Air University Review, January-February 1982

Military Hostages:
What They Need to Know and Don't

General John Singlaub’s question could not be more appropriate.¹ The hostage experience in Iran and the current one in Italy demonstrate that peacetime captivity harbors unique problems for the military hostage. International terrorism, particularly the government-sponsored variety, alters the traditional rules of hostile detention. Peacetime hostile detention, unlike wartime, is not firmly grounded in international law. Instead, it reflects a hopelessly tangled net of international conventions, revolutionary rhetoric, and religious righteousness. Despite its metaphysical qualities, however, it poses very real challenges for its victims.

Military hostages will have to rely to a considerable degree on their own judgment. There is no uniform service policy on how to counter hostile peacetime detentions.² The services do not even agree on their obligations to provide such a policy. Positions vary from one’s commitment to provide some additional guidance and training to an insistence by another that the Code of Conduct is alone sufficient. By failing to agree on a common policy, the services have placed the burden of surviving hostage situations solely on the shoulders of their people. They have not, however, given up their right to judge their people on how well they carry this burden.

This article is written for those who may face the challenge of honorably surviving a hostile peacetime detention. It will not propose standards of conduct, that is an institutional responsibility. It will, however, attempt to give future hostages an appreciation of the problems they will face. Specific guidance is not appropriate; hostage situations are too complex and diverse. Instead, the best tools are good judgment and a conceptual framework for analyzing hostage situations and determining proper courses of action.

The Code of Conduct provides the moral basis for coping with all military captivity, peacetime or wartime. The result of considerable study and experience, it embodies the most honored traditions and values of the military profession. Its philosophy offers sound direction regardless of the situation.

The code, however, cannot be arbitrarily applied; its six articles must be selectively adapted to each hostage situation. The practitioner must use the code’s spirit and intent to determine his best course of action.³ This difficult task can cause the hostage great anxiety.

While particular articles may not be suited to certain peacetime detentions, they are still used as a standard to judge a hostage’s conduct. It is a dilemma the captive cannot avoid. To survive his experience with dignity, he will be forced to apply some of the articles and reject others. He will never be on solid ground; others will second-guess him. To properly interpret and apply the code in peacetime requires some understanding of its origins and suitability for various types of peacetime situations.

The code is the product of our Korean prisoner of war (POW) experience. The enemy politically exploited a number of our prisoners to further their war effort.⁴ Some Americans made damaging false confessions. In 1953, 23 of our POWs refused repatriation; a few were eventually prosecuted (11 were convicted) for serious offenses against their comrades.⁵ Of the 7000 American servicemen taken prisoner, nearly 40 percent perished in captivity. Many died because they lost their will to resist and survive.⁶

The promulgation of the Code of Conduct responded to this experience. After the war, President Eisenhower appointed a distinguished blue-ribbon commission to study the conduct in the POW camps and recommend an appropriate standard of behavior. The committee’s findings were promulgated in 1955 as The Code of Conduct. At the time, the committee was neither aware nor concerned about kidnappings, hijackings, hostage-barricade situations, and other types of peacetime detention. Articles IV and V of the code contained the words, ". . . I become a prisoner of war…" Since the code’s moral guidance was suited to all types of captivity, the services, with little forethought, extended the application of the code to all captivity.

Such an extension of the code follows the premise that peacetime captivity is similar to wartime. Actually, fundamental differences do exist. In peacetime, the captive’s conduct can have a much greater influence on his eventual fate. His actions can significantly impact national policy, and he is not supported by the political-legal framework that exists in wartime. These assertions become clearer when we look closer at these differences.

In wartime, a prisoner’s conduct seldom impacts on national policy. Diplomatic relations are suspended, and policy is dominated by those political military considerations necessary to prevail in battle. The POW camp is a side show; the prisoner a minor actor. Exploitation of prisoners by the captor certainly occurs, but it seldom becomes a major concern until one of the combatants decides to abandon its military efforts to resolve the conflict.⁷ Improper conduct by a POW can severely harm fellow prisoners, but most of what happens in a camp remains speculative to outsiders until the prisoners return home.

In peacetime, the conduct of a hostage can directly influence national policy. Once the media arrive, a hostage situation generally becomes international theater. It is not a side show but the main event. If the hostage is held by a hostile government, he can expect his actions to have considerable political fallout. He is not only a vehicle for propaganda and exploitation but also a source of classified information. By a few careless remarks before a TV camera, he can discredit his government in the eyes of the world or help the captor justify his illegal detention. The death of a hostage, for whatever cause, can pressure his government to take actions of considerable risk and consequence—actions forced by internal public pressures to respond.

Peacetime captivity lacks a recognized political-legal framework. In wartime the Laws of Armed Conflict sanction the capture and holding of prisoners.⁸ The duration of captivity is specified and ends when the warring powers achieve an armistice. The Geneva Conventions directly support the captive in two important ways.⁹ First, they prescribe internationally recognized standards of treatment. Second, they protect the prisoner from arbitrary trial and conviction by revolutionary tribunals or local courts.

In essence, these laws and conventions establish some rules of the game that are not easily ignored. Their violation often constitutes an international crime for which there is no statute of limitations. While serious transgressions occurred in the past, the violators fate has always weighed heavily in the outcome of the conflict. Those on the winning side may well escape punishment, but those on the losing side face quick retribution or relentless pursuit.

The code is closely tied to these rules of the game and was purposely designed to exploit them. Article III’s obligation to the escapee is directly supported by the Geneva Convention’s protection of an unsuccessful escapee from arbitrary or harsh punishment.¹⁰ Article V’s requirement to give name, rank, serial number, and date of birth is lifted almost verbatim from Article 17 of the conventions.¹¹ Consequently, the code is well adapted to fit unforeseen wartime detentions because the conditions for such captivity are formally structured by international laws and conventions.

In peacetime, there are no such rules of the game. Captivity may vary from a spontaneous hijacking by a psychopath to the carefully orchestrated takeover of an embassy by a foreign government. Such unstructured and diverse detentions make the code extremely difficult to apply. In most cases the captor is already outside the law; and the hostage’s fate and treatment will depend on other deterring factors such as unfavorable publicity, fear of reprisal, or promise of concessions. Consequently, arbitrary application of the articles will often not serve the best interests of either the hostage or his government. The wisdom of selectively applying them is evident in my examination of the general types of hostile peacetime detention and the articles’ suitability to each.

Despite its inherently complex and diverse nature, hostile peacetime detention can be divided into three general types: legal detention by a hostile government, illegal detention by a hostile government, and illegal detention by a terrorist. A hostage should know that each presents unique problems and challenges for the code. While these groupings are arbitrary (their boundaries certainly overlap), they provide the hostage a useful framework for analyzing his particular detention situation.

In legal detention, the captive is rightfully held by a hostile government for violation of one of its laws and is properly called a detainee rather than a hostage. Here the political implications usually far outweigh the legal. A detainee’s actions can significantly affect the conditions and length of his detention. The nature of this captivity is best illustrated by the example of an F-4 pilot who accidentally strays into East Germany and has to eject.

Here, the pilot, regardless of intent or circumstances, has violated East German sovereignty and is subject to legal detention. A state of war does not exist, but the articles of the code provide wartime guidance. Article II forbids the pilot from peacefully surrendering himself to German authorities. Instead, it charges him to evade through hostile territory and cross one of the most heavily guarded borders in the world.

If the pilot is captured rather than killed, his actions have belied the accidental circumstances of his presence. In the process of evading, he has very likely trespassed, stolen food, or broken other East German laws. The code then asks the pilot to complicate his situation further. Article III directs him to break jail and repeat his effort to flee across the border. The failure of this endeavor puts the pilot in greater jeopardy. By religiously following the code, he has unnecessarily endangered his life and severely complicated diplomatic efforts to free him. He has given the East Germans justification to exploit his presence politically and even try him in their courts. In this case, his actions have benefited neither himself nor his country.

In such detentions, the captive must be very careful. His interrogators will often be professionals who are highly skilled in political exploitation. Treatment will reflect both the circumstances of his capture and the state of diplomatic relations between the detaining power and his government. The detainee should make every effort to maintain military courtesy and to secure U.S. counsel. To avoid complicating diplomatic efforts to gain his release, he should not seriously consider escape. He should avoid to the utmost any public statements or written confessions.

In illegal detention by a hostile government, the hostage faces a variation of the captivity that was described earlier. These detentions, however, are usually based on a recognized breach of international law. They are an endeavor played for high political stakes before a worldwide audience. The hostage situation in Iran is an example. Here the so-called students were surrogates of the government. On Iran’s behalf, they seized the hostages in order to exploit them for propaganda, blackmail, and classified information.¹²

In this captivity, the hostage should heed the code’s strong stand against divulging information to the captor. Unlike other types of peacetime detention, the hostage’s conduct will seldom, if ever, determine his eventual fate.¹³ Some U.S. hostages in Iran believed they would not be released unless they participated in filmed interviews or met with visiting clergy. This rightfully proved to be false. Their eventual freedom was not truly linked to their conduct but to Iran’s national policy. If it had served Iran’s best interests to execute them, the nation would have done so. In the end, they came home because Iran determined that the liabilities of their continued detention exceeded the benefits. Such a realization does not make the physical aspects of captivity any easier, but it promises to reduce some of the mental anxiety. It will also encourage a stronger resistance than might otherwise have appeared prudent.

The code’s guidance on escape and special favors is generally inappropriate for this type captivity. In Iran, the government fervently sought justification for its widely recognized criminal act of seizing hostages. By attempting an escape, the hostages could have easily played into the hands of their captor, particularly if they employed violence. The prospects for successful escapes are usually small. In Iran the nearest friendly border was half way across the country. An unsuccessful escape could be a godsend for the captor; it could arguably provide him with the very legitimacy for holding the hostage he previously lacked. A hostage should not arbitrarily reject the possibility of escape. If the prospects for success are high and no violence is necessary, the gamble may be appropriate. It is the failure of escape that has such far-reaching consequences for the hostage, his comrades, and his government.

Article III of the code forbids captives from accepting parole or special favors. After two weeks, the Iranians released 13 black and female members of the embassy. Should the military members of this group have refused this special favor? Again their release was predicated on Iranian national interests and not on their conduct or cooperation. The Iranians saw them as oppressed minorities and sought international sympathy in their release. In such situations the acceptance of such an offer generally makes good sense. The returnees provided valuable intelligence, and the Iranians had fewer hostages to exploit. Since the services did not reprimand their returnees, we can assume that violation of this provision of the code is condoned.

In this type of detention, the hostage should stick closely to the code’s guidance regarding communication with a captor, but be cautious of its provisions on escape. The greatest danger will most likely come during the capture and initial period of captivity. Therefore, the hostage should avoid combative behavior until tensions subside and a detention routine is established. Since the government will attempt to mask its involvement, the hostage may have difficulty determining its presence. The hostage should, therefore, presume that his captor is a foreign power until he can determine otherwise. Indications of a government’s involvement include persistent efforts to acquire classified information, seek political propaganda, and blackmail the United States. Many other indications will emerge as the captivity progresses, but these will be evident from the beginning.

The most difficult captivity to counter will very likely be illegal detention by a terrorist, because it is the least predictable and structured. The captivity of Brigadier General James L. Dozier, USA, fits this category. Here the hostage is held by international outlaws; his fate is more in the hands of his jailers than some institutional authority. As international fugitives, genuine terrorists may or may not have to play their hand quickly. In hijackings and other similar hostage barricade situations, terrorists can seldom sustain their criminal act beyond a couple of weeks. Typically most incidents are over in a few days. In kidnappings, however, the terrorist is capable of sustaining the captivity for several months to a year. In either case, terrorists have little sympathy for a hostage who causes problems. Good treatment of a hostage does little to alter the terrorists’ fate if they are caught.

The military hostage will find it most difficult to apply the code to these situations. The circumstances of captivity are quite likely to be far removed from the wartime conditions on which the code is based. There are several factors that put the military hostage on his own. First, the code primarily concerns community captivity, but many terrorist victims, such as General Dozier, are isolated in "people’s prisons." The code tells them to trust in God and their country, but national policy is to make no concessions, political, economic, or otherwise.¹⁴ Such a declaratory policy places greater emphasis on deterring terrorist incidents than on securing the safe release of those already held.

In these situations the military hostage should expect the challenge of surviving with dignity and self-respect to be his very own. Certainly his government will attempt to help him, but the host country is in charge and deals with the terrorists. Therefore, the best hope for the hostage is to convey to his captors a personal dignity. The stronger their respect for him as a person, the harder it may be for them to kill him. One does not earn respect by pandering or praising the terrorist’s cause. One earns respect by standing for "something"—God, family, and country. The hostage must become more than an inanimate artifact of Western imperialism. Such an effort may make no difference, but what are the alternatives?

Such a relationship between hostage and terrorists is possible within the spirit and intent of the code but not within the prescriptive guidance of its articles. Article V severely limits communication between captive and captor. While this is sound guidance for other detentions, it works against the military hostage here. Communication on nonsensitive matters is the hostage’s only means of establishing the respect that may be crucial to his eventual survival. The hostage must be careful until he is certain the terrorists are not surrogates of a government.

Service reluctance to permit even limited communication with a captor is not justified with respect to terrorists. These are seldom structured detentions manned by professional interrogators. If the terrorists are seeking ransom or freedom for their comrades, they will have little interest in classified information or dishonoring a foreign state. For these groups sufficient publicity generally comes from the seizure of the hostages not from attempts to propagandize them. If the terrorists see a well-known person or political exploitation, they generally seek information to support their propaganda objectives. Links between the terrorists and foreign states are possible, so the hostage may find himself pressured for classified information. For the captives these two types of hostage situations require a slightly different approach. In the first, the hostage should have more flexibility to communicate and influence his eventual fate. In the second, he can expect his interrogation to be much more severe and his task of establishing his personal dignity much more difficult. More important, his fate will be less dependent on his conduct than on other factors.

The military hostage will find the code’s obligation to escape too arbitrary for a terrorist situation. In some cases, he will want to make every effort to escape; in others, he will want to sit still. If kidnapped by Central American terrorists, he should consider escape regardless of the risk or the prospect of violence. The track record for such hostages has been grim where their governments believe in no concessions. On the other hand the victim of a hijacking is usually better off to wait out his situation. Statistics show that more than 90 percent of hijacking victims are eventually released unharmed. When dealing with terrorists, the hostage needs more flexibility than in any other type of detention. The dynamics are too great, the conditions too varied, and the retribution too swift to permit a cookbook approach.

A military hostage should never consider the code a handicap to be overcome. It can be a very valuable tool once the hostage understands its original purpose, strengths, and weaknesses. The spirit and intent of the code provide the essential moral foundation necessary for any successful resistance. There are no short cuts to surviving a hostile detention with dignity and self-respect. Experience shows that an iron link exists between resistance and survival. The captive who stands by his country’s honor and his moral convictions to the utmost of his ability will have the best chance of surviving this experience and with least difficulty in readjusting afterward.

In response to General Singlaub’s original question, the services have an obligation to educate their people on the complexities of hostile peacetime detention. Because of the fundamental differences between wartime and peacetime captivity and the great diversity of the latter, the services cannot provide the type of specific guidance that the code provides for wartime. Every peacetime captivity will be unique and require its own special response. Since the services expect their people to live up to the goals of the code, they should provide them guidance on how to achieve these goals.

There are several options open to the services:

• To recommend the code as a valuable frame of reference, pointing out its strengths and weaknesses in the three general types of peacetime hostile detention;

• To write a special policy based on the spirit and intent of the code but with separate guidelines for particular types of peacetime captivity; and

• To prescribe the use of the code but provide separate instruction on how to apply its various articles selectively.

The best choice is a combination of the first two options. The first is suitable for the thousands of servicemembers traveling or stationed overseas who (however unlikely) are possible victims of a kidnapping, hijacking, or other hostile detention. While building on the individual’s previous knowledge of the code, it provides him a framework with which to evaluate his situation and the flexibility to respond accordingly. The second option is ideal for those military personnel who because of their responsibilities or area of assignment are attractive candidates for hostage situations. For them a specially designed policy is both feasible and economical. It is also easy to support with training that which contributes more to a successful detention than any other factor. The disadvantage of the third option is that its guidance must be narrowly structured to a specific type of detention, which may differ considerably from what the practitioner encounters. Even if the captive situation can be adequately foreseen (as in the second option), implementation puts a tremendous burden on those who must conduct the training.

The trends of terrorist activity are clearly upward, and U.S. military personnel are increasingly being targeted. For a few states, terrorism has become an accepted and alternate way of doing business. It is time for the services to quit dwelling on their inability to agree on a uniform policy and meet their obligations to provide some guidance on how to cope with a hostile peacetime detention. To date, only the Air Force has moved in this direction. Much more needs to be done.

Notes

1. Major General John K. Singlaub, USA (Ret), "A Perspective on the POW/MIA Issue," Washington Report, March 1981, p.3.

2. This has been a very difficult issue for the services. Two attempts to establish common ground rules (1977 and 1981) have failed because each service views the code in terms of its own unique needs and traditions.

3. DOD Directive 1300.7, which provides for "Training and Education Measures Necessary to Support the Code of Conduct," purposely divides the code into its spirit and intent that apply at all times and its articles which apply in wartime

4. Colonel Howard J. Dunn, USMC (Ret) and Major W. Hays Parks (USMC), "If I Become a Prisoner of War. . .," United States Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1976, p. 18. In fairness, the

POWs were the victims of an unprecedented enemy campaign to exploit them politically. Their condition was severely aggravated by the lack of a coherent policy for resistance and no prior training.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Vietnam fits here. The POWs became a major political issue once the United States decided to withdraw from the war. Securing the release of the prisoners was a necessary precondition of that policy.

8. See Article 23 of Hague Convention No. IV, "Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, 18 October 1907," as published in Selected International Agreements, AFP 110-20, 27 July 1981.

9. See Articles 12-16 and Articles 82-88 of the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War as published in Selected International Agreements, AFP 110-20, 27 July 1981.

10. Ibid. Articles 89-108.

11. Ibid. Article 17.

12. There is considerable evidence that the takeover of the embassy had professional preparation and Khomeini’s blessing. The students were only a means to mask government responsibility.

13. This does not include acts of violence or the commission of crimes by a hostage.

14. U.S. Department of State, International Terrorism, policy paper No. 285, l0 June 1981, p. 2.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard E. Porter (USAFA; M.A., Duke University) is assigned to the Assistant Director for Special Plans, Hq USAF. Some of his previous assignments have been with Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service in Vietnam and England; as Assistant Professor of History at the Air Force Academy; and as Rand Research Fellow, Santa Monica, California. He is a previous contributor to the Review and Armed Forces and Society. Colonel Porter is a graduate of the Armed Forces Staff College.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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