Recalls Husband’s Death, Urges Unity Against Terror : Klinghoffer Widow Tells Story

Fighting back tears, the widow of Leon Klinghoffer, the retired New Yorker killed on the cruise ship Achille Lauro, broke her public silence Monday and told how she begged Palestinian terrorists to allow her to remain alongside her husband in his wheelchair before he was killed.

The Palestinian hijackers responded by putting a submachine gun to her head and forcing her up a staircase of the cruise ship with the other American passengers, Marilyn Klinghoffer told a news conference, her first since her 69-year-old, partially paralyzed husband was shot to death Oct. 8.

After her plea to the terrorists, she said, she and the other Americans were forced to sit on the deck amid fuel drums that the hijackers threatened to detonate. Klinghoffer was left behind on a lower level when his wife was unable to maneuver his wheelchair up the stairs.

“That was the last time I saw my husband,” Marilyn Klinghoffer said.

She said that she heard shots as she waited “during that brutal afternoon on deck” but that she did not associate them with the killing.

“They (the terrorists) had been shooting into the ceiling and walks,” she said. “I didn’t think of it. How could it occur to me it could be my husband? Of course, it was.”

Mrs. Klinghoffer said she finally learned that her husband was dead after the hijackers appeared fashionably dressed and unarmed about noon the next day, Oct. 9. “When I learned the terrorists were leaving the ship, I ran down to the hospital to learn he had never been there,” she said. “I couldn’t elicit any information.”

She then ran to the bridge. “The captain appeared to be waiting for me when I reached the bridge, where I learned the fate of my husband.

“I believe my husband’s death has made a difference,” she told the news conference. “For the first time, we all realize this can happen to anyone, anywhere and at any time. With this realization, I appeal to all people of good will to close ranks to eliminate the scourge of terrorism from our lives. It is essential all of us become soldiers in the battle against terrorism.

“I believe what happened can happen to anyone,” she said. “My husband was every man, and my family is every family.”

Her two daughters, Ilsa and Lisa; Lisa’s husband, Jerry Arbittier, and Ilsa’s fiancee, Paul Dworin, sat in the front row as Mrs. Klinghoffer recounted her ordeal.

She said the hijacking began Oct. 7 when four men burst into the ship’s dining room, brandishing weapons, kicking over tables and ordering everyone to lie on the floor. The terrorists “herded us like cattle” into a corner of the room, she said. “They kept their guns trained on us at all times.”

Sometimes the terrorists pulled the pins from their hand grenades. They demanded to know who the Americans were. “When nobody spoke up, they called two Australians,” she said, “and demanded to know if they were Jews. A man admitted he was a Jew, and they knocked him to the ground with the rifle butt.”

To add to the terror, the hijackers brought large drums of fuel oil into the room and threatened to incinerate everyone. They ordered passengers to produce passports and separated the Americans and Britons from the rest. Later, when the Americans were herded on deck and Klinghoffer in his wheelchair was left behind, oil drums were placed next to the Americans, and the threats continued.

“The terrorists told us we would be prime targets if anyone attempted to rescue us,” Mrs. Klinghoffer recounted.

She said the sight of other passengers and crew members embracing the terrorists as they were about to leave the ship in Egyptian waters brought about feelings of “disgust and anger.”

“I believe they are cold-blooded murderers, liars and cowards,” Mrs. Klinghoffer said. “What remains is justice to be done.”

She praised both President Reagan’s decision to intercept the EgyptAir 737 carrying the terrorists from Egypt on Oct. 10 and the President’s and Mrs. Reagan’s demeanor when they met with her family last week.

“Their concern touched us very much,” the widow said. “I congratulated him on the seizure of the Egyptian airliner. It was a feeling this country could fight back. I encouraged him to do more. He said he would.”

In a poignant moment, Mrs. Klinghoffer eulogized her husband as “a very sweet, kind man. He was a fighter. He would stand up for his rights. He was very close to his two girls. He loved life. He had a joie de vivre. If he could have gotten out of the chair, I am sure he would have tried to fight.”