Summary and Analysis of American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst: Based on the Book by Jeffrey Toobin
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Summary and Analysis of American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst: Based on the Book by Jeffrey Toobin
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This short summary and analysis of American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin includes:
- Historical context
- Chapter-by-chapter summaries
- Detailed timeline of key events
- Profiles of the main characters
- Important quotes
- Fascinating trivia
- Glossary of terms
- Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work
About American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin:
Bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin’s American Heiress is a thorough true crime account of the kidnapping and trial of Patty Hearst, whose sensational journey gripped the nation and defined a tumultuous period in American history.
On February 4, 1974, Patricia Hearst—the heiress to the Hearst family fortune—was abducted by a group of left-wing revolutionaries called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). What started as a media sensation turned into a circus when a recording was released in which Patty claimed she was joining the movement and her new name was Tania.
Set against the backdrop of an already turbulent era, and based on hundreds of interviews and never-before-seen documents, American Heiress is a revelatory look at one of the most famous abductions of the twentieth century.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504043069 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Worth Books |
| Publication date: | 11/29/2016 |
| Series: | Smart Summaries |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 30 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
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Summary and Analysis of American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst
Based on the Book by Jeffrey Toobin
By Worth Books
Worth Books
Copyright © 2016 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4306-9
CHAPTER 1
Summary
Part One
Prologue
American Heiress opens with the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, a nineteen-year-old student, by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) on February 4, 1974. Up until her kidnapping, Patricia, or "Patty," was living with her fiancé, Steven Weed. Both were students at the University of California at Berkeley.
When the SLA bust in to their apartment, Weed was wounded but managed to escape. Hearst was forcibly held in the trunk of a getaway car (later she would be allowed to sit in the backseat of a second car), and thus one of the most notorious kidnappings in American history began.
Chapter One: Nervous Breakdown Nation
Toobin presents an overview of the 1970s before Hearst's kidnapping, describing the intense political and social unrest of the period. The Vietnam War, the election of Richard Nixon, the Zodiac Killer who terrorized San Francisco (and who is still at large), and the enormous racial conflict that resulted in escalating violence from groups such as the Death Angels and the Zebra Killers. The Death Angels, a group of black Muslims, targeted and shot five white people in San Francisco following Muhammad Ali's victory over Joe Frazier. The story ran in all the major newspapers on January 29, 1974; Hearst was kidnapped the following Monday.
Chapter Two: From Inside the Trunk
Jeffrey Toobin imagines what Hearst must have been thinking while she was in the getaway car, in terms of her family's wealth and prestige in the area. He takes this opportunity in the narrative to give the reader background on Hearst's great-grandparents, Phoebe and George, and her grandparents, the infamous William Randolph Hearst (the newspaper magnate who inspired Orson Welles's Citizen Kane) and his wife Millicent Wilson, and their five boys, including Randy, Patricia's father.
Toobin paints a fascinating portrait of Randy and Catherine, Patricia's parents, focusing in particular on Catherine's Catholicism and conservatism, and Patricia's rebellious behavior.
Chapter Three: The SLA
While incarcerated at a prison called Vacaville in California, Donald DeFreeze became a part of what is now known as the Prison Movement, a social crusade amongst imprisoned black men, that fought the idea of indeterminate sentencing — e.g., "five years to life." DeFreeze received that exact sentence for pulling a knife on a prostitute.
While in jail at Vacaville, he read George Jackson's memoir, Blood in My Eye, and became radicalized. A young white student named Willy Wolfe — who tutored inmates at Vacaville — acted as a liaison between the black inmates in the prison movement and the radicalized white students at Berkeley, and so the SLA was born.
Chapter Four: The Point of No Return
The plan to kidnap Patricia Hearst is hatched when two members of the SLA, Russ Little and Joe Remiro, are picked up by the police and charged with the murder of Marcus Foster. The SLA was responsible for the murder of Foster, the first black superintendent of the school system in Oakland, California, because of his proposal for a student ID card system. The SLA viewed the ID card system as racist. However, it was not Little or Remiro who carried out the murder.
Despite the fact that the police raided the SLA's safe house (which they had tried, unsuccessfully, to burn to the ground) and found plans for kidnapping victims including Patricia Hearst, authorities failed to take the plans seriously and Hearst was never warned.
Part Two
Chapter Five: Prisoner of War
Patricia Hearst arrives at the SLA safe house, but she remains blindfolded. DeFreeze tells her she is a prisoner of war and is being held under the tenets of the Geneva Convention, meaning she will not be tortured. He further explains their reasoning for taking her, in hopes of a prisoner exchange.
Hearst pretends not to know who the SLA is, but she knows they are responsible for the murder of Marcus Foster. The SLA releases what they call a "communiqué" to the press detailing their warrant for Hearst's "arrest." Patty forms a close friendship with SLA member Angela Atwood, a former actress and student at Indiana University. Even from the first few days of her kidnapping, Patty exhibits empathy for her kidnappers, and vice versa.
Chapter 6: Not Just a Bunch of Nuts
Bill Harris proposes that the Hearst family give to those in need as a gesture of good faith to the SLA. They make a demand that free food and goods be distributed to "people in need." Randy Hearst scrambles to put a program together, but it's impossible. "Full compliance would have cost the family approximately $400 million (more than two billion in 2016 dollars)," Toobin explains. The Hearsts hear from Patty for the first time. Her first words are: "Mom, Dad, I'm OK."
Chapter 7: Three Hundred Bald Men
Largely due to the publicity involving the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the People in Need program launched by Randy Hearst, in which free groceries were distributed at four local stores, ends in violence. The crowds are so immense that people riot, and many are injured. When the program has to be halted, DeFreeze accuses Randy Hearst of not putting enough money behind it, and demands two million more. Patty is allowed to watch TV in her closet, and the SLA begins to paint a portrait that her parents are not serious about securing her release.
Chapter 8: I'm a Strong Woman
DeFreeze tells Patty the biggest threat to her safety is the FBI, in the form of a raid. If that happens, he suggests, she deserves the chance to defend herself. He gives her a gun and shows her how to use it.
In conversations with Atwood, Patty reveals her frustration with her parents' conservative values and with her fiancé, Steven Weed, who ran from the kidnappers rather than fight for her safety. The SLA members closest to Hearst tell DeFreeze they like their captive. The SLA issues another communiqué from Patty in which she tells her parents: "What you had to say sounded like you don't care if I ever get out of here."
Patty's attitude toward her parents and kidnappers takes a surprising shift.
Chapter 9: The Birth of Tania
The sexual habits of the SLA come into focus in this chapter. Bill and Emily Harris were the only two people not sleeping with each other, Toobin explains, which is interesting because they were legally married. Citing communist philosophy, DeFreeze claims that sexual gratification is for the good of the group. According to Atwood, Patty makes an unusual request: to have sex with Willy Wolfe. Later, she claimed this wasn't true — that she was forced to have sex with him and with DeFreeze.
Donald DeFreeze asks Patty if she'd rather be freed or join the SLA. She responds: "I want to join you." The SLA start calling her "Tania," after a woman who fought with Che Guevara.
Chapter 10: Stay and Fight
DeFreeze and the other members of the SLA realize they have struck a propaganda gold mine with Patty proclaiming her allegiance to the group. They quickly distribute a photograph of Patty in front of their flag holding a giant gun, and release an audio recording of a lengthy statement in which she reprimands her parents for their failure to secure her release and declares her allegiance to the SLA.
The SLA robs a bank using Patty as the main event. Inside the bank, she is placed directly in front of the security cameras, where she says, "This is Tania ... Patricia Hearst."
Part Three
Chapter 11: Common Criminals
Patty's involvement in the bank robbery cleaves the nation into two factions: those who consider her a folk hero — a rich heiress who was speaking up for the downtrodden — and those who see her as little more than an enemy of the state. In between these two halves are her parents, who are convinced that she is being coerced into criminal activity.
To many, the April 24 bank robbery proves once and for all that Patty is a member of the SLA of her own volition.
Chapter 12: Showdown at Mel's
Patty joins Bill and Emily Harris on a grocery run. After stopping at a sporting goods shop called Mel's, Bill attempts to steal something, and is noticed by one of the employees. A struggle ensues, which Patty witnesses from the car. Though she could have bolted (having been left alone) she, instead, opens fire, allowing for Bill and Emily's escape. Once far enough out of the area, they stop at a house where a van was for sale. They steal the vehicle and abduct its owner, a high school senior named Tom Matthews.
Chapter 13: Live on Television
After the shoot-out at Mel's, Patty, Bill, and Emily ditch the hostage and seek refuge in a hotel. The police and FBI find the SLA's safe house in LA, but it is empty — the rest of the group has fled. An intense manhunt begins, with local news stations struggling to keep up along the way. As Toobin writes, "the whole world was watching."
DeFreeze and the other SLA members walk into a house at 1466 East 54th Street, telling its occupants that they need to commandeer it. But the family's grandmother fearlessly goes to the police. Soon, the house is surrounded, with many of the family's young members trapped inside.
Chapter 14: Apocalypse on Fifty-Fourth Street
What Toobin calls "the biggest police gun battle ever to take place on American soil" begins at 54th Street — and it is televised. With the Hearsts and the rest of America watching in real time, the police and FBI unleash a torrent of gunfire and tear gas on the house. Eventually, the hostages are rescued, but the six members of the SLA keep fighting until the very end.
Bill, Emily, and Patty watch from a hotel room in Anaheim as six of their comrades are killed: Nancy Ling Perry and Camilla Hall from gunfire, Atwood, Wolfe, and Mizmoon from burns and smoke inhalation. DeFreeze dies of a gunshot wound from the temple, though it's unclear whether it was a bullet from the police or an act of suicide.
Part Four
Chapter 15: "The Gentlest, Most Beautiful Man"
The three remaining members of the SLA — Bill and Emily Harris and Patty — make it back to San Francisco, where they realize their best hope for survival is a woman named Kathy Soliah, a fellow revolutionary and friend of Angela Atwood. Kathy comes to their rescue, and the group writes what comes to be known as the "eulogy communiqué," celebrating the lives of their fallen comrades. In it, Patty says of Willy Wolfe: "[He's] the gentlest, most beautiful man I've ever known."
For Patty, the 54th Street shoot-out solidifies her commitment to the cause, and she tells Bill and Emily she wants to go out in a "blaze of glory."
Chapter 16: Jack Scott Makes an Offer
Watching the saga of the SLA unfold, New York sports journalist Jack Scott gets on a plane and heads to San Francisco. It just so happens that he's friends with Kathy Soliah, and he tells her he wants to tell the SLA's story. She blindfolds him and takes him to the three remaining members. He tells them he wants to write about them, and offers to take them to a safe house — his parents' farm outside Philadelphia — but demands that they disarm.
At first they refuse; then, realizing their lack of options, they agree to go with him. Alone in the car with Patty, Jack Scott tells her he can take her to her parents, or to a hospital. But, as Tania, she replies, "take me where-the-fuck you're supposed to, or you'll be dead, not just to me."
Chapter 17: Road Trip
Over the summer of 1974, Bill, Emily, and Patty are offered a safe haven in the home of Jack Scott, first in New York, then in rural Pennsylvania. Scott is keen to interview all three, Patty in particular, for a book. Despite Jack's father, Lou, encouraging Patty to return to her parents, she insists being a part of SLA was her idea and claims that her kidnapping was staged. After a tumultuous and frustrating summer, the remaining SLA members reach out to Kathy Soliah, who suggests they come back to the West Coast, to Sacramento.
Chapter 18: The Streets of Sacramento
Patty moves in with Kathy Soliah and her brother Steve in Sacramento. Steve and Patty quickly become a couple. Patty attempts to transition back into a normal life, even going along with Steve on a few of his gigs as a handyman, but Bill insists that the SLA is not dead, and that they need to plan another bank heist, since they are rapidly running out of money.
The robbery of the Guild Bank goes off without a hitch and the SLA continues its revolution with the New World Liberation Front (NWLF), the organization of activists Jim Kilgore and Kathy Soliah.
Chapter 19: Death of a "Bourgeois Pig"
Little and Remiro fail at an attempt to escape from prison. Kathy Soliah and Jim Kilgore go on a bombing spree. The FBI still has no idea that Patty has returned to California. After the success of the Guild Bank robbery, the SLA/NWLF decide to commit another heist, this time at the Crocker National Bank. Patty drives the getaway van.
During the heist, Emily shoots a woman named Myrna Opsahl, who later dies at the hospital. Additionally, a bank teller who was pregnant was kicked by Kathy Soliah, resulting in a miscarriage. While the other comrades claimed the shot was an accident, Emily bragged about it. The total draw from the robbery was only $15,000.
Chapter 20: Feminist Bomb Making
As the women's movement reaches a fever pitch during the summer of 1975, the women of the group — Patty, Emily Harris, Wendy Yosimura, and Kathy's younger sister, Josephine Soliah — decide to learn to build bombs as deadly as those produced by their male counterparts. The first few efforts to bomb police stations fail. Then, on August 13, 1975, they succeed in blowing up a police car.
Plans to kill the police officers who had killed the original members of the SLA are thwarted when their biggest bomb fails to detonate. Steve and Patty move into a new apartment at 625 Morse Avenue, which she described as one of the happiest homes she made while living on the lam.
Chapter 21: Freeze!
Walter Scott, Jack Scott's alcoholic brother, tells Scranton police that his family was involved in sheltering Patty and the two remaining members of the SLA. By springtime, the FBI has interviewed both Jack and his wife, but the two truthfully told them they had no idea where Patty had landed back in California. Randy Hearst meets with Jack Scott and asks him about Patty.
Once the FBI learns the Soliahs are involved, they are led to Bill and Emily Harris, whom they apprehend. Learning more about Steve Soliah's house painting business, they go to check out his place of residence. There — on September 18, 1975 — they find Patty Hearst. Patty has been "on the lam," first as a kidnapping victim, then as a fugitive, for nineteen months.
Part Five
Chapter 22: "There Will Be a Revolution in Amerikkka and We'll Be Helping to Make It"
Even before she arrives at the police station, word of Patty's arrest has spread. The press swarms the police car where she sits defiantly in the backseat. Patty gives a revolutionary clenched right fist as a salute to the eager photographers. She lists her occupation as "urban guerrilla."
Randy Hearst, her father, has an entire cadre of lawyers anticipating her arrival. While waiting to see if her bail will be posted, Patty signs an affidavit that claims she was held against her will by the SLA in a fog of drugs for nearly a year. This was untrue, and so her request for bail is denied.
Chapter 23: "Your Ever-Loving Momma and Poppa Care About the Truth"
The Hearsts hire controversial defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey to represent their daughter. He is joined by Al Johnson, who becomes one of Patty's closest confidants. The time in prison leading up to her trial allows Patty the chance to reconnect with her family. They bond over their shared hatred of Steven Weed, who has just released a book on his experience, and Patty begins to sever ties with Steve Soliah. She even asks her sister to bring her makeup. These conversations (while in jail) were all recorded.
Chapter 24: More Excited Than Scared
The trial begins. F. Lee Bailey proceeds with the defense that Patty Hearst was motivated by her will to survive, not her allegiance to the SLA. Now dressed "like a college student arriving for a job interview," Hearst takes the witness stand. She claims she was raped by both Wolfe and DeFreeze, and that all her statements in the communiqués were coerced. But in the end of her testimony, during cross examination, she invokes her Fifth Amendment right — to not answer the questions that would incriminate herself — and loses the support of the jury.
Chapter 25: The Search for Old McMonkey
Bailey's biggest concern is that Patty will be tried for the bank robbery that killed Myrna Opsahl, so he offers her testimony against the others who had participated in exchange for immunity. The jury hears from a long list of psychiatrists brought in by the prosecution and the defense who offer explanations as to the state of Patty's mind. Interestingly, the phrase "Stockholm syndrome," which has basically become synonymous with the kidnapping, was never uttered by anyone during the trial. But they do discuss the idea of "brainwashing" ad nauseam.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Summary and Analysis of American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Worth Books. Copyright © 2016 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Worth Books.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Context,Overview,
Summary,
Timeline,
Cast of Characters,
Direct Quotes and Analysis,
Trivia,
What's That Word?,
Critical Response,
About Jeffrey Toobin,
For Your Information,
Bibliography,
Copyright,