U.N. Plan for Transfer of Hostages to Syria Reported

Government sources said today that a U.N. envoy was negotiating a plan under which the 39 American hijack hostages would be moved to Syria and held there until Israel frees 735 Lebanese prisoners. One hostage said Israel should “grow up” and release the Lebanese.

Shia Muslim leader Nabih Berri produced three of the hostages today for reporters. Allyn Conwell of Houston said he believes that Israel should “grow up” and release its prisoners “because there’s got to be one hell of a strong cry from the American people for justice to prevail in this situation.”

Jean-Claude Aime, a Haitian serving as special envoy for the U.N. secretary-general, Javier Perez de Cuellar, has visited Beirut and was in Jerusalem today for discussions with Israeli officials.

Aime said he had not been to Damascus, and would give no information on his talks.

U.N. Officials Wary

The Lebanese sources said the Americans could be taken to Damascus within 48 hours, but U.N. officials in New York said reports that an agreement is near should be treated with “extreme caution.”

The United States and Syria, which is the main power broker in Lebanon and backs most Muslim militias, have been in contact about resolving the crisis.

The American hostages have been held since Shia extremists hijacked a TWA jetliner June 14 on a flight between Athens and Rome. They killed a U.S. Navy petty officer, Robert Dean Stethem, and have released the more than 100 other people aboard.

Berri, chief of the more moderate Amal militia, proposed Wednesday that the Americans be moved to a Western embassy or to Syria until Israel frees the prisoners as demanded by both Berri and the hijackers.

Possible arrangements with France or Switzerland collapsed Thursday when both insisted that the hostages be freed unconditionally.

Israel Standing Firm

An Israeli official said today that Israel has not changed its policy of gradually releasing the Lebanese prisoners as security conditions in south Lebanon permit.

Israel let 31 of the prisoners go Monday and said the release was unrelated to the American hostages.

Berri produced the three Americans at his sandbagged home in West Beirut. After the news conference he gave the hostages--Conwell, Simon Grossmayer of Algonquin, Ill., and Father James W. McLoughlin of Geneva, Ill.--a luncheon of mashed chickpeas, eggplant, barbecued lamb and chicken.

Conwell said it does not surprise him that the United States has not asked Israel publicly to release the Lebanese prisoners because Washington does not “want to cave in to terrorism.”

But he urged Israel to “grow up and reciprocate by doing what I think all people in the world know is right.”

Check on His Health

Grossmayer, who had a lung removed several years ago, said the main reason for the visit was to give Berri a chance to check on his health.

“I’m OK,” he said, adding that he has been examined by “several doctors” during his captivity.

Conwell said in a later interview that he is “distressed” to learn that the Reagan Administration is now demanding the immediate and unconditional release of seven Americans kidnaped in Lebanon before the TWA hijacking along with the release of the airplane hostages.

“That distresses me,” Conwell said in a telephone interview, “because they are certainly requesting an entity--the Amal movement--to make concessions that they have absolutely either no control over or would appear to not even have adequate channels of communications to that other group.”

Conwell said he does not know who is holding the seven Americans who were kidnaped in 1984 and 1985, and has been unable to learn where any of them are held. He said he is “very well convinced” that the Amal militia had nothing to do with the kidnapings.