Syria Denies Casey Sought to Aid Captives

The Syrian foreign minister today denied that CIA Director William J. Casey visited Damascus to seek the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon.

“We are utterly astonished that such completely unfounded reports are published,” Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh said.

“Whatever the purpose of launching such false news is, the Syrian government categorically denies that Mr. Casey has visited Damascus at any time at all,” the foreign minister said.

Meanwhile today, U.S. officials are playing down Casey’s role, saying instead that Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite may have been the major actor.

‘Waite Was Instrumental’

“Terry Waite was instrumental, and I don’t think he has really gotten the proper credit for it yet,” said one official, who spoke on condition he not be identified. Waite, a special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was in Amman, Jordan, when Father Lawrence M. Jenco was released by his kidnapers.

Waite hurried to Damascus and accompanied Jenco to Frankfurt, West Germany, aboard a U.S. Air Force plane that flew the former hostage out of the Middle East. One American official described putting Waite on the plane as an effort to give him credit for his help.

The source said that Casey’s mission three weeks ago was a failure to the extent that it was aimed at winning the release of all Americans being held hostage by a radical Shia Muslim faction calling itself the Islamic Jihad.