Photo Gives Family First Glimpse of Reed Since Kidnaping

Marilyn Langston, daughter of hostage Frank H. Reed, was on the telephone with a reporter Sunday night, excited about her father’s possible imminent release, when television flashed a photograph dispatched by his captors.

It was the first time in the more than three years since his abduction that she had received word that he was alive.

“He looks pretty good!” Langston said “I had it pictured in my mind he would be a shrunken, almost emaciated-looking person. To see this picture, it’s definitely positive.”

“This is the first definite word that we’ve had that he’s OK,” said her husband, Bob. “He looks good. He has a beard, and he is heavy--that’s funny.”

The Langstons, in a telephone interview from their home in Malden, Mass., added that although a former French hostage had described seeing a man in captivity who fit Reed’s description, the family was never totally convinced that it was Reed.

Reed was taken hostage while on the way to play golf on Sept. 9, 1986, in Beirut.

“I’m trying to keep a grip on my feelings,” because it could be just a pledge that may not work out, Marilyn Langston said, referring to statements promising that her father would be released within 48 hours.

Other family members agreed that experience had taught them that great expectations add to the pain of disappointment.

The photograph reminded Reed’s nephew, David Reed, of the disappointment experienced only a week ago by the family of Jesse Turner. The militant Lebanese group that held Turner released his picture along with a promise of an unidentified hostage’s freedom. But Robert Polhill, not Turner, was freed.

“Of course, that could happen again,” said David Reed in a telephone interview from Pennsylvania. “We hope not. At the moment, we’re just very optimistically waiting.”

Frank Reed left his post as school principal in Whitefield, N.H., to become principal of a preparatory school in Beirut in 1978. At the time of his kidnaping, he was director of the Lebanese International School.

Reed, who has two daughters, Marilyn and Jacqueline, is divorced from his first wife. While in Lebanon he met his Syrian-born wife, Fahima Dalati.

In Malden, Mass., where Fahima Dalati lives with their son Tarek, 9, she shouted “Oh my God, no!” Sunday night when told of the possible release of her husband, wire services reported. She later said, “I don’t want to believe it until I hear for sure. They may change their minds.”