Abstract

Is There Method in His Madness?

Any day now the powers at newspapers The New York Times and Washington Post will have to decide whether they will print the full 35,000, word text of the document sent to them in late June by the terrorist, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is calling the Unabomber. In the letter that accompanied the text, he gave each paper three months to publish his screed, upon which he promises to desist from terrorism, but he warned that if they refused he would start building his next bomb. Naturally the decision has been somewhat complicated for the two papers, since they don't want to seem to give in to terrorist demands and don't particularly like giving such publicity to the Unabomber's decidedly anti-establishmentarian opinions.