In the Nation's Service by Philip Taubman

Author:Philip Taubman [Taubman, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Combating Terrorism

THE FIRST SERIES OF suicide terrorist attacks by Islamic fundamentalist extremists in 1983, the beginning of a wave that reached its zenith with the September 11, 2001, strikes on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, caught Shultz and the Reagan administration unprepared. The targets of the first attacks in Lebanon, the American embassy and a Beirut building housing hundreds of US Marines, were flimsily secured. Faced with a sinister new threat, the administration struggled to come up with an effective response, riven by disagreement over whether to retaliate and, if so, where and when. Tensions flared anew between Shultz, who favored a military response, and Weinberger, who did not. A mighty armada was assembled in the eastern Mediterranean, including at one point three US aircraft carriers, and multiple strike plans were devised, rehearsed and set to launch. But none were activated for weeks because of indecision in Washington.

In one extraordinary instance, Reagan ordered an air strike, but Weinberger called it off at the last minute. The decision, tantamount to insubordination, surprised the president, stunned colleagues and shocked Shultz, who was profoundly discouraged by Washington’s feeble response to terrorism. Ignoring his customary impulse to shield policy conflicts from public view, he openly challenged the administration’s hesitation in a series of appearances that exacerbated the divisions in the administration and drew a rebuke from Vice President Bush. It was a rare instance of open rebellion by Shultz.

* * *

Shultz and Reagan were enjoying a golfing break in Georgia in late October 1983 when terrorists struck the barracks in Lebanon. The golf outing with Donald Regan, the Treasury secretary, and former senator Nicholas Brady was first disrupted when an armed man crashed his truck through a gate at the Augusta National Golf Club, seized several hostages at the pro shop and demanded to speak to the president. The Secret Service immediately hustled Reagan, Shultz, Regan and Brady off the course at the 16th hole. The incident ended peacefully after Reagan tried unsuccessfully to speak to the intruder by phone. The trip was cut short on October 23 when word reached the president and his party at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time that terrorists had blown up the US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing scores of marines. Shultz headed directly to the State Department when Air Force One landed outside Washington. “He looked stunned and drawn,” Seitz reported.1 Not only had Shultz pushed for the marine deployment, but he was also a former marine himself. Shultz later called it his worst day as secretary of state.

The dimensions of the attack soon became clear—a Mercedes truck loaded with the equivalent of six tons of explosives had crashed through the few feeble barriers erected outside the barracks, plowed into the entrance hall and exploded, collapsing the building and killing 240 American servicemen, most of whom were marines. A similar, simultaneous attack at a French base nearby left fifty-nine French troops dead. Six months earlier, on April 19, a lone terrorist had

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