“And the fact that a Hearst was kidnapped was a perfect metaphor for how much the country was going off the rails in 1974.”

He was the basis for perhaps the greatest American movie, ‘Citizen Kane,’” Toobin said. He owned the grandest private residence in the United States, San Simeon. So Hearst, granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, made for a good capture for self-proclaimed revolutionaries. At the time of the Hearst kidnapping, Watergate and Vietnam were fresh in people’s minds and political bombings were commonplace. Toobin’s convinced that the 1970s was a more turbulent time in the country then the free-love decade of the 1960s. The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst” during an interview at The Ambassador Hotel in Tulsa. MICHAEL WYKE/For the Frontier

“Even the other terrorists like the Weather Underground thought they were insane.”Īuthor and commentator Jeffrey Toobin talks about his new book “AMERICAN HEIRESS The couldn’t even generate support in the counterculture. … They thought they could spur a revolution in the United States,” Toobin said. “They (the S.L.A.) envisioned themselves as American counterparts to the revolutionary movements around the world. Over the next 18 months, the country watched transfixed as the heir to a newspaper fortune became Tania the revolutionary, a loyal comrade-in-arms to a rag-tag bunch of delusional thugs. 4, 1974, three members of the Symbionese Liberation Army forced their way into Patty Hearst’s apartment in Berkeley, Calif., and kidnapped her.

Toobin was almost 14 years old when, on Feb. Now comes “American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst,” which he was in town to promote at a Booksmart Tulsa event. His list of best-selling books is long and includes “The Run of His Life: O.J. Maybe Toobin doesn’t know every detail of every crime committed by this country’s most notorious criminals, but give him a little time to dig, and he’ll come back with a hell of a story. Ironically, Toobin - one of the nation’s most prominent and prolific chroniclers of the criminal justice system - was unaware that the exclusive club is known for more than its world-class golf course.īusinessman Roger Wheeler was gunned down there in 1981, allegedly on orders from gangster Whitey Bulger. On his list of places to see was Southern Hills Country Club.

American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin