Word: mediterraneans
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...nonviolent stroke, the U.S. had erased four days of frustration, horror and humiliation, an all-too-familiar progression in the recent history of international terrorism. Once again Arab extremists had struck at a vulnerable civilian target. A few hours after it left Alexandria on a pleasure cruise of the Mediterranean, an Italian liner, the Achille Lauro, with 123 passengers and 315 crew aboard, was hijacked by Palestinian gunmen. Once again American passengers were singled out for especially brutal attention. One of them, Leon Klinghoffer, 69, of New York City, a stroke victim confined to a wheelchair, was shot in cold...
...levels of U.S. policymaking had foreseen how Veliotes would get his wish. More than 30 hours after the seagoing hijack drama had ended, a flight of four F-14 Tomcat fighter-interceptors from the aircraft carrier Saratoga pulled alongside a chartered EgyptAir Boeing 737 jetliner just south of the Mediterranean island of Crete. The Egyptian aircraft had left Cairo's Al Maza military airport 1 hour and 45 minutes earlier, apparently headed for Tunis. Aboard it were the hijackers, accompanied by two representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a number of Egyptian diplomats and security officials...
...morning's daily 9:30 National Security Council briefing in the Oval Office, McFarlane reviewed with the President what the U.S. could and should do. As usual, the options seemed pitifully few. U.S. and Italian ships and planes were tailing the Achille Lauro as it wandered across the eastern Mediterranean, headed toward the Syrian port of Tartus. The U.S. immediately established contact with the other governments principally involved: Italy, Egypt, Israel. To each, Washington gave the same message: American policy toward terrorism, as always, was not to give an inch. At most, the U.S. would sanction what it called "discussions...
...Ottawa, stayed in close touch with Washington through secure communications aboard his Grumman executive jet. Meanwhile the Saratoga, accompanied by the Aegis-class guided-missile cruiser Yorktown, was steaming in the Adriatic close to the Greek-Albanian border. All told, about 25 U.S. warships were stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, many of them with the sophisticated radar capability needed to pick the EgyptAir plane out of the heavy stream of regular Mediterranean air traffic...
...elaborately planned. At dawn on Tuesday, eight F-15s took off from an air base in northern Israel, followed about 40 minutes later by eight F-16s. The F-16s were refueled by Israeli tanker planes; then they dived and continued to fly as low as possible over the Mediterranean to avoid radar detection, approaching Tunis from the south. While the F-16s staged the bombing raid, the F-15s remained in reserve some 500 miles away. Near the island of Malta, an Israeli naval vessel stood ready to launch helicopters to rescue any downed Israeli pilots. After the mission...