FATE OF U.S. HOSTAGE UNKNOWN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200067-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2011
• Sequence Number: 67
• Publication Date: October 5, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/31 :CIA-RDP91-005878000100200067-8
ARTICLE ,
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
5 October 1985
Fate of U.S. Hostage Unknown
Terrorist Report of Slaying
Of Buckley Viewed `Seriously'
By Nora Boustany
Special to The Washington Post
BEIRUT, Oct. 4-U.S. Embassy officials said today
that they were taking seriously a report by Islamic ter-
rorists that they had executed embassy political officer
William Buckley but said they had no confirmation of his
fate.
The fundamentalist Islamic Jihad group reported kill-
ing Buckley, 57, early today in a communique delivered
to local newspapers that was accompanied by an appar-
ently recent color photograph of the diplomat, who was
abducted 19 months ago. The statement, which gave no
details of his purported death, said Buckley had been
killed in reprisal for Tuesday's Israeli raid on the head- ,
quarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in
Tunis. At least 60 Tunisians and Palestinians died in the
raid.
It said his body would be put "at the disposal" of the
families of those killed in the Israeli raid.
The statement came hours before several dozen
members of the 150-strong Soviet diplomatic commu-
nity in the Lebanese capital were evacuated to Damas-
cus, Syria, following the kidnaping of four Soviet offi-
cials Monday, the killing of one of them and the threat
by another Islamic fundamentalist group to blow up the
Soviet Embassy in Beirut by this afternoonvnless the
mission were vacated.
"We are taking the Islamic Jihad statement very se-
riously but we don't know quite what to
make of it. He was not dead when the pic-
ture was taken," a senior U.S. Embassy of-
ficial said.
[In Washington, President Reagan said
the United States had no confirmation that
Buckley had been executed, staff writer
David B. Ottaway reported.
["Until we have something definite, we're
not going to comment," he said.
[State Department spokesman Bernard
Kalb said the government was "urgently"
seeking additional information about the
Islamic Jihad report but was still operating
on the assumption that "all the (six Amer-
ican) hostages are alive."
[Kalb also said that the State Department
learned in early August that another Amer-
ican, Steven Donahue, was being held
against his will in Lebanon and has sought
without success since then to establish his
whereabouts and why he was being held.
"Our understanding is that thin is not a po-
litica! situation and is in no way comparable
to that of the other American hostages," he
said. "There have been no demands made of
the United States or any other govern-
ment " he added.
[Donahue, Kalb said, has been in "fre-
quent" telephone contact with his wife, Jo-
anna, who lives in Hollywood, Fla, The
American was reported yesterday to have
been kidnaped by a right-wing Christian
group in Lebanon while working on a book
on the narcotics trade there and subse-
quently to have been taken from his original
captors by a rival faction.)
The photograph of Buckley that was de-
livered this morning reportedly showed him
looking haggard, with a gray beard. The
Polaroid snapshot was a fresh one, accord-
ing to photography specialists who closely
examined it. Last May 15, Islamic Jihad dis-
tributed pictures of five of the American
hostages, including Buckley, a native of
Medford, Mass. Six U.S. citizens have been
kidnaped in west Beirut since Buckley's ab-
duction on March 16, 1984; one of them,
the Rev. Benjamin Weir, was released Sept.
14.
Today's Is_~atni~ Jihad communique, de-
livered after midnigTit-to two leading pa-
pers, An Nahar and As Safir, as well as to
an international news agency, focused pri-
marily on alleged American involvement in
the Israeli strike against the PLO in Tunis.
But it was also critical of PLO leader Yasser
Arafat, who was thought to be the target of
Tuesday's raid, along with Jordan's King
Hussein and Egypt's President Hosni Mu-
barak.
After declaring that it had tried Bucklev
and found him guilty of being the Lebanon
station chief of the CIA the len th ty
written statement in ra is went on to say
that "since we know fup well t t America
and Israel are res nsible for kiAin
lems in unis, and that this oceration was
or nized and carried out under CIA su r-
vision ... , we ereby announce in revenge
for the blood of martyrs, the execution" of
Buckley.
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Islamic Jihad is a fundamentalist Shiite
Moslem group linked to Iran. It has de-
manded the release of 17 prisoners held in
Kuwait on charges of carryuing out a series
of bomb attacks against Kuwaiti, American
and French targets in December 1983.
Weir said at a press conference last
month after his release from 16 months in
captivity that Islamic Jihad was preparing to
execute the remaining American captives if
Kuwait did not free the 17.
There have been reports recently that
the group would settle for the release of the
two Lebanese among the prisoners in Ku-
wait.
The abduction Monday of three Soviet
diplomats and the embassy physician by the
Islamic Liberation Organization, a hitherto
unknown group demanding that aSyrian-
backed assault against the northern city of
Tripoli be halted, came after telephone calls
to western news agencies Sunday claiming
on behalf of Islamic Jihad that some of the
six American hostages in Lebanon would be
produced at a press conference to convey a
message to the American public and gov-
ernment. There has been no further word
of such an appearance by any of the hos-
tages.
The continuing Soviet hostage drama,
the slaying of consular officer Arkady Kat-
kov, whose body was found by Lebanese
police on Wednesday, and the threat to de-
stroy the embassy have confronted the So-
viets directly for the first time in Lebanon
with terrorism carried out in the name of
Islam.
At the heavily guarded and fortified em-
bassy this morning, between 70 and 100
nonessential diplomats, their families ands
Soviet journalists made their farewells to
colleagues remaining in the Lebanese cap-
ital.
The evacuees left for Damascus in a bus
and truck convoy guarded by Druze militia-
men and Lebanese police, and will be flown
on to Moscow.
Their departure came in the early hours
of a cease-fire negotiated last night in Da-
mascus between Syrian President Hafez
Assad-who backs a number of leftist Leb-
anese militias attacking Sunni Moslem fun-
damentalists in the northern Lebanese city
of Tripoli-and leaders of the warring mi-
litias.
The violence in Tripoli, the country's
second largest city, has killed more than
500 people and injured more than 1,000
during the last three week. Prospects of
the cease-fire were considered to be uncer-
tain, and there was no word today from the
captors of the remaining three Soviet hos-
tages.
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