Part 63, page 49

Transcript

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) p. B1 Seattle Times Seattle, Wa. Date: 2/13/80 Edition: Final

Title: NORJAK

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

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Phones 'ringing off the hook' at Ariel

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by Richard Zahler Times staff reporter

ARIEL, Cowlitz County — Not much happens in Ariel, a small logging community 11 miles east of Woodland.

Until a hijacker vanished mys- teriously over Southwest Washing- ton more than eight years ago, probably nothing happened in Ariel.

But D.B. Cooper put the town on the map, and yesterday and last night the telephones at the Ariel Store & Tavern were "ring- ing off the hook" said Dave Fish- er, the owner.

Ariel happens to be near Lake Merwin, and a number of theorists suggested that Cooper might have gone into the reservoir behind the Ariel dam.

Since 1976 the Ariel Tavern has hosted an annual D.B. Cooper par- ty on November 24, the anniversa- ry of the hijacking in 1971. Every year 200 to 500 people have shown up to eat buffalo stew and see whether Cooper would answer the standing invitation to join the party.

He never has, of course.

Fisher bought the tavern and the tradition 15 months ago, and until 3:30 yesterday afternoon, "I wasn't expecting a thing tonight. It's pretty dead in winter."

But then the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced in Seattle and Portland that part of $200,000 given to the hijacker had been found along the banks of the Co- lumbia River near Vancouver.

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The moldering money, about ×$4,000, was found by a family pic- nicking along the river north of Portland. A young boy digging in the sandy riverbanks with a stick uncovered the loot.

After that, Fisher said, "It was just like the D.B. Cooper party."

Fisher said he had been on the run answering telephone calls from television-network reporters in New York and newspapers and radio stations all over the West Coast.

Only about 20 or 30 patrons were in the Ariel Tavern last night, and most were paying as much attention to playing pool as to the Cooper talk. A weekly Tues- day-night pool match with the Riv- erside Tavern in Woodland had been moved to Ariel last night at the request of a Portland televi- sion station interested in filming reaction to the discovery of the money.

Fisher and others said they were mystified as to how the mon- ey arrived on the banks of the Co- lumbia River, but they still would have to be persuaded that the hi- jacker didn't survive after he bailed out of the Boeing 727.

"I still think he's alive, until they find some bones," Fisher said.

He said the finding could lead to other developments, pointing out that the discovery by the boy was a strange first trace of Cooper after so many years.

Then the telephone rang in the next room, Fisher raced to an- swer it, laughed and announced, "San Jose calling."

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SUB B 12/1 [illegible] 1923[?] SERIALIZED...FILED... FEB 15 1980 FBI - SEATTLE

b6 FBI/DOJb7C DB Cooper-26363

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