NEWSLETTER: BUCKLEY TAKEN TO IRAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200025-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2011
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: November 26, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Approved For Release 2011/08/31 : CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200025-4
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
26 November 1986
Newsletter: Buckley taken to Iran
CIA's Beirut chief was tortured there, report says
William Buckley, the CIA's Bei-
rut station chief who was kid-
napped in 1984 and said to have
died after prolonged torture, was
secretly spirited through Syria
by Iranian gunmen and deliv-
ered to Iran for interrogation,
according to an Arab newsletter.
The London-based Al Taqrir
newsletter said Buckley was
flown by private jet from Damas-
cus airport in Syria to Tehran
less than a week after pro-Ira-
nian Shiite Muslim gunmen ab-
ducted him in Beirut on March
16, 1984.
The report, published in April
1985, could not be verified inde-
pendently.
At the time of Buckley's abduc-
tion, the United States described
him as a political officer at the
U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
Al Taqrir said Syrian President
Hafez Assad apparently learned
of Buckley's secret transit
through Damascus only after his
arrival in Tehran, and called Ira-
nian President Ali Khamenei to
William Buckley
Reportedly spirited through Syria
ask whether Iran had Buckley.
Khamenei reportedly said that
Iran indeed had "a senior CIA
man" in custody near the holy
city of Qom, but that the man
identified himself by the sur-
name of "McCloskey."
close connections to the attempts
to free American hostages in Leb-
anon say the man identified as
McCloskey almost certainly was
Buckley - and that he was sub.
jected to prolonged torture in
Iran to force him to divulge CIA
secrets.
Yesterday, the Washington
Post quoted U.S. officials as say-
ing the CIA spent a "small for-
tune" trying to find Buckley, de-
scribed as the agency's senior
terrorism expert and Beirut sta-
tion chief.
Sources familiar with the Shi-
ite Muslim newsletter said they
did not question the accuracy of
its Buckley report, which Al Taq-
rir editor Ali Bailout said was
attributed to the newsletter's
"strong Iranian contacts" in Teh-
ran.
Islamic Jihad, the pro-Iranian
group that claimed responsibility
for kidnapping Buckley and
other Americans in Beirut, said
it "executed" Buckley on Oct. 14,
1985. It released aq out-of-focus
photograph of what it claimed
was Buckley's body, but his body
has never been found.
Sources close to the hostage
crisis say Buckley, who was 56
when he was kidnapped, is be-
lieved to have died in May or
June 1985 of pneumonia and
other complications brought on
by torture and a lack of medical
attention.
If they are correct about the
time of Buckley's death, it would
mean he died at about the time
the United States began secretly
shipping arms to Iran as part of
President Reagan's initiative to
improve relations with Tehran
and free the hostages.
Sources in Lebanon have said
that immediately after Buckley
was kidnapped in Beirut, he was
driven over the Shouf mountain
range and into the Syrian-con-
trolled Bekaa Valley, handed
over to Iranian Revolutionary
Guards, taken to Damascus and
flown to Tehran in the small pri-
vate jet of Rafik Mohsen-Dost -
Iran's cabinet minister in charge
of the Revolutionary Guards.
Approved For Release 2011/08/31 : CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200025-4