TERRORISM: NEGOTIATE AND PURSUE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100010002-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: July 14, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

S1,Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100010002-1
11
ART'C_E V?EARr"D
ON PAGE.,_~_
MIAMI HERALD
14 July 1985
By MIKE ACKERMAN
O n the surface it would seem
that the Reagan administra-
tion brow t the hijacking
of TWA Flight 847 by Lebanese
Shiites to a successful conclusion.
The release of the surviving
hostages was obtained without
blatant compromise of the govern-
ment's "no negotiation" stance.
and our leaders even assure us that
the murderers of Petty Officer
Robert Stethem - somehow -
will be brought to justice.
Scratch the surface, however,
and the ordeal of Flight 847
unmasks our government's funda-
mental unpreparedness to deal
with terrorism, its substitution of
slogans for an operative strategy,
its lack of counterterrorist instru-
ments. Two realities in particular
gnaw at us. First. clearly we did
negotiate to get the hostages
home. Second. there is little
chance that Petty Officer Steth-
em's killers will pay for their
crime.
Still, the prism of the tragedy
has brought into focus several
questions central to our society's
search for a workable counterter-
rorist strategy. Is negotiation With
hostage-takers necessarily wrong?
Is the pursuit of terrorist murder-
ers possible? Is there not value In
the tandem utilization of negotia-
tion and pursuit?
"We will never negotiate with
terrorists," the president pro-
claims. His posture is valid - It is
not in our interest to have terror
ists see potential rewards " In
kidnapping our people - but let's
not confuse a posture witl a
strategy. "No negotiation" - tin
refusal under any circumstancerto
accede to terrorist demands -'is
indeed a valid strategy, but 'it
Terror-ism:
Negotiate
and pursue
doesn t happen to be ours. Not are
we likely to embrace it. OAr
society, commendably, places 'too
great a value on human life.
Certainly, many things are tt)t
negotiable - we would not turn
St. Patrick's Cathedral into;. a
mosque - but some kidnapper
demands can be satisfied at no
great cost, except to the principle
of "no negotiation." The Shiites'
insistence upon the return . of
co-religionists held by Israel
and already earmarked for event u-
al release - was obviously such a
demand. and. just as obviously. It
has been satisfied. Our govern-
ment's protestations notwith-
standing, the world correctly per-
ceives a linkage between release
of the TWA hostages and Israel
accelerating its timetable for free-
ing Shiite prisoners.
The problem with negotiating
- or whatever the government
wishes to call it when we talk and
grant concessions to hostage-tak-
ers - is that It encourages more
hostage-taking. The tactical use of
negotiation to gain the release of
hostages is acceptable, therefore, only
if employed in tandem with a potent
deterrent - pursuit and punishment,
post-release, of the hostage-takers.
"Negotiate and pursue": The strate-
gy has an appealing ring of flexibility,
but will It work? The fact is, it already
has been proven effective - by
American business.
Sheer necessity fathered this re-
sponse to kidnappings of managerial
personnel in Latin America. Companies
believed themselves obliged to pay
ransoms, to keep faith with employees
dispatched into troublesome areas.
Local authorities, on the other hand,
opposed the transfer of funds to
guerrillas.
"Negotiate and pursue" evolved as
the best means of obtaining the safe
return of the hostage without forsak-
ing community responsibilities. "Let us
pay to get our colleague back,"
corporate negotiators proposed to po-
lice counterparts, "and we will, after
the release. cooperate fully in your
efforts to apprehend the kidnappers."
Police agencies usually have gone
along.
Has the strategy worked? It has
obtained the safe release of numerous
hostages and - with tenacious investi-
gation - secured an impressive num-
ber of arrests. Moreover, while abduc-
tions of members of wealthy families
- which pay but rarely pursue - are
up in troublesome Latin American
countries, kidnappings of American
executives are decidedly down.
Latin America of course is one
thing, and the Middle East quite
another. If the pursuit of terrorists is
difficult under the best of circum-
stances. when undertaken in concert
with legally-constituted authority, how
can we hunt down the killers of our
hostages in chaotic Lebanotror hostile
Syria, Libya and Iran?
In truth. we do not at present have
the instruments to pursue terrorists in
hostile areas, and conventional political
wisdom regards their development as
unrealistic. Congress and public opin-
ion, it is argued, simply won't abide
them. Conventional wisdom may prove
correct. but there will be no more
crucial test of our political system in
our day than its ability to adapt itself
to opposing the brazenly contemporary
phenomenon of terrorism.
The instruments we require are two
- a "court." to try suspected terrorist
killers in absentia and in camera. and a
force to carry out its verdict by
hunting down and apprehending or, in
the last resort, executing the guilty.
The court should be drawn from the
federal judiciary. The accused should
of course be represented by a public
defender, but neither the proceedings
nor the verdict must be public. We
cannot be so magnanimous as to let the
terrorists know who among them we
have identified, and are pursuing. Let
them all suspect that they are pursued!
Pursued by wh The Clandestine
Services of the CIA. but with some
reconstituted as the clandestine arm of
government. the Congressional super-
vision of the age must line and "d~IIcTie :' The execu-
tive. too. must a-pubcze
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agency b ceasin to use it as an overt
vehicle or conducting guerri a wars
as in Nicaragua. Furthermore, the
character of the agency s operating
cadre must be changed. If we want to
get the o one, we'll have to replace
the "sae" bureaucrats thrust into
leadership positions ter -Watergate
with tough , decassive intelligence
pro-
Unleashing t_he CIA to l~L
prospect is admittedly an unpalatable)
one for our society, but can any ne
devise a better course? A retaliatory
g raid against Shiite guerrilla
camps at Ba'albek might make us feel
less helpless, but satisfaction would
dissipate swiftly with the inevitable
television news clips of the twisted
bodies of innocent casualties. Fur-
thermore, the deterrent effect of a raid.
or even series of raids, is questionable.
The Israelis have bombed Ba'albek
again and again, with little demonstra-
ble effect.
Diplomatic initiatives, economic
boycotts, even military blockades -
they've all been attempted and have
proven patently unsuccessful. Hostage
rescues by military commandos -
sure, when possible, but today's sophis-
ticated terrorists are taking counter-
measures that often make them im-
practical. Increased protective efforts
- certainly, but let's not implement
them in the unrealistic expectation that
they can be successful in every
instance.
In truth there could be no more
unfortunate response to the recent
hostage episode than to do nothing -
until the next time terrorists compel
our attention. Inaction would doom us
to travel, conduct business, survive in
an ever-shrinking cocoon.
EC "Mike" Ackerman, an II-
year CIA veteran and a principo
of Ackerman & Palumbo, hue., a
Miami-based international security
consulting firm. has undertaken
numerous successful hostage re-
coveries. He resigned from the CIA
in 1975 to protest what he called
the "sensation-seeking" congres-
sional investigation of the agency.
Ackerman, who has lectured at the
National War College and is
author of Street Man, a book
about the CIA, wrote this article
for The Herald.
2,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100010002-1