This is part four of our series based on the book Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla, published by Between the Lines. The following is a direct transcript of the original printed Littoncommuniqué — including the title. It includes spelling and grammaticalerrors.

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Statement Regarding the October 14 Litton Bombing

We claim responsibility for the bombing of a Litton Systemsof Canada Ltd. Industrial plant in Toronto, Ontario wherethe guidance system for the Cruise Missile nuclear weapons isbeing produced.

We sincerely regret that any injuries occurred as a result of thisaction. We never intended any harm to come to anyone — especiallythe workers at Litton — but instead, we took great care inpreparing what we seriously assumed were adequate precautionsto insure the safety of all people in the area. Unfortunately, this didnot turn out to be the case.

We do not regret, however, our decision to attempt to sabotagethe production of the Cruise Missile’s guidance “brain.” We onlyclaim in all honesty that this action was never meant to be an actof terrorism.

We were not trying to threaten or kill the workers orexecutives of Litton Systems. We were attempting to destroy partof an industrial facility that produces machinery for mass murder.We wanted to blow up as much of that technology of death as possible.

Accidents happen; no systems or people are infallible. For us,however, this fact of life in no way excuses us for the mistakes thatwe made which contributed to causing injury in this action. Weonly pose these simple questions to put this tragedy into properperspective.

How many thousands will suffer from cancer-relateddiseases because of breakdowns at nuclear power plants? Howmany thousands are maimed and killed every year in industrialaccidents? And isn’t it a fact that millions of people starve to deathannually because so much money and human effort is put into systemsof war rather than developing the means to feed the peopleof the world?

Although we still firmly believe that it is right to attack thetechnologies of death, we identify our mistakes in this action asthe following:

  • 1. The bomb exploded 12 minutes before it was supposed to,assuming that it did detonate at 11:31 p.m. as stated in themedia. The bomb was set to go off at 11:43 p.m. If it hadexploded at this time, we feel that it was reasonable to haveassumed that the Litton plant and the surrounding area wouldhave been safely secured. It is a mystery to us why it explodedearly, as we had checked and double-checked the accuracy ofthe timing system many times.
  • 2. The warning call was not repeated. The van was left on thelawn in front of the Litton building at 11:17 p.m. We telephoneda warning to Litton Security just one minute after thevan was parked. This was to ensure a quick reaction by authorities,even though we felt certain that the van would have beenseen as it was being driven across the lawn and parked.

    Thevan was parked 100 meters directly in front of an exposedglass-walled security guard’s booth. In fact, the driver of thevan could see 3 guards in the booth at all times during theapproach and, as a result, knew that the van had not beennoticed.

    Unfortunately, the Litton guard did not completelyunderstand the instructions of the telephone warning. When heasked that the instructions be repeated, he was only told to goout front and look at the van. We see now that the telephonewarning should have been carefully repeated.

    However, if thewarning had been understood, and even the police have said itwas “meticulous,” then the authorities would have had approximately25 minutes to clear the plant, the area, and surroundingroads — if the bomb had detonated on time.

    This was certainlya reasonable length of time to have left the authorities to evacuatethe plant and secure the area. Even though the bomb wentoff early, it seems obvious that even 13 minutes was enoughtime for the plant to have been safely emptied had the instructionsbeen understood.

  • 3. We made errors in judgement about the “orange box” whichwas left in front of the van. This box was meant to be a back-upwarning system to the telephone warning — again to helpauthorities understand the situation and ensure prompt andknowledgable action on their part.

    The box was painted florescentorange so it could be easily seen and taped to all four sidesof it was a sheet of paper with information and instructions. Ontop of the box was taped a stick of unarmed dynamite.

    We feltcertain that the Litton guards, either by seeing the van beingparked or by being alerted to it by the telephone warning,would quickly come upon the box — thus having written informationin their possession to guide them. Unfortunately, wewrote “Danger Explosives” on top of the sheets of instructions.

    As well, it was not a good idea to leave an unarmed stick ofdynamite visable on top of the box.

    Although these two thingswere done to prove that this was a real bombing, they actuallyfrightened the Litton guards and police away from the box sothat the instructions were never read.

    Because we left evidenceof real explosives, and because the instructions contained theinformation that there were 550 pounds of explosives inside thevan, we assumed that the authorities would have undertaken amassive emergency response and evacuation. This is what wewere hoping would happen to make sure that no one was hurt.

    It was specifically stated in the telephone warning that the boxcontained important instructions and that the dynamiteattached to it was harmless in both the written instructions andthe telephone warning, we stated that the van would explode inapproxiately 15-25 minutes. We said this to insure that everyone,including bomb squad members, would clear away fromthe van well before it exploded.

  • 4. We were mistaken in believing that the Litton guards and policewould be on top of things. The image of cops and guards as“super heroes” caused us to believe that they would have securityand safety matters underway very quickly.

    This obviouslydid not turn out to be what happened. The Litton guards didnot observe the van being parked even though it occurredessentially right before their eyes.

    A Litton guard did not understandthe phone warning even though it was given clearly. Itseems that the Litton guards did little or nothing to evacuatethe workers until after the police arrived. As the workers havesaid, they were only told to leave the building seconds beforethe explosion.

    The police took a very long time to arrive afterthey were alerted — approximately 10 minutes — and even then they only sent one car at first to investigate.

    Finally, neither the police, but especially Litton security, even took a closelook at the orange box. We did not expect this kind of slow andindecisive response from the authorities.

    We are very disturbed and saddened that injuries occurred as aresult of this action. We have gone over what went wrong time andtime again. Most significantly, the bomb exploded 12 minutes tooearly. But nevertheless, we feel we must strongly critisize the Littonsecurity guards for the way in which they “handled” this incident.

    We know that there were at least 3 guards in the securitybooth where the van was parked and when the phone warningoccurred. We feel it is undeniable that all injury to the workerscould have been avoided if the guards had promptly evacuated theLitton plant, as they obviously should have.

    Although we had noknowledge of the previous false bomb threats (in fact, we opposethe use of fake bomb threats precisely because they do cause theauthorities to be sceptical of the authenticity of real bomb attacks),we put effort into making sure that the authorities would quicklyunderstand that this threat was real.

    It is not as if we said that apipe-bomb was hidden somewhere within the entire Litton complex,so evacuate everything. We informed Litton security of wherethe van and box were. They were both completely visable to theguards simply by looking straight out through their booth’s window,and the fact that they were there at all obviously indicatedthat something was definately amiss.

    We would like to know why aLitton guard went running into the plant to evacuate the workersonly seconds before the explosion — instead of at least 10 minutesearlier? And we would like to know why the two other Littonguards were standing around on the front lawn, instead of informingworkers in the other plants?

    As well, it is irresponsible of Littonto have never informed the workers of past bomb threats, and tonot have a loudspeaker system combined with evacuation plans sothat workers could be quickly moved to safety in the event of anydanger, be it a bombing or otherwise.

The position where the van was parked was chosen for tworeasons. One, so that it could be easily and quickly seen from theguard’s booth. It would have been much less conspicuous, andtherefore far less risky for the driver of the van, if it had beenparked in front of the other two Litton buildings, as neither ofthese are within direct view of the guard’s booth.

Secondly, the vanwas parked in a corner of the building in order that the two wallsof this corner would prevent debris from being cast in a southerlyor south-westerly direction where the two nearby hotels arelocated. This position was the only such corner at the front of thethree Litton buildings.

Again it was at the risk of being apprehendedon the spot that we chose to park the van in a locationwhich provided the least risk to public safety.

We have written the above not to redeem ourselves, as we didcommit inexusable errors, but simply as an explanation of ourmotives and intentions for those people who may feel threatenedthat there are crazed terrorists on the loose against the Canadianpeople.

Again, we repeat, that we took great care in preparingwhat we seriously assumed were adequate precautions to insurethe safety of all people in the area.

Understand and remember, theterrorists are those who have set the world on the brink of nuclearwar, not those who are fighting this insanity and inhuman madness!

Finally, we wish to state that in no way was this bombing thework of the Cruise Missile Conversion Project, or any other publicpeace movement organization in Toronto.

Direct Action
October 17, 1982