The opening with Teheran led to the release last week of two Western hostages held by pro-Iranian militants in Lebanon. Thomas Sutherland, 60, a Scottish-born American educator, had been held since June 1985. British hostage negotiator Terry Waite, 52, was seized in January 1987, possibly because of his involvement in one of Oliver North’s harebrained schemes (following story). The release of Waite was a surprise to some, but it showed that the atmospherics between Teheran and the West are improving. By indicting two Libyans for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 two weeks ago, Britain and the United States appeared to absolve Iran of complicity. Waite and others involved in the hostage drama predicted that two of the last three American hostages, Joseph Cicippio and Alarm Steen, would be released soon and that journalist Terry Anderson would be free by the end of the year.
Teheran needs a better relationship with Washington. The Iranians hope to rebuild their war-shattered economy’ mainly with technology and investment from Europe. “They need to make sure we don’t block that European investment,” says a State Department official, “and they know that means settling the hostage and terrorism issues.” The Iranians also worry that a new, U.S.-guaranteed security system is taking shape in the gulf without them. Martin Indyk, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says that after its victory over Iraq, the United States is “now the dominant power in the gulf Iran doesn’t like it, but they’re faced with an uncomfortable reality: the only way to re-establish their influence is to begin dealing with us again.”
Although Washington remains deeply suspicious of Teheran, it cannot create an effective security system for the gulf that excludes the 60 million Iranians indefinitely. “Iran is the 800-pound gorilla,” says a U.S. policymaker. “Ultimately, if they want to come to the party, we will have to let them in.” So far, the two countries have made modest progress. Washington now allows the importation of some Iranian oil, and disputes over financial claims are slowly being resolved. “For us, the era of the hostages is over,” says an Iranian government source. “A new chapter may be about to begin.”
Washington isn’t yet convinced that the government of President Hashemi Rafsanjani can be trusted to play by the rules. The State Department still formally blacklists Iran as a country that sponsors terrorism. It is determined to thwart Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons with technology from China, India and elsewhere. Rafsanjani, who positions himself as a relative pragmatist, is bedeviled by hard-liners who oppose the release of the hostages and apparently were responsible for the assassination of the deposed shah’s last prime minister, Shahpur Bakhtiar, in France last August. Diplomats in Teheran say Rafsanjani is likely to overturn the current radical majority in the Parliament when elections are held next spring. But until then he cannot appear to have gone soft on the Americans. “There will be no new initiatives from here toward the West, except for the hostage releases, until at least after the elections,” says a source in Teheran.
As long as Iran remains at odds with Washington, there is a long-term danger that it might form a radically anti-Western bloc by aligning with countries like Syria, or even Iraq after Saddam Hussein is gone. Even if the Iranians decide that they want to be part of a broader new security arrangement, some of the old balance-of-power players may try to shut them out. “The Iranians are still too emotional, too ideological, to be constructive players in the region,” argues a Saudi Arabian diplomat. “Rafsanjani is crafty and cunning,” he adds. “He’ll put on a moderate face for the West, but at the end of the day, there is a streak of ideological madness in him, just as there is in all of them. The United States should beware anyone who calls himself an ‘Iranian moderate’.” Saudi Arabia, which has only 6 million people, wants a security system that excludes the Iranians. “They want the U.S. out,” says the Saudi diplomat. “We need the U.S. in.” But keeping the Iranians out would only mean more balance-of-power maneuvering. Real stability in the gulf can come only when Teheran has a place at the table.
TOM POST
On Jan. 20, 1987, Terry Waite dropped off the screen–literally. The Church of England envoy was in Lebanon to negotiate hostage releases, but he had other baggage. A well-placed source in Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council has told NEWSWEEK that the then White House aide Oliver North supplied Waite with “an electronic beacon that put out a signal that could be read by a satellite.” Waite was on his way to meet Dr. Adnan Mroueh, his liaison with Shiite Muslim kidnappers, hoping to free American hostages Terry Anderson and Thomas Sutherland. He walked into Dr. Mroueh’s apartment. Then he disappeared from the world for nearly five years.
It wasn’t part of the plan. Waite, who earlier accepted planes and logistical support from the United States, allegedly let himself be talked into wearing a transmitter, hidden in a belt; in case he was kidnapped, the device would let special-operations forces locate and rescue him. But North had a hidden agenda, says the Reagan NSC source: using Waite as an unwitting homing pigeon for U.S. intelligence to spot the West Beirut kidnappers and their captives. “The real motivation was to locate all the hostages he would meet,” he says, adding that the Hizbullah (Party of God) guards found the beacon during a body search and seized Waite as a spy. North dismisses press reports of the device as “absolute hogwash.” Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord, an Iran-contra alumnus who met twice with Waite, calls speculation about the bugged belt “preposterous.” Nevertheless, Secord told NEWSWEEK that “Waite was used. There’s no question he was a lightning rod or a decoy.”
As such, Waite may actually have had less to do with freeing Western hostages in Lebanon than his legendary reputation suggests. He demonstrated extraordinary prowess in negotiating the release of British hostages in Iran in 1981 and three years later in Libya, where he won the confidence of Muammar Kaddafi by discussing Greek cultural influences on Islam. But then Waite accepted a plea by the Presbyterian Church to help free the Rev. Benjamin Weir. “In his previous successful missions, he was dealing with established governments, established figures,” says Con Coughlin, a veteran Mideast correspondent with the Sunday Telegraph of London, who accompanied Waite on his first trip to Lebanon in the fall of 1985. “In Beirut he was walking into a complete and utter disaster area.” He was also a victim of his own ignorance. Without Waite’s knowledge, North set up the first of his arms-for-hostages deals in August and September, when Israel sold 508 TOW missiles to Iran. The day after delivery Weir was released. A few days later Waite flew to New York and claimed partial credit for the release.
“I don’t think Terry Waite had any substantive role in the release of Weir,” Michael Ledeen, a former NSC consultant who helped broker the missile deal, recently told the BBC’s “Panorama” program. “I think that North may well have convinced Waite at that time that he was at least partially responsible.” North may also have persuaded Waite to take more credit than he deserved for the Nov. 2, 1986, release of David Jacobsen, who was freed two days after Iran received 500 TOW missiles. Waite had not met with Jacobsen’s captors, according to “Panorama. " Rather, Secord told NEWSWEEK, he phoned Waite in London and told him “it would help to have him on the scene.” Waite, he says, replied he’d “be happy to do it.”
Why would a man of Waite’s stature risk compromising his mission? He has been silent on the subject since his release. “I think it’s entirely possible he got carried away by his own publicity,” muses Coughlin. Even after the Hizbullah refused to deal with him, “he genuinely thought he was making in-roads,” says close friend Brent Sadler, CNN’s Middle East correspondent. The Iran-contra scandal hurt Waite deeply, say associates, because it threw into doubt the purity of his motives. And so he returned to Beirut one last time-to free more hostages and redeem his name. He ended up doing neither.
