Terry A. Anderson

Terry Alan Anderson (October 27, 1947 – April 21, 2024) was an American journalist and combat veteran. He reported for the Associated Press. In 1985, he was taken hostage by Shia Hezbollah militants of the Islamic Jihad Organization in Lebanon and held until 1991. In 2004, he ran unsuccessfully for the Ohio State Senate.

Anderson was born in Lorain, Ohio, on October 27, 1947. In Lorain, his father Glen Anderson was the village police officer and, later, when his family moved to Batavia, New York, his mother Lily (Lunn) Anderson was a waitress and his father was a truck driver. He was raised in Batavia, New York, and graduated from Batavia High School in 1965.

A professional journalist, he was in the United States Marine Corps for six years, serving as a combat journalist for five years among Japan, Okinawa, and Vietnam. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. As a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps, he spent his final year at Ames, Iowa, as a recruiter for the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.

After his discharge he enrolled at Iowa State University, graduating in 1974 with dual degrees: one in journalism and mass communication, the other in political science. During his studies at Iowa State, he was employed as a part time photographer and reporter at the KRNT radio and television station in Des Moines. He then joined the Associated Press, serving in Kentucky, Japan and South Africa before being assigned to Lebanon as chief Middle Eastern correspondent for next two and a half years beginning in 1983.

On March 16, 1985, Anderson had just finished a tennis game when he was abducted from the street in Beirut, placed in the trunk of a car, and taken to a secret location where he was imprisoned. For the next six years and nine months, he was held captive, being moved periodically to new sites. His captors were a group of Hezbollah Shiite Muslims who were supported by Iran in supposed retaliation for Israel's use of U.S. weapons and aid in its 1982–83 strikes against Muslim and Druze targets in Lebanon. He was the longest-held of the Western hostages captured by Hezbollah in an effort to drive U.S. military forces from Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War.

During his captivity, numerous persons fiercely advocated for his release including his older sister Peggy Say, who rallied support from Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, Yasir Arafat, and Ronald Reagan, professional journalists Dan Rather and Kevin Cooney, who was a close friend from Anderson's days in Iowa, his fellow colleagues at the Associated Press and numerous other journalists who had covered war zones.

Anderson was released on December 4, 1991, and said he had forgiven his captors. Later, when asked if he would return to the Middle East as a correspondent, he stated, "I wouldn't go there for a million dollars. It is very dangerous."

After his release, Anderson taught courses at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. He wrote a best selling memoir of his experience as a hostage, titled Den of Lions (1994).