Research Catalog

Title

The skies belong to us : love and terror in the golden age of hijacking / Brendan I. Koerner.

Author

Koerner, Brendan I.

Publication

New York : Crown Publishers, [2013]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

318 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

In an America torn apart by the Vietnam War and the demise of sixties idealism, airplane hijackings were astonishingly routine. Over a five-year period starting in 1968, the desperate and disillusioned seized commercial jets nearly once a week. Some hijackers wished to escape to foreign lands; others aimed to swap hostages for sacks of cash. The longest-distance hijacking in American history took place in 1972 when a shattered Army veteran and a mischievous party girl, Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow, commandeered Western Airlines Flight 701 as a vague war protest. Through a combination of savvy and dumb luck, the couple managed to flee across an ocean with a half-million dollars in ransom, a feat that made them notorious around the globe. Journalist Brendan I. Koerner spent four years chronicling this madcap tale, which involves a cast of characters ranging from exiled Black Panthers to African despots to French movie stars.--From publisher description.

Subjects

• Case studies
• Kerkow, Cathy
• Holder, Roger
• Hijacking of aircraft > United States > Case studies

Genre/Form

Case studies

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

"Keep smiling" -- Coos Bay -- "I don't want to be an American anymore" -- Sweet black angel -- "I'm here and I exist -- Operation Sisyphus -- "There are Weathermen among you" -- "Can't you get a chopper?" -- "It's all a lie" -- The choice -- "We are going to be friends" -- "My only bomb is my human heart" -- "How do you resign from a revolution?" -- "The Olympics wasn't anything" -- "Monsieur Lecanuet, anyone can steal-- " -- Omega -- Tweety Bird -- Erased.

ISBN

• 9780307886101 (hbk.)
• 0307886107 (hbk.)

LCCN

^^2012043203

OCLC

• 815873432
• SCSB-10945784

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library