The New York Times · 17 June 1986

CP-1986-017

A Study of Achille Lauro Hijacking

By JOHN CORRY

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Transcribed from the clipping

NBC NEWS reconstructs the hijacking of the Achille Lauro tonight. Tom Brokaw visits the Italian cruise ship and re-enacts, in effect, the voyage that left Leon Klinghoffer dead. Mohammed Abbas, who by his own admission was the mastermind of the hijacking, appears in something like a cameo role.

The program, “Achille Lauro: A Study in Terror,” will be seen on Channel 4 at 10 P.M. Cameo role or not, however, Mr. Abbas is still the star attraction. When NBC broadcast an interview with Mr. Abbas on the “Nightly News” last month, a controversy broke out. Mr.

Abbas, who is under indictment in the United States and wanted by Israel and Italy, agreed to be interviewed only if NBC kept his whereabouts a secret. The network kept the secret; it does so again tonight. “I shall not conceal,” he says, “that there is a specific, preliminary trial program against the American Administration directly.”

The words, vague but menacing, are likely to become the most quoted remark from tonight’s program, just as the most quoted remark from the previous interview was the announcement that President Reagan was “enemy No. 1.” (And skip over now the question of whether a television network should allow, indeed invite, a terrorist to make threats.) Mr.

Abbas, who is also known as Abul Abbas, tells us nothing of substance, or anything that might legitimately be called news. Meanwhile, NBC, possibly sensitive to criticism about cooperating with Mr. Abbas, seems to go out of its way to show that it doesn’t like him. When Mr. Abbas, in his undisclosed hideout, denies, for example, that his men killed Mr.

Klinghoffer — “What is the use of killing an old man, anyway?” — Mr. Brokaw, on the deck of the Achille Lauro, says firmly, “Abbas again tries to twist the truth.” Mr. Brokaw also refers to “maniacal” hijackers, and calls some of Mr. Abbas’s bloody operations “lunatic missions.”

The program, citing Italian military and Pentagon sources, also says that the Egyptian Defense Minister, Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala, passed on the information that allowed the United States to intercept the plane that carried the hijackers from Egypt. If this is true, it clears up some unanswered questions about the military operation.

It also casts the Egyptian Government in a somewhat clearer light. Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the hijacking is vivid, even if sometimes self-conscious. Mr. Brokaw walks the deck of the Achille Lauro with the unfortunate Portuguese waiter who was forced to push Mr. Klinghoffer over the side of the ship. The waiter, who does not speak English, looks bewildered.

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