Did Timothy Leary rat on The Weathermen?

Question

According to his autobiography, he did not give them any names and just told the FBI usless crap, which the weathermen told him was ok to do. Additionally, I have not been able to find any names on who was arrested because of Timothy Learys talks with the FBI. Yet, there are plenty of websites that say Leary is a rat. Can someone clear this up for me?

Answer 1

The guy was a burnout. Now he's dead.

From Wikipedia:

Leary made somewhat of a pretense of cooperating with the FBI's investigation of the Weathermen and radical attorneys, by giving them information they wanted that he knew they already had or would have very little consequence. In a perceived attempt at character assassination, the FBI allegedly spread disinformation about Leary having become an "informant," implicating friends and helpers in exchange for a reduced sentence.[citation needed] Leary would later claim, and members of the Weathermen would later support, that no one was ever prosecuted based on any information he gave to the FBI (as noted in an Open Letter from the Friends of Timothy Leary:

“ The Weather Underground, the radical left organization responsible for his escape, was not impacted by his testimony. Histories written about the Weather Underground usually mention the Leary chapter in terms of the escape for which they proudly took credit. Leary sent information to the Weather Underground through a sympathetic prisoner that he was considering making a deal with the FBI and waited for their approval. The return message was "we understand."

Answer 2

The idea that Leary only gave useless information to the FBI presupposes that Leary would know exactly what information would be useless to the FBI. The information that Leary gave to FBI could have been used to vet information given by other informants to the FBI etc., even if said information seemed useless to Leary. Therefore Leary's information might not have contributed to the conviction of any specific individual, but still have been very useful to the FBI. The idea that everything he told them was useless was Leary's own hubris. If an FBI interrogator ask you even the time and date, there is a reason. The "man" is usually not quite as clueless as a guy like Leary would suppose. There are some things we will never know.