Patricia Hearst, 50 years after the kidnapping that turned a wealthy young woman into a guerrilla

Los Angeles (USA), February 3 (EFE).- The kidnapping of millionaire heiress Patricia Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) marks 50 years this Sunday and is remembered as a media story, reinforced by the term ‘Stockholm Syndrome’. is coming. Blurred the boundaries between victim and accomplice.

On February 4, 1974, Hearst was taken against her will from her apartment in Berkeley, California. The act of violence was the first episode of a media circus that shocked the United States and captured the attention of the entire world.

The wealthy 19-year-old heir to William Randolph Hearst’s media empire fell victim to a far-left radical group led by Donald DeFreeze, who wanted to use him as a bargaining chip to free two of his imprisoned colleagues.

The idea of ​​the young woman as a victim changed when an audiotape was released in April of that year with her voice announcing her membership in the SLA and her support for the group’s demands.

She also explained that she had adopted the name Tania in honor of the nom de guerre of Tamara Bunke, an associate of communist revolutionary and Argentine-Cuban guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and criticized her family and government institutions.

Hearst’s statements scandalized the community and a media incident erupted shortly after when the girl was caught in the middle of a bank robbery and an iconic photo of her carrying a rifle with the SLA symbol in the background like a guerilla was released.

Brainwashing and the False ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

Amidst the confusion and incoherence of the events, the Hearst family media offered a perspective that highlighted the woman’s position as a victim due to the kidnapping and promoted the idea that she had been “brainwashed”.

Continue reading the story

After spending 19 months in captivity, Hearst was arrested by authorities in September 1975 and four months later went on trial indicted on several charges related to her participation in bank robberies and other criminal acts.

In this, their defense argued that their participation was the result of ‘Stockholm syndrome’, a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological experience in which an emotional bond develops between hostages and their captors.

But the rationality, or lack thereof, with which Hearst may have carried out his actions has so far generated controversial opinions among experts and the public.

“I believe that over time Hearst became part of the criminal activities of the SLA, and decided to stay with them and continue to commit crimes,” American lawyer Jeffrey Ross Toobin, author of the book ‘American Heirs’, said in an interview. with EFE. : The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst’.

In his book, the author believes that Hearst acted wisely and intelligently in the face of the extraordinary events he faced, and believes that what he did was probably also a response to the adolescent impulse of rebellion common in people of his age.

Hearst was convicted and sentenced to seven years but ultimately served less than two years in prison after President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence and in 2001, President Bill Clinton granted her a full pardon.

“I think it was appropriate that she was convicted of a bank robbery. I don’t think she should get a presidential pardon because she never admitted to any wrongdoing on her part,” Toobin said.

The Hearst case was captured as a tumultuous event in the United States in the 1970s, marked by the oil crisis, the movement against the Vietnam War or political scandals such as Watergate, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. .

“(This incident was so relevant because) it showed that the madness of political extremism can lead to atrocious criminal acts, across the political spectrum,” Toobin added.

Monica Rubalkova

(c) EFE Agency