The group with which Diana becomes unwittingly affiliated is modeled on the real Weather Underground, a group organized in the US in the late 1960s. The organizers initially called themselves the Weathermen after a lyric from a Bob Dylan song; Dylan was one of several musicians, along with Joan Baez, writing protest music during the 1960s. The group grew out of a leftist student society organized in support of communist principles, but the Weathermen perceived themselves as revolutionaries and adopted a militant stance in protesting the actions of the United States government. The group opposed American involvement in the Vietnam War and worked to end institutionalized racism, which was also being protested via militant means by groups like the Black Panthers.

The Weather Underground strategy included bombings, and their targets included US government buildings like the State Department, military recruitment sites, the Pentagon, and the US Capitol building. The only deaths in these bombings resulted from an accidental explosion that took place at a house in Greenwich Village in New York City on March 6, 1970, in which three members of the organization—two men and one woman—died. Two women who escaped were considered fugitives from justice, and throughout the 1970s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation made a concerted and highly publicized effort to locate and apprehend members of the Weather Underground, considered domestic terrorists.