May, 2012
“The Harvard Alumni Association has apologized for an entry in the 50th anniversary report of the class of 1962 in which Ted Kaczynski — the domestic terrorist known as the Unabomber, who is serving life in prison for sending deadly mail bombs — said his “awards” included eight life sentences.
“We regret publishing Kaczynski’s references to his convictions and apologize for any distress that it may have caused others,” the statement said.
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Susan Mosser — widow of Thomas Mosser, a 50-year-old advertising executive who was killed in December 1994 when a package exploded in the kitchen of their New Jersey home — said Wednesday, “Kaczynski is a con artist. He’s a serial killer; he’s a murderer. . . . Everything is a game for him to push people’s buttons.”
She said she thought that if Harvard did not publish Kaczynski’s information, he would have tried to sue the school for excluding it.
While many of his classmates sent in lengthy updates on their lives for the 2½-inch-thick “red book,” the entry for Theodore John Kaczynski contains only nine lines.
The listing says his occupation is “Prisoner,” and his home address is “No. 04475-046, US Penitentiary — Max, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 8126-8500.”
Under the awards section, the listing says, “Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998.”
Kaczynski’s name was also included in a state-by-state listing of the alumni at the back of the book.
A Harvard Alumni Association spokesman confirmed Wednesday that Kaczynski submitted the entry for the “Harvard and Radcliffe Classes of 1962 — Fiftieth Anniversary Report.” The association said in its statement that “all members of the class who submit entries are included,” even as it apologized for publishing Kaczynski’s references to his convictions.
The story came to light as proud alumni and parents gathered with graduating students for graduation today in Cambridge.
One of Kaczynski’s classmates said Wednesday that he didn’t blame Harvard for the entry in the report.
“I don’t fault them on that,” said John Higginson.
He said the entries are written by the alumni, and rather than making Harvard look bad, the entry made Kaczynski look bad for writing it.
Kaczynski evaded the FBI for nearly 20 years while killing three people and injuring 23 others with bombs sent through the US mail.
Last year, a federal judge in California ordered that auction proceeds of about $225,000 from the sale of writings and papers seized from Kaczynski’s cabin be disbursed to Mosser and three other relatives of his victims, court records show.
A former lawyer for Kaczynski, Erin Jolene Radekin of Sacramento, represented him during the restitution phase of his case and said by phone Wednesday that she had not been in contact with him in some time.
Court records suggest that in recent years Kaczynski has been aware of his possible reentry into the headlines. In a letter to Radekin in 2010, Kaczynski appeared concerned that buyers of his papers would publish them without his permission.
“Ask the court to order the government to make clear to all potential purchasers of my papers that they will be acquiring the papers only as physical property and that they will acquire no literary rights in the papers,” he wrote to Radekin, according to a court filing.”
Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, wanted to make sure his fellow Harvard University alumni knew what he has been up to.
In an alumni report for the class of 1962, ahead of their 50th reunion, the Boston Globe reports that Kaczynski listed “8 life sentences” under the Awards section. If anyone wants to reach him, he listed his home address as “No. 04475-046, US Penitentiary—Max, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 8126-8500.”
In the back of the “Harvard and Radcliffe Classes of 1962 — Fiftieth Anniversary Report,” Kaczynski was listed in the state-by-state listings as a Colorado resident.
“He’s more famous than anyone else in our class,” Gary G. Peterson, a ’62 Harvard grad, recently said in a separate article in the Harvard Crimson.
Kaczynski was accepted to Harvard at the age of 16, where he received an undergraduate degree. But later in life, he evaded authorities for two decades while he terrorized victims with a mail-bombing campaign, killing three people and injuring 20 more.
The victims of his bombings are not amused at Kaczynski’s listing in the 50th anniversary report.
“Kaczynski is a con artist. He’s a serial killer, he’s a murderer,” Susan Mosser, a widow of one of the victims, told the Globe. “Everything is a game for him to push people’s buttons.”
UPDATE:
The alumni association responsible for publishing Kaczynski’s entry apologized on Wednesday evening.
“While all members of the class who submit entries are included,” the Harvard Alumni Association said in a statement Wednesday evening, “we regret publishing Kaczynski’s references to his convictions and apologize for any distress that it may have caused others.”
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