Burlington Public Library MA

American heiress, the wild saga of the kidnapping, crimes and trial of Patty Hearst, Jeffrey Toobin

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages [345]-351) and index

individual biography

platesillustrationsportraits

index present

non fiction

American heiress

bibliography

947041920

Jeffrey Toobin

the wild saga of the kidnapping, crimes and trial of Patty Hearst

On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre "Tania." The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing--the bank security cameras capturing "Tania" wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from basketball star Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television across the country; Patty's year on the lam; and her circuslike trial, after which the term "Stockholm syndrome" entered the lexicon. The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, Toobin thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times, portraying the lunacy of the half-baked radicals and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst. He examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors' crusade. Or did she?--Adapted from dust jacket

Nervous breakdown nation -- From inside the trunk -- The SLA -- The point of no return -- Prisoner of war -- Not just a bunch of nuts -- Three hundred bald men -- "I'm a strong woman" -- The birth of Tania -- Stay and fight -- Common criminals -- Showdown at Mel's -- Live on television -- Apocalypse on Fifty-Fourth Street -- "The gentlest, most beautiful man" -- Jack Scott makes and offer -- Road trip -- The streets of Sacramento -- Death of a "bourgeois pig" -- Feminist bomb-making -- Freeze! -- "There will be a revolution in Amerikkka and we'll be helping to make it" -- "Your ever-loving momma and poppa care about the truth" -- More excited than scared -- The search for old McMonkey -- The verdict -- "Favoring the rich over the poor"