Ex-Radical Given 2 Years for ROTC Bombing Attempt

A member of the Bissell carpet cleaning family was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison for attempting to bomb a University of Washington ROTC building 17 years ago as a protest against the Vietnam War.

Terry Jackson, 45, who has legally changed his name from Silas Trim Bissell, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Walter McGovern, who said he found it hard to believe “that a person deserves extra special treatment because he had been a model fugitive.”

Jackson and his wife, Judith Emily Bissell, former members of the radical group Weatherman, fled after being charged with conspiring to damage federal property by placing a bomb at the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps building at the university on Jan. 18, 1970, and with possessing an unregistered firearm. The bomb did not explode.

Judith Bissell was convicted on the charges in 1979, years after the two separated, and sentenced to three years in prison. Jackson remained a fugitive until Jan. 17, when he was arrested in Eugene, Ore.

Jackson showed no reaction as the judge ordered him to make arrangements for his surrender to a minimum security federal prison. Attorney Lawrence Finegold said that he expected his client to surrender to a California facility either in late July or in early August.