Symbionese Liberation Army. - Patty Hearst & the Twinkie murders, a tale of two trials: plus Why was Michelle Shocked shell-shocked?: and Reflections of a Realist, outspoken interview

PAUL KRASSNER

Counterculture Hall of Fame, 2001 Inductee

Winner,

Playboy Award for satire

Feminist Party Media Workshop Award

for journalism

Oakland PEN Lifetime Achievement Award

I told Krassner one time that his writings made me hopeful. He found this an odd compliment to offer a satirist. I explained that he made supposedly serious matters seem ridiculous, and that this inspired many of his readers to decide for themselves what was ridiculous and what was not. Knowing that there were people doing that, better late than never, made me optimistic.

Kurt Vonnegut

The FBI was right; this man is dangerous. And funny. And necessary.

George Carlin

He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.

New York Times

As soon as we decided to create The Huffington Post, I knew I wanted Paul Krassner involved. His irreverence was just what the blog doctor ordered.

Arianna Huffington

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The Underbelly

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Mammoths of the Great Plains

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Modem Times 2.0

Michael Moorcock

The Wild Girls

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Surfing the Gnarl

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The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

Cory Doctorow

Report from Planet Midnight

Nalo Hopkinson

The Human Front

Ken MacLeod

New Taboos

John Shirley

The Science of Herself

Karen Joy Fowler

Raising Hell

Norman Spinrad

Patty Hearst & The Twinkie Murders: A Tale of Two Trials

Paul Krassner

Portions of The Trial of Patty Hearst were published in the Berkeley Barb and Playboy. Portions of The Case of the Twinkie Murders were published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian and The Nation.

Patty Hearst & The Twinkie Murders: A Tale of Two Trials

Paul Krassner 2014

This edition 2014 PM Press

Series editor: Terry Bisson

ISBN: 978-1-62963-038-0

LCCN: 2014908068

Cover photo by Nancy Cain

Payphone by Alexander Graham Bell

Outsides: John Yates/Stealworks.com

Insides: Jonathan Rowland

PM Press

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For Holly

In the Halls of Justice, the only justice is in the halls.

Lenny Bruce

G ROUCHO M ARX SAID DURING an interview with Flash magazine in 1971, I think the only hope this country has is Nixons assassination. Yet he was not subsequently arrested for threatening the life of a president. In view of the indictment against Black Panther David Hilliard for using similar rhetoric, I wrote to the San Francisco office of the Justice Department to find out the status of their case against Groucho.

This was the response:

Dear Mr. Krassner:

Responding to your inquiry of July 7th, the United States Supreme Court has held that Title 18 U.S.C., section 871, prohibits only true threats. It is one thing to say that I (or we) will kill Richard Nixon when you are the leader of an organization which advocates killing people and overthrowing the Government; it is quite another to utter the words which are attributed to Mr. Marx, an alleged comedian. It was the opinion of both myself and the United States Attorney in Los Angeles (where Marxs words were alleged to have been uttered) that the latter utterance did not constitute a true threat.

Very truly yours,

James L. Browning, Jr.

United States Attorney

Browning was so anxious in his pursuit of justice that he successfully fought for the dismissal of charges against federal narcotics officers who had shot an innocent hippie in the back from their helicopter in Humboldt County. In 1976, I found myself sitting in a courtroom every day, observing Browning as he prosecuted a bank robbery case that seemed like a perverted version of a Marx Brothers movie.

Patricia Hearst had been kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Armya group of white men and women led by an African-American, Donald Cinque DeFreeze. Patty was kept in a closet, then she joined them, changed her name to Tania, adopted radical rhetoric and robbed a bank with them. Now the philosophical paradox which has plagued the history of human consciousnessIs there is or is there aint Free Will?was finally going to be decided by a jury.

The abduction occurred in February 1974. One of the SLAs demands was a free food program. Pattys father, Randolph Hearst, publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, arranged for such a project in Oakland. Then-governor Ronald Reagan responded to the long line of people waiting for free food: I hope they all get botulism.

In June, I disclosed in the Berkeley Barb the non-fact that I had been brought to meet Patty underground. I wrote: Since there is nothing of investigatory value in the interview, I will not speak with the FBI. Nor am I able to supply any information that might earn me a $50,000 reward. Tania insisted that she had not been brainwashed. My impression is that she was.

In view of conspiracy researcher Mae Brussells track record with the Watergate story (titled Why Was Martha Mitchell Kidnapped?), I decided to devote an entire issue of The Realist to her documented analysis, Why Was Patricia Hearst Kidnapped?the thrust of which was that the SLA was essentially an espionage plot orchestrated by our secret government in order to distort the message of idealism.

One year after the kidnapping, Patty Hearst was still on the lam with her captors, and Crawdaddy, a music magazine for which I wrote a column, The Naked Emperor, wanted a feature article on the case. So I wrote an imaginary interview with Patty, and Crawdaddy published it in their April 1975 issue. An excerpt:

Q. There was a pornographic novel, Black Abductor, published a couple of years ago, which seems to parallel your case on several counts, although in the book the kidnap victim is raped.

A. That didnt happen to me. I wasnt raped, but I have made loveof my own free willwith each and every one of my comrades. Male and female. And its been extremely liberating. Ill tell you, Ive learned more about my own sensuality in the past year than in my whole previous life.

Q. Theres been a rumor that you used to visit Donald DeFreeze in prison?

A. Thats impossible. Its a lie. I never did.

Q. And also that you knew [SLA member] Willie Wolfe before you were abducted?

A. Thats another lie. I mean, I feel as if Ive known him all my life, but thats a false rumor.

Q. How have you been affected by the bisexuality?

A. I think it was an extension of heterosexuality. I had never been physically close to a black man like Ive been with Cinque. I always thought nappy hair was toughlike Brillo, you know?but its really soft. And so then to become intimate with another womanI could feel my inhibitions peeling off like layers of onion skin. And I became acquainted with my clitoris. My poor little neglected clitoris, ignored all these years. What a waste.