♪♪ -[ Speaking Arabic ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -It seemed like a cruise like any other.

It was a beautiful day.

Passengers were obviously on holiday and they were having a great time enjoying themselves.

For us, it was a day off and for most of the crew it was a chance to just relax.

We were all sunbathing on the deck.

I think I fell asleep for a little while.

-[ Speaking Italian ] -The sense of fear was palpable.

It was tense.

It was -- We just didn't know what was happening.

And then, of course, there was -- They were shouting as well.

In Arabic.

Didn't understand a word.

-[ Speaking Italian ] [ Radio chatter ] -We have a traffic command for Achille Lauro.

Achille Lauro.

-[ Speaking Italian ] -It was just another normal workday for us.

I worked at the National Security Council staff, so I was in my office that morning and when the hijacking went down in the Mediterranean, along about noon or so, there were some radio calls, and by early that afternoon in the Mediterranean, which was 8:00 in the morning our time, word started coming in from the CIA to the situation room that something was happening but we didn't know exactly what.

It was a large ship, so we assumed that there would probably be some Americans.

And then I think later we checked with the owners of the Achille Lauro and got the passenger list.

And so we realized there were probably maybe a dozen Americans on board.

-Good morning, gentlemen.

As you know, CAT has been tasked to support the 59th CAT Fighter Squadron during their operation.

-One of the first things that happened -- the Deputy National Security Adviser, Admiral John Poindexter, made the decision to call down to the Special Operations forces and told them to put together a team of I think it was around 80 people from the SEALs and Delta Force.

A number of big aircraft were involved.

So they were loaded on boats that they would use if they were making an at-sea assault on the ship.

They had on vehicles in case they had to go on land, all kinds of things.

We also called Italy right away and told them what we were doing, that we were sending troops to the area, and the Italians mobilized some of their special forces and also flew them to the same base in Cyprus.

♪♪ -I was in Tunisia when I heard about the hijacking.

I didn't know anything about it before.

My husband didn't tell me.

[ Upbeat music plays ] -[ Singing in Italian ] -So in Tunisia, the only foreign channel that you can see was the -- the Italian Channel.

Of course, I don't speak Italian, but it was, you know, fun, you know, to hear the voices and noises and discussions and beautiful ladies and come in and out.

-[ Speaking Italian ] -So, all of a sudden, the show was off and then they showed the brochure of the Achille Lauro.

And I said to myself, I've seen this before.

and I looked around me, and I -- In the room, there were two.

In the bathroom, there was one.

And I didn't know what they were talking about.

Hello?

What do you want?

Hello?

And the phone rings, and one of the members of the PLF calls to ask me if I know anything about Abul Abbas, and I said, "No, but what's happening?

Is there anything?"

-[ Speaking German ] -[ Speaking Arabic ] -[ Speaking German ] -First of all, they ask is, are there any Israelis on the boat?

Nobody stood up.

And then they were going through all the nationalities, and they said, "American, British."

And I don't actually remember standing up at all.

I remember just thinking, well, I'm not going to volunteer myself right now.

-[ Speaking German ] [ Chuckles ] ♪♪ -I was thinking, oh, dear, my passport is in my cabin.

So, at one point then, we had to go and get them.

And, so, we were then led by one of the hijackers.

He said -- He kind of, you know, pointed in the direction, "You've got to lead the way, you go to your cabin."

And, so, he followed us.

So I remember being followed with a machine gun in my back.

When we went back in, I then noticed the Americans, and I then realized that we were being positioned next to the Americans.

Then, you know, the scene was very clear.

We were sitting in strategic nationalities.

♪♪ -[ Speaking Italian ] ♪♪ [ Speaking Arabic ] [ Speaking Italian ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Camera shutters clicking ] ♪♪ -[ Speaking Italian ] ♪♪ -[ Speaking Italian ] -Earlier this evening, I spoke with the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat.

And here is part of that conversation which took place in Tunis a few hours ago.

-We are doing all our best.

We're coordinating with the Italian government, with the Egyptian government from last night so that we can find a solution directly, a quick solution.

-I went directly to the PLO headquarters.

I went to the office of Yasser Arafat because he's the only one who -- who would tell me what's going on.

He was telling me, "Calm down.

We're working on it.

We will see what we can do."

And so on and so forth.

Well, definitely he knew something.

Maybe he didn't know the details, but he knew because the Palestinian Liberation Front of Abu Abbas were part of the PLO.

-Who's behind the incident involving the Italian ship, Chairman Arafat?

-I don't know exactly, but as you know, that goes completely against this kind of terrorism.

-On the TV, Yasser Arafat denied, and he had the right, at that time, to deny so that not to make the -- the problem much bigger than it is already.

♪♪ -[ Speaking German ] ♪♪ -[ Speaking Italian ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -[ Speaking Arabic ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard about the hijacking of the Achille Lauro.

I was on my way home from my office, I was two blocks away.

I stopped in a Korean deli to pick up something for dinner.

And on the radio, I hear a broadcast announcement saying that an Italian liner, the Achille Lauro, has been hijacked in the Mediterranean Sea, and I... "Wait a minute.

That sounds like the cruise ship that my parents are on."

I just put this stuff down, and I ran to the apartment, as I said, two blocks away, pulled up the itinerary, and it's the Achille Lauro.

♪♪ -I looked at my machine.

There's like a million calls.

"Lisa, call home.

Lisa, call home.

Lisa, call home.

Call home, Lisa.

Lisa, call home."

So I thought, oh, my God, someone got sick.

That was my thought.

My mother got sick.

Maybe my father.

That was what I thought I was going to hear, you know.

♪♪ We get to the apartment, and the media is all over the apartment.

There must have been 50 sound trucks and ABC, NB-- all of them were there.

Now, I didn't know what had happened yet, really.

The boat had been -- I knew nothing.

I get out of the car, and all these people are screaming, "Lisa, Lisa, how are you?"

They knew my -- Why do they know me?

I mean, "Did you hear from your parents, Lisa?"

I didn't know.

"Are they okay?"

-We're deeply concerned, and we want them to take the necessary steps to rally the resources that are necessary to get them home quickly and safely.

Our family, our friends, and all of the other hostages on the boat.

What we did initially was start a campaign to let the world know the state of affairs of our parents in terms of my father being in a wheelchair, my mother was not well.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Morning came.

The light changed.

It was probably end of the morning of the Tuesday, the second day.

We had one of the hijackers sat close to us.

He then revealed to us a little bit about himself, and basically, he explained that he had no longer any family because of the political situation that he'd been born into.

-These strips of plastic are homes of Palestinians.

They have lived this way for nearly 40 years, either as refugees under Israeli rule or scattered throughout the Arab world.

[ Woman speaking Arabic ] -She is saying that we don't have food to eat.

How to get -- How to get hope for peace?

♪♪ [ Man shouts command in Arabic ] [ Children shouting in Arabic ] -[ Speaking Arabic ] -Okay.

Everybody ready to start in three, two... -Good evening.

It is now a little more than 24 hours since an Italian cruise ship was taken over by Palestinians in the Mediterranean.

They have made only one demand -- the release of 50 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel.

[ Conversation in Italian ] -Italy had a somewhat different approach than we did.

And they -- You know, they have to live in a bad neighborhood.

Italy wanted to manage a problem, and the Americans like to go in and solve a problem, even if it's fairly rough to do that.

-Late today, an American destroyer like this broke short a port call in Israel and headed out into the eastern Mediterranean to join a second US warship in the vicinity of the hijacked cruise liner.

David Martin, CBS News, the Pentagon.

My job is to find out what the US military was doing.

One of the things you do, almost as a matter of daily routine when you're covering the Pentagon, is find out, on any given day, where the aircraft carriers are.

So I knew there was an aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean, and I thought of it as a platform from which the SEALs or some hostage rescue mission could be launched.

-At the time, on the USS Saratoga, there were between, I would think, 6,000 and 6,300 people on the carrier at the time.

So it's a small city afloat.

It never sleeps.

You know, something is always going on.

Routine ops can be 24 hours a day around the clock.

I was a junior officer.

I was on my second deployment.

And, so, we would go out and take pictures of the Achille Lauro and bring it back and analyze that through our photo interpreters on the ship.

We had a really good idea of every inch of that ship.

♪♪ The SEALs are tier one guys, and that means they go in direct action.

It was going to be done through fast rope, through guys coming down, either coming across the side of the ship or drop down on the rope from a helicopter.

♪♪ -Good evening.

This is the "CBS Evening News."

Dan Rather reporting.

Like a recurring nightmare where some details change, but the overall terror scenario stays the same.

At one point, ship-to-shore radio.

Hijacker -- "We will start killing at 1500 hours," eight minutes from when his message was sent.

♪♪ -I remember they'd let us all go down to use the toilets and go to the cabin.

And then, when we came back, the Americans were already gone.

They said that we were going to follow them all up the stairs to the roof of the Arazzi Lounge, which was like a landing pad.

♪♪ And, so, when we arrived at the top, we realized that all the Americans were already sitting in a circle just at the top of the stairs on the roof.

-So we must have been over a dozen, maybe 20, I don't know, in total between Americans, British.

So, obviously, we covered the area of the metal landing pad.

And, so, obviously, we got out into that midday sun.

I remember it was quite blinding, extremely hot.

And, so, we had to sit on the hot, hot metal under the hot Mediterranean sun.

[ Radio chatter ] -Two minutes to deadline, the hijacker speaks again.

"We cannot wait any longer.

We will start killing."

♪♪ -Suddenly, I heard a couple of gunshots and then a splash.

As far as I was aware, I could hear the sound of a splash.

But I didn't want to think about it because then I thought, well, if that's the first person, then who's next?

And is that the plan?

Is that why we're here?

Are they taking us one by one?

My next thought then was, can I get off this roof without them knowing?

Could I perhaps jump down?

I looked down, and I was literally leaning over to work out, would I hit the deck?

Would I -- What would happen?

Are there sharks?

I had no idea what I'd be faced with.

♪♪ ♪♪ -The information is coming from intercepted radio signals.

In that call, the man who identifies himself as Omar Mustafa claims that his men have killed two American women on board the ship.

-And they may have been contradicted quite recently when we got a report from the captain himself on board the ship, we believe, talking to ships at sea and to Beirut harbor.

This is what he had to say.

-[ Speaking English ] Over.

[ Continues indistinctly ] ♪♪ -The PLO negotiators in Cairo couldn't get radio contact with the ship, and so they called a Radio Monte Carlo, I believe, and broadcast a radio message saying, "Call home."

[ Distorted, indistinct voices ] -This person calling himself Abu Khaled comes on this Arabic language radio station, Radio Monte Carlo, and starts talking to the terrorists.

And of course, it's a radio station.

Everybody can listen.

And he's telling them not to harm the tourists and telling them to take the ship back to Egypt, where this thing all began.

It's kind of like he's trying to orchestrate a no harm, no foul scenario here.

Abu Khaled was not a name that was in anybody's files except as a pseudonym used by one guy... [ Rhythmic clapping ] ...Abu Abbas.

-Abu Abbas was one of the so-called PLO negotiators who was trying to solve this whole terrorist incident, but it became clear that both the information from the Israelis and also from our own intelligence sources, that Abu Abbas was involved in the actual planning and instigating of the whole project.

-For some time, the lunatic mission seemed to be the Abbas trademark.

In 1981, he dreamed up two attacks from Lebanon into Israel.

First, he used hang gliders, then a hot air balloon.

Those missions failed.

If men had not died in the missions, they would have been comic.

But the Israelis have known for a long time that you don't laugh at Abu Abbas.

They regard him as being deadly serious.

-He's a murderer.

He's an organizer of murderers.

I don't take him seriously for what he says.

I take him seriously for what he does.

And what he does is murder, maim, kidnap, massacre.

-Since day one in my life with Abu Abbas, life was dangerous.

To live with somebody who is most of the time wanted to the Israelis and the Americans, hiding from one place to the other, expecting to be killed any minute, any time, it was very difficult, of course.

♪♪ He had his own political ideology, which I was not very much okay with it.

I mean, we had some differences, but we didn't have any difference concerning Palestine.

Of course, our main task in life is to work for -- you know, for Palestine and for our people and our nation.

-From the radio communications back and forth between Abu Abbas, who was ashore, and the terrorists on the ship, he was desperate to get them off the ship before dark.

He kept telling them, "Get off the ship.

Get off right now."

-President Reagan has stated and we discussed various aspects of this.

There is considerable understanding between us.

-Our ambassador in Rome, Ambassador Raobb, who contacted the Italian government, I believe, Prime Minister Craxi himself, and said that we're going to make an assault on the ship, and we're going to do it at dark because our special forces are primarily trained in operating in the darkness, and we consider that to be a real advantage.

So I think that Craxi or whomever in the Italian government called the Egyptians and told them, and they may have called Arafat and told him.

But in any case, both the PLF and Abu Abbas knew that we were coming in after dark, and they wanted to get the terrorists off the ship and ashore so that they could be safe.

♪♪ -[ Speaking Italian ] -Abu Abbas had to go with the Egyptian navy to the Achille Lauro before the Americans.

He was on a military tender and to talk to them by loudspeaker, telling them, "This is me."

He was telling them, "Come down.

I order you all to come down."

He called them one by one, calling their names.

♪♪ -They were all smiling and waving, and their body language was very much, "We're leaving you, bye," or whatever, and we just couldn't understand.

We couldn't understand the process of the very tense situation.

Now it was -- it was almost relaxed.

-I think we didn't understand at first why we were cheering.

But of course, then the news passed around pretty quickly.

Everyone was saying that they were going to be leaving the boat with Egyptian -- like a free passage.

♪♪ -We get this call saying that the hijacking is over.

Everybody's okay.

I was happy that the ordeal had come to an end.

I just wanted to hug them.

That's all I wanted to do anyway.

It's a feeling right now as if a giant anvil has been lifted off of our chests.

I mean, we just feel such incredible relief and joy.

-It's over.

Everything is great.

Nobody was hurt.

There's no word that can even describe it.

I'm -- I'm... -Still overwhelmed.

-I'm overwhelmed.

[ Laughs ] -And I just held my breath.

And then, after that, I just screamed, "Let the party begin!"

-And that's exactly what we did.

We had a party.

We got more champagne and we had food catered in.

And hundreds of people were -- it seemed like -- were in the apartment, all our friends and relatives, and it was a happy time.

It was... Of course, this is how it's going to end.

How could it end any other way?

Right?

It was going to end like this.

-[ Speaking Italian ] [ Man speaking Italian on TV ] -And then, all of a sudden, it got quiet in our apartment.

-People were leaving the apartment, and they weren't coming over and saying good-bye to us.

They were just, like, leaving.

And I thought, that's odd.

Why didn't -- Why didn't Aunt Tilly come over and say good-bye?

I mean, why are people just leaving?

♪♪ -We have confirmation as to the death of Leon Klinghoffer.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] We understand that Marilyn Klinghoffer is alive.

The family will not be down this evening.

They appreciate your courtesy and your consideration.

It's a very difficult and personal time for them.

Thank you.

-Because how could that happen?

How could they kill a man in a wheelchair?

How could that happen?

Who does that?

Who does that?

So I was -- I think, my sister and I were both in a state of shock.

-I just shrieked and wept uncontrollably.

It didn't seem possible that I was even in this position of this world event happening around me and that, more than that, that my father wasn't coming home.

♪♪ -[ Speaking Arabic ] ♪♪ -So it was agreed that they should be going to Tunisia.

Hosni Mubarak promised them that he will take care personally of their safety, and he will send them in one of his presidential airplane, with Abu Abbas, just, you know, to show them this is serious about their safety.

-Where are the hijackers now?

-They left the country.

I don't know where are.

-They in Tunisia?

-In Tunisia.

Thank you.

We understood that there was nobody killed on board of the ship.

So we accepted after the ambassador of Italy and Germany agreed to take the people to save the 400 personnel and the ship instead of exploding it, we accepted to take these people and send them out, and they agreed upon that.

-They saw these CIA reports saying that it appeared that the terrorists were still in Cairo, despite the statements of the Egyptian government, that they were going to be flown, with Abu Abbas, probably to Tunis, where PLO headquarters were.

And it was at that time that I looked at the situation and thought, gosh, we could use our naval forces over there to intercept this Egyptian airplane because we have enough information to be able to know when it's taking off approximately from -- where it's leaving from, what time it's going to happen, and the tail number of the aircraft.

All that information was slowly coming in, at that time, pretty quickly.

-I was compiling all of the squadron pilots' raids that night when I heard the ship's announcing system is to launch the alert E-2, which I thought was a little odd because, like I said, we weren't in alert status.

Shortly after that, they said, "Launch an alert fighter."

So I ran up to the flight deck, got in the airplane, and that was kind of the start of the whole night.

♪♪ Initially, we got airborne, everything's routine, lights on, and as we start heading toward the position that they want us to hang out, they said, "Go midnight."

So we turned all our lights off and just wait for further direction.

I think it was their third try.

They came on a civilian airliner.

-As we join up on it, you know, I said, "Hey, we're joined up on a 737."

And the ship asked, "Can you identify it?"

And I said, "It's an EgyptAir.

It looks like it."

And I told him, I said, "It looks like it had a chicken head on the tail," and it was S-U-A-Y-K for the registration.

That's what we're looking for.

-They got very close to them, to the extent that they can see each other from the window.

Then, Abu Abbas knew that this is a hijacking.

[ Radio chatter ] ♪♪ ♪♪ So Abu Abbas went directly, he entered the pilot's cabin.

They were asking them to land.

And, so, he took over, he took over, meaning he was telling the captain what to tell them.

-Things were kind of getting a little more heated.

And the airline captain, he turned around and started heading back toward Egypt.

So I just slightly pulled in front of him.

He could see me.

I pulled out in front of him, and he started slowly turning into me.

I was never going to hit him, but slowly turning into him.

And then, he turned, really, to avoid me.

I kept turning into him until I got him directed toward Sigonella.

♪♪ -We did not tell the Italians ahead of time about the intercept and the diversion of the aircraft to Sicily.

And, so, the first they found out about it, I think, was when our aircraft called up the tower at Sigonella and asked for permission to land.

♪♪ -[ Speaking Italian ] -As we're almost getting to the runway, we're descending through 1,500 feet.

He's 90 degrees angle of bank, and I'm still up on his wing.

And the rate that we're coming down is like I was convinced he was going to crash, so I roll my wings level.

I pull just to escape the fireball.

As I roll back to look at him, he has just rolled wings level and touched down.

♪♪ I mean, the guy was -- he was a great pilot.

-[ Speaking Italian ] -So the seals and the Delta Force surrounded the aircraft.

So we have the aircraft in the middle refusing to open the door.

But they can't take off again because we had the runway blocked.

And then, they were surrounded by these SEALs in the dark.

And then, suddenly, we looked around and there's 300 Italians surrounding us.

The Italian base commander was very, very proactive, a very efficient guy, got Carabinieri and everybody he could, gave 'em a gun and surround the Americans.

-[ Speaking Italian ] -[ Speaking Arabic ] ♪♪ -Hello?

-So Reagan called Craxi.

I was the recorder on the other end of the phone sitting in the Situation Room, listening in and taking notes, when President Reagan made a very friendly but strong effort to get the Italians to allow us to take the terrorists off their hands and solve the problem for them, take them to the United States, and then try them.

-Craxi handled it very cleverly.

"If it was up to me, surely, I'd like to help.

But it's in the courts.

My hands are tied."

-[ Speaking Italian ] -Late in the day, the final group of Americans left the ship.

Mrs.

Klinghoffer, whose husband, Leon, was brutally murdered by the hijackers on the first day, left the ship at Port Said briefly.

She was obviously stunned by the event and the fact that she was now the center of international attention.

Her husband's death had changed the whole nature of the resolution of the crisis.

-So that's -- They arrest the hijackers, put them in front of a lineup.

And some of the passengers on the Achille Lauro have been brought in, and they positively identify the hijackers.

-My mother got off the plane, and she went into the area where they were being held, and she pointed or nodded at each one of them and spit at each one of them right in the face and said, "You did it, you did it, you did it!"

-She spat in their face.

They were shocked.

I mean, she spat in their face.

There was one of them who started to, like, whimper or cry a little, some tears went down his eyes.

You know, like she said, "Take that."

[ Camera shutters clicking ] -I am proud to be the commander in chief of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who deployed, supported, and played the crucial role in the delivery of these terrorists to Italian authorities.

They and the men and women of our Foreign Service and intelligence community performed flawlessly in this most difficult and delicate operation.

They have my gratitude, and I'm sure, the gratitude of all of their countrymen.

These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere, a message, "You can run, but you can't hide."

End of statement.

-The perfect one-liner.

"You can run, but you can't hide."

And that becomes the headline of the day.

"We Bag the Bums."

"We Got 'Em."

It was perceived and should have been perceived as a success.

The four hijackers were in an Italian prison.

But there's the problem of Abu Abbas.

He's still on the plane.

♪♪ -Abu Abbas was the primary planner and instigator of this whole terrorist plan.

So we wanted him arrested and tried, too.

The Italians didn't see it that way.

They saw him more as a political representative of the PLO with a diplomatic passport.

They insisted that he be treated differently.

[ Man speaking Italian ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -[ Scoffs ] And, so, each airliner is cleared to take off and takes off from Sigonella, Stiner hops in a little Navy executive jet, but he's not cleared to take off.

In fact, the runway is blocked.

He takes off anyway.

He just goes right over the blockade, and then he just sits on the EgyptAir plane's tail all the way up to Rome.

And the pilot of the Egyptian plane is telling him, "Get the hell away.

Way too close.

You're going to kill us both."

And Stiner's swearing back with all his Army expertise.

But the fix is in.

♪♪ [ Man speaking Italian ] ♪♪ -Abbas is flown to Rome, and we were scrambling on our side in the United States, going through the Justice Department to get arrest warrants issued for Abbas.

It was clear that some of the information had to come from the Israelis.

We never denied that.

For the Craxi government, that was a political problem.

And, so, they did not want to release him based on information from the Israelis because a lot of people don't trust the Israelis to tell you quite the whole truth sometimes.

♪♪ -[ Speaking Italian ] ♪♪ -So they put him on a plane and they flew him to Belgrade.

Craxi wanted to get him out of Italy as soon as possible.

I mean, we were really upset that that had happened.

I think we should have acted right off the bat when they left Egypt.

Once I knew that Abu Abbas was aboard the aircraft, it wouldn't bother me at all if they had had to take the aircraft down, and he would have been killed.

Once he got to Belgrade, we knew that he was lost to us, that the Yugoslavs were going to protect him, which they did.

And then, they got him out of Belgrade as soon as they could, back to the Middle East.

-It's over.

Four hijackers in an Italian jail.

The kingpin got away.

But isn't that what usually happens?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Camera shutters clicking ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct chanting ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪