The story of the world's first super-terrorist

Fresh Air

This episode of Fresh Air explores the life and legacy of Carlos the Jackal, a notorious figure in the early history of modern terrorism. Veteran national security correspondent Joby Warwick

Key takeaways

• Carlos the Jackal was not Palestinian but became a central figure in the Palestinian militant movement through strategic manipulation and identity concealment.

Main topics

• Origins of modern international terrorism
• Carlos the Jackal's biography and rise as a global terrorist icon

Notable quotes

'It's not that easy to snuff out a human life if you're looking into the eyes of your victim.' – Joby Warwick describing Carlos's first assassination attempt.

Conclusion

Carlos the Jackal exemplifies how early terrorism tactics—using hijackings, assassinations, and media

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) Hey, you know that nagging voice in your head, the one telling you to put the phone down and stop doom scrolling? Well, it's time. Look up. Take a daily curiosity break with Shortwave, NPR's science podcast. Let your mind wander to the edges of outer space or wonder about what's lurking in the depths of the seafloor, all in under 15 minutes. Shortwave, your daily mental reset. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This Speaker 6 (0:24) is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. For decades now, we've become accustomed to living with the threat of terrorist attacks. We're scanned by magnetometers and wait through security lines at airports, concerts, and ballgames. Our guest today, veteran national security correspondent Joby Warwick, has a new book that takes us back to the early days of modern terrorism in the 1970s, when hijacking airplanes was relatively easy and airlines and governments would often simply give in to terrorist demands. Warwick's book focuses on a man who in his day was the world's most famous terrorist, a man of many aliases who came to be known as Carlos the Jackal. While leaving a trail of victims across Europe and the Middle East, he managed to enjoy the lifestyle of a wealthy playboy, wearing designer clothes, frequenting nightclubs and luxury hotels, and having multiple affairs with women. Tabloid journalists were fascinated, and Carlos became such a cult figure that during one hijacking, a British pilot asked for his autograph. He would also inspire fictionalized villains in novels and films, including Robert Ludlam's Bourne Identity series and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Last year, Joby Warwick spoke with a now-elderly Carlos at the French prison where he's lived for decades. Joby Warwick spent three decades at The Washington Post. He was last on Fresh Air to talk about his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Black Flags, The Rise of ISIS. His new book is The Jackal, The Rise and Fall of Carlos, The World's First Superterrorist. Joby Warwick, welcome back to Fresh Air. Speaker 2 (2:02) It's so great to be back. Thanks, Steve. Speaker 1 (2:04) You know, you've been writing about contemporary national security issues for a long time. You did that great book on the origins of ISIS. What made you want to go back and cover this figure from an earlier era? Speaker 6 (2:17) I Speaker 2 (2:18) think maybe it has something to do with my age, and I'm in my 60s now. So I can remember a time before al-Qaeda, before 9-11, when terrorism meant something else. Al-Qaeda redefined terrorism for our generation. But there was this earlier wave that you described, the time when any flight anywhere in the world could potentially be hijacked by people demanding all kinds of things. And this was an error that in many ways kind of created templates for the terrorism that we came to know later on. But it also had many incredibly fascinating individuals and characters on both the terrorism side, but also on the law enforcement side, people who spent their careers chasing these guys. It was a very different error. And I thought it was instructive really to get back into that and remind people what happened before and how in some ways it set a precedent for what we came to know later as modern terrorism. Speaker 6 (3:09) Now, this guy, Carlos, Speaker 1 (3:10) he would have a long career of terrorism in Europe and the Middle East, really at a pretty young age, like college age. But he actually came from South America. Tell us something about his background. Speaker 2 (3:21) This is really extraordinary because you have someone who became essentially the face of the Palestinian militant movement at that time. He wasn't a Palestinian at all. He was from Venezuela. He was a son of a devout Marxist. His father kind of brought up his kids in an environment where they worshipped Lenin. The man actually named three of his kids after Lenin using various names, including... Ilyich, which became the real name of the man who became Carlos the Jackal. But from that early age, he saw himself as having a destiny, as being someone who was going to be a swashbuckling international revolutionary. So Speaker 1 (3:59) he leaves college and he heads to the Middle East to join a Palestinian resistance group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. No longer exists, right? This was a Marxist, very radical Palestinian group. And he came to work with a leader there, Wadi Haddad. This is an interesting moment in the Palestinian movement. This is 1970 or so, right? Just three years after the 1967 war at which Israel defeated its Arab adversaries, expanded its territory. And the Palestinian movement was really new. Most of the world didn't really know about it. Give us a sense of what this group did and what the ambitions of this leader, Wadi Haddad, were. Speaker 2 (4:42) So it can be easy for us to imagine what that moment was like, because there are similarities now, I think, of the conditions we see in the Middle East. What you had is a moment when Israel had defeated a coalition of Arab armies. It had seized control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and it just seemed unstoppable. There was no pathway toward a Palestinian state. Nobody was even talking about it at the time. There was a large, massive dislocation of millions of Palestinian citizens. And within that environment and that sort of the stress and the rage that I think many young Palestinians in particular felt, there arose these groups that saw the only possible recourse for them, who believed the only way for them to fight back in the world was through terrorism. And so they developed a model. which really was the origins of modern international terrorism, was the idea that you don't just attack your foe. You go outside your territory and you bring the rest of the world into your struggle. And you do that by attacking airports or hijacking planes and essentially forcing the world to pay attention, forcing TV stations and radio stations to cover whatever you're Speaker 1 (5:57) doing. So, Carlos, he was then a young man, Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez. He had worked with this Palestinian movement. And then when it was purged by King Hussein of Jordan, he hung with them and fought for a while there, but essentially took up their cause, moved back to England, lived in his mom's apartment for a while. But he ended up getting assignments, right, from the leader of this Palestinian group. Speaker 2 (6:23) This was a man with some interesting capabilities as far as the Palestinians were concerned. They saw a young man who was brave and willing to do anything, willing to risk his life. And he also had talents. He spoke multiple languages. He didn't look like a Palestinian because he wasn't. He was a man of the West. He could travel anywhere without attracting suspicion. And so they decided to create a situation where he was a bit of a sleeper agent. Speaker 6 (6:48) And his first assignment was, well, you Speaker 2 (6:51) tell us about it. So this is 1973. It's between Christmas and New Year's that year. Speaker 2 (7:00) Carlos was just begging for a chance to do something. And then finally he got his chance. His boss said, okay, well, we're going to give you an assignment. You need to kill this one individual. And the person they identified happened to be a wealthy Jewish British citizen who was the president of a department store chain. The assignment was to go into that man's house, confront him in person, and shoot him. And it was as simple as that. Because the Palestinians didn't quite know if Carlos was up to the task, they gave him an old gun and five bullets. That's all they had. So he essentially had one chance at this, but Carlos accepted the job. And in late December 1973, he found the address and walked inside and confronted the man in person with his gun. Speaker 6 (7:46) And? Speaker 2 (7:47) He found this man, his name was Joseph Sief, in his bathroom in his house. And without saying a word, he lifts the revolver and shoots him once in the face. And as it turns out, very luckily for the victim, the bullet strikes him in his teeth and is deflected by his teeth. And so he's wounded, but he's not mortally wounded. The second one jammed. And so that was the point when he panicked and decided to run away. So it was an attempted assassination that didn't actually work. But in a way, Carlos was able to prove himself and showed his Palestinian bosses that he was a man who could look someone else in the face and pull the trigger. Speaker 6 (8:25) But he passed his first test as far as the Palestinian leaders thought. Speaker 2 (8:29) Yeah. The tough part was to actually do the shooting. And as Carlos would say later, it's not that easy to snuff out a human life if you're looking into the eyes of your victim. Even for someone like Carlos, who... I must say, having met the guy, it seems to have no ability to empathize with other human beings. He describes it as a difficult moment, but he did carry it out. He did shoot the man. Speaker 2 (8:54) So, this guy would be known as Carlos. Speaker 6 (8:57) He's a young man and he's working with this Palestinian group, Speaker 1 (9:00) which Speaker 6 (9:00) also Speaker 1 (9:01) connected with revolutionaries from many other countries, particularly German and also the Japanese Red Army. And I wanted to focus on a moment in 1974 when a group of Speaker 6 (9:12) these terrorists, particularly the Japanese Red Army, Speaker 1 (9:15) was supposed to kidnap the French ambassador to The Hague. And Carlos, who was in Europe, was supposed to be a part of this operation. The plans went a bit awry, and the group ended up shooting their way into the French embassy, taking the ambassador and others hostage and demanding the release of a prisoner and a million dollars and a plane. But there was a standoff. Carlos wasn't there. And while the negotiations are happening, on his own, he decides to support this operation with some initiative. What did he do? Speaker 2 (9:47) So here is a moment that it seems a standoff has developed between these hostage takers. Carlos sees it going nowhere. He thinks he needs to do something to pressure the French government into caving in. And his idea was to go to what was essentially a shopping center, a fairly affluent part of Paris. He walks in wearing a suit, goes up to a balcony on the second floor, and he's looking down. at ordinary people going about their lives. There's children, there are people coming and going from work. And he takes out of his pocket a small hand grenade and just drops it into the crowd and then stands there and watches as the explosion takes place and bedlam results. People are killed, there's great chaos, there are many people wounded, a child who loses a hand. So it's an atrocious scene. And what's remarkable as you kind of the camera pans through all this terror and horror that's been created is this young man, Carlos, just turns and walks away. He's wearing a suit. He looks like he could be French or European. And he's able just to walk straight through the chaos he created and out into the street and slips away. Speaker 1 (11:02) I Speaker 6 (11:03) wonder what Speaker 1 (11:04) insight you have into the psychological makeup of this guy, this casual willingness to inflict terrible. damage on civilians, including children. What permits him to do this? Did you ever feel like you got a read on it? I tried to press him on that later Speaker 2 (11:20) on. But even without meeting him, you pick up this pattern throughout his life. Here's someone who can take life without flinching, and he can do it in part because his entire world is himself. He's the classic definition of a narcissistic criminal who can inflict violence, who can do terrible things to other people and seemingly not feel any kind of remorse or empathy. And he's able to do this again and again. And it's partly why he is someone who's so attractive to the people that hire him, because they know that, yeah, you assign Carlos to kill someone, he can do it. He will not flinch. He'll carry out the command. And that turns out to be