Cruel Choice: Give In or Risk Captives

The extremist Muslim kidnapers who freed the Rev. Benjamin Weir maneuvered the Reagan Administration into a cruel dilemma, forcing it to choose between surrendering to terrorist demands or risking the possible murder of Americans still held in Beirut.

The Administration apparently struggled for three days--while Weir’s release remained a secret--to devise a diplomatic formula for turning aside what amounted to a demand for a basic change in U.S. policy toward hostage situations without directly antagonizing the kidnapers, who still hold as many as six American prisoners in Lebanon.

Ultimately, U.S. officials decided that they could only reject the terrorists’ demands and hope for the best.

“To give in to demands would only encourage further acts (of terrorism) and lead to the taking of additional hostages,” White House spokesman Edward P. Djerejian and State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said Thursday, reading identical statements.

Sending a Message

Weir was sent home by his captors last weekend to deliver to President Reagan their demand for the freedom of 17 terrorists serving life sentences for bombing the U.S. and French embassies and other buildings in Kuwait. And Weir said Thursday that his captors have indicated that the remaining American captives might be executed if the United States does not intervene with the Kuwaitis.

In rejecting that threat, Kalb followed the letter of the Administration’s basic position on hostage situations, saying: “This Administration will not pressure other governments to make concessions to those holding hostages.” And a senior White House official said Thursday that the U.S. government did not negotiate Weir’s release, either.

Officials emphasized, however, that the Administration continues to pursue the release of the remaining captives. And it seemed clear that they had sought to devise a diplomatic way of rejecting the kidnaper’s demands without appearing to be provocative. As one official said, “What we did not want to do was take the demands and fling them in their face at the first possible instant.”

Thus, the official U.S. response was designed to cushion the blow of the rejection.

Kalb said: “We will review the Rev. Weir’s suggestions carefully and will continue to do everything possible consistent with U.S. policy to obtain the expeditious release of the remaining hostages.”

He added that, while the United States will not bargain with the kidnapers, “we, of course, are always willing to discuss the safety of American citizens.”

However, a U.S. official later denied that the government has softened its longstanding refusal to consider concessions to terrorists.

The senior White House official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the government takes seriously the terrorists’ threats to kill some of the remaining captives if their demands are not met. Six Americans are believed to remain in the hands of kidnapers in Lebanon.

‘Profound Concern’

“There is profound concern for the safety of these people, which is very deep and abiding,” the official said. However, he added, Weir was given no specific deadline despite his statement that the time for action is short.

The official went on to say that the United States is not in direct contact with the kidnapers, although he said the Administration is pursuing “five avenues” in its effort to gain the hostages’ release.

He would not spell out these channels but said they involve intermediaries “who have some influence on the captors, . . . third parties in a position to influence them.”

Asked why Weir was released, the official said: “I think we have to take at face value that he was sent to carry the messages.”

In the past, the United States has talked to representatives of groups holding American hostages. For instance, the Administration was able to finesse its policy against bargaining with terrorists this summer when the hijackers of TWA Flight 847 demanded the release of several hundred prisoners, most of them Lebanese Shia Muslims, from Atlit detention camp in Israel.

Because Israel had previously announced its intention to free the prisoners as soon as the security situation warranted, the United States was able to suggest a “no deal” deal.

American officials told the hijackers that Israel would refuse to release the prisoners as long as the TWA hostages were held, in effect promising the prisoners’ release once the hostages were free. The hostages were released in July and Israel released the last of the Atlit detainees earlier this month.

But the Atlit prisoners had not been convicted or even accused of specific crimes. They were being held under provisions of Israel’s security laws, which generally are used to hold people for comparatively short periods.

Originally Capital Offenses

The 17 prisoners in Kuwait, on the other hand, were convicted by Kuwaiti courts of a series of terrorist bombings for which they once faced the death penalty. U.S. officials are known to believe that it would be a serious mistake to trade such people for innocent hostages because to do so would mark every American as potential “trading stock” whenever terrorists are captured and punished.