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siege, one female captive initiated sexual relations with against a third party, as has often been the case with
her captor. Their relationship persisted after the bank political hostages.
robber was tried and convicted. By the 1990s, psychologists expanded their under-
Stories of this seemingly incongruous bond between standing of the Stockholm syndrome from hostages to
captive and captor resurfaced repeatedly in subsequent other groups, including battered women, concentra-
hostage situations. The most infamous case is that of tion camp prisoners, cult members, prisoners of war,
Patricia Hearst. In 1974, ten weeks after being taken procured prostitutes, incest victims, and abused chil-
hostage by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Hearst dren. Over time, however, the term has lost some of its
helped her kidnappers rob a California bank and report- initial significance. Twenty years after the expression
edly became the lover of one kidnapper. “Stockholm syndrome” was coined, it has been emp-
During the hostage crises in Iran and Lebanon, the loyed to describe situations as varied as Arab-Israel
Stockholm syndrome worked its way into public relations, and, cynically, the response of movie-going
imagination. The syndrome was cited when the audiences to a season of bad movies.
hostages from TWA Flight 847, upon their release,
See also PATTY HEARST; HOSTAGE TAKING; SYMBIONESE
were openly sympathetic to the demands of their kid-
LIBERATION ARMY
nappers. Fellow Lebanon hostages believed that Terry
Anderson, Terry Waite, and Thomas Sutherland all
suffered from the syndrome when, upon their release, Further Reading
they claimed they had been treated well by their cap- Bolz, Frank, Jr., Kenneth J. Dudonis, and David P. Schulz.
tors, though they had often been held in solitary con- The Counter-Terrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures
finement, chained up in small, unclean cells. Similar and Techniques. New York: Elsevier, 1990.
responses were exhibited by the hostages held at the Crelinsten, Ronald D., and Denis Szabo. “A Pheno-
menological Analysis of Hostage-Taking,” In Hostage-
Japanese embassy in Peru in 1996, and two European
Taking. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979.
women held hostage for 71 days in Costa Rica that
Miller, Abraham H. Terrorism and Hostage Negotiations.
same year.
Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980.
Psychologists who studied the syndrome believe
Ochberg, Frank M., and David A. Soskis, eds. Victims of
the bond is initially created when a captor threatens a Terrorism. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982.
captive’s life, deliberates, then chooses not to kill the Reich, Walter, ed. Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ide-
captive. The captive’s relief at the removal of the ologies, Theologies and State of Mind. Washington, DC:
death threat is transposed into feelings of gratitude Woodrow Wilson Center, 1998.
toward the captors for giving them life. In nearly all
cases, the victim is also unable to escape and is iso-
lated from the outside world. As the Stockholm bank SUBWAY SUICIDE BOMBING PLOT
robbery incident proves, it takes only three to four
days for this bond to cement, proving that, early on,
the victim’s need to survive trumps the urge to hate In the early-morning hours of July 31, 1997,
the person who created the situation. police, acting on a tip, raided a Brooklyn, New York,
The survival instinct is at the heart of the Stock- apartment, capturing two Palestinian men who were
holm syndrome. Victims live in enforced dependence allegedly planning an attack on the Atlantic Avenue
and interpret rare and/or small acts of kindness in the subway and Long Island Railroad stations.
midst of horrible conditions as good treatment. They At 10:45 P.M. on July 29, 1997, Abdel Rahman Ros-
often becoming hypervigilant to the needs and abbah, a recent immigrant from Egypt, approached
demands of their captors, making psychological links two Long Island Railroad police officers and tried to
between the captors’ happiness and their own. explain, in broken English, that friends of his were
Indeed, the syndrome is marked not only by a posi- plotting to kill people on the subway. When officers
tive bond between captive and captor but a negative heard the word “bomb,” they brought Rosabbah to the
attitude on behalf of the captive toward authorities 88th Precinct, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
who threaten the captor-captive relationship. The Just over 24 hours later, at approximately 4:30 A.M.
negative attitude is especially powerful when the on July 31, members of New York’s Emergency Ser-
hostage is of no use to the captors except as leverage vices Unit stormed into a shabby two-floor apartment