CAPTIVE CIA AGENT'S DEATH GALVANIZED HOSTAGE SEARCH

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Body:  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
 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900530002-3
 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