JUDI: Two weeks before I was bombed in Oakland, a bomb partially exploded at the Cloverdale L-P mill. This bomb turned out to have the identical construction of the bomb in my car, absent the motion device. It had the timer, it had the same kind of colors of wires, it had the same solder -- they tested the solder, it was from the same tube of solder. They tested the tape, it was from the same roll of tape. It was made from identical components. And this bomb at the Cloverdale L-P mill, instead of being attached to a motion device and placed in a car, it was attached to a can of gasoline: it was an incendiary bomb, and it's supposed intention was to light the gasoline and burn down the mill. Placed near by -- and this is a strange thing for somebody who intended to burn down a mill -- was a cardboard sign that said: L-P Screws Millworkers.

The bomb partially exploded -- in fact, it barely exploded: it exploded just enough to pop off the end cap (there's where your weak end cap is, it's in Cloverdale) -- it popped off the end cap and it dented the can. But it didn't explode the gas can and it didn't burn down the mill. So what it left them with was an intact model of the bomb in my car. That's what was left.

This happened two weeks after the bomb school and two weeks before the bomb exploded in my car in Oakland.

Cardboard sign found next to an incendiary bomb that failed to explode found at the Cloverdale, CA, Louisiana-Pacific sawmill. Judi Bari says this is the message she was conveying to millworkers, and she theorizes that the bomb was designed to fail, and the sign was intended to point suspicion at her. Why else would someone put a cardboard sign next to an incendiary bomb, Bari asks. (Police photo, 1990)

I think that this bomb was a footprint that was left in the world to be traced back to me later. And if you look at my files, they say: Judi Bari was a labor organizer targeting L-P; therefore she is suspected of the Cloverdale bomb; therefore she is also suspected of the bomb in her car.

The night of the bombing -- within hours -- within seven hours of the time the bomb explodes, the FBI held a briefing meeting for the Oakland police, and at that meeting they said that I was the chief suspect in the Cloverdale bomb. So this was already set up.

Now I believe the Cloverdale bomb was a deliberate dud. I believe its intention was to leave an intact model that would then later be matched to the bomb in my car, in order to give an additional reason to say that it was my bomb.

So what is the implication of that? The implication is that two weeks before I was bombed, somebody knew that not only was I going to be bombed, but I was going to be arrested for that bombing, because they planted something so that the bomb could be traced back to me.

And that's a pretty incredible fact. As I've learned these things little-by-little, I've been constantly astounded -- and confounded... Let's not leave out L-P, either. I don't know where they came from.

You feel there could have been a conspiracy between some one at Louisiana-Pacific and the FBI?

JUDI: Or anybody... My knowledge of the history of the FBI shows that it is quite unusual for them to do the actual bombing themselves. More likely, they keep the things at arms length. They kind of have a generalized knowledge of it. But as we've been pursuing this case, these little bits and pieces have been coming out piece by piece, and sometimes it is so overwhelming -- I mean, when I found out about bomb school, I hid under my covers for two weeks.

It was a complete post-traumatic reaction. I had serious panic attacks where I had to pull over my car at the side of a road and I broke out into a cold sweat. For four days after I learned about bomb school -- it was so scary.

And realizing this thing about the Cloverdale bomb, that the Cloverdale bomb was a footprint. That somebody must have known that not only was I going to be bombed, but I was going to be blamed for it two weeks before it happened. Those things have been really hard. This has been a very emotionally hard thing to do, to pursue this case and to find these things out.

The Lord's Avenger letter (which still seems so valid to me, Judi, so abruptly episodic, remembering what it was like that week -- the whole region focused on this bombing, you and Darryl still firmly the suspects. Even yet I feel it could have been written during a legitimate psychotic episode, an abrupt spiritual need for confession.) That letter also takes credit for the Cloverdale bomb. You and Darryl had written and recorded a song about the layoffs at the Potter Valley mill. The Christian fundamentalist, Bill Staley, certainly cognizant of who you were because of the abortion rally, was a mill worker who had been screwed ...

Purporting to explain the language of the sign, the use of the word "screwed".

JUDI: Well, I can't buy this. If he wanted to bring infamy down upon me, why didn't he write: "L-P screws millworkers, Earth First!" This bomb was not associated with me until the bomb went off in Oakland. I don't think Bill Staley did any of those things.

The person who called me after hearing Darryl on the air, suggested that the bombing of your car was a conspiracy among men within the anti-abortion movement who also had ties to the timber industry. Fundamentalist men. ... Four years go by; then, just recently, a New Settler aficionado sends me a long feature California magazine published in October of 1988 about Mormon renegades in the California bureau of the FBI: how they go so long, not so much undetected, but undisciplined. The "Mormon Mafia" is how writer, David Weddle, characterizes what is clearly a phenomena. "Spiritual conferences" on FBI time. Mormon agents, engaged in all kinds of crazed, illegal activities , covered up by their Mormon superiors. My theory, at this point, is whereas the bombings may not have been a conspiracy on the part of FBI leftovers from COINTELPRO, it might well have been rogue elements within the FBI who engaged in a plot to kill you -- because you are the kind of woman who you are: men who were at bomb school together, at least one man who was at the abortion rally in Ukiah.

JUDI: And the connection between FBI and timber. The first time we've seen this connection demonstrated was in the memo that we got about bomb school that revealed to us that the bomb school was held on L-P land.

"Well," says L-P, we always cooperate with authorities."

And they certainly do. Both Doug Goss and Frank Wigginton, L-P security officers, used to be county sheriff deputies before they started working for L-P.

So I think it is not unreasonable. I think there is a revolving door relationship between the local police, L-P security, FBI -- all these groups associate with each other. And I certainly think it is reasonable to suspect rogue elements within them, possibly linked.

Finally, there is a large Mormon church in Willits, the belly button of the "Redwood Empire."

JUDI: The Mormon church link is speculative. We don't have a concrete link of any Mormons to this case yet.

A lawyer working on your case, a guy named Simpich, called me two years ago, when he first heard of Sharon Doubiago's intuitive piecing together of imagery, with a likewise suspicion.

JUDI: But nothing came of that. He compiled a lot of information but none of it connected. I'm not saying there isn't a connection; I'm saying we haven't found one. I suspected a connection between timber and the FBI for many years, and we didn't find any evidence of it until a month ago. So I'm not saying that evidence isn't going to emerge.

But what I'm trying to learn is a level of caution. Because I've seen how I myself was vilified by people taking innuendoes and implications, and extending them as if they were facts, I'm trying not to do that back. Even if I have suspicions.

I have many suspicions that I haven't voiced here. And I haven't voiced them because even though I consider them very reasonable courses, I don't have any evidence of them. I think it is very important to rein ourselves in and not make accusations, and not make leaps of logic.

One of the things COINTELPRO does (assuming the Lord's Avenger letter is a COINTELPRO letter), it leads you down false paths. Bill Staley is the obvious suspect for the Lord's Avenger letter. The Lord's Avenger letter, if it were written by the FBI, could have been written with the idea of let's have them go chase after this false suspect.

Another person, who's vilified like that is Mike Koepf. I don't believe Mike Koepf had anything to do with the bombings at all, and yet, at one point the FBI concludes Mike Koepf wrote the Lord's Avenger letter -- he's a published author, placed the bomb in Cloverdale, placed the bomb in my car, and that he was responsible for an anti-war vandalism in Petaluma and a note that went along with it. I mean, they come with these great leaps of logic! And they focused them down on Mike Koepf, who I believe is innocent. I think that these are false leads that are there to lead us off the track.

One of the things they do in COINTELPRO is give you false leads, and what I've learned over the years of going down these paths and getting excited about these false leads and having them come to nothing, is that we have to be really cautious. What seems to be isn't always what is.

And you don't know who or if someone told or ordered that bomb to be placed.

JUDI: I'll tell you something else I know about this bomb, though. This bomb was not made by an amateur.

This bomb was made by a professional. That's something that is very striking about it. We've had testimony from different police officers to the effect that they've never seen a bomb this complex. The bombs you see in Oakland, the bombs you see in Humboldt county, they're not like this. They're just little fuse devices.

The person who is the bomb expert from the FBI lab in Washington, D.C. (his name is David R. Williams), eventually he came out and conducted a thing where he showed them that the bomb was completely hidden under my seat; he said that it was triggered by a motion device. He said -- in his words: "I don't believe this bomb exploded accidentally. I believe this bomb functioned as planned. I believe the motion device was the trigger."

We asked: "Why do you believe that?"

He said, "Because of the craftsmanship involved in the making of this bomb." This was a complex bomb. They learned about this type of bomb in bomb school, but none of them has ever seen this type of bomb on the street. In fact, there is one point in the Depositions where we say to Sgt. Hanson (the Oakland police officer who told us about bomb school in the first place -- one of the students at bomb school) -- we show him a picture of the Cloverdale bomb: "did you learn about bombs like this in bomb school."

He said, "Not exactly."

We said: "What's different?"

He pointed to a single component. He said, "Well, this component was different."

He knows how to make bombs and he said: "This bomb was very well made. It was made with excellent craftsmanship and it was well conceived."

He said: "It did not come out of Anarchist Cookbook; it did not come out of Poor Man's James Bond. It was a complex bomb, very well made."

So the level of expertise that went into making this bomb also makes me believe that this was not a crazy, lone angry logger. Because this was not the kind of bomb that would be consistent with that profile. This was somebody who knew about bombs.

A crazy FBI agent?

JUDI: Years ago I said the FBI should find the bomber and fire him. And I still feel that way in my gut, but I don't think I can make those accusations until and unless I get that evidence.

What I can say is that the FBI framed me, and they behaved in a very suspicious manner: their immediate arrival -- all of those things -- the way they prejudiced the scene with what went on in bomb school.

Now the bomb school in 1990 was one of a series the FBI conducts and it was planned far enough in advance that I think it's a leap of logic to say that they planned the bomb school just for the bombing.

I think the bomb school was an already-existing police training. But what every person has testified so far that has knowledge of this is that there are various blocks of material that can be taught in bomb school; it is up to the individual instructor what is taught in that particular bomb school and what isn't. I think that they took advantage of this existing training session to teach what they wanted to teach . . .

And who is "they", Judi?

JUDI: Well, Frank Doyle was the director of bomb school. He was the one who decided what was taught. They won't tell us the name of the range safety guy. We said: "Who put the bombs in the car in bomb school? Who decided that two bombs would be inside the cars and one would be in the engine? Who decided the components, what types of bombs would be used?"

The answer: "The range safety officer."

"Who was the range safety officer?"

"I don't recall."

"It might have been me," says Frank Doyle. "I've been the range safety officer. But I don't recall if I was that year or not."

Of course, I don't believe a word of his "I don't recalls".

There's also a roster of who participated in bomb school. The memo that we got says: "Attached is the roster of all of the students and their evaluations of the course."

The roster is missing.

We say: "We want this roster."

"Oh, we'll go look for it, but we don't think it exists."

Now this thing is filed in many, many places. And there is no way this roster is really missing.

I suspect the roster contains the name of the bomber...

JUDI: It contains the names of the students: we know that much. But the students at that bomb school didn't learn how to make bombs. They just learned how to respond to a bombing. It's the Certified Bomb Technicians who learn how to make the bombs.

So we are now going to court to force the release of the roster. We know the roster exists. We certainly believe the FBI has a copy of it. And if they are not giving us the roster, they're not giving it to us because there is something on it that they don't want us to see. And I think one of the things on it they don't want us to see is how many respondents at the bomb scene were students at the bomb school.

From the memos we have so far, I've identified four and possibly five...

When I say possibly five: Stockton Buck was a very active participant in the response to the bomb scene and to the bogus investigation that went on up here later. We deposed Stockton Buck, and without our even asking, he said: "Yeah, I'm on the Terrorist squad. I've been to bomb school too."

And we said: "Oh, did you go to bomb school in 1990?"

He said, "I don't recall. It was either 1990 or the year before. I don't recall."

He doesn't recall if he went to bomb school four weeks before I was blown up? Bullshit. And it's not that hard for him to find this information. If he looks in his personnel file, I'm certain it will tell what year. It was called: "The Bomb Investigator's Seminar". It's much less than the Certified Bomb Technician course. What you learn in that bomb school is how to investigate a bomb crime scene. We've since found there was no bomb school in 1989.

But I can't prove yet that Stockton Buck attended.