Prime-Time Terrorism

It was like a nightmarish rerun of the Iranian hostage drama, with a surreal twist. Once again American hostages were paraded before the cameras by their terrorist captors. Only this time they were not blindfolded, as the American embassy officials had been in Tehran, or made to grovel by bug-eyed radicals shouting "Death to America!" Rather, the prisoners, some unshaven, all uneasy, but combed and neat, were graciously ushered out to meet the press.

Acting as a kind of terrorist talk-show host was Ali Hamdan, a well-groomed representative of the Lebanese Amal, the mainstream Shi'ite faction that had in effect hijacked the hostages from their original hijackers, the two brutal gunmen who had seized TWA's Flight 847 and murdered Navy Diver Robert Stethem. The only glitch in this presentation occurred when reporters and cameramen got into a shoving match as they jockeyed for position. Quickly, the Shi'ite guards hustled their prizes from the crowded room in the Beirut airport, waving pistols and cuffing a few reporters for good measure. When the press settled down, the five hostages returned and pronounced themselves healthy and well cared for. Their keepers had attended to their medical needs, fed them, kept them abreast of the news, they said. In fact, the hostages were "appreciative of that, uh, hospitality," said Thomas Cullins of Burlington, Vt.

The spokesman for the hostages seemed straight from central casting: a square-jawed, clear-eyed Texan named Allyn Conwell. An oil company executive based in Oman, Conwell was returning from a vacation in the U.S. Showing more aplomb in captivity than Cool Hand Luke, he calmly beseeched his captors and the U.S. alike to "put aside fear, anger and insult" and "let us go home."

It was as if terrorism had been refined, spruced up, made almost civilized for TV. The effect was strangely serene, almost lulling, at least until Conwell warned in his calm drawl, "If negotiations fail, we will be returned back to the original hijackers. Let me say, based on experience, that is something that I would find most unappealing." Lest reporters miss the point, a shadowy figure stalked in the background, hoisting an AK-47.

All week the world was held in dreadful thrall by the spectacle of Americans turned into political pawns in a distant land. Only at the weekend did there appear to be the slightest sign of a possible breakthrough. Meeting on Sunday, the Israeli Cabinet decided to free 31 of the 776 Lebanese detainees, most of them Shi'ites, currently held in Atlit prison, south of Haifa. The gesture was quickly dismissed by Shi'ite leaders in Beirut as inadequate, but it could conceivably help ease the impasse.

Throughout the week, ordinary Americans, buffeted by feelings of outrage and concern, tied yellow ribbons to trees and prayed for the hostages' safe return.* Ronald Reagan meanwhile grimly contemplated his severely limited options. He had assumed the presidency vowing to make America "stand tall" after its 444-day humiliation at the hands of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini and warning terrorists to "be aware that . . . our policy will be one of swift and effective retribution."