Jackson Finds Perfect Match

The Jackson Five: (1) Traveler; (2) Interviewer; (3) Baby bouncer; (4) Savior; (5) TV star.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s recent activities in the Middle East are an example of how the Persian Gulf conflict has offered something for nearly everyone. In Jackson’s case, his highly publicized travels to Iraq and Kuwait--during which he interviewed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and obtained the release of 47 American hostages--have been celebrated this week on the syndicated “Inside Edition.”

Jackson emerges a hero.

Meanwhile, Hussein continues to address the United States through American TV.

Meanwhile, delegations of U.S. senators and congressmen flew to Saudi Arabia for photo opportunities in the sand, then flew home for obligatory TV appearances depicting them as jut-jawed patriots and authorities on gulf issues.

Meanwhile, CBS anchorman Dan Rather remains in the Middle East, using the gulf conflict as his very own action backdrop. There he was anchoring in front of troops deplaning from a transport. There he was anchoring from “forward U.S. positions” in the desert, a red banner waving in the background.

Meanwhile, NBC’s “Today” program--after seeing its ratings surge during host Bryant Gumbel’s recent week in Saudi Arabia--sought to capitalize on that windfall by having its reporter, Katherine Couric, report from Saudi Arabia this week. Quipped Willard Scott with his usual impeccable taste: “How are they gonna keep em’ down on the sand dunes after they’ve seen Katie Couric?”

Meanwhile, ABC’s daytime “Home” program last Friday traveled to Ft. Bragg, N.C., where some of the military wives seated in a base theater were reunited via satellite with their husbands serving in Saudi Arabia. More than merely tearful, emotional and morale boosting, it was perhaps the most striking example yet of war merging with the TV age.

Although the show was arranged in conjunction with the U.S. Army and ABC News, the producers were not told in advance which soldiers would appear. One by one they popped up on the screen in battle dress and gave their names, to be followed sometimes by a scream of recognition from one of the wives in the audience: “Oh, my God!”

As if in a game show, a match.

This week’s match has been Jackson and “Inside Edition” (7 p.m. week days on Channel 7), the King World series which indirectly may have helped liberate those Americans whose release was negotiated by Jackson.

After Jackson had been rebuffed elsewhere, it was King World that agreed to underwrite his trip to the gulf region in expectation that the TV interview he had arranged with Hussein would be the first granted to Western media by the Iraqi leader since the present conflict began. That coup collapsed when French TV and Rather beat Jackson to Hussein.

It was business, not altruism, that motivated King World. However, if it had not underwritten Jackson, who was an official state guest of the Iraqi government, he might not have gotten the chance to bring out the hostages.

King World paid Jackson no fee, only the $125,000 he asked for expenses, said Av Westin, the company’s senior vice president for reality based programming and co-executive producer of “Inside Edition.”

Undercut by the Rather interview, “Inside Edition” decided to interweave portions of Jackson’s interview with footage of him as liberator and traveling companion of the freed hostages on the flight home.

It also decided to repeatedly and misleadingly attach “exclusive” to Jackson’s interview. It was so “exclusive” that only about 17 of the total 30 minutes were used by “Inside Edition,” according to Westin, and even that portion reveals less about Hussein than about Jackson’s incompetence as an interviewer.

No wonder that on Tuesday Jackson’s mission was no longer even the lead on “Inside Edition.” Yet there was still more disingenuous horn-tooting by “Inside Edition,” such as touting the “incredible story” of Stuart Lockwood, the 5-year-old Britisher who appeared so terrified in that initial hostage video with Hussein.

The “incredible” story turned out to be Stuart’s mother saying her son had been more tired than scared, and Stuart sitting on Jackson’s lap on the flight home while recalling the games he played while a hostage.

“Welcome home, buddy,” said the incredible Jackson.

Soon came the long shot of Jackson carrying Stuart off the plane. It was a cheap photo opportunity, exactly the kind of self-serving orchestration that fosters skepticism about Jackson’s motives and even still may taint his hard- won triumph.

Actually, there was an incredible side to this story. It was a side that “Inside Edition” mostly missed, ironically, despite showing Hussein at the end of the interview, suddenly mentioning to Jackson the prospect of releasing a few hostages to him.

What “Inside Edition” didn’t provide, however, was a real sense of Jackson’s hard-nosed bargaining for the release of even more hostages. Although Jackson was billed as a “journalist,” the story was not by Jackson. The story was Jackson.

“It was the most incredible damn week I have ever passed through,” said Marshall Frady, the able former ABC News correspondent who accompanied Jackson to the Middle East as part of his research for a New Yorker article he is writing about him. Frady and Milton Viorst, who covers the Middle East for the New Yorker, sat in on the Friday interview in the presidential palace.

“Afterward we stood up, and it was almost like a little bargaining session at the end,” Frady said. “There were these last pleasantries, and Hussein began by saying, ‘By the way, Reverend, out of respect for you, we are going to release our ailing guests.’

Frady said Jackson seemed momentarily startled. “He said, ‘Thank you, Mr. President. But what about the women and children?’ And Hussein said, ‘We’ll give you some of those.’ And Jackson pressed him on, and said, ‘But how many?’ It was extraordinary, for about five minutes he kept bargaining Saddam up from the original seven hostages. . . .”

Still later, said Frady, Jackson pressed Hussein on releasing others on the embassy list of Americans hiding out in Kuwait. “And Hussein said through his interpreter, ‘If you want them, you can have them, too.’ ” The bargaining continued into the next day, with Jackson ultimately returning to the embassy compound in Kuwait to pick up sick hostages there, including a woman with cancer whom the Iraqis initially sought to retain.

“Jesse refused to leave without her,” Frady said. “I tell you man, it was heart-clobbering.”

Jackson ultimately flew out of Baghdad on an Iraqi jet with 237 hostages, including the 47 Americans whose release he personally obtained. Why would the calculating Hussein make these concessions to Jackson?

Frady is speculating here: “Jesse offered Hussein a way to sort of turn loose of all these people without it seeming that he was complying with U.S. governmental ultimatums and demands.”

And what of Jackson the self-promoter vs. Jackson the servant of humanity? “We all carry with us suspicions about his real authenticity,” Frady said. “His personality almost has to be described as part of quantum physics, with simultaneous aspects going on at the same time.”

Jackson has been shown on camera torn up with emotion about the hostages. An act? “I have been with him enough to know he is genuine and spontaneous,” Frady said. “When we were in the wreckage of a hospital in Soviet Armenia, with no cameras around, he just went off by himself and began to weep. I tell you he’s a piece of work.”