Comparative study of authorities' responses in different countries to acts of terrorism in the 1970s. Sixteen people were killed. Buildings were blown up or had to be evacuated. Yet no new terrorism laws were passed and the ministers responsible withheld information. They refused to go into the background of the violence, and newspapers also barely reported on the attacks. In the Netherlands of the 1970s, violent activism and terrorism were kept quiet as much as possible. Extremists were also active in West Germany, Italy and America, and dozens of civilians became victims of attacks. There, however, governments unleashed a massive manhunt for the terrorists: helicopters, roadblocks, FBI teams and national reserve troops were brought into position. So which strategy was most effective, the Dutch one or the one abroad? How can the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies be measured at all? In Theater van de angst, Beatrice de Graaf introduces a new method to measure the so-called "performative power" of counterterrorism policy. In doing so, she assumes that terrorists create a 'theater of fear' with their actions. Their 'performance' stands or falls with the public's reactions to their attacks. The government can influence that perception, either in a dramatizing sense, by stirring up public unrest or panic, or in a moderating sense, by emphasizing society's resilience. In this way, terrorists and their fighters wage a battle for public perception surrounding attacks. De Graaf used secret service archives, cabinet minutes and interviews with officials and former activists for her research. She looks over the shoulders of counterterrorists and comes up with notorious conclusions about their actions, conclusions that cannot be ignored by today's counterterrorists.