Andy was correct about the change in policy of the organization following the accident in the Greenwich Village apartment. My confusion lay in the fact that no bomb ever planted by the Weathermen ever did in fact hurt anyone. This struck me as unlikely if they were targeting people before the accident but not afterwards. The answer appears to be that the efforts that led to the accident constituted the group's only foray into an attempted lethal bombing, and the accident itself led them to reconsider the idea:
Quote:
After the Greenwich Village incident, the Weathermen officially went underground. WUO shrank considerably, becoming even fewer than they had been when first formed. The group was devastated by the loss of their friends, and in late April, 1970, members of the Weathermen met in California to discuss what had happened in New York and the future of the organization. The group decided to reevaluate their strategy, particularly in regard to their initial belief in the acceptability of human casualties, rejecting such tactics as kidnapping and assassinations.
They wanted to convince the American public that the United States was truly responsible for the calamity in Vietnam.[6] The group began striking at night, bombing empty offices, with warnings always issued in advance to ensure a safe evacuation. According to David Gilbert, "[their] goal was to not hurt any people, and a lot of work went into that. But we wanted to pick targets that showed to the public who was responsible for what was really going on."[6] After the Greenwich Village explosion, no one was killed by WUO bombs.[7]
We were very careful from the moment of the townhouse on to be sure we weren't going to hurt anybody, and we never did hurt anybody. Whenever we put a bomb in a public space, we had figured out all kinds of ways to put checks and balances on the thing and also to get people away from it, and we were remarkably successful.
—Bill Ayers[6]
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Nothing like a brush with the reality of death to give anyone with a conscience second thoughts about cavalierly killing people. Of course, one must have a conscience in the first place for this to work.