One Day in September Page #3

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

and television stations...

to get some information.

Then at 9:
00 in the morning, I found out

that Andre is one of the hostages.

The men in the room:

Josef Romano is 31 years old...

The men in the room:

Josef Romano is 31 years old...

an Israeli weight lifter

in the middleweight class...

David Berger, 26 years old,

in the light heavyweight class...

Ziev Friedman, another 26-year-old

weight lifter in the bantamweight class.

These strong men sitting helpless

there at the point of submachine guns.

Eliezer Halfin, 24 years old,

a freestyle wrestler, is in that room.

Mark Slavin is 18 years old,

a Greco-Roman wrestler.

The others are officials,

Joseph Gotfriend, Jacob Springer...

Andre Spitzer, Kehat Shorr

and Amitzur Shapiro.

We have a situation.

In Israel, the population awoke

to the shocking news.

Demand the release of some 200 Arabs

now being held in Israel.

The Israeli government

immediately made it clear...

that in line with their policy, no deals

would be struck with the terrorists.

Golda Meir

Prime Minister of Israel 1969-1974

If we should give in,

then no Israeli anywhere in the world...

can feel that his life is safe.

It's blackmail of the worst kind.

At this time I was the aide-de-camp

of Minister Genscher.

And the minister

was shocked, of course.

General Ulrich K. Wegener

He wanted to see the Minister

of Interior of Bavaria...

because he was responsible.

We are a federal state.

So they talked to each other and they

decided to go to the Olympic village.

In terms of the politicians

and the VIPs who came...

they looked to me as if

they held none of the cards...

as if they basically did not understand,

one, how to respond...

and two, the mind-set of the people

they were dealing with.

The Palestinians that one saw,

there was that feeling...

that they were in charge

and that they were dictating.

When it became clear to me

that negotiation was fruitless...

I said to the leader:

"You know our recent history...

what was done to the Jews

by the Germans.

You must understand, this makes the

situation here particularly difficult. "

I said "Why don't you let them go

and take me instead?"

But he refused.

Acting on behalf of both the Federal

and Bavarian governments...

I offered the terrorists

an unlimited sum of money...

in exchange for the hostages.

This offer was rejected.

They said, "It is not a question of

either money or substitute hostages...

but only of the 200 prisoners. "

Peter Jennings is inside

the village...

and is observing this

with the naked eye.

Jim, I am almost directly...

over the Israeli building.

It will be a famous number before long.

It's building 31.

It's on Connollystrasse.

It does appear to be confirmed-

though anything confirmed today

is difficult-

that these guerrillas are from one

of the very extreme left-wing groups...

a group called Black September.

Continuous delegations go forward.

People here are waiting,

but unquestionably...

the mood becoming more tense.

They had set a deadline of noon...

which is just an hour

and 15 minutes away...

saying that they were going to kill

all of their hostages at that time.

There were other people involved.

A friend of mine was a member

of the Arab Council...

and he also came to negotiate.

My overall impression was that

they really believed...

in the possibility

of their demands being met.

In my opinion, from a political

point of view, this was 99.9% unlikely.

I thought and still think that

the Israelis would rather have let...

their whole athletic team be killed

than let this happen.

I tried to explain these things

to Issa...

but he was very skeptical

and dismissive of me.

Israel remained adamant that no deal

could be struck with the terrorists...

but to buy time,

the negotiators lied to Issa...

saying they were still awaiting

a definitive answer from Jerusalem.

They begged the terrorist leader

to postpone his noon deadline.

Issa responded only

with a new threat-

one Israeli would be shot

publicly every hour...

that their demands remained unmet.

We were, I think, a little bit naive.

Also the minister.

The German government

at this time thought...

they could negotiate with terrorists.

They were thinking

that they could talk to them...

and convince them

to let the Israelis go.

But there was no way.

So the time to get close

to noon and to think that...

"It's almost noon.

Are they going to kill him now?"

It was like dying

a little bit.

A matter of seconds before

the deadly ultimatum was reached...

the negotiators persuaded Issa

to agree to an extension.

The deadline now is 5:00

Munich time, noon in New York.

It is now 1:
25 here in Munich.

It's about three and a half hours

to the next deadline.

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