‘Gutsy’ Italian Emerges as U.N. Hostage Hero

As he entered U.N. headquarters on the Monday of the last week of the American hostage crisis, Javier Perez de Cuellar, the 71-year-old, soft-spoken secretary general, allowed himself a rare and swift show of pique.

Convinced that the United Nations was still denied the praise it deserved for the release of hostages, he told reporters, “Nothing is more unpleasant and discouraging than when I open the papers and I don’t see any reference to the United Nations--as if the release were a miracle. I am Christian, and I believe in miracles, but not up to that point.”

By the end of the week, nobody would belittle the United Nations for its role in the release of nine hostages since August. Accolades were so ubiquitous, in fact, that a proud Perez de Cuellar mused to reporters that he might, if needed, work for the release of other Middle East hostages even after his term expires Dec. 31.

Moreover, a new and dashing U.N. hero had emerged from of the shadows of the tense and clandestine talks with the terrorist kidnapers. He is 42-year-old Giandomenico Picco, Perez de Cuellar’s man on the Middle East scene, a 6-foot-6 Italian staff aide with such a penchant for secrecy that he would blare his radio and crumple paper by the mouthpiece of his phone to bedevil would-be tappers as he called overseas from his New York office.

Picco has been lionized in Italy as a man of fegato --literally, a man of liver, much like, in American slang, a man of guts. The excruciating tasks of negotiation forced him time and again into the same room with the hooded kidnapers. He, too, was blindfolded as he was taken to hide-outs in the slums of Beirut or in the Bekaa Valley. Friends say his courage sometimes sagged with doubts; he left on his last trip to the Middle East just over a week ago, more fearful than ever that he might end up like Terry Waite, a negotiator imprisoned by contemptuous interlocutors.

A good deal of the story of the United Nations and the hostages remains cloaked. With two German hostages and scores of Middle Eastern prisoners still waiting for freedom, officials do not want to talk very much. But enough of the detail has seeped out to make the dramatic story clearer than ever before.

Sometime earlier this year, probably in February, Perez de Cuellar received a message from Iran that the “groups”--as he calls the various cells of Shiite Muslim fundamentalist kidnapers in Lebanon who belong to the mysterious organization known as Hezbollah--were ready to talk about releasing the hostages. The message meant, in fact, that Iran itself was ready to rid itself of a cruel embarrassment, for the world knew that the fundamentalists acted under the influence and sustenance of Iran.

Several events had made the times ready for settlement. Most important, with the death of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani felt independent enough to try to mend ties with the West and thus help pull his country out of its economic doldrums. Freeing the hostages was the only way to start some kind of rapprochement. The end of the Cold War and the crushing defeat of Iraq in the Persian Gulf War also helped persuade Iran that it now made sense to try to untangle the snarled and bitter relations with the United States. The same events encouraged Syria to move closer to the United States and to demonstrate as much by cooperating in the freeing of hostages. On top of this, the kidnapers found one of their main demands--the release of 17 Lebanese Shiites from Kuwaiti prisons--fulfilled almost by coincidence. The Iraqi army had freed them when it invaded Kuwait.

But propitious times need men and women of action who can take advantage of such times and, by all accounts, Picco fit the need perfectly. Known as Johnny in the U.N. bureaucracy, Picco, who holds graduate degrees in political science from the University of Padua and the University of California, had the confidence of both Perez de Cuellar and the Iranian government.

Fluent in English, Spanish and French in addition to his native Italian, Picco, a young U.N. bureaucrat, had been assigned to Perez de Cuellar’s staff in Cyprus in 1976 when the Peruvian diplomat headed the U.N. force there. After Perez de Cuellar became secretary general in 1982, he brought Picco along as a personal assistant. In 1988, the tall Italian was given the job of helping to negotiate the cease-fire that ended the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran. The Iranians admired and trusted him and later looked on him as their main channel of communication to the United Nations.

Picco also developed a reputation as a courier and negotiator of discretion. He was so discreet, in fact, that associates occasionally complained that he talked in riddles that sometimes made him incomprehensible. Anne Nelson, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, who met with Picco often about the case of Associated Press correspondent Terry A. Anderson, said with a smile last week, “Picco has gotten so used to talking by innuendo he may never be able to tell the full story of what happened.”

Perez de Cuellar, while meeting with Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Khamal Kharrazi in New York, also dispatched Picco on several missions to the Mideast. Iranian diplomats also used other intermediaries, such as the Swiss and the Germans, to explain what could be done to ensure the release of the hostages. Over the months, the general outlines of an exchange took shape. It had all the earmarks of a deal, but since all sides insisted on their steadfast aversion to dealing, no one would use that loaded word to describe what was expected to take place.

Throughout the tense months, Perez de Cuellar kept the U.S. government informed of his progress. According to the White House, he met with National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft in secret sessions in New York so that Scowcroft could brief President Bush. And, according to an American diplomat at the United Nations, Perez de Cuellar, in his regular meetings with U.S. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering on many U.N. issues, kept the ambassador up to date on hostage matters so he could pass news on to Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

Yet Pickering was not told of Scowcroft’s visits to U.N. headquarters. “He was not aware,” said a senior Administration official.

A complex exchange had been envisioned: If Israel would arrange the release of 375 Lebanese Shiite prisoners held by its client militia, the South Lebanon Army, and would itself release Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, a fundamentalist cleric abducted by the Israelis, the Lebanese kidnapers would release their Western hostages.

Israel looked on this kind of deal as no more than a face-saving measure for letting the hostages go. “They figured the more they could squeeze us, the better it would look in Iran,” said a senior Israeli official. Israel quickly let the Iranians and the U.N. mediator know that Israel would not free prisoners without getting what it wanted: an accounting of seven Israeli military personnel captured in Lebanon.

No deal had been reached when one of the kidnaping groups, Islamic Jihad, announced in early August that it was dispatching a special envoy to Perez de Cuellar with “an extremely important message” that could end the hostage crisis. The envoy, in fact, turned out to be a hostage, British television journalist John McCarthy, who was handed over to Syrian army officers. They took him to Damascus and released him there in the presence of Picco.

McCarthy carried a long and florid letter from his kidnapers that offered to trade the hostages for “the release of our freedom fighters from prisons” in Israel and Europe. The kidnapers said they had chosen Perez de Cuellar as mediator because of “the great importance of your role and position as secretary general of the United Nations in the eyes of the peoples of the world, particularly the oppressed and downtrodden.”

The release of McCarthy and the letter opened the final stage of the drama. But it caused consternation in U.N. headquarters at first. Perez de Cuellar and Picco had been working in secret with the Iranians and others on a package deal. They had been troubled by a remarkable article by Newsday’s U.N. correspondent, Josh Friedman, piecing together the course of the negotiations from sources in Iran and Israel. But, by and large, they had managed to keep the story out of the press. Suddenly, the kidnapers were broadcasting the role of the United Nations to the world. Public thrashing over terms might destroy any hope for an agreement.

Moreover, the kidnapers seemed to be resorting to their old ways of stringing out releases in hopes of wringing some gain or advantage from each one. That had an ominous ring. In fact, according to Andrew Whitley, a former British Broadcasting Corp. correspondent in Iran who now heads the private human rights organization Middle East Watch, and who knows Picco well, “Everyone was afraid that if the hostages did not all come out as part of a package, there could be a negative reaction on the hostages left behind. They could be killed.”

The letter itself also raised the ante of the kidnapers, for they were now obviously demanding the release of two Lebanese brothers jailed in Germany on charges dealing with the hijacking of a TWA airliner, and also demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

To make matters worse, an obscure organization kidnaped a French medical worker in Beirut on the same day that McCarthy was released. Things were falling apart, and it seemed as if the awful Beirut merry-go-round of release and capture had resumed. But Iranian pressure swiftly forced the newest kidnapers to give up their prey, and the mood lightened somewhat at U.N. headquarters. The French medical worker, blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back, was dumped on a Beirut street, and Abdullah Nouri, the Iranian minister of the interior, told a news conference in Damascus that Iran was “against the taking of hostages” and “all hostages, both those held in Lebanon and those held in Israel, must be released.” In a few days, a second hostage, American Edward A. Tracy, came out of his captivity.

It seems clear now that the Iranian government, concerned that the private talks had failed to wring concessions out of Israel, decided to put pressure on the Israelis by making the issues public and to restart the process by encouraging the first release of hostages in more than a year. To a large extent, the Iranian strategy worked.

Perez de Cuellar not only acknowledged his role but almost reveled in it, meeting publicly with Israeli and Iranian emissaries in Geneva and later flying with Picco to talk with Israeli officials in Israel and President Rafsanjani in Iran. In a few short weeks, the secretary general held meetings with Iranian and Israeli officials in various cities in both Europe and the Middle East.

But the heavy burden of cajoling the kidnapers and carrying numerous messages to and from the Israelis fell on Picco in the months ahead. It is widely believed that Picco, unlike Terry Waite years before, dealt with the actual kidnapers--not with go-betweens--in his meetings in Lebanon.

In early September, after negotiators met with Perez de Cuellar in Paris, Israel ordered the release of 51 prisoners from the Al Khiam prison in southern Lebanon and sent the bodies of nine Hezbollah fighters to the fundamentalists. In exchange, Israel also received information about the deaths of two of its missing soldiers, Rehamam Alsheikh and Yosef Fink.

On Sept. 11, while Perez de Cuellar and Picco were dining in Tehran with President Rafsanjani and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati, two of the kidnaping groups issued conciliatory statements. “The first stage has been completed with the release of the first group,” said the Revolutionary Justice Organization. “We will meet our obligations and commitments as long as compliance has taken place by the other sides.”

And, from Islamic Jihad: “We are fully ready to offer the necessary support for the secretary general to reach the comprehensive solution.”

Although a glitch of some kind developed, the kidnapers finally released British pilot Jack Mann in late September. But a pattern emerged: hard bargaining between the Israelis and the kidnapers with Picco moving between the two.

In late October, the Israelis were informed by the United Nations that it had firm word that Fink was dead. But Uri Lubrani, the Israeli negotiator, insisted that this news did not merit any further release of Arab prisoners, since it was no more than payment for the earlier release. Shortly afterward, the U.N. office in Beirut, making an official announcement on hostages for the first time, said that a release was expected in 24 hours. This was evidently delayed because of Israeli air raids on Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley. But, the kidnapers finally released American Jesse Turner after a day’s delay, and the Israelis set free 15 Arabs a few days later.

A few weeks’ lull followed while attention focused on the Middle East peace conference in Madrid. Suddenly, with virtually no fanfare, Waite and Thomas M. Sutherland emerged from captivity. Soon after this release, a British television channel broadcast a program claiming that Waite, a Church of England official kidnaped while negotiating the release of hostages, had served as a front for Lt. Col. Oliver L. North’s arms-for-hostages deal and that this association had prompted the fundamentalists to seize him.

This news may have been one of the reasons for Picco’s obvious show of fear as he headed out for the Mideast again on Nov. 29. But the Lebanese fundamentalists and the Iranians appeared to have no stomach for more hostage-taking. Picco, with his penchant for codes and riddles, had told Bill Foley, a close friend of hostage Anderson, that when Anderson’s release was certain, Picco’s secretary would call Foley with a message, “Come for coffee.”

“For a couple of days,” said Foley’s wife, Cary Vaughn, “whenever we left the house, we’d come back and ask, ‘Did anyone call about coffee or something like that?’ Finally, Picco’s office called and said, ‘Come for coffee.’ ” Foley immediately flew to Damascus. In quick succession, the last three Americans were released: Joseph J. Cicippio on Monday; Alann Steen on Tuesday, and the longest-held hostage of all, Anderson, on Wednesday. Picco stood quietly tall in the background for all three releases.

A few weeks ago, the Bush Administration reimbursed Iran for $270 million worth of arms that had been paid for by the government of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi but never delivered. The $270 million had been withheld by the U.S. government since the seizure of the American hostages in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the Jimmy Carter Administration.

A similar payment of blocked funds by the French government in 1987 had helped gain the release of all French hostages, but U.S. officials insist that the American payment this year was coincidental and not related to the release of the hostages in Beirut.

Until the Administration revealed the secret meetings of National Security Adviser Scowcroft with Perez de Cuellar, many U.S. officials were insisting that they knew very little about the U.N. negotiations.

A senior Administration official said that Scowcroft had offered nothing to the U.N. secretary general in terms of concessions or commitments. “The only thing he brought was a willingness to listen,” the official said.

Scowcroft, the official went on, “wasn’t a back channel.”

“We’ve been very upfront that we’d deal with anyone, anytime, anywhere,” the official said.

The Administration’s sensitivity about “back channels” stems from the Ronald Reagan Administration’s Iran-Contra affair, when the term was used to describe Col. North’s efforts to hide his arms-for-hostages deals from other officials.

The official said Scowcroft offered Perez de Cuellar the confidence that President Bush was paying attention to the negotiations and that any objections by him would be brought promptly to the United Nations’ attention.

But the meetings were kept secret, the official went on, so that the secretary general and Picco would not seem like errand boys for the United States. If that image had surfaced, the official said, the Iranians and others might have called off the talks.

Soon after Anderson arrived in Damascus, U.S. officials in Washington attributed his release to the American government’s tough policy of refusing to deal with the kidnapers. The remark seemed to anger Perez de Cuellar. “That is not the only reason,” he told a television interviewer. “If you put out that as the reason, then my work was not so important.”

Speaking with journalists after the release of Anderson, the secretary general said: “The American chapter has been closed. But there are other chapters to close.”

The Israelis would agree. In fact, in recent weeks, they have grown concerned that the Israel-Iran-U.N. triangle was broken and Israel would be left out.

Although still insisting on the need to recover the bodies of three soldiers believed killed in battle, Israel has focused most attention on the case of Ron Arad, an air force navigator shot down over Lebanon and believed still alive.

On the eve of the release of the last three Americans, Israel set free another 25 prisoners and made available to Hezbollah a videotape of Sheik Obeid. In the tape, Obeid is said to have quoted Koranic verses alluding to the need for a father to be reunited with his family--in short, a plea for freedom.

But there has been no word on Arad. With only two German hostages left in Lebanese hands, worry has surfaced again that Israel may not get what it wants. “The moment of truth is approaching,” a senior Israeli official said Friday.

Why did the United Nations succeed in obtaining the release of the hostages while so many others had failed? “When the Iranian government finally decided it was the time to close the file on this,” said Whitley of Middle East Watch, “it was the obvious group to turn to. The U.N. was able to deal without the political pressures of a government.

“I think the U.N. mediators have given the world a model of how diplomacy is supposed to work,” Whitley went on. “They have been skillful. They have been sensitive. They have been courageous. And they have been discreet.”

Terrell Arnold, a former State Department counterterrorism expert, said: “One lesson of this episode is that you must have a single negotiating avenue. A more specific lesson is that the entry of the United Nations, at the top level, as a negotiator is by far the best way to approach it. The U.N. has a cachet that no individual country can bring to it.”

Perez de Cuellar believes that the United Nations must now deal with the chapters concerning Sheik Obeid, the Shiite prisoners, the Israeli navigator and the two German hostages held by relatives of two Lebanese brothers imprisoned in Germany.

“I’ll continue to work,” said Perez de Cuellar, who is leaving office at the end of the year. “I don’t have to be secretary general to keep working. It is a humanitarian issue, not a political one.”

Times staff writers Daniel Williams in Jerusalem, Kim Murphy in Cairo, Nick B. Williams Jr. in Damascus, Tyler Marshall in Wiesbaden and James Gerstanzang, Doyle McManus and Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.

America’s Former Hostages

FREED

Frank Regier, professor of electrical engineering at American University, kidnaped Feb. 10, 1984, freed by Amal April 15, 1984, captors believed to be Islamic Jihad; The Rev. Benjamin Weir, Presbyterian minister from Berkeley, kidnaped May 5, 1984, freed Sept. 14, 1985; Father Lawrence M. Jenco, Beirut chief of Catholic Relief Services, kidnaped Jan. 8, 1985, freed July 26, 1986, campus minister at USC; David P. Jacobsen, Huntington Beach, director of American University Hospital, kidnaped May 28, 1985, freed by Islamic Jihad Nov. 2, 1986.

Robert Polhill, of New York City, assistant professor of business studies at Beirut University College, kidnaped Jan. 24, 1987, freed by Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine April 22, 1990; Frank H. Reed, Malden, Mass., director of Lebanese International School in West Beirut, kidnaped Sept. 9, 1986, freed April 30, 1990 by previously unknown Islamic Dawn, although original kidnap claim was made by Arab Revolutionary Cells-Omar Mukhtar Brigade; Jeremy Levin, Beirut bureau chief of Cable News Network; kidnaped March 7, 1984; escaped Feb. 13, 1985.

Charles Glass, Los Angeles native and former ABC Mideast correspondent, kidnaped June 17, 1987, by gunmen in West Beirut suburb while riding in car with Ali Osseiran, son of Lebanese defense minister, who was also seized. Osseiran and driver freed June 24, 1987. Glass escaped Aug. 18, 1987.

Edward A. Tracy, of Rutland, Vt., author of children’s books, illustrator, Koran salesman, kidnaped Oct. 21, 1986, freed Aug. 11, 1991, by Islamic Jihad; Jesse Turner, of Boise, Ida., assistant instructor of mathematics and computer sciences at Beirut University College, kidnaped Jan. 24, 1987, freed Oct. 22, 1991, by Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine; Thomas M. Sutherland, Ft. Collins, Colo., acting dean of school of agriculture at American University of Beirut, kidnaped by Islamic Jihad June, 9, 1985, freed Nov. 18, 1991.

Joseph J. Cicippio, Valley Forge, Pa., acting controller of American University, seized on West Beirut campus Sept. 12, 1986. Revolutionary Justice Organization claimed responsibility, freed Dec. 2, 1991. Alann Steen, journalism professor at Beirut University College, abducted Jan. 24, 1987, freed Dec. 3, 1991. Steen a native of Boston, had taught at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif., and at Chico State University; Terry A. Anderson, Batavia, N.Y., chief Mideast correspondent for the Associated Press, Beirut bureau chief, kidnaped March 16, 1985, held by Islamic Jihad, freed Dec. 4, 1991.

SLAIN

William Buckley, 57, Medford, Mass., U.S. Embassy political officer and CIA station chief, kidnaped March 16, 1984, murder reported Oct. 4, 1985, but believed to have died in June, 1985; Peter Kilburn, 61, of San Francisco, American University of Beirut librarian, missing Dec. 3, 1984, slain April 17, 1986; Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, 44, Danville, Ky., kidnaped Feb. 17, 1988. Chief of the U.N. Truce Supervisory Organization in Lebanon; Islamic group calling itself Organization of the Oppressed on Earth released videotape on July 31, 1989, of Higgins being hanged.