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Assassination in Khartoum: An Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Book

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...Author David Korn reveals a compelling tale of how Arafat and his PLO organization kidnapped and assasinated two American diplomats. In the minutes before 7 p.m. on March 1, 1973, a routine diplomatic reception was breaking up at the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. But as the ambassadors left the party and disbursed to find their drivers, a volley of machine-gun bullets suddenly interrupted the quiet scene. Eight masked gunmen of "Black September", a covert Palestinian organization, burst into the embassy's main reception room. There, the diplomats were forced to sit on the floor and identify themselves by nationality. The masked men then proceeded to release most of the reception attendeed, keeping just five: two Americans (Ambassador Cleo Allen Noel, Jr. and Chargé d'Affaires George Curtis Moore), a Belgian, a Jordanian, and a Saudi. The gunmen then sent out a list of their demands, which included the freeing of jailed Palestinian terrorists, including Abu Daoud, a leader of the "Black September" organization; the freeing of Sirhan Sirhan, Robert Kennedy's killer, from jail in California; and the freeing of "Palestinian women in prison in Israel."

Twenty-six hours of feverish negotiations then went by. On the evening of the 2nd, the Beirut headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) sent an order of execution to the terrorists via radio broadcast: "Why are you waiting? The people's blood in the Cold River cries for vengeance" ("Cold River" was the code word for executing the captives). Yasir Arafat, chairman of the PLO then as now, personally delivered this order to murder. Soon after he did, the two Americans and the Belgian were bound, lined up against a basement wall, and executed in gangland fashion -- all eight gunmen simultaneously pulling on their triggers.

A decade earlier, the author David Korn, had worked Moore, one of the two dead Americans. During the siege at the Khartoum embassy, Korn worked at the Department of State's Operations Center, doing what little he could to save the lives of his two colleagues. Unsuccessful in that effort, he kept the story in mind and now, twenty years later, has published a study which suitably remembers the victims and honors their memory.

But Assassination in Khartoum does more: it has a current significance the author could not possibly have anticipated. Korn's meticulous inquiry into the killings at Khartoum raises important questions about the PLO as an institution, the character of its chairman Arafat, and American policy towards them.

Bringing the murder of Noel and Moore back to public attention highlights the unpleasant fact that the PLO has on a number of occasions attacked American citizens. Probably the best-known of these attacks took place in October 1985 when Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly invalid, was shot in the chest, and the other passengers were forced to throw his body and wheelchair over the side of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. In contrast, the most costly incident in terms of American lives is also one of the most completely forgotten: the bombing of TWA flight 707 in September 1974 en route from Tel Aviv to New York. A high-explosive bomb went off in a rear cargo compartment, sending the plane into the Ionian Sea and killing all eighty-eight persons aboard.

Korn's work clearly reveals that Americans have their own, serious problem with the PLO quite independent of Israel's.

Very factual account of events.Research of the facts was very well done.Since I knew some of the people written about I was able to understand the events.