Hearst, Patty (1954–)

Patty Hearst, the heiress to the Hearst newspaper empire, is best known as a kidnapping victim turned terrorist. As a member of a small, leftist terrorist group in California, Hearst, along with her kidnappers, went to prison in 1976 for bank robbery.

The granddaughter of the legendary publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, Patty Hearst was raised by her parents to be privileged but not spoiled by their family's wealth. In 1974, while attending college at University of California, Berkeley, and living with her fiancé, Steven Weed, her life suddenly changed dramatically. On the evening of February 4, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) barged into their apartment, injured Weed badly, and kidnapped Hearst. The SLA held her captive at their safe house for about two months.

Led by a man called Cinque after his escape from prison, the SLA was a radical terrorist group campaigning to overthrow the white bourgeois capitalists of America. They originally intended to exchange Hearst for the release of two SLA members jailed for the murder of the Oakland school superintendent, Marcus Foster. However, when her capture generated extensive media coverage, the SLA decided they would demand even more. In order for Hearst to be released, her father would have to organize and pay for the distribution of $70 worth of food to every poor person in California. This amount exceeded even the wealth of the Hearst family. Although he couldn't give that much, her father did donate $2 million, but the distribution locations were looted and the operation was not very successful.

It is said that the SLA then brainwashed Hearst into believing that her father was a “capitalist pig,” and that he did not care enough about her or the people to comply with their demands. While keeping her locked in a closet and blindfolded, they battered her with their beliefs and condemned her for her background. It is said that several of the men also raped her. Ultimately, they gave Hearst the choice to go free or stay and fight for the cause with them. Her rationale in deciding to stay has been a cause for great debate. Some believe that Hearst was indeed brainwashed into sympathizing with her captors, while others believe that if she chose to go free they would have immediately killed her, and that she complied only to ensure her own survival. Still others believe that Hearst had prior associations with the SLA and had helped them orchestrate her own kidnapping.

[Page 254]Calling herself Tania, Hearst became involved in several of the SLA's activities. She issued a tape recording to the media denouncing capitalism and her family, and then participated in a bank robbery in San Francisco on April 15, 1974. On May 17 of the same year, a shootout occurred between the SLA and police at their safe house in Los Angeles. The house caught fire and six SLA members perished. Hearst and two other SLA members, Bill and Emily Harris, were not present when the shootout occurred. With the help of Kathleen Ann Soliah, the three became fugitives and lived in hiding for more than a year. The FBI was tipped off to their location, and in September 1975 they found and arrested several remaining SLA members, including Hearst. She was convicted of committing the bank robbery and of using firearms, but she only served three years of her seven-year sentence before President Jimmy Carter granted her a pardon in 1979. Released from prison, Hearst married her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw, and moved to Connecticut, where they had two daughters.

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