Dinner with the Hostages

By John Borrell

TIME Correspondent John Borrell was finishing his dinner around midnight in the luxurious Summerland hotel just south of Beirut when a large, bedraggled group arrived for a late supper. Borrell did a double take: here were 32 hostages who had been roused from their beds Friday night for what was intended to be a farewell meal. Borrell, the only reporter in the restaurant when the hostages arrived, sent this account:

They sat at four tables next to where I was draining the dregs of a coffee cup. Aware that I might be thrown out if the guards decided I was a journalist, I remained silent as the hostages took in their surroundings -- a blue pool sparkling with underwater lighting, deck chairs drawn up in regiments and a moon rising over the Mediterranean.

One of the hostages leaned over and whispered, "You speak French?" "No, English," I replied. "What are you doing here?" he whispered, looking around furtively. "You a tourist?" "No. A journalist."

For several minutes we talked surreptitiously, trying to appear nonchalant whenever one of the guards seemed to be watching. An ABC television crew staying in the hotel was shooed off and told to come back when the food had been served.

Shish kebabs and steaks arrived quickly, along with watermelon and cans of Pepsi-Cola. "This is not our normal fare," muttered Tom Cullins of Vermont. Said another: "We lived on bread and water our first five days." There was a chorus of dissent. "Come off it," said a hostage, "it was better than that." The main complaint: their captors continually woke them up at ungodly hours to discuss the situation.

"Can you post this letter to my wife?" asked Cullins. He slipped it to me unobserved.

"Reagan was right when he called these guys a bunch of thugs," one hostage whispered. "But he was stupid to say it when he did. Can you believe an American President would say such a thing when American citizens are being held hostage?"

As dinner was served, the TV crew began filming. "It's a bloody circus, all this television stuff," complained Peter Hill from Illinois. "We are just serving their ends, and we wonder sometimes what it is all about." Another hostage whispered: "Maybe ABC had us hijacked to improve their ratings."

Later the hotel chefs produced a cake with white-chocolate icing. On it in thin dark chocolate lettering: WISHING YOU ALL A HAPPY TRIP HOME.

"Maybe it's a farewell supper -- you'll see soon enough," one guard told his prisoners. As the group was departing, the hotel staff handed out orange roses. "I want you guys to know that sometimes in life you have to take time out to smell the roses," said Hostage Jerome Barczak as he sniffed his.