The data presented are derived from an ongoing research project that is gathering extensive interview and psychological test materials from prisoners convicted of politically motivated crimes, both within the U.S. and several foreign prison systems. It appears that only a small minority of politically motivated hostage takers are driven by pressing personal needs joined to inadequate psychological resources that cause them to lose hold on the reality of their personal problems as distinct from the problems of the political system. Because of their numerical significance, this paper does not examine the grossly psychologically impaired captors. Instead, it explicates the dynamics of captors whose actions are mediated by ego functions and directed toward the service of external goals. Just as hostages can be placed in their captive role on either a deliberate or an inadvertent basis, so the politically motivated hostage taker becomes the captor in either a deliberate manner (i.e., desiring a particular gain in exchange for a hostage) or casually, through a plan in which hastage taking is an inadvertent minimal part of the overall scheme. Data indicate that the reluctant hostage taker, who inadvertently or regretfully possesses hostages, is concerned with the opinions, emotional state, and safety of the captives and is burdened by a sense of responsibility. On the other hand, the deliberate hostage taker experiences the hostages as nonhuman objects whose safety and existence are predicted on the furtherance of his goals; he is concerned with the issue of control and projects responsibility for violence onto others. On the American scene, idealism and humanitarianism are dominant political forces, and thus, captors must be concerned about acceptance by a liberal, humanitarian public that values the golden rule. Elsewhere (and in certain American subsocieties), bitterness and intense narcissistic rage are rampant and provide a tacit--though perhaps unconscious--acceptance of violence and retribution by violent, sociopathic captors. As long as liberalism and humanism typify the American political ideology, the deliberate hostage takers are likely to play only a minor part in the cast of politically motivated captors. Fifteen references are appended. (Author abstract modified).