When the State Department, the FBI and other officials told Diane Foley that her journalist son Jim was their top priority, she had no choice in believing them.
He had been kidnapped by ISIS in Syria in 2012.
It wasn’t until 2014, three months after her son was murdered in a made-for-TV execution, and a meeting with President Barack Obama, that she brought up the topic.
“Jim was my top priority,” the most powerful man on the planet tells him.
“I felt the oxygen disappear from the air,” she writes in her powerful memoir, “American Mother,” written with Colum McCann.
Diane Foley, whose son was beheaded by Islamic militants in Syria 10 years ago, fights for hostages and other Americans unjustly detained abroad.
Dinae Foley with her son Jim, who was 39 when he was captured by ISIS in Syria
‘American Mother’ by Diane Foley and Colum McCann is published by Etruscan Press
“I beg your pardon, sir,” I replied. “It may have been a priority in your mind, but not in your heart.
“Jim and the others were abandoned by our government until it was too late.”
In his story, the distance between them is clear: a president sitting at a long table with a cup of tea while his guest, a grieving mother, is not even offered a drink.
He doesn’t argue with her analysis and takes another sip of tea.
Foley has spent the last 10 years working to make sure other families in her dire situation are not patronized, threatened or ignored like she was.
But that doesn’t change the missed opportunities that meant American hostages were left to die at the hands of ISIS terrorists when European journalists and aid workers were freed.
“I did my best, but I failed miserably,” he told DailyMail.com during a visit to Washington.
‘I think I have to admit that not only did the government abandon him, but I didn’t know what to do either. I had no idea.’
She does it now. Today, Foley is president of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation.
In this file photo from November 2012, journalist James Foley is seen covering the civil war in Aleppo, Syria. He was kidnapped days later when he was leaving the country for Türkiye.
James Foley of Rochester, NH, freelance journalist for GlobalPost, in Benghazi, Libya
Foley said President Barack Obama told him that his son had been his top priority, even though his administration effectively “abandoned” him after he was captured in Syria.
It works to provide aid to the families of kidnapped and unjustly detained U.S. citizens around the world. And he has been at the forefront of reforming US policy on hostage rescue.
But in 2012, she was a nurse practitioner working in New Hampshire when her son, the oldest of five children, called her on the phone at the family clinic she ran with her husband.
She was too busy to chat much.
“I’ll call you on Thanksgiving,” he said. But she didn’t do it. It was the first sign that something was wrong.
Jim Foley, then 39, ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time in Syria, just as he and a British journalist, John Cantlie, were heading back to the Turkish border.
They were among a group of mostly Western journalists and aid workers held by a murderous group of British-born Islamic State terrorists nicknamed “the Beatles.”
A year passed before the ransom demand came.
(Above left to right) Japanese freelance video journalist Kenji Goto, American aid worker Peter “Abdel-Rahman” Kassig, American freelance journalist James Foley, Japanese citizen Haruna Yukawa, American freelance writer Steven Sotloff, British citizen Alan Henning and British aid worker David Haines, the victims of Islamic State militants known as the ‘Beatles’
Also known as ‘Jihadi George’, Alexanda Kotey was part of the four-member cell of British-born Islamic State fighters known as the ‘Beatles’. Foley’s mother has written about her encounters with Kotey in an attempt to understand him in her new book American Mother.
‘Hello. we have james. We want to negotiate with him,’ the email said, all in lowercase letters. ‘He is safe: he is our friend and we do not want to harm him. We want our money fast.’
More demands came, asking for the release of all Muslim prisoners and $130 million.
In the end, Foley writes in ‘American Mother,’ it wasn’t about the money. There was no way the US government would want to get involved in a negotiation.
The Foleys were warned three times that they could be prosecuted if they attempted to pay a ransom to a sanctioned group.
‘When I heard that, I was horrified. I just couldn’t believe that a fellow American was going to threaten us with that,” Foley said. But reality was one of the few people who was honest with us.’
Being told that they could be prosecuted and that the president had decided not to negotiate made a difference to the platitudes that Jim was the administration’s top priority.
Officials, he explained, often had little information to share.
And the first hint that something terrible had happened came not through government channels but again in a phone call from a journalist.
The family only received official confirmation that Jim had been murdered when Obama appeared on television to condemn his murder.
Her book begins with the extraordinary moment, seven years later, when she comes face to face with Alexanda Kotey, one of the murderers convicted of her son’s murder.
In the court conference room, he told her he was very sorry but he didn’t know where Jim was buried.
For Foley, the conversation was part of the healing process.
“There’s a lot of hate out there,” he said. ‘And we need to recognize that and protect ourselves, try to keep building bridges when we can.
Jim Foley, American freelance journalist and photojournalist of the Syrian Civil War (pictured), kidnapped on November 22, 2012 in northwestern Syria.
Americans are more of a target than ever as the world fractures amid competitive conflicts.
“That’s part of the reason I went to talk to Alexandra, because I knew that if Jim had survived, I would have gone to see him.”
Other captives survived. Ransoms were negotiated. Deals were closed. Two Spaniards, four French journalists, a Danish photojournalist. All were released while the Foleys were told they would face prosecution if they tried to pay the kidnappers.
Things might have been different, he said, if he had known much earlier that there would be no deal for his son.
“One of the things you would have done in that situation would have been to raise money and hire a private security team,” he said, describing how kidnapping and ransom specialists would have cost $4,000 a day.
Or he could have gone to talk to the father of another hostage who risked his life traveling to Syria to bring his son back instead of relying on the FBI to talk to him.
Their experience, and that of other American families, contributed to a review of hostage policy. He created the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, coordinating efforts in various parts of the government, and established a Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.
Any anger at the way she was treated is tempered with praise for her subsequent efforts to change things.
Work is more important than ever. The world is even more dangerous for journalists and Americans abroad.
Russia has made kidnapping Americans a cornerstone of its relations with Washington, and Hamas terrorists are holding five American citizens.
“Over 100 American citizens who would never have been freed have been freed because of Jim’s legacy and each other’s legacy,” Foley said. “I’m very proud of that legacy.”