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    The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking
    The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking
    The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking

    Written by Brendan I. Koerner

    Narrated by Rob Shapiro

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In an America torn apart by the Vietnam War and the demise of the idealism of the sixties, airplane hijackings were astonishingly routine. Over a five-year period starting in 1968, the desperate and disillusioned seized commercial jets nearly once a week, using guns, bombs, and jars of acid. Some hijackers wished to escape to foreign lands, where they imagined being hailed as heroes; others aimed to swap hostages for sacks of cash. Their criminal exploits mesmerized the country, never more so than when the young lovers at the heart of Brendan I. Koerner's The Skies Belong to Us pulled off the longest-distance hijacking in American history.

    A shattered Army veteran and a mischievous party girl, Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow commandeered Western Airlines Flight 701 as a vague protest against the war. Through a combination of savvy and dumb luck, the couple managed to flee across an ocean with a half-million dollars in ransom, a feat that made them notorious around the globe. Koerner spent four years chronicling this madcap tale, which involves a cast of characters ranging from exiled Black Panthers to African despots to French movie stars. He combed through over 4,000 declassified documents and interviewed scores of key figures in the drama-including one of the hijackers, whom Koerner discovered living in total obscurity. Yet The Skies Belong to Us is more than just an enthralling yarn about a spectacular heist and its bittersweet, decades-long aftermath. It is also a psychological portrait of America at its most turbulent and a testament to the madness that can grip a nation when politics fail.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 18, 2013
    ISBN9781452683201
    The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking

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    Reviews for The Skies Belong to Us

    4.5/5

    32 ratings23 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This book was part of the early reviewers program. It is the true story of the longest skyjacking that took place in 1972. I found some the background info in the first third of the book to be a bit tedious, but once the details of the main characters came into the story, it moved much faster. Willie Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow hijacked an airplane as a protest to the Vietnam War. The story has so many interesting twists: a true example of fact is stranger than fiction? Being only 7 years old in 1972, I got quite a lesson on how and why the air industry has changed so drastically since the late 60's. Anyone a fan of Erik Larson would probably enjoy this book, especially if they were adults in the early 1970's.
    • 5/5
      Blogged at River City Reading:
      Today, it’s hard to imagine breezing into an airport mere minutes before your flight takes off; no metal detectors, no full body scanners…shoes on. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, airport security was shockingly nonexistent and customers were treated like royalty. At the same time, however, airplane hijackings were so common that some insurance companies began offering “skyjacking insurance” for passengers who happened to be caught in the unpleasant situation.

      In his book The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking, Brendan I. Koerner pieces together a history of this time period, centering on a Vietnam veteran named Roger Holder and his party girl accomplice who successfully hijacked Western Airlines Flight 701 and became notorious throughout the world. Both a fascinating look into the psychology of America and a detailed portrait of the lives of the era’s key players, Koerner has put together a brilliant piece of narrative non-fiction that often reads like an exciting caper.

    • 5/5
      This book is written in a very compelling manner which draws in the reader. The subject matter is skyjacking in the days of low airport security, with heavy focus on the story of Holder and Kerkow, a lovestruck couple.I love the combination of extensive research with a dynamic writing style which gives the reader plenty of reason to keep reading. Though it goes largely unsaid, I find it very interesting to consider the bearing that the air safety considerations in this book have on events of the last two decades. I think it's appropriate that Koerner doesn't mention 9/11, but it's crazy to know the details of the "golden days" of skyjacking in light of what happened on 9/11/2001.But the story of radical people dealing with the prospect of skyjacking for profit and/or getting their voice heard is a really interesting one. The main protagonists are an interesting pair in the world of Black Panthers, dissenters against the Vietnam War, Communists, and more. They are largely oblivious to their positioning within the larger context of flight industry changes and government response to hijacking, but Koerner fills that part of the story in for us.This is a great read, and I would recommend it to anyone.
    • 3/5
      I read a review when this first came out that made it sound so good I could hardly wait to read it.  It is a history of the period of time that skyjacking was so frequent that it got downright scary to get on a plane.  The review suggested that if I read it I would understand the motives and relationships that drove some of this behavior, which I thought would be very interesting.  Well it turns out to be pretty simple.  Mental illness and  idiocy seem to me to be the main motivator of at least the cases covered by [[Koerner]].  The methods used were just too idiotic, careless and unorganized to believe.  There has to have been at least ONE case that could have been included that wasn't totally crazy.  I found the book to be ok but rather boring.  I wasn't able to connect with any of the characters.  Although by the end I was feeling some tiny amount of empathy for the main skyjacker covered.  He was very pathetic and clearly destroyed by his Vietnam war experience combined with his mental illness.  Sometimes he seemed like another person just trying to make sense of his life and live heroically.The most interesting part of this story to me was the legal issues addressed such as extradition, treaties with Cuba, France and other countries.   The search for the fine line between political purpose and plain old criminal behavior was interesting.  And as I write this and review the players, it makes me rethink some of my reactions.  I'm remembering the slogan, "The personal is political."  If I change idiot to ignorant, inexperienced, with less access to resources, it may put a new slant on the behavior.  War and poverty damage people to an incredible depth and perhaps these people were responding with the only weapons they had access to.  That leaves me with another slogan, "If you want peace, work for justice." 
    • 5/5
      Just an amazing book about a wild time in US history. I wasn't aware of how much hijacking happened in the late 60s/early 70s and whether you knew how often it happened or not, this will be a fascinating read. The focus of the book is on one hijacking by a Vietnam vet but the background of aviation safety and the contagious nature of these hijackings is even more compelling.While 9/11 hangs over any talk of hijacking, I don't think it was mentioned once in the book and I believe the author deserves great credit for that. It's an easy diversion to take on this topic but bringing it up in this book would serve no purpose and act only as a distraction.Overall, an excellent read and highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved everything about this book. The main thrust of it was to follow the man and woman who pulled off probably the most successful hijacking in American aviation history. It follows them as children, when they meet and become lovers, the hijacking event, and then what happens to them in the years to follow. The author to a lesser extent tells the stories of dozens of other less successful hijackings in the "golden age" of these events - the late 60's and early 70's. I even lived through the era and didn't recall how unsafe and chaotic the skies were in that period. Both research and writing are wonderful. If you have any interest in history of any kind READ THIS BOOK.
    • 5/5
      An epic, multilayered nonfiction period piece. A sort of 'Goodfellas' for hijacking.
    • 4/5
      This thought provoking book very throughly walks through the birth and rise of airline hijacking. I could not help comparing those relatively innocent acts with the 9/11 attack and how the complacency in security paved the way for the 9/11 "success". A lot to think about!
    • 4/5
      This book is the story Kathy Kerkow, a free-wheeling hippie and Roger Holder an unstable Army vet who for vague reasons decide to hijack an airplane. The author uses their story to illuminate a period of air travel much different than ours. From the early sixties to the seventies, an almost complete lack of security procedures allowed unstable characters to hijack airplanes in the US and around the world. For someone, who has mostly only seen post 9/11 air travel, it was difficult to believe how lax things were in air travel. When the skyjacking first began in the sixties, the FAA and the airlines rejected security checks and x-rays, considering them too time-consuming and costly. The airlines felt that the public would reject any sort of bag checks and would not put up with delays involved in security screenings. Boy, how times have changed.Roger Holder goes AWOL from the Army after two difficult tours in Vietnam. He hooks up with Cathy Kerkow, an easy-going hippie who he had a chance encounter with as a child. Holder's pot-addled mind takes this as a cosmic sign. While living together, Holder with the help of horoscopes and hash, hatches a plane to hijack a plane and use the passengers to gain the release of Angela Davis, a well-known sixties radical charged with murder conspiracy charges.Amazing, Holder and Kerkow are able to hijack a flight headed to Seattle. Holder convinces the pilots he has a bomb and that the Weather Underground is forcing him to hijack the plane. If the pilots don't do as he says, the Weathermen will blow up the plane (did I mention the Weathermen are supposedly high acid). Somehow the pilots buy it, and Holder and Kerkow are able to get ransom from the airline and land in Algiers, thereby pulling off the longest skyjacking ever. I really enjoyed reading this book. The story shuttled between Holder and Kerkow and a general history of skyjacking. If you're interested in 60s radicalism, air travel, or well-written long-form journalism, I'd definitely recommend this book.
    • 3/5
      This book ended up being much more interesting than I originally thought it would be. The story is about a specific couple and their lives leading up to and after they complete a hijacking. Their story is not what kept my attention, it was the the overview of the hijacking era that I found to be fascinating. I had no idea how prevalent hijackings were during this time period and enjoyed reading a little snapshot into some specific stories throughout the time period. It was also interesting to see how airport security practices progressed only after a significant amount of time and hijackings.
    • 5/5
      This book was a really excellent discussion of the domestic terrorism in the form of plane and public transportation hijackings that took place in the 1970s. Altogether an excellent read
    • 5/5
      The Skies Belong to Us by Brendan I. Koerner is time trip back to when hijacking was so common that people were not surprised when they heard about yet another one. This period was between 1961 and 1972. I wanted to read this book because I had friend whose plane from Beirut, Lebanon was hijacked. He wrote me of the nervous hours waiting to find out if he was going to live or die. Brendan I. Koerner limited his review of hijacking to only the ones that started in the U.S. and centered on one that I remember. That involved William Roger Holder, a nerdy boy when he was young who suffered discrimination for being black and was an outsider to the blacks that he met. He didn’t fit in. He was tall and lanky and lacked a sense of good judgment. His partner was Cathy Kerkow. She picked the wrong friends and seemed to live only in the moment. She was sort of a hippie girl when he met her, pot smoking and small time dealing, sexually promiscuous and deeply affected by her parent’s marriage breaking up. Brendan I.Koerner picked a great subject to write about. This book pulls you in and won’t let you go! I recommend starting it when you have a good chuck of time to read. The hijacking history is like Ripley’s Believe or Not”. The stories are true but so amazing. I don’t remember a single hijacking that was boring. It also was not all about the money, there were so many different motivations.Long ago, we used to be able to walk to the gate and meet our friends and family right after they walked through the chute from the plane. There were no metal detectors, no rules about bring liquids to the area, no body scans and people even brought their kids to see the places take off and land. The true stories of the hijackers make you wonder why security measures took so long but the author clues you in with the political struggles that prevented that change.This is a wonderful book to read if you lived in that “once upon a time era” before hijacking or if you are too young for that you want an understanding of the strange age of hijacking. This is one of the few books that ask you to please read it! I highly recommend this book to all who history, politics or great writing. You will not be disappointed.I received this book from the Amazon Vine program and that in no way influenced my review.
    • 5/5
      Koerner writes an excellent overview of the history of hijacking airplanes or "skyjacking" and focuses on the story of William Holder and Cathy Kerkow who pulled off the longest highjacking ever. The book ties many interesting historical footnotes together including the Black Panthers history as well as who the Rolling Stones song "Sweet Black Angel" is about. All throughout the book, Koerner does an excellent job getting into the heads of Holder and Kerkow. As we debate whether or not we should allow items such as nail clippers on a plane, this book does an excellent job of showing how far we have come in the name of security in air travel.
    • 4/5
      In this upcoming work, Koerner tells the story of the "epidemic" of hijacking in the United States during the late 1960s to mid-1970s. Focusing on one particular case, that of Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow, the author interweaves smaller vignettes about other incidents throughout, tracing the rise and demise of hijacking as a tool for political, economic, or social gain. The book is clear and concise, with no extraneous verbiage, and is documented throughout with both foot- and endnotes.I received a copy of this work free from the publisher.
    • 5/5
      This book fascinated me from beginning to end. While the focus is on Roger Holder's convoluted and oddly successful plan to skyjack a plane with his lover Cathy Kerkow, the story told is broad and full of wacky, real life characters. As the US stumbled out of Vietnam, the political and social climates were rife with damaged servicemen and angry citizens seeking ways to make a stand. Skyjacking became the perfect outlet for a staggering number of these people. While the events in this book are only a few decades behind us, much has changed in dramatic ways. I was particularly struck by the airlines' lackadaisical attitude toward security, as well as their vehement opposition to change. Lives were lost and people lived in fear while airline executives and government officials bickered about details and finances. Koerner has an engaging, conversational writing style that made me feel like he was sitting beside me, telling me a story. This is a nonfiction book that often reads like fiction. At times I had to remind myself that, while crazy, these things did really happen.
    • 3/5
      I honestly had no idea that skyjacking was a thing in the 1960s and 1970s. I'd heard of Dan (or D. B.) Cooper, but that was literally it until this book. The parts that kept me interested were the small snapshots of other skyjackings and how airport security measures came to be in response to them. The actual skyjacking that this book is mostly about didn't intrigue me as much, and I think it would have been better dealt with in a long essay, rather than in a book.The author also has the tendency to describe every woman in terms of her attractiveness (or not), and he goes out of his way to talk about Cathy Kerkow's looks and "immodesty" to the point that it was distracting and ridiculous.
    • 4/5
      Is it love or is it a crime? This book was a recollection of the turbulent sixties and seventies, with emphasis on a particular hijacking. It also discusses the political environment, FAA in cahoots with airlines who don't want to spend money on security, a president forced to act by the plethora of hijackings, often more than one in a single day. Further, Castro gets fed up with multiple hijackings to Cuba and even multiple returnees from the 1980 Mariel boat lift and finally signs the first agreement with the USA since he took over. The only thing missing from this book is D.B. Cooper; perhaps, the author went to great pains in avoiding his mention?
    • 5/5
      It's hard to imagine in these days of TSA security, but over a five-year period starting in 1968, hijackers seized commercial jets nearly once a week. Mr. Koerner uses the hijacking of Western Airlines Flight 701 on June 2, 1972 as the centerpiece of his book, with other tales of hijackings wrapped around it. Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow captured Flight 701 with a fake bomb. Neither had to pass through a metal detector or any security screening before boarding the plane.Screening baggage with metal detectors at airports did not become mandatory until 1973. The airlines and their lobbyists fought security requirements. They thought costs would be prohibitive, and that passengers would rebel. Civil libertarians fought screening as a Constitutional violation. (For a touch of cynicism, the automobile industry supported the screening requirements.)
    • 5/5
      I listened to the Audiobook it was fantastic, the narrative kept me riveted all the while imparting a lot of information about the history of 'skyjacking' that I never knew existed but now seems important in this era of airport security, this is where it all began. I felt as if transported in time and gained a better understanding of one small but important aspect of the mass insanity that gripped the world in the late 1960s and early 70s. It ends with a satisfying mystery "where in the world is Catherine Marie Kerkow." Loved the book, will be looking forward to more from Brendan I. Koerner.
    • 4/5
      This is a book for those who like their true crime mixed with history, politics and sociology. I have vague memories of skyjacking as a social phenomena from when I was a kid, but never realized just how prevalent it was. It's amazing to realize, in our ultra security-conscious world, just how easy it was to bring weapons of mass destruction aboard airplanes. Even through all this, the airlines and the government at the time were hugely opposed to any kind of screening, claiming it would be massively disruptive and impossible to implement, and that travelers would never put up with it. We all know how that turned out. As a snapshot of a particular, turbulent time in America and the world the book is fascinating. It pulls the veneer off entities such as the Black Panthers, reminding the reader of the crimes that led leaders such as Eldridge Cleaver into exile. And the image of Jean Paul Sartre and the French intelligencia feting these two losers makes it clear just how much the world has changed, and how the face of terrorism has evolved.
    • 4/5
      I don't read much non-fiction. When I do, it's often for research. Every once in a while I pick up a non-fiction book that looks interesting to me and give it a read. And more often than not I find myself engrossed in the story. Probably I should see this as a sign that I need to read more of these stories. Enter The Skies Belong to Us.The cover, the promise of love and hijacking, these are the things that first attracted me to The Skies Belong to Us. More than any other type of narrative non-fiction, my favorite are those stories told about events or people I knew nothing about. And really, who knows about Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow? Who remembers the eruption of skyjacking in the sixties and seventies? It was a time when a plane was hijacked every week, when airport security was non-existent, a time when you could actually commandeer a plane, fly halfway across the world, and find asylum in a far away land. That's exactly what Holder and Kerkow did.Koerner's book is half Holder's and Kerkow's story, half an exploration of the history of skyjacking. He balances the two extremely well. And it is abundantly clear Koerner has done his research. I found myself wanting to know more, especially about some of the other hijackings Koerner mentioned; more than once I had to stop reading to perform an Internet search.The only misstep Koerner takes in this book, in my opinion, is that he provides too much insight into the subjects' point-of-view. Yes, Koerner conducted significant research and did several interviews, and he may have had an idea what these individuals were thinking and seeing, but in a work of non-fiction it comes off as reaching too hard. Some of it seemed too speculative. Aside from this, my only other complaint was that the second half of the book lagged under the weight of court cases and bureaucracy, but that is somewhat to be expected in a book such as this one. Besides, when you have such a phenomenal, high-paced start, you can't expect the whole book to maintain that level of suspense.The Skies Belong to Us is so well researched and presented that it left me with only one question, one Koerner himself presents in the final pages. That is, where is Cathy Kerkow?
    • 3/5
      Pretty good analysis of the "Golden Age" of skyjacking, viewed through the story of one of the most successful of them. On June 2nd, 1972, Roger Taylor, a mentally unsound Vietnam vet, and his ditzy girlfriend Cathy Kerkow commandeered Western flight 701 . After a half baked plot to free Angela Davis was foiled. they managed to get a half million dollar ransom and transit to the randomly chosen Algeria.
      Taylor and Kerkow are a minor tragedy; the best parts are the descriptions of all the crazy hijacking attempts that came before, and the story of the evolution of airport security.
    • 5/5
      Koerner has written a fascinating story of two late sixties young people who hatch a hijacking plot. Younger people may not realize that not very long ago, passengers could simply walk onto an airplane. No interrogation, no searches, just a smile from the crew. Hard to believe. Koerner shows how the Golden Age of Hijacking, as he puts it, ended the Golden Age of Air Travel. This book is a fascinating story and a readable bit of American history.