The Buccaneers

Like storybook pirates, East German Communists croaked happily over an unexpected treasure when seven U.S. Army artillery officers and two helicopter crewmen strayed off course last month and landed their whirlybird in Soviet-occupied territory. The East Germans, at Russia's prodding, held the nine men prisoner and demanded a high ransom: diplomatic recognition of the East German satellite by the U.S. The U.S. refused to deal, negotiated patiently but fruitlessly at the military level. Finally, the U.S. empowered the American Red Cross to step into the case. Last week, after a month of negotiation with the Communists, the Red Cross brought the men home unharmed.

Under direction of Red Cross President Alfred Maximilian Gruenther, onetime NATO boss in Europe, U.S. Red Cross officials in West Germany worked out the details of the release with their East German counterparts. The only hitch: the American Red Cross agreed to pay the

East Germans $1,748 to cover room and board for the nine Americans. Clearly defeated in their attempt at the higher blackmail, the Communists nevertheless regaled each other with the idiocy that the U.S. had implied recognition by the mere fact that a settlement had been made. If they seriously believed this, they had made themselves the most laughable buccaneers since Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.

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