No Terrorist Deals, U.S. Says : White House Rebuffs Ultimatum on 6 Hostages

The White House said today that it will not negotiate with terrorists who sent color pictures of six missing Frenchmen and Americans to Beirut newspapers and threatened “catastrophic” consequences unless their comrades held in Kuwait are freed.

“We will not allow ourselves to be intimidated by terrorist threats or permit such threats to compromise our fundamental policies and values,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Larry Speakes said in Washington.

The stark “final warning” from the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization was published in Beirut newspapers today along with photographs of the men, kidnaped in Lebanon between March 16, 1984, and March 22 this year.

Saying it will not wait long for Kuwait to act, the group declared: “We shall terrorize America and France forever.”

The photographs, sent in plain envelopes to the dailies, were accompanied by three typed Arabic-language statements signed by Islamic Jihad (Holy War), a shadowy group that is believed to be holding seven Westerners hostage.

The three different statements were addressed to the families of the hostages, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and “the international public, namely the American people.”

It was not clear whether Islamic Jihad meant that it will punish the hostages if Kuwaiti authorities do not free the alleged terrorists, or take some other action.

‘Quiet, Non-Public Manner’

“We are determined to obtain the release of the kidnaped Americans,” Speakes said in Washington. “We believe that we are presently following the best designed course to obtain this result in a quiet, non-public manner.”

Speakes added, “We have not negotiated with terrorists before, and that is our policy.”

In another development, Irish diplomatic sources said that an Irish employee of the United Nations relief agency in Lebanon was freed unharmed today, 36 hours after eight gunmen kidnaped him in Beirut. They said the captors of Aidan Walsh, 49, let him go in a suburb of Beirut. One Irish diplomatic source, discounting reports that Walsh had been seized by Islamic Jihad terrorists, said it was still not known who abducted him.

The six kidnap victims whose photographs were published today all appeared gaunt, and there was no indication when or where the pictures were taken. The men were identified as U.S. Embassy official William Buckley, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, the Rev. Lawrence Jenco and Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent of the Associated Press, all Americans, and Frenchmen Marcel Fontaine and Marcel Carton.

The letter to the hostages’ families said: “For the last time, we wish to stress that all contact with your abducted relatives will be cut off and the consequences will be catastrophic if you do not act seriously and force your governments to intervene for the release (of the alleged terrorists in Kuwait).”