SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
January 18, 1984. Malcolm Kerr, who was president of the American University of Beirut, came to work and was shot to death from behind by two assailants. Malcolm Kerr was 52, married and had four children. Lebanon was in the midst of a civil war. There was no real investigation.
More than four decades later, Kim Ghattas, who has covered the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy for the BBC and is a regular contributor to The Atlantic and the Financial Times, has written a new book that's an inquiry into that crime, "The Best Kind Of American: A True Story Of Murder, War, And America's Undoing In The Middle East."
Kim Ghattas joins us now from our studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
KIM GHATTAS: Thrilled to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: Your book begins with an email, doesn't it?
GHATTAS: It does - from Ann Kerr, the widow of Malcolm Kerr, who had read my previous book. And she emailed me to ask whether, during my research for that book, part of which takes place in Lebanon during the 1980s - whether I'd come across any new details about Malcolm's assassination. And I was taken aback by the email because I thought that it was a closed case. And in some ways, it was, but in many other ways, it wasn't. There were many questions, including why Malcolm had been assassinated.
SIMON: Well, help us understand Beirut in those times.
GHATTAS: Beirut in the 1980s, when Malcolm Kerr was president of the American University of Beirut, was a place where various conflicting agendas were clashing violently. The Israelis had invaded Lebanon in 1982 to expel Palestinian militants and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, led by Yasser Arafat at the time, who were using Lebanon as a launchpad for attacks against Israel. They were running amok in southern Lebanon and launching rockets at northern Israel. And just as the Israeli tanks were rolling into Lebanon, the Iranians sent hundreds of Revolutionary Guards to Syria and onwards to Lebanon to fight Israel - the Israeli enemy - on Lebanese soil.
And then a few months later, the Reagan administration sent the Marines into the country to oversee the departure into exile of the Palestinian militants who got on board ships to go to Tunis. And so you have this terrible confluence of events, of players that meet on Lebanese soil, and it leads to some devastating moments for everybody.
SIMON: We should explain. This is your city, isn't it?
GHATTAS: It is. I was born in Beirut. I lived on the front lines of that civil war. I still live in Beirut, Scott. And it's been a searing experience and slightly discombobulating to write this book about Beirut as the origin story of the U.S.-Iran confrontation with Israel tangled up in it, and then live through the paroxysm of that confrontation. I started this book and the research for it in 2022, and I didn't realize that somehow I had been incredibly prescient about how important it would be.
SIMON: And tell us about Malcolm Kerr, an American but born in Lebanon and also someone who loved Beirut.
GHATTAS: He loved Beirut. He felt at home. He'd been born there to American parents, Stanley and Elsa Kerr, who were part of a long tradition of Americans who were known as Arabists who spoke the language, loved the region, lived in the region. And Malcolm Kerr is part of that tradition of Americans who love the region but can also be critical of it - he was not, you know, naively in love with it - who represented America but could also be critical of his country's foreign policy.
He felt that it was his mission to lead the university in such a difficult time. He arrived in 1982. And unfortunately, as I write, as Malcolm was leading the university, feeling at home, feeling meaningful in his quest to represent America, there were those who were already thinking that the best kind of American was a dead American. Unfortunately, that still is true for some. But I still feel, Scott, there are also a lot of people who are still trying to find common ground.
SIMON: The Kerrs are an accomplished family. Ann Kerr, still teaching in her 90s - Steve Kerr, nine NBA championship rings. Susan Kerr became an elected county counselor in the U.K. John's a professor at Michigan State. Andrew Kerr served in national security for the U.S. - came across something astonishing in the early '90s, didn't he?
GHATTAS: He was serving as a junior staffer on the National Security Council during the administration of Bill Clinton. And by pure accident, he came across a document that revealed some crucial information about his father's assassination. And this is really what struck me about this story.
What almost shocked me was that this document was there, but the Kerr family had never been given it, probably because it was about means and methods. It was a document that was classified, that could not be revealed. And it leads to, you know, a voyage of discovery and reckoning about what had happened. It reopens the wounds. And eventually it leads on to a quest for justice, but a justice that is truncated because no one is ever really sentenced, or no one ever really sits in the dock for any of these trials.
SIMON: Course, this week marked three years since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the war that ensued. Lebanon is again embroiled. What do you hope for the future of your country?
GHATTAS: So many things, Scott. I want what everybody wants. People want to live a life with justice, security, freedom of fear. And I think that that is something that, you know, we're not seemingly able to get to in the region at the moment. And I think it is going to require many Malcolm Kerrs and many others to bring us there.
For Lebanon, it's important to remind your listeners that the south of the country is being obliterated by the Israelis in controlled demolitions that are blowing up schools and hospitals and infrastructure. And it's devastating to see that we're still stuck in this vortex that started in the 1980s when Israeli troops invaded and Iranian troops arrived on our territory.
And we can be beyond critical of Israel and the conduct of this war and the devastation wrought onto Gaza and crimes of war and crimes against humanity. But that should not absolve Hezbollah in Lebanon or Iran of what they have wrought in terms of devastation against our region and my country.
You know, we really feel in Lebanon that we're stuck between Israel and Iran. We have, for the first time in many years, leadership that is trying hard, that really does represent the best of what Lebanon can offer. But I really feel that unless we have change of leadership in Iran and change of leadership in Israel, we're going to be stuck in this vortex for a while. It's going to require a change in mindset on all sides.
SIMON: Kim Ghattas - her new book, "The Best Kind Of American." Thank you so much for being with us.
GHATTAS: Wonderful to be with you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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