21 Americans Return Home to Hugs, Tears : Hostages: Chartered plane lands in Houston with the first group of freed U.S. captives. ‘It was scary,’ one passenger says of delayed trip.

To the greetings and tears of relatives and friends, 21 American hostages arrived here before dawn Sunday on a chartered freedom flight from Iraq that was arranged partly through the efforts of former Texas Gov. John B. Connally.

It had been the first such group to leave Iraq since that country’s president, Saddam Hussein, ordered all hostages freed late last week. Their arrival also gave a glimpse into how foreigners hiding in Kuwait managed to survive the long months of Iraqi occupation.

The aging Boeing 707 carrying the hostages touched down at Houston’s Ellington Field at 4:32 a.m., more than seven hours after it was first expected. Connally, looking weary and sipping a cup of coffee, said that delays in getting the hostages on board had dragged on for hours.

The unofficial trip to Baghdad was arranged by Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., chairman of Coastal Corp., one of the largest importers of Iraqi oil before commerce with that nation was embargoed in August.

Wyatt and Connally were the first two people off the plane, walking in step toward the waiting crowd on the tarmac. Shortly afterward, the hostages began walking down the steps of the airplane. Those who had waited for hours in the night chill raced toward the hostages, embracing loved ones who had been barred from leaving since Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

“It was scary, and I was really scared,” said Tom Van Balle, who had traveled to Baghdad in an effort to gain the release of his father-in-law, Charles Keegan of Des Moines, who was on board. “Even when we went through the airport, it was scary. Even when we were on the airplane, we didn’t know if they were going to mess with us.”

The plane had room for many more passengers, but Connally said a nightmare of bureaucratic paperwork kept the passenger list small.

“Finally, we were told by a high-ranking government official that we should leave and leave immediately,” he said at a news conference.

Wyatt said patience is needed to make sure that the remaining hostages are freed.

“We think the stage is set, if we can preserve a little quietness in this country, to get all these people out unharmed,” he said.

Wyatt, who has done business with the Iraqis for almost 20 years, said Hussein emphasized during a meeting with him that he does not want war with the Americans. Wyatt also said the Iraqi leader issued a warning about a possible conflict.

“He said, ‘We will lose, but you will lose many Americans. Remember that,’ ” Wyatt recalled.

In past weeks, private efforts to free hostages have been discouraged by the State Department, which said those who go to Baghdad run the risk of becoming political pawns of Hussein.

But Connally declared: “I don’t think we were a political pawn at all.”

Criticism of the State Department for lack of assistance was voiced by members of the party that went to Iraq. One of them, Samir Vincent, said the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad did virtually nothing to speed up the process of setting the hostages free.

Bill Mills is one of those who flew to freedom on the plane. He spent the last four months in his Kuwait city apartment, which overlooked the Iraqi military headquarters, with his Kuwaiti wife, Khadijah.

Mills said hiding was relatively easy, thanks in large part to an underground apparatus made up mostly of Europeans--such as the Danes and the Irish--who were free to wander the city.

“They (the Iraqis) checked on everybody,” said Mills, an office manager for the M. W. Kellogg Co., an international petrochemical firm with projects in Iraq and Kuwait. “We had a good alarm system, so to speak. People would let me know when the Iraqis were in the building.”

Mills said he would hide in the enclosed fire escape if there was danger and that Iraqi soldiers actually came to his apartment once.

“They talked to my wife, and she was able to confuse them,” he said. “It got pretty hairy.”

Mills said he was also helped by his company, through a Palestinian employee who would travel from Baghdad to Kuwait once a week to make sure all was well.

Mills said he and his wife finally decided to leave Kuwait for Baghdad 10 days ago. The Mills and 10 other people--all from Denmark--hired three cars and set off for Baghdad.

All their documents were in order except for those of Mills, who traveled dressed as an Arab but had Danish papers. Only Mills’ wife spoke Arabic, and her orders to her husband were to keep quiet and keep his head down.

Somehow, the entourage made it through six checkpoints to Baghdad and eventual freedom.