Part 78, page 368

Transcript

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

FD-350 (Rev. 12-6-78)

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

12G, 20G TRIBUNE Mpls. MN Date: 4-8-79 Edition: Sunday

Title: D. B. COOPER

Character: or Classification: 164-73 Submitting Office: MINNEAPOLIS

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Northwest 727 hijacker Cooper made a quantum leap into mists of mythology

By John Kerans

You can't tell a book by its cover. Nor a crook by the crime he's com- mitted. But if you can't read the book, or you can't find the crook— then surely some speculation's per- mitted.

Take the case of D. B. Cooper, who 7½ years ago used a bomb threat to take command of a 727 jet, then par- achuted to freedom with $200,000 ex- torted from Northwest Airlines. No trace of Cooper was ever found. And since it's the only such unsolved crime in American history, you could say Cooper wrote the book on skyjacking. But he took the book along the night he made his quantum leap. And that's where the specula- tion begins . . .

The playwright:

John Orlock began to wonder about D. B. Cooper a few weeks after the crime was committed. Orlock found a letter purportedly from Cooper re- printed in the New York Times and he clipped it out. Orlock still has that clipping, though it's yellowed with age.

(In the letter, "Cooper" said in part that he had only 14 months to live and that "I knew from the start that I wouldn't be caught.")

"I read it and got the feeling of a man who finally decided to do some- thing with his life. There was a great sadness and a great courage here," says Orlock, his fingertips touching the clipping.

"If this was indeed the case, that he was dying—and I am sure that he is now dead—then there was a certain justice here. It was a haunting piece of writing. Most importantly, I could feel a 'personality' emerging."

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164 - 73 — [illegible] SEARCHED SERIALIZED FBI — MINNEAP[OLIS]

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FBI/DOJ

DB Cooper-34245