Now A Grand Swap

But nothing could spare the hostage families from another week of ups and downs. First the Lebanese kidnappers released British journalist John McCarthy,34,who was seized in Beirut more than five years ago. They sent a letter with him, evidently proposing a solution to the hostage problem. There were rumors that another prisoner would be freed soon-probably an American, perhaps even Terry Anderson, the Associated Press bureau chief who has been held the longest of all the captives. There was talk of a “grand swap’ in which all the Westerners would be sent home, along with Arab and Israeli prisoners of war. “I think we have to consider this as a beginning of a process leading to the release of all hostages,” said United Nations Secretary-general Javier Perez de Cuellar, to whom the kidnappers’ letter was addressed.

Then terrorists struck again in Beirut. A previously unknown group kidnapped 26-year-old Jerome Leyraud, a French relief worker, and said he would die if any more hostages were set free. As Lebanese forces and Syrian occupation troops scoured Beirut for Leyraud, another gang of hostage-takers, the Revolutionary Justice Organization (RJO), defied the threat to the Frenchman and said it would soon release an American prisoner. On Sunday, Leyraud’s captors suddenly let him go. Hours later an American, Edward Tracy,60, was freed after nearly five years in captivity. The RJO called for a gesture in return;the release of Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, a Shite leader kidnapped by the Israelis in 1989.

There are all sorts of reasons why the hostage crisis ought to be over soon. The political map of the Middle East has been redrawn by the Persian Gulf War and the declining influence of the Soviet Union. The United States is now the predominant outside power in the region, and old adversaries are rushing to make their peace with Washington. Holding the hostages no longer serves the interests of Iran and Syria, the countries with the most leverage on the kidnappers. A new Lebanese government wants the hostage problem to go away. And the pro-Iranian Hizbullah (Party of God), the Shiite Muslim, umbrella group to which the kidnappers belong, is under new and less insular management.

Israel, still adamantly opposed to trading land for peace, wants to show its all-powerful patron that it can be reasonable on other issues, such as the 370 or so prisoners now held by the Israeli Army or its proxies in southern Lebanon. The Bush administration refuses to repeat the mistakes of its predecessor by offering concessions to hostage-holders. Nonetheless, Washington also wants a way out. “We are obviously moving toward a hostage-for-hostage swap,” says a senior State Department official. “We are not doing a deal directly, of course. But the fact is, behind several layers, we are looking for a swap.”

Last month the administration began to get signals that a breakthrough on the hostages would be freed. The next day the pro-Iranian terrorist group known as Islamic Holy War handed out a new photograph of Anderson and said it would send a special envoy with an “extremely important message” for Perez de Cuellar. But just after McCarthy’s release, Leyraud was kidnapped by a group called the Organization for the Defense of the Prisoners’ Rights. A fundamentalist source in Beirut told NEWSWEEK that the kidnapping was designed to block the release of Anderson, who had been scheduled to go free only hours after McCarthy.

There were other theories about the kidnapping. Factions of Hizbullah were said to be at one another’s throats over the issue of releasing hostages, whose market value appeared to be declining rapidly. Sources in Beirut said Imad Mugniyah, who is widely believed to have abducted Anglican envoy Terry Waite, favored a release and was secretly dickering with a U.S.agent. Abdul Hadi Hamadei, a senior Hizbullah official whose two brothers are serving prison terms in Germany for terrorism, was said to oppose any release until his brothers are freed.

Another theory was that radical Iranians were trying to undercut President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has been trying to improve Iran’s ties with the West. It wasn’t clear exactly how much control Iranian militants still exerted over the hostage-takers. But the Leyraud kidnapping embarrassed Rafsanjani, as did the assassination in Paris last week of Shahpur Bakhtiar, the last prime minister under the deposed shah. Both actions threatened Iran’s recent rapprochement with France.

Rafsanjani needs Western investment to rebuild Iran’s battered economy. At a recent conference in Isfahan, Iran tried to enlist U.S. companies in the expansion of its oil industry. The Iranians were reminded that the hostages must be released first, according to a Lebanese economist who was there. Politically, Rafsanjani has to be alarmed about the progress Washington has made in organizing a Mideast peace conference. “The U.S. is on the verge of getting Arabs and Israelis to the peace table; it has strengthened its military relationship with the gulf states, and it is moving into a partnership of sorts with Syria-all without Iran’s participation,” says an American official. Rafsanjani cannot allow the hostages to keep him out of the game.

Syrian President Hafez Assad also needs financial aid and is scrambling onto the U.S. bandwagon after years in the Soviet camp. “Assad needs to show that he’s a player if he wants to continue in this new game with the Americans,’ says Robert Hunter, a former National Security Council expert on the Mideast. “Going to a peace conference isn’t enough. The best way to prove to Washington that he’s a player is to deliver the Western hostages.”

The kidnappers themselves may be more malleable than they were a few years ago. Hizbullah’s new leader, Sheik Abbas Musawi, who recently replaced a pro-Iranian radical, seems inclined to deal. As the Lebanese government tries to get a grip on the country, Hizbullah’s militia is the only private army that has not yet been disarmed. Releasing the hostages might enable Hizbullah to retain its independent military force.

The grand swap would include the mostly Lebanese Shiite prisoners in Israeli and Lebanese Christian custody. In principle, Israel is willing to free these Arabs, but first it wants to know about the fate of seven Israeli military men who disappeared in Lebanon between 1982 and 1986. Only three of the seven are thought to be alive, and Israel wants them back. Last week Peggy Say, Terry Anderson’s activist sister, told a Tel Aviv newspaper that Israel should make the first move. “As a true friend and ally of the U.S., as the largest recipient of foreign aid from the U.S.,[Israel should] do this even without receiving the promise that the Israelis would be released,” she said. Washington was careful to make no such demons. “You don’t pressure the Israelis,” said a U.S. official, adding that ‘a wink and a nod” works better.

There are problems with such broad linkage. Some of the kidnappers may demand the release of 7,000 Palestinians arrested by Israel in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. “These people have nothing to do with the hostage situation,” says Uri Lubrani, the Israeli official in charge of activities in southern Lebanon. The freedom of the Hamadei brothers may become an issue, although the German government insists it will not let them go. The kidnappers also may set a price of money or weapons, or in guarantees of their future safety.

There is not telling how much longer it will take to negotiate the release of all the prisoners. For now, the hostage families can console themselves with the thought that the release of McCarthy and Tracy has made the burden of despair a little lighter for everyone. “Anyone who gets out is one more free,” says Kit Sutherland, another daughter of Thomas Sutherland. “That’s the next best thing to having Dad.”

Most of the groups known to be holding hostages in Lebanon are believed to be linked to one another under the umbrella of Hizbullah (the Party of God), a Shiite Muslim militia aligned with Iran. A possible exception is the Organization for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, which abducted and then freed French aid worker Jerome Leyraud last week.

Released Briton John McCarthy, but has reportedly demanded $12 million for freeing its remaining prisoners.

American, missing since March 16, 1985

American, missing since June 9, 1985

British, missing since Jan. 20, 1987

Threatened the lives of its prisoners on at least four occasions since 1987, most recently in August 1989, when it warned the French fleet not to intervene in a Beirut artillery battle.

American, missing since Sept. 12, 1986

American, captive from 1986 to 1991

Links the fate of its two American hostages to the release of Lebanese Shiites and Palestinians held by Israel.

American, missing since Jan. 24, 1987

Said its abduction of ex-RAF piolet was to win fairness for Palestinians jailed in U.K.

British, missing since May 12, 1989

Kidnappings believed to be reprisal for jailing of Hamadei brothers in Germany.

German, missing since May 16, 1989

The presumed abduction of one Westerner has been attributed to no group.

Italian, missing since Sept. 11, 1985