Anti-war activist Ayers tied to 1970 blast

SAN FRANCISCO, March 12 (UPI) -- Bill Ayers, who helped found the Weather Underground anti-war group, was involved in a deadly 1970 bombing in San Francisco, police union officials allege.

Officials of San Francisco's police officers union have accused Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, of being involved in the bombing of a city police station on Feb. 16, 1970, that killed Sgt. Brian McDonnell, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.

The union officials claim Ayers, who helped found the Weather Underground to oppose the Vietnam War, was once overheard confessing to his involvement in the deadly attack.

The officials site claims by Larry Grathwohl, an individual who joined the organization reportedly to serve as an FBI informant.

"There are irrefutable and compelling reasons to believe that Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn ... are largely responsible for the bombing of Park Police Station," the officials, including union President Gary Delagnes, said in a letter to the America's Survival Inc. conservative group.

The Chronicle said America's Survival has been lobbying for arrests to be made in the 39-year-old bombing, which investigators have been unable to link to the Weather Underground.

Ayers, 64, is a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois Chicago and Dohrn is an associate professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law.