Stunt or not, Jesse wins big, as does Hafez Assad. That’s the consensus in Washington concerning the Syrian release of Lieutenant Robert Goodman. The Syrian leader had been searching for a way to return the Navy airman, not wishing to appear either mean or rabid—a second Khomeini—before the world. Assad’s cover exposure on Time, and other media hypes, had stroked his ego, making him see the benefits of looking statesmanlike. What better way to enhance that image than by mounting the humanitarian platform that Jackson had erected for him?
The President’s men do not see Jackson’s feat as hurting Mr. Reagan in any telling way. After all, the White House did not stand in Jesse’s path, the President commended Jackson after the Goodman release, and Jackson was welcomed in the Rose Garden along with the Lieutenant upon their arrival home. Quietly, Reaganites are putting out the story, true enough, that Jackson simply reaped the harvest sown by U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Paganelli. So Jackson’s success was an accident of timing and need (Assad’s). All acknowledge, nonetheless, that the Jackson mission will exert great pressure on the President to match it for sheer efficacy, i.e., get some results in the Middle East, get something accomplished beyond diplomatic wheel-spinning.
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