Syria's Rafic Jouejati

Ambassadors have prestigious titles, but not necessarily real job satisfaction. Hollywood's American Ambassador is tall, elegant, white-haired and rich. This reflects, however imperfectly, the current reality of the wealthy man—or occasionally woman—who contributes heavily to the winning political party and is rewarded by an Ambassadorship.

Another and harder way to get to the top is via the career service. Twenty to twenty-five years of hard work, plenty of luck and care not to upstage superiors and keep any reservations about policies within channels and out of the press might gain a career officer an Ambassador's job. Either way the title is the same.

A member of an establishment Damascus family, Dr. Rafic Jouejati, the Syrian Ambassador to Washington, made it to the top the hard way, via the career route. The coveted but trying Washington assignment might well have gone to a long-term activist member of Syria's ruling Baath (Resurrection) Party, many of whom occupy top diplomatic positions. Instead it went to an intellectually distinguished professional diplomat holding degrees, including a Ph.D., from four universities. During four nerve-wracking, roller-coaster years in Washington, Dr. Jouejati has had the satisfaction of helping to defuse some extremely serious crises in U.S.-Syrian relations.

Dr. Jouejati's most long-lasting difficulties began with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. Syrian forces had been invited by the President of Lebanon in 1976 to intervene to end the Civil War there. They still occupied key road junctions in many parts of the country. Israeli forces tried to reach and cut the Beirut-Damascus road. The Syrian Army stopped the Israeli advance on the road but in the fighting lost some 80 planes to the superior U.S. military technology possessed by the Israelis. This was a bitter time for Ambassador Jouejati who found himself sometimes facing baiting American journalists. His attitude towards most American media personalities, especially on TV, is bemused irritation. A man immersed in Syria's ancient history, Rafic Jouejati is simply unable to comprehend the lack of historical depth of many U.S. reporters.

Even from the ruins of Lebanon, where, to borrow poet Matthew Arnold's bleak phrase, "ignorant armies clash by night," the Ambassador at last found an opportunity. U.S.-Syrian relations had sunk to their all-time low point when two wings of U.S. Navy aircraft had bombed Syrian anti-aircraft defenses in Lebanon and lost two planes. Ambassador Jouejati helped resolve the impasse. He encouraged the Reverend Jesse Jackson to travel to Damascus where Jackson persuaded President Hafez al-Assad to release the surviving Navy flier, Lt. Robert O. Goodman. The Lieutenant returned safely to the United States under intense but favorable U.S. media coverage, including a public ceremony at the White House, and there was no more fighting between Syrian and U.S. forces in Lebanon.

Another bad stretch began in May 1983 with a U.S.-brokered deal for Israel to "withdraw" from Lebanon. Syria balked over this one-sided arrangement which eventually was revoked by Lebanon. Americans with first hand experience of the Middle East understood Syria's natural concern with Israel's continued military presence in Lebanon, but Ambassador Jouejati encountered little official U.S. understanding and even less from the American media. The roller-coaster eased temporarily with the "escape" from imprisonment in Lebanon of Cable News Network correspondent Jeremy Levin, who attributes his release to appeals by his wife, Sis, and Quaker educator Landrum Bolling to the Syrian government. The recommendations of Dr. Jouejati that Syrian government officials talk to them in Damascus also helped.

His inborn Levantine shrewdness and mental dexterity; nearly 30 years of diplomatic experience; and degrees from the Syrian University, the Sorbonne, the University of London and New York University all contributed last June to produce another happy result. A TWA flight with 40 American hostages was being held by Shi'ite captors in Beirut. Their freedom depended on the release of more than 700 Lebanese hostages held in Israel. The resulting dangerous stand-off was broken when the United States asked Israel if it would object if Syria told the Shi'ite captors that Israel would release the hostages it held if the Shi'ites first released the Americans. Israel did not object on claimed grounds that it intended in any case to release its hostages. The Americans were released and Israel released, however belatedly, its hostages. One of the authors of this brilliantly simple face-saving formula was probably Rafic Jouejati.

Married with three children, Ambassador Jouejati is an elaborately courteous Middle Easterner enamored of poetry and flowery speech. He has occasionally shown irritation at the baiting tactics of certain TV journalists, but his public personality is one of bubbling good humor and geniality. The more private man is a widely-published author with impressive intellectual talents. All of these attributes have obviously contributed to his skill at riding roller coasters.

—Andrew I Killgore