1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:05,040 Speaker 1: Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views 2 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:09,200 Speaker 1: and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host, producers, 3 00:00:09,280 --> 00:00:13,160 Speaker 1: or parent company. Listener discretion is it fine? 4 00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:20,000 Speaker 2: At four o'clock on the afternoon of September twenty second, 5 00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:24,320 Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five, Sarah Jane Moore fired a shot at 6 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:28,520 Speaker 2: President Gerald Ford just outside the side entrance of the 7 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:35,040 Speaker 2: Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco. She missed. As we 8 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:39,720 Speaker 2: heard last episode, Sarah Jane's public defender contacted La Times 9 00:00:39,720 --> 00:00:43,360 Speaker 2: reporter Ellen Hume while she was having dinner with her husband. 10 00:00:44,159 --> 00:00:46,600 Speaker 2: He told her that Sarah Jane wouldn't talk to him 11 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:49,960 Speaker 2: until she talked to Ellen. Could Ellen come up to 12 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:56,000 Speaker 2: San Francisco? She caught the last plane a reminder, Sarah 13 00:00:56,120 --> 00:00:58,640 Speaker 2: Jane was going by the name Sally at the time. 14 00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:03,080 Speaker 3: What Sally wanted me to do was write her manifesto, 15 00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:06,119 Speaker 3: And what I had worked out as a deal with 16 00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:09,960 Speaker 3: my editors and with Sally's attorney was that I would 17 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:12,920 Speaker 3: help her by drafting a statement as she wished it 18 00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:15,280 Speaker 3: to be, whatever she wanted, just to be a kind 19 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:17,520 Speaker 3: of help. Heer to draft it, but that that would 20 00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:20,600 Speaker 3: be included in a real news story that I would 21 00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:24,640 Speaker 3: write as I interviewed her in prison. So it was 22 00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:26,959 Speaker 3: a deal where she'd get her manifesto, but I would 23 00:01:26,959 --> 00:01:30,840 Speaker 3: get my professional job done, but without exploiting her. She 24 00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:33,600 Speaker 3: would have her statement and I would have my story. 25 00:01:33,959 --> 00:01:37,240 Speaker 3: And she apparently agreed to this through her lawyer. So 26 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:42,480 Speaker 3: the next day the arraignment occurred, September twenty. 27 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,679 Speaker 2: Third, was a wild day at the courthouse. Sarah Jane 28 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:49,720 Speaker 2: and Patti Hurst both had hearings, so did SLA member 29 00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:53,800 Speaker 2: Steven Solia. This is from the Berkeley Barbes coverage of 30 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:54,720 Speaker 2: that day in court. 31 00:01:55,880 --> 00:01:58,640 Speaker 1: With two hundred reporters at the courthouse looking madly for 32 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,120 Speaker 1: the Patti Hurst bail hearing, the place had the air 33 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:04,280 Speaker 1: of an activities night for speed freaks on an ocean liner. 34 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:07,920 Speaker 1: Patty Hurst's hearing would be in the Ceremonial courtroom on 35 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:11,280 Speaker 1: floor nineteen at ten am. Those who couldn't get in 36 00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:14,560 Speaker 1: could go to Solia's court appearance a couple of floors below. 37 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:17,640 Speaker 1: At two pm, there would be a bail hearing on 38 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:20,560 Speaker 1: Sally Moore's sanity that promised to be pretty quick. 39 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:25,360 Speaker 3: Every reporter in the world was converged on this courthouse 40 00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:28,440 Speaker 3: in San Francisco, and I took the rose off my 41 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:32,840 Speaker 3: breakfast tray at the Cliff Hotel, got myself to the courthouse, 42 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,520 Speaker 3: got in there, and then when she was brought into 43 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:39,520 Speaker 3: the courtroom, her lawyer had told me that she was 44 00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:42,920 Speaker 3: so worried that the FBI wouldn't let me talk to her, so, 45 00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:46,880 Speaker 3: wanting to give her a signal that I was there 46 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:50,000 Speaker 3: and was going to talk to her, I jumped up, 47 00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:53,240 Speaker 3: waved the red rose and said Sally and sat down. 48 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:57,200 Speaker 3: It wasn't support, it wasn't anything, but just a signal 49 00:02:57,560 --> 00:02:58,560 Speaker 3: that I was there. 50 00:02:59,360 --> 00:02:59,680 Speaker 4: Walter. 51 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,840 Speaker 3: That night on CBS News had a report that a 52 00:03:03,919 --> 00:03:07,360 Speaker 3: supporter jumped up in the courtroom and waved a red rose. 53 00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:12,200 Speaker 3: And when I talked to Carol Plougash about this recently, 54 00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:16,120 Speaker 3: she said, it's amazing you didn't get arrested for doing that. 55 00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:20,280 Speaker 3: So I was able to proceed and cover the hearing. 56 00:03:22,120 --> 00:03:24,320 Speaker 2: But either no one noticed or no one could be 57 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:27,480 Speaker 2: bothered to do anything about it. It was just another 58 00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:32,480 Speaker 2: odd moment in a flood of odd moments. Again from 59 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:36,120 Speaker 2: the Berkeley Barb, this time describing what happened after Patty 60 00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:37,320 Speaker 2: Hurst's hearing ended. 61 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,800 Speaker 1: The scene became a little confused. At that point, one 62 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:44,480 Speaker 1: hundred and ten reporters bolted out of their seats and 63 00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:47,440 Speaker 1: headed for the doors. You have to remember that nobody 64 00:03:47,480 --> 00:03:50,400 Speaker 1: knew the terrain as they chased after the hearsts. From 65 00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:53,160 Speaker 1: that point on, it was like the Poseidon Adventure. The 66 00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:57,600 Speaker 1: elevators immediately jammed with reporters, film crews, sound men. People 67 00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:00,320 Speaker 1: ran up and down the corridors looking for stairwell or 68 00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:04,240 Speaker 1: someone to interview. The hallways filled with reporters crying frantically 69 00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:06,960 Speaker 1: for telephones and unlocked doors. 70 00:04:09,520 --> 00:04:11,680 Speaker 3: And then I went back and waited in the hotel 71 00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:14,680 Speaker 3: room and a call came, and her lawyer called me 72 00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:17,760 Speaker 3: and said, okay, tonight, I'm going to get you in, 73 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:20,200 Speaker 3: but let's have supper first. So we had supper, and 74 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:22,799 Speaker 3: he said, look, the FBI may confis. Get your notes. 75 00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:26,840 Speaker 3: This is not going to be easy, but we'll drive 76 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:29,120 Speaker 3: after we have supper. So he prepared me. I couldn't 77 00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:32,080 Speaker 3: have a recorder, I couldn't have a pen I couldn't 78 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:34,919 Speaker 3: have a purse. I could barely have a sheets of 79 00:04:34,920 --> 00:04:37,400 Speaker 3: paper and a pencil, which the lawyer gave me. That's 80 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:39,920 Speaker 3: all I could take into the interview. 81 00:04:40,600 --> 00:04:43,200 Speaker 2: Sarah Jane was being held in a jail cell in 82 00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:47,280 Speaker 2: Redwood City, just outside of San Francisco. While she had 83 00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:51,400 Speaker 2: gained instant notoriety, she was not the most famous person there. 84 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:54,880 Speaker 2: The New York Times reported on the sudden appearance of 85 00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:57,039 Speaker 2: the jail's news celebrity inmates. 86 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:01,960 Speaker 1: There are five singles sets and the maximum security corridor 87 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:05,160 Speaker 1: of the women's section of the jail. Sheriff John MacDonald said, 88 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:09,040 Speaker 1: one is empty, one has a mentally disturbed woman in it, 89 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:12,760 Speaker 1: one has a woman accused of robbery, and Miss Hurst 90 00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:15,800 Speaker 1: and Miss Moore occupy the two others, which are across 91 00:05:15,839 --> 00:05:19,000 Speaker 1: the corridor from each other. It has been reported here 92 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:22,000 Speaker 1: that the two women discussed that episode that touched both 93 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:26,039 Speaker 1: their lives, and that they exchanged cordial greetings. They don't 94 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:28,920 Speaker 1: seem to have anything else much in common, the sheriff said. 95 00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:33,440 Speaker 3: So I go in there and the first thing I 96 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:36,320 Speaker 3: say to this woman who's in a nightgown in a sweater, 97 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:41,479 Speaker 3: I say, Sally, why did you do this? She said, 98 00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:45,400 Speaker 3: because the FBI killed your story on me. I said, 99 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:48,320 Speaker 3: what do you mean? She said, it wasn't in the 100 00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:52,160 Speaker 3: paper this morning. I said, Sally, it wasn't supposed to 101 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:55,839 Speaker 3: run today. It's supposed to run Wednesday. And she said, oh, 102 00:05:55,920 --> 00:06:01,960 Speaker 3: and looked downcast. Can you imagine how amazing and terrible 103 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:08,400 Speaker 3: and weird that whole thing was. I said to myself, Okay, 104 00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:10,560 Speaker 3: so my story didn't run, and that's why she tried 105 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:13,400 Speaker 3: to kill the president. I states, wait a minute, but 106 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:16,440 Speaker 3: I understood that she believed that story was going to 107 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:20,080 Speaker 3: save her life. And I, now, having thought about this 108 00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:24,440 Speaker 3: for all these forty some years, understand that by trying 109 00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:28,359 Speaker 3: to kill the president, and she was mentally unstable. Okay, 110 00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:31,440 Speaker 3: she was emotionally ill. This was not a well person, 111 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:34,479 Speaker 3: and I didn't understand that at the time, but she 112 00:06:34,640 --> 00:06:38,039 Speaker 3: clearly was. She believed that if she did something really 113 00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:42,760 Speaker 3: dramatic and heroic from the revolutionary's point of view, then 114 00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:43,839 Speaker 3: they wouldn't kill her. 115 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:48,320 Speaker 2: I'm Toby Baal. 116 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:52,640 Speaker 5: And I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current. 117 00:06:57,880 --> 00:06:58,040 Speaker 6: Nay. 118 00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:02,720 Speaker 7: She was a lovely child. And later I had to 119 00:07:02,839 --> 00:07:05,000 Speaker 7: bet you're ever in a bank where the guvernor had 120 00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:06,799 Speaker 7: you know, I don't think anybody. 121 00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:13,560 Speaker 5: Feel Episode twelve. They would like everyone to believe that 122 00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:15,160 Speaker 5: only kooks do it. 123 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:23,760 Speaker 2: Americans who saw the dramatic conversions from Middle American to 124 00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:27,680 Speaker 2: radical young made by Lynette from Sarah, Jane Moore and 125 00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:31,280 Speaker 2: Patty Hurst could look at two well known incidents to 126 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:35,120 Speaker 2: try to understand what had happened. The first was a 127 00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:39,600 Speaker 2: series of events involving American POWs held during the Korean War. 128 00:07:40,720 --> 00:07:44,840 Speaker 8: My name's Joel Dimsdale. I'm an emeritus professor of psychiatry 129 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:49,280 Speaker 8: at University of California, San Diego. What was observed in 130 00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:54,000 Speaker 8: the Korean War was that there were certain circumstances that 131 00:07:54,240 --> 00:08:02,160 Speaker 8: made people more persuadable, and people started doing on accountable 132 00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:05,400 Speaker 8: things that were just difficult to explain. 133 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:10,800 Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty two, Colonel Frank Schwabel and thirty five 134 00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:15,680 Speaker 2: other Air Force POWs publicly confessed to using German warfare 135 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:20,560 Speaker 2: against North Korea. In nineteen fifty three, after the armistice 136 00:08:20,640 --> 00:08:24,320 Speaker 2: was agreed to, twenty one US soldiers chose to live 137 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:28,960 Speaker 2: in communists China rather than return home. In between these 138 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:34,040 Speaker 2: two events, other POWs collaborated in making anti war broadcasts. 139 00:08:35,160 --> 00:08:38,679 Speaker 2: The term brainwashing had first been coined in nineteen fifty 140 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:41,560 Speaker 2: and it now was used to try to explain what 141 00:08:41,679 --> 00:08:47,240 Speaker 2: had happened. Timothy Melly, professor of English at Miami University, 142 00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:52,520 Speaker 2: told Smithsonian Magazine quote, the basic problem that brainwashing is 143 00:08:52,559 --> 00:08:56,440 Speaker 2: designed to address is the question why would anybody become 144 00:08:56,480 --> 00:08:59,480 Speaker 2: a communist. It is a story that we tell to 145 00:08:59,559 --> 00:09:04,480 Speaker 2: explain something we can't otherwise explain. The theory at the 146 00:09:04,559 --> 00:09:07,400 Speaker 2: time was that the treatment of the POWs could cause 147 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:11,440 Speaker 2: fundamental changes in a person's behavior or beliefs, or even 148 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:13,840 Speaker 2: allow complete control over them. 149 00:09:14,520 --> 00:09:18,520 Speaker 8: So you take somebody who subject them to enormous stress, 150 00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:24,079 Speaker 8: force them to confess in group circumstances, sleep, deprive them, 151 00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:28,800 Speaker 8: isolate them from others, and you have a recipe for 152 00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:32,120 Speaker 8: coercion and persuasion. 153 00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:38,040 Speaker 2: The public panic over brainwashing reached its cultural apex with 154 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:42,240 Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty two film The Manchurian Candidate, about a 155 00:09:42,280 --> 00:09:46,559 Speaker 2: returning Korean War soldier who's conditioned to commit an assassination 156 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:48,679 Speaker 2: when he receives a signal. 157 00:09:49,160 --> 00:09:53,560 Speaker 9: Allow me to introduce our American visitors. I must ask 158 00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:56,920 Speaker 9: you to forgive this somewhat lackadaisical matters, but I have 159 00:09:57,040 --> 00:10:00,840 Speaker 9: conditioned them or brainwashed them, which I understand that the 160 00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:02,160 Speaker 9: new American. 161 00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:07,720 Speaker 2: Were The second incident was the attempt by a parole 162 00:10:08,120 --> 00:10:11,840 Speaker 2: named John Eric Olsen to rob a bank called Credit 163 00:10:11,920 --> 00:10:16,720 Speaker 2: Banken in Stockholm, Sweden in nineteen seventy three. Olsen and 164 00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:20,120 Speaker 2: a partner held four hostages inside the bank for six 165 00:10:20,240 --> 00:10:24,640 Speaker 2: days before surrendering after police pumped tear gas into the vault. 166 00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:28,720 Speaker 2: None of the hostages would testify in court against the robbers, 167 00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:31,760 Speaker 2: and in fact began to raise money to aid in 168 00:10:31,800 --> 00:10:35,480 Speaker 2: their defense. The bond felt by the hostages towards their 169 00:10:35,520 --> 00:10:39,680 Speaker 2: captors became known as Stockholm syndrome. But we can look 170 00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:43,960 Speaker 2: back even further a century ago to the earliest observation 171 00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:46,920 Speaker 2: of this kind of change, made by the Russian scientist 172 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:52,679 Speaker 2: Yvonne Pavlov. The Pavlov of Pavlov's dogs, who he conditioned 173 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:56,280 Speaker 2: to respond by salivating to sounds that they associated with 174 00:10:56,400 --> 00:11:01,079 Speaker 2: being fed. This was an early breakthrough in cycle logical conditioning. 175 00:11:02,440 --> 00:11:06,319 Speaker 2: Pavlov worked in a basement laboratory in Saint Petersburg, Russia. 176 00:11:07,080 --> 00:11:10,280 Speaker 2: The dogs he experimented with were housed in kennels in 177 00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:15,079 Speaker 2: this lab. In September of nineteen twenty four, Saint Petersburg 178 00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:20,360 Speaker 2: experienced intense flooding, and inside Pavlov's lab the water level rose. 179 00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:24,760 Speaker 2: The dogs trapped in cages, held their snouts as high 180 00:11:24,760 --> 00:11:30,880 Speaker 2: as they could, just above the waterline, apparently for hours. Eventually, 181 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:34,640 Speaker 2: Pavlov's assistants arrived to save the dogs, but to do 182 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:38,600 Speaker 2: this had to force the dog's heads underwater before pulling 183 00:11:38,640 --> 00:11:42,960 Speaker 2: them through the cage doors. This too, was obviously traumatic 184 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:44,880 Speaker 2: for the dogs, and. 185 00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:48,920 Speaker 8: What Pavlov discovered was that the stress of that situation 186 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:52,280 Speaker 8: was so extensive that the dogs were never the same. 187 00:11:53,160 --> 00:11:57,480 Speaker 8: They forgot everything that they had learned. He was a genius. 188 00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:01,240 Speaker 8: He could teach a dog to respond to middle C 189 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:04,120 Speaker 8: on the piano and ignore D on the piano. He 190 00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:08,240 Speaker 8: was that good. So for Pavlov's dogs to forget everything 191 00:12:08,280 --> 00:12:12,120 Speaker 8: that they'd learned was something. The other thing that Pavlov 192 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:17,560 Speaker 8: observed was that stress change the dog's feelings. All of 193 00:12:17,559 --> 00:12:22,640 Speaker 8: a sudden, they changed their character, their personality. Some of 194 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:28,160 Speaker 8: them became timid, some became aggressive. The dog who used 195 00:12:28,160 --> 00:12:35,079 Speaker 8: to like Sga hated Serge thereafter. So massive stress seems 196 00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:39,480 Speaker 8: to shake up organisms, whether they be dogs or humans, 197 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:43,440 Speaker 8: in a way that causes people to forget. 198 00:12:44,920 --> 00:12:49,320 Speaker 2: This idea that massive stress, whether by accident or design, 199 00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:53,800 Speaker 2: can cause people to become susceptible to suggestion or change 200 00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:57,920 Speaker 2: is largely accepted now, but as we will see, this 201 00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:01,840 Speaker 2: was not the case in the mid seventies. But before 202 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:05,000 Speaker 2: we get to that, let's return to Ellen Hume, who 203 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:07,480 Speaker 2: was trying to work with Sarah Jane to create a 204 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:11,200 Speaker 2: statement about her attempted assassination of Gerald Ford. 205 00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:14,400 Speaker 3: After we did the interview, I went back to my 206 00:13:14,440 --> 00:13:17,040 Speaker 3: hotel room in drafted the statement and I would call 207 00:13:17,080 --> 00:13:19,160 Speaker 3: a lawyer and read it to him and over and 208 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:22,320 Speaker 3: over again, multiple drafts. He said she won't accept it. 209 00:13:22,679 --> 00:13:25,560 Speaker 3: I kept trying to change it, and she never accepted it. 210 00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:28,200 Speaker 3: So I just said, look, I've reached my deadline. I 211 00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:32,240 Speaker 3: will incorporate her ideas into my story to say this 212 00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:35,440 Speaker 3: is what she's trying to say. And I faithfully did that. 213 00:13:35,800 --> 00:13:39,319 Speaker 3: And it's important to me to note that I really 214 00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:43,560 Speaker 3: tried to fulfill any obligations I could have had to 215 00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:45,920 Speaker 3: help her, and I didn't want to exploit her in 216 00:13:45,960 --> 00:13:49,720 Speaker 3: any way. But the story that came out in the Times, 217 00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:55,240 Speaker 3: the editors whoever massaged it didn't talk about the fact 218 00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:57,160 Speaker 3: that she had thought a story was going to run 219 00:13:57,200 --> 00:13:58,800 Speaker 3: about her, and that she thought that was going to 220 00:13:58,880 --> 00:14:01,120 Speaker 3: save her life. It was just that she wanted to 221 00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:04,880 Speaker 3: prove herself to the radicals, and it did use my 222 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:09,480 Speaker 3: interview material faithfully, but it just left out the piece 223 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:11,640 Speaker 3: that she had said to me about why she had 224 00:14:11,920 --> 00:14:14,400 Speaker 3: done it. I now look back on it as she 225 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:18,160 Speaker 3: probably would have done it anyway. What happened after I 226 00:14:18,200 --> 00:14:21,520 Speaker 3: did my interview with her was it ran the next 227 00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:24,280 Speaker 3: day in the La Times, and it ran in every 228 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:26,560 Speaker 3: paper roll around the world because it was an exclusive 229 00:14:26,640 --> 00:14:30,320 Speaker 3: jailhouse interview with her and no one else had had 230 00:14:30,360 --> 00:14:31,760 Speaker 3: access to her. 231 00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:36,000 Speaker 2: Ellen's story contained parts that seemed to originate in the 232 00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:40,360 Speaker 2: attempts to draft Sarah Jane's statement. These show the extremes 233 00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:43,600 Speaker 2: of stress she was experiencing and put her attempt on 234 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:47,040 Speaker 2: forward within the framework and language of the radical movement. 235 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,680 Speaker 2: These quotes are read by Mary Catherine Garrison. 236 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:54,280 Speaker 5: I am not a berserk woman. I was afraid of 237 00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:57,560 Speaker 5: myself that I would come apart out of control, afraid 238 00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:02,560 Speaker 5: I would go around shooting people. And then it was 239 00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:05,600 Speaker 5: kind of an ultimate protest against the system. I did 240 00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:07,840 Speaker 5: not want to kill somebody, but there comes a point 241 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:10,040 Speaker 5: when the only way you can make a statement is 242 00:15:10,080 --> 00:15:11,000 Speaker 5: to pick up a gun. 243 00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:15,880 Speaker 2: In this final excerpt, Sarah Jane identifies with the anger 244 00:15:15,880 --> 00:15:20,320 Speaker 2: of the radicals. She distinguishes this emotional response from what 245 00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:25,200 Speaker 2: she calls the theoreticians, presumably the radical writers who inspired 246 00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:30,480 Speaker 2: revolutionary action. Moore said she hoped her action would somehow 247 00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:34,880 Speaker 2: force the radical movement to unite, to. 248 00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:37,000 Speaker 5: Forge some kind of unity between the rage that led 249 00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:41,360 Speaker 5: to the formation of the SLA combined with theoreticians. I 250 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:43,560 Speaker 5: wanted them to face the realities of some of the 251 00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:47,240 Speaker 5: things they put in motion. I wanted people to rethink things. 252 00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:50,000 Speaker 5: But it's more than that. I have experienced a kind 253 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:53,680 Speaker 5: of rage and frustration many people feel. People are driven 254 00:15:53,800 --> 00:15:54,720 Speaker 5: to act. 255 00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:58,800 Speaker 2: The publication of the LA Times article made Ellen a 256 00:15:58,920 --> 00:16:04,040 Speaker 2: musquet interview, and she responded by retreating from the public eye. 257 00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:06,560 Speaker 3: I just went into hiding. I didn't take phone calls. 258 00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:09,520 Speaker 3: I didn't do TV or radio interviews. Everyone on Earth 259 00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:13,280 Speaker 3: was trying to interview me. I felt so awful about 260 00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:16,080 Speaker 3: what had happened, and again I thought that I might 261 00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:18,320 Speaker 3: have been able to stop it, and it just killed 262 00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:21,320 Speaker 3: me that I hadn't taken that call. 263 00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:25,600 Speaker 5: Sarah Jane's legal situation after her arrest was tenuous. There 264 00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:27,920 Speaker 5: was no question that she had fired at the president. 265 00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:30,440 Speaker 5: The only hope for her lay in some kind of 266 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:34,920 Speaker 5: mitigating factor that would diminish her legal responsibility. Sarah Jane 267 00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:38,160 Speaker 5: was examined by six psychiatrists to determine whether she was 268 00:16:38,200 --> 00:16:41,880 Speaker 5: sane and competent to stand trial. She was reportedly not 269 00:16:42,040 --> 00:16:46,160 Speaker 5: very forthcoming in these psychiatric interviews. The psychiatrists were not 270 00:16:46,200 --> 00:16:49,320 Speaker 5: in agreement about a diagnosis, though all agreed that she 271 00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:53,160 Speaker 5: suffered from some form of mental illness. They did agree 272 00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:56,720 Speaker 5: that she was competent to stand trial while she met 273 00:16:56,720 --> 00:16:59,840 Speaker 5: the competency threshold. The people that Toby interviewed who knew 274 00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:03,320 Speaker 5: her in nineteen seventy four in nineteen seventy five, certainly 275 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:08,880 Speaker 5: perceived psychological trouble. Journalist Carol Pogash. 276 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,959 Speaker 4: She's clearly a disturbed person, but it wouldn't have occurred 277 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:14,199 Speaker 4: to any of us that she would act on it. 278 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:18,120 Speaker 4: She was this nutty person who none of us took 279 00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:20,480 Speaker 4: seriously until we had to. 280 00:17:22,280 --> 00:17:25,359 Speaker 5: But because Sarah Jane had been found competent to stand trial, 281 00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:28,480 Speaker 5: her defense would have to be that she had not 282 00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:32,520 Speaker 5: been competent at the time of the assassination attempt. On 283 00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:35,360 Speaker 5: December ninth, her lawyer at the time, a man named 284 00:17:35,400 --> 00:17:39,600 Speaker 5: James Hewitt filed a notice of defense based on mental 285 00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:45,800 Speaker 5: condition and insanity defense. Sarah Jane furiously opposed this, in 286 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:48,880 Speaker 5: her mind, delegitimized the reason she had taken the shot 287 00:17:48,920 --> 00:17:52,399 Speaker 5: at Ford. The attempt would be considered the exploits of 288 00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:56,040 Speaker 5: a mentally ill person rather than a revolutionary act, and 289 00:17:56,080 --> 00:18:00,520 Speaker 5: she was adamant that hers was a revolutionary act. That's 290 00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:02,280 Speaker 5: why she had wanted to work with Ellen Hume to 291 00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:06,359 Speaker 5: draft a statement, because she wanted people to know. Here, 292 00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:09,880 Speaker 5: Sarah Jane talks with journalist Ben Williams. 293 00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:12,679 Speaker 10: The government has to believe that any political act of 294 00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:14,600 Speaker 10: that sort, they would like everyone to believe. 295 00:18:14,359 --> 00:18:15,840 Speaker 4: That only kooks do it. 296 00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:19,399 Speaker 10: That anyone that isn't happy with our system, anyone that 297 00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:22,880 Speaker 10: would actually attack it in such a violent fashion, they 298 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:25,199 Speaker 10: must put it down to kooks. They must say that 299 00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:31,320 Speaker 10: these are insane people. I think, you know, honesty compels 300 00:18:31,359 --> 00:18:33,000 Speaker 10: me to say that it was an an out that 301 00:18:33,160 --> 00:18:36,360 Speaker 10: was offered to me. Let it be that you were crazy, 302 00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:39,920 Speaker 10: that's your that's your your route to freedom. 303 00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:45,040 Speaker 11: I mean, the government offered you the yes who Well, 304 00:18:45,080 --> 00:18:50,199 Speaker 11: in terms of the prosecutor, I don't think that it 305 00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:51,280 Speaker 11: was as averse. 306 00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:51,600 Speaker 8: As that. 307 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:57,840 Speaker 5: Against the wishes of her lawyer. On December twelfth, three 308 00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:01,159 Speaker 5: days after the not guilty plea, Sarah Jane stood in 309 00:19:01,160 --> 00:19:03,840 Speaker 5: front of a judge and changed her plea to guilty. 310 00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:07,160 Speaker 5: Journalist Ellen Hume. 311 00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:11,760 Speaker 3: When she pled guilty, I was really angry at the 312 00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:15,400 Speaker 3: judicial system because here was a person with mental illness. 313 00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:18,400 Speaker 3: She never should have been allowed to plead guilty and 314 00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:21,359 Speaker 3: not have a trial. But when she pled guilty, that 315 00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:23,000 Speaker 3: meant she's just going to be in prison for the 316 00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:25,240 Speaker 3: rest of her life, which she pretty much was. 317 00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:29,119 Speaker 6: Her plea was bad in my opinion, not that I 318 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:30,639 Speaker 6: know a lot of this poilet game, but it was 319 00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:33,760 Speaker 6: pretty obviously manipulated it into pleading. 320 00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:36,879 Speaker 5: Lawyer Peggy Garrity. 321 00:19:37,680 --> 00:19:39,960 Speaker 6: I's been a lawyer for about five minutes at this point. 322 00:19:40,119 --> 00:19:42,600 Speaker 6: There was a woman who was very involved in feminist 323 00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:45,200 Speaker 6: organizations in the office I was renting a space from, 324 00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:49,480 Speaker 6: and she was contacted and she didn't want to deal 325 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:52,240 Speaker 6: with it, and something about Sarah Jane was not getting 326 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:53,200 Speaker 6: access to her child. 327 00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:58,040 Speaker 5: This was Frederick, Sarah Jane's nine year old son, by 328 00:19:58,119 --> 00:20:02,399 Speaker 5: John Alberg, the Hollywood sound producer her After Sarah Jane's arrest, 329 00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:04,920 Speaker 5: Frederick moved in with a married couple who had known 330 00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:08,320 Speaker 5: Sarah Jane for a decade. They raised Frederick until he 331 00:20:08,359 --> 00:20:10,520 Speaker 5: graduated from high school in nineteen eighty four. 332 00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:13,960 Speaker 6: I was so excited about being in the practice of law. 333 00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:16,080 Speaker 6: I was dying to go out to the federal prison. 334 00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:18,800 Speaker 6: So I went out and talked to her and left 335 00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:21,000 Speaker 6: thinking there's something I can do for this woman, something 336 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:24,439 Speaker 6: else I can do, because it wasn't really about the child. 337 00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:27,320 Speaker 6: So I talked to her about everything, and I decided 338 00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:31,160 Speaker 6: I could do basically effectively, Hey, this corpus to help 339 00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:33,280 Speaker 6: her not get out, I guess, but get a trial. 340 00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:35,760 Speaker 6: She would talk to me like she didn't talk to 341 00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:39,040 Speaker 6: other people. So I just said, having fun like a new, 342 00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:41,720 Speaker 6: brand new baby lawyer. I'm sitting here thinking, my god, 343 00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:43,400 Speaker 6: an assassin, a real assassin. 344 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:47,680 Speaker 5: Sarah Jane had been increasingly isolated in her last months 345 00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:52,480 Speaker 5: before shooting at Ford. In prison, this process continued. She 346 00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:56,600 Speaker 5: had few visitors. Peggy Garrity visited in her capacity as 347 00:20:56,600 --> 00:21:00,000 Speaker 5: a lawyer. Ellen Hume visited as someone you understood Sarah 348 00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:01,119 Speaker 5: Jane's loneliness. 349 00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:04,000 Speaker 3: But I went to visit her in Long Beach because 350 00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:06,320 Speaker 3: that's where one of the prisons where she was being held, 351 00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:10,080 Speaker 3: and surprisingly they let me in as if I were 352 00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:13,679 Speaker 3: a family member, and we hugged each other because you know, 353 00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:17,200 Speaker 3: I always was kind of supportive of her in many ways, 354 00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:19,960 Speaker 3: and just in terms of listening to her, not because 355 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:23,040 Speaker 3: I supported her ideas she was glad to have somebody 356 00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:26,320 Speaker 3: visit her. I just thought she's alone, you know. I 357 00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:29,840 Speaker 3: did it out of compassion, out of just human kindness. 358 00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:33,399 Speaker 3: But I realized after that she was so unstable. She 359 00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,720 Speaker 3: could have had a jailhouse knife and knife to me 360 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:38,800 Speaker 3: in the back as I hugged her, and I thought 361 00:21:38,840 --> 00:21:42,440 Speaker 3: I better go back there again, and I didn't. 362 00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:46,800 Speaker 5: This concern about Sarah Jane having a knife turned out 363 00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:47,640 Speaker 5: to be well placed. 364 00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:50,760 Speaker 6: So I spent a lot of time going back and forth, 365 00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:54,879 Speaker 6: and there's one story still blows me away. She'd done something. 366 00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:57,680 Speaker 6: So we're meeting in this room where there's like armed 367 00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:00,800 Speaker 6: guards all around us, and she asked me, I'm Manilla 368 00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:05,159 Speaker 6: folder and says, don't go through the metal detector. Like 369 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,680 Speaker 6: I know, I can't hand it back to her. Whatever's 370 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,240 Speaker 6: in there is not a good thing. And even the 371 00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:13,520 Speaker 6: rookie years I am, I'm like, oh, nop so. I 372 00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:16,159 Speaker 6: when I leave here, I don't go through the metal detector. 373 00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,000 Speaker 6: I go around it. I get back to my office 374 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,320 Speaker 6: and I open up and it shived that big. It's 375 00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:22,520 Speaker 6: like twelve inches. I kept it for a long time, 376 00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:24,320 Speaker 6: and that disappeared. I don't know where it went. 377 00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:30,760 Speaker 5: So Sarah Jane's strange behavior continued in prison. She continued 378 00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:34,080 Speaker 5: to maintain that she was completely saying her time in 379 00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:37,560 Speaker 5: the radical underground, she said, had changed her, made her 380 00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:41,480 Speaker 5: understand things differently, and to her, the irony was that 381 00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,080 Speaker 5: it was all because the FBI had used her as 382 00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:47,840 Speaker 5: an informant. Without that urging, she said, she would never 383 00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:50,600 Speaker 5: have become involved to that degree with the radical movement 384 00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:55,280 Speaker 5: and would not have developed her revolutionary commitment. What seems 385 00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:58,359 Speaker 5: fairly clear from her story is that Sarah Jane tried 386 00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:01,800 Speaker 5: different lifestyles and then discarded them. She did it a 387 00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:07,320 Speaker 5: number of times, women's Army Corps, military wife, mother, Hollywood wife, 388 00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:12,399 Speaker 5: doctor's wife, conservative, political organizer. Each time she moved on 389 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:17,560 Speaker 5: without looking back, leaving parents, siblings, husbands, and children in 390 00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:22,480 Speaker 5: her wake. This pattern, potentially driven by mental illness, most 391 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,600 Speaker 5: likely played a factor in her sudden and rapid conversion 392 00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:29,639 Speaker 5: to the radical young, but were there other contributing factors. 393 00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,840 Speaker 5: We've seen how the escalating danger Sarah Jane face likely 394 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:37,320 Speaker 5: led to her assassination attempt. It seems like a stretch 395 00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:41,040 Speaker 5: to say that she experienced coercive persuasion. Unlike the Korean 396 00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,439 Speaker 5: War POW's or credit bank and hostages or Patty Hurst, 397 00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:50,719 Speaker 5: she wasn't under anyone's physical control, but the same factors fear, isolation, 398 00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:56,199 Speaker 5: indoctrination dominated her life. Did this situation, combined with her 399 00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:59,800 Speaker 5: habit of reinvention and likely mental illness, lead to her 400 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:04,560 Speaker 5: a sudden adoption of such radical beliefs. It's impossible to 401 00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:07,199 Speaker 5: know for sure, of course, but it may explain her 402 00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:10,600 Speaker 5: actions and her assessment of her situation in the radical underground. 403 00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:17,320 Speaker 5: When feeling she had no recourse, she took the shot. 404 00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:21,440 Speaker 5: The judicial course following Lynette's and Sarah Jane's attempts, denied 405 00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:25,480 Speaker 5: the opportunity to find out more about their conversion experiences. 406 00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,680 Speaker 5: Sarah Jane pled guilty and wasn't brought to trial. Lynette 407 00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:31,920 Speaker 5: was brought to trial, but managed to turn it into 408 00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:34,760 Speaker 5: a farce. She initially tried to serve as her own 409 00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,200 Speaker 5: defense attorney, but was unable to abide by the rules 410 00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:40,879 Speaker 5: of the court. After that, she essentially refused to attend 411 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:43,280 Speaker 5: the trial, and on the occasion she did, refused to 412 00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,480 Speaker 5: walk so had to be carried by a deputy to 413 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,480 Speaker 5: the court room. She provided minimal cooperation with her defense attorney, 414 00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:52,240 Speaker 5: and at one point threw an apple at the prosecutor, 415 00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,560 Speaker 5: hitting him in the face and knocking off his glasses. 416 00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:58,520 Speaker 5: You get the picture. She was found guilty and sentenced 417 00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,640 Speaker 5: to life in prison without a real examination of how 418 00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:05,760 Speaker 5: she had come so thoroughly under Manson's sway. But this 419 00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:09,160 Speaker 5: was not the case with Patty Hurst. In fact, her 420 00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:14,000 Speaker 5: trial revolved primarily around this question, did Patty actually become 421 00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:17,679 Speaker 5: a revolutionary and if so, did she become one of 422 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:23,480 Speaker 5: her own free will or was she brainwashed? After the break, 423 00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,760 Speaker 5: Joan Beck joined the Chicago Tribune as one of the 424 00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,760 Speaker 5: very few women working in the newsroom in nineteen fifty. 425 00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:38,520 Speaker 5: She worked her way from lifestyle beat topics such as 426 00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:42,080 Speaker 5: fashion and cooking, to harder news focusing on topics such 427 00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:46,479 Speaker 5: as education and medical research. In nineteen seventy five, she 428 00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:49,280 Speaker 5: became the first woman to serve on the Tribune's editorial 429 00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:54,480 Speaker 5: board and began writing a commentary column. On Friday, September 430 00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:58,080 Speaker 5: twenty sixth, nineteen seventy five, a week and a day 431 00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,440 Speaker 5: after the capture of Patty Hurst, Beck wrote a column 432 00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,760 Speaker 5: titled many Parents study Patty for Answers. 433 00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,280 Speaker 1: In it, she wrote, one of the most fearsome aspects 434 00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,280 Speaker 1: of this long, tragic story has been trying to explain 435 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,399 Speaker 1: in some rational way why a beloved daughter of what 436 00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,080 Speaker 1: may seem to be good, caring parents could turn as 437 00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:21,920 Speaker 1: harshly and hatefully on her family and their lifestyle as 438 00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,280 Speaker 1: she seemed to have done. Patty's public rejection of her 439 00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:29,119 Speaker 1: family in the taped Pighirst messages differs only in degree 440 00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,919 Speaker 1: in drama from the kind of rejection many other parents 441 00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,840 Speaker 1: have been getting from young adult children whose behavior they 442 00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:38,080 Speaker 1: can no longer understand, and they are desperately hungry for 443 00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,600 Speaker 1: any crumbs of understanding. Too often, there seems to be 444 00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,480 Speaker 1: no family pathology, no social trauma, sufficient to account for 445 00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,120 Speaker 1: some of the young adults who are spoiling their lives 446 00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:52,560 Speaker 1: with drugs, or losing their bearings in sexual experimentation, or 447 00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:56,520 Speaker 1: dropping out of college aimlessly, or generally balking at growing 448 00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:58,160 Speaker 1: up into responsible adults. 449 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:05,439 Speaker 5: Parents confused by their children adopting seemingly incomprehensible political and 450 00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:09,760 Speaker 5: ethical beliefs probably goes back millennia, but came into particular 451 00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:11,960 Speaker 5: relief with the emergence of the radical young in the 452 00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:16,320 Speaker 5: nineteen sixties. That Patty Hurst had changed, at least temporarily 453 00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,680 Speaker 5: during her time with the sla seemed obvious. But how 454 00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,960 Speaker 5: much free will did she have in the matter. When 455 00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,600 Speaker 5: she heard of Patty's arrest, her mother, Catherine said, thank God, 456 00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,960 Speaker 5: she's all right. Please call it a rescue, not a capture. 457 00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,480 Speaker 5: To her, Patty was the victim who needed to be saved, 458 00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,080 Speaker 5: not the gun toting revolutionary. The question of which of 459 00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:41,119 Speaker 5: these two people Patty really was became the crux of 460 00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:41,639 Speaker 5: her trial. 461 00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,040 Speaker 12: The story that Patricia Hurst today began telling is a 462 00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,879 Speaker 12: horror story of being captured, tortured, driven to the brink 463 00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,760 Speaker 12: of insanity from which she is only now beginning to return. 464 00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,400 Speaker 12: That is her story that will be her de pace. 465 00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:56,720 Speaker 3: She was in court for a hearing today. 466 00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:58,760 Speaker 12: Her lawyer is saying she is in too fragile a 467 00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,600 Speaker 12: condition to take the witness in. The judge saying Hill 468 00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,520 Speaker 12: appoints psychiaprists to examine her because of all she claims 469 00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:07,400 Speaker 12: to have been proved. She did not speak in court, 470 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:10,960 Speaker 12: but her affidavit was admitted and told her story of 471 00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,560 Speaker 12: being kidnapped, thrown in the front of a car, taken 472 00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,440 Speaker 12: to a hideout, and forced into a closet for nine weeks. 473 00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,560 Speaker 5: When Patti Hurst was arrested on September eighteenth, the public 474 00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,360 Speaker 5: had no idea what her experience over the past nineteen 475 00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:28,600 Speaker 5: months had been. The only clues were the audio communicates 476 00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,600 Speaker 5: that had been released in the early days of her 477 00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,720 Speaker 5: time with the SLA, and then her participation in the 478 00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:37,200 Speaker 5: robbery of the Hibernia Bank. Her months with the SLA 479 00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:40,440 Speaker 5: were a complete void, and given the interest in the case, 480 00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:42,960 Speaker 5: it is not much of an exaggeration to say that 481 00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:47,720 Speaker 5: the nation waited anxiously for the story to emerge. The 482 00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,880 Speaker 5: first inkling came from the affidavit filed with the court 483 00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:55,080 Speaker 5: by her defense. One of her attorneys, Terence Halenan, read 484 00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,200 Speaker 5: from the affidavit in front of a press gaggle. 485 00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:02,680 Speaker 13: She remained in this case with her hands brown, blindfolded 486 00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:07,200 Speaker 13: and no light time. The closet was hot and extremely uncomfortable. 487 00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,960 Speaker 13: When the Brian plot was removed, she felt that if 488 00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,280 Speaker 13: she were on an LSD trip, everything was out of proportion, 489 00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:19,160 Speaker 13: big and distorted, the suggestion there that she had been drugged. 490 00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,040 Speaker 12: Also was so weak by them she could barely stand. 491 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,360 Speaker 13: After an interminable length of time, which seemed to her 492 00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,960 Speaker 13: to be weeks, she was released from the closet and 493 00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,960 Speaker 13: seated with the gang of captors who were at that 494 00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,440 Speaker 13: time discussing the robbery of a. 495 00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:39,800 Speaker 5: Bank, and the SLA members told Patty that she had 496 00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,920 Speaker 5: to accompany them during the bank robbery. She needed to 497 00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,800 Speaker 5: allow herself to be photographed and to say her name 498 00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:48,120 Speaker 5: out loud so there would be no doubt she was 499 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:49,640 Speaker 5: actively involved in the hold up. 500 00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,640 Speaker 12: That was the Harbrunnia bank hold up. And becauseier Hurst 501 00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:55,800 Speaker 12: did exactly as she claimed she was ordered to do, 502 00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,200 Speaker 12: because the affidavit says she held her mind clouding, he 503 00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:01,440 Speaker 12: was losing her sanity. 504 00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:06,520 Speaker 5: This was functionally the beginning of her defense, positioning her 505 00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:10,080 Speaker 5: actions with the SLA as a product of fear and brainwashing, 506 00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,960 Speaker 5: But very quickly a different narrative was also put forward. 507 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,560 Speaker 5: This came in the form of a Blockbuster magazine article 508 00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:20,600 Speaker 5: that portrayed Patty hurst time with the SLA in a 509 00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,200 Speaker 5: very different and more complicated light. 510 00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:29,720 Speaker 14: My breakthrough was a big expose of Timothy Leary testifying 511 00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:33,560 Speaker 14: before a grand jury's about how the weather Underground broke 512 00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:37,520 Speaker 14: him out of prison. But in the process, the sources 513 00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,120 Speaker 14: and the people I got to know throughout the Bay 514 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:42,640 Speaker 14: area led me to the Hearst situation. 515 00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,720 Speaker 5: This is retired journalist David Weir. He and his good 516 00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:51,320 Speaker 5: friend Howard Khne researched and wrote a blockbuster article for 517 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,719 Speaker 5: Rolling Stone magazine about Patty Hurst and the SLA at 518 00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:56,920 Speaker 5: a time when the FBI was having no luck in 519 00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:58,280 Speaker 5: finding them. 520 00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:01,600 Speaker 14: I started realizing and that I knew people that knew 521 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:06,240 Speaker 14: people that knew people that were the people helping the SLA. 522 00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:11,400 Speaker 14: So Howard and I told John Winner. He of course 523 00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:15,280 Speaker 14: recognized it was the biggest story in the world. Was excited, 524 00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:20,720 Speaker 14: but our condition was don't publish it until they catch her, 525 00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:24,320 Speaker 14: because we don't want to be essentially snitches helping the 526 00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:28,280 Speaker 14: FBI catch these people whether we agree with them or not. 527 00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,000 Speaker 5: John Winner was the founder and publisher of Rolling Stone. 528 00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:36,800 Speaker 5: He agreed to hold off in publishing the article. The article, 529 00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:41,280 Speaker 5: titled The Inside Story, was released a month after Patty's arrest. 530 00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:44,720 Speaker 5: They had the biggest scoop on the planet. 531 00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:51,600 Speaker 14: We were just deluged with reporters. Reporters came from all directions, 532 00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,520 Speaker 14: and you know, Rolling Stone at that point was on 533 00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:59,720 Speaker 14: Third Street in San Francisco in a warehouse office, and 534 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:04,800 Speaker 14: the crowded around, and we were both twenty eight and 535 00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:10,680 Speaker 14: I'd never appeared before the press before. Howard kind of 536 00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:15,320 Speaker 14: went catatonic. He didn't have anything to say. Joan Wenner, 537 00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:18,120 Speaker 14: the head of the magazine, was hiding in his office. 538 00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,280 Speaker 14: He didn't want to come out and deal with it. 539 00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:21,920 Speaker 8: So it was all on me. 540 00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:25,400 Speaker 14: And like I say, I'd never done anything like this 541 00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:26,440 Speaker 14: before in my life. 542 00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:29,600 Speaker 5: This is David Weir at that press conference. 543 00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,400 Speaker 15: Our information is that the political content of their arguments 544 00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,120 Speaker 15: about the inequitable distribution of wealth in this country and 545 00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:38,480 Speaker 15: a lot of things that a lot of us would 546 00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:41,800 Speaker 15: agree with did make an impact on Patty Hurst, and 547 00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:46,760 Speaker 15: that she was receptive to these correct political positions, and 548 00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:49,680 Speaker 15: that so she did come to have a sympathy with 549 00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:52,720 Speaker 15: what the SLA was telling her. Politically, then, as we 550 00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,400 Speaker 15: understand it, her conversion was more emotional in the end 551 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,800 Speaker 15: then political, in that the SLA people warmed up to her, 552 00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,680 Speaker 15: called her sister treated her in a friendly way after 553 00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,640 Speaker 15: being at first unfriendly and more threatening to her. That 554 00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,760 Speaker 15: complex sort of three folded says circumstances led to the conversion, 555 00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,440 Speaker 15: not this sort of simplistic brainwashing theory that I think 556 00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:15,040 Speaker 15: has been has been spread so far. 557 00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:21,440 Speaker 14: We had a different narrative. It's not that we said 558 00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:27,360 Speaker 14: that she absolutely had one hundred percent sincerely converted into 559 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:32,560 Speaker 14: a revolutionary soldier. It's just that we conveyed that that 560 00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,640 Speaker 14: was the impression that all the people were met her 561 00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:40,640 Speaker 14: during those many months underground came away with. She seemed 562 00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:46,760 Speaker 14: to be almost the fiercest SLA soldier, and her actions 563 00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:52,040 Speaker 14: tended to verify that. When Bill Harris and Emily Harris 564 00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:57,600 Speaker 14: had shoplifted and were in danger of being caught at 565 00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,280 Speaker 14: Mells Hardware in La, it was Patty in the getaway 566 00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:05,960 Speaker 14: car who strayed the hardware front and the people there 567 00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:10,640 Speaker 14: with machine gun bullets, so they escaped, And so actions 568 00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:16,400 Speaker 14: like that really were hard to reconcile with the kidnap victim. 569 00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,800 Speaker 2: This more complicated story was the focus of the Rolling 570 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:27,319 Speaker 2: Stone article, which described Patty's political and emotional indoctrination, her 571 00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:30,560 Speaker 2: growing sense of betrayal by her parents and her emerging 572 00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:35,279 Speaker 2: view of societal problems. The following short excerpts are in 573 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,280 Speaker 2: the same order they appeared in Weir and Cohene's article 574 00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,200 Speaker 2: and show how they detailed the process of Patty's conversion. 575 00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:48,040 Speaker 1: So Patty grew impatient as the ransom negotiations bogged down. 576 00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:51,239 Speaker 1: I felt my parents were debating how much I was worth, 577 00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,440 Speaker 1: she later said, like they figured I was worth two million, 578 00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:57,040 Speaker 1: but I wasn't worth ten million. It was a terrible 579 00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,120 Speaker 1: feeling that my parents could think of me in terms 580 00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:04,080 Speaker 1: of dollars and cents. I felt sick all over by degrees, 581 00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,880 Speaker 1: her disillusionment with her parents turned into sympathy for the SLA. 582 00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:10,520 Speaker 1: For a month, she had been kept in a small 583 00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:15,760 Speaker 1: isolation chamber approximating a San Quentin whole. She became weak 584 00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,359 Speaker 1: and could hardly stand up. To be able to walk 585 00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:21,800 Speaker 1: freely from one room to another seemed the world's greatest pleasure. 586 00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:26,560 Speaker 1: Patty was urged to attend the SLA's daily political study sessions. 587 00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,680 Speaker 1: She was invited to listen to the SLA National Anthem, 588 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,200 Speaker 1: an eerie jazz composition of wind and strings that Sink 589 00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,840 Speaker 1: had selected, and she was furnished with statistical evidence and 590 00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,799 Speaker 1: quotations from George Jackson and Rochelle McGhee that promoted her 591 00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:41,880 Speaker 1: political development. 592 00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:47,960 Speaker 2: George Jackson and Rochelle McGee were prison radicals whose writings 593 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,520 Speaker 2: were influential in the revolutionary movement. 594 00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,160 Speaker 1: Patty was shown a long list of Hirst family holdings, 595 00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:58,880 Speaker 1: nine newspapers, thirteen magazines, four TV and radio stations, a 596 00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:03,160 Speaker 1: silver mine, a paper, and prime real estate. Her parents 597 00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:06,040 Speaker 1: clearly were part of the ruling elite, and the only 598 00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:08,400 Speaker 1: power that could fight that money was the power that 599 00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,520 Speaker 1: came out of the barrel of a gun. The SLA's 600 00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,960 Speaker 1: motives made more sense. They wanted to redistribute the Hurst 601 00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:16,480 Speaker 1: wealth to more needy people. 602 00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:17,800 Speaker 3: It was her. 603 00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:20,759 Speaker 1: Parents and the economic class they represented who were to 604 00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:24,800 Speaker 1: blame for her misery and countless authors. The SLA members 605 00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:28,560 Speaker 1: encouraged her radicalization. They hugged her, called her sister, and 606 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:33,680 Speaker 1: ended her loneliness. Patty's conversion was as much emotional as political. 607 00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:37,839 Speaker 1: Seven weeks after she was kidnapped, Patty asked to join 608 00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,080 Speaker 1: the SLA. 609 00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,719 Speaker 2: Patty Hurst's trial for her participation in the Hibernia bank 610 00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:49,680 Speaker 2: robbery began on February fourth, nineteen seventy six again Professor 611 00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:51,640 Speaker 2: Emeritis Joel Dimsdale. 612 00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:56,080 Speaker 8: Her trial wasn't about who done it, was why she 613 00:36:56,160 --> 00:37:01,080 Speaker 8: done it, And the psychiatric testimony formed the guts of 614 00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:05,640 Speaker 8: the trial, and it was like a formal struggle between 615 00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:12,160 Speaker 8: these different expert opinions. So the defense psychiatrist's view was 616 00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:18,200 Speaker 8: that she was under massive stress, she was isolated, she dissociated, 617 00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:23,080 Speaker 8: and that in essence, her behavior was coerced. 618 00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:28,440 Speaker 2: This defense required the jury to accept the more complicated 619 00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:30,920 Speaker 2: view of control, that it could be the result of 620 00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,600 Speaker 2: things like the terror of a violent kidnapping, isolation in 621 00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:39,600 Speaker 2: a closet for weeks, and forced indoctrination. It also tied 622 00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,400 Speaker 2: her participation in the bank robbery to her seeming conversion 623 00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:48,000 Speaker 2: to the SLA. But the prosecution had a different, arguably 624 00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:48,880 Speaker 2: simpler view. 625 00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:55,040 Speaker 8: The prosecution argued for a very narrow definition of coersion. 626 00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,600 Speaker 8: If I hold a gun to your head, I'd tell 627 00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:04,239 Speaker 8: you to rob a bank right now, that's coercion. But 628 00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:08,480 Speaker 8: if I tell you rob a bank tomorrow, is that 629 00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:14,760 Speaker 8: coersion now? The SLA told Patty that if she didn't 630 00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:18,200 Speaker 8: join them, they would come after her family, and in fact, 631 00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,359 Speaker 8: they did come after her family. They bombed a family household. 632 00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:26,880 Speaker 2: This was the bombing of Hurst Castle on February twelfth, 633 00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:31,279 Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, by the New World Liberation Front, the 634 00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:34,760 Speaker 2: group who publicly accused Popeye Jackson of being a police 635 00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,880 Speaker 2: informant right before his execution, and who committed this bombing 636 00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:42,880 Speaker 2: in support of the SLA. It caused about five point 637 00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:46,320 Speaker 2: five million of today's dollars in damage to the property. 638 00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:52,640 Speaker 8: The jury, initially, they were all very sympathetic to Patty. 639 00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:58,080 Speaker 8: Had thought no kidnapping, no participation in the robbery, she 640 00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:03,640 Speaker 8: wouldn't have been there. As they went into the details 641 00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:09,120 Speaker 8: of the case, they rather quickly came to a decision 642 00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:15,160 Speaker 8: that she was guilty. The second piece of it, of course, 643 00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:19,239 Speaker 8: is well, should there be mitigating circumstances. It's one thing 644 00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:25,600 Speaker 8: to say she's guilty, but marked these unusual circumstances. Oddly enough, 645 00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:30,120 Speaker 8: the court did not decide that there was anything mitigating 646 00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:36,120 Speaker 8: about this at all. They said she was a rich brat, 647 00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:41,879 Speaker 8: and they sentenced her to the average sentence in California 648 00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:45,200 Speaker 8: at that time for a first time. Bank Robert gave 649 00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:49,920 Speaker 8: her no extra mitigation consideration at all and set her 650 00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:50,640 Speaker 8: off to jail. 651 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:54,719 Speaker 2: And so the jury found that despite enduring many of 652 00:39:54,760 --> 00:40:00,759 Speaker 2: the same conditions as the Korean War, POW's isolation, fear doctrination, 653 00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,160 Speaker 2: none of this mattered. She was responsible for the actions. 654 00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,600 Speaker 2: She'd made a conscious decision to become a revolutionary, and 655 00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:11,600 Speaker 2: this may have been the correct verdict. 656 00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:16,320 Speaker 14: When you think about it. The big questions that remain. 657 00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:22,080 Speaker 14: Did Patty suffer from Stockholm syndrome from being held in 658 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:27,279 Speaker 14: the closet and perhaps fearing she'd be killed and the 659 00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:33,400 Speaker 14: trauma of being kidnapped, or did she voluntarily convert to 660 00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:38,759 Speaker 14: becoming an SLA soldier, or are there nuances of this 661 00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:43,000 Speaker 14: that she may have been initially traumatized but also was 662 00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:47,560 Speaker 14: a very rebellious person. She was only a teenager, and 663 00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:52,240 Speaker 14: she'd been a rebellious girl from very young age, getting 664 00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:56,760 Speaker 14: into trouble and having to change schools from the age 665 00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:02,080 Speaker 14: of twelve or fourteen in these private religious schools and 666 00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:03,000 Speaker 14: things like that. 667 00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:06,920 Speaker 2: Even the people within the radical movement weren't sure. 668 00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:12,040 Speaker 14: It was a very public debate about that, but internally 669 00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:16,480 Speaker 14: throughout the network of people supporting the SLA and helping 670 00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:21,480 Speaker 14: the survivors, particularly after the LA shootout, there was a 671 00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:25,440 Speaker 14: debate among the people who were our sources. I can 672 00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:29,400 Speaker 14: honestly say nobody seemed to know for sure, and I 673 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,520 Speaker 14: can say fifty years later, I don't know for sure. 674 00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:37,200 Speaker 14: Patty Hurst herself may not know for sure. I think 675 00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:43,319 Speaker 14: this is an incredibly complicated situation. And I remember interviewing 676 00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:47,319 Speaker 14: cops doing some other stories. As they drive around the 677 00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:51,680 Speaker 14: city at bus stops, they would look at the people 678 00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:54,520 Speaker 14: waiting at the bus stop and the way they would 679 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,399 Speaker 14: pace and the number of steps they would take and say, 680 00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,120 Speaker 14: that guy was in San Quentin, guy was in Fulsome 681 00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:06,000 Speaker 14: that guy was in David. They could tell years after 682 00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:12,440 Speaker 14: freedom who had been imprisoned where by their pacing, Because prisoners, 683 00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:16,640 Speaker 14: like animals in the cage, pace the perimeter over and 684 00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,520 Speaker 14: over and over all day long. It gets imprinted in 685 00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:25,560 Speaker 14: their mind. So what I'm saying is I think once 686 00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:29,439 Speaker 14: somebody has been kidnapped, they're always a kidnap victim. Even 687 00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:33,400 Speaker 14: after they're free, they're never truly free. 688 00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:37,000 Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy three, the top grossing film in the 689 00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:41,000 Speaker 2: United States was The Exorcist, the story of an adolescent 690 00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,279 Speaker 2: girl possessed by a demon. A famous moment from the 691 00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,000 Speaker 2: film comes when the girl's mother is pleading with a 692 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,880 Speaker 2: priest to consider the possibility that her daughter is possessed. 693 00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:53,719 Speaker 2: She says, i'd known my gut. 694 00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:57,400 Speaker 16: I'm telling you that that thing upstairs isn't my daughter. 695 00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:02,000 Speaker 2: This quote echo the reactions of parents of many of 696 00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,880 Speaker 2: the people involved in this story. In episode two, we 697 00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:10,200 Speaker 2: heard Manson follower Susan Atkins, father, you. 698 00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:16,200 Speaker 17: Can be involved in almost anything because the hypnotic trans 699 00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,840 Speaker 17: you won't do something that is basically against who but 700 00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:22,600 Speaker 17: you know is right. But under a note, you've can 701 00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,080 Speaker 17: do almost anything. I don't know how to stand by 702 00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:27,040 Speaker 17: her side. I lost her. 703 00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:31,920 Speaker 2: In an interview with the La Times, Martin Solia, the 704 00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:35,880 Speaker 2: father of the three Solia siblings who joined the SLA, said. 705 00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,840 Speaker 1: They were good kids, good students, and Stephen was an athlete. 706 00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,319 Speaker 1: But they went up north and got screwed up at home. 707 00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:45,719 Speaker 1: They were good right wing Republicans who got up every 708 00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:48,680 Speaker 1: morning and pledged allegiance to the flag. How do you 709 00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:49,200 Speaker 1: figure it? 710 00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:53,759 Speaker 2: And Randolph Hurst echoed this sentiment to the press after 711 00:43:53,800 --> 00:44:00,080 Speaker 2: Patty Hurst appeared as a militant in the Hibernia bank robbery. 712 00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:04,440 Speaker 7: You have a reaction to it. She was a lovely 713 00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:09,080 Speaker 7: child and sixty days later the picture over in a 714 00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:10,839 Speaker 7: bank with a gun in her hand. You know, I 715 00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:12,360 Speaker 7: don't think anybody feel. 716 00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,480 Speaker 2: It's disorienting. When someone undergoes a fundamental change in their 717 00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:21,480 Speaker 2: perception of the world, the people around them wonder what happened. 718 00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:26,520 Speaker 2: What caused Lynette from to follow Manson, Patty Hurst to 719 00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:30,040 Speaker 2: join the SLA, Sarah Jane Moore to become a self 720 00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:35,839 Speaker 2: styled Marxist revolutionary. Was it mental illness? Was a coercive persuasion? 721 00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:39,840 Speaker 2: Was it a sudden realization of truths about the country 722 00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:43,080 Speaker 2: and the world that had been hidden before and were 723 00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,719 Speaker 2: now a parent, along with an ideology to direct how 724 00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,680 Speaker 2: to think about it? And how do you know? It 725 00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,200 Speaker 2: seems to me that any huge shift in a person's 726 00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:56,160 Speaker 2: understanding of the world will seem to those around them 727 00:44:56,160 --> 00:45:00,680 Speaker 2: as the product of mental illness or coercive persuasion. People 728 00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:04,279 Speaker 2: would probably say brainwashing, but the person who has made 729 00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,840 Speaker 2: the change probably experiences it as a lifting of the 730 00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:12,560 Speaker 2: veil of a burst of understanding. Lynette, Sarah Jane, and 731 00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:17,640 Speaker 2: Patty each most likely experienced either mental illness or coercive persuasion, 732 00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,239 Speaker 2: or both. They ended up at the furthest extremes of 733 00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:25,200 Speaker 2: the radical young. They are not representative of the millions 734 00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,839 Speaker 2: of people who adopted the new ethos that developed during 735 00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:34,120 Speaker 2: what we call the sixties. They are the exceptions, anomalies 736 00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,719 Speaker 2: whose journeys somehow all ended within a two and a 737 00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:42,880 Speaker 2: half week period in northern California. This is Paggy Gharrity 738 00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:45,840 Speaker 2: talking about a prison meeting she had with Sarah Jane. 739 00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:50,560 Speaker 6: Well, you're sitting in the prison yard is like patio tables, umbrellas, 740 00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:54,839 Speaker 6: round tables, and we're sitting there and she says, that's 741 00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:58,480 Speaker 6: squeaky over it. She's staring at us, and I look 742 00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:03,160 Speaker 6: over and this tiny little person so it's glaring, glaring, glaring. 743 00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,239 Speaker 6: It was really creepy, super creepy. Em sitting with one 744 00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:11,040 Speaker 6: assassin looking at another, and I'm I'm like, okay, yeah, lawyer. 745 00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:13,800 Speaker 6: For maybe two years at this point, there were moments 746 00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:15,399 Speaker 6: I thought I'm in this thing too deep. 747 00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:23,279 Speaker 18: Ford had his hands out and was waving and had 748 00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:28,360 Speaker 18: just come from breakfast with the businessman, and he looked 749 00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:29,840 Speaker 18: like cardboard to me. 750 00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:35,080 Speaker 5: Lynette from was released from the Federal Medical Center Carswell 751 00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:39,160 Speaker 5: in Fort Worth, Texas, on August fourteenth, two thousand and nine. 752 00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:41,919 Speaker 5: She now lives in Upstate New York. 753 00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:45,399 Speaker 16: And I know it's really hard to understand, because it's 754 00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:50,200 Speaker 16: really hard for me now to try to think of 755 00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,680 Speaker 16: of our what it was really in my mind, you 756 00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:59,680 Speaker 16: know how I could have thought that way, because it's crazy. 757 00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:01,960 Speaker 16: This doesn't make any sense at all. 758 00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:06,799 Speaker 5: President Jimmy Carter commuted Patty her sentence after she had 759 00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:10,360 Speaker 5: served twenty two months for robbing the Hibernia Bank. She 760 00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:14,719 Speaker 5: was released from the Federal Correctional Institution Dublin in Dublin, California, 761 00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:20,160 Speaker 5: on February first, nineteen seventy nine. President Bill Clinton pardoned 762 00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:23,520 Speaker 5: her on January twentieth, two thousand and one, his last 763 00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:27,120 Speaker 5: day in office. She currently lives on the East Coast 764 00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:28,880 Speaker 5: and raises show dogs. 765 00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:33,200 Speaker 10: In the very nature of the act that I committed, 766 00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:37,640 Speaker 10: you know, I made an irrevocable commitment. 767 00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:38,080 Speaker 6: To a cause. 768 00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:43,280 Speaker 2: Sarah Jane Moore also served a term at the Federal 769 00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:48,080 Speaker 2: Correctional Institution Dublin. She was released on December thirty one, 770 00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:51,880 Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. She lives in a nursing home 771 00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:57,320 Speaker 2: in Nashville, Tennessee. During Sarah Jane's interview with Playboy magazine, 772 00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:00,520 Speaker 2: writer Andrew Hill asked if she could just gribe what 773 00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:03,880 Speaker 2: she was feeling on the day she shot at gerald Ford. 774 00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:07,000 Speaker 2: She responded by reciting a poem. 775 00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:12,520 Speaker 5: She'd written, hold hold still my hand, steady my eye, 776 00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:16,680 Speaker 5: chill my heart, and let my gun sing for the 777 00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:21,520 Speaker 5: people scream their anger, cleanse with their hate, and kill 778 00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:22,560 Speaker 5: this monster. 779 00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:26,960 Speaker 2: Is the monster in this poem Ford, I don't think so. 780 00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,239 Speaker 2: No one was screaming their anger about gerald Ford. They 781 00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:35,520 Speaker 2: were screaming their anger about America. In Sarah Jane's own telling, 782 00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:38,680 Speaker 2: the end of her journey in the radical Underground was 783 00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,080 Speaker 2: a single gunshot at a symbol of all that she 784 00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:44,839 Speaker 2: had come to hate about her country, A single gunshot 785 00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:45,760 Speaker 2: that missed. 786 00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:50,520 Speaker 1: Rip Current was created and written by Toby Ball and 787 00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:54,480 Speaker 1: developed with Alexander Williams. Hosted by Toby Ball with Mary 788 00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:58,759 Speaker 1: Catherine Garrison. Original music by Jeff Sannoff, Show art by 789 00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:02,960 Speaker 1: Jeff nya's Goda and Charles Rudder. Producers Jesse funk, Rema 790 00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:08,480 Speaker 1: O'Kelly and Noms Griffin, Supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive producers 791 00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:12,600 Speaker 1: Alexander Williams and Matt Frederick Here. Episodes of Rip Current 792 00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:16,640 Speaker 1: early completely add free and receive exclusive bonus content by 793 00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:21,120 Speaker 1: subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plots only on Apple Podcasts. 794 00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:26,320 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 795 00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:29,640 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and visit 796 00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:41,880 Speaker 1: our website, ripcurrentpod dot com