The FBI comes calling: my encounter with the Unabomber.

When Ted Kaczinski goes to trial this November, I will take a personal interest in the proceedings. Why? My concern began back in the summer of 1995. I was basking in the New Mexico sun in blissful retirement, minding my own business, when out of nowhere I received a startling telephone call from the Albuquerque field office of the FBI. Would I be willing to talk to an agent about the Unabomber?

Come on over.

A few hours later, the agent arrived at my door. He presented me with a copy of the Unabomber's manifesto, which was not yet public. It was a facsimile of the original communication, complete with typos and tics, which the FBI and other agencies were furiously screening for clues about its origins, physical and intellectual. Would I be willing to read it and to talk to him a week later about my reactions? Sure. Would I be willing to attend a conference in San Francisco in several weeks to discuss it with others? Yes: I was intrigued by the idea of a detective story in which the clues were ideas.

The agent then asked me a series of prepared questions, most of which were quite specific. As a professor, had I ever used this or that book in class? He couldn't help smiling when he came to The Future of Technological Civilization by Victor Ferkiss. In leaving, he made me promise to read the manifesto within the week and to keep this whole matter as quiet as possible. I read it immediately, of course, partly in search of any mention of me or my book. But in vain.

Two days later, the phone rang again, and this time it was Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post who wanted to know what I thought of the manifesto. So much for secrecy! When Achenbach's story appeared on the front page of the Post a few days later, I was quoted, accurately but not by name, to the effect that, though I agreed with much of the substance of the Unabomber's diagnosis of the ills of modern industrial society, I thought his suggested cure its destruction by force - was way off base, to put it mildly.

The conference, held at a posh hotel, mustered only a half dozen academics and writers, far outnumbered by the members of the Unabomb Task Force, a hundred or so agents from the FBI, the Postal Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The mystery of why I had been invited was soon dispelled. At the first morning session, the lead agent of the Postal Service told the assemblage that the Unabomber must be a great fan of Professor Ferkiss, since so much of the manifesto had apparently been cribbed from The Future of Technological Civilization. I perhaps should have been flattered that at least someone had read it and taken it seriously, but in the circumstances I managed to suppress any possible elation.

That same afternoon, a lead agent of the FBI distributed a four-page paper, listing, by chapter and verse, parallels in ideas, similar or identical terminology, and apparent paraphrases linking the manifesto and my book. My only "defense" was that the evidence was circumstantial; many of the items cited in the comparison were commonplaces in the literature on technology and society back in 1974 when my book appeared, and the Unabomber may have gotten them from some other, common source - something like the hypothetical "Q" gospel of many biblical scholars. Still, it did not make matters easy for me that the Unabomber's manifesto was entitled "Industrial Society and its Future," nor that a book the manifesto did quote, Eric Hoffer's once popular The True Believer, sits next to The Future of Technological Civilization on many libraries' shelves. Talk about guilt by association!

Though nothing much was said, I couldn't help feeling that the Task Force members were not persuaded by my explanation. The conference was polite in tone, but included a note of near desperation. The Unabomber had been killing people for ten years. The Task Force was costing more than $1 million per year to operate. Some of its leaders had put off retirement to nab this elusive terrorist. A million-dollar reward had been offered for information, but it had elicited no real leads, rather phone calls from women, each claiming that the Unabomber must be her husband. And though the manifesto seemed at times to speak on behalf of a group, the Task Force members had become convinced that they were trying to catch a loner, an almost impossible task. So no wonder they were willing to grasp at straws.

Above all, they faced a dangerous deadline. The Unabomber had sent copies of the manifesto to the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Bob Guccione, publisher of Penthouse. If the manifesto were published in entirety, the Unabomber's accompanying notes seemed to imply, he would refrain from killing; but if not the bombing would resume. The agents asked us conferees what we thought should be done. Some felt that the manifesto should be published; that way, the Unabomber could be engaged in open dialogue and might betray himself. (It was taken for granted that the criminal was a man.) But others objected that publishing the manifesto would only play into his hands. So nothing was decided, and we were sent home with injunctions to keep the proceedings confidential. The agents also told us what we should do if we or our wives or secretaries received a suspicious package - just in case!

In the end, publication of the manifesto, pushed by Attorney General Janet Reno, did make a difference. Ted Kaczinski's brother read it, became suspicious, and led the FBI to make an arrest. In a conflict worthy of Greek tragedy, civic virtue triumphed over filial piety. Otherwise, the Task Force might still be looking, only not necessarily in the right places. If we presume that, as charged, Kaczinski is the Unabomber, he does not completely fit the Task Force's working profile, whatever the current claims. The Task Force was looking for someone far less educated, perhaps with some part-time graduate study, but nothing like a Berkeley assistant professor of mathematics. It was suspected he might be a skilled worker or technician with access to sophisticated tools, but not a mountain recluse. The Task Force assumed he lived in the San Francisco Bay area, from which the packages were usually mailed, but not the wilds of Montana. Lucky indeed.

Ted Kaczinski is accused of murder, not of heresy, and his forthcoming trial will turn primarily on the physical evidence. But the prosecution will be concerned not only with proving that he did in fact mail the bombs and write the manifesto; they will probably touch on his motivation as well. Where did he get his ideas? FBI agents, searching his cabin, found more than two hundred books, and he is known to have made use of the primitive local library and interlibrary loans. Among the books found in his cabin were a guide to the Bible by Isaac Asimov and Les miserables by Victor Hugo. There was also, I was relieved to learn, a copy of Growing up Absurd by the late social critic Paul Goodman; this could well form part of the "Q" source I suggested in my "defense" at the conference. But the FBI has not yet released a full inventory of the Unabomber's library, and I must follow the trial closely to see if The Future of Technological Civilization was among his collection. At this point, I am not at all sure what I hope the answer will be.

Victor Ferkiss taught government at Georgetown University and has been a frequent contributor to Commonweal.