One Day in September Page #5

Israeli Journalist

and I saw his body carried out

after one hour into an ambulance.

That body was smashed...

which means he was killed

by a machine gun...

not by a regular gun.

I was sleeping.

My parents came to wake me up,

and they said...

"We just heard on the radio

that there was an attack...

at the Israeli quarters

of the Olympic village.

They killed one of the Israelis,

and they say it was the boxing coach. "

I know there was no boxing coach,

so I jumped out of my bed.

I thought, if it is not the

boxing coach, then what coach is it?

Maybe it's Andre.

How many Israelis are they

holding as hostage in the block?

Around 16, 17.

Thirteen members of the Israeli team

as hostages.

There are nine hostages.

Nobody could tell me

if Andre was a part of this...

if he was one of the hostages,

if he escaped.

Nobody could tell me.

When I arrived on the scene,

I met a young female police officer...

who was talking to a man

dressed in a white suit.

He was Issa,

the terrorists' spokesman.

Issa expressed his demands

in a staccato manner.

He was very cool

and very determined...

clearly fanatical

in his convictions.

The terrorists handed

a communique to the police.

In it they demanded the release of

more than 200 revolutionary prisoners...

from jails in Israel,

Germany and elsewhere.

If this was not done

by 12:
00 noon...

the hostages would be executed.

And you have until 12:00?

They said that at 12:00

they will shoot.

I certainly took it seriously because

I was standing there on gunpoint...

where always two or three

machine guns pointed on me...

and the leader of the terrorists

had a hand grenade in his hands.

Walther Trger

Mayor of Olympic Village

So I had to take it seriously.

When he was discussing with me,

he always had that hand grenade.

Somebody's going inside.

The negotiators knew nothing

about the terrorists...

except what they saw.

Three were visible

at any one time.

Issa, the leader, his face blackened

with shoe polish.

Tony, second in command, usually at the

first floor window wearing a cowboy hat.

And another man

guarding the balcony door.

Issa told the negotiators...

that a second Israeli

had been shot and killed...

while trying to overpower

his captors.

The terrorist leader refused

to identify the dead man...

or allow his body

to be removed...

until all the political prisoners

on the communique had been released.

My camera crew and I ended up,

for all of that long day...

looking down

into this little walkway...

very quiet.

Gerald Seymour

ITN News Reporter

And in a sense, you were looking down

into the cockpit of world events.

We opened up all the radios

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