A Texas Firm’s Toil Freed Workers Stuck in the Gulf

Mike Adams was already asleep when his father-in-law rapped on the bedroom door. Something bad is happening, he said. A late-night newscast had just flashed the bulletin that Iraqi forces had crossed the border and were moving into Kuwait.

For Adams, the news could not have been more chilling. He lived in Kuwait city with his wife and two children and was in Houston only because he and his family were on home leave. But his people--those who worked for him on two refinery projects--were still back there. Adams went to the telephone. Over and over and over he dialed his office in Kuwait. Once the number actually rang, but there was no answer.

At dawn, Adams dressed and headed for the home office here of the M. W. Kellogg Co., which engineers and builds petrochemical projects worldwide.

What he did not know that morning was that, in the months to come, he would become enmeshed with dozens of others--in a rescue effort that would touch the lives of 565 people. It would involve suitcases full of cash and a network of people that spanned 10 countries. There would be episodes of abject fear and bravery and coincidence that would change lives.

This is how the people of M. W. Kellogg worked to get their people out of Kuwait and Iraq in the wake of the Aug. 2 invasion. Some things still aren’t talked about for fear of endangering those who remain behind. But most of the facts are available.

Funny how circumstance can change lives so quickly. Peter McLeod, a London-based Kellogg employee, had spent the last two years overseeing the building of a fertilizer plant near the Iraqi town of Baiji, about four hours’ drive north of Baghdad. The project had ended in June, and the 69 American and British workers had long since gone.

But there had been technical troubles at the plant, and McLeod was called to go back in to solve them. With him was Jack Stewart, 68, an American engineer. Their plane landed in Baghdad on July 30. When the Iraqis invaded Kuwait three days later, McLeod was still trying to retrieve his lost suitcase from the airport.

Bill Mills was in Kuwait city. He was the office manager, No. 2 in command behind Mike Adams for the Kellogg Co. and the boss during Adams’ home leave in Houston. At 62, he had traveled the world for Kellogg. Mills had seen crises before. He had been working in Iran during the 1979 Islamic revolution, and in 1968 had owned a vacation house on the island of Cyprus that was lost when Turkey invaded. People used to joke that they wanted to know where Mills was going next so they could ask to be transferred someplace else.

When the Iraqis rolled in that morning, there was fear, to be sure. But there was no real panic for Mills or his Iranian-born wife, Kadijan. In telex messages on the day of the invasion--the only contact for weeks to come--Mills told Kellogg officials in matter-of-fact terms that he was sending employees home early because he did not want them out after dark.

“We are still not facing any danger as we can determine,” he wrote. “My greatest worry at the present time is diesel fuel for our camp generators. Thanks for your offer for help, but there is nothing much to be done except hope that I can find diesel fuel and bread. Just been advised there is a curfew starting at 6 p.m. Bye-bye.”

Then came weeks of silence. In Houston, the days without new information passed slowly. A company crisis team was pulled together, and the telex was manned round-the-clock in case Mills could get through. McLeod, in Iraq, had not been heard from at all.

In the interim, decisions were made. One was that the company’s 600 employees from third countries--most of them Indian and Filipino--would not be abandoned. The second was that any kind of dramatic rescue attempt was unworkable. It was, said Kellogg Vice President David Bartlett, difficult to come to grips with that reality.

“Your first instinct is to see if you can become a hero,” Bartlett said. “Then you revert to the fact that these are experienced, disciplined, tough people on the ground, and all you can do is provide them with the information and resources so they can take care of themselves.”

Adams continued to phone Kuwait for the next two weeks after the invasion. He would call the dozen or so numbers he knew in Kuwait, hoping someone would pick up the phone. Nothing. The company’s first break came Aug. 17, when a call came in from an employee who had made his way south to Saudi Arabia. He said he thought many employees were heading toward the Saudi border to escape. Adams asked for permission to fly there and see if he could set up communication with Kuwait city. When he left Houston on Aug. 18--after serious string-pulling to get a visa in one day--Adams carried $50,000 in cash.

But what had at first looked like a hopeful escape route was closing rapidly. One Englishman was killed trying to make his way to Saudi Arabia, others came under fire from Iraqi soldiers. The risk seemed to increase each day. Of the 300 or so refugees who did make it across, Adams did not find one from Kellogg. As a last resort, he went to the beach at the Saudi-Kuwait border.

“We spent two days there trying to telephone on mobile telephones, but by this time the Iraqis had knocked out telecommunications,” he said. “There were 100 Kuwaitis on the beach with mobile phones, and not one of them got a signal.”

It was about then that the second wave of refugees began arriving on the Jordanian border, where they were herded into camps in the no man’s land between the two countries. Adams dispatched Samieh Shawwa, a company employee, to Amman with $35,000 in cash. Each day, the rotund Shawwa would wander the camps, wearing a Kellogg baseball cap and carrying a Kellogg sign. Each time he located company employees, he got them out of the camp and into a hotel. Usually, they were on their way home in a few days, with $100 each to cover expenses.

One of the people who made his way to the camps was Kellogg employee Dick Clay, who left Kuwait city with 34 Filipinos. He got through on the strength of a forged travel document, whose seal was imprinted using a stamp carved from a rubber shower sandal. That he made it through was more amazing because he had a U.S. Navy tattoo on his right hand.

In Iraq, Peter McLeod and Jack Stewart had been keeping a low profile near the plant outside Baiji. Western hostages were being rounded up to act as “human shields.” McLeod would make an occasional foray into Baghdad for supplies or a change of pace, but for the most part the pair chose to sit tight and stay quiet.

Their concern grew, however, when the Iraqis wired off part of a work camp only a short distance away, and imprisoned 11 Americans, Europeans and Japanese. Then came the day--Aug. 29--when Stewart disappeared while McLeod was in Baghdad. Employees at the fertilizer plant told McLeod that Iraqi security police had taken him away to join those in the compound.

“It was utterly chilling,” McLeod said.

McLeod learned three days later that Stewart had been staying at a Baghdad hotel, but that he had been taken elsewhere to act as a human shield. McLeod began to appeal to the Iraqi government, working his way up the hierarchy, saying that the plant could not be repaired without Stewart. In the end, the government relented, but only if Stewart spent his nights in the compound with the other foreign hostages. By then, it had also become apparent that McLeod was not going to be taken into custody, probably because he was so well-known by government officials.

But, McLeod said, “It became obvious that we had to get quite serious about what we were going to do and prepare for any eventuality.”

In Kuwait city, meanwhile, office manager Mills had gone from being a man who felt no danger to a man of great caution. The Iraqis had begun to arrest foreigners. He and his wife stayed in their apartment all the time. In a matter of days, they grew uneasy about the Iraqis bursting in on them because so many were prowling the neighborhood. Then the elevators stopped working, and other expatriates began leaving. Each time they did, their apartments were looted.

On Aug. 18, Mills and his wife moved to a safer place--the 10th-floor apartment where Adams and his family had lived. Their own unit was looted the next day. The Adams home was where they would stay for more than three months, with Kadijan leaving only once and Mills never. Mills made transportation arrangements for his remaining employees through third parties. And soon enough, an underground of expatriates was set up, complete with their own newspapers.

Much of what was written was dark humor. There were also crossword puzzles with hostage themes and wry want ads for rubber boats stocked with whiskey and vodka.

Reading it was something to pass the time. Mills never answered the doorbell. There was, instead, a special knock that people in the building would answer. And Mills speaks fondly now of an Irishman, apparently still in Kuwait, who acted with heroism that only few possess--traveling throughout the city heedless of danger, bringing food to those who needed it, taking letters to Baghdad and calling relatives of those in hiding.

“I am sure he will be one of the last to leave,” Mills said.

While the time passed slowly in Kuwait and Iraq, Adams shifted position to London, believing it would be a better listening post and coordination spot. At the fertilizer factory near Baiji, the international phone line had been re-established, and McLeod talked almost daily--and in discreet terms--with the London office. Among other things, he asked if there might be a way to get money into the country, just in case. On one trip to Baghdad, McLeod picked up $40,000 in cash that had been sent overland by courier, so he could be “as flexible as possible with my personal plans. I had to keep open the possibility of getting out by hook or by crook.”

In another covert operation, a company employee slipped into Kuwait city to take money to Mills. In Houston, Bartlett, the company vice president, checked his computer every morning to learn of overnight developments.

By late August, Kellogg believed it had accounted for almost all its third-country nationals. Employees in Kuwait had painstakingly copied payroll records and smuggled them out of the country. With those names, Kellogg dispatched two men to find them and pay what was owed them.

Steve Furman flew to the Philippines, while Dick Jason was assigned to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Of 190 Filipino workers, only one has not been paid and is believed to be in London. Jason found all but five; four of those are believed to still be in Kuwait. The total payout was about $500,000.

By late November, Kellogg’s focus was down to McLeod and Stewart and Mills. In Iraq, McLeod had used part of the money smuggled to him to buy things for the hostages--a stereo, shortwave radios, cigarettes, sweets, anything he could think of that would ease their stay.

On Thanksgiving Day, McLeod produced a huge dinner, including cognac and cigars, for the hostages in the barbed-wire compound nearby. They were glum and furtive at first, but warmed to the occasion as their glasses were filled.

While that was going on in Iraq, things were changing for the Mills couple in Kuwait city. Kadijan Mills had fretted more and more about how their long silence was affecting their children, Ali and Sheila, who live in Washington, D.C. The Iraqis also were starting to show more interest in the Kuwait city apartment building where Mills and his wife were staying. Soldiers were posted in the lobby. One day, Mills was sunning himself on the roof when he saw Iraqi soldiers installing an anti-aircraft gun nearby. Clearly, it was time to go. Before doing so, Mills packed what he could of the Adams’ most prized possessions and hid them in the building.

Using forged Danish papers, and traveling with 10 Danes in a caravan of three aging Mercedes-Benzes, Mills and his wife made their way through various checkpoints along the way to Baghdad. Kadijan, who speaks Arabic, had told her husband to say nothing, so he sat slumped in the back seat. In Baghdad, Mills called the American Embassy to tell them, cryptically, that he was a “cousin of the ambassador” who had been invited to stay with him. An embassy car picked them up 10 minutes later and whisked them to the embassy.

At last everyone was in Iraq. Through his daily talk with the London office, McLeod learned Mills had made it. Driving to Baghdad, McLeod found Kadijan, who was trying to get herself and her husband on a list to leave the city. Things were happening quickly. Muhammad Ali was in the city trying to win the release of hostages. So were other Americans--Scott Nelson of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and former Texas Gov. John B. Connally among them.

And back home, Kellogg was working furiously to make sure Connally knew about the company’s last four. They also contacted Nelson, and he added them to his list. In Texas, three other calls were made by influential friends to Nellie Connally, the former Texas governor’s wife, to ensure that she mentioned them when her husband called.

After four days of sitting at the embassy, Mills grew bold enough to go with McLeod to dinner at a hotel. It was the first time he had not eaten in hiding in more than three months. He ordered the one thing he craved most--bread.

The breaks began to come as it became apparent that Connally and Texas oilman Oscar W. Wyatt, who had flown to Baghdad together, might get permission to bring some hostages out. McLeod stayed close to ensure nothing went awry, while also trying to make headway in the effort to gain Stewart’s release.

On Dec. 8, even as word was spreading that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would release all hostages, the Millses were told to go to a Baghdad hotel, where they were met by McLeod and Scott Nelson. They would all be on the plane. Connally and his operatives had ensured that. But the question of what would happen to Stewart still hung heavy with McLeod. Connally, giving it one last try, called the foreign minister and urged him to let the aging engineer go.

Then, as quickly as it had picked up, the tempo slowed again for the Iraqis’ interminable processing of documents. And in the end, Connally could only take a handful of people aboard the Boeing 707 after he was strongly advised to leave while he had the chance.

At the airport, the plane was preparing for takeoff when a bus pulled up, carrying Stewart, the final Kellogg employee. A short time later, the jet was airborne.

McLeod got off in Ireland while the jet was refueling for the long flight to Houston. Connally would later name him as someone who had been instrumental in the release of hostages. When the jet touched down at Ellington Field in Houston at 4:32 a.m. last Sunday, there was an emotional mob scene as relatives and friends rushed to find loved ones. Mills does not remember even saying anything that morning, although he talked at length to a few members of the press. Bartlett and other Kellogg executives were there, too, to greet the employees they had worked so hard to get out. Mills and his wife will spend the holidays with their children in Washington, but, as he said, “My Christmas began the second my foot touched the ground.”