Keeping Lockerbie Alive

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-- In the wildest allegation so far, an internal report by an investigator for Pan Am's insurance carrier suggests that the CIA unwittingly allowed the bomb aboard Flight 103 to protect a hostage-for-drugs operation. The report states that Monzer al Kassar, a Syrian arms dealer, was permitted to ship drugs through a "protected" route at Frankfurt in exchange for promises to help free American hostages in Lebanon. The subpoenas filed by Pan Am suggest that the CIA may even have a videotape of the bomb-laden suitcase being loaded in Frankfurt. The CIA and British authorities categorically deny these allegations.

After months of being kept in the dark, however, the families no longer discount any theory. "I believe ((the CIA scenario)) is more than possible," says Giebler. She is not alone in her suspicion, nor in her anger about the offer by the Bush Administration to compensate the families of victims killed in the downing of an Iranian passenger jet by the U.S.S. Vincennes in July 1988. Some security analysts conclude that Iran ordered the bombing of Flight 103 to avenge the Iranian Airbus disaster. The families do not disagree. Jeannine Boulanger, whose 21-year-old daughter Nicole was killed over Lockerbie, remembers vividly the day the Iranian plane went down. "Little did I realize that my daughter would pay the price for that," she says. "Iran paid for this bombing, yet Americans must sue to get compensation."

The families' estrangement from the Government and anger at Pan Am began almost as soon as Flight 103 fell from the sky. As television displayed the plane's splintered wreckage, relatives were told to wait patiently for the State Department to return their calls. Some sat seething by their telephones for as long as three days while calls bounced between agencies. When relatives of John Ahern, 26, went to New York City's Kennedy Airport, they were directed to a livestock warehouse where his body was forklifted off a plane in a cardboard box. No Pan Am or Government representative was present to help them. "They stripped him of his dignity," says Ahern's sister Bonnie O'Connor. "He should have come home with an American flag on his coffin."

The families say their quest for answers will persist until they learn who killed their relatives and how it was allowed to happen. Nor will they back down until air travel is made safer. "We are answering to our loved ones," says Ammerman. "We have all made a commitment not to stop until we satisfy that need." No one who has come up against them doubts the sincerity of that promise.