My first brush with terrorism came in 1973, when I was 18 and living in London on what the English call a working holiday. It was a weird time to be a teenager at large in the United Kingdom. London was under siege from a relentless IRA bombing campaign. Bobbies patrolled the streets for explosives. Posters and public announcements in the underground told Londoners to report suspicious bags. Bombs seemed to be going off everywhere, in cars and pubs and shopping arcades and telephone kiosks. Bomb threats were common―one was phoned into a Leicester Square movie theater while I was watching The Sting. On occasion I actually heard a distant explosion; more commonly, the wail of sirens. London was an exciting place to be; the bombs heightened the excitement, but did not seem directed at me, an invincible 18-year-old American.
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