Part 3, page 9

Transcript

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

He said Cooper was interested in explaining to the American people the reason for the skyjacking, but Cooper was having a hard time financially. He wasn't able to spend the $200,000, for the money was hot. The FBI had the numbers of the bills, therefore, he wanted to sell his story for $45,000, to be paid in three segments: $15,000 when I was sure I had the right man; $15,000 when my interviews were completed (he suggested a filmed interview, with masks); and $15,000 upon publication of the story.

Seth Thomas Shows Up

Next week, the intermediary came to Los Angeles, and we met at the Airport Marina Hotel, where I had taken a room. "Seth Thomas" was a plodding, black-haired, spade-bearded real estate broker and investment counselor – or so he described himself – and he brought with him several Polaroid photographs of his client, pictures that looked remarkably like the composite drawing of D.B. Cooper which the FBI circulated to newspapers. He also produced a paper containing three serial numbers, which coincided with three numbers on the FBI list.

That, I told him, was hardly real proof, for nearly anyone could obtain the list and copy numbers out of it. How about the real bills?

As we dickered over the interview fee, he promised the real bills would be produced. We agreed on a price, $30,000, and on Feb. 15, I nervously boarded a Western flight to Seattle, carrying cameras, two tape recorders, and $30,000 in $20 and $50 bills, concealed in several envelopes and buried in my tennis equipment case.

Shortly after checking into The Swept Wing Motel near the Seattle airport Thomas arrived, and minutes later, Cooper himself appeared, entering my room furtively from the parking lot. He was a nervous, slightly-built, balding middle-aged man who wore a black raincoat, black shoes and black gloves. He kept the gloves on while he chain-smoked filter cigarettes. He spoke in a raspy voice that reminded me instantly of the Pueblo spy ship commander Pete Bucher.

Cooper was anxious to have the money [text continues, partially illegible at column break]

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Item: 'You don't laugh at motherhood, at religion, at everything possible that a man could hold dear,' he said.

Item: 'When you're at the football game and somebody gets up and sings the "Star-Spangled Banner," it still makes the feathers come up on my neck when I hear it.'

Item: 'When I had my first sexual experience with a girl, I was 17 years old. This was an older woman. I was so dumb. I was drinking beer with her. I was away from home and it was Christmas Eve. We went to her apartment. She asked me if I wanted to play cards. So I said "sure." So we're playing strip poker. For real. So, the next thing, I had to go to the bathroom and when I came back, she was in bed. So I said "Well, I guess I'll be going, Irene." And she said "Oh, it's cold in here. If you'd just come over and warm me up a bit." Well, I'm a pretty sharp fellow. I just got in, clothes and all. I took my shoes off. That's all. I'll tell you what: she gave me an education before I was much older.'

Item: 'A woman is different from a man. A woman comes from some other place. She comes from the land of Nod or something... If a man doesn't take the dominant role in the bedroom, there's something wrong with him. A man can go out into an alley or the back of a car or something. But a woman has to have some feeling of security in her lovemaking.'

Item: 'A man's feeling of manhood, his masculinity, is directly associated with his ability to provide for himself and to earn a good living. When all of sudden he is unable to do this, if he has been a red-blooded man who stood on his feet and worked all his life and asked no quarter from anyone, asked for nothing, then you in effect have emasculated this man. It means cut the balls off him.'

Item: 'I guess you would have to say that sex is better on payday.'

Item: 'You work hard for Dear Old Ironworks and do a good job and put in your years there and do the best you can and make money for them and get along well with everyone and you will be rewarded. Because besides your pay check and your annual leave and your [text continues onto next page or column]'

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After all, this executive at Northwest, upon whom [Cooper] occasionally [made] service calls, had made a standing offer that any time I wanted to change companies...it would be great to have me on the Northwest team.' The Northwest man had been buttering him up, courting him.

So Cooper telephoned him. The secretary said he was on another line and would call back. When he didn't, Cooper phoned again. He was not in the office, the secretary said, but she would have him call. He didn't. Cooper telephoned again. He was in conference, the secretary said. Finally, another bolt of truth: his old pal at Northwest, his occasional golf partner, was avoiding him. There would be no job.

As the out-of-work days passed, Cooper began dipping into his savings, and thinking of what he would do with the rest of his life. His pride had been hurt. 'Any man who gets up and goes to work in the morning is a proud man,' he said. He had been fired, so he suffered constant embarrassment.

'People look at you with a sympathetic eye, and this is the thing that kills you. Sympathy is the one thing I could never stand all my life.'

Abortive Business Attempts

He tried to get a construction company going, but couldn't raise the capital. He made an abortive attempt to go into the house trailer business, but he had no money.

Finally, he gritted his teeth and did something inimical to everything he stood for: he went to the unemployment office. A typically crisp, impersonal, juiceless woman bureaucrat, he said, coolly interrogated him about his qualifications, then suggested he take a job as an 'aide.' He left in a boiling rage. The humiliation of that experience, the anger at being fired and tossed on the junkheap, the betrayal of his friend, they all came together at once and washed over him in tear-scalding anger.

He couldn't get work. His pride was deteriorating. He began to contemplate suicide. Pills, he finally decided, would be the way. He tried, but he couldn't do it. The Catholic Church had instilled [text continues onto next page]

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Karl Fleming and D. B. Cooper