SOMESVILLE – Moorhead Kennedy, a former Iranian hostage and frequent lecturer on international terrorism, warned Mainers on Tuesday not to react in fear after the quadruple attack on United States citizens.

“The greatest worry that I have is that the government will get so frightened that we become a minor kind of police state,” Kennedy said, reached at his Somesville home shortly after the terrorist attacks Tuesday morning on New York and Washington, D.C.

Kennedy was perhaps less surprised than most people when he saw early morning news coverage of the attacks.

Since he began lecturing about terrorism after his release from Iranian terrorists in 1981, Kennedy has warned that America is at risk for a highly visible terrorist attack

“It’s a classic case of taking a symbol of what people don’t like about America – capitalism, military power,” he said of Monday’s plane crashes. “This was an absolutely brilliant attack.”

Based on his experience in Iran and more than 20 years in the Foreign Service, Kennedy has used two books and countless lectures to tell Americans that powerful nations such as the United States must listen to the concerns of less-influential political groups or risk devastating attacks.

“Maybe we don’t take their concerns as seriously as we should,” Kennedy said.

But terrorism cannot be accepted as a matter of course in foreign affairs, he has said.

“A government has to have a monopoly on violence [or the authority to declare war], or you have anarchy,” Kennedy said last summer, while publicizing his book of essays, many of which

are related to terrorism, called “The Moral Authority of Government.”

“Ultimately, we have to have order in the world,” he said. “You have to draw a line somewhere. You have to assume that a government is right and a terrorist group is wrong.”

In response to national media comments that an attack of this magnitude might be connected to Saudi Arabian exile Osama bin Laden – who has been linked to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York – Kennedy cautioned Tuesday against jumping to conclusions, however logical they may seem.

“I think it would be terrible to speculate,” he said.

Kennedy holds a graduate degree in Islamic law from Harvard University and has lived in Yemen, Lebanon and Iran.

He warned Mainers not to let the attacks result in racial and religious strife within America.

“We have to live with the fact that we’re going to be at risk for some time, but be careful not to let that interfere with the civil liberties of Islamic people living in America,” Kennedy said, citing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

“I hope the media doesn’t give the indication that everyone who’s Muslim must be a terrorist,” he said.

Kennedy is a longtime summer resident of Mount Desert Island, with family roots in the area. He and his wife retired to Somesville in 1995.