TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081489/08148900.044

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                                                                                NATION, Page 14

COVER STORY: Not Again


A grisly image of a dead hostage outrages the U.S. With few
options, Bush gets a surprising hint of help from Iran

By Richard Lacayo


    The hostage scenario has become numbingly familiar. The
sadistic videotapes of frightened captives, followed by threats
of execution. The White House dispatching naval fleets or
listening for some faint reply down a clogged diplomatic channel
to the Middle East. Last week it was George Bush's turn to try
urgent appeals and gunboat maneuvers while an angry public
fulminated at American impotence. Just six months in office,
Bush had become the third U.S. President in a row caught in the
same wretched predicament. The latest hostage crisis, however,
yielded a gruesome new image of horror: a man, bound and gagged,
dangling from a makeshift scaffold.

    The hanging man was almost certainly U.S. Marine Lieut.
Colonel William Higgins, 44, who was kidnaped last year while
serving as head of an observer team attached to the U.N.
peacekeeping force in Lebanon. His captors claimed they killed
him in retaliation for Israel's seizure of Sheik Abdul Karim
Obeid, a presumed leader of Shi`ite Hizballah terrorists, during
a raid into southern Lebanon. U.S. officials now believe,
however, that Higgins had been dead for some time, then used for
his kidnapers' macabre display. No matter which terrible theory
turns out to be true, the image of Higgins' body was a brutal
reminder that, ten years after the seizure of hostages at the
American embassy in Tehran, the U.S. still lacks any truly
effective means for dealing with terrorist kidnapings.

    The grueling events of the week put strains on U.S.-Israeli
relations over the question of whether Israel had recklessly
endangered the lives of Americans. To the Israelis, at least,
aggressiveness was clearly preferable to the unbudging status
quo that the U.S. appears to tolerate in the unending hostage
dilemma. All week the White House navigated between the same
poles of military threat and diplomatic engagement that earlier
Administrations had tried. Yet by week's end there was a
tantalizing glimpse of flexibility: Iran's new President, Ali
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, offered to "help" find a solution to
the hostage problem, thus raising the hope that Bush will not
be boxed in by the implacable hostility of Iran as his
predecessors were during the reign of the late Ayatullah
Ruhollah Khomeini.

    Nothing better illustrated the endlessness of the hostage
dilemma than the threat that Joseph Cicippio would quickly
succeed Higgins as the next dangling man. No sooner had the
videotape of Higgins' body been released to news agencies in
Beirut than a countdown began toward the execution of Cicippio,
58, kidnaped three years ago from the campus of the American
University of Beirut. Cicippio's last-minute reprieve was
accompanied by a threat that the clock could be set ticking
again. His captors demanded that Israel free not only Obeid but
also unspecified Palestinians and Lebanese guerrillas.
"Acceptance should be announced within days," they added.
"Otherwise the initiative will be considered canceled."

    In effect, Cicippio's suspended sentence left his loved
ones -- and the U.S. -- suspended as well. Behind Cicippio is
a tattered line of 14 other Western hostages, eight of them
Americans, still believed to be held in Lebanon. Other Americans
continue to live and work in that shattered country despite
official warnings issued by Washington in January 1987 that in
effect they are on their own. So long as the U.S. and its
citizens venture forth freely in the world, they will be
vulnerable to extortion by kidnapers. Trying to come to terms
with that implacable fact, Ronald Reagan stumbled and Jimmy
Carter fell.

    What should the U.S. do? There is an instinctive longing
for the bravado of 1904, when President Theodore Roosevelt was
faced with the kidnaping of an American, Ion Perdicaris, by a
Moroccan bandit named Ahmed Raisuli. Legend has it that
Roosevelt pronounced a famous ultimatum: "Perdicaris alive or
Raisuli dead." (It is less well remembered that Perdicaris was
freed only after the Moroccan government paid ransom.) But a
poll conducted last Thursday for TIME/CNN by Yankelovich Clancy
Shulman indicates substantial public recognition that a big
stick may not be the answer to an explosive and delicate
situation. Among those questioned, 45% said the U.S. should
retaliate in this instance with military action and 39% said it
should not. But when presented with an array of options, 58% of
the respondents said the U.S. should negotiate with terrorist
groups for the hostages' release, and between 45% and
two-thirds rejected various specified U.S. military options.

    The latest crisis was sparked by events in Lebanon that
dramatized the difference between the Israeli and American
responses to hostage taking. On July 28, two dozen Israeli
commandos staged a daring raid into the southern Lebanese
village of Jibchit. Their goal was to seize Obeid, 32, whom the
Israelis identify as a spiritual and military leader of the
Shi`ite fundamentalist Hizballah (Party of God), a group with
close ties to Iran that is holding most of the Western hostages.
The Israelis say they wanted Obeid as a bargaining chip to gain
release of three Israeli military men taken prisoner in southern
Lebanon in 1986.

    The Israeli Cabinet approved the mission by a vote of 11 to
1 in June, after an earlier kidnaping failed to impress Mustafa
Dirani, the man believed to be holding one of the soldiers.
Last December, Israeli commandos seized Jawad Kasafi, a Dirani
associate. But when Jerusalem offered a swap, Hizballah
declined even to reply. Israel concluded it needed a bigger
fish, and Obeid was selected.

    The raid was carried out by two dozen members of the elite
Sayeret Matkal unit, which reports only to chief of military
intelligence Amnon Shachak. As Israeli jets flew overhead to
drown out the noise, a darkened CH-53 helicopter landed after
midnight on the outskirts of Jibchit. Lightly armed with
silencer-equipped Uzis, pistols and a few small explosives, the
commandos crept toward Obeid's house in the center of the
village. One team guarded the neighborhood while another raided
the house and abducted Obeid and two men who worked as
bodyguards. Another man was killed by the Israelis when he
stepped out of a neighboring house. Obeid's wife, bound and
gagged, was left in the house with his three children, who were
untouched.

    Although the kidnaping was a success, two days later the
larger plan appeared to be backfiring. Recognizing that the U.S.
could be more easily pressured than Israel by threats against
its hostages, a Hizballah front group calling itself the
Organization of the Oppressed on Earth vowed to kill Colonel
Higgins unless Obeid was released. Israeli Cabinet officials
convened an emergency meeting to formulate a counteroffer.
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin proposed an exchange of Obeid and
the estimated 150 Lebanese Shi`ites held in Israeli prisons for
the release of the three Israeli soldiers and all the Western
hostages.

    When Israel sought Washington's approval for Rabin's idea,
Bush gave thinly veiled encouragement. On Monday, before the
announcement of Higgins' killing, Secretary of State James
Baker instructed the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, William Brown,
to pass on the message that the U.S. would not "object" to the
proposed swap. Though it was a pale green light at best, the
Israelis recognized it as a sufficient O.K. But by the time the
Israelis announced their offer, videotapes of Higgins' hanging
body were already being distributed by Hizballah.

    Israeli officials insist they had indeed considered the
possibility of a backlash by Hizballah. Rabin told the Knesset
on Wednesday that the government had taken into account all
possible outcomes, "including the event that took place, and
worse." He did not say whether it had concluded that an American
hostage might be executed or whether it had anticipated the U.S.
public outcry over the Higgins outrage.

    Soon after the videotape was broadcast, minority leader
Robert Dole took to the Senate floor to make an unusually harsh
assessment of Israel's actions. He charged that Israel had
"struck out alone, free-lancing," with no regard for the
American hostages. Said Dole: "Perhaps a little more
responsibility on the part of the Israelis would be refreshing."

    Israel was also widely criticized for not informing
Washington about its plans to seize Obeid, though advance
consultation would have made the U.S. an accomplice to Israeli
actions, further alienating Arab nations from the U.S. Some in
both houses of Congress came to Israel's defense, stressing that
to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its closest Middle East
ally would merely serve the interests of the kidnapers. For its
part, the White House called pointedly throughout the week for
the release of all hostages -- presumably including Obeid.

    At the first reports of Higgins' murder, the President cut
short a Western-states speechmaking trip to return to
Washington. He quickly conveyed his sorrow and outrage in a
phone call to Higgins' wife Robin, a Marine public affairs
officer. But throughout the week Bush was careful to apply a
lesson that had been painfully learned by Jimmy Carter: never
let a hostage crisis appear to consume the presidency. The
President went to unusual lengths to create what might be called
a mood of concerned normalcy, acting as host at a barbecue for
members of Congress, playing tennis, even attending a ball game
between the Baltimore Orioles and his son George's Texas
Rangers.

    Behind the scenes, the Administration was working in a
crisis mode. In private Bush described himself as going through
"the most difficult time of my presidency," and by week's end
the strain in his face was pronounced. To save Cicippio, the
State Department set up a round-the-clock hostage task force,
while the White House launched a diplomatic rescue effort that
one U.S. envoy called "a full-court press on everybody we know."
Characteristically, the President worked the phone with the
heads of state of most European allies and nations in the Middle
East -- with the notable exception of Syria's Hafez Assad, whom
Bush does not trust.

    Bush was also considering a military response. About three
dozen U.S. warships were dispatched toward Lebanon and Iran.
Iran was notified that as the paymaster of the Hizballah, it
would be held responsible if any American hostages were harmed.
Through a variety of conflicting leaks, the Administration let
it be known that if Cicippio was killed, the President was
prepared to order an air strike against suspected terrorist
bases.

    But Tehran was being offered carrots as well as sticks.
Through acquaintances like Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid,
Bush offered the possibility of a "constructive relationship"
with Iran. The U.S. overtures to Iran went "well beyond the
current situation with the hostages," said a senior White House
official. Another official said that once the hostage crisis is
settled, the U.S. will be willing to discuss renewed "trade and
commerce," as well as possibly freeing $4 billion in frozen
Iranian assets.

    The Administration insists it is not offering to trade for
the hostages in violation of U.S. policy, the trap that Ronald
Reagan fell into. "We can offer (the Iranians) better
opportunities with the West, but we're not going to hold out
anything specific," said a White House official.

    When Cicippio's captors extended the deadline for his
execution by 48 hours, there was cautious optimism at the White
House that diplomatic efforts were paying off. That mood was
sorely tested on Thursday morning, when the kidnapers turned the
screws further with the release of a videotape in which Cicippio
read a statement urging quick action for the release of Obeid.
The tape ended with Cicippio painfully bidding farewell to his
wife. But just 45 minutes before he was due to be executed,
Hizballah lifted its death threat indefinitely, though with the
condition that it was now seeking release of further prisoners.

    Bush's strongest card with the Iranians may be his contacts
with Algeria, whose intercession helped win the release of the
American hostages in the U.S. embassy in Iran. Algeria's
Ambassador to Beirut, Khaled Hasnawi, helped negotiate the stay
of execution, using Algerian intelligence officers as his
mediators with the kidnapers.

    Hizballah later named five prisoners held in Israel that it
wants released, then issued a statement claiming to have
"nothing at all to do with the hostage issue." Even so, Israeli
officials interpreted the decision not to execute Cicippio as
proof that their gamble was paying off, and that the kidnapers
would ultimately agree to a deal for Obeid's release. Cicippio's
captors credited the stay of execution to the intervention of
"certain parties and countries," a sign that Washington's
overtures to Iran might not be falling on deaf ears as in the
past.

    While Iranian "moderates" have a way of disappointing
Western expectations, Rafsanjani is reportedly convinced that
Iran failed to win its costly war with Iraq because of its
international isolation, which deprived the country of
desperately needed military technology and hardware. In a speech
Friday, the new Iranian President was remarkably conciliatory:
"I tell the White House, the problem of Lebanon has solutions,
the freeing of the hostages has solutions, reasonable, prudent
solutions." Rafsanjani offered: "Come let us approach the
problem reasonably. We too will help solve the problems there."

    But the next day Iran was still holding to the line that it
had no connection to the hostage takers. Iran's official
Islamic Republic News Agency quoted an unidentified foreign
ministry official as saying Iran had refused a Bush message
about the hostage-s sent via a third country. "Since the content
had nothing to do with Iran," the news agency quoted the
official as saying, "the message was not accepted." Tehran's
denials were contradicted by an Israeli intelligence report
claiming that Obeid had confessed that Hizballah's terrorist
activities were directed by the Iranian embassies in Beirut and
Damascus.

    Even so, Rafsanjani's earlier words of conciliation toward
a nation the Ayatullah Khomeini labeled the Great Satan indicate
a major change since Khomeini's death in June. Rafsanjani
appears to have moved with surprising quickness to consolidate
his leadership against challenges from more radical mullahs,
particularly Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashami, the
principal link between Tehran and Hizballah in Lebanon. There
are signs that the new President is also gaining influence over
Hizballah, as he must if he is to deliver on any promises to
help in the hostage situation. When Hizballah leaders went to
Tehran several weeks ago to express their condolences over
Khomeini's death, they reported directly to Rafsanjani. He is
believed to have dispatched his own men to Lebanon to bring into
line pockets of Hizballah, including those loyal to Obeid, that
still support Mohtashami.

    But it is still far too early for the U.S. to draw firm
conclusions about Rafsanjani. Virtually everything in the
region is so riddled with confusion that no one last week could
say for sure whether Higgins was executed on Monday, as his
captors claimed, or months ago and the tape of his execution
saved for use at a later, advantageous moment. It was not even
certain that it was Higgins whose body was shown in the tape.
Forensic experts at the FBI were carefully measuring and
comparing the features of the man in the videotape with
photographs of the captured Marine.

    If it was Higgins, both the CIA and Israeli intelligence --
as well as Bush -- believe he was killed much earlier than last
week. Intelligence specialists point to a number of anomalies
that make them doubt his captors' account of when and how he
died. For one thing, Higgins' captors announced last December
that he had been sentenced to death after making a full
confession of espionage activities.

    For another, the figure in the videotape showed no physical
signs of hanging, such as bulging eyes and extruding tongue. He
was dressed in a parka or sweater, which seems unlikely in the
middle of a Middle East summer.

    In addition, although his captors claimed to have dumped
his body near a hospital in Syrian-controlled territory in
Beirut, no trace of Higgins has been found there. Marrack
Goulding, U.N. Under Secretary-General of Special Political
Affairs, met in Beirut last week with Shi`ite leaders and
Iranian embassy personnel in an effort to recover Higgins' body.
Though the effort failed, Goulding later told reporters in
Damascus that there was "optimism in the air" in Beirut about
the release of hostages.

    Last week Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin laid out
his unflinching quid pro quo for hostage trades in Lebanon. "We
must have commanders and leaders of the terror organizations,"
he said. "Only when they are in our hands can we move (them) to
exchange prisoners." Jerusalem has not hesitated to resort to
kidnaping in the past. In 1983 Israeli troops in Beirut kidnaped
the nephew of Ahmed Jabril, head of the P.F.L.P. --General
Command and later the suspected mastermind of the bombing of Pan
Am Flight 103. Two years later Israel swapped the captured
nephew -- and 1,150 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons -- for
three Israeli soldiers held by Jabril.

    The U.S. has also resorted to kidnaping of a sort, most
famously during the 1985 midair interception of the Achille
Lauro hijackers by fighter planes. In September 1987 FBI agents
lured suspected terrorist Fawaz Younis into international waters
off Cyprus, arrested him aboard a U.S. vessel and flew him to
Andrews Air Force Base for eventual trial and imprisonment. For
the most part, however, the U.S. has adopted a waiting posture,
which critics charge has degenerated into a prescription for
inaction.

    What else should the U.S. be doing? Three years ago, a
White House task force on terrorism chaired by then Vice
President Bush recommended limited and well-defined military
retaliation in a hostage crisis if all other means failed. "(The
panel) would not approve of wanton destruction of human life .
. . in order to show some muscle," said Bush in introducing the
report. Armed force would be used only "where it can be
surgically done."

    As a result of task-force recommendations, the State
Department was designated as the lead agency in combating
terrorism, with responsibility for coordinating other Government
departments. At the CIA, a new covert counterterrorism force was
set up to combine intelligence from other groups such as the
National Security Agency and the armed forces. Any raid to
rescue the hostages would require pinpointing where they are
held, but the ability of U.S. intelligence to discover the
whereabouts of the hostages is still limited. Terrorist cells
are small, often based on family ties, and very hard to crack.
The killing of two of the CIA's top Middle East operatives,
former hostage William Buckley and Robert Ames, severely
crippled what little was left of any U.S. intelligence network
in the region.

    American officials think they know the locations among
which the hostages are moved, like peas in a giant, high-stakes
shell game. But even if they were found, their guards would be
likely to kill them before the rescuers could prevent it. "We've
considered going in for the hostages time and time again for
years," says a senior Administration official. "But it's just
an exceptionally difficult environment in which to operate."
Indeed, the U.S. reportedly knew where Higgins was for several
months last year, but Ronald Reagan refused the Pentagon's pleas
to be allowed to go in after him because of the risk that the
remaining hostages would be killed in retaliation.

    A commando raid might not be possible even if Bush ordered
one. The U.S. still lacks special units trained for
antiterrorist warfare. Though Congress has mandated the
establishment of a Special Operations Forces Command, the
separate services refuse to cooperate -- the Navy, for instance,
will not assign SEAL units to the force -- and Congress has not
funded equipment like new MC-130 Combat Talon attack aircraft
needed to drop commandos in enemy territory.

    The U.S. has met with only limited success when it tried
using more conventional forces to hit back at terrorists. When
Jimmy Carter dispatched Marine helicopters to rescue the embassy
hostages in 1980, the result was wreckage in the desert. Bombing
runs over Lebanon in 1983 resulted in the capture of a naval
aviator, Lieut. Robert Goodman, who was later retrieved by Jesse
Jackson. Only the snatching of the Achille Lauro hijackers and
perhaps the 1986 bombing of Libya could be considered effective
in reducing terrorist activity.

    There is little support in the Pentagon for a military
response this time. "What are we supposed to hit?" an admiral
asked last week. For the most part, the group has no major
command centers outside heavily populated districts, where an
American strike would be sure to result in many civilian
casualties.

    A military strike against Iran would probably doom U.S.
hopes to build bridges to Tehran. Any American military action
could isolate Washington from Arab countries just as the U.S.
is engaged in the delicate process of urging Israel and the
Palestinians to negotiate a peaceful settlement concerning the
occupation of the West Bank. Such action would also play
directly into the hands of Israeli hard-liners. On Friday P.L.O.
leader Yasser Arafat opened a congress in Tunis of Al Fatah, the
P.L.O.'s chief guerrilla group, the first such meeting since
1980. The discussions may prove critical because Arafat's public
declarations calling for negotiations with Israel have brought
him under increasing pressure from more extreme elements in the
P.L.O.

    Though the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December caused
the number of U.S. terrorist victims last year to shoot up
sharply, hijackings and kidnapings have actually decreased in
recent years. A surge of terrorist incidents was expected after
the downing of the Iranian Airbus by the U.S.S. Vincennes last
July, but it did not take place. French hostages in Lebanon were
released last year with the intervention of Iran.

    But hopeful trends do little to help the remaining
hostages. Some Administration officials are pessimistic about
the prospects for a deal as long as one of Hizballah's
priorities remains the release of 15 members of a closely
affiliated Shi`ite fundamentalist group called Al Dawa (the
Call). The 15 are imprisoned in Kuwait for a series of 1983 bomb
attacks on the U.S. and French embassies there. Kuwait has
stoutly refused Al Dawa's demands for the release of the
prisoners, some of whom are relatives of Hizballah leaders. Said
a close Bush adviser: "There's a family tie there, so I would
be surprised if anyone could cook a deal that could get all our
hostages released."

    In the end, even agility, patience and firmness may not be
enough to thread a way through the thicket of obstacles that
block freedom for the hostages. For all George Bush's best
efforts last week, the only things certain for now are that he
has headed off another terrible execution and heard some
encouraging words from Iran's new leaders. Yet after a decade
of outrage and frustration, the President and the American
public may be willing to settle for such small steps while they
strain to see, through the latest signals from Tehran, at least
a glimmer of hope.


-- Dan Goodgame and Bruce van Voorst/Washington and Jon D.
Hull/Jerusalem