In a world that thought itself accustomed to horror, it was yet another notch on the ever rising scale of grotesqueries. The murders in Munich last week-preceded by 20 hours of high drama and precipitated by a horrendously bungled police shoot-out-gripped most of the world in attentive thrall. The Arab terrorist group Black September made its move at 4:20 a.m. as the sprawling Olympic Village lay quiet and sleeping in the predawn darkness.

The guerrilla operation had evidently been planned to create maximum outrage. It succeeded, probably beyond its planners' wildest dreams. By invading the Olympic Village and seizing nine Israeli athletes as hostages and killing two others, eight young Palestinians managed to expose every weakness in the forces of law and in the helpless governments involved in the crisis.