SECRET TALKS, NEW FLEXIBILITY LED TO RELEASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130022-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: November 3, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130022-8
NPCGE WT=L LOS ANGELES TIMES
ON PAGE 3 November 1986
Secret Talks,
New Flexibility
Led to Release
I, By DOYLE MCMANUS,
JJ Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON-The release of
David P. Jacobsen and the sudden
hope of freedom for other Ameri-
can hostages in Beirut came as the
result of a long series of secret
negotiations between the Islamic
Jihad kidnapers and the Reagan
Administration. which once vowed
never to negotiate with terrorists,
U.S. officials said Sunday.
And. despite the Administrra.
tion's insistence that it would never
"make a deal" with kidnapers, the
breakthrough reflected a new will-
ingness on the part of both Presi-
dent Reagan and the terrorists to
seek a compromise solution to the
two-year-old hostage problem.
Since July, both sides have. sent
messages and signals to each oth-
er-some openly. but many
through secret channels including
Syria, Iran, and Anglican Church
negotiator Terry Waite-suggest-
ing more flexibility than their pub-
lic positions implied, officials and
terrorism experts said.
At the same time, some sources
said, revolutionary Iran appeared
to take an increasing role in push-
ing for a compromise solution,
apparently hoping that it could
persuade the United States to ease
a ban on U.S. weapons sales for its
lengthy war with neighboring Iraq,
Although Reagan and his aides
once declared flatly that they
would never negotiate with terror-
ists, that policy has clearly shifted
daring the last year-an evolution
prbmpted by the lesson, learned
reluctantly in other hostage crises,
thiit deals are sometimes unavoida-
bli. Today, the Administration says
it is willing to negotiate for the
release of U.S. hostages if it can do
so; without giving in directly to
terrorists' demands.
"There has been no change in
U.S. policy," White House spokes-
man Larry Speakes insisted Sun-
day. "We continue our policy of
talking with anyone who can be
helpful, but we do not make con-
cessions, nor do we ask third
codntries to do so."
White House Chief of Staff Don-
ald T. Regan was franker. "Negoti-
atipns ... have been going on over
tha past several months," he said
on', ABC television's "This Week
With David Brinkley."
"Because we are still negotiating
for. the other hostages, we aren't
going to say anything more about
what process we went through to
gel Mr. Jacobsen out," Regan said.
Asked whether the Administration
wap giving in to the kidnapers'
de ands, he replied: "Absolutely
no
ut asked whether "negotiating"
implied some other kind of U.S.
cogcession, Regan said: "I won't
talk about that ... but there's an
awful lot that goes on in the Middle
the other side of the bargain,
offi is and terrorism experts not-
ed at the statement issued Sun-
da y Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy
Wart, the group that kidnaped
Jac en and still holds two Amer-
ica hostage, was unusually con-
cili ry.
ui, Approaches Cited
It*d that the United States has
mac "approaches which, if contin-
ued,,ould lead to a solution of the
hosijge issue." And, significantly,
it n%de no mention at all of the
kidrpipers' original demand, the
rele*e of 17 prisoners, mostly
Lebrese, convicted of car bomb
attacks on the U.S. and French
i mmt:sies in Kuwait in December,
" T more hopeful than things
the a said in the past because it
indi tes that they are indeed pre-
par to consider the release of the
add' nal hostages," said Robert B.
Oakly, a former director of coun-
tert rism at the State Depart-
me "Past communiques by the
Isla c Jihad have been very ex-
plicit in threatening to kill the
hostages unless all the people in
Kuwait were released.
"The one thing that I am confi-
dent of is there hasn't been any
deal with respect to the prisoners in
Kuwait. There may be other
things," Oakley said in an inter-
view on Cable News Network.
"Perhaps the captors are beginning
to understand that the Kuwaiti
prisoner thing is just out of the
question."
Another terrorism expert, Robin
Wright of the Carnegie Endow-
ment for International Peace, said
that the change in Islamic Jihad's
approach first appeared in July,
when the kidnapers released Fa-
ther Lawrence Martin Jenco, a
Roman Catholic priest taken hos-
tage in 1985. Jenco carried a secret
message from the terrorists to Pope
John Paul II and to Robert A. K.
Runcie, the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, along with a videotape from
Jacobsen appealing to the Reagan
Administration to negotiate.
"Islamic Jihad was getting tired
of holding these hostages," Wright
said. "They wanted to see if they
could make a deal."
She noted that, despite the kid-
napersT re e_n treats to kill
, their hostages, only one, U.S:dj~ o-
mat William Buckley,Tias appar-
ently died in the hands of Islamic
Jihad-and U.S. intelligence offi-
cials believe that he was not killgd
deliberately.
Conciliatory Face
As a result of Jenco's messages,
Runcie sent Waite back to Beirut to
make contact with the kidnapers,
and the Reagan Administration
slowly began to show a more
conciliatory face.
In August and September, Islam-
ic Jihad issued more and more
messages from the hostages, seek-
ing to build public pressure on the
Administration to make conces-
sions. A long videotape released
Oct. 3 showed hostage Terry A.
Anderson, the Beirut bureau chief
for Associated Press, asking why
the Administration had made a deal
with the Soviet Union for the
release of imprisoned journalist
Nicholas Daniloff but still ruled out
concessions for him.
Speaking at a press conference
later, Reagan responded plaintive-
ly: "We don't even know who is
holding them (the hostages)."
That wasn't true, officials later
conceded; the Administration had
already been in indirect contact
with Islamic Jihad. But the State
Department declared that "our
door (isj open" for talks, and the
contacts apparently stepped up.
U.S. officials refused to describe
their negotiations, pointing out that
five more Americans are still held
hostage in Lebanon.
"We have been working through
a number of sensitive channels for
a long time," Reagan said in a
statement announcing Jacobsen's
release. "However, we cannot di-
Coot nwo
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130022-8
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130022-8
07,
vulge any of the details of the
release because the lives of other
Americans and other Western hos-
tages are still at risk."
But other officials, speaking on
condition that they not be identi-
fied, have said in past weeks that
the United States has been talking
with Iranian, Syrian, Algerian and
Lebanese officials who are in con-
tact with the kidnapers.
Iran is important because it is the
chief sponsor, both ideologically
and financially, of Islamic Jihad
and similar Shia Muslim radical
groups. The groups are largely
based in the Syrian-controlled
Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon,
but their money and weapons come
almost entirely from Iran.
The United States has named
Iran as one of the major instigators
of anti-American terrorism ever
since the followers of the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini seized the U.S.
Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and
held 52 Americans hostage for 14
months.
But the Iranian regime has also
intervened to end several hostage
crises, and its interest in normaliz-
ing relations with the United States
has risen as its need has increased
for U.S. -made arms in its war with
Iraq.
Several sources said that Iran
may now be urging Islamic Jihad to
compromise with the United States
in the hope that the Tehran regime
will benefit.
Even if Islamic Jihad makes a
deal, however, the Administration.
may still be faced with a continued''
hostage crisis. Only two of the.
remaining hostages, Anderson and,
Thomas Sutherland, are known to ?
be held by the group. Three others,'
Joseph J. Cicippio, Frank H. Reed-
and Edward A. Tracy, were kid-
naped in September and October by ?
terrorists claiming to belong to.
three previously unknown organi-
zations-and these men have not.
been heard from since.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130022-8