Bombing the Banks

Busy on a story, Tim Findley did not check his mailbox at the San Francisco Chronicle until 3:30 in the afternoon. Even then, he did not bother to open a letter addressed to him from Chicago until 5. Printed neatly by hand, it warned that bombs had been planted in safe-deposit boxes in nine banks in New York, Chicago and San Francisco by a radical political group calling itself "Movement in Amerika."* The letter went on to list the names of the banks as well as the numbers of the boxes; enclosed was a key to one of the boxes.

Findley took the letter and the key to the police, but it was too late in the day to do anything. The bank vaults were closed by time locks for the night. Meanwhile, other newsmen had taken identical letters to the police, who waited impatiently through the night for the vaults to reopen. Next morning bomb squads in all three cities moved into the bank vaults to locate and deactivate the devices.

Apparently placed in the boxes last July, the bombs were all equipped with a seven-month fuse--a device sophisticated enough to persuade the police that some radicals have upgraded their skills; they suspect that the bombs were the work of the Weatherman.

The boxes had all been rented by a person or persons using the name of Christopher Charles Mohr. Unfortunately, Mohr may strike again. The radicals' letter declared that the bomb scare was only a warmup. Movement in Amerika is considering kidnaping property--a luxury hotel, a corporate office building, a superhighway--in exchange for the release of "political prisoners." The letter concluded: "Who will want to vacation in that hotel, meet in that board room or drive on that superhighway for the next few months?" The radicals also warned that a seven-month time bomb with a more powerful explosive might be placed in the FBI building that is being constructed in Washington.

The nation is not likely to be brought to a standstill by such tactics. The manager of one of the banks where a bomb had been placed said he had much more trouble when an irate customer put a dead fish in a safe-deposit box; the vault stank for weeks.

* The Germanic spelling is used contemptuously to indicate that the U.S. is run by "fascists."

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