Book currents: the view from abroad.(three books)(Brief Article)

Behind the national tragedy of last September's terrorist attacks lay a puzzle of global proportions; a new set of books from the foreign press is helping us piece it all together. The German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, whose editorial offices are in Hamburg, was uniquely positioned to report on the safe houses, cells, and mosques that bred the terrorists. INSIDE 9-11: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED (St. Martin's), a reconstruction by the magazine's staff translated by Paul DeAngelis and Elisabeth Kaestner, offers accounts of the terrorists' whereabouts from as early as 1992, stories of improbable escape, and the horrifying flatness of the F.D.N.Y. emergency log: "Female caller reports they are trapped in the elevator . . . explains they are dying."

Winston Churchill testified to the editorial independence of the BBC when he called it "the enemy within the gates." THE BBC ...