3 Families Await Word on Hostages

Three families, scattered across two continents, were keeping an anxious vigil this weekend to see whether the pro-Iranian kidnapers who have held their loved ones will deliver on their promise to release one of the captives, maybe as early as today.

The faceless group that calls itself the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine has raised their hopes many times before over the past 1,184 days, but this time seems different. In many towns where relatives of the hostages live, optimistic neighbors are tying yellow ribbons to trees and buildings.

The families’ spirits got a big boost late Saturday when the State Department began notifying them that it expects one of the hostages to be freed within 24 to 36 hours. It was the first time the government has been so encouraging.

“I’m pretty sure that someone will be released,” says Ruth Polhill, whose 55-year-old son, Robert, is one of the three captives. “If there is one, I’m not even allowing myself to think who that one might be.”

At first, she thought it would be Jesse Turner, because his picture was released by the kidnapers Wednesday, when they first announced they planned to let one of their three prisoners go. But the next day, when they put out an angry statement accusing the United States of being uncooperative and delaying the transfer, Robert Polhill’s was the picture they included.

Although the release appeared to be back on track Saturday, it was anyone’s guess which hostage would be chosen. The faction holds Polhill, Turner and Alann Steen, who will mark his 51st birthday today.

All three were professors at Beirut University College when they were abducted Jan. 24, 1987, by kidnapers who had made their way onto the campus disguised as riot police. A fourth captive, Indian-born Mithileshwar Singh, who has permanent resident status in the United States, was released in 1988.

Five other Americans are also being held, apparently by other factions.

Ruth Polhill, a slight, elderly widow, sat in her apartment here, monitoring television news for the latest developments and patiently answering a drumbeat of phone calls from reporters or concerned friends. Her living room is decorated with pictures of her son, family and the other hostages as well.

One photo shows Ruth Polhill standing arm in arm with Singh’s wife, and she also has framed a letter she got from President Bush. “God bless your son,” the President wrote in his own hand at the bottom.

She rummaged through a drawerful of news clippings she has collected. Someday soon, Polhill hopes her son will see for himself the evidence that his family and his country never forgot about him while he was in captivity. Last Christmas, it seemed that half the county turned out when the town invited her to light a commemorative tree with 10,000 lights.

The widow’s Lebanese daughter-in-law, Firyal, has gone to Damascus to await the release. “She said she would be there to welcome whoever comes out,” Ruth Polhill said. Polhill’s two sons from his first marriage spent the weekend in their apartment in Queens “killing time--watching gymnastics,” 23-year-old Bryan Polhill said. “It’s been all right. I’m trying not to ride a roller coaster.”

In Boise, Ida., a media battalion camped out in front of the three-bedroom white frame home of Estelle Ronneburg, Turner’s 68-year-old mother. She left her front door unlocked and invited reporters who lounged on her wooden front porch to come in and watch late-night television. When one journalist showed up in a taxi, Ronneburg and her husband, Eugene, offered him the use of their car.

Reporters brought the couple breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the Ronneburgs returned the favor by offering them a share of the food trays delivered by local grocery stores. A crew from CBS even arranged to have their lawn mowed--an act of contrition, perhaps, for having trampled it.

Ronneburg, too, has collected her own history of the anguish and uncertainty that she has known for more than three years. There are newspaper stories, letters from friends, and telexes from Lebanon. The darkest moments are marked by the clippings that report death threats, such as the one in 1987, when her son’s captors said they would kill one of the hostages unless West Germany released a Lebanese man accused of hijacking an airliner.

Just as heartbreaking were the erroneous reports of impending release.

Before Singh was released, for example, the kidnapers raised her hopes by sending out pictures of her son and Steen. “I was devastated,” Ronneburg said. “We were happy for Dr. Singh, but it was hard to take.”

This time, “I’m trying not to let myself become too excited, because I’ve been down this road before, and it’s not fun when it doesn’t work out,” Ronneburg said. “But I can’t help but hope and pray that my son is going to be released.”

Turner, like Polhill, is married to a Lebanese woman who still resides in the Middle East. His wife, Badr, was pregnant when he was abducted, and Turner has never seen his 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Joan.

Steen has also missed important family milestones. Two daughters were married while he was in captivity, and he may not be aware that he now has a grandson who lives in Thousand Oaks and bears his name.

Steen’s second wife, Virginia, was in seclusion Saturday at a home near her parents’ in rural Clark Lake, Mich., but she did talk to reporters by phone.

She said she hopes the journalism professor “is writing a book in his mind” about his experiences, and added, “I’m saving clips and videotapes for him. Oh, God yes.”

Tumulty reported from Fishkill and Harris from Boise. Times staff writers Jim Risen, in Detroit, and Mack Reed, in Ventura, also contributed to this story.