Kidnaped Man’s Sons Seek Top-Level Answers

The children of a Huntington Beach hospital administrator kidnaped in Beirut last May are in Washington this week where they plan to press the Reagan Administration for answers about what the government is doing to bring their father home.

Together with relatives of six other Americans still being held hostage in Lebanon, Eric Jacobsen, 28, of Huntington Beach and his brother, Paul, 26, of Westminster will attend a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing scheduled for 10:30 a.m. today.

Although the hearing focuses on responsible press coverage of Middle Eastern hostage crises, Eric Jacobsen’s wife, Cathy, said the relatives of David P. Jacobsen, missing director of the American University Hospital in West Beirut, made the trip because they “just wanted answers.”

State Department Statement

“(The hostages’ families) thought that if they all got together and went to Congress maybe they’d get some answers by physically being there,” she said. “They thought that if they actually met someone and sat down with them, it would be different.”

Cathy Jacobsen said that, until now, her husband’s family has been told by the State Department only that the government is “working on” securing the release of Jacobsen and the other Americans, some of whom have been held captive for as long as 17 months. Her husband has also complained that media reports that his father and the other six would be released with the passengers of a TWA jetliner hijacked by Shia Muslim terrorists in June unfairly raised the family’s hopes.

“It’s nerve-wracking,” she said. “You get more anxious as time goes on, at least I do; I want to know what they’re doing. We want to know we’re doing something effective for (Jacobsen’s) release because we can’t just sit back and do nothing.”

The hostages’ families have also been trying to arrange a meeting at this time with President Reagan but had not been successful as of Monday afternoon, according to White House press aide Edward Djerejian.

“The President has met with the families and is certainly willing to meet with them again, but he is on a reduced schedule following his surgery (for removal of a malignant polyp in his colon),” Djerejian said.

Shirley Green, deputy press secretary to Vice President George Bush, said she had “heard rumors” that Bush had agreed to meet with the hostages’ relatives on Thursday but that no meeting had been scheduled as of late Monday afternoon.

Before the hearing today, the Jacobsens and several former hostages will also appear at a press conference, which is aimed at “(raising) a dialogue (on terrorism) between the press, hostage families and ex-hostages,” according to Tim Maga, a spokesman for Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton), who called the meeting.

Maga said participants in the conference hope to attract attention to the plight of Americans still being held in Lebanon and to rally support for legislation that would cut down on the chance of Americans being taken hostage in the future. One “positive legislative response” might be to require heavier security on overseas flights, Maga said.

He said senators and members of the House of Representatives had been invited to attend but that none had responded by late Monday afternoon.

In a related effort, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) is reported by his office to be preparing a letter urging Reagan to make freedom of the hostages “the highest priority” of his Administration. The plea has been endorsed by at least 20 members of Congress.

“The congressmen involved wanted to show they hadn’t forgotten (the hostages) and that the seven hostages are still uppermost in people’s minds. It’s a way to focus attention on the situation,” Karen Johanson, Hoyer’s press secretary, said.

David P. Jacobsen, 54, a former administrator at Alhambra Community Hospital in Los Angeles County, had served as director of the American University Hospital in Beirut since December, 1984. He was kidnaped May 28 by six masked gunmen as he walked to his office on campus.

The group Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War) originally claimed responsibility for the kidnaping but later issued a statement denying it had carried out the abduction. However, the group did release a photograph of Jacobsen in early June, showing he was still alive.

Cathy Jacobsen said that her husband’s sister, Diane, 24, who lives in Long Beach, decided not to accompany her two brothers to Washington, partly because of the expense involved. “Also, the questions she has are the same as Paul and Eric, and she thought they would represent her,” she said.