Jim: The James Foley Story Page #8

"And our primary demand is that

you use your influence to

"pressure your government to

release our Muslim prisoners,

"who they have imprisoned,

whether innocent or 'guilty'

"according to 'your laws.'

"If this fails to bear any fruits,

then our secondary demand is

the sum of 100 million Euros."

FBI, um, seemed to have their hands tied

because all they were able to do was

okay our family e-mails,

and they really weren't able to

help us much with strategy.

They just told us to be

yourselves, be family.

Tell them, "The truth is we

can't release any prisoners,

we certainly don't have

a hundred million Euro."

Michael came up with some questions

I didn't know the answers to,

but we sent those back to the captors.

[Michael]

Then there was some brief comment.

It says, "James was detained whilst

operating as a 'journalist'.

"After his capture,

"and the following interrogations

we came to learn that he had been

"embedded with the US troops

serving in Afghanistan.

"And that his brother,

Michael Patrick Foley

is a serving officer

in the US Air Force."

But I was never in the Air Force.

That was John.

My brother Jim said that Mike

was the Air Force officer.

It may have been a typo, it may not have been, but

I believe it was my, you know, my big brother

trying to protect me. You know,

you love your brothers, but...

For him to put... Be willing to put his

life on the line or his body on the line...

for my protection is significant.

[inaudible]

[Daniel] I think they came in

with the proof of life for John

and then everybody else got

their proof of lives.

Everybody came in like,

"Yes!" and "We are happy,"

and... But James didn't get

his proof of life.

Until one day that they came in

and they asked James to follow...

and when he came back, you know, he

came back with his arms over his head

and he said that this was

the best day of his life.

And then him and John, they...

they hugged each other and they were dancing

around like they just won the big lottery.

[Diane]

That was early December of 2013.

All the answers came back right on.

We knew they had Jim.

But by the end of December,

they e-mailed us back and said, "This

is the last e-mail you'll get from us."

And cut off communication.

[John Sr.]

I mean, the first year we just trusted

that the government

would have this in hand

and that, um, despite our lack

of information, etcetera,

they had been through this

before, they knew what to do,

and you know, we were in good hands.

At the end of that year we realized

that nothing was being done,

and that we were really going to

have to do something on our own.

[Phil] Diane was great about

meeting with ambassadors

in Washington, from other countries

that might have some influence.

It turned out that no one

had any influence,

because the group that had him didn't

listen to anybody. But we didn't know that.

[Male reporter] It's kind of come as a

surprise to a lot of us this group ISIS.

A group that we hadn't really heard

much about. Who exactly are they?

[Woman]

Well, it's a criminal marauding gang.

They come out of

the original, very brutal

Iraqi terror group.

[Michael] They're the worst.

They're the worst of the worst.

Washington doesn't know

how to deal with them.

How's this family in New England

gonna figure that out, right?

I mean, you're dealing with, pure evil,

but a capable and organized group.

[Pierre speaking]

They were very tough towards

me also, but no matter what,

they meant freedom for me, because

they were the one negotiating for me.

But James and John were destroyed

by the Beatles in the beginning.

[Pierre] He had this ability

to escape the situation.

To, enjoy, you know, the sound

of children playing outside.

Or enjoy the view of just some

sun entering through the window.

[Didier speaking]

[Daniel] James converted in the

beginning of his captivity.

And I know that was at the same period

as he was getting really bad treatment.

It gave a good routine. Normally we have a

tradition of going into church every Sunday.

But if you cannot do that,

you need another way of feeling that you

are doing something with your faith.

And you can call it a surviving skill.

You can call it just a way of being

interested in another culture.

What James used to say to me was that,

for him God is the same.

[Diane] We had such great Christmases

when the kids were little.

Oh, just wonderful,

wonderful Christmases

and you know as they got older

and Jim's siblings married,

they weren't always able to be home.

But Jim was always home.

Most of my memories of Jim

culminate around the holidays.

You know, the playing of the video games,

the board games, the Ping-Pong tournaments,

the anything tournaments.

[laughing]

Grandma. Grandma.

You wake up and you open the gifts

and you're like, "Ah, crap,

Jim has my name." [laughing]

"What's he gonna give me?"

So, I shouldn't say that.

It was good times.

And then the last Christmas he was home,

I remember him, like, rolling on the

floor with Michael's son Matty.

He loved that kid.

There's a million Christmas

stories though.

[Daniel] You know it's difficult for

us to celebrate Christmas in any way,

and um, we didn't have any

presents to give each other.

So we... We decided to sit

down in a circle,

then we had to say something

nice to each other,

and I remember that I said to James that,

"James, the first time I met you was,

"you know, in this prison and you

looked as confused as if you were just

"dumped down on the earth

from the moon or something

"and you basically destroyed my whole

idea of this great war journalist,

"James Wright Foley, and then suddenly

I find out that you are very clumsy,

"you're very bad at sports,

but then again,

you're the most..."

I think I said to him, you know,

"you're the most honest person, there is

no evil at all to find in you, James.

"You are pure good.

Sometimes too good.

And I'm, I'm really happy

that I've, that I've met you."

That was our Christmas night.

When I went to bed that night

I really felt that I had the

best Christmas night in my life.

[Didier speaking]

[Pierre speaking]

[Diane] So that's when I

started to get more frantic.

I mean I thought, There's

gotta be some way to get

the French and the US to talk.

"Didier, this is

my husband John."

They were willing to share all kinds of

things about Jim personally, how he was,

what they did. So I was

starting to get all this hope,

and they have a hostage

crisis unit in Paris,

and they were very generous with their

time. So it was so different than what

I was experiencing, so I was just

kind of like, "jeez," you know.

"Jim and the others, our other Americans are

as important as these guys, aren't they?"

And it was the last night I was in Paris

and I got a phone call from John.

He said, "Diane, we got another

email from the captors."

I thought, "Oh, great,

what did they say?"

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