U.N. Demands Release of U.S. Military Aide

The Security Council today unanimously condemned the kidnaping of U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, a U.N. military observer in Lebanon, and demanded his immediate release.

The resolution, adopted 15 to 0, made no mention of the pro-Iranian extremists who abducted Higgins in February. It called upon U.N. members “to use their influence in any way possible to promote implemention” of its appeal for freedom.

Earlier, Higgins’ wife, Robin, met with Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar. He told her, “I am making a constant effort to obtain his release.”

The secretary general has raised the issue of the 18 foreign hostages in Lebanon during talks this week with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati. He has appealed to Iran to use its influence with the Islamic fundamentalist captors loyal to Iran to gain their release.

“I want to express my concern to you,” Perez de Cuellar told Robin Higgins when she met him in his office. Higgins was chief of a U.N. military observer group when he was abducted.

The council’s brief resolution emphasized that it already has “condemned unequivocally all acts of hostage-taking and abduction” and called for immediate release of all hostages “wherever and by whomever they are being held.”

Negotiations Reported

In Beirut today, the weekly magazine Ash Shiraa reported that negotiations are under way to free the foreign hostages. It quoted an unidentified informed security source as saying that high-level contacts were under way between officials of the hostages’ nations and a state with “direct influence on the hostages.”

“A settlement to the hostages’ issue will coincide with the U.S. presidential elections” Nov. 8, the report said. It did not elaborate.

The magazine gained international fame when it broke the story of secret U.S. arms sales to Iran in return for the release of hostages in 1986. But most of its recent reports on the hostages have not proved accurate.

Higgins, 43, was chief of the U.N. Troop Supervision Organization, a military observer group in the Middle East. The Islamic Revolutionary Brigades, a previously unknown group, claims to hold him.