“Let’s Find a Way to Go after Them”: The Fadlallah Affair and the Achille Lauro Hijacking, 1985
This chapter challenges the perception that the CIA has become militarized as a result of the War on Terror. It explains that the agency's role as the United States' vanguard in its violent confrontation with terrorism began as early as 1985, when it was actively involved in a paramilitary plot against a suspected terrorist leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Hussayn Fadlallah. With pressure growing on the Reagan administration to act against increasingly aggressive terrorist elements, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger determined to keep the Pentagon away from the messy business of counterterrorism, but Director Casey opted to put his agency on the front line. Although that plot was unsuccessful in its first effort, its fallout shaped the way the CIA would conduct its future counterterrorist operations.