The Price of Terror: One Bomb, One Plane, 270 Lives, the History-Making Struggle for Justice After Pan Am 103 FROM OUR EDITORS
When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killing 259 people on board, it was -- at that time -- the deadliest attack ever on American citizens. The U.S. did not go to war with Libya over the bombing, however. Instead, it was the grieving relatives of the victims who fought back against the terrorists, by pursuing legal remedies against the Libyan government. The process would take an agonizingly long eight years, but the relatives would not be denied. Allen Gerson, who led the way, tells all, with the help of Newsweek magazine writer Jerry Adler.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The terrorist attack on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killed 270 people, mostly Americans, and was then the largest mass attack on American civilians. Now, Allan Gerson, the international law expert who has pursued justice on behalf of the victims' families, and Jerry Adler, a senior editor at Newsweek, trace this quest in The Price Of Terror: One Bomb. One Plane. 270 Lives. The History-Making Struggle for Justice After Pan Am 103
Opening with a gripping, unforgettable account of the explosion and its aftermath, The Price Of Terror movingly portrays the grief and loss of the families who ultimately demanded that Libya be made to pay for its crimes. Gerson and Adler detail the subsequent years of investigations, legal maneuvering and navigation in our nation's halls of power--from the Attorney General's Office to the Senate to the White House--and their joining forces with the families of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to produce legislation that may revolutionize justice in the coming century by putting accountability in the hands of private citizens.
With a preface discussing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, The Price Of Terror offers chilling lessons in the face of another national tragedy: "With no prospect of a military response, and not much likelihood that a criminal investigation would reach the Libyan leaders who ordered the attack, the families of the Pan Am 103 victims were left to forge a remedy of their own: a civil cause of action in U.S. courts intended to make governments sponsoring or encouraging terrorism pay for their crimes. . . [Their] search for justice provides a road map to what could have been done, what was accomplished against great odds, and what remains to be done."
A former chief counsel to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations during the tenure of Ambassadors Jeane Kirkpatrick and General Vernon Walters, and former senior Justice
Department lawyer, Allan Gerson is currently Research Professor of International Relations at George Washington University. Most recently, he served as Senior Fellow for International Law and Organizations at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also the author of The Kirkpatrick Mission: Diplomacy without Apology. Jerry Adler is an author and a senior editor at Newsweek
SYNOPSIS
The terrorist attack on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988 killed 270 people, mostly Americans, and was then the largest mass attack on American civilians. The Price Of Terror portrays the grief and loss of the families who ultimately demanded that Libya be made to pay for its crimes.
FROM THE CRITICS
Scott Turow
"This is the story that all Americans must now hear. The Price of Terror by Allan Gerson and Jerry Adler is a gripping account of the first international mass terrorist attack on American citizens the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103and its aftermath. The heroes, the families of the victims, have persevered in using the law to fight back, and their experiences hold an important example for us in how law and reason can triumph over terror, and how unwavering resolve can lead to justice."
Publishers Weekly
In The Price of Terror: Lessons of Lockerbie for a World on the Brink, Allan Gerson, a former prosecutor of Nazi war crimes, currently a professor of international relations at George Washington University, and Jerry Adler (High Rise), a senior editor at Newsweek, reconstruct the struggle for justice for the bomb victims and their families after the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Gerson, an expert in international law, took up the cause of pursuing the Libyan suspects, even when the U.S. government did little and lawyers told the victims' families that there was no precedent for suing Libya. Gerson and Adler track the tragedy from the moment the bomb exploded, killing 270, through the trial in Scotland. In the aftermath of September 11, this timely account of the legal, political and emotional aftermath of international mass murder will be of interest to many. Photos. (Oct. 24) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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