The messenger dropped off sealed envelopes at the offices of two West Beirut newspapers before he disappeared into the lawless night. The news: one of the American hostages in Lebanon, Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, 51, a Roman Catholic priest from Joliet, Ill., was about to be released by Islamic Jihad, the shadowy Shi'ite Muslim terrorist group that had abducted him in January 1985. His captors claimed that Jenco, who suffers from a heart condition, was being freed because of "deteriorating health" and released photos of the haggard priest in a red shirt. But their hostage seemed reasonably fit when found by...
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