The son of some of the most wanted radicals in the U.S. spoke about life in hiding — BBC News

The BBC interviewed the son of Bernardine Dorn and Bill Ayers, two of the most wanted radicals in the United States. Both were active members of the Weather Underground—a radical movement that emerged in the late 1960s amid protests against the Vietnam War and racial discrimination. The organization carried out a series of bombings at U.S. government facilities, including the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the State Department.

Zayd Ayers Dorn was born in 1977, when his parents had already been living underground for about a decade, and his mother was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. In 1980, when Zeid was about three years old, his parents decided to come out of hiding; Dorn turned herself in to the authorities, and the family eventually settled in Chicago.

 

Zayd spent the first years of his life with his parents in hiding. 

“Even when I was very young, I was taught revolutionary wisdom… I was taught to spot undercover police officers and FBI agents in a crowd… I was taught to speak in code on the phone… For me, it was all kind of like a game,” recalls Zeid Ayers Dorn.

According to his own recollections, even in early childhood he understood that his family was hiding from the FBI. There were no Disney characters on the walls of his room. Instead, portraits of Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh stared back at him. For several years, he couldn’t attend preschool. And the family camping trips weren’t meant for roasting marshmallows over a campfire: on at least one occasion, the family used them to scout the grounds of a federal prison from which they were planning a prisoner’s escape.

“I knew the FBI was after us. My parents never lied to me about it. They explained what was happening in a way a child could understand. For example, they compared us to Robin Hood. We were outlaws who took from the rich and gave to the poor. Something along those lines,” Zayd recalls.

In 1980, when the boy was about three years old, Dorn and Ayers decided to come out of hiding. Dorn turned herself in to law enforcement and was later convicted on lesser charges. In May 1982, Zeid appeared with his parents at a federal court in New York.

Later, the family moved to Chicago, where Zeid’s parents began their professional lives outside the underground. Bill Ayers became a professor, and Bernadine Dorn continued her legal and academic career. According to Zeid, by the time he was about 12, his life had taken on the appearance of a normal childhood—he went to school and played sports, although his parents’ history and their past remained an important part of his family’s story.

As a reminder, on October 4, the FBI arrested California resident Wan-Ying Zhang, who is suspected of spying on the son of Taiwan’s president. According to the investigation, the woman may have been acting on the instructions of Chinese officials.

In the U.S., President Donald Trump stated that the co-pilot of the Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv may have been a terrorist or may have acted irrationally. 

India’s Ministry of Home Affairs has designated a network linked to Pakistani social media influencer Shahzad Bhatti as a terrorist group.