Briefing Paper : Rumor Aside, Hurdles High for Hostage Swap : The Background:

In mid-June, the Tehran Times said its Beirut correspondent had word that six Americans and two Britons held hostage by Muslim militants somewhere in Lebanon might be released within a few days. Fares Bouez, the Lebanese foreign minister, told Beirut reporters his information had the foreign captives free “in the coming two weeks.” More than two weeks later, nothing has happened, and hopes for any quick action are fading. “There is no progress, not even 1%,” a ranking figure in Lebanon’s pro-Iranian circles said.

Hostage rumors start on the slightest breeze of news, or they are compiled of diplomatic and journalistic presumptions passed back and forth across the Middle East. With the end of the Gulf War, Iran was seen to be in good repute, and President Hashemi Rafsanjani, looking to improve ties with the West, appeared in ascendancy over his radical rivals. Iranian influence, analysts presumed, would be used on behalf of the hostages, and that assumption still fuels most hopes for a hostage release.

In time--for most--rumors become fact. Of the 71 Westerners held captive for 24 hours or more since the kidnapings of foreigners began in Lebanon in 1984, all but 11 have been released or reported slain by their captors.

For the remaining captives--the Americans, Britons, two Germans and an Italian--ensnared in the cruel feuds of the Middle East, the rumors sweep by unnoticed. The foreigners have little news of the world outside their rooms, so they long for information. Take, for example, the description by Irishman Brian Keenan, a 40-year-old university lecturer and the latest hostage released (last Aug. 24), of Associated Press correspondent Terry A. Anderson, the longest-held captive:

He’s “a bit of a bulky and belligerent newspaperman who had a voracious hunger for intellectual conversation; and when he did not get it he would pace the floor endlessly in his patched, re-patched and even more patched but very holey socks. . . . I think Terry debated with himself a lot, while we tried to plug our ears with bits of mattress.”

Why the Skepticism:

The accounts of prospective hostage deals lean to the superficial, according to political analysts in Beirut and elsewhere who have watched them develop over the years. While the Iranian and Syrian regimes might want to improve their standing with the West and help remove a problem that all governments agree is causing unnecessary aggravation, the deals themselves take a lot of gritty bargaining in which the hostages are merely chips.

Basically, these analysts say, it gets down to politics and money--Western governments cannot free the hostages with high-flown appeals on human rights. Some European governments--France and Belgium, for instance--have paid either in cash or in kind (usually arms) for the release of their hostages, the insiders claim.

Officials in Paris and Brussels deny that kidnapers have been paid off, but there are no more French or Belgian captives.

Observers in Beirut say the captors cannot understand the American refusal to deal. Hostage-taking and trading is a traditional tactic in Middle East conflicts, and a method widespread in the Lebanese civil war. The kidnapers were reportedly disappointed with the lack of response from Washington in April, 1990, when American educators Robert Polhill and Frank H. Reed were freed within eight days of each other.

The militants apparently hold no hope of getting cash for their U.S. captives but want Washington to squeeze Israel for political payoffs, specifically the release of Muslim prisoners, both Palestinian and Lebanese, including Abdel Karim Obeid, a Shiite Muslim cleric abducted from his home by Israeli commandos in July, 1989.

The Big Three:

In claiming credit for abductions, kidnapers have used a revolutionary songbook of organizational names--Islamic Jihad, Revolutionary Justice Organization, Arab Commando Cell, Holy Warriors for Freedom, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth and the like.

But intelligence reports say most of the abductions have been the work of three Lebanese Shiite families--the Mughniyahs, the Hamadis and the Musawis--originally bent on picking up trade bait for relatives arrested and jailed abroad for terrorist operations.

Mughniyah and Musawi cousins were involved in 1983 bombing attacks on the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait, and were among 17 people tried and jailed there. The Hamadis were involved in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight from Athens, which was diverted to Beirut where an American sailor aboard the plane was shot to death.

The Shiite radicals in Lebanon came under Iranian influence in 1982, when Ali Akbar Mohtashemi was ambassador to Damascus for the three-year-old Islamic Republic. Mohtashemi used his position to found and organize Hezbollah (Party of God), an umbrella for Shiite political activity in Lebanon. Mohtashemi, who was sacked as interior minister last year by Rafsanjani, still leads the radical, anti-Western faction in Iran. Two weeks ago, he was railing against “the West and (world) arrogance” for its news reports on hostages “who are in the strong hands of the children of pure Islam.”

Less ideologically involved but crucially important to solving the problem are the Syrians, whose influence in Lebanon has deepened in the postwar period. Beirutis says nothing can take place in Lebanon now without Syrian approval or acquiescence. The Damascus government says it is powerless to free the hostages, but it can certainly make life unpleasant for Hezbollah.

The other key player is Israel. With its control over a border strip in southern Lebanon and readiness to project its power farther with air strikes and artillery shelling, Israel holds major cards in Lebanon. It also holds hundreds of prisoners whom Lebanese militants would like to see freed, including Sheik Obeid. Many of the inmates of Khiam prison, a jail administered by Israel’s proxy South Lebanon Army, are suspected Hezbollah guerrillas.

Rating the Prospects:

In the past, the Jerusalem government has made hugely lopsided prisoner swaps, turning over hundreds of captive Palestinians and Lebanese for a handful of captive Israelis. Currently, six and possibly seven Israeli soldiers are believed to be held by Muslim militias north of the border. Israel says it would consider a deal to free some of its prisoners for the captive soldiers and the Beirut hostages.

The more believable rumors, those involving direct trades of men or money, revolve around the Israeli offers. The Muslims will ask a high price, particularly if they have to give up their last Israeli prisoner, the analysts say. And any negotiated deal can be derailed by inflammatory oratory at the wrong moment.

Beirut analysts say the kidnapers will listen to advice from Tehran and Damascus but will not be bulldozed into a decision. Said one: “They have invested a lot of time and energy in this project. Everyone is going to want something.”

For two of the families--the Mughniyahs and the Musawis--the original reason for taking hostages is gone. Their cousins escaped the Kuwaiti jail last August when the Iraqis invaded, and some reports say the men have returned to Lebanon. But over the years, Imad Mughniyah and Hussein Musawi, the families’ strongmen, have risen to high station in Hezbollah, and they have more than personal politics to consider now.

Here’s how most analysts see the odds on freedom for the various hostages:

* Most likely--One or both of the Britons--Terry Waite or John McCarthy--under political pressure from Tehran and Damascus. London’s relations with both the Iranians and the Syrians are on the mend, putting the British hostages at the top of most rumor lists.

* Possible--The German aid workers Thomas Kemptner and Heinrich Struebig, who were kidnaped outside the southern port of Sidon in an area of Palestinian influence, and the American educators Alann Steen and Jesse Turner, claimed captive by the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine. Their odds are improved by the presumed Palestinian connections, which might help in the context of a Mideast peace process.

* Least likely--Anderson and Americans Joseph J. Cicippio, Thomas Sutherland and Edward A. Tracy, who are in the hands of hard-line, pro-Iranian kidnapers and may have to hold out until U.S.-Iranian relations improve.

The 11th Westerner listed as a hostage, Italian Alberto Molinari, disappeared in September, 1985, and is believed kidnaped. But no group has ever claimed responsibility for his abduction, no other word has been heard of him and many people assume he is dead.

Times special correspondent Marilyn Raschka and researcher Kevin Fox contributed to this story.

WHILE ANDERSON HAS BEEN AWAY Much has transpired in the world since Terry A. Anderson was kidnaped March 16, 1985. Here are some key events he missed:

1985-1987: Mikhail S. Gorbachev becomes Soviet president; introduces glasnost and perestroika reforms.

1986: Challenger shace shuttle explosion

1986-1987: Iran-Contra scandal

1988: Election of President Bush

1989 (March): Exxon Valdez oil-spill disaster

1989-1990: Fall of Berlin Wall; reunification of Germany

1989 (October): San Francisco earthquake

1990 (November): Retirement of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

1990: Free elections in Eastern Europe

l990-1991: Invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War

Sources:.The Associated Press; Reuters; World Almanac 1991.