The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking (32 page)

The formal extradition hearing was held at the Palais de Justice on March 17. The judge opened the proceedings by grilling Holder about his motives for the hijacking. “I wanted them to give me Angela Davis,” Holder replied, to the noticeable exasperation of de Felice. The lawyer’s entire strategy hinged on portraying the hijacking as an antiwar gesture; introducing Davis into the narrative could only complicate matters. De Felice was relieved when the judge cut short his examination of Holder and shifted his attention to Kerkow, a more focused and eloquent witness. Kerkow was perfectly on message with her characterization of the hijacking as “something we felt we needed to do because of the war.”

After de Felice presented his case, it was time for the French government’s representative, the
avocat general
, to speak. Everyone in the packed courtroom expected him to make the argument that his superiors at the Ministry of Justice had approved: that hijackings involving extortion were, by definition, criminal rather than political, and so France was legally obligated to extradite the defendants.

But swayed by the strong public sentiment in favor of Holder and Kerkow, the
avocat general
went rogue. “There is no formal evidence to disprove the political nature of this act,” he proclaimed. He blasted the U.S. State Department for providing the court with “incomplete” information regarding the alleged crime, noting that he had received no statements from witnesses to the hijacking. Therefore he felt it was his duty to advise the court to deny the extradition request.

The judge thanked the
avocat general
for his input and announced that he would render his verdict on April 14. He stressed that he would not consider any additional evidence while
making his decision.

Kissinger was enraged to hear of the case’s unexpected turn. France was a signatory to the Hague Hijacking Convention of 1970, which meant the nation recognized hijacking as a serious crime that merited severe punishment. He could not fathom why the French
would undermine that treaty and imperil America’s antihijacking efforts to protect the likes of Holder and Kerkow.

“Department deeply distressed at development of Holder case,” one of Kissinger’s legal advisers wrote to Ambassador Rush on March 21. “It is precisely what department was afraid might happen.… It is ludicrous that we are now faced with a
fait-accompli
as a result of the relationship between the
avocat general
, the Ministry of Justice,
and the court.”

After much pleading from Rush, the Ministry of Justice agreed to review any evidence that the Americans might have to support the notion that Holder and Kerkow were common criminals rather than political activists. If the ministry deemed that evidence convincing, there was a chance the judge in the case could be persuaded
to take a look.

At the State Department’s behest, FBI agents fanned out across the United States to reinterview crew members from the hijacked Western Airlines flight. William Newell, captain of the Boeing 720H that had flown to Algiers, testified that the hijackers had made no overtly political statements during the long journey from San Francisco to North Africa. But Jerome Juergens, captain of the Boeing 727 that Holder had seized en route to Seattle, told a more problematic story. “Holder stated in his initial demands that he wanted to fly to Hanoi, but [he] did not explain his reasons for wanting to go to Hanoi,” Juergens said to his FBI inquisitor. “Holder did mention that he wanted to go to Hanoi on more than one occasion, but I do not recall
exactly how many times.”

When he received the dossier of evidence, Ambassador Rush agonized over whether to remove Juergens’s affidavit before forwarding the file to the Ministry of Justice. He worried that the French would disregard the entire dossier once they saw that Holder had indeed mentioned Hanoi during the hijacking. But Rush ultimately decided that honesty was the best policy. “If it ever were to become known that we had withheld it, it would be very damaging and could seriously
hurt our credibility
in this and further cases,” he wrote to the State Department.

Rush’s noble decision had precisely the effect he feared: the Ministry of Justice dismissed the dossier as too feeble to foist upon the judge.

O
N
A
PRIL 14
, Holder and Kerkow were once again taken from Fleury-Mérogis Prison to the Palais de Justice, to hear the court’s verdict on the extradition request. Knowing that his words would be carefully parsed in Washington, D.C., the judge meticulously described how he had arrived at his decision. He discussed Holder’s desertion from Fort Hood in 1970, which he interpreted as a protest against the entire war rather than a reaction to a personal slight. The judge said he agreed with de Felice’s contention that the hijacking had been Holder’s attempt to “absolve himself for participation in the war,” a view substantiated by the fact that Holder had meant to donate the ransom to the Vietcong.

As for Kerkow, the judge said he believed her claims that she had been “a militant in antiwar movements … motivated by passionate feelings about Vietnam.” The Algerians had recognized this, he continued, which was why they had granted the couple political asylum in June 1972—a precedent that had factored into his deliberations.

“Neither party acted out of a desire for vengeance against individuals, no one was physically hurt, and no financial gain was won,” the judge noted as he concluded his speech. With all that in mind, he could not in good conscience send Holder and Kerkow back to the United States, where he felt they would face persecution for expressing their deeply held political beliefs. The only comfort he could offer the Americans was a promise to consider trying the couple in France; until the court made that decision, Holder and Kerkow would remain in custody
at Fleury-Mérogis.

The apoplectic State Department responded in the only way it
could: with an irate cable to Ambassador Rush, instructing him to use all available means to cajole the French government into overriding the court’s decision. The cable’s author took the opportunity to lampoon the judge’s logic:

The ambassador, of course, could not afford to be so acerbic in his dealings with French officials. Six days after receiving the angry cable from Washington, Rush held a posh luncheon at his residence on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, to which he invited France’s minister of justice, Jean Lecanuet. As the guests took a break between courses, Rush drew Lecanuet aside and expressed the Ford administration’s bitter disappointment over the rejection of the extradition request. He said his bosses were particularly troubled by the judge’s gullibility regarding de Felice’s narrative.

“Monsieur Lecanuet, anyone can steal money and later say he did it for political motives,” said the ambassador.

Lecanuet politely brushed aside Rush’s critique. “Our hands are tied by the court’s ruling,” he explained apologetically, before adding that France was still very much interested in helping the United States combat
the “hijacking menace.”

A week later Rush pleaded his case to Christian Le Gunhec, director of the criminal affairs division at the Ministry of Justice. Unlike the diplomatic Lecanuet, Le Gunhec seemed offended that an American would dare question the French impulse to protect those motivated by conscience.

“Le Gunhec took considerable pains to explain that court decisions
of this kind were influenced by philosophical concepts going back to the French Revolution,” Rush noted in his summary of the meeting. “Judgments tend to be based more on subjective considerations than on careful sifting of evidence.” Such an approach to justice, Le Gunhec had emphasized, is “difficult
for Anglo-Saxons to understand.”

A
S WAS SO
often the case, the Paris bureau of the Associated Press was still buzzing as sunset neared on May 6, 1977. It was a Friday night, the end of an eventful week during which the French capital had played host to landmark reconciliation talks between the United States and Vietnam. President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing had departed that morning for a major economic summit in London, where his American counterpart, Jimmy Carter, would be making the first international trip of his presidency. The AP crew had reams of copy to edit and file before they could begin their weekends.

Around eight p.m., however, the bureau’s work was interrupted by an unannounced visit from Roger Holder. It took a moment for the journalists to register the identity of their surprise guest; nearly two years had passed since Holder’s highly publicized release from prison, and his celebrity had dimmed considerably over that span. But his attire was that of a man who still ran with a chic crowd: a white sweater coat, a tight black turtleneck, and a pair of old-frame sunglasses that he insisted on wearing indoors. Holder could easily have passed for a bohemian expat at work on his long-gestating novel.

Holder had decided to visit the AP bureau after learning of President Carter’s visit to nearby London. He hoped to use the wire service to make the president aware of his desire to return home, as well as the reasons why he believed he deserved leniency.

“I would like to go back alone, solo, and turn myself in,” Holder told a reporter at the start of what would become a two-and-a-half-hour interview. “I want no armed guards. I just want the Carter administration to know what my objective is.… If they review my whole military record they will see
what I did was patriotic.”

I
N
J
UNE 1975
, a month and a half after learning that they would not be extradited to the United States, Holder and Cathy Kerkow had been put on trial in Paris—not for hijacking, but for possessing false passports. After being found guilty of that minor offense, they were each fined several hundred francs and sentenced to time served, which meant that they were to be released from Fleury-Mérogis Prison at once. Because the couple still faced possible trial on the hijacking charges, the court placed restrictions on their freedom of movement: they were not to leave Paris without permission, and they were required to check in with a magistrate
twice a month.

When they emerged from custody, Holder and Kerkow discovered that their company was a sought-after commodity in certain Parisian circles. As living symbols of resistance to American tyranny, they were treated as honored guests at swank functions attended by intellectuals, artists, and journalists from
Le Nouvel Observateur
. At dinner parties and cocktail receptions, the couple received warm congratulations from their prominent supporters: the diminutive and elderly Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, made Holder uneasy by lavishing attention on Kerkow, with whom he
appeared quite smitten.

Holder and Kerkow soon drifted into the orbit of some cinematic luminaries who were active in leftist politics. The actor Yves Montand, a former lover of both Edith Piaf and Marilyn Monroe, embraced them, as did his wife, Oscar-winning actress Simone Signoret. Kerkow struck up a particularly close friendship with Maria Schneider, star of the erotic 1972 drama
Last Tango in Paris
, in which she was infamously degraded by a corpulent Marlon Brando. The two women were virtually the same age, and they bonded over having endured
similarly searing experiences: both had been forced to deal with international notoriety while barely out of their teens, and both had trusted charismatic
men too much.

Even as they enjoyed flitting about the rarefied echelons of Parisian society, Holder and Kerkow were struggling through the final dissolution of their romance. After spending months apart in separate wings of Fleury-Mérogis, they had reunited to discover that the fading spark between them had vanished entirely. And though Holder always introduced Kerkow as his wife, they were now on strictly platonic terms. They openly dated others, with Kerkow finding success among moneyed movie industry types who showered her with fancy clothes and jewels. Holder, meanwhile, romanced a beautiful but neurotic young actress named Danielle, who sported an avant-garde haircut similar to David Bowie’s.

Roger Holder on the Champs-Élysées, May 1977.
AP PHOTO

Rubbing shoulders with the glitzy set did nothing to halt Holder’s bouts of anxiety, however. He now fixated on the distress he had caused his family back home, especially his twin daughters. It pained him to realize that he had missed the girls’ entire childhoods while fighting in Vietnam and dodging the law. He began to wonder whether it was
time to stop running.

On April 22, 1976, Holder suffered one of his worst panic attacks yet, a seizure that frightened Kerkow so much that she rushed him to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in the Thirteenth Arrondissement. The
next evening, as he recuperated in the hospital’s psychiatric center, Holder placed a call to the American embassy. He told an officer there that he wished to be transferred to the American Hospital of Paris, then be sent back to the United States “immediately” to reunite with his family.