A. Well, that my whole kidnapping was scripted by the Government . . .

Earth News Service had called the FBI in San Francisco to find out why they didn't investigate when I originally announced in the Barb that I had met with Patty Hearst in captivity. An agent checked the files and found a notation that I had also announced I would never cooperate with the FBI, so they didn't bother. However, a week after Crawdaddy came out, a pair of FBI agents from the Santa Cruz office visited me in Watsonville, wanting to talk about the interview.

"I'm sorry, but I have nothing to tell you."

They repeated their request, still friendly and low-key.

"Everything I had to say about that has already been published," I explained. "There's nothing further to discuss."

They tried to peer in my window.

"Patty isn't here, is she?"

"If you get a search warrant, I'll let you look."

In the middle of a Doonesbury strip, Garry Trudeau spelled out the word Canaan, which was where a friend of his lived, but federal authorities were convinced it was really a reference to Patty Hearst's supposed hideout in Pennsylvania. William F. Buckley wrote that Patty should be sacrificed "in the name of Christ." And Catherine Hearst said that she would rather her daughter be dead than join the Communists. She also commented that if only Clark Gable had been at the apartment in Berkeley instead of Steven Weed, then Patty would never have been kidnapped. Probably true.

Patty Hearst was finally captured after eighteen months. Although her own cousin, Will, said that he would not have recognized her, the arresting officer immediately said, "Patty, what are you doing here?" She was so surprised that she peed in her pants, an accident acknowledged in the Chronicle, but not in the Examiner. She was permitted to change in the bathroom.

The FBI inventory did not include "pants, wet, one pair," but there was on their list a two-foot marijuana plant--as compared with almost a pound of grass not reported by the FBI that was found at the apartment from which she had originally been kidnapped. There was also a bottle of Gallo wine in the SLA safe-house, not exactly a loyal gesture to the United Farm Workers whom they purported to support. And there was an unidentified "rock" found in Patty's purse.

A KGO newscaster reported breathlessly: "Patti Page has been captured!"

I had a lunch appointment with Will Hearst, assistant to the editor at the Examiner and grandson of Citizen Kane's prototype, William Randolph Hearst. Although Will claimed that his status as Patty's favorite cousin was a media creation, he was the very first one she requested to see after her arrest. Now he walked into the lobby.

"It's a bad day," he told me. "San Simeon has been bombed."

"Well, at least I have an alibi."

We postponed the lunch, and on the way home I stopped at the federal court building, where Patty's trial was in a preliminary stage. Originally, she was going to be defended by the radical team of Vincent Hallinan and his son, Kayo. The elder Hallinan was in Honolulu when the FBI captured Patty, and he assigned Kayo to visit her in jail. Although as Tania she had called Vincent Hallinan a "clown" in a taped communiqué, now, as Patty, she said of Kayo, "He's good. Like, I really trust him politically and personally, and I can tell him just about anything I want and he's cool." It was, however, a lawyer-client relationship that would not be permitted to mature.