Bomb explodes in U.S. Capitol, Nov. 7, 1983
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.
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. Over the coming months, a conservator painstakingly restored the painting to a credible, if somewhat diminished, version of the original.)
The blast also punched a hole in a partition that sent a shower of pulverized brick, plaster and glass into the Republican cloakroom behind the chamber. Although the explosion caused no structural damage to the Capitol, it shattered mirrors, chandeliers and furniture. Officials placed the damage at $250,000.
After a five-year investigation, in May 1988 FBI agents arrested seven members of the “Resistance Conspiracy”: Marilyn Jean Buck, Linda Sue Evans, Susan Rosenberg, Timothy Blunk, Alan Berkman, Laura Whitehorn and Elizabeth Ann Duke. They were charged with executing the Capitol bombing as well as triggering similar blasts at Fort McNair and the Washington Navy Yard.
On Dec. 7, 1990, U.S. District Court Judge Harold H. Greene sentenced Whitehorn and Evans to lengthy prison terms for conspiracy and malicious destruction of government property. Greene dropped charges against three co-defendants because they were already serving extended prison sentences for related terrorist crimes.
Whitehorn was sentenced to 20 years; Evans, to five years, to be served concurrently with 35 years for having illegally bought guns. On Aug. 6, 1999, Whitehorn was released on parole after serving just over 14 years. On Jan. 20, 2001, his final day in office, President Bill Clinton commuted Evans’ sentence to time served.
The bombing marked the start of tighter security measures throughout the Capitol complex. The area immediately beside the Senate chamber, previously open to the public, was closed. Officials also adopted color-coded staff and press identification cards that were required to be displayed at all times, and added metal detectors to building entrances to supplement those placed at chamber gallery doors following a 1971 bombing of the Capitol.
SOURCE: HISTORIAN.SENATE.GOV