America 50 Years Ago


Patty Hearst: Heiress Became a Revolutionary


Seized at gunpoint, she joined her kidnappers, robbed banks — and was pardoned by two presidents.


I BY JERRY OPPENHEIMER


t was a story that seemed more out of a Hollywood script than reality. A pretty 19-year-old heiress,


engaged to be married, is dragged screaming from her apartment by ter- rorists while her fiancé is beaten nearly unconscious trying to rescue her. The crime in Berkeley, California,


rings of today’s rampant brutality. But this one happened a week before Valentine’s Day 50 years ago, and became known as “the crime of the century.” The victim, whose kidnapping — and the bizarre aftermath — made headlines world- wide, was Patricia Campbell Hearst, heiress to the Hearst media fortune. Her kidnappers were members of a


leftist urban guerilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). And what made the Hearst kidnapping even more extraordinary was that dur- ing her captivity she joined the SLA in committing heinous crimes. In the early weeks of her captivity,


she was forced to make tape recordings revealing that she had shifted from vic- tim to SLA comrade. Moreover, at her urging in taped messages, her father gave away $2 mil- lion worth of food to the poor — done to comply with her captors’ demands and as a condition of her release. But freedom never happened. The


next day a tape was released. “This is Tania,” she said using a


36 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2024


name she chose in honor of a comrade of Che Guevara, the Marxist revolu- tionary. “I have chosen to stay and fight,” she declared. Several months later Hearst was


olutionaries who had kidnapped her died during a shootout and fire that was aired live on TV. How could the seemingly sweet,


society granddaughter of legendary William Randolph Hearst, who had created a media empire of newspapers, magazines, and more, become a violent and crazed radical virtually overnight? After a long manhunt, the wealthy kidnapping victim who proclaimed herself a revolutionary-turned-bank robber was captured in the blue-collar Mission district of San Francisco by the FBI, ending a 19-month drama that began on the night of Feb. 4, 1974, when she was abducted. She was charged with bank rob-


bery. At her trial, she was defended by


GUERILLA Patty Hearst today and, during the 1970s, wielding a submachine gun while robbing a sporting goods store.


recorded on surveillance video robbing a San Francisco bank. Wielding an M1 carbine, she yelled: “I’m Tania. Up, up, up against the wall motherf***er.” Two bank customers were shot by


other SLA members. A month after the robbery, Hearst


joined a bungled shoplifting attempt at a Los Angeles area sporting goods store. During a scuffle with the man- ager, Hearst fired a submachine gun at the building. A gun found at the scene led police


the next day to a house in South Cen- tral Los Angeles. Hearst was not there, but six members of the self-styled rev-


the best Hearst money could buy, attorney F. Lee Bailey. Regarding the bank robbery, she testified that her captors demanded she appear enthu- siastic, and was threatened with death if she defied them. On March 20, 1976, Hearst was convicted of bank robbery and using a firearm during the commission of a felony, and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. But President Jimmy Carter com-


muted Hearst’s federal sentence to 22 months served, and she was released on Feb. 1, 1979. On Jan. 20, 2001, President Bill Clinton, on his last day in office, granted Hearst a full pardon, erasing her criminal record. Hearst married her former body-


guard Bernard Shaw, who died in 2013. They had two daughters — life- style blogger and model Lydia, and Gillian, who has been an editor at Town & Country, a Hearst magazine. Today, at 69, Hearst lives in New York City and Connecticut.


MUGSHOT/ DONALDSON COLLECTION/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES / MACHINE GUN/ GETTY IMAGES


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