My Connection to The Unabomber

I remember Tom Mosser most on snow-covered Saturdays as Christmas approaches.  This story starts on a January day, long ago.

My cardboard box was packed with a few photographs, knick-knacks and awards as I waited for the elevator to take me down to the lobby of the Burson-Marsteller office building in New York City.  I said goodbye to Sally, the receptionist, and wondered if I was making the biggest mistake of my life leaving this place.  The doors opened, and there was Tom Mosser, a nattily dressed man 16 years older than I.  Although he was going to exit the elevator at the third floor, he stayed on so we could talk.  I was honored.

We shared a similar pedigree.  Each of us were journalism grad under the tutelage of Prof. Russell J. Jandoli at St. Bonaventure University.  We had moved into the world of Public Relations, landing for a time with the colossal firm that was then the most successful in the world, in large part due to Tom’s commitment to excellence before I had arrived.  He was a U.S. Navy vet and had put in nearly 15 years with B-M before my arrival. 

 

 I worked directly with Tom only once, although he was always aware of the work I produced for clients. Occasionally, I would receive a congratulatory memo from Tom for a job well done.  The Coke account was his baby.  He called me into the fold for a top-secret media relations project for Coca-Cola USA, when they introduced New Coke, and then again a few weeks later when public furor dictated they re-introduce the original Coke recipe.  He was a Senior VP, and I was but a Senior Account Executive, yet I felt he respected my views and opinions without hesitation.

He read my mind that day as we rode the elevator to the lobby.  He praised me for the work I had done, and encouraged me to go forward and do great things in my next job.  More importantly, he gave me a safety net, saying, “You know, you can always come back.”  It was such a comfort to hear that I was not departing on a one-way path to oblivion.  We shook hands in the lobby, and as I left, he was the face of this company.  In a few words, he erased my fears of the future and the unknown.

Fast-forward to 1994.  I had established an advertising and PR firm in Rochester, and subsidized the start-up with a part-time job in the newspaper industry.  Okay, I was delivering papers.  Each morning, six days a week, I arrived at the loading dock of the Democrat and Chronicle at 3:30 a.m. to deliver the local news and USA Today to newsstands and honor boxes downtown.  That was where I heard the news about Tom Mosser.

That Saturday, Dec. 10, Tom awoke in his home in West Caldwell, N.J.  It was to be a special day, when he and his wife, Susan, would take their two daughters, ages 13 years and 15 months, to shop for their family Christmas tree.   That night, he and Susan would celebrate his recent promotion to GM and executive vice president of Young and Rubicam, Burson-Marsteller’s parent company.  Tom stood in his kitchen wearing his bathrobe.  He had returned from a business trip the night before, and was sorting through mail that arrived in his absence.  A parcel spelling Burson-Marsteller inaccurately caught his attention.  He opened the package anyway.

The house shook violently.  A white cloud filled the kitchen, and when the dust settled, his wife faced a grisly scene.  Amid fallen plaster and a two-foot crater in the granite counter, she saw Tom’s motionless body on the floor.  There was little question of his fate.  A gaping hole in his stomach resulted from the blast.  His fingers were barely connected to his hands, and his charred, distorted head was nearly severed from his body.

The evidence that remained from the explosion indicated a consistency with that of the crusader against progress dubbed the Unabomber.  The terrorist’s deadliest bomb to that date ended Tom Mosser’s life at the age of 50.  He became another victim of Ted Kaczynski’s rage against society.   After Kaczynski’s capture, essays recovered in his Montana hovel proved that the targeting of Mosser was a case of mistaken identity.  Kaczynski read a news account of the Exxon Valdez accident, which erroneously identified Mosser as the PR executive leading the efforts to clear Exxon’s name.  He manufactured the explosive device in a handmade wooden box filled with razor blades, nails and metal scraps using an untraceable detonation device constructed of rubberbands, batteries and thin wire and match heads.  It bore the initials “FC,” which became the insignia of the deadly killer.  Later, it was learned those initials stood for “Freedom Club.”  

In an instant, this worthless, piece-of-crap lunatic destroyed a beautiful man and shattered the lives of his family. Kaczynski now lives in a cell 10 feet by 12 feet, which is about 7 feet by 5 feet too large, and at least six feet closer to the earth’s surface than he deserves. He’s in the Colorado Supermax prison at Florence.  Other prisoners there include:

    * Matthew F. Hale (white supremacist leader; convicted of soliciting the murder of a federal judge)
    * Robert Hanssen (FBI agent; convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia)
    * Charles Harrelson (father of actor Woody Harrelson; murdered a federal judge)
    * Larry Hoover (leader of the Gangster Disciples Nation based in Chicago)
    * Theodore Kaczynski (The “Unabomber”)
    * David Lane (white supremacist terrorist leader; involvement in the murder of talk radio host Alan Berg)
    * Zacarias Moussaoui (conspirator in the September 11, 2001 attacks)
    * Terry Nichols (Oklahoma City Bombing conspirator)
    * Omar Abdel-Rahman (Islamist terrorist, nicknamed “The Blind Sheik”; involved in World Trade Center bombing planning in 1993)
    * Richard Reid (Islamic terrorist, “Shoe Bomber” )
    * Eric Robert Rudolph (Olympic Park bomber)
    * Ramzi Yousef (Islamist terrorist, 1993 World Trade Center bombing)
    * Dwight York (leader of the Nuwaubianists; convicted for child molestation)
    * Wadih el-Hage (conspirator in the 1998 United States embassy bombings)
    * Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso (mobster and former underboss of the Lucchese crime family)
 

I think of Tom Mosser often, and try my best to emulate his honesty, wisdom and spirit of decency.  At times, I wish I could seek his wise counsel and friendship.  Today, I can merely pay tribute to his memory.