Sheridan may have been in the FBI's crosshairs for some time. Remember that back in the 1960s he got busted by the feds in Mississippi for his civil rights work. Then, in Vietnam he got booted out by the US Ambassador to the RSVN. "Invited to leave the country" is how Petey stated it to me.
From what Sailshaw told me, the feds already knew a lot about Petey when they showed up at Sail's doorstep - his wife, Claire, the divorce, his relocation to Seattle.
Also, don't forget that the feds may have been investigating Sail, too. They may have cast a wide net over all employees at Boeing.
Agreed on all points, Bruce.
If you take Cooper's "grudge" as the full or partial motive for the crime ($200k is a good enough primary motive for anybody desperate and not rich) all trails really do seem to lead back to Boeing. The tie only helps solidify that theory. Taking a few months off the Cooper case did help clarify that for me - sometimes you have to let the trees become the forest for a bit - it goes back to who was damaged by the crime? We know the grudge wasn't with NWO, who took the hit for the money (that damages any case for KC). And yeah, the feds were embarrassed by not being able to solve it, but no criminal wants to get caught, and the feds were already covered in egg from November 58, so "embarrassing the FBI" doesn't seem a very realistic motive to me; "staying the hell out of prison" is any criminal's intention, but not their motive for the crime itself. Who'd risk their own life to embarrass a group that already had some hijack messes on their hands? Boeing looked negligent for not having forethought the Cooper vane and had to spend a fortune retrofitting 727s. I can't think of anyone else whose Cooper grudge would have been assuaged by this hijack.
Only other possibility is that the grudge was with someone whereby 200 grand would be needed to get even/advance a movement. So a political cause - but even there you have to really look for a "grudge". You can despise a political philosophy, party, or leader without necessarily having a grudge against them - in fact, fear of the future is just as likely a political motivator as anger about the past/present.
Funnily, it was Tina that originally brought up the grudge possibility - inadvertently handing investigators an important clue to Cooper that would not likely have come out otherwise. The clarity of her mind that night is still breathtaking.
All Tina did was ask him why he was doing this. Any response could have been anything. His response was entirely his. But he qualified his response by saying: "but not against your airlines" (plural). Did NWO have more than one airline?
Genuinely doubt that plural had any meaning apart from that it was in the name of the airline. And Tina did introduce the topic of his having a problem with NWO. The 2nd Tina interview reads
"[Tina] asked him why he picked Northwest Airlines to hijack [NOT "why he was doing this" generally]
and he laughed and said, "It's not because I have a grudge against your airlines, it's just because I have a grudge." (And if he had a grudge against any OTHER airline, it would make more sense to hijack them, no?) However, in the first, earlier interview, it says
"In response to her query as to why he had chosen a Northwest airplane to hijack, she related his statement to the effect that he had a "grudge" but not against Northwest Airlines, adding that the Northwest plane just happened to be in the right place at the right time." So in the original no exact quote is given; the later interview gives a quote but there's no way to be sure (1) how well anyone would have remembered exactly how he phrased it and whether a plural was used or not, (2) whether he was just repeating "airlines" after Tina mentioned the full company name, or (3) whether the transcriber reported it exactly. Either way, it seems perfectly clear he had no "airline" grudge at all; it was a right place, right time plane, that's all, per Cooper.. Not gonna turn the stuff he
did say upside down over a floating plural. Moreover,
all American airlines that have "airline" or "airway" in their names take the plural. Only where the name is "Air" (ex Envoy Air) or "Jet" (Express Jet) does any airline NOT take the plural. The plural has next to no significance to the average person in this case.
Also, no, NWO did not appear have other airlines, though they did assist with the founding of Japan Airlines (JAL) in the 50s. Per Wiki: "During the regulated era, Northwest's domestic network was mainly along the northern transcontinental route through Chicago, Minneapolis and Seattle; New York and Detroit were added in 1945. Northwest also served Hawaii from the West Coast, and, starting in 1958-59, Georgia and Florida from Chicago.[21] On June 1, 1959 Northwest accepted its first turboprop, the L-188 Electra, from Lockheed. Northwest Airlines started flying the three-engine Boeing 727 in November 1964;[22] many stretched 727-251s followed." That's the only history given prior to 1971; no mention of flying under any other airline names that I can find.
At any rate, it's pretty clear Cooper did not have a grudge with NWO, and it would make zero sense to hijack NWO if he had a grudge with any other airline(s), therefore the "grudge vs airline" theory is out. This is one of the few Cooper scabs that can probably remain unpicked. For the love of all that does not suck, let's acknowledge that there
are a few things established by those files, and one of them is that Cooper had no professed grudge with any airline, particularly
and specifically NWO. Or what do we start questioning next? (Are we SURE he recognized Tacoma from the air? Are we SURE he didn't say Pamplona? Was he smoking Raleighs, or rollies?
)
