‘It Was Hell,’ Freed American Declares : Rat-Infested Areas and Beatings by ‘Thugs’ Described

Several of the Americans held hostage in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 on Tuesday told of beatings, vermin-infested living quarters and political propaganda during their captivity in Beirut--an account markedly different from the rosier picture conveyed during their ordeal.

“It was hell,” said Richard Herzberg, 33, who was on his honeymoon at the time of his capture. “It is still hell right now. If anybody thinks it was a party, they’re sick.”

Herzberg, of Norfolk, Va., was one of four men separated from the others because of his Jewish-sounding name. At first, he said, “I was held in a cell for eight days without a shower, without seeing light, without having a toilet.” On the ninth day, Herzberg and the other three captives were moved to what they dubbed the “Beirut Villa” because it had bathrooms and other basic comforts.

‘A Lot of Anger’

Arthur Toga, 33, of St. Louis, said that the hostages were kept in small groups in run-down apartments crawling with cockroaches and rats. He said there is still “a lot of anger and there is still a lot of terror” in him.

Herzberg called the hijacking “a publicity stunt” and said his captors had “duped the American public into thinking this was fun and these are nice people.”

Peter W. Hill, 57, called the Shia militiamen “thieves, thugs and murderers.”

Asked what should be done about the hijackers, Hill said: “Hunt them down, arrest them, try them and kill them, just that simple. Do it the legal way. What else do you do with murderers?”

He said there was little difference between the hijackers and the Amal militia, calling them all “animals.”

The worst accounts involved the first days of the hijacking while the hostages were still aboard the Boeing 727.

Ann Ashmore of Lanier Beach, Ga., said that as the hijackers beat and killed Robert Dean Stethem, a Navy diver, the passengers were told to remain leaning forward in their seats and not look up.

“He was screaming loudly,” she said. “He was being tortured. He was in agony. There was no doubt in our minds that he was being tortured.”

When she heard the shot, Ashmore said, “I was hoping it was the young guy. He had suffered a lot and I was sure he could not recover.”

Flight Attendant Saved Life

Clinton Suggs, another Navy diver stationed in Norfolk, Va., said he was only five feet from Stethem. Suggs said he was “next in line to be shot” and that “the purser, Uli Derickson, saved my life.

“While they were beating Robert when we had landed in Beirut the second time, I could hear him screaming and yelling and he was just in sheer agony. And then I heard the gun go off. . . ,” Suggs said.

“And then I could hear them say, ‘One more. Five minutes.’ And the hijacker came back where I was and he was kicking me and hitting me and calling me ‘American pig.’ And then the stewardess rushed over and she talked to him and said, ‘No, please, please.’ ”

He said Derickson, hailed by the passengers as the heroine of the entire drama, began talking with the hijackers, buying precious time until other Lebanese militiamen boarded the plane. “And then right after that, we all stood up and we were rushed off the back of the plane onto a truck,” Suggs said.

Some of the former captives also took issue with hostage spokesman Allyn B. Conwell and others who expressed strong sympathy for the Amal cause during their captivity.

“In most part, I agreed with Allyn,” said Jimmy Dell Palmer who was freed last week ahead of the others because of a heart ailment. “But towards the last I was beginning to get the feeling that he was slipping a little bit too much toward their side.”

“Some people were sucked in,” Hill said. “I do not go along with all this crap about their religious fervor,” he said, adding that the captors’ crimes violated “every rule” in the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

Thomas V.S. Cullins, 42, of Burlington, Vt., said that he now is embarrassed about telling reporters while in captivity that he and his fellow hostages appreciated Amal’s hospitality. “In retrospect I always felt I made a mistake in that first press conference by using the word hospitality ,” he said.