By Daniel Testa

Photo illustration by Kelsey Steorts

In response to a letter from journalism graduate student Daniel Testa, Ted Kaczynski urged Testa and his classmates to uncover what he believes are the untruths in a book written by Kaczynski’s former neighbor in Lincoln.

Ted Kaczynski did not grant an interview for this project.

“Since my arrest I’ve had abundant evidence of the dishonesty of journalists,” Kaczynski writes in a letter dated March 3, 2006, responding to an interview request from the UM Journalism School’s feature-writing class.

Instead, Kaczynski’s nine-page letter from his Colorado prison cell – neatly printed on yellow legal paper and complete with footnotes – is skeptical of the accuracy of anything the residents of Lincoln, Mont., might say about him 10 years later.

The letter challenges not only the accuracy of memory but also much of what has been written about him, disputing details like how close he lived to a neighbor or how much land the neighbor owned. Kaczynski seems obsessed with righting those small wrongs. But while he focuses on such minutiae, he avoids the larger questions about his actions as the Unabomber.

Notably, Kaczynski refers to himself in the third person when discussing one of his former victims and “a bomb he had received from the Unabomber.”

The letter goes on to urge the UM Journalism School’s feature class to investigate the untruths Kaczynski says exist in the book: “Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski,” co-written by Chris Waits, a Lincoln, Mont., resident who lived near Kaczynski, and by Dave Shors, editor of the Helena Independent Record.

It is an investigation Kaczynski has unsuccessfully urged numerous print and broadcast reporters to take on in the past. None have done so, he claims, because “journalists exist not to inform but to entertain.”

In a 1999 letter to the Missoulian, Kaczynski disputed a number of Waits’ assertions. These lies, Kaczynski wrote, prove Waits to be a hoax.

There are some factual inaccuracies in Waits’ book, but the falsehoods that Kaczynski asserts point mainly to minor details. They don’t prove that Waits, who could not be reached for this article, is a “pathetic fake,” as Kaczynski wrote to the Missoulian.

For example, in his letter to the Journalism School, Kaczynski enclosed photocopies of his handwritten journals from June and July of 1975 that he says he has not released before. Some passages differ from how they appear in Waits’ book regarding the location of a hidden shack in the woods that Kaczynski disputes is his “real” hideaway.

An entry from July 24, 1975, reads: “In a pretty secluded spot, on a steep slope, I commenced building an 8x8 log hut that I expect to use this winter.”

In Waits’ book, the passage reads: “In a very secluded spot, on a steep slope, I started building an 8x8 log cabin that I will be able to use year-round.”

Another point that Kaczynski disputes is how close he lived to Waits. Waits wrote that Kaczynski’s cabin was “nearly across the road from me.” But Kaczynski says that a friend in Lincoln has verified the distance between his turnoff and Waits’ house: 2.7 miles. 

Kaczynski also questions Waits’ assertion that he owns all of McClellan Gulch “and everything in it” and that he gave Kaczynski permission to be there.

Waits doesn’t own all of McClellan Gulch, an area south of Stemple Pass Road in Lincoln. According to the Lewis and Clark County Department of Revenue in Helena, Waits owns three connected parcels of land within the gulch that he bought between 1988 and 1992. He now owns 68 acres in the gulch, but other land there is owned by the U.S. Forest Service.

At issue is whether Kaczynski needed permission from Waits to travel through the gulch. It would seem that, aside from a strip along the creek that Waits owned, Kaczynski could travel as he pleased on public land. 

Finally, Waits writes that he and Kaczynski knew each other much better than Kaczynski admits, and that Kaczynski admitted as much to a broadcast journalist in Denver in 1998.

The Denver journalist is Rick Sallinger, an investigative reporter for KCNC who corresponded with Kaczynski in the late 1990s.

In a phone interview, Sallinger could not recall whether Kaczynski had made such an admission in letters he received nearly eight years ago.

“My memory is fading on all this stuff,” Sallinger said, adding that Kaczynski’s letters urged investigation of many of the same discrepancies in the Waits book. 
Perhaps the best explanation Kaczynski offers for his outrage over Waits’ book is in a personal note dated 1999 that he enclosed with his letter to the J-School.

“I’m not asking anyone to judge me favorably,” Kaczynski wrote. “You can judge me as unfavorably as you please. But any judgment should rest on an accurate factual basis.”