Jane Alpert - Surrender 1974

Surrender 1974

Jane Alpert turned herself in on November 17, 1974 at the Office of the United States Attorney in New York City after being underground for four and a half years. According to New York Times and Time Magazine, Alpert was sentenced to 27 months in prison for bombing conspiracy and jumping bail. Alpert said that the “plea was not a copout.” Jane Alpert’s admission of her deviance – inherently part of the act of surrender – was bolstered by her statement that she returned from underground because “it was the right thing to do” Alpert said. "It wasn't a political thing—just a purely pragmatic choice on our part."

Jane Alpert affirmed her ongoing commitment to political activism and did not offer regrets about the actions she had undertaken in the past. She declared that she and her co-conspirators “believed they were acting morally; that if anyone was doing anything concrete to stop the war it was us.” Contrary to some reports, Alpert was not a member of the Weather Underground, although she knew several people who were. In Alpert’s surrender statement she mentioned work in the feminist movement as a major goal. Alpert also differentiated between her self now and her self then in her surrender statement. Alpert explained her role in the bombings as “craziness,” and suggested that her relationship with Sam Melville was a catalyst for her actions.

Alpert acknowledged her feminism which provided evidence that she would not engage in the same activities now that she did then because of a heightened awareness of power relationships in the male-female interactions. At Alpert’s surrender her attorney said, “She is no longer in the grip of the mistaken ideology which caused her to flee; the war is over and the man with whom she was in love and for whom she pleaded guilty is now dead.”