1970's Lifestyles and Social Trends | Hearst, Patricia 1953-

HEIRESS, KIDNAPING VICTIM

Kidnapped.

Patricia Hearst became an American celebrity, victim, and criminal in February 1974 when she was kidnapped by a leftist terrorist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). This obscure Oakland, California, revolutionary group held her for a $2-million ransom. Patricia was the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, the wealthy California newspaper publisher, but during months of harsh captivity she was allegedly brainwashed and renamed "Tania." To obtain her release, her parents donated millions of dollars worth of food to the poor, but the giveaway became a fiasco and did not result in her release.

Urban Guerrilla.

When Hearst was filmed in April 1974 assisting the SLA in a San Francisco bank robbery, the kidnapping victim was transformed in the public mind into another spoiled, rich college student whose unconventional lifestyle led to crime as a self-confessed...