The Foreign Service Journal, December 2012

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2012 33 movies,” Jones says. “The guy really thought that one blow was enough. I was bleeding a lot and there was an enormous ringing in my ears, but I wasn’t knocked out. I lay still.” At that point the pickup was threading its way slowly through the throngs in the plaza. Some of them had seen what happened. Jones’ guard turned away from his captive and went to the back window of the pickup, apparently to talk to those in the cabin. Jones seized the moment. He managed to hook his legs over the side of the pickup and flip himself out of the flatbed and into the street. Astonished passers-by helped Jones to his feet. He glanced at the still-moving pickup and had a bad moment as the brake lights went on. After a brief pause, the abductors apparently decided against trying to recapture Jones, and sped away. “Would You Care to Be Untied Now?” People from the crowd in the plaza led Jones to a nearby bodega and lowered him into a chair. The proprietor gave his surprise guest what Jones remembers as a “very welcome” shot of cognac, and helped him place a phone call to the embassy while the proprietor’s wife applied a towel to his bleeding head. Soon afterward, two plainclothes police officers walked into the store and asked, with exquisite courtesy, “Señor, would you care to be untied now?” When he was brought back to the embassy, Jones found the mission in crisis mode. He wasn’t the only kidnap victim that day. At almost the same time, another snatch squad had seized Dan Mitrione, a USAID law enforcement adviser who worked with the Uruguayan police. Brazilian consul Aloisio Mares Dias Gomide was also kidnapped. A week later the captors upped the pressure by seizing Dr. Claude Fly, a USAID-sponsored agronomist. The Tupamaros hoped to trade their hostages for 150 prisoners held by the Uru- guayan government, but the Uruguayan authorities refused. On Aug. 9, 1970, the Tupamaros killed Mitrione. Fly and the Brazilian consul spent long months in captivity, along with the subsequently kidnapped British ambassador, but all three were eventually freed. On His Own What motivated Gordon Jones to make his desperate escape from a moving truck? “The Department of State made no bones about the fact that they would not ransom us if we were taken,” he recalls. “I knew there was no point in waiting passively to be traded for. Escape, if I could, was the best strategy.” Between August 1968 and June 1975, 33 U.S. government officials abroad were the victims of attempted or successful kidnappings. Six of them were killed. Diplomats of many other nationalities were also victims of politically-motivated abduc- tions. U.S. policy did not rule out negotiations with hostage-takers, nor did the U.S. consistently object to prisoner releases or ransom payments made by host governments to kidnappers of diplomats. For instance, Brazil freed a number of prisoners to secure the release of U.S. Ambassador C. Burke Elbrick in 1969. However, Washington did not itself make concessions or press other governments to do so. After his escape became public knowledge, Jones’ assignment to Uruguay was curtailed, and he was transferred to Mexico. He rose through the Foreign Service and was economic counselor at four embassies before retiring. Jones now lives in Florida, but commutes to Washington from time to time to work on an intermittent basis declassifying docu- ments for the department. n Two plainclothes police officers walked into the store and asked, with exquisite courtesy, “Señor, would you care to be untied now?”