TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/032089/03208900.013

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 10.2 KB | 210 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 39

HOSTAGES

The Lost Life Of Terry Anderson


The American journalist is beginning his fifth year in captivity
somewhere in the bowels of Beirut, a coin for a cruel human
barter that no one has been able to redeem

By SCOTT MACLEOD


    Imagine it. You are chained to a radiator in a bare, dank
room. You never see the sun. When your captors fear that a noise
in the night is an impending rescue attempt, you are slammed up
against the wall, the barrel of a gun pressed against your
temple. Each day you have 15 minutes to shower, brush your teeth
and wash your underwear in the bathroom sink. Your bed is a mat
on the floor. One of your fellow hostages tries to escape, and
the guards beat him senseless. Another tries to commit suicide.
One day you too reach the edge of your sanity. You begin
furiously pounding your head against a wall. Blood oozes from
your scalp and smears down your face.

    Life has been like that for Terry Anderson ever since March
16, 1985, when the chief Middle East correspondent for the
Associated Press was kidnaped in West Beirut. The men who
grabbed him, members of the Shi`ite Muslim fundamentalist group
called Hizballah, were intent on swapping Western hostages for
17 comrades imprisoned in Kuwait for a terrorist spree. Four
long years later, Anderson is still held hostage. From accounts
by his former fellow captives, TIME has pieced together a
glimpse of the life he has led.

    The first day: Terry Anderson lies on a cot in a dingy
apartment in Beirut's sprawling, bomb-ravaged Shi`ite slums. A
blindfold is tightly wrapped around his head, and chains
shackle a wrist and ankle, biting into the flesh. He can hear
the roar of jets; Beirut airport is near. The former U.S. Marine
is stunned and sobs constantly, frustrated, angry and afraid
that the kidnapers intend to execute him. A guard bursts in and
threatens him merely because he creaked the bedsprings. "I am
a friend of the Lebanese," Anderson had told his family. "They
won't kidnap me. I tell their story to the world."

    Anderson is lost in the bowels of Beirut, but he is not
alone. In the same 12-ft. by 15-ft. bedroom, also shackled hand
and foot and crouching on the floor of a dirty clothes closet,
Father Lawrence Martin Jenco of Catholic Relief Services
(kidnaped Jan. 8, 1985) peers under his blindfold at the new
arrival. A month later, they are led down to the dungeon, a
basement partitioned into cramped cells with thin plasterboard,
and held prisoner with others: William Buckley, Beirut station
chief of the CIA (kidnaped March 16, 1984), the Rev. Benjamin
Weir, a Presbyterian missionary (kidnaped May 8, 1984), and
eventually David Jacobsen, director of American University
Hospital (kidnaped May 28, 1985).

    The hostages are repeatedly threatened with death. Their
meals consist of Arabic bread, foul-tasting cheese and tea.
Buckley's treatment reveals the full cruelty of the kidnapers.
He catches a bad cold that develops into pneumonia, but the
guards show him no mercy. "Mr. Buckley is dying," Father Jenco
pleads one day. "He is sick. He has dry heaves. Give us
liquids."

    Speaking to one another in whispers, the hostages listen to
Buckley's moans as he grows weaker, and finally delirious. On
June 3, Buckley squats on the tile floor believing that he is
sitting on a toilet seat, and food fantasies fill his head. "I'd
like some poached eggs on toast, please," he mumbles. "I'd like
an order of pancakes." That night Buckley starts making strange
grunts and the others realize they are hearing the rattle of
death, and a guard comes and drags Buckley's body away.
Anderson's first letter to his family contains his last will and
testament.

    Out of the blue comes hope. At the end of June Anderson
learns that TWA Flight 847 has been hijacked and 39 American
passengers are being held. Hajj, the chief guard, arrives with
word that a package deal is in the works. "You will be going
home," he says.

    Nothing happens. The guards, however, improve living
conditions for Anderson and the others, apparently in fear they
might fall sick and die like Buckley. "Christmas in July" brings
dinner of Swiss steak, vegetables and fruit, medical checkups
by a kidnaped Lebanese Jewish doctor, and the chance to start
worshiping together. Anderson, once a lapsed Catholic whose
faith now grows stronger by the day, wheedles permission from
Hajj to make his confession to Father Jenco. Later, all the
hostages are allowed to hold daily services in their "Church of
the Locked Door." They celebrate Communion with scraps of Arabic
bread. Anderson tells the guards to shut up when they mock the
Christian service.

    After the first worship, Pastor Weir reaches out and grasps
Anderson, and the two men hug. Perhaps worried that the frail
minister might be slipping, Anderson urges him to be strong.
"Don't give up," he tells him. "Keep going."

    Another new hostage has arrived, Thomas Sutherland, dean of
agriculture at American University (kidnaped June 9, 1985).
Eventually the captors permit their prisoners to be together
all the time and to remove their blindfolds when the guards are
out of the room.

    One day in September, Hajj raises everybody's hopes again
by announcing that a hostage will finally be released. He has
them play a cruel game: they must choose for themselves who will
go free. "Think it over," he commands as he walks away.

    The hostages drag their agonizing discussion late into the
night. Pastor Weir and Father Jenco make no effort to put
themselves forward, and Sutherland is too much of a gentleman.
But Anderson nearly takes a swing at Jacobsen as the two men
engage in a bitter contest to be chosen. Anderson wins the vote,
but then is devastated when Hajj refuses to abide by the
decision. "Terry Anderson will not be the first to be released,"
he snaps. "He might be the last one." A few nights later, Hajj
tells Pastor Weir he is going home.

    On Christmas Eve the hostages hear on the radio that Church
of England envoy Terry Waite has failed to negotiate their
freedom, and has returned to London. Anderson is crushed. Father
Jenco tries to sing carols but is too depressed. Jacobsen draws
a crude Christmas tree on a piece of cardboard and sticks it on
the wall.

    Anderson fights back boredom and depression by throwing
himself into habits and hobbies. Each morning he obsessively
cleans the sleeping mats and takes spirited 40-minute walks
around and around the room. When he fashions a chess set from
scraps of tinfoil, the guards take the game away. Anderson takes
French lessons from Sutherland, and stays up all night reading
the Bible and novels by Charles Dickens that the guards provide.

    After solitary confinement, the camaraderie is energizing.
From memory Sutherland recites the poetry of his beloved Robert
Burns, in the brogue of his native Scotland (he once played
professional football with the Glasgow Rangers). Father Jenco
takes the hostages on an imaginary tour of Rome and the Vatican.
Anderson makes a deck of cards from paper scraps, and they all
play cutthroat games of hearts.

    Like sophists, Anderson the liberal Democrat and Jacobsen
the Reagan Republican constantly provoke each other into
arguments to keep their minds alive.

    More than the others, Anderson challenges the guards,
although for some reason he is beaten less frequently. He goes
on a seven-day hunger strike when they suddenly ban the radio
and the occasional copies of the International Herald Tribune.
He does not know it, but the news blackout is imposed so he will
not learn of the deaths of his father and brother back in the
U.S. He does find out, however, that since his kidnaping his
second daughter, Sulome, has been born.

    In July 1986 Father Jenco is freed. Jacobsen goes home in
November, but the public revelation of a secret U.S.
arms-for-hostages deal with Iran torpedoes any further
releases. Two months later, Waite the mediator is himself
kidnaped.

    Feeling increasingly abandoned by his government, Anderson
spends much of 1987 in isolation. In December he gets a new
roommate, French diplomat Marcel Fontaine (kidnaped March 22,
1985). Anderson is denied permission to send out a videotaped
Christmas message to his family. The frustration becomes
unbearable, and one day he walks over to a wall and beats his
head against it. Blood seeps from Anderson's scalp. "Terry!"
Fontaine pleads. "Think of your family!"

    All the hostages find the cruelty too much to take.
Sutherland, who had gone to Beirut passionately hoping to help
Lebanese farmers, is treated worse than the others. He tries to
kill himself by putting a nylon sack over his head. A more
recent kidnap victim, Frank Reed, director of the Lebanese
International School (kidnaped Sept. 9, 1986), attempts to
escape but is caught. The guards beat him viciously and break
his spirit, leaving him prostrate on the floor.

    In 1988 Anderson and Fontaine find themselves in an
apartment that has carpeting, heat and hot food. Are they being
fattened up in preparation for their release? Despite the
constant disappointments, Anderson is determined to think about
his future. He ponders quitting journalism to take up farming.
At last on May 3, after he has spent more than three years as
a hostage, his time appears to have come when a guard tells him
to get ready.

    "You should do the same as I'm doing," Anderson says,
trying to improve the Frenchman's chances. At midnight they come
and take Anderson away. Two hours later, Fontaine learns that
it is he who is being freed.

    Fontaine remembers a conversation with Anderson. Feeling
ill and more depressed than usual, he had turned to Anderson and
said, "Terry, I am not afraid to die. But I don't want to die
here and have them throw my body into the sea like they did with
Buckley."

    Anderson thought for a moment and replied, "I don't want to
die anywhere."

    Five months ago, Anderson's most recent videotaped message
was dropped off at a Western news agency in Beirut. Signing off,
he said to his family, "Kiss my daughters. Keep your spirits up,
and I will try to do the same. One day soon, God willing, this
will end."