A Hostage Comes Home

"I just wish there were 52 more with me." So said freed I U.S. Hostage Richard Queen last week, after descending wearily from a C-141 StarLifter at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, B.C. Leading the well-wishers were Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and Queen's younger brother Alexander. Said Muskie: "Richard, may I say on behalf of the President, the State Department, myself and all Americans, we welcome you home."

Queen, who was released two weeks ago by Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini after 250 days as a hostage, was then taken to Georgetown University Hospital. There he will be debriefed by State Department officials and treated for multiple sclerosis, which U.S. doctors last week diagnosed as his affliction. The physicians who examined him at the U.S. Air Force hospital in Wiesbaden, West Germany, are optimistic that Queen will suffer only mild and transient effects from the disease.

No one knows what causes multiple sclerosis, and there is no known cure for it. A degenerative disease of the central nervous system, MS destroys patches of myelin, the fatty tissue that forms a protective sheath around the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. This interferes with the flow of nerve impulses, much in the way that faulty insulation can cause electrical shortcircuits.

The symptoms include loss of coordination, numbness, dizziness and a weakening of the muscles that sometimes leads later to paralysis. Queen suffered from these symptoms as early as last December, a month after he was taken prisoner by the militants who seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. When his condition grew worse, Khomeini, for "humane reasons," ordered him sent home for treatment.

A current theory holds that MS is caused by a slow-acting virus that lies latent in the body for years before its first symptoms appear. These may disappear for as long as 30 years and then flare up once again, or they can disappear forever after one bout.

Studies indicate that acute stress--such as that suffered by the hostages--can bring on the symptoms or exacerbate them. Nonetheless, State Department Physician Jerome Korcak, who is treating Queen, said last week that "it has been impossible to prove" that his captivity brought on the symptoms. A common treatment is relaxation and the removal of the cause of stress. Harold Queen has prescribed such a treatment for his son. This week they will go up to their new home in Lincolnville, Me. Richard has never seen the house, but he is eager to try the salmon fishing in Duck Trap Stream, which runs behind it.

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