April 14, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, The 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, was dominated by Mark Spitz, a Jewish American swimmer who won seven gold medals for the United States. It was also the Olympics where Palestinian terrorists massacred 11 Israeli athletes. This incident was televised across America and prompted President Nixon to establish plans to avert terrorism in the United States. Here's the story of the attacks, Israel's response to them, and the world's reaction.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
The nineteen seventy two Olympics in Munich, Germany was dominated
by Mark Spitz, Jewish American swimmer, who won seven gold
medals for the United States. It was also the Olympics
for Palestinian terrorist massacred eleven Israeli athletes. This incident was
(00:35):
televised across America and prompted President Nixon to establish plans
to avert terrorism in the United States. But what the
world didn't see was Israel's response, Operation Wrath of God.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Let's take a listen. Nearly every week on television and
in newspapers, we witness a blood feud between Israelis and
Palestinians that has gone on for decades. It was in
the late nineteen sixties when this cycle of violence began
to escalate. After the small New Jersey sized nation of
(01:14):
Israel soundly defeated the Arab Coalition in the nineteen sixty
seven Six Day War, Palestinian terrorist groups turned to increasingly
spectacular acts of evil to get world attention. Israel defended
itself as it always had, but nineteen seventy two would
be the turning point. On May eighth of that year,
(01:37):
four members of a Palestinian terrorist group hijacked the Boeing
seven oh seven aircraft with ten crew members and ninety passengers,
sixty seven of them Jewish, and landed it in the
heart of Israel Tel Aviv. Soon after taking command. The
(01:58):
two men and two women hijacked, armed with hand grenades,
a revolver, and two five pound explosive devices, separated the
Jewish hostages from the others and sent them to the
back of the aircraft. The captain relaid the terrorist demands
that three hundred and fifteen convicted Palestinian terrorists be released
from Israeli prisons, or they would blow up the airplane
(02:21):
with its passengers. Israel's policy was never to negotiate with
terrorists or never to back down. Prime Minister Goldamayir ordered
an assault on the aircraft. The mission was led by
(02:42):
Israel's elite anti terror unit, commanded by Ahud Barak and
joined by Benjamin Netanyahu, both will become future prime ministers.
Israeli commandos approached the aircraft disguised as aircraft mechanics in
white jumpsuits. They immediately killed the two male hijackers and
apprehended the two females. Here's a hud Barak on the incident.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But it took just ninety seconds before we stormed. It
killed two of the etoists.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Israelis interviewed the two captured female terrorists, who admitted they
were members of Black September, an amorphous branch of the
terrorist organization Fatah founded by Yasser Arafat. FATA is the
most radical wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, better known
as the PLO. The man who ordered the hijacking was
(03:37):
Arafat's protege and FATA's commander, A Lai Hassan Salame. Two
weeks after the hijacking, Salame's name came up again in
connection with a bloody massacre that left twenty four dead
seventy eight wounded at the same airport. Two of the
three terrorists died and the third was arrested, but Israel
(03:58):
had not heard the last of Salah or Black September.
Here's Benjamin netan Yahoo.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
After that, they realized they can't hijack Israeli planes if
they go to Israel with somebody else's plane and try
to extort something there they'll be killed, so they figured
that go somewhere.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Else, Somewhere the whole world would be watching. The nineteen
seventy two Munich Olympics. Munich's Olympic Games were carefully constructed
to convey the message that Germany's rehabilitation was complete. That
nineteen thirty six, when Berlin under Adolf Hitler hosted the
(04:40):
eleventh Olympiad against the backdrop of discrimination and violence, was
a relic of a dead past Italian. The German organizers
didn't want the world to see them holding guns, which
might evoke old images. No armed guards or police were
positioned in the Olympic village or at stadium entrances. Security
(05:02):
costs for the games came to two million dollars. This
relatively insignificant sum was not born of miserliness, but of
a frank desire to keep security to a minimum. In contrast,
the two thousand and four Olympic security costs exceeded one
billion dollars. Germany, Cologne Airport, Wednesday, August twenty third, nineteen
(05:28):
seventy two. A middle aged couple wait for their four
pieces of luggage to arrive. The man, dressed in a
well tailored suit, hoists the bags onto two carts and
heads towards the customs line and the exit beyond. The
Palestinian man is a courier for Fetah and its Black
September wing in Europe. His accomplice, posing as his wife,
(05:52):
is there to lend legitimacy to their cover. The couple
are asked to open their bags. The husband refuses, begins
to yell and scream, I am a businessman, not a criminal.
The customs officials have seen this act before. They point
to a bag and ask him to open it. The
man reluctantly opens the suitcase. Lingerie in many colors and
(06:18):
styles covers the inspection desk. The officer motions to the man,
close your case and carry on. What the German officer
doesn't know is that the three pieces of luggage he
failed to inspect contains eight AK forty sevens, dozens of
magazines loaded with seven point six two millimeter bullets, and
(06:39):
ten hand grenades. The operation is on track. With thirteen
days to go before the attack, the terrorists have time
to kill. They choose nicknames for themselves. One member of
Black September calls himself Jay Gavara as a tribute to
his hero, the bloodthirsty Cuban Communists sidekick of Fidel Castro.
(07:02):
The rest of the eight Palestinians take in the sites,
make dinner plans, and catch up on sleep. One even
goes to two Olympic volleyball games.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And you've been listening to the story of the massacre
at the nineteen seventy two Olympics in Munich, Germany. When
we come back more of this remarkable moment in American
and world history here on our American Stories. Here at
our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith,
(07:34):
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(07:55):
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories in the story of the nineteen seventy
two Olympic Games in Munich, remembered in part by Mark
(08:17):
Spitz's remarkable performance winning seven gold medals, but also for
something far worse. Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Tuesday, September fifth, nineteen seventy two, day ten of the Olympics,
A bus filled with the sounds of backslapping and laughter
arrives back at the Olympic Village the jubilant Israeli athletes
just spent an evening at the theater. At four point
thirty am on September fifth, as the athletes sleep, eight
(08:52):
tracksuit clad members of Black September carried Duffel bags loaded
with AK forty seven automatic rifles, semi automatic pistols, and
hand grenades. As they are about to scale the six
foot barrier into the Olympic village, they're immediately spotted english Man.
A few tipsy American athletes sneaking back into the village
after a night on the town, quickly assist them in
(09:15):
getting over the chain link fence.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
There you go, let's go, I got you goome on.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
The terrorists encounter no guards, but to the sober eyes
of six German postal workers, the men seem suspicious. They
report the break in, but no action is taken. Once inside,
the Black September members change their clothes and load their
weapons with a stolen key, They attempt to enter the
(09:46):
apartment housing the Israeli delegation, but the lock won't turn.
The jiggling of the key immediately wakes Yusuf Gutfreund, a
six foot three, two hund ndred and eighty five pound
international wrestling referee. The terrorists flip the lock and open
the door, but Gutfrind stands in the hall, staring at
(10:10):
the masked men as he throws the full weight of
his body and strength against the door. One of the
terrorists quickly wedges the steel barrel of his AK forty
seven between the door and the frame and begins using
it as a crowbar. The weightlifting coach, a Holocaust survivor
who lost his entire family on German soil, hears the
(10:31):
commotion and sees the masked terrorists slowly gaining entrance. He
yells to his flatmates to run for their lives as
he throws himself out the back window and escapes. The
terrorists overpower Gutfrond and charge into the room. Wrestling coach
Moshe Weinberg is shot through the cheek while trying to
fight off the intruders. A one hundred and six pound
(10:54):
is Raylei wrestler, slaps at one of the terrorists barrels
and runs down to the underground parking garage as one
of the terrorists follows him, spraying gunfire in his direction.
He also escapes. Then the wounded Weinberg, holding a rag
on his bullet holed cheek, makes another attack, knocking one
of the intruders unconscious and slashing another with a fruit
(11:17):
knife before being shot to death. Weightlifter Yusuf Romano, a
veteran of the Six Day War, also attacks and wounds
one of the terrorists before being shot and killed. That
September morning in nineteen seventy two, the people of Munich
(11:38):
waked to the sound of sirens and the rumble of
military trucks. Flickering police lights paint the city blue. At dawn,
the news is breaking all over the world.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
The piece of what would have been called the Serene
Olympics was shattered just before dawn this morning, about five o'clock.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Here's Peter Jennings with the live broadcast.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
If I were to guess at the moment at which
of the command of organizations this group has to come from,
might be most likely than now and on a group
called Black September. I was a reporter based in Lebanon,
and if you were an American reporter working for an
American news agency, and you knew all the characters, because
the Palatinians were very open about many of the things
they were trying to accomplish, and so we knew some
of the players. And I'll always know what they were doing,
(12:22):
and God knows what they were going to do.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And they've taken nine members of the Israeli delegation hostage.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
It now appears that Black September has tossed a piece
of paper at the window, a list of demands.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
A man with a stacking mast and his face weird,
what's going on inside that head?
Speaker 8 (12:39):
And mine.
Speaker 9 (12:41):
The terrorists demanded the release of two hundred and thirty
four prisoners who were being held in Israeli jails, and
also some who are being held abroad, but Godo Maya
would have none of it. She just rejected their demands outright.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
By five pm. The Palestinians demand an airplane to take
them in their hostages to an unspecified Arab country. The
Germans agree, counting on ambushing the terrorists at the airfield.
German authorities transport the terrorists and their hostages the First
and Feldbrook.
Speaker 8 (13:11):
Airport heading to an airport called First and.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
In his book Stateless, the commander of Fatah shared why
he chose the Munich Games as his target to use
the unprecedented number of media outlets in one city to
display the Palestinian struggle for better or worse around the world.
Viewers hunkered in front of their TVs, watching and waiting
(13:39):
for the outcome.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
The latest word we get from the airport is that
quote all hell has broken loose out there.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
At the airport. A novice German police force set up
a decoy airplane to lure the terrorists into the line
of their sniper fire. But as the terrorists board the plane,
the pilots and the crew are gone.
Speaker 9 (13:58):
This is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Little did they know that just fifteen minutes prior, a
group of thirteen German officers from the police Special Task
Command Force abandoned the plane and their mission for fear
of their lives.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
He's right, we can't do any good year.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
They took a last minute vote, it was unanimous and
their commander supported their decision wholeheartedly. With an empty plane,
the terrorists immediately assume it's a trap.
Speaker 8 (14:28):
And it all went horribly wrong.
Speaker 9 (14:31):
They degenerated into a battle, and the hostages were in
the middle of this. They were manic, called and shackled
in the back of the helicopters. And all this time
the two Israelis who had come over to try and
help the rescue operation were standing there watching this and
the impotent. Really, they were powerless to do anything because
the battle had begun.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
German snipers eliminate five of the eight terrorists in the
chaotic gunfight.
Speaker 9 (14:57):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
But before their deaths, the members of Black September murder
all nine of the chain Israeli hostages. The three surviving
terrorists are held in police custody. Rumors rage, the media pounds.
Speaker 9 (15:20):
We have reports now that all the hostages, all nine hostages,
are safe.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
The international news agency Reuters sends out an exclusive wire report.
It reads, all Israeli hostages have been freed.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
And according to these reports, all arabtoists have died by
German gunfire.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The good news spreads like wildfire, and the world celebrates.
In Israel, relatives and friends show up at athletes family
homes with flowers and champagne. Then, just after three in
the morning, the truth finally reaches the media when Reuter
sends a corrected message over the wires flash all Israeli
(16:02):
hostages seized by Arab guerrillas killed. ABC's Jimmy Kay broadcast
the devastating update to the world. He looked straight into
the camera and says, I've.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
Just gotten the final word.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
When I was a kid, my father.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Is to say, our greatest hopes and our worst fears
seldom realized. Our worst fears have been realized.
Speaker 10 (16:21):
Tonight.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
They're now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were
killed in their rooms this morn yesterday morning, nine were
killed at the airport. Tonight they're all gone.
Speaker 10 (16:37):
They're all gone onto an airthing to bring them home together.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Jews have been led yet again to their death on
German soil. Only twenty seven years passed since six million
Jews were hearded into camps and murdered. As the relatives
of the Munich victims gathered to bury their dead, Israeli
security officials plot revenge.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
I think it was a great shock. It was a
great shock because it showed you what kind of lack
of an ambition, lack of any moral constraints this terror
had it was. If it was supposed to break our
moral the didn't it.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And you've been listening to the story of the nineteen
seventy two Olympics in Munich, and what tragedy. You could
hear it in Jim McKay's voice. He was one of
the great broadcasters and did ABC's Wide World of Sports,
and you could just hear the grief. Two killed in rooms,
nine killed in the airport, just flat out murdered. And
then you heard the voice of now Prime Minister Benjamin
(17:41):
Netanyahu who his brother was killed in the Entebbi raid.
When we come back the story of the nineteen seventy
two Olympic Games in Munich and the acts of terrorism
committed there, here are now American stories, and we continue
(18:08):
with our American stories, and the story of the massacre
of eleven Israeli athletes in the nineteen seventy two Olympic
Games in Munich, Germany and overshadowed remarkable performances by American athletes,
including Mark Spitz, the Jewish American swimmer who won seven
gold medals for the United States. Let's pick up where
(18:32):
we last left off in Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Prime Minister Golda Mayar tells Parliament that Israelis will go
after the terrorists responsible. We will smite them wherever they
may be. At first, Golda's airstrike response looks like previous skirmishes,
but this is just the beginning. Golda wants to set
(18:59):
a new standard. She realizes Israel can no longer afford
to respond and retaliate. The talmutic imperative to rise and
slay the one who comes to kill you needs to
be fulfilled to the letter of the law, she says.
Prime Minister Myyar authorizes the assassination campaign. They call it
(19:20):
Operation Wrath of God. Terror will soon arrive at the
terrorist doorstep.
Speaker 9 (19:28):
Of the hijackers.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
If Operation Wrath of God has any lingering doubts, they
are erased by events. On October twenty ninth, nineteen seventy two,
just a month and a half.
Speaker 7 (19:39):
After Munich Luftanzajet was Aijack coming from Damascus.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
The Iijack has demanded the release of three killers of Munich,
and the German said yes instantly.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
The three terrorists celebrate their freedom with a press conference
and moviestars, did you shoot any of the Israeli hostages?
Speaker 11 (20:02):
It's not unportant to say I killed the Slim.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It is clear that if those who planned and carried
out the attack at Munich were ever going to pay
for what they did, only Israel could extract that payment.
Operation Wrath of God would be the instrument of its revenge.
Speaker 12 (20:23):
That was the first time, I think in the history
of Israel, the namely in the history of the world,
that the state decided to pursue a policy of personal
killing in a systematic way.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
A committee led by my ear drafted a secret hit
list of Black September members.
Speaker 10 (20:42):
Ambushed and slaughtered again. Other rest of the world is
playing games, Olympic torches and drafts bands and dead Jews
in Germany and the world couldn't care whether.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
The Israeli intelligence agency Massade supplies the committee with Darsier's
on the Palestinian members. Number one on the list was
Alai Hassan Salame. There's people.
Speaker 10 (21:07):
They're sworn to destroy it because I don't know who
these maniacs are and where they come from. Palestinians, can
you tell me what law protects people like these? That
made a decision. The responsibility is entirely mine.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Salame is the operation's chief of Black September and the
mastermind behind Munich and the Palestinian hijackings. For all his
bloody activities, the Israeli media crowned him the Red Prince.
Speaker 9 (21:43):
He was really a protege of Yasa Arafat. Yas Arafat
publicly declared him to be his son in inverted commas,
and he was really something of an aristocratic hero within
the Palestinian among the Palestinian people.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Operation Wrath of God is under way as Massad agents
fan out across Europe and the Middle East. The first
target on Massad's secret assassination list is a black September
operative working as a translator at the Libyan embassy in Rome.
Speaker 9 (22:15):
He had no idea the Israelis were coming for him.
He ate dinner that night with a friend and walked
home to his apartment block. He stopped off to buy
some groceries, made a couple of phone calls, and then
walked into the entrance hall where he lived. Went to
Israeli agents emerged from shadows and shot him with the
small caliber pistons.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Over the next six months, Massad agents hunt down and
kill three other Palestinian terrors hiding in Europe.
Speaker 9 (22:46):
They came up with quite intricate, sophisticated ways of killing people,
including bombs that were detonated by telephone calls. They put
land mines under cart and under somebody's car seat. They
blew people up in their hotel bed.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Here's Bassam Abu Sharif Yasser Arafat's chief advisor.
Speaker 11 (23:06):
The PLO at that time us all who have relationship
to the PLO and their officers to be on the
alert because they're affecting that Israel would carry such a
terrorist oppressions.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
By the spring of nineteen seventy three, Israel cooks up
a mission that will strike fear into the heart of
Black September and the PLO. Bey Root, a one million
person coastal city seventy five miles north of Israel's border.
Bey Root is a notorious factory for terrorism.
Speaker 8 (23:43):
At the time.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
Of course, Beirut wasn't like Europe. It was an armed
city when they would have been quite prepared to attack
and kill any Israeli and Israeli soldiers that they saw.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
But these Israeli agents will not be seen for this operation.
Masad will enlive Israel's elite special force known simply as
the Unit. Lieutenant Colonel Ahud Barak is in charge.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
We felt very self confident that we can do whatever
we need to do.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
There's the scalpel, and there's a sledgehammer, the sledgehammers, screws, missiles,
and the air force coming in laying down carpet of bombs.
The unit is a scalpel and this operation is most
definitely a surgical strike. Masad learns that three top level
FETA targets live in the same apartment block on the roof,
(24:36):
are done just beyond the American and British embassies and
the luxury seaside hotels.
Speaker 7 (24:42):
They were the planners, they were the military commanders, and
they were very very closed to ya.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
It's Israel's most audacious counter terrorism mission to date. The
intended message outreach is long can find you anywhere. The
motive deterrence, prevention, revenge. Here's how it goes down.
Speaker 9 (25:08):
I had Barrak turned up at the commando's base and
slapped down on the table the three photographs of the
individuals they were going to target, and people who were
there have said this murmur of anticipation ran through the room.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
These so the guys they tried to photograph the faces
we're going to go and find them.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
As they trained to go and find them, they realized
that a group of young Israeli men moving through the
streets of Beirut might easily blow up their operation, so
they decide to disguise themselves as couples on a date.
The shortest warriors dress and drag. Barraq Is the hot brunette,
a future Israeli general and deputy head of the massade
(25:53):
are the blondes. The men hide their weapons and explosives
under their jackets. The ladiesh Uzi submachine guns in their
fashionable purses and hide hand grenades under their beziers. The
idea is show the people something very unthreatening.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
They won't even notice it, and you can walk right
by even a police officer, as they did in this case.
And you've been listening to the story of the nineteen
seventy two Olympics in Munich, Germany, the terrorist attacks that
massacred and took the life of eleven Israeli athletes, and
then Israel's response, led by then Prime Minister Gold of
(26:31):
my year and my goodness, her operation Wrath of God,
which she authorized in October twenty ninth, nineteen seventy two,
was the first time in history that a state decided
on a system of personalized killings, a hitless, so to speak,
with Masad leading the charge. And of course we're caught
(26:55):
now in the middle of the operation in Beirut nineteen
seventy three. And there are two ways of going about
taking on the terrorists. First air power, the sledgehammer that
then comes the scalpel and a group that's called simply
the unit. And when we come back, what happens next
an Operation Wrath of God and how it impacts America.
(27:19):
Here on our American stories, and we returned to our
American stories and the story of the nineteen seventy two
(27:40):
Olympics in Munich, Germany, and the terrorist attacks that occurred there,
taking the life of eleven Israeli athletes, and the response
by Israel Operation Wrath of God. We last left off
in Beirut. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
On April ninth, nineteen seventy three, Israeli naval missile boats
depart from Hyphen Naval Base, carrying the unit's top sixteen
commandos and rubber Zodiac speedboats. The ladies cover their heads
with plastic ponchos to protect their wigs and make up
covered faces from the sea spray. When the missile boats
(28:21):
reach the shores of Beirut, the inflatable zodiacs are lowered
into the water to avoid being heard. They cut the
engine several hundred yards from the shore and begin to paddle.
Speaker 10 (28:34):
The agents from the Mosad had found out where they lived,
and had even gotten blueprints of the houses the apartments
where they were living.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Right outside of their route, a broad shouldered man in
a suit two sizes too big for it walks hand
in hand with Baraque the Brunette towards the entrance of
their target. The other couples follow along while staying in character.
(29:05):
The unit meets strong resistance early on from nearly one
hundred militants guarding the apartments. They engage in a close
quarters battles. The doorman runs into the apartment and cries
out in a garbled voice the Jews are here. Within minutes,
three of the PLO's highest level leaders are dead. The
soldiers shove piles of paper into waterproof bags and race
(29:28):
down the stairs. As the unit exits into the street,
they run into a firefight with Lebanese police, who are
quickly beaten back. Massad agents drive the commandos back to
the beach, abandon their rented Buick Skylarks, and returned to
the missile boats and their rubber zodiacs.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
It took us the whole operation from the time we
lend it to the time we will beacon the sea
some soty minutes.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
By the time the sun rises over Beirut, Barak and
his men are back in Israel.
Speaker 13 (29:57):
The Israelis assassinated three palace leaders who all lived and
there's one apartment building. Altogether, they killed or injured as
many as forty Lebanese and Palestinians.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
I remember the town was in shock when they invaded.
They routed itself and in the dead of night just
stitch these guys in their apartments. A sense of vulnerability
was enormous.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yet the most important target and most elusive, is still
at large.
Speaker 9 (30:26):
These ratings were so keen to assassinate Ali Hassan Salome
that they searched all over Europe for him. They weren't
sure where he was based or even really sure what
he looked like. At the time.
Speaker 7 (30:39):
He was very concious and careful and moved from one
place to another, never never stayed at the same place.
It was a very very difficult target.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
MASSAD agents pick up traces of Salame throughout Europe, but
the leads run cold. Then, on July fourteenth, nineteen seventy three,
MASAD gets a tip that a low level courier has
a scheduled rendezvous with a Red Prince. Fourteen Israeli agents
follow the courier to a tiny town in Norway called Lillehammer.
(31:14):
For two days. They do not let the Red Prince
out of their sight. There is, however, a junior member
of the Israeli team who has her doubts about whether
this is actually Salame, but she is overruled. On the
night of July twenty first, as Salame walks with a
woman up a deserted street, two MASSAD agents jump out
(31:34):
of their car, withdraw their silenced berettas and shoot the
man ten times at close range. The woman's screams as
the mastermind of Munich falls to the ground, but junior
backup agents make a fatal error. As they speed out
of the sleepy Norwegian town, a lone Lillahammer police officer
(31:56):
takes down their license plate number. The morning after, they
drive the same car to the Oslo airport and are arrested.
One of the agents, who has serious claustrophobia, spills the
beans on the operation and discloses the locations of many
Israeli safe houses across Europe. It is an international embarrassment
(32:18):
for Israel. As bad as this is, the team makes
a bigger mistake. The man they killed is not ale
Hassan Salame Here's former CIA officer Sam Wyman.
Speaker 8 (32:30):
When you have a team that is that expert and
that skilled and that well trained, when there is disagreement
from one of those expert, well trained people, history has
shonas you ought to listen.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Five of the six Israeli agents serve a maximum sentence
of twenty months, a slap on the wrist to many.
This is evidence that European governments quietly condone the actions
of the Israeli hit teams. But back in his one
of gold in my ears worst nightmares has come true.
Speaker 9 (33:03):
The murder in lily Hammer was seen as such a
disaster for Israeli intelligence that Golden Mayir and the Israeli
government decided to suspend Operation Wrapt of God and a
whole put a hold on future assassination operations.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Masad hit teams lie dormant for five years during this time.
In nineteen seventy four, Golda authorizes a hit on PLO
leader Yaser Arafat, but low visibility prevents aerial reconnaissance from
confirming Arafat's location. The mission is aborted. That same year,
(33:42):
Arafad is given a hero's welcome at the United Nations,
just two years after the Munich massacre. Standing right behind
him and sharing in the spotlight is Arafat's close friend,
the architect of Munich, Ali Hassan Salameini. In nineteen seventy eight,
(34:04):
five years after Operation Wrath of God was suspended, Massad
is given a green light once more and zero in
on salame who is working at PLO headquarters in Beirut.
Speaker 9 (34:15):
He had lowered his guard. He was following a pretty
regular daily routine. The Israeli agents soon realized from surveillance
where he was living and where he would work in
people he would visit.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
January nineteen seventy nine, salame leaves his home in the
afternoon and gets into his Tan Chevrolet accompanied by two bodyguards.
Two more bodyguards climb into the land rover and follow
behind the Chevy rolls towards a rented Volkswagen bug that
is packed with eleven pounds of plastic explosives equal to
(34:52):
seventy pounds of dynamite. A Masad agent stands one hundred
yards away on the balcony of her rented apartment and
watches the convoy approach. She flips the switch on the
debt later as the Chevrolet rolls passed. As the smoke clears,
the car lays obliterated in the middle of the street. Inside.
(35:14):
Thirty eight year old Ali Hassan Salame is dead.
Speaker 9 (35:19):
Or Salame was seen as almost an aristocrat within the
Palestinian community. He was revered by many people, idolized by
many others, and his death came as a huge shock
to Palestinians. He had a huge funeral. Yassah shed tears
and hugged Ali Hassen Saloma's young son, and really was
(35:44):
visibly moved and deeply upset by the attack. The Israelis,
by contrasts, of course, were completely delighted about his death.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
It is seven years in the making, but Israel feels
they finally avenged Munich and made their country and the
world a safer place. Two of the three terrorists who
survived Munich were also reported killed in the late seventies.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
There's only one surviving terrorist who was involved in the
actual attack at Munich. That's a man called Jamal and Kashi,
who still lives in hiding now. He still lives in
fear of his life and thinks Israelis might try to
assassinate him.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
In nineteen ninety nine, a Hollywood film crew accomplished something
that even the massade was unable to do. They locate
Jamal Algashee and convince him to sit down for an
interview for their Oscar winning documentary One Day in September,
narrated by Michael Douglas, the almost fully silhouetted Palestinian reflects
(36:53):
on the massacre of eleven innocent Israeli athletes twenty seven
years after their deaths. I felt great pride and happiness
that I would be participating in an operation against the Israelis.
I was finally going to fulfill my dream. Today he
(37:16):
is reportedly hiding somewhere in Africa, and.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
A terrific job on the production editing and storytelling by
our own Greg Hengler. And my goodness, what happened in
nineteen seventy two in Munich, Well we've had similar experiences
here in America. Nine to eleven for sure, our own
citizens and what happened to them in the Negev Desert
in twenty thirteen, and it's still happening today, terrorists around
(37:44):
the world committing untold horrors on innocence and my goodness.
The story of finally taking down Salome the Red Prince,
and almost seven years after the Day of Munich, the
full justice, the full wrath, was finally felt by the
people of Israel and free people around the world. The
(38:07):
story of the nineteen seventy two Olympic massacre. Here on
our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
The nineteen seventy two Olympics in Munich, Germany was dominated
by Mark Spitz, Jewish American swimmer, who won seven gold
medals for the United States. It was also the Olympics
for Palestinian terrorist massacred eleven Israeli athletes. This incident was
(00:35):
televised across America and prompted President Nixon to establish plans
to avert terrorism in the United States. But what the
world didn't see was Israel's response, Operation Wrath of God.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Let's take a listen. Nearly every week on television and
in newspapers, we witness a blood feud between Israelis and
Palestinians that has gone on for decades. It was in
the late nineteen sixties when this cycle of violence began
to escalate. After the small New Jersey sized nation of
(01:14):
Israel soundly defeated the Arab Coalition in the nineteen sixty
seven Six Day War, Palestinian terrorist groups turned to increasingly
spectacular acts of evil to get world attention. Israel defended
itself as it always had, but nineteen seventy two would
be the turning point. On May eighth of that year,
(01:37):
four members of a Palestinian terrorist group hijacked the Boeing
seven oh seven aircraft with ten crew members and ninety passengers,
sixty seven of them Jewish, and landed it in the
heart of Israel Tel Aviv. Soon after taking command. The
(01:58):
two men and two women hijacked, armed with hand grenades,
a revolver, and two five pound explosive devices, separated the
Jewish hostages from the others and sent them to the
back of the aircraft. The captain relaid the terrorist demands
that three hundred and fifteen convicted Palestinian terrorists be released
from Israeli prisons, or they would blow up the airplane
(02:21):
with its passengers. Israel's policy was never to negotiate with
terrorists or never to back down. Prime Minister Goldamayir ordered
an assault on the aircraft. The mission was led by
(02:42):
Israel's elite anti terror unit, commanded by Ahud Barak and
joined by Benjamin Netanyahu, both will become future prime ministers.
Israeli commandos approached the aircraft disguised as aircraft mechanics in
white jumpsuits. They immediately killed the two male hijackers and
apprehended the two females. Here's a hud Barak on the incident.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But it took just ninety seconds before we stormed. It
killed two of the etoists.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Israelis interviewed the two captured female terrorists, who admitted they
were members of Black September, an amorphous branch of the
terrorist organization Fatah founded by Yasser Arafat. FATA is the
most radical wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, better known
as the PLO. The man who ordered the hijacking was
(03:37):
Arafat's protege and FATA's commander, A Lai Hassan Salame. Two
weeks after the hijacking, Salame's name came up again in
connection with a bloody massacre that left twenty four dead
seventy eight wounded at the same airport. Two of the
three terrorists died and the third was arrested, but Israel
(03:58):
had not heard the last of Salah or Black September.
Here's Benjamin netan Yahoo.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
After that, they realized they can't hijack Israeli planes if
they go to Israel with somebody else's plane and try
to extort something there they'll be killed, so they figured
that go somewhere.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Else, Somewhere the whole world would be watching. The nineteen
seventy two Munich Olympics. Munich's Olympic Games were carefully constructed
to convey the message that Germany's rehabilitation was complete. That
nineteen thirty six, when Berlin under Adolf Hitler hosted the
(04:40):
eleventh Olympiad against the backdrop of discrimination and violence, was
a relic of a dead past Italian. The German organizers
didn't want the world to see them holding guns, which
might evoke old images. No armed guards or police were
positioned in the Olympic village or at stadium entrances. Security
(05:02):
costs for the games came to two million dollars. This
relatively insignificant sum was not born of miserliness, but of
a frank desire to keep security to a minimum. In contrast,
the two thousand and four Olympic security costs exceeded one
billion dollars. Germany, Cologne Airport, Wednesday, August twenty third, nineteen
(05:28):
seventy two. A middle aged couple wait for their four
pieces of luggage to arrive. The man, dressed in a
well tailored suit, hoists the bags onto two carts and
heads towards the customs line and the exit beyond. The
Palestinian man is a courier for Fetah and its Black
September wing in Europe. His accomplice, posing as his wife,
(05:52):
is there to lend legitimacy to their cover. The couple
are asked to open their bags. The husband refuses, begins
to yell and scream, I am a businessman, not a criminal.
The customs officials have seen this act before. They point
to a bag and ask him to open it. The
man reluctantly opens the suitcase. Lingerie in many colors and
(06:18):
styles covers the inspection desk. The officer motions to the man,
close your case and carry on. What the German officer
doesn't know is that the three pieces of luggage he
failed to inspect contains eight AK forty sevens, dozens of
magazines loaded with seven point six two millimeter bullets, and
(06:39):
ten hand grenades. The operation is on track. With thirteen
days to go before the attack, the terrorists have time
to kill. They choose nicknames for themselves. One member of
Black September calls himself Jay Gavara as a tribute to
his hero, the bloodthirsty Cuban Communists sidekick of Fidel Castro.
(07:02):
The rest of the eight Palestinians take in the sites,
make dinner plans, and catch up on sleep. One even
goes to two Olympic volleyball games.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And you've been listening to the story of the massacre
at the nineteen seventy two Olympics in Munich, Germany. When
we come back more of this remarkable moment in American
and world history here on our American Stories. Here at
our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith,
(07:34):
and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
need to be told. But we can't do it without you.
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make. If you love our stories in America
like we do, please go to our American Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
(07:55):
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories in the story of the nineteen seventy
two Olympic Games in Munich, remembered in part by Mark
(08:17):
Spitz's remarkable performance winning seven gold medals, but also for
something far worse. Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Tuesday, September fifth, nineteen seventy two, day ten of the Olympics,
A bus filled with the sounds of backslapping and laughter
arrives back at the Olympic Village the jubilant Israeli athletes
just spent an evening at the theater. At four point
thirty am on September fifth, as the athletes sleep, eight
(08:52):
tracksuit clad members of Black September carried Duffel bags loaded
with AK forty seven automatic rifles, semi automatic pistols, and
hand grenades. As they are about to scale the six
foot barrier into the Olympic village, they're immediately spotted english Man.
A few tipsy American athletes sneaking back into the village
after a night on the town, quickly assist them in
(09:15):
getting over the chain link fence.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
There you go, let's go, I got you goome on.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
The terrorists encounter no guards, but to the sober eyes
of six German postal workers, the men seem suspicious. They
report the break in, but no action is taken. Once inside,
the Black September members change their clothes and load their
weapons with a stolen key, They attempt to enter the
(09:46):
apartment housing the Israeli delegation, but the lock won't turn.
The jiggling of the key immediately wakes Yusuf Gutfreund, a
six foot three, two hund ndred and eighty five pound
international wrestling referee. The terrorists flip the lock and open
the door, but Gutfrind stands in the hall, staring at
(10:10):
the masked men as he throws the full weight of
his body and strength against the door. One of the
terrorists quickly wedges the steel barrel of his AK forty
seven between the door and the frame and begins using
it as a crowbar. The weightlifting coach, a Holocaust survivor
who lost his entire family on German soil, hears the
(10:31):
commotion and sees the masked terrorists slowly gaining entrance. He
yells to his flatmates to run for their lives as
he throws himself out the back window and escapes. The
terrorists overpower Gutfrond and charge into the room. Wrestling coach
Moshe Weinberg is shot through the cheek while trying to
fight off the intruders. A one hundred and six pound
(10:54):
is Raylei wrestler, slaps at one of the terrorists barrels
and runs down to the underground parking garage as one
of the terrorists follows him, spraying gunfire in his direction.
He also escapes. Then the wounded Weinberg, holding a rag
on his bullet holed cheek, makes another attack, knocking one
of the intruders unconscious and slashing another with a fruit
(11:17):
knife before being shot to death. Weightlifter Yusuf Romano, a
veteran of the Six Day War, also attacks and wounds
one of the terrorists before being shot and killed. That
September morning in nineteen seventy two, the people of Munich
(11:38):
waked to the sound of sirens and the rumble of
military trucks. Flickering police lights paint the city blue. At dawn,
the news is breaking all over the world.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
The piece of what would have been called the Serene
Olympics was shattered just before dawn this morning, about five o'clock.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Here's Peter Jennings with the live broadcast.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
If I were to guess at the moment at which
of the command of organizations this group has to come from,
might be most likely than now and on a group
called Black September. I was a reporter based in Lebanon,
and if you were an American reporter working for an
American news agency, and you knew all the characters, because
the Palatinians were very open about many of the things
they were trying to accomplish, and so we knew some
of the players. And I'll always know what they were doing,
(12:22):
and God knows what they were going to do.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And they've taken nine members of the Israeli delegation hostage.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
It now appears that Black September has tossed a piece
of paper at the window, a list of demands.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
A man with a stacking mast and his face weird,
what's going on inside that head?
Speaker 8 (12:39):
And mine.
Speaker 9 (12:41):
The terrorists demanded the release of two hundred and thirty
four prisoners who were being held in Israeli jails, and
also some who are being held abroad, but Godo Maya
would have none of it. She just rejected their demands outright.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
By five pm. The Palestinians demand an airplane to take
them in their hostages to an unspecified Arab country. The
Germans agree, counting on ambushing the terrorists at the airfield.
German authorities transport the terrorists and their hostages the First
and Feldbrook.
Speaker 8 (13:11):
Airport heading to an airport called First and.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
In his book Stateless, the commander of Fatah shared why
he chose the Munich Games as his target to use
the unprecedented number of media outlets in one city to
display the Palestinian struggle for better or worse around the world.
Viewers hunkered in front of their TVs, watching and waiting
(13:39):
for the outcome.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
The latest word we get from the airport is that
quote all hell has broken loose out there.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
At the airport. A novice German police force set up
a decoy airplane to lure the terrorists into the line
of their sniper fire. But as the terrorists board the plane,
the pilots and the crew are gone.
Speaker 9 (13:58):
This is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Little did they know that just fifteen minutes prior, a
group of thirteen German officers from the police Special Task
Command Force abandoned the plane and their mission for fear
of their lives.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
He's right, we can't do any good year.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
They took a last minute vote, it was unanimous and
their commander supported their decision wholeheartedly. With an empty plane,
the terrorists immediately assume it's a trap.
Speaker 8 (14:28):
And it all went horribly wrong.
Speaker 9 (14:31):
They degenerated into a battle, and the hostages were in
the middle of this. They were manic, called and shackled
in the back of the helicopters. And all this time
the two Israelis who had come over to try and
help the rescue operation were standing there watching this and
the impotent. Really, they were powerless to do anything because
the battle had begun.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
German snipers eliminate five of the eight terrorists in the
chaotic gunfight.
Speaker 9 (14:57):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
But before their deaths, the members of Black September murder
all nine of the chain Israeli hostages. The three surviving
terrorists are held in police custody. Rumors rage, the media pounds.
Speaker 9 (15:20):
We have reports now that all the hostages, all nine hostages,
are safe.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
The international news agency Reuters sends out an exclusive wire report.
It reads, all Israeli hostages have been freed.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
And according to these reports, all arabtoists have died by
German gunfire.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The good news spreads like wildfire, and the world celebrates.
In Israel, relatives and friends show up at athletes family
homes with flowers and champagne. Then, just after three in
the morning, the truth finally reaches the media when Reuter
sends a corrected message over the wires flash all Israeli
(16:02):
hostages seized by Arab guerrillas killed. ABC's Jimmy Kay broadcast
the devastating update to the world. He looked straight into
the camera and says, I've.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
Just gotten the final word.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
When I was a kid, my father.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Is to say, our greatest hopes and our worst fears
seldom realized. Our worst fears have been realized.
Speaker 10 (16:21):
Tonight.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
They're now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were
killed in their rooms this morn yesterday morning, nine were
killed at the airport. Tonight they're all gone.
Speaker 10 (16:37):
They're all gone onto an airthing to bring them home together.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Jews have been led yet again to their death on
German soil. Only twenty seven years passed since six million
Jews were hearded into camps and murdered. As the relatives
of the Munich victims gathered to bury their dead, Israeli
security officials plot revenge.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
I think it was a great shock. It was a
great shock because it showed you what kind of lack
of an ambition, lack of any moral constraints this terror
had it was. If it was supposed to break our
moral the didn't it.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And you've been listening to the story of the nineteen
seventy two Olympics in Munich, and what tragedy. You could
hear it in Jim McKay's voice. He was one of
the great broadcasters and did ABC's Wide World of Sports,
and you could just hear the grief. Two killed in rooms,
nine killed in the airport, just flat out murdered. And
then you heard the voice of now Prime Minister Benjamin
(17:41):
Netanyahu who his brother was killed in the Entebbi raid.
When we come back the story of the nineteen seventy
two Olympic Games in Munich and the acts of terrorism
committed there, here are now American stories, and we continue
(18:08):
with our American stories, and the story of the massacre
of eleven Israeli athletes in the nineteen seventy two Olympic
Games in Munich, Germany and overshadowed remarkable performances by American athletes,
including Mark Spitz, the Jewish American swimmer who won seven
gold medals for the United States. Let's pick up where
(18:32):
we last left off in Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Prime Minister Golda Mayar tells Parliament that Israelis will go
after the terrorists responsible. We will smite them wherever they
may be. At first, Golda's airstrike response looks like previous skirmishes,
but this is just the beginning. Golda wants to set
(18:59):
a new standard. She realizes Israel can no longer afford
to respond and retaliate. The talmutic imperative to rise and
slay the one who comes to kill you needs to
be fulfilled to the letter of the law, she says.
Prime Minister Myyar authorizes the assassination campaign. They call it
(19:20):
Operation Wrath of God. Terror will soon arrive at the
terrorist doorstep.
Speaker 9 (19:28):
Of the hijackers.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
If Operation Wrath of God has any lingering doubts, they
are erased by events. On October twenty ninth, nineteen seventy two,
just a month and a half.
Speaker 7 (19:39):
After Munich Luftanzajet was Aijack coming from Damascus.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
The Iijack has demanded the release of three killers of Munich,
and the German said yes instantly.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
The three terrorists celebrate their freedom with a press conference
and moviestars, did you shoot any of the Israeli hostages?
Speaker 11 (20:02):
It's not unportant to say I killed the Slim.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It is clear that if those who planned and carried
out the attack at Munich were ever going to pay
for what they did, only Israel could extract that payment.
Operation Wrath of God would be the instrument of its revenge.
Speaker 12 (20:23):
That was the first time, I think in the history
of Israel, the namely in the history of the world,
that the state decided to pursue a policy of personal
killing in a systematic way.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
A committee led by my ear drafted a secret hit
list of Black September members.
Speaker 10 (20:42):
Ambushed and slaughtered again. Other rest of the world is
playing games, Olympic torches and drafts bands and dead Jews
in Germany and the world couldn't care whether.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
The Israeli intelligence agency Massade supplies the committee with Darsier's
on the Palestinian members. Number one on the list was
Alai Hassan Salame. There's people.
Speaker 10 (21:07):
They're sworn to destroy it because I don't know who
these maniacs are and where they come from. Palestinians, can
you tell me what law protects people like these? That
made a decision. The responsibility is entirely mine.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Salame is the operation's chief of Black September and the
mastermind behind Munich and the Palestinian hijackings. For all his
bloody activities, the Israeli media crowned him the Red Prince.
Speaker 9 (21:43):
He was really a protege of Yasa Arafat. Yas Arafat
publicly declared him to be his son in inverted commas,
and he was really something of an aristocratic hero within
the Palestinian among the Palestinian people.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Operation Wrath of God is under way as Massad agents
fan out across Europe and the Middle East. The first
target on Massad's secret assassination list is a black September
operative working as a translator at the Libyan embassy in Rome.
Speaker 9 (22:15):
He had no idea the Israelis were coming for him.
He ate dinner that night with a friend and walked
home to his apartment block. He stopped off to buy
some groceries, made a couple of phone calls, and then
walked into the entrance hall where he lived. Went to
Israeli agents emerged from shadows and shot him with the
small caliber pistons.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Over the next six months, Massad agents hunt down and
kill three other Palestinian terrors hiding in Europe.
Speaker 9 (22:46):
They came up with quite intricate, sophisticated ways of killing people,
including bombs that were detonated by telephone calls. They put
land mines under cart and under somebody's car seat. They
blew people up in their hotel bed.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Here's Bassam Abu Sharif Yasser Arafat's chief advisor.
Speaker 11 (23:06):
The PLO at that time us all who have relationship
to the PLO and their officers to be on the
alert because they're affecting that Israel would carry such a
terrorist oppressions.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
By the spring of nineteen seventy three, Israel cooks up
a mission that will strike fear into the heart of
Black September and the PLO. Bey Root, a one million
person coastal city seventy five miles north of Israel's border.
Bey Root is a notorious factory for terrorism.
Speaker 8 (23:43):
At the time.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
Of course, Beirut wasn't like Europe. It was an armed
city when they would have been quite prepared to attack
and kill any Israeli and Israeli soldiers that they saw.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
But these Israeli agents will not be seen for this operation.
Masad will enlive Israel's elite special force known simply as
the Unit. Lieutenant Colonel Ahud Barak is in charge.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
We felt very self confident that we can do whatever
we need to do.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
There's the scalpel, and there's a sledgehammer, the sledgehammers, screws, missiles,
and the air force coming in laying down carpet of bombs.
The unit is a scalpel and this operation is most
definitely a surgical strike. Masad learns that three top level
FETA targets live in the same apartment block on the roof,
(24:36):
are done just beyond the American and British embassies and
the luxury seaside hotels.
Speaker 7 (24:42):
They were the planners, they were the military commanders, and
they were very very closed to ya.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
It's Israel's most audacious counter terrorism mission to date. The
intended message outreach is long can find you anywhere. The
motive deterrence, prevention, revenge. Here's how it goes down.
Speaker 9 (25:08):
I had Barrak turned up at the commando's base and
slapped down on the table the three photographs of the
individuals they were going to target, and people who were
there have said this murmur of anticipation ran through the room.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
These so the guys they tried to photograph the faces
we're going to go and find them.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
As they trained to go and find them, they realized
that a group of young Israeli men moving through the
streets of Beirut might easily blow up their operation, so
they decide to disguise themselves as couples on a date.
The shortest warriors dress and drag. Barraq Is the hot brunette,
a future Israeli general and deputy head of the massade
(25:53):
are the blondes. The men hide their weapons and explosives
under their jackets. The ladiesh Uzi submachine guns in their
fashionable purses and hide hand grenades under their beziers. The
idea is show the people something very unthreatening.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
They won't even notice it, and you can walk right
by even a police officer, as they did in this case.
And you've been listening to the story of the nineteen
seventy two Olympics in Munich, Germany, the terrorist attacks that
massacred and took the life of eleven Israeli athletes, and
then Israel's response, led by then Prime Minister Gold of
(26:31):
my year and my goodness, her operation Wrath of God,
which she authorized in October twenty ninth, nineteen seventy two,
was the first time in history that a state decided
on a system of personalized killings, a hitless, so to speak,
with Masad leading the charge. And of course we're caught
(26:55):
now in the middle of the operation in Beirut nineteen
seventy three. And there are two ways of going about
taking on the terrorists. First air power, the sledgehammer that
then comes the scalpel and a group that's called simply
the unit. And when we come back, what happens next
an Operation Wrath of God and how it impacts America.
(27:19):
Here on our American stories, and we returned to our
American stories and the story of the nineteen seventy two
(27:40):
Olympics in Munich, Germany, and the terrorist attacks that occurred there,
taking the life of eleven Israeli athletes, and the response
by Israel Operation Wrath of God. We last left off
in Beirut. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
On April ninth, nineteen seventy three, Israeli naval missile boats
depart from Hyphen Naval Base, carrying the unit's top sixteen
commandos and rubber Zodiac speedboats. The ladies cover their heads
with plastic ponchos to protect their wigs and make up
covered faces from the sea spray. When the missile boats
(28:21):
reach the shores of Beirut, the inflatable zodiacs are lowered
into the water to avoid being heard. They cut the
engine several hundred yards from the shore and begin to paddle.
Speaker 10 (28:34):
The agents from the Mosad had found out where they lived,
and had even gotten blueprints of the houses the apartments
where they were living.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Right outside of their route, a broad shouldered man in
a suit two sizes too big for it walks hand
in hand with Baraque the Brunette towards the entrance of
their target. The other couples follow along while staying in character.
(29:05):
The unit meets strong resistance early on from nearly one
hundred militants guarding the apartments. They engage in a close
quarters battles. The doorman runs into the apartment and cries
out in a garbled voice the Jews are here. Within minutes,
three of the PLO's highest level leaders are dead. The
soldiers shove piles of paper into waterproof bags and race
(29:28):
down the stairs. As the unit exits into the street,
they run into a firefight with Lebanese police, who are
quickly beaten back. Massad agents drive the commandos back to
the beach, abandon their rented Buick Skylarks, and returned to
the missile boats and their rubber zodiacs.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
It took us the whole operation from the time we
lend it to the time we will beacon the sea
some soty minutes.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
By the time the sun rises over Beirut, Barak and
his men are back in Israel.
Speaker 13 (29:57):
The Israelis assassinated three palace leaders who all lived and
there's one apartment building. Altogether, they killed or injured as
many as forty Lebanese and Palestinians.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
I remember the town was in shock when they invaded.
They routed itself and in the dead of night just
stitch these guys in their apartments. A sense of vulnerability
was enormous.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yet the most important target and most elusive, is still
at large.
Speaker 9 (30:26):
These ratings were so keen to assassinate Ali Hassan Salome
that they searched all over Europe for him. They weren't
sure where he was based or even really sure what
he looked like. At the time.
Speaker 7 (30:39):
He was very concious and careful and moved from one
place to another, never never stayed at the same place.
It was a very very difficult target.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
MASSAD agents pick up traces of Salame throughout Europe, but
the leads run cold. Then, on July fourteenth, nineteen seventy three,
MASAD gets a tip that a low level courier has
a scheduled rendezvous with a Red Prince. Fourteen Israeli agents
follow the courier to a tiny town in Norway called Lillehammer.
(31:14):
For two days. They do not let the Red Prince
out of their sight. There is, however, a junior member
of the Israeli team who has her doubts about whether
this is actually Salame, but she is overruled. On the
night of July twenty first, as Salame walks with a
woman up a deserted street, two MASSAD agents jump out
(31:34):
of their car, withdraw their silenced berettas and shoot the
man ten times at close range. The woman's screams as
the mastermind of Munich falls to the ground, but junior
backup agents make a fatal error. As they speed out
of the sleepy Norwegian town, a lone Lillahammer police officer
(31:56):
takes down their license plate number. The morning after, they
drive the same car to the Oslo airport and are arrested.
One of the agents, who has serious claustrophobia, spills the
beans on the operation and discloses the locations of many
Israeli safe houses across Europe. It is an international embarrassment
(32:18):
for Israel. As bad as this is, the team makes
a bigger mistake. The man they killed is not ale
Hassan Salame Here's former CIA officer Sam Wyman.
Speaker 8 (32:30):
When you have a team that is that expert and
that skilled and that well trained, when there is disagreement
from one of those expert, well trained people, history has
shonas you ought to listen.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Five of the six Israeli agents serve a maximum sentence
of twenty months, a slap on the wrist to many.
This is evidence that European governments quietly condone the actions
of the Israeli hit teams. But back in his one
of gold in my ears worst nightmares has come true.
Speaker 9 (33:03):
The murder in lily Hammer was seen as such a
disaster for Israeli intelligence that Golden Mayir and the Israeli
government decided to suspend Operation Wrapt of God and a
whole put a hold on future assassination operations.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Masad hit teams lie dormant for five years during this time.
In nineteen seventy four, Golda authorizes a hit on PLO
leader Yaser Arafat, but low visibility prevents aerial reconnaissance from
confirming Arafat's location. The mission is aborted. That same year,
(33:42):
Arafad is given a hero's welcome at the United Nations,
just two years after the Munich massacre. Standing right behind
him and sharing in the spotlight is Arafat's close friend,
the architect of Munich, Ali Hassan Salameini. In nineteen seventy eight,
(34:04):
five years after Operation Wrath of God was suspended, Massad
is given a green light once more and zero in
on salame who is working at PLO headquarters in Beirut.
Speaker 9 (34:15):
He had lowered his guard. He was following a pretty
regular daily routine. The Israeli agents soon realized from surveillance
where he was living and where he would work in
people he would visit.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
January nineteen seventy nine, salame leaves his home in the
afternoon and gets into his Tan Chevrolet accompanied by two bodyguards.
Two more bodyguards climb into the land rover and follow
behind the Chevy rolls towards a rented Volkswagen bug that
is packed with eleven pounds of plastic explosives equal to
(34:52):
seventy pounds of dynamite. A Masad agent stands one hundred
yards away on the balcony of her rented apartment and
watches the convoy approach. She flips the switch on the
debt later as the Chevrolet rolls passed. As the smoke clears,
the car lays obliterated in the middle of the street. Inside.
(35:14):
Thirty eight year old Ali Hassan Salame is dead.
Speaker 9 (35:19):
Or Salame was seen as almost an aristocrat within the
Palestinian community. He was revered by many people, idolized by
many others, and his death came as a huge shock
to Palestinians. He had a huge funeral. Yassah shed tears
and hugged Ali Hassen Saloma's young son, and really was
(35:44):
visibly moved and deeply upset by the attack. The Israelis,
by contrasts, of course, were completely delighted about his death.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
It is seven years in the making, but Israel feels
they finally avenged Munich and made their country and the
world a safer place. Two of the three terrorists who
survived Munich were also reported killed in the late seventies.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
There's only one surviving terrorist who was involved in the
actual attack at Munich. That's a man called Jamal and Kashi,
who still lives in hiding now. He still lives in
fear of his life and thinks Israelis might try to
assassinate him.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
In nineteen ninety nine, a Hollywood film crew accomplished something
that even the massade was unable to do. They locate
Jamal Algashee and convince him to sit down for an
interview for their Oscar winning documentary One Day in September,
narrated by Michael Douglas, the almost fully silhouetted Palestinian reflects
(36:53):
on the massacre of eleven innocent Israeli athletes twenty seven
years after their deaths. I felt great pride and happiness
that I would be participating in an operation against the Israelis.
I was finally going to fulfill my dream. Today he
(37:16):
is reportedly hiding somewhere in Africa, and.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
A terrific job on the production editing and storytelling by
our own Greg Hengler. And my goodness, what happened in
nineteen seventy two in Munich, Well we've had similar experiences
here in America. Nine to eleven for sure, our own
citizens and what happened to them in the Negev Desert
in twenty thirteen, and it's still happening today, terrorists around
(37:44):
the world committing untold horrors on innocence and my goodness.
The story of finally taking down Salome the Red Prince,
and almost seven years after the Day of Munich, the
full justice, the full wrath, was finally felt by the
people of Israel and free people around the world. The
(38:07):
story of the nineteen seventy two Olympic massacre. Here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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