Ex-Hostage Says Anderson Is OK

Terry Anderson, the longest held of the 16 Western hostages, helped fellow prisoners make Scrabble and Monopoly games to amuse themselves, according to a newly freed captive.

His guards are giving him and other hostages plenty of diversions, according to an account given by former hostage Frank H. Reed to Anderson’s sister, Peggy Say.

“They have a lot of things which was encouraging to me; at least they did at the time Frank was there,” Say said. These included boxes of books, writing materials and dominoes.

Although Anderson, 42, the chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, is in good physical condition from plenty of exercise, he is tired and needs dental care, Say said. She said the hostages are blindfolded and chained in line with their preference.

“Frank preferred a chain on his wrist,” she said. “Terry preferred a chain on his ankle so that his arms are free to write and play cards.”

The closest she and Reed were able to calculate that he last saw Anderson was somewhere between a year and 18 months ago. Reed spent 20 months with Anderson and Thomas Sutherland in Lebanon. For a period of time, the three American hostages were with two others, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan.

Reed, the director of the private Lebanon International School, was freed April 30 after being held for 44 months. He met with Say on Monday night.

Anderson is in his sixth year of captivity. Sutherland was a dean at the American University of Beirut. McCarthy is a British television journalist. Keenan taught English at American University.

Reed said Anderson could pick up some things in Arabic from the radio and have at least some idea of what he thought was going on in the world. But his guards have made a concerted effort to keep from him news of the deaths of his father and brother, both from cancer, within four months of each other in 1986. Say said she believes he still does not know.

“That’s very difficult,” she said. “Part of you wants him to have known and dealt with it and part of you believes it might be too much for him if he found out in captivity.”

But with his mind still sharp, he thinks of new birthdays painfully uncelebrated for the two daughters he cares for so deeply.

He is wracked with anguish at missing more than five years with them, unable to savor the passage of Gabrielle from child to woman. In Anderson’s sixth year of captivity, Gabrielle turned 14 on April 26.

He has never held Sulome, who was born three months after he was kidnaped. She will be 5 on June 7.

Unlike Reed, who said he was brutally beaten by his kidnapers for trying to escape twice, Anderson was left alone. Say said Reed told her Anderson was not beaten.

Reed told Say that her brother was aware of her tireless campaign to free him and the other hostages.