BRINGING DOWN AMERICA

Grathwohl was strolling around Cincinnati one day in 1969 when he was handed a leaflet. Next thing you know he had become a Weatherman, and for many months he maintained a dual identity, conscientiously reporting the Weathermen's ""murderous plots"" to the FBI. He did it, he says, strictly for patriotic reasons though eventually the Bureau insisted he go on its payroll. All of which might make you wonder why Bernadine Dohrn, Mark Rudd, Kathy Boudin, et al. are still at large. Well, it wasn't Larry's fault. He spray-painted OFF THE PIGS on storefront windows; he took the offensive (""You people spend too much time talking""); and his militancy and working-class background made him the only agent the Weathermen's security system didn't purge when they went underground. When not making half-baked plans to blow up government installations, they lived spartan lives: rising early, working late, living in collectives, exercising for 20 minutes each morning, preaching no-nonsense sex. Grathwohl did have passing contacts with Rudd and Diana Oughton, and he'll tell you that ""a good many of these people I grew to like"" even as he was graduating to cherry bombs. Unfortunately, some hotshot in the FBI decided to make a premature arrest and blew Larry's cover. The Weathermen put out their own poster on him: Wanted Nor Crimes Against the People. But Grathwohl's still thriving by ""counseling police and government agencies on terrorist and urban guerrilla organizations."" As written down by Frank Reagan it's all rather monotonous and tacky. Can wild-eyed revolutionaries be this dull?