December 10, 1994: Bomb Kills Ad Executive; ‘Unabomber’ Justifies Murder by Citing Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Thomas Mosser. [Source: Washington Post]In North Caldwell, New Jersey, advertising executive Thomas Mosser opens a package mailed to his home. Mosser is in his kitchen. His family is in another part of the house; they are preparing to go buy a Christmas tree. When Mosser opens the package, it explodes, tearing his torso open and spilling his entrails onto the kitchen floor. As his horrified wife attempts to staunch the flow with a baby blanket, Mosser dies. Months later, the “Unabomber,” later identified as Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski (see April 3, 1996), will take responsibility for the bombing, claiming that Mosser was targeted for the public relations work his firm did for Exxon; in a letter to the New York Times, Kaczynski will reference the wreck of the oil tanker Exxon Valdez and the subsequent massive oil spill as justification for Mosser’s murder (see April 24, 1995). [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 4/13/1996; Washington Post, 1998; Washington Post, 5/5/1998] Friends and co-workers are initially perplexed by Mosser’s murder. “We’re all perplexed,” says Kathy Hyett, who worked with Mosser at Burson-Marstellar. “Why? Why?” Some of his colleagues wonder, presciently as it turns out, if any of the clients of Mosser’s firms might have triggered the attack. A college friend of Mosser’s, John Hanchette, says, “The idea of Tom’s death this way is so foreign to me that I thought, ‘It must be another Tom Mosser.’” [New York Times, 12/13/1994] Mosser is a senior executive at Young & Rubicam Inc., the parent company of public relations firm Burson-Marstellar, one of New York’s most successful PR agencies. Kaczynski will write that Burson-Marstellar represents everything that is wrong with corporate America. In his letter, Kaczynski will write: “We blew up Thomas Mosser last December because he was a Burston-Marsteller executive.” (Kaczynski misrepresents himself as one of a group of anarchists he calls “FC,” later found to stand for “Freedom Club.” He also misspells the name of the firm.) Kaczynski will blame Burson-Marstellar for helping Exxon “clean up its public image” after the Exxon Valdez oil spill and, more broadly, for “manipulating people’s attitudes.” The firm has received negative publicity, largely in the more radical environmental press, and has been listed in articles in “No Sweat News” and “Earth First!” as representing a number of firms that are involved in damaging the environment. The Earth First! (see 1980 and After) article blames Burson-Marstellar and other PR firms for attempting to make the public believe that there is no serious environmental crisis. It is not known whether Kaczynski read either article. [Washington Post, 4/13/1996; Washington Post, 1/23/1998] After Kaczynski’s arrest, Jake Kreilik of the Native Forest Network says, “It is obvious if you read the Unabomber’s manifesto that there is a heavy emphasis against technology and a lot of the other things that Earth First Journal focuses on in terms of the radical end of environmental politics.” Burston-Marstellar has been the focus of pro-environmental protests in the last several months, a fact of which Kaczynski may have been aware. [New York Times, 4/8/1996] Burson-Marstellar will deny any involvement with Exxon during the Valdez crisis, though Exxon later asked the firm to critique the way its officials had handled the case. [Washington Post, 4/13/1996; Washington Post, 1/23/1998]