by Tom Clancy
"Where's your plane?"
"In the hangar, sir," they answered, "at the end of the taxiway."
I joined the two pilots up with the four on my chase team. "What I want you to do," I told all six of them, "is to get the jet ready to launch on very short notice, but keep it hidden. Then I want you to sit in it and wait for my instructions. If they try to smuggle Abbas out of country by plane, you're to launch immediately, tuck right up under its tail, and follow it to wherever it goes. Your mission is not to recapture Abbas, but just to report to me. I'll tell you what to do."
Meanwhile, I had continued my internal debate about the best way to pin responsibility on the Italians for bringing the terrorists to trial so that they could not wriggle out of it and strict justice would be done. The moment had come, I felt, to recommend to my Italian three-star counterpart that we fly the American hostages in from Cairo (they were then at the American Embassy). Once they were here, we'd set up a lineup under the close watch of whatever magistrates had responsibility, and let the hostages identify the terrorists.
"This should be possible," he told me. "And perhaps it's a good idea."
"Then would you contact the local district attorney and set this up sometime later in the evening?" I asked. "And I'll work on getting an airplane to bring the hostages here."
About an hour later, he reported that the district attorney had agreed to my proposal, but would like a two-hour notice to arrange the lineup in the presence of the magistrates.
I then called Vice Admiral Moreau to ask for a C-141 to bring the American hostages to Sigonella. I also pointed out to him how important it was for the hostages to positively identify the terrorists before the magistrates who would have ultimate responsibility for their trials.
"That's a good idea," he said. "I'll work it and get back to you."
Just before dusk, the executive jet returned, taxied to the end of the runway, turned around, and stopped, but kept its engines running and its landing lights on. The two men I'd met before got off the plane, approached the 737, and again asked permission to board. They stayed on board for half an hour, then took off again.
All of this strengthened my suspicion that someone was setting up the machinery to get Abu Abbas and his partner out of the country.
Shortly after dark, the Italian base commander, the Egyptian "ambassador," and the Egypt Air crew showed up at the 737. Twenty minutes later a panel truck arrived with the Egyptian 777 guard force. At about 9:30 P.M., the 737's engines were started. At the same time, the Italians began to move trucks and construction equipment to block the entrances to the main runway. The only one they left open was the one the 737 would travel.
I called the Navy T-39. "Get ready," I told them. "The 737 has cranked up. It will probably make a dash for the runway very soon."
At about 9:50 P.M., the Egyptian 737 turned around and headed toward the end of the active runway. He began his takeoff run at about 10:00 P.M.
The T-39 began his own takeoff run at the same time. Since access to the main runway was blocked, the T-39 took off down the taxiway, which paralleled the main runway; and the two aircraft passed each other going in opposite directions, with Italian officers diving in the ditches as the T-39 roared over their heads.
Just after liftoff, the T-39 made a hard right turn and took up its trail position as I'd instructed.
Meanwhile, the Italians launched four jet interceptors from another base to try to drive the T-39 off and escort the 737 to its destination. Some very heated conversations took place between the interceptor pilots and the T- 39 crew, but to no avail. The T-39 crew continued their mission.
The Egyptian 737 flew to Fuciamo Airport, an auxiliary field next to Rome's main international airport, Leonardo da Vinci.
When permission to land the T-39 was denied, the T-39 pilots declared a tactical emergency and set down right behind the Egyptian 737. The Egyptian 737 taxied to a position near the VIP lounge, and the T-39 parked beside it. Abu Abbas and his companion exited the plane and went inside. About an hour later, they emerged, dressed in Italian air force officers' flight suits, and boarded a waiting Yugoslav civilian airliner which had been delayed for a scheduled flight to Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Rabb had presented the Italian government with a request for the arrest of Abbas preparatory to his extradition. Craxi continued to stonewall. This request, he said, "did not, in the Justice Minister's opinion, satisfy the factual and substantive requirements laid down by Italian law…. This being so, there was no longer any legal basis… [for] detaining Abbas, since at the time he was on board an aircraft which enjoyed extraterritorial status."
Shortly after the plane took off for Belgrade, Ambassador Rabb arrived at the Chigi Palace, the official residence of the Italian Prime Minister, to protest the release of Abbas. As he left, Rabb told reporters, "I'm not happy about what happened here today."
The State Department scrambled to prepare another extradition request for Yugoslavia; it was actually delivered before Abbas landed in Belgrade. But it was a lost cause. Yugoslavia had diplomatic relations with the PLO, and Abbas, as a member of the PLO's executive council, enjoyed diplomatic immunity. Two days later Abbas flew on to Aden, South Yemen, and from there to Baghdad.
At about 11:00 P.M. October 11, a C-141 from Cairo landed, with twelve American hostages aboard. We took five of them, including Marilyn Klinghoffer, to the jail downtown; the others remained in the VIP lounge. At the jail, the district attorney had arranged a very professional lineup (with magistrates present, as well as my Italian three-star counterpart). The five Americans positively and without hesitation identified the four terrorists as the ones who had hijacked the ship.
When the time came for Marilyn Klinghoffer to take a close look at Majiad al-Molqi, she spat in his face, then turned to me. "Let me have your pistol," she told me, her voice cold with rage. "I want to shoot him."
"I know how you feel," I told her. "I'd want to do the same thing. But you have to understand that it would only further complicate matters. It's best to let the Italian courts handle this thing in the appropriate way."
She looked at me and said, "It hurts, but I guess you are right. Please pass my thanks to all your troops for what they have done for us."
At about midnight, I took the hostages back to their C-141, which was waiting with its engines running, and prepared to launch.
In the meantime, all our people who'd remained behind with me had loaded my C-141, and were also prepared to launch… except we couldn't go anywhere. The Italians had blocked the plane with construction equipment.
Meanwhile, I went over to the plane that would carry the hostages home, to say "goodbye." While 1 was there, the lieutenant general arrived.
After thanking him for his cooperation, I told him, "In my judgment, we've together been able to bring about the best possible ending for this complex incident.
"Shortly," I also told him, "the hostages will be taking off for the United States, and I plan to be about thirty seconds behind them."
He then looked me straight in the eyes and said, "We have decided that you're not going anywhere."
"What do you mean by that?" I said.
"You have created all this mess, and we just can't let you fly away from it."
1 looked him in the eye. "Did you bring along clean underwear and a shaving kit?" I asked.
"No, why?"
"Then I hope the ones you're wearing are clean, because if you don't unblock my plane, you arc getting ready to take a free ride to the United States — with me."
He looked at me for a moment, smiled, and then said, "Good luck, my friend."
Moments later, on his order, the construction equipment that blocked my plane was removed, and we took off, following the C-141 carrying the hostages.
It was a new day, Saturday, October 12, 1985.
For all of us in the JSOTF, as well as the Navy participants (Rear Admiral Dave Jeremiah, his staff, and all the crews of the USS Sara
toga), things had gone very well. They had all done an outstanding job, with utmost proficiency and professional competence. We had been able to bring about a successful conclusion to a very complex and high-stakes situation.
When we landed back at Pope Air Force Base, my aide handed me a card, which indicated that although this was only the twelfth of October, we had already been on the road for 154 days that year, had been in fifteen different countries, and had flown 197,000 miles. Some of these missions had gone well, others had been frustrating; but all of them had been rewarding learning experiences in the war against terrorism, and many close relationships had been developed with our allies.
I was amused to learn later that warrants for my arrest had been issued by both Italy and Egypt. However, for the next two years I continued to travel on missions through both countries, usually in a plain flight suit, without ever being questioned or delayed.
In fact, forty-one days after the Achille Lauro incident, we found ourselves back in Sigonella again to deal with an Egyptian Air flight that had been hijacked to Malta.
On this mission I remained in constant radio contact with Major General Robert Weigand, who was stationed in Egypt and was accompanying the Egyptian 777 Force on an Egyptian C-130 to Malta to undertake a rescue operation for the hostages on the Egypt airliner. Bob had told me that the Egyptians had requested our assistance in breaching the airliner.
While we were readying our helicopters for assisting the Egyptians, Captain Bill Spearman showed up and said, "Your friends want to see you down at the airfield VIP lounge."
"What friends?" I said.
"Your Italian friends."
"Bill," 1 told him, "I don't have time to fool with them. We've got a hijacking to contend with, and the Egyptians need our assistance."
"You've got to go meet with them," he insisted.
We went back and forth for a few more minutes, until I finally consented to go with him, but only for ten minutes.
And since I was uncertain about their mood, 1 decided to take along a couple Special Forces escorts for company.
When I walked into the lounge, four or five Italian senior officers (though not my three-star friend) jumped up and said, "Welcome back! We knew you were coming!"
"How did you know that?"
"Because your plane used the same call sign as last time," they said, smiling.
My concerns turned out to be far misplaced. The get-together was very jovial.
And then, as I was leaving, the Italians announced, "We thought the operation with the ship went well; it was the politicians that screwed things up."
Unfortunately, after readying a Blackhawk and two of our best breachers for the flight to Malta, it turned out we were not able to assist the Egyptians.
We learned later that a Libyan employee in the control tower at Malta had convinced the Maltese to stipulate that assistance could only be flown in by an Italian helicopter, knowing full well the time it would take to get clearance for such a mission from Rome. The Egyptians, meanwhile, went ahead with the operation. In the process, they used far more explosives than were necessary, resulting in the death of sixty passengers, making it the bloodiest hijacking up to that time.
CONSEQUENCES
My earlier fears about the capacity and responsiveness of the Italian judicial system proved to be misplaced. The Italian judicial authorities not only quickly brought the hijackers to trial, they widened their investigation, and were able to identify many others involved in the conspiracy that led to the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. The investigation was completed in record time and the cases were brought to trial before the Genoa Assize Court in 1986.
The following received sentences as indicated.
PLO officials deemed ultimately responsible:
• Abu Abbas: life in absentia
• Ozzudin Badrakham (a PLO accomplice): life in absentia
• Ziad el-Omar (a PLO accomplice): life in absentia
HIJACKERS
• Magied al-Molqi: thirty years
• Ibrahim Abdel Atif: twenty-four years
• Ahmed al-Hassan: fifteen years
• Abdullah Ali-Hammad: charges dropped; he was a minor at the time
ACCOMPLICES
• Youssef Saad: six years (for furnishing funds and weapons)
• Abdul Rahim Khalid: seven years (for furnishing funds and weapons)
• Mohammed Issa Abbas: six months, added to an existing seven years (for possession of weapons and explosives)
• Said Candura: eight months (for possession of forged passports)
Some years later, before I left active duty as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command, my wife, Sue, and I were invited to Egypt by the Egyptian Minister of Defense on behalf of President Mubarak. They invited me to review Egyptian special-operations capabilities and the assistance the United States could provide Egyptian forces in dealing with the terrorist threat then causing internal problems — terrorist attacks on tourist buses, bombings, and the like.
We could not have been treated better, and the follow-up to that visit has been beneficial to both countries.
X
PANAMA: OPERATION BLUE SPOON
From JSOTF, Carl Stiner moved on to command the 82d Airborne Division, and from there, now a lieutenant general, he moved up to command the XVIII Airborne Corps — the Army's quick response force: Its lead elements could be "wheels-up" within eighteen hours to go anywhere in the world. At the time, the Corps contained four divisions, two separate combat brigades, and an armored cavalry regiment: The 82nd Airborne Division, 101st Air Assault Division, 10th Mountain Division, 24th Mechanized Division, the 194th Armor Brigade, the 197th Infantry Brigade, and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
On August 5, 1989, while evaluating the 28th Infantry Division at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, during the division's annual summer training, Stiner took an afternoon off to fly to Fort Monroe, Virginia, for General Max Thurman's change-of-command and retirement ceremony. High-ranking officers from every service would be there, as well as key people from the Department of Defense and Congress.
Thurman, the TRADOC commander, was known as a man who got things done — who could successfully take on the toughest jobs. Some years earlier, when Thurman had been a two-star, the Army's recruiting program had been on the rocks, and a number of recruiters were facing courts-martial for untoward activities. General Shy Meyer, the Army Chief of Staff, had picked Thurman to straighten the mess out, and he had, in spades.
Since Stiner had to rush directly from the field to the aircraft, he had no chance to change out of his fatigues. This was just as well; he had to be back in Pennsylvania later that evening to supervise live-fire activities, which would prevent him from attending the evening reception; but he did not want to miss the ceremony itself, and the chance to celebrate his old friend's accomplishments. The two men had known each other since 1973, when Thurman had been the Commander of Division Artillery and Stiner the G-3 Operations Officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. They had served together again from August 1979 to March 1980, this time in the Pentagon, working for General Meyer (Thurman had been the Director for Program Analysis and Evaluation for the Army, while Stiner was the Exec for Staff Action Control).
After the ceremony ended, Stiner stood at the rear of the reviewing stand to greet General Thurman and apologize for missing the reception. "Let's step over here for a minute," Thurman replied. "I have something I want to tell you. But let me get rid of these people." He turned to other well-wishers waiting to shake his hand. "I'll see you all over at the reception," he told them, shooing them off. "I have to talk to Carl Stiner for a couple of minutes. "
He led Stiner to a quiet spot about thirty feet from the reviewing stand. "What 1 am about to tell you is close-hold, he said. After a quick nod from Stiner, he went on. "I am not retiring. The Noriega regime in Panama has got the President very worried. For that reason, I'm being retained on active duty to take command of SOUTHCOM"
— the United States Southern Command. SOUTHCOM's area of responsibility included Central and South America, and its mission was mainly security assistance and counterdrug activities. "Though I'm not the CINC yet, I have already talked to Carl Vuono and Admiral Crowe" — Vuono was the Army Chief of Staff and Crowe was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—"and you are my man in Panama. I'm holding you responsible for contingency planning and combat operations that may have to be executed there. I want you to go down and take a look at the staff, the training readiness, and whatever else needs it."
"What about the joint task force already down there?" Stiner asked. U.S. Army South (USARSO), commanded by Army Major General Bernie Loefke, included all the forces already stationed in Panama.
"You absorb it," Thurman answered. "I'm going to hold you responsible for everything. All forces will be under your control."
"Yes, sir."
"The reason I want you is that in XVIII Airborne Corps you've got a headquarters twice the size of SOUTHCOM's, and the best communications, equipment, and trained forces in the Army for conducting contingency opcrations."[24] By that he meant that XVIII Airborne Corps was a warfighting-capable headquarters, while SOUTHCOM, by the nature of its mission, was not.
"Here is how it is going to work. You remember Admiral McCain" — the CINCPAC from 1968 to 1972, who'd operated from Hawaii. Stincr nodded yes. "There was a man in Vietnam by the name of Westmoreland, who was doing the fighting from Saigon." He gave Stiner a hard look. "Me McCain, you Westmoreland. 1 can't give you detailed instructions now, but when I am confirmed by Congress, that is the way it is going to be. Now get with it."
"Yes, sir," Stiner answered. There wasn't much else to say. He understood Thurman's guidance. He knew exactly what had to be done, and how to go about it.