The "Achille Lauro" Hijacking
Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism

Michael K Bohn spent many days and nights monitoring terrorist incidents. During his tenure, the attack on the Achille Lauro gripped the world. The murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a physically disabled American citizen, at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist group seemed to provide a textbook example of good versus evil.

While political speeches ("are you with us or against us?") and public rhetoric paint the phenomenon of terrorism with a black-and-white brush, presenting it as a clear-cut battle between evildoers versus heroes of democracy, in reality the problem is unimaginably complex. As the director of the White House Situation Room during Ronald Reagan's second term, Michael K. Bohn spent many days and nights monitoring terrorist incidents. During his tenure, the attack on the Achille Lauro gripped the world. The murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a physically disabled American citizen, at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist group seemed to provide a textbook example of good versus evil. The American public seized on this simplified representation of the attack, and the US government and media did little to explore its extenuating circumstances. This re-assessment of the events of October 1985 shows what we should have learned from the hijacking. It also contains valuable lessons about the role of prejudice and politics in the resolution of terrorist attacks. It is available in a hardback edition, which was published in November 2004.