Weinberger, Shultz Differ on Hijack IDs

Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger said Friday that the United States knows the organization but not the identities of the terrorists who hijacked TWA Flight 847 and held Americans hostage in Lebanon.

His remark at a press conference conflicted with a statement by Secretary of State George P.Shultz, who had said earlier that U.S. officials know who the hijackers are. Weinberger was in Sacramento to deliver a speech to civic leaders.

Asked if the United States is close to identifying the two terrorists who commandeered the TWA jetliner after it left Athens and held the crew and 39 passengers hostage for 16 days, Weinberger said: “I think we know generally only the group from which they came. I don’t think we have at this point the precise knowledge we would like to have, but we are gaining a great deal of information all the time.”

Shortly after the last American hostages were freed, the FBI, using photos provided by television networks, reportedly identified not only the two hijackers who murdered an American Navy diver while the jet was on the ground in Beirut but also some of the Shia Muslim gunmen who later boarded the hijacked aircraft.

Positive Identification

In Washington, a State Department official who declined to be identified by name said that U.S. intelligence officials claim to have collected enough information about the hijackers--including complete descriptions and the names they used to purchase plane tickets--to positively identify them if they are apprehended.

Weinberger said he believes that the Administration does not need to build a consensus among Americans for retaliation against terrorists.

“What we have to do is find out the most effective means of retaliation--not just for retaliation’s . . . sake--but to try to prevent it from happening in the future,” he said.”We are continuing to do that, and I think the public generally is very supportive of that.”