The Evening News (83 page)

Several minutes passed. Dawson was about to hang up and call again when
the connection came alive. This time the voice was frigid
.”
Mr. Elliott
advises that whatever you think you heard was confidential and may not
be used
.”

"I'm a reporter
,”
Dawson said
.”
If I hear or learn something and it
wasn't told to me confidentially, I'm entitled to use it
.”

“
Mr. Dawson, I see no point in prolonging this conversation
.”

"Just a moment, please. Does Mr. Elliott deny having used the words I
read to you
?
”

"Mr. Elliott has no further comment
.”

Dawson wrote down the question and answer, as he had the previous
exchange
.”
Mrs. Kessler, do you mind telling me your first name
?
”

"There is no reason to . . . well, Diana
.”

Dawson smiled, guessing Kessler had reasoned that if her name was to
appear in print, it might as well be in full. About to say thank you, he
realized the connection had been severed
.
As he replaced the phone, the bureau chief handed him a slip of paper
.”
Rhodes is on his way to La Guardia in a State Department car. Here's the
number of the car phone
.”

Dawson lifted his phone again
.
This time, after a ringing tone, a male voice answered. When Dawson asked
for "Mr. Alden Rhodes
,”
the response was, "This is he
.”

Again the reporter identified himself, aware that Sandy Sefton was
listening on an extension
.”
Mr. Rhodes, my paper would like to know if you have any comment on Mr
.
Theodore Elliott's statement that CBA network will reject the recent
Sendero Luminoso, demands and, in
Mr. Elliott's words, 'we're not going to let a bunch of crazy Commies push us around
.”

'
"Theo Elliott told you that
!
”

“
I heard him say it personally, Mr. Rhodes
.”

"I thought he wanted it kept confidential
.”

A pause
.”
Now wait a minute!
Were you sitting in that hall when we walked through
?
”

"Yes, I was
.”

"Dawson, you've tricked me and I insist this entire conversation be off the
record
.”

"Mr. Rhodes, before we began talking I identified myself and you did not
say anything about being off the record
.”

"Fuck you, Dawson
!”

"That last was off the record, sir. By then you'd told me
.”

The bureau chief, grinning, gave a thumbs-up signal.

The ethical debate in Baltimore did not last long
.
In any news organization there always existed a predilection toward
disclosure. However, with some news stories-and this was one-certain
questions needed to be asked and answered. The executive editor and
national editor, who would oversee the story, posed them to each other
.

QUESTION: Would publication of CBA's decision imperil the hostages?

ANSWER:
The hostages were in peril already; it was hard to see how publication of
anything could make much difference.

QUESTION: Would anyone be killed
because of publication?

ANSWER: Unlikely because a dead hostage would cease
to be of value.

QUESTION: Since CBA would have to make its decision known
in a day or two, what difference would it make to be a little early?

ANSWER: Not much, if any.

QUESTION: Since Globanic's Theo Elliott revealed
the CBA decision casually and others must know of it, was it likely to stay
secret much longer?

ANSWER: Almost certainly no
.
At the end, the executive editor expressed the conclusion of both: "There
isn't an ethical problem. We go
!”

The story led the Baltimore Star's main afternoon edition with a banner
headline:
C
BA SAYS NO TO SLOANE KIDNAPPERS

Glen Dawson's by-line story began:
CBA will say an emphatic "No
”
to demands by the Sloane family's
kidnappers that it cancel its televised National Evening News for a
week, replacing it with propaganda videotapes supplied by the Peru
Maoist rebel group Sendero Luminoso
.
Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, has admitted holding the kidnap
victims at a secret location in Peru
.
Theodore Elliott, chairman and chief executive officer of Globanic Industries, the parent company of CBA, declared today, "What we're not
going to do is let a bunch of crazy Commies push us around
“
Speaking at Globanic's headquarters at Pleasantville, New York, he
added, "As for running those Shining Path tapes, not a hope in hell
.”
A Star reporter was present during the Elliott statement
.
Alden Rhodes, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, who was
with Mr Elliott when the statement was made, declined to comment
when
questioned
by the Star, though he did say, "I thought he wanted it kept
confidential.“
An attempt late this
morning to reach Mr. Elliott for additional
information
was unsuccessful
"Mr. Elliott is not available, "the Star was informed by Mrs. Diana
Kessler, an assistant to the Globanic chairman. In response to
questions, Mrs. Kessler insisted, "Mr. Elliott has no further comment
.”

There was more-principally background and the history of the kidnap
.
Even before the Baltimore Star hit the streets, the wire services had
the story, giving credit to the Star Later that evening the Star was
quoted on all network news broadcasts, including
CBA's where the premature news was received with near-despair
.
Next morning in Peru, where the kidnap story was already prominent in the
news, newspapers, as well as radio and TV, featured the disclosure with
special emphasis on Theodore Ellio
tt's "bunch of crazy Commies"-'
grupo
de Comunistas locos "--description of Sendero Luminoso.

"I like Vicente
,”
Nicky said
.”
He's our friend
.”

"I think h
e is too
,”
Angus called over from his cell. He was lying on the
thin, soiled mattress of his makeshift bed and filling empty time by
watching two large beetles on the wall
.”
Then un-think, both of you
!”

Jessica snapped
.”
Liking anyone here is
stupid and naiv
e
.”

She stopped, wanting to bite her tongue and call the words back. There
was no need to have spoken sharply
.”
I'm sorry
,”
she said
.”
I didn't mean that to come out the way it did
.”

The trouble was that after fifteen days of close confinement in their
tiny cages, the strain was telling on them all, wearing their spirits
down. Jessica had done her best to keep morale, if not high, at least at
a level above despair. She also made sure they all performed daily
exercises, which she led. But clearly, despite best intentions, the close
physical restriction, monotony and loneliness were having an inevitable
effect
.
Additionally, the greasy, unpalatable food was one more burden that
sapped their physical resources
.
Compounding those miseries, and despite their efforts to stay washed
,
they were usually dirty, odorous, and frequently sweating, with their
soiled clothes sticking to them
.
It was all very well, Jessica thought, to remind herself that her
anti-terrorism course mentor, Brigadier Wade, had suffered
a good deal more and for a longer period in his below-ground hellhole in Korea. But Cedric Wade was an exceptional, committed person serving his country in time of war. There was no war here to stiffen the mind or sinews. They were merely civilians caught in a petty skirmish . . . for what purpose? Jessica still didn't know
.
Just the same, the thought of Brigadier Wade and Nicky's remark about
liking Vicente, plus Angus's endorsement, reminded her of something she
had learned from Wade. Now seemed a good time to bring it up
.
Speaking softly while glancing warily at the guard on duty, she asked
,
"Angus and Nicky, have either of you heard of the Stockholm syndrome
?
”

"I think so
,”
Angus said
.”
Not sure, though
.”

"Nicky
?
”

"No, Mom. What is it
?
”

The guard was the one who sometimes brought a comic book; he seemed
engrossed in one now and indifferent to their talking. Jessica also knew
he spoke no English
.”
I'll tell you
,”
Jessica said
.
In memory she could hear Brigadier Wade's voice informing the small study
group of which she had been part, "One thing that happens in almost every
terrorist hijack or kidnap situation is that after a while at least some
of the hostages come to like the terrorists. Sometimes hostages go so far
as to think of the terrorists as their friends and the police or troops
outside, who are trying to rescue the hostages, as the enemy. That's the
Stockholm syndrome
.”

All of which was true, Jessica confirmed subsequently through additional
reading. She had also been curious enough to go back and learn how the
process got its label
.
Now, dipping into memory and using her own words, she described the
strange story while Nicky and Angus listened.

It happened in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 23, 1973
.
That morning, at Norrmalmstorg, a central city square, an escaped
convict. Jan-Erik Olsson, age thirty-two, entered Sveriges Kreditbanken
,
one of Stockholm's larger banks. From beneath a folded jacket Olsson produced a submachine gun which he
fired into the ceiling, creating panic amid a shower of concrete and glass
.
The ordeal that followed lasted six days
.
In the course of it no one participating had any notion that for years
and probably centuries to come, an outcropping of the experience they
were sharing would become
f
amous as the Stockholm syndrome--a medical and
scientific phrase destined to be as familiar worldwide to students and
practitioners as Cesarean section, anorexia, penis envy or Alzheimer's
disease
.
Three women and a man, all bank employees, were taken hostage by Olsson
and an accomplice, Clark Olofsson, age twenty-six. The hostages were
Birgitta Lundblad, thirty-one, a pretty blond; Kristin Ehnmark
,
twenty-three, spirited and black
haired; Elisabeth Oldgren, twenty-one
,
small, fair and
gentle; and Sven Sefstro
m, twenty-five, a tall, slender
bachelor. For most of the next six days this sextet was confined to a
safe
deposit vault from where the criminals presented their demands by
telephone-fo
r three million kronor in cash ($710,000), two pistols and
a getaway car
.
During the siege, the hostages suffered. They were
forced to stand with
ropes around their necks so that
falling would strangle them. From time
to time, as a machine gun was thrust into their ribs, they expected
death. For
fifty hours they were without food Plastic wastebaskets became
their only toilets. Within the vault, claustrophobia and
f
ear were
all-pervading
.
Yet all the while a strange closeness between hostages and captors grew
.
There was a moment when Birgitta could have walked away but didn't
.
Kristin managed to give information to the police, then acknowledged
,
"I
felt like a traitor
.”