Pauline joins the revolutionary cadre

Pauline joins the revolutionary cadre when she publicly chooses to remain with The cadre instead of being released to rejoin her family. Her April 3, 1974, declaration changes the meaning of the tapes sent from her captivity: what had been presented as a hostage’s communications becomes an announcement of political allegiance. The choice is soon tested in public, where Pauline appears in a bank robbery, and later in court, where questions about coercion, criminal responsibility, and privilege shape very different outcomes for her and Jenny.

The broadcast and the choice

Jenny hears the announcement while driving Dolly’s car near Red Hook. As with the earlier recordings, a newscaster assures listeners that the tape has not been shortened or altered. Pauline’s voice sounds hollow, recalling the early broadcasts, but the statement itself is decisive: she says she has been offered release and reunion with her family or a place with the comrades, and announces that she will stay. She identifies The cadre as her new family, contrasts its concern for the poor with that of her former family, and says she has taken the name Pauline.

The declaration follows earlier messages about the demands made of Pauline’s family. In one broadcast she had relayed that the food request was not meant to be impossible, insisted that The cadre was not crazy, and described its message as political, concerning poverty and capitalism. She also referred to the Geneva Conventions. Those messages had left room for listeners to hear fear, a prepared script, or a captive’s attempt to shape public understanding. The April announcement narrows that uncertainty without extinguishing it: Pauline presents her decision as her own, while the circumstances of her captivity remain central to how others interpret it.

Jenny’s reaction registers the cost of that change before she can explain it. The announcement makes her feel that a possible opening has quietly closed. Later, when Dolly calls Pauline brainwashed, Jenny asks how anyone can know she does not agree with The cadre. Dolly dismisses that possibility on the basis of Pauline’s family background. Their disagreement exposes the competing assumptions surrounding the event: one treats Pauline’s class and upbringing as proof that her commitment cannot be genuine; the other refuses to equate captivity with the absence of agency.

From declaration to public action

Two weeks after the broadcast, The cadre robs a bank and takes fifteen thousand dollars. Pauline is clearly visible on the security footage, appearing either brainwashed or eerily calm to observers. The money is intended to fund The People’s Liberation, and the bank belongs to a prominent business partner of Pauline’s father. Her presence on the footage gives the earlier declaration an immediate consequence: she is no longer represented only by a voice speaking from confinement but is seen taking part in the group’s operation.

The cadre then disappears, apparently evading the dragnet with little difficulty. Pauline’s family protests, but the attorney general declares her a criminal rather than a crime victim and issues a Wanted poster bearing her face. Her image becomes a contested public object. Some people steal the posters to display in their apartments; others paint messages of support on buildings. The left-leaning press condemns both responses, resisting the transformation of Pauline into either a revolutionary icon or an uncomplicated victim.

When Jenny later encounters Pauline’s poster in a bar, its polished portrait contrasts with Pauline herself. The picture shows her with set brunette hair and pearls; Pauline’s hair is now pale yellow and visibly bleached, and Jenny reads the difference in her appearance as a change in how she is seen. The intact poster, untouched by graffiti, preserves an official likeness while Pauline’s altered presentation suggests how quickly the public image has become detached from the person moving through the story.

What membership changes

Pauline’s decision also becomes part of her later relationship with Jenny. After their reunion, Pauline argues that Jenny has changed too much underground to reunite with William, and points to Jenny’s growing doubts about the actions she and William took. Jenny, for her part, has begun to recoil from the prospect of joining another group of armed comrades. She sees how their weapons group can make women feel more capable, yet also recognizes how it may appear from outside: violent and courting destruction. Her sense of revolution shifts toward the difficult work of changing individual minds rather than the accumulation of force.

The women’s discussions place Pauline’s membership within a broader argument about gender and political leadership. Pauline interprets the old group’s methods, including the armed abduction that brought her into its custody, as examples of men attempting change through forceful, masculine habits. She and the others conclude that women have too often followed men in revolutionary movements, even when women were prominent within them, and Pauline records their resolution that women must take leadership roles. Jenny resists treating gender as destiny, warning against explaining behavior as something fixed by birth. Their disagreement shows that Pauline’s commitment does not simply restore her to the politics of her former comrades: it becomes a basis for challenging how revolutionary authority is organized.

Pauline also turns what she learned with The cadre into instruction for other women. She proposes teaching firearms not to enable harm, but to help women understand weapons and the ways men use or misuse them. The sessions begin with names of parts, ballistics, weapon categories, and their uses; the women dismantle and clean a 12-gauge shotgun with pipe cleaners and household rags. For Jenny, the shared work offers a pleasure in learning openly, without pretending already to know. The group’s practical lessons therefore carry a different meaning from the armed politics that first shaped Pauline: knowledge becomes a means of confidence and collective inquiry.

Legal aftermath and unequal costs

Pauline’s status remains disputed after her capture. Her doctors and family representatives describe her as severely malnourished, hallucinating, speaking in flat tones, and initially failing to recognize family members. Brainwashing experts argue that deprivation and violence made her an unwilling participant in criminal acts. Yet the judge denies bail after seeing Pauline shout “Venceremos!” before television cameras. The public image of a willing revolutionary and the legal argument for a coerced captive continue to compete, neither easily erasing the other.

Pauline later names Jenny as an accessory to the killing of a grocery-store owner in Monticello. Jenny refuses to believe the accusation when George Elson tells her, but the disclosure deepens the divide between the two women and places their time together under the shadow of a crime. In the eventual proceedings, however, Jenny and Pauline are tried and convicted only for acts they committed before they met. No one is charged with Mr. Morton’s murder, leaving the crime and the women’s shared history only partially represented in the legal record.

Their punishments make the difference between formal sentence and social consequence especially clear. Pauline is convicted of the bank robbery and serves less than two years before her sentence is commuted. Although the press says she has had the book thrown at her, she emerges with her class privilege largely intact: her adventure makes her seem more interesting, and prison does not leave a lasting stigma. Jenny receives the minimum sentence for the selective-service recruitment-center bombings and is transferred to work release after a year for good behavior. The preferential tasks and praise she receives make her feel newly categorized as the model minority, rewarded for seeming better than expected.

Pauline’s choice to join The cadre thus begins as a declaration of allegiance but does not settle the question of what that allegiance means. It leads to visible political action, a contested identity as captive or criminal, and a lasting relationship with Jenny shaped by both solidarity and disagreement. Their divergent treatment also reveals that the same movement and legal system do not impose equal costs: Pauline can be portrayed as having passed through hardship without losing her social standing, while Jenny experiences leniency itself as a form of racialized judgment.