Patty Hearst and the SLA Trivia Quiz

Answer: Steven Weed

Steve Suenaga was their next door neighbor who was shot at as he ran outside to investigate the commotion. Kilgore was a member of the "Second SLA," which came about after six of the original members were killed in a shootout in Los Angeles. The "Second SLA" was made up of original SLA members Bill and Emily Harris and various Bay Area radicals sympathetic to their cause. Terence Hallinan was one of Patty Hearst's defense attorneys.

Steven Weed, who had been her math tutor when she was in high school, wrote a book called "My Search for Patty Hearst". Weed and Hearst have never reunited.

Answer: Donald DeFreeze

Russell Little and Joseph Remiro were SLA members who were incarcerated at the time of the kidnapping due to their involvement in the shooting of Marcus Foster, the Superintendent of Oakland schools. Bill Harris was an original SLA member who became the leader of the "Second SLA" that formed after the shootout in Los Angeles killed DeFreeze and five other members.

DeFreeze, the only black member of the SLA, was a long-time criminal (described by some as an unimpressive thug) who became interested in radical politics while at Soledad Penitentiary. After escaping prison, he founded the SLA with Patricia Mizmoon Soltysik, a California-Berkeley student who was radicalized after a fellow student was killed by riot police during a protest.

Answer: Shot with cyanide-laced bullets

The SLA did some car bombings, but nobody was killed in them. They took pride in their idea of using hollow point bullets to which they added cyanide.

Foster was a popular leader in the black community, but the SLA disapproved of the use of ID cards for students (which they erroneously thought he favored). His murder served to alienate the SLA from other radical groups of the time, as those groups generally supported the elevation of minorities to leadership positions.

Answer: Hibernia Bank

The Crocker National Bank was a later robbery done by the "Second SLA", in which Myrna Lee Opsahl was shot. Opsahl was rushed to the hospital, where her husband was the attending surgeon who attempted unsuccessfully to save her life. Her son Jon maintains www.myrnaopsahl.com, a website that led the attempt to prosecute members of the "Second SLA" for the robbery and murder.

One irony of Patty Hearst's involvement in the Hibernia Bank robbery was that the bank was owned by the father of one of Hearst's childhood friends.

Answer: Tania

Haydee Tamara Bunke Bider (aka Tania Bunke) fought alongside Che Guevara and died during an ambush in 1967.

"Yolanda" was the name used by Emily Harris, "Fahizah" by Nancy Ling Perry, and "Zoya" by Patricia Mizmoon Soltysik (may I recommend "In Search of a Sister" by her brother Fred Soltysik as an interesting biography).

The other SLA members were "Teko" (Bill Harris), "Cinque" (Donald DeFreeze), "Cujo" (Willie Wolfe), "Gabi" (Camilla Hall), and "Gelina" (Angela Atwood).

Answer: People In Need

People In Need was an absolute disaster. There were riots and demonstrations at the distribution centers, and the SLA considered the amount of money spent to organize and run it to be well below what they had in mind. They had demanded $70 per poor person ($400 million total), but the Hearsts only donated $6 million.

In a side note, one of the workers for PIN was Sara Jane Moore, who later attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford.

Answer: Mel's

Bill and Emily Harris were gathering supplies in the store when a security guard got into a scuffle with Bill. Patty Hearst noticed from the car she was sitting in and fired shots at the store, allowing for their escape.

Answer: Tom Mathews

Tom Mathews was a Lynwood, CA high school student briefly kidnapped on May 16, 1974 by Bill and Emily Harris and Patty Hearst after they robbed the sporting goods store. He had been trying to sell his van, and they took the van for a 12-hour test drive, before releasing him and the van. Though somewhat shaken up by the experience, he recovered enough to pitch for his school baseball team the next day.

Meanwhile, Hearst and the Harrises went to a motel and turned on the TV, where they watched the shootout in which the other six members of the SLA were killed. Throughout the shootout, during which the house caught fire and burned to the ground, there was speculation as to whether Hearst was in the house. However, the actions of the SWAT teams and police showed no concern as to whether she was. This may have helped convince her that, as the SLA had been telling her all along, the police did want her dead and her former life was over.

When she was arrested, she gave a protest salute to a news camera and told the booking officer that her occupation was "Urban Guerrilla". She waited in a car alone during the Mel's Sporting Goods robbery, then fired a weapon to defend the Harrises. She appeared on the radio defending their actions and eulogizing the dead SLA members. She participated in two bank robberies. Numerous times during the following year, she could have escaped, yet she didn't.

This brings about the question--Did she act on her own free will? Or was she so psychologically beaten down through brainwashing, hearing reports on the news that she was now seen as a criminal, and seeing the SWAT team kill her comrades (and thinking they were killing her) that she truly "had nowhere to go", as she contends? That is a question that may never definitively be answered.

Answer: Sara Jane Olson

Wendy Yoshimura was a Bay Area artist and radical involved in the "Second SLA" who was arrested with Patty Hearst. Shana Alexander wrote a book entitled "Anyone's Daughter" covering the trial and the character of Patty Hearst. Catherine Campbell was Patty Hearst's mother's maiden name.

Kathy Soliah lived a quiet life as a stereotypical soccer mom, and when she was finally arrested, attempted to use her character as a plea for leniency. However, since she was involved in the Crocker Bank robbery, in which a woman was killed, many felt there was a need for justice. I also question the use of "Sara Jane" as a name--I wonder if there was any tribute to Sara Jane Moore, the woman who shot at Gerald Ford.

Answer: Bill Clinton

Patty Hearst spent almost two years in prison until Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence, but she remained a convicted felon until Bill Clinton gave her a full pardon on January 20, 2001, his final day as president.

Thank you for taking this quiz. If you're interested in learning more about the bizarre story of Patty Hearst and the SLA, may I recommend each of the books mentioned above ("Anyone's Daughter", by Shana Alexander; "My Search for Patty Hearst", by Steven Weed; and "In Search of a Sister", by Fred Soltysik). Also recommended: "Every Secret Thing", by Patty Hearst (also released as "Patty Hearst") and "The Voices of Guns", by Vin McLellan.

If you just want a quick glimpse, you can also watch the movie "Patty Hearst" starring Natasha Richardson as Patty and Ving Rhames as Cinque. Certainly not an academic work, and it does have its flaws, but it is closer to the truth than a lot of Hollywood depictions of true stories.