U.S. Rejects Hostages’ Plea for Negotiations : ‘There Is No Alternative,’ Letter to Reagan, Purportedly Signed by 4 Beirut Captives, Says

A day after four American hostages were reported to have been executed by terrorists in Beirut, a letter purportedly signed by them pleaded Friday with President Reagan to open negotiations for their release, saying, “There is no alternative.”

“It is in your power to have us home by Christmas,” according to the letter addressed to Reagan and delivered to the Associated Press bureau in Beirut. “Will you not have mercy on us and our families and do so?”

Although the authenticity of the message still had not been confirmed, the plea was promptly rejected by both the White House and the State Department, where spokesmen again warned that the United States would not negotiate with terrorists and holds the captors responsible for the safety of kidnaped Americans.

In a continuing war of nerves between the Administration and extremists belonging to the shadowy group Islamic Jihad, a package of nine letters was thrown Friday from a car outside the West Beirut offices of the AP. A guard on duty there was told to deliver the package to the news agency.

In addition to the letter pleading for presidential intercession, the package included letters to each of the hostage families and a private message to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert A.K. Runcie, who has offered to act as a mediator, as well as another addressed to Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and George M. O’Brien (R-Ill.).

Islamic Jihad, a fundamentalist Shia Muslim organization, has said it would hold the Americans until the government of Kuwait releases 17 colleagues convicted of bombing the U.S. and French embassies there in December, 1983. Five people died in the bombings. The Kuwaiti government has refused to free any of the prisoners.

The ominous letter to the President, dated at 1 p.m. Friday (3 a.m. PST), said that the kidnapers holding the hostages have no connection with Syria, Iran or local Shia leaders.

“They say they will not be moved and they are growing impatient,” the message said of the hostages’ captors. “You have tried other routes but have not won the release of a single hostage in more than 18 months. We have no chance of escaping and our captors say if any attempt is made to rescue us, they and we will die.”

Earlier Negotiation Noted

Noting that the Reagan Administration negotiated to win the release last June of 39 American hostages from a hijacked TWA passenger jet, the letter said: “You . . . did so because you believed that saving the lives of innocent hostages should be the primary goal. We are asking for the same consideration. There is no alternative.”

“Your ‘quiet diplomacy’ is not working,” the letter declared. The word not was underlined.

The letter added: “We know of your distaste for bargaining with terrorists. Do you know the consequences your continued refusal will have for us?”

Despite the tone of the communcation, the immediate reaction of the hostage families was one of relief that the hostages apparently are still alive. On Thursday, an anonymous telephone call to Agence France-Presse claimed that the captives were about to be executed. A later call claimed that the executions had been carried out.

The letter to the President, made public in Beirut by the Associated Press, was signed by Father Lawrence Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest; AP Middle East bureau chief Terry A. Anderson; American University Hospital director David P. Jacobsen and American University Prof. Thomas Sutherland.

Believed Authentic

The AP reported from Beirut that reporters there familiar with Anderson’s handwriting believed that he wrote the letter to the President. Sutherland’s wife said she believed his signature was genuine.

The terrorists holding the group asserted that Peter Kilburn, 50, an American University professor kidnaped last November, is being held by others, and they claimed last month that hostage William Buckley, an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, had been killed in retaliation for Israel’s Oct. 1 air raid on Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunisia that killed 72 people.

State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said Friday that the United States is still operating on the assumption that all six hostages are alive.

Both Kalb and White House spokesman Larry Speakes responded to the letter Friday by reiterating that the United States will not negotiate with terrorists. But at the same time they reaffirmed a willingness to talk directly or indirectly with the captors.

Asked what the Administration plans in the wake of the messages, Kalb replied: “You can take it for granted that there will be all of the required follow-ups.

‘We Remain in Touch’

“It has been made clear on more than one occasion that the United States does not get involved in negotiations but is ready, of course, to talk about the release of the hostages and how to get the hostages released as quickly as possible,” he added. “We remain in touch with a number of parties in the region on this whole issue. . . .”

Excerpts from Terry Anderson’s letter to his family in Batavia, N.Y., were even more poignant than the plea to the President:

“Our captors say they’ve done their best to settle this peacefully,” he wrote, “but the U.S. simply says nothing publicly or privately. However distasteful it might be, Reagan must negotiate if he cares at all about our well-being. And he must do so soon. William Buckley is dead after one year in captivity. I don’t want to share that fate and neither do Father Jenco, or Tom or David.”

In their letter to O’Brien and Dornan, the hostages thanked the two congressmen for speaking on the House floor about their plight and pleaded with them to intercede with the President.

Want Quick Action

“Our release can be very rapid, our captors say,” they wrote in their brief message to the lawmakers. “We ask you, your fellow congressmen and members of the U.S. Senate to try to persuade President Reagan to take the only course available to win our release and to take it quickly.”

Members of the hostages’ families, saying they were encouraged after the frightening telephone calls Thursday, renewed their own calls for stepped up efforts to win their freedom.

“This is more encouraging, but the time has come for our government to talk,” said Mae Mihelich of Joliet, Ill., Jenco’s sister. “This is an opening. The window has been ajar and we’re hoping this will open it more--perhaps far enough for the hostages to get out.

“We know the American ambassador in Syria and the Syrian government have been talking but our government has not talked to the captors,” she added. “I think they need to talk to the captors and to the right people in Kuwait.”

Promises Seem Empty

Mihelich’s remarks were echoed by Anderson’s sister, Peggy Say, in New York on Friday afternoon.

Noting that the families have no knowledge that the United States has talked directly with anyone in Beirut about the captives, Say declared that “the Administration has made promises to the families which seem empty in view of the fact that the hostages are not home. If they mean what they say, they will begin to talk with the captors.”

Dornan was in London at the time the letter addressed to him was released. A statement issued by his office Friday night said that he was seeking to contact the Archbishop of Canterbury and that he planned to contact the White House today.

“I stand ready,” he said, “to do whatever I can to begin a negotiations process that brings freedom to four innocent, decent, dedicated human beings whose only reason for being in Lebanon was to help ease the agony of this small, battered country. I believe the kidnapers do not now want to kill our Americans but are seeking common ground for negotiations.”

Death Threat

The flurry of activity concerning the captives comes nearly two months after the Rev. Benjamin Weir was freed following 16 months of captivity. Weir was told to deliver a warning that the kidnapers would begin executing the remaining captives unless their demands are met.

Although the government continues to take the position that Buckley is alive, a Beirut newspaper published a picture of a shroud-wrapped body resembling the embassy official after a message from Islamic Jihad claimed that he had been killed.

In the letter to President Reagan, believed to have been written by Anderson, the four said that they are deteriorating both physically and mentally.

“We are kept in a small, damp (two words scratched out) 24 hours a day without proper exercise, sanitation, fresh air or balanced diet,” the message said. “We have only intermittent access to outside news. It is difficult to remain cheerful and optimistic when we see no sign anywhere of progress toward our release.”