Leonard A. Cole

A hostage to memory

Everyone recalls the clear September day when Arab hijackers forced four jetliners to change direction in mid-flight. Neither the passengers nor crewmembers had an inkling of the fate that the terrorists had in store for them. In three of the four planes, the hijackers maintained control until the moment they reached their intended destinations. But in the fourth, a passenger rebellion foiled the hijackers' plans.

Sept. 11, '001? Of course. But as David Raab reminds us in his haunting book, this scenario also happened once before, and he was part of it. "David, they want you up front . . . for questioning." These words were uttered on Sept. 1', 1970, in the midst of his captivity on a hijacked passenger airliner sitting in the Jordanian desert. They are among the recollections that Raab recorded soon after he was set free two weeks later.