The seventies, particularly in the Bay area, opened up violently and with a very uncomfortable edge. San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley saw the Zodiac serial killer; indiscriminate bombings; the Zebra killers, a black group that randomly slaughtered white people; and the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapping of Patty Hearst on Jan. 29, 1974. The nineteen-year-old heiress had been drifting through life, seemingly without purpose or intent, and living with her boyfriend while taking classes at Cal. Equally at sea were the handful of members of the SLA, who mouthed revolutionary slogans. "They were shaking things up, stirring the pot, proving that the counterculture was still alive. Beyond that, they had no goals, no agenda." They turned to kidnapping as a strategy after their murder of a well-respected Oakland school official failed to ignite a revolution. Their only demand to the Hearst's was for a food program for the poor. The Hearst's complied, and successfully delivered material aid to many in northern California. The SLA communicated with the outside world via tapes, and the one about a month into the kidnapping showed a Patty Hearst who was starting to sound very comfortable with her surroundings. Eight weeks after her capture, Patty Hearst became Tania, a member of the SLA. In a video, she said "I have chosen to stay and fight". A week later, she participated in an SLA bank robbery. She had gone from victim to common criminal.
Cinque, the delusional leader and ex-con, Donald DeFreeze, decided they needed to be in LA and in early May, the nine members of the SLA moved to Los Angeles. The trio of Bill and Emily Harris and Patty, out in search of supplies, wound up in a shootout at a local store, and drew the LAPD to their hideout. While the Harrises and Patty escaped to Anaheim, the six remaining members of the SLA were surrounded by the police. "The biggest gun battle ever to take place on American soil had begun, and it was on live television." In over an hour, the police fired eighty-three tear gas canisters, fifty three hundred rounds of ammunition; the six SLA members fired back between two and three thousand rounds. The house they were in burned to the ground and all six were dead. Not a single policeman was wounded.
Bill, Emily and Patty returned to San Francisco and released a tape announcing that the SLA would fight on. Later that year, they merged with the Revolutionary Army and now were the Sacramento- based New World Liberation Front. They robbed a small bank, became convinced of their skills and went after a second bank. During an April 1975 heist, Emily shot and killed a local mother of four. They then again returned to the Bay area where the Harisses and Patty were captured in September by the FBI, which had been struggling for over a year-and-a-half to find her.
Patty had easily slipped from heiress to terrorist and, once in jail, she slipped right back. The US prosecuted her for the SLA bank robbery two months after her kidnapping. F. Lee Bailey put the now demure victim on the stand. She had spent he previous two years mouthing revolutionary slogans, threatening the pigs and completely committed to the revolution. On the stand, she testified that she had been coerced and feared for her life the entire time. During the trial, Bailey made a deal with the prosecutors for Patty to supply testimony in the Sacramento bank robbery turned felony murder case. The coercion defense flopped. Patty Hearst was guilty. She was released on bail pending appeal. She entered federal prison in May of 1978. Immediately, the Hearst's began a campaign for commutation, which Pres. Carter approved the following January. Patty was twenty-four and free. She married and moved to Connecticut. In her relentless pursuit of redemption, she urged Jimmy Carter to ask Pres. Clinton for a pardon, which she received on Bill Clinton's last day in office in 2001. "Rarely have the benefits of wealth, power and renown been as clear as they were in the aftermath of Patricia's conviction."
Toobin is a great writer, and turns this pedestrian tale of delusion and selfishness into a superb book. The most interesting aspect of the book is how - I hate to say this but - how naive and incompetent the terrorists were. Had they not killed a few people, it could have been a comedy. And Patty Hearst's commutation and pardon are flat-out unforgivable.
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