D.B. Cooper

Tina Mucklow: (flight attendant): “Do you have a grudge against Northwest?”

D.B. Cooper: “I don’t have a grudge against your airlines, Miss.  I just have a grudge.”

The public has been led to believe that D.B. Cooper had a grudge against the government over the Vietnam War, or against Boeing due to layoffs.  However, when looking at the big picture, one could think about what former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes said on The History Channel episode of “Case Closed.”  Fuentes commented: “Could he have been trying to scare the world, scare the public, tell everybody aviation is unsafe?”  This begs the question of who would have a bone to pick with the airline industry? Maybe someone whose livelihood was severely impacted by the airlines, like a railroader.

Certainly D.B. Cooper would not come out directly and say, “I have a grudge against the airline industry.”  However, a railroader would have many good reasons to hold a grudge against the airlines, the transportation industry, and the government.  In the 1960’s, railroads were forced to cut costs, merge with other railroads, and lay off workers. This was a necessity due to the increase in highway use and air travel, reduced reliance on coal, and government regulations.

William J. Smith worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, one of the nation’s oldest railroads.  The Lehigh Valley Railroad was well known for hauling anthracite coal in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.  In 1962 the Lehigh Valley became a de facto operating unit of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  In 1968 the Pennsylvania merged with the New York Central and became the Penn Central Railroad.  Two years later the Penn Central would file for the biggest bankruptcy in United States history up until that time.  A month later the Lehigh Valley Railroad was forced to file for bankruptcy as well.  This was a catastrophic event on the East coast that resulted in thousands of people losing jobs and life savings.  Many of these railroaders had family who also worked on the railroads.  This bankruptcy was so massive that it would take until the Enron bankruptcy of 2001 for it to be surpassed. Here is a good clip on the impact of the Penn Central bankruptcy on former Pennsylvania Railroad employees.  Click Here.  Go to about 45 minutes in to hear a compelling story of life savings lost.

The Penn Central bankruptcy was caused in many ways by poor management and corporate greed.  A number of executives were indicted for their roles in the event.  Congress held major hearings on the issue.  During the operations of the Penn Central it was not uncommon for furloughed employees to sneak back into work and hide locomotives.  Employees in St. Louis even threw Kodak film into the Mississippi River due to Kodak’s cozy relationship with the executives of Penn Central.  The “Wreck of the Penn Central” as it was often called, was a catastrophic event in the lives of many thousands of men and women on the East coast of the United States in 1970-71. Had the hijacking occurred in New York, then the FBI might have looked at suspects on the East coast.  However, most of the investigation was focused on suspects from the West coast.

For a working man who spent most of his life on the railroad, who had a family to support, being angry at the airlines and the government would not be so unusual.  The Penn Central bankruptcy in 1970 may very well have been the final straw for D.B. Cooper.

Timeline of Events

1941-1945: World War II is the peak of success for the railroads due to freight and troop transport.  However, the war effectively wears out the railroads.

1945: While still in high school, William J. Smith begins working for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, like his father, and his friend Dan Clair, and Dan’s father; the railroads are a family business.

1948: After serving in the Navy, William Smith returns to the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

1956: The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act is signed by President Dwight Eisenhower.  This ushers in the national interstate system in the United States, which is a boom for the trucking industry, but a blow to the railroads.

1958: Boeing introduces the 707 passenger airliner and begins the “jet age” of passenger travel.  Prior to this time most travel was done by rail.  The railroads lose more business.

1959: The St. Lawrence Seaway opens.  This allows ships to come from Europe all the way to Lake Superior without using the railroads.  This also works in reverse for grain being shipped east and exported to Europe.  Prior to this, ships relied almost completely on railroads.

January 22, 1959: The Knox Mine disaster in Pennsylvania on the Susquehanna River effectively kills the anthracite coal industry in Northern Pennsylvania.

1960: The Lehigh Valley Railroad loses a large portion of their revenue in the form of cement hauling to the trucking industry.

1962: The Pennsylvania Railroad acquires over 85% ownership of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.  The Lehigh Valley is now basically an operating unit of the Pennsylvania.

1964: Boeing introduces the 727 passenger airliner.  By 1971 they will have delivered over 800 of these planes.

1967: The U.S. Postal Service takes away much of the country’s mail service from the railroads and gives it to the trucking and airline industries.  This is another huge blow to the railroad’s freight revenue.

February 1, 1968: The Penn Central Railroad begins with a merger between the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads.

June 21, 1970: Penn Central declares bankruptcy and is relieved of its obligation to pay fees to other railroads (to include the Lehigh Valley) for use of rail cars and other operations.  Penn Central stock had traded at $84 in 1968 but will drop to less than $6 a share before the bankruptcy.  Life savings and pensions are wiped out.

July 24, 1970: Unable to survive after the Penn Central bankruptcy, the Lehigh Valley Railroad declares bankruptcy.  Company losses for the year are over $10 million.  Layoffs and furloughs are widespread.

1971: Since 1962, The Lehigh Valley Railroad goes from 210 locomotives down to 160, and reduces yard crews by over 40% from 38,000 to 22,000.

May 1, 1971: Amtrak begins service, taking all passenger service from the remaining railroads.

November 24, 1971: D.B. Cooper hijacks Northwest Orient Flight 305 from Portland to Seattle.

 

If you’ve come this far and are reading this post, then you possibly believe that William J. Smith could be D.B. Cooper.  Furthermore, you might believe, like I do, that he could have been the man who called Max Gunther in 1972.  If this is the case, then the following blog entry may not sound as crazy as it does at first glance. If you’re a fan of Cary Grant, or the 1959 movie North by Northwest, then this post may actually be of interest in a humorous or possibly serious way.  North by Northwest is considered one of the greatest movies ever made, as well as one of the greatest train & railroad related films of all time.  The name of the film has even been said to be a reference to Northwest Airlines.  The main character even looks like D.B. Cooper with his sunglasses, olive skin, and dark suit & tie.  Whoever wrote the letters to Max Gunther had a flair for dramatics.  So, using this famous film as a part of the hijacking might not be so hard to believe.

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From Wikipedia;

North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write “the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures”.

North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization trying to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle out microfilm which contains government secrets.

North by Northwest is listed among the canonical Hitchcock films of the 1950s and is often listed among the greatest films of all time. It was selected in 1995 for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

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There are a number of parts about the D.B. Cooper hijacking that seem out of place, and even almost staged (the sunglasses, the dyed black hair, hiding in the lavatory, the flight attendant lighting his cigarettes).  In the movie North by Northwest there are a series of scenes and quotes that make me think William J. Smith and D.B. Cooper were fans of the film.  North by Northwest begins in New York City, and is even filmed at Grand Central, just a few miles from where William J. Smith worked.  The main character is a dapper middle aged man with olive skin, slicked black hair, a dark suit, black tie, and dark sunglasses.  He is running from the FBI, yet ends up helping the government in the end.

Pictures are more telling here than words, so most of this post will be photos.

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Bourbon plays a big role in this movie, just like in the D.B. Cooper hijacking.  Here Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant) is forced to drink a bottle of bourbon.  Later in the film he will order bourbon to calm his nerves in the hospital.  Also, he is here with his mother Clara pointing out the perpetrators.  Clara is the same name used in the letter to Max Gunther, and one of the main characters in his book.  Clara is played by Jessie Royce Landis, who coincidentally lived in the same town as author Max Gunther in Ridgefield, CT.

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Roger Thornhill is falsely accused of murdering a diplomat.  The newspaper headline from November 25, 1958 describes the crime and the manhunt.  Exactly 13 years later, in 1971 on the same day, the headlines will tell of the hijacker D.B. Cooper.  Could D.B. Cooper have chosen the night of November 24th for a reason?  One of the busiest travel days of the year (with an almost half moon) is an odd choice to hijack a plane.

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Here Roger Thornhill is talking to his mother Clara from Grand Central.  The dialogue goes like this:

“I’ll take the train, it’s safer”…“Because there is no place to hide on a plane if anyone should recognize me”…“You want me to jump off a moving plane?”

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Following the murder, Roger Thornhill escapes by train at Grand Central in New York City.  He is now wearing sunglasses as a disguise, tries to buy a ticket in his gray suit & black tie, and boards a New York Central Railroad train.  The New York Central was one of the railroads that were part of the Penn Central Railroad, the same railroad that would put William J. Smith’s railroad the Lehigh Valley into bankruptcy.

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On the train Roger Thornhill meets a beautiful blonde woman, they spend the rest of the film together.  Here he is having cigarettes with her, just like D.B. Cooper with the attractive blonde flight attendant Tina Mucklow on Flight 305.  Tina lit D.B. Cooper’s cigarettes, here Roger Thornhill lights Eve Kendall’s.

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During the train ride, Roger Thornhill hides in the lavatory while law enforcement and train personnel are looking for him.  D.B. Cooper unusually went into the lavatory while Flight 305 was on the tarmac in Seattle.  This act seemed out of place, and was more than just to use the toilet.

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Here is another coincidence from the movie and the hijacking.  Roger Thornhill is seen here walking through the ticket area for Northwest Orient Airlines, the same airline that D.B. Cooper would hijack in 1971.  D. B. Cooper had a choice of a number of airlines he could have hijacked, yet he chose Northwest Orient.

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Towards the end of the film, Roger Thornhill communicates with Eve Kendall using a note written on a matchbook.  Could this be similar to the note D.B. Cooper used to communicate with the flight attendants on Flight 305?  A D.B. Cooper researcher named FLYJACK discovered documents that showed D.B. Cooper wrote notes on the matchbooks during the hijacking.

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At the end of the film Roger Thornhill and Eve Kendall are hanging from Mount Rushmore.  The dialogue goes as follows:

Roger Thornhill: “If we ever get out this alive, let’s go back to New York on a train”

Eve Kendall: “Is that a proposition?”

Roger Thornhill: “It’s a proposal sweetie”

They end up surviving and the movie ends on a Southern Pacific Railroad train heading south.

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Did North by Northwest in some way play a role in the D.B. Cooper hijacking? Maybe, maybe not.  It would be an interesting twist if so.  Another coincidence related to Cary Grant is from the 1955 Alfred Hitchcock movie To Catch a Thief starring Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, and Jessie Royce Landis (again).  Bourbon plays a role in this film as well.  Also, Cary Grant’s character uses an alias Mr. Smith, who happens to be from Portland, Oregon. Coincidently, actress Jessie Royce Landis appears in both films, as well as the 1970 film Airport about a man who hijacks an airplane using a briefcase bomb. Jessie Royce Landis lived in Ridgefield, CT, down the street from Max Gunther who wrote “DB Cooper: What Really Happened”. Ridgefield was also the setting for the fictitious town named Bridgefield in Cary Grant’s film “In Name Only”.

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