Ex-Prisoner in Lebanon ‘Free at Last’Journalist Home, Makes Plea for Other Captives

Freed journalist Jeremy Levin made an emotional return to the United States on Monday, appealing for the release of four Americans missing in Lebanon and thanking both President Reagan and the Syrian government for helping end his 11 months of captivity.

Levin, welcomed at Andrews Air Force Base by dozens of well-wishers and Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth W. Dam, jubilantly proclaimed himself a “born-again American” and said, “Now I’m home, free at last.”

4 Missing Americans

But he appealed to Muslim extremists who had kidnaped him last March in Beirut to free four other Americans who have disappeared in Lebanon and who he has said may be imprisoned in the same building where he was held.

“Let my brothers go, let my brothers go,” he said. “In the name of our common lord, God and Allah, please let them go.”

He said that Syrian soldiers “treated me like a long-lost brother” when he wandered into their camp in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon last week.

“I understand this attitude is one that exists from the top down,” he added. “President (Hafez) Assad, I’m told, has taken a personal interest in this present hostage crisis.”

Levin, who arrived from a military hospital in Frankfurt aboard a plane provided by the White House, had shaved off a beard he had grown during his captivity, leaving only a mustache.

Tehran Hostage on Hand

Among the persons watching as Levin walked down the red-carpeted stairs of the Air Force C-135, clutching a small American flag, was L. Bruce Laingen, one of the Americans who were held hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for 444 days.

Levin, 52, was Beirut bureau chief for Cable News Network when he was kidnaped at gunpoint on March 7, 1984. He said in Damascus last week that he was held in solitary confinement for 11 months until he managed to slip out of his chains and flee on foot early Wednesday.

When he reached Syrian positions, he said Monday, a Syrian army patrol “flushed me out from under a truck where I’d been hiding in sheer fear and terror.”

But, despite his suspicious appearance in dirty pajamas and without shoes or identification, he said, the Syrians responded “gently, kindly and courteously” and made him feel “immediately that I was safe at last.”

Allowed to Flee

Although Levin said last week that he had escaped, both Syrian and U.S. officials indicated that his captors had allowed him to flee as the result of Syrian negotiations.

President Reagan, whom Levin thanked Monday “for all his help in getting me back home,” called Assad on Saturday to express his appreciation, according to the White House.

Dam, who greeted Levin on behalf of vacationing Secretary of State George P. Shultz, said that the other missing Americans “should know they are not forgotten” and that efforts are being made to obtain their release. U.S. officials have repeatedly refused to describe those efforts.

The four missing Americans are diplomat William Buckley, Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir, Father Lawrence Jenco, head of the Beirut office of Catholic Relief Services, and Peter Kilburn, a librarian at the American University of Beirut.

Tearfully Thanks Wife

Levin tearfully thanked his wife, Lucille, at the airport. She had visited Damascus in November to appeal for her husband’s release, and she accompanied him on the plane from West Germany.

“God has given me the most beautiful, loving, dedicated human in the world to be my life partner,” he said.