World Notes Hostages

Another American hostage, Jesse Turner, 44, was released in Beirut last week, and once again the process followed a familiar pattern. One of the pro-Iranian Lebanese groups provided new evidence concerning the fate of one of the five Israeli soldiers still unaccounted for in Lebanon. Jerusalem responded by ordering the release of 15 Lebanese Shi'ite prisoners. That gesture, in turn, led to the freeing of Turner, a former mathematics professor who had been held for four years and nine months.

The pace of release is quickening now. The fear, however, is that if the process is not completed by Dec. 31, when U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar leaves office, the momentum may again be lost.