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Home ­­> Politics ­­> Barack Obama ­­> Putting on Ayers

Putting on AyersClaim: Barack Obama had an acquaintanceship with Bill Ayers, a former domestic terrorist.

Status: Partly true.

Origins: William (Bill) Ayers was one of the founders of the Weather Underground, a radicalleftist organization formed in 1969 by a group of University of Chicago students who splitwith the campus‐run Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organization because theydisagreed with the SDS's peaceful protest tactics against the Vietnam War. From 1970 until

1974, the Weather Underground carried outviolent actions against the government,including bombings at NYPD headquarters, theU.S. Capitol building, the Pentagon and a SanFrancisco police station, while Ayers (and hiswife, fellow Weather Underground memberBernardine Dohrn) went into hiding to evade theFBI.

Ayers and his wife participated in some of theearly bombings, but criminal charges againstthem were dropped in 1974 due to illegalevidence‐gathering activities by authorities, andin 1980 the couple turned themselves in. Ayersand Dohrn emerged from hiding to becomeuniversity professors in Chicago; Ayers

specialized in education reform and served as an advisor to Chicago mayor Richard Daley,work through which Ayers became acquainted with Barack Obama in 1995. Ayers hosted ameet‐the‐candidate gathering at his home as Barack Obama prepared to run for his initialelection to the Illinois state senate (although Ayers later said he didn't even know Obama atthe time), the two worked with the same charity and social service organizations in Chicago(particularly the Chicago Annenberg Challenge), and Ayers contributed $200 to Obama'sre‐election campaign for the Illinois state senate in 2001.

Opponents have charged that Obama has been "palling around with terrorists" and "lied" abouthis connection with Ayers when he described Ayers as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood"in response to a question about their relationship posed to him during an April 2008Democratic debate:

Q: A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologizedfor that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don'tregret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."

An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, andyour campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for thevoters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?

A: This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English [sic] inChicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He'snot somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis.

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And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engagedin detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and myvalues, doesn't make much sense.

Although Obama's dismissing Ayers as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood" could fairly beconsidered a deliberate attempt to minimize or play down a more substantialacquaintanceship between the two men, the fact remains that they aren't (and never were)particularly close. Obama has denounced Ayers' violent radical activities (which took placewhen Obama was just a child), Ayers didn't advise Obama on policy issues, the two were notclose friends, and they have not remained in regular contact over the last several years:

A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who knowboth men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63.But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressedsympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called "somebodywho engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8."

"The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped hispolitical views is patently false," said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman. Mr. LaBolt saidthe men first met in 1995 through the education project, the Chicago AnnenbergChallenge, and have encountered each other occasionally in public life or in theneighborhood. He said they have not spoken by phone or exchanged e­mail messagessince Mr. Obama began serving in the United States Senate in January 2005 and last metmore than a year ago when they bumped into each other on the street in Hyde Park.

(The above‐cited article was the one referenced by Republican vice‐presidential candidateSarah Palin when she began stating on the campaign trail that Democratic candidate BarackObama had been "palling around with terrorists," even though the article said just theopposite: that Obama and Ayers "do not appear to have been close.")

In August 2008, Stanley Kurtz suggested there was a "cover‐up" in the making because hecould not access a "large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)" which contained "the internal files of the ChicagoAnnenberg Challenge" and would "provide significant insight into a web of ties linking Obamato various radical organizations." Documents including all the records of theAnnenberg Foundation were in fact released shortly afterwards; the Chicago Tribuneexamined them and found, as reported by UPI:

Reporters reviewing records in Chicago have so far found nothing startling in documentslinking Sen. Barack Obama to 1960s radical William Ayers.

The UIC records show that Obama and Ayers attended board meetings, retreats and atleast one news conference together as the education program got under way. The twocontinued to attend meetings together during the 1995­2001 operation of the program,records show.

Kurtz also claimed that "Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only monthsbefore his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of BillAyers." This claim was inaccurate, as FactCheck.org noted:

To the contrary, Ayers was not involved in the choice, according to Deborah Leff, thenpresident of the Joyce Foundation. She told the Times, and confirmed to FactCheck.org,that she recommended Obama for the position to Patricia Graham of the SpencerFoundation. Graham told us that she asked Obama if he'd become chairman; heaccepted, provided Graham would be vice­chair.

The bipartisan board of directors, which did not include Ayers, elected Obama chairman,and he served in that capacity from 1995 to 1999, awarding grants for projects andraising matching funds. Ayers headed up a separate arm of the group, working withgrant recipients. According to another board member, Ayers "was not significantlyinvolved with the challenge after Obama was appointed."

Kurtz subsequently claimed in a Wall Street Journal article that Obama and Ayers werepartners in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), an effort that "poured more than $100million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists." But asEducation Week noted of the CAC, that organization was not "radical" but rather "reflectedmainstream thinking among education reformers":

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, chaired from 1995 to 1999 by Barack Obama, is beingportrayed by some critics of the Democratic presidential nominee as an attempt to pushradicalism on schools.

In fact, the project undertaken in Chicago as part of a high­profile national initiativereflected mainstream thinking among education reformers. The Annenberg Foundation's$49.2 million grant in the city focused on three priorities: encouraging collaborationamong teachers and better professional development; reducing the isolation betweenschools and between schools and their communities; and reducing school size to improve

learning.

The week after the 2008 presidential election, Ayers himself acknowledged in an interviewthat he hadn't known Barack Obama all that well:

Vietnam­era radical Bill Ayers said he doesn't know President­elect Barack Obama anybetter than "thousands of other Chicagoans" and the two never talked about Ayers' anti­war activities. In a television interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," the collegeprofessor disputed the contention that in the new afterword of a paperback edition of his2001 memoir "Fugitive Days" he describes himself and Obama as "family friends."

"I'm describing there how the blogosphere characterized the relationship," Ayers said. "Iwould really say that we knew each other in a professional way, again on the same levelas say thousands of other people."

In fact, Ayers said he didn't even know Obama when he hosted a coffee early in Obama'spolitical career at Ayers' home in the Chicago neighborhood where the two live. Ayersadded that he agreed to have the meet­the­candidate event after a state senator askedhim to.

"I think he was probably in 20 homes that day as far as I know," he said. "But that wasthe first time I really met him."

Ayers and Obama also served together on a Chicago school reform board and afoundation board, but their discussions were limited to the issues before those boards."The truth is we came together in Chicago in a civic community around issues of schoolimprovement, around issues of fighting for the rights of poor neighborhoods to havejobs, housing and so forth," Ayers said. And he elaborated on those issues in a December2008 newspaper piece:

The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went astep further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the sameroom at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation,shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of athousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they shareideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for eachother’s behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in ourpolitical culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.

President­elect Obama and I sat on a board together; we lived in the samediverse and yet close­knit community; we sometimes passed in thebookstore. We didn't pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions.

Last updated: 6 December 2008

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995­2013 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson. This material may not be reproduced without permission.

snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.

Sources:

Aarons, Dakarai I. "Chicago Annenberg Challenge in Spotlight." Education Week. 9 October 2008.

Ayers, William. "The Real Bill Ayers." The New York Times. 6 December 2008 (p. A19).

Babwin, Don. "Ex‐Radical Ayers Distances Himself from Obama." Associated Press. 14 November 2008.

Cohen, Jodi S. and Ray Gibson. "Rush on to Get Files Linking Obama to 1960s Radical." Chicago Tribune. 27 August 2008.

Kurtz, Stanley. "Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown? A Cover‐Up in the Making?" National Review Online. 18 August 2008.

Kurtz, Stanley. "Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism on Schools." The Wall Street Journal. 23 September 2008.

Shane, Scott. "Obama and '60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths." The New York Times. 3 October 2008.

Suddath, Claire. "The Weather Underground." Time. 7 October 2008.

Wills, Christopher. "Fact Check: Camps Highlight Foes' Old Associates." Associated Press. 12 October 2008.

United Press International. "No 'Smoking Gun' in Obama Relationship." Associated Press. 27 August 2008.