Word: ransoms
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...green light to investigate bombings or attacks on police, cases that previously were not normally handled by federal authorities. On one issue, U.S. officials insist that they intend to play it tough. If an official or a foreign diplomat is kidnaped, they maintain that they will reject ransom demands in an effort to discourage terrorists from trying again. Despite the obvious need for toughness in such situations, any democratic country faces dangers from too harsh as well as from too weak a reaction. The only countries that may prove immune to the new terror may be the most authoritarian ones...
...attacks, for example, on its power stations, water supply and main roads. But the degree of terror has increased notably with the cop-killing campaign in the U.S. and the murder of hostages in Canada, Argentina, Uruguay and Guatemala. Thus the urban guerrillas have revived the system of diplomatic ransom that flourished from the Dark Ages until the Renaissance, when kings and princes routinely used ambassadors as hostages. As Brandeis Sociologist Richard Sennett puts it: "The terrorism of today is the diplomacy of Henry the Eighth...
...ransom, payable only in gold (the FLQ did not want the government to pass them marked bills...
...from Quebec jails of 23 political prisoners. The Front demanded that the freed prisoners be flown in a Canadian plane either to Cuba or Algeria, and that a "voluntary tax" of $500,000 in gold bullion be delivered to the aircraft in nine Brink's armored trucks as ransom. Otherwise, the terrorists vowed, they "would not hesitate to get rid of" the Irish-born British official within 48 hours...
...Question of Dollars. A succession of communiqués ensued. In the next four days, the Front issued six declarations, which progressively extended the deadline and softened the demands. The Front dropped its ransom demand but stuck to its insistence that political prisoners be released and flown to Cuba or Algeria, and that police activity stop. At week's end, the government announced that it still would not meet the Front's demands. Within minutes, the terrorists retaliated by kidnaping Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte, who is one of the ruling Liberal Party's chief provincial leaders...