Part 63, page 116

Transcript

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

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) The Daily News Longview, Wa.

Date: 2/27/80 Edition:

Title:

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

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Cooper book could blend fact, fantasy

LOOK FOR a book or two on D.B. Cooper to show up in the next few weeks or months.

A news source claims a writer has secured documents on the case from the FBI through the Freedom of In- formation Act and hopes to weave a tale out of the sky- jacking that has kept people wondering for 8½ years.

It wouldn't be surprising to see more than one author try to cash in on the recently rekindled publicity about the incident. Cashing in like that seems to be more in vogue these days than it was in 1971, when Cooper disap- peared.

Authors of those kinds of books often report theory and supposition as well as fact. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between what the writers know and what they think or assume.

- Some authors make no bones about mixing fact and fantasy. Take .44, the semifiction book about the Son of Sam murders in New York by Jimmy Breslin and Dick Schaap. Breslin and Schaap admit in the foreword to the book that they changed the names of the characters and the sequence of events, and embellished on the story.

They graphically detailed what their deranged killer was thinking about, for example, but it was obviously what the authors thought the killer was thinking. Of course, it added greatly to the drama of the book.

Breslin and Schaap said the embellishment was legitimate because they wanted to recreate the at- mosphere of the murders, to portray in fiction the gut- level realism of the crimes.

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Although the skyjacking was hardly as heinous a crime as a New York murder spree, that mixture of fact and fantasy might be what you'll see in the D.B. Cooper book, assuming there indeed is one in the making. The Cooper author would have an easy time cooking up a tale of where the hijacker came from and what happened to him, and the story could be quite readable.

If he has any trouble making up a story about who Cooper was or what happened to him, he could look piles of newspaper clippings that report on different people's theories on the subject. But with all the leads the FBI says it has tracked down, there can hardly be a lack of ideas about Cooper's fate.

As far as distinguishing fact from fantasy, we hope the newspapers have done their duty in labeling theories as what they are. It would be nice if any books on the matter did the same.

We probably can't take the word of anybody but Cooper himself on what actually took place. But although the FBI, which must track down every lead, mig[ht] [illegible] it sure is fun to guess about what happened to [the] old boy.

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SEARCHED......IN: [illegible] SERIALIZED.....FIL:D [illegible] FEB 4 [?] 1980 FBI - SEATTLE

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SUBS: B14

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DB Cooper-26495