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The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East
Wed, October 14th, 2026
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM (EDT)
Washington, D.C. and Live Online
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On January 18, 1984, Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated outside his office—a crime that never received a formal investigation.
In The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East, acclaimed journalist and author Kim Ghattas reconstructs Kerr’s murder and his family’s decades-long search for justice. Tracing the fallout from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the regional ripples of the Iranian revolution, Ghattas demonstrates how 1980s Beirut became the crucible where modern proxy warfare, extremism, and the triangle of U.S., Iranian, and Israeli enmity were forged.
Join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for a book launch and discussion with Kim Ghattas, moderated by Middle East Program senior fellow Karim Sadjadpour.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
Event Speakers
Kim Ghattas
Middle East expert, author, and journalist
Kim Ghattas is a Middle East expert, author and Emmy-award winning journalist. She’s a contributor to The Atlantic magazine and The Financial Times. She was a Distinguished Inaugural Fellow at the Columbia University Institute for Global Politics and a visiting professor at Dartmouth College. She previously reported for the BBC from the Middle East and Washington DC. She is the author of Black Wave, a New York Times 100 notable book of 2020 on the Saudi-Iran rivalry and of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, a New York Times best seller. Her next book is The Best Kind of American, published in October 2026 in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy and South Korea. Ghattas serves on the board of the Global Centre for Pluralism and is a member of the advisory council of the Atlas of Impunity.
Senior Fellow, Middle East Program
Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East.