All Louisiana Hostages Due to Be Freed Today : Cubans Release First of 28 There; Offer in Atlanta Rejected

Cuban inmates at the burned-out federal prison here freed one hostage unharmed Thursday night and tentatively agreed to release their remaining 27 hostages today.

At Atlanta’s riot-torn federal prison, meanwhile, Cuban inmates there rejected a proposal Thursday to release more than half of their 94 hostages.

The release of prison security guard William Hoffpauir in Oakdale was taped by a pool television crew allowed into the prison administration building--the only part of the compound held by authorities.

Cuban prisoners clapped and cheered as their comrades led Hoffpauir through the compound to the administration building, where he was embraced by Bureau of Prisons employees as he burst into tears.

Negotiator on Tape

On the videotape before Hoffpauir was led in, an unidentified government negotiator was heard to say the following to one of the four Cuban inmates who has been negotiating with authorities:

“OK, we need to have a typed agreement in here at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. We want to call all four of them in here. All four will sign the agreement and then they will release the other 27 officers. The agreement will say this agreement goes into effect immediately upon the release of the remaining 27 officers.”

And, he added, turning to the TV crew, “They want to know for sure it’s reported on TV.”

The Cuban prisoner was heard to say, “You got it,” and the pair shook hands.

Justice Department spokesman Mark Sheehan later said the time had been changed to 1 p.m. He refused to confirm or deny any other elements of the videotape.

Hoffpauir was hustled into an ambulance and taken to Humana Hospital in Oakdale where a Bureau of Prisons guard barred the door to reporters.

J. D. Williams, regional deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Prisons, said at the prison following Hoffpauir’s release that officials are “still concerned about the other 27 and hopefully they will be released in as good as shape.”

In Atlanta, federal officials struggling to break a four-day impasse permitted three prominent Cuban refugees to act as mediators Thursday in negotiations with rioting prisoners holding 94 hostages at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

Millionaire emigre businessman Jorge Mas Canosa, poet-writer Armando Valladares and former political prisoner Roberto Martin Perez entered the prison to meet with three of the inmate leaders Thursday evening.

“These people were desired by the (prisoners),” Justice Department spokesman Tom Stewart said. “They do not represent our views, speak for us or represent us in any way.”

But both Mas and Valladares have close ties to the Reagan Administration. Mas, 48, a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion, is founder of a powerful anti-Castro lobbying group, the Cuban-American National Foundation.

He was a key proponent of Radio Marti, the U.S.-funded station that broadcasts into Cuba. He also is a major contributor in local, state and national political races.

Author of Best-Seller

Valladares, a political prisoner for 22 years in Cuba’s worst prisons, was freed in 1982. He wrote the book “Against All Hope,” an international best-seller about the tortures he and others suffered there.

Martin Perez, also a former political prisoner, was freed in May after 27 years. He has mediated prison disputes in Cuba and knows several of the detainees who have taken control of the facility in Atlanta.

The inmate leaders met with the Cuban mediators for more than an hour and a half Thursday, then returned to inmate-controlled parts of the prison to discuss with other inmates the proposal to release “50 or about hostages” as a show of good faith, said Wayne Davis, an FBI special agent.

But after more than five hours of debate among inmates, during which the proposed hostage release was scaled back from 50 hostages to three, an inmate spokesman told the FBI that no hostages would be released Thursday night.

“They were about to do it, but the majority said no,” Davis told reporters.

‘Still Encouraged’

Although negotiations broke off for the night, with no plans that they would resume today, the Justice Department’s Stewart said he was “still encouraged.”

“What happened on Thursday, even though it didn’t result in the release of hostages, is many times more promising than what’s happend before,” Stewart said.

The government’s conciliatory approach to the prison crisis was signaled earlier Thursday, when Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III placed telephone calls to the families of the Atlanta hostages and the Oakdale hostages. Meese pledged that federal authorities will “not do anything that will increase their risk,” because “the safety of your loved ones is our paramount goal.”

“At the same time,” Meese said in the calls placed from the Washington office of J. Michael Quinlan, director of the Bureau of Prisons, “we are prepared and will take necessary precautions to protect lives if any serious threat should develop.

“Nothing is more important to me as attorney general than the safe release of your family members, and every effort will be taken to make sure that this happens as soon as possible,” Meese told the two groups of hostage relatives, who were being served Thanksgiving meals in buildings near the prisons.

“Communications appear to have improved at both institutions,” Quinlan said at an early afternoon briefing. “Leadership is emerging at both locations, allowing progress to be made. . . . The ability of the (government’s) negotiators to count on the return appearance of certain people at certain times indicates to us there are improved communications.”

Officers Eat Dinner

Before the evening developments, the scene at Oakdale was a bleak one. Families of the hostages ate Thanksgiving dinners in a nearby church and law officers ate their turkey off Styrofoam plates in the noonday sun at the prison, while officials dampened hopes for an early end to the crisis.

With the standoff there in its sixth day, the hundreds of police, National Guardsmen, Border Patrol officers, FBI agents and emergency crews appeared to be digging in for a long stay.

The prison parking lot has become an ever-growing bivouac of trailers, tents, buses and even half a dozen full-size mobile homes that serve as barracks and makeshift command posts. Telephone lines, electric generators, water tanks and outhouses have been installed, and a mess tent serves three meals a day and endless cups of coffee.

Behind the 15-foot razor-wire fence, inmates appeared calm, taking turns patrolling the perimeter of the grounds and occasionally hoisting signs with messages for the outside world.

Banners Bear Messages

“Mr. Reagan, If You Deny Us Freedom, We Star Kill,” one banner read. Other signs hanging from the gutted prison buildings took a more imploring tone, such as: “Mr. Reagan, If You Deny Us Our Freedom, You Kill Us.”

Although there had been no confirmed sightings of the hostages since Monday, both Justice Department spokesman Sheehan and Quinlan said they were confident the hostages were safe.

The Cubans “have kept their commitment to keep them safe to the best of our knowledge,” Quinlan said.

Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.), who has been monitoring the Oakdale talks. said that during Wednesday’s sessions federal officials gave the Cubans a written response to their list of seven proposals.

The senator said, however, that the government’s written response was in English. The detainees have indicated through signs they have hung in the compound that they are facing language difficulties. Breaux said, though, that language was not a problem. The government’s response, he said, was easy to translate

Earlier in the day, about 300 relatives of the hostages gathered at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, about a mile from the prison.

Many of the families have kept constant vigil in the community hall at the church. Cots, cribs, board games, decks of cards and a couple of rocking chairs provide some touches of home.

Decorating one wall were crayoned cards that local schoolchildren made earlier to cheer up Hoffpauir’s two children, a third-grader and a fifth-grader.

“Wish you luck and hope your dad gets out without getting hurt,” one read.

“I know how you feel,” another child wrote. “I did not have a dad onse” The children drew cheery pictures of rainbows and smiling stick figures. “P.S. Try to cheer up,” one note urged.

A handful of the Cuban detainees’ friends and relatives also were present. One pleaded for the inmates to abandon their revolt.

Urges Surrender

“I drove in ‘specially because I wanted to tell Jose that I love him and please surrender,” said Anna Malczon, whose fiance, Jose Antonio Perez, is believed to be inside the compound.

“We’re asking the men to please listen to all the options they have, to understand what’s been offered to them, to keep calm, keep the faith and think of the family,” Malczon said.

She said Perez, 32, has been detained at Oakdale for three months after completing a three-year sentence in a New Jersey state prison. Malczon refused to say what crime he had committed.

“He only served three years, so it wasn’t that big,” she said.

At one point during a press conference, she burst into tears after explaining that prison officials had declined to tell her whether Perez was still in the compound or was among the 54 allowed to leave shortly after the siege began Saturday night.

Prior to the mediators’ arrival in Atlanta, FBI agents and negotiators inside the prison continued to man the phones around the clock.

Outside the prison, relatives of the Cuban detainees continued to complain that they have received no news about their loved ones, even those who have surrendered and have been moved to other prisons.

More Inmates Surrender

Thirty-nine more Cubans and one American surrendered to authorities in Atlanta on Thursday and were taken from the prison compound by bus; 241 Cubans and 171 Americans have voluntarily left the prison since the siege began Monday. Those who defected Thursday, like others before them, simply made their way to guard towers and turned themselves in.

Late Wednesday and early Thursday, prisoners made sporadic attempts to build barricades between areas they control and the perimeter, but Stewart said the “opportunities for prisoners to leave are always present.”

Yet the 1,156 Cubans and 23 Americans remaining in the prison showed no sign of leaving late Thursday, suggesting that the support of the vast majority of Cuban prisoners had solidified behind the uprising.

Forty-nine of the roughly 1,000 Oakdale inmates were Americans, officials said. Eleven of those were among the 54 inmates allowed to leave shortly after the siege began Saturday night.

The renewal of a U.S.-Cuban agreement to deport 2,500 undesirable Cubans to their homeland triggered the uprisings in the Oakdale and Atlanta prisons.

Douglas Jehl reported from Atlanta and Tamara Jones from Oakdale, La. Staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington, Barry Bearak in Atlanta and David Lauter in Oakdale contributed to this story.