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Patty Hearst’s bizarre kidnapping is a window into the politics of the 1970s, writes Matthew Lesh. TERRORIST CHIC IN THE 1970S

42 IPA Review | ipa.org.au Volume 68 I 4 BOOK REVIEW R

MATTHEW LESH Research Fellow at the Institute of Public A airs

irst person puts up his hand,’ a woman screamed at frightened bank customers, ‘F American Heiress: The Wild ‘I’ll blow his motherf--king head Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes o !’ So began perhaps one of the and Trial of Patty Hearst most infamous bank robberies in By Jerey Toobin, published by American history. e case is not Doubleday, 371 pages particularly interesting for the size of the robbery, nor for the violence of the attack. What made the also had substantial political 90-second heist on April 15, 1974, so meaning. It directly involved three unique was the starring character. American presidents—Jimmy Patty Hearst was a 19-year-old Carter, , and later Berkeley student from a wealthy, . Toobin presents the famous and powerful Californian events as the tale of 1970s America, family. To this day the Hearsts a society simmering at the brink own an empire of newspapers, of economic downturn and magazines, and television stations shaken by the Nixon revelations, worth billions of dollars. is made ideological tensions, and a growing Patty the heir to an enormous counterculture movement. e level fortune—an ideal kidnapping target of political protest, which oen for an obscure terrorist group, the turned violent, was extraordinary. Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). In 1972 there were 1962 actual or Je rey Toobin’s American Heiress attempted bombings in the US. In chronicles the bizarre events of Patty’s 1973, there were 1955, and in 1974 kidnapping and swi conversion to there were 2044. the extremist cause in meticulous detail. e Hearst case featured the DID PATTY HEARST key emerging features of the modern HAVE FREE WILL, world—media intrigue, celebrity > AND BELIEVE IN THE shenanigans, and questions of RIGHTEOUSNESS OF appropriate justice. In particular, the HER ACTIONS, OR, story gripped the press. It provided AS SHE CLAIMED IN visuals for television, recordings for HER TRIAL, WAS SHE radio, and perfect fodder for tabloids. BRAINWASHED? Newsweek alone put Patty on the front cover seven times. e SLA provided Much of this political protest tapes to radio stations and written was centred on the Bay Area and statements to newspapers, which they Berkeley, a traditional centre for demanded be printed in full. e hippy activity and drugs in the 1960s, initial focus was less political. It was and violence in the early 1970s. e more of a dramatic story of celebrity— SLA, which included criminals and an heiress in captivity. student radicals, was one of many

Mary Evans Picture Library / AAP images However, the Hearst kidnapping radical militaristic groups. e SLA

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CONTINUED Patty was initially held was known for the murder of Marcus blindfolded in a closet. e SLA did Foster, a controversial African not actually have a plan to brainwash American school superintendent. her - it was the unintentional result is particular act was condemned of their lack of strategy. ey didn’t by much of the radical community, know what they were doing. ey including the socialist black were threatening to her, but also nationalist Black Panthers, despite made an e ort to be friendly. ey their dislike for Foster. spent countless hours talking to her, e SLA borrowed their rhetoric justifying their actions, painting the from the fashionable leist sources FBI and her parents as the bourgeois of the era. Obsessed with public evil, and giving her radical reading relations stunts and impassioned material. Patty was a strange mixture rhetoric, they signed o their of captive and comrade. communiques by calling for the eir initial demands, for destruction of the ‘fascist insect who the Hearsts to give food worth preys upon the life of the people’. hundreds of millions of dollars to However, as Toobin explains, all Californians played to the SLA’s they lacked a coherent agenda or superior sense of self. e Hearst ideology. Nevertheless, they did have family, desperate for the safe return an animal spirit that in particular of Patty, controversially attempted to focused on performance, or succumb to their demands. However, ‘guerrilla theatre’. within a month of the kidnapping, Patty declared in a recorded message delivered to a radio station that she AMERICAN HEIRESS was ‘starting to understand what he IS A WORK OF NON- means when he talks about fascism in > FICTION THAT READS America’ and that she realised that ‘it LIKE FICTION. is the FBI who want to murder me’ in Mary Evans Picture Library / AAP images a raid. A few weeks later Patty was o ered e SLA was full of contradictions. a choice: Stay and join the SLA, or go escape, insisting she must stay ey claimed to be an army, but in home. She responded ‘I want to join and ght. reality were a group of just seven you’ and expressed her willingness Patty’s initial public image people. eir ‘General Field Marshal’ to ‘ght for the people’. e SLA reected larger cultural divisions. Donald DeFreeze, an escaped subsequently released a recording For some on the le, she was a criminal, fancied himself a leader of announcing her defection, and her renegade who gave up life as an all African Americans, but he led a new name, Tania. aristocrat for the cause in the war group of white, mostly middle class She took the infamous photograph against the ‘fascist corporate state’. students who le home to become clutching a semi-automatic weapon e more support she received radicalised by the counterculture. in front of an SLA ag, became from the counterculture, the more e initial kidnapping, a intimately involved with her fellow the establishment turned against response to the arrest of two SLA SLA members and took part in the her. She became an enemy of members for the murder of Foster, aforementioned bank robbery – which the establishment, a particularly took place on February 4, 1974. was particularly chosen for the new distressing situation for her parents e SLA stormed Hearst Berkley CCTV technology that could capture who were part of the establishment apartment and her ancé Steven her wielding an M1 carbine. A few and friendly with then-Californian Weed ran away screaming ‘take months later she red her gun, though Governor Ronald Reagan. whatever you want’. ey did. didn't kill anyone, to help defend one Nevertheless, the complexities ey took Patty. She became the of her comrades during a shopping of her case, an early example of rst major political kidnapping in trip turned disaster. She ees east, , have le American history. and refuses copious opportunities to many confused and divided. Did

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Mary Evans Picture Library / AAP images

Patty Hearst have free will, and indoctrination, criminal activities, against Patty, presenting her as believe in the righteousness of and eventual trial. He is careful understanding and passionately her actions, or, as she claimed in to ensure all participants get a supporting her actions though her trial, was she brainwashed? fair hearing. is is enabled by easily manipulable – rst by the SLA Her version of events diverges the depth of his research—tens of and then later by her parents and trial substantially from that of her thousands of documents including lawyers. He is also critical of her use surviving SLA captors. Patty came SLA records, legal documents from of her family’s star power, unavailable to claim that she was a victim, her trial, FBI les, transcripts and to most Americans. However, fearful that if she didn’t follow the evidence, as well as more than 100 ultimately, the reader is able to decide SLA’s commands she would be in interviews. for themselves who is right and who mortal danger. e other surviving Two perspectives have developed is wrong. members of the SLA posit on Patty. Her defenders largely American Heiress is a work of the opposite, that she was truly used a le-wing view of the world, non-ction that reads like ction. It passionate about the cause and a in which individuals are plastic is a well-constructed and engaging willing participant in her deeds. and malleable—a product of piece of detailed historic work. is ey point to occasions when she their environment. Her critics intriguing look at the growth of was asked to go home but refused. represented a more right-wing the counterculture and simmering Toobin attempts to si fact view that individuals are ultimately tensions in the 1970s is also an from ction in the hotly contested accountable for their own actions and extraordinary tale of how one historic claims by presenting a choices in life. human responds to extraordinary detailed account of her kidnapping, Toobin largely comes down circumstances and pressures. R

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