Free The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking by Brendan I. Koerner

1969, Minichiello decided to exact his own form of justice. He guzzled eight cans of beer and broke into the Camp Pendleton post exchange, where he took precisely $200 worth of radios and wristwatches. When he was court-martialed for the burglary three months later, Minichiello became enraged: had he not simply taken back the $200 that the Marines stole from him?
    Rather than face a possible six-month prison term, Minichiello opted for a radical solution to his problem. He took a bus to Los Angeles International Airport and bought a $15.50 ticket for a TWA flight to San Francisco. His carry-on bag contained a disassembled M1 rifle and250 rounds of ammunition.
    Minichiello made his move after downing two quickshots of Canadian Club. He put together the gun in the lavatory, then pointed it at a stewardess and asked to be taken to New York. The stewardess had never heard of such a thing—every skyjacker wanted to go to Havana. But Minichiello kept insisting—New York, New York, he wanted to go to New York.
    They stopped in Denver first, where Minichiello released all the passengers. As the Boeing 707 refueled for the next leg of its trip, he informed the captive crew that New York was not his ultimate destination: he was actually trying to get back to his native Italy, a country that would understand why he considered the Marines’ $200 slight such a grave affront to his honor.
    Confusion reigned at John F. Kennedy International Airport whenthe flight arrived. The FBI was desperate to stop Minichiello; letting a skyjacker go anywhere other than Havana would set a terrible precedent. The agents were aghast to learn that TWA had every intention of cooperating with Minichiello, in accordance with the airline’s official hijacking policy; as long as no blood was spilled and the jet was returned undamaged, TWA was happy to fly the Marine wherever he wished to go.
    The FBI had other plans. Agents in bulletproof vests surrounded the jet and crept forward, hoping either to frighten Minichiello into surrendering or to mount a decisive assault. They were yards away from the plane when they heard a single gunshot—Minichiello had fired a round from his M1 into the roof of the fuselage. The startled agents backed off and allowed the plane to depart on its long journey to Rome, via Bangor, Maine,and Shannon, Ireland.
    Minichiello avoided capture at Rome’s airport by taking a carabiniere officer hostage and stealing the policeman’s car. He found brief sanctuary in a rural church, where police tracked him down on the morning of November 2—his twentieth birthday. “
Paisà,perchè m arresti
?” he asked as he was hustled off to Rome’s Queen of Heaven prison—“Countryman,why are you arresting me?”
    The Italian public shared Minichiello’s belief that he didn’t deserve punishment. He was lauded as a folk hero, a man courageous enough to stand up to America, a country increasingly despised in Western Europe for its muscular foreign policy. Girls swooned over the wiry, brooding Marine, whom they considered akin to a matinee idol. “He’s even better than Giuliano Gemma,” one seventeen-year-old admirer squealed to an Italian reporter, referring to a handsome star of spaghetti Westerns. Minichiello “played a real-life role while Gemma does only films. I wouldlike to marry him!” Movie producer Carlo Ponti, the man behind such hits as
Doctor Zhivago
and
Blow-Up
, vowed to make a hagiographic film about Minichiello’s life titled
Paisà, perchè m arresti
?
    Bowing to public pressure, the Italian government refused to extradite Minichiello to the United States, deciding instead to try him inRome—though only for relatively minor offenses such as weapons possession, since air piracy was not technically a crime in Italy. Minichiello’s defense lawyer gave a virtuoso performance at the eventual trial, comparing his client to one of literature’s most beloved figures: “I am sure that Italian judges will understand and