HOSTAGE ORDEAL COMING TO AN END?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100370002-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 30, 1991
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100370002-0
STAT
Hostage ordeal coming
to an end?
STANSFIELD TURNER
are we hope that the im-
pending release of West-
ern hostages in Beirut sig-
nals an end to this
particular episode of Middle East-
ern terrorism? I believe the answer
is a cautious yes.
Terrorism has historically come
and gone in cycles, and we may be
nearing the end of this current one.
The difference today is that this cy-
cle is not being suppressed by the
use of police and military forces, as
has usually been the case. Instead,
changes in the political environment
are bringing Western hostages
home.
The Syrians, having lost their So-
viet patron and having seen in the
Persian Gulf war that the United
States could play an effective role in
the Middle East. have decided to co-
operate with the West in removing
this "irritant" at small cost to them-
selves. The Iranians, recognizing
the necessity for economic inter-
course with the Western world after
a decade of near isolation, have de-
cided to remove this impediment to
reopening commercial relations.
The Lebanese,. after accepting Syr-
ian tutelage and thereby restoring z
semblance of governmental control
over most of their country, have de-
cided the presence of hostages is im-
peding further return to normalcy.
Any of these three favorable con-
ditions could reverse overnight. The
Syrians could become disillusioned
with the United States, especially as
it attempts to straddle Arab and Is-
raeli interests in a Middle East
peace process. The Iranians could
revert to militant fundamentalism.
Or the Lebanese could see their gov-
ernment collapse back into impo-
tency.
Alternatively, terrorism could be
perpetuated by fanatic Arab groups
determined to interrupt any prog-
ress toward peace with Israel or by
Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
This simply says that it may still
take time to bring this cycle of ter-
rorism to a close. What is significant,
though, is that so many players cur-
rently appear to see it in their inter.
ests to play a role in halting hostage
taking. These players include the
Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians, Israe.
lis, hostage holders, United Nations,
the Swiss, Western Europeans and
Americans.
Such widespread concern is
building a momentum that will be
difficult to stop.
International awareness of the
terrorist problem and a willingness
to cooperate in dealing with it are
key to defeating it. For instance, one
of the names involved in negoti-
ations for the release of the remain-
ing 10 Western hostages is Moham-
med Hamadi.
Hamadi hijacked TWA Flight 847
to Beirut in June 1985 and murdered
an American passenger. Although
he escaped when the incident ended,
we knew a good deal about Hamadi
by then and asked the West Germans
to monitor his brother living in their
country. When Hamadi joined that
brother a year and a half later, the
Germans arrested them both, took
them to court, and convicted and
jailed them. That kind of coopera-
tion inhibits terrorists and must be
encouraged.
A current demand of one group
of hostage holders is that the
Hamadi brothers be released in ex-
change for two Germans among the
10 remaining hostages in Beirut. We
must resist that, even at the expense
of delay in the release of the non-
Germans.
The freeing of duly convicted
criminals would send a dangerous
signal to would-be future terrorists.
They would assume that, if they
were caught, some accomplice
would take some new hostages and
make a deal to spring them loose.
In short, despite repeated protes-
tations in this country that we will
never countenance deals with ter-
rorists, we will. But some deals are
acceptable and some are not. We
need to learn to better discriminate
among them.
For instance, since hostage tak-
ing in Beirut began in 1982, we have
been involved in eight deals. Six
were basically "arms-for-hostages"
and were ill-advised because they
left us vulnerable to having more
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Data
hostages taken if the Iranians
wanted more arms. Another was a
swap of 566 prisoners in Israeli jails
for 40 Americans who had been hi-
jacked on TWA Flight 847. That was
more acceptable because the Israeli
prisoners were more like prisoners-
of-war than convicted criminals and
were very likely to be released any-
way.
Tbday's proposed swaps, which
constitute the eighth deal, are simi-
lar and seem acceptable to me, as
long as the Hamadis are not in-
cluded. But it is important that we as
a nation understand that, in sit-
uations like this, difficult judgments
- such as whether or not to turn
loose convicted terrorists - have to
be made. We should not merely fol-
low some arbitrary rule such as"' We
will never make deals."
Making deals is, of course, not
our only recourse when confronted
with hostage taking, even though
with respect to Beirut over the past
nine years the alternatives have not
appeared attractive.
Our intelligence and military-
rescue capabilities have not been
adequate to risk going in and rescu-
ing hostages. We have eschewed
punitive military attacks because of
our moral scruples about killing in-
nocents, even though we had good
evidence of those responsible for
bombing our embassy there.
One attempt to employ the IA's
dirt tricks de artment backfired
W en Our partner. Le anege intelli-
gence, went off on its own and killed
CONTINUED
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10_ CIA-RDP99-00418R000100370002-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100370002-0
80 innocents in an attempted assas-
sination.
Economic pressures were judged
ineffective because we were dealing
with groups of terrorists, not na-
tions, or because we could not mus-
ter sufficient international coopera-
tion to make embargoes effective.
With this lack of viable recourse,
we have been understandably frus-
trated. But we can be pleased that we
have become sufficiently sophisti-
cated about not rushing into arms-
for-hostages deals, ill-fated rescue
missions or some other low-pro-
bability effort.
And we should be encouraged
that as we continue to draw friends
and allies into greater cooperation
against terrorism, the chances of de-
feating this cycle in the Middle East
will continue to improve. The battle
may not yet be over, but the balance
has tipped in our direction.
Stansfield Turner was director of
the Central Intelligence Agency
from 1977 to 1981. He is most re-
cently the author of "Terrorism and
Democracy" (Houghton Mifflin,
1991), which examines the experi-
ences of eight U.S. presidents in deal-
ing with hostage situations. c 1991,
New Perspectives Quarterly. This ar-
ticle was distributed by the Los An-
geles Times Syndicate.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100370002-0