by Tom Clancy
Moreau had three messages: Efforts to locate the Achille Lauro were continuing, and the Israelis had been asked to help. The decision had been made to take the ship down; I would receive the "Execute Order" soon. And approval had been granted by "our friends to use Cyprus.[22] That had been expected, but it was good to know.
"We're launching now," I told him, "and are scheduled to arrive by dusk. If the ship can be found today, and it's within range of our helicopters, we might be able to do a takedown before daylight"
"Sounds good," he replied. "I'll pass it on."
Next I decided to check with my liaison officer in Rome. 1 was glad to learn that he had established contact with Ambassador Rabb and was operating from the U.S. embassy. All the pieces were moving into place.
I boarded the plane and we launched. This involved staggering our launch times, which in turn allowed us to sequence our landing in order to accommodate the available ramp space at our destination. No more than four C-141s and two C-5s could be on the ground off-loading at any one time.
ON BOARD THE ACHILLE LAURO
The Achille Lauro had set sail from its home port in Genoa, Italy, on October 3, 1985, with 750 passengers on board, for a seven-day voyage that would include a visit to Ashod, Israel. Most of the crew of 344 were Italian, while the passengers were an international mix of travelers.
On the morning of Monday, October 7, the 633-foot liner had docked at Alexandria, Egypt, to let off passengers who wanted to tour the Pyramids. The ship would loiter off the coast of Egypt and then come back that evening to pick up the passengers at Port Said before continuing the voyage to Israel.
Most of the ninety-seven passengers who had elected to stay behind were too elderly or infirm for a rigorous day among the antiquities. Among these was the sixty-nine-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, wheelchair-bound after two strokes. Klinghoffer was accompanied by his fifty-eight-year-old wife, Marilyn. There were ten other Americans.
During lunch, a pair of Arab-looking men burst into the dining room, firing machine guns in the air. Moments later, the passengers were all flat on the dining-room floor.
When they heard this commotion, the officers standing watch on the bridge were able to send the distress signal that the ship was being hijacked. This was the message received in Goteborg, Sweden, that had been monitored.
As all this was happening, two other Arab-looking terrorists were taking over the bridge. When the ship's captain, Gerardo de Rosa, arrived, the terrorist leader, Majed Molqi, ordered him to put the ship into radio silence and head for the Syrian port, Tartus, which was four-hundred miles away — punctuating his demand with a burst of machine-gun fire into the deck. Syria was a haven for terrorists, and Hafez Assad, the president, exercised considerable leverage over several terrorist organizations.
In all, there were four terrorists — not the twenty claimed by the terrorist leader. But they had the advantage of shock and surprise.
The terrorists, it was later learned, were PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) members. Their original plan had been to wait until the ship entered the Israeli harbor at Ashod, where they would take control of the ship. They would then hold the passengers hostage, while negotiating for the release of fifty other Palestinian terrorists who had been tried, convicted, and sentenced by Israeli courts. But things had not worked out according to plan. The four men had not behaved like normal cruise-liner passengers, a fact noted by an alert ship's steward, who figured lunchtime would give him an opportunity to check out the stateroom they occupied. What he found when he entered was the four men cleaning automatic weapons. Their only choice was to make their move.
When the Achille Lauro arrived off the port of Tartus Tuesday afternoon, the JSOTF was still flying to Cyprus. Though aircraft from the U.S. 6th Fleet were crisscrossing the eastern Mediterranean searching for it, no one other than a few on board the vessel had any idea where the cruise liner was until the terrorists announced their presence near Tartus, where they broadcast a request to land and a demand for the release of the fifty Palestinian terrorists. Their hope was that Syrian President Hafez Assad would provide them a sanctuary and a platform for negotiations. Their hope was misplaced.
Though President Hafez Assad remained friendly to terrorists, he was not at that time friendly to Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Front terrorists. Assad had fallen out with Arafat, and since Assad had by then identified the Achille Lauro hijackers as members of the PLO, he saw an opportunity to undermine Arafat.
Assad, taking advantage of the opportunity, refused this request.
The terrorists were now in a desperate situation, knowing that they were no longer hidden and increasingly vulnerable to an attack. To deter that, they arranged twenty hostages in a circle out on an open upper deck, visible to aircraft. One of the twenty hostages was Leon Klinghoffer. His wheelchair prevented him from ascending the stairs to the deck and joining the others. "The terrorists ordered me to leave him," his wife Marilyn reported later. "I begged them to let me stay with him. They responded by putting a machine gun to my head and ordered me up the stairs. That was the last time I saw my husband."
Majed Molqi then broadcast threats. Passengers would be killed unless he saw movement on his demands by 3:00 P.M.
At three, Molqi went to where Leon Klinghoffer had been left, moved him near the starboard rail, and shot him in the head and chest. Two of the ship's crew were ordered to throw the body overboard.
Afterward, Captain de Rosa was told to call this information to Tartus.
This message may have been picked up by the Israelis, because I was informed later that we had reason to believe someone had been killed, even though by that time the hijackers were claiming that all of the hostages were safe.
Meanwhile, the hijackers had picked another victim, Mildred Hodes.
Though Majed Molqi continued to demand action from Tartus, the Syrians continued to stall.
By this time, the PLO leadership had realized that matters were getting out of hand and it was time to institute damage control. Using a codename, "Abu Khaled," Abu Abbas, who was one of Yasir Arafat's chief lieutenants and a member of his executive council, broadcast a message over an Arab-speaking radio station, directing the terrorists to return to Port Said without harming the hostages.
The Achille Lauro set sail from the vicinity of Tartus somewhere around 4:30 or 5:00 P.M., to take advantage of the coming darkness. The ship again went into radio silence.
When the Achille Lauro first broke radio silence near Tartus, the JSOTF was about midway into its flight to Cyprus, and I was being kept abreast of the intercepted communications between the terrorists and the Tartus port authorities by Vice Admiral Morcau at the Pentagon. At the same time, our liasion officer in Rome was keeping me up to date on developments within the Italian government.
What I learned was that Ambassador Rabb had met with Italian Prime Minister Craxi, Foreign Minister Andreotti, and Defense Minister Spadolini to explain that President Reagan was pleased at the Italian governments collaboration during the hostage crisis, but the U.S. government had learned authoritatively that an American citizen had been murdered and others had been threatened, and that this was "untenable." Rabb stated further that the U.S. government was absolutely unwilling to undertake negotiations, and had decided to attempt a military rescue operation some time Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, the Achille Lauro had vanished again; and again, 6th Fleet aircraft lost it.
CYPRUS
The arrival of darkness also meant that JSOTF aircraft had started landing on Cyprus. We instantly raced into action.
Based on an intelligence guess that the Achille Lauro might not be headed for Egypt but for Larnaca, in Cyprus, which was not far away, we clandestinely rushed forces into position for a takedown, just in case the ship did show up.
Things did not in fact work out that way.
At about daylight, Wednesday, October 9, an Israeli patrol boat spotted the Achille Lauro off the Israeli-Lebanese border
heading south — for Egypt.
Even so, the ship was still in international waters and a good distance from Egypt. Earlier we had requested two Navy ships from the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) for platforms from which to launch our helicopters. Meanwhile, three U.S. Navy ships had arrived in the vicinity of the Achille Lauro and were shadowing it from over the horizon. Plans had already been made for positioning the SEAL assault forces onboard the two U.S. Navy platforms. The plan was to conduct a ship takedown just after darkness at 2100 hours, Wednesday night.
Back at Cyprus shortly after daylight, I was finalizing last-minute details for the assault with my commanders when a helicopter landed just outside our hangar. Colonel "Lou" quickly responded, "It's not one of ours; they were all back before daylight." Lou's helicopters had been conducting test flights after reassembly following offloading.
I said, "Sergeant Major, find out who that is. No one else around here has a helo that makes that sound."
The sergeant major rushed outside and quickly returned. "Sir," he said, "we have a couple of guests." Standing there with the sergeant major were two Italian officers, a lieutenant colonel and a major, in flight suits and wearing survival equipment and weapons.
"What are you two up to?" I asked them.
"We are here to recover our ship," the lieutenant colonel said.
"You gotta be shitting me," I said. "Where is the rest of your force?"
"Well, we've had a few maintenance problems on the way," he answered, "and some of my force is broken down on islands between here and our home base, and they will be coming in a little later."
Knowing that whatever he might eventually be able to gather up would be totally inadequate and untrained for ship takedown operations, I said, "We can't wait, we are up against a time crunch."
"I do have a diagram of the ship," he offered, "if that will help any."
Would it! Boy! this was welcome news. Up to that moment, we had had no clear idea of the layout of the Achille Lauro.
For this operation, we had drawn sketches for planning, using other ships as models, but we'd had to guess where the towers, antennas, masses, and the bridge were located on the Achille Lauro. Although we had the best pilots in the world, it is still risky business flying helicopters at night in an assault into the structures of a ship, placing shooters exactly where they ought to be — all under night-vision goggles — and especially on a ship that is likely to be blacked out.
"I'll make you an offer," I said. "You give us that diagram, and we'll take you along on this operation, but keep you out of harm's way. We'll recover your ship, and turn it over to you. No one will ever know that you didn't do it… unless you tell them. You can have all the credit."
He was ecstatic, thinking that he had made the best deal of his life, and he promptly handed me the diagram. What he didn't know was that should Captain de Rosa and his ship drivers be killed during the assault, he could have ended up driving the ship…. You can't just let one float by itself. Of course, we would not have let this actually happen before loaning him a trained ship driver. Yes, our SEALs had people trained for driving ships.
The diagram was a godsend. It was about four feet by eight feet and showed in detail where all the structures were that could cause us problems in darkness. Within an hour, with its help, all our assault forces were able to tweak their plans and brief their troops.
CAIRO
In Cairo, Egypt's Foreign Minister Abdel Meguid was asking the ambassadors of the various countries involved for advice: Would it be best to negotiate or refuse to negotiate? Meanwhile, Yasir Arafat sent Abu Abbas to Cairo to deal with the hijackers.
Yasir Arafat already had a working relationship with the Italian prime minister, as he did with the Egyptian government. In those days, the PLO leader had developed several "under the table agreements — especially with governments that lay within what might be called the PLO area of influence. These governments were afraid that the PLO could bring down their governments if they did not cooperate. These agreements permitted the PLO to operate within those countries.
By Wednesday morning, Arafat claimed to have everything under control. "We have succeeded in bringing the ship back into the waters off Egypt," he announced. "1 can reveal to you that we have a high degree of confidence regarding a positive conclusion to the affair."
Meanwhile, neither the Egyptians nor the Italians were eager to pursue the terrorists once they had arrived in Egypt. For various diplomatic and internal political reasons, they hoped the terrorists on Achille Lauro would simply disappear and the whole affair would go away unnoticed.
As far as the United States was concerned, this was not an option. To the United States, like Israel, a terrorist attack was no different from any other military attack. It could not be met by appeasement. The only option was military action.
Neither position was, strictly speaking, unreasonable, given the needs and premises from which each side started. But compromise and appeasement are not a wise long-term approach to terrorism.
By late Wednesday afternoon, actions were well under way for positioning the assault force of Navy SEALs aboard a Navy ship just out of sight of the Achille Lauro. Four hijackers were not enough to guard hostages, control the crew and the bridge, and maintain a watch over the entire ship. There was every likelihood the SEALs would reach the ship without detection by the terrorists. Come night, they would launch their strike. Once they were aboard, they had no doubt of the outcome.
As the rescue force prepared to strike, events were taking place in Cairo that would make the attack unnecessary.
That evening the Egyptian government announced: "At four-twenty P.M., the hijackers, whose number is four, agreed to surrender without preconditions. They surrendered at five P.M." The statement was soon amplified by the Egyptian Foreign Minister: "The four hijackers have left the ship and are heading out of Egypt." These statements had a subtext: that no harm had been done to any of the passengers. Up until this point, the murder of Leon Klinghoffer had been concealed, based on statements Captain de Rosa had been forced to make over the radio as the liner neared Egypt. "I am the captain," he had said. "I am speaking from my office; and everybody [aboard] is in good health."
As it happened, each of those statements was false. First, the Egyptian government had agreed to preconditions. They had promised the terrorists safe passage out of Egypt. Second, the hijackers were not yet heading out of Egypt, and would not do so until the next day. Finally, the terrorists had blood very much on their hands.
Even before these facts emerged, the Reagan administration was furious. As far as they were concerned, it was a lousy deal. It's not acceptable for terrorists to take Americans hostage and get away with it. In the words of White House spokesman Larry Speakes: "We believe those responsible should be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible."
On Wednesday evening, after the terrorists had left the ship, the truth about the Klinghoffer murder came out when a distraught Captain de Rosa announced to Marilyn Klinghoffer that her husband had been shot and his body dropped overboard. The rickety structure of Egyptian and Italian whitewash and deception was tumbling down.
When Nicholas Veliotes, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, learned of the murder, he immediately contacted Meguid to insist "that they prosecute those sons of bitches."
Meguid dodged, claiming — once again — that the terrorists were already out of the country, a claim confirmed by President Hosni Mubarak the next day. "The terrorists have already left Egypt," he announced. "1 don't know where they went, but they possibly went to Tunis.
"When we accepted the hijackers' surrender," he continued, "we did not have this information. This information emerged five hours after the surrender. In the meantime, the hijackers had left the country."
This was a lie. The terrorists were then sitting in an Egypt Air 737 at Al Maza air base near Cairo waiting for a place to fly to. Nobody wanted them.
American intelligence was on the ball, however, and had t
he tail number of the plane—2843.
Late in the evening of October 9, Vice Admiral Moreau informed me that the terrorists had surrendered and left the Achille Lauro. That meant there was no longer a requirement for an assault on the ship, he concluded, and I could begin my redeployment to home bases.
Shortly after that, I ordered Captain "Bob" to prepare for redeployment. Meanwhile, our airlift, which had remained at their dispersal bases since our arrival, began arriving at the Cyprus base; and starting at around 2200 hours, we began a phased redeployment back to home bases.
Standard operating procedure was to deploy and redeploy as combat-configured entities (task forces) should any requirement for our services develop while en route. The planes all stopped in Sigonella to refuel and then proceeded on back to the States.
By the time daylight Thursday was approaching Cyprus, only three aircraft were left — a C-5 and two C-141s. The C-5, loaded with UH-60 Blackhawks, had developed a bad hydraulic leak from a busted hose. It could not retract its main landing gear and was losing an alarming amount of fluid.
The problem was not the leak itself, but the continued presence of the aircraft at "our friends' " base in daylight, where it would be visible to Soviet spy satellites. Two colonels from our host nation were really getting nervous. They could accept a couple C-141s, but the C-5 would attract too much attention and cause political problems. They wanted it gone.
It was a touchy situation.
The only thing I could think to do was to take a look myself to see if I could come up with something that might help. I crawled up into the C-5's wheel well to look at the broken hose, and as soon as I did, I realized that the "Docs" had some surgical tubing that might work. Sure enough, they had a hose that looked about the right diameter, and the pilot, an experienced older Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel, agreed to fly the plane if we could stop the leak.