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<text>
<title>
(1970s) Terrorism
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1970s Highlights
</history>
<link 07456>
<link 07458>
<link 07400>
<link 07255>
<link 00189><article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
Terrorism
</hdr>
<body>
<p> [The 1970s was a decade of turmoil; the world often seemed to
be spinning into a maelstrom of mindless violence. With the
U.S. pulling back from international entanglements after the
trauma of Vietnam and the Soviets engaged in opportunistic
worldwide trouble-mongering, small, hitherto insignificant
countries--or even groups within those countries--found
themselves, through violence or economic blackmail, in a
position to wield power out of all proportion to their size or
inherent strength.
</p>
<p> The paradigm for the decade was the terrorist: fanatically
dedicated, secretive, prepared to go to any lengths to achieve
some political goal--nationalistic, ideological or sectarian--that stood little chance of realization by legitimate,
nonviolent means. The major cockpit for terrorism was the Middle
East, where Palestinian guerrillas, frustrated by Israel's
survival and strength, had already begun attacking civilians and
hijacking international aircraft in the previous decade. But in
the 1970s terrorism was everywhere: in Latin America and Canada,
Europe and South Asia--and of course the U.S. The biggest
terrorist spectacular to date occurred in September 1970, when
Palestinian extremists hijacked three jet airliners in Europe.]
</p>
<p>(September 21, 1970)
</p>
<p> Deep in the timeless Jordanian desert, the three silvery
jetcraft glinted like metallic mirages in the afternoon sun,
their finned tails emblazoned with the insignia of three famed
airlines: TWA, BOAC and Swissair. Then suddenly a huge
explosion, then another and another. The planes crumpled, then
burst into flame. From the burning wreckage rose columns of
black smoke that were visible 25 miles away in Amman, where Arab
guerrillas fired their guns in celebration.
</p>
<p> Mercifully, just hours before that apocalyptic scene occurred
last week, the aircraft had been emptied of some 300 men, women
and children who had been held hostage in them for as long as
six days. But at least 40 of those passengers remained in the
hands of their captors, waiting under threat of death for a
political bargain that would free them in return for the release
of Arab terrorists imprisoned in Israel and elsewhere. The rest
were free to fly away.
</p>
<p> The sky pirates responsible for one of the most audacious acts
of political blackmail in modern times belong to a small band
of Arab extremists called the popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine. Equipped only with guns and grenades, they managed
to terrorize air travelers from the North Atlantic to the
Persian Gulf jeopardize a shaky truce in the Middle East, bargain
for human life with some of the world's most powerful nations,
and hold the entire international community at bay. In all, they
detonated some $50 million worth of jet aircraft. Faced with the
outrage of most of the world, including nearly all Arab
governments, the commandos bragged about their act, saying that
"the headlines have shown that our cause is now clearly
publicized."
</p>
<p> [The cycle of violence rose higher and higher. The limit
seemed to have been reached by the kidnaping and murder of
Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics; then by another
airline hijacking spectacular in December 1973 in which 31
people--a record--were killed. Finally in 1976, the Israelis,
who had always taken a tough line on negotiating with terrorists
and regularly retaliated against Palestinian terrorism with
attacks on Palestinian installations in Lebanon, had a chance
to stage a spectacular of their own.]
</p>
<p>(September 18, 1972)
</p>
<p> Until last week, the XX Olympiad had been a huge and happy
success. Never before had so many records been toppled or so
many political quarrels forgotten. West Germans even made a
point of cheering whenever East Germans won. In that atmosphere,
security was progressively relaxed. Forgotten, too, was earlier
concern over security for the Israeli team. As the Israelis took
it last week, they had asked two months ago for special
protection at the Games, and had been promised that they would
be safeguarded. The West Germans said that they had offered the
Israelis special protection, and been turned down.
</p>
<p> The Arabs made their move at 4:20 a.m. as the sprawling
Olympic Village lay quiet and sleeping in the predawn darkness.
Two telephone linemen saw a group of young men wearing sporty
clothes and carrying athletic equipment scale the 6 1/2-ft.
fence surrounding the village. It was a fairly common
occurrence; many of the Olympic athletes had broken training to
enjoy a night on the town, and then scaled the fence to re-enter
the compound. But once out of sight, the Arab group stopped to
blacken their faces with charcoal or put on hoods, and pull
weapons out of their bags. Then they set off toward the Israeli
quarters at 31 Connollystrasse.
</p>
<p> The 22 male Israeli athletes, coaches and officials shared
five apartments in the modernistic three-story building.
Uncertain how many of the three-room apartments housed Israelis,
the intruders knocked on one of the doors and asked in German,
"Is this the Israeli team? Wrestling Coach Moshe Weinberg, 32,
opened the door a crack, then threw himself against it when he
saw the armed men, and yelled for his roommates to flee.
Weinberg was hit by a burst of submachine-gun fire through the
door. Boxer Gad Zavary bounced out of bed, broke a window and
climbed out. "They fired after me," he said. "I heard the
bullets whistling by my ears."
</p>
<p> Virtually the same scene was repeated at a second apartment.
Wrestler Joseph Romano apparently fought off the intruding
Arabs momentarily with a knife, but he was mortally wounded. In
all, 18 Israelis managed to escape. Nine who did not make it to
the exits were taken hostage. They were bound hand and foot in
groups of three and pushed together into a bed.
</p>
<p> At 9 a.m. the Arabs tossed out of a window a message in
English that listed 100 Arab prisoners presently held in Israeli
jails and demanded their release. Also on the list were the
names of Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader, leaders of a gang
of German leftist terrorists that had robbed at least eight
banks, bombed U.S. Army posts and killed three policemen before
the last members were captured in June, and Kozo Okamoto, the
Japanese terrorist who took part in last May's massacre at Tel
Aviv's Lod airport. As the police read the list, the Olympic
Games continued only 400 yards away.
</p>
<p> A 727 was flow to Furstenfeldbruck, a West German airbase 16
miles outside Munich. No crew could be found to take the plane
out again loaded with Arabs and Israelis, that scarcely
mattered, since the Germans did not intend to let them leave.
Already, plans were under way to transfer sharpshooters to
Furstenfeldbruck.
</p>
<p> At 10 p.m., nearly 18 hours after they had started their
assault, the eight guerrillas herded their prisoners, who were
now tied together in chain fashion and blindfolded, out of the
building and into a gray German army bus. They were driven
through a tunnel under the village to a strip of lawn that had
been converted into an emergency helicopter pad. Two choppers
took the Arabs and their hostages on a 25-minute ride to
Furstenfeldbruck airport; a third preceded them, carrying German
officials and Israeli intelligence men.
</p>
<p> The airport had been ringed by 500 soldiers. Sharpshooters
were staked out, but, strangely and disastrously, there were
only five of them to pick off eight. Arabs, the rest had been
left at Olympic Village in case the Arabs presented targets of
opportunity there. The sharpshooters--three of them posted in
the control tower 40 yards from the helicopters and the other
two on the field--had been instructed to fire whenever the
Arabs presented the greatest number of targets. The cautious
terrorists never exposed more than four of their number at a
time. Nonetheless, one marksman squeezed off a round and the
others quickly followed suit.
</p>
<p> The two Arabs guarding the helicopter crews were hit, and in
the firefight that followed one of the pilots was wounded. A
third guerrilla on the tarmac was killed.
</p>
<p> The battle continued sporadically for another hour before
five guerrillas, including the leader, were killed and three
surrendered. In that interval the hostages died too. One group
of four burned to death when a terrorist tossed a grenade and
set fire to the helicopter in which they were being held. The
rest were machine-gunned by the Arabs.
</p>
<p>(November 13, 1972)
</p>
<p> For weeks, West Germany's government had been uneasily aware
that the Black September movement, which struck so viciously in
Munich two months ago, would almost certainly strike again. The
Arab terrorists' objective this time: freedom for the three
young fedayeen who had been confined in separate Bavarian
prisons since they were captured during the Olympic massacre of
Israeli athletes and coaches. Last week Black September acted--and took the Germans by surprise. In one of the boldest
skyjackings so far, two Palestinian terrorists commandeered a
Lufthansa 727 with eleven other passengers aboard and forced
the release of their three captured brethren.
</p>
<p> The reaction in the Arab world was undisguised rejoicing.
"Despite Zionist terrorism, the Palestinians are still able to
present their cause to the world," crowed the Cairo newspaper
Al-Gumhouri. When the Lufthansa jet landed in the Libyan capital
of Tripoli, the three rescued Black Septemberists aboard--Sammar Abdullah, Abdul Kader Dannawi and Ibrahim Badran--were
welcomed like conquering princes.
</p>
<p> Angered by the alacrity with which the West Germans had agreed
to turn over the three Arabs, Israel temporarily recalled its
ambassador to Bonn. Complained Foreign Minister Abba Eban: "Who
knows what people have been condemned to death or injury by
their release?"
</p>
<p>(December 31, 1973)
</p>
<p> The fusillade signaled the start of a guerrilla attack in Rome
last week that turned into the bloodiest rampage in the surreal
five-year history of Arab skyjack terrorism. Before it ended 30
hours later--in the sand beyond a runway of the airport in
Kuwait--31 people had been killed in Rome and one more in
Athens.
</p>
<p> The terrorists, who later identified themselves as
Palestinian guerrillas, first struck at the Rome airport's
security checkpoint during the early afternoon rush hour. "I was
heading toward the security check, and up front I saw a tall,
well-dressed young man," a British stewardess recalled. "As he
approached the guards, he put his hand in his pocket and took
out a pistol." Instantly, his companions--perhaps as many as
seven--opened their overnight bags, took out submachine guns
and began to spray gunfire in every direction.
</p>
<p> The gunmen then ran out onto the flight field. One group of
the terrorists headed toward Pan American's Flight 110, which
was preparing to depart for Beirut and Teheran with 59
passengers and ten crew members on board. At the first sign of
trouble, Captain Andrew Erbeck told the passengers to crouch on
the floor. Before he could order the 707's doors closed, a
clean-shaven young man in a white sweater ran to the foot of the
steps, a canister in his outstretched hand. "They're coming with
grenades!" First Officer Robert Davison shouted. "Get the people
out of here!" It was too late.
</p>
<p> Somehow, 40 passengers and crewmen managed to escape, mainly
through emergency exits over the wings. Many suffered burns,
including one passenger who died hours later. But 29 more were
trapped inside, including all eleven passengers in the
first-class section.
</p>
<p> From the Pan Am plane, the terrorists ran down the tarmac to
a West German Lufthansa 737 jet that had already been
commandeered by the second group of guerrillas. On board,
besides the pilot and three other Lufthansa crew members, were
ten hostages who had been rounded up in the terminal and outside
on the tarmac. An Italian customs guard had resisted the
terrorists and been shot dead outside the Lufthansa jet. At 1:32
p.m., only 41 minutes after the first shot had been fired, the
plane took off with the crew, hostages and five guerrillas
aboard; other terrorists may have stayed behind.
</p>
<p> The terrorists first flew to Greece to demand the release of
two Palestinians who were in prison there awaiting trial for
their role in an attack at the Athens airport last August in
which four people had been killed. As soon as the 737 landed at
Athens, the skyjackers announced to Greek authorities that they
had already murdered four of their hostages. Unless their
demands were met, they said, they would take off against and
crash the plane into the heart of Athens. They had actually
murdered one hostage and wounded another, but the rest of their
boast turned out to be a gristly bluff: they harmed none of the
others, and had no intentions of killing themselves. After 16
hours on the ground in Athens, the plane took off again.
</p>
<p> Both Lebanon and Cyprus refused to allow the jetliner to
land, and the terrorists finally ordered it to put down at
Damascus. Syrian Air Force Commander Major General Naji Jamil
tried to talk the skyjackers into releasing their hostages "for
humanitarian reasons and for the sake of Arab patriotism." When
the guerrillas refused, the Syrians refueled the plane, provided
food and treated an injured terrorist for a bad wound.
</p>
<p> A little more than three hours later, the "mad odyssey," as
one Arab commentator described it, ended in the Persian Gulf
emirate of Kuwait. Again airport authorities refused landing
permission. Under threat from the terrorists, Captain Joe Kroese
brought in his plane anyway on a secondary runway. After an hour
of haggling between the terrorists and Kuwait officials over
conditions of surrender, the twelve hostages and crewmen walked
down the ramp, followed a short time later by their captors. "We
are Palestinian Arabs, not criminals," declared one of them.
"The criminals are the ones who bomb Palestinian refugee camps
in Lebanon."
</p>
<p>(July 12, 1976)
</p>
<p> For nearly a week, pro-Palestinian skyjackers had held 105
hostages--mostly Israeli--at Uganda's Entebbe Airport. Now,
with time rapidly slipping away and the deadline merely hours
off, death seemed ever more certain for the terrified captives.
Then suddenly, three Israel C-130 Hercules transports, guns
firing, appeared in the dark sky over the airport. Soon they
touched down, disgorging about 100 paratroopers and infantrymen
and powerful armored personnel carriers.
</p>
<p> As the engines of the Hercules were kept racing, the commando
units, in civilian dress, fanned out across the airfield and
headed for the old terminal (with its WELCOME TO UGANDA sign)
where the skyjackers were guarding the hostages. After a 15
minute blaze of gunfire, it was all over. The terrorists,
according to Israeli reports, were dead, and the hostages were
on the planes. It had taken less than a half-hour, and the
transports were back in the air. Before they left, the Israelis
badly damaged or destroyed the Soviet-made Ugandan air force
MIGs parked on the field, thus eliminating the danger of being
pursued.
</p>
<p> The drama had begun almost a full week earlier, aboard Air
France Flight 139, en route from Tel Aviv to Paris. Minutes
after the Airbus took off from its stopover at Athens
International Airport, a German girl in her late twenties got
out of her seat in the first-class section of the jetliner. "Sit
down!" she shouted. Holding two hand grenades aloft, the girl
then herded the startled passengers into the tourist section of
the plane, where three male comrades--a German and two Arabs--were already in control. With that, 242 passengers and
twelve crew members began a terrifying odyssey that first took
them to Libya for refueling (where a pregnant passenger was
allowed to go free) and then to Uganda's Entebbe Airport.
</p>
<p> At Entebbe, the original skyjackers were reinforced by four
men, probably Arabs, carrying submachine guns, rifles, a Beretta
pistol and dynamite. Passengers and crew were herded into a
seldom-used terminal; later, Israelis were separated from the
others when one of the terrorists barked in English, "Israelis
to the right." Via Radio Uganda, the skyjackers proclaimed that
they were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine.
</p>
<p> Using Uganda's mercurial President Idi ("Big Daddy") Amin
Dada as an enthusiastic mouthpiece, the skyjackers warned that
their hostages would be killed and the jet blown up unless 53
assorted "freedom fighters" were released from prisons. The
hostages remained in the terminal, huddling together during the
bitter-cold nights, trying to sleep on the hard benches and the
stone floor as rats scampered around them. Claiming to be swayed
by Amin's plea for humanitarianism, the terrorists released 47
elderly women, children and sick hostages at midweek.
</p>
<p> By then, the skyjackers had set late Thursday afternoon as
their deadline; either the 53 imprisoned terrorists would be
delivered to Uganda or all the hostages would be killed. Shortly
before expiration of the deadline, Jerusalem declared that it
was willing to negotiate with the skyjackers. The skyjackers
then postponed the deadline three days and allowed an additional
101 captives to fly to Paris. Remaining as hostages were 93
passengers--mostly Israeli or those with Jewish sounding
names--and the twelve crew members. It was their lives that
hung in the balance as the Israelis decided to launch their raid.
</p>
<p> [In Northern Ireland, a centuries-old quarrel between the
Roman Catholic minority and the Protestant majority had flared
to life again in the late 1960s when Catholics mobilized protest
marches to demand their civil and economic rights. British
troops had to be called in to protect Catholics against
Protestant violence. In the 1970s the soldiers' presence sparked
the revival of the Irish Republican Army, that relic of early
20th-century Irish nationalism now transformed into a terrorist
force.]
</p>
<p>(January 10, 1972)
</p>
<p> What began in 1968 as a nonviolent campaign for civil rights
by Ulster's half-million Catholics--one-third of the North's
population--has inexorably grown into an all-out campaign of
terror by that most fabled and storied of guerrilla
organizations, the Irish Republican Army. Best estimates are
that the army in Northern Ireland numbers no more than 200
hard-core gunmen, and deaths and arrests have decimated its
cadre of trained leaders. But the I.R.A. clearly has no
shortage of potential recruits.
</p>
<p> Terror, even when cloaked in idealism, is an ugly form of
politic--the strategy of determined, desperate men. The I.R.A.
is determined to survive and to win. Says Sean MacStiofain,
chief of staff of the army's militant Provisional wing: "This
is not just another glorious phase in Irish history. We must
win. We can't afford to lose. We will keep the campaign going
regardless of the cost to ourselves, regardless of the cost to
anyone else."
</p>
<p> Even if they were somehow neutralized by British troops, it
is already clear that the gunmen have come surprisingly close
to winning their political goals. Since its establishment in
1916, the I.R.A. has had but one aim: the creation of a united
Ireland wholly free of British control. The army's tactics of
terror have succeeded in reopening the issue of "the border,"
and the reunification of North and South--Ulster and the
Republic of Ireland. They have made all but untenable the
Protestant-dominated government of Northern Ireland at Stormont.
</p>
<p> [The utter intransigence of the two sides and the inability
of the British government to suppress the violence or implement
any solution to the underlying grievances left the field to the
terrorists. By decade's end, almost 2,000 people had been
killed and thousands disabled; Irishmen, on both sides of the
border, were more completely polarized than ever before.
</p>
<p> In West Germany, meanwhile, the bourgeois coloration of
political life, extending even to the Socialist parties, had
spawned radical groups dedicated to destroying the country's
prosperity and serenity. The most violent of these was the Red
Army Faction, organized by two zealots known as "Bonnie und
Clyde," in honor of the American gangster immortalized in a
1960s film.]
</p>
<p>(February 7, 1972)
</p>
<p> "Bonnie" is Ulrike Meinhof, 37, a slim, tough-faced divorcee
who was once the editor of the leftist monthly magazine Konkret.
"Clyde" is Andreas Baader, 28, a personable art-school dropout,
Lothario of sorts, and sometime student revolutionary.
Accompanied by a fluctuating number of associates (as many as
23 at times), the Baader-Meinhof gang during the past two years
has pulled a string of bank robberies and car thefts, and has
had shootouts with police in half a dozen cities. The toll so
far: one policeman killed and another seriously injured, two
gang members killed.
</p>
<p> Unlike the real Bonnie and Clyde, who robbed banks mostly for
the hell of it, Baader and Meinhof are far-left political
revolutionaries who are turned to crime as a way of waging war
against bourgeois society. As Meinhof put it in a clandestine
interview published by Der Spiegel, "What we want to do and
show is that armed confrontation is feasible--that it is
possible to carry out actions where we win, and not the other
side. Cops have to be fought as representatives of the system.
Cops are pigs, not human beings."
</p>
<p>(September 19, 1977)
</p>
<p> The two-car armed convoy that wound its way through Cologne's
streets last week was bringing well-known Industrialist
Hanns-Martin Schleyer, 62, home from his downtown office.
Suddenly the blue Mercedes carrying Schleyer screeched to a halt
in order to avoid crashing into a yellow sedan that was blocking
half the street and a baby carriage that had rolled across the
other half. Sensing danger, the driver of the convoy's second
car pulled up behind Schleyer's auto. As three of the bodyguards
jumped out, they and Schleyer's chauffuer were mowed down by at
least 300 machine-gun bullets, fired by about half a dozen
terrorists. His ambushed guards sprawled dead in pools of blood,
Schleyer was dragged into a white Volkswagen Kombi bus and
whisked away.
</p>
<p> The day after the abduction, the kidnapers made six demands
in a letter anonymously left at a police station. The
kidnapers' message warned that Schleyer would be killed unless
eleven terrorists were released from German prisons, each given
100,000 deutsche marks (about $43,000), and flown out of the
country. Among the eleven: Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and
Gudrun Ensslin, the top members of the notorious Baader-Meinhof
gang, who are serving life sentences for the 1972 bombing
murders of four U.S. servicemen and 34 attempted killings.
</p>
<p> [The links between terrorist groups around the world were
revealed when Arabic-speaking, presumably Palestinian,
guerrillas hijacked a Lufthansa airliner to underline the
R.A.F.'s demands.]
</p>
<p>(October 24, 1977)
</p>
<p> Most of the passengers aboard Lufthansa Flight 181 were
vacationers homeward bound for Frankfurt from the balmy Spanish
playground of Majorca. Shortly after the Boeing 737 took off
from Palma, two Arabic-speaking men and two women pulled out
pistols and grenades and ordered the pilot to change course. So
began a terrifying odyssey for the 82 other passengers and the
five-man crew. For 2 1/2 days, they were held in the Persian
Gulf sheikdom Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Early this
week, they were flown to Aden, South Yemen, after being refused
permission to land in Oman. They faced the possibility of death
if the skyjackers' demands were not met.
</p>
<p> By demanding freedom for the same prisoners whose release was
being sought by Schleyer's abductors, the skyjackers have--in
the words of a German official--"enormously complicated an
already difficult situation." In the six weeks since the seizing
of the 62-year-old industrialist, West German authorities have
been deftly buying time in hopes that they could find a way to
obtain Schleyer's release without giving in to the kidnapers.
</p>
<p>(October 31, 1977)
</p>
<p> The behavior of the hijackers became increasingly erratic and
menacing as another deadline approached. At one point, they tied
the hostages' hands behind their backs with stockings and doused
them with the remaining liquor aboard, apparently to help fuel
the flames if they set the plane afire. The terrorists later
united the hostages, after being told by a West German diplomat
in the control tower that Bonn would release eleven prisoners
and fly them to Mogadishu. Mahmud consulted his "committee" and
agreed to put off the deadline once more, this time until 2:30
a.m. Tuesday. He advised the tower: "Don't try any tricks. This
will not be another Entebbe."
</p>
<p> But it was. Forty minutes before the terrorists' final
deadline, the G.S.G. 9 rescue operation began. While two of the
terrorists were in the cockpit talking with the German diplomat
in the control tower, 28 commandos--their faces blackened and
bodies camouflaged--stealthily approached the hijacked plane.
Suddenly, there was an explosion on the runway--a diversion,
and a signal for the attack. Smashing the emergency exits and
blowing open the main doors with special explosives, the
rescuers lobbed their stun grenades into the cabin. "Hinlegen!
Hinlegen!" (Lie down! Lie down!) they shouted as they streamed
aboard.
</p>
<p> [Except for the captain, who had been coldbloodedly murdered
by the terrorists, no one died in the assault except the
hijackers themselves.
</p>
<p> In Italy, too, the triumph of bourgeois politics also bred
radicals As Italy's Communist Party grew more responsible,
helping support centrist governments and working toward a
greater share of political power, extreme leftists formed the
Red Brigades as a "genuine" revolutionary vanguard. Here again,,
the brigatisti apparently worked together with the German R.A.F.
to pull off their most daring act, the abduction of Italy's most
respected politician, former Premier Aldo Moro.]
</p>
<p>(March 27, 1978)
</p>
<p> The abduction was carried out with deadly precision. At 9
a.m., after first attending his daily Mass, the punctual Moro
left his apartment in the Trionfale quarter on the north side
of Rome and got into the back seat of his blue Fiat 130. His
police driver and his bodyguard sat in front. An Alfa Romero,
carrying three plainclothes policemen, followed closely behind.
About half a mile from Moro's home, a white Fiat station wagon
came to an abrupt halt at a corner stop sign, forcing Moro's
driver to brake sharply. The police escort car slammed into the
rear of Moro's vehicle. Then two masked men jumped out of the
white Fiat, opening fire on Moro's driver and bodyguard, killing
them where they sat. Standing at the corner, ostensibly waiting
for an airline bus, were four or five men wearing the uniforms
of Alitalia personnel. As the shooting started, they pulled out
hidden weapons and peppered the police car with a heavy
fusillade. A few residents rushed to their terraces, but a
terrorist warned them away with a wave of his submachine gun and
a few words spoken in Italian with a guttural foreign accent.
</p>
<p> At week's end the Red Brigades, Italy's most infamous
terrorist gang, produced a Polaroid photograph of the captured
Moro and a handbill warning that he would be subjected to a
"people's trial."
</p>
<p> The Red Brigades were set up in November 1970 as "an armed
proletariat vanguard to be the revolutionary power of the
exploited classes." The Communists, in the organization's view,
had sold out; the aim of the brigatisti, much like that of 19th
century anarchists, was to purify society by overthrowing all
existing institutions. But the Red Brigades seems to have no
coherent vision of what would replace them.
</p>
<p> At first, kidnaping was the prime instrument of terror: plant
managers, executives and judges were abducted, subjected to
humiliating "people's trials," and then released. In 1974 came
the first murders; one of the victims was the chief inspector
of the antiterrorist squad in Turin.
</p>
<p>(May 22, 1978)
</p>
<p> The Brigate Rosse had kept Italy on a cruel seesaw of
suspense since Moro's abduction on March 16. They had spurned
pleas for mercy from the Vatican, from the Pope himself ("I beg
you on my knees") and from the United Nations as they dangled
their victim like a political puppet. The end came when they
executed Moro with eleven shots.</p>
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