The powerful bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland on December 21, 1988, killing a total of 270 people on the jumbo jet and on the ground at Lockerbie, has once again demonstrated the persistent challenge of contemporary terrorism to the United States and to its friends and allies abroad. During the Reagan presidency, two other mid-air bombings occurred on U.S. air carriers. On August 11, 1982, a boy was killed and 15 passengers were injured by a bomb on a Pan Am jet bound from Tokyo to Hawaii. And four Americans, including a nine-month-old baby, were sucked out a gaping hole of TWA Flight 840 en route from Rome to Athens after a bomb exploded under a seat. Other significant terrorist incidents involving U.S. citizens and targets during the Reagan administration include the following events:
1981
-Presence of Libyan hit squads in the United States
-Kidnapping of Brig. Gen. James Dozier by the Red Brigades in Italy
1982
-Assassination of Lt. Col. Charles Robert Ray, a military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, by Lebanese terrorists
1983
-Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 17 Americans
-Bombing of U.S. Marine headquarters at the Beirut airport by a Shiite suicide bomber, killing 241 Marines
-Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait by Lebanese and Iraqi terrorists
1984
-Kidnapping of five Americans in Lebanon, including William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut
-Murder of Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut
-Bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex in East Beirut, killing two military officers
-Hijacking of a Kuwaiti airliner to Iran, killing two Americans
1985
-Hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by Shiite terrorists, lasting 17 days, with the torture and killing of a U.S. Navy diver
-Gunning down of six Americans in El Salvador
-Hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro by members of the Palestine Liberation Front and the murder of a crippled American tourist
-Simultaneous airport attacks on Rome and Vienna by Abu Nidal terrorists, killing 5 Americans
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