Assisting Americans Aboard the Hijacked Cruise Ship Achille Lauro

The Foreign Service took Edmund Hull far from his home in Carthage, Illinois, and put him in some harrowing situations, including being detained by militants during his first tour in Beirut in 1974. One of the most significant moments of his service, however, came while he was the political counselor in Cairo, Egypt, when he negotiated the evacuation and medical treatment of American citizens held hostage aboard the Italian cruise ship the Achille Lauro. Four members of the Palestine Liberation Front hijacked the ship in October 1985 and brought it into Egyptian waters.

We were then of course, tasked to go to the aid of the hostages

-– Edmund Hull

“As the boat headed toward Egyptian waters,” Hull recalled, “we got an instruction from P [the office of the State Department’s Undersecretary for Political Affairs], and they were to be very candid with the Egyptians: what we expected of them and that included not only going to the assistance of the hostages, but arresting the terrorists and bringing them to justice either in Egypt or handing them over to the United States. I remember getting this instruction in the wee hours of the morning going over to the residence and passing on the instructions to Ambassador Veliotes, who promptly called the Minister of Defense Abu Ghazala, the second most powerful man in Egypt at the time. Ambassador Veliotes conveyed our position with very strong language, laying down an unmistakable marker. We were then of course, tasked to go to the aid of the hostages.”

The Egyptians cooperated by removing the hijackers and transporting Hull and Ambassador Veliotes to the ship as it steamed toward Post Said. Hull began accounting for all the American passengers, but one was missing – the hijackers had murdered Leon Klinghoffer and thrown his body overboard. Hull quickly began organizing support for all the remaining hostages.

“My primary mission, Hull explained, “was to try to take care of the hostages as best I could and that meant trying to give them assurances that now they had U.S. government representatives there to help them, that their needs would be taken care of, that Klinghoffer’s murder would be pursued. Of course, they were highly emotional and also recovering from the period in which they were held helpless in mortal terror. One thing that I decided would be good to do to fill the time would be to have all of them sit down with pen and paper and to write out an account of their experiences. That would give something written for the Egyptian investigators. It would also give the passengers something to do as we were steaming toward Port Said.”

Over the following days, Hull ensured that the hostages were provided with physical and mental health support, and accompanied them to a U.S. military base in Italy for medical treatment. In a stunning turn of events, U.S. jets intercepted an Egyptian aircraft secretly ferrying the hijackers to Palestine Liberation Front headquarters in Tunisia and forced it to land in Italy, where the American hostages were able to identify the hijackers for Italian prosecutors.

The support Hull and his team provided was so consequential that Secretary of State George Schultz wrote him a letter, thanking him for “the excellence of [his] performance in alleviating the distress of the hostages and expediting their departure from the ship”. Further, he shared some of the responses of the hostages, with one memorable note reading: “[Hull] expertly reinforced the image the ambassador presented by being open, communicative, stable and caring. He was superb as he worked quietly and diligently in taking care of everything from the mundane to the diplomatic.”