‘Valentine card’ appeal for Terry Waite

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 7

‘Valentine card’ appeal for Terry Waite

NZPA-Reuter New York A former hostage, David Jacobsen, launched a campaign yesterday to flood the Church of England with Valentine cards for Terry Waite, the Anglican Church envoy who is missing in Lebanon.

Mr Jacobsen, an American, who spent 18 months in Beirut as a hostage of the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad group until he was freed as a result of efforts by Mr Waite, made a similar Valentine’s appeal for Americans still held in Lebanon.

“I appeal to all English people, and to Americans and all others who care around the world, to send Valentine’s Day cards to Terry Waite, to let this ‘angel on earth’ know that we care,” Mr Jacobsen told Reuters. “They should be sent to Terry Waite, care of Lambeth Palace, London, England,” Mr Jacobsen said, referring to the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is head of the Church of England.

“Let us send thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, room fulls of them, to let Terry’s wife, his children and mother know of our love and

concern,” he said. “Terry might hear about it, and it will give him hope. I know, because Terry gave me hope in my moment of despair, and without hope man cannot survive.” Mr Waite vanished a year ago while in Beirut on a mission to seek the release of other hostages and work on a project for the. redevelopment of southern Lebanon, which has been ravaged by years of warfare. No group has claimed responsibility for his disappearance and nothing certain has been heard of him.

Mr Jacobsen, director of the American University Hospital in Beirut, was kidnapped on May 28, 1985, and freed on November 2, 1986.

He said he. could not think of anything more appropriate, with Valentine’s Day approaching on February 14, than to tap the power of love to send a message to. Mr Waite and his captors.

Mr Jacobsen recalled how one of Mr Waite’s trips to Beirut lifted the spirits of himself and three other Americans, a former hostage, the Rev. Lawrence Jenco, and two who are still held, an

Associated Press correspondent, Terry Anderson, and the dean of American University of Beirut, Thomas Sutherland.

“On Christmas Eve, 1985, we were huddled together in the house where we were kept hostage in the southern suburbs of Beirut, listening to the . BBC on the radio,” he said.

“I was with Jenco, Anderson and Sutherland, and heard Terry Waite report, ‘l’m sorry I’m going to have to leave Beirut now without taking the hostages with me. There is more work to be done, but I will return.’

“In that moment of despair, learning that we weren’t going to be going home, it filled us with hope to know that Terry Waite cared enough to risk his life for us, that he would be back, that someone out there really cared.”

Mr Jacobsen described Mr Waite as a great humanitarian concerned “not only with the suffering of the hostages, but of all those affected by the strife in Lebanon and with the despair that had forced some groups to resort to hostage-taking.”