FAR-LEFT EXTREMISTS BOMB THE SENATE CHAMBER
At two minutes before 11 o’clock in the evening on this day in 1983, a thunderous explosion tore through the second floor of the U.S. Capitol’s Senate wing. Since the area was virtually deserted at the time, there were no casualties.
How terrorists became the unspoken architects of the Capitol
Minutes before the bomb went off, a caller claiming to represent the “Armed Resistance Unit” warned a Capitol switchboard operator that a bomb had been placed near the chamber — purportedly in retaliation for the recent U.S. military actions in Grenada and Lebanon. The force of the device, hidden under a bench outside the Senate chamber, blew the hinges off the door to the office of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the minority leader. It also damaged five paintings, particularly a stately portrait of Massachusetts Sen. Daniel Webster. (The blast tore away Webster’s face and left it scattered across the floor tiles in one-inch canvas shards. Senate officials recovered the fragments from debris-filled trash bins.
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November 7, 1983
The Senate had planned to work late into the evening of Monday, November 7, 1983. Deliberations proceeded more smoothly than expected, however, so the body adjourned at 7:02 p.m. A crowded reception, held near the Senate Chamber, broke up two hours later. Consequently, at 10:58 p.m., when a thunderous explosion tore through the second floor of the Capitol’s north wing, the adjacent halls were virtually deserted. Many lives had been spared.
Minutes before the blast, a caller claiming to represent the “Armed Resistance Unit” had warned the Capitol switchboard that a bomb had been placed near the chamber in retaliation for recent U.S. military involvement in Grenada and Lebanon.
The force of the device, hidden under a bench at the eastern end of the corridor outside the chamber, blew off the door to the office of Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd. The blast also punched a potentially lethal hole in a wall partition sending a shower of pulverized brick, plaster, and glass into the Republican cloakroom. Although the explosion caused no structural damage to the Capitol, it shattered mirrors, chandeliers, and furniture. Officials calculated damages of $250,000.
A stately portrait of Daniel Webster, located across from the concealed bomb, received the explosion’s full force. The blast tore away Webster’s face and left it scattered across the Minton tiles in one-inch canvas shards. Quick thinking Senate curators rescued the fragments from debris-filled trash bins. Over the coming months, a capable conservator painstakingly restored the painting to a credible, if somewhat diminished, version of the original.
Following a five-year investigation, federal agents arrested six members of the so-called Resistance Conspiracy in May 1988 and charged them with bombings of the Capitol, Ft. McNair, and the Washington Navy Yard. In 1990, a federal judge sentenced Marilyn Buck, Laura Whitehorn, and Linda Evans to lengthy prison terms for conspiracy and malicious destruction of government property. The court dropped charges against three co-defendants, already serving extended prison sentences for related crimes.
The 1983 bombing marked the beginning of tightened security measures throughout the Capitol. The area outside the Senate Chamber, previously open to the public, was permanently closed. Congressional officials instituted a system of staff identification cards and added metal detectors to building entrances to supplement those placed at chamber gallery doors following a 1971 Capitol bombing.
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