The Children Have Wept Enough

HELP! The kittens are climbing the Christmas tree!" The tree sways dangerously in the suburban Baltimore apartment; ornaments fly in all directions. Giggling ecstatically as they call to their mother, Andrea Rander, the girls--Lysa, 12, and Page, 6--streak across the living room and pluck the month-old kittens, Gamma, Alpha and Fluffy, from their perches in the tree. Then the evening news flashes on the TV screen. Andrea and her daughters lock into place, as if in pantomime of a film freeze frame. Henry Kissinger has met again in Paris with his North Vietnamese counterpart Le Due Tho.

"What does it mean, Mommy?"

Page asks. "Is it good?" Replies Andrea Rander: "Time for bed." Later, hearing the glum report from Henry Kissinger in Washington, Andrea sighs: "Oh, no! Here we go again. That's what they've been saying for the last four years." Then she composes herself. "There's bound to be a settlement soon. We'll just keep hoping and hoping."

Last week's scene in the Rander home, which was visited by TIME Correspondent Arthur White, was probably similar to hundreds of others across the country. With an anguished eye toward the stalled Paris peace talks, the families of 554 U.S. prisoners of war in Indochina, as well as the 1,273 other servicemen listed as missing, have resigned themselves to another sad, acephalous Christmas.

The Randers wait in mingled hope and dread for word of Sergeant First Class Donald Rander of Army Intelligence, captured at Hue on Feb. 1, 1968. Shortly thereafter two fellow soldiers who escaped reported that he had been wounded in the arm but was alive in a Viet Cong prison camp in South Viet Nam. There has been no word from Rander in five years. So his women wait, worry and try to pretend that there is holly in their hearts.

Mrs. Rander, 34, a lovely, petite black woman who met and married Donald, now 34, in New York City where they both grew up, tucks Page in and resumes addressing Christmas cards--a color photo of herself and the children. One of them goes to President and Mrs. Richard Nixon. "I got one from them last year," Andrea explains. "I thought I'd beat them to it this year."

Desperate Pleas. On the back of the card she writes: "President Nixon, the smiles on our faces don't represent happiness or joy during the Advent season. This Christmas marks our sixth without Donald J. Rander, a prisoner of war in South Viet Nam. May you and your family have a happy holiday season. Andrea, Lysa and Page Rander." Too cryptic for comfort, perhaps, but as Mrs. Rander notes: "I wasn't trying to be sarcastic. I just wanted to get the point across." She also remarks that she voted for Nixon this year, though other blacks tried to talk her out of it. She clings precariously to her belief that Nixon is doing his best to end the war.

Like the thousands of wives and parents who share her plight, Mrs. Rander has endured years of frustrated effort in her husband's behalf. Three years ago, at Nixon's invitation, she went to Washington with other P.O.W. wives to discuss what the President termed "the distressing situation of our captured and missing servicemen." Since then both she and her daughters have exchanged letters with the White House, desperate pleas answered with slender hopes.

In 1969 she joined the contingent of wives who flew to Paris to seek information about their husbands. They did not even get an audience with Madame Binh, the Viet Cong chief delegate. Andrea was advised to send letters to her husband through the V.C., but she has no idea if any ever arrived.

Last year she painstakingly assembled a Christmas package for Donald and mailed it to the National Liberation Front embassy in Moscow according to Defense Department directions. Last month, a full year later, the package was returned in tatters, marked "Unclaimed." She has prepared another package this year, but memories of the previous cruel stroke give her cold shivers. "I asked myself again, 'Is Donald dead? Is that why it came back?''

Still, she does not really believe that her husband is dead. Between now and the hoped for prisoner exchange, Mrs. 3 Rander still has her children and her job at the Maryland Poison Information Center, where she advises telephone callers what antidotes to take for which poisons. Like the others she also has a friend in the military, her Family Services and Assistance Officer (F.S.A.O.), Capt. James A. Rumgay, an Army company commander at Fort Holabird, Md., who keeps her advised on all matters pertaining to the prisoners, and buoys her spirits when she is just plain down, which is often.

Nonetheless, the most important item in the Rander regimen is the preparation for the homecoming that they are sure will eventually occur. Together the three of them pore over the Defense Department pamphlet that tries to answer the inevitable prisoner-release questions.

For her part, Lysa Rander is going to act upon the Defense Department's principle dictum: be natural, be yourself. Says she: "I think maybe I'll stay in my bedroom when he comes home, and just come out when he's ready." Then what? "I'll cry." Her mother softly admonishes: "Don't do that, honey. We've all cried enough."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.