Explore the vast range of titles available.

''We can be kidnapped,'' the journalist quoted Colonel Higgins as saying during their trip through southern Lebanon. ''We can be shot at. We can be robbed. But this is a part of our daily lives.'' Colonel Higgins, a 44-year-old Vietnam combat veteran who wrote in his high school yearbook that his ambition was ''for my family to always be proud of me,'' was widely described as a bright, aggressive officer, a ''gung ho'' marine. ''One thing I have learned over the past 17 months is that the truth is hard to find and it remains so,'' she said. ''But I am determined to know the truth.''

The official, Under Secretary General Marrack Goulding, who is in charge of United Nations peacekeeping operations, told reporters in West Beirut today that he had not been able to obtain ''reliable information'' about the fate of Lieut. Col. William R. Higgins, the kidnapped United States marine who was reported a week ago to have been killed. [ Mr. Goulding spoke before the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in Washington that its forensic experts had decided that Colonel Higgins was most likely the person depicted in a videotape issued by his kidnappers last Monday and that he was dead when filmed in the tape. ] Mr. Goulding said after a meeting with Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss, who heads a predominantly Muslim Cabinet, that he was returning to United Nations headquarters in New York to submit his report to Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar. Reported Hanging ''But I have not been able to secure reliable information about Lieutenant Colonel Higgins's fate and whether he is dead or alive,'' he said today. ''The Imam always attacked,'' he said of Ayatollah Khomeini. ''He always had an offensive posture towards the United States.''

''We've got a lot of information flowing from this group and that group and we need to wait and see how it shakes out before we respond,'' a senior Administration official said. 'Cautiously Optimistic' The White House spokesman compared the current diplomatic exchanges on the hostages to ''a bazaar,'' repeating the word used by a former Assistant Secretary of State, Richard W. Murphy, over the weekend. ''We see ideas coming out from Iran, from Syria, Algeria, Israel, the United States - everybody,'' Mr. [Marlin Fitzwater] said. ''There are a lot of ideas being floated, a lot of exchanges being made, but it's primarily a matter of talking and listening and not signaling your moves,'' he said, reiterating the Administration's approach of intentional ambiguity, a way of keeping the kidnappers off guard.

The largest contingent is Unifil, the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon, which has suffered more than 200 casualties since its establishment in 1978. Lieut. Col. William Higgins, an American assigned to the associated United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, has been held by Shiite extremists since February. The boost to Unifil's morale is all the more timely, given the latest breakdown in Lebanon after last week's failure to choose a successor to President Amin Gemayel. More recently, Iran and Iraq have joined the fray to promote their own influence and to discomfit their rivals. Iran's chosen instrument has been the Shiite fundamentalist militias, including those thought to hold American hostages. Iraq has plunged in swiftly following the gulf war cease-fire, which left it with liberated resources and heightened ambitions. Most immediately, it has sought revenge against Syria, Iran's former ally, by supporting Lebanese Christian intransigence.

Officials said the Israelis told the United States that the decision to kidnap the sheik was made ''some time ago'' and that the Israelis ''didn't see any other way of putting pressure on them'' to release Israeli soldiers held in Lebanon. ''We're basically asking the Israelis to keep in touch with us on what they're learning and they're doing that,'' one official said. ''We have not asked them to release Sheik Obeid.'' Mr. [Bush] was asked if it would make matters easier if Israel released the Muslim cleric whose kidnapping inflamed the hostage situation and prompted threats against the Americans held captive. He said he was weighing the situation with ''a heavy heart'' and that ''it transcends religion, it transcends alliances, it gets in to a matter that concerns that entire civilized world. So we will keep on trying.''

Statement From U.N. [ At the United Nations, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar's office denied that Colonel Higgins is a spy and called on those holding him to let him go. [ ''Colonel Higgins was serving the United Nations on a peacekeeping mission at the time of his abduction,'' a spokeswoman for the Secretary General, Nadia Younes, said. ''The allegations against him are baseless.'' ] In its statement today, the guerrilla captors repeated the allegations of spying and said that the colonel's death would also be ''in retaliation for the repeated Israeli aggression against our people in occupied Palestine and in southern and eastern Lebanon, in vengeance for the latest Israeli attack in Al Naameh, and in order to punish America.''

''This criminal will be turned over today to the tribunal of the oppressed to judge him for the crimes he has committed,'' said the statement, which was delivered to an international news agency in West Beirut. The statement said Colonel Higgins, a former aide to Caspar W. Weinberger when Mr. Weinberger was Defense Secretary, was in charge of ''a Pentagon team to combat Lebanese and Palestinian Islamic organizations in Palestine and Lebanon.''

Amal, which has been trying to rescue Colonel [William Higgins], is an ambiguous ally. It has previously helped Americans out of the clutches of its rivals, yet is thought to have been involved in other terrorist episodes involving Americans. Amal and its de facto U.N. ally are the main forces now protecting southern Lebanon from a possible takeover by Iran-style revolutionaries. This is not the first attack against the U.N. forces; for the radicals to drive out the U.N. would be a step toward defeating Amal. And that would mean explosive new instability near Israel's northern border.

United States officials said, meanwhile, that although the Administration had been ''caught by surprise'' by the kidnapping and was ''concerned'' about the implications of the action -especially if it stirs further violence in the Middle East - there was no sense of anger at the Israelis. ''It is outrageous and uncivilized that he should have been taken hostage in the first place,'' Ms. [Margaret D. Tutwiler] said of Colonel [William R. Higgins]. ''It is equally outrageous to threaten to kill him.'' Administration officials indicated that the United States, in speaking to the Israelis, had sought to get ''as much information as we can about details of what they did and why they did it,'' as well as what Sheik Obeid may have told the Israelis. One Israeli source said that both the United States Embassy and American military officials were briefed by the Israelis on Friday about the kidnapping.

''Any attempt to tie the fate of the Israeli prisoners and [William R. Higgins] to the case of the kidnapped Sheik [Abdul Karim] Obeid is incomprehensible and strange,'' Sheik Musawi said in an interview at his home in Beirut's southern suburbs. ''I do not see any link.'' The Party of God announced a general mobilization among its guerrillas ''to liberate the kidnapped leader.'' A statement released by the group threatened ''harsh retaliation.'' ''There may be some people who voice disapproval,'' Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's spokesman, Avi Pazner, said, '' but public opinion will understand that this act was taken against one of the leaders of one of the most fanatical groups in Lebanon.''