THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 22, 1994 TAG: 9410220295
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Former Beirut hostage Robert Polhill says he spent three years chained to a wall because of arms-for-hostages deals brokered by ex-White House aide Oliver L. North, now a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.
Polhill took issue with a TV ad in which another former hostage, David Jacobsen, credits North with saving his life through secret sales to Iran.
``He's one of the guys who North got out,'' Polhill said of Jacobsen. ``But I'm one of the guys who North got in.''
Several other former Beirut hostages have stepped forward to question North's judgment in the Iran-Contra scandal, saying negotiating with kidnappers created a market for hostages.
Polhill is the first hostage to blame North for his ordeal.
``I know I was captured because of North or because of his actions,'' he said in a telephone interview from his home in Arlington.
Polhill said one of his captors told him as much a few days after he and three other Americans were kidnapped in January 1987, nearly three months after the disclosure that the U.S. government had sold arms to Iran in an effort to free American hostages.
``While he (the captor) didn't mention Oliver North by name, he said, `The actions of your government in recent months indicate a willingness to pay for hostages. That's why you are here,' '' Polhill recalled.
Alann Steen, another hostage nabbed in January 1987, said he did not personally blame North for his nearly five-year ordeal.
But Steen, now a journalism professor at Casper College in Wyoming, said the Reagan administration policy of rewarding hostage-takers ``left the door open for other people to be snatched.''
``I think to portray it as a success is misleading,'' agreed former hostage Terry Anderson, who was an Associated Press reporter when he was captured in Beirut in 1984. Anderson was held for almost seven years.
Trading arms for hostages, Anderson said, was a ``mistake. . . I think it was a clear lesson in a principle that we knew but strayed away from in that particular period, and that is that you can't pay for hostages. When you do, they simply go out and get more.''
Between August 1985 and November 1986, arms shipments to Iran resulted in the release of three hostages: Lawrence Jenco, Benjamin Weir and Jacobsen.
Two more American hostages - Frank H. Reed and Joseph Cicippio - were seized during the same period. The four others were kidnapped a few months later.
``We gained some, then we lost just as many. We didn't gain anything,'' said Carmella LaSpada, founder of No Greater Love, a non-profit group that kept public attention focused on the hostages' plight.
Reed could not be located to interview for this story. Cicippio, now a federal worker, declined comment because of his job.
Meanwhile, Democratic U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb is weighing a response to the North TV ad featuring Jacobsen, which has been airing statewide since Wednesday.
``The only thing I can tell you is that a number of hostages have called us and are outraged,'' said Susan Platt, Robb's campaign manager.
Polhill said he has been contacted by the Robb campaign, but declined to do anything that ``would be construed as endorsing Mr. Robb.''
Polhill added he has no plans to vote for North. ``I've seen him attacking his opponents' peccadilloes, while he's sitting on a Pandora's Box of his own deceits.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS File photo
Robert Polhill disputes North's judgment in the Iran-Contra scandal,
saying negotiating with kidnappers created a market for hostages.
KEYWORDS: SENATE RACE CAMPAIGN CANDIDATE by CNB