THE KIDNAPPING EPIDEMIC

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300590022-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 2004
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: April 6, 1974
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For _Release 206591111) 'C1A-RDP88-0.1315R000o3QQ,'96022-4 7-? c 1e y vti ,
Captive Families, Governments and Corporations
KrL1napping Epaermc .
by Eliot Marshall
Since February 4 the networks and papers have sup-
plied an eager audience with details on Patricia Hearst,
her family, her kidnappers, the messages passed be-
tween them and the many squabbles th,,, have broken
out. No one knows how it will end, but it is ? : ginnin
to look as though it will end badly. What attracts the
attention of the media more than the cruelty of the
crime is its political coloring. Last year the Justice De-
partment won 71 convictions against kidnappers and
turned 146 other cases over to local prosecutors. None
received anything like the attention the Hearst case is
getting. It brings America its first bitter taste of politi-
cal terrorism, pitting an articulate, wealthy business-
man in a life-or-death struggle against local. terrorists
with a cause.
If we need reminding that ours has been made one
'world by rapid communication, no better example is
needed than the speed at which bad examples now
travel. Latin America has provided some of them. Kid-
nappers in Argentina have collected about $50 million
since the beginning of 1973, most of it from foreign
businesses. As a result about 60 percent of the US ex-
ecutives stationed there have left, their jobs taken over
by Argentines. Those who stay must work, travel and
live under constant guard. Exxon set a record last
month,when it paid the largest ransom ever, $14.2 mil-
lion, to rescue a refinery manager in Argentina, Victor
Samuelson. He has not been released yet.
What can be done to prevent such extortion? On the
world stage the United States takes the position: that
kidnapping and hijacking can be discouraged only if
the "parent" countries or companies refuse to negoti-
ate with terrorists. A couple of years ago, when hijack-
ings and political killings seemed to have reached an
unbearable level, President Nixon created a Cabinet
Committee to Combat Terrorism and asked it to co-
ordinate the anti-terrorist policies of the CIA, State
Department, Secret Service, FBI, Transportation De-
partment and other federal agencies. The current chair-
man of the committee, Ambassador to the Cameroons
Lewis t loffacker, wrote an article in February that
sums tip the official view: "Tactics vary in each crisis
situation, but one consistent factor should be under-
-7S 6
Last week another diplomat, Bonn Patterson, was
taken hostage in the town of Hermosillo, Mexico, by
a "liberation army" that wants $500,000 in cash.
Since 1963 the US has been trying to persuade
governments to adopt this uncompromising position,
with partial success. Cuba signed an extradition agree-
ment with the US,in 1973 that classifies hijackers as
criminals who must be returned to the country of
origin. Several other important agreements have been
reached, but I-loffacker says the program became "bog-
ged down" at a 1972 UN conference "in a debate over
what some countries called justifiable, as opposed to
legal, violence even against innocent parties."
There are drawbacks to the US policy, the most ob-
vious being that governments may see the logic in re-
fusing ransom, but corporations find it difficult to live
with that logic, and families, impossible. Exxon was
tested to the breaking point in Argentina. It first re-
fused to pay the $1.4.2 million, then after the guerrillas
announced that Samuelson would be "executed" for
the . crimes of his company on February 25, Exxon
relented.
The Hearst kidnapping has "worked" in the sense
that it has been prolonged by similar, conciliatory tac-
tics. The kidnappers chose as their victim the daughter
of a man whose power lies in managing the news: pub-
licity becomes a part of the ransom demand. Besides
commanding the printing of legalistic tirades in
Hearst's paper, the San Francisco Examiner, the Symbi-
onese succeeded in having their symbol-a seven-
headed cobra-printed on every package of free food
paid for by Mr. Hearst. The Symbionese demanded
that two of their members accused of killing Marcus
Foster, a superintendent of schools in Oakland, be
given national television time to plead their case. Here
they failed, despite Hearst's lobbying. If it were in his
power to grant the request, thereis no doubt that he
would. This nedia-napping is an insidious aspect of
the case, and it hints at crimes yet to come.
Fanatics feed on publicity. Thus when Reg Murphy,
editor of the Atlanta Constitution, was kidnapped not
long after Patricia Hearst, it looked as though the East
Coast would have its own version of California politi-
stood by all parties concerned: the US government will cal terrorism. But after making a few reactionary
not pay ransom to kidnappers. We urge all other gov- swipes, Murphy's captors took a fat ransoni and.let it
er'nlnents and individuals to adopt the salve position." go at that. Two people have been arrested. The P131
He noted that irr~RP1TPM Fg1"e leas r (J1Q Q1~>If1 : CIA fRD1 a8rr011..Zi,:5R0OWUo5s0iOi21 b-ch that worked on
cials have been kidnapped abroad and 10 murdered. the inverse principle: the kidnappers had no hostage