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United Freedom Front


The United Freedom Front (UFF) was a small American Marxist organization active in the 1970s and 1980s. It was originally called the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit, and its members became known as the Ohio 7 when they were brought to trial. Between 1975 and 1984 the UFF carried out at least 20 bombings and nine bank robberies in the northeastern United States, targeting corporate buildings, courthouses, and military facilities. Brent L. Smith describes them as "undoubtedly the most successful of the leftist terrorists of the 1970s and 1980s." The group's members were eventually apprehended and convicted of conspiracy, murder, attempted murder, and other charges. Two, Tom Manning and Jaan Laaman, remain incarcerated today.

The group was founded in 1975 as the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit, setting off a bomb at the Massachusetts State House under that name, but changed its name to the United Freedom Front the same year. The initial members were Raymond Luc Levasseur (the UFF's leader), Tom Manning, and their respective spouses, Patricia Gros and Carole Manning. Levasseur and Tom Manning were both Vietnam War veterans and ex-convicts. The four had worked together in prison reform groups before forming the UFF. Four other members joined the group in the following years: Jaan Laaman and Barbara Curzi (another married couple), Kazi Toure (born Christopher King), and Richard Williams.

The UFF strongly opposed US foreign policy in Central America, as well as South African apartheid.

The UFF's targets included South African Airways, Union Carbide, IBM, Mobil, courthouses, and military facilities. The UFF called in warnings before all of its bombings, attempting to avoid casualties. However, 22 people were injured in one 1976 bombing at the Suffolk County Courthouse in Boston, including a courthouse worker who lost a leg. The group was most active in the early 1980s. The UFF's members lived undercover in middle-class suburbs.


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