“I’d like to speak to Ronald Reagan,” I said. I didn’t call him “President” because I was mad at him.
“Um, he’s not here right now,” she said, with bemusement. “He’s in California.”
“Well, when will he be back?” I persisted.
“I can leave him a message,” she said. “Who may I say is calling?”
I gave her my name and phone number, then waited a couple of weeks for a reply. Nothing. I kept checking the mail, hoping for some sign of getting through to the president. There was nothing.
I called the White House again. This time, the operator suggested writing a letter to Mr. Reagan.
I vented a lot of anger and frustration in my letter to the president. Scott helped me write it. In hindsight, I’m embarrassed by the angry, bitter tone of it. Still, it certainly did capture my state of mind at the time. I wasn’t thinking rationally. I simply wanted someone to acknowledge what I was going through and offer some help.
The letter read as follows:
March 8, 1986
Dear Mr. Reagan:
As you recall, EgyptAir Flight 648 en route from Athens, Greece to Cairo, Egypt was hijacked by terrorists and forced to land in Malta on November 23, 1985. My name is Jackie Nink Pflug and I was on that plane. I am an American and at that time, I was a teacher at the American School in Cairo. Because I am an American, I was shot point blank in the back right side of my head and thrown down a 20-foot metal staircase. Through God’s kindness, I survived. The bullet was surgically removed by a Maltese doctor. Because of the incident, my left perifial (sic) vision in both eyes is damaged, and will never return. I am having severe neck and jaw problems as well as numbness on the left side. I am now learning disabled as I no longer see things the way I did. My reading ability, memory, and comprehension skills have been severely affected. I have a Masters degree in Education and Learning Disabilities and am using my talents to teach myself to see things differently.
I know you are an awfully busy man and you don’t read all the letters that are sent to you, but I hope this one gets by. My country tells me that I should be proud to be an American. I am proud. I have traveled to many countries and have always been proud and happy to say I am an American. It’s been almost four months since the hijacking and I have not heard a word from you or anyone in your administration. I was shot in the head because I am an American. It’s sometimes hard to be proud when the president of my country (whom I helped put in office) can’t even pick up a phone or send a card to say “get well,” “hang in there,” or whatever. I am a survivor and I will survive the emotional and physical trauma this hijacking has done to me. It’s not that I “needed” to hear from you, it just would have been nice and would have confirmed my proudness in being an American.
My husband and I had to leave our teaching positions and move back to the U.S. where I can get good medical care. I have to undergo brain surgery again next December. Right now, I am living one day at a time.
I am not asking anything of you. The comfort and the reassurance you could have given me then will no longer help me. It seems that in order to be recognized by you, one should be famous, in the military, or dead. I was never looked at as an individual.
You say we should trust in America and have trust in you. I don’t look up to you like I did and probably never will. It will always be in the back of my mind that the leader of America wasn’t there when I needed him.
Sincerely yours,
Jackie Nink Pflug
I mailed the letter and waited another week or two. There was no word.
I called the White House again. This time, the operator took down my social security number. I made twenty copies of my original letter—with my social security number on it—and mailed them all to the White House that same day.
A few weeks later, I was down in Houston visiting my parents. My mother and I were returning home from a shopping expedition at the local mall. Neither my mom nor I could drive, so we took a taxi.
As the taxi pulled into the driveway, my father ran out to meet us. Normally, my dad is a very low-key guy, not easily excited. So it was strange to hear him yelling. “Jackie! Jackie! The president called! He wants you to call him back!”
I was stunned. Yet, deep down in my heart, I expected his call. My Inner Voice told me we would connect.
I called the number my dad had written down and reached the White House switchboard. This time, the operator quickly patched me through to a White House aide who said, “Please hold for the president.”
At that moment, the only thing on my mind was how frustrated I was about my financial situation. So I blurted out, “I really can’t afford this phone call. Please tell him to call me back.” I hung up the phone.
My parents were stunned. They couldn’t believe what I’d just done— hanging up on the president of the United States! I was surprised at myself too. But I felt okay about it.
“Jackie,” my dad said, “we can pay for the call.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, “but I need to pay my own bills. He’ll call back.”
A few seconds later, the phone rang. I picked it up and heard the same voice on the other end of the line, this time with irritation, I heard, “Please hold for the president.”
This time I took the call. “Okay,” I said.
In a moment, I heard a calm, familiar, grandfatherly voice on the other end of the line. I was speaking directly to Ronald Reagan. He had read my letter and said it sounded bitter. I agreed it was. He apologized for the fact that Scott and I had slipped through the cracks. He said there were people on his staff assigned to contact people like myself. He was really sorry that they hadn’t.
I asked the president if the government could offer me a low-interest loan to pay for rehabilitation and for my medical bills. I’d pay back the money—with interest—when I was able to go back to work.
He said the government didn’t loan people money, but referred me to Project Hope, a nonprofit agency that helps Americans with special needs. We talked a few more minutes, and the president told me to call Anne Kelly, a woman on his staff, to work out the details with Project Hope. He also gave me a special address and phone number where he could always be contacted if I needed to reach him again.
On April 14, 1986, I flew to Washington, D.C. to testify before the grand jury. The FBI wanted to prepare an indictment against the hijacker if Malta didn’t convict him.
I still lived with the constant fear of being attacked again—either on the ground or in the air. If a heard a door slam, I’d think it was a gunshot and instinctively brace myself for a bullet’s impact. Flying was very scary. I devised a ritual to help me deal with my fear. When I first got on a plane, I’d pace up and down the aisles to check passengers for suspicious parcels that might contain guns or grenades.
One time, a man made a scene because he didn’t want anyone to touch a box he was carrying. I asked the flight attendant to open the package anyway. There was a plant inside.
On the flight to Washington, I squeezed Scott’s hand to help me feel safe. It was a lot easier to fly with someone along for support.
Frank Fleming, our lawyer, flew from New York to meet us in Washington. Cindy Carter was waiting to meet us at Washington National Airport.
I was excited to meet Carter. She was so reassuring and helpful on the phone. She is a short, well-built woman who looked to be about my age, and had dark hair flowing down to her shoulders. Carter had a slight accent and looked Spanish. She always seemed to smile and had a great laugh. She was married to a former FBI agent and had one child.
In Washington, D.C. Carter interviewed Patrick Baker and myself. She took detailed statements of everything we saw and heard, especially our identification of the men who shot us and the other passengers.
The next day, April 15, Carter drove us to a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. Inside, I was ushered into a courtroom where a group of average American citizens were gathered to hear my testimony. A prosecutor asked me some qu
estions and helped me stay on track as I told my story.
After testifying before the grand jury, Fleming took us out to lunch. We went to a very nice restaurant near the Capitol. I was relieved to be done telling the story again.
As we were eating, I kept hearing a voice in my head that said, “Call Anne Kelly. Call Anne Kelly.” Anne Kelly was the White House aide whom Ronald Reagan had assigned to help me out.
It didn’t make sense. Why would I want to call Anne Kelly? We’d been in touch over the past couple of months. She’d gotten Project Hope to help me out.
I was interested in meeting Kelly face-to-face, and wanted to personally thank her for all the hard work she had done on my case. Maybe that was it.
I got up from the table, went over to a pay phone, and dialed the White House switchboard.
“I’m so glad you called,” Kelly said, above the clatter of dishes in the background. “I’ve been looking all over for you. The president really wants to see you.”
Kelly told Scott and me to get over to the White House as fast as we could so the president could meet us at two o’clock. It was already one, so there was no time to waste.
This was no ordinary day in the nation’s capital. It was the day after President Reagan ordered U.S. fighter pilots to bomb Libya in retaliation for state-sponsored terrorism against U.S. citizens and military installations abroad—most recently, the bombing of TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Athens and the bombing of a discotheque in Bonn, Germany.
All day long, stories about the bombing led television and radio reports. The U.S. government flatly denied that it was trying to hit Khaddafy’s living quarters in the raid, yet reporters were skeptical.
The bombing was applauded by most U.S. allies, but denounced in some circles. In the United Nations Security Council, U.S. Ambassador Vernon Walters made a strong case for the U.S. action. Walters carefully listed the evidence that Libya was behind the most recent attacks and made an eloquent plea for united international cooperation to stop terrorism.
“The scourge of Libyan terrorism is not a problem for the United States alone,” Walters said. “It threatens all members of the civilized world community. It challenges all members of this Council to give meaning to their commitment to uphold the principles of the Charter and to act in the common defense of those principles.
“Colonel Khaddafy’s rhetoric and actions are not only anti-American, his support for terrorist violence is far-ranging and worldwide—his victims are of many nationalities. More than forty so-called Libyan diplomats have been expelled from Western Europe since 1983 for involvement in criminal activities. Terrorist attacks by Libyan henchmen have ranged from the bloody outrages at the Rome and Vienna airports to the hijacking of an Egyptian airliner to Malta [emphasis added]; to the streets of Bonn where two Germans were wounded during an attack on an anti-Khaddafy dissident; and to the murder of a British policewoman doing her duty outside the Libyan People’s Bureau in London….”
I was glad that something was finally being done to possibly stop the terrorism. I had mixed feelings, though: many innocent lives were lost in the bombing.
Scott felt stronger about it. “I’m glad they’re going to get those bastards,” he said.
While Walters was speaking at UN headquarters in New York City, Scott and I were in a cab headed for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the White House. The driver dropped us off right in front of the black metal gates surrounding the White House.
We got out and walked over to a security guard standing rigidly at the sentry station leading to the White House driveway. He looked extremely proper and official as he stood at attention. He was a young man, probably not more than twenty-four or twenty-five years old.
“I’m here to see President Reagan,” I said.
The young guard laughed.
“No, I’m serious. I’m here to see President Reagan.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Jackie Pflug.”
The guard looked down his list and spotted my name.
“Wow, you must be a pretty important person,” he said.
Another security guard escorted Scott and me inside the gate and into a White House entrance. We walked down a long corridor and then were met by Anne Kelly. She and another guard gave us a little tour as they walked us down another corridor towards the Oval Office.
“On our right is the Green Room, decorated by Dolly Madison during the War of 1812….To your left is the President’s Library….”
We stopped in a small, modern, secure reception area just outside the Oval Office—one of the last barriers before reaching the president’s inner sanctum.
“Wait here,” Kelly said.
Twenty minutes went by.
I couldn’t believe I was actually sitting outside the Oval Office in the White House, the supreme symbol of American power and strength. This was the same room where, the night before, President Reagan had explained the rationale behind the Libya bombing to the entire nation. I could practically feel the history around me: Franklin D. Roosevelt holding his famous fireside chats during the Great Depression; John F. Kennedy staring down the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis; Richard Nixon uttering his famous expletives deleted during the Watergate Affair.
As we waited, important-looking people kept coming and going. We both felt like little kids waiting for Dad to see us.
After a while, the door opened and someone said, “Okay, we’re ready for you.”
We walked through the doors and into a room that was lit up with television camera lights. There was the fireplace that I’d always seen on television shots of the Oval Office. The high ceiling, emblazoned with the presidential seal, was brightly lit. President Reagan’s desk was banked by a curving wall of windows facing out on the south lawn landscaping first sculpted by President Thomas Jefferson. There was a small bronze statue of a cowboy on a horse by American artist Frederic Remington. I was surprised by the size of the Oval Office: it was a little smaller than an average grade-school classroom.
The president’s office was filled with newspaper reporters and other journalists. The room was buzzing with energy and commotion.
Above the fray, a very clear, refined, and strong voice—like that of a news anchor—announced our entrance.
“Mr. President … Mr. And Mrs. Scott Pflug.”
President Reagan stepped forward, smiling, with his hand outstretched.
I couldn’t believe it. He seemed so different from how he looked on television.
I threw my arms around President Reagan and gave him a big hug. He was caught a little off guard. I think I almost knocked him over!
Flashbulbs went off as our pictures were taken with Mr. Reagan.
He chatted with us a little bit. I thanked him for the help he’d given me in contacting Project Hope.
President Reagan explained to us that there were so many news cameras and recording instruments in the office because there is a public record of everything he did in the White House. Members of the public, historians, or researchers could later access those records.
Five months earlier, I was lying on an airport tarmac with a bullet in my head, waiting to die. Now, I was in the Oval Office chatting with the president of the United States.
What did it all mean?
A few weeks after our meeting in the White House, President Reagan sent me a poster based on the well-known poem “Footprints in the Sand.” The poem tells the story of a man who dreamed he was walking along a beach with God, reviewing his life. The man noticed there were two sets of footprints during much of his life, but at the saddest and most difficult times, there was only one set. He was troubled and asked God about it: “I don’t understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.” God responded, “My precious child, I love you and would never leave you during your times of suffering and trial. When you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”
Mr. Reagan was very influential in getting Project Hope t
o help us out. The charity paid off all the medical and therapy bills I’d accumulated to that point. The University of Minnesota Hospital agreed to cover 20 percent of my second brain surgery while 80 percent was covered by my insurance company.
Jackie Nink Pflug, 1995
At home in Pasadena, Texas, a suburb outside of Houston, where I grew up with my two sisters. I’m the one who is standing in this picture, holding my grandmother’s hand. My baby sister, Mary, is in Grandma Nink’s lap, and my older sister, Gloria, is sharing the chair. My grandmother is a very influential part of my life. I learned a lot about what inner peace is from her, because she seemed so at peace with herself. She died at age ninety-three, four months before the hijacking.
Church played an important role in my life. Here’s a picture of the Nink family on their way to church Easter Sunday. Standing in back at left is my mother Billie. Gloria is in front of my mother, with Mary in the middle. I’m standing in front of my father Eugene.
Even at the age of fourteen, I dreamed of visiting strange, exotic lands and meeting interesting people. My parents took me on a lot of vacations in the United States, but I had a yearning to go abroad and see the world. Some people have a yearning for music or art or science. I had a yearning to travel.
Egyptian people are very friendly and love to have their pictures taken, as this man did. He is selling his goods on the streets of Maadi, fifteen minutes outside Cairo. The man is wearing a gallabeyya, traditional Egyptian clothing.
I felt as though I was back in time, like Lawrence of Arabia, riding a camel near the great pyramids.
The hijacked EgyptAir plane at Luqa Airport in Valletta, Malta. I believe that the man squatting at the open front door of the aircraft is a hijacker; the man standing is a “helper,” that is, a security person who was aboard the plane and was forced by the hijackers to help them out.
Four of the twenty-five Egyptian commandos who stormed the aircraft, and their two commanding officers (seated in front), are pictured here. I think the commandos had a well-intentioned rescue plan, but when they stormed the plane and saw the hijackers with grenades, they had to react quickly and lost control.
Miles To Go Before I Sleep Page 13