Hearst Says She Empathizes With Smart

AP | March 13, 2003

[Indy Pendance]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst said Thursday that she understands why Elizabeth Smart would have been unable to escape from her captors.

"You have been so abused and so robbed of your free will and so frightened that you believe any lie that your abductor has told you," Hearst told CNN's Larry King. "You think that either you will be killed if you reach out to get help or ... your family will be killed."

On Feb. 4, 1974, when she was a 19-year-old college student, Hearst was kidnapped by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army. She eventually joined the group and helped them rob a bank; she was captured, convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison.

She was later pardoned by President Clinton for her role in the bank heist.

Authorities said Thursday that Elizabeth, now 15, was increasingly forced to depend on her captors during her nine-month disappearance. When found by Utah police Wednesday, she vehemently denied her identity when asked if she was Elizabeth Smart and told officers that the couple she was with were her parents.

"You have absorbed this new identity that they've given you," Hearst said.

Hearst, now known formally as Patricia Hearst Shaw, also said abductees become psychologically dependent upon their abductors.

"Many times, people who have been held hostage say, `They really were nice to me,'" she said. "But what they really means is, `Thank God they didn't kill me.'"

She said Elizabeth's family should keep the girl away from the news media.

"The experiences she's gone through have changed her," Hearst said. "She's never going to be the same trusting person. She's going to be very suspicious."

Hearst's father, Randolph Apperson Hearst, was the son of legendary newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Since her release from prison, she has appeared in several movies and television sitcoms, written novels and done charitable work.

[Sloth]

It's pretty obviously she was a willing participant in this circus

It's pretty "obviously" that you smoke crack prior to posting.

[unspun]

Also (while adults are manipulated all the time and therefore it doesn't necessarily apply here) one often isn't fully grown in terms of one's abilities to handle abstractions, until some time in one's 20's.

[Indy Pendance]

[unspun]

And remember Peter, denying Jesus three times, curses and all? Many examples.

[unspun]

God bless Patti Hearst, despite those who hate.

[Monty22]

I think it's obvious that different people mature at different ages. I dunno where smart is on the scale.

[unspun]

Many of our finest heroes in the Korean and Veitnamese conflicts also succombed (almost all of them, temporarily, thank God).

[unspun]

That's "Vietnamese" and "succumbed."
No Vanna to help with my vowels.

[unspun]

Notice the voided expression, in that photograph.

[webstersII]

"One of them even ended up marrying one of the captors because that person was so afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome."

Urban legend alert. They didn't marry the captor.

[conservagrrrl]

Hmmm. Really?

I got that off a webpage that told the whole story of the Kreditbank, which I looked up because I wanted to know the details behind that particular event (I got to read a little synopsis off of the appendix of a "terrorism history" book from the late 1980s).

Where can I get the complete unvarnished truth, then? I'm still very intrigued by the whole event. I'm also intrigued by the Baader-Meinhof (sp?) story, and am interested in finding a webpage with more details behind that than just a brief two-paragraph story. It would be really appreciated, since I'm very interested in slightly obscure historical events from the 1960s - 1980s.

Huh. Thanks for setting me straight.

[GOPJ]

Hearst, who paid a high price for her insight, has offered the correct advise. She knows what of she speaks.

She said Elizabeth's family should keep the girl away from the news media.

"The experiences she's gone through have changed her," Hearst said. "She's never going to be the same trusting person. She's going to be very suspicious."

[Sir Gawain]

Try http://www.snopes.com

[oyez]

That's the ones. She seems to hold that piece with a sense of authority. That gal was in deep with SLA no matter what her lawyers said.