I will return to Tunisia.
So, we were an official delegation in Tunisia
and an official delegation of the PLO sat with us.
There is the photograph with Arafat in the two different hats.
In effect, we raised the level of the relationship between us to official.
It should be understood that after Arafat received me in Beirut,
the PLO's doors were opened.
Everyone who had been afraid to meet me previously − suddenly I was acceptable.
We were all acceptable, the Rais had confirmed this.
There was a moment, although I don't quite remember the nature of it…
I think people were ready to meet with me, but not with the two others
because Arafat had already met with me and not yet with them.
But that meeting opened everything up
and we released an official communiqué about that meeting,
and the meetings that had taken place with Arafat in Tunis came to be held regularly.
I met with him in Tunis, a half dozen, perhaps a dozen times,
sometimes alone, sometimes as part of 'The Three Musketeers'.
I remember one meeting we had in Paris
with Sartawi who had received a phone call telling us that the Rais
was inviting us to come to Tunisia.
Matti didn't want to go as two days later he was scheduled to give a lecture at the university.
He was a university professor of modern Arabic literature or medieval Arabic literature,
I forget, and he could not be absent.
So we urged him and persuaded him. Finally, he agreed to come,
provided that he came for only one day, we would meet with Arafat
and he would immediately depart. Okay.
It took a long time to convince him
and there was the risk that we would be late for the plane at Orly airport.
That's when we received a huge honor:
the French police escorted us, with one police car in front and another behind,
on a road which was totally jammed from Paris to Orly,
sirens on all sides
and somehow we arrived and luckily the plane was late.
So we flew to Tunisia.
We arrived in Tunisia. 'Where is Arafat?'
The Rais was travelling around the world, he was going to be late,
and he would not arrive that day.
When will he come? Nobody knew. Arafat never announced his travel arrangements in advance.
He was a genius at security arrangements,
which was how he remained alive.
One of the components of that genius was that no one ever knew where he was,
when he was flying, when he would come, when he would leave.
There was one instance when he was supposed to come to Vienna.
Kreisky left Vienna for the airport which is outside of the city −
quite a distance −
and arrived at the right time, and waited for Arafat,
but Arafat did not come. Arafat was supposed to have come on the private plane
of the President of Romania, [Nicolai] Ceaușescu,
but he didn't come.
Nobody could say when he would be coming, and Kreisky was standing there −
Arafat was two or three hours late, I think.
We were sitting in Tunis, the three of us,
no one had any idea when Arafat would come,
and both of us, with Sartawi,
were forcing Matti to stay,
although he wanted to leave because he had to get to Tel Aviv, as he had a lecture to present.
Eventually Arafat arrived, we met with him,
we put Matti on a plane to Rome,
and from Rome to Athens and from Athens he got back in time to give his lecture.
He was a character was Matti.