Part 2, page 21

Transcript

The scan is the source; the transcript is machine-generated from it.

12 LA November 4, 1972

D.B. COOPER:

[...text continues from prior page...] ng with four Harpers executives. It was a touchy book. Still, they were coming, with contracts, the conditions being that Cooper would have to be induced to turn in the $200,000 before they paid [h]it any money—except for $5,000 they would put up as security against their leaking the story to someone else.

The Harpers executives were ensconced in one of those pleasantly airy cottages at the Beverly Hills Hotel, having coffee when I arrived. After awhile in California, the memory dims of what a hard core Eastern Establishmentarian looks like: tweeds, and pin stripes, rep ties, paunches, and gray, pasty faces. Among them was Brooks Thomas, the firm's chief legal counsel, a careful gentleman who later would distinguish himself by turning over a book which Harper & Row commissioned on the CIA involvement in Southeast Asian drug traffic to the selfsame CIA for pre-publication approval.

Not knowing Thomas at that time, I assumed his role would be to keep Harpers' position in l'affaire Cooper delicately committed—but ignorant and thus not legally culpable. But no. After some dallying around, Thomas said, without blinking an eye, that there were new terms: before Harpers would commit itself, Cooper would not only have to turn in the money, he would have to surrender, and would have to be convicted or plead guilty. That I told them, obviously was impossible. I concluded that Harpers had become increasingly nervous about the whole affair, and was trying to get off the hook by establishing impossible conditions. Finally, in fact, Thomas said they were not interested [in continuing]...

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...to New York and get the story into print. Newsweek was naturally excited about the story. An elaborate cover article was planned, but a mood of caution prevailed. My old colleagues in the top editorial positions —"The Flying Wallendas," they were called by subaltern writers—trusted me. We had gone through a lot of important stories together. They had printed a story on no evidence but my say-so before, but this was a bigger thing. One had to weigh the risks. The possible benefit of such a story was great. If it were a phony, it could wreck the magazine, one editor said. If only some of the facts could be checked.

The FBI began checking some of them upon receipt of the material Morgan had turned over. Sitting in New York, I expected word of Cooper's arrest to come at any minute. The week passed, and nothing happened. The tension was incredible.

Then word came through a pipeline at the Justice Department that the FBI thought the bills which Cooper had shown me and given me photostats of were not for real. How that deduction was made from examining the photostats, without seeing the real bills, I did not and have not learned. But the FBI said "Cooper" had superimposed fake numbers over the actual serial numbers on the three $20 bills—making them appear to be part of the skyjack loot.

That was enough warning to hold up publication of the story. Within weeks, on June 3, the FBI arrested William John (Jack) Lewis, 32, alias Seth Thomas, and Donald Sylvester Murphy, 49, who said he was Cooper, and charged them with four counts of federal fraud. Lewis later complained that the FBI dug up his lawn looking for money and other evidence, but didn't find anything.

Murphy, it developed, was divorced, the father of three children, and lived not in a suburban home but at the modest Higgs House Hotel at 540 4th St. in Bremerton, Wash., a shipbuilding town of about 35,000, near Seattle. He was said to do business as a realty investment promoter out of the Renard Development Company at 6608 Kitsap Way.

Practically next door, Lewis, married, father of three, assistant city manager of Bremerton for a time (until he couldn't pass the civil service exam) was operating as a land investment broker and as a representative of World Wide Engineering and Product Development.

When they were arrested, I naturally [itched to hurry to Seattle and investigate]...

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[...itched to hurry to Seattle and investi]gate. Morgan dissuaded me, saying that if Lewis and Murphy were in fact con men, their best "made up" defense would be to suggest that I was implicated with them in a scheme to bilk a publishing company and therefore since we were all conspirators, then how could they be guilty of defrauding me. Morgan cautioned, therefore, against any contact.

Afterwards, still seeking information, I sent a private investigator to Bremerton to check on Lewis and Murphy. Both, he learned, had financial troubles. In the past that got them involved with the law. Lewis had been part owner of a dance tavern, an automobile speedway, and once had been arrested for stealing a raft of 15 logs.

Murphy had been divorced by his wife, Jacqueline Rose Murphy, in 1970. They had three children. He had been arrested for drunken driving, and in her several divorce proceeding documents, his wife had complained of his being drunk and verbally abusive. He once was a heavy equipment operator.

He and Lewis often were seen together at the Melody Lane Bar and Restaurant at 527 Fourth St. in Bremerton, near their offices. Murphy, people told my investigator, had been on the wagon for a year and only drank coffee when he hung around the Melody Lane Bar. He was paying alimony and child support and had little visible means of income. Nevertheless, a private investigator in Bremerton who has known Murphy for five years would not rule out the possibility Murphy [in fact] skyjacked the plane. "He is smart enough to do it," he said. Not only that Murphy was noticeably absent from Bremerton and the Melody Lane during the period [of the hijacking]...

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Nicholas von Hoffman

Is It Fat City or Rat City?

Washington HEY, PUT A PICTURE IN THE [caption text:] sio, a large Nixon campaign contributor, and a business associate of C. Arnholt[...text cut off at bottom of page...]