Hunter
2023-06-10 20:24:24 UTC
<http://nytimes.com>
Ted Kaczynski, 'Unabomber' Who Attacked Modern Life, Dies at 81
Alex Traub
U.S.|Ted Kaczynski, 'Unabomber' Who Attacked Modern Life, Dies at 81
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/10/us/ted-kaczynski-dead.html
Alone in a shack in the Montana wilderness, he fashioned homemade
bombs and launched a violent one-man campaign to destroy industrial
society.
June 10, 2023Updated 1:47 p.m. ET
Theodore J. Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, who attacked
academics, businessmen and random civilians with homemade bombs from
1978 to 1995, killing three people and injuring 23 with the stated
goal of bringing about the collapse of the modern social order - a
violent spree that ended after what was often described as the longest
and most costly manhunt in American history - died on Saturday in a
federal prison medical center in Butner, N.C. He was 81.
A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Mr. Kaczynski was
found unresponsive in his cell early in the morning. The cause of
death was not immediately known.
Mr. Kaczynski traced a path that was singular in American life: lonely
boy genius to Harvard-trained star of pure mathematics to rural
recluse to notorious murderer to imprisoned extremist.
In the public eye, he fused a rare mix of styles of violence: the
periodic targeting of the demented serial killer and the ideological
fanaticism of the terrorist.
After he was captured by about 40 F.B.I. agents, the details of that
ideology were less the subject of debate than the question of whether
his crimes should be dignified with a rational motive to begin with.
Victims railed against commentators who took seriously a 35,000-word
manifesto that Mr. Kaczynski wrote to justify his actions and
evangelize the ideas that he claimed inspired them.
Psychologists involved in the trial saw his writing as evidence of
schizophrenia. His lawyers tried to mounted an insanity defense - and
when Mr. Kaczynski rebelled and sought to represent himself in court,
risking execution to do so, his lawyers said that was yet further
evidence of insanity.
For years before the manifesto was published, Mr. Kaczynski
(pronounced kah-ZIN-skee) had no reputation beyond that of a twisted
reveler in violence, picking victims seemingly at random, known only
by a mysterious-sounding nickname with roots in the F.B.I.'s
investigation into him: "the Unabomber." It became widely publicized
that some of his victims lost their fingers while opening a package
bomb. Going through the mail, among the unconscious routines of daily
life, prompted flickers of nervousness in many Americans.
After his arrest in April 1996, Mr. Kaczynski's extraordinary
biography emerged. He had scored 167 on an I.Q. test as a boy and
entered Harvard at 16. In graduate school, at the University of
Michigan, he worked in a field of mathematics so esoteric that a
member of his dissertation committee estimated that only 10 or 12
people in the country understood it. By 25, he was an associate
professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Then he dropped out - not just from Berkeley, but from civilization.
Starting in 1971 and continuing until his arrest, he lived in a shack
he built himself in rural Montana. He forsook running water, read by
the light of homemade candles, stopped filing federal tax returns and
subsisted on rabbits.
A complete obituary will appear shortly.
Alex Traub works on the Obituaries desk and occasionally reports on
Interested group added.Ted Kaczynski, 'Unabomber' Who Attacked Modern Life, Dies at 81
Alex Traub
U.S.|Ted Kaczynski, 'Unabomber' Who Attacked Modern Life, Dies at 81
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/10/us/ted-kaczynski-dead.html
Alone in a shack in the Montana wilderness, he fashioned homemade
bombs and launched a violent one-man campaign to destroy industrial
society.
June 10, 2023Updated 1:47 p.m. ET
Theodore J. Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, who attacked
academics, businessmen and random civilians with homemade bombs from
1978 to 1995, killing three people and injuring 23 with the stated
goal of bringing about the collapse of the modern social order - a
violent spree that ended after what was often described as the longest
and most costly manhunt in American history - died on Saturday in a
federal prison medical center in Butner, N.C. He was 81.
A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Mr. Kaczynski was
found unresponsive in his cell early in the morning. The cause of
death was not immediately known.
Mr. Kaczynski traced a path that was singular in American life: lonely
boy genius to Harvard-trained star of pure mathematics to rural
recluse to notorious murderer to imprisoned extremist.
In the public eye, he fused a rare mix of styles of violence: the
periodic targeting of the demented serial killer and the ideological
fanaticism of the terrorist.
After he was captured by about 40 F.B.I. agents, the details of that
ideology were less the subject of debate than the question of whether
his crimes should be dignified with a rational motive to begin with.
Victims railed against commentators who took seriously a 35,000-word
manifesto that Mr. Kaczynski wrote to justify his actions and
evangelize the ideas that he claimed inspired them.
Psychologists involved in the trial saw his writing as evidence of
schizophrenia. His lawyers tried to mounted an insanity defense - and
when Mr. Kaczynski rebelled and sought to represent himself in court,
risking execution to do so, his lawyers said that was yet further
evidence of insanity.
For years before the manifesto was published, Mr. Kaczynski
(pronounced kah-ZIN-skee) had no reputation beyond that of a twisted
reveler in violence, picking victims seemingly at random, known only
by a mysterious-sounding nickname with roots in the F.B.I.'s
investigation into him: "the Unabomber." It became widely publicized
that some of his victims lost their fingers while opening a package
bomb. Going through the mail, among the unconscious routines of daily
life, prompted flickers of nervousness in many Americans.
After his arrest in April 1996, Mr. Kaczynski's extraordinary
biography emerged. He had scored 167 on an I.Q. test as a boy and
entered Harvard at 16. In graduate school, at the University of
Michigan, he worked in a field of mathematics so esoteric that a
member of his dissertation committee estimated that only 10 or 12
people in the country understood it. By 25, he was an associate
professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Then he dropped out - not just from Berkeley, but from civilization.
Starting in 1971 and continuing until his arrest, he lived in a shack
he built himself in rural Montana. He forsook running water, read by
the light of homemade candles, stopped filing federal tax returns and
subsisted on rabbits.
A complete obituary will appear shortly.
Alex Traub works on the Obituaries desk and occasionally reports on
Too bad we didn't get Ted started on Democrat politicians.