The Price of Terror; One Bomb. One Plane. 270 Lives. The History-Making Struggle for Justice After Pan Am 103
New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xiv, 322 pages. Illustrations. Appendix: Cast of Characters. Index. Minor edge soiling. Minor DJ wear and soiling. Inscribed by the author (Gerson) on the fep. Inscription reads For Aidan in the hope you will draw strength from this saga of trials and some triumphs. Best, Allen 12/2001. Mr. Gerson graduated at the University at Buffalo in 1966. He received a law degree from New York University in 1969, a master of laws degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1972 and a doctor of juridical science from Yale University in 1976. Gerson was a Washington lawyer and legal scholar who helped pioneer the practice of suing foreign governments in U.S. courts for complicity in terrorism, representing victims’ families in the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Gerson was an author, private-practice lawyer, former professor at George Mason University and deputy assistant attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, known for representing victims of human rights abuses and terrorist attacks. As a Justice Department trial lawyer, he pursued Nazi war criminals who had immigrated to the United States, later rising to become senior counsel to two U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Gen. Vernon A. Walters. Mr. Gerson was named Kirkpatrick’s senior counsel in 1981 and chronicled those years in a book, “The Kirkpatrick Mission: Diplomacy Without Apology” (1991). He wrote books including “Israel, the West Bank and International Law” (1978) and “Privatizing Peace: From Conflict to Security” (2002) with Nat J. Colletta. President Bill Clinton called it "an attack against America," but after Libyan agents planted a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103, killing 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground, America did not strike back. Instead, the grieving relatives of the victims did the unthinkable -- as mere civilians-and tried to force Libya to pay for its crime. Lawyers told the families that they could never sue Libya in American courts, and they were right. This would require changing a bedrock principle of international law -- a change that every government in the world feared and fought, including the United States itself. Working virtually alone at first, Allan Gerson, a former diplomat and prosecutor of Nazi war criminals, took on the case and spent the next eight years on the families' quest for justice. In this high-stakes game of international power politics and legal maneuvering, there were friendships, jobs, and reputations lost, but a precious principle -- that of accountability under the law -- was strengthened and preserved. Now Gerson and his co-author, Newsweek writer Jerry Adler, follow the threads of this extraordinary tale back to that deadly night over Lockerbie, Scotland -- and forward into a new era of international justice, when terrorists will learn to fear the righteous retribution of their own victims. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: In The Price of Terror also described on the dust jacket as the "Lessons of Lockerbie for a World on the Brink", Allan Gerson, a former prosecutor of Nazi war crimes, a professor of international relations at George Washington University, and Jerry Adler, a senior editor at Newsweek, reconstruct the struggle for justice for the bomb victims and their families after the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Gerson, an expert in international law, took up the cause of pursuing the Libyan suspects, even when the U.S. government did little and lawyers told the victims' families that there was no precedent for suing Libya. Gerson and Adler track the tragedy from the moment the bomb exploded, killing 270, through the trial in Scotland. In the aftermath of September 11, this timely account of the legal, political and emotional aftermath of international mass murder will be of interest to many. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Aviation Security, George Bush, Libya, CIA, FAA, FBI, Kaddafi, Pan Am 103, Gaddafi, Terrorism, Victoria Cummock, Lee Kriendler, Megrahi, Pan American, Bombing, Bruce Smith, Abraham Sofaer, Mark Zaid
ISBN: 0060197617
[Book #85914]
Price: $125.00