Symbionese Liberation Army

The Symbionese Liberation Army was an American paramilitary group that considered itself to be a revolutionary vanguard army and was a proponent of radical ideology. They committed two murders, bank robberies, and acts of violence in 1973 to 1975. Even though they never had more than 13 members, they became the top ongoing media story during their underground fugitive period. More than any other event, their spectacular kidnapping of wealthy media heiress Patty Hearst made them household names. Even more newsworthy were later developments in which Hearst seemed to become more and more sympathetic with the aims of the SLA and eventually joined the group, taking part in their illegal activities, including bank robberies.

Formation and initial activities

Prison visits and political film

The SLA formed as a result of the prison visitation programs of the radical left-wing group Venceremos Organization and a group known as the Black Cultural Association in the Soledad prison. The idea of a South American style urban guerrilla, particularly the Tupamaros movement in Uruguay, combined with Régis Debray's theory of urban warfare and ideas drawn from Maoism appealed to a number of people around Patricia Michelle Soltysik (aka Mizmoon).

Amongst anti-prison activists within the New Left it was a common belief that America's prisons were concentration camps designed to repress African Americans. This led some sections of the radical left to believe that all African Americans were political prisoners, and that Black power ideology would naturally appeal to all prisoners. Group member Willie Wolfe developed this ideology into a plan for action, linking student ideologists with prisoner militants (Stone 2004).

DeFreeze escapes prison

The SLA formed after the escape from prison by Donald DeFreeze, who adopted the name "Field Marshal Cinque." Cinque took this name from the reported leader of the slave rebellion which took over the Spanish slave ship Amistad in 1839. Cinque escaped from the Soledad State Prison on 5 March 1973 by simply walking away from the prison while on work-duty in a boiler room located outside of the perimeter fence.

DeFreeze had been active in the Black Cultural Association while at the California Medical Facility, a state prison facility in Vacaville, California, where he had made contacts with members of the radical political organization known as Venceremos. He sought refuge among these contacts, and ended up at a commune known as Peking House in the San Francisco Bay Area. For some time he shared living quarters with future SLA members Willie Wolfe and Russ Little, then moved in with Patricia Soltysik, also known as "Mizmoon". DeFreeze and Soltysik became lovers and began to outline the plans for forming the "Symbionese Nation".

SLA Beliefs and Hydra Symbology

In the manifesto "Symbionese Liberation Army Declaration of Revolutionary War & the Symbionese Program" DeFreeze explained that "the name 'symbionese' is taken from the word symbiosis and we define its meaning as a body of dissimilar bodies and organisms living in deep and loving harmony and partnership in the best interest of all within the body". Although the SLA considered themselves leaders of the Black revolution, DeFreeze was the only Black member. DeFreeze's seven-headed SLA hydra symbol was also based on the seven principles of Kwanzaa, each head representing a principle. They are: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity), and Imani (faith).

Despite these revolutionary and semi-religious beliefs of DeFreeze, Russ Little attests that the group's primary activity during this period was acquiring, storing and training in firearms at various public shooting ranges (Stone 2004).

Assassination

The SLA made their first move on 6 November 1973 when they murdered Oakland, California superintendent of schools Dr. Marcus Foster and badly wounded his deputy Robert Blackburn as they left an Oakland school board meeting. The SLA characterized Foster's plan to introduce identification cards into Oakland schools as "fascist." Ironically, Foster had opposed the use of identification cards in his schools, and his plan was a watered down version of similar plans that had been proposed by others. Foster, who was black, was popular on the left and in the black community, and his murder was considered a counterproductive, pointless action by just about everybody; thus, they garnered no support, just media attention. The hollow point bullets used to kill Dr. Foster had been dipped in cyanide.^{^*}

On 10 January 1974, Joe Remiro and Russ Little were arrested and charged with the murder of Foster. As California had a moratorium on death sentences at the time, both were sentenced to spend the remainder of their lives in prison. Little was ultimately acquitted on retrial.

Prisoner swap

As a result of the arrest of Remiro and Little the SLA began planning their next action: kidnapping an important figure to negotiate a prisoner swap (Stone, 2004). Documents found by the FBI at one abandoned safehouse revealed that an action was planned for the "full moon of 7 January". The FBI did not take any precautions and the SLA did not act until a month later. On 4 February, publishing heiress Patricia Hearst, then a Berkeley college student, was kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment. The SLA had chosen to kidnap Hearst to increase the news coverage of the incident.

The SLA initially demanded a prisoner swap for Remiro and Little. When this proved impracticable, a ransom, in the form of a food distribution program, was demanded for her release. The demanded value of food to be distributed fluctuated wildly: on 23 February the demand was for $4 million, but peaked at $400 million. Some free food was actually distributed. However, this was stopped when one of the four distribution points suffered a riot (Stone, 2004).

Conditions of the initial imprisonment of Patty Hearst

While the FBI was conducting an ineffective search, the SLA took refuge in a number of safe-houses. While under the SLA's control, Hearst was subjected to a series of ordeals that her mother described as "brainwashing". The change in Hearst's politics has been claimed to be Stockholm syndrome. The Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in a hostage, in which the hostage exhibits seeming loyalty to the hostage-taker, in spite of the danger (or at least risk) the hostage has been put in. Hearst was later examined by the specialist psychologist Margaret Singer, who agreed with this theory. The brutal treatment she received from her captors might be taken as evidence for that diagnosis.

Geneva convention

The SLA claimed to be holding Hearst according to the conditions of the Geneva convention. At the time, the Geneva conventions only covered combatants and non-combatants in declared wars between states. As such, it is difficult to comprehend Hearst's imprisonment as a POW, as Hearst was not a combatant for the United States in any meaningful sense. Additionally, the threat to execute Hearst for the alleged criminal activities of her parents was not sanctioned by the Geneva conventions of the time. Under the modern Geneva convention regarding wars within states the actions of the SLA would probably be considered legal, however, this convention is very generous to combatant forces, allowing them to arrest and try opposing forces according to the arresting power's law.

Hearst later claimed she was imprisoned in solitary confinement, in a suburban closet sufficiently large to lie down in. Hearst's contact with the outside world was regulated by her captors. At her subsequent trial, Hearst claimed to have been raped in the closet by both DeFreeze and Wolfe, but both were by that time already dead, so charges were never brought against them. Hearst was adequately fed and clothed, though apparently regularly threatened with execution.

Political inculcation

The SLA allowed Hearst human contact in the form of educational or indoctrination programmes in SLA ideology. In Hearst's taped recordings, used to announce demands and conditions, Hearst can first be heard extemporaneously expressing SLA ideology on day 13 of her capture (Stone 2004). After Hearst began adopting SLA ideological positions, the group improved her conditions.

With each successive taped communiqué Hearst apparently became more and more sympathetic to the aims of the SLA, until she eventually denounced her former life, her parents and fiancé. At that point she claimed that the SLA had given her the option of being released or joining the SLA, her response to which was to join the SLA.

After Hearst adopted the SLA's ideology, she was integrated into the group as an active member. Hearst announced that she was taking the nom de guerre "Tania".

Activities during the period of Hearst's membership

A large amount of time in captivity was taken up with military training; physical training, weapons training, as well as group socialization. Sexual bonding within the SLA was also significant.

Hibernia bank robbery

The next action taken by the SLA was to rob a San Francisco branch of Hibernia Bank, an incident where two civilians were shot. Cinque's communiqué account of this robbery is dry, and attempts to rationalise the accidental nature of the two shootings (Stone 2004).

Hearst participated in the robbery, holding a rifle, and the security camera footage of Hearst became a news icon of the time. (Hearst was later tried and convicted for her involvement in the Hibernia robbery. Her sentence was later commuted and her crime eventually pardoned.) She has denied willing involvement in her book Every Secret Thing.

Move to Los Angeles and police shootout

As a result of the Hibernia Bank robbery, the SLA moved operations to the Los Angeles area. This move was conducted in an extremely slipshod manner, and resulted in a catastrophe for the group. The SLA relied upon en:commandeering housing and supplies in Los Angeles, and thus alienated the people ensuring their secrecy and protection. At this stage the imprisoned SLA member, Russ Little, claimed that he believed the SLA had gone off the rails and entered into a confrontation with the police rather than a political dialogue with the public (Stone 2004).

On 16 May 1974, "Teko" and "Yolanda" (William and Emily Harris) entered Mel's Sporting Goods Store in Inglewood, California, to shop for supplies for their safehouse. While Yolanda made the purchases, Teko on a whim tried to shoplift socks (Stone 2004). When his attempt was foiled by a security guard, Teko brandished a revolver. The guard knocked the gun from his hand, and had succeeded in placing a handcuff on William's left wrist. At this time Tania (Patty Hearst), on lookout, began shooting into the store from across the street with a submachine gun from the SLA's van. Everyone in the store took cover, and the Harrises escaped with Tania.

As a direct result of this, the police found the address of the safehouse from a parking ticket in the glove box of the van that had been abandoned. The rest of the SLA fled the safehouse when they saw the events on the news. The SLA took over a house in a black neighborhood that happened to have its lights on at 4 am.

The next day, an anonymous phone call to the LAPD stated that several people were staying at "her daughter's house" and that they had many weapons. That afternoon, more than 400 Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers, under the command of Captain Mervin King, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, California Highway Patrol, and Los Angeles Fire Department surrounded the neighborhood. The squad leader of a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team used a bullhorn to announce, "Occupants of 1466 East 54th Street, this is the Los Angeles Police Department speaking. Come out with your hands up!" A small child walked out, along with an older man. The man stated that no one else was in the house, and the child reported that several people were in the house with guns and ammo belts. After several other attempts to get anyone else to leave the house, a member of SWAT fired tear gas projectiles into the house, was answered by heavy bursts of automatic gunfire, and the battle began.

Two hours later, the house caught fire. The police again announced, "Come on out! The house is on fire! You will not be harmed." Two women left from the rear of the house and one came out the front (she had come in drunk the previous night, passed out, and woken up in the middle of a siege); all were taken into custody, but were found not to be SLA members. Automatic weapons fire continued from the house. Camilla Hall was shot in the head by police as she charged towards them. After Camilla Hall's body fell to the ground, it was pulled back inside the burning house by Angela Atwood. Nancy Ling Perry followed Hall out of the house, but she was shot twice in the back. Her body remained outside of the house. The rest died inside, from combinations of smoke inhalation, burns and multiple gunshot wounds. According to the coroner's report, it was concluded that Donald DeFreeze committed suicide. After the shooting stopped and the fire was extinguished, nineteen firearms, including rifles, pistols, and shotguns were recovered. Several thousand rounds were reported fired into the home by police and they reported thousands of rounds being fired out of the house by the SLA. This remains one of the largest police shootouts in history with a reported total of 9,000 rounds being fired.

The bodies of Nancy Ling Perry ("Fahizah"), Angela Atwood ("General Gelina"), Willie Wolfe (who was reported to be Patricia Hearst's lover and who bore the SLA alias "Cujo"), Donald DeFreeze ("Cinque"), Patricia Soltysik ("Mizmoon", "Zoya"), were found, most of them huddled underneath the floor of the house in a crawl space under the house, which had burned down around them.

Occurring right about the time that new broadcasting technology was making coverage of live news events possible, the siege was televised live and watched by Tania, Teko, and Yolanda in their hotel room.

Return to the Bay Area

As a result of the siege, the remaining SLA members returned to the relative safety of the Bay Area and the relative protection of student radical households. At this time a number of new members gravitated towards the SLA (Stone 2004). The active participants at this time were: Bill and Emily Harris, Patty Hearst, Wendy Yoshimura, Kathleen and Steve Soliah, James Kilgore and Michael Bortin.

Crocker bank robbery

On 21 April 1975, the remaining members of the SLA robbed the Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, California and killed Myrna Opsahl, a bank customer, in the process.

Much later, Patty Hearst, after being granted immunity from prosecution for this crime, claimed that Emily Harris, Kathleen Soliah, Michael Bortin, and James Kilgore actually committed the robbery, while she and Wendy Yoshimura were getaway drivers and William Harris and Steven Soliah acted as lookouts. Hearst also claimed that Opsahl was killed by Emily Harris, but that she was not a witness.

Capture and conviction

Patty Hearst, after one of the longest and most publicized manhunts ever, was captured with Wendy Yoshimura in 1975. Soon after she was captured, Hearst reidentified with the role she grew up in: wealthy heiress. In her affidavit, she claimed that SLA members had used LSD to drug her and forced her to take part in the bank raid. However, Hearst's tape recorded statements, along with the fact that she had not escaped when she had the opportunity, made many think she had thrown in her lot with the revolutionaries. Despite her claims, she was convicted of the Hibernia Bank robbery and sentenced to seven years in prison, but only served 21 months when her sentence was commuted by US President Jimmy Carter. Eventually she was pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

On 21 August 1975, Kathleen Soliah failed in her attempt to kill officers of the LAPD when the bombs she placed under a police car did not detonate. Soliah remained a fugitive, first in Zimbabwe, and then in Minnesota under the alias Sarah Jane Olson; she was married to a doctor and had several children.

Recent trials

The FBI finally caught up with Kathleen Soliah in 1999 when she was arrested. In 2001, she pleaded guilty to possession of explosives with the intent to murder and was sentenced to two consecutive ten-years-to-life terms, after being told as part of plea bargain that she would serve only eight years. She did not go to trial because she felt she could not get leniency from a jury so recently after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Prosecutors were relieved to avoid a trial due to their fear that Hearst, testifying against Soliah, would be deemed an unreliable witness.

On 16 January 2002, first-degree murder charges for the killing of Myrna Opsahl were filed against Kathleen Soliah, the Harrises, Bortin, and Kilgore. All were living "aboveground" and were immediately arrested except for James Kilgore, who remained at large for nearly another year.

On 7 November, Soliah, the Harrises, and Bortin plead guilty to those charges. Emily Harris, now known as Emily Montague, admitted to being the one holding the murder weapon, but said that the shotgun went off accidentally. Hearst claims that Montague had dismissed the murder at the time saying, "She was a bourgeois pig anyway. Her husband is a doctor." In court, Montague denied this and said "I do not want Opsahl family to believe that we ever considered her life insignificant."

On 8 November 2002 James Kilgore, who had been a fugitive since 1975, was arrested in South Africa and extradited to the United States to face federal explosives and passport fraud charges. Prosecutors alleged a pipe bomb was found in Kilgore's apartment in 1975, and that he obtained a passport under a false name. He pleaded guilty to the charges in 2003.

Sentences were handed out on 14 February 2003 in Sacramento, California for all four defendants in the Opsahl murder case. Montague was sentenced to eight years for the murder (2nd degree). Her former husband, William Harris, got seven years, and Bortin got six years. Soliah had six years added to the 14-year sentence she is already serving. All sentences were the maximum allowed under their plea bargains.

According to this link Soliah (aka Sara Jane Olson) was expecting a 5 year 4 month sentence, but "In stiffening Olson's sentence two years ago, the prison board turned to a seldom-used section of state law, allowing it to recalculate sentences for old crimes in light of new, tougher sentencing guidelines.". Soliah was sentenced to 14 years, later reduced to 13 years, plus six for her role in the Opsahl killing. Hearst had immunity because she was a state's witness, but as there was no trial, she never testified.

On 26 April 2004, Kilgore was sentenced to 54 months in prison for the explosives and passport fraud charges. He was the last remaining SLA member to face federal prosecution.

Film history of the SLA

The SLA was a media savvy organisation. They distributed photographs, press releases, and radio-quality taped interviews explaining their activities. Additionally, the first television media frenzy occurred outside of the Hearst family residence during the kidnapping. The media history importance of the SLA has led to a number of films focusing on them.

The saga of the SLA was the subject of an unsuccessful yet highly controversial 1976 film, entitled Patty. The film attempted to portray the organization as a sex cult rather than a band of revolutionaries, and received profoundly negative reviews from virtually all cinematic columnists who saw it. The movie, which was rated X by the Motion Picture Association of America, was shown in only a few markets, most of them large urban areas.

Other films include:

Patty Hearst, film, based on Every Secret Thing, directed by Paul Schrader, 1988.
The Ordeal of Patty Hearst (1979) (TV)
Patty Hearst: The E! True Hollywood Story (2000) (TV)
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst aka Neverland: The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army, Directed by Robert Stone, 2004, documentary.

Known and notable members

Founding members

Russell Little (SLA pseudonym Osceola or Osi), arrested for the shooting of Marcus Foster. Little was in custody during the time that Patty Hearst was with the SLA
Joseph Remiro (Bo), arrested with Russell Little. Little and Remiro were the prisoners whom the SLA intended to swap for Hearst
Donald D DeFreeze (General Field Marshal Cinque Mtume), an escaped prisoner and the SLA's only African-American member
William Wolfe (Cujo)
Angela Atwood (General Gelina)
Patricia Soltysik, aka Mizmoon Soltysik (Zoya)
Camilla Hall (Gabi), Soltysik's lover
Nancy Ling Perry (Fahizah)
Emily Harris (Yolanda)
William Harris (Teko), Emily Harris's husband, and eventual leader of the SLA

Later members (after the Hearst kidnapping)

Patty Hearst (Tania)
Wendy Yoshimura, former member of the Revolutionary Army (a bombing group) with Willie Brandt
Kathleen Soliah, a friend of Atwood's. Soliah became involved when approached by the SLA after the shootout
Jim Kilgore, Kathleen Soliah's boyfriend
Steven Soliah, Kathleen Soliah's brother
Michael Bortin
Margaret Turcich

Associates and sympathisers

Josephine Soliah, Kathleen Soliah's sister
Bonnie Jean Wilder, Seanna, Sally (a friend of Remiro's), Bridget - all mentioned in Hearst's book Every Secret Thing as potential members
Miki and Jack Scott, rented a farmhouse in which SLA members hid for a period to write a book
James Micheal Hamilton III (bomber), bomb maker. Died 2001

References

Boulton, David. The Making Of Tania Hearst. Bergenfield, N.J., U.S.A.: New American Library, 1975. 224+^* p., ill., ports., facsim., index, 22 cm. Also published: London, G.B.: New English Library, 1975.
Hearst, Patty, with Alvin Moscow, Patty Hearst: Her Own Story. New York: Avon, 1982. ISBN 0380706512. (Original title: Every Secret Thing.)
McLellan, Vin, and Paul Avery. The Voices of Guns: The Definitive and Dramatic Story of the Twenty-two-month Career of the Symbionese Liberation Army. New York: Putnam, 1977.
Weed, Steven, with Scott Swanton. My Search for Patty Hearst. New York: Warner, 1976. (Weed was Hearst's fiance at the time of the kidnapping. That was the end of their relationship.)

External links

www.rickross.com/ Rick A. Ross Institute: The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) Page
www.straightdope.com/ The Straight Dope: explains the names of the 7 heads of the hydra which form the SLA symbol
www.courttv.com/ Court TV Trial: Symbionese Liberation Army
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst official web site
PBS Photo Gallery: The Hibernia Bank Robbery security camera images
Account of the May 1974 SLA shootout

Symbionese Liberation Army | Ejército Simbiótico de Liberación | Armée de libération symbionaise | צבא השחרור הסמביוטי | Symbiotiska befrielsearmén

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