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Overview
"Korn has written a fast-pased and absorbing account of the murder of two American diplomats held hostage in the Saudi embassy in Khartoum in 1973."
—Foreign Affairs
"... engrossing... well-crafted... a gripping story of personal courage and tragedy." —Foreign Service Journal
Synopsis
"Korn has written a fast-pased and absorbing account of the murder of two American diplomats held hostage in the Saudi embassy in Khartoum in 1973." — Foreign Affairs
"... engrossing... well-crafted... a gripping story of personal courage and tragedy." — Foreign Service Journal
Publishers Weekly
In 1973, Palestinian Black September gunmen stormed the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum where two U.S. diplomats and a Belgian colleague were attending a reception and threatened to kill them unless their demands were met. Among their demands were the releases of Sirhan Sirhan, convicted killer of Robert Kennedy, and of Palestinians imprisoned in Jordan and Israel. President Richard Nixon--establishing a policy which remains in effect--refused to negotiate. This dire decision, as Korn reveals, doomed the three captives, set off an internal furor within the State Department and caused the White House to issue preemptive statements defending Nixon against accusations that the policy was a shocking display of indifference to Americans abroad in distress. The Belgian government attempted to ransom with money the release of its diplomat, Guy Eid. Korn, a former Foreign Service officer, presents a tense, compelling, carefully researched account of the abduction, the 59-hour siege of the Saudi embassy, the assassination of the diplomats, the surrender of the gunmen and their unexpected release by the Sudanese government. Korn explores the intriguing theory that Eid was used by Black September to trap Ambassador Cleo Noel and George Moore, deputy chief of mission, and was betrayed by the Palestinians. Korn is the author of Stalemate: The War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1967-1970. (Nov.)