In Denver County Jail sits the greatest criminal enigma in Denver history and possibly the greatest in the reprehensible annals of American crime…. What kind of mind could grind out in minute and exacting detail the steps that John Gilbert Graham's mind did in piecing together his horrendous jigsaw of death…. What kind of heart could block out those compelling and instinctive bonds that exist between mother and son?…[And] what kind of a being could block out entirely 43 other lives in plotting for greed or hatred or convenience the death of one other person?…There seems to be no logical explanation.96
There was, however, a logical explanation. It was rooted in a troubled young man's personality and behavior, which gave plenty of warning signs that he was capable of this horrendous deed. Graham, who showed no remorse throughout his trial, had fought many times with his mother, despite her continual efforts to help him out of bad situations. He was convicted in November 1951 on forgery charges, having stolen several blank checks from a manufacturing firm he worked for as a payroll clerk the previous March. He signed the name of the company's owner on the checks and cashed them for $4,200. He bought a late-model convertible with the money and left Denver.
Graham was arrested the following September in Lubbock, Texas, on a different charge—bootlegging—after he tried to run a roadblock and was shot at by the police, who found a gun in Graham's car. He served a sixty-day sentence in the county jail and was then released to Denver authorities. He received a suspended sentence for the check-forgery charges and was placed on probation for a period of five years. His mother paid $2,500 toward restitution on the $4,200 in forged checks, with Graham paying the rest in monthly installments of $40 per month. He regularly made those payments and had only $105 left to pay at the time of the plane bombing.97
Graham's mother also helped her son by hiring him to be the manager of a drive-in restaurant she owned in Denver. She was reported to be “downright proud” of him and how he had gotten his life together since his forgery conviction.98 However, Graham's probation report described her as someone who “appears to be a type that has over-protected her son.”99 She either turned a blind eye to his transgressions or just simply wouldn't believe her son meant to do anything wrong. This despite the fact that, when Graham confessed to the FBI regarding the plane bombing, he also admitted both to causing an explosion at the drive-in restaurant and to leaving his car on a railroad track and allowing it to be hit by an oncoming train in order to collect insurance on the car. His half sister reported that Graham had a violent temper and that, on one occasion, he knocked her down and kneed her in the chest. On another occasion, he hit her with a hammer. She also told the FBI that she and her mother had once witnessed him strike his wife for no apparent reason, scaring his mother, who was afraid her son might also hit her.100
Graham didn't seem too concerned about tipping his plans concerning the bombing of the plane his mother would be on. A credit manger testified at his trial that Graham once told him he had observed the way luggage was handled at Denver's Stapleton Airport and that it would be easy for someone to place a bomb on a plane.101 After his arrest, psychiatrists who met with him were curious as to his feelings about being responsible for the deaths of forty-four people, including his mother. He stated that he “realized that there were about 50 or 60 people carried on a DCB [DC-6B plane].” But, he continued, “the number of people to be killed made no difference to me; it could have been a thousand. When their time comes, there is nothing they can do about it.”102
With the Graham bombing, America was introduced to a form of terrorism that unfortunately would become all too familiar in subsequent decades. Increased security measures would gradually be introduced at airports as the public came to understand the need for metal detectors, x-rays, and other measures designed to ensure its safety. No longer would the public only fear the possibility of an accidental plane crash. Now they had to also fear midair plane bombings. A wayward youth with a troubled past had ushered America into a new age of terrorism.
Panos Koupparis
One of the more unusual terrorist threats in recent history took place in Cyprus in March 1987, when a thirteen-page letter was sent to the president, Spiros Kiprianou. The letter was signed by a man calling himself “Commander Nemo of Force Majerus.”103 Commander Nemo was actually Panos Koupparis, a thirty-six-year-old British citizen of Cypriot origin. He threatened to disperse dioxin, a toxic chemical, over the Troodos Mountains south of Nicosia unless he was paid $15 million.
Koupparis claimed that the dioxin would be released by radio-controlled devices already in place and would be carried by wind over populated areas. He argued that Cyprus would not have the medical facilities and resources to deal with the human casualties of a dioxin attack. He further pointed out that the economy of Cyprus was dependent on agriculture and therefore could not afford the damage that would be caused by the release of the dioxin. He even suggested that the government try an experiment. He told them to burn a large number of tires and watch as the black smoke drifted across populated areas. He warned them that a dioxin attack would be a thousand times worse.
In his letter, Koupparis also cited the disaster at Seveso, Italy, to emphasize the danger of a dioxin attack. An explosion at a chemical factory in Seveso in 1976 caused dioxin to escape. Several people near the plant suffered burns and sores on their skin, and large numbers of people complained of nervousness, fatigue, and loss of appetite. Many animals were killed, and Italian authorities were forced to slaughter more than eighty thousand domestic animals as a protective measure. He also mentioned the explosion at a chemical factory in Bhopal, India, in 1984 and the nuclear reactor disaster at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986. Koupparis warned that his attack would be much worse, since Cyprus is a small island.
Because the letter was written in fluent English, Cypriot officials suspected it originated in London. (Cyprus gained independence from Britain in 1960.) The blackmail letter was extremely detailed, including data on the ingredients Koupparis claimed he used to make the dioxin. The threat was taken seriously by the Cypriot government, which consulted with British scientists. The British scientists analyzed the blackmail letter and concluded that Koupparis could not make dioxin from the ingredients he listed. However, the letter was couched in enough scientific jargon that the scientists had to spend some time analyzing its contents before dismissing the threat.
Koupparis continued to contact the government of Cyprus after his initial letter and was finally apprehended by Scotland Yard detectives when he went to the Cyprus High Commission office in London, posing as the “scientific advisor” to Commander Nemo, to collect a passport and some money. Also arrested in London were his wife and two brothers, one of whom was a chemistry student at London's Polytechnic Institute. (Koupparis's sister-in-law was arrested in Cyprus but ordered released by a judge for lack of evidence.) According to police, weapons were found in Koupparis's Cyprus apartment (he had been staying in Cyprus after setting up an offshore company there) along with documents showing that he had planned a series of bombings on the island to convince the government that his dioxin threat was real.
Due to the potential for panic among the Cypriot public, the entire matter was kept secret until after the arrests in London. The incident led to a political crisis for the Cypriot government. The public reaction to the dioxin hoax was one of fear and concern about weapons of mass destruction. The government was criticized by some people for keeping the whole affair secret when lives were potentially at stake, while others criticized it for taking the hoax too seriously. The government defended its actions, stating through a spokesman that “the content of the threat and the nature of the blackmail were such that it would be an act of lack of responsibility for the Government and the police to underestimate the affair, the more so that first assessments by British experts spoke of a realizable threat if the blackmailers had the necessary means.”104 The government and police also stated that steps had been taken to protect lives in c
ase the threat was real but did not disclose what those steps were.
Koupparis was found guilty in July 1989 and sentenced to five years in prison. The dioxin hoax was a very clever scheme by an individual criminal who, working with just a few family members, was able to hatch a plan that caused two governments to consult in secrecy and bring in top-level scientists to assess the threat. It also led to a crisis for the Cypriot government in explaining its handling of the affair. Had the scientific data been more credible and Koupparis's intentions more believable, the crisis could have been much worse for the government. Public revelations by Koupparis before he was caught, through communications to newspapers or radio and television stations, might well have caused great alarm and panic in Cyprus. Even though his motive was purely financial gain, the effect of his actions was the same as if he had threatened to release dioxin in order to protest a government policy or further a religious or political cause. The Koupparis case, along with the Graham case, clearly demonstrates why we can't ignore the terrorist threat of criminal lone wolves simply because they don't fit the traditional definitions of who a terrorist is.
IDIOSYNCRATIC LONE WOLVES: THEODORE KACZYNSKI AND MUHAREM KURBEGOVIC
Another type of lone wolf for whom political or religious objectives are not the driving force for their violence is the idiosyncratic lone wolf. As noted earlier, while these individuals may adopt some cause as the raison d’être for their terrorist attacks, it is really their severe personality and psychological issues that explain their actions. The causes they adopt are also far-fetched and usually irrational. One of the more infamous cases of an idiosyncratic lone wolf involved an individual who became known as the “Unabomber.” This man avoided identification and capture for over seventeen years as he sent package bombs to various individuals throughout the United States. Another case involves an individual who became known as the “Alphabet Bomber.” This man terrorized a community with an airport bombing and threats to unleash nerve gas over populated areas.
Theodore Kaczynski
For a long period of time, Americans lived in fear of packages they received in the mail. They were warned by the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the FBI to be on the lookout for packages sent to them from people or businesses they were not familiar with and packages that had excessive postage, handwritten addresses, and/or oily stains on the outside. New regulations were issued requiring people to bring packages weighing more than thirteen ounces and bearing only postage stamps to a post office employee rather than dropping them off in a mailbox. All this was due to a terror campaign waged by a brilliant yet eccentric and mentally ill individual who just never quite fit into society.
Theodore Kaczynski had a promising career as a mathematics professor at the University of California at Berkeley in the late 1960s, when he abruptly resigned from his position for no apparent reason. He eventually moved to Montana, where he lived the life of a recluse. He began his campaign of violence in May 1978, when he left a package in a parking lot at the University of Illinois in Chicago with a return address from Northwestern University in Evanston. The package was taken to Northwestern, where it exploded when it was opened, injuring a security guard. Over the course of the next seventeen years, Kaczynski perpetrated several more bombings. He was responsible for a total of sixteen bombings, which together resulted in the deaths of three people and injuries to twenty-three others. Kaczynski either sent his victims a package bomb through the USPS or left the package bomb at the scene of the attack.
The violence occurred in all regions of the country. In one incident in 1979, a bomb exploded in a 727 jetliner's cargo hold during an American Airlines flight, forcing an emergency landing at Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC. Nobody was killed in that attack, although several people suffered smoke inhalation. In another incident, Kaczynski sent a package bomb to an advertising executive in 1994, killing the man as he opened the package. And in a letter he sent to a newspaper one week before the Fourth of July holiday in 1995, Kaczynski threatened to place a bomb on an airliner flying out of Los Angeles International Airport. Although the airline bomb turned out to be a hoax, it nevertheless increased public anxiety over terrorism; disrupted the USPS, as a temporary ban was placed on all airmail packages sent from California weighing more than twelve ounces; forced authorities to increase security measures at California airports, which in turn led to major delays for travelers; and even caused the Secretary of Transportation, Frederico Pena, to fly to Los Angeles to explain how the government intended to handle the crisis.105
Kaczynski was the target of one of the largest and most frustrating FBI manhunts in history. The FBI gave the code name “Unabomb” to its investigation (which eventually became popularly known in the media as “Unabomber”), since Kaczynski's early targets were primarily people associated with universities and airlines (“UN” for universities, “A” for airlines). Over the course of seventeen years, the FBI task force assigned to the Unabomber case acquired 3,600 volumes of information, 175 computer databases, 82 million records, 12,000 event documents, and 9,000 evidence photographs.106 Yet no matter how hard FBI investigators tried, they could not capture the Unabomber or even discover his true identity for nearly two decades.
Kaczynski demonstrated the advantage that lone wolves have in eluding the authorities. As noted earlier, since these individuals work alone and do not communicate with others regarding plans and operations, intelligence and law-enforcement agencies have little to go on when trying to capture this type of terrorist. In the case of the Unabomber, all the authorities had in terms of a physical description of Kaczynski was a composite sketch made in 1987 by a forensic artist, which was based on a witness's description of a man she saw place a bomb behind a computer store in Salt Lake City. Kaczynski was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses. He looked like many other people, and despite publicly distributing the sketch, the FBI did not receive any worthwhile leads.
But in the end, it was Kaczynski's need to communicate and be heard that led to his capture. He threatened to continue to send package bombs to people unless the New York Times or the Washington Post published a thirty-five-thousand-word manifesto that he sent to them (as well as to Penthouse magazine) in June 1995. The manifesto called for a revolution against the industrial-technological society. This was not the first time a terrorist had demanded a manifesto be published in a newspaper. Croatian extremists made similar demands during a 1976 hijacking, and their manifesto was indeed published in several newspapers.107 The Washington Post—with the New York Times sharing the printing costs—published the Unabomber's manifesto in September 1995. Kaczynski's brother, David, later discovered writings by Kaczynski that resembled the published manifesto, and he contacted the FBI, leading to Kaczynski's arrest at his remote Montana cabin in April 1996.108 Kaczynski pled guilty in January 1998 and received a sentence a few months later of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Kaczynski's manifesto revealed a political viewpoint that had elements of anarchism and Luddism. He wrote that the “Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race” and that “in order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we had to kill people.” He claimed that the industrial-technological society “cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom.” He also criticized “leftism” as “anti-individualistic” and “pro-collectivist” and praised anarchy, which he argued would allow people “to control the circumstances of their own lives.”109
It is in the psychiatric evaluation of Kaczynski to determine if he was competent to stand trial that we get insight into how he became a lone wolf terrorist. Based on interviews with Kaczynski and a review of his journals, an unpublished autobiography, and other writings and letters, the court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Sally Johnson, diagnosed him as a provisional paranoid schizophrenic. She qualified her diagnosis due to the limited num
ber of sessions she had with Kaczynski. Nevertheless, she found that he was preoccupied with two delusional beliefs. One was that he was controlled by modern technology. The other was that his inability to establish a relationship with a female was the result of extreme psychological verbal abuse by his parents. Johnson wrote in her report that Kaczynski “is resentful and angry, and fantasizes and actually does resort to violence against those individuals and organizations that he believes are hurting him.”110 Kaczynski was mistrustful of other children when he was growing up, and in high school, he was an outsider. “By the time I left high school,” he stated, “I was definitely regarded as a freak by a large segment of the student body.” He also told Johnson that he built a small pipe bomb in chemistry class that gained him some notoriety and attention.111 Despite the diagnosis that Kaczynski was mentally ill, he was still deemed competent to stand trial, since he was able to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him.
Kaczynski's terror campaign left emotional scars in addition to the physical pain he caused his victims and their families. Charles Epstein was a geneticist at the University of California at San Francisco when, on June 22, 1993, he opened a package that was sent to his home. The package exploded, and he lost several fingers and suffered permanent hearing loss. He went to court and witnessed Kaczynski plead guilty to his crimes. He told reporters that Kaczynski is “the personification of evil” and that, while he is glad the case is over, he does not expect to heal emotionally anytime soon. “There's never closure,” he said. “I mean, every time I look at my hand [the effect of the bombing] is still there, every time I have to ask someone to speak up, it's still there.” Epstein also addressed the issue of Kaczynski's mental illness. “I distinguish between being mentally ill and being evil,” he said. “There are plenty of paranoid schizophrenics in the world who don't spend their time meticulously plotting to kill people, and then taking glee in the effects of what they have done.”112
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