Wrong Place and Time

"My Government and people should not abandon me because of my color and my race," implored the strained voice on a tape recording delivered to the American embassy in Beirut late last week. U.S. officials in the Lebanese capital quickly confirmed that the voice was that of a black U.S. Army officer, Colonel Ernest R. Morgan, 43, who had been kidnaped by terrorists on June 29.

Unexpected Help. Believed to be ultraleftist members of the Palestinian guerrilla movement, the kidnapers threatened that Morgan would be murdered unless the U.S. provided sizable food, clothing and construction aid for al Maslakh (Arabic for Slaughterhouse), a slum section of Beirut that was seriously damaged during the recent factional fighting. At week's end a private Lebanese committee began distributing free food in the slum. Two hours before a deadline expired, Morgan was released unharmed.

The unlucky colonel apparently was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. A 23-year veteran of military service, he had a one-day transit stopover in Beirut while en route from a conference in Pakistan to Ankara, where he serves on the U.S.-Turkish joint military mission. Wearing civilian clothes, he was in a Beirut taxi when armed terrorists halted the car and seized him. Lebanese authorities searched for Morgan and his captors throughout the strife-torn country in vain.

The hunt for Morgan had received some help from an unexpected quarter: Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. The P.L.O. may have felt that the murder of Morgan could undermine Arafat's efforts to portray the Palestinians as responsible members of the world community.

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