Part 53, page 17

Transcript

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

FD-350 (Rev. 7-16-63)

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How the D.B. Cooper case was 'solved'—or the plot thickened

By ALEXANDER AUERBACH Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — "What happens to people is news. What happens to reporters isn't," a cigar-chewing Boston city editor used to shout at reporters who turned in first-person accounts of events they had witnessed.

But what happens if the reporter is (A) the sleuth who solved one of the most publicized crimes in recent history, or (B) the victim of the cleverest hoax since Clifford Irving's bogus autobiography of Howard Hughes, or (C) both?

LA, a new weekly newspaper serving the Los Angeles area, has just concluded a three-installment series recounting the "solution" of the successful $200,000 hijacking of a Northwest Orient Airlines jet November 24.

Only at the end of the series did LA tell its readers that the whole account was an apparent hoax that cost the paper's backers $30,000.

Karl Fleming, LA's editor, says he chose to tell the story in a way that some readers found misleading in order to let them vicariously undergo the same experience he did. Without realizing it, they were reading a story about Fleming, not simply by him.

THE FIRST installment told of D. B. Cooper ("an ordinary, God-fearing, patriotic, country clito-oriented, upward-climbing WASP engineer") leaving his suburban Seattle home with a briefcase stuffed with two wigs, an altimeter and compass, a make-up kit, gloves and

three red flares wired to look like a dynamite bomb.

Fleming, a respected veteran newsman (formerly bureau chief and contributing editor with Newsweek for 11 years), went on to describe every detail of Cooper's hijacking, in an article that ran some 4,000 words and took five pages of the tabloid, not counting a cover photo and a last-page teaser for the next installment.

One illustration showed Xerox copies of three $20 bills given to Fleming as proof of Cooper's identity; their serial numbers matched those on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of bills that made up the ransom paid by the airline.

The second piece described how Fleming got the story. While still on Newsweek's staff, he put a classified ad in newspapers around Oregon and Washington, asking Cooper to contact him.

Later, while Fleming and Max Palevsky, millionaire, were organizing LA, an intermediary offered to put the newsman in contact with Cooper — for $30,000. Palevsky put up the money and Fleming flew up to meet Cooper, taking along two tape recorders, a motion-picture camera, two cameramen and $30,000 in cash.

THE HEADLINE on the third and final installment read: "Is D. B. Cooper the real D. B. Cooper?" There is considerable reason for doubt, since the man who police say talked to Fleming — and who reportedly took his $30,000 — have been arrested by the F. B. I. on charges of defrauding Fleming of his money.

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The arrest took place on May 2, long before Fleming wrote his story for LA.

Why did Fleming publish the story in a manner that led some readers, unaware of the fraud arrest, to believe that the early installments were the real thing?

Fleming doesn't feel that the initial installment was deceptive, noting that "there were disclaimers in it," referring to two lines near the end: "The foregoing narrative was related to me by the man I believed to be Cooper . . ." and, "Doubts about whether I had the right man would arise later . . ."

"I wanted the reader to experience it just exactly as I did," Fleming says. "It's an adventure story, as much about me as about D. B. Cooper, and I wanted to put the reader in my shoes. If the reader was reasonably alert, he would have seen in the press that these guys had been busted by the F. B. I."

IF THE MAN Fleming interviewed was not D. B. Cooper — and Fleming isn't totally sure he was not the hijacker — then he was a masterful con man, to hear Fleming tell it.

"I gave him the whole $30,000 at our first meeting, after I was convinced that this was D. B. Cooper." Fleming says. "At that point a con man would have taken the money and run like hell, but this guy, Cooper, came back and submitted himself to eight hours of taped in-

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)

p.A21 Seattle Times Seattle, Wash.

Date: 11/9/72 Edition: Final Author: Alexander Auerbach Editor: Henry McLeod Title: NORJAK

Character: or Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle

☐ Being Investigated

COPY SENT TO BUREAU

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SEARCHED.......... INDEXED.............. SERIALIZED........FILED......[illegible] NOV 15 1972 FBI—SEATTLE

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DB Cooper-22355

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Sur [illegible]