Reported Safe, Well in Syria

American journalist Jeremy Levin, kidnaped 11 months ago in Beirut, escaped or was freed today in apparent good health and is being cared for in Damascus, Syria.

The circumstances of his return to freedom were not clear. Levin was quoted as saying he fled from his captors and walked for two hours. The Syrian government said it had won his release through negotiations.

“He looks beautiful,” Levin’s wife, Lucille, said in Washington after she was shown a news photograph of her husband with a beard, rumpled hair and a bewildered look on his face.

She called her husband’s release “a real Valentine present.”

Syrian Role Claimed

Syrian Ambassador Rafic Jouejati said that his government secured the 54-year-old Levin’s release and that the reporter had been examined at a medical center in the Syrian capital and found to be well.

But AFP, the French news agency, quoted Levin as saying he escaped, although he could not identify who held him or say exactly how he managed to get free.

“I fled toward midnight from the two-story villa where I was being held,” he was quoted as saying. “I walked for two hours before hearing a dog and human voices.

“I though my kidnapers were at my heels so I hid under a truck. But when I saw it was Syrian soldiers, I gave myself up,” he said.

Taken by Lone Gunman

Levin, the Beirut bureau chief for Cable News Network, disappeared last March 7. According to the AFP interview, he said he was captured by a lone gunman about 20 years old.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said in Santa Barbara, Calif., where President Reagan is vacationing, that the U.S. Embassy in Damascus had been informed by the Syrian government that Levin “is in Syrian hands and is safe in Damascus.”

“We are certainly pleased that he has been released,” Speakes said.

Speakes said there is no word about four other Americans who have been missing in Lebanon.

Diplomat, Clergy

They are William Buckley, an embassy political officer who was kidnaped last March 16; the Rev. Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian minister who was abducted May 8; Peter Kilburn, a librarian at the American University of Beirut who disappeared Dec. 3, and the Rev. Lawrence Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest and head of the Catholic Relief Services Office in Beirut who was kidnaped Jan. 8.

Ed Turner, CNN executive vice president, said in Atlanta, “The White House has authorized an Air Force plane to fly Mrs. Levin and members of the family to a rendezvous point (in Europe) with Jerry. . . . We hope all that happens within the next dozen hours.”

Reports were that Levin showed up at a Syrian army installation in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek.

Release Stories Conflict

Although the Syrian ambassador in Washington said the newsman was freed after negotiations, a Syrian source said he had escaped and found his way to the Syrian military post.

Christian-run Voice of Lebanon radio in Beirut also reported his freedom as an escape.

But a man claiming to represent the shadowy extremist group Islamic Holy War said in a telephone call to a Western news agency in Beirut that “the truth of the matter is that we released . . . Levin after many approaches by some brotherly and effective sides.”

AFP quoted Levin as saying he had been held alone and knew of no other American captives. However, one of the other Americans kidnaped in Beirut, Buckley, mentioned Levin’s name in a taped interview broadcast by a British television network last month.

In the tape obtained by Visnews, Buckley said he, Levin, and Weir were all well.