Terry Anderson, AP journalist kidnapped for almost seven years, dies at 76 - The Washington Post
The Washington Post2024-04-21T21:27:50.088Z
Former U.S. hostage Terry Anderson and his fiancée, Madeleine Bassil, arrive at John F. Kennedy Airport on Dec. 10, 1991. (Ted Horodynsky/AFP/Getty Images)Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press journalist kidnapped by Hezbollah for six years, died at his home in Greenwood Lake, N.Y. He was 76.
His daughter Sulome Anderson told The Washington Post that he recently had heart surgery, though she could not confirm the cause of his death.
Mr. Anderson was abducted in Beirut on March 16, 1985, after playing tennis with an AP colleague. Islamist militants held him for more than six years, an ordeal he survived in part due to “stubbornness.”
“You wake up every day. You summon up energy from somewhere. I don’t know how,” Mr. Anderson said shortly after his release, according to a 1991 Post story.
He was among more than a dozen Americans kidnapped in Lebanon in the 1980s, but he was captive the longest, The Post reported.
A U.S. judge ordered the Iranian government to give Mr. Anderson $324 million in 2000, saying Iran was behind his kidnapping. It also said Tehran must give his wife, Madeleine Bassil, $10 million and his daughter Sulome Anderson $6.7 million.
Mr. Anderson hugs colleague Jim Abrams during a visit to the Washington bureau of the Associated Press on Dec. 12, 1991. (Greg Gibson/AP)Sulome Anderson noted her father’s charitable work.
“Though my father’s life was marked by extreme suffering during his time as a hostage in captivity, he found a quiet, comfortable peace in recent years,” she told The Post in an email Sunday afternoon. “I know he would choose to be remembered not by his very worst experience, but through his humanitarian work with the Vietnam Children’s Fund, the Committee to Protect Journalists, homeless veterans and many other incredible causes.”
She said the family would announce plans for a memorial service.
He is survived by his daughters Sulome and Gabrielle; their mother, Bassil; his sister Judy; and brother Jack. His sister Peggy Say died in 2015.
Shortly before he was released in late 1991, Mr. Anderson joked with his captors.
“I said, ‘Mahmound, listen to this, I’m not here. I’m gone, babes. I’m on my way to Damascus.’ And we both laughed,” he told Giovanna Dell’Orto, author of “AP Foreign Correspondents in Action: World War II to the Present.”
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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