THE RECENT SLA arrests jolted people who thought that part of history was far, far behind them. First there was the saga of Olson, linked to an alleged SLA attempt to blow up a Los Angeles police cruiser in 1975 and arrested in 1999 after nearly 20 years in hiding. She’d evolved into a progressive soccer mom — not deep cover, just a sign of the times. Last fall she made headlines while stumbling through a depressing series of legal blunders and errors of judgment, during which she copped a plea, tried to renege, and wound up sentenced to 10 years in prison. Then, on January 16, 2002, Olson, her brother-in-law Michael Bortin, and the Harrises (who had each already served eight years in jail for robbing the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco with Patty Hearst in 1974) were arrested and charged with the murder of Myrna Opsahl, which took place during a Carmichael bank robbery in 1975.
Fired with personal ambition and pushed by Jon Opsahl, the dead woman’s son, Michael Latin of the LA District Attorney’s Office had badgered the Sacramento District Attorney’s Office for five years to reopen the case. It wasn’t an easy fight. Olson’s brother, Steven Soliah, had been tried for the robbery in 1976 and acquitted. The evidence was old and shaky; nobody wanted to try the case. But Latin and Opsahl persevered, and when the events of September 11 triggered a remarkable shift in the political climate, suddenly the SLA was back in the news. To many people, the timing of the arrests was too perfect to be coincidental.
"The thing is," says attorney Susan Jordan, who was initially associated with Olson’s defense, "the prosecutor is cynically taking advantage of the events of September 11. Fear of terrorists is being twisted around and used against the defendants. Things were simpler in 1975. We didn’t have the kind of terrorism that we have today. The fact is that ’70s terrorists were rank amateurs, new to violence, who didn’t know how to use it."
Barbara Lubin, a lifelong activist and the head of Berkeley’s Middle East Children’s Alliance, puts it more succinctly: "Hasn’t anyone heard of the strategy of going after weak links?" By any standard, the SLA is an easy target. Jon Opsahl wants vengeance and a chance to right old wrongs. The political right, on the other hand, sees an opportunity to further redevelop the social and political landscape. The long-gone and much-maligned SLA may seem irrelevant, but a conviction would set a troubling precedent in the event of future actions against other activists.
Over the past few weeks, I spoke with many people, including medical professionals, teachers, artists, lawyers, and community activists. The arrests troubled all of them, and many expressed concern about the timing, in light of the political climate. This didn’t mean they’d talk on the record. Even veteran activists who have seen a lot of trouble in their lives don’t want to go near this one.
"I never trusted the SLA, and the last thing I want is the FBI asking me questions," one activist told me. At the end of another frosty call, when I joked, "So I’ll buzz you later to set something up," the sound of the receiver crashing down was painful. A woman I first met 32 years ago through a friend in the Weathermen shouted at me that the SLA was fucked, that she was sick of talking about them, and that everyone should "get over it." And then there was the Revolutionary Communist Party, which decided it wasn’t talking to strangers, a category that included me.
"It gets harder and harder for me to believe that the government doesn’t have ulterior motives when they go after any political people," Lubin says. "Look what our government routinely does, look at Chile and Central America, and please, look at Iraq, where over a million children have died since the embargo began. The question is, how paranoid do you have to be before you’re paranoid enough?"
I hate it when people dismiss activists with generalizations like "spoiled rich kids." What’s wrong with a rich kid trying to do something extraordinary rather than settling for whatever it is rich kids normally do? The discarding of social privilege to live a life with meaning is an American tradition, and a fine one at that. I tried with no luck to reach Patty Hearst recently to pass along my thoughts on this matter. Though she was indeed spoiled and rich, there was a time long ago when Ms. Hearst experienced a moment of transcendence that most us can only dream of.
On April 3, 1974, after two months in captivity, Hearst ditched the straight life, stepped forward, and exposed and publicly humiliated her father, who, through his wealth and media empire, had heaped insult and indignity on countless others. Her performance included this: "Dad, you said you were concerned with my life and ... the life and interests of all oppressed people in this country, but you are a liar in both areas.... You are a corporate liar.... Tell the poor and oppressed of this nation what the corporate state is about to do.... Tell the people that [the energy crisis] is nothing more than a means to get approval of a program to build nuclear power plants.... Tell them how law-and-order programs are just a means to remove so-called violent individuals from the community ... in the same way that Hitler controlled the removal of the Jews from Germany" (SLA communiqué 40374). It didn’t last, but it was perhaps the one shining moment in the dismal history of the SLA.
Hearst claims to be anxious to testify against her old friends. She was, she says, a victim of Stockholm syndrome, which causes captives to identify with their captors. Perhaps it’s true. But hell, I saw Berkeley students attacked by rioting cops and radicalized in an instant. Besides, she gave her occupation as "urban guerrilla" when she was finally arrested. Still, the birthright she reclaimed is working out — as birthrights like hers tend to do, buying not just a presidential commutation of her sentence, but later also a presidential pardon. The Harrises served eight years, Hearst just two. Now she’s set to testify against defendants charged with a crime she has admitted to taking part in. But no matter what happens now, the heir to the Hearst fortune won’t go back to jail.
