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SUSAN STAMBERG, HOST: It's WEEKEND EDITION. I'm Susan Stamberg.
Federal prosecutors preparing a case against suspected Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski will put a cryptographer on the stand next month to explain the contents of a diary that may link Kaczynski to a number of crimes.
The diary, written apparently in mathematical code, underscores what little is known of the events that shaped Kaczynski's life. It is known he was a brilliant mathematician who taught at the University of California Berkeley during two of that school's most turbulent years: 1967 and '68; anti-Vietnam War demonstrations; student strikes; a raging fight over a place called "People's Park. " The campus was in almost constant turmoil.
Here's NPR's John McChesney.
JOHN MCCHESNEY, NPR REPORTER: Hot rhetoric and the acrid smell of tear gas were a constant while Theodore Kaczynski taught at Berkeley. But the battle over People's Park in the spring of 1969, just as he was about to quit his job, was the most violent the campus and the city had ever seen.
At issue was a scruffy, weedy lot in downtown Berkeley, owned by the university. Hippies and radicals had camped out there, planted trees and shrubs, and dubbed it a park. The university regents moved in with bulldozers and built a fence around the land, ringed by police.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
(SOUNDBITE OF A CROWD)
The next day on campus, at a rally attended by several thousand, student body president Dan Siegel (ph) spoke.
DAN SIEGEL, FORMER STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY: I have a suggestion.
(LAUGHTER)
Let's go down to People's Park.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)
People be careful. Don't let those pigs beat the shit out of you. Don't let yourself get arrested on felony. Go down there and (Unintelligible) park.
CROWD, CHANTING: We want the park We want the park
MCCHESNEY: The crowd marched down Telegraph Avenue, and before long engaged the police in battle. Denny Smithson (ph), a reporter for the local Pacifica radio station KPFA, described the scene as it grew increasing ugly.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CROWD, CHANTING: We want the park We want the park
DENNY SMITHSON, KPFA REPORTER: The police are now being charged by people who are throwing rocks in great number. And matter of...