Terry Anderson Freed: Last American Hostage After 7 Years

Terry Anderson walked out of captivity on December 4, 1991, blinking in the Beirut sunlight after 2,454 days as a hostage. The chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press had been seized by Hezbollah-affiliated militants on March 16, 1985, thrown into the trunk of a green Mercedes, and held in a series of underground cells and makeshift prisons across Lebanon. He was the longest-held American hostage in the Lebanese crisis. Lebanon's hostage saga began during the chaos of the civil war, when various factions discovered that Western captives had enormous bargaining value. Between 1982 and 1992, more than 90 foreigners were kidnapped in Lebanon, including journalists, academics, clergy, and intelligence operatives. The hostage-takers, primarily linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah, demanded the release of prisoners held in Kuwait and an end to Western support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. Anderson's captivity was a grinding ordeal of isolation, beatings, and psychological torment. He was chained to walls and radiators, blindfolded for months at a time, and moved frequently to avoid detection. He survived by exercising in his chains, memorizing passages from a Bible his captors eventually provided, and forming bonds with fellow hostages including Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland. The Reagan administration's secret arms-for-hostages dealings with Iran, exposed in the Iran-Contra scandal, complicated rescue efforts. Anderson's release came as part of a broader deal brokered by UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, in which Israel released Lebanese prisoners and the remaining Western hostages were freed in stages. Anderson returned to the United States, earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, and wrote a memoir about his captivity. His 6 years and 9 months in chains remain a defining episode of the Middle East's turbulent 1980s.