Shiites Release Videotape of Two Hostages

BEIRUT, Lebanon--Two Americans held by Shiite Moslem zealots since early 1985 asked the Reagan Adminstration on a videotape yesterday to work as hard for their freedom as it did to get Nicholas Daniloff out of the Soviet Union.

Terry A. Anderson and David Jacobsen made their appeal in a 10-minute tape delivered to the Beirut offices of two Western news agencies by Islamic Jihad, the organization holding them. They also said hostage William Buckley, a U.S. diplomat kidnapped in March 1984, had been killed in captivity.

Both hostages referred to his death as "murder."

In Washington, President Reagan told reporters he suspected Anderson and Jacobsen made their statements "under the orders of their captors."

No Comparison

He said "there is no comparison" between Daniloff and the hostages in Lebanon, adding: "There has never been a day that we have not been trying every channel to get our hostages back from Lebanon. But they were not seized by a government. We don't know who's holding them. There's never been any contact between their captors and us."

It was the first time Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent of The Associated Press, appeared in a filmed appeal since he was abducted in Moslem west Beirut on March 16, 1985.

Both Anderson and Jacobsen, 55, director of the American University Hospital in Beirut, spoke bitterly of the contrast between Washington's handling of the Daniloff case and that of the American hostages in Lebanon.

"After two-and-one-half years of empty talk and refusals to act on the part of the Reagan administration it hurt to see the propaganda and bombast with which that administration solved the problem of Mr. Daniloff, a citizen like us who was imprisoned only a short time," said Anderson, 38.

"How can any official justify the interest, attention and action given in that case and the inattention given ours?" Anderson added. "We are surprised that the American government has put pressure on other Arab and European government not to negotiate in such cases as ours, but surrendered itself on the Daniloff case, releasing the Russian spy [Gennadiy] Zakharov who was working against our people."

The Daniloff Case

Daniloff, a correspondent for the U.S. News & World Report magazine, was arrested in Moscow on Aug. 30 and charged with espionage. He was released after a U.S.-Soviet agreement which also freed Zakharov, a Soviet U.N. employee arrested on espionage charges in New York on Aug. 23.

Anderson referred by name to Islamic Jihad's third American hostage, Thomas Sutherland, 55, acting dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut. Why Sutherland did not appear on the tape was not explained.

Anderson and Jacobsen both wore trimmed beards and mustaches. They appeared physically fit but were pale, and Anderson's loss of weight was particularly noticeable.

Jacobsen said it was time for American citizens to act as a "court of last resort" to help end the hostages' ordeal.

"When Daniloff was arrested by the Russians his situation was immediately known by the government," he said. "Everyone in the government and the press reacted to the situation just like a natural disaster or an earthquake."

He said the "conditions of our captivity are very bad. They are far worse now than when Father [Lawrence Martin] Jenco was with us. Truly they are bad." Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest, was freed July 26 after being held 19 months.

"President Reagan made his first mistake in the hostage crisis, and Buckley died," Jacobsen said. "Mr. President, are you going to make another mistake at the cost of our lives?"

There was no way of knowing whether the captives made the pleas freely or were forced to do so by Islamic Jihad. The organization's name means Islamic Holy War and it is believed loyal to Iran.

Anderson's sister Mrs. Say, interviewed by The Associated Press from her home in Batavia, N.Y., said of her brother: "I was wondering how long it would take him to get angry enough to consent to make a tape. I half-expected it."