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  Halliburton silent, but missing workers' families not
      By Purva Patel, Houston Chronicle, April 16,2004

Seven contractors are missing after an attack last week on their convoy. At least one is a hostage.

But their employer, Houston-based Halliburton, is tight-lipped about their identities. And despite advice from the company, two families are speaking out.

It's understandable.

Companies want to draw as little attention as possible to their missing or kidnapped employees. Keeping a low profile, security experts tell them, gives the kidnappers less leverage in negotiations.

Families naturally often want just the opposite.

The lives of their loved ones couldn't be more valuable, and they want everyone to know it.

The scenario has played out before. And it's emerging again as more foreign civilians are reported missing in war-torn Iraq.

"It's an extremely frightening situation for them. They want to do anything they can and they feel they have to do something even if they're not sure what," said Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press reporter who spent seven years as a hostage in Lebanon. "It's a choice each family has to make."

Anderson credits the public pressure his family and colleagues generated for keeping the spotlight on his long captivity and boosting his spirits with signs he hadn't been forgotten.

He doesn't see how else a public campaign by the families of those missing in Iraq could help now, since it's unclear who's responsible. But it likely wouldn't do any harm either, he said.

At least two families of the missing Halliburton workers have spoken out.

Timothy E. Bell and Thomas Hamill's relatives have said a Halliburton spokeswoman had asked them to keep quiet, but they have spoken out anyway, according to the Mobile Register.

"It's not fair that you want us to be quiet," Bell's sister, Felicia Carter, said referring to Halliburton in a Wednesday interview with the Register. "We want the community to know what has happened. We don't want him to have died in vain."

Spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the company has only advised families.

"We release names once we make sure the family has been notified and they confirm that it is appropriate," Hall said in an e-mail. "We have told family members that they need to make decisions based on what is best for their family, but we advise them that the company will not release their names or discuss details to protect the privacy of the families."

From a public relations standpoint, it's unusual not to release identities to the public, said Mike Paul, president of MGP & Associates PR and an adjunct professor at New York University.

"Usually companies release names once the families have been notified," Paul said. "But this is an outlier to whatever has happened in most examples in the past. This is a war that is going on."

The Defense Department usually releases names of missing or killed military members, a spokesman said.

Private companies make their own decisions, though sometimes they are just doing what the government recommended.

Companies usually want to talk because employees see each other as family and are emotionally involved, said George Nelson, president of Houston-based crisis communications firm Brown, Nelson & Associates.

"I would expect the company is doing a lot of direct talking to families, to employees and shareholders," Nelson said. "But otherwise it's likely the military is calling the shots."

Hall, however, said the government has made no such request of Halliburton.

Some 40 civilian hostages have been taken in Iraq from 12 different nations, an action aimed at creating political pressure and driving coalition forces out of the country.

If there's a chance the missing workers may be freed, publicity could hurt negotiations by sending kidnappers the message their strategy works, experts said.

"The more this thing can be downplayed in the media, the better," said Bruce Blythe, CEO of Atlanta-based Crisis Management International. "When kidnappers see there's pressure for the other side to bend, they'll hold to their guns."