It may not have been what the audience expected to hear from one of the most radical of the Vietnam War protesters:

"The more you talk about revolution," said Mark Rudd, "the less it's likely to happen."

But while the former member of the Weather Underground showed a kinder and gentler side at an April 9 gathering at Columbia High School in Maplewood, his alma mater, he still remains wedded to many of the causes that landed him on front pages – and sent him into hiding – in the 1960s and '70s.

Though it might take generations to get rid of the military system that fuels American dominance in the world, he said, that goal "is what keeps me going. It's the work of our lives."

Rudd, now 59 and white-haired, is a math professor, author, and committed pacifist.

"We're stuck with what we have," he said in his talk to about 200 people, many of them former schoolmates or family friends. "The American people like having private property. They don't go in for revolution. You have to have viable strategies."

The audience was many times the normal size for the four-part Eva Samo Lecture Series, organizers said. Whether they came to see an old classmate or for a first glimpse of a local boy who became a revered – or notorious – radical, depending on your point of view, what they asked him about with most intensity was what an activist like him would do about the situation facing Americans today.

His approach these days is decidedly legal. He said, "In the 21st century, the only possible solution to the threat of global dominance through military might is some form of international law."

What he fears most now, Rudd said, is the spread of nuclear weapons and the chance of their falling into the hands of free agents.

"I fear, for example, for Israel's survival," he said. "A nuclear attack on Israel could happen at any time. Add to that the risk of ecological disasters, and the danger multiplies geometrically. It seems to me that the 21st century could be a time of very great transformation. The only way out is by developing a system of international law."

From some, Rudd's answers drew enthusiastic nods of assent. From others he got dismissive shakes of the head.

"He's sold out," one gray-haired woman said.

"He's naive," a fellow former student activist said, responding to Rudd's acknowledgment that he didn't realize the protest movement was infiltrated by provocateurs.

Perhaps the greatest threat these days, said Rudd, is the entertainment culture. "I lost my own kids to it," he said, sounding somewhat puzzled that they are evidently more into pleasure and less into political action than their father. "If people don't pay attention, we will substitute entertainment for reality."

But he offered a glimmer of hope. "Reality has a way of pushing in, though it might take a few more cities like New Orleans or New York or Tel Aviv."

He said things are changing: "Eighty percent of statistics are made up on the spot, and I can tell you that about 3 percent of young people are out there organizing themselves."

Rudd, one time president of the junior congregation at the Conservative synagogue Congregation Beth-El in South Orange, went from Columbia High – where he said he felt like a total misfit – to Columbia University in New York City, where he quickly found his place.

He became a leader of the activist movement Students for a Democratic Society and in 1968 helped organize the massive sit-in at Columbia against racism and the United States' role in Vietnam. He helped establish the radical antiwar and civil rights group the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground. He went underground himself after three friends were killed while making a bomb in a Greenwich Village apartment in 1970, and the law came after the survivors.

He resurfaced to face the music in 1977, and – to his enormous surprise, he said – with a Democratic administration then in power, found that most of the charges against him had been dropped and he was able to resume a normal life. He was married by then. His two children are now grown. He lives in New Mexico.

Rudd's 95-year-old mother, Bertha, who lives in Whippany, was at his talk. A number of times he offered her the microphone, which she accepted with alacrity.

"Some people tried to prevent their kids from getting involved, but that wouldn't have worked with Mark," she said. "I think the only thing you can do is support your children in what's important to them."

For all the problems he outlined, Rudd was positive. Despite the imbalance of power in the world, American dominance would end, he said. "Empires always fail."

He was even more sanguine about the limits of Islamic fundamentalism. "As I see it, it was a response to American imperialism. It was on its last gasp until the American invasion of Iraq. But Islamic fundamentalism will burn itself out the way all utopianisms burn out."

Some in the audience expressed surprise, but he was emphatic about his optimism these days. "How can I be a human being unless I have hope?" he said.

Rudd's talk was the second in the four-part Eva Samo Lecture Series hosted by the South Orange Maplewood Adult School, dealing with 21st Century America: Here and Abroad. For more information on the series, visit the Web site or call 973-378-7620.