Hostages' Joy Over Freedom May Hide
Deeper Damage, Psychologists Warn
By Donla Mills
-1
»
Washington-Star Staff Writer
An elated nation that watched the
American hostages’ smiling, waving
flight
to freedom should not turn
off its concern along with the tele-
vision set, experts on the psychology,
of captivity warn.
'
“They look so happy — that’s the
sadness of it," says Charles Stenger,
director, of services
for American
'Ex-Prisoners of War, an
organiza-
tion
of
soui'fr 94,000.
"They’ve
sur-.
, vived, but
it’s left
its mark.”.
f
The big danger now for hostages,
families and public alike, said Sten-
ger, a 58-year -old Bethesda psychol-
ogtst who was captured by Germans
in the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, “is
in wanting to pretend
it’s all over,
.
it’s all behind them.
"The thing
to look out
for now
is what we refer to as the ’second
injury’ — the claifiage that can result
later from the failure of people to
understand and respond to the resid-
,
ual
effects
of the
captive’s exper-
ience."
Psychologists, agree
that
the
outward appearances of exuberance
expressed
by the freed Americans
during their stopover in Algeria and
their arrival in Germany may belie
.
the deeper psychic damage suffered
during their
15 months of intern-
ment.
“All of them looked sad
to me,”
said Staff
Sgt. James Hughes, one
of 13 hostages freed soon after mili-
tants took over the
U.S. Embassy.
“They had
that sadness
in
their
eyes."
Even
in
these
brief
televised
glimpses, the trained eyes of medical
authorities could
detect subtler
symptoms of problems to come.
“I was struck by a remark made
by one of the Algerian pilots," one
psychologist satd. "He described the
hostages as being Tike trained ani-
mals.’ And indeed
it did seem odd,
the way they did what they were
told, they didn't get out of line, how
totally docile and manageable they
were despite their joy."
Dr, Margaret Singer, a Berkeley,
Calif.,
psychologist who has done
extensive
“de-programming” work
with POWs and
cult victims, said
some of the hostages "looked awfully
geared down" — a
psychological
term, she explained, used to describe
thy way victims in life-threatening
situations deliberately reduce their
level
of feeling
in order
to cope
with stress.
“1 thought the young men, particu-
larly, looked more subdued than the
gray-bearded ones in their 40s and
50s,” said Singer, who was a court-
appointed
examiner
of
Patricia
Hearst during her trial on bank rob-
bery charges with members of the
Symbtonese Liberation Army.
"i think a key
fact here
is that
the captors were males about
the
same age as the younger captives,
which may have made them victims
of
particularly
sadistic
treatment.
i
STAFF SGT, JAMES HUGHES
Returnees looked sad, he says
They (the Iranians) were probably
doing a macho number' on; them,
and dealing badly with the women
as
well,
because
of
that whole
middle-Eastern
attitude toward
fe-
males.”
Others
suggested
that, the
seasoned veterans of diplomatic an<j
military
service had mpre
disci-
pline, stressful expedience and
in-
stitutional and
family bonds
to
bolster them than the younger cap-
tives.
“It helps you hang on to your sense
of self-esteem
if you can find any
roles to make you feel worthwhile,"
said Stenger
in
recalling his own
captivity.
“I was
a medic —
I was
busy
all the time.”
But despite the anticipated read-
justment
period, authorities stress
that the professional training and
dedication of the hostages — most
of whom volunteered
for the' post
with the understanding that risks
might
be
involved —
Will
bring
them through the ordeal with better-
than-average results.
“These
are
educated,
well-
functioning,
superior
people,”
Singer pointed out. “They’re going
to do a lot better than, say, 52 citizens
you picked up at random one day
out of the supermarket.”.
In
their
first phone
calls to
rel-
atives back
in
the
U.S.
yesterday,
some of the hostages made
it clear
that they had been psychologically,
if not
physically, abused by their
Iranian captors.
, John Limbert told his father that
he spent nine months out of the 14
in solitary confinement, and others
complained of being isolated from
their
colleagues,
tied up
at night,
denied even bathroom
privileges
without asking permission, and hav-
ing mail heavily censored.
And the family of Malcolm Kalp
in Brockton, Mass., sffid they learned
today that the reason nobody back
.
home heard from him during the
444
days
of captivity was that he
tried
io escape several
times and
was punished.
“He told us he was beaten by them
and placed in solitary confinement
because of his escape attempts," said
Kalp's sister-in-law, Linda Kalp.
The
returning
hostages
are on
“cloud nine” right now, warns Dr.
Edna
J. Hunter, another California
psychologist who has done consid-
erable study on POW readjustment
problems. “But
I do think after this
initial euphoria there are tremen-
dous readjustments to be made.
“It will take three or four weeks
before the letdown comes, although
I have a hunch that none of them
— or their families — believe right
now that there will be any prob-
lems."
_
i
-
Stenger said that the combination
of extreme danger and
total help-
lessness often leaves hostages with
a feeling of anxiety and vulnerabil-
ity similar to that of rape victims.
“When you go through a long pe-
riod of time totally at the mercy of
someone who
ts hostile or
at best
indifferent
to your existence and
when you can’t do a damn thing to
protect yourself, ;it. has a disastrous
effect," he. said,
“it’s much
worse
than, being in combat, where at least
you cstt Tun’, or pick up a gun and
shoot back,”
'
-
*
Stenger, who also serves as Vet-
erans Administration coordinator
for POW affairs, said studies of 94,000
surviving American POWs shows
that
the
former, prisoners
suffer
eight to 10 times the lingering anxi-
ety-problems of normal combat vet-
erans.
“This doesn't mean
that
they're
oing to run around and act crazy,"
e added. “But such intense stress
over
such
a
long
period
of
time
manifests
itself in
unpredictable
ways at unpredictable times. When
you’ve lived for 15 months with the
gas pedal
all the way to the floor,
it's certatnly not going to do your
motor any good.”
Dr. Demetrios A. Julius, chief of
psychiatric services at the Veterans
Administration Center
in
Rich-
mond, predicts the hostages will ex-
perience a surfacing of “real rage”
after the
initial sense of euphoria
has passed.
“I
think
they’ll
feel
a
sense
of
deep loss over a part of their lives
they can never
regain,” he
said.
“When it sinks in that theagreement
specifies they can’t file suits against
Iran, that they can never be com-
pensated even in this material way
for what they've suffered,
I think
It will make some of them very, very
angry."
Julius, who served as a counselor
for Americans in Iran from 1977 un-
til
his flight out in January
1979,
said that watching the plane land
in Algiers "brought it all back, that
sickly feeling of remembering how
threatened we
felt, the taunts and
the pipe bombs, the fear of not get-
ting but In time.
*1 hope we don’t forget these peo-
ple six months down the road," he
added.
"1 think we've just seen the
ti'
' *he iceburg.”
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
: CIA-RDP96-00788R0021 00450003-8