Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 18, 1994 TAG: 9408180114
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short
``Most of what has been written about him [Carlos] - often with his own connivance, for the man adores publicity - is myth,'' author Frederick Forsyth wrote in Wednesday's editions of The Washington Post.
The author said he is ``singularly unimpressed by the man'' who has fascinated the West for two decades.
The main character in Forsyth's novel is a killer hired to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle.
Carlos' career, most often linked with Middle East terrorism, ``is a litany of cowardly attacks on extremely soft targets,'' Forsyth said. The one exception, he said, was Carlos' major coup - the kidnapping of 11 OPEC oil ministers from a conference hall in Vienna in December 1975.
Born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, he got the name ``Carlos'' from false papers and his nickname from Forsyth's book. The author says that after a shootout in a Paris flat in July 1975, an editor looking for a catchy headline dubbed him ``Jackal.''
The nickname helped boost his notoriety into the realm of myth, Forsyth said. The reality, he said, is that Carlos was ``essentially unsuccessful and exceedingly brutal.''
by CNB