Maniacs and Murder

A little unexpectedly but not the less welcome, some sensible words on terrorism come in the May 1974 issue of Ramparts, the New Left monthly. A piece signed by “the Editors” details the ugly story of how some 20 people, mostly middle-class white women and declassed black men, decided—in the name of “the people,” of course—to murder Marcus Foster, the black Oakland superintendent of schools. In the gibberish that now passes for “revolutionary” language, the Symbionese Liberation Army announced it would kill Foster for participating in “the implementation of Bio-Dossiers through the Forced Youth Identification Program.” Ramparts, which ought to know, since it has plenty to answer for in earlier provocations of mindless leftism, admits that it hasn’t the faintest idea of what “Bio-Dossiers” refer to. Still, the “people” having decided and assigned Field Marshall Cinque to the job, Foster was murdered.

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