MOJO MAN: LIFE'S A HIJACK (THE STRANGE TALE OF ROGER HOLDER)

This is the true story of a man who spent most of his life in war zones, in exile, in prisons and psychiatric wards. He committed the world's most bizarre hijacking, possessed a fortune in cash for less than a day, dodged the FBI for years, became entangled with notorious revolutionaries and generally lived like he was in a revolving door on a trampoline.

(FIRST PUBLISHED IN A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT FORM BACK IN 2020)          (10,000 words)

 

PART ONE           (4,500 words)   

                

1. OUT OF OAKLAND              2. THE BOOMERANG        3. HERE’S CATHY

4. OPERATION SISYPHUS      5. IN ON THE PLAN           6. THE WEATHERMEN             

7. RICHARD & STAN                8. HIGH ON ALERT           9. JOINING THE CLUB

 

PART TWO      (5,500 words)

 

10. LEAVE IT TO CLEAVER     11. CASH FROM THE CLOUDS    12. THE GOLDEN CAGE

13. CHANGING OF THE GUARD       14. ACROSS THE SEA        15. IN OUT IN OUT

16. HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL        17. HOLDER’S PEOPLE

 

                                                                           PART 1

(4,500 words)

 

       1. OUT OF OAKLAND

 

       Willie Roger Holder first drew breath in 1949 in Norfolk, Virginia. His father was a Navy man.

The family moved around often – as was normal – and in 1959 they relocated to a new naval station in Coos Bay, Oregon. That's where trouble awaited them.

Coos Bay was vanilla. The Holders were chocolate. Seavenes Holder couldn’t rent decent accommodation for his family. A dilapidated house was all he could get. That was the first problem. Then there was the nonstop harassment. Roger – never “Willie” – watched white kids beating his brother. When Roger asked his parents about this and about the white people spitting in his mother’s face, they simply answered that’s the way it is.

But there was one bright spot. Walking in the woods before the Navy finally transferred the Holders out, Roger encountered an 8-year-old white girl. Their brief, amiable chat about salamanders resurfaced years later and it convinced him beyond doubt the universe had extra-special plans for him.

 

The cosmos kept them in mind

 

       By 1964 he was a tall, gangly teenager, fond of model aircraft. The Holders were now in Oakland, California, where the cops' casual brutality and open racism hung over the black community. Roger tried to blend in with the other black kids, but they spurned him as an Oreo because he owned a skateboard.

So he cultivated a detached nonchalance. Girls – including a few white girls – found his mystique attractive. Roger parlayed this into seduction. In 1966 he impregnated 16-year-old Betty Bullock and that November he lied about his age and joined the army.

He aced the army’s intelligence tests but lacked a high school diploma. As the Vietnam War hotted up he received a furlough from his NATO base in Germany, married Betty back in California, met his twin baby daughters, then shipped out to Vietnam. It was October 1967.

 

      2. THE BOOMERANG

 

      Bouts of malaria, his best friend’s death in combat and the frustrations of battling a hit-and-run enemy drove Holder to self-medicate with marijuana. Getting high cost only 10 cents. Then his vehicle hit a landmine and he spent six weeks in hospital.

As his 12-month stint ended he volunteered for another 6-month deployment in Vietnam, entitling him to another furlough back home. His joy vanished when he found Betty in bed with another dude. Holder beat him viciously. That ended the marriage. He craved yet more danger, and in late 1968 he became a helicopter door-gunner.

 

  Pre-bust Holder...

 

         Helicopters hovering near ground level were sitting ducks for enemy guns. Army choppers landed in hazardous “hot zones” to drop off healthy "grunts" (foot soldiers) and pick up wounded grunts. Nevertheless, Holder’s mojo never failed under fire.

Of course it helped that Mr. Cool was usually stoned. His quirks piled up. In a sea of cheap sex Holder stayed high and dry. And he called every enlisted man nigger, white guys included.

Halfway through Holder’s third stint in Vietnam in 1969 the Military Police caught him openly smoking marijuana during an anti-drug crackdown. He was demoted and sentenced to six months in "LBJ."

 

  ...craved more danger

 

      Long Binh Jail officially held 400 GI prisoners, but by 1969 there were over 1,000. Overwhelmingly black, they were incarcerated for desertion, drugs, anti-war agitation, growing Afro’s, insubordination, Black Power salutes, DAP (Dignity And Pride) handshakes… LBJ's all-white Military Police guards would have felt right at home in the Oakland Police Department.

They released Holder after only a month. But the outraged warrior confronted his colonel about his demotion and imprisonment. His profanity-laden tirade convinced the brass that two years of combat had fried Roger Holder’s brain.

They shipped him Stateside in January 1970 to await his discharge in Texas.

But Holder was through. He deserted and took a bus to San Diego. Uncle Sam could kiss his ass.

 

 Dignity And Pride

 

       3. HERE’S CATHY

 

      San Diego was where Holder’s parents – now raising his twin daughters – were living. He lied about an honorable discharge from the army and assured them all was well. But it wasn’t. With fake ID (“Linton White”) he financed his frequent LSD trips by petty fraud. And he grew adept at seducing and squeezing money from military wives whose husbands were overseas.

Holder/White’s mojo took a dive when his scams surfaced in late 1971. His trial was scheduled for March 1972. He turned to astrology for quick answers. The stars proclaimed his upcoming court appearance was no big deal. A notable destiny awaited him. Then his serendipitous meeting with Cathy Kerkow (1951- ?) precipitated a change. 

 

      At first Cathy’s small-town childhood was unexceptional. She went to church and enjoyed sports. But in high school she rebelled, partying with surfers and becoming an ace shoplifter.

On a whim she attended a Black Panther Party symposium, less interested in their ideology than their berets and bad-ass leather jackets. Later she moved to San Diego to live with a high school classmate, a marijuana dealer. Cathy dated black guys, defying convention in an era when interracial relationships drew stares and whispers and worse. A massage joint hired her. She assumed massaging men merely involved kneading their tired muscles. She soon learned otherwise.

In January 1972 Cathy's roommate met an oddball black guy calling himself Linton White. She wasn't interested, but gave him her address anyway. The next day Linton/Roger dropped by. She was out, but Cathy was taking a shower. She wore only a bathrobe when she answered the door.

Something clicked. Nature took its course. They became a couple, tickled by the revelation they’d met before: this willowy Libra was that Coos Bay salamander girl.

 

She dug their bad-assitude

 

      Roger moved in, much to Cathy’s roommate’s chagrin, and turned his girlfriend on to astrology and the mystical teachings of Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891). He recounted his brushes with death and detailed his grievances with the army. He became her hero, not just her lover. But he kept wondering what the stars were planning for him.

Cathy quit the massage job to sell marijuana full-time. They smoked most of their stock while Roger contemplated some grand gesture to change their lives and rock America.

Of course, the Vietnam War loomed large. But here in California what could one disgruntled vet do about that? Then a newspaper article about the Angela Davis murder trial suggested possibilities.

 

       4. OPERATION SISYPHUS

 

      Angela Davis (1944 – ) – an Aquarius, Holder noted – embodied much of what honky America feared: an articulate, brainy, defiant black lesbian, an avowed communist with an Afro to rival Kathleen Cleaver’s (see Part 13) plus a Ph.D. in philosophy from an East German university. UCLA had fired her from a teaching position, reinstated her then fired her again.

As Holder sifted ideas for his Grand Gesture, Davis was on trial in Santa Clara County, near San Francisco. Guns registered in her name were used in the August 1970 takeover of a courthouse where black convicts were on trial for killing a prison guard. Two black defendants, the judge and the 17-year-old hostage taker died in the ensuing gunfight. Davis, who'd been nowhere near any of this, was charged with aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder.

She went underground. After a nationwide manhunt she spent 16 months in solitary confinement. About 270 committees in over 60 countries campaigned for her release. John Lennon wrote a song about her. She was granted bail to stand trial in 1972.

A voice in Roger’s head insisted Angela’s fate was yoked with his. And, he believed, yoked with Cathy’s.

 

Commie lesbian egghead

 

      He decided on OPERATION SISYPHUS:

1. Hijack a plane and demand ransom money and the release of Angela Davis.

2. Fly Davis to political asylum in North Vietnam.

3. With that plane and the airline’s ransom money, fly to the Australian Outback, start a homestead and send for his twin daughters. Beautiful in its simplicity.

It seems outlandish now, but OPERATION SISYPHUS made more sense in 1972. Despite the FBI’s insistence, U.S. airlines stubbornly avoided the security measures – metal detectors, luggage x-rays – we accept today. Bad for our image, they said. Total compliance was the airlines’ policy. Whatever the hijackers demand, give it. Repeat: give it. Just get our planes and passengers back safely.

Without telling Cathy, he took several round-trip flights to San Francisco, thanks to free tickets from an ex-lover working for the airline. He noted the cabin designs and the laughable security standards. 

 

But his upcoming fraud trial also demanded his attention. The stars told him to:

1. Evade his trial by eradicating all vestiges of the phony Linton White identity and becoming Roger Holder again.

2. Face the music and sort out his army desertion charge.

3. Invite Cathy into OPERATION SISYPHUS.

Holder suddenly demanded they change addresses. Then he destroyed everything connecting him to Linton White. Next, he gave himself up to the army, which by 1972 was in rough shape. With too many deserters and malcontents to imprison, it had started dumping them with undesirable discharge papers. Holder was no exception – he’d be free, but despite his medals he’d remain ineligible for veteran’s benefits.

 

      5. IN ON THE PLAN

 

      Over dinner in late May 1972 Roger broached OPERATION SISYPHUS. Expecting some indecision, he’d prepared his pitch: It’s now or never, Cathy. The stars are aligning just right, baby. Destiny is calling!

Cathy surprised him by saying “Right on!”. She’d also felt things needed shaking up. Her only question was: What should I wear to a hijacking?

Holder had already prepared his outfit: army dress uniform augmented with captain’s insignia purchased from an army surplus store. A military officer was the straightest identity he felt confident pulling off.

He explained OPERATION SISYPHUS in detail:

1. Using a 1966 army manual GUIDE TO SELECTED VIET CONG EQUIPMENT & EXPLOSIVE DEVICES he rigs a briefcase-sized bomb.

2. They fly to Los Angeles (LAX) and transit to a Honolulu (HNL) flight.

3. Brandishing his bomb, he diverts the plane to San Francisco (SFO). There they refuel and release half the passengers in return for Angela Davis plus lots of cash (amount undecided).

4. With Davis safely aboard they fly SFO-HNL, release the remaining passengers (but not the crew) and refuel.

5. They fly HNL-Hanoi. The pilot radios ahead to have North Vietnamese officials meet them at the airport and take Angela under their wing.

6. The hijackers donate a tidy sum to North Vietnam then fly down to the Australian Outback, buy a homestead and send for Roger’s twin daughters.

7. Cathy (now code-named Stan, after Holder’s dead buddy in Vietnam) keeps constant lookout, watching for FBI agents, snipers and signs of trouble.

 

        There was something else. Holder would act like there were multiple hijackers. He’d behave as if he was controlled by The Weathermen, as if members of that notorious terrorist group were actually calling the shots.

Because everybody feared The Weathermen.

 

      6. THE WEATHERMEN

 

      In 1960 some politically aware college kids formed a nationwide coalition called Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). With over 300 campus chapters, SDS came to span the whole left-wing spectrum from moderates to Maoists. Its loosely affiliated branches had overlapping aims: racial equality, nuclear disarmament, an end to poverty and other praiseworthy ideals.

But the Vietnam War brought tensions to the surface, such as how to conduct anti-war activism. SDS’s meetings overheated as hurling insults gave way to hurling chairs. Ravaged by infighting, the coalition was in disarray by late 1969, when Holder was in Long Binh Jail.

The decay was accelerated by ultra-radicals. They scorned peaceful protest. All your placards, petitions, chants and sit-ins won’t save one Vietnamese life, they claimed. All your choruses of Give Peace a Chance won’t shorten the war by a single day. American society itself was the culprit. Anti-war activists must turn from protest to revolution. And revolution meant violence.

The ultra-radicals' 1969 strategy paper You Don’t Need a Weatherman To Know Which Way the Wind Blows – a line from a Bob Dylan song – inspired their name. They took over SDS then pulled the plug. Committed revolutionaries, they’d give America a taste of its own medicine by “bringing the war home” and turning American cities into combat zones. These violent revolutionary acts, The Weathermen's mouthpiece Bernadine Dohrn proclaimed, would foment mass uprisings to topple the national government and abolish capitalism, imperialism and racism.

 

Soon to change to The Weathermen

 

         That autumn The Weathermen planned The Days of Rage. 15,000 student radicals were to descend on Chicago – whose thuggish cops could give their Oakland colleagues a run for their money – and wreak maximum destruction. Cuban and North Vietnamese officials in touch with The Weathermen advised against this. So did the Black Panthers. But The Days of Rage went ahead regardless.

But only 400 radicals showed up. Vastly outnumbered by the raring-to-go Chicago PD, they were doomed. As the "rads" stormed through the upmarket Gold Coast area, smashing whatever was smashable, they were cornered and clobbered.

 

      Out on bail, they licked their wounds and reexamined their strategy. In their December 1969 “war council (wargasm)” they resolved to go underground – necessary for their survival – but continue the revolution with bombs. “We’re against everything that’s ‘good and decent’ in honky America,” a Weatherman publicly declared. “We are the incubation of your mother’s nightmare.” Street battles with the cops were out. Bombs were in.

The following March, in a Greenwich Village townhouse owned by a member’s parents, three Weathermen assembled a powerful anti-personnel bomb intended for a dance at an army base in New Jersey. But their eagerness overshot their expertise. The bomb exploded prematurely, killing themselves, obliterating the townhouse and damaging Dustin Hoffman’s house next door. Investigators were digging up body parts for weeks.

After another rethink and a prolonged silence, The Weathermen announced they had no wish to inflict death. Henceforth they would bomb buildings, not people. They kept their word, but in 1972 most Americans – including the FBI –  still saw The Weathermen as murderous fanatics.

Holder intended to milk this.

 

 Probably a gas explosion, they said

 

     7. RICHARD & STAN

 

     The stars were aligned in early June. Roger told his parents he was moving to Australia. Sure, they said. Don’t forget to write. Cathy’s geographical knowledge suggested the Australian Outback resembled Hawaii but with kangaroos. She packed beachwear. Holder packed books, astrological charts, an explosives manual and a briefcase-bomb.

The couple flew to LAX after two pre-flight Bloody Mary’s. Unassigned seating allowed “C. Williams” to sit apart from Cathy/Stan, preventing any appearance of collusion.

A snag with their LAX-HNL tickets forced Western Airlines to put them on a Boeing 727 to Seattle with a later connection to HNL. Again they sat separately. Holder told the guy next to him he was a helicopter pilot assigned to Army Intelligence due to his 141 IQ.

When the moment felt right he handed the cabin attendant a rambling, confused note full of baffling instructions (The co-pilot and flight engineer must sit at the back of the plane … Keep smiling!…Success through Death!). It mentioned “four men, three guns, two bombs.” Then cabin attendant saw the briefcase with wires sticking out of it. That clinched it.

 

         She accompanied Holder to the cockpit. He shook the bewildered crew’s hands and said he was Captain Richard Williams, a helicopter pilot with Army Intelligence (IQ 141). He explained The Weathermen had kidnapped his kids. They’d kill them – and him – unless everyone obeyed.

“Four Weathermen are on this plane now. With a bomb. One’s a girl. She’s the leader. And one’s on LSD!”

What are their demands?

“Land at Coos Bay, Oregon.”

Impossible. The runway’s too short for a 727. But Seattle’s good.

“OK,” Holder said. “The Weathermen also want … er … three million dollars.”

Impossible to get that much at short notice. How about half a million?

“OK,” Holder said. “And they want Angela Davis brought to San Francisco Airport. Tell her to wear white so she’s clearly visible from the cockpit.”

The crew radioed these demands. The plane landed at Seattle and took on fuel to fly to SFO.

San Francisco’s our final destination?

“Negative. When Angela’s aboard we’ll fly to Honolulu and Hanoi.”

After a stunned silence the captain said: Impossible. 727s don’t have that kind of fuel capacity.

Holder hadn’t considered this. They’d have to switch to a long-range plane at SFO. 

The captain added: And we can’t fly to Hanoi. We’re not qualified for trans-oceanic flights. You’ll need a new crew for that.

OPERATION SISYPHUS – so celestially conceived – was hitting snags. Holder went to First Class and smoked a joint.

 

      Meanwhile, back on the ground, the jury started its deliberations in the Angela Davis case. The judge asked if Davis could shed any light on this hijacking. She said it was a complete surprise to her. Accepting this, he requested she contact them and advise a quick surrender. She declined.

She wanted nothing to do with such lunatics.

 

     8. HIGH ON ALERT

 

     Back in the cockpit, Holder smoked another joint, abandoning his army officer masquerade. Then, forgetting the original scenario of fictional Weathermen passengers controlling him, he issued mysterious orders on the PA to Cathy in Economy Class. “Stan! Turn to page 16!”

A passenger discovered Holder’s valise under the seat. It contained:

an Aquarius 1972 horoscope book

Alka-Seltzer

bell-bottom slacks

Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book

semi-legible handwritten notes and astrological charts

tranquillizer pills

U.S. Army undesirable discharge papers

a map of Indochina.

 

      At SFO Holder showed signs of confusion. The captain exploited this with a clever deception. You know, he said, you don’t need Angela Davis anymore. She’s been acquitted. We just heard.

The ruse caught Holder off guard. He bought it. Not even bothering to demand confirmation, he concluded the stars were indeed on Angela’s side.

Then it dawned on him: flying to Hanoi was now unnecessary. But first things first. Where was the $500,000 (worth over $3,000,000 today)? And the replacement aircraft?

“The Weathermen are going to detonate their bomb in 20 minutes!” he shouted. 

The tarmac was always the riskiest place for hijackers. In order to minimize their ground time Holder demanded the plane take off, orbit SFO, and land only when the cash was ready. Once the money was theirs they’d release half the passengers.

“Stan!” he yelled over the PA during their second landing. “Watch out for the FBI!”

 

      He’d leave this crew and half the passengers in safety, as promised. Then they’d switch to the long-range plane and foil any FBI snipers by using the remaining passengers as human shields.

They landed and the passengers transferred to the waiting jet, huddling around the hijackers and their half-million dollars.

FBI observers figured if The Weathermen were involved in this hijacking they must be among these very passengers. Yet none of them looked like typical radicals. Strange.

Holder then had another lucid thought: if Angela’s “acquittal” meant Hanoi was out of the equation, so was Honolulu.

The new crew was already on board. Holder shook their hands and introduced himself as Richard. They asked him to confirm their destinations were Honolulu and Hanoi.

“Negative,” he replied. “We’re flying to Algeria!”

 

        9. JOINING THE CLUB

 

       This added a whole new dimension. Western Airlines only flew in the U.S. It had no trans-Atlantic experience. They told Holder they’d have to refuel in New York and find a navigator qualified to get them to North Africa.

“Do it!” Holder said, and they took off.

Somewhere in Economy Class, Cathy was all at sea. The $500,000 was on board but Angela Davis wasn’t. And they were flying over the land, not the ocean. But she was bushed. She curled up and slept.

 

 The place to be

 

      The crew engaged Holder in conversation, hoping he’d let something useful slip. He claimed he flew army helicopters and his IQ was 141. They said that was interesting. He replied he’d also spent time in a military prison. They didn’t pursue this topic. Then he went to First Class to drink coffee and smoke marijuana.

Back in San Francisco, FBI agents debriefed the released passengers, many of whom were drunk after their ordeal. But the guy who found Holder’s valise reported seeing army documents for a Willie Roger Holder. When the FBI tracked down Seavenes Holder he responded, “That sounds like something our crazy son would do,” and added nothing more of substance.

The FBI searched Holder’s apartment for evidence of radicalism. They found nothing more radical than a waterbed.

 

      At New York’s JFK airport the FBI attempted to infiltrate an armed agent disguised as a maintenance technician. It was 05:30 local time. Holder was higher than usual and short on sleep, but somehow he sensed something was amiss. He alerted the crew. A gunfight in the cockpit was the last thing they wanted. The captain ordered the technicians not to enter the plane. Just fuel, sandwiches and drinks. Skip the usual safety check.

Holder released the remaining passengers. Cathy felt tempted to blend in with them and sneak out. This exhausting chain of muddled events wasn’t what she’d expected. Again Holder sensed something and announced on the PA: “Cathy! I mean Stan! You stay here!” She complied.

Over the Atlantic Cathy joined her man in First Class for a well-earned joint. Roger explained the altered plan. The Australian Outback was forgotten as they smoked another joint. Algeria had beaches, he assured her. And now they could keep that money meant for the North Vietnamese.

 

      Suddenly rejuvenated, Cathy adjusted the armrests and reclined their seats. Then they joined the Mile High Club.

 

                                                ------------------------------------

                                                                (Part 2)

(5,500 words)

 

     10. LEAVE IT TO CLEAVER

 

      Is Roger’s mojo right on or what?

That’s what Cathy must have thought when the captain said a strong north Atlantic tailwind meant they needn’t refuel in Ireland after all.

In Spanish airspace they radioed Algerian government officials.

ALG: What is your political affiliation?

ROG: “Er … I’m black. We request political asylum.”

ALG: “We”? How many are you?

ROG: “Two. And we have $500,000 in cash.”

ALG: Very well. You will both be safe in the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria.

ROG: “Right on! And tell Eldridge Cleaver to meet us at the airport.”

The flight crew said nothing, but that name meant only one thing. The Black Panthers!

 

      Eldridge Cleaver (1935 – 1998) was over the moon. An Algerian official phoned to announce two black American hijackers carrying $500,000 in cash were inbound. Cleaver rushed to the airport to embrace the cash and the brothers who brought it.

Cleaver was broke. So was his Black Panther branch in Algeria.

A jailbird since his teens, the Black Panther Party’s Minister of Information was a convicted drug dealer, rapist and attempted murderer. Cleaver’s voracious reading in prison inspired him to write. He published the best-selling memoir/essay collection Soul on Ice

On release in 1966 he joined the fledgling Black Panther Party (BPP), inspired by its commitment to armed struggle. Cleaver’s imposing physical presence and his rhetorical flair propelled him through the Panthers’ ranks. He ran for President of the United States in 1968. In one campaign speech he called California governor Ronald Reagan a punk and a coward and threatened to beat him to death with a marshmallow. Late that year he jumped bail after a deadly shootout with Oakland cops (who else?) and escaped to Cuba.

Fidel Castro initially embraced this revolutionary brother, but then suspicions of links with the CIA poisoned the relationship. Luckily, Algeria’s capital, Algiers, was hosting a Pan-African Cultural Festival. Cleaver secured an invitation and fled an increasingly unwelcoming Havana for a chance to establish links with black revolutionaries from the mother continent.

 

Cleaver at the helm

 

       Algeria welcomed him too. After winning a bloody war against French colonial rule, this newly independent nation embraced revolutionary movements worldwide. Friendly to North Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, the Palestinians and the Soviet-backed independence fighters in Namibia and Portuguese Africa, Algeria was a magnet for the militant left. Cleaver’s fiery rhetoric about Yankee racist imperialism impressed his new hosts.

His wife Kathleen and other Panthers followed. The government allocated a monthly stipend of $500 (equal to $8,000 today) and a mansion in Pointe Pescade, a beachfront area of Algiers, to establish the Black Panther Party International Section (BPPIS). 

Fugitive Panthers kept arriving, stretching the monthly stipend to breaking point. Nobody spoke Arabic or French. Nobody had any marketable skills, so nobody could work. Everybody partook liberally of the excellent local hashish. There was little to do except get high and discuss grandiose plans. 

 

       They received a surprise guest in 1970. The LSD-guru Timothy Leary – imprisoned on trumped up marijuana charges – had escaped from a low-security prison. The Brotherhood of Eternal Love (“the Hippie Mafia”) paid the Weathermen $25,000 to spring the guy President Nixon had declared "the most dangerous man in America." 

Cleaver received him warmly. He anticipated a Leary-BPPIS connection would attract huge donations from white hippies.

But Leary only cared about tripping. He and his wife acquired masses of LSD and would lie naked in the sun, high as kites. Algeria’s president was outraged. Who is this degenerate? Why is he even here?

For once Cleaver agreed. Leary was a leech. They kicked the couple out, and Dr. and Mrs. Leary now became Switzerland’s problem.

 

 No more fun in the sun for Leary

 

      North Vietnam invited the Cleavers. Eldridge recorded messages for Radio Hanoi urging black GIs to “blow away the pigs” (their officers). Their trips to North Korea - Kathleen gave birth to her second child there - were instructive, even if the atmosphere was more oppressive than an Oakland courtroom. And China - in the throes of the Cultural Revolution - was great. But the Black Panther Party International Section remained impoverished.

Algerian officials were tiring of their Panther guests. All those unpaid bills. Does this Cleaver do anything except smoke hashish and talk big? And demand more money? They froze the BPPIS’s assets. Cleaver started trafficking fake visas and stolen cars under Algerian Intelligence’s increasingly suspicious nose.

Now, as Roger and Cathy would soon learn, they were on the edge of a cliff.

 

       11. CASH FROM THE CLOUDS

 

      The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s chief, J. Edgar Hoover, had a visceral hatred of the Black Panther Party. He abominated uppity niggers. And these were Marxist uppity niggers. They made him want to puke.

Hoover warned America: the Black Panthers are our greatest single threat. America could not allow another “Black Messiah” like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X to emerge. He ordered his agents to deceive, discredit and disrupt the Panthers. The BPP became riddled with informers. The Bureau's expertly forged letters and documents sowed discord and suspicion among the Panthers’ leadership.

Hoover particularly hated two Panthers: Cleaver and the charismatic BPP co-leader Huey Newton. Much to his satisfaction the two became bitter enemies after Cleaver accused Newton – a world away in Oakland – of being an Uncle Tom, based on falsehoods expertly drip-fed by the FBI.

 

  Newton: the new nemesis

 

       By now the Panthers everywhere were in rough shape. Their Algerian branch – indigent and isolated – could expect no help from Oakland. But today Cleaver was like a kid at Christmas as he hightailed it to Maison Blanche Airport to meet these two brothers with enough “bread” to … Take it easy, he told himself. Wait till the money’s actually ours.

Algerian tanks ringed the plane. Armed troops took Holder, Cathy and the crew to the VIP Lounge for orange juice and dates. Expecting two black guys,  Algerian officials encountered a red-eyed black man and a dizzy white woman. No matter, the money was the thing. May we see the $500,000, please?

Holder had only $495,000. Before disembarking he tipped the astonished crew $5,000 for their trouble. The Algerians politely but firmly confiscated this cash, promising to return it in due course. They’d issue a receipt once the amount was confirmed.

Meanwhile, Cleaver and a sidekick were frantically beating on the VIP Lounge door, furious at being denied access. When the door finally opened they beheld a tall, skinny brother and a white hippie chick. These were the hijackers?!

Cleaver’s first words were Where’s the bread? Holder meekly indicated the Algerians had it.

The Panther protested in his Cleaveresque way, eloquence peppered with profanity. But the Algerians shrugged. The VIP Lounge was swarming with cops and troops. Journalists bombarded the couple with questions in whatever English they could muster. The dazed couple gave mumbled replies.

Before they hustled him out, Cleaver slipped Holder his phone number. BPPIS still had a functioning phone. That was one bill it still paid.

Algerian officials obliged the media by opening the briefcase with Holder’s homemade bomb. It contained only an alarm clock, several wires and a copy of Madame Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine.

 

       12. THE GOLDEN CAGE

 

       The aircrew received the president’s assurance of repatriation as soon as their plane was ready. They had nothing to fear.

The hijackers were taken to a luxury hotel where they showered, changed and were wined and dined, compliments of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. Then they slept.

Back in Coos Bay, Mrs. Kerkow denied her daughter’s involvement, but eventually admitted the possibility of brainwashing. Cathy’s friends were surprised someone “so spacey” could pull off something this complex.

And in San Jose, Angela Davis was acquitted on all counts. When Holder eventually heard this, he said he already knew.

 

 

      They woke up the next day – Sunday – and from their balcony took in the exotic sights and sounds of Algiers.

Holder tried Cleaver’s number. But the room's phoneline was internal only. 

Government agents stood outside their room. He inquired about the $495,000. Kindly wait until the necessary paperwork is complete. Please be patient.

Cleaver got the same response whenever he buttonholed a government official. He released a press statement praising the couple as “true revolutionary heroes whose actions have struck a blow against the big capitalistic companies who extort billions from the people.” He announced he was available for interviews about this heroic hijacking at $400 a pop. There were no takers.

Their guards drove the couple to meet the Presidential Palace. The president greeted Holder – but ignored Cathy – and spoke briefly to an aide in Arabic (no one translated for them). They were ushered out before they could ask about the money.

Intelligence officers interrogated them separately. What are your political affiliations? Which groups have you joined? Holder’s mishmash of astrological jargon, praise for Angela Davis and complaints about American military justice mystified his interrogators. Cathy mystified hers by evincing no coherent political philosophy.

The Algerians decided they were dealing with bozos, not CIA agents. They released them into the Black Panther Party International Section’s custody.

 

      Enter Donald Cox, long-time Panther.

Cox managed the hijackers’ welfare. He evicted some people to make space for the hijackers at BPPIS's seaside mansion. They smoked hashish, swam and waited impatiently for the money.

After weeks of stonewalling and requests for patience, the news hit them like a sledgehammer: Algeria was returning the ransom money to Western Airlines.

Algeria’s secret negotiations to sell oil and natural gas to America could not be allowed to fail for the sake of two scruffy hijackers and their irritating Panther patrons. The desperately needed profits would not only pull Algeria out of poverty but would finance anti-western and anti-imperialist activities. This conformed with Lenin’s prediction that the capitalists would sell the rope with which to hang them.

The president asked his aides: Why are we even hosting these Black Panthers? Are they serious revolutionaries? They seem more like criminals. They reported that Cleaver was encouraging more black Americans to hijack planes to Algeria. Wonderful, the president said. More riffraff heading our way.

Western Airlines recived $487,300 (miscellaneous administrative charges accounted for $7,700).

 

Cox is the upright one

 

      As Cleaver’s outrage simmered, the hijackers faced the fact they were penniless and trapped in a strange foreign land with no means of livelihood and no way out.

Donald Cox had a brainwave: they could sell the hijackers’ story to the highest bidder before the U.S. media forgot about them. A white chick turning radical with her black boyfriend was perfect tabloid fodder. This is the BPPIS’s idea, he explained, so the BPPIS should pocket the bread. Fair is fair.

At first Holder had grave doubts. He sensed exploitation here. Cox had all the power, though, and Cleaver gave the idea his official Right on!. But only The Oregonian newspaper bit, after negotiating down Cox’s outrageous asking price.

In their brief telephone interview Holder declared, “We expect to be killed off any day, Catherine and I. They’ve got the guns and they’ve got the money.” They meant the Algerian government.

The Oregonian: Cathy, why did you do it?

Cathy: Living in [San Diego], you find out things fast … I decided I wanted to do something about the mess the word’s in rather than wait … We’re working to finish what we started, working with the Panthers and other groups here and around the world.

The Oregonian: Roger, was Cathy committed 100%? 

Holder: She had her eyes wide open. She wasn’t just coming along for the ride because she loves me. That’s life imprisonment, man!

Cathy: That’s right! Look around the country, man. The so-called radicals are getting stomped on and stepped on!

 

       Cleaver arranged a vacant apartment and gave the couple a handgun from BPPIS’s ample supply. To show their gratitude they had to attend Cleaver’s soporific lectures on Marxist-Leninist theory.

Cox approached Cathy.

Cox: You used to sell pot back in California, right?

Cathy: Yeah.

Cox: You must know a lot of other dealers. So dig it: you contact those dealers. Say we can supply shitloads of primo quality hash. They pay us in cash and guns. Interested?

Cathy: Right on!

But that idea fizzled.

 

      13. CHANGING OF THE GUARD

 

      On July 31st, 1972 five passengers – inspired by Eldridge Cleaver’s proclamation that black hijackers were welcome in Algeria – hijacked a flight from Detroit to Miami. Using a gun hidden in a hollowed-out bible, they diverted the plane to Algiers after the airline granted their demands: $1,000,000 plus cigarettes, ham sandwiches and apples (the latter for their three toddlers).

They announced they were Black Liberation Army members – a Panthers offshoot – and were teetotal vegetarians, although ham was acceptable.

 

       Somebody called Cleaver. Black hijackers with $1,000,000 were due at noon. He rushed to the airport. Tanks and troops surrounded the plane. Cleaver’s Panthers couldn’t enter the VIP Lounge. The Algerians asked about the cash. The hijackers produced $700,000. The Algerians searched their clothes. They found $300,000. Then they put the hijackers in a van and drove them off.

The Panthers tailed the hijackers on the road to the city, hoping they had not yet handed the money to the Algerians. From their Renault 16’s windows they yelled, “Do not give them the bread!” The convoy stopped. Algerian troops confronted the Panthers. A spirited exchange of opinions ensued. The hijackers were shocked. Where was all the Panther-Algerian amity they’d heard about?

 

      In splendid defiance, Cleaver drafted an open letter to the Algerian president and read it to an international press conference. The gist:

The $1.5 million rightfully belongs to the Black Panther Party International Section. Algeria’s illegal appropriation of the funds from the hijacks aids and abets American imperialism by depriving the BPPIS of the means to carry out its international mission.

The letter’s disputatious tone infuriated the president. Who does this armchair revolutionary think he is? He sponges $500 a month from us so he can thumb his nose at Uncle Sam from a safe distance …

He ordered temporary house arrest for the BPPIS.

Cleaver accused Algeria of reneging on its obligation to assist the BPPIS in its vital political activities, thereby retarding the worldwide revolution.

The president was enraged. In September 1972 he ordered Cleaver’s resignation. Another Panther – Pete O’Neal – was his replacement.

 

 The Cleavers were larger than life

 

 

      But O’Neal didn’t want the gig. Before he left for socialist Tanzania he named his successor. The new head of the Black Panther Party International Section was a stunned Roger Holder.

More Panthers fled. The fuming, muttering Cleavers stayed put for a while. Eldridge occupied himself by studying Chinese cuisine.

Holder, Cathy and the Detroit hijackers moved into Cox’s beach-side mansion, then plundered the BPPIS’s office, selling off cameras, tape recorders and the like. This, Holder could handle. Everything else about managing the BPPIS bewildered him.

So? What was there to manage? Like the SDS in late 1969, BPPIS was merely a label on a shell. As 1973 dawned it consisted of seven confused and dispirited Americans.

And as 1973 progressed, Holder’s feverish imagination saw CIA assassins closing in. FBI kidnappers too. They might abduct his daughters.

In a panic-free moment he proposed to Cathy. His sentiments were genuine but timing was way off. She asked for time to consider. Holder never did get a straight answer.

 

      14. ACROSS THE SEA

 

      Eldridge and Catherine Cleaver somehow made it to France. They promised the BPPIS’s remnants they’d send for them when they could. Meanwhile, hang in there!

Hanging in there meant scrabbling to survive where they’d expected to thrive. Only the monthly stipend (now reduced) kept them from absolute penury.

Cathy was despondent. OPERATION SISYPHUS seemed like such a cool idea. But if she’d known she’d wind up in this dump, living hand to mouth, in constant fear of arrest…

In his clearer moments Roger reflected on where OPERATION SISYPHUS had taken them. Was his promotion to leadership a joke? An acknowledgement of BPPIS’s futility? At least in San Diego he could pull scams. And Vietnam was Excitement City.

 

      The Detroit hijackers said au revoir and reached Paris in May ’73. The BPPIS was now Holder and Cathy. She called the Cleavers, who were hobnobbing with Parisian high society. (The Panthers may have been down for the count but their cachet remained intact.) Eldridge, we have to get out of this place. Roger’s really getting like ... you know … Please!

 

       Fast forward to January 1975. Holder’s taking one of his customary long walks in Paris where he and Cathy have lived for a year. As a black man in this part of the City of Light he's definitely out of place. The police stop him for a routine I.D. check. He has no I.D. They take him in for questioning.

To their astonishment he readily admits he’s an illegal immigrant and gives his real name. And without prompting he confesses he’s wanted by the FBI for hijacking a plane. 

The cops think he’s delusional and tell him to come back later with proper I.D. When he doesn’t, they notify the American Embassy that it might want to check up on a Willie Roger Holder.

The embassy’s FBI guy almost has a stroke. You let him go?!?! What’s his address? When they search Holder's apartment he’s already disappeared, leaving porn magazines, toy trains and helicopters.

 

A free agent in Paris

 

      The couple had reached Paris a year earlier and tracked down a French acquaintance from Algiers. He took one look at Holder and arranged the American's admission to a rural psychiatric clinic. Cathy, now more cosmopolitan, wiser in the ways of the world, dated French guys – the richer the better – who manifested radical chic by buying her a drink or a diamond bracelet or a sportscar.

Holder returned to Paris in the autumn of 1974 to find Cathy wanted separate beds. Then separate apartments.

Cathy feared for her own safety with Roger behaving so erratically. She called Eldridge Cleaver, now comfortably ensconced in the fashionable Left Bank, his radicalism much reduced. He helped them bounce around France, always one step ahead of the law.

But things went askew when they returned to Paris in early 1975. Roger just had to take that stroll and blow his cover. The cops tracked down Cathy and the couple lawyered up.

 

      The U.S. government demanded an extradition hearing.

Holder forgot his pills and started convulsing in the courtroom. The judge ordered him to be tried in absentia.

Cathy charmed the court and the media with her surprisingly fluent French. Their lawyer exploited a loophole specifying “crimes of a political nature” as non-extraditable. He argued Holder suffered the trauma of racial discrimination and combat in Vietnam and both hijackers were active peace campaigners seeking justice for Angela Davis.

Cathy delivered the coup de grâce during her cross examination with the statement: Roger’s just a black. Like all blacks in the United States, he is oppressed.

They won. But the U.S. government argued the hijacking was an apolitical crime, and it could provide eyewitnesses to prove it. At great expense they flew both aircrews to Paris. But their testimony contained holes and ambiguities. Uncle Sam's case collapsed.

 

      15. IN OUT IN OUT

 

       The couple were fined for entering France on false passports. They couldn’t leave Paris for one year and had to report to a magistrate twice a month.

Accepting their relationship was no longer physical, Roger dated a “neurotic young actress” who resembled David Bowie. Later she had a baby she claimed was Holder’s and then committed suicide.

His seizures and panic attacks increased. In 1976, after several hospital admissions, he approached the U.S. Embassy offering to surrender voluntarily in return for a reduced sentence. The Embassy refused: hijackers cannot cut deals.

By now Cathy had a luxury apartment, paid for by a French movie producer. She visited Roger occasionally. Then very occasionally.

 

       Fast forward to May 1977. Associated Press interviews Holder, who predicts he’ll return to the States on June 14, his 28th birthday. Forgetting the Embassy’s earlier reaction, he predicts he’ll get a reduced sentence by pleading guilty to a lesser charge. With luck he might avoid prison time altogether by offering his services to the Pentagon as a civilian adviser on Third World issues.

When asked, “How does Cathy rate your chances?” Holder replied he had no idea. He had not seen her in months.

 

       In the late 1970's Holder was still in Paris. Cathy wasn’t. Nobody noted her absence until she missed her regularly scheduled magistrate’s appointments six consecutive times. She’d last met Roger during the bitterly cold February of 1977. Expensively dressed, she promised to look in on him when she got back from Switzerland. She said someone there could supply foolproof I.D. documents.

Then she disappeared forever.

 

      Roger worked as a bouncer in a transvestite bar. Then a university hired him as a cleaner. He saw this as a step toward achieving his dream of studying aeronautical engineering.

A French court reviewed Holder’s case and decided to try him for hijacking after all. About 20 Holderistes crowded the courtroom. More stood outside holding pro-Holder placards.

There was no doubt he’d committed the hijacking. The question was the attitude behind it. When the judge asked him if he had any remorse, Holder waffled on about his unjust treatment by the army and his wife Betty Bullock’s infidelity and his desire to see Angela Davis walk free in Hanoi.

The judge interrupted: If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?

Holder replied: “My only regret is that I didn’t smash that plane into the ground!”

He got a five-year suspended sentence. No jail time, but he couldn’t leave France for five years.

 

       An aristocratic sympathizer let him stay at his estate in Normandy. Holder worked on an oyster farm. Life wasn't bad, all things considered. Then he met a Yugoslav-French woman 12 years older. Their marriage was stormy. Eligible to leave France in 1985, Holder’s mojo crashed when he was arrested for drug possession. The court ordered intensive psychiatric testing and treatment.

That meant almost a year of Thorazine and other mind-numbing drugs.

 

    16. HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL

 

      Home at last!

After 14 years abroad, Roger Holder set foot on American tarmac in July 1986. Four French policemen delivered him to FBI agents at JFK airport.

The FBI then detained him for two years before he could plead guilty to the lesser charge of interfering with a flight crew. During his four-year sentence, he was released to a halfway house in San Diego, where his daughters Teresa and Torrita lived.

He hadn’t seen them since just before OPERATION SISYPHUS, when he informed his parents he was headed to Australia. The twins agreed to a meeting at the halfway-house.

It went badly. Holder was not only a stranger but a letdown. They'd expected a larger-than-life figure, but instead found a shuffling husk of a man. They gave no sign of wanting more get-togethers.

 

It's great to be back!

 

       On release Holder and his on-again-off-again French wife lived with his alcoholic brother. They survived on social security and menial jobs. Then his mojo crashed again.

He blew his parole by testing positive for marijuana. By now he was beyond caring, but he should have cared: his regular dealer was not only his ex-brother-in-law (Betty Bullock’s brother) but also (a) a career criminal with a rap sheet as long as a python and (b) a police informant.

Bullock’s handlers indicated they’d look very kindly on whoever informed them about Holder planning “something interesting.” With ex-Panthers, they said, you never know.

When Holder got high with Bullock he babbled something about hijacking a plane and donating the ransom money to Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress. Bullock told the cops who told the FBI who started an investigation.

 

       This was embarrassingly inept. The FBI wired up a California Department of Justice undercover agent posing as a shady explosives dealer from Mexico.

Bullock arranged a discreet meeting. The FBI recorded the agent’s dogged attempts to entice Holder into committing to a purchase.

“No, man, I’m not interested. Anyway, I’m broke,” Holder kept saying.

Look, man, we can negotiate the price. Or you can make a down payment and pay the rest later. ¡No hay problemo!

“No, man. I'm not interested.”

(Repeat … Repeat …)

During their meeting the FBI searched Holder’s apartment for weapons, explosives and anything related to terrorism. They found nothing, but arrested him anyway.

The trial collapsed. The judge agreed this was an outrageous example of entrapment.

 

     By the mid-1990's Roger Holder was a sick man.

His French wife had left him for good this time. His alcoholic brother had moved away. Teresa and Torrita kept their distance.

Holder was committing slow suicide by smoking enough Pall Malls to rival Beijing’s smog.

In 2008 Torrita received a 15-month sentence for bank robbery.

Holder could hang in there until February 6th, 2012, then his aneurysm burst.

And then it was curtains for Roger Holder.

 

      17. HOLDER’S PEOPLE

 

      Jesus appeared to Eldridge Cleaver, who became a born again Christian. Then he (Cleaver, not Jesus) joined the Unification Church (“the Moonies”). He then became a Mormon, ignoring the popular opinion that black Mormons were like Jewish Nazis. Then he became a born-again Christian. And the firebrand who'd been the Peace and Freedom Party's candidate in the 1968 U.S. presidential election suddenly became a staunch Reaganite. He advocated for more respect for the nation's police.

He also invented “penis pants” and experimented with denim.

He died aged 62.

       Angela Davis ran as the Communist Party USA’s candidate for vice-president in the 1980 and 1984 U.S. presidential elections. She’s maintained a flourishing academic career.

Algeria’s President Houari Boumédièn died of a rare blood disease in a Moscow hospital in 1978.

Donald Cox (1936 – 2011) died peacefully in southern France.

Pete O’Neal (1940 – ) still lives in northern Tanzania, where he co-founded the United African Alliance Community Center. He features in a television documentary A Panther in Africa.

 

Considered armed and dangerous

 

     Catherine Marie Kerkow is still on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

Her FBI profile describes her French as so fluent and natural that she can pass for European. She’s most likely integrated herself into France or possibly Switzerland. Cathy’s file remains open although the Bureau holds out little hope of apprehending her. She is still classified as armed and dangerous.

 

                                                                        END

 

The city of Algiers (Alger in French) 1970 (3' 43"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMzCm-FVDx0&t=1s

 

What the Black Panther Party was all about (1' 30"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOQGAMGV-z0

 

Eldridge Cleaver in 1968 (3' 30"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5W1vFwQD7o

 

Everything you probably never wanted to know about penis pants: https://www.messynessychic.com/2013/08/01/the-1970s-political-activist-who-invented-penis-pants/

 

Angela Davis interview extract (3' 36"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HnDONDvJVE

 

Huey P. Newton (Cleaver's Panther rival) (1' 41" starts at 0' 09"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6O3C1be9iY


The Weathermen (aka The Weather Underground) (3'41"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiIC8YwQVV8

 

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Published on  August 23rd, 2023