No More Tribute for Terror

THE immediate trigger for Premier Sueeyman Demirel's political demise was the case of the four kidnaped U.S. airmen. Sergeant Jimmie J. Sexton and Airmen First Class James M. Gholson, Larry Heavner and Richard Caraszi were abducted two weeks ago by young revolutionaries who demanded $400,000 to spare their lives. The Ankara government responded with a heavyhanded and unproductive search through the Middle East Technical University, in which a student and a soldier were killed.

Last week the four airmen turned up safely at their billets --a deliverance due not to police efforts but to a monumental blunder by the kidnapers. The Americans were being confined in a closet and the tiny hall of an apartment near Ankara's embassy row. When a police car pulled up in front of the building, the young Turks mistakenly assumed that it was a raid, and fled. The Americans noticed that the apartment had suddenly gone quiet. After waiting a few agonizing moments to make sure their abductors had departed, they simply walked out and took a taxi home.

If the kidnapers' intention had been to embarrass their government, they could count the operation a spectacular success. But if their chief object had been to collect the $400,000 ransom that they had demanded, the crime clearly had not paid. At no point was there any inclination by Turkish or U.S. authorities to hand over the money. Their attitude reflects a growing determination to discourage future kidnapings rather than protect unfortunate captives.

Brazil, for instance, has emphasized the safety of the victims, and met kidnapers' demands for the release of jailed revolutionaries--but in so doing has all but turned the gates of its prisons into revolving doors. Uruguay, by contrast, has refused to negotiate for the release of any foreign hostages. The policy is a risky one. U.S. Police Adviser Daniel Mitrione was murdered last August by his captors, the Tupamaro guerrillas. British Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson has been held by kidnapers for more than two months, and last week the guerrillas seized Attorney General Guido Berro Oribe for "questioning." Nonetheless, the Uruguayan government is hopeful that its policy will ultimately put an end to political kidnapings, since the Tupamaros have gained little for their trouble and, in resorting to murder, have lost their Robin Hood image.

Canada's government took a slightly different approach last fall when British Trade Commissioner James R. Cross and Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte were kidnaped by two different groups of French-Canadian extremists. The government offered the kidnapers free passage to Cuba, but little else. Cross's captors accepted; Laporte's abductors strangled him. One of them, Paul Rose, 27, was convicted of murder last week and sentenced to life imprisonment; three other suspects have still to face trial. Was the government right in refusing to yield to the kidnapers' demands? According to a Gallup poll released last week, Canadians agreed by nearly 8 to 1 that a government should not pay ransom.

In Washington, the State Department has concluded that a policy of "no tribute" is the best way to protect U.S. ambassadors abroad. To persuade would-be kidnapers that they run a good risk of getting hurt, the State Department has also rejected the practice of offering no resistance. A number of American ambassadors seem convinced that, despite the risks of this policy, they would be exposed to even greater danger by a policy of rewarding kidnapers. The envoys have left private instructions that if they are kidnaped, their captors' demands are not to be met under any circumstances.

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