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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Legacy of Lockerbie

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Washington, News, Politics, President, Wickenden, Wnyc, Barack, Obama, Lizza

4.33.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2015

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In December, 1988, a bomb blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. In this week’s issue of The New Yorker, Patrick Radden Keefe profiles Ken Dornstein, whose brother was on board, and whose decades-long investigation into the attack has turned up evidence implicating new Libyan conspirators. Patrick Radden Keefe joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the story and the history of Libyan terrorism against the U.S.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:48.4

This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics.

0:53.9

It's Thursday, September 24th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker.

0:59.5

In December 1988, a bomb blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerby, Scotland, killing all of its passengers,

1:07.3

most of them American. By then, Libya was a known sponsor of terrorism. Two years

1:12.9

earlier, it had blown up a discotheque in Berlin, full of American soldiers. Here's what President

1:18.7

Reagan said in 1986 before a retaliatory U.S. strike.

1:23.7

We know that this mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution,

1:33.6

Muslim fundamentalist revolution, which is targeted on many of his own Arab compatriots.

1:41.0

And where we figure in that, I don't know, maybe we're just the enemy because it's a little like climbing Mount Everest because we're here.

1:50.7

In this week's issue, Patrick Radden Keefe profiles the brother of a young man who died in the lockerby bombing.

1:57.1

Ken Dornstein spent decades investigating the perpetrators and believes he's identified one of them.

2:02.4

Patrick is here to talk about this story and the legacy of Libyan terrorism. Patrick, Lockerbie,

2:07.4

was the occasion for what was then the FBI's largest terrorism investigation in history.

...

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