Looking For a Way Out

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Meanwhile, pressure built on Capitol Hill for an immediate redeployment, if not outright withdrawal, of the Marines. House Democratic leaders met to re-examine their support of a measure that allows the Marines to stay in Lebanon until April 1985, while three former CIA chiefs, Stansfield Turner, James Schlesinger and William Colby, urged that the men at least be moved from the Beirut airport. Said House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who firmly backed the Marines' extension last fall: "Patience is wearing very thin. There is no way we are going to be idle if the President doesn't do something within the next couple of weeks."

Just how bloody Lebanon can be was illustrated last week, when 16 Israeli Kfir jets swooped down and bombed a cluster of villages near Baalbek. Beirut radio reported that as many as 100 were killed and 300 wounded. Most of the casualties, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, were civilians. Israeli military officials claimed to have destroyed two bases used by Iranian-supported Shi'ite guerrillas to launch attacks against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

If Goodman's release startled Washington, it did not surprise the supremely confident Jackson. Two weeks ago, .he learned through press reports that Rumsfeld had not even mentioned Goodman during talks in Damascus. Jackson blasted the Administration for not doing enough to free the airman, and within days the Syrians said he would be welcome in Damascus. He insisted he would not go if Reagan asked him not to, but four telephone calls to the President went unreturned.

Before talking with Assad, Jackson met with Syrian religious figures and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Though the Muslim and Christian leaders opposed Goodman's release, their American visitor made an impassioned plea for mercy. He then persuaded Mahmoud Labadi, a P.L.O. spokesman, to present Jackson's case for freeing Goodman to P.L.O. faction leaders in Damascus. It was they who subsequently urged the Syrians to give up the flyer.

On Monday, after a day's delay, Jackson met with Assad at a secluded villa north of Damascus. As TV cameras rolled, the Syrian President warmly embraced Jackson, whom he had met in 1979, when the civil rights leader toured the Middle East. For a man who was hospitalized with a heart ailment just two months ago, Assad looked remarkably hale. He talked with the group for about an hour, then conferred with Jackson alone for 20 minutes. Jackson argued that keeping Goodman would not stop U.S. reconnaissance flights over eastern Lebanon. To concentrate on those missions, said Jackson, was to focus on the mailman instead of the post office. But if Assad released the flyer, Jackson maintained, he would fuel demands within the U.S. for a Marine pullout and achieve his larger goal. Jackson then engaged in a bit of chicanery: he said that if he returned to the U.S. without Goodman, he would be "beat up on" by the "Zionists" in an upcoming debate. Jackson admitted to reporters later that there was no such debate scheduled.