FOREIGN RELATIONS

The State Department resembled a police missing persons' bureau last week as U.S. diplomats from Santiago de Cuba to Berlin to Moscow grappled with a new outcrop of organized diplomatic crime. The problem: organized kidnaping of U.S. citizens overseas--47 in Cuba, nine in Russia, nine in East Germany--to be held until the U.S. pays ransom in the form of diplomatic concession.

The U.S. lines of approach to the problem: 1) the U.S. will not pay "blackmail" to get the Americans out, and although 2) the U.S. does not intend to use force to get them out, 3) the U.S. hopes to convince the kidnapers through patient diplomatic negotiation that kidnaping is "counterproductive," i.e., hardly puts Americans in the mood for any kind of concession.

"We are trying to get live Americans back," said President Eisenhower at his press conference last week. "We are not disposed to do anything reckless that would create consequences for them that would be final." The state of the State Department police blotter last week:

Cuba. Forty-seven Americans--30 sailors and marines, 17 civilians, most of them sugar and nickel company employees --were rounded up in eastern Cuba and herded into the mountains by rebel guerrillas headed by Raúl Castro, left-wing brother of Cuba's Rebel Boss Fidel Castro (see HEMISPHERE). U.S. Consul in Santiago de Cuba Park Wollam and Vice Consul Robert Wiecha jeeped into the hills, talked with rebel leaders got a promise that Americans would be let go, set up a Navy helicopter lift that began hauling out the prisoners a handful at a time.