Jesse Jackson may learn today whether his personal appeal to Syrian President Hafez Assad will win the release of captured U.S. airman Robert Goodman Jr.
Jackson, who expected to see the ailing Syrian president Saturday, delayed his departure from Damascus and told reporters a meeting has been promised for sometime today.
It is at that meeting that Jackson plans to personally ask Assad to make an uncharacteristic conciliatory gesture and send Goodman home.
Assad did not extend the same courtesy of a personal meeting to presidential Middle East envoy Donald Rumsfeld last month, possibly because he was only just recuperating from an illness that prevented public appearances.
‘We’d rather wait in Syria with the possibility of getting Lt. Goodman freed, rather than be back home wishing we had waited long enough to get him free,’ said Jackson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Jackson said Sunday he will first meet foreign minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, their second meeting since Jackson arrived in the Syrian capital Friday night.
After that meeting, Jackson said, he is scheduled to go to the presidential palace to see Assad, who has only rarely been seen in public since becoming ill in November.
Jackson, 42, a civil rights leader who took along his two sons for the Damascus visit, toured a rugged Palestinian refugee camp Sunday. So far he says he has succeededin one of his self-described objectives of the 6,000-mile ‘pilgrimage to Damascus,’ putting the Goodman case ‘on the front burner.’
Goodman, 27, a Portsmouth, N.H. native, was captured by the Syrians Dec. 4 when anti-aircrft gunners downed the A-7 Corsair in which he was the bombardier-navigator.
The jet was flying the first U.S. bombing raid since Vietnam, in retaliation for Syrian attacks on U.S. reconnaissance flights over Syrian-held positions in Lebanon when he was shot down.
Jackson says his meeting with Khaddam, who told him he was willing to discuss whatever Jackson wanted, was ‘fruitful.’ He said the mere fact that a second Khaddam meeting and the Assad session have been scheduled are ‘hopeful signs.’
Khaddam told Jackson Saturday that Syria’s position remains that the United States must stop the reconnaissance flights which Jackson says Damascus finds ‘insulting and provocative,’ before Goodman is released.
But Khaddam also told him, Jackson said, that he has ‘an open mind.’
‘They knew we were planning to leave tomorrow (Monday) morning at 8 a.m., Jackson said. ‘They asked us to delay our trip tomorrow. I can only assume that a jury that’s deliberating for a long time is operating in the best interest of those on trial. It doesn’t take you long to say no.’
