President Bush and the nation`s top security advisers weighed possible U.S. responses Monday to terrorist claims that kidnaped Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins had been hanged and another American would be killed Tuesday. Late Monday, Bush issued what he said was ”an urgent call to all, all parties who hold hostages in the Middle East to release them forthwith, as a humanitarian gesture, to begin to reverse the cycle of violence in that region.”
Kidnapers issued a threat in Beirut to kill Joseph Cicippio at 10 a.m.
(Chicago time) Tuesday if Israel does not release a Shiite Moslem cleric abducted by Israeli commandos Friday in southern Lebanon.
In Nicosia, Cyprus, an anonymous caller claiming to speak for the group that held Higgins told the Associated Press that British hostage Terry Waite would also be killed Tuesday unless the Moslem cleric was freed.
After saying Higgins` apparent death ”has shocked the American people right to the core,” the President gathered senior defense and security officials to a Cabinet Room meeting in the White House.
”Nothing was ruled in at this point and nothing was ruled out at this point,” said Sen. David Boren (D., Okla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after Senate and House leaders met with Bush later in the evening.
While the administration was cautious about declaring Higgins dead, ”the President did say there was about 98 percent probability it happened. When, they don`t know. Where, they don`t know,” said Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas.
Many Americans saw the crude, 30-second videotape of a man, purportedly Higgins, twisting slowly on a rope. His bare feet were bound and off the ground and he was blindfolded and gagged. One of the two taped segments showed him without the blindfold.
Higgins` apparent death and the threat of more hostages dying created the first real crisis of Bush`s young presidency, and the President was clearly angered at the re-emergence of a hostage crisis like those that plagued the last two American administrations.
As he returned to the White House from giving a speech in Chicago to the National Governors` Association, Bush`s face was grave. ”There is no way that I can properly express the outrage that I feel,” he said.
Two hours later, after viewing the videotape, Bush held what was called
”primarily an informational meeting” with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney;
National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft; Adm. William Crowe Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and CIA Director William Webster, among others.
The statement saying Higgins had been hanged and the accompanying videotape were delivered to a Western news agency office in Beirut about 8 a.m. Chicago time, an hour after the deadline his captors had set for the return of the Moslem clergyman, Sheik Abdul-Karim Obeid.
The President learned of Higgins` death while aboard Air Force One en route to Chicago. The President was in a ”holding room” at the Hyatt Regency Chicago Hotel when he learned about the videotape of the body. Just before walking toward the podium, Bush made the decision to cancel speeches in Las Vegas and Oklahoma City and return home.
He told the governors that after establishing whether ”this horrible report” of Higgins` death was true, he and his advisers would ”then figure out what might conceivably be done.”
”Whether the report is true or not,” said Bush, ”I know I speak for all here when I try to express to the American people the sense of outrage that we all feel about this kind of brutality, this uncalled-for terrorism.” On the way back to Washington, he called Higgins` wife, Robin, from the plane. He described her as a ”wonderfully stoic individual who is going through sheer hell.”
Bush also called United Nations Sec. Gen. Javier Perez de Cuellar for his assistance in returning the body. Later, the 15-member UN Security Council voted unanimously to condemn all hostage-taking and voted to extend its peacekeeping mission in Lebanon another six months.
Higgins, 44, originally of Danville, Ky., was serving as head of an observer group attached to the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon when he was seized on Feb. 17, 1988. His captors accused him of spying for the CIA and later announced that they had ”sentenced” him to death.
Cicippio, a comptroller at the American University of Beirut, was kidnaped from the campus Sept. 12, 1986. Callers using the names of three different groups have since claimed to be holding him, but Monday`s death threat against Cicippio was sent by a group called Revolutionary Justice Organization. A photo of the accountant accompanied the message.
The question of when Higgins was killed is still unanswered. There was one unconfirmed report that he had been executed last July, immediately after the U.S. Navy mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf.
A group that claimed to be holding Higgins in Lebanon, the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, warned Sunday that unless Israel freed Sheik Obeid, they would retaliate by killing him Monday.
In response, the administration said Sunday, ”We hold the kidnapers of American hostages fully responsible for their safety. We expect those who have influence with hostage-holders to do everything possible to ensure that no harm comes to those hostages or to other Americans.”
Fitzwater said that message ”was relayed directly to all of the relevant parties in the region.” When asked if that included Iran, he said it was sent ”to everyone who has a stake or has an influence in the hostage matter.”
Obeid is a spiritual leader of Hezbollah, which is believed to be the umbrella group for kidnapers holding Higgins and the 16 other Westerners missing in Lebanon. Eight of the 16 are Americans.
The fate of American hostages held by Shiite fundamentalists has influenced U.S. policy in the Middle East since 1985, prompting years of sometimes angry, sometimes measured, statements, but always creating the frustration of having a global air and naval fleet and still being powerless to act against a small, hostile group.
The decision to trade arms for hostages, in what became known as the Iran-contra affair, was perhaps the most damaging foreign policy blunder of the Reagan administration. Bush`s quick decision to return to Washington, even before the Higgins report was confirmed, may also have been prompted by criticism in early June, when he went on with a weekend vacation in Maine during the Tienanmen Square massacre in Beijing.
Congressional reaction Monday was swift. ”There can be no safe haven for those who murder innocent Americans,” Dole said in a speech on the Senate floor. ”If we can find out who did this, and locate and isolate them, we ought to make them pay.”
But Israel, Dole said, should ”take another look at some of their actions, which they must know in advance will endanger American lives. We can`t continually apologize for Israeli actions in this country when it endangers the lives of Americans in some far-off country. Perhaps a little more responsibility on the part of the Israelis would be refreshing.”
White House officials carefully avoided direct criticism of Israel, but Fitzwater said: ”It is fair to say that many people do share the senator`s concerns.”
While the Senate voted 99-0 for Bush to retaliate, Majority Leader George Mitchell (D., Me.) said the killing makes this a ”time of sadness and outrage for all Americans.”
