Back in 2021, Joe Biden referred to the events of January 6 as “the worst attack on our Democracy since the Civil War.” The Delaware Democrat ignored Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on November 7, 1983.
The “Armed Resistance Unit” planted a bomb in the Capitol, the Senate document “Bomb Explodes in Capitol” explains, “in retaliation for recent U.S. military involvement in Grenada and Lebanon.” At 10:58 p.m. “a thunderous explosion tore through the second floor of the Capitol’s north wing.” The device, “blew off the door to the office of Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd” and sent “a shower of pulverized brick, plaster, and glass into the Republican cloakroom.”
The Armed Resistance Unit was part of the May 19th Communist Organization, named for the shared birthdays of Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, and dedicated to the violent overthrow of the United States Government. As William Rosenau showed in Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol, the May 19th Communist Organization was the “the first and only women-created and women-led terrorist group,” with leaders including Judy Clark, Marilyn Buck, and Susan Rosenburg.
“They are sort of an offshoot of the Weather Underground, which essentially cracked up in the mid 1980s,” Rosenau explained. “These women decided to continue the armed struggle.” Susan Rosenberg was also wanted for a 1981 Brinks robbery in which two police officers and a security guard were killed. In 1984, police caught Rosenberg with 12 guns, some 200 stolen sticks of dynamite, more than 100 sticks of DuPont Trovex explosives, and hundreds of fake identification documents.
In 1985 Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years, but through a plea deal she escaped additional time for aiding and abetting a series of bombings at the U.S. Capitol, the National War College and the New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent association. After 16 years in prison, the bomber caught a break. On January 20, 2001, his final day in office, President Bill Clinton commuted Rosenberg’s sentence. No word from Bill about attacks on American democracy since the Civil War, and the 1983 bombing had some company.
On March 1, 1954, Puerto Rican nationalists Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero and Irvin Flores Rodrigues entered the House Gallery, yelled “Viva Puerto Rico libre!” and began firing with .38 caliber pistols. Rep. Alvin M. Bentley, Michigan Republican, took a bullet to the chest. Iowa Republican Ben F. Jensen took a hit in the back and Clifford Davis (D-Tennessee) suffered a bullet wound in the leg. The gunfire also wounded Democrats George Hyde Fallon of Maryland and Kenneth A. Roberts of Alabama.
The shooters were members of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico (PNPR), which had attempted to assassinate President Harry Truman in 1950. On October 26, 1954, Judge Lawrence E. Walsh sentenced the four to more than 70 years in prison, a stretch they would never serve. Andres Cordero died in 1979, and that year President Jimmy Carter commuted the sentences of Lebron, Miranda and Rodriguez. Carter also commuted the sentence of Oscar Collazo, who had taken part in the assassination attempt on President Truman that killed one the president’s guards.
Those attacks on our democracy seemed to have escaped the attention of Joe Biden, who in the same 2021 speech said, “America is on the move again, turning peril into possibility, crisis to opportunity, setbacks into strength. . . America is rising anew, choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, and light over darkness,” and so on.
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