Table Of ContentMARINCOUNTYFREELIBRARY
3 1111 01882 2757
The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski
His 25 Years
by Chris Waits arid Dave Shors
H^
Civic Center New Books
364. 152 Waits
i Waits, Chris
Unabomber the secret
:
life of Ted Kaczynski
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Cat No 23-221
Dedication
ToAmerirdfis h:'/io L:rrrliterallyheldhostagehythenotorious Vnabomberfor
eighteenyears:tothehomhingvirtimsandtheirfamilies L^hoselivesh:rre
shattered:andtothoseinLincolndirectlytouchedhythevengefulacts. All
deserveandhavetherightto knovi'thetruth andthedetails.
Chris M. Waits
Acknowledgment
Ourthankstothe UpperBlackfoot Valley HistoricalSocietyfortheircontribu-
tionsaboutLincolnhistory,fromtheirbookGold Pans and Singletrees.
ISBN 1-56037-131-5softbound: 1-56037-139-0hardbound
©1999HelenaIndependentRecordandMontanaMagazine
Text©1999ChrisWaits
PrintedinCanada
Thisbookmaynotbereproducedinwholeorinpartbyanymeans
(withtheexceptionofshortquotesforthepurposeofreview)
withoutthepermissionofthepublisher.
Contents
The Discovery 12
Welcome to Florence Gulch 28
Lincoln, Ted's Haven 59
Changes in McClellan Gulch 69
The Lincoln Mysteries 77
The
Arrest ..110
:
The Investigation Begins 119
Tug ofWar
..!... ':....: :....: ...|,,......,.i25
The Secret Cabin and the FBI I U4
Secrets Revealed 152
Ted's Bed and Breakfast 164
Caught in His Ov^n Trap 178
Interviews and Trial Strategies ....213
The
"Queer'^ Scale .....228
A Closer Look 264
Digitized by the Internet Archive
2010
in
http://www.archive.org/details/unabombersecretlOOwait
Introduction
Ted Kaczynski is a master illusionist, a sleight-of-mind artist who
based his life on deception. He shrouded his violent acts beneath the
gentle facade ofa Montana hermit, pulling doves ofinnocence out of
his scruffy beard, smellyclothes, and non-intrusive lifestyle while he
injured and killed people with his deadly bombs.
Who would have thought on the morning ofApril 3, 1996, when
the springChinookwinds were thawing the small mountain commu-
nityofLincoln outofthe grips ofa longwinterfreeze, that Kaczynski's
deadly bag oftricks would be exposed that very day.
By mid-day, Lincoln was abuzz. In the middle ofthe morning,
Kaczynski had been tricked into coming out of his one-room cabin
and was in the custody of federal agents. In the early evening dusk
he was being transported along the same gravel Stemple Pass Road
where he had often walked and ridden his bicycle, on his way to a
small FBI office in Helena.
By midnight, when he was safely incarcerated in Lewis and Clark
County Jail in Helena, the town ofLincoln had been jolted into the
million-watt limelightofworld attention, never to be the same again.
ChrisWaits awoke that sameApril dayin nearbyMcClellan Gulch,
knowing dozens of federal agents were in Lincoln scrutinizing his
friend and neighborofnearly twenty-five years. At firstWaits thought
the investigation mightbe related to huntingviolations, since Kaczynski
lived offthe land, and had shot deer and elk out ofseason for many
years.
But there was too much attention, too many federal agents lurk-
ing in the Lincoln area for a mere poacher to warrant.
The Unabomber, though.^ Never. Waits was as shocked as the rest
ofthe communitywhen he learned Kaczynski was a suspect, and even
defended his iniioecnee until the oxerwhehiiin^ physieal evidenee
mounted.
Kaezynski's arrest shook Waits to the eore and initially made him
fear that he mi«!;ht e\en be a suspeet in the ease.
As the in\estimation unfolded and Waits was eleared ofany pos-
sible inxolvement, the FBI's evidence search extended far beyond
Kaczynski's small Lincoln cabin. Agents played a cat-and-mouse game
with Waits while searchingthe rugged mountain terrain nearhis home.
What were they looking for.^ Waits determined it was something
critical, somethingthat would help prove the government'scase against
Kaczynski. And Waits was certain the evidence was hidden in the
thousands oftimbered acres behind his house in McClellan Gulch.
FBI agents were reluctant to involve outsiders, so Waits decided
to start his own search, and spent all his free time combing the back-
country.
He hiked many back-countrygame trails lookingforevidence that
included Kaczynski's secret hunting camps.
Summer wound down, and Waits still hadn't discovered the key
evidence everyone was after.
By late Novembera major arctic cold front threatened to turn the
rugged mountain terrain into a no-man's land. Waits decided to take
one last trip into the backcountry. As the day wore on, it seemed to
be another futile search. Trudging through the snow in the late after-
noon, Waits decided to drop offthe mountain and return home. Yet a
strange premonition pushed him farther into the mountains as dark-
ness settled.
Something forced him to cHmb one last steep slope. He looked
through the stands of lodgepole pine in the dimming light and saw
the ghost image ofa small log cabin. It was a secret shack and hide-
out Ted had built years earlier.
The discovery opened many doors with the FBI, as Waits later
became a confidant and was tagged as a trial witness.
Who would have thought Lincoln could be the lair ofone ofthe
most threatening domestic terrorists in our history.^ The mere threat
of his bombs could paralyze the nation or close down airports. He
deceived two of the country's most prestigious and powerful news-
papers into publishinghis 35,000-word manifesto. In return, he wrote.
he would stop killing people. But he continued to build more sophis-
ticated devices and plot further acts ofrevenge.
As millions ofAmericans and the entire human community hun-
gered for more information about Kaczynski after his arrest, sketchy
details portrayed him as a mathematical genius and former Berkeley
math instructorwho had left academia to become a mountain hermit.
Stories focused on his early years in the Heartland, academic suc-
cesses at Harvard, Michigan, and Berkeley, his reclusive childhood
and failed forays into the world oflasting relationships.
But then in 1971, when Kaczynski built his cabin on a heavily tim-
bered 1.4acres in Florence Gulch within a mile ofStemple Pass Road,
he literally dropped offthe face ofthe earth.
During the next twenty-five years, almost halfofhis life, he sur-
vived as a primitive hunter-gatherer, much like the early miners and
settlers who moved into this untamed part ofthe West in the mid-
19th century.
But this was not Henry David Thoreau, living the peaceful life at
Walden Pond. This was TheodoreJohn Kaczynski, a criminal willing
—
to kill at the slightest provocation ofthe technological arm or ten-
—
tacle ofan octopus, as he would describe it ofour society.
He lusted for revenge. He wanted to rub his hands in the blood
ofmodern technocrats. Only the death ofa scientist, businessman or
a Communist would ease the pain ofhis hatred.
How do we know this.^
Not because Ted's secret twenty-five years were scrutinized dur-
ing a public trial. The details of his twisted logic and hatred would
have been aired before a shocked world-wide audience had he faced
twelve jurors in Sacramento Federal Court. His thoughts, plans of
revenge, and descriptions of his life would have amazed the people
he threatened.
The FBI and the prosecution team had a detailed description of
Kaczynski's life ofcrime, because hewas aprodigious writer. His small
cabin, heated onlybya wood stove and with none ofthe conveniences
ofourtime, was an archive ofhis written word. Organized in volumes
of scratchpads, pocket notebooks and three-ring binders were some
22,000 pages ofhis life's script.
Most of his work was handwritten in English, some in Spanish.
The most incriminatin<j; descriptions of his crimes were disguised in
numerical code. But it was all there, in conversations with himself,
the thoughts ofa would-be mass murderer, spelled out in detail.
When the FBI returned to Lincoln during the summerof 1997 to
study the evidence found in the secretcabin and to search otherareas
ofMcClellan Gulch, Waits guided them through the terrain he knew
so well. During the search Waits became the first outsider to see and
study many of Kaczynski's documents, w^hich included hundreds of
pages from the Unabomber's personal journals.
As he worked with the FBI, Waits compiled notes daily and com-
mitted as much ofthe material to memory as possible.
Kaczynski'sjournals also described buried caches ofammunition,
bomb parts, and food on W^aits' land.
W^aits was sure Kaczynski also had a cache hidden in McClellan
Gulch containing copies ofjournal notes and his bomb experiments.
After FBI agents returned to Sacramento to prepare for the trial,
Waits continued his search for the hidden caches and otherevidence.
Through his searches, and several unnamed sources, he finallyobtained
—
the motherlode literally hundreds ofpages ofKaczynski's personal
journals and notes.
All the information would have become public record if the
Unabomber had been tried. Instead, Kaczynski and federal prosecu-
tors worked out a plea agreement in which he admitted his guilt in
exchange for sentences oflife in prison.
Ted's plea bargain was a disservice to the American people and
his victims, because no one otherthan a few- professionals had achance
to study the inner face ofthis modern-day terrorist.
The plea saved the country the great expense of a long public
trial, one that promised to be a circus, but it also meant Kaczynski's
written admission in his personal journals to dozens ofcrimes w^as
locked away in some evidence room. Much ofhis self-analysis w^on't
be seen for years, probably until after his death.
Some short excerpts have found their way into the mainstream
press.
But only bits and pieces until this point.
Waits was probably the only outsiderwho had seen the Kaczynski
journals. Certainly, he was the only person outside the select group
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