Release Raises Hopes of Other Five Families

The release Sunday of hostage David P. Jacobsen after 17 months of captivity in Lebanon gave new hope to the families and friends of five Americans still held in the Middle East.

In New York City, a former hostage, Father Lawrence Jenco, said he stayed up all night waiting for the State Department’s confirmation that one of his fellow hostages had been freed.

“It’s an extreme joy for me . . . it’s a joy for the Jacobsen family,” said Jenco, before attending Mass. “I talked to them, and we all have highs, but we have lows too. . . . We had to talk to the other families who were also hoping.”

Honored in New York

Jenco, in New York to be honored by Catholic Relief Services, whose Beirut operations he formerly headed, said he couldn’t tell whether Jacobsen’s release hinted that other captives might be freed.

“I can’t read the signs of the time,” he said. It makes you wonder. . . . I’m just glad David’s home.”

Jenco, kidnaped Jan. 8, 1985, was released after 19 months.

After Jacobsen’s release, the Shia Muslim group Islamic Jihad issued a statement saying the U.S. government had made approaches that could lead to the release of other captives.

Son Among Hostages

“My heart is pumping when I heard word that things were moving,” said Leota Sprague, 87, whose son, Frank H. Reed, is among the remaining hostages.

“We just hope and pray, now that one has been released, that this will be resolved and they will all be released,” she said in Malden, Mass.

Reed, 53, director of a private school in Beirut, was kidnaped Sept. 9 while driving to a golf course, and a pro-Libyan group called Arab Revolutionary Cells-Omar Moukhtar Forces claimed responsibility.

Another Massachusetts native, William Buckley, also was held by Islamic Jihad. Buckley, 56, a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, originally from Medford, was kidnaped in March, 1984. The group has claimed he was killed, but his body has never been found.

‘Happy’ for Jacobsen

Thomas Cicippio, 63, brother of hostage Joseph J. Cicippio, 56, said of Jacobsen’s release: “We’re very happy that he has been released, and we just hope that the other hostages have been released also.”

The acting controller of the American University in Beirut, Cicippio was abducted Sept. 12. The Revolutionary Justice Organization has claimed responsibility.

Last week, Thomas Cicippio attended a birthday party in Philadelphia held by Peggy Say for her brother, hostage Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press.

In Batavia, N.Y., Say talked briefly by phone Sunday with Jacobsen’s son, Eric.

“Peggy just expressed her happiness at his father’s release and told him we were OK and not to worry about us,” Penny Anderson, Terry Anderson’s sister-in-law, said.

“We were very, very sad that Terry wasn’t (released),” Penny Anderson said.

Joan Sutherland, wife of hostage Thomas Sutherland, had been in Des Moines, Iowa, visiting her parents but returned home to Denver on Sunday.

“I think there’s . . . very, very great pressure now to have all of them (hostages) come out,” Joan Sutherland said before leaving Des Moines. “And that’s why . . . our hopes are high.

Sutherland was dean of the American University of Beirut’s agricultural school when he was kidnaped.

Relatives of the other American hostage, Edward A. Tracy, of Rutland, Vt., could not be reached for comment.