Angela Atwood - Symbionese Liberation Army

Symbionese Liberation Army

The Atwoods moved to San Francisco, where Angela became friends with Kathleen Soliah (now known as Sara Jane Olson). The two women acted together in a local production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. Angela and Gary Atwood separated in June 1973. Atwood moved in with the Harrises in early December 1973. She then joined the SLA along with the Harrises and her new boyfriend, Joseph Remiro. She had a romantic relationship with Russ Little in July 1973. Atwood was possibly the last original SLA member to be sworn to arms.

She is described as well dressed, with a preference for hippie attire, particularly Indian silk shirts and batik. Atwood liked such feminine accessories as earrings, jewelry, and rings. A friend described her as "the prima donna of the whole thing". This person likened Atwood to the woman depicted by Bob Dylan in "Just Like A Woman".

Atwood (speaking as "Gelina") was often the voice of the SLA, in the form of tape-recorded press releases. In Patricia Hearst's account of her time with the SLA, she writes that Gelina would spend hours, and sometimes days, perfecting communiques

SLA members believed they were forming an anti-bourgeois ideology of popular rule partly based on the idea that the most oppressed members of society, who were often blacks, must be the ones to lead a revolution against The Establishment. This partly explained their allegiance to their black leader Field Marshal Cinque (pronounced sin-q), born Donald DeFreeze. Atwood, however, many times disagreed with his directives, as when she argued against his issuing a death warrant for two imprisoned S.L.A. members.

Atwood was assigned the task of surveillance in the potential kidnapping of John E. Countryman, formerly Chairman of the Board of Del Monte Corporation. The surveillance plan gave Countryman's age as 70 years. Atwood was apparently unaware that the late Mr. Countryman had died (July 1972) at the age of 69.

Atwood used the name Anne Lindberg when she visited inmate James Harold (Doc) Holiday on 10 January 1974. This encounter alerted Holiday to the capture of Remiro and Russ Little, who were both linked through strong circumstantial evidence to the murder of Marcus Foster, Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California. They were arrested following a shootout with policemen in Concord, California. Quickly after Atwood's approach of Holiday, she fled the Oakland, California home with the Harrises. They left behind clothes, a stereo, personal papers, and three pistol boxes.