THE HOSTAGE WHO LOVED HER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200001-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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[WASHINGTON POST
18 December 1986
The Hostage
Who Loved Her
Candace Hammond Reineinlw rs William U,,t klev
By Mary Battiata
Wa,hni ton Rat Staff Writer
FARMER, N.C.-In February 1984, one month be-
fore he was taken hostage in Beirut, William Buckley
placed an overseas telephone call to his longtime friend,
Candace Hammond, at her house in this tiny hamlet in
the rolling hills of Carolina. Candy-belle, as Buckley.
sometimes addressed her in his letters, had long since
stopped wondering exactly what it was that Buckley did
for a living. As far as she knew, he was working for the
State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, and
hoping to come home soon.
She was sound asleep when the phone rang. He
wanted to know if she'd seen him on the news, helping in
the evacuation of American civilians from Beirut. "He
said, 'Did you see me on television? I was helping people
on the beach.' "
Then he told her of another event, one that never
made the news but was, in the clear vision of hindsight,
her first clue that Buckley had been playing a more dan-
gerous game.
"fie said his apartment had been bombed-not his
apartment, but near enough to break all the glass in his
windows," Hammond says. "And he took it as a personal
affront. He said he knew who had bombed his apartment
and he had telephoned them and told them he knew they
had done it, and he would get them."
A month later, as he left for work on the morning of
March 16, 1984, Buckley was forced out of his car at
gunpoint and kidnaped.
Early news accounts of the abduction described him
as first secretary of the embassy's political section.
Much later it was reported that Buckley had been CIA
station chief in Beirut, an expert on terrorism with ex-
tensive knowledge of CIA operations throughout the
Middle East. He had been sent to Beirut the previous
summer to rebuild U.S. intelligence operations after the
bombing of the U.S. Embassy left several agency em-
ployes dead.
His capture by an Iranian terrorist group calling it-
self Islamic Jihad reportedly had caused great anguish at
CIA headquarters and had prompted agency Director
William J. Casey to approve what have been called "ex-
traordinary measures" to obtain Buckley's release. His
kidnaping is thought to have helped set in motion the se-
ries of events that led the Reagan administration to
countermand U.S. policy by shipping arms to Iran. And
his apparent death in mid-1985, after prolonged interro-
gation, torture and medical neglect, reportedly redou-
bled administration efforts to find and tree the remaining
American hostages, whatever the cost.
But that was all far in the future. The day after she
learned of his kidnaping on the morning news, Hammond
received a long letter from Buckley, written a few weeks
earlier, thanking her for a box of valentine gifts:
"Beirut is its usual wild self with peace and our 'real'
cease fire just around the corner," it read in part. "Unfor-
tunately the sidewalk leading to that corner keeps slip-
ping away, and we never really nail down much
with the multiple idiots and factions with whom
we have to deal. It is a great and impossibly
complex adventure, and I will therefore be very
pleased if I get a break one day which will per-
mit me to visit Farmer [and[ burn all the wood
in sight, have magnificent breakfasts, dinner at
the steakhouse and of course, an opportunity to
play around in the antique market. Or play with
other toys if they are available and I am still
able. I am aging and weakening fast on this as-
signment. Take care of yourself and keep the
home fires burning ..."
Candace Hammond is 5 feet 1 inch of sturdy,
curvy energy. Her hair is swept back in a long,
tawny braid that falls past the small of her back,
and she dresses like a hip earth mother, in an
antique tuxedo jacket with a rhinestone-and-
pearl brooch pinned like a military honor over
her heart. There is a crimson muffler wrapped
around the collar of her flannel shirt; brown
suede clogs peek out from the bell bottoms of
her blue jeans. Her wide, green eyes sparkle
when she laughs; she keeps her generous
mouth lipsticked bright pink. She has a bis-
cuits-and-baby drawl and a determined air.
Her hands are rough and stained from the
landscaping she oversees at High Point College.
All week she's been hanging Christmas gar-
lands around the campus, stiffening gilt bows
and making Christmas angels, potting poinset-
tias. Now, sitting cross-legged with her back to
a dying fire in the parlor of her old farmhouse,
she spreads Buckley's letters around her like
tarot cards and struggles to describe him and
the way they were.
Was he independent?
"Oh my God," she says, nodding.
A loner?
"Yes," she says slowly. "Two independent,
loner people together."
She fingers a post card of a Renoir painting,
"Women Combing Their Hair." On the back
Buckley wrote: "Reminds me of someone I
know."
There is a Polaroid snapshot of the two of
them wearing straw hats. Hers is set back on
her head, and her smile is eager. Buckley is
standing stiffly beside her, his mouth set in a
line. His eyes are hidden in the shadow of his
hat brim.
Some of the details escape her now. "He
liked spy novels ... and it seems to me he told
me his father was retired Navy, and that he'd
done something else before, when he first got
married. Seems like I remember something
about [his father) being a salesman." She frowns
in frustration and looks embarrassed. "I really
wish I could remember this stuff, but you know,
you think a relationship's going to go on forever
and there's no need ..."
Candy Hammond met Bill Buckley 10 years
ago at a neighbor's house when she went over
to borrow a sleeping bag. He was 47 and, as far
as she knew, a civilian employed by the Army
and staying at Fort Bragg for the semiannual
war games there. She remembers someone tall
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and distinguished (he was 5 feet 9), with steel-
gray hair and gray eyes.
"Piercing," she says now. "Sure could give
you a dirty look." She was invited to stay for
hamburgers, and afterward she decided she
wanted to see him again. "Nice-looking bache-
lors in Farmer are not that frequent," she re-
members, "so you nab onto them when you
can."
As one of the local civilians recruited to play
minor roles in the war games ("I was Nurse
Candy; I kept telling them women are doctors
now, I can be a doctor"), she tagged along on a
convoy, then asked to be dropped off along a
road where Buckley was scheduled to pass.
"Damsel in distress," she explains.
He said not to worry, he'd see I got home
safely. And he did. He was intelligent, with a
good sense of humor, alive, aware ... and avail-
able."
Buckley went back north, but before he left,
"he said, 'Would you like to come to Washington
and visit?' and I said, 'Yes, I would love to,' and
he sent tickets."
They began to visit back and forth, once a
month, sometimes more, sometimes less. He
didn't have a car, but he rented one when she
came to town. On the first trip he took her to
museums-"he called it 'Bill Buckley's Couth
and Culture Course'"-but they quickly found
a favorite pastime, prowling the antique shops
around Dupont Circle, "going junking," she calls
it. He bought her African carvings and Chinese
silk. He took her to visit battlefields. They liked
Kramerbooks for breakfast and the Prime Rib
on K Street for dinner. He made reservations
using his middle initial, as William F. Buckley.
When the inevitably disappointed maitre d', ex-
pecting the columnist, stared, Buckley always
said, "I'm the real one. The other one's counter-
feit."
He wore dark suits and perfectly knotted
ties. "Real dashing and debonair." And he could
be courtly to the point of exasperation. "We'd
get to a place and I would automatically open
my door to get out, and he would come along
and close it and say, 'I'll open the door.' And I'd
say . . . 'I can open my own door, Bill.' And he'd
say, 'When you're with me, I open the door.' So
we'd have this little running battle ... especial-
ly in the summer, because you turn the air con-
ditioning off, and by the time he would waltz
around the car I could have been dead."
She remembers walking home once after din-
ner. "I remember, um, wanting to dance in La-
fayette Park one time, it was a gorgeous night,
and I said, 'We can hum, we can make our own
music!'" She grabbed his hand and took a few
steps.'"I'his did not go over. He started clearing
his throat so much I thought he was going to rip
something."
Buckley lived at the Embassy Suites, near
Dupont Circle. "It was a man's apartment," she
says. "He had real good taste. There was a rug
he'd bought in China, and a big couch you could
snooze on if you wanted to. He had a rocking
chair he liked to sit in and rock. It was a teeny
little apartment with beaucoup of stuff in it, a
whole wall of paintings and memorabilia. I don't
mean memorabilia about his work, but little
things, from the Civil War."
In all of her trips to Washington, she never
HIM ally UL IIIS ILICIIU3. L u..WU w aOft luau u -
had any friends other than me, and he said yes,
and I kept thinking, 'Well, where do you put
them? Don't you know anyone?'
"And he just said yes, he did have friends."
He told her that he walked to work. She
thinks she remembers him pointing to the For-
restal Building one weekend, as they walked to
the Smithsonian, and saying that was where his
office was. She knew he worked long hours and
that he traveled, often for weeks at a time.
"Dear Candy: Hot, dusty and tired, but rm
keeping out of trouble and fully occupied," he
scrawled on a post card from Cairo dated Oct.
12 of an unknown year. "The pyramids are
beautiful, dull and mystical ... Should finish up
here in 7 to 10 days if we stay on schedule!"
It now seems likely that Buckley was in Cairo
to train bodyguards for Anwar Sadat. But Buck-
ley never talked about his work, and after a
while, Hammond stopped asking.
"I know it sounds real strange to be a female
and not be that curious, but I simply wasn't. To
tell you the truth, it never bothered me. The re-
lationship developed its own pattern. If he didn't
want to talk about his work or anything, he did
not necessarily want to hear about mine either.
"And we've just always been raised that if
someone does not want you to mind their busi-
ness, then you don't."
As their relationship progressed, she sug-
gested trips together to other cities. "I had vi-
sions of taking cruises, and me buying a ward-
robe. But he never would want to do it. He
would say, 'No, I'll just come to Farmer.' "
William Buckley didn't want to go to Beirut.
He announced his departure with his customary
lack of fanfare. "He said he had tried to get out
of it," Hammond says, "but he really did think
he could do some good, and get everything
straightened out.
"I don't know what he was going to do. By
this time I had put stuff like this ... it just
wasn't in my realm of thinking. If he was going
to go over there, it was for a good reason. I
know he had complete confidence in himself."
She and her parents sometimes speculated
about his business. "We would say, 'Well, he
must have an important job,' " she says. "I still
don't know if it was important enough to get
himself killed for. He used to describe himself
at just a little man doing his part."
Buckley arrived in Beirut in the summer of
'83, about three months after a bomb shattered
the U.S. Embassy and left at least 24 dead, in-
cluding several CIA employes. The bombing of
the Marine barracks at the Beirut airport was
still several months away. He rented a 10th-
floor penthouse apartment six blocks from the
U.S. Embassy compound, in a once-fashionable
neighborhood gone seedy and bomb scarred.
An experienced CIA officer who had served
in Vietnam, among other places, Buckley often
carried a walkie-talkie and went nearly every
day to the headquarters of the Lebanese intelli-
gence service. According to one report, he
spent much of his time developing information
that might prevent terrorist attacks on Ameri-
cans in the Middle East and did not hire local
contract agents for missions of violence. He re-
portedly was chosen for the assignment be-
dents.
Hammond tried to visit him in Beirut, once.
In England, taking a landscape history course at
Oxford, she wrote and suggested they meet
halfway. "Like in Italy, or to let me come down
there. But he said he was too busy to leave, and
I could not come down there."
At the time, the curt rejection stung. "I
mean, if I was going to be that close it seemed
to me that he could cut everything off to visit a
while ... I always believe there's absolutely
nothing you can't do. You just say screw it and
go."
But if she wasn't welcome in his world, he
had long taken strength from hers.
Farmer sits at the junction of two rural roads
not far from Asheboro, which isn't too far from
Greensboro. The surrounding hills are the worn
remains of the ancient Uwharrie Mountains.
New roads, and new people, from the booming
cities of the Research Triangle (Raleigh, Dur-
ham and Chapel Hill) and the textile and manu-
facturing hub known as the Triad (Greensboro,
Winston-Salem and High Point) have begun to
encroach; there is even a small rush hour in the
morning heading into High Point, and Candy
Hammond's father Keith, a tall, handsome man
whom she calls Daddy Buck, says there's no
place to run a hunting dog anymore.
It's still the country, though. Hammond's
parents live just around the corner, and a
great-aunt fives up the road. Locals include
greetings to the postmaster when they send
post cards home.
When Hammond met Buckley, she'd just
come home to Farmer for good. She'd spent
years away, studying fashion design in Manhat-
tan, touring Europe and extricating herself from
a brief marriage that hadn't worked out. She
was renting a bungalow next door to the farm-
house she owns now. With its collections of an-
tique shawls and dresses, hats and shoes, and
the French provincial furniture she'd culled
from flea markets, it was as ruffled as his place
was restrained.
She used to pick him up at the Greensboro
airport. "He was always the one who looked
worried, tired and haggard, little mouth pressed
together, eyes kind of drooping at the corners,
whipping through the crowd."
They took the winding roads back, jostling
along in her red pickup to the house at the rural
crossroads where Hammonds have lived for the
better part of two centuries.
"By the second day ... he would start chat-
tering and just wear me out," she says. He told
her that he had grown up outside Boston, in a
family she says he described as "lace-curtain
Irish" (immigrants who have prospered), an ex-
pression that mystified her. He said he had
worked as a librarian in Concord. He said he'd
had a girlfriend once. As far as she knows, he'd
never married. If he had, she says, "he certainly
kept it to himself."
He was unhappy if his trips down to Farmer
included too much socializing. "I took him with
me to a friend of mine's birthday party in
Greensboro one time, and he went kicking and
screaming ... He just didn't want to come
down here and meet new people."
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a
Instead, they Prowled junk shops and ate at to the State Department by a secret emissary.
John's Tavern. He read spy novels. They it reportedly intensified the effort to find Buck-
avoided talk about politics. "He said he was to ley, which
Pers a kipr oc crusade of Wil am the
the right of Genghis Khan. The politicians he became
and a personal preoccupation of William
liked I always thought were absolute fools." Casey.
Compulsive in his own Casey.
rubber bands were stored- In January of the next year, 1985, Buckley's
was so neat that, you know, size; It he captors released a videotape of Buckley alone
take the teacup out of my hand
sometimes and rinse it off that was shown on American television. On the
and you'd have to sa
'I hav
t
'
fi
h
y,
ape
en
t
nished having
e said that he, Weir and Levin were well
my tea, okay? "-he tried to reform her, and asked that "our government take action for
He spent hours every visit washing the , ourC~release e Hammond quickly.-
grime off her trick, using a toothbrush to clean
where the difficult and ge wouldn't reach. "Ile could be, watched the tape over
cranky and grouchy: 'You need to,. and o'er that day, on the morning news shows,
clean this room up, you need to sweep, who,, and later at night. "He was 1,000 years old in
would ever paint that that color, you need to _ that Picture," she says, and for the first time in
get out in the yard and get this done.' His arms a long interview her eyes redden and she looks
would be going, do this, do that, down. "He was holding a newspaper in front of
He called her bedroom "the ieebo' and they him, with a date, and they said it was a plea for
used to argue about the piles of kindling he the hostages. He looked bad and he sounded
went through each time he built a fire. hollow.
drese Preferred
up. You knher in dresses. "He loved me to 'interesting thing about TV. You can sit
since he left for , I haven't worn a dress there and watch it and you're so detached. It
Betntt. I don't look particularly was like a recorded message."
good in them."
Was she in love? on; December 1985, a Jack Anderson column
"Off and
and sometimes I would be saying, Who is tlls quoting CIA sources reported that Buckley had
jerk?' " She says she wasn't interested in mar- died in a Tehran hospital in June 1985 after suf-
riage, and "neither was he. He would give me a fering a heart attack brought on by prolonged
piece of jewelry and I would say, Why Bill, is torture and captivity. According to the Ander-
this an engagement present?' and he would say, son column, he had been interrogated in
'Not on your life.' " Lebanon, Syria and finally in Tehran before his
She bought the old farmhouse after he left death.
for Beirut. It was going to be a surprise. She's Some senior CIA officials reportedly wept
never used the dining room. "I was saving that when they heard details of the torture.
for when he got back. I was going to fix him one in the first year, Hammond hoped. "It was
of my wonderful meals that he used to make fun lasting longer and longer, but I was positive that
of." he would get out. He was one of those
people he have liked it? "This house?' she capable of taking care of himself that youjust
says, looking at the sagging woodwork, the an- expect them to endure."
tique cupboards, shelves laden with treasures. She pestered the State Department, rela-
"He Would have criticized it from one end to the tives of other hostages and even the campaign
other and then he would have been very happy headquarters of Jesse Jackson, pleading for in-
with all of it." formation and help.
She gave her phone number to the wife of
Beirut was cool and cloudy on the morning of Jeremy Levin and asked that it be passed on to
March 16, 1984. Buckley left his apartment Buckley's
r, but he sister. She never was contacted by heard
a man who identi-
building at about 8 a.m. He started his car, but fied himself as a longtime friend of Buckley's.
drove only a few yards before he was cut off by She will not say his name, only that he told her
a Renault with three gunmen inside. A second he worked for the State Department. "He was
car blocked the street further down the block. one of those mythical friends. He said he had
Buckley threw his car into reverse, according to known Bill for years and he said Bill did have a
witnesses, but was,trapped at the dead-end. He lot of good friends who were rooting for him
did not put up a struggle when a gunman and trying every avenue available to them.
jumped from the Renault, put a pistol to his "This guy said that he had even asked to be
head and forced him into one of the two cars. sent over there to try and find Bill, but that they
Buckley's kidnaping came just days after the wouldn't do it ...
abduction of Jeremy Levin, Beirut bureau chief "And now it turns out that Jack Anderson
for Cable News Network. Benjamin Weir, a ..." her voice trails off. "Now of course, those
Presbyterian minister, was seized two months people probably knew it at the time the Ander-
later.,The State Department continued to iden- son story broke. I read the part about the tor-
tify Buckley as a political officer at the U.S. Em- ture ..."
bassy, in the vain hope that his captors would "It makes our little group seem pretty inef-
not learn of his CIA connection. fectual doesn't it?" she says of the U.S. efforts
Three months after his kidnaping, a video- to find and free Buckley. "You feel so terribly
tape of Buckley, Levin and Weir was delivered guilty and inadequate and stupid. Suddenly you
ask yourself why you don't have any important
friends, why you have no power.
"You know, even though I realize that he's
probably dead, and if he did come back he
wouldn't be the same person, at the same time,
in the back of your mind you keep thinking,
waay-ull, maybe, maybe. I'm sure it's like the
Vietnam MIA widows. I keep thinking, 'Well,
it's a possibility.' "
Candace Hammond still drives her pickup
home from High Point College each afternoon.
She wheels into the driveway, greets the dogs,
Sam and Tallulah, checks on Tallulah's four
pups, then heads out back to milk the goat, her
three cats wrapping themselves around her legs
as she walks.
Nights in Farmer are cold this time of year.
Frost clings to the windowpanes and the sky is
a blackened bowl of stars. Just before dawn,
white vapor begins to rise off the Uwharrie Riv-
er. From a distance it looks as if a train has
been by.
William Buckley's body has never been re-
covered. His sister, in Massachusetts, has said
that she believes her brother could still be alive,
and has dismissed as "absurd" reports that he
broke down under torture. CIA director Casey
last week said he was "99 percent sure" that
Buckley was dead.
Hammond had her own memorial service a
few months ago. "It was hokey," she says,
looking down. "Yeah, it's just real hokey."
What she did was walk down to the riverbank
and stand there a while. Then she tore up a let-
ter and shredded a few flowers and watched
them float downstream.
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