Screed 20: PATRICIA HEARST'S SLA TESTAMENT
Patricia Hearst's part in the termination of negotiations came as a shock to many people. Her taped message, Screed 20, is a sweeping and often startling document. She spoke it ad libitum, but obviously following noted-down headings. in a clear, earnest, serious voice, with no sign of tension and certainly no sign of rebellion.
The contents of the screed closely echo and sometimes amplify the ideas of General Genina's analytical paper, Screed 19. Like Genina, Miss Hearst demanded that Remiro and Little be given their television hour. Like Genina also, she argued that her father had deliberately lied about his resources, sabotaged the free-food program, and allied himself with the FBI in such a way as to endanger her life. And like Genina, she tried to get back to staple Berkeley issues such as her mother's performance on the University Board of Regents. What was more starthng than all of this was Patricia Hearst's suggestion that she was, or was becoming, a Symbionese soldier herself. Her statement about a shotgun and "cyanide buckshot" to be used by her in case of an FBI attack carried this idea as far as possible. It was now "only the FBI and certain people in government" whom she recognized as enemies.
From the first hours of the kidnapping, more than a month earlier, rumors that Patricia Hearst was an SLA sympathizer, and had helped to engineer her own abduction, had circulated through Black and Left circles in Berkeley and San Francisco. Screed 20 intensified and spread
these rumors, and they began to be mentioned even in the press. The breaking off of communications between Hearst and the SLA left the question open.
Mom, Dad:
I received the message you broadcast last Sunday. It was good to hear from you after so much silence. But what you had to say sounded like you don't care if I ever get out of here. All you want is to hear from me sometimes. Your silence definetely jeopardized my safety because it allows the FBI to continue to attempt to find me, and Governor Reagan to make antagonistic statements, with no response from you.
I'm beginning to feel that the FBI would rather that I get killed. I'm telling you this now because I don't think the FBI will let any more words from me get through to the media. I hear that people all around the country keep calling on the SLA to release me unharmed. But the SLA are not the ones who are harming me. It's the FBI, along with your indifference to the poor, and your failure to deal with the people and the SLA in a meaningful, fair way.
I don't believe you're doing everything you can, everything in your power. I don't believe that you're doing anything at all. You said it was out of your hands; what you should have said was that you wash your hands of it.
I guess that you don't think, or understand, that it is not just the crimes of you and mom personally that I am being held for, but the crimes of the University of California Board of Regents, and your voting record, Mom, when you were on that board. And also the crimes of the Hearst Corporation.
Dad, you can't put the responsibility for my status on the corporation. You seem to be ignoring the fact that you are the chairman of the board and Uncle Bill is president of the Hearst Corporation. I know that if anything happens to me, it will be because your corporation advisers and the FBI decided to protect their interests instead of my life.
I don't know who influences you to not comply with the good faith gesture. I know that you could have done it the way the SLA asked. I mean I know that we have enough money. But it seems to me that you told the FBI to do whatever they decide is necessary to destroy the SLA. But it's becoming true [ie, clear?] J, Dad.
[II]
I've heard the reports concerning the FBI investigation and interrogations, Governor Reagan's careless and antagonistic remarks, and the attempt of federal agencies to maneuver the news media to mentally prepare the public for my death,calling for mass prayers and petitions to the SLA for my release.
From this I am forced to draw only one conclusion, that the FBI and other federal agencies want me to die. I no longer seem to have any importance as a human being; rather, I have become all-important as a political pivot point for certain right wing elements. And I can only be used successfully by these people if I am killed.
As for the constant reassurances by the FBI that my safety is their primary concern, I can only say that the FBI has never been famous for its concern for the safety of hostages. From what I've seen so far this case is no different.
Whether consciously or not, the news media has [sic] been assisting the FBI for its now overt attempts to set me up for execution. It has done this primarily in two ways.
First, by promoting a public image of my father as a bereaved parent who has done all he can to meet the demands of his daughter's kidnappers, and who now awaits her supposedly long overdue release. In fact, the SLA demands have not even been approximated, and they have made it very clear that until the good faith gesture is completed, negotiations for my release will not begin.
Second, the media, with cooperation from my parents, has [sic] created a public image of me as a helpless innocent girl who was supposedly abducted by two terrible Blacks, escaped convicts. I'm a strong woman and I resent being used in this way.
[Ill]
I have been hearing reports about the food program. So far it sounds like you and your advisers have managed to turn it into a real disaster.
I heard only 15,000 people received food in the first two weeks and that each of them received only about $8 worth. It sounds like most of the food is of low quality. No one received any beef or lamb, and it certainly didn't sound like the kind of food our family is used to eating.
The SLA wanted this program to be over in one month. They wanted each person to get $70 worth of good food all at once. If you'd just done what the SLA wanted for the food program, the month would almost be over and I would be ready to get out of here.
What you've done is tell People in Need to set up this program where people get at most an $8 bag of food, so it's being stretched out; and [but?] it's a really discouraging thing for people who need food.
Dad, I know that you got most of the food donated for People in Need. And you have put very little money at all into the program.
[IV]
Mom, I can't believe that you've agreed with the "out of my hands" stance of Daddy's program.
I just wish that you could be stronger and pull yourself together from all these emotional outbursts and see if you can persuade Dad to listen to you and the rest of the family. Mom, you've got to stand up and speak for yourself. You seem to be allowing other people to make your decisions.
Your statements, if I can call them that, have given the FBI the go-ahead to kill me. I wish God would touch your heart and get you to do something concrete to help me.
I wish I knew what the rest of the family was thinking and saying. It's hard to believe that my sisters and cousins aren't saying anything.
If it had been you, Mom, or you, Dad, who had been kidnapped instead of me, I know that I and the rest of the family and your friends would do anything to get you back. It could have been one of you and how would you feel if you had been written off the way I seem to have been?
I'm starting to think that no one is concerned about me any more. I wish that I could hear from the rest of the family. I'd like to hear what my sisters have to say about Dad's decision not to comply with the terms of the good faith gesture.
Steven, what do you have to say? Willy, I know you really care about what happens to me. Make Dad let you talk. You can't be silent.
Everyone who hears this tape, I hope you will believe me and not think that I've been brainwashed or tortured into saying this. Please listen to me because I'm speaking honestly and from the heart.
In the last week it has become obvious to the SLA and all hungry people, and to me, that my father is not even attempting to show a gesture of good faith. I guess that everybody knows that
is why there's been no further word from the SLA about negotiating for my release.
[V]
In the last few days members of the Federation have spoken with me. They have given me some newspaper reports to read about the current practices of psycho-surgery and the use, daily, of drugs and tranquilizers in prisons throughout the country. I have also been given some journals commentaries about kinds of conditions that exist in prisons in general and in the adjustment center at San Quentin in particular.
Members of the Federation have also given me a choice of books to read. I have been reading a book by George Jackson called "Blood in My Eye". I'm starting to understand what he means when he talks about fascism in America.
Joseph Remiro and Russell Little, the two men in San Quentin, haven't even come to trial yet, and already they are being held in strip cells on death row. It's really hard to believe that such an obvious violation of the Constitution is taking place, but it's true. How can people think that these men can get a fair trial? Can there be any doubt in people's minds as to what the verdict will be?
Members of the Federation are studying intelligence reports gathered by the SLA on the activities of the FBI. These, combined with discussions the members of the Federation have had with me, and my own observations of the way my father has been conducting himself, have made me afraid; because I realize that the plans are coming from the FBI and the Attorney General's office in Washington to execute the two men in San Quentin. Or if that cannot be swiftly accomplished, to execute me by seeing to it that even if I am released I will not get home ahve Or by attempting to raid this place where I am being held, and then [to] discredit the SLA by saying that they were the ones who killed me.
Because of these dangers, I have been transferred to a special security unit of the SLA combat forces, where I am being held in protective custody. I have been issued a 12-gauge riot shotgun and I have been receiving instructions on how to use it.
While I have no access to ammunition, in the event of an attack by the FBI, I have been told that I will be given an issue of cyanide buckshot in order to protect myself. Because it is the Federation's opinion, and my own from observation, that if the FBI does rush in, they will obviously be doing it against the wishes of my family and in total disregard for my safety. In fact, they would be doing it to murder me.
Under international codes of war I am allowed to communicate with members of my family, and because of the scope of this incident with the public as well. However, I should tell you that the practice of allowing me to communicate with you will not continue until the SLA hears from the two men at San Quentin. They want to hear what the two men have to say in a live
nationwide broadcast, so they can hear all the conditions of their confinement.
I really want to get out of here and I really want to get home alive. I am appealing to the public and asking them not to assist the FBI in their investigation. Doing so is simply helping them to dig my grave. And I ask those people who say they pray for me and those who sign petitions to the SLA for my safe release to redirect their energies into opposing the FBI's brutal attempts to murder me and the two men in San Quentin.
I no longer fear the SLA, because they are not the ones who want me to die. The SLA want to feed the people, and assure safety and justice for the two men at San Quentin. I realize now it is the FBI who [sic] want to murder me. Only the FBI and certain people in the government stand to gain anything by my death.
