MASSACRE IN MUNICH describes in breathtaking detail the gripping drama of the events that led to the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics, as well as the ruthless duel between Israel's secret intelligence service, the Mossad, and the leaders of Black September, the terrorist organization that perpetrated the massacre.
Unlike those pursuing Al Qaeda leaders today, the Israeli agents succeeded in unmasking and killing all of Black September's captains, who operated under sophisticated disguises in Europe and the Middle East. The quest took the Mossad to Paris, Rome, Madrid, Athens, Cyprus, and Lebanon. One of Black September's chieftains, Zweiter, was ambushed in Rome; Al Kubaissi, who tried to assassinate Golda Meir, met his death in the shadow of the Madeleine church in Paris. His partner Mohammed Boudia tried in vain to escape the Mossad by donning a woman's clothes. Several other terrorists were killed in their Beirut homes by Israeli commandos. One of the commandos, Ehud Barak, would become Israel's future Prime Minister. Black September fought back, gunning down Israeli agents in Brussels and Madrid.
The bloody duel ended when Black September's leader, Ali Hassan Salameh, nicknamed "the Red Prince," died in a car explosion in Beirut, where he had been tracked down by a mysterious Englishwoman, Erica Mary Chambers, who turned out to be a Mossad agent.
MASSACRE IN MUNICH does more than catalog Black September's awful crimes and Israel's search for a way to end his bloody reign, it tells the true story behind one of the central conflicts of our time-the Palestinian-Israeli struggle.