EXCERPT FROM DEPARTMENT OF STATE BULLETIN

MARCH 29, 1976

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

Address by Robert A. Fearey[1]

First let me say how much I appreciate your invitation to be here today. The World Affairs Council is a widely known and highly respected forum. I welcome the opportunity to discuss how our government views the problem of international terrorism and how we are meeting it.

My topic is international terrorism. I shall not be specifically addressing the indigenous, or national, form of terrorism, such as we see in Northern Ireland, Argentina, and many other countries and which accounts for most terrorism today. Nevertheless a good deal of what I say about international terrorism will apply also to the indigenous form.

What precisely is "international terrorism"? It has three characteristics.

First, as with other forms of terrorism, it embodies an act which is essentially criminal. It takes the form of assassination or murder, kidnapping, extortion, arson, maiming, or an assortment of other acts which are commonly regarded by all nations as criminal.

Second, international terrorism is politically motivated. An extremist political group, convinced of the rightness of its cause, resorts to violent means to advance that cause--means incorporating one of the acts I have just cited. Often the violence is directed against innocents, persons having no personal connection with the grievance motivating the terrorist act.

And third, international terrorism transcends national boundaries, through the choice of a foreign victim or target, commission of the terrorist act in a foreign country, or effort to influence the policies of a foreign government. The international terrorist strikes abroad or at a diplomat or other foreigner at home, because he believes he can thereby exert the greatest possible pressure on his own or another government or on world opinion.

The international terrorist may or may not wish to kill his victim or victims. In abduction or hostage-barricade cases he usually does not wish to kill-though he often will find occasion to do so at the outset to enhance the credibility of his threats. In other types of attacks innocent deaths are his specific, calculated pressure-shock objective. Through brutality and fear he seeks to impress his existence and his cause on the minds of those who can, through action or terror-induced inaction, help him to achieve that case.

An example: On September 6, 1970, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked three airliners flying from Europe to New York, diverted them to airports in the Middle East, and moments after their passengers had been evacuated, blew them up. The terrorists' purposes were:

-To attract world attention to the Palestinian cause;

-To convince the world that the Palestinians could not be ignored in a Middle East settlement or there would be no lasting settlement; and

-To demonstrate that they had destructive powers which they were prepared to use, not just against Israel but far afield against other governments and peoples, until their aims were achieved.

Another recent and vivid example: Last December 21, five professional international terrorists--a Venezuelan, two Palestinians, and two Germans--took control of the OPEC [Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] ministers and their staffs in Vienna, killing three persons in the process, demanded and received publicity for their "Arab rejectionist" cause over the Austrian national radio, and finally released the last of their understandably shaken hostages in Algeria. Their purpose appears to have been to pressure the more moderate Middle East governments into tougher oil and anti-Israel Policies.

Historical Origin

Terrorism as a form of violence for political ends is as old as history, probably older. It is said to have acquired its modern name from the French Reign of Terror of the mid-1790's. The first use of international terrorism is hard to pinpoint. However, the historians among you will recall the Moroccan rebel Raisuli's kidnapping of an American and an Englishman in 1904 in a successful attempt to force the U.S. and British Governments to pressure France into compelling the Sultan of Morocco to comply with Raisuli's ransom, prisoner-release, and other demands.

Perhaps the opening phase of the international terrorist threat we face today, though itself a reaction to oppression and terror, was the hijackings by freedom-seeing escapees from the East European Communist countries in the middle and late forties. In the early sixties the stream of hijackings from the United States to Cuba commenced. Terrorist groups around the world saw the potential for publicity in hijackings and began to use them for attention-getting political objectives. Beginning in about 1968, Palestinian and other violence-oriented political groups in several parts of the world began to extend their terrorist activities to countries--or to the diplomats of countries--not directly involved in the dispute giving rise to the violence.

Modern Terrorism

The years since 1968 have seen a progressive development of the employment of international terrorism for the attainment of national, ethnic, or world revolutionary political goals. They have also seen a marked development of intelligence, training, financial, and operational collaboration among terrorist groups in different parts of the world. And they have seen such groups take increasingly telling advantage of technological advances which afford the terrorist opportunities he never had before:

Air Transport. Two or three individuals can take control of a large airplane with 200-300 passengers, divert it wherever they wish, and blow it up when they get there, with or without its passengers aboard. Or a loaded aircraft can be downed by a bomb placed in its hold. Little wonder that the airplane has figured in so many terrorist acts of the last 15 years.

Communications. Today's television, radio, and press enable a terrorist to achieve an almost instantaneous horrified attention-riveted audience for his action. Since public attention to his cause is usually one of his key objectives, communications advances have been critically valuable to the terrorist.

Weapons. New types of weapons are constantly adding to terrorists' capabilities. A leading example: the Soviet SA-7 heat-seeking rocket, equivalent of our Red Eye, easily portable by one man, capable of bringing down commercial aircraft. Two of these weapons were found in the hands of Arab terrorists at the end of a runway in Rome in 1973; fortunately they were found in time. Another key terrorist weapon: plastic explosives.

Targets. Finally, our complex and interdependent modern world society presents a plethora of vulnerable, damaging targets for terrorists. Large aircraft are one such target. But there are also supertankers, electric power grids, gaslines, nuclear power plants, and others. Modern terrorists can cause destruction far beyond anything possible in earlier, simpler ages.

The U.S. Response

So beginning about 1968, our government faced a clear problem of terrorist use of aircraft, of modern communications media, of powerful light-weight precision weapons, and of cooperation among terrorist groups in different countries, all to achieve political shock effects in an increasingly interdependent and vulnerable world. The danger grew, with a mounting series of kidnappings, bombings, murders, and shoot-outs, by Palestinians, Croatians, Tupamaros, Cubans, Turks, and others. In September 1972, 11 Israeli athletes were killed, along with five terrorists, at the Munich Olympic games before an appalled TV audience of hundreds of millions.

Our government had until that time pursued a number of anti-terrorist efforts, mainly in the hijacking area. But with Munich, President Nixon and Secretary of State Rogers decided to adopt a more systematic approach. The President directed Secretary Rogers to chair a "Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism" and also to establish an operating arm of the Committee called the Cabinet Committee Working Group. The Working Group originally consisted of senior representatives of the 10 Cabinet Committee members, but 12 other agencies concerned with different aspects of terrorism have since been added.

The Cabinet Committee and Working Group have a broad mandate to devise and implement the most effective possible means to combat terrorism at home and abroad. The Cabinet Committee meets as required, and the Working Group has met 101 times. It is the coordinating forum for the entire U.S. Government anti-terrorism effort. When a terrorist abduction of an American abroad or of a foreigner in the United States occurs, we set up and run a task force in the State Department's Operations Center. A similar, complementary task force is established in the concerned U.S. Embassy abroad. We have, unfortunately, gained considerable experience in coping with such incidents after hostage cases in Port-au-Prince, Khartoum, Guadalajara, Córdoba, Santo Domingo, Kuala Lumpur, Beirut, and other places.

Means of Combating Terrorism

What have we learned from our study of terrorism and from our practical experience with it? How does one combat terrorism? Basically in three ways:

Intelligence. If you can learn his plans ahead of time, you can sometimes forestall the terrorist. It was through intelligence that the terrorists armed with SA-7's were apprehended at the edge of the airport in Rome before they could destroy their intended Israeli Airlines target. The CIA, the FBI, and other intelligence agencies coordinate their anti-terrorist efforts through the Cabinet Committee Working Group.

Physical Security of Target Installations and People. Here again, we have improved our position significantly since 1972. U.S. civil airport security has been strengthened to the point where, in combination with bilateral and multilateral anti-hijacking conventions, we have not had a successful commercial hijacking in the United States in three years--though there was, of course, the recent terrible bombing at La Guardia. The security of our diplomatic posts abroad has been upgraded with armored limousines, more marine guards, closed-circuit TV systems, careful briefing of personnel, et cetera.

Apprehension and Punishment of Terrorists. To achieve this key objective we seek international cooperation. The threat is international and can be met only by international means. A major focus of U.S. effort and initiative with other nations has been in the anti-hijacking area. We took the lead in negotiating in the International Civil Aviation Organization three conventions on hijacking and aircraft sabotage. The general idea of all these conventions, now ratified or adhered to by about 70 countries, is to deter terrorists by internationalizing their criminal acts and thus providing legal means of apprehending and punishing them.

But we have not been altogether successful in this purpose. Hijacking has declined sharply, but more because of improved airport security than the anti-hijacking conventions--except for our highly effective bilateral agreement with Cuba. Too few countries are willing to arrest, try, and severely punish international hijackers and saboteurs, or indeed international terrorists of any kind. U.S. efforts for the adoption of enforcement mechanisms to give the international aircraft-hijacking and sabotage conventions sanctions teeth, by denying air services to non-complying countries, have been completely unavailing. A U.S. proposed convention in the 1972 U.N. General Assembly which would have obliged participating states to prosecute or extradite international terrorists coming under their control, at safe haven destinations or in other ways, won the support of only about half a dozen nations. It did, however, serve as the genesis of the U.N. convention to protect diplomats and foreign officials, adopted in 1973 but still awaiting the necessary ratifications to come into effect.

The Rand Corporation recently calculated, on the basis of experience since 1968, that there is an 80 percent chance that an international terrorist involved in a kidnapping will escape death or capture. The terrorist kidnaper has a close to even chance that all of some of his ransom demands will be granted. Worldwide publicity, normally an important terrorist objective, is achieved in almost every case. For all crimes of terrorism (as opposed to just kidnapping), the average sentence for the small proportion of terrorists caught and tried is less than 18 months.

In a word, outside the hijacking area, our and a small but, hopefully, growing number of other governments' efforts to make terrorism unprofitable for the terrorists have made little headway.

So these are the ways we seek to combat terrorism: intelligence, physical security, and apprehension and punishment of terrorists. In addition, and very importantly, we encourage and assist other nations to alleviate the inequities and frustrations from which international terrorism mainly--through by no means entirely--arises. Unfortunately, effective action to reduce these inequities and frustrations is in many instances a very long-term proposition. The trend in most countries and regions is the other way. The awakening political consciousness of oppressed, poverty-stricken, or otherwise frustrated peoples on every continent threatens an increasing resort to terrorism in areas now relatively free of it.

U.S. Policies in Terrorist Incidents

From time to time Americans abroad are assassinated or abducted by international terrorist groups. What are our policies in such incidents?

With respect to assassinations, we seek to deter or thwart such attacks through intelligence warning and physical security, both in cooperation with the host government. If an American is nevertheless assassinated, we do our utmost to insure that the murderer is brought to justice and that intelligence and security measures in that country affecting American citizens are intensified.

With respect to abductions, our policies were made very clear by Secretary Kissinger at Vail last August. He said:

The problem that arises in the case of terrorist attacks on Americans has to be seen not only in relation to the individual case but in relation to the thousands of Americans who are in jeopardy all over the world. In every individual case the overwhelming temptation is to go along with what is being asked.

On the other hand, if terrorist groups get the impression that they can force a negotiation with the United States and an acquiescence in their demands, then we may save lives in one place at the risk of hundreds of lives everywhere else.

Therefore it is our policy . . . that American Ambassadors and American officials not participate in negotiations on the release of victims of terrorists and the terrorists know that the United States will not participate in the payment of ransom and in the negotiation for it.

The following month, at Orlando, the Secretary said:

When Americans are captured, we are always in great difficulty because we do not want to get into a position where we encourage terrorists to capture Americans in order to get negotiations started for their aim. So our general position has been--and it is heartbreaking in individual case, always heartbreaking--that we will not, as a Government, negotiate for the release of Americans that have been captured.

. . . we will not negotiate . . . because there are so many Americans in so many parts of the world--tourists, newsmen, not only officials--that it would be impossible to protect them all unless the kidnapers can gain no benefit from it.

For these reasons, the U.S. Government has not and will not pay ransom, release prisoners, or otherwise yield to terrorist blackmail. Nor will it negotiate with respect to any of these matters. We urge the same policy on other governments, private companies, and individuals. We rely for the safe return of American hostages on the responsibility under traditional international law of a host government to protect all persons within its territories, including the safe release of hostages. We consider it the host government's sovereign right to decide during an incident how it will fulfill this responsibility.

This may sound somewhat cold and unfeeling. But you may be sure that those of us charged with managing cases of Americans abducted abroad feel keenly both the plight of the hostage and our government's legal and moral responsibility to exert every appropriate effort for his safe return. The local U.S. Embassy abroad, and the task force at home, go to work with all the experience, energy, and imagination they can muster. They stay in close and continuous contact with the host government, supporting it with all practicable intelligence, equipment, technical services, and other assistance and advice it may request, except advice on how it should respond to demands from the abductors. This decision we consider to be the exclusive responsibility of the host government, taken in awareness, however, of our own government's policy not to accede to terrorist demands.

Sometimes a host government proves unwilling or unable effectively to discharge its responsibility to secure the hostage's release, perhaps because he has been seized by a rebel or outlaw group within the country. In such cases we do not wring our hands helplessly. We may nominate an intermediary to the host government, we may enlist the assistance of a third government, or we may ourselves conduct discussions with the abductors. But if we hold such discussions they are strictly confined to such matters as the well-being of the hostage and to humanitarian and other factors arguing for his unconditional release. There are no negotiations. The host government is kept closely informed.

So we do not allow ourselves to be rendered helpless as a result of our no-concessions policies or the failure of a host government to fulfill its obligations under international law. Sometimes the terrorist has decided in advance to execute the hostage or stubbornly holds to his demands to the point of fulfilling his threat to execute. But in the more typical case the terrorist is not anxious to kill the hostage and when he sees, usually over time, that he is not going to succeed in his blackmail effort, he will begin to have second thoughts and events will move toward release. We recently witnessed this process in the Netherlands, British, and Irish Governments' patient but firm handling of the Moluccan, Balcombe Street, and Herrema incidents. 1975 saw an encouraging trend of greater firmness by a number of NATO Governments in their handling of terrorist incidents. It also saw a welcome trend of a higher level of terrorist arrests and trials and of sterner laws against terrorism, notably in Germany.

Some argue that we are misreading the situation--that acceding to terrorist demands to save an American hostage's life would have no, or insignificant, effect on the safety of other Americans abroad or on our effort to combat international terrorism. Such reasoning is tempting, but I for one would be reluctant to assume the responsibility of following it. On the other hand, we have repeated, convincing evidence that our government's no-negotiations, no concessions policies are widely known by terrorist groups abroad, that they are believed, and that they are having important deterrent effect.

The United States has not yet had to face seizures or attacks within its own territories by international terrorist groups. Would our government, as a host government responsible for dealing with such incidents at home, practice the same firm no-concessions policies it has urged on other governments, including when our own citizens have been abducted abroad?

The answer is yes. We are convinced of the soundness of these policies. And we have seen other governments, faced with a series of terrorist incidents of a type we have thus far been spared, arrive by hard experience at the conclusion that firmness is the only course. We have dealt as firmly as the law allows with domestic terrorist organizations, such as the Black Panthers, Symbionese Liberation Army, Weather Underground, and Puerto Rican Liberation Armed Force. I do not think you will find your government wanting if, unhappily, the international terrorist menace reaches our shores.

I have discussed the international terrorist threat and the U.S. response to that threat. What are the principal issues and requirements as we look to the future?

International Cooperation Against Terrorists

First, how are we to achieve more effective international cooperation for the apprehension, trial, and punishment of international terrorists?

This objective is as intractable as it is central. Most countries apparently remain unwilling to apply strict legal sanctions to international terrorists. In the Third World, where most of the difficulty lies, many countries sympathize with the political aspirations of groups which practice terrorism. There is the sympathy of Arab governments for the Palestinian cause, including approval of terrorist attacks on Israel and, in the case of the radical Arab governments, approval and support of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere as well. There is the sympathy of newly independent countries, many of which used terrorism to help achieve their freedom, for anti-colonial terrorist groups. And there is the sympathy of practically all Third World governments for terrorists striking against repressive authoritarian regimes, particularly in the developed world. Third World governments generally accept the terrorists' argument that the weak and oppressed, with their pleas for justice unheeded, and lacking the means for conventional war, have no alternative to terrorism--that terrorism in a perceived "just" cause is not criminal but patriotic and heroic.

We, with our Judeo-Christian tradition, can understand this reasoning up to a point, but we can never accept it. We believe there can be no justification, in any circumstances, for the deliberate killing of innocent individuals. We recognize that the alternatives to terrorism, centering on peaceful protest, constructive proposals, and negotiation, often involve frustration and delay. But we believe that, in an interdependent world attempting to move away from violence before it is too late, they offer the only acceptable means of change.

For different reasons than those put forward by Third World countries, most advanced countries are also disinclined to commit themselves to clear and unequivocal sanctions against terrorists. Sometimes they are inhibited by political or commercial interests from offending governments that support or condone terrorism. Or they are concerned that if they convict and imprison terrorists this will attract more terrorists to their territories seeking, through further violence, to free their comrades. Or they are reluctant to see rights of political asylum weakened. The Communist giants, the Soviet Union and China, appear to share our conviction that hijacking, aircraft sabotage, and other forms of international terrorism are a criminal threat to civilized society and should be stopped. But they also share the Third World's belief that terrorism as an instrument of "wars of national liberation" is acceptable, and they support such terrorism.

A succession of major international terrorist incidents during 1975, culminating in the seizures in Vienna and the Netherlands, appears to have somewhat enhanced awareness of the common danger presented by international terrorism.

Venezuela and Columbia have jointly proposed a new consideration of the problem by the General Assembly in the fall. Our government earnestly hopes that this increased awareness and concern is wide-spread and that anti-terrorism proposals in the 1976 General Assembly will find a different atmosphere and reception from that accorded the convention we proposed in 1972. In an address in Montreal last August Secretary Kissinger urged the United Nations once again to take up and adopt our 1972 proposals, or some similar convention, as a matter of the highest priority. In December our representative on the U.N. Sixth Committee reiterated this position.

All stand to suffer if the present apparently heightened interest in the control of international terrorism is allowed to die without result and has to be reawakened by further terrorist acts of even more serious proportions than those suffered in 1975.

Effectiveness of Terrorism

A second question: How effective has international terrorism been for the terrorists' purposes?

Clearly, international terrorists have had tactical successes, as recently at Kuala Lumpur and Vienna, achieving their objectives of publication or broadcasting of manifestos, release of imprisoned comrades, or extortion of ransom. And these successes have been achieved at small cost to the terrorists--most have escaped to safe havens, or, if caught, have later been rescued by comrades or served very short terms. On the other hand, international terrorist groups have fruitlessly suffered suicidal losses in attacks within Israel. And such groups operating in Europe and elsewhere have in a number of cases suffered heavy casualties while achieving none of their purposes, except dubious publicity, as in the Baader-Meinhof seizure of the German Embassy in Stockholm last April or the earlier mentioned South Moluccan, Balcombe Street, and Herrema incidents.

How about terrorist groups' attainment of their fundamental political goals--the causes their abductions and attacks are intended to serve?

Here, too, the overall record is hardly a source of encouragement for terrorists. Certainly the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Japan Red Army have not succeeded in advancing their nihilist, world revolution cause significantly. The kidnapings and murders of U.S. and other diplomats in Brazil, Guatemala, Argentina, and elsewhere have won the terrorists no discernible political gains. The terrorism perpetrated by South Moluccan extremists in the Netherlands achieved world publicity, as sensational crimes are wont to do. But the terrorism was essentially negative in its consequences for the South Moluccan cause, embarrassing the group's responsible members and outraging the Netherlands Government and people.

As for Palestinian terrorism, the Palestinian cause is unquestionably more widely known as a result of Palestinian terrorism than it otherwise would be. But against this must be set the revulsion of all civilized peoples over the crimes committed by Palestinian terrorist groups at Lod, Munich, Khartoum, within Israel, and elsewhere. And terrorist attacks have contributed importantly to the hatred and bitterness which impeded a Middle East settlement from which the Palestinians might hope to achieve their goal of a Palestinian state. The decline in Palestinian terrorism within the past two years suggests that the more moderate Palestinian leaders have come in part, at least, to share the view that terrorism is counterproductive to the attainment of Palestinian objectives.

International terrorism, in short, is no success story, for the Palestinians, the South Moluccans, or any other group.

A third questions, then, is: How deeply need we be concerned about international terrorism as a world problem?

Up to now international terrorism's toll in dead and wounded and property damage has been relatively small. This is true of all forms of terrorism, compared with the casualties and property losses of even the most minor conventional wars. But it is particularly true of international terrorism. It has been estimated that some 800 people have been killed, including terrorists, and some 1,700 injured, in all international terrorist incidents from 1968 through the present. Year by year this is no more than the crime rate of one moderate-sized American city, intolerably high as that rate is. Property damage, principally in destroyed aircraft, has been equally limited.

But international terrorism's limited toll in lives and property thus far is only part of the story. There are a number of things we should note and ponder:

-Most of the world's airports are now manned by guards and inspectors, aided where possible by expensive X-ray machines. Even so, no air traveler is secure from terrorist attack.

-U.S. and other nations' Embassies in Beirut, Buenos Aires, Nicosia, and many other capitals are heavily guarded, in sharp contrast with, and derogation of, their diplomatic function. Diplomats can no longer go about their business in any capital without varying degrees of fear of being kidnapped or killed.

-The world's leading statesmen work and travel under costly and inhibiting restrictions.

-Mail received at potential target addresses, such as my own government department, must be X-rayed for explosives before delivery.

-State authority is weakened as governments accede to terrorist demands for release of prisoners, ransom, and publicity.

-The principles and standards of justice are impaired as the perpetrators of horrible acts of violence are given short sentences or let free.

None of these conditions has reached critical proportions. But in combination they signal a potential for mounting, serious erosion of world order if we do not succeed in bringing the international terrorist threat under control.

Future of Terrorism

So, finally, what of the future?

I just noted terrorism's, particularly international terrorism's, relatively small toll in killed and wounded and property damage. This could soon begin to change. New weapons are constantly enlarging terrorists' destructive capabilities.

Particularly rapid advances are being made in individual weapons development as we and other advanced nations seek to equip our foot soldiers with increased, highly accurate firepower. There is obvious risk of growing quantities of these weapons coming into the hands of terrorists, weapons which are as capable of being employed against civil aircraft, supertankers, motorcades, and speakers' podiums as against military targets. The Soviet SA-7 heat-seeking, man-portable missile has already, as I mentioned, been found in the hands of terrorists.

And there are more serious hazards. As nuclear power facilities multiply, the quantity and geographical dispersion of plutonium and other fissionable materials in the world will increase greatly. The possibility of credible nuclear terrorist threats based on illicitly constructed atomic bombs, stolen nuclear weapons, or sabotage of nuclear power installations can be expected to grow. Even more plausible would be threats based on more readily and economically produced chemical and biological agents, such as nerve gas and pathogenic bacteria.

Would terrorists actually use such weapons? Probably not. They could already have attacked cities with toxic aerosols, for example, but have not done so. Terrorists, at least the rational ones, fundamentally seek to influence people, not kill them. The death of thousands, or tens of thousands, of persons could produce a tremendous backlash against those responsible and their cause. But the possibility of credible nuclear, chemical, and biological threats, particularly by anarchists, is real. Though the chances of such threats being carried out may be small, the risk is there and must be met.

There is a further danger--one of international terrorist groups for hire, which we may already be seeing in an incipient stage. A government might employ such groups to attack, alarm, or subvert another government or international organization. Powerful pressures might be brought to bear through a small, deniable expenditure by the aggressor government.

The future, some believe, holds a prospect of reduced resort to open warfare but of a high level of subversive and terroristic violence and insecurity originating with governments or sub-governmental elements using, or threatening to use, against our vulnerable modern societies, the frightening small, or even more frightening mass-effect, weapons I have cited. A world of many Ulsters might be statistically safer for the average man than the world of the pst 60 years of repeated major conflicts. But it would be a more nerve-wracking and unsettled world of continuing low-level violence and threatened mass-destruction terrorist attack.

Conclusion

In conclusion, man's inhumanity to man is not confined to war. Terrorism, too, inflicts brutal suffering on the innocent. We see its toll daily in atrocious acts of indigenous or international terrorism.

To combat the latter the United States presented to the 1972 General Assembly the carefully formulated draft Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Certain Acts of International Terrorism, which I mentioned earlier. The idea of the convention was simple. States, we felt, should be left to deal themselves, under their domestic law, with acts of terrorism against persons within their own territories, except diplomats and other internationally protected person. However, when terrorists sought to export terrorism by blackmailing states through acts committed on the territory of other states or in international air or waters, international law should impose obligations on the states parties to the convention to prosecute or extradite such terrorists coming under their control. Had this convention come into force with a full range of parties, international terrorism would have been dealt a heavy, perhaps fatal, blow. There would today be no safe havens.

Instead our proposal foundered in a discussion of definitions and of the causes of international terrorism. It was argued that we had ignored the problem of terrorism practiced by repressive governments--state terrorism--to which group terrorism is often a response. It was further argued that international terrorism practiced in a just cause, such as the self-determination of peoples and human rights, could not be considered criminal.

Our reply to the first of these arguments was, and is, that there is a wealth of existing law and ongoing effort in the field of state action, including state terrorism. Though these laws and effort have not given us a perfect world, mixing of the problem of international terrorism with the problem of state terrorism would not assist the reduction of either.

With respect to the causes of terrorism, we have pointed out that none of the many states which have won their independence the hard way, including our own nation, engaged in the type of international violence which our draft convention seeks to control. Our proposal is carefully restricted to the problem of the spread of violence to persons and places far removed from the scene of struggles for self-determination. We have further noted that even when the use of force may be legally justified, there are some means which must not be used, especially when directed against innocents. This principle has long been recognized in the rules of war. Certainly if a state acting in a situation where its very survival may be at stake is legally precluded from resorting to atrocities, individuals or groups purportedly seeking to advance some self-determined cause should be similarly limited.

Terrorism is an affront to civilization. Like piracy, it must be seen as outside the law. In Secretary Kissinger's words last August in Montreal, "It discredits any political objective that it purports to serve and any nations which encourage it." The United States is not wedded to its 1972 proposal, but it is firmly wedded to that most precious of human rights, the right of the innocent person to life. It is time--past time--for the international community genuinely to address the affliction of international terrorism and to take effective action against it. The technological interdependence of the modern world enables the terrorist to carry out and publicize acts of terrorism in ways that were beyond reach a few decades ago. The international community must catch up with this modernization of barbarism before it is victimized by acts of terrorism as yet only imagined.

[1]Made at Los Angeles, Calif., on Feb. 19 before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and the World Affairs Council of Orange County. Mr. Fearey is Special Assistant to the Secretary and Coordinator for Combating Terrorism.