Bill Ayers went underground again Thursday.
But this time, it was to avoid a political
maelstrom, not the FBI.
Ayers, 63, spent 10 years as a fugitive
in the 1970s when he was part of the "Weather Underground," an anti-Vietnam War group that protested U.S. policies by bombing
the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and a string of other government buildings. Nobody was hurt in the attacks by the defunct organization,
which the FBI labeled a "domestic terrorist group."
Today, Ayers and his wife -- fellow former
Weather Underground fugitive Bernardine Dohrn -- live in Hyde Park, where they moved after surrendering in 1980. Federal charges
against the two were dropped because of improper surveillance, so they avoided prison.
Ayers and Dohrn have raised two sons of
their own and adopted a third boy whose parents were Weather Underground members who went to prison. They've built stellar
reputations as professors: Dohrn at Northwestern's law school, Ayers as an education professor at the University of Illinois
at Chicago.
Along the way, they met a rising political
star named Barack Obama, who lived in their neighborhood.
The Ayers-Obama relationship became a hot
topic in Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate. It is "an issue certainly Republicans will be raising" should Obama be
the Democratic nominee for president, Obama rival Hillary Clinton said.
In the mid-1990s, Ayers and Dohrn hosted
a meet-and-greet at their house to introduce Obama to their neighbors during his first run for the Illinois Senate. In 2001,
Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's campaign. Ayers also served alongside Obama between December 1999 and December 2002 on the
board of the not-for-profit Woods Fund of Chicago. That board met four times a year, and members would see each other at occasional
dinners the group hosted.
Reached by the Sun-Times on her cell phone,
Dohrn declined to comment. Ayers, who was traveling, did not return messages.
But friends like Chicago political strategist
Marilyn Katz said Ayers should not be a campaign issue.
Katz met Ayers when he was 17 and they were
members of Students for a Democratic Society, a peaceful group from which the Weather Underground splintered. She noted Ayers'
work with Mayor Daley to overhaul the Chicago Public Schools and likened him to Black Panther-turned-U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush.
"What Bill Ayers and Bobby Rush ... did
40 years ago has nothing to do with" the presidential campaign, Katz said. Ayers "has a national reputation. He lectures at
Harvard and Vassar. He writes the textbooks that are the standard for innovative approaches to reaching inner-city youth."
Ayers, a Glen Ellyn native who became active
in SDS while attending the University of Michigan, is the son of late Commonwealth Edison CEO Thomas G. Ayers. Ayers has praised
his dad for standing by him while he was on the lam.
A book Ayers penned about those years, Fugitive
Days, landed him in hot water on Sept. 11, 2001. That morning, the New York Times ran a story about the book in which
Ayers said, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Ayers' statement was made before the World Trade Center
attacks, but its timing led some to believe it was in response. "My book is in fact a condemnation of terrorism in all its
forms -- individual, group and official," Ayers later said in a letter to the Chicago Tribune.
Ayers has a Web site, billayers.org,
in which he blogs about politics and other subjects. He lets friends and foes post comments.
In response to an Ayers posting, "End the
War," a reader wrote, "You are an anti-American communist and a terrorist. I hope you get what you deserve over and over and
over."
Ayers has not formally endorsed Obama for
president.
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