CAPTIVE CIA AGENT'S DEATH GALVANIZED HOSTAGE SEARCH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00788R001900530002-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 25, 1986
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900530002-3
W /~Death
Captive CIA Agent's Galvanized Hostage Search
Buckley's Plight Became Agency Crusade
By Bob Woodward
and Charles R. Babcock
WSshington Post Staff Writers
For the Reagan administration
and especially the Central Intelli-
f gence Agency, Iran and the Moslem
extremists it supports in the Middle
East suddenly took on a new urgen-
cy on March 16, 1984, when a man
named William Buckley-described
at the time as a political officer in
the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon-was
snatched off the streets of Beirut by
a group calling itself Islamic Jihad.
As his captors have since
charged, Buckley was the chief of
the CIA's Beirut station, U.S.
sources have confirmed. He was
one of the CIA's leading experts on
terrorism, and his kidnaping initi-
ated what one CIA official called the
agency's "private hostage crisis." At
agency headquarters in Langley,
Buckley's colleagues watched help-
lessly as their expert on terrorism
became a victim of terrorism, which
the CIA believed led from Beirut to
the revolutionary government in
Tehran.
For at least a year, the CIA un-
dertook extraordinary .measures,
spending what one source called a
"small fortune" on informants, in-
tercepting communications and en-
hancing satellite photographs in
hopes of determining where Buck-
ley and other U.S. hostages might
be held.
The effort failed. After torture
and a long period of medical ne-
glect, Buckley died in Beirut, appar-
... was CIA station chief in Beirut
ently in June 1985. His captors first
declared him dead later in 1985. In
a statement released in Beirut ear-
lier this month, they reiterated that
Buckley had been "executed" after
having "confessed" to working for
the CIA.
The Islamic Jihad statement said
See BUCKLEY, A14, Col. I
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 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900530002-3
ie iri Beirut and went nearly every
'j Lunt for FIidnaie1 Aide day to the headquarters building of
the Lebanese intelligence service-
.,a ,,,,,17 h we haPn fnItnwed. the.
Became Crusade for CI
A sources said.
For more than a year, CIA offi-
cials, including Casey, held out hope
deciding
was alive
t Buckle
th
,
y
a
George had been station chief in
BUCKLEY, From Al U S that reports on his whereabouts and
h
,the group had "volumes written
with [Buckley's] own hand and
recorded on videotapes." President
Reagan indirectly confirmed that
Buckley is dead in his news confer-
-trice last week, when he spoke of
`five American hostages in Lebanon;
Buckley would be the sixth.
According to knowledgeable
sources, Buckley's death redoubled
;administration interest in his fellow
hostages. A personal order- from
Reagan led to intensified efforts to
find and free them, the sources
-:said.
None of the remaining American
hostages has any connections-di-
rect or indirect-to the CIA or any
other intelligence agency, accord-
ing to authoritative U.S. govern-
ment sources and colleagues of the
hostages. Also, well-placed sources
say those hostages have received
better treatment from their cap-
tors, including competent medical
care, since Buckley's death.
Before Buckley died, the search
for him became a crusade for the
CIA and a preoccupation of William
J. Casey, its director. Agency offi-
+ cials never felt confident that a res-
i cue attempt would succeed. The
agency did obtain "irrefutable" ev-
idence that Buckley had been tor-
tured and, after initially resisting,
finally broke down and disclosed
information about CIA operations,
officials wept when they heard de-
tails of the torture, which was pro-
longed and painful, the source said.
For Deputy CIA Director Clair E.
George, who oversees all CIA co-
vert operations abroad, the kidnap-
t ing was personally anguishing.
Beirut in 197o-iu, w
en two ? - condition were contradictory and
government officials were abducted did not support a 'definitive conclu
and held hostage for four months sion that Buckley had been killed.
before being released. Then At one point, the CIA received
George went to Athens to take the help from an FBI team trained in lo-
Richard of assassinated station chief
Richard S. Welch. cating kidnap victims. The team
"This [the Buckley kidnaping] went to Beirut but failed to locate
was like all of Clair's bad dreams Buckley after a month of careful
revisited," said one source. "He just and sophisticated detective work,
about turned the building [CIA according to a. senior Reagan ad-
headquarters], and our capabilities, ministration official. Officials now
and the limits of our imagination on think that Buckley was in Lebanon
end to get [Buckley] back." during the entire period of his cap-
Buckley was assigned to Lebanon tivity, most of the time in Beirut.
in mid-1983 to help the Lebanese At the time of Buckley's capture,
develop methods for thwarting ter- the State Department released a
rorism and to rebuild the U.S. in- brief biography, which said he was
telligence presence after the bomb- from Medford, Mass., and was a
ing of the U.S. Embassy a few graduate of Boston University. It
months earlier, the' sources said, said he had worked as a librarian
Seventeen Americans died in the and as a civilian employe of the
attack, including Robert C..Ames, Army until joining the State Depart-
the CIA's chief Middle East analyst, ment shortly before he was as-
and several other CIA officers. signed to Beirut.
On March 16, 1984, Buckley was Candace , Hammond of Farmer,
seized on a Beirut street and spir- N.C., who said she had been a close
ited away-the first of what would friend of Buckley for 10 years, said in
become a: string of kidnapings of an interview that he told her before
Americans. he left for Beirut that "he wasn't real
Buckley has been the least known thrilled with the assignment."
among the group of Americans held ' She said Buckley had called her
by Moslem extremists in Lebanon. from Beirut shortly before he was
He had no wife or close family to kidnaped. "Heesaid there was a lot
speak for him. One. source said of bombing, that it was a madhouse.
Buckley was picked for the danger- There was shattered glass in his
ous assignment because he did not apartment. And he hoped he would
have a family. Previously, one be coming home sooner than ex-
source said, Buckley was in Cairo, pected because it was such a stress-
where he had helped train body- ful situation."
guards for Egyptian, President She said she received a letter
Anwar Sadat, later assassinated. from Buckley the day after he was
Terrorists might have suspected kidnaped, thanking her for a box of
Buckley's true identity and targeted valentine gifts she had sent him.
him for kidnaping, the sources said. "That just about broke my heart,"
Buckley often carried a walkie-talk- she said.
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900530002-3