COUNTERTERRORIST

The memoirs of an Ohio businessman who Rambo-ed around the world fighting terrorism where and when he found it. Sam Hall was born in Dayton, Ohio, and seemed off to a fine start in life--he won the Silver Medal in diving in the 1960 Olympics, then went back home to the family business and the Ohio legislature. But a bad leg kept him out of Vietnam, so he sublimated his desire for combat and adventure into drug addiction and three failed marriages. By the 80's, however, he was born again: he'd kicked cold turkey, gone to Israel, and decided to begin a ""world-wide fight against terrorism."" After training at special counterterrorism schools in Israel, England, Germany, and Holland (the expensive kind that cater to 45-year-old ex-businessmen), Hall claims he saw action in Lebanon, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique (there are a number of grisly, although unverified, accounts of his combat heroics). He even set up an organization of mercenaries called Free Lancers, a kind of Kelly Girls providing services to counter-terrorist causes all over the world. And then there was the aborted plan to locate MIA's in Southeast Asia. Hall thereafter turned his attention south of the border, to Nicaragua, where he helped train the contras, hobnobbed with the likes of Ollie North and General Singlaub, and felt assured that the US government approved of his activities. He finally achieved fame last year when he was captured spying on the Sandinistas, but was eventually released, partially through the good offices of his brother, Congressman Tony Hall. A juvenile exercise in self-aggrandizement, with just enough flair to please a few militarists--and leave others cold.