Terry Anderson, US journalist held hostage in Lebanon for years, dies at 76
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Terry Anderson, the globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent who became one of America’s longest-held hostages after he was snatched from a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years, has died at 76.
In 1985 he became one of several Westerners abducted by members of the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah during a war that had plunged Lebanon into chaos.
Anderson, who chronicled his abduction and torturous imprisonment by Islamic militants in his best-selling 1993 memoir, “Den of Lions,” died Sunday at his home in Greenwood Lake, N.Y., according to daughter Sulome Anderson.
Anderson died of complications from recent heart surgery, his daughter said.
“He never liked to be called a hero, but that’s what everyone persisted in calling him,” said Sulome. “I saw him a week ago, and my partner asked him if he had anything on his bucket list, anything that he wanted to do. He said, ‘I’ve lived so much and I’ve done so much. I’m content.’ ”
After returning to the United States in 1991, Anderson led a peripatetic life, giving public speeches, teaching journalism at prominent universities and, at various times, operating a blues bar, a Cajun eatery, a horse ranch and a gourmet restaurant.
He struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, won millions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets after a federal court concluded that the country played a role in his capture, then lost most of it to bad investments. He filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
Upon retiring from the University of Florida in 2015, Anderson settled on a small horse farm in a rural section of northern Virginia he had discovered while camping with friends.
Terry Alan Anderson was born Oct. 27, 1947. He spent his early childhood in the Lake Erie town of Vermilion, Ohio, where his father was a police officer.
Anderson was married and divorced three times. In addition to Sulome, he is survived by daughter Gabrielle Anderson from his first marriage; a sister, Judy Anderson; and a brother, Jack Anderson.
