Revolution's End: The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control, and the Secret History of Donald DeFreeze and the SLA

by Brad Schreiber

Forty years after the Patty Hearst "trial of the century," the true story of the events, including the beginning of police militarization in America.

Revolution's End fully explains the most famous kidnapping in US history, detailing Patty Hearst's relationship with Donald DeFreeze, known as Cinque, head of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not only did the heiress have a sexual relationship with DeFreeze while he was imprisoned; she didn't know he was an informant and a victim of prison behavior modification.

Neither Hearst nor the white radicals who followed DeFreeze realized that he was molded by a CIA officer and allowed to escape, thanks to collusion with the California Department of Corrections. DeFreeze's secret infiltrate and discredit Bay Area anti-war radicals and the Black Panther Party, the nexus of seventies activism. When the murder of the first black Oakland schools superintendent failed to create an insurrection, DeFreeze was alienated from his controllers and decided to become a revolutionary, since his life was in jeopardy.

Revolution's End finally elucidates the complex relationship of Hearst and DeFreeze and proves that one of the largest shootouts in US history, which killed six members of the SLA in South Central Los Angeles, ended when the LAPD set fire to the house and incinerated those six radicals on live television, nationwide, as a warning to American leftists.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Politics, Crime

260 pages, Hardcover

Published August 2, 2016

Reviews

[Chris Steeden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh no, have I bought a conspiracy theory book? I hate conspiracy theories. They are the preserve of nerds that have too much time on their hands. JFK was shot by martians or Elvis Presley is alive and well in Central America making hats for lizards or the CIA experimented with mind control drugs on prisoners. Oh hang on…that last one was true (allegedly). I like facts, cold hard facts and luckily so does this book. Phew!!! Schreiber is bringing to the fore American government duplicity. He states that the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) that kidnapped the heiress Patty Hearst and forced her to perform a bank robbery was in-fact created by the CIA and the California Department of Corrections.

We read about the life of the SLA leader, Donald DeFreeze, who really does not come over as very bright or political. In-fact his many criminal efforts were failures so how is it that he ends up leading a bunch of white middle-class San Franciscans into being urban guerillas adopting communist and South American revolutionary philosophies and murdering and kidnapping people? Something doesn’t add up and Schreiber details quite neatly why it doesn’t. Was the timing of the SLA’s first mission that ended in murder intended to create a politically charged war in the Bay Area? One that the police and FBI would be given a reign to violently quell, finally pacifying that tumultuous political landscape. It is a stretch but this was the 70s and anything goes (or was that the 60s?) with a politically motivated bomb going off every 16 days in the Bay area. The whole CIA / CDC project is a bit of a shambles to be honest. Not many thought that the SLA were a legitimate leftist group.

The books title certainly sums up the era of the 70's well but it is not a pulsating read from start to finish. I found it interesting rather than fascinating and losing focus at some points meaning it did not grip me all the way through. I learnt a lot though which I can’t complain about.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daily Republic - Solano County

Book claims CIA, state created SLA – possible psychosurgery in Vacaville
By Ryan McCarthy

FAIRFIELD — The CIA and the California Department of Corrections created the Symbionese Liberation Army of the 1970s, contends a new book that also claims it’s possible SLA leader Donald DeFreeze underwent psychosurgery at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

Implementing electrodes into DeFreeze is speculation but not beyond the realm of possibility, author Brad Schreiber writes.

Los Angeles resident Schreiber was interviewed Wednesday night on a national radio show about his book “Revolution’s End: The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control and the Secret History of Donald DeFreeze and the SLA.”

“I left out even more stuff,” Schreiber told the Daily Republic.

He said some people may see the story as too convoluted to be possible but that his book is based on documents. The late Rep. Leo Ryan, who was killed in Jonestown in 1978, knew of CIA links to the medical facility in Vacaville, Schreiber said.

The author said then-Gov. Ronald Reagan’s administration directed a CIA official to create the Black Cultural Association at the Vacaville facility as part of developing the SLA – “a phony left-wing group” Schreiber said the government used to discredit radicals in the 1970s.

The SLA kidnapped 19-year-old newspaper heiress Hearst in 1974. DeFreeze, along with SLA members, was killed four months later in Los Angeles. Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, spent 22 months in prison for her role in a bank robbery.

[Aria · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only problem with this book was that it has no flow. The premise is interesting, & the author clearly has done a lot of work to acquire the information presented. It's just not put together in a way that allows the reader to become engaged with the content. As it went on it did become more interesting so I believe it was worth sticking with the reading, but earlier in the text I very nearly went the other way quite a few times. If someone were doing their own work related to these events, or even just the era overall, I'd recommend this book as a source of avenues for further exploration.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book after finishing "Chaos: Charles Manson, The CIA & the Secret History of the 1960's" by Tom O'Neill. I give Mr. Schreiber credit for framing the subject narrative of his book to follow the title of his book. He could've written a lot more about Dr. Louis "Jolly" West , who was mentioned briefly testifying at Patty Hearst's trial in the Epilogue. He was CIA's go-to guy for hypnosis & mind control! He was at Vacaville before and most likely during the time of Donald Defreeze . He also testified at Sirhan Sirhan's trial & The Manson Family trial! . Also mentioned in the Epilogue were allegations about The Peoples Temple being another MKULTRA experiment. Footnotes would've been helpful, for inquiring continued reading.
Takeaways from the book; Juxtaposing it to the current situation, how successful the National Security State was in infiltrating The New Left, creating a "Compatible Left ", and presently a "Fake Left". Their mind control techniques have been perfected and mainlined throughout Mainstream Media & Social media. The 1/6/21 Event. Cui Bono? Isn't the US Capitol still surrounded by a fence and heavily armored troops?
The SLA stuff was going on during my senior year in high school , along with all the other crazy stuff happening at the same time..Last May 2020, my nephew's graduation was cancelled. This coming August, my niece's college graduation ceremony will take place with audience members sitting 6 ft. apart wearing masks outside!

[Reader66 · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I am glad people are still writing books about this interesting case closing in on 45 years later, this book needed stronger referencing. Making assertions that run so counter to the established narrative (such as this book's claim that Patty Hearst had a relationship with Donald DeFreeze that predated her kidnapping) demands more than a dumped bibliography at the end of 200 plus pages, in my opinion. Given what must surely be several metric tons of documents available on this case, one would think it would be relatively easy to state a fact, and then support it (or even better, to put up a website containing the actual documents/interview transcripts), especially given the degree of government manipulation/conspiracy alleged here.

I did enjoy reading these "alternative facts." Let's see if someone else does a better job of substantiating some of the more outrageous claims detailed here. In the meantime I'm guessing this book was the subject of a conversation between Ms. Hearst Shaw and her lawyer.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty convincing but not wholly convincing; still a super important and necessary document on the whole SLA affair; probably the main document to reference in regards to the organization

[Ann Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brad Schreiber’s Revolution’s End reads like a thriller, driving the reader forward to an end both inevitable and shocking, even as the basics of the Patty Hearst Kidnapping and the Symbionese Liberation Army led by Donald DeFreeze are known to most of us. What was a complete and mind-blowing surprise was the well-researched, substantiated claims by Schreiber that DeFreeze was not operating autonomously as “Cinque”—DeFreeze’s chosen nom de guerre—but was, in fact, a paid informer and pawn of the US Government through the CIA and the California Department of Corrections, among other government agencies. Schreiber lays out the convincing case with a multiplicity of interviews and documentation that DeFreeze was a low-level criminal drafted to undermine legitimate leftist movements in the 1970s, which included the shooting of a Black school superintendent in Oakland, CA. The SLA kidnapping of Patty Hearst, probably the most famous American kidnapping short of the Lindbergh baby, is fascinating when viewed from inside the minds of DeFreeze and his band of mostly white followers—why she was targeted as kidnapping victim, her use to bring food to the poor, and how she was later willingly brought into the fold of the SLA. We all know how the story ends: DeFreeze and five followers were incinerated in a house in Los Angeles after a shootout with the LAPD in the first televised take-down by what was then a new law enforcement tool known as a SWAT team. Sadly, one might view this event as the precursor to our current police state.

[Carrie A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because......I graduated from HS in 1971, college in 1975 and my master's program in 1980. For several years after I traveled to SF to visit a cousin and collect education credit while working in Wisconsin, Georgia and Alabama.. Many of the conferences were held in SF and I would impose on my cousin. During one of those visit I asked why I never met his roommate. "Lewis" would disappear for the duration of the visit. Finally the answer came. "He is afraid that you would recognize him and disapprove of him". Why would I recognize him? " He was part of the SLA kidnapping of Patti Hearst. "

This book tells the story. My cousin's roommate makes a limited appearance, mostly as an errand runner and served several years in jail. His mother\family disowned him. I wish we had met. He made the mistake of youth, was punished, and lived the regret. He died young with my cousin as nurse, confident, family, and wrapped in his love.

[Rick Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the book is interesting and seems well researched. I read it out of interest in the psychiatric aspects, how behavioral and neuroscience know-how may have been applied in attempts to influence prisoner behavior. This seems to be this book’s major addition to the many books about SLA / Hearst, but it’s also the book’s weakest feature.
Most references to behavior modification, drugs, ECT and surgery are vague and grossly inaccurate, uniformly broad-brushed as forms of torture. The specific drugs named make little sense in the context of punishment or behavior mod. The author seems not to have tried to understand any of this.
Also the index is weak, and many points are not referenced or even traceable.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Revolution's End" is a meticulously researched and careful book. It reveals the strange and bizarre truth of Patty Hearst and how the Symbionese Liberation army was a creation designed to discredit the Leftist movement in California. It is a gripping read that is hard that enlightens the past and gives us insight into the present.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revolution’s End is a disturbing and fascinating look at the life of Donald DeFreeze and the creation of the Symbionese Liberation Army. What struck me most wasn’t just the politics, but how deeply psychological the story is. DeFreeze, who had schizoid personality traits, was manipulated into becoming the “leader” of a movement he was never suited to lead. The book reveals how the government, through people like Colston Westbrook, may have exploited his isolation and desire for meaning to create chaos that would discredit legitimate Black revolutionary groups.

What makes it so tragic is how human it all feels — DeFreeze wasn’t born a terrorist; he was a lonely, intelligent man searching for purpose. Instead of guidance, he was used as a pawn. The relationship between Westbrook and DeFreeze feels especially toxic — it’s hard not to wonder if Westbrook’s own issues and biases fueled his hostility. The whole thing left me questioning not

[Canyon Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

i thought it was a fun read but contrary to some of the other theories i've heard. Ghost Stories for the End of the World has a pretty good episode on the SLA. I've always found them very interesting as one of the more obscure "radical groups" from the era, and I can appreciate Schreiber's argument that the SLA was meant to put an end to the revolutionary moment. Still, a lot of the claims in the book feel pretty unsubstantiated, and it's unclear to me how solid some of the ideas are and which ones I felt resonated with where I fall on this story. In any event, not a bad book and probably worth a read :)

[Sarah Sherrin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and my honest opinion is below.
Very well written and easy to read for a true crime book! I find that some who write in between document and story form tend to drag on, but this was well documented and flowed easily enough to keep reading. Information was well researched and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

[Chad Montabon · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute joy to read. If you go down this rabbit hole, you are likely to be there for a while.

The mixing of the Simbionese Liberation Army antics, covert PsyOps and various marginal and marginalized players makes for a great read and you might just come out thinking, 'the leader guy is starting to make a lot of sense'.

[Debbie Carnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revolution's End was a very interest read. I followed the news reports as it was happening , so it is interesting to read details that are more informative the what we read at the time. I think it is very important to look back at things with a different understanding .

[Michelle Reeder · Rating 2 out of 5]

*I won this book through a giveaway*

I really wanted to get into this book. The premise sounded really really interesting. But despite my attempts, I don't finish books that are chores to read. I may try to pick this up and finish it eventually, but its pacing was really hard. Lots of information, an undertone of bias and too much detail bogged me down. Maybe I'll try to read later.

[Zaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot of good, fascinating information in this book but its primary thesis isn't something I'd say is entirely proves. It does at least seem plausible and even if it's not true the book itself was still worth reading.

[Ana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two and a half stars. This book got some facts wrong and I feel like it was more of a conspiracy theory than history, but it does a good job of covering the 70s counterculture/revolutionary scene.

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the premise, but the book could have been written better. I thought I would breeze through it, but it took me a long time to finish.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Significantly more plausible than what was reported at the time.

[Kenneth Laddish · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought i knew this story. I had no idea.
Important

[Luis Cuesta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this a book as a Goodreads Giveaway. I think it is well researched and gives a different account of Patricia's involvement in the events.The SLA kidnapping of Patty Hearst, probably the most famous American kidnapping short of the Lindbergh baby, is fascinating when viewed from inside the minds of DeFreeze and his band, and that is exactly what this book offers.

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Although the "Patty Hearst Kidnapping" is in the title, that is only a minor part of the book. If that - or her trial - are what you are interested in, this is not the book for you. Also, I did not find it particularly well written, it was choppy, repetitive, and difficult to follow many times.

[Taylor J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really is amazing. This book is a great read just like The Ultimate Evil, Chaos, Operation Mind Control and Programmed to Kill. Read if you want the truth.