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Monday, September 11, 2000

The black-and-white photograph remains seared in my memory. A West Liberty State College swimmer with glasses and a high forehead and a suit, standing next to little me. It was more than a quarter-century ago when the swimmer came to Pittsburgh with a harrowing story to tell. The story remains seared in my memory, as well.

He was an Israeli Olympic survivor of Munich 1972.

He was one of the hidden in Building 31.

I can still picture him standing before a room crowded with strangers and relating the most frightful moment of his life. I can still hear him, in his Israeli accent, recounting the tale of that Sept. 5. Avraham Melamed, a transplant temporarily residing in the West Virginia panhandle, had lived through the darkest hours in sports history -- when death defiled the Summer Games.

HBO evokes the memories at 8 tonight with "One Day in September," an Oscar-winning British documentary. Maybe I'm a bit too close to the story, yet this 95-minute special not only evokes memories but also chills, ire, tears. From the audio of airport gunshots to the pictures of a daughter bringing flowers to the grave of a father slain when she was an infant, the show hits viscerally. Just the way that day did 28 years ago.

The filmmakers found the lone surviving Black September terrorist, Jamal Al Gashey, the face seen poking from that third-floor patio window of Building 31, Munich, 1972. They unearthed amazing video: athletes climbing over the lax-security fences of the Olympic Village; the negotiations and doomed rescue attempts; the hostages being lead to the bus and placed on the helicopters; the airport where five terrorists and the last of the 11 Israeli Olympic team members were killed. They interviewed a long list of participants, and you'll likely shiver as I did when a German official laughs looking back at the atrocity.

The documentary breaks journalistic ground with a haunting news story: The filmmakers quote a source as saying that a Lufthansa hijacking seven weeks later was a set-up -- Germans and Palestinians colluded to free the remaining three Black September terrorists.

Israeli secret forces dubbed "Wrath of God" exacted revenge by killing two of the terrorists, and sole-survivor Al Gashey spoke to the filmmakers under a blurry camera lens and a shroud of secrecy.

His story is unforgettable. At 18, he and other trained Palestinian guerrillas were sent to Germany without knowing their mission. They stayed in a hotel named Eden and attended an Olympic volleyball match. They ran into drunken American athletes around 5 that Sept. 5 morning, and they helped one another climb over the Olympic village fence.

The Israeli Olympians were housed in five apartments inside Building 31, and the terrorists went first to Apartment 1, where the coaches resided. Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, at gunpoint, steered them past other occupied rooms and took them to an apartment filled with wrestlers and weight lifters -- men he hoped could disarm the intruders. Weinberg tried and was shot to death. "We had no orders to kill," Al Gashey says. "We were forced to."

We see the enduring images. Issa the leader of this Black September group. Sweatsuit-wearing, gun-toting German policemen in one aborted rescue effort. Mark Spitz, an American Jew, hustled home under guard. Terrorists and hostages on the bus, on the helicopters. Jim McKay on ABC: "They're all gone."

The filmmakers describe how the main objective of Olympic officials was to remove the terroristic threat and continue the Games. How the five police marksmen awaiting at the airport were insufficiently outfitted: no radios, some without helmets and bulletproof vests and perhaps even appropriate weapons. How the undercover police on board the terrorists' plane, dressed as a flight crew, fled the scene seconds before the helicopters landed. How police, arriving late because of highway-congesting onlookers, shot one of their own accidentally and failed to bring armored vehicles to the sniper-fire scene at the airport. How first reports called the mission a success, to the point where the hostages' families celebrated.

A grenade into one helicopter, a spray of gunfire into the other, and they were all gone.

Be forewarned, the special shows grisly photographs of the airport aftermath. The visuals aren't for the squeamish. Nor is this: In the end, Al Gashey says he is still proud.

Avi Melamed, the West Liberty swimmer, survived along with a handful of others because Weinberg the coach marched the terrorists past several other occupied rooms. Because of the courage of the ill-fated 11.

Those survivors stayed and watched the men who saved them ultimately die. The documentary allows Israeli runner Esther Roth a few seconds to talk about watching her Olympic teammates being shoved onto the helicopters, to their death. I only wish that their story could have been told, too.

More Olympic stuff

A&E focuses its investigative cameras on Olga Korbut, drug doping and host-bidding corruption, and all three specials are eye-opening: Korbut at 8 p.m. and "Dying to Win" at 10 p.m. Wednesday, "Tarnished Gold" at 10 p.m. Thursday.

HBO's "RealSports" gets into the five-ring circus at 10 p.m. tomorrow with features on gymnastics guru Bela Karolyi and reinstated high jumper Javier Sotomayor.

And, don't forget, the big show itself starts Wednesday night on MSNBC with men's soccer.

Pittsburgh program note

It's Pittsburgh football week on ESPN Classic: a Johnny Unitas profile at 8 p.m. tomorrow, Pitt-Penn State 1979 at 9 p.m. Wednesday and a Dan Marino profile at 8 p.m. Friday. On Sunday, the network airs a Marino retirement special between 2-8 p.m. -- to coincide with the Dolphins' game ceremony -- and among the shows scheduled is the Pitt-Georgia 1982 Sugar Bowl.

In case you missed CBS' "NFL Today" yesterday, 'N Sync dedicated "Bye, Bye, Bye" to the off-week Steelers, of whom Jerry Glanville said, "Anybody can go in there and win now -- even Cleveland. They've lost their [tough] identity." By the way, the show is more glitzy and better produced than before, and the outdoor version isn't so bad. But Mike Ditka with that microphone headset looks like a sixty-something Backstreet Boy on tour.

You can reach Chuck Finder at cfinder@post-gazette.com