28 JUNE 2008, Page 30

Wrong response

Sir: When James Cooper criticises Matthew d’Ancona (‘Letters’, 14 June), and says that the British government should have responded to 9/11 by ‘tearing down the gates at the end of Downing Street and challenging those that would destroy us to do their worst’, he should recall the moment at 6.22 a.m. on Sunday 23 October 1983, when a Shia terrorist drove an 18-ton Mercedes truck loaded with explosives equivalent to 18,000 tons of TNT into the lobby of the headquarters of the Multi-National Force in Beirut, killing 242 Americans and 38 Frenchmen.

Andrew Roberts

London SW1