Lovers and Madmen ― A True Story of Passion, Politics, and Air Piracy

LOVERS AND MADMEN: A TRUE STORY OF PASSION, POLITICS, AND AIR PIRACY is dominated by two central themes: politics and love. Julienne Busic’s memoirs take the reader through the events that shaped her life with Croatian dissident husband, Zvonko—assassination attempts, threats from the Yugoslav secret police, flights from country to country, enforced poverty and deprivation—and characterize the love that led to the greatest sacrifice of all: a sentence of life in prison for the political hijacking of a TWA jet. Less than twenty years after the Busics’ desperate act, Yugoslavia broke apart in a spasm of war, and Croatia is now an independent state. The message contained in the leaflets thrown during the hijacking served as a prophecy of this disintegration and the vicious Serbian aggression, first in Croatia and Bosnia, and most recently in Albanian-populated Kosovo. Zvonko and Julienne Busic received mandatory life sentences (with parole eligibility recommended by the judge after ten years for Zvonko, and eight years for Julienne). Julienne served thirteen years in prison and was released on parole in 1989. Zvonko remained in prison until he was released in June 2009, almost thirty-two years later, from a high security unit in Terre Haute, Indiana.