The bomb was to be used that evening at a dance for noncommissioned officers and their dates at the Fort Dix, New Jersey Army base, to "bring the [Vietnam] war home".

Oughton supported her Republican family's political values by opposing federal banking regulations, social security, and anything associated with big government.

The author John Howard Griffin gave an account of what he encountered going to the Southern United States, disguised as an African American.

The book had a profound effect on Oughton, prompting her to volunteer in 1962 to tutor African-American children in an impoverished section of Philadelphia.

degree from Bryn Mawr in 1963, Oughton spent the next two years in Guatemala with the American Friends Service Committee program (AFSC).

[9] According to Thomas Powers, the author of Diana: The Making of a Terrorist, the more Oughton learned about the hard life of rural Guatemala, the more she reflected on the affluence of the United States.

In her mind, confusion emerged that lasted the rest of her life: She had rejected affluence (at first almost unconsciously) to work among the poor, but poverty, clearly, was nothing to be envied.

[15] Oughton left Chichicastenango with a new view of the problems that undeveloped countries like Guatemala faced when in struggle with the United States.

Oughton's friends from college noticed upon her return to the United States how she had matured, displaying sadness regarding the poverty she encountered in Guatemala in the previous two years.

In Michigan, she began to work part-time at the Children's Community School (CCS), a project established by Toby Hendon[19] and based on the Summerhill method of education.

[20] The CCS mission was to treat the children with love and understanding, in hopes that violent thoughts would not consume the child's personality.

In 1968, the school ran into severe problems, such as the fact that few students learned to read,[15] and lost its funding, so Oughton and Ayers sought to become active elsewhere in the community.

[24] During these meetings, Oughton often discussed the role that women played in the SDS, which was a combination of being a sexual object, an office clerk, and a housekeeper.

The Jesse James Gang replaced the University of Michigan SDS chapter, and Robbins, Oughton, and Ayers worked in partnership with Jim Mellen from the Revolutionary Youth Movement Group.

The early student movement had taken their moral stance from the teachings of Albert Camus, who taught that thinking men have the responsibility to find a way in the world to be neither a victim or the executioner.

[27] The Gang offered a tight, validating community within which members could express their rage and frustration about the status quo and their empathy for suffering.

The Vietnamese called the meeting to discuss progress taken in the peace movement as the war in Vietnam was entering its final stages.

[31] Oughton and 75 other Weatherwomen drove to Pittsburgh on September 3, 1969 after attending a caucus in Cleveland to take part in what the Weathermen Group called a practice run of the Days of Rage.

The last speech spurred the group to head for the Drake Hotel, where federal judge Julius Hoffman resided.

Oughton left her parents' home for the last time to go to Flint, Michigan for the December 27 "War Council" meeting.

He explained briefly that the group had already been active: a firebomb had been thrown at the home of Judge Murtagh, then presiding over the trial of the Panther 21.

[41] Cathy Wilkerson, who was in the townhouse at the time, describes her experience during the explosion, "the idea that Terry and Diana were both in the subbasement overwhelmed everything else.

Thinking that Ted Gold, the other Weatherman in the townhouse, had gone to the store, Wilkerson replied that there was no one left inside, as she was sure that Robbins and Oughton were dead.

Before the day was over, detectives found four cartons containing 57 sticks of dynamite, 30 blasting caps, and some cheap alarm clocks with holes drilled in their faces for wires.

When pressed, Flanagan said that he regretted "the deaths of the three Weathermen Ted Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins and the plan to bomb the dance at Fort Dix and the library at Columbia University, which could have taken lives.

[49] Laura Whitehorn, a former member of Weatherman, said "We were out of touch with what was going on, and we lost sight of the fact that if you're a revolutionary, the first thing you have to try to do is preserve human life.

He stated in the Detroit Free Press that he was told on the phone that "his daughter's remains had been identified in a bombed Greenwich Village townhouse.

[27] Katherine (1975), loosely based on Oughton's life,[51] is a TV movie starring Sissy Spacek, tells the story of Katherine Alman, who was from a wealthy Denver family, became socially active, served as a teacher of English in South America, then joined a radical "collective" which had many similarities to the SDS and eventually the Weather Underground.

The story ended with Katherine's death from the explosion of the bomb that detonated prematurely at a government building the violent faction had targeted.

[53] James Merrill, who had grown up in the townhouse that was owned by Cathy Wilkerson's father at the time of the bombing, wrote a poem titled "18 West 11th Street".