Word: cicippio
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...effect, Cicippio's suspended sentence left his loved ones -- and the U.S. -- suspended as well. Behind Cicippio is a tattered line of 14 other Western hostages, eight of them Americans, still believed to be held in Lebanon. Other Americans continue to live and work in that shattered country despite official warnings issued by Washington in January 1987 that in effect they are on their own. So long as the U.S. and its citizens venture forth freely in the world, they will be vulnerable to extortion by kidnapers. Trying to come to terms with that implacable fact, Ronald Reagan stumbled...
Behind the scenes, the Administration was working in a crisis mode. In private Bush described himself as going through "the most difficult time of my presidency," and by week's end the strain in his face was pronounced. To save Cicippio, the State Department set up a round-the-clock hostage task force, while the White House launched a diplomatic rescue effort that one U.S. envoy called "a full-court press on everybody we know." Characteristically, the President worked the phone with the heads of state of most European allies and nations in the Middle East -- with the notable exception...
...military response. About three dozen U.S. warships were dispatched toward Lebanon and Iran. Iran was notified that as the paymaster of the Hizballah, it would be held responsible if any American hostages were harmed. Through a variety of conflicting leaks, the Administration let it be known that if Cicippio was killed, the President was prepared to order an air strike against suspected terrorist bases...
...When Cicippio's captors extended the deadline for his execution by 48 hours, there was cautious optimism at the White House that diplomatic efforts were paying off. That mood was sorely tested on Thursday morning, when the kidnapers turned the screws further with the release of a videotape in which Cicippio read a statement urging quick action for the release of Obeid. The tape ended with Cicippio painfully bidding farewell to his wife. But just 45 minutes before he was due to be executed, Hizballah lifted its death threat indefinitely, though with the condition that it was now seeking release...
Hizballah later named five prisoners held in Israel that it wants released, then issued a statement claiming to have "nothing at all to do with the hostage issue." Even so, Israeli officials interpreted the decision not to execute Cicippio as proof that their gamble was paying off, and that the kidnapers would ultimately agree to a deal for Obeid's release. Cicippio's captors credited the stay of execution to the intervention of "certain parties and countries," a sign that Washington's overtures to Iran might not be falling on deaf ears as in the past...