The SLA stated that capitalism is parasitic, whereas socialism is symbiotic – the group’s slogan was “Death to the Fascist Insect that Preys upon the Life of the People!” Although the army never numbered more than nine members, they proclaimed a Symbionese Nation and adopted a jazz-funk national anthem. Then, on 4 February 1974, she was kidnapped by an obscure political group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). But Patty was not politically minded at 19, she was “restless and unformed”, Toobin writes, and discontented with a domestic routine in the service of her fiance. At 17, she was engaged to her teacher, who she followed to Berkeley when he became a student at the most radical campus in the country. Her grandfather was the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, on whom the film Citizen Kane was based, although the mildly rebellious Patty made a point of never watching the movie. The American heiress was born into California’s most famous family. Jeffrey Toobin’s account is nuanced and well paced, if at times lacking the imagination to solve the “mystery”. It is certainly one of the most bizarre episodes in recent US history – a tale of high drama and farce, and of a shocking personal transformation, the nature of which continues to be the subject of much speculation. He had sued the city of Los Angeles for pension because being a cop made him hate black people so much.O n the eve of Patty Hearst’s trial, 40 years ago, a reporter described her saga as “probably the mystery story of the 20th century”.
Miraculously I found a lawsuit involving Mark Fuhrman, but it wasn’t as I expected with him as the defendant. I didn’t remember exactly how to spell his name so I went to a pay phone and I called a fact-checker I had been working with, who was, and is, Dave Kirkpatrick, who’s now a big-shot reporter at the New York Times. In those pre-Internet days I went to the basement of the Superior Court Building, and there were these huge mountains of files. It was Mark Fuhrman, and so I thought to myself, Well, if he’s such a bad guy maybe there are lawsuits against him. Alan Dershowitz, who had been my criminal law professor, had told me in a very vague way that one of the cops who testified at the preliminary hearing was a bad guy. What am I going to add? Tina Brown, who was my editor, said to me, “Look, there’s no story in New York, just go.” I had one lead. Jeffrey Toobin: I had started at the New Yorker, and I knew something about law, but I was worried because I thought every reporter in the United States would be out there.
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