in the case of the patty hearst kidnapping, it was felt right from the beginning it was not that kind of crime. this was a fairly serious operation. >> local police call in fbi kidnapping expert dan grove. >> patty became what they called the lead coordinator. safe return of the victim. that's the number one objective at a kidnap case is the safe return of the victim. >> the victim is no ordinary college student. patty hearst is american royalty. >> i think it is fair to say the hearst family was and is one of the most affluent families in the united states. her grandfather was william randolph hearst who was the publisher of newspapers throughout the united states. >> hearst really gave us the concept that the media could create events. we think of william randolph hearst virtually inventing the modern newspaper. creating tabloid culture. >> the hearst family in san francisco, northern california and california general was just one of those iconic families. most of all in the early '70s it meant money. >> patty hearst's father, randolph hearst, is the editor and president of "the "sa

more dramatic to me was the patty hearst kidnapping and the s.l.a. forcing the hearst family to contribute free food around the city. that was a pretty good deal. i don't know how to rank them because they're so different, each from the other. i wrote about all three of them. guess they're interesting enough to write about. >> dan white was very connected with ireland in a misty kind of coffee table book kind of way. >> yeah. the wanted to de -- he saw his irish heritage has having given him the gift of writing. he very much wanted to be a writer, and i read some of his stuff. it's very, very stiff, as dan was himself. after his -- he was released from parole and during the time when he was mostly living in san francisco, he actually went over to ireland to write, but he didn't write anything. he did take out irish citizenship, which he was entitled to. i believe it was his mother or grandmother -- one of them had been born in ireland and he was entitled to irish citizenship. he didn't write anything and he ran out of money and he asked marian, his wi