SCREEN TEST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200133-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2011
• Sequence Number: 133
• Publication Date: February 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

~~ , T I CI:E ~,.PL
11 February 1y85
Screen Test
A U.S. hostage's plea j
he 56-second tape was apparently I '
T filmed by the kidnapers on a home
videocassette. Then it mysteriously came
into the hands of Visnews, a British televi-
sion news agency. And last week the foot-
age, showing pale but well-groomed U.S.
Diplomat William Buckley standing in
front of a bare wall and holding a Beirut
newspaper, appeared on TV screens
across the U.S. "Today, the 22nd of Janu-
ary 1985, I am well, and my friends Benja-
min Weir and Jeremy Levin are also well,"
said Buckley. "We ask that our Govern-
ment take action for our release quickly: '
In response, President Reagan assured re-
porters that efforts are continuing to free
these and two other Americans kidnaped
in Lebanon over the past eleven months. i
State Department officials were far
from delighted by the showing of the tape. ''
According to Spokesman Bernard Kalb,
publicity could "unnecessarily complicate
[the hostages'] release and perhaps en-
danger their safety." Indeed, the State De-
partmenthad seen a similar tape last July,
this time of all three captives, but had
kept it secret.
Buckley, 56, is a political officer as-
signed to the U.S. embassy in Beirut. He ',
was kidnaped as he left his apartment
in Muslim-controlled West Beirut last ,
March 16 by unidentified gunmen. Levin,
52, Cable News Network's Beirut bureau
chief. was abducted from a busy West Bei-
rut street about a week earlier. The kid-
, napers struck again last May 8, seizing
i Weir, 60, a Presbyterian minister, as he !,
walked with his wife in the Muslim sec-
' tion. His wife was left behind unharmed.
The two other missing Americans are Pe- '.
ter Kilburn, 60, a librarian at the Ameri-
can University of Beirut who vanished on
Dec. 3, and Lawrence Jenco, 51, a Roman
Catholic priest and head of the Catholic
Relief Services in the Lebanese capital,
who was captured at gunpoint about four
weeks ago. _
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Anonymous callers to Western news
agencies have said that the U.S. captives
will be released only when all Americans
have departed from Lebanon. At least one
caller has threatened that the five will be
"tried" and perhaps even executed as
members of the Central Intelligence
Agency. Says one frustrated U.S. official ,
"We honestly don't know for sure whom
we are dealing with, or where the Ameri-
cans are, or what we are supposed to do to
get them."
Some Washington officials speculate
that at least some of the kidnapings were
the work of Al Dawa (the Call), an Iraqi
Shiite fundamentalist group that is
thought to have perpetrated the Decem-
ber 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy
and other targets in Kuwait. This would
explain offers to free at least some of the
Americans in exchange for the release of
17 Shiite terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait
for the bombings. But many Western dip-
lomats in Beirut believe that another
Shiite organization, called Hizballah
(Party of God), might also be holding the
Americans. Callers to Western news
agencies have claimed responsibility for
the abductions in the name of Islamic Ji-
had, which is believed to be a nom de
? guerre used by various shadowy Islamic
fundamentalist terror groups. ^
Diplomat Buckley on captors' tape
"Take action for our release quickly. "
Approved For Release 2011/08/31 :CIA-RDP91-005878000100200133-4