American hostages returning from captivity in Iraq and those still waiting for them must be patient with their situation and dispense with any bitterness, a former Iranian hostage said Wednesday.

“Keep on with daily life,” said Moorhead C. Kennedy Jr., one of 52 Americans taken hostage by Iranian students in November 1979 and held for 444 days. More than a decade after his ordeal ended, Kennedy advised the handful of Americans who have either escaped or been freed from Iraq not to dwell on their time there.

“I used to call it `making the bed,”‘ Kennedy said during a telephone interview from his New York office. During his ordeal, he would make his bed and shave each day, he said.

Kennedy, a summer resident of Northeast Harbor, said that freed hostages should not feel guilty about others who remained behind, nor should they wonder whether they were a “noble hostage.”

Addressing those who have loved ones still in Iraq — including recent ex-hostage Debbie Willis of Parkman — Kennedy advised them to form a support group and to maintain their hope for an early release.

“She’s just as much of a hostage … as those people are,” Kennedy said of Willis, who left her husband, Jerry, behind in Iraq.

Kennedy’s wife, Louisa, also had some advice for recently released hostages. “What I would tell her is … not to feel that anything is going to immediately happen.” Believe it or not, she said, the Arab psyche is geared toward being good toward foreigners. “I don’t think they’re going to start executing anybody.”

Still, Kennedy warned, relatives impatient with the cumbersome red tape of diplomacy and Middle East fanaticism should not vent their anger publicly. The Kennedys said that the captors likely are monitoring the Western press, and that inflamatory statements and inaccuracies often get back to the captors.

But those relatives can play an important role, keeping the plight of the hostages in the forefront, which in turn helps the relatives to feel useful. One of Kennedy’s captors used to follow the accounts of Mrs. Kennedy, who became a spokeswoman for the relatives of the Iranian hostages, he said.

If those messages do get through, the Kennedys said, they should stress that things at home are fine.

“His concern will be that she’s worried about him,” Mrs. Kennedy said of Jerry Willis.

Both Kennedys also stressed the need for tolerence. Mrs. Kennedy said that the Arabic culture is much more casual with time, and that those in the Middle East are more patient than Americans, who want everything now.

“It just doesn’t work that way,” she said during a telephone interview from their New York home.

“Be patient — just as long as it takes. Live day to day,” Kennedy said.

Advising hostages and their relatives on how to accept their situation, he said, “Don’t try to bargain with God. You’ve got to accept the fact that you’re a hostage.”

Those who do return from captivity cannot expect to return to life exactly as it was before their ordeal, said Kennedy, who retired from the foreign service after his release, and even once considered running for public office in Maine.

“You’ve got to accept those things,” he said.