Landrum Bolling knew Yasser Arafat in the grottos of Tunis and the underground bunkers of Beirut. Mr. Bolling was for years the US "back channel" to the Palestine Liberation Organization, carrying messages for both the Carter and Reagan administrations. A Quaker whose "Search for Peace in the Middle East" is a classic, Bolling regards Mr. Arafat as a tragic figure, indecisive, a micromanager who stayed in office too long - but also a father of his people who genuinely sought peace and whose public image as a terrorist is "nonsense." Robert Marquand caught up with Bolling, former president of Indiana's Earlham College, in Beijing, where, in his eighties, he arrived to consult with an international aid group.

Arafat's image - he infamously wore his pistol holster on the floor of the UN, for example - seemed confrontational.

Arafat's image was offensive to a lot of Americans. I remember an assistant secretary of State stopping me and saying, "I wish you could [talk] to your friend in Beirut, and tell him to shave off that stubble and put on a suit and look like an ordinary human being, instead of parading around as a guerrilla." Images stick in people's mind. Arafat looked like what people thought a terrorist should look like. This was a weakness, because Arafat never saw that about himself. He saw his image as a fighter for his people. He thought it was positive. He felt his people saw him standing up for them.

He was often called devious or untrustworthy.

He tried to be all things to all people. He couldn't make hard choices. He operated on the foolish principle of "keeping all options open" and had a compulsion to have "everybody love me." He was mortally afraid of losing his status as the symbol of the Palestinian cause.

I don't think, for example, there is any doubt Arafat wanted to end suicide bombing. The bombings were a disaster, and Arafat got full blame for them. Even doves in Israel became frightened. Bombings were a catastrophe for the peace process and for Palestinians. Arafat understood that. But he didn't have the courage to end it. He may never have been able to stop it, but he didn't try hard enough.

Other impressions?

He was capable of fiery anger. He was calculating, deliberate. I don't know exactly when he decided he no longer had a military option, but it was years ago. The idea that Arafat turned down a deal in 2000 at Camp David because he wanted to block peace and that his ultimate aim was to destroy Israel is absolute nonsense. He knew at least 15 years ago that the romantic idea of a military option was absurd.

The late Edward Said, the best-known American Palestinian, called Arafat's rule a tragedy for his people.

I agree. It was a great tragedy for Palestinians that they had Arafat always, and couldn't get rid of him.

I felt he should have left at least 10 years ago. ... He had serious flaws for the role he tried to play: He was an absurd micromanager; he wasn't creative, but reactive, and in negotiations he rarely put forth a positive proposal of his own.

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