Free Republic

It has been 25 years since Korean Airlines Flight 007, carrying 269 passengers and crew, including Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia, was fired on by a Soviet fighter jet off the coast of Siberia. At the time, McDonald was chairman of the John Birch Society (a subsidiary of which publishes THE NEW AMERICAN). Although several speakers eulogized McDonald at a Washington, D.C., memorial service 10 days following the September 1, 1983 attack, the words most remembered by both this magazine’s editor, Gary Benoit, and this writer were delivered by the late Senator Jesse Helms, who passed away on July 4....

Twenty-five years ago, at 12:40 p.m. on October 6, 1981, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, aged 63, was mortally wounded as he reviewed a military parade commemorating Egypt's "victory" over Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. His attackers, Muslim fundamentalists, tossed two hand grenades and directed automatic weapons fire into the reviewing stand. Sadat's deputy, Hosni Mubarak, was nearby but escaped unscathed. I can't recall where I was that Tuesday in October. Maybe in my office in the shadow of the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. Perhaps at NYU, where I was a graduate student. What particularly fascinates is...