When a nation is held hostage, the outcome is never certain.
Some nations talk of peace and then resort to the bullet.
Others first threaten violence on principle and then agree to pay a secret ransom. But at every moment during a major hostage incident, a nation's character is under stress. Such worries burden what now may be the final stages of the Peruvian hostage crisis. Indeed, such interest has itself added significantly to the pressure on the hostage-takers, on their 72 victims in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, and on the bewilderingly diverse groups of interests and governments trying to win the release of the hostages. The greatest pressure has been the fear of failure.