Jeannette Cooperman at The Common Reader:
Fifty years ago, a young woman was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a ragtag group of revolutionaries willing to kill for gentle causes. For weeks, she recorded strident, sarcastic messages at her captors’ bidding, messages that bewildered and disturbed their intended audience. In time, she was taught the group’s thinking, given a nom de guerre (Tania), and handed a sawed-off carbine. She waved it around to help the SLA rob a bank—and later sprayed bullets from a machine gun to help them escape arrest. Of her own volition, she hid out with them for nearly a year. Public response swung from warm concern to fury.
I was too young to make sense of any of this, but the name still fizzes in my memory. In two years, Patty Hearst made the cover of Newsweek seven times. In the initial rush of sympathy, one man offered to go hungry until she was returned; another offered to give up his salary to feed the poor and thus placate her kidnappers. Strange allies surfaced, among them cult leader Jim Jones, the Moonies, and later, Charles Manson. When she turned fugitive, reports of sightings poured into the FBI.
More here.
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