Held for 8 Months; Father Pays $10,000 ‘Fine’ : American Yachtsman Freed by Vietnam

After eight months of no news, no mail, no one “except my friendly interrogators,” American yachtsman William Mathers was released Thursday by the Vietnamese government.

Arriving here from Ho Chi Minh City, the balding, bearded Mathers said he was “very, very happy to be back.” His 80-foot schooner and crew were seized last July 21 off the coast of Vietnam.

Mathers, 41, a former New Yorker, now runs a diving and salvage operation based in Singapore. He was a Navy officer during the Vietnam War and served in the Mekong Delta area in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

He told reporters he had been held in solitary confinement in the delta town of Can Tho since his schooner was seized on a voyage from Singapore to Hong Kong via Thailand. The others aboard--two French women, an Australian and two children--were released earlier after payment of light fines.

The Vietnamese said Mathers’ boat was in their territorial waters. Mathers maintains it was 36 miles offshore, in recognized international waters, when it was seized.

Interrogation Sessions

Mathers said he was held at Can Tho, first in a 10-by-12-foot room and later aboard his schooner, the So Fong. He said he underwent interrogation in “four separate investigations,” but that he was not mistreated except for the forced seclusion. He was asked whether his interrogators had accused him of spying. “There was some of that,” he replied.

He said he had a copy of the novel “Shogun” by James Clavell, which “I read three times.”

“My emotions are confused and my perspective narrow,” he told reporters at Bangkok’s International Airport. “Right now my opinions are somewhat biased.”

In his meeting with reporters, Mathers expressed thanks to the State Department, the governments of France, Australia and Indonesia and U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar for their roles in his release.

But he declined to be more specific, saying he knew nothing about the conditions of the release. The case had been raised repeatedly with the Vietnamese government, though Washington and Hanoi do not have diplomatic relations.

Father Paid $10,000

In New York, Mathers’ father, William Mathers, told the Associated Press that he paid $10,000 to Vietnam for his son’s release.

“I paid it in cold cash, a fine demanded by the Vietnamese government,” the senior Mathers said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb expressed thanks to U.S. allies for their help in Mathers’ release. He emphasized “that the Vietnamese government never should have detained Mr. Mathers in the first place, never should have held him incommunicado for these many months.”

Mathers’ schooner remains at Can Tho, and there was no indication if or when it would be released.

Mathers said he will return to Singapore to “clean up my affairs” after a short stay here, then go to New York to see his family. “First,” he said, “I’m going to shave” the beard that started in captivity seven months ago.