Hostages’ Relatives Now in Iraq Rejoice at the News : Families: They went to Baghdad to gain their loved ones’ freedom. Suddenly, the mood is one of elation.

When they first saw the yellow balloons everywhere in the hotel’s fancy dining room, the relatives of American hostages were not amused. Numb with fatigue after a much-delayed journey of more than 8,000 miles, many thought this Iraqi touch was unseemly.

“Most of us thought it was a bit cruel,” said the wife of one U.S. hostage.

Little did they know that the international color of remembrance would prove, less than a day later, to be a tip-off to the very best news they could have hoped for: Their husbands and fathers will be released, along with other American hostages held in Iraq and Kuwait.

The news that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein intends to release all foreign hostages swept the Monsour Melia Hotel on Thursday afternoon like a brush fire. And it brought rejoicing and tears of happiness to many of the American hostages and their relatives, reunited at the posh hotel only hours earlier.

The relatives had arrived Wednesday night in Baghdad expecting to devote a week or more to the tedious round of meetings with Iraqi officials that has been a prerequisite for the release of hostages. That was the experience of all previous relatives who had journeyed here to seek freedom for their loved ones. Among them have been Japanese, British and a handful of Americans.

Other groups of Western and Japanese hostages had been released to former officials and prominent figures, including former British Prime Minister Edward Heath, former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and, most recently, former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammed Ali.

And so this first delegation of American relatives was clearly taken by surprise when they heard the good news over the British Broadcasting Corp. Many of the relatives were closeted in their rooms composing--in longhand--personal appeals to Hussein when word reached the 7th floor of the hotel where most of them were staying.

By then, nearly all their loved ones had been brought to the hotel from strategic sites throughout Baghdad, where they were being held as human shields.

And within hours, the joyous American hostages and their relatives were celebrating in the hotel’s dining room and bar, joined by about 40 newly released Japanese hostages and a dozen or so British hostages. The Iraqis had prepared a lavish buffet dinner for them, featuring grilled chicken, curried lamb, soup and rice pilaf.

“I’ve lost 28 pounds in the gulag,” Robert Vinton, a 58-year-old sales manager for the Johnson Control Corp., based in San Francisco, shouted over the din in the bar. “It’s been a love-hate relationship with the people who keep you.”

Many of the American hostages recounted varying experiences in captivity. Some said they were well fed but lacked basic sanitary conditions and personal toiletries. But others spoke of eating little more than fish heads and handfuls of rice, with occasional cucumber slices. None said they were physically abused.

Most of the hostages did not wish to speak in great detail or to be quoted by name, begging off until they are out of Iraq.

One hostage, saying that he lost 15 pounds, joked: “We’re thinking of starting a Saddam Hussein Health Center.”

Rosalind Brown, an Atlanta, Ga., woman, also was in a jovial mood as she dined with her husband, Cecil.

“When we got here,” she said, “we were joking that they would let us go real soon--because they would get sick of all us women really fast. But this, nobody expected.”

On a more somber note, Edward Smiley, a 42-year-old Los Angeles man, said he thought on several occasions that he would never see his wife, Barbara, again--”especially when they moved me to a new site and I could see outside the window that this was a chemical production plant. There was a lot of activity.”