Word: terrorist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Bizarre and illogical even by terrorist standards, the hijack drama suddenly came into focus in Washington on Monday evening. About four hours earlier, the Palestinian terrorists had announced their piracy over ship-to- shore radio. By 6 p.m. Monday, a State Department task force had convened in a windowless suite of seventh-floor offices at Foggy Bottom. Information was scanty, even for President Reagan and National Security Adviser Robert ("Bud") McFarlane, who consulted twice on Monday night. Ironically, Secretary of State Shultz was aboard a ship himself: on a Potomac River barge where he was entertaining Singapore's visiting Prime...
...reason, paradoxically enough, may be tighter security by Western governments and officials. U.S. Army and Air Force bases that were once lightly guarded are now fortified camps. Embassies in many capitals look like urban redoubts. As a result, terrorists are looking elsewhere for targets. In the case of the Achille Lauro, for example, it appears that the hijackers chose the cruise liner because the usual avenues of access to Israel--by land and air--have been blocked by Israeli security measures. There is also what Brian Jenkins, a Rand Corp. terrorist expert, describes as a kind of novelty factor. Says...
Exactly what happened next is not known, but it seemed that the four Palestinians intended to remain quietly aboard the liner until it reached Ashdod. There, according to this theory, they would launch a terrorist attack, seize Israeli hostages if possible, and demand the release of 50 Palestinians, including many from their own organization, the Palestine Liberation Front, who were being held in Israeli prisons. But something went wrong--probably the chance discovery of their weapons and ammunition by a member of the crew. According to the Italian news agency ANSA, they later told Italian authorities that they...
...Port Said, De Rosa made contact with Egyptian port authorities by radio and told them what had happened. The hijackers, who had identified themselves as members of the P.L.F., demanded the release of the 50 prisoners being held in Israel. Among these was Sami Kuntar, a well-known terrorist who in 1979, with three others, had staged an attack on the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, killing three people. If their demands were not met, the hijackers of the Achille Lauro warned, they would blow up the ship...
Snafus in the field are exacerbated by overlays of bureaucracy, charged Goldwater. When the Marines landed in Beirut in 1982, their orders sifted through no fewer than eight levels of command. The Marines' failure to dig in properly against terrorist attack--at the cost of 241 lives--was attributed partly to signals lost or mixed up in the endless command chain. Bureaucracies inevitably breed officers who have little better to do than trip over one another. The U.S. fought World War II with 101 three-star generals and admirals; now there are 118. Observed Nunn: "It takes more admirals...