RANSOM FOR A U.S. AMBASSADOR

An ambassador of the United States is worth a great deal.

With that chilling calculation, spelled out in a note left in U.S. Ambassador C. Burke Elbrick's Cadillac in Rio, a group of Brazilian terrorists last week launched a fantastic--and successful--caper worthy of Mission: Impossible. Expanding on a terror technique already familiar in Latin America, leftists kidnaped the U.S. diplomat, blackmailed South America's most powerful government, sprang a randy group of political prisoners from jail and got them to sanctuary in another country--on a Brazilian military plane. The abductors' note was signed by two bands--the National Liberation Action Group, a Brazilian anti-government underground outfit, and the October 8 Revolutionary Movement, or MR-8, a Castroite group that takes its name from the date of Che Guevara's 1967 capture in Bolivia. In return for Elbrick's life, the terrorists made two imaginative demands, to which the government hastily agreed. First, Brazilian newspapers, radio and TV stations had to run a tiresome, 950-word anti-government "manifesto." Second, the government was forced to release 15 political prisoners and fly them to sanctuary in Mexico.

Scrupulously Formal. A witty career diplomat who has served as the U.S. ambassador in Yugoslavia and Portugal, Elbrick had been a hit with Brazilians almost from the moment he arrived on July 8. While maintaining scrupulously formal relations with the military regime, he mixed enthusiastically among the civilian population. One evening he and his wife danced past midnight at a party with Brazilians from Rio's ramshackle favelas. After the murder of U.S. Ambassador John Gordon Mein in a kidnap attempt in "Guatemala a year ago, Elbrick's predecessor, John Tuthill, kept a bodyguard and frequently changed cars and routes for the trip between the downtown Rio embassy and residence in Rio's Botafogo district. Elbrick scorned security recommendations, and two weeks ago dismissed his Brazilian guard detachment.

Elbrick's kidnapers had been waiting for him at a street corner near his residence for more than five hours, lounging about so carelessly that a neighbor reported them as suspicious to the police--who did nothing. Shortly after lunch, Elbrick left for the embassy. He never arrived. His Cadillac swung into a narrow street, a red Volkswagen swerved to a halt in front of it, and a blue one pulled up behind. Three gunmen got in the car and drove on to Rio's 2,300-ft. Corcovado Peak, apparently chloroforming the ambassador along the way. At the mountain, the kidnapers carried the ambassador to a waiting Volkswagen and sped off, leaving his chauffeur behind unharmed.

The kidnapers later communicated with the government through two notes concerning the 15 prisoners they wanted released. The first message, in a church alms box, gave the junta 48 hours to agree to fly the prisoners out of the country, and it was accompanied by a brief letter from Elbrick to his wife. "I am all right and I am hoping that I shall be liberated soon," he wrote, adding pointedly that "these people, of course, are very determined." The second note, which turned up in a supermarket game-ticket collection box, reeled off the prisoners' names. Ranging from flaming leftists to moderate activists, they were a motley group whose common characteristic seemed to be that their release would be especially grating to the military. They included Ricardo Zaratini, a Communist who had been accused of trying to kill Brazilian President Costa e Silva three years ago, and Vladimir Palmeira, a student leader arrested last year after an opposition rally.

To meet the terrorists' Saturday-afternoon deadline, the prisoners had to be gathered hastily from jails all over Brazil--an operation that came right down to the wire. Shortly before the appointed hour, Foreign Minister Jose Magalhaes Pinto went on the air to let the kidnapers know that "everything is taken care of." It was a white lie to win time while a balky helicopter, which had been forced to land as it was bringing the last prisoner to Rio, could be repaired. When the Brazilian C-130 transporting the prisoners at last took off from Rio, it was an hour late. Elbrick was to be released when news agencies reported the prisoners' arrival in Mexico; at week's end, it was still uncertain whether the terrorists would honor their end of the bargain.

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