ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604040089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
NOTE: Below
Federal agents Wednesday detained a man they believe is the elusive Unabomber after a brief scuffle outside his hand-built cabin in the deep woods of Montana, possibly ending an intensive 17-year search for one of America's most wanted men.
The suspect, under surveillance for several weeks, was not immediately charged, but federal law enforcement officials said he is expected to be accused soon of striking terror across the nation with his carefully crafted pipe bombs.
He was identified by neighbors and others as Theodore ``Ted'' Kaczynski, 53, a reclusive Harvard graduate and former University of California at Berkeley math professor known locally as ``the hermit on the hill.''
Officials expect to make a formal announcement and discuss the case in Washington today.
FBI and Treasury agents and Postal Service investigators searched the primitive one-room cabin for evidence while explosives experts scoured the surrounding property. One official said ``bomb-making components'' were found in the home.
Authorities have been looking for the Unabomber since 1978, when a bomb exploded at Northwestern University outside Chicago - the first in a series of reported Unabomber attacks that killed three people and injured 23. The attacks, the last of which occurred in April 1995, were apparently targeted at those he felt were contributing to the advance of modern technology and its dehumanizing effects.
Kaczynski came under suspicion about a month ago, when his brother found documents in the family's Chicago-area home that prompted him to speak up, law enforcement sources said.
``This was a very primitive existence he was living there,'' one source said. The cabin was in such a sparsely settled area at the edge of the Helena National Forest that one FBI agent saw a cougar attack and kill a deer near the agent's surveillance post.
Kaczynski, a skinny man with blond hair turning gray, built the one-room cabin himself in 1970 or 1971, according to neighbors. It measures 10 by 12 feet and has a root cellar, but no electricity or plumbing. He chopped wood for heat and hunted deer for food.
The primitive lifestyle was one factor that enhanced the suspicions of authorities. The Unabomber had intense hatred of modern technology, as he made clear in the 35,000-word manifesto that The Washington Post and the New York Times published jointly in September as a supplement to The Post. He had written to both papers, saying he would halt his attacks if either published his manuscript and warning of more violence if they did not.
The records his brother found were highly suspicious, sources said. Authorities had collected many of the documents the Unabomber had sent over the years, which included telltale typewriter marks and initials he was prone to use.
Born on May 22, 1942, Theodore John Kaczynski grew up in a blue-collar suburb outside Chicago and went to Harvard in 1958 to study math and physics. He graduated at age 20. He got a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1967. After Michigan, Kaczynski went on to teach math at Berkeley for the 1967-68 and 1968-69 school years. He resigned, abruptly it seems, on June 30, 1969, and shortly thereafter moved to Montana.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Kaczynski/ 1994 photo. color.by CNB