A statement for peace, an act of war

Long before 9/11, America was struck by a domestic terror attack in the name of peace. Forty-one years ago this week ... at the height of the Vietnam War protests ... an explosion rocked the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Peter Greenberg was a student there, and this morning he reports our Cover Story:

It took place 41 years ago this past week in Madison, Wisconsin. It was the height of student unrest over the war in Vietnam. On the nation's campuses there were chants of "Bring the war home."

And on August 24, 1970, they did just that.

"It was a horrific act that was wrong then, it's wrong today, and it changed things in a bad way," said Paul Soglin.

Back in those days, Soglin - the man who is now Madison's mayor - was one of the leaders of student anti-war protests on campus.

And as he recollects, it all started innocently enough ...

"The anti-war movement adopted a lot of its tactics and strategies from the civil rights movement, which was about 10 years older," he said. "It was one of picketing, demonstrating and passive resistance."

"It was the kind of campus where, at least in the early '60s, when people had a demonstration, some people would show up in jackets, if not ties," said author and commentator Jeff Greenfield, a UW student in the '60s, says that, as the fighting intensified, so too did student protests.

The escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965, when the bombing began, triggered a wave of increasing anger and demonstrations.

"What's happening is the numbers are growing and the intensity of the action is growing, Soglin said, "much of it is assisted by what the police do.

When Madison police beat Soglin and other students while breaking up a campus protest a few years earlier, Soglin says, something changed:

"I remember that evening we had a meeting and one young woman stands up and says, 'I don't know what a radical is, but I'm a radical now.' She said that experience did it."

The Madison bombing took place just months after Ohio National guardsmen shot and killed four students while breaking up an anti-war demonstration at Kent State University.

"People from that era know why the bombing was done," said former U-W student Karl Armstrong, who says small wonder he felt he was at war with his government.

"It was like a message sent to us: 'We're gonna kill you, you know, your demonstrations mean nothing to us,'" Armstrong said. "And so that's when we decided to take them head-on."

The Army Math Research Center, a Defense Department-funded institute that worked on weapons technology, had become a focal point for student protestors on the Madison campus.

Karl Armstrong decided to make a statement.

"We knew approximately what size bomb we needed, probably a ton of explosives," he said.

"How did you know that?" asked Greenberg.

"Oh, just looking at the size of the building," Armstrong replied. "I had visualized basically Army Math being leveled. That would be the perfect statement."

Armstrong and his brother, Dwight - along with fellow students David Fine and Leo Burt - stole a van, then filled it with explosives.

"Our criteria was, basically no one on the street, no one in the building," Armstrong said.

"So you had a specific time planned?" Greenberg asked.

"Yeah, the time was, like, it was the most important because the whole bombing of Army Math, the political success of Army Math depended on no one getting hurt," he said.

In the early hours of August 24, 1970, Armstrong and Leo Burt launched their attack.

"David had surveyed the building," Armstrong recalled. "The problem was he didn't tell me that there were lights on in the building. I felt, you know, really - I mean, really uneasy about it because, you know, we weren't sure. You know, Why were these lights on?"

"But you proceeded anyways?" Greenberg asked.

"Well, I turned to my confederate, and he asks me, 'Do we go ahead? Are we gonna do this?'" Armstrong said. "I think I made a comment to him about something like, 'Now I think I know what war is about.' And I told him to light it."

It was an ammonia nitrate bomb, said Chris Cole, an agent with the FBI in Madison, which investigated the crime.

"It was generally viewed as the largest, most destructive terrorist attack occurring on U.S. soil prior to the Oklahoma City Bombing," Cole said.

"It was something that I'd only ever seen in film," said Soglin, "and in scenes of buildings blowing up during World War II - things that happened in war."

And while the bombing was timed to make certain the building was empty, the reality, Cole said, "is there was someone there, and he was killed."

Armstrong and his "confederates" heard the news in their getaway car.

"Well, hear on the radio that, basically, that the announcer said they were pulling a body out of Army Math," said Armstrong. "And it looked like someone had died. All of us were saying, 'Oh no...' And then I told everybody in the car, I said, 'Maybe with time, we'll feel better about this.'"

"Has that time come?" Greenberg asked.

"Oh, I don't think you can ever feel good about it," Armstrong said. "I felt good about doing the bombing, the bombing per se, but not taking someone's life."

"There had been deaths on American college campuses already," said Greenfield. "It's just that the deaths before that were perpetrated by the forces of authority. This time, it was the dissidents."

In a contemporary report CBS News correspondent Ike Pappas said, "There's no question in the minds of authorities that this was the work of dissident radicals."

"This was off the charts," said Soglin. "This was so different than anything that had happened."

And Paul Soglin said it hurt the cause it was supposed to help. "When school reopened a couple of weeks later, it was as though the life had been sucked out of the anti-war movement," he said.

"I think the Army Math Research Center bombing was the moment when most everybody in the movement had to look into their own souls and minds, and say, 'What are we about?'" said Greenfield.

Armstrong's father urged Karl and his brother Dwight to turn themselves in: "They'll find you eventually anyway," he said.

Karl and Dwight - along with David Fine - were eventually caught and imprisoned. Karl served 8 years of a 23-year sentence.

But the fourth bomber, Leo Burt, disappeared - vanished.

Four decades and counting since that early morning in August, there's still a $150,000 reward for his capture. But the trail seems to have grown cold.

As for Karl Armstrong, he returned to Madison after his prison term.

In fact, until recently, Armstrong operated a juice stand just blocks from the campus building he destroyed.

Karl's brother Dwight also returned to Madison - he died last year.

And David Fine, who went on to law school but was denied admission to the Oregon Bar, has worked as a paralegal.

Robert Fassnacht's widow, Stephanie, remained in Madison, where she raised their three children. She never remarried

She declined to appear in this story. But she did give us a message for Karl Armstrong: "I would like him to know that I harbor no ill will towards him - and I never did."

"I've always felt shame for, you know, it's - but I felt that the original motivation for the bombing was true," said Armstrong.

Still, Armstrong's message for his fugitive confederate may surprise you:

"If he's watching this show, if he's watching you right now, what would you want to say to Leo?" Greenberg asked.

"Good job keeping yourself free, Leo, good job," Armstrong replied.

"No hesitation on that message?" Greenberg asked.

"No. Because, you know, to us there was purity of purpose. And it just went bad."