NORTH: At some point along in there, either General Secord raised with
me or I raised with him this threat, and I told him I couldn't get
U.S. Government protection; I couldn't find a contractor to come
out and do it myself; and he said, "Don't worry about that, I have
got a good friend, or an associate"—I don't remember the words—
"who is an expert. This guy has a company that does these things."
And he shortly thereafter, I believe it was around the 5th of
May, introduced me to Mr. Glenn Robinette. He was introduced to
me as a man who, one, had been a former CIA, or perhaps I understood at the time FBI, I don't remember, technical expert; a man
who owned a security company and a man who could immediately
go out and do a survey and an estimate.
He did. Over the course of the next few days, he went out to my
home, I called my wife or told my wife, whatever, that he would be
out and went through the situation. And he came up with an estimate of $8,500 max, as I recall it was $8,000 to $8,500, and he could
furthermore immediately install the system.
Now, I want you to know that I would be more than willing—and
if anybody else is watching overseas, and I am sure they are—I will
be glad to meet Abu Nidal on equal terms anywhere in the world.
OK? There is an even deal for him.
But I am not willing to have my wife and my four children meet
Abu Nidal or his organization on his terms. And I want you to
know what was going through my mind. I was about to leave for
Tehran. I had already been told by Director Casey that I should be
prepared to take my own life.
I had already been told that the Government of the United
States on an earlier proposal for a trip, might even disavow the
fact that I had gone on the trip, on an earlier proposal, and we can
come back to that at some time, if you like.
And so haying been—having asked for some type of U.S. Government protection for my wife and children, and having been denied
that, and perhaps for fully legitimate reasons and if there is a law
that prevents the protection of American Government employees
and their families from people like Abu Nidal, then gentlemen,
please fix it, because this kid won't be around much longer, as I am
sure you know, but there will be others, if they take activist steps
to address the problem of terrorism, who will be threatened.
And I would like to just, if I may, just read to you a little bit about
Mr. Abu Nidal just so you know my mental state at the time.
"Abu Nidal, the radical Palestinian guerrilla leader, linked to
last Friday's attacks in Rome and Vienna"—that was the so-called
Christmas Massacre in which 19 people died and 200 were wounded—"is the world's most wanted terrorist." That is the Christian
Science Monitor.
When you look at his whole career, Abu Nidal makes the infamous terrorist Carlos look like a Boy Scout.
Abu Nidal himself, quoted in Der Spiegel, "Between America
and us, there exists a war to the death. In the coming months and
years, Americans will be thinking about us." "For sheer viciousness, Abu Nidal has few rivals in the underworld of terrorism."
Newsweek.
Our own State Department, and we have copies of these that we
can make available for insertion in the record, but the State Department summary on Abu Nidal, not exactly an overstatement,
notes that his followers, who number an estimated 500, have killed
as many as 181 persons, and wounded more than 200, in 2 years.
Abu Nidal does not deny these things. We also have an exhibit
that we can provide for you that shows what Abu Nidal did in the
Christmas Massacres. One of the people killed in the Christmas
Massacre—and I do not wish to overdramatize this—but the Abu
Nidal terrorists in Rome who blasted the 11-year-old American Natasha Simpson to her knees, deliberately zeroed in and fired an
extra burst at her head just in case.
Gentlemen, I have an 11-year-old daughter, not perhaps a whole
lot different than Natasha Simpson. And so, when Mr. Robinette
told me on or about the 10th of May that he could immediately install a security system, I said please try to keep it to the 8,000 to
8,500. I am, after all, a Marine lieutenant colonel, and I live on my
salary; and he installed that system.