FBI at Odds Over Report on Unabomber Suspect Raid

FBI officials disagreed Friday over whether the agency was forced to proceed prematurely with a raid on the Unabomber suspect’s cabin because CBS-TV reported that the search was imminent.

The CBS report, aired shortly after noon PST Wednesday, said the FBI was preparing to search the mountain cabin of “the best suspect” in the 18-year Unabomber investigation.

The FBI had scheduled its search to begin at 11 a.m. PST--and it apparently did--taking former professor Theodore J. Kaczynski into custody at the outset so that he wouldn’t interfere with the search.

Some FBI officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the broadcast forced them to move more quickly than they had planned. But late in the day, the FBI issued a statement praising CBS for temporarily withholding the story at the agency’s request.

“Because of the CBS News decision, the FBI was able to carry out the arrest with complete surprise, and neither the defendant nor the FBI agents were injured,” the statement said.

“CBS News acted in a memorably responsible manner, placing the well-being of the public ahead of its own interests. The FBI is grateful and we are certain that the public is grateful to CBS News as well,” the FBI said.

The statement was released after some FBI officials accused CBS of interfering.

“There was a great deal of consternation about CBS breaking that story,” one FBI source told Associated Press. “This was a case of the news driving the investigation rather than the investigation driving the news.”

“I’m sure that continuing surveillance would have given us the strongest possible case. We didn’t have that luxury,” another source told the Daily News of New York.

CBS News Vice President Lane Venardos said in an interview: “They knew what we were going to say and when we were going to say it. We held off reporting the story for two days before that. We believe we acted responsibly in our coverage.”

CBS officials said the network knew on Monday the identity of the suspect and that the FBI was about to make an arrest. “There were some people here who thought we ought to go on the air Monday night,” Venardos said, “but the FBI convinced us that would hamper their investigation.”

The network went on the air, Venardos said, only after hearing that CNN and ABC were about to go with the story, and after talking to the FBI.