Yallop, David. Tracking the Jackal: The Search for Carlos, the World's Most
Wanted Man. New York: Random House, 1993. 629 pages.
British author David Yallop's 1984 book "In God's Name," a study of
the suspicious death of Pope John Paul I, sold nearly six million copies
in forty countries. So when Yallop began looking for Carlos in 1985, his
reputation preceded him and opened many doors in difficult places: Israel,
Venezuela, Lebanon, Syria, Libya (where he interviewed Muammar Qaddafi),
and Tunisia (where Yasser Arafat was interviewed). Too many doors, in fact:
in Lebanon, his lengthy interviews with "Carlos" (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez) in
1985 turned out to be too easy. Many months later he had hints from various
sources that this person couldn't have been the real Carlos. In 1989,
Yallop finally met the real one in Damascus, asked some tough questions
to establish his identity, and satisfied himself that the Lebanon Carlos
was a well-briefed imposter -- probably sent by Syrian intelligence to
plant disinformation that would discredit the Palestinian leadership.
Yallop concludes that the myth of Carlos served those with a Cold War
agenda, and that if Carlos hadn't existed they would have invented him. His
book has many unkind words for Israeli policy, and for people such as Claire
Sterling and Brian Crozier, who helped to hype and distort the terrorist
threat. Carlos, it turns out, was not a KGB-sponsored mastermind, but more
like a spoiled child who planted bombs instead of throwing temper tantrums.
ISBN 0-679-42559-4
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