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After flying back to Tunis to consult with his aides on the weekend before his Geneva address, Arafat finally rejected advice from some Palestinians that he give up on the U.S. until Shultz was gone. That, Arafat decided, would stall the promising P.L.O. peace drive too long and ruin his impending hour on TV screens around the world. He accepted the wording worked out at the secret Stockholm meeting and incorporated some changes from the State Department's proposed language. Arafat informed the Swedes, who told Washington, that he would deliver the critical words at the U.N.
Ronald Reagan, meanwhile, had been getting a fusillade of transatlantic telephone calls urging him to be more sensitive to Arafat's position and readier to accept his concessions. Repeated pleas came from Egypt's Mubarak, Jordan's Hussein, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. Just as important, such close U.S. friends as Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, France's President Francois Mitterrand and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Kohl joined the persistent chorus.
The common element in this high-level pitch: if Arafat could not get some favorable response from the U.S. for his painful and personally dangerous efforts, he would face a radical Arab backlash, perhaps headed by Syria. A rare chance for progress on peace would be lost. "It was a full-court action to get both sides to see reason, especially Washington," said a Swedish diplomat.
Finally, on the day Reagan and Bush met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on New York's Governors Island -- six days before Arafat's speech -- Reagan told Shultz that, if Arafat delivered as promised, the State Department had permission to open "substantive discussions" with the P.L.O. After Arafat's assurances on the following Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Pickering told Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of Reagan's decision. Cairo and Stockholm were also informed. All the players were expecting a breakthrough.
But the pressures were still mounting on Arafat. Habash and Hawatmeh were telling him that he was going too far. "They insisted that he stop altering the meaning, as they saw it, of the Algiers declaration," said an Egyptian diplomat. "They were not prepared to go further."
When he took the podium at Geneva's Palais des Nations on Tuesday, the unpredictable P.L.O. chairman again stopped maddeningly short of uttering the precious words. Instead of saying, "I recognize Israel's right to exist," Arafat declared, "The P.L.O. will seek a comprehensive settlement among the parties concerned in the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the state of Palestine, Israel and other neighbors." While he "condemned" terrorism "in all its forms," he did not "renounce" it, and he saluted "those sitting before me in this hall" who had fought in "national liberation movements."
Gloom engulfed the negotiations. The State Department, although seeing "interesting and positive developments" in Arafat's address, judged it insufficient for starting talks. "Close but no cigar," said a State Department deputy. Bush and Baker were equally disappointed. Said a source close to them: "It's like you are at the church ready to get married and the bride shows, but she's not wearing white."