When my wife Linda and I returned from our honeymoon, I went to cover my first Olympics. It was in Munich, Germany. 1972. 50 years ago today.
I soon became an eye witness to terror.
A group calling themselves “Black September” abducted the Israeli wrestling team. After a tense standoff, the terrorists flew away from the Olympic village in a helicopter. They demanded a plane to take them out of Germany.
The woman who owned the house where I was living and working spoke English, so I asked her on air: “Where do think the helicopter is going?” I was standing next to Mrs. Auspitz at her kitchen window. We were watching the terrorist’s helicopter lift off from the Olympic village, carrying the Israeli athletes into the night.
The world press was saying it was headed to Riem, the international airport near Munich at that time. But Mrs. Auspitz said, “That’s the other way. They’re headed toward a small airport called Fürstenfeldbruck.”
I was reporting on NBC radio from her kitchen window: “Well folks, other reporters may be quoting official sources, saying the terrorists are taking their hostages to the Munich airport where a plane will be waiting, but Mrs. Auspitz lives here.” She was right. The helicopter landed at the German Air Base. Later that night, German Chancellor Willy Brandt went on television to announce that the terrorists had been killed in an ambush: The Israeli wrestling team was safe. We went to bed enjoying that storybook ending.
But a few hours later, Mrs. Auspitz woke me and pointed out the window toward the Autobahn, which ran near her house. There was a long line of hearses. Each contained the body of an Israeli Olympic wrestler. They had not been saved. They all died. I left Germany with the conviction that terrorism could touch my life at any time. It did. Twenty-nine years later. I was standing outside a church one block from Ground Zero on that terrible day terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, in New York City.
