WASHINGTON — Diane Foley learned her son’s fate not from any government official but from a sobbing journalist who asked if she’d been on Twitter.
Foley had not, but the ghastly images weren’t hard to find. President Barack Obama soon confirmed the news to the world: James Foley, a 40-year-old American journalist kidnapped in Syria two years earlier, was the American beheaded by Islamic State militants in a video circulating online.
For many in the United States, the August 2014 video brought home the extent of the Islamic State’s violence and brutality. For Diane Foley it was a galvanizing moment, emblematic of the helplessness she felt during her son’s captivity and the lack of urgency she sensed from American officials tasked with helping her. The New Hampshire woman channeled her grief into action, becoming an unofficial ambassador for hostages and their loved ones and helping reshape the U.S. government’s response when Americans are captured by terrorists and kidnappers across the globe.
“I wouldn’t be doing this work had everything remained the way it was,” said Foley, who retired from nursing after her son’s capture. Though she always thought of doing something more global, “I didn’t expect or ever want to do it in this way.”
In the five years since her son’s murder, Foley and the foundation she formed in her son’s name have successfully pushed the U.S. government to overhaul the hostage rescue process, advocated legislation to punish kidnappers and pressed for additional attention for thousands of Americans detained unlawfully. Through research and public statements, she’s also challenged the conventional wisdom that negotiating with captors and making concessions to them are inherently counterproductive.
“There was no structure or no accountability to bring Americans home at that point,” Foley said in an interview with The Associated Press, “and how I wished our government had been honest with me that they really didn’t know how, if possible, they could bring him home. I really wish they had been more honest.”
The goal is to prevent other families from experiencing the fragmented, ineffective government response she says she endured, when multiple officials and agencies worked the case without anyone being singularly responsible for getting him home, and warned her and other hostage families of potential prosecution if they paid ransom to kidnappers.
The most meaningful change was a 2015 Obama administration directive that led to an FBI-led fusion cell to work full-time on hostage cases and a State Department special envoy to handle diplomatic negotiations.
The fusion cell structure remains intact under President Donald Trump, who Foley praises for his interest in hostage issues despite an occasional collision of values with his administration.
Jim, who’d turned to conflict journalism after trying his hand at teaching, was captured for six weeks in 2011 by pro-Qaddafi forces while covering Libyan unrest. He returned home restless, then resumed reporting in the Middle East in time to chronicle ISIS’s rise.
The 2012 Thanksgiving holiday came and went with no word from Foley, which his family found disquieting since he’d always been good at checking in. She learned from his colleagues the next morning that he’d been apprehended by a jihadist group.
The next two years brought promising leads but also bouts of inactivity and frustrating government interactions.
The first FBI official assigned to the case was inexperienced, Foley said. When she’d contact the State Department, it seemed she was speaking to a different person each time.
The captors established contact in the fall of 2013, making a series of demands, including for $100 million euros and the release of Muslim prisoners.
Foley raised $1 million in pledges despite White House warnings that ransom payments could violate a law against supporting foreign terrorist organizations, an admonishment she still finds cruel and unnecessary.
Communications ceased around Christmas, resurfacing in July with a threat to murder Foley.
The video the following month showed Foley kneeling in an orange jumpsuit beside a man in black clutching a knife to his captive’s throat. It fades to black before the beheading is completed. The killer, Mohammed Emwazi, was later killed in a U.S. strike.
The next June, Obama announced the fusion cell’s creation, saying the government was “changing how we do business.”
More work remains, though, including support on basic quality-of-life issues for hostages who do make it home.
The foundation aims to fill that void, with a support network of sorts so hostage families can connect with each other.
“There’s been a part of this that’s been very healing and very good,” Foley said, “because I feel rather certain that Jim would have wanted us to try to make a difference.”