Stung by Criticism, Peggy Say Fights On : Sister Crusades for Hostage’s Freedom

When Peggy Say met with Lt. Col. Oliver L. North in the White House last October, she begged for action to free her brother, Terry A. Anderson, who had then been held hostage in Lebanon for a year and a half.

She left the meeting, which occurred just before Anderson’s birthday, in tears after telling North: “I once thought Terry might not have to celebrate his 39th birthday in captivity. Now he’ll be damn lucky if he doesn’t turn 40 in there.”

North, showing no anger, replied, “Peggy, I promise you we are doing everything we can.”

Only later did Say learn how true that was. The sale of arms to Iran, engineered by North and designed to win the freedom of Say’s brother and the other American hostages in Lebanon, became public in early November.

The arms sales have also turned into the gravest crisis of Ronald Reagan’s presidency--and Say’s persistent pleading for Anderson’s freedom may well have helped to persuade Reagan to proceed with the secret arms sales.

Some of her mail has turned hostile. One writer said she “damned near brought down a President” and urged her to “go live in the Middle East and trade yourself off.”

The criticism stings. “At the beginning,” she said in an interview, “I had the feeling, ‘Oh, my God, what have I done?’ But in thinking about it and talking to a lot of other people, I had to realize that I can’t be blamed . . . for the poor judgment of Administration officials in choosing this initiative.”

In a quavering voice that reflected the weight of her statement, she declared: “If somebody said to me today, ‘We have a chance to trade weapons to anybody and get your brother out,’ I’m pretty sure I’d have to say, ‘Thank you, but let him be.’ ”

Devoted Effort

That is a difficult position for a woman who has devoted the last two years of her life--since practically the day Anderson was kidnaped on March 16, 1985--to winning her brother’s freedom.

Terry Anderson’s ordeal has also been Peggy Say’s. Among the relatives of the 13 Americans who have been held hostage in Beirut since 1985, she has been the most outspoken, the most demanding, the most abrasive. She has established herself as a familiar figure in public and in the corridors of the government.

She met with President Reagan and Vice President George Bush. She recalls Reagan telling her on Oct. 28, 1985, after the arms deals had begun: “I don’t care what anybody says, I’m going to get those men home.”

And at the White House, Say met half a dozen times with North. “I know in retrospect,” she said, “that it had to be very difficult” for North to listen to her “rant and rave” without divulging details of his efforts to free Anderson and other hostages.

North Contact Halted

Say’s October, 1986, meeting with North was her last. He was fired on Nov. 25 for diverting profits from the Iran arms sale to the Nicaraguan contras.

Now she is frozen out of high-level government contacts. In her efforts to free her brother, she has taken on a lower profile. But she has not given up.

“I can’t stop just because some people may find it offensive,” she declared. “I figure it’s too bad for them; it’s not their brother.”

Peggy Say, 46, was born Margaret Rae Anderson in Lorain, Ohio. She was living in De Leon Springs, Fla., when Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, was kidnaped in Beirut. His captors, the Shia Muslim group called Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War), offered to release him in return for 17 Arab prisoners held by Kuwait.

Two weeks later, Say and her husband, David, both of whom had lived in Batavia earlier, moved back. They rent a three-bedroom home with white siding on a busy street in this town of 16,000 in a rich farm belt of Upstate New York. David Say’s building and electrical contracting business brings in more money here than it did in Florida.

Closer to Help

The Says returned here not only to seek emotional support from family and friends, but also to be closer to those they hope can help her brother--government officials and reporters based in Washington and New York.

Say said she had never thought of herself as a public person. Nevertheless, she quickly became the chief spokeswoman for the hostages’ families.

Puffing a cigarette, she remembered the “onslaught” of reporters and television camera crews each time any news about hostages came out of the Middle East. Friends answered the two telephones. Say was news.

She was also a nagging concern for the Reagan Administration. The Tower Commission report on the arms scandal cited an Oct. 4, 1986, computer message from Robert C. McFarlane, Reagan’s former national security adviser, to Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, McFarlane’s successor. Although out of government, McFarlane retained a home-computer link with the White House.

‘Beating Up’ Administration

“By the way,” McFarlane said, “I watched the news tonight and saw Peggy Say beating up on the Administration for not getting the Beirut hostages out.”

He volunteered to spend “a couple of months” working on the hostage problem. “No guarantee and no need for any sponsorship (except for air fares and hotels),” he said, “but I might be able to turn something up. Think about it.”

The next day, North flew to West Germany, the Tower Commission said, to meet with Iranian officials. He reported to Poindexter on Oct. 10 that Iran, which held considerable sway over the captors in Lebanon, would do its “utmost to secure release of remaining hostages” if the United States sold it more weapons for its war with Iraq.

After Iran received a shipment of 500 TOW missiles from the United States later in October, David P. Jacobsen of Huntington Beach, Calif., was freed after 17 months in captivity. That left only Anderson and Thomas Sutherland still in captivity among those who had been kidnaped before the arms deals began in August, 1985.

Six More Captured

But starting in September of last year, six more Americans were kidnaped. John H. Adams, the State Department official who monitors the hostage situation and reports developments to the families of the hostages, said the recent abductions have damaged the cause of Anderson and Sutherland.

Adams said the two longtime hostages have been “blurred into these latest six” kidnaping victims, who did not heed U.S. government warnings to get out of Lebanon. “The collective mentality in this country said, ‘What in the hell are they still doing out there anyway?’ ” Adams said.

Six of today’s eight hostages have wives in Lebanon who have turned to local authorities in their efforts to free their husbands, Adams said. That has made the Reagan Administration’s job “a lot easier,” he said.

“There has not been the clamor from the present families to meet at high levels in Washington,” he explained. “They’ve been told that their contact with the State Department will be here, and I will give them whatever we know.”

Access Praised

Say praised Adams for being readily accessible to her. But she is not so satisfied with the government’s performance at higher levels. Politicians, she complained, are more interested in ducking the Iran arms scandal’s fallout than in freeing the hostages.

“There’s this insanity in Washington, this fear,” she said. “And I want to say to them, ‘You think you’re scared, how the hell do you think my brother feels?’ ”

She still makes a daily round of telephone calls to Washington, beginning with Adams and proceeding to officials representing Lebanon, Syria and Greece, among others. The Associated Press also is on her list. The questions are always the same: Have you heard anything? Is anything going on?

Before the Iran scandal broke, her list would have included someone at the National Security Council staff. McFarlane, describing Say as “insistent but reasonable,” said they used to discuss a variety of plans.

“She had considerable imagination and would think up things we might do and had not tried,” McFarlane recalled. Some of the ideas were good, he said, adding: “When I explained some were not good ideas, she would buy it.”

Sets Up Command Post

Say has set up a command post in a window-walled room at the front of her house. A desk, telephone, personal computer and files of clippings and correspondence fill the narrow, well-lit room. On an entire wall are pictures to remind her of the last two years: photos of her brother, of Say with Reagan, of her with Bush, of her with Mother Teresa.

Say writes to anyone with influence in the Middle East. She gets help from a Washington-based humanitarian organization, No Greater Love, which, board Chairman Carmella LaSpada said, sent 4,000 toys and boxes of lollipops to Lebanon last Christmas and is negotiating to send medical supplies to Damascus, Syria, and Beirut.

“You never know what’s going to make them respond,” LaSpada said.

Say travels a great deal and went to Damascus last July. Her only outside help on expenses comes from the Associated Press, she said. Frequently, she talks with members of other hostage families and with former hostages.

Several people described her as bright and energetic, an inspiration as they have tried to cope with their own crises. Jacobsen, calling her “a lovely lady,” said Say and his own son, Eric, were instrumental in his release because they “kept our situation before the American public.”

Some Question Tactics

Others question Say’s assertive tactics. In Boise, Ida., Estelle Ronneburg, mother of hostage Jesse Turner, said: “I don’t agree with her in some ways because she may do harm if we try to force things.”

Some of the letters Say receives openly accuse her of subverting the Administration’s foreign policy. “Your constant complaining and harping about the government’s inaction led to the whole Iran arms mess,” a Colorado woman wrote.

Anderson’s ordeal has taken a toll on Peggy Say’s family. David Say, her husband of nine years, remembers the missed meals when she was away and the pressures that “drained both of us at different times, where we say we just can’t take it anymore.” Although he increasingly travels with her, he said, “It never gets any easier.”

Nevertheless, the Says can still laugh about the time someone from the Middle East telephoned repeatedly, claiming to have Anderson and demanding ransom. “Honey, it’s the kidnapers again,” David Say told his wife after one call. He said they wanted $50,000, some Lee jeans and a stack of break-dance records. When the Says refused, the callers gave up.

Now the Says are trying to get their lives back to something approaching normal. Peggy Say is spending more time working on a cottage in the rolling countryside nearby and caring for her potted plants.

Time for Children

She also makes more time for children: a stepson, David, 18, who is in the Air Force; a 25-year-old daughter, Melody Brewington, who recently gave birth to a son, and a 24-year-old son, Edward Langendorfer, who works in her husband’s contracting business. Both of her own children, by a previous marriage, live nearby in Batavia.

Anderson has two brothers and another sister who live in Florida.

A third brother, Glenn Anderson Jr., made a videotape for broadcast in Lebanon last June, seeking Terry’s release. In the emotional appeal, he mentioned that their father had died of cancer earlier in the year and said that he himself was suffering from the disease and wished to see his brother “one more time.” Glenn Anderson, eldest member of the family, died a week later, and Say does not know whether her hostage brother knows of either death.

Now Say is the oldest of the siblings and, because her mother is dead, the head of the family. Soon after the kidnaping she assumed leadership of the effort to free her brother, she said, because the other siblings “found it hard to deal with the media.”

Say has managed to cope with reporters. Now she is trying to cope with the criticism her campaign has attracted. And she is looking forward to breaking out some Elvis Presley records and Miller beer when her brother comes home.

But now she waits. “Half in hope and half in fear,” she said. “What’s it going to be?”

Lee May, a member of The Times’ Washington bureau, was recently on assignment in New York to do this story.