Relatives Urge Efforts to Free Beirut Hostages
WASHINGTON — Relatives of the seven Americans still held captive in Beirut, saying they “want the Administration to make this a hostage crisis,†pleaded with members of Congress and other public officials Tuesday to help secure freedom for their loved ones.
“We’re tired of waiting,†Peggy Say, sister of kidnaped Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, said in an emotional Capitol Hill news conference. “Our men are tired. They want to come home.â€
The news conference, sponsored by California Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Buena Park) and Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton), had a tense moment when Dornan launched into a tirade against the captors, calling them “murderers,†“thieves†and “liars,†and was stopped by a distraught Say.
“This press conference is for the purpose of making public the pain these families are going through,†she said. “We do not call people thieves, murderers and liars who are holding our men. . . . We want our men home alive.â€
Among those held hostage is David P. Jacobsen of Huntington Beach, administrator of the American University Hospital in West Beirut.
Unable to Meet Reagan
Say, of Batavia, N. Y., pointed out during the press conference that the group had hoped to meet with President Reagan but was turned down.
“Maybe he knew our seven were not coming home and he didn’t want to face us,†she said. “I want him to see my face. I want to make it difficult for him to let my brother die.â€
She said there was “a strong possibility†that the families would meet Thursday with Vice President George Bush in the hopes that Bush would head a committee dealing with the plight of the seven men, some held for more than a year.
The State Department issued a statement declaring: “This Administration has not and will not forget our missing citizens, nor will we rest until they are safely reunited with their families.â€
Cable News Network correspondent Jeremy Levin, who escaped his captors in Lebanon after nearly a year, called on the Administration to work for the release of 17 Arab prisoners held in Kuwait for the 1984 bombings of the American and French embassies. Freeing the prisoners is a key demand of the Americans’ kidnapers, who are believed to be members of Islamic Jihad, an extremist faction of Shia Muslims.
‘Policy Remains Firm’
Noting that the Administration worked to secure the release of 39 Americans held hostage in Beirut after the hijacking last month of TWA Flight 847, Levin asked: “How many hostages does it take to make a hostage crisis?â€
The State Department, in its statement, further said: “The United States government’s policy toward kidnaping remains firm: We will not make concessions to terrorists and we will not ask other governments to do so. . . . Our refusal to concede to terrorists does not mean, however, that we are unwilling to talk.â€
In addition to Anderson and Jacobsen, the other hostages are the Rev. Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian minister and long-time resident of Lebanon; Father Lawrence Jenco of Joliet, Ill., head of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon; Peter Kilburn, a librarian at American University in Beirut; Thomas Sutherland, dean of the agriculture department at American University, and William Buckley of Medford, Mass., a political officer at the U.S. Embassy.
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