REVOLUTION’S END: THE PATTY HEARST KIDNAPPING, MIND CONTROL, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF DONALD DEFREEZE AND THE SLA

This one was wild. As I continue my slog through a handful of longer books, I decided to take a minute and read something quicker and easier to digest. The whole SLA, Patty Hearst thing is not something I knew a lot about. I knew the basic outlines, I knew about the kidnapping and the bank robbery. I knew a little about the SLA dying in a shoot-out with the LAPD. I’m half-Californian, on my Mom’s side, and I’ve been to Hearst Castle and know something about the Hearst family. I knew about the very cool SLA logo and the general sense that there is something sus about the whole situation. This book really filled in lots of the blanks. It connected really well to the larger story about US conter-insurgency/Domestic GLADIO/CHAOS that I’ve been following and putting together from a number of different books over the past year or so. It helps if you’re already familiar with what was going on with Phoenix during this same period and characters like Colston Westbrook, Jolly West, Karanga and the various Panthers (both LA and Oakland). It contains a lot of good information about the Prison movement and the attempts to derail this movement. The book makes a strong case that DeFreeze, a life-long snitch and informant, was manipulated, through drugs and other MKULTRA/MKSEARCH tactics into forming a radical group that could be nudged and controlled to act in a way that would further the ends of the state. Firstly, by killing someone like Marcus Foster, the Oakland Public Schools superintendent  who was friendly with and sympathetic to the Panthers. Secondly, by acting as a sort of trap for YT radicals who were willing to commit violence and, finally, by committing acts so outrageous it would push the general public to distrust left-wing militancy. On that level it seems somewhat analogous to the operation that seems to have gone on with Manson (who has a cameo in this book, DeFreeze snitched on him in LA) that O’Neil outlined. The stuff about the US organization was also useful and interesting; Kwanzaa remains a profoundly sus institution. Overall, the book is a helpful addition to the para-histoircal (or deep-history) project I’ve undertaken the last few years to understand the history of the United States. I don’t think we can move forward until we understand what’s really happened and gone on here, especially since the end of WWII. In terms of domestic ops, the SLA was one of the most brazen and clear-cut. Put in the pantheon with OKC, 9/11, the 60’s assassinations, and Epestin. I would definitely recommend reading in alongside CHAOS.