Terry Waite, MBE
Former Archbishop of Canterbury’s Envoy to the Middle East

Terry Waite was appointed as an advisor on international affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1980 and became known for his humanitarian efforts to negotiate the release of Western hostages in the Middle East. His first experience was the successful negotiation of the release of hostages held in Iran (1980-81), followed by the freeing of four hostages in Libya (1984-85). In 1987 he was himself taken captive while attempting to negotiate the freedom of British and American hostages held in Beirut. The hostage-takers, linked to Hizbollah (an Iranian-backed armed group from the Lebanese Shia Muslim community), were demanding the release of prisoners held on terrorist charges in Kuwait. Waite, who was known to have met Colonel Oliver North, was seized soon after the exposure of the Iran- Contra affair in which North and other members of the US administration were revealed to have been selling arms to Iran. Waite spent 1,763 days in captivity before his release in November 1991. Part of his narration of Experience published in the book issues of the Ends of Life, Trafford Publishing Bloomington, 2013.

“….It is one thing to be taken hostage. It is also exceptionally difficult to be a family member and to wait and hope and to keep that waiting and the hoping going across the years. But I say to the families, maintain hope. It was four years before my own wife had any news that I was alive and she maintained hope with the children across that period of time, a difficult thing to do.

The second thing I’d like to say is that as my subject tonight is a serious subject, let me begin with a light-hearted story.

When I came out of captivity I was invited to speak on many platforms and to travel here, there and everywhere, and I refused virtually everything because I needed time to readjust to the world as it had changed. I needed time to get to know my family again. When I was captured, my son was 14 years of age. When I returned, five years later, he was a young man and I hardly recognized him. So I needed time.

Spiritual truth is one form of truth. Scientific truth is another form of truth. One does not cancel out the other. And spiritual truth is equally as valid as scientific truth, although operating in a different framework. It is the sense of awe and mystery that leads us through to developing the frameworks that in some way enable us to interpret that mystery. This is the way in which religious movements begin and develop in different professions and different religions. And they begin, as the religious traditions develop, to develop their own codes, their own ways of behaving…..

I suppose to take the point of similarity first of all, both strongly believed, and strongly believe, in the case of suicide bombers today, that their action will gain them immediate entry into paradise in their own terms. There is one point of linkage. But the points of difference are enormous. It was always considered wrong in Christian tradition for individuals to commit suicide. Certainly, individuals who do that should be viewed with the deepest compassion, but it was not considered to be appropriate. Martyrs were not committing suicide; they were taken to martyrdom. It was always considered wrong to engage in murder and to involve others in your death, something which suicide bombers do. They involve other people in their martyrdom, so-called. So the differences are vast, but the end shapes the way in which people behave.

It is at this point I want to come down in much more concrete terms to my own experience. As you know, I worked for a number of years with the Archbishop of Canterbury. I became involved with seeking the release of hostages in different situations: in Iran, in Libya and in Beirut. My way of negotiating was a way that doesn’t work in every situation, but that works in certain situations and it was a way that is full of risk and difficulty. It was, first of all, to seek a face-to-face meeting with hostage-takers.

Now immediately you can see the difficulty of that because you are dealing with people who are highly volatile. You are dealing with people who are very nervous. You are dealing with people who have the capacity to take you at any moment and, therefore, you are in a very vulnerable position. It was successful to work in that way in Iran and in Libya and, in part, in Beirut.

My strategy was, first of all, to seek a meeting with people and, secondly, to attempt to build a relationship of trust. That means if you’re going to build a relationship of trust with people from a different culture, you need to be able to sit with them and to listen and to try to understand them. Why is it that they are behaving as they are behaving—to try and get to the real reason behind the stereotyping. And if you can begin to get to that point, to build trust, to get to the root issue and to try and find a way of resolving the issue in a way that enables parties to the problem to walk away, in so far as it is possible, with their dignity intact. That way of working, as I said, was successful on a number of occasions. And it was partially successful in Lebanon. It failed for reasons that I shall explain in a second.

I met with the captors of the British hostages—western hostages, not just British hostages, in Beirut under extremely tense and difficult circumstances. They came to me with their demands. Their demands were very simple. They had blood relatives who were being held under a variety of terrorist charges in Kuwait and they wanted me to look into that problem. They said that these men who were their relatives were being held in an underground prison, they were being badly treated, they had no communication with their families and, altogether, it was a situation that was, in their opinion, totally impossible.

That gave me an opportunity to move in. I said that I could not engage in activity that would breach the law, that I would not be prepared to breach the law. But it gave me an opportunity as a humanitarian to say that I believe that all people who are detained legally ought to be treated fairly and properly under the law and, therefore, it gives me an opportunity to look into that. I went away and two hostages, at that point, were released: Father Martin Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest, and the Reverend Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian minister. It was significant that two church people were released. It was said to me that they were being released as a sign to the church to keep up its activity in this respect.

I came back to the United Kingdom from Lebanon and I began to try and get into Kuwait. I had no success whatsoever. I could not understand why my own government or why the government of the United States could not give me support, political support, simply to get into Kuwait and look at this problem in the way that I said that I would try and do so. I was able to get letters through from their families. That was all. And then, it became horribly clear…

A man by the name of David Jacobsen was released, an American. And David went to Wiesbaden. And David was convinced that I had obtained his release. I couldn’t understand what I had done. I had totally failed to get into Kuwait, as I said, and then, as I said, it became horribly clear. One day in Wiesbaden I was sitting in a small room when someone came in and said, “Have you heard the news?” And I said, “What news?” They said there’s a story that David Jacobsen has been released as a result of arms dealing. And at that point my heart sank. The name of Colonel Oliver North was mentioned and my heart sank further. This was the beginning of what was to become known as the Iran–Contra Affair, which, in a nutshell was this: at the time Iran was fighting the Iran–Iraq war and it was important for Iran to have victory in that war. Iran was also supporting Hizbullah in Lebanon, with money, with arms, and with personnel and was seeking to propagate Islamic fundamentalism through Lebanon, through the Middle East. Colonel Oliver North, acting on behalf of others in the United States, made an approach through Iran and said, “If you will pressure your clients, Hizbullah, in Lebanon to release hostages, we will supply you with arms.” This deal took place. Weapons were supplied to Iran. Money was paid which went through Colonel North to be used to support Contras in Nicaragua in Central America and the whole deal was supposed to be totally secret until it broke in the press, and broke to the world for the first time, and to me for the first time.

When I heard this news about Lebanon in Wiesbaden, I went straight to a secure telephone. I dialled the White House and I asked to be put through to Colonel North. And I said, “What is this?” He said, “Oh, don’t worry. It will pass in a few days.” I knew it wouldn’t. I came back to the United Kingdom with a very, very heavy heart indeed. Now there was a total political collapse because the whole story had broken and it looked as though I myself was implicated in arms dealing. Not only I myself, but it looked as though I had implicated my Archbishop and the church in arms dealings, something with which I could have no truck whatsoever.

This faced me with one of the most difficult decisions I have had to take in my life and this, in part, refers to our principal point of discussion tonight. If my ground had been purely political, at that point undoubtedly I would have walked away. It would have been the sensible thing to do. It would have been a wise thing to do… My ground was certainly humanitarian, and I like to think that there were other values that I have that were operative in that situation.

But, on the other hand, if anyone stands on a public platform and tells you that their motives are totally altruistic, you are, in my opinion, entitled to be a little cynical because we all have mixed motives. There was pride certainly involved in that. My pride had been hurt. I had been wounded by this association, and there was also a determination to say, “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be beaten in this particular way.” I determined that I would go back. Many attempts were made to dissuade me and my Archbishop said, “Do not go under any circumstances.” I said, “If you will not let me go, I’m afraid I shall have to resign and go back independently.” I cannot blame my Archbishop for saying that. If it had been a member of my staff who wanted to go under such circumstances, I would have had to say, “I’m sorry, I cannot give you my blessing.” Eventually, he agreed and I went back.

I remember leaving my home at four o’clock in the morning to get an early plane. There was deep snow on the ground. I didn’t even say … I didn’t even wake my wife or children to say goodbye because I hoped I would be home in a matter of 14 days. As it was, it turned out to be 1,763 days. I got to the airport. I got into Beirut. I went around trying to pick up the threads of the problem. Meeting the Prime Minister; meeting Sheikh Fadlallah the spiritual leader of Hizbullah; trying to pick up the issues. Then one evening the telephone rang. It was my contact from Hizbullah, from the kidnappers. He said, “Will you come and meet us?” I said, “Of course. That is why I am here.” He said, “Come tomorrow night, to the same place.” The same place being where I always had the meetings with the kidnappers on many previous occasions, in a doctor’s consulting room. When I got there, I felt something was wrong. The phone rang. The doctor answered it. He said, “I’m sorry. I have to leave you. There’s an urgent case at the hospital.” I said, “Can’t you wait a moment?” He said, “No, you must go. Close the door when you leave,” and he went. And I remember distinctly to this day taking my shoes off and walking up and down his consulting room thinking should I stay, should I go? And I thought, “No, you have come so far, stay.”

Then I heard the elevator come up. We were on the second floor. The door opened. It was my contact. What I’d expected was this: I expected that I would be taken downstairs to a car, because all these things had happened previously. I’d be blindfolded. I’d be taken to another car, change cars. We’d go to a safe house. I’d have a change of clothing and the examination. I’d probably wait three or four days with a blindfold and after three or four days, if all went well, I’d get to the hostages.

Everything happened as I had anticipated excepting the last bit. We went to a car, changed cars, went to a safe house, changed clothing, and so on. In three or four days, they came for me in the middle of the night. We went out into the night, into a van and across Beirut. We drove into an underground garage. Looking beneath my blindfold, as I got out of the van, there was a trapdoor in the floor. They told me to jump down. I jumped down, and was pushed across the room. A door closed behind me and when I took my blindfold off, I was in a tiled cell. At that point, my heart sank because I realized that these underground prisons were tiled because they’re easier to clean after people had been knocked around. And I realized that I was no longer a negotiator.

Now the tables had been turned and I was a hostage myself. And I was angry. That was my reaction—anger. Anger at being betrayed, at having trust betrayed. Anger at allowing myself to be drawn into that situation. Anger with myself for taking such a risk.

Three things came to mind at that point, and I’m not sure where they came from, but they probably came from the values that I’d been shaped by across life. No regrets—don’t regret what you’ve done. You cannot have done everything right. You certainly haven’t. But don’t regret because you will be demoralized. No self-pity—don’t be sorry for yourself. There are so many people in worse situations. And no over-sentimentality.

Don’t say to yourself, “Oh, if only.” If only I had, had longer holidays. If only I had spent more time with the children, with the family. You can’t. The past has been lived. You live with yourself as you are now. You can’t be reliving the past. I was kept in the cell, chained by the hands and feet to the wall 23 hours and 50 minutes a day with 10 minutes for the bathroom. I was always in a dark room. If I was above ground, metal shutters were put in front of the windows so no natural light came in. I had no books or papers or anything of that kind for years. And no communication with anyone, no one to speak with—four years of solitary confinement……

One day they came into my cell and said, “You have five hours to live.” Well, at that point I was so exhausted I lay on the floor and I fell asleep. At times of extreme crisis, at times of extreme strain, there are mechanisms that the body has for giving us protection, and this is an interesting point to examine at a later stage when you discuss these issues. My body took over and allowed me to sleep and I slept for what I imagine was five hours. I was awakened by people coming into the cell. They undid my shackles and told me to stand. I was pushed into the next room. There were several people in there. They said, “Do you want anything?” I said, “Yes. I would like to write some letters to my family, to my wife, my children, my mother, my Archbishop.” “You can write one letter.” They gave me a pen and paper and, looking beneath the blindfold, I wrote this one composite letter.

Anything else? I’d experienced what I’d only read about in books. I was afraid. And because I was afraid, my throat went dry and I asked for water. Well, in fact, I asked for tea, being English. They brought me tea.

I wasn’t afraid of death. Death is something that we shall all experience. There will be no exceptions, of course. We shall all experience it and, therefore, it seems to me to be totally pointless to be afraid of death. What I was afraid of was the way in which I would die, the means by which I would die, the very simple human point—Would it hurt when the bullet went through my head? That’s what made me afraid. That simple human feeling.

But death itself, no. Did I know? Did I have visions? Did I imagine that I would go straight to glory? No, not at all. Did I have great sustaining visions? No, not at all. Death is a natural phenomenon. No, it was not something to be afraid of. But the means, yes.

And also the fact that I did not want to die under such circumstances, leaving my family to say, “How did he spend his last years? How was he?” That would have been an awful burden for them, not to know how I lived my last hours or last days or indeed last years. They said, “Anything else?” I said, “Yes. I would like to say a prayer.” Very well, and I said the Lord’s Prayer. Then they said, “Turn around,” and I turned around and the gun was put to my head and they dropped it and said “Another time.” That was the end of my interrogation. This was the end of the first year…..

Yes, the world as we know very well, and as you will examine in the days to come, is a world full of suffering. And suffering will be with us until the end of time. It is no respecter of persons. Some people suffer much more than others and certainly through no fault of their own. And that too, suffering, the origins of suffering, the reasons for suffering, remain an unfathomable mystery and, yet, I think it is possible to say with confidence that suffering need not destroy.

If you approach it and face it and go through it, it can be turned and it can be creative, perhaps in ways that you do not understand yourself or will never understand. Certainly we don’t have to look for it. It will find us in one way or another and it would be unhealthy to look for it. But it need not destroy.

To me, religion, belief, spirituality is about transformation. It is about enabling us to be transformed into individuals and communities that have love and compassion in their heart. It means having respect for other people regardless of culture, regardless of background. It means having respect for the earth along which we tread and for the environment that we help shape or destroy. It means all those things. And all the values that I hold dear and that many religions attempt to enshrine, those values, there is absolutely no reason why they should not be—in fact, there is every reason why they ought to be—debated and exercised in and through the public realm. They are not the prerogative of religious organizations only. They belong to us all as human beings, but they are not easily attained.