Word: ransoms
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...first letter continues with a precise recording of the details of the kidnaping, the ladder at the window, the ransom note. "I was afraid of a lunatic. But the well-made plan knocks that out." Again and again throughout the letters, Mrs. Lindbergh assures her correspondent-and herself-that professional kidnapers would not kill the baby. March 9th: "We rest on our assurances that the baby is safe. . . C. slept late this morning and went out for a walk. Our colds have vanished." March 16th: "They keep assuring me they are certain the baby will be returned. . . we must play...
...York airliner with an automatic pistol concealed inside a fake plaster arm cast. Once he had seized control in the cockpit, he started making a wild series of demands over the radiotelephone. He wanted to talk to President Nixon; he wanted the release of Angela Davis; he wanted a ransom payment of exactly $306,800. Eight hours after the hijacker struck, two FBI agents disguised as crew members boarded the plane at John F. Kennedy Airport, shot the hijacker in the hand and captured...
...complications with playful expertise. Henry, the stodgy middle-class bourgeois, Augusta, the eccentric aunt, Visconti, her wildly romantic macho first love, and her present lover, Wordsworth, a fortune-telling black African, wind up on a mock spy adventure on the Orient Express as Augusta delivers an illegal $100,000 ransom to Visconti held captive in Africa. Fortified by the belief that love conquers all. Aunt Augusta cajoles, lies, steals, blackmails, and is deported in the course of her mission. Having sacrificed practically all she own when she finally does deliver the ransom, she collapses hysterically in her aged lover...
...troublesome for an airline industry that has just begun to recover from its 1970-71 economic slump. Each big trunk line spent about $3,000,000 in 1972 to search passengers and carry-on luggage at the busiest airports. In addition, the lines are still out $2.5 million in ransom paid to skyjackers over the past twelve months; another $6.8 million has been recovered by federal authorities...
Even when ransom is recovered, there is some cost to the lines because they usually must borrow the money from banks, which charge premium interest rates on such high-risk loans. One company is in financial difficulty because of ransom payments. Southern Airways gave $2,000,000 in November to Havana-bound hijackers, and the cash has been confiscated by Fidel Castro's government. Southern officials will not comment on how seriously they will be hurt if the money is not given back, but the line's balance sheet provides a clue. As of June 30, the carrier...