The Victims of Terrorism: An Assessment of Their Influence and ...

18 The Victims of Terrorismsent 160 families as of 1997. At the same time, Families of Pan Am 103 had 70 members. Theremaining two groups, Justice for Pan Am 103 and Terrorism Watch: Pan Am 103, are minoroffshoots of these two larger bodies, both having been founded in 1995 (“Lockerbie Crash,”1997). The main explanation for this fractionalization is the often starkly different approachesof the missions advocated by the groups of Pan Am 103 victims. Despite the paucity of PanAm 103 groups compared with 9/11 ones, the chasm separating the Pan Am organizations wasoften wider and less amenable to cooperation, much less resolution.Among the most active in the search for answers was Albany, New York, lawyer PaulHudson, who lost his 16-year-old daughter on the flight. While many victims’ families remainedincapacitated by their grief, Hudson ignored warnings from Pan Am officials not to travel tothe crash site and flew to Lockerbie just three days after the bombing. On January 18, 1989,he issued his first call for a concerted effort to learn how the tragedy had actually occurred in aspeech before a group of parents whose children, all students at the University of Syracuse, haddied while returning home from their respective study-abroad programs (Cohen and Cohen,2001, pp. 34–35). A month later, 80 family members met at a Teaneck, New Jersey, restaurantand thus VPAF 103 was born. Hudson accepted the position as chair, and Bert Ammerman, aNew Jersey high school principal who had lost his brother, that of political action committeechair (Cohen and Cohen, 2001, p. 69). The group began by demanding the immediate resignationof the U.S. State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Ambassador L. Paul (Jerry)Bremer, who was accused of failing to notify U.S. airlines of a known terrorist threat immediatelybefore the Pan Am 103 bombing (“Air Crash Victims’ Kin Organize,” 1989).Initially, the members of VPAF 103 stood united, offering one another support whilepressing the U.S. government for answers. By the spring of 1989, members championing thecause of airline security reform had already met with Senators Daniel Moynihan (D-NY),Alfonse d’Amato (R-NY), and Bill Bradley (D-NJ) (McFadden, 1989; “Air Crash Victims’ KinOrganize,” 1989). Accordingly, by the time many of the relatives convened in Washington fora vigil on April 3, 1989 (103 days following the airline disaster), their cause and activities hadalready gained the attention necessary to ensure both media exposure and high-level politicalaccess. Over the next couple of days, they visited the offices of all 100 senators, lobbying notonly for improved airline security, but also for the creation of an independent commission toinvestigate the bombing (Sharn, 1989). Five family members also met briefly with PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush, but their requests fell upon seemingly deaf ears whether on Capitol Hillor at the White House (Cohen and Cohen, 2001, p. 74). Galvanized by government inaction,VPAF 103 became even more strident in expressing its demands—thus prompting the firstdisagreements and fissures (Gerson and Adler, 2001, p. 28).Tensions exploded at a VPAF 103 meeting held in late April 1989. Angered by group criticismof his efforts to obtain political support, Ammerman and his followers stayed in the hotelbar, refusing to join Hudson and other members meeting in a nearby function room. Hudsonwas particularly incensed by this divisiveness and, at another meeting held two months later,he and a handful of supporters—including outspoken Florida widow Victoria Cummock—founded Families of Pan Am 103/Lockerbie. Hudson was elected president of the new organization—amere shadow of VPAF 103, with which most of the Pan Am families remained(Cohen and Cohen, 2001, pp. 72, 78–79, 97, and 99).