Jackson Appeals for Release of 5 Captive Americans
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BEIRUT — In a letter published here Wednesday, American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson appealed for the release of five Americans kidnaped in Lebanon.
“In all candor, I must confess that the American hostages are an impediment to those of us in the West to argue our case for peace. We appeal to you on humanitarian grounds for their release,” Jackson’s full-page letter, published in Beirut’s English-language newspaper, the Daily Star, said.
Jackson negotiated the Jan. 3, 1984, release of U.S. Navy flier Lt. Robert O. Goodman Jr. from a Syrian military prison.
The kidnaped Americans are William Buckley, a U.S. Embassy political officer who was abducted on March 16, 1984; the Rev. Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian minister abducted on May 8, 1984; Peter Kilburn, a librarian of the American University of Beirut abducted on Dec. 3, 1984; Father Lawrence Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest kidnaped last Jan. 8, and Terry A. Anderson, chief Mideast correspondent for the Associated Press, who was abducted last March 16.
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