On Videotape, Glass Says That He Was a Spy for CIA

Lebanese kidnapers released a videotape Tuesday in which captive American journalist Charles Glass read a statement saying he spied for the United States.

“Many of you know me as a journalist,” said Glass, a native of Los Angeles. “I used the press as a cover for my main job with the CIA.

“I’m not the only one to use the press as a cover for those things,” he continued on the videotape, on which the poor sound quality often made it difficult to hear his precise words. “Many people who work for the agency used the same cover, and some of them were arrested in some countries, and I am one of them.

“I came back to Lebanon on a secret mission from the office of the CIA in London,” he said.

In Washington, the State Department immediately denied that Glass has ever been employed by the government and said his statement appeared to have been made “under duress.”

American broadcasting officials said the tape released Tuesday, in which Glass was seen from the waist up, wearing a dark blue track suit, showed him in poor shape after his ordeal.

“Charlie looked terrified,” said a longtime friend with the network.

Glass, who was abducted south of Beirut on June 17, is being held by a group calling itself The Organization for the Free People’s Defense.

In a statement that accompanied the release of the tape to a Western news agency in West Beirut, the group said it was revealing “some facts from the outcome of the preliminary interrogation of American spy Charles Glass.”

The kidnapers’ statement also said their interrogations will reveal “all the Zionist plots,” a reference to their accusation that Glass also spied for Israel.

To his colleagues, the allegations against Glass were bitterly ironic, as the 36-year-old American was an acerbic critic of both Israeli and U.S. policy toward the Arabs.

Glass, who was visiting Beirut to gather material for a book about the area, was formerly a correspondent in Lebanon for the ABC television network and Newsweek magazine.

He scored a number of notable scoops during the hijacking of a Trans World Airlines jetliner to Beirut by Shia Muslim gunmen in 1985, during which an American passenger was murdered. There has been speculation that the journalist’s abduction was somehow linked with the upcoming trial in West Germany of Mohammed Ali Hamadi, one of the accused TWA hijackers.

The American network official said that as Glass haltingly read the statement from sheets of yellow paper, it was clear at times that he could not decipher the handwriting, suggesting that the statement had been written by someone else. He occasionally looked pleadingly off-camera for assistance.

Information from hostages released in Lebanon has suggested that such propaganda tapes are often made upon threat of death, with a kidnaper, stationed out of the camera’s view, pointing a gun at the hostage.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Glass “is not now and never has been an employee of the United States government.” However, he seemed to weaken that unequivocal statement by refusing to comment when asked if Glass might have some sort of association with the CIA short of direct employment.

“I’m not going to take it any further than what I just answered,” Redman said, adding, “for no reasons other than the very obvious.”

U.S. spokesmen traditionally refuse to confirm or deny whether individuals are associated with the CIA, a policy designed to avoid creating situations in which it might be possible to identify undercover CIA agents.

Concerning Glass’ assertion that other journalists were CIA agents, Redman referred to a decade-old CIA policy of not recruiting Americans representing U.S. newspapers and broadcast outlets. That policy does not apply, however, to foreign journalists or to free-lance correspondents.

“Any statements made by hostages under such circumstances are always made under duress,” Redman said. “This tape, like previous videotapes of hostages, is apparently another cynical attempt to manipulate public opinion. We repeat that Mr. Glass and all the hostages, innocent victims, should be released immediately and unconditionally.”

Western officials said the kidnapers’ announcement was a serious blow to efforts by Syria, the dominant foreign power in Lebanon, to obtain Glass’ quick release, since the kidnapers have now stated a case for keeping him.

Glass was abducted from an area nominally under Syrian military control, and the Syrian government has been pressing Iran and Iranian-led fundamentalist groups in Lebanon to help achieve his freedom.

A special envoy from President Reagan, Ambassador Vernon A. Walters, left Damascus on Tuesday after conferring with Syrian President Hafez Assad for several hours on the hostage issue and other matters.

One reason that the kidnapers may have forced Glass to confess to espionage is that leaders of the fundamentalist Shia Muslim group Hezbollah, or Party of God, have condemned kidnapings of innocent civilians such as journalists and said such acts could be justified only in instances of espionage.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster, in Washington, contributed to this article.