Precsion was my guideline. I wanted to know from Jerusalem what would happen to the prisoners held in Israel [if all the passengers were released from the hijacked TWA airliner]. I did not want to cross the line of connecting the prisoners' release in Israel to the hostages' release in Beirut. Accordingly, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, was asked to put a carefully phrased question to Prime Minister Simon Peres: "What can we expect Israel to do about all the Ansar prisoners on the assumption that there are no TWA 847 hostages being held?" It was, we stressed to the Israelis, not a request, not a suggestion, and not a change in our policy. We were seeking clarification of their intentions. . . .

The media were now reporting that the United States had made a "request" to Israel to release the detainees; it was now up to Israel, they intimated. This was a terrible development: the Israelis were understandably confused and irritated.

The tension was immense, and the television coverage saturated the public. On Friday, June 21, hordes of Hezbollah supporters stormed onto the runway at Beirut International Ariport screaming, "Death of America! Death to Israel!" Television captured it all live as it was happening. The New York Times that same day carried a story by Bernard Gwertzman: "The Reagan administration has told several friendly governments that if the forty American hostages are freed unconditionally by the hijackers in Beirut, Israel will follow with the release of the 766 [Amsar] detainees, administration officials said today." That was not correct. The hijackers themselves, by their demand, had held up Israel's stated plan to release the detainees. It was important to keep that clear. The Israelis would believe we had deliberately leaked this news to The New York Times to send a signal to, or pressure, them.

We called Natanyahu to clear up any misunderstanding that might have been caused by the erroneous news reports. We still wanted an answer to our carefully phrased question; we were not trying to influence what that answer would be. Press coverage of the hostage holding continued at a saturation level. And this undifferentiated entity, the press, on the one hand urged us to "make a deal" and then criticized us on the assumption that we were making one. Undoubtedly, the press, while doing its job, was complicating our task of getting the captives released, as we worked to knock down false stories. Our best hope was to continue to work through our channel, to which the press had no access.

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