Diplomacy Mr. Behind-the-Scenes

By DAVID ELLIS

Giandomenico Picco would have been justified if he had tried to grab some of the limelight that fell on Terry Anderson and his fellow liberated hostages as they emerged into freedom. Instead, the tall, dapper mediator stood in the background, saying nothing about the key role he had played in securing the captives' release. As the point man of U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar's seven-month campaign to resolve the hostage crisis, Picco had engaged in a series of daunting covert missions to Shi'ite strongholds in Lebanon to bargain with the captors. At times he disappeared from sight for days on end.

Described by Perez de Cuellar as "more of a soldier than a diplomat," Picco was a natural choice for the dangerous assignment. The Italian-born Picco, 43, first worked for Perez de Cuellar in Cyprus with the U.N. ! peacekeeping forces in the 1970s. He joined the Secretary-General's personal staff in 1982, and was part of the team that negotiated the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Once pragmatists in Iran's government concluded that the hostage crisis had to be resolved, the first man they turned to was Picco. They trusted him because of his evenhanded role as head of the task force behind the 1988 U.N.-sponsored cease-fire that ended the Iran-Iraq war.

Picco passed the word to Perez de Cuellar, who was eager to wrap up the hostage ordeal before his retirement at the end of this year. The U.N. team decided to work on two levels. Perez de Cuellar mounted a high-profile diplomatic campaign, repeatedly visiting Iran, Syria and Israel to obtain official backing for Picco's veiled bargaining. The U.N. chief also sought advice from Brent Scowcroft, George Bush's National Security Adviser, who traveled to New York City to meet secretly with Perez de Cuellar, sometimes without the knowledge of Thomas Pickering, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Scowcroft assured Perez de Cuellar that Israel was prepared to help free the hostages.

Scowcroft was careful to act only as a consultant, refusing to involve the U.S. in the bargaining with either the abductors or their Iranian backers. "Our basic message to the Iranians was that we don't see any reason for abiding hostilities and we were prepared to work toward a new relationship, provided the hostage thing was resolved," says a senior Administration official.

Meanwhile Picco embarked on his secret mission. On several occasions he traveled with Syrian secret police to the border with Lebanon, where he was met by intermediaries waiting in a black Mercedes. Then he was driven -- alone, with his head covered by a cloth bag -- into the Bekaa Valley, in the eastern portion of Lebanon. Some of his meetings with Shi'ite operatives were held in the village of Nabisheet, where he may have spoken to some of the hostages. When asked about that possibility, Picco crisply responds, "Next question."

These forays were filled with danger. "In order to meet with ((the captors)), their security was absolutely guaranteed," says Picco. "I always met with them alone, and always at night. We met many, many times." Picco needed no reminder that Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite was seized in 1987 under similar circumstances. Says Picco: "Either you are afraid or you are a fool." While in Lebanon, Picco began to move to a different house every night after U.N. sources learned that there was a contract on his life.

The U.N. effort started to pick up in August, when British journalist John McCarthy was released. He was carrying a message from Islamic Jihad: if Israel would release more than 300 Arab detainees, including Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid, a Shi'ite Muslim cleric kidnapped by Israeli commandos in 1989, the group would be willing to free its remaining captives. Using Picco as a go-between, the two sides began exchanging information about the condition of their prisoners.

A month later, Perez de Cuellar went to Tehran to receive Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani's assurances that he would pressure the radicals to free their captives. At about the same time, Picco arrived in Lebanon to tell the kidnappers that Israel was willing to release Arab prisoners. In return, the Israelis demanded information on seven of their servicemen missing in Lebanon, one of whom is known to be alive.

Despite these encouraging developments, Picco feared that the process might unravel in the atmosphere of mutual suspicion. In late October, without clearing the move with Perez de Cuellar, Picco instructed the Beirut U.N. information office to announce that an American would be released within 24 hours. The announcement forced the kidnappers to honor their side of the agreement by delivering Jesse Turner to Syrian officials. Four weeks later, Waite and Thomas Sutherland were freed, setting the stage for the end of the hostage drama. In a key session on Nov. 30, Picco received a timetable for the release of Joseph Cicippio, Alann Steen and, finally, Terry Anderson.

But as so often happens in the Middle East, there was a last-minute hitch. Sources in Damascus confirm that Anderson's release was delayed seven hours because a hard-line faction within Islamic Jihad advocated holding on to him as a bargaining chip. Anderson was freed only after fundamentalist leaders reined in the dissident faction.

While America's hostage nightmare has ended, Picco's mission is incomplete. Securing the return of the two remaining German hostages and the Israeli soldier will be ticklish, in part because the abductors are afraid they will be liquidated by vengeful Western governments or abandoned by their former Iranian patrons. That fear could delay Perez de Cuellar's dream of bringing the entire hostage saga to a close -- and send Picco back into the Bekaa Valley.

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo/New York and Lara Marlowe/Damascus