In 1977, Roger Holder was hiding out in France, a hero of the Left. (AP)
(Piergiuliano Chesi; AP (2))
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The Skies
Belong to Us
Love and Terror in the
Golden Age of Hijacking
By Brendan I. Koerner
Crown Publishers
On June 2, 1972, a disturbed Vietnam veteran named Roger Holder packed the following items into a briefcase: “an alarm clock, a dog-eared copy of Madame Blavatsky’s ‘The Secret Doctrine,’ and an empty disposable-razors box.”
With these items, Holder and his girlfriend , Cathy Kerkow, pulled off “the longest-distance skyjacking in American history,” while simultaneously helping to usher in the era of airport security.
Brendan Koerner’s crackling new book tells two related stories: that of the skyjacking lovers on a mission that had no right to succeed; and the larger tale of how airlines in the US fought against security procedures for years, until a 5-year hijacking epidemic made the searching of airline passengers at airports a much-desired inevitability.
In this day and age, it’s easy to forget that the hassles we endure in the name of airport security are still relatively new.
“It was once possible,” Koerner writes, “to pass through an entire airport, from curbside to gate, without encountering a single inconvenience — no X-ray machines, no metal detectors, no uniformed security personnel with grabby hands and bitter dispositions.”
EVERYONE’S GOING TO CUBA!
The first American hijacking happened in 1961, when a Miami electrician named Antulio Ramirez Ortiz put a steak knife to a pilot’s throat on a flight to Key West and demanded to be taken to Havana, claiming he’d been promised $100,000 to kill Fidel Castro.
Although he quickly inspired copycats, both the government and the airlines were reluctant to take action. When asked at a Senate hearing about screening passengers and their bags, the head of the FAA responded, “Can you imagine the line that would form from the ticket counter in Miami if everyone had to submit to police inspections?”
Skyjackings faded briefly before returning en masse in 1968, possibly ignited by the country’s massive social upheaval. From 1968 to 1972, they became so common that during one four-month span starting in November 1968, two hijackings occurred on the same day three separate times.
Airlines made placating hijackers standard policy, even going so far as to equip cockpits with “charts of the Caribbean Sea, regardless of a flight’s intended destination.”
By 1972, American skies had become the Wild Wild West, with planes being commandeered just about every week.
This was the atmosphere in the US when an African-American man named Roger Holder returned from Vietnam, and tried to come to terms with what he felt was his egregious betrayal by the military.
Holder had dropped out of 11th grade after getting a girl pregnant, and joined the Army to support his new twin daughters. He served admirably, earning several promotions, but also experienced the worst of the war, including watching friends and fellow soldiers die in brutal ways.
Given his sacrifices, he was enraged when, after being arrested for smoking a joint, he was sentenced to six months in military jail (he served just under one month), and demoted to the rank of private.
After returning home, he drifted aimlessly, taking odd jobs and writing bad checks to get by. Desperate for direction, he turned to astrology, which convinced him that his period of aimlessness was actually a precursor to great things ahead.
In January 1972, Holder called on an old neighbor in San Diego. She was not happy to see him, as she had always found him creepy, but her roommate, Cathy Kerkow — a shoplifting erotic masseuse who peddled weed on the side and had once been fired from a job after “her boss deemed her too lazy to operate a cash register” — was intrigued by their visitor.
They became a couple, and Holder, after endlessly poring over astrological charts, concluded that his purpose in life was to “open the nation’s eyes to the moral inequities of Vietnam.”
‘SUCCESS THROUGH DEATH’
The final piece of the puzzle for Holder was Angela Davis. Davis was a radical UCLA professor who stood trial for murder and kidnapping after guns she had given an acquaintance were used to kill a judge. The case attracted major national attention, and was seen by some as an attempt to silence Davis for her beliefs.
Reading about Davis’ case, Holder finally figured out his destiny. He came up with a plan to hijack an airplane, trade the passengers for Davis, then fly to North Vietnam, where the prime minister would grant Davis asylum. The media circus to follow, Holder thought, would force Americans to confront what he saw as the evil and unjust Vietnam War.
When Holder shared his plan with Kerkow, she responded, “So, what do I wear to a hijacking?”
On the morning of June 2, the day Davis’ jury was scheduled to begin deliberations, the couple flew to Los Angeles. There, they boarded Western Airlines Flight 701 to Seattle, and took aisle seats four rows apart.
As the flight approached its destination, Holder, carrying a suitcase with a protruding copper wire, approached one of the stewardesses, and had her read two notes: one, titled “Success Through Death,” alerted her to the hijacking and instructed her on how to proceed; the second, a blueprint for a suitcase bomb.
While the captain, as per policy, told him that they would comply with his demands, Holder soon learned that his plan had some holes. His desired $3 million ransom was impossible to secure, leading him to quickly agree to $500,000 instead. The aircraft he selected was incapable of flying to Vietnam, and a crew member duped him by telling them that Davis had been acquitted that day, although that would become true several days later.
As they landed, refueled, and circled the airport waiting for the ransom and a bigger plane, Holder chain-smoked joints and consulted his astrological charts.
When the ransom and a plane that could fly them overseas arrived, Holder decided on a new destination — Algiers.
The plane stopped in New York to refuel and to release passengers. The crew was stunned to learn that Holder had a female companion. Holder and Kerkow, now the plane’s only passengers, got stoned in first class, then retired to coach, where “she pulled up the armrests on a row of seats and lay down on her back,” and “shimmied out of her purple slacks as Holder dropped his Army dress pants to the floor.”
As they approached Algiers, Holder relayed a request for asylum to the Algerian government, and also asked to be met at the airport by Eldridge Cleaver, the famous Black Panther who had been granted asylum there after escaping an attempted-murder charge in the US.
At the time, Cleaver and his group — he had founded a new branch of the Panthers in Algiers called the International Section — were in dire financial straits. When Cleaver heard about the kidnapper’s request, he immediately saw the ransom money as a lifeline for his cause.
After they landed, the couple were met by a representative of the country’s president, who asked for the ransom bag in order to ensure that “the entire $500,000 was there.” Cleaver was allowed to see them as well, and Holder, expecting a comrade in leftist arms, was dismayed when the first words out of the famed revolutionary’s mouth were, “So, where’s the bread?”
Holder and Kerkow were eventually left in the Panthers’ custody. The group hailed them as revolutionary heroes until they learned that the country’s president, unconvinced that the couple were political refugees, announced that he was sending the money back to the US.
Back home, meanwhile, in November 1972, a hijacker threatened to fly a plane into a nuclear reactor in Tennessee, marking the first time that US officials were confronted with “the potential use of airplanes as weapons of mass destruction.”
That threat, and the press attention surrounding the Holder hijacking and several others, forced the Nixon administration to declare that all passengers and their carry-on bags go through metal detectors before boarding. The law went into effect with little objection on Jan. 5, 1973, and after five years of nearly non-stop hijackings, the United States experienced zero in 1973 and 1974. The hijacking epidemic was finally over.
IGNOMINIOUS ENDS
With the International Section in disarray — Holder had even been named the group’s leader for a short time — Holder and Kerkow wound up in France, and became the toast of the country’s left. When America tried to extradite them, letters pledging support for the couple were signed by distinguished figures including philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre — who, it turned out, may have been motivated less by politics than by his lust for Kerkow.
In the ensuing years, Holder and Kerkow grew apart. Kerkow began dressing like a model, and taking on rich lovers who bought her expensive jewelry. After a while, she took off to Switzerland for a “short visit,” which Koerner guesses was to obtain a new passport.
Holder stayed in France until 1985, and was taken into custody upon arriving home to the US. By then, the country’s fear and hatred of skyjackers was a distant memory. Holder was sentenced to just four years in prison, and served less than half that.
He died of an aneurysm on Feb. 6, 2012, at the age of 62. Kerkow, after taking off for her short trip to Switzerland, was never heard from again. At 61, she’s still wanted by Interpol.
While the pair were regarded by some as heroes, the years have not served their reputations well. Memories of their crime faded, as skyjacking became merely a more violent version of Pop Rocks — totem of a moment in time, any passion for which has melted in successive eras.
“Skyjacking did not age well,” Koerner writes. “Once images of ransom deliveries and tarmac shoot-outs disappeared from the airwaves, the crime quickly assumed a dated feel. What lingered in people’s minds was not the skyjackers’ audacity, but their futility.”