FD-350 clipping, The Columbian: 'Pursuing Cooper' - Himmelsbach on the new movie

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) Pg. 12, The Columbian Vancouver, Wash.

Date: 11/15/81 Edition:

Title:

Character: NORJAK or Classification: 164A-81 Submitting Office: SE

---

Pursuing Cooper

Believe the former FBI agent, not new movie

By BILL DIETRICH The Columbian

"Enjoyable juvenile escapism." That is the reaction the new "Pursuit of D.B. Cooper" movie drew Friday from the FBI agent who pursued Cooper the longest: Ralph Himmelsbach of West Linn, Ore. The movie begins where the known facts end about America's most famous skyjacker, the only one never caught. The film follows its fictional Cooper as he flees across the western United States towards Mexico with a pretty girl and the $200,000 extorted from the airline. Himmelsbach, who is writing a book on the case, speculates Cooper was probably an ex-con no one missed when he disappeared and whose bones lie somewhere in the Washougal River basin. The Columbian took the retired agent, now 56, to the film to get his reaction. From the opening moments, the film left the 28-year FBI veteran shaking his head. The film shows Cooper, played by Treat Williams, bailing out of a "Northern Pacific" jetliner on Nov. 24, 1971, under clear, sunny skies, landing near cached survival equip- ment (including a jeep) in a pine forest.

---

164-81-8599 SEARCHED [illegible] INDEXED [illegible] SERIALIZED [illegible] FILED [illegible] NOV 2 0 1981 FBI - SEATTLE

---

FBI/DOJ

DB Cooper-18990

In reality, said Himmelsbach, Cooper jumped from a Northwest 727 [guess: into a] pitch-black November storm, with an estimated chill factor of 69 degrees below zero.

No matter. "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper" is a popcorn film: light- weight, empty, but fun. Its one real concession to the facts is to show the star tossing a packet of $20 bills into a stream. There is no discernible reason, except to jibe with the 1980 discovery of Cooper money on a Columbia River beach by Van- couver's 8-year-old Brian Ingram.

Himmelsbach's recounting of the truth remains more interesting. The unsolved case, he estimated, cost more to investigate than the original $200,000 ransom. The case made Cooper, a folk hero, and stimulated the subsequent wave of skyjackings. They resulted in airport security procedures the public is still paying for.

The case has plenty of irony, not the least of which is that D.B. Cooper was "found" the night of the hijack- ing.

Himmelsbach explained that after "Dan Cooper" bought a ticket for the flight at Portland International Air- port, the FBI ordered a search of local directories for such a man. They turned up a bewildered D.B. Cooper who was found at home, unaware a skyjacking was going on.

An Associated Press reporter mis- takenly thought this routine check meant the culprit's true initials were D.B. The mistake was retracted the next day, but "D.B." had a poetry Dan lacked. The name stuck.

Himmelsbach took charge of the case in Portland, unsuccessfully tried that night to follow the lumbering airliner in the storm by helicopter, then criss-crossed the Ariel vicinity by light plane the following day, Thanksgiving. Cooper was not found — not then, or in the nearly nine subsequent years Himmelsbach worked on and off the case before his retirement in 1980.

So who was D.B. Cooper, and what happened to him? Here are Him- melsbach's speculations:

● Cooper was likely an ex-con: first, because he had the ruthlessness

to terrify 42 passengers and demand $200,000, and second, because he was so unloved that no one inquired about his disappearance. Authorities ex- haustively searched missing person reports, prison records, etc., without success.

● He may have been from the Tacoma area. He had no foreign accent, and remarked to a stewardess that he could recognize Tacoma from the air. He specifically asked for parachutes from nearby McChord Air Force Base, showing some familiari- ty with the area.

● Cooper was an amateur sky- diver. He asked for four parachutes, but cut the cords from the one easiest to use, presumably to tie the 21-pound canvas sack of money around his waist. A second chute was ignored. The two that disappeared included a small, hard-to-control emergency chute for acrobatic pilots, and a chute used to train Air Force chute packers. Unknown to authorities when it was given to Cooper, the panels on that last chute were sewn together and would not open.

● Cooper had no known naviga- tional instruments, no known food or water, and jumped wearing a busi- ness suit and loafer shoes. He had no gloves, no goggle, no helmet, no boots. If a chute deployed, its normal speed plus high winds would have sent him into the ground at 50 mph.

● Cooper could not have been planning to jump to a cached set of survival gear. He asked to go to several cities — all requiring differ- ent air routes — before agreeing Reno was as far as the plane could go with its fuel.

● Although the pilot's best esti- mate put Cooper's bailout in the vicinity of Ariel, Himmelsbach thinks Cooper died in the Washougal River basin. The money found on the shores of the Columbia River could not have been washed upstream from the mouth of the Lewis River, the agent said. The next nearest major watershed above the famous beach is the Washougal.

Himmelsbach thinks Cooper land- ed, walked or crawled to a stream for

water, died of injuries or exposure, and lay undisturbed all winter. Spring floods washed some of the money down the Washougal to the Columbia River, and it floated down the Columbia to be discovered eight years later.

Regrets? Few. Himmelsbach said the case was his most interesting.

"I don't feel he got away with it," he said. "I'm comfortable. I sleep at nights."

Besides a possible book contract, the case has also brought Him- melsbach national publicity. He is tentatively scheduled to appear Mon- day on Good Morning America.

The money? Except for the Ingram discovery, not a bill of it has turned up, either here or overseas.

Cooper? Himmelsbach presented the facts to a grand jury five years after the Cooper caper, when the statute of limitations would have run out. The resulting indictment means Cooper could still go to prison, if caught.