WHICH PATTY TO BELIEVE?

While the FBI was hotly pursuing clues found in her apartment, trying to determine what other acts of violence she may have committed, the mystery of Patty Hearst deepened again last week. Speaking to an old friend, Patricia Tobin, who visited her in jail, Patty described herself as a "revolutionary feminist" who was "pissed off" that she was captured. Her political ideas, she said, "are real different from a way back when." And, she added, she did not want to be released on bail if it meant being "a prisoner in my parents' home."

Then, just two days later, Patty signed a five-page affidavit prepared by her lawyers for release in court. The remarkable document claimed that far from being the swaggering, dedicated rebel she had described to her friend, she had been forced to become a revolutionary by her captors in the Symbionese Liberation Army. What was more, she yearned to return to her family.

Which Patty Hearst was telling the truth? A preliminary determination will be made by Federal Judge Oliver J. Carter, who must decide--perhaps as early as this week--whether or not Patty is a safe risk to be released on $1.5 million bail. When the affidavit supporting Patty's plea for bail was presented in court, the prosecution gained the right to call her to the stand to defend her statements. To determine if Patty is capable of testifying, Judge Carter appointed four experts to examine the celebrated prisoner: Psychiatrists Seymour Pollack of the University of Southern California, Donald T. Lund of Stanford University, Louis J. West of U.C.L.A., and Psychologist Margaret Thaler Singer of the University of California at Berkeley.

Carter gave each of the four a copy of the affidavit plus a transcript of the conversation between Patty and Trish Tobin, which had been taped by jail authorities. The Hearsts' lawyers and the prosecutors clashed bitterly over the propriety of taping and releasing the private conversation. Attorney Terence Hallinan, one of Patty's lawyers, condemned the practice as "unethical," and declared: "I think that the U.S. Attorney is jeopardizing his whole case by the tricks he's using."

U.S. Attorney James Browning argued that there is nothing illegal about recording conversations in jail between defendants and their visitors, provided that they are not talks between client and lawyer. In Washington, Justice Department officials backed up Browning, maintaining that the normal restrictions against the invasion of privacy or bugging do not operate within a prison. Officers at the San Mateo County jail, where Patty was being held, said they had warned her lawyers that her conversations might be recorded, but Patty claimed that she had not got the word. As the proceedings go on, her lawyers are expected to press their charge that the taping violated Patty's rights.

The doctors hope to complete their examination of Patty in time for another bail hearing early this week. Her father Randolph, chairman of the Hearst Corp., is ready and willing to put up the $1.5 million bail and has agreed to meet any conditions imposed by the court to keep Patty from fleeing. In an affidavit of his own, which was mocked by Patty's harsh words on the tape, Hearst declared that his daughter "regards our home as her home, and has expressed, over the past three days, an enthusiastic wish to return to living with her parents."

If Patty does take the stand, the bail hearing--often a commonplace proceeding--could become a dramatic mini-trial that would anticipate any regular trials that follow. Her affidavit described in lurid detail how she had been tortured and threatened so intensively by the S.L.A. that she felt herself to be a psychological as well as a physical captive of her abductors. She told how, after her kidnaping on the night of Feb. 4, 1974, she had been placed in a hot, stifling closet about 5 ft. or 6 ft. long and 3 ft. wide, her hands bound, her eyes blindfolded, unable to get out even to go to the bathroom. During the first week, the only person who spoke to her was Donald DeFreeze (the self-styled General Field Marshal Cinque of the S.L.A.), who, according to the affidavit, repeatedly threatened to kill her. De-Freeze also recorded her early tapes, in which she assured her family that she was all right.

The affidavit was rambling and repetitious, ungrammatical and contradictory in part: at one point, it said Patty was in the closet for "several days"; at another, for "an interminable length of time, which seemed to her to be weeks." But the account made its basic points clear enough.

Released from the closet, she was so weak that she could stand for only a minute or so before falling. Her captors told her that she had to take part in the robbery of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco that occurred on April 15, 1974. "She was given a gun," the document declared, "and directed to stand about in the center of the bank counter. Meanwhile, one of her captors, armed with a gun which was kept pointed at her, kept an eye on her and had told her in advance that if she made one false move or did anything except announce her name, she would be killed immediately.

When she was taken back to her place of captivity, she was told that she was now guilty of bank robbery and murder and that the FBI would shoot her on sight. In her disordered and frightened mind," according to the affidavit, "this appeared to her to be probable . . ."

Finally, she felt her mind clouding and feared that she was losing her sanity. "She was unable to distinguish between what was real and what was imaginary . . . Among the things that served to deprive her of her sanity was the statement, repeated to her many times, that her mother and father had abandoned her, that they had offered a reward of $50,000 to have her brought in, dead or alive, and that they were working with the FBI to destroy her."

Patty maintained that she could remember little that happened while she was on the run after the bank robbery. There was no mention in her account of times or places, such as the apartment in San Francisco, where her underground name, Tania, was found in May 1974 signed to a fiery slogan written on a wall: "Patria O Muerte, Venceremos" (Fatherland or death, we shall overcome). She maintained that she was living in a "fog" and a "perpetual state of terror." Then, recently, she began to experience "lucid intervals," and, wanting to get in touch with her parents, returned to San Francisco. But she was so disoriented that she had not been able to make contact with her family. The first realization that she had been living in a "fantasy world" came after her arrest when "her mother, her father and her sisters hugged and kissed her." Now, concluded the affidavit, "she is completely convinced of the love and affection of her family and that she will find safety and comfort in its midst . . . She needs help and counseling to restore herself to complete sanity and to the life that she led before the terrible experience which she underwent at the hands of this criminal gang."

Introducing the affidavit, Patty's defense was telling the prosecution the general lines of its strategy in the federal and state cases. Says Attorney Vincent Hallinan, the leader of the defense team: "We did something unusual, honest and straightforward. We put the whole defense before the prosecution stated what they were trying to prove." In an interview, Judge Carter said: "The average public doesn't believe one thing she says in that affidavit. But I, for one, intend to look at it and take it on an evidentiary basis."

The affidavit foreshadowed three possible defenses:

ONE: DURESS. The defense could plead that Patty had acted under unusual duress or coercion. But to make this claim stand up, the defense would have to show that she never had an opportunity to escape. The prosecution has evidence that she passed up at least one good chance. On May 16, 1974, authorities maintain, Patty took part in a bizarre shoplifting incident at a Los Angeles sporting-goods store. When William Harris, one of her companions in arms, was detected stealing a pair of 490 socks, Patty was seen outside alone in the parked car. She is charged with spraying the building with automatic-rifle fire to cover Harris' escape. At the jail, after Patty had been captured by the FBI and clearly was under no duress, she listed her occupation as "unemployed urban guerrilla." Last week she changed that to "no occupation."

TWO: INSANITY. Even if Patty is found competent to stand trial, her lawyers could argue that her captors had driven her insane. Indeed, Vincent Hallinan said the defense would claim that she had been made "completely, absolutely, utterly insane by those who kidnaped her." Insanity, however, is difficult to prove, and Patty's behavior while on the run--and her recorded statements in jail--poses problems for the defense. What is more, Thomas Dean Matthews, 19, whom Patty and her companions are charged with kidnaping and holding for nearly twelve hours while on a robbery spree in May 1974, has testified that she talked very clearly and proudly about her escapades. Even if argued successfully, a plea of insanity carries a special risk: Patty might be confined to a mental institution until she was judged fit to return to society.

THREE: TEMPORARY INSANITY. This is exceedingly difficult to prove to skeptical juries: it usually seems much too convenient a dodge. But Patty's lawyers might try to argue that she was "brainwashed" into going along with the S.L.A. (see following story). Justice Department sources speak derisively of a possible brainwashing plea as the Manchurian Candidate defense, recalling the 1959 thriller. Federal investigators are confident that they have plenty of evidence to establish that Patty Hearst was acting on her own.

Meanwhile, the FBI was evaluating new leads that might link Patty to other crimes. The fresh evidence was found in the San Francisco apartment occupied by Patty and Wendy Yoshimura, 32, a traveling companion, when they were seized. Another mother lode of material was discovered in the dwelling of William and Emily Harris, members of the S.L.A. who had traveled with Patty. FBI laboratories are examining firearms, ammunition, explosives, documents, telephone numbers, addresses, notes scrawled on scraps of paper and radical literature retrieved from the two apartments. "The stack of stuff is four feet high," reports one agent. "Checking it out will keep us busy for more than a month. There's more work to do now than there was when Patty was a fugitive."

The confiscated material led investigators to suspect that the S.L.A. financed its activities by staging bank robberies. As a result, the agency has opened fresh investigations of a score of unsolved bank robberies in California in the past 17 months. The FBI has already linked Patty or her companions to two jobs. On Feb. 25, the Guild Savings & Loan Association in Sacramento was robbed of $3,700. Authorities say that the apparent leader of the holdup was a man described as resembling Bill Harris. The driver of the getaway car was a young woman. Going through the material found in the Harrises' apartment, the FBI turned up a scrap of paper that connected the group to the robbery of the Crocker National Bank branch in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael on April 21. The ski-masked bandits--three men and a woman--stole $15,000. Before fleeing, they gunned down a woman customer for no apparent reason. One incriminating piece of evidence, signed with an alias that the Harrises used, was a receipt for a paint job on a car that authorities believe was used in the Guild Savings and Loan robbery. Freshly repainted, the car was employed for the Carmichael robbery.

In the apartment at 625 Morse Street where Patty and Yoshimura were captured, the FBI discovered a single greenback--denomination undisclosed--that was stolen from the bank in Carmichael. It was a "bait bill"--a piece of currency, whose serial number has been previously recorded, that bank tellers often surrender to stickup men in the hope that the loot may be traced.

Patty has been loosely linked to the Carmichael bank job in yet another way. On the license plate of the repainted car, authorities found the fingerprints of Steven Soliah, 27, the "Charlie Adams" with whom she moved into her San Francisco apartment. Also on the license plate were the fingerprints of one of Soliah's sisters, Kathleen, and of a friend, James Kilgore. Kathleen Soliah is now being sought for general questioning. Authorities suspect that Kilgore was the man who hired a San Francisco mover on Sept. 21 to carry a wicker basket to a vacant lot 1 1/2 blocks from the city's Ingleside police station. The mover became wary, looked into the basket and discovered a 14-in. pipe bomb wired to a clock. A similar bomb was found in the Harrises' apartment, leading the FBI to wonder whether they had been involved in at least two pipe bombings in the area hi recent weeks.

Soliah was arrested soon after Patty was caught and is now being held at the same jail on charges of harboring fugitives. Speaking of Soliah, Patty told Trish Tobin in the taped conversation last week: "I lived with him." And she added, "I finally got to see him up in the jail. They let me kiss him."

Patty had little else to report as the days dragged on. Like the other inmates, she was awakened at 6 a.m., dressed in drab prison garb and then had breakfast, which usually consisted of juice, eggs, sausage and coffee. Patty's 9-ft. by 7-ft. cell adjoined a similar one occupied by Emily Harris; the two women talked and watched a black-and-white TV set in the hallway. They traded reading material, including The Golden Notebook, a complex novel by Doris Lessing about self-definition. Sheriff John D. McDonald Jr. said that the two were model prisoners. "They do what they're told, and they've put no demands on us."

The monotony was broken for Patty by regular visits from her lawyers and her parents. Catherine Hearst told an old friend in Atlanta, her home town, that her daughter "absolutely" needed psychiatric help, but that she was "not yet enough of a realist to be able to accept treatment. She is in and out of reality--and so nervous and pale. She's been through so much and she doesn't seem to be herself, of course."

Patty's favorite cousin, William Randolph Hearst III, said that "I think she has probably undergone some sort of political change, but I don't think that being a radical feminist and being a responsible citizen are automatically irreconcilable."

The Hearsts were shaken by the release of the tape hi which Patty said she did not want to live on bail as a "prisoner" in her family's home. On the day the passage was made public, they cut their usual visit with their daughter from 30 minutes to 15. When newsmen asked for their comments on the tape, Mrs. Hearst lost her normal composure and called them a "bunch of ghouls."

In jail, Patty's parents got some special privileges. On their first visit, they were not searched. But when William Harris' mother, Betty Bunnell, and her husband Jerry Bunnell came to call, they were frisked. At one point, the two middle-aged couples rode in the same elevator; they did not speak to each other or even exchange a glance.

After three brief visits to the jail, Harris' mother admitted that she knew no more about the last few months of her son's life than she had before. "We were dying to ask and dying to know," she said, but they had not inquired because "we felt that it was inappropriate." She added: "He looked good--so much better than the pictures of him--really fine. I said, 'I missed you,' and he said, 'I missed you too, Mom.' "

On Wednesday night, the Harrises were flown to Los Angeles to be indicted on 18 state felony counts, ranging from kidnaping to assault to commit murder. A sulky sun was beginning to rise over the smogbound city when husband and wife arrived at court in separate, four-vehicle caravans. Their hands on their guns, plainclothesmen backed up an escort of heavily armed policemen. As Harris listened to the charges being read out against him, flickers of contemptuous amusement moved across his face.

This week the Hearsts will meet their daughter again in court, and the hearings on Patty's mental competence will bring together some fascinating and contrasting personalities. Judge Carter, 64, a sharp-featured, talkative man, has known the Hearsts for years. "Heavens," he says, "you can't be around California and not know Randy." The judge remembers Patty as a little girl running through the family's former 15-room mansion in the wealthy suburb of Hillsborough. He is not overwhelmed by the Hearsts or intimidated by his job. Says he: "All of their money and power falls off me like water off a duck's back."

The Hallinans, father and son, make a striking and effective legal pair. Long one of the most successful defenders of radicals and outcasts on the West Coast, Vincent Hallinan says: "I'm a pretty lusty 78." He made Ripley's Believe It Or Not by playing half a game of rugby at 73.

Terence Hallinan, 38, has been interested in civil rights causes. During the '60s, it took a call from Robert Kennedy to spring him from a Mississippi jail. His nickname is "K.O."--a reference to his skill and ferocity as a boxer--and he comes on as though the courtroom were a ring. Eyes glinting through his spectacles, muscles bulging beneath his flashy suits, K.O. Hallinan is the antagonist of the team, the one who has seemed the most abrasive figure in the pretrial proceedings.

To bolster the Hallinans, Randolph Hearst last week hired F. Lee Bailey, one of the nation's most colorful and successful criminal lawyers. Said Bailey: "I think this is a very important case with many new questions that present a lot of challenges. An apparently normal woman was kidnaped and something happened to her."

Opposing this array of high-priced talent will be a team of three federal prosecutors headed by U.S. Attorney James Browning, 42, a tall, thin man who is as dignified in court as K.O. Hallinan and Bailey are flamboyant. Browning is highly regarded in San Francisco for his skill and experience as a prosecutor--he has tried close to 200 jury cases. When he saw the Hearst case coming, he reserved it for himself. Says Browning: "I can't wait to get Patty Hearst on the stand."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.