Beirut Hostage’s Son Says Reagan Shares Blame for Slaying of U.S. Man

Eric Jacobsen, son of one of the remaining five Americans missing in Lebanon, said Saturday that he partially blames President Reagan for the death of another American hostage whose body was found near Beirut this week.

Peter Kilburn, 62, of San Francisco was one of three people killed in an apparent retaliation for the bombing of Libya by the United States. Five other Americans, including David P. Jacobsen of Huntington Beach, remain unaccounted for.

“What concerns me is that the Administration admitted that they knew there could be reprisals if Libya was bombed,” Jacobsen said in an interview.

“President Reagan has sacrificed the lives of those men. If he is willing to do that, then he must assume partial responsibility if those men are killed.”

Jacobsen’s father, the former administrator of the American University Hospital in Beirut, has been in captivity since last May 26. He reportedly is held with Terry Anderson, an Associated Press correspondent; the Rev. Lawrence Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest; and Thomas Sutherland, the university’s dean of the Agriculture School.

Another American, diplomat William Buckley, also is missing in Lebanon. But his whereabouts, or even if he is still alive, have never been confirmed.

Jacobsen said the bombing of Libya, which was a retaliation for the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub in which an American soldier and three others were killed, and Kilburn’s death have aggravated “a circle of violence” in which innocent people die.

“It did not start with the bombing in Germany and it will not end with Peter Kilburn’s death,” he said.

Jacobsen, who has spent the past few months pushing for the Reagan Administration to negotiate with the American hostages’ captors, said the recent violence in the Middle East would make an eventual safe release of the remaining hostages even more difficult.

“This has complicated the situation even more,” he said. “It will now be more difficult to get these men released.

“The Administration’s refusal to negotiate means that these men are now being held captive for entirely different reasons than when they were first kidnaped. These men could be executed . . . just like Peter Kilburn was killed in retaliation for the bombing of Libya.”

Jacobsen said the captors have made their demands clear since last July. Those demands are the release of 17 Muslims held by Kuwait for the bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in that country in December, 1983.

“They (U.S. officials) know what the demands are,” he said. “If they would agree to talk, then they could be home.”

Admitting that the past two days have been “tough,” Jacobsen said he did not know what he and the other members of the hostages’ families would try now to secure the hostages’ release.