NEW GANG MAY HOLD 3 AMERICANS LATEST KIDNAPPINGS COULD MEAN FURY AGAINST SECRET TALKS

The three Americans kidnapped in Beirut during the last two months might have been seized by a pro-Iran group opposed to the secret negotiations between the Reagan administration and more moderate members of the Tehran government.

The three men, Frank H. Reed, Joseph J. Cicippio and Edward A. Tracy, were kidnapped in September and October, despite a reported commitment by Iranian officials to discourage more taking of hostages. They now appear to be pawns in the political infighting in Tehran.

For while the Reagan administration has won the release of three hostages from Islamic Jihad by negotiating with so-called moderates inside the Tehran government, the radicals who are believed to hold the three new hostages have no apparent interest in a relationship with the United States.

A senior administration official said Thursday that “moderates” in Tehran agreed to crack down on the taking of hostages in talks with the United States in 1985. “We went for about a year without any hostages being taken,” he said, until Reed was seized Sept. 9.

Other officials and analysts have said that Reed, Cicippio and Tracy were seized by a more radical group that does not appear under the control of Islamic Jihad.

Their capture is believed to have been ordered by Mehdi Hashemi, an Islamic revolutionary who leads his own armed faction in Iran.

Hashemi was arrested in Tehran Oct. 12, under orders from the government of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

His arrest threw Tehran into political crisis, for Hashemi is a close relative of Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini’s anointed successor.

Hashemi has been accused of sending explosives into Saudi Arabia on a charter airplane full of pilgrims to the Moslem shrines at Mecca and of masterminding the kidnapping of a Syrian diplomat in Tehran.

His arrest could have prompted radicals in Iran to disclose the May 1986 secret mission of U.S. emissary Robert McFarlane to Tehran. McFarlane’s mission was first reported in a pro-Syria magazine in Beirut, and that report tipped off to reporters the entire 18-month series of negotiations between the United States and Iran.

U.S. officials have refused to name the Iranian officials with whom they are dealing. But exposure of the arms-for-hostages deal appears to have endangered the political future of the most important “moderate” in Tehran, Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has spoken in the past about Iran’s need for better relations with the United States.

Rafsanjani publicly denounced the Reagan administration last week for sending McFarlane to Iran, but U.S. officials and academic analysts interpreted that largely as an attempt to defend himself against expected attacks from radical elements.