A Mother's Odyssey

"Why does my Government feel threatened by me? Why does President Jimmy Carter not want me here? I do not understand."

The questions were asked in a soft voice by a slight, graying American woman as she faced a throng of reporters in Tehran, about 7,000 miles from her home in Oak Creek, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee. Only hours ahead of a ban on travel to Iran imposed on Americans by the President, Barbara Timm, 41, had flown to Tehran on a unique maternal odyssey. She wanted to visit her son, Marine Sergeant Kevin Hermening, who, at 20, is the youngest of the 53 hostages. At her side was her second husband, Kenneth Timm, 42, a construction machinery salesman.

When her son, who had helped guard the embassy for only two months, was first seized, Mrs. Timm feared he would die. Then she hated the Iranian people; later she said she hated the U.S. Government. "Finally," she said, "we knew that we never could find peace as long as we were filled with hatred. So we came here to see."

It was a long trip for Barbara Timm in more ways than one. She is anything but a political activist, although she does care about social causes that touch her life. Her five children living at home are among the few in Oak Creek bused to Milwaukee's public schools under a voluntary integration program. Familiar with the problems of the mentally ill, she has testified before state hearings on the subject. But for the most part, she and her family live quietly, bowling a lot, going on camping trips, playing the guitar.

When she decided to attempt to see Kevin, Mrs. Timm had no idea she would even be admitted to Iran, let alone gain access to the embassy. She and her husband obtained 15-day visas from the Iranian embassy in Paris, easily got in touch with the militants by phone and flew to Tehran. Two days later, the militants took the Timms to a cemetery where victims of the revolution against Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi lie buried. Kenneth Timm took photographs. "I knew they had to test me," Mrs. Timm recalled later. "They wanted to feel me out." On the ride back from the cemetery, the group had lunch at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken, and at that point the militants apparently made their decision to let Mrs. Timm see her son. The Timms did not even have a chance to collect their presents for Kevin, including family pictures and an Easter egg decorated by the younger children.

Kevin, who had not known that his mother was in Iran, was given only 20 minutes advance notice of the reunion. "There was a lot of kissing and hugging, but there were no tears," Mrs. Timm recalled later. The two sat on a couch, and "we never quit holding hands, like we had a permanent attachment to one another." An Iranian television crew filmed the meeting, while a few of the militant captors watched in silence. They let the reunion last for 45 minutes.

Apparently in good health, Kevin had gained two pounds, although he reported thai some of the other hostages had lost weight. "He wanted to know about Grandma and Grandpa," Mrs. Timm said at a press conference after the meeting. She added: "He wanted to know whether Judy [his sister] was still going with Rick. He thought that was fantastic." Kevin asked about his hometown girlfriend Donna, and confided that he had an Iranian girlfriend too. Mrs. Timm admitted to reporters that she did not know how Donna would take that news. "He knew about Eric Heiden's five gold medals," she said. "He did not know about the Oak Creek basketball team winning the state championship. He was overjoyed and thrilled."

Barbara Timm said she saw no sign that Kevin had been brainwashed. "Kevin told me he has become stronger, deeper in his beliefs," particularly his Roman Catholicism.

Did they talk about politics, or President Carter, or the Shah, or how to free the hostages? Mrs. Timm expressed surprise at the question: "Do you think I would waste time talking about such things when I had 45 minutes with my son?"

Back in Oak Creek, where Mrs. Timm is on leave from her job as a switchboard operator at an ironworks foundry, some townspeople consider her a traitor for going off to Iran against the Administration's wishes. Others contend that she had at least for a moment eased the tensions between the U.S. and the militants by personalizing and depoliticizing the situation. Her younger sister, Judy Haessly, 34, takes a more down-to-earth view: "She's not a traitor, and she's not Joan of Arc. She's just a mother who wants to see her son." Said President Carter to Walter Cronkite after Mrs. Timm's trip: "My heart goes out to her. I have no intention of punishing her."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.