Bill Harris, a Marine Corps veteran and top lieutenant of the Symbionese Liberation Army, died on Sept. 10 in San Francisco at age 81. His wife, Rebecca Young, confirmed the cause was a heart attack. Harris was one of the main kidnappers of heiress Patricia Hearst in 1974, abducting her from her Berkeley apartment on Feb. 4, 1974, after a violent struggle.
He stuffed her into the trunk of a Chevrolet Impala, marking the start of a defining news epic of the era. Hearst, daughter of Randolph A. Hearst and scion of the Hearst Corporation media empire, was transformed during her captivity from Patty Hearst to Tania, an urban guerrilla and bank robber.
Harris, known in the SLA as General Teko, later said her family’s media control was viewed as propaganda for the U.S. government. The SLA, founded in 1973 by Donald De Freeze (General Field Marshal Cinque), represented a radical offshoot of 1960s leftist anger over Vietnam, civil rights, and feminism. Historians like Todd Gitlin viewed the group as a farcical distortion of revolutionary ideals.
Harris’s decades-long odyssey included FBI manhunts, prison sentences, and relentless revolutionary rhetoric.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing