Hostage Accord Fails; Beirut Ordeal Goes On : U.S. Officials Feel Radicals Are to Blame

A delicately crafted plan to win freedom for the 39 remaining hostages from TWA Flight 847 broke down in Beirut early Saturday, just when it appeared that the Americans were on their way home by way of Syria and West Germany.

The disappointing setback threw the 16-day-old crisis into an uncertain new phase and came after a chaotic 12-hour period in which U.S. officials both here and in Beirut, along with many of the hostages themselves, were convinced that the ordeal had finally ended.

In announcing cancellation of the plan to move the 39 Americans to the Syrian capital of Damascus and then on to a U.S. Air Force base in Frankfurt, West Germany, Shia Muslim leader Nabih Berri suddenly demanded a U.S. guarantee that there would be no retaliation for the airliner hijacking, the murder of a young Navy diver aboard the plane and the holding of the hostages.

Speech by Reagan

Jaafar Shalabi, an official in Berri’s Amal militia, was quoted as saying that the demand for a no-retaliation pledge arose because of a speech President Reagan delivered in Chicago on Friday. In the speech, Reagan warned that “terrorists and those who support them must and will be held to account.” Replying to a question, the President had referred to the hijackers as “thugs and murderers and barbarians” and renewed his pledge not to bargain with them.

Administration officials, however, were convinced Saturday that the real cause of the snag was the refusal of extremist Shia gunmen, who are holding four of the hostages apart from the main body of Americans, to deliver their captives to Berri’s rival militiamen for release.

These four hostages are believed to be under the control of the extremist Muslim faction known as Hezbollah, or “Party of God,” a pro-Iranian faction that has challenged the larger, Syrian-backed Amal militia for influence among Lebanon’s Shia population.

‘It’s the Thugs . . . ‘

“It’s not Nabih Berri who’s holding this up,” one White House official said. “It’s the thugs and barbarians who started this.” The official said Reagan personally put the blame on Hezbollah.

Stung by the turn of events, the Reagan Administration publicly expressed optimism and held to its demands that all the airline hostages, plus seven other Americans held by other kidnapers in Lebanon, be set free.

Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said Reagan was “obviously disappointed that the release that we anticipated has not been completed, but he is hopeful that the situation will resolve itself.”

Speakes said the President has ordered diplomatic contacts “with all parties that are involved” to continue in an effort to end the deadlock.

As the release had been planned, the first step toward settling the crisis would have left the seven kidnap victims in Lebanon, providing additional leverage on the Israeli government to release the 735 Lebanese prisoners whom it still holds. The U.S. and Israeli governments have firmly refused to link the Americans held hostage in Lebanon with the Lebanese prisoners in Israel, but Israeli officials acknowledged Saturday that release of the American hostages would make it easier for Israel to free its detainees, most of whom are Shia Muslims.

Freedom for Lebanese

Freedom for the Lebanese, held in a prison camp in northern Israel, was demanded by the gunmen who first commandeered the TWA jet and took the Americans hostage.

In the pre-dawn hours Saturday, Reagan Administration officials felt certain that the big break had come in resolving the crisis.

At 3:45 a.m. Washington time, U.S. Ambassador Reginald Bartholomew telephoned the White House from Beirut with word that the hostages had boarded buses. Half an hour later, White House spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters that the captives had apparently begun their journey to freedom.

In Damascus, Syrian government officials had proclaimed a “happy end” to the crisis. Reagan was prepared to announce the news personally, expecting to step before television cameras in mid-morning Saturday at about the time a U.S. Air Force plane carrying the hostages was to be departing Damascus for Frankfurt.

The unexpected snag shattered hopes that the hostages would be safely in Frankfurt before the day was over. Thirty-five of them had waited throughout the day in a schoolyard in a Muslim suburb. With them were officials of the International Red Cross who had been expected to accompany the hostages on a four-hour journey overland to Damascus.

When nightfall came, the hostages’ location was again unclear. Their captors were believed to have returned them to the various locations throughout south Beirut’s Shia neighborhoods, where they had been hidden since the early days of the hijacking drama.

The decision to take the trip from Beirut to Damascus overland was apparently made because of concern about the mechanical condition of the hijacked TWA plane. The Boeing 727 is still parked on the runway, but its engines have been kept running constantly during the two weeks it has been there to provide air conditioning for the three captive crew members and the Shia militiamen who held them.

Despite the shock and disappointment over failure of the plan, Administration officials insisted that it had not foundered on any substantive disagreement between Washington and Beirut. White House national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane said Saturday evening that he did not take Berri’s new demand for a no-retaliation pledge with great seriousness.

“The basic terms of the situation were set long ago,” McFarlane added. “It’s just a matter of each side engaging the credibility and endurance of the other.”

McFarlane acknowledged, however, that Administration officials working to resolve the crisis had been concerned all along about the Hezbollah militiamen holding the four hostages who did not appear at the departure site on Saturday.

Throughout the two weeks that Berri has been the point of contact, there have been doubts as to whether he could control the more radical elements, including the hijackers who initially captured the airliner bound from Athens to Rome on June 14.

McFarlane’s comments raised a question of whether the new demands had been introduced merely as a cover when Berri was unable to produce the four hostages held by Hezbollah.

Whatever the case, the State Department, in an unusual action later Saturday, telephoned reporters to read them a one-sentence statement: “The United States reaffirms its longstanding support for the preservation of Lebanon, its government, its stability, and its security, and for the mitigation of the suffering of its people.”

The statement was viewed by some as a bid to assure Berri and other Shia leaders that the United States plans no military intervention or large-scale retaliation for the hijacking. A State Department spokesman, Pedro Martinez, who read the statement, refused to say whether a more explicit private reassurance had been sent to Berri.

At the White House and State Department, where officials had remained all night Friday and through much of Saturday monitoring developments, it was acknowledged Saturday afternoon that the 39 would remain in captivity for at least one more night.

Reagan, who was awakened more than once Friday night to be briefed on progress of the planned release, met with national security staffers several times Saturday.

Line in Reagan Speech

Riyad Ajami, a Lebanese scholar at Washington’s Smithsonian Institution with close ties to Berri, told The Times on Saturday that Administration officials have told him that the President planned to put a line in his radio speech on Saturday stating that he did not consider Berri among the “thugs and murderers and barbarians” whom he had lambasted in his Chicago speech. Ajami said he had passed that word along to Berri in Beirut.

There was no such reference in the President’s radio speech, but White House officials made it a point to tell reporters that the President did not blame Berri for the derailment of the plan nor consider him among the “thugs and murderers and barbarians.”

After the last-minute breakdown, the White House reimposed a news blackout that had been briefly lifted when it appeared that the end of the crisis was at hand.

One official said privately, however, that the Administration was still counting heavily upon Syria to salvage the arrangement worked out to win the release of the airline passengers and crew.

“We’re in contact with the Syrians,” he told The Times. “It seems to be a problem that the Syrians must resolve. They are the ones who assumed the responsibility for it. They were genuinely surprised (by Berri’s new demand), and they don’t like surprises. They have something invested in it now--prestige.”