted to live, or die in one glorious burst of revenge. He had committed felonies by placing two bombs and he was a month away from planting another by mail aboard an airliner in November 1979.
His previous successes brought him newfound confidence and boldness, reflected in the acts of vandalism carried out in the Lincoln
area and his escalating bombing campait!;n. He did consider himself slightly Milnerable and occasionally considered the possibilities and ramifications of capture.
Oct. 23, 1979 [Kaczynski journal]
I am about to stash these notes in a hiding-place, so I will record now some things that I didn't like to write here when the notes were not hidden. Before I left on my hike this summer I put sugar in the gas tank of one of [name]'s snowmobiles. So hopefully [name] will have some trouble with it this winter. When I went out on my hike this summer I was planning to lie in ambush by some roadside (dirt by-road) a long way from home and shoot some trail-bikers or other mechanized desecrators of the forest, without too much regard for consequences. But once I was out in the woods I started to reconsider, for two reasons. One was that once I was out in the woods I felt so good that I started to care about the future again—I wanted to have more years to spend in the woods. The other reason is that I thought of an excellent scheme for revenge on a bigger scale and didn't want to screw it up by getting caught for something else before I had a chance to carry it out. Considering technological civilization as a monstrous octopus, the motorcyclists, jeep-riders, and other intruders into the forest are only the tips of the tentacles.
I was not really satisfied with striking at these. My other plan would let me strike perhaps not at the head, but at least much further up along the tentacles.
Ted now seemed set. He had overcome his inhibitions and his early social indoctrination. He had also successfully tempered his desire to die in one big showdown. And the early bombings remained unsolved.
The only flaw holding him back was the weak performance of his early bombs. That was something that could be overcome easily through development and testing. He would create lighter, deadlier
and more easily hidden devices. The time needed wouldn't be a problem for led, who could apply himself as he had during all those years of schooling. Ted had infinite patience.
The winter before he went to Illinois, and just before and as the bombings began, Ted regularly complained to his journals about jet planes flying high over the Montana mountains, and of how the noise of loggers or helicopters, and small airplanes spoiled his hikes. He wrote:
Monday, Jan. 23, 1978
Yesterday, Sunday the 22nd, was a very happy day. Only a few jets passed over, and mostly there was peace and quiet.
While on a 1979 trip in McClellan Gulch, Ted recorded his deep hatred of aircraft. Ted couldn't enjoy the secluded forest if there were any noise or other signs of man's intrusions. And even the most idyllic and private areas Ted knew in McClellan Gulch were not immune to the noises of man in some form or another. This drove Ted to spend less time enjoying the very thing he loved most, and more time and energy working on his plan of revenge against a technological society and its human creators and devotees.
Soon after he mailed his first bombs, his language changed dramatically:
June 6, 1979
The only disruptive sounds this morning have been caused by the 9 evil jet planes that have passed within my hearing.
July 24, 1979
Yesterday was quite good—heard only 8 jets. Today was good in early morning, but later in morning there was aircraft noise almost without intermission for, I would estimate, about an hour. Then there was a very loud sonic boom. This was the last straw and it reduced
me to tears of impotent ra^e. But 1 hae a plan for revenge....
No one w ho doesn't know how to appreciate the wonderful peace and satisfaction that one can get from solitude and silence in the woods [sic]. In Lombard, Illinois there is far more jet noise, and at times it is very annoying, but it does not disturb me nearly as much as does the lesser jet noise here, because here the noise destroys something wonderful; while in the city there is nothing for the noises to destroy, because one is living in a [expletive] pile anyw ay....
By silence I don't mean all sound has to be excluded, only man-made sound. Most natural sounds are soothing. The few exceptions, like thunder and raven cries, are magnificent and I enjoy them. But aircraft noise is an insult, a slap in the face.
It is a symptom of the evil of modern society that few people today even understand the old-fashioned proverb, "Silence is golden." Yet where today can one get silence.^ Nowhere —not even up here in these mountains.
July 25, 1979
In this trip I had been sort of putting aside my anger at the jets, in order to enjoy this w onderful forest.
But that solid hour of aircraft noise (partly jets and partly light planes) yesterday, capped by a startling sonic boom, brought up all that anger. Things are spoiled for me now, so I will go home today. Then I will w^ork on my revenge plan. I feel very melancholy about leaving this camp. I was so happy here. I had looked forward to staying out in the woods much longer than this. Isn't there any place left where one can just go off by oneself and have peace and quiet.^
Three months later, Ted was still lamenting how^ that July trip in McClellan Gulch had been ruined by aircraft noise.
Now, ever since that last day out when I was upset by the almost solid hour of aircraft noise, I have never taken any full or unalloyed satisfaction in the woods, even on those days when there are few aircraft, motorcycles, or other disturbances...In fact, I have made a conscious decision not to let myself have that feeling of wilderness freedom anymore in this [Lincoln] area, because it is just too miserable when that satisfaction is shattered by planes or the like...You understand, it is not the noise in itself that bothers me, but what that noise signifies. It is the voice of the Octopus—the octopus that will allow nothing to exist outside the range of its control. Now with all the planes and so forth, this area makes me think too much of those miserable remnants of prairie that one sees in the Chicago area around airports and in suburban factorv' districts, or of the smog-choked Cook County Forest Preserves. Just sad reminders of what once was; though I no longer find satisfaction in this mountain countrv, I still love it. I suppose it is the same way a mother loves a child who has been crippled and mutilated. It is a love filled with grief.
On November 15, 1979, Ted's bomb mailed fr
om Chicago set fire to the cargo aboard American Airlines Flight 444 as it took off from Dulles International Airport. The plane made an emergency return to Dulles. Several passengers were treated for smoke inhalation.
When Ted arrived in Lincoln, purchased his small plot of land and built his cabin, he immediately started exploring the country. He began with areas adjacent to his home cabin and then spread out from there.
After the first two or three years he had covered nearly every area within a ten-mile radius. Though he wandered much farther at times, hiking almost twenty-five miles to the north into the back-country of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, he concentrated mainly on the areas to the east and south of his home cabin in Florence Gulch. These areas he thoroughly explored were the ones
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where he could lie off the land, the areas that would sustain him and his way of life.
As time passed, new roads were built, timber stands l()i];i!;ed, and mininii; claims staked. That, coupled with the increase of cabins, homes, and campsites bein
Oct. 23, 1979. [Kaczvxski joirxal]
...I wanted to shoot some of those miners who were [expletie] things up down around [name] Creek, if I could get an opporunity that the looked [sir] safe from the point of view of not getting caught. One day I went down there and watched, from cover, a guy with a bulldozer who was tearing a hung chunk out of a hillside that was otherwise very beautiful.... It made me sad to see a big old Douglas fir that this fool had torn up by the roots with his machine. But I didn't shoot at him after all. In part this was due to the inhibitions that are trained into us in modern society, and which are very difficult to overcome. But I have advanced far enough now in that respect so that I might have been able to overcome the inhibitions except for the fact that... I had thought-out as well as instinctive reasons for not wanting to get caught; and I was afraid this guy might have a partner somewhere. Through the trees I had only a very fragmentary view of the site; the guy running the bulldozer might not be the only one there; if I crept close enough for a clear shot at the bulldozer-man, I might have been seen by another man who w as nearby in another place without my knowing it. The woods were quite open—no good hiding. So I satisfied myself by going back a couple of days later when I correctly figured no one w as there, and sabotaging the bulldozer. It was hard to do any thing to it because of its sturdy, tank-like construction, but I cut the fan-belt, cut some tubes, put dirt in the place where oil goes in,
and a few other such things. Besides that, there was a nice new^ pickup down by the road, I think belonging to some of these mining-fools, and I smashed the windshield and cut some belts and tubes on it....
CODED JOURNAL
...SUMMEROF1981IBEGANHEARINGDISAGREABLE [sic] NOIS-ESOFMACHINERY,SOMETIMESSURPRISINGLYLOUD,DEPEND-ING APPARENTLY ON METE0R0L0ICAL[^/V]C0NDITI0NS.-OFTEN BUT OTHERWISEBEAUTIFUL,SILENTMORNINGWAS-RUINEDFOR MEWHENTHESENOISES STARTEDURTHEFOL-LOWINGWINTER MANY OTHERWISEPLEASANT EXCURSIONS-WERERUINEDFOR ME BYTHE MOANING AND HOW LINGOF-
THOSE ironmonsters,audiblebutoftenloudly)[5/V] for
MILES OVERTHE HILLS.MADEUP MYMIND TO GET REVENGE,-BUT IT WASDIFFICULT TO DETERMINEJUSTWHERE NOISE-WASCOMINGFROM.HADTOWAITFORSUMMER ANYWAY,SINCEMY TRACKS COULDEASILY BEFOLLOWED IN SNOW,BUrNOISE SEEMEDTO STOP INSPRING.THENIBEGAN HEARING IT AGAIN IN LATESUMMER,1982.ITHINKITWASINSEPTEMBERTHAT-ITOOKBLANKET,PISTOL,lDAYS RATIONS AND FOLLOWED-NOISETO FIND IT CAMEFROM A LOGGINGOPERATION IN [;/^/;/^]CREEKDRAINAGE,LOGGINGOFF ONEOFMY FAVORITE-WILDSPOTS.THEIRMETHODWASHORRIBLE.ASFARAS I COULD-TELL WITHOUT GOINGCLOSE ENOUGH TO RISKBEING-SEEN,THEYWEREJUSTPUSHINGTREESOVERWITHBULL DOZERS INSTEADOFCUTTINGWITH SAWS.WHENTHEY LEFT FORTHEDAY I WENT IN ANDFOUNDTHE WHOLE SURFACE OFTHEGROUND STRIPPED RIGHTOFF LEAVING UGLYTANGLE OF LIMBS,UPROOTEDTRUNKS,ANDDIRT.THEY LEFT A 5GALLONCAN OF OIL SITTING ON THEIRMACHINETHAT THEY USE TO PICKUP LOGS ANDLOADTHEM ON TRUCK.I POUREDTHE OIL OVERTHE MACHINES ENGINE AND SETFIRE TO IT.I BET ITCOSTTHEM OVERIOOOBUCKS TO FIXIT.SPENTPLEASANTNIGHT SLEEPING OUT ONTOPOFTHE MOUNTAIN ANDCAMEHOME LEISURELY INTHE MORNING.I FELT SO GOOD AFTERHAVINGDONE THIS.THOUGH A MITE
UNEASY OVER THF RISK OFRKINC; SISPKCIKIX
Besides the timber burned in Ted's fire, the cost to the logging contractor to replace his equipment was $75,000—far beyond Ted's thousand-dollar estimate.
He would write about each area as the changes took place and how they affected his way of life.
[from Kaczinsky's Spanish-language journal,
TRANSLATED BY LANGUAGE SERVICES UnIT]
Jan. 31, 1982
This winter, hunting in the long hill which extends towards the south from the first peak to the east of Baldy, I have seen many colored stripes on trees. I think that this means that they will cut wood there, which will ruin the area. That one is my favorite area which can be reached easily from my ranch without staying in the woods overnight. Besides it is also the best area to hunt for rabbits on this side of Stemple Pass Road. The ruin of this area will make it more difficult for me to get enough meat during the winter.
Further encroachment on Ted's own side of Stemple Pass Road led him to state: "I have practically written off the entire area around my home as a total loss."
The south side of Stemple Pass Road, my side, was another story. He knew my large block of land was protected, no matter how many people moved into our area, no matter how many new roads or logging sales. I would keep it a safe haven, the one place where Ted could be assured of privacy, the one place he could freely hunt year-round without the danger of being caught.
Ted wrote extensively in his journals about how much he valued this gulch, extolling the silence, the total privacy, the mountain grouse that were so tame since they were never hunted, and the beauty and unspoiled nature of the area.
He used words like "special," "magical," "most favorite," and "most secret" to describe the camps and his secret cabin there. He also used poetic and romantic words and phrases to describe his feel-
ings: "tranquillity," "sensitive to the silence," "beauty and mystery of the wild," and even "sacred."
All these places he described were located in McClellan Gulch and the small tributaries that flow into it from the east and west. In fact, within ten pages of his Spanish-language journals, Ted described fourteen of his most special, secret, and favorite places, excluding his home cabin. Twelve were located within my drainage.
[from Kaczinsky's Spanish-language journal,
TRANSLATED BY LANGUAGE SERVICES UnIT]
July 25, 1982
I first went to my camp in the dry and open slope that faces McClellan's stream. Since the weather appeared to be good when I was going to bed, I did not unwrap my coat cloth. It rained during the night; I had to get up, make fire, and unwrap my cloth; and I was wet nevertheless.
July, 1982
...Another following day, the day appearing much better, and I having found that it was possible to bring my bundles with less difficulty then [sic] before, encouraged myself and went to my high camp over McClellan.
October 1982
In the first half of October, feeling nervous and tired due to difficulties and anxiety that had to do with my cellar to store roots, and other anxieties too, I picked up only the more essential things and I took off for my favorite place: the stream that flows into the McClellan Stream...
November 15, 1982
... I headed south walking...across the slope of the mountain, on top of McClellan, very high. The morning was very beautiful and I was very happy...Afterwards, I walked a little bit down to the stream, so as to enjoy the
wonderful and dark beauty of the plaee...I wish I could express the wonderful mystery of that stream.
AiGrsr 1982
The weather still looked bad in the morning; I was discouraged because of this and because of the difficulty of bringing my bundles and as a consequence I went to my most
secret camp...lVIcClellan; when it makes rain this camp is much better than the other one....
Another following day I took a stroll uphill on the opposite side of the camp. By good fortune I was able to kill a blue partridge. I picked up a few wild onions too. For me that place is somewhat sacred, because it had not been touched too much by the hands of men.
JlLY 29-30, 1982
Another following day I went to my high camp over McClellan; it turned out to be hotter than the day before and even though I had with me approximately half a canteen (or a "quart") of water, I still suffered from more thirst and tiredness than the day before.
November 1982
Upon arriving to my old camp in that place near the stream that flows in the McClellan Stream, I began to feel the tranquillity of the forest. I did not care that the forest was cold or wet, with an inch of snow that covered the ground. As always, I enjoyed the wild beauty of that area.
November 29, 1981
In my earlier notes I mentioned that I built a very small cabin in an isolated site several years ago. Near my cabin was a favorite place of mine where I would usually camp out. Here an ow 1 would usually sing for me at night...It is tranquil here; there is peace here. The soft sound of the wind in the pines increases the feeling of peace.
