In a new afterword to his 2001 book, Bill Ayers, former leader of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground, describes President-elect Barack Obama as a family friend and denies he wished his group had set off more bombs in the 1960s.
Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, adds few new details about his relationship with Obama in the afterword to Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist. The book is being reissued this month.
We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where Id made a small donation to his earliest political campaign, he writes.
But right-wing commentators tried to use those connections to smear Obama, he says.
Obamas political rivals and enemies apparently saw an opportunity to deepen a dishonest narrative about him, that he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist, a sympathizer with extremism, Ayers wrote.
Ayers was the purported terrorist Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was referring to when she claimed that Obama was palling around with terrorists.
At a presidential debate, Obama described Ayers as engaging in despicable acts with a radical domestic group, adding that he roundly condemned those acts."
He has also said that Ayers is not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis.
The Weather Underground claimed responsibility for about a dozen bombings in the late 1960s, with targets including the Pentagon and Capitol. The group¹s casualties included three of its own members killed while making a bomb in New York City in 1970. In 1981, two police officers and a security guard were killed when other members of the group committed an armed robbery.
Ayers defends his role in the group.
I killed no one, and I harmed no one, and I didnt regret for a minute resisting the murderous assault on [Vietnam] with every ounce of my being, Ayers writes.
He denies a quote attributed to him in 2001: I dont regret setting bombs. I wish wed set more bombs. I dont think we did enough. The quote was widely republished during the presidential campaign.
Ayers writes, I never actually said that I set bombs, nor that I wished there were more bombs.
With the 1960s over, his more radical days are behind him, he writes. Nowadays, I go about my business, hang out with my wife and our kids and grandchildren, take care of the elders, go to work, teach, and write, the afterword states. I also organize and participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful movement for peace and social justice.
Ayers wrote the new afterword on July 8, 2008, a day when he writes he saw a 1960s-style bumper sticker all tie-dyed and psychedelic, and heard Give Peace a Chance on the radio. He begins the afterword with a quote from Bob Marleys Redemption Song: Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds.
Its [d]eja vu all over again, Ayers writes.
Ayers is scheduled to appear for a live interview Friday on ABC's Good Morning America.
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