Terry Waite and Ollie North: The Untold Story of the Kidnapping and the Release
by By Hewitt, Gavin
Category: Political Science , General

This is the untold story of what happened to hostage-helper Terry Waite. And why. And how Ollie North was involved.Terry Waite was an obscure Anglican envoy until his unexpected diplomatic skills and successes in effecting the release of hostages in the Middle East thrust him onto the world stage.Dressed in his black clerical robes, with a wooden cross around his neck, the tall, bearded envoy took on Iranian revolutionaries face to face. He managed to persuade Libya's Colonel Qadaffi to release hostages. And his gradual, growing involvement with the Americans held captive in the Middle East made him a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic.Why, then, was this effective emissary of the Church of England suddenly kidnapped in Beirut in January of 1987? What had the revolutionaries suspected? How had the U.S. government used him? What happened? Why? At last, the real story about Terry Waite can be revealed. Based on meticulous research and yielding convincing evidence, this book brilliantly provides the answers--unexpected answers, at that, to what Waite was doing in the Middle East, why he was kidnapped, what was really going on.It is a gripping, informative, and important story of personal courage, of integrity tested, and of political duplicity, told rigorously and responsibly by journalist Gavin Hewitt.