Rescue of Hostages Was Being Readied, Italy Says

Italy and the United States were preparing military rescue missions to free the hostages aboard the hijacked cruise liner Achille Lauro before the crisis ended Wednesday, an official spokesman said Thursday.

Antonio Ghirelli, spokesman for Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, confirmed a report in an Italian newspaper that the rescue teams would have moved if they had been convinced that the hijackers were following through on their radioed threats to kill passengers one by one until their demands were met.

Ghirelli said that while “the Americans were disposed to provide (military) help,” Italy “had everything in place” and planned to run a rescue operation on its own. He hinted that the plan involved slipping commandos aboard the hijacked liner from minisubmarines under cover of darkness.

Unannounced Visit

Craxi was quoted Thursday by the Turin newspaper La Stampa as saying that Maxwell Rabb, U.S. ambassador to Italy, made an unannounced visit to the prime minister’s Chigi Palace office Tuesday night to report that the Pentagon had a plan for a military rescue. It was the night that the terrorists claimed to have killed two hostages.

“But to make it practicable, the Americans needed time, at least until late Wednesday evening,” Craxi was quoted as saying.

Rabb also asked Italy to draw up a military rescue plan and insisted that Rome refuse to negotiate with the hijackers, La Stampa said.

Craxi reportedly replied: “We are seeking contact, not negotiations. We want to listen and talk, not negotiate.”

But he said that the Italian military also was ready for a rescue operation on its own, “if the insane homicide had been confirmed at the time.”

Although the prime minister told La Stampa a rescue operation would have been undertaken only as a last resort, he added: “We were ready. If there had been the possibility of a sea attack, we were in condition to do it by ourselves.”

In the United States, CBS news reported Thursday that a U.S. rescue team had reached Sicily on Wednesday morning and was planning a rescue mission for that night, when the hijackers surrendered. A U.S. destroyer and Navy reconnaissance planes had been shadowing the ship, CBS said.

NBC news quoted Administration officials as saying that a U.S. counterterrorist team on the ground in Egypt had been given the green light to attack the Palestinian gunmen on the Achille Lauro and free the hostages.

The commando team, made up of members from the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s Seals, had planned a nighttime assault in cooperation with the Italians, NBC said.

Meanwhile, a severe rift in Craxi’s five-party ruling coalition government over his dealings with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat developed Thursday in the wake of the hijack crisis.

It was to Arafat that Craxi, a Socialist, and Christian Democratic Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti first turned for help after the Achille Lauro was hijacked. Only the week before, Craxi and Andreotti men had gone to greater lengths than any other European leaders in condemning Israel’s bombing raid on PLO headquarters in Tunisia as “a terrorist act unworthy of a civilized country.”

Arranged Audience

Craxi had twice met with Arafat in Rome and Tunis, and Andreotti was instrumental in arranging the PLO leader’s audience with Pope John Paul II in 1983.

After the hijack crisis ended, Craxi publicly thanked Arafat, who he said “expressed condemnation (of the hijacking) and worked to find a positive solution.”

“It has suddenly become very clear just how far Mr. Craxi has nailed his colors to the PLO mast,” one government official was quoted Thursday as saying.

Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini, leader of the Republican Party, which has been critical of Craxi’s gestures toward the PLO, expressed doubt about Italy’s debt, if any, to the PLO.

“There is a need for caution,” he said. “The political judgment on whether the commando (the hijack group) was controlled by Arafat will be reviewed.”

Israel, which soured on Italy diplomatically after Craxi’s condemnation of the Tunisia bombing raid, said it has “irrefutable proof” that Arafat knew the Palestinian hijackers were aboard the Achille Lauro before the piracy took place.

Political commentators predicted that Craxi’s continued tenure as prime minister now hangs in the balance as a result of the suspicions and ill-feelings now surfacing in the wake of the hijacking.

Spadolini’s Republican Party, staunchly pro-American and a key member of the governing coalition, has called for an urgent parliamentary debate on Craxi’s and Andreotti’s Middle East policy and relations with the PLO. Two other coalition partners, the Liberals and Social Democrats, have supported the call, and all have published unusually strong editorials critical of Craxi in their party newspapers.

‘Road With No Exit’

The theme, expected to be repeated in the days ahead as Craxi remains under fire, was expressed in Spadolini’s party newspaper on the first day of the hijacking.

“To insist on a complacent policy towards the whole archipelago of terrorism which goes under the name of the PLO . . . would mean to persist along a road with no exit. Such a policy risks distorting completely the essential traits and the delicate balance of Italy’s Mediterranean policy. We repeat once again, the Republicans will not lend themselves to such a distortion.”