It’s not the first topic that comes up when people talk about terrorism, yet once again local author Michael K. Bohn shows the importance of being on the inside when he relates what happened during the Achille Lauro hijacking some 20 years ago.
His newly released book, “The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism,” discusses in detail the events of this tragic 1985 hijacking. Bohn, who watched the incident unfold from his position as director of the White House Situation Room, talks about the capture of the terrorists, the ongoing grief and anger of the Klingenhoffer family and a previously untold story about the death of Alex Odeh, a Catholic Palestinian-American, who was the West Coast coordinator of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Bohn said that when he first played around with the idea of writing the story, he thought it might be too boring. However, when he went online to do a search for Achille Lauro, he found that there were over 3000 hits and some little-known facts about the incident.
“I wrote the book because I thought it was an interesting story. It’s a tale of two families looking for justice,” Bohn said.
With full access to both the Klingenhoffer and Odeh families, he had a first-hand look at what terrorism does to families. Bohn spent a lot of time talking to Klingenhoffer’s daughters, as well as members of Odeh’s family. He realized that not only was it important what had happened, but it was still current. As one will see when they read the book, several events happened recently that have finally brought some closure to both families.
A CAREER NAVAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, Bohn served as a military social aide to President Nixon between 1970-72; one of the more major White House social events he managed during this period was Tricia Nixon’s wedding.
Bohn served in Vietnam as part of the Brown Water Navy, operating in the rivers of the Mekong Delta. He was an intelligence duty officer and briefer for the Chief of Naval Operations, and aide to the Director of Naval Intelligence. He also served aboard ships and at intelligence centers in San Diego, Honolulu, and Washington, D.C. In 1984-85, he was a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy research organization in Washington.
Bohn served as the director of the Situation Room at the White House during the second Reagan administration. He provided alerts, daily intelligence reports and crisis management support to the President and his most senior advisors. After retirement from the Navy in 1988, Bohn managed multi-million dollar contracts with the federal government for Booz Allen Hamilton.
This is his second book; “The Nerve Center” was released last year and has sold several thousand copies. Bohn has appeared in two BBC TV documentaries about crisis management at the White House; “The White House at War,” a New York Times/Discovery Channel documentary; “Nuclear Sharks” on the Discovery Channel; and is a contributor to the upcoming German TV documentary, “Palaces of Power.”
He lives in Mount Vernon with his wife, Elin and has two sons: Carter, 28, was the former tournament manager of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic; he is currently taking graduate courses at Johns Hopkins School for advanced international studies. Erik is a golf professional with Westfields Golf Club.
TO CAPTURE the events of October 1985, Bohn first relates how four Palestinian men hijacked an Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro, holding hundreds of hostage for two days. He talks about how the hijackers killed a partially disabled, 69-year-old Jewish American, Leon Klinghoffer, and threw his body into the sea. Klinghoffer’s wife, Marilyn, who was aboard the ship, didn’t even know of the murder until the cruise ship docked.
The hijackers, members of the Palestine Liberation Front, sought to exchange the ship’s passengers for Palestinians held in Israeli jails. They were led by a Palestinian named Mohammed Abbas, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Abbas, the head of the Palestine Liberation Front.
The hijackers surrendered to the Egyptian government after holding the ship hostage for two days. Egypt put the hijackers, as well as Abu Abbas, aboard an EgyptAir airliner, sending them to Tunisia. U.S. Navy fighters intercepted the plane and forced it to land in Italy. The Italian government arrested and tried the hijackers, but released their leader, Mohammed “Abu” Abbas.
Many people remember Klinghoffer’s death, but few know about the murder of Alex Odeh, which was strongly associated with the hijacking, in that Odeh had defended Yasser Arafat’s apparent role in defusing the hijacking on television. One day after his television appearance, Odeh was killed by a terrorist’s bomb, which exploded as he opened the door of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Odeh, a Catholic, Palestinian-American, was the West Coast coordinator of this group.
It is widely held that Palestinians killed Klinghoffer because he was Jewish, and that Jewish extremists killed Odeh because he was a Palestinian. The Klinghoffer family received some satisfaction when the hijacking mastermind, Abu Abbas, was captured in April, 2003 in Iraq. The Klinghoffer family also sued the PLO, asking for $1.9 billion in damages; the PLO settled the suit in 1996 for an undisclosed amount.
The Odeh family have not yet had that satisfaction, as they still wait for charges to be brought against Odeh’s murderers.
Bohn thinks that understanding both the Achille Lauro incident, and the sequence of events that followed will help Americans better understand the threat of terrorism. If one believes that terrorism is a tactic chosen by some to further political goals, and is about violence, power politics, prejudice, hatred, land, religion, greed, money and many other factors that influence human society, then all of these forces are present in the Achille Lauro hijacking and its aftermath.
“Understanding the ‘Achille Lauro’ incident, and its aftermath, will help America understand its complicated involvement with international terrorism, especially that arising from the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Bohn said.
“The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism” can be purchased at major bookstores and online at www.brasseysinc.com and other major book distributors.