Diana Oughton - Trivia

Trivia

Diana Oughton's mother was notified at the Oughton home by a member of the Dwight police force upon confirmation of identity. Mr. Oughton was on a business trip in London at the time of Oughton's death. 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. She was a revolutionary terrorist and the bomb, intended for an adjunct of the Establishment in New York, had killed her by mistake." Mr. Oughton also stated in the article "I knew she had friends in radical politics and that she was traveling around the country organizing teach-ins. But even as late as the (1968) Democratic convention she refused to take part in the violence. I'm sure she did this with a crystal clear conscience. There was nothing egocentric or self-centered about it." On Tuesday, March 24, 1970, Oughton was buried next to her grandparents in the family plot about a mile and a half outside of Dwight. Hundreds attended the funeral services. Some of the children Oughton had worked with at the Children's Community School placed their fund-raising buttons that Oughton had designed and made three years prior, and pinned the buttons to a bouquet of flowers at the explosion site.

A 1975 TV movie, Katherine, starring Art Carney, Sissy Spacek, Henry Winkler, Julie Kavner, and Jane Wyatt, 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 Weatherman. The "Collective" protested the Vietnam War, invaded a high school, held a "War Council" and eventually split into peaceful and violent factions. The story ended with Katherine's death, due to the explosion of the bomb that went off unexpectedly at a government building that was targeted by the violent faction.

James Merrill wrote a poem titled “18 West 11th Street“. Merrill had grown up in the townhouse that was sold to Cathy Wilkerson’s father, by whom it was owned at the time of the bombing.

Richard M. Pearlstein wrote The Mind of the Political Terrorist, in which he attempted to provide insight into the individual psychological dimensions of political terrorism. Diana Oughton is one of the individuals he uses as a case study.

Paul Kantner in 1971 sang about Oughton on the album Sunfighter.