The Politics of Terror

"Yes indeed, you know us all and we know you -- the oppressor, murderer and robber. And you have hunted and robbed and exploited us all. Now we are the hunters that will give you no rest."

The shrill rhetoric was not new to America's politics, but the actions that backed it up certainly were. On one coast of the U.S. last week, those chilling words ended the latest communique from the kidnapers of Patricia Hearst, the California publishing heiress who was nearing the end of her third week in the clutches of the violently leftist fringe group that calls itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. On the other side of the nation, in grim ideological counterpoint, a man who identified himself as a "colonel" in a far-right "army" abducted John Reginald (Reg) Murphy, the soft-spoken editorial-page editor and columnist of the Atlanta Constitution. Among the eventual plans of the American Revolutionary Army, said Murphy of his captors, was one "to engage in guerrilla warfare throughout the country." That may well have been their boastful balderdash and possibly no such group exists at all, except as a fiction to dress up a kidnaping for private gain. But the impact on the nation was none the less. Murphy was returned unharmed after 49 hours and two of his suspected kidnapers were promptly found and arrested, but the fate of Patricia Hearst remained agonizingly uncertain.

Suddenly and frighteningly, the U.S. was afflicted with a form of political terrorism from which the nation has until now seemed mercifully immune. For years political abductions have plagued Latin America, and the victims have included U.S. diplomats and businessmen stationed there. Occasionally the virulence has struck spectacularly elsewhere in the world, as in the 1970 kidnapings by French-Canadian separatists of Quebec Minister of Labor Pierre Laporte and British Trade Commissioner James Cross. But in the U.S., political extremism has taken other forms, though the Berrigan brothers and their friends did kick around an almost comic-opera scenario to kidnap Henry Kissinger as part of their antiwar activities.

Malign Strand. Now political kidnaping has come to the U.S., whether genuine as in California or possibly simply as a convenient cover in Georgia. Its advent is all the more unnerving because the history of flamboyant crimes is that they beget imitation. One skyjacking inspires another. As a result, perhaps not since the wave of fear brought on by the Lindbergh kidnaping in 1932 have families of wealth and position in the U.S. been so troubled about their safety. Though political in aim, the Hearst kidnaping was essentially a variant graft on that earlier malign strand of U.S. history. And the list of possible targets is no longer confined to the affluent. Murphy, 40, a man of comfortable but hardly gilt-edged circumstances, was apparently singled out for his prominence as a newsman and his importance to the Constitution's corporate owner. Thus when a demand of $700,000 for his ransom was made, it was clearly directed not to his family but to his employer, Cox Enterprises of Dayton. That sort of distinction vastly expands the number of Americans with cause to look over their shoulder should the kidnaping phenomenon burgeon.

The blows of the terrorists were yet another reminder, if any were needed, of the vulnerabilities of modern life to any band of lawless and determined individuals. The Symbionese terrorist group was unknown until late last fall, when it combined its self-proclaimed birth announcement with a grisly claim of responsibility for the cold-blooded murder (by cyanide-tipped bullets) of a widely admired school superintendent in Oakland. In the Atlanta case, the "American Revolutionary Army" may well turn out to be nothing more than the fantasy of an antiSemitic, red-neck couple out for a cash killing. Yet with the help of arms, fast getaway cars and tape-recorded cassette messages, both groups were able to capture their prey and extract royal ransom sums with devastating ease.

There is not much hope that such terror can be deterred by toughness. Knowing that one concession merely encourages other kidnapers, the U.S. and other governments have long warned their diplomats and military men stationed abroad that if abducted they can expect no ransom to be paid for their release. But it is quite another matter for authorities to try persuading a family or an employer not to deal in booty -- and thus endanger a victim's life. "Do you want to discourage future terrorist acts or do you want to save the hostage?" asks Bernard L. Diamond, a psychiatrist and criminology professor at the University of California. "In the case of a family, it is a decision an outsider really cannot make."

The parties in last week's cases hesitated scarcely a moment in paying for precious life -- with varying results. Following an efficient transfer of cash, Murphy was dropped off unharmed in an Atlanta motel parking lot and quickly returned home. In the Bay Area, by contrast, the captors of Patricia Hearst raised the ante on the compromise ransom plan for mass feeding of the needy that had been devised by her father Randolph. The dialogue between anguished family and angered captors turned into bitter bartering, with Patricia's life at stake. Moreover, the private ordeal visited on the Hearst family by the kidnapers turned into an ugly public spectacle when thousands of ghetto food recipients all but rioted during the first giveaway session.

Reg Murphy's safe return was the climax to a bizarre episode centering on a writer-editor who would seem to be one of the nation's least likely candidates for kidnaping. The son of a storekeeper, he grew up in Gainesville, Ga. (pop. 15,450), and was a working journalist even before he went off to Mercer University in Macon. In 1959, at 25, he was chosen for Harvard's prestigious Neiman Fellow program for journalists. Murphy signed on as the Constitution's political editor in 1961, then left to become managing editor of the monthly Atlanta magazine in 1965. He came back to the Constitution and moved up to his present job in 1968.

At a lunch with TIME'S Atlanta Bureau Chief James Bell a week before the abduction, Murphy brought up the subject of the Hearst kidnaping. "You know, it's a terribly frightening thing," he mused. "Randolph Hearst just doesn't know who he's dealing with. If you don't know that, what can you do? This is one import from South America we can sure do without."

Early last week Murphy got a series of phone calls from a man who claimed to be a construction-company owner. The man said that his firm was about to go out of business and he had a curious problem: he had 300,000 gallons of surplus heating oil that he wanted to donate to deserving institutions. Would Murphy help him find recipients? Murphy began drawing up a list of schools and hospitals, though a colleague scoffed that the caller was probably just another of the crackpots who often bother newsmen. "I don't know whether he is or not," replied Murphy. "But he's coming over to my house tonight to talk about it and I guess I'll know then."

At 7:30 p.m., Murphy was picked up in a car outside his two-story brick home in the Druid Hills section of Atlanta by a heavy-set white man, ostensibly for a visit to the man's attorney for more discussion about the oil. Instead, once Murphy was in the car, the mysterious "benefactor" pulled a gun and announced: "Mr. Murphy, you have been kidnaped."

Murphy was forced to blindfold himself with strips of adhesive tape; then he was dumped into the trunk of a car and taken to a house about an hour's drive from his own. Meanwhile the kidnaper, who called himself a "colonel" of the A.R.A., telephoned word of the abduction to Constitution Managing Editor G. James Minter and to WAGA-TV. "We've got Reg Murphy, editor of the Constitution, "the caller told a TV newsman. "Don't bother to call the FBI. It won't help."

Later that day, irrefutable proof of Murphy's capture arrived at the Constitution--in much the same form that the Hearst kidnapers have used to communicate with the world: a tape recording of the victim's voice. Speaking in clear and controlled tones, Murphy reported his abductor's motivation as the man, the only one who ever spoke during his long ordeal, had depicted it: "The A.R.A., as I understand it, feels that the American news media have been too leftist and too liberal. They intend to do something about that. That's the cause of my abduction." The kidnapers had also told him of a few other plans:

"One of their significant demands is that all Federal Government officials resign and that free elections be held in the future." Murphy explained that the demand applied to, among others, all U.S. Senators and Representatives.

Elaborate Plan. At one point the "colonel" demanded of Murphy: "Did you know that eight Jews run this country, and they weren't even elected?" His partial listing of the elite included Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, as well as several high officials who are not Jewish. He went on to name local people, besides Murphy, whom the "army" had considered kidnaping. The list included Atlanta's recently installed and amply girthed mayor, Maynard Jackson, and in a flash of mordant wit the kidnaper quipped: "We decided against the mayor because he wouldn't fit in the trunk of a car."

The kidnapers claimed that their organization has 223 members plus six "colonels," who operate throughout the U.S. The captors made it abundantly clear that this "group" has no connection with the left-wing S.L.A. They ordered the owners of the Atlanta Constitution to pay $700,000 in small, used, non-sequentially numbered bills for Murphy's release.

The man who abducted Murphy had an elaborate plan to prevent the FBI from tracing the phone call during which he would issue final instructions for the payoff. On the tape, Murphy said that the "colonel" would select an Atlanta telephone number at random and direct whoever answered his call to relay his message to Constitution officials.

To prevent hoaxes, the go-between would be supplied with a code word: Susan, the name of the younger of Murphy's two teen-age daughters. The hostage added a message of comfort for his wife Virginia, signing off with a reference to one of his favorite authors:

"Faulkner said that man will not only endure but prevail."

Murphy's employer agreed immediately to the ransom demand, and next day the kidnapers' plan went off with suspense-novel precision. Still blindfolded, the editor was driven from his second night's lodging--which he thought was "an out-of-state motel"--toward Atlanta. At intervals, the kidnapers stopped to make telephone calls--once to find a go-between, who turned out to be a 17-year-old high-school senior named Pam Grant, another time to let a friend of Minter's hear Murphy's voice.

Cases of Money. Satisfied that his colleague was unharmed, Minter followed instructions. He dressed himself in jeans and a sports shirt, stashed two plastic suitcases full of cash into a borrowed Jeep, and drove north on Interstate 400 for some 30 miles. For the last few miles, he picked up an escort--one car carrying two men that drove ahead of him at a distance, another car with one occupant that followed. At an appointed sign, the courier placed both suitcases on the shoulder of the highway. Without waiting to watch the pickup, he turned and drove back to Atlanta.

At 8:30 p.m., Murphy was released in a suburban Atlanta Ramada Inn and ordered to keep wearing his blindfold until he could no longer hear the sounds of the kidnapers' cars. Then he phoned home. Arriving at his front door minutes later in the glare of TV lights, Murphy said shakily: "It's very important that at this moment they [the kidnapers] understand that they have not won a real victory. They have frightened me very badly and they have frightened my family. But they should know that they won't get the country turned around this way." Asked if he could verify any of his captors' fantastic claims that they were politically motivated members of a small but national "army," Murphy replied: "The answer is no. I have no idea if that's the case."

Within six hours of Murphy's return, FBI agents swooped in on a modest suburban home in Lilburn, Ga., 15 miles from Atlanta, and arrested William A.H. Williams, 33, and his wife Betty Ruth, 26, on kidnap charges. Williams, who described himself as a building contractor, had previously been convicted on forgery and stolen-car charges. Last week his bail was set at $1 million and his wife's at $500,000. Inside the Williams home, police found stacks of bills -- all or almost all of the $700,000. Murphy positively identified Williams as the man who came to his door and abducted him. If convicted on the kidnap charges, the Williams couple faces sentences of up to life in federal prison.

Across the continent, no such quick and happy ending seemed in store for the distraught family of Patty Hearst -- though the week began on a distinctly optimistic note. Relieved by the Symbionese terrorists of their original demand for a "sign of good faith"-- a monumental food giveaway to every low-income or aged person or ex-convict in California, which could cost up to $400 million -- Randolph Hearst proceded to outline a more modest offer. It was a food-distribution plan, called "People in Need," or PIN, modeled on a highly successful Washington State program created in 1970 to provide basic groceries for families that could not afford them. Hearst promised to fund the plan with $2 million, of which $1.5 million would come from the charitable foundation created by his late father Publisher William Randolph Hearst. The remainder, a personal donation of $500,000, was about 25% of his own net worth, said Randolph Hearst.

For a while, PIN united an unlikely assortment of volunteers in the give-it-all dedication that a crisis often inspires. A prominent backer of the Seattle plan, Washington Secretary of State A. Ludlow Kramer, took over as temporary director of PIN. Offers of warehouse space, trucks and food donations poured in from private businesses and public agencies. At the Hearst Corp. offices in downtown San Francisco, a bank of 20 telephones jangled constantly as citizens called in to volunteer help in handing out food; a reporter counted 32 calls in less than a minute.

The frantic effort seemed to buoy law-enforcement officials and the Hearst family. Charles Bates, head of the FBI'S task force in the Hearst case, got a "seat-of-the-pants feeling" that Patricia might be freed last Wednesday, on her 20th birthday. Mother Catherine Hearst, who had been gently criticized by Patricia in one message for appearing on TV in somber black clothes, promised that she would don "a pretty dress" for her daughter's return. "They've asked me to make a gesture of sincerity, and that's what we've done," said Randolph Hearst. "I expect them to make a gesture of sincerity themselves."

When the S.L.A. finally gestured, it was hardly in the way that the Hearsts had hoped. In its next communique, the man who calls himself "General Field Marshal Cinque" (pronounced Sinque) haughtily dismissed the $2 million contribution as "an act of throwing a few crumbs to the people, forcing them to fight over it amongst themselves." He demanded that Hearst come up with another $4 million and open additional distribution centers.

To prove that Hearst could afford such demands, Cinque rattled off a long list of Hearst family holdings worth "hundreds of millions of dollars," from Mexican silver mines to IBM stock. No matter that the vast majority of the holdings belong to the foundation, since that is merely "a tax loophole," he said. Even the family's objets d'art were not exempt from S.L.A. attention: among other things, Hearst owned "24 Greek vases valued at $10,000 each" plus "a collection of Oriental rugs given to him by his personal friend the Shah of Iran." The kidnapers' assertions were apparently based on various published estimates of the Hearst empire's assets.

However, since stock in Hearst corporations is privately held, such figures are often unreliable. The Hearst family disputed many of the S.L.A.'s claims, even the minor ones; the imperial rug collection, a family member noted, consisted of a single 4-ft. by 8-ft. piece.

The most menacing part of the S.L.A.'s latest message was an ugly racist diatribe by Cinque. His voice hardening into a growl, the kidnaper noted that the Hearsts "have seemingly said by their actions that they know me" --evidently a reference to the speaker's own description of himself as black.

"Yes, you do indeed know me," he continued. "I'm that nigger that is no longer just hunted, robbed and murdered. I'm the nigger that hunts you now ...

I'm the gook, the broad, the servant, the spic."

An obvious reason for Cinque's bitter tone may have been the almost unanimous outcry against S.L.A. tactics by other leftist political groups. Clearly angered by that reaction, he urged more organizations to "stand with the people."

One band of ultra-militants seemed to accept his invitation. In a letter to the S.L.A. sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, a writer for the underground Black Liberation Army -- believed to be a 200-member group split off from the Black Panthers -- presented "the most profound revolutionary greetings" from his group to Patricia's kidnapers.

Poignantly, Hearst announced that the S.L.A.'s latest demands were "beyond my financial capability" and that the matter of his daughter's plight "is now out of my hands." Then the publisher of the Hearst Corp.'s San Francisco Examiner, Charles L. Gould, quickly made another desperate counteroffer. The Hearst Corp., he said, would donate the additional $4 million to PIN "provided Patricia Hearst is released unharmed." Gould made it clear that the offer was final. The stage was thus set for the S.L.A. to reach a decision on Patricia's fate: to release her, to hold her as a "prisoner of war" indefinitely or to carry out the grisly threats that they had previously made.

What is the S.L.A? Three months after first hearing of it, FBI men still know little about it. But a thin profile has been pieced together. It is believed that the S.L.A. has probably no more than 20 to 50 members and hangers-on. The adherents are black and white, men and women, mostly in their 20s and 30s. They include escaped convicts, sons and daughters of middle-class families, extremists of all stripes who call for violent revolution to overturn what their pronouncements call "all forms of racism, sexism, ageism, capitalism, fascism, individualism, possessiveness and competitiveness."

The core of the S.L.A. is made up of hard-line expatriates from several other extreme leftist groups that in recent years have split on the issue of guerrilla violence. The two principal sources of recruits have been the Venceremos, a now-disbanded group identified with Maoist causes, and the Black Panthers, whose split on the violence question three years ago led to similar disputes within many other radical organizations. In addition, a number of suspected S.L.A. members are highly politicized alumni of a group known as the Black Cultural Association (B.C.A.) that flourished briefly inside California prisons.

Food Riot. One former California inmate who was a member is Donald D. DeFreeze, 30, whose voice has reportedly been identified by prisoners as that of Cinque on S.L.A. tapes. A former resident of Cleveland, DeFreeze was once jailed for possessing homemade bombs. His last sentence was five years to life for assault and robbery. While serving at Vacaville prison in California, he became active in the B.C.A., which had been founded by whites as well as blacks. Last March DeFreeze escaped from a prison boiler room.

As if events had not already taken an ugly enough turn, the first day of the PIN food giveaway turned out to be little short of disastrous at two of the four distribution points. In Oakland, men inside and on top of a trailer van foolishly began tossing out bags full of frozen turkey hindquarters, saltine crackers and milk cartons to an ocean of outstretched arms. First playfully, then in an increasingly menacing mood, the crowd flung much of the food back. Milk cartons splattered against the truck; canned goods sailed through the air with the force of bricks. Frustrated by the growing disorder, many would-be recipients left. One group smashed through the window of a supermarket and carried off bottles of whisky. A similar outburst occurred in the Hunters Point ghetto of San Francisco.

PIN leaders blamed the chaos on the deadlines that they have been facing and promised that future distribution would be more orderly. Whoever was at fault, the result was street-theater fulfillment of Cinque's prediction that food recipients would "fight amongst themselves" for Hearst "crumbs." The food riot deepened rather than closed any gaps that existed between giver and receiver--a dividend for the cause of "class warfare," which the Maoist S.L.A. wants. The mood of the crowds ranged from gratitude to outright bitterness. "I'm here because I'm hungry," said a black woman.

"I hope that girl doesn't get killed, but I'm glad we're getting this help." Muttered a Mexican-American woman in the midst of the melee: "Someone should tell Cinque about this."

Headline-Hunting. Such tones of respect for a kidnaper who was cruelly bargaining with the life of an innocent young woman were clearly the exception. Yet Cinque and his ilk were establishing themselves in the national consciousness as a new and distinct breed--a potentially dangerous achievement. "Cinque is getting away with his own delusions," says Ralph F. Salerno, top New York City investigator and expert on the Mafia. "If everyone said, 'You're a hood,' then he would appear for what he is."

Some behavioral scientists accused news organizations of giving undue attention to the kidnapings. Newsmen were hardly unaware of the kidnapers' headline-hunting instincts. Yet it was impossible to deliberately downplay the kidnapings, as was done with street rioting in the '60s with some success. Not only were the abductions compelling news, but also the S.L.A. demanded, on pain of Patricia's death, that its propaganda be printed and broadcast in full (see THE PRESS).

There seemed to be distressingly few foolproof methods to curb any future wave of political abductions in the way in which skyjacking in the U.S. has largely been stopped. (Ironically, in the first U.S. skyjacking attempt in more than 13 months, three persons, including a would-be hijacker, were killed last week at the Baltimore Washington International Airport.) Dallas Psychiatrist David G. Hubbard, who helped create the celebrated "skyjacker profile," which has contributed much to reducing aerial hijackings, advocates a "federal law prohibiting payment of ransom in all cases involving kidnaping." He argues that potential kidnapers will be deterred only if they know in advance that ransom is highly unlikely. Billionaire J. Paul Getty took that hard stance after the kidnaping in Italy last July of his grandson Eugene Paul Getty II, 17. Fearing that his other grandchildren would be endangered if he agreed to pay ransom, Getty refused for five months to negotiate with the kidnapers. His stubbornness cost the boy an ear, which the kidnapers cut off and mailed to a Rome newspaper. In the end, Getty capitulated to family pressure and paid $2.89 million. Police have arrested some suspects in the case.

Tough Stand. The Canadian solution after the two kidnapings in Quebec in 1970 was a massive show of police and military strength, ordered by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Many government officials were given round-the-clock protection by police or soldiers, and some wealthy families spent sizable sums to hire private guards. Police were empowered to hold suspected terrorists without formal charges for 21 days. Hundreds of Quebeckers -- most of them French-speaking separatists, but not terrorists -- were arrested in nighttime raids. Canadians endured a state of near-martial law for two months, and polls showed that a large majority approved Trudeau's tough stand, at least at the outset. The terrorist killings -- and the government's countermoves -- mortally wounded the Quebec separatist movement, and its representatives were resoundingly defeated in last fall's provincial election.

Canada's large-scale crackdown cannot, of course, serve as any kind of model for the U.S., nor would most Americans support the abrogation of the traditional American concepts of civil rights. The U.S. has no terrorist groups of any size or popular support like those of Quebec, Argentina and Uruguay. The only way to cope with U.S. terrorist kidnapers may be simply to deal with each case individually and patiently. "Talk, talk, talk and never give in," says Norval Morris, director of the University of Chicago's Center for Studies in Criminal Justice. "Every contact with kidnapers increases the likelihood of finding out where they are."

Furthermore, kidnapers purporting to aid and represent any large group of Americans must eventually realize that few of their intended beneficiaries appreciate largesse wrested with the threat of blood. As Reg Murphy put it after his release: "Before I was so rudely interrupted, I used to say that this ought to be a civilized country. The people who think like my kidnapers are going to have to use some other tactics -- because this won't win them any friends."

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