‘There’s a 50-50 chance I’ll get bumped off’: an American scholar foresees his death
From our UK edition
On a drizzly morning in January 1984, Malcolm Kerr, the president of the American University of Beirut (AUB), was walking from the lift towards his office on the campus when he was shot dead. His two assailants escaped. In 2020 Kerr’s widow Ann read Kim Ghattas’s book on Islamic extremism, Black Wave, and sent her an email:. ‘I would like to hear your thoughts about what lay behind Malcolm’s death. I wonder if you have more detailed information.’ Ghattas started hunting. Through the Kerrs’ and other stories she evokes the nauseous uncertainty of civil war Beirut – a place where people vanished and the Reagan administration came thoroughly unstuck. At the beginning of the 1980s the Kerrs were living in California, where Malcolm taught at UCLA.
