Spring ’70: The Final Semester

Abstract

The last semester of the final year of the Illinois student movement began peacefully enough, but when the Illiac IV supercomputer project was announced with suggestions it might be used for nuclear weapons development, the RU and newly formed Faculty for University Reform (FUR) quickly protested. Two youths failed in an attempt to bomb the downtown Champaign police station and were caught within moments, but no one was caught when a firebomb was thrown into the Armory ROTC office. Dr. Benjamin Spock, famous baby doctor and antiwar activist, spoke on campus, disparaging the idea of violent revolution.