Looking For a Way Out

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Assad promised only to discuss the matter with his aides. Syrian officials had been debating the merits of releasing Goodman almost from the day he was shot down, and Jackson's plea tipped the balance. Jackson was given the good news the next day by Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam. Ambassador Robert Paganelli, who was not invited to Jackson's briefing, was informed moments later. Meanwhile, Goodman was driven from his Damascus military jail to the U.S. embassy. After putting on a tie and brown tweed jacket supplied by Jackson, he had a celebratory lunch at the Damascus-Sheraton and boarded an Air Force C-141 for the flight home. As the transport plane gained altitude, TIME Correspondent Jack White reported, a relieved Jackson paraded down the aisle exulting, "From Galilee to jubilee!"

Awakened at 5:30 a.m. with the news, a genuinely ebullient Reagan gave Jackson his full due. "If that guy could get him out and we couldn't, more power to him," he told aides. Good manners, in this case, also meant good politics: by being so generous with his praise, Reagan reinforced his nice-guy image and blunted any future attacks by Jackson about the Administration's handling of the Goodman case. Says a White House official: "We would have lost by scrimping."

Reagan's advisers admitted that Rumsfeld had never brought up Goodman with the Syrians, but only because Washington had not wanted the flyer to become a bargaining chip in negotiations on Lebanon. White House aides asserted that Reagan did not return Jackson's calls for fear of destroying the minister's credibility with the Syrians. If the President had talked to him, they said, Jackson might have carried the taint of an official emissary. During the Rose Garden ceremony, Jackson thanked Reagan for at least not impeding his mission.

Assad had much to gain by freeing Goodman. He came off as reasonable and conciliatory, an impression at odds with his dictatorial rule. He made it more difficult for the U.S. to flex its military muscle against Syria without appearing to be a warmonger. Most U.S. officials interpreted Assad's decision as a signal that Syria wants a rapprochement with the U.S., rather than more confrontation. White House aides insist that Syria has been impressed by American willingness to strike back, with both fighter-bombers and battleship guns, and point out that U.S. reconnaissance planes have not been shot at since mid-December.

Washington also is encouraged by the reception given Gemayel's security plan for the one-third of Lebanon not controlled by the Syrians or the Israelis. When the Lebanese President visited the U.S. in December, Administration officials bluntly told him to make peace with his opponents fast, or else wave goodbye to the Marines. "This time it sank in," says a senior U.S. diplomat. "Since then we have kept the blowtorch on."