Pratt Institute - Prattonia Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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LATE CITY EDITION Weather: sunny cold today; fair tonight and tomorrow VOL. I NO. 1 PRATTONIA 1973 1 No News Is Good News Crime Rider Skyjacking had never looked easi- er. A few hours after daybreak. Frank Markoe Sibley Jr., 43, of State- line, Nevada, pulled a ski mask over his face, slung an M-1 rifle across the handlebars of his bicycle, and ped- aled through a gap in the fence sur rounding the Reno Municipal Airport. Ditching his bike, he slipped the rifle under his green field jacket, bulled his way into the line of pas- sengers boarding a United Air Lines Boeing 727 bound for San Francisco and took command of the aircraft. Sibley’s demands were as unusual as his methods. Besides $2,000,000 in $20 and $50 bills and $8,000 worth of gold bars—the highest ransom demanded in the U.S.—he insisted upon items ranging from three Thompson submachine guns and 300 feet of nylon rope to ammonia inhalers, smelling salts, pep pills and sleeping pills. Once the passengers were off the plane; it flew to Vancou- ver, B.C. Told that that much U.S. currency was not on hand in Vancouver, Sibley ordered the ¢ : plane to Seattle. En route, he handed the crewa four- page statement explaining his motives, and ordered the cap- tain to have it read over radio stations in Vancouver and Seattle. “We are a well-disciplined, para- military organization fed up with Nixon's broken promises and deceit, which is clearly expressed by his secret buildup of forces in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia,” began Sibley’s statement. He went on to say that United Air Lines was a “major con- tributor to the war effort,” and he threatened to destroy not only the plane he had hijacked but the entire United fleet.“ It is those who support and encourage this war who should be prosecuted, not us,” the hijacker wrote, By sunset, 40 FBI agents had coor- dinated an attack on the plane, which was parked at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Two agents, posing as relief pilots, boarded through the side door from a forklift truck, while others stormed up the rear gangway. Sibley, wounded in the shoulder and leg, was taken to a the hospital. When it was an- nounced that no one else if had been injured in the shoot-out, the crowd of observers broke into applause.” LBI Dies in Texas Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President, died Jan, 22 after he had been stricken with a heart attack at his ranch in Johnson City, Tex. Johnson, 64, had been resting when he summoned Secret Service agents who administered aid and notified a doctor. Johnson was then flown to Brooke Army Medical Cen- ter in San Antonio and was pro- nounced dead at 4:33 p.m. (CST) at the San Antonio Interna- tional Airport. Death was 68 attributed to a coro- oe nary thrombosis after an autopsy 2e had been per- or formed at a Brooke o Center Jan aye ah Mrs. Johnson, who had been noti- fied at her office at the LBJ Library in Austin, Tex., flew to San Antonio, A national day of mourning, Jan. 25, was proclaimed by President Nixon, who said Johnson was “‘a great patriot.” In a statement Jan. 22, Nixon praised him as “a dynamic leader, a unique personality and a man of great ability and unshakable courage.” “We are grateful for his life,” he said, because “he believed in America, in what America could mean to all its citizens and what America could mean to the world. In the service of that faith, he gave himself completely.” Other tributes came from world and national leaders. Yankees Stay Home The New York Yankees signed a lease with New York City August 16 to play at Yankee Stadium for the next 30 years. Under the terms of the lease the city would begin renovation of the 49-year- old stadium by the end of the 1973 base- ballseasonand complete the modernization for the 1976 season,