WORLD, Page 39HOSTAGESThe Lost Life Of Terry AndersonThe American journalist is beginning his fifth year incaptivity somewhere in the bowels of Beirut, a coin for acruel human barter that no one has been able to redeemBy 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
