Look for an in-depth story package on the legacy of the Sterling Hall bombing in the fall 2010 Registration issue, which will be on stands September 2-3.

Three years of intense protest activity at the University of Wisconsin reached terrible superlatives on August 24th of this year. An explosion so powerful it broke windows six blocks away, and so loud it woke up citizens over six miles from campus reduced the side of the new addition to Sterling Hall to a shambles. The wall disappeared, and steel-reinforced concrete dangled as if it were limp spaghetti.

Across Lathrop Drive, the Old Chemistry building sat windowless, and up the hill, Birge Hall was a mass of shattered lab equipment and glass. Days later, the dislodged ceiling in B-10 Commerce fell in on a group of bankers attending a seminar.

The blast killed UW research assistant Robert Fassnacht, leaving a wife and three children without their father. Several other persons also working in the building at around 3:45 a.m., the time of the blast, were injured.

Investigators from the US Army, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and local sheriff’s and police departments began picking up the pieces left behind after the blast, and concluded several days later that the explosion had been the result of a specially concocted mixture of nitrogen fertilizer and fuel oil, detonated by a stick or two of dynamite. The investigation indicated that the material was contained in a stolen van, which was parked next to the building.

Four persons were named in federal warrants accusing them of sabotage, destruction of government property, and conspiracy. Two were brothers from Madison, 24-year-old Karl Armstrong, and his brother Dwight, 19. The other two were 18-year-old David Fine, of Wilmington, Del., and 22-year-old Leo Burt, of Havertown, Pa., both members of the staff of the Daily Cardinal, a favorite butt of anti-war buffs on campus for the past year and a half. On the Friday following the blast, underground newspaper Kaleidoscope printed a statement “by the bombers.” It called the AMRC “a think-tank of Amerikan militarism,” and said that it was “a fitting target for such revolutionary violence.” It went on to make demands which, if not met, were to be emphasized by “open warfare, kidnapping of important officials, and even assassination…”

The text printed in Kaleidoscope, however, does not coincide with the actual note sent to Eliot Silberberg, which was found by FBI agents lying near a trash can at Silberberg’s home on Spaight Street.

That note, recounted in the FBI affidavit filed in US District Court in Madison (see text, elsewhere in this section), mentioned no demands, but was apparently written by former Daily Cardinal night editor David Fine. Fine and three others were summarily placed on the FBI’s “most wanted” list. That note was listed as being from “the Marion Deleado Collective” concerning the death of physics research assistant Robert Fassnacht. The note said, “for this death, there can be no rationalization.” The version printed in Kaleidoscope made no mention of the death, save for an editor’s note: “The New Year’s Gang regrets the death of Fassnacht.”

Once federal warrants were issued, the four fugitives slipped through the hands of the law at least three times, in a tragicomedy pursuit.

The four were first stopped by Sauk County Sheriff’s deputies heading north on highway 12 toward Baraboo a few hours after the blast. They were released shortly, however. Later, agents found what apparently was a hideout for the fugitives, reportedly near the Baraboo-Dells Airport, just north of Baraboo. There, remnants of the nitrogen fertilizer and fuel oil, which had been used to prepare the explosive was found.

The blast had occurred in the early hours of Monday morning. By Thursday, the four had split up into pairs, and the Armstrong brothers again slipped through the fingers of lawmen. They were stopped on a routine traffic check in Little Falls, N.Y., checked over, and then released. Later, Sgt. Nicholas Hollick opened the day’s newspaper and saw the young men’s pictures on FBI wanted posters. “I saw my boo-boo right there,” he said. FBI and state police swarmed over Little Falls, but they were too late.

At approximately the same time, police in Peterborough, Ontario, had the other two charged with the bombing under surveillance in a hippie section of that small Canadian city. They had been tipped off about the pair’s presence by FBI agents who apparently had found their trail as they slipped into Canada from New York. Late Thursday, before U.S. warrants which would enable arresting the two in Canada could be issued, Fine and Burt apparently sensed that something was up, and slipped away. Police lost their trail, and now no longer know their whereabouts. Subsequently, Canadian warrants were issued under a law concerning immigration of subversives and “unwanted aliens,” which would be sufficient for legal detention of the suspects.

All four, the Armstrongs, and Fine and Burt, are now believed to be hiding in Canada, possibly being helped by associates there. Fine and Burt have tried to have money sent to them on several occasions, once successfully, once unsuccessfully.

Meanwhile, authorities have now estimated the damage to UW buildings and equipment at $1.5 million. Classes have had to be rescheduled for other buildings, many at night, and reconstruction and repair will take many months to complete.

Years of research were destroyed in the blast. Though the bomb was aimed at the Math research Center, it takes up only three floors of the building. The physics department occupied the basement and other offices in the new wing, and the astronomy department used the top floor and roof. The explosion reduced to tiny fragments the carefully ground mirrors in the two telescopes on the roof of Sterling Hall.

Heavily damaged was a particle accelerator operated by the Physics Department in the basement of the building. Only about 15 labs in the United States possess the kind of accelerator and associated computer system as the one that was in Sterling Hall.

Ironically, while physics and astronomy research was set back as much as 12 or 15 years in some cases, the Math research Center was back in operation the day after the blast.

Serious doubts have entered into the minds of many scientists working at the University of Wisconsin. The despair which accompanies seeing decades of work go up in smoke runs deep now, especially since there is every reason to believe that it could just as easily happen again.

“Clearly, you can’t just let the rubble lie, because then they’ve won hands down. But on the other hand if you get all blown up again in a year, it’s really futile,” said Professor Robert Borchers, as he surveyed the bombed-out shell of what used to be his nuclear physics laboratory.

Will the effect of such despair be severe? It could well be. According to Borchers, “lots of people have simply talked about getting out of academic life. I think that’s a very real possibility.”

Several minor typographical errors in the original copy were corrected.