The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking (38 page)
Read The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking Online
Authors: Brendan I. Koerner
Tags: #True Crime, #20th Century, #United States, #Nonfiction, #Biography & Autobiography, #Terrorism
My greatest thanks must go to the men and women who invited me into their homes to share memories of the events in question: Roger Holder, Joy Holder, Elizabeth Olson, William Newell, Thomas Crawford, Jan Thompson, Edward Richardson, and Rosemarie Wilson. Without their boundless generosity, this slice of American history might have forever been lost.
Several other angelic folks went above and beyond to enrich my research: Louis DeWitt, Russ Mitchell, Randy Dotinga, Denis de Kergorlay, Jay Farr, Dennis Krummel, Susan Tipograph, Regina Youngren, Carlyn Juergens, Hannah Cooney, the Coos Bay Public Library, Ronald Dellinger, Marla Waarvick, Carole Friske, Donna Jones, Dick Deeds, Richard DeLorso, Billy Hamblin, Lindsey Sherline, and Miriam Chotiner-Gardner at Crown.
I never would have finished this labor of love without the aid of editors and colleagues who patiently supported my work these past few years. I owe an enormous debt to the entire
Wired
crew, particularly my wise overseers Robert Capps, Caitlin Roper, and Jason Tanz. Evan Ratliff and The Atavist provided me with an opportunity to hone my narrative chops in the most awesome way imaginable. And special thanks to Spike Lee, a peerless artist who gave me a master class in storytelling.
Though I have been writing for a living since the last millennium,
I am still not adept at dealing with the job’s inevitable frustrations. Without the benevolence of friends and family, who were always quick to offer reassuring words when needed, my laptop would now be in a landfill: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kenyatta Matthews, Ryan “Ulf” Nerz, Nathan Thornburgh, Jason Fagone, Jeff “Daddy Like” Kulkarni and the Fresh Produce team, Doug Merlino, Robert Galligan, Tom Folsom and Lily Koppel, Bird by Bird, Jonathan Green, Pat Walters, Loukas Barton, Michael Kunizaki, Matthew Williams and Zoe Vice, Ben Robbins, Nick Thompson, Thomas Beug, Molly Blooms, the Microkhan commentariat, and Jacki and David (oenophilic Angels fans nonpareil). An extra-gargantuan dollop of appreciation goes to my mother and father, who could not have been more supportive upon realizing that I wished to spend my life writing tales; I can only hope to provide my own progeny with the same amount of loving encouragement.
My advocates in the business realm, Zoë Pagnamenta and Matthew Snyder, have tirelessly labored on my behalf. I am lucky to have such brilliant and diligent pros in my corner.
It is difficult for me to imagine working with any book editor aside from Vanessa Mobley, who has helped me spin straw into gold a zillion times. She is a true genius with words and structure, as well as a saint for putting up with my frequent bouts of self-doubt. I can hardly wait to start another project under her aegis.
The last paragraph can only belong to my beloved Courtney, the Grand Empress to my Genghis. Many moons ago, when I followed her off the 1 train at 23rd Street, I opened the conversation by asking, “So what are you doing in my neighborhood?” The answer, of course, was that she was there to change my life.
Prelude
1
no interest in food:
Willie Roger Holder, interview by author, Aug. 2011.
2
discuss now is money:
Willie Roger Holder, interrogation by FBI, Jul. 2, 1991, handwritten notes (obtained through Freedom of Information Act request).
3
generous payment plan:
Judge Eugene H. Nickerson, memorandum and order,
United States of America v. Willie Roger Holder
, May 29, 1992, National Archives and Records Administration, Central Plains Region, St. Louis, Mo.
4
get things moving:
Special Agent David Torres, California Department of Justice, affidavit, Jul. 2, 1991 (FOIA).
5
“want to blow up?”
: Nickerson, memorandum and order.
1
in twenty-five minutes:
Ronald Dellinger, interview by author, Aug. 2010.
2
polka-dot scarves:
Carole Friske (formerly Clymer), interview by author, Aug. 2010.
3
forgot about his voucher:
Regina Youngren (formerly Cutcher), interview by author, Aug. 2010.
4
“Read these”:
Regina Cutcher, written statement to FBI, June 2, 1972, private collection of William Newell.
5
“don’t stop!”:
Both notes were obtained from the FBI through a Freedom of Information Act request.
6
In here:
Youngren interview.
7
headed for the cockpit:
Regina Cutcher, written statement.
8
wobbled even more:
Marla Waarvick (formerly Smith), interview by author, Aug. 2010.
9
an urgent matter:
Donna Jones, written statement to FBI, June 2, 1972, private collection of William Newell.
10
“need to read these!”:
Regina Cutcher, written statement.
11
what he was doing:
Thomas Crawford, interview by author, Oct. 2010.
12
“he wants us to do”:
Regina Cutcher, written statement.
13
less than a month:
Edward Richardson, interview by author, Aug. 2010.
14
hijacked in the United States:
FAA, Civil Aviation Security Service, “Hijacking Statistics for U.S. Registered Aircraft (1961–Present),” April 1, 1975,
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/28885NCJRS.pdf
.
15
strictly by coincidence:
Ned Glick, “Hijacking Planes to Cuba: An Updated Version of the Birthday Problem,”
American Statistician
24, no. 1 (Feb. 1970), 41–44.
16
any organic pathogen:
Robert T. Holden, “The Contagiousness
of Aircraft Hijacking,”
American Journal of Sociology
91, no. 4 (Jan. 1986), 874–904.
17
commandeered the era’s planes:
“On Return from Cuba, an Arrest for ’68 Hijacking,”
New York Times
, Oct. 11, 2009.
18
in American history:
At the time, some news reports contended that the Western Airlines Flight 701 hijacking was only the second longest in American history, behind the hijacking of Braniff Airways Flight 14 on July 2, 1971. However, this claim was clearly erroneous. The Braniff plane was hijacked in Houston, then taken to Monterrey, Mexico; Lima, Peru; Rio de Janeiro; and Buenos Aires, for a total distance of 6,846 miles as the crow flies. The Western Airlines hijackers, by contrast, logged 7,262 miles in the air. It is not clear why some reporters made this mistake, but it may have been due to a misunderstanding as to the exact location of Monterrey.
19
life without parole:
“Fruitless War Against Crime in the Air,”
Life
, Dec. 29, 1972, 82–83.
1
water in her wake:
Willie Roger Holder, interview by author, Aug. 2011; “Hijack Suspects ‘Expect to Be Killed Off,’ ”
Oregonian
(Portland, Ore.), Aug. 8, 1972.
2
their standard magic:
Holder interview.
3
know him from somewhere:
Ibid.
4
there could be trouble:
Elizabeth Olson (formerly Newhouse), interview by author, May 2011.
5
knew it very well:
Holder interview.
6
Art Deco centerpiece:
Author’s visit, May 2011. Special thanks to the Coos Historical and Maritime Museum for its materials regarding the region’s twentieth-century history.
7
dredging company by trade:
Polk’s Coos Bay and North Bend City Directory, 1958
(R. L. Polk & Co., 1958), 130.
8
jazz organist instead:
Holder interview; Olson interview; “What’s Happening: Nightlife,”
Daily News
(Port Angeles, Wash.), Jun. 28, 1974.
9
on the rocks:
Olson interview.
10
Seavenes Holder:
Seavenes Holder, U.S. Navy service record (service no. 8344312), National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Mo.
11
a Navy lifer:
Ibid.
12
fond of pointing out:
Holder interview.
13
the western Pacific:
Seavenes Holder service record.
14
room all to himself:
Holder interview.
15
the Holders were black:
Rosemarie Wilson (formerly Holder), interview by author, Apr. 2012.
16
pigmentation any further:
Ibid.
17
to protect himself:
Holder interview.
18
might lose a testicle:
Wilson interview; “Portrait of a Hijacker,”
Bulletin
(Bend, Ore.), Aug. 19, 1972. The
Bulletin
piece misidentifies the victim as Roger rather than Danny.
19
further racial harassment:
“Editorial,”
Empire Charleston Builder
(Coos Bay, Ore.), Sept. 28, 1959.
20
Coos Bay any further:
Wilson interview.
21
less than three months:
Holder interview; Willie Roger Holder,
Eli and the 13th Confession
(unpublished memoir), 10–11, private collection of Joy Holder. Please note that the pagination for
Eli and the 13th Confession
is haphazard; Holder skipped over many numbers,
repeated others, and failed to number each and every page.
22
chase bohemian dreams:
Olson interview.
23
make ends meet:
Polk’s Coos Bay and North Bend City Directory, 1965
(R. L. Polk & Co., 1965), n.p.
24
beneath her placid surface:
Dennis Krummel, interview by author, Jun. 2011; Jay Farr, interview by author, May 2011; Olson interview; Holder interview.
25
meals to elderly shut-ins:
Mahiscan 1965
(Marshfield High School yearbook), Coos Bay Public Library, Coos Bay, Ore.
26
made straight B’s:
“Skyjack Suspect an All-American Girl,”
Oregonian
(Portland, Ore.), Jun. 6, 1972.
27
the town’s leading attorney:
Olson interview.
28
friend and classmate Prefontaine:
Mahiscan 1968
, Coos Bay Public Library, Coos Bay, Ore.
29
hamburgers at Dairy Queen:
Krummel interview.
30
well outside their league:
Ibid.; Olson interview.
31
the coolest parties:
Olson interview.
32
a sawmill in Prineville:
“Ms. Kerkow Recalled as ‘Hippie Type,’ ”
Bulletin
(Bend, Ore.), Jun. 8, 1972.
33
operate the cash register:
“Coos Girl’s Hijack ‘Unbelievable,’ ”
Oregon Journal
, Jun. 7, 1972; Olson interview.
34
shrimp in the spring:
“Skyjack Suspect an All-American Girl”; “Miss Kerkow Recalled as ‘Hippie Type’ ”; Olson interview.
35
stuffed in her purse:
Olson interview.
36
as she had hoped:
Krummel interview.
37
for southern California:
Olson interview.
38
La Jolla’s yachting elite:
Ibid.
39
Patricia would be appalled:
Elizabeth Newhouse (later Olson), interview by FBI, Jun. 4, 1972 (obtained through FOIA request).
40
run-down Hillcrest neighborhood:
FBI Special Agent in Charge, San Diego Field Office, memo to headquarters, Jun. 7, 1972 (FOIA).
41
rubbed and tugged:
Olson interview.
42
at a doctor’s office:
Ibid.
43
touching the topless dancers:
Ibid.
44
suburban Spring Valley:
FBI Special Agent, San Diego, memo to headquarters.
45
only as Fast Eddie:
Olson interview.
46
to lewder diversions:
Holder interview.
47
still just seventeen:
Willie Roger Holder, U.S. Army service record (service no. 18910865), private collection of Joy Holder.
48
Teresa and Torrita:
Wilson interview.
49
ACR’s
contingent in Vietnam:
Willie Roger Holder service record.
50
to his infant daughters:
“California Marriage Index, 1960–69,”
Ancestry.com
.
51
the elusive enemy:
CIA,
Intelligence Memorandum: Pacification in the Wake of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam
, March 19, 1968, declassified, Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University,
http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualar-chive/items.php?item=0410688004
.
52
hail of AK-47 fire:
Department of Defense,
The United States Army Presents: The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment
(film),
http://archive.org/details/gov.dod.dimoc.30249
.
53
as long as possible:
Holder interview.
54
such improvised devices:
Jonathan Shay,
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character
(New York: Scribner, 1991), 34.
55
ten cents a joint:
Peter Brush, “Higher and Higher: American Drug Use in Vietnam,”
Vietnam
15, no. 4 (Dec. 2002).
56
shake his survivor’s guilt:
Holder,
Eli and the 13th Confession
, 6–9. The comrade of Holder’s who suffered the brain injury actually survived; the man who died was Sgt. Emile Cole, a twenty-eight-year-old native of Baton Rouge, La.
57
a sign of weakness:
Holder interview; Virtual Wall, casualty report for Pfc. Stanley A. Schroeder,
www.VirtualWall.org/ds/SchroederSA01a.htm
.
58
atop his M113 perch:
Photograph, 11th Armored Cavalry’s Veterans of Vietnam & Cambodia website,
http://www.11thcavnam.com/rogues/rogues2.html
.
59
raising his daughters:
Wilson interview.
60
Bullock’s betrayal:
Holder interview; Photograph of Holder at Bien Hoa Airbase, 1969, private collection of Richard DeLorso.
61
just east of Saigon:
Willie Roger Holder service record.
62
with guns blazing:
First Lt. Peter B. Howson, “The Top Tigers,”
Hawk
, Aug. 1969, 16–18.
63
bullets found their marks:
Holder interview.
64
Frantz Fanon:
Ibid; Wilson interview.
65
fire in the field:
Billy Hamblin, interview by author, Apr. 2011.
66
“business is good”:
“Firefly,”
Hawk
, Nov. 1969, 12–13.
67
spying for the North:
“Mystery of the Green Berets,”
Time
, Aug. 15, 1969.
68
vain and callous men:
Holder interview.
69
demotion to private:
Ibid.
70
wander into minefields:
“Soldiers Suffering Marijuana Reaction,”
Palm Beach Post
, Oct. 13, 1969.
71
“fabric of American society”:
“Song My GI’s May Have Been on Marijuana,”
Lodi
(Calif.)
News-Sentinel
, Dec. 4, 1969.
72
“the first popular war”:
“Military Battles Against Drugs,”
Spartanburg
(S.C.)
Herald Journal
, Jan. 2, 1972.
73
search soldiers’ footlockers:
“Cookie, Smidgen, Hunt Mary Jane Across Vietnam,”
Herald
(Rock Hill, S.C.), Aug. 28, 1969.
74
faithfully they had served:
“Military Battles Against Drugs.”
75
handed the maximum sentence:
Willie Roger Holder service record.
76
because of their skin:
Joe Kolb, “Long Binh Jail Riot During the Vietnam War,”
Vietnam
, Dec. 2004.
77
“he gets nine months”:
Stewart Kellerman, “Soul Session in Vietnam,” United Press International, Apr. 25, 1971.
78
death with a shovel:
Kolb, “Long Binh Jail Riot.”
79
the Comancheros:
Willie Roger Holder service record.
80
Fort Hood, Texas:
Ibid.; Holder interview.
81
track him down:
Holder interview.
82
masquerading as White:
FBI, background report on Willie Roger Holder, compiled Jun. 3–Jul. 31, 1972 (FOIA).
83
dancing Hueys:
Holder interview. Holder told me that he used LSD exactly eight times.
84
sweet young things:
FBI, background report on Holder.
85
admitted his true identity:
Ibid.; Holder interview.
86
something spectacular:
Holder interview.
