Carolyn Beeler: So, take us back to the Lebanon of the 1980s. What is the backdrop for Malcolm Kerr’s murder?

Kim Ghattas: The backdrop is a war in Lebanon that started in 1975 and is often described as a civil war. I reject the term because so many regional and international players were involved that Lebanon [became] a battleground for regional and international rivalries. The Syrians had invaded and sent thousands of troops. The Israelis had already invaded in 1978 and then invaded again in 1982. And they do that because Palestinian militants who came to Lebanon in the early ’70s are using the south of Lebanon as a launchpad to attack Israel with rockets. So, it makes for a combustible combination. And when the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982, in June of that summer, just a few days later, Iran shows up on the scene and sends hundreds of Islamic Revolutionary Guard [Corps] commanders and soldiers to Syria and then onward to Lebanon to fight Israel. And then also America — because America also shows up on the battlefield — sending in the Marines ostensibly to keep the peace, but, you know, they become a target. So, when Malcolm comes to Lebanon to take up his job as president of the American University of Beirut in the summer of 1982, he arrives in this very volatile situation.

When he became president in 1982, he called that a dream come true. He was a scholar, and you describe him as writing about Lebanon with clarity and true empathy. And Kerr, of course, was living in the middle of that delicate situation. He was the high-profile leader of an American institution in a country in conflict, as you have outlined, where the US was not a neutral player. It had troops on the ground. How did Kerr try to navigate that as a very public American?

Kerr knew Lebanon very well. He’d been born there to parents who worked at the American University of Beirut, who were part of this long tradition of educators and missionaries who’d come to the Middle East since the 1800s. He had grown up on the campus of the American University of Beirut. He spoke Arabic. Three of his children were born in Lebanon. He’d met his wife, Anne Kerr, in Beirut. He really felt at home. But as you heard in that clip [YouTube video below starting at 03:42], he understood the turmoil that was gripping Lebanon. He was not naïve when he took the job. And I have to point out that he took the job just before the Israelis invaded Lebanon. And at that point, he was wondering, “Is it still wise to go or not to Beirut?” But he felt so dedicated to the mission of leading this university. And he really represented the best of what America had to offer to the Middle East. Malcolm Kerr was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but also worried about what it meant for Lebanon. He was having to protect the university from Palestinian militants coming in and then from Israeli soldiers trying to come onto the campus. [He found himself] in a very difficult situation, which is why, as you heard in the clip, he tried to stay away from politics and focus on his mission as an educator and leader of an educational institution.

I imagine that was almost impossible at the time though, to stay away from politics.

No, he did that very well. He navigated it well, trying to [advance] Lebanese interests and bridge ideas between America and the Middle East, and to [present] what the American University represented at the time: not only the best of America, but the best of America as it blended with Middle Eastern ideas and culture. He very much believed in learning from the Middle East, not just coming to the Middle East to teach something about America. So, what got him in trouble, I believe, and what I unearthed in my research, was his dogged effort to find his colleague David Dodge, who had been the university’s acting president while Malcolm was trying to make his way to Lebanon after his appointment. David Dodge had also been kidnapped by groups affiliated with Iran. And it was Malcolm’s efforts to find him that I believe put him on the radar of both the Iranian groups [and] the Syrian regime next door, [then President] Hafez al-Assad, who was an ally of the Iranians.

The phrase, the book’s title, “The Best Kind of American,” has a double meaning. It refers to the ways that Kerr was a good actor there in Lebanon, but also to the view that some Lebanese had at the time that the best kind of American was a dead American. At the time, Kerr put his own odds of being murdered at 50/50. Can you tell us more about how he was assassinated, how he died?

Malcolm Kerr was described by some of his close friends, when he was murdered, as the best kind of American who came to the Middle East because he loved the region so much and spoke the language and so on. And so, why would anyone kill him? But yes, there were some, like those assassins who came for him on the morning of Jan. 18, 1984, and shot him point-blank from the back as he exited the elevator outside of his office, who thought that the best kind of American was a dead one because he did not fit the image of bad America … America the enemy, that countries like Iran and Syria and groups like Hezbollah wanted to paint America as. And so, he did not fit that image. But as I also write in the book, he simply knew too much about some of the workings of these groups and organizations and countries at the time because of his investigation of the Dodge disappearance. And, you know, there is a very facile accusation in the Middle East then and to this day that people like Malcolm Kerr or David Dodge or anyone who knows through their research — I mean, I could be accused of the same thing — “Oh, you must be a spy.” There’s this sort of fear of people who know too much. And that was an accusation that was also leveled at Michel Seurat, the French scholar. Today, I think a lot of people are wondering in the Middle East, but also in America, “What does America stand for? What is America? Who is the best kind of American?” And I think that’s why the title of this book will speak to so many people. But I also think that’s why Malcolm Kerr’s words about the need for empathy are so important.

There was never a full investigation of Kerr’s death, but you found in your investigation that his son, Andrew, carried a secret about his murder for many years that ended up being a key to solving it. How did he come across that secret?

I found it really shocking that for 10 years, the Kerr family had no information, no real clues about what had happened, especially why. I mean, there was a claim of responsibility. But there were so many groups at the time making phone calls to claim things. And so, there was still doubt. “Was it the Islamic Jihad [Organization]? Was it Iran? And if so, why? Why would they kill a man who understood the Middle East, loved the Middle East and was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause?” What I found shocking was that the American government actually had information about it, which I reveal in my writing, but they never shared it with the Kerr family. And it is Andrew Kerr, the youngest son, who, during his work as a junior staffer on the National Security Council at the Clinton White House in the 1990s, came across a document with the names of people who admit in a phone conversation that they were the ones who shot Malcolm Kerr. And the most appalling part of it for Andrew was to read that they were boasting about this assassination. So, that confirmed to the family who … but it still was unclear why. And that’s what I also set out to uncover with my research.

And I don’t know how much you want to talk about this in this interview, or how much you want to let readers discover on their own. But can you tell us who and why?

Well, the Kerrs went to court, and they sued the Islamic Republic of Iran. And they won in court, although the terrible, unfinished part of this is that there was no one in the dock. And that is something that is a recurrent theme in the Middle East and impunity. There is no one who actually really goes to jail. And that also applies to the assassination of many Lebanese, including our very own former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, who was also assassinated on the orders of Iran and Syria. There was a trial at The Hague, but there was no one in the dock.

Did any of this bring the family much closure?

Another point in the clip [4:10] from Malcolm Kerr on Arab American Television, shortly before his death, is how the country survived the conflict. That resilience we still hear so much about today because, unfortunately, there’s still so much conflict in Lebanon today, many years later. What about those three institutions that he outlined? How are they doing today?

You know, the American University of Beirut is really a beacon of hope in the region, and it has not only survived but is thriving despite everything that has happened in Lebanon over the last few years. You know, we emerged from the Lebanese War in 1990 and had some good years, and then we had the assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005. But the American University of Beirut has managed to thrive over the last few years despite a financial crash, the pandemic, the Beirut port explosion in 2020 and now two years of war since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas and the ensuing Israeli wars against, not just Gaza, but also Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. It is difficult for the Lebanese to keep talking about resilience because what we really want to do is to just live and not survive.

Don’t want to have to continue being so resilient.

But that is somehow the fate of this small country, a battlefield for regional and international rivalries. And we dominate the headlines with war and destruction, but we still produce so much beauty, with beautiful designers in fashion and interior design, and incredible authors, writers and universities, like the American University of Beirut, and an incredible diaspora around the world that is a vibrant community and produces so much wherever it settles. But we can only hope that somehow we and the region emerge from what I increasingly feel is a battle for survival between Israel and Iran.

Kim, you were writing this book when missiles were flying over your head in Beirut. As you were doing that, what other connections were you drawing between Kerr’s murder and what is happening today in Lebanon?

Writing this book was a very painful experience. I mean, writing generally can be painful, as many authors will know. But I was doing that while living through war and while being reminded very painfully of the importance of what had happened in the 1980s and how these three players —America, Iran and Israel — had collided on the shores of my country. But I really hope that it also illuminates the importance of empathy, the importance of understanding the region through its people and the importance of understanding the connection between America and the Middle East. You know, I begin the book with a quote from Malcolm Kerr himself, who says, “The truly civilized man is marked by empathy.” And in this age of division and polarization, I think those words have never been truer and more important.