Forgotten

I never did know Terry all that well. He was seven years younger and sort of a nonentity in our family as a kid. Quiet, well behaved, he managed to carve a place for himself that nobody much noticed.

In 1979 we were sitting in the dead Florida quiet of my house, catching up. I asked him how he felt about what he was doing. He started talking about his life and his work, one and the same to him. Terry was caught up in the spirit of his job; he had the great ability to influence people by what he wrote, and he took that responsibility seriously. I liked his commitment to his work, his moral standards.

In 1984, Terry came home on leave again–but cocky, arrogant, kind of cold. I did not like what Lebanon had done to my brother.

Once he got back to Lebanon, Terry would call in Sundays, just to chat, and I began trying to get him home. He was telling me the latest of his adventure stories when I broke in. “Terry, the joke is over. It’s time to get out of there.”

“You don’t understand, “he told me. “They don’t kidnap journalists. It would be counter-productive. These people need me; I tell their story to the world. That’s my job and they know it.”

Less than a week later, three men armed with automatic weapons wrestled Terry Anderson out of a car as he was returning from a tennis game.

A week after Terry was taken, we got a call from the State Department saying they wanted to send a representative to visit us.

“What should I do?” I asked the man.

“It’s not my place to advise you,” he told me, “but if I were you, I would make as much noise as possible. The State Department’s official position is to tell you not to go to Washington, to keep a low profile. But you get your behind up there. Go see everyone you can see. Make them look you in the eye, so that every time they think of Terry Anderson, they’ll see your face.”

The Associated Press decided to arrange and pay for a three-day Washington blitz by Terry’s Lebanese fiancee, Madeleine, my sister Judy and me. We were met, chaperoned and pointed in all the right directions by an AP representative, and coached on each meeting: “You’ve only got one line and you stick to it: Your brother is a hostage and you want him out. How can they help you, what advice can they give you?”

We saw the Algerians, the Germans, the Japanese, the Syrians. I’d never met anyone from any of those countries before. I had a hard time keeping them straight on a map. I was absorbing everything as fast as I could, but my head was buzzing.

Our chief contact at the State Department was a man named Bob Oakley. He was head of the Office of Counter-Terrorism.

We knew that Terry had been kidnapped by Islamic Jihad, specifically by a man named Imad Mughniyah, a member of the Shiite fundamentalist group called the Hezbollah. The Islamic Jihad had, in return for the release of the American hostages, demanded the release of seventeen Arab prisoners being held in Kuwait. The State Department and anyone even vaguely familiar with the situation over there, knew that the only prisoner the Hezbollah was really interested in was Mughniyah’s brother-in-law, who had been sentenced to death for terrorism but had his sentence commuted to life in prison. The situation seemed obvious. “Why can’t you talk to Kuwait,” I asked Oakley, “and see if they are willing to deal?”

“Oh, Peggy,” he said as he leaned back in his chair, “we couldn’t possibly do that. We don’t interfere in the internal politics of another country.”

“Excuse me?” I had a hard time with that one. “My tax dollars are financing rebels in Nicaragua and you are going to sit there and tell me that we don’t interfere in the internal politics of another country?”

Oakley just shrugged his shoulders. He seemed embarrassed.

Then came the TWA hijacking. TWA Flight No. 847 was going from Cairo to Rome with 153 passengers, including 104 Americans, when it was hijacked by two Lebanese Shiites. At first President Reagan took a hard line, saying there would be no concessions, no negotiations, no linkage between the passengers on TWA 847 and any prisoners held anywhere in the world.

Nineteen days into the hijacking, at one in the morning, I got a call from the State Department. The TWA hostages were supposed to get out the next day. In exchange for their freedom the Israelis had agreed–of course with U.S. blessings, though we’ve never admitted it–to release three hundred Shiite political prisoners. Our State Department liaison, Jackie Ratner, said, “Peggy, we have reason to believe that when the hostages reach Damascus, Terry and the others will be with them.”

Terry’s friends in Beirut were monitoring the situation. One called me the same night. “Peggy, you’ve been screwed. Reagan made a deal and he left out the seven. Reagan could not wait for the seven.” The President didn’t want to be embarrassed one moment longer.

The State Department used to send me photocopies of various newspaper articles, mostly concerning Terry. One day I turned one of those copies over and saw penciled notations on the back. It was somebody’s notes on hostage Peter Kilburn! They were deal points.

According to these notes we knew where Kilburn was and who had him, and the captors wanted money. It was going to be a cash-for-hostage ransom–that simple. So much for not negotiating with terrorists. What was even more disturbing was that the exchange was within two days of being made–and then Ronald Reagan bombed Libya. Kilburn and three other Western hostages were purchased by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and killed. “Oh, my God!” said the State Department person who sent me the clippings. “Please send it back.” I did, but not before I made some photocopies of my own.

My visa for Syria came through after a trip to Athens at the invitation of Margaret Papandreou, then the wife of the Greek Prime Minister, a friend of Syria’s President Assad.

The AP stringer in Damascus sent his Buick to the airport, a huge white American car that was extremely conspicuous on the Damascus streets, to take us to the Damascus Sheraton.

What a place! The buzz that runs through the Damascus Sheraton is the pulse of Middle Eastern politics. Almost every person coming into Damascus for high-level meetings or business is going to pass through that hotel’s lobby. It is a huge space, broken up into many separate alcoves by pillows, and banquettes, and tables and chairs.

I staked out a sofa to the right of the bank of elevators and had a perfect view of everyone who came and went. I always carried a stack of photographs of Terry and I would say, “My name is Peggy Say and I’m here trying to get information about my brother, the hostage Terry Anderson. This is his picture. If you hear anything, I would truly appreciate your calling me. I will meet with anyone to get my brother home.”

On about the fifth day I started toward General Alfeid, chief of the Arab Democratic Party and head of the Syrian army in Lebanon. I was only a couple of steps away when he said, “I know, I know. You are Mrs. Say, you want your brother out. I have just come from President Assad’s office and I am leaving right now for Beirut. I will try to find your brother.” He had his hands up, almost physically warding me off, and was backing away as I was trying to buttonhole him. He seemed put-upon, half amused. I thought, “Pretty soon they’re going to start greeting me with a whip and a chair.”

Back home after three weeks, I began to think of myself as living in two worlds. Reporters would laugh at my appointment schedule posted on the kitchen. It would say things like “Get groceries. Make appointment with Syrian ambassador. Pick up dry cleaning.”

What began as a botched negotiation ended up as Iran-contra. There had been rumors floating around for months but the implications just seemed too bizarre to be based in truth: the U.S. selling arms to Iran through Israel? A low-level State Department functionary had mentioned it to me, so I assume that, if they were telling me, it was an open secret around State. Ambassador Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, had to have known that Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North was up to something. He had spent an afternoon telling me to shut my mouth and stop blasting the Administration for another ten days. “Give Ollie ten days,” he had told me.

Although I never told him, my code name for Ollie was “Colonel Flagg,” the secret intelligence agent in MAS*H who was always coming up with maniacal schemes. Still, there was only one man I had met in government who seemed to have the willingness, the zeal and the capacity to get my brother home.

Ollie was reluctant to stop the initiative because middleman profits made in the sale of arms to Iran were going to fund the contras in Nicaragua. Anyone who had been around for more than two minutes knew that he had two political priorities in his life: the contra rebels and the hostages in Lebanon. Having stumbled into a major initiative that conceivably have resolved both dilemmas, Ollie rolled up his sleeves and started dealing.

And Ollie North didn’t happen in a vacuum. There were officials in high places who made the decision to “let Ollie do it.” Tired, overburdened, and slightly crazed with power, Ollie did do it. At least Ollie accepted his part of the blame.

People found it difficult to criticize President Reagan. They had no such difficulty castigating the hostage families and me. It was as if we personally had strong-armed the President into defying national policy, or breaking the law.

Early in January 1990 I got a call from Larry Heinzerling at the AP. They were developing an extensive itinerary for me–a month-long trip to Switzerland, Paris, London, the Vatican, Syria and Tunisia.

In Tunisia, we had been told we would see Yasser Arafat. Two cars screeched into our hotel parking lot and a band of PLO guys jumped out and began waving us in. Everybody had an automatic weapon. We drove a short way down the road and turned sharply into a compound.

The place was teeming with people. Mostly it was young Arab men, PLO security in casual dress. Weapons but no uniforms.

When I first saw Arafat he was sitting at the end of a long table on kind of a raised dais. The table was piled high with food and every seat was taken. Arafat waved several people away from the table to make room for us. Seated on Arafat’s left, I was startled to see him without his head gear–completely bald. When photos were taken, he put on a hat.

In front of me was someone else’s meal. They took that away and brought me a fresh plate but left the used cutlery and the smudged water glass. Arafat leaned over and, with his hands, plopped a huge hunk of lamb onto my plate.

It was obviously not the time for a discussion. In fact Arafat was not addressing me at all. Suddenly he gave a grunt, leapt out of his chair, and started striding across the living room next to where we were eating. I thought, “Now we’re going to have our meeting. “I got out of my seat and began to follow him. The rest of our AP entourage got up and followed me. Behind one couch was a hallway and Arafat careened on ahead. I was a couple of steps behind, trying to catch up, but at the end of the hall I lost him. The AP gang piled into me like the Three Stooges in the Casbah. Behind us a woman was screaming. “What are you doing. The chairman is going to the bathroom!”

The PLO boys with their automatic weapons were just about rolling on the floor with laughter. The whole place erupted. By now it’s probably part of PLO lore, the time that American hostage lady followed the chairman to the john.

When Arafat emerged it was indeed time to talk. Arafat was sympathetic. He said that, over the years, he had done what he could to help get the hostages freed. Now, however, the situation was beyond his influence. Arafat also said he would be in a better position to free my brother were it in the power of the captors to do so. But they basically no longer had any say. Those decisions were being made in Iran.

This was more confirmation than surprise. We had heard that if it were up to Iran’s President Rafsanjani the hostages would have been released in November. There had been a plan to that effect. However, the hard-liner Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, the new political leader of Hezbollah, had made a three-week trip to Lebanon, taken over their control and moved them out of reach of Syria.

In Syria, officials wanted the captors to know that enough was enough. They were saying, “If you’re going to cut a deal for these people, you’d damn well better do it now because they are rapidly decreasing in value,” and they wanted that message to come from me. It was to be a taped interview and I was terrified that I was going to say something wrong and get my brother killed.

What I said on Syrian TV was this: “The captors ask for ransom. If I had ten million dollars in my hands today and they said, ‘Give it to us and we’ll give you your brother,’ I’d say, ‘Not a dime. Not a dime! I’m not going to pay anymore. I’ve paid. My family has paid in pain and heartache.’”

I had been convinced after my trip in February and a subsequent meeting with President Bush that we were definitely on the road to resolution.

Rumors began surfacing from reliable sources that the hostages were coming home; August was the month, and once again hope was nurtured. There was nothing that could happen this time, I was sure, that could possibly derail the initiatives to release the hostages.

On August 2,1990, President Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, and once again the mess hit the fan.

Not only did the Iraqi invasion create a world crisis, it had a direct effect on Terry and the other hostages. Imad Mughniyah’s brother-in-law and the other prisoners being demanded by the captors in exchange for the Western hostages were in jail in Kuwait, enemies of the invading Iraqi government. For days we agonized over their fate. Would Hussein’s army summarily execute them? Would they be used as bargaining chips in interregional prisoner swaps? Had they escaped? [U.S. officials told NEWSWEEK that all the prisoners had escaped to Lebanon or Iran, but that Iran might not jeopardize its neutral stance in the gulf war by pressing for release of the Beirut hostages.]

Our cause was in the toilet again as thousands of hostages were taken in Kuwait and the airwaves were filled with their pictures and stories. With thousands of innocent Americans caught up in international terrorist activities, few people wanted to hear about six hostages in Lebanon.

On August 24, Irish hostage Brian Keenan was released. I had very mixed feelings about going to Ireland to see him. It had been several years since I had had firsthand reports about Terry’s life and conditions, and I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to hear about them now. What if things had deteriorated? What if Terry was sick or had lost hope?

Keenan hadn’t seen Terry in almost a year but he said that the night before he was released he was taken into what he knew to be Terry and Tom Sutherland’s room. He felt they had been taken out of there only temporarily because all their things were still there. He explored the room and found Terry’s Bibles. Terry was doing a historical study of the Bible, he said, and had learned French from Tom. He had a Bible in French as well as a Catholic and a Protestant Bible in English.

There also were two bolts on the wall that the hostages’ eighteen-inch chains usually hung from. And pushed up next to the wall, close enough so Terry could ride it and still remained chained, was an exercise bicycle. That bizarre picture stayed in my mind, Terry in his underwear on his exercise bike. I could just kind of hear him clanking and pedaling, pedaling and clanking.

By the end I was trembling, shaking, and crying, and I just couldn’t stop. I have always been afraid, in the back of my mind, that I was not doing the right thing for Terry.

Brian assured me that Terry was aware of what I was doing . . . and that he loved it. Terry had the best lines of communication of any of the hostages, he said, because of me: not only was Terry given the letters that we published in the Beirut papers on his birthdays, but every time there was a story about my travels or meetings the jailers showed it to him.

“Why,” Brian laughed, “they told him one time they were going to make you an honorary member of the Islamic Jihad. Terry said he didn’t think you’d be too thrilled by that but thought they knew a fellow terrorist when they saw one.”

There it was, the obvious opening for the dreaded question. There was no avoiding it.

“Brian, if they liked or admired what I was doing, does that mean that I prolonged Terry’s captivity? Did they keep him so that I would continue to plead their cause?” I didn’t know that I wanted to hear his answer.

“Hell, no,” he said. “Terry said that he knew the day he was taken that it would be at least five years until he saw freedom again. He knew he’d be the last one out, and he’s lived with that reality for the past five and a half years.

“What you’ve done is to provide him with a link to the outside world. Through your efforts he knows that he’s not forgotten, that everyone has done their best to free him, and that one day, hopefully soon, he’ll see freedom.”

This didn’t sound like the Terry Anderson I had known, or the Terry in captivity I had heard about. “Is Terry mad at the AP?” I asked. “Is Terry mad at the government? Who’s Terry mad at?”

Brian looked puzzled. “He’s not mad at anybody, really,” he said.

For the hostages, the five and a half years had been like they’d been for us, their families: cyclical. It’s almost like the stages of grieving: first the denial, then the anger, finally the acceptance of what is. The hostages had passed through all those phases, and in the last year or two they had become very introspective, very moral.

They had made a pact with one another, Brian told me: they would do things with their lives on the outside that would have value, that would be moral, that would make a better world. And each would see to it that the promises they made in captivity were kept. If anybody started straying, the others would phone him up and say, “Hey, get back on line here.”

I had kept a fantasy close to my heart. I had pictured myself taking Terry around to all the people who had turned their backs on me, everyone who had been callous or mean. I kept thinking, “All you people who hurt me, you just wait till my brother gets home. Are you going to be sorry.”

It wasn’t going to be. I was not going to get my revenge, as little and as unsatisfactory as it might have been. “Look, Peggy,” Brian said, “there’s nothing more you can do. Quit.”

I was crying, just blubbering and shaking as I said to him, “Brian, I don’t know how. I don’t know how to stop what I’m doing. I don’t know anybody I can go to who can reassure me that ‘Yes, you’ve done everything you can, it’s going to be over with. Go home.”’

Facing the fact of Terry’s acceptance, his lack of anger, however, I felt mine starting to dissipate, almost a physical release at the anger leaving me. I realized I can’t do any more than my part. I’ve had a role to play in this, and the very fact that we sustained an unpopular issue for five and a half years–that those who know there are hostages in Lebanon know Terry Anderson, that I’ve given him a future–has to be enough. I did the only thing I could do. Whether it was right or wrong, whether it did or did not prolong Terry’s captivity, I couldn’t not do it.

I love you, little brother, much more than I ever knew.