Spiraling Mideast Tension Concerns Relatives of 16 Westerners : Libya Clash Heightens Fear for Beirut Hostages

Elaine Collett, the American wife of a Briton held hostage in Lebanon, had just gone through a kidney transplant when U.S. warplanes bombed Libya more than two years ago.

Within days, kidnapers in Beirut claiming to hold her husband, Alec, announced that he had been hanged. To emphasize their wrath, they released a fuzzy videotape of a body dangling from a noose.

In the aftermath of the U.S. downing of two Libyan jets over the Mediterranean last Wednesday, Elaine Collett and the families of nine American hostages are going through the same nightmare all over again.

British forensic experts who examined the videotape back in 1986 expressed skepticism about whether the body was indeed Alec Collett’s, in part because Collett is missing a finger on one hand and that hand was pointedly excluded from the pictures. So Elaine Collett started to hope again.

At a ceremony here recently to honor Algeria’s role in mediating the past release of the U.S. hostages in Iran, the obviously weary woman acknowledged her worst fear. “I’m holding my breath. I’m so afraid of a repeat of what happened in 1986.”

Although Alec Collett’s fate is still unclear, American hostage Peter Kilburn and two British hostages were killed by a pro-Libyan group after the 1986 air raid. Their bodies were dumped on the streets of Beirut.

At a time when many U.S. officials had hoped for a breakthrough in the ordeal of 16 foreigners held in Lebanon, the confrontation with Libya last week has instead heightened fears for their lives.

“Because of either choice or pressure, the groups holding the Beirut hostages could again act against them,” said a hostage relative who asked not to be identified. “Anything that raises the level of tension in the Middle East can have an effect on what happens to the hostages or how they are treated.”

Although most of the hostages are believed to be held by pro-Iranian Lebanese Shia Muslims, at least one of the groups holding Western captives is suspected of having pro-Libyan sympathies. And the captors of others, such as Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, are still not positively identified, according to U.S. officials.

Peggy Say, sister of hostage Terry A. Anderson, said, “Shooting down two Libyan planes could interfere with initiatives in the works.”

Reagan Administration sources say, however, that there is no end in sight for the nine Americans among the hostages. “The well is bone dry,” one source said. The United States had hoped that the 10-week period between the presidential election and the inauguration would offer a window of opportunity to open channels with Iran about the Lebanese groups holding the hostages.

Families of current hostages noted the stark contrast between frantic efforts during the Carter Administration transition and the virtual absence of activity in the final days of the Reagan Administration.

Algeria Helped Mediate

The ceremony to honor Algeria came eight years after a scramble in that North African nation to mediate final terms for the release of 52 hostages held by youthful Iranian fanatics who had seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. At that time, both the United States and Iran sought resolution before the inauguration of a new American President.

The difference was underscored at the ceremony, which was attended by several of the 52 held for 444 days, as well as by families of current hostages. Col. Leland Holland, a former hostage in Iran who is now battling cancer, slowly read off the names of Americans still held and the dates of their abductions.

Another former hostage charged in private that the Administration is not doing all it could.

And Tom Cicippio, brother of hostage Joseph J. Cicippio, said: “I really feel as if the Reagan Administration let us down. They had almost four years to secure the release of Terry Anderson and the other hostages. I feel as if they failed us.”

Adds Another Day

Every day, Cicippio goes out to the front lawn of his home in Norristown, Pa., and adds one more day to each of seven billboards that list the nine Americans, three of whom were abducted together, and how long each has been held.

His brother has now been held 851 days. Anderson, an Associated Press correspondent and the longest-held American, has been in captivity 1,396 days.

In the 1980 campaign, hostages were a primary issue, Cicippio pointed out. But even after the 1988 election, he said, “I still don’t know where George Bush stands on hostages.

“What bothered me most were the newscasts (during the campaign). They would say what the priorities of each candidate were, but they never once mentioned the hostages.”

After alternating between seeking publicity for the hostages and agreeing to U.S. urgings that they say nothing, hostage families are beginning to mobilize again. Several said they fear the new Administration is not likely to make the hostage problem a priority.

“These people have been held long enough,” one relative said. “We’re tired of waiting.”

Other friends and relatives expressed anguish at even the absence of contact with the Reagan Administration. “Relations are, at best, strained at the moment,” Say said.

Others expressed anger over U.S. tactics. Don Mell, an Associated Press photo editor who was with Anderson in 1985 when he was abducted on his way to a tennis game, said that it was a year before the FBI talked to him about the identity of the captors.

Then he was told that he would not be able to see pictures of the Lebanese who U.S. officials suspect may hold some of the hostages because the photos were classified. Mell had seen the kidnapers face to face.

Elaine Collett has been particularly disturbed by her treatment by Washington. She says that she has “fallen into a void.” Although her husband is a British citizen, he has lived in this country for 20 years and is a legal resident. He was on temporary assignment for the United Nations in Beirut when he was abducted in March, 1984.

“I’m entitled as an American citizen, and he is entitled as a resident, to get some kind of help. But the State Department has told me politely that it will not go out of its way to find out who has him.”

She is also pessimistic about any future help from the Bush Administration. When the hostage families were invited to meet the President-elect, she was told that she was not invited. It was not until the other families threatened to boycott the meeting, which had already been announced, that she was told she could attend.