Hostage Reed Returns to U.S. After Three-Year Ordeal : Terrorism: He urges greater effort to win freedom of other Western captives in Lebanon.

Freed hostage Frank H. Reed returned Friday to the United States after more than three years in captivity, emerging from a military plane to be embraced by two daughters, former hostage Robert Polhill and Peggy Say, sister of hostage Terry A. Anderson.

Stepping onto the runway at nearby Andrews Air Force Base, Reed read a statement thanking the Syrian government for its part in securing his release. He said that stronger efforts should be made to win the freedom of the other Western hostages still held in Lebanon.

In particular, Reed urged the British government to do more on behalf of hostages John McCarthy of England and Brian Keenan of Ireland. He described the two as his “closest mates” during part of his captivity.

“For God’s sake, they are you, and you are they,” he said. “Let the people of England never forget Brian and John. You cannot let them down. You must never let them down.”

For Reed, 57, Friday’s flight was the final step in a journey home that began with his release Monday by his pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim captors. He was first delivered to Syrian government officials in Beirut last Monday, driven to Damascus, Syria, then flown from Syria to Wiesbaden, West Germany, where he was reunited with his wife Fahima, 39, and their 9-year-old son, Tarek.

He had been preceded along the same route by fellow former hostage Polhill, who was released eight days earlier after almost 39 months in the hands of a Shiite group called Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine.

“Thank you for your love and concern, and yes, for your tears,” Reed said at a press conference on the airport tarmac. “For I cry with you that this tragic affair will end soon. God, make it soon.”

As his wife stood by his side crying, Reed told reporters that his fellow hostages transcend international politics and motives. He said that on many occasions, they had given him the strength to endure feelings of intense isolation.

“Because John, Terry, Brian refused to give up, I am here today,” Reed said.

Reed’s two daughters by his first marriage, Marilyn Langston, 33, and Jacqueline Reed, 28, flew from the family hometown of Malden, Mass., to greet their father at the airport.

While waiting for his plane to arrive, Langston said it could be difficult for her father to make the transition back to a normal life.

“It is very delicate,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s going to be. All I know is that he’s getting close, and that’s what counts.”

Reed was director of the Lebanese International School, an elementary school in Beirut, when he was kidnaped on Sept. 9, 1986. Five days later, a group called Arab Revolutionary Cells--Omar Mukhtar Brigade claimed to be holding him. He apparently tried to escape once during his 43 months of captivity but was foiled. Langston said that he told her in a phone call that he received a harsh beating for his efforts.

“He told me he’d been beaten,” she said. “He did try to escape and they’d beaten him very badly.”

The wounds from his beating still ache, she said.

Reed appeared to be in high spirits Friday, but he was thin and visibly weak. His daughters said that he had lost almost 50 pounds during his captivity, much of which he spent blindfolded. Langston said that her father has a 3-month-old granddaughter whom he has never seen and that his captors had told him that his 91-year-old mother was dead, when in fact she is still alive.

According to Col. Edward A. Millen, deputy commander of Malcolm Grove Hospital at Andrews Air Force Base, Reed was to be admitted and given a full physical evaluation. His wife and son were to stay in a room next door to him. The length of his hospital stay is uncertain.

Brenda Gillham and Elaine Spence, sisters of Belfast teacher Keenan, flew to Washington onFriday to meet Reed, who provided the first confirmation since Keenan and McCarthy were abducted in April, 1986, that both are alive and well.