Gunmen Kidnap Three Americans, 4th Man in Beirut

Gunmen in police uniforms kidnaped four teachers, at least three of them Americans, from a college campus in Muslim West Beirut on Saturday night, according to eyewitnesses and college officials.

The latest escalation in terrorism against Westerners in the Lebanese capital brought to 22 the number of foreigners confirmed missing in Lebanon and believed to be held by Muslim extremists.

Reports from the Lebanese capital said that the kidnapers, wearing olive green uniforms and red berets, gained access to the campus of Beirut University College on the pretense of providing security for foreign faculty members. After calling the foreign professors to a meeting, the gunmen leveled their weapons at the four men, took them captive and sped away in a police vehicle.

Guards Not Suspicious

Guards on the campus staff, who were apparently not suspicious at police offering additional security for foreigners in the Muslim sector of the city, were quoted as saying that the dean of the college, a woman who was not identified, had also gone to the meeting when the group was summoned, but she was not abducted or harmed.

The college identified the latest victims of a round of kidnapings that has now swept up as many as eight Westerners since Jan. 12 as:

--Jesse Turner, an assistant mathematics and computer sciences instructor. He reportedly was a visiting professor at UC Riverside in 1982.

--Robert Polhill, 56, assistant professor of business studies.

--Alann Steen, 48, a journalism professor and former instructor at Chico State University.

--Mithileshwar Singh, a professor of business and finance and chairman of the business department. The college said Singh had an American green card--a work permit for a legal alien--and a State Department spokesman said he is possibly a permanent legal resident of the United States.

Shortly after the abduction, the college issued a statement appealing to the kidnapers to release Polhill and Singh on humanitarian grounds. An official of the school told CBS News that both Polhill and Singh have health problems which require them to take medication.

Reaction to the latest kidnaping of American hostages came quickly. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) declared that it is now time for all Americans to leave Beirut, and Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggested that the new hostage-taking might have been encouraged by the Iran- contras scandal.

“My hunch,” Pell said in an interview on Cable News Network, “is that the trading of arms for hostages was an encouraging factor to the kidnapers.”

Iran Ties to Kidnapers

Pell’s comment, reflecting the explosively controversial nature of the hostage issue as it has mushroomed in recent months, referred to the Administration’s unsuccessful clandestine attempts to use arms shipments to improve relations with Iran’s revolutionary regime, which is considered to be influential with the Muslim extremists believed to be responsible for the kidnapings.

The kidnapings took place about 7 p.m. local time in a section that was once the most well-to-do neighborhood of West Beirut.

Shortly after the reports reached Washington, the office of national security adviser Frank C. Carlucci relayed the word to President Reagan, who was spending the weekend at Camp David, Md.

White House spokesman Roman Popadiuk said the President “expressed deep concern and requested that he be kept abreast of the issue as events unfold.”

The State Department later issued a statement deploring the taking of more hostages, but spokesmen refused to publicly link the upsurge in kidnapings to this country’s efforts to extradite Mohammed Ali Hamadi from West Germany to be tried on murder charges growing out of the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner to Beirut.

At the time of the Saturday night episode, five Americans were already being held hostage by extremist groups in Lebanon, and an intensive effort was apparently under way to negotiate the freedom of at least some of them.

Word From Waite

Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite, who has long sought freedom for Western kidnap victims through negotiations with the terrorist groups in the Middle East, has been in Lebanon since Jan. 12. Concerns had arisen over his safety because he had not been seen since he left his Beirut hotel four days ago escorted by Druze militiamen.

A statement by the church Saturday said that Waite had been in contact with Anglican officials and that he was continuing his effort to secure the release of hostages.

“Both our contact and Terry Waite’s host tell us that Terry Waite is continuing his conversations and is safe and well,” the church statement said. One unconfirmed report on the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio Saturday said that Waite, who is the personal representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was headed back for his hotel after his negotiations at Baalbek in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley, the area where the hostages are believed held.

Number of Americans Unknown

State Department officials have for months urged Americans to leave West Beirut, publicly stressing the official government view as recently as last week. Officials refused Saturday to discuss how many Americans are still living in the city.

The Senate Republican leader’s call for all Americans to leave Lebanon was sounded Saturday during an appearance in Manchester, N.H.

“The security situation in Beirut has deteriorated so badly that we’re no longer in a position to do anything worthwhile there,” Dole commented. “We’re only inviting more trouble--more kidnapings--by leaving our diplomats so exposed.

“It’s also high time that any remaining private Americans leave Lebanon, too. It’s clear they’ve become sitting ducks for every lunatic political faction roaming the streets.

‘Terrorists Heating Up’

“The terrorists are heating up their silent and deadly war. We have to minimize American targets available to them, and then take whatever counteraction is necessary to show we won’t tolerate their gutless brand of warfare.”

The college where the four were taken Saturday is about a mile south of the better-known American University of Beirut, but it has no ties to the university. The college was an all-women’s school until the 1970s.

Two and possibly four West Germans have been kidnaped in Beirut since Hamadi’s arrest in Frankfurt, and there were anonymous telephone threats Saturday that one of the West German victims would be killed unless the government in Bonn freed Hamadi. However, they allowed a second deadline for the “execution” of a hostage to pass without a word.

The United States, in an effort to speed extradition of the TWA hijacking suspect, agreed to forgo the death penalty, but the episode has turned into a major political issue in West Germany where Chancellor Helmut Kohl is bidding for reelection today.

No Word on Demands

In its statement released Saturday afternoon, the State Department said no demands had been received from the kidnapers of the four faculty members of Beirut University College.

“We have no indication who may be responsible for the kidnaping and there have so far been no claims of responsibility, nor have any demands been made,” the statement said.

“We strongly condemn this action and call for the immediate safe release of all hostages in Lebanon.”

Late Saturday, President Riyad F. Nassar of Beirut University College said in a statement released through the institution’s New York office that he is in touch with numerous local leaders and the American Embassy in Beirut, “all of whom have assured me that they will do their utmost to gain the release of these men as soon as possible.”

“Our students and faculty are very upset by the abduction of these valuable teachers, whose reason for being in Lebanon is to help educate our youth while promoting better understanding between East and West,” Nassar said.

” . . . We express to all their families and friends our most profound sorrow that this event has taken place and we wish to reassure them that we here in Lebanon are doing everything that is humanly possible to bring about their immediate and safe return,” he added.

Of the Americans now captive in Lebanon, Associated Press Middle East bureau chief Terry A. Anderson, 39, who was abducted March 16, 1985, has been missing longest. American University professor Thomas Sutherland, 55, was taken in June, 1985.

Last year, three Americans were seized: Frank H. Reed, 53, the head of a private school in West Beirut; Joseph J. Cicippio, 56, an American University official, and Edward A. Tracy, 56, an illustrator and salesman of the Koran.

Murder Acknowledged

Earlier this month, the United States acknowledged for the first time that William Buckley, a U.S. Embassy official reported to have been the CIA’s station chief in Beirut, had been killed by his captors. Buckley was kidnaped March 16, 1984.

According to one report from Beirut on Saturday, the kidnapers in their police dress went to the tree-lined campus about midday and advised foreigners on the faculty and staff not to leave. They returned in the early evening and called the meeting that suddenly ended with the abduction of the four men.

Students at the college were quoted Saturday as saying that the kidnaped professors had been determined to remain at the school despite the mounting tension of recent days. They were reported to have been increasingly cautious, however, even to the extent of engaging porters to buy items they needed so it would not be necessary for them to leave the campus.