In the White House the members of the Crisis Committee were waiting in the National Security Council conference room when the President came downstairs from his press briefing. With the exception of the military, they were in shirtsleeves, ties askew, their disheveled hair and haggard faces indicative of the terrible strain under which they had been laboring for hours. They started to rise as the President entered, but he waved them to their places. He was in no mood for protocol formalities. While Eastman reviewed what had happened, he too removed the jacket of his gray suit, undid his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
“The charge received a call from Qaddafi’s Prime Minister, Salam Jalloud, a few minutes ago,” Eastman said. “He would like to speak to you at sixteen hundred GMT.” The National Security Assistant glanced up at the clocks on the wall. “That’s in twenty-seven minutes, over the Doomsday aircraft facilities we proposed to him early this morning. Qaddafi speaks English, but we are reasonably certain he’ll insist, initially at least, on speaking Arabic. These two gentlemen”-he gestured to a pair of middle-aged men sitting tensely halfway down the conference table-“are State’s senior Arabic translators.
“The way we propose to proceed if you agree is this: One of these two men will give us a simultaneous, confidential translation of Qaddafi’s Arabic so that we can know immediately what he has to say. Each time Qaddafi pauses to let us translate, the second interpreter will take over. While he’s interpreting, we’ll have a few moments to consider our answers. If we need more time, the second translator can interrogate Qaddafi on the precise meaning of one of his words or phrases.”
The President nodded his approval.
“We’re also, of course, taping both his words and the translation and taking him down in shorthand. The girls outside will type up the material for us in relays. And we have down there”-Eastman pointed to a black plastic console with a televisionlike screen attached to it = “a CIA voice stress analyzer, which will reveal any sign of nervous strain or tension in his voice.”
“Better not use it on me.” The President smiled grimly. “You may be disappointed with the results you get.”
Eastman coughed. “That brings us to another point, Mr. President.” He turned to Henrick Jagerman, Bernie Tamarkin and the CIA’s Dr. Turner, seated halfway along the table next to the edgy State Department Arabists.
Their presence came as no surprise to the President. Although the fact was little known to the public, the counsel and observations of psychiatrists, particularly those attached to the CIA, had been employed in crises at the highest echelons of the U.S. government for years.
“It is their very strong recommendation, based on their own experience in terrorist negotiations, that you do not speak to Qaddafi yourself.”
The suddenness with which the President swiveled his head toward the psychiatrists revealed his irritation, but his voice remained calm and studiously courteous. “I want to thank you gentlemen for coming here to help us. Particularly you, Dr. Jagerman.”
The Dutchman gave a ritualistic bob of his head.
“Now, why is it you don’t want me to talk to him?”
Jagerman quickly repeated the arguments he had made earlier to Eastman.
“There is a second reason,” Tamarkin added. “To keep him tied up in a dialogue with a negotiator while we’re working out our strategy quietly and calmly. We force him to respond under pressure while we create the situations to which he has to respond in an orderly environment.”
“It seems to me that we’re the ones who are responding under pressure at the moment,” the President noted tartly. “Who do you suggest should do the negotiating?”
“We hope he’ll agree to work with Mr. Eastman,” Jagerman replied. “He’s known around the world for his closeness to you personally. His office gives him the necessary authority. And we think he has the proper personality for the job.”
The President’s fingertips stroked the tabletop. “Very well, gentlemen,” he agreed. “I’ll accept your recommendation. We’ll see if he will. Your understanding of the psychology of power may not be as complete as your understanding of the psychiatry of terrorists. Now I want you to explain to me what would drive a man to do something like this. Is he crazy?”
Jagerman clasped his hands before him and leaned forward, wishing he were in his office in Amsterdam, anywhere but here in this room with these terrible pressures weighing down on him. “It really doesn’t matter whether he’s crazy or not, Mr. President. What matters is how and why he behaves as he does; what motivates him.”
“Then why in hell has he done such a mad thing?”
“Ahl” The black arcs of Jagerman’s eyebrows spurted upward, setting the mole in the middle of his forehead dancing on a ridge of flesh. “The most striking aspect of this man’s character is that he is a loner. He was a loner as a boy at school, at the military academy in England. He’s a loner as a ruler. And isolation is dangerous. The lonelier a man is, the more dangerous he is apt to become. Fundamentally, terrorists are lonely, isolated people, outcasts of society banded into small groups by an ideal or a cause. The more isolated they are, the more they feel compelled to act. Violence becomes the terrorist’s way of proving to society that he exists.
“As Qaddafi has found himself more and more isolated internationally, more and more cut off from the world community, the need to act, to prove to the world he’s there, has become greater and greater. Loneliness gives terrorists a superiority complex. They become gods, a law unto themselves, absolutely convinced of the rectitude of their position. Clearly, Qaddafi is absolutely persuaded of the righteousness of his point of view. And now with this H-bomb of his, he has become God, beyond reason, ready to administer justice himself.”
“If the man is beyond reason,” the President interjected, “then why are we wasting our time talking to him?”
“Mr. President, we’re not trying to reason with him. We are going to try to convince him of the necessity of giving us time just as we try to convince a terrorist of the necessity of giving us his hostages. Often, with time, the isolated, unreal world the terrorist lives in crumbles around him.
Reality submerges him, and his defense mechanisms collapse. This could very well happen in Qaddafi’s case. All the unforeseen consequences of his action may suddenly overwhelm him.”
The psychiatrist’s index finger shot up as it did whenever he wanted to issue a warning or stress a point. “That instant, if it comes, will be terribly dangerous. At that moment, a terrorist is ready to die, to commit suicide in a spectacular way. The risk that he may then destroy his hostages along with himself is immense. In this case …”
Jagerman did not need to finish the sentence. Everyone had understood. “But there is also, at that moment, the golden chance to take the terrorist by the hand, so to speak, and lead him away from danger. To convince him he is a hero, a conquered hero yielding honorably to superior forces.”
“And you hope that, somehow, we’ll be able to manipulate Qaddafi like that?”
“It is a hope. No more. But the situation offers very little else.”
“All right. But bow? How will we do it?”
“That’s the ultimate goal, Mr. President. The tactics we will have to work out as we talk to him. That’s why opening a dialogue is so crucial. We will adapt our tactics from what we learn listening to him. One must always continue saying, ‘We accept the situation because we know we’ll win in the end.”’
Except, the Dutchman thought as he heard his words drift through the crowded room, in the end one doesn’t always win.