Symbionese Liberation Army
Those fifty-somethings that we have already referred to a couple of times will also remember the name ‘Patty Hearst’, even if the name of the ‘Symbionese Liberation Army’ remains somewhat obscure. On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, nineteen years old, and granddaughter of the American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst was violently kidnapped from her Berkley California apartment. Responsibility was claimed by an urban guerrilla group styled the Symbionese Liberation Army. The outpouring of national sympathy was turned on its head, however, when a few days later an audio tape was delivered to a local media outlet proclaiming her membership of, and loyalty to the SLA.
The word ‘Symbionese’ was taken from the word ‘Symbiosis’, implying interdependency and partnership, which was an odd correlation bearing in mind the violent overtones of the organization. It was brought to international prominence when soon afterwards, Patty Hearst was pictured in security footage robbing a bank with a sub-machine gun in her hand. She later claimed that she was brainwashed and coerced, which is not impossible, but she certainly walked the talk, and when arrested and booked into county jail, she described her occupation as ‘urban guerrilla’, operating under the name ‘Tania’.
The organization as founded and led by an escaped convict, Donald Defreeze, who went by the name ‘General Field Marshall Cinque Mtume.’ The slogan of the Symbionese Liberation Army was ‘Death to the fascist insect that preys on the life of the people.’ It was a left-leaning, at times communist organization, borrowing much of its rhetoric from left-wing rebel and guerrilla organizations active in South America. It was founded in 1971, and its operational method was to gain attention through selective violence, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies and other random crime.
The SLA was of very minimal historic significance, and although it survived until 2002, it certainly would have achieved no particular notoriety had it not opportunistically staged the Patty Hearst kidnapping.
De Freeze was the organizations only black member, and his ideology was somewhat revisionist insofar as he looked very much to Africa for his inspiration. He died in a shootout with police, killing himself when the house he took refuge in caught fire.
Patty Hearst, in the meanwhile, was handed down a sentence of thirty-five years, reduced to seven at the final hearing. She was released in 1979 when her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.