Hostage My Nightmare

The author recounts his seventeen-month ordeal as a hostage in Lebanon and discusses his release in exchange for weapons and the failure of America's anti-terrorism and hostage-rescue policies

In this grim memoir of his 17 months in captivity, Jacobsen, aided by Astor ( The Last Nazi ), expresses satisfaction with the arms-for-hostages deal that freed him and insists that only the current U.S. no-deals policy and government indifference stand in the way of freedom for remaining hostages. Head of American University of Beirut Medical Center, Jacobsen was kidnapped in May 1985 by Shiite Muslims seeking release of terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait. Blindfolded, chained, beaten and threatened with death, he and five others were locked in a small room. Malnourished and often sick, the group kept up morale with ad hoc religious services, physical exercises, sing-alongs, political arguments and their hopes for a rescue mission. Their captors were sometimes friendly, but Jacobsen was beaten severely after a U.S. TV anchor incorrectly suggested that a ransom appeal (reprinted here) contained a coded message. The authors press for negotiations to free those still being held.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Here, Jacobsen, an American hospital administrator held hostage by the Islamic Jihad for 17 months, details the hell of captivity and questions the good faith of US efforts to free the remaining hostages. Writing with veteran author Astor (The Last Nazi, 1985, etc.), Jacobsen tells of his capture in May 1985 while director of the American Univ. of Beirut's Medical Center, and of his ensuing ordeal: his captors' petty humiliations (false promises of release; constant surveillance, even at the toilet); his frustration when Reagan broadcast a no-negotiation-with-terrorists policy; his terror when an American newscaster's speculation that Jacobsen was encoding secret messages in videotaped statements resulted in a savage beating. And he writes also of what sustained him and his fellow hostages: close friendship (in Jacobsen's case, especially with AP correspondent Terry Anderson, still held hostage after six years), plus faith and twice-daily religious services conducted by a hostage priest and minister. Throughout, Jacobsen questions US hostage and terrorism policies, arguing the urgency of saving the hostages and asserting that many rescue and negotiation options have been and are being ignored. (Released in November 1986 as part of the infamous arms-for-hostages trade with Iran, Jacobsen praises Oliver North and his cohorts for heroism.) The author also condemns the naked villainy of Islamic extremist groups, but fails to examine whether Mideast problems have any roots in US policies. An understandably angry, and effective, polemic/memoir, likely to catch the attention--and maybe even prick the consciences--of D.C. powerbrokers. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Americans, failing to hear the cry of desperation from people radicalized by their own suffering as pawns of international politics, cannot grasp why good and innocent people are taken hostage. Jacobsen, the former director of the American University of Beirut Hospital, dedicates this account of his 532-day captivity to all victims of terrorism and their families, including hundreds of thousands of Lebanese brutalized by recent events. Held with Ben Weir and others, he gives inside information on why some hostages died, saying that both Colonel Higgens and William Buckley weren't executed as generally believed but died accidentally. He explains why Terry Anderson has been held for so long and describes how the hostages developed bonds with each other despite infighting as the U.S. refusal to bargain for their release made it the common enemy. As in Ben and Carol Weirs' Hostage Bound, Hostage Free (Westminster, 1987), bitterness remains. Informative and exciting reading for general collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/91-- Louise Leonard, Univ. of Florida Libs., Gainesville
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.