Mom's Letter To Saddam Gets Son Out

LINTHICUM, Md. - An American banker released from Iraq because of a pleading letter from his mother to Saddam Hussein said yesterday he's glad to be out although others remain Middle East captives.

Thomas Hart Benton Ewald, 25, of Greenwich, Conn., was one of 285 people allowed to leave Baghdad on a U.S.-chartered flight. They arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport yesterday.

Ewald said U.S. officials told him he is the first person used as a so-called human shield that Iraq has released. Iraq has deployed foreigners to military and industrial sites considered likely targets in the event of attack.

``It's a very lovely story, really,'' said his mother, Mary Ewald. ``In all this huge world, a letter can get through to somebody.''

Ewald said he was captured in Kuwait when he ventured outside to mail a letter. He was taken to Iraq, where he was kept at an installation he could not describe.

``I'm glad to be out,'' Ewald said. ``My friends and family are very glad I'm out, so I'm very happy for them. I'm also happy I got out because I can give more information about things that are going on in Kuwait and the detainees.

``On the other side, there are the inevitable feelings of guilt. I have some very good friends that I've made over in Iraq and in Kuwait and that's difficult. That's very difficult to leave them behind and not all the Americans are going to get out,'' Ewald said.

Robert Gould, a spokesman for Maryland's Emergency Management Agency, said 114 people on the flight were U.S. citizens and 171 were foreigners. One hundred-forty-three were adults and there were 142 children.

A second planeload of Americans was expected to arrive today.

An Iraqi spokesman said Mrs. Ewald's plea was the only one the Iraqi embassy has received and that Saddam is open to similar pleas.

``(Saddam) gave the order to allow him to go free and to return to his nation,'' Iraqi spokesman Riyadh Jawad said Friday in Washington. ``His excellency, he wants to give examples to prove that our behavior is not aggressive to our guests.''