Recently, I explored the likely reasoning behind the Symbionese Liberation Army (or a sympathizer of the group) choosing to use the phrase "red with rage" within the Red Phantom letter. On May 17th 1974, the last stand of six Symbionese Liberation Army members took place at 1466 East 54th Street in Los Angeles between the police and the left-wing militant group. Under heavy fire and tear gas grenades, Donald DeFreeze, Patricia Soltysik, Nancy Ling Perry, Angela Atwood, Camilla Hall and Willie Wolfe, all perished in the burning building. As a response to the Symbionese Liberation Army deaths, another left-wing group, the Weather Underground, set off a powerful bomb in the Old State Building in the early morning hours of May 31st 1974, shattering the reception room of Attorney General, Evelle J. Younger and causing considerable damage to three floors of the building.
A few hours later, the Los Angeles Times and radio station KPFK were told to go to certain telephone booths where they would retrieve letters from the Weather Underground, expressing their condemnation of the killing of six SLA members, stating "To our sisters and brothers in the Symbionese Liberation Army we want to express with you and all free-loving people grief and rage at the deaths". This "grief and range" was reported heavily in the newspapers throughout the June of 1974, alongside a slew of psychological appraisals of the Symbionese Liberation Army by numerous psychiatrists, turning the "grief and rage" of the Weather Underground back onto the Symbionese Liberation Army, claiming their use of psychotic drugs and repressed hostility towards their parents manifested itself as a "rage reaction". Read full article. But what about the "Red Phantom" signature?
A few hours later, the Los Angeles Times and radio station KPFK were told to go to certain telephone booths where they would retrieve letters from the Weather Underground, expressing their condemnation of the killing of six SLA members, stating "To our sisters and brothers in the Symbionese Liberation Army we want to express with you and all free-loving people grief and rage at the deaths". This "grief and range" was reported heavily in the newspapers throughout the June of 1974, alongside a slew of psychological appraisals of the Symbionese Liberation Army by numerous psychiatrists, turning the "grief and rage" of the Weather Underground back onto the Symbionese Liberation Army, claiming their use of psychotic drugs and repressed hostility towards their parents manifested itself as a "rage reaction". Read full article. But what about the "Red Phantom" signature?
On the same day that the Weather Underground expressed its "rage" at the deaths of six Symbionese Liberation Army members, the Symbionese Liberation Army delivered a letter signed "B Team Leader" to the television station KNXT stating that they had downed a Los Angeles Police Department helicopter in revenge for their compatriots, resulting in the death of Paul Gillen and the severe injury to three others (including two SWAT members).
The Police Bell 206 Jetranger helicopter was claimed by the group to have been shot down using a Russian military-type anti-aircraft missile, despite the police claiming otherwise and attributing the helicopter crash to a mechanical failure of the rotor blades. The Russian designed 9K32 Strela-2 is a light-weight, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile system. It is designed to target aircraft at low altitudes with passive infrared-homing guidance and destroy them with a high-explosive warhead. Roughly 95–120 kills and several dozen damaged are attributed to Strela-2/2M hits between April 1972 and the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, almost all against helicopters and propeller-driven aircraft. Wikipedia.
Was the "Red Phantom" signature mentioned by the Symbionese Liberation Army on July 8th 1974 taken from the comic book character "The Phantom" (from King Features Syndicate owned by Hearst communications), who converted it into the "Red Phantom" because of the covert Russian missile strike they claimed downed the LAPD helicopter? The irony of using military grade weaponry dubbed the "Red Phantom" wouldn't have been lost on the Symbionese Liberation Army, because of the recent retirement of a record-breaking Firebee drone at the Air Defence Weapons Center, nicknamed The "Red Phantom". It successfully avoided being destroyed with "enemy fire" for 87 missions before flying its last mission on November 12th 1973 and being retired in May 1974. The choice of this nickname by the Symbionese Liberation Army, in a mission deemed successful in bringing down an aerial "enemy combatant" using Russian military hardware, could be argued as strategic wordplay towards the police and military by a group who rejected wholesale the capitalism and imperialism of the American government.
The Police Bell 206 Jetranger helicopter was claimed by the group to have been shot down using a Russian military-type anti-aircraft missile, despite the police claiming otherwise and attributing the helicopter crash to a mechanical failure of the rotor blades. The Russian designed 9K32 Strela-2 is a light-weight, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile system. It is designed to target aircraft at low altitudes with passive infrared-homing guidance and destroy them with a high-explosive warhead. Roughly 95–120 kills and several dozen damaged are attributed to Strela-2/2M hits between April 1972 and the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, almost all against helicopters and propeller-driven aircraft. Wikipedia.
Was the "Red Phantom" signature mentioned by the Symbionese Liberation Army on July 8th 1974 taken from the comic book character "The Phantom" (from King Features Syndicate owned by Hearst communications), who converted it into the "Red Phantom" because of the covert Russian missile strike they claimed downed the LAPD helicopter? The irony of using military grade weaponry dubbed the "Red Phantom" wouldn't have been lost on the Symbionese Liberation Army, because of the recent retirement of a record-breaking Firebee drone at the Air Defence Weapons Center, nicknamed The "Red Phantom". It successfully avoided being destroyed with "enemy fire" for 87 missions before flying its last mission on November 12th 1973 and being retired in May 1974. The choice of this nickname by the Symbionese Liberation Army, in a mission deemed successful in bringing down an aerial "enemy combatant" using Russian military hardware, could be argued as strategic wordplay towards the police and military by a group who rejected wholesale the capitalism and imperialism of the American government.
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