Further Travels with Jesse

For Jackson, Chicago was never like this

It used to be Henry Kissinger who stole headlines jetting from one Middle East capital to another in a search for peace known as shuttle diplomacy. Last week, however, it seemed that the Rev. Jesse Jackson had set out to prove the shuttle is a vehicle that more than one can ride.

The week before, the civil rights leader toured Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, where he had met with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. That was phase one of his self-appointed mission to promote U.S. and Israeli acceptance of the P.L.O. Phase two was a meeting in Cairo with Egypt's President Anwar Sadat. During the session

Sadat apparently decided that Jackson was a useful mediator, as the next morning, he recalled him for a "ten minute" meeting. The ten minutes stretched into more than an hour, after which Jackson announced that Sadat "asked me to send Mr. Arafat a specific message ... that this is the moment for a ceasefire. The repercussions of [Arafat's] declaring a ceasefire would be as great as [Sadat's] having gone to Jerusalem."

Though Jackson had intended a return visit to Beirut and a trip to Damascus, Sadat now suddenly sent him in a presidential jet bearing personal messages to the P.L.O. chief and to Syrian President Hafez Assad. Sadat's bizarre action left diplomatic observers puzzled, as Jackson was a newcomer to Middle East politics, and there were more appropriate, Arab candidates at hand. Jackson, nevertheless, left immediately for Beirut, where he briefed Arafat on Sadat's proposal: cessation of P.L.O. hostilities against Israel in the hope of winning Israeli recognition. Arafat immediately called a meeting of the P.L.O. Central Council for a verdict. "I don't need advice from Sadat or anybody else on how to run our affairs," Arafat is reported to have told the council members, recommending a flat rejection. The council turned down the Sadat proposal without bothering to take a vote.

In the meantime Jackson had arrived in Damascus, only to be stricken with gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the lining of the stomach and intestines. He was forced to interrupt a session with Assad the next day in order to check into a hospital for a "stomach wash." The Syrian leader greeted Jackson warmly but firmly rejected Sadat's overture.

Shuttling back to Beirut for a third huddle with Arafat, Jackson suffered a relapse and wound up in the American University of Beirut Hospital. Later in the evening Yasser Arafat and his aides turned up for a twelve-minute bedside chat, making it clear that the P.L.O.'s military action against Israel would continue.

The P.L.O. issued a six-point declaration stating that it had ceased cross-border operations from Lebanon; but there was no mention of a cessation of operations within Israel itself.

Jackson, however, seemed undaunted.

Back in Chicago at week's end, he said he had brought back a P.L.O. communique for President Carter. Earlier, he had shrugged off suggestions that he was an agitator who might jeopardize complex formal negotiations. "If the agitator is that part of the washing machine that shakes out the dirt," he said, "that's O.K."

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