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- <text id=92TT0882>
- <title>
- Apr. 20, 1992: The Ultimate Survivor
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Apr. 20, 1992 Why Voters Don't Trust Clinton
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 29
- WORLD
- The Ultimate Survivor
- </hdr><body>
- <p>Arafat walks away from a desert crash that kills three others
- </p>
- <p> Even before his latest brush with eternity, Yasser Arafat was
- described by allies and enemies alike as the Middle East's
- ultimate survivor. His 23-year tenure as chairman of the
- Palestine Liberation Organization has been marked by repeated
- political defeats, accidents and assassination plots. So after
- his plane was reported missing over Libya last week, political
- leaders restrained themselves from dwelling on what life might
- be like without him.
- </p>
- <p> Sure enough, he was rescued 12 hours later with only minor
- injuries. Three crewmen on his Russian-built turboprop plane
- were killed when it crash-landed during a sandstorm over the
- southern Libyan desert. He and his staff of nine had been flying
- from the Sudan to Libya when the storm closed in. Libyan search
- planes found the downed craft the next morning. "I'm well,"
- Arafat said.
- </p>
- <p> When the plane vanished, the P.L.O. appealed for
- international help, and former President Jimmy Carter phoned the
- White House with the request for American assistance. The P.L.O.
- later expressed its gratitude to the U.S., which has no official
- relations with the organization. But officials in Washington
- insist they were still only "evaluating" the request when Arafat
- was rescued. The U.S., they said, did "absolutely nothing" to
- help locate him.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-