Title
The skies belong to us : love and terror in the golden age of hijacking / Brendan I. Koerner.
Edition
First edition.
ISBN
9780307886101 hardcover
0307886107 hardcover
Published
New York : Crown Publishers, [2013]
Language
English
Description
318 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Call Number
HE9803.Z7 H545 2013
Dewey Decimal Classification
364.15/52
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.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-308) and index.
"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.
