Terry Anderson, the globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent who was kidnapped off the streets of war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, making him one of the longest-held hostages in the United States, is 76 years old. He passed away.
Mr. Anderson, whose best-selling 1993 memoir “The Lion’s Den” chronicled his abduction, torture and imprisonment by Islamic extremists, died Sunday at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York, his daughter Slome Anderson announced.
Anderson died of complications from recent heart surgery, his daughter said.
“Terry showed great courage and determination, both in his journalism and during his years as a hostage, deeply committed to witness testimony on the ground. We are deeply grateful for the sacrifices made as a result of this,” said Julie Pace, executive vice president and editor-in-chief of The Associated Press.
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“He never liked being called a hero, but everyone kept calling him that,” Slom Anderson said. “When I met him a week ago, my partner asked him if there was anything on his bucket list or anything he wanted to do. I’ve done a lot of things. I’m satisfied.”
After returning to the United States in 1991, Anderson lived an itinerant life, giving public speeches, teaching journalism at several prominent universities, and occasionally operating blues bars, Cajun restaurants, horse ranches, and gourmet restaurants. I also managed the.
He also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and won millions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets after a federal court concluded that Iran was involved in his arrest, but then Most of it was lost to bad investments. He filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
After retiring from the University of Florida in 2015, Anderson settled on a small horse ranch in a quiet rural area of Northern Virginia that he discovered while camping with friends.
“I live in the country, and it’s a nice place with nice weather and quiet, so it’s okay,” he said with a laugh in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press.
In 1985, Anderson was one of several Westerners abducted by members of the Shiite Islamic group Hezbollah during the war that plunged Lebanon into chaos.
After his release, he returned to a hero’s welcome at the Associated Press’ New York headquarters.
“Finally, the vacant seat at the Associated Press table has been filled again. Terry Anderson has been released,” Lou Boccardi, the company’s president at the time, said in a Dec. 4, 1991, memo to staff. .
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Boccardi said Anderson’s plight was on the minds of his colleagues throughout the ordeal. “Let’s rejoice together that Terry’s nightmare is over,” he wrote.
As The Associated Press’ chief Middle East correspondent, Anderson reports on the escalating violence gripping Lebanon as the country is at war with Israel and Iran funds extremist groups seeking to overthrow the government. I’ve been reporting on it for years.
On March 16, 1985, he was on a day off to play tennis with former Associated Press cameraman Don Mel, and as he was dropping Mel off at his home, gun-wielding kidnappers grabbed him from his car. I dragged it out.
He said he was likely targeted because he is one of the few Westerners still in Lebanon and his role as a journalist aroused suspicion among Hezbollah members.
On December 4, 1991, Terry Anderson, Lebanon’s longest-serving American hostage, smiles with his 6-year-old daughter, Slome, as he leaves the American ambassador’s residence in Damascus, Syria, after Anderson’s release. There is. Anderson, a globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent who was snatched off the streets of war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, went on to become one of America’s longest-held hostages. He passed away on Sunday, April 21st. He was 76 years old. . (AP Photo/Santiago Lyon)
“Because, in their words, people who walk around in awkward, dangerous places asking questions must be spies,” he told Virginia newspaper The Review of Orange County in 2018.
What followed was nearly seven years of brutality, during which he was beaten, chained to a wall, threatened with death, often had a gun to his head, and held in solitary confinement for long periods.
Mr Anderson is the longest held of several Western hostages taken by Hezbollah over the years, including Terry Waite, a former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who arrived to negotiate Mr Anderson’s release. It was included.
According to testimony from Anderson and the other hostages, Anderson was also their most hostile prisoner, constantly demanding better food and treatment, discussing religion and politics with his captors, and using sign language and personal information to other hostages. It is said that he told them where the messages were hidden so that they could communicate with each other.
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He was able to maintain his quick wit and dry sense of humor throughout the long ordeal. On his last day in Beirut, he called the leader of the kidnappers to his room and told him that he had heard false radio reports that he had been released and was in Syria.
“I said, ‘Mahmound, listen to this, I’m not here. I’m gone, baby. I’m on my way to Damascus.’ And we both laughed. ” he told Giovanna Dell’Orto, author of “The Associated Press Foreign Correspondents in Action: From World War II to the Present.”
He later learned that his release was delayed because the third party to whom the kidnappers had planned to hand him over left for a tryst with his mistress and had to look for someone else.
Mel, who was a passenger in the car at the time of the kidnapping, said Sunday that she and Anderson shared an extraordinary bond.
“Our relationship was much broader, deeper, more important and meaningful than just that one incident,” Mel said.
Associated Press chief Middle East correspondent and former hostage Terry Anderson smiles at a news conference despite broken glasses in Damascus, Syria, December 6, 1991. Anderson, a globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent who was kidnapped off the streets of war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, becoming one of America’s longest-held hostages, will be held in 2024. He passed away on Sunday, April 21st, at the age of 76. . (AP Photo/Santiago Llo)
Mel credited Anderson with launching a career in journalism and inspiring the young photographer to be hired full-time by The Associated Press. Their friendship deepened after Anderson was released. They were each other’s wedding attendants and kept in touch frequently.
Anderson’s humor often masked the PTSD he admitted to suffering from in subsequent years.
“The Associated Press asked several British clinical psychiatrists from hostage decompression to counsel my wife and me, and they were extremely helpful,” he said in 2018. “But one of the problems I had was that I didn’t fully appreciate the damage that was being done.”
“So when people ask me, I say, ‘Are you done yet?’ Well, I don’t know, but I haven’t been thinking about it much lately, it’s not the center of my life,” he says. I did.
Anderson said her Christian faith helped her let go of her anger. And what his wife later told him also helped him move forward: “You can’t have joy if you keep hating.”
At the time of his abduction, Anderson was engaged to his wife, and her future wife, daughter Surome, was six months pregnant.
The couple married soon after their release, but divorced a few years later, and although they remained on friendly terms, Anderson and her daughter were estranged for years.
“I love my dad very much. He always loved me. I just didn’t know it because he didn’t show it to me,” Slome Andersson said. he told The Associated Press in 2017.
Father and daughter reconciled after the publication of her critically acclaimed book, Hostage Daughter, in 2017. In it, she told how she traveled to Lebanon to confront one of her father’s kidnappers and ultimately forgive her.
“I think she did an extraordinary thing and went through a very difficult personal journey, but I also think she accomplished a pretty important piece of journalism through it,” Anderson said. “She’s a better journalist than I am now.”
Terry Alan Anderson was born on October 27, 1947. He spent his childhood in the small Lake Erie town of Vermilion, Ohio, where his father was a police officer.
After high school, he turned down a scholarship to the University of Michigan and joined the Marines, rising to the rank of sergeant while serving in combat during the Vietnam War.
Upon returning home, he enrolled at Iowa State University, graduated with a double major in journalism and political science, and immediately took a job at the Associated Press. He reported from Kentucky, Japan and South Africa before arriving in Lebanon in 1982, just as the country was in turmoil.
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“In fact, it was the most fascinating job of my life,” he told The Review. “It was intense. There was a war going on and Beirut was very dangerous. It was a terrible civil war that lasted about three years until I was kidnapped.”
Anderson was married and divorced three times. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by another daughter from his first marriage, Gabrielle Anderson; sister Judy Anderson; and his brother Jack Anderson.
“My father’s life was marked by extreme suffering while he was held hostage, but in recent years he has found a quiet and comfortable peace. He is remembered not for his worst experiences but through his humanitarian work. We are working with the Vietnam Children’s Fund, Journalists, Homeless Veterans Protection Committee, and many other incredible causes,” Slome Anderson said in a statement on Sunday. mentioned in.
Memorial arrangements are pending.
