WASHINGTON -- En route to Washington Sunday night aboard the blue-and-white C-137 emblazoned United States of America, former President Jimmy Carter was stunned to learn that the barely hours-old agreement that averted a massive U.S. invasion of Haiti was in trouble.
His aide, Robert Pastor, who had remained in Port-au-Prince, told Mr. Carter by telephone that the Haitian military leaders were "scared" by the tough language used by President Clinton in his 9:30 p.m. address announcing the pact to the American public.
Mr. Clinton's use of the word "dictators" had irked the Haitian generals. Mr. Pastor suggested that they could be calmed by a meeting with Lt. Gen. Henry H. Shelton, commander of the U.S. military forces offshore.
General Shelton and other U.S. commanders met with the Haitian leadership yesterday morning before U.S. forces came ashore.
Mr. Carter was even more surprised to find out that his air-to-shore conversation had been picked up by a ham radio operator, who passed it on to Cable News Network.
"That's what happened to Prince Charles," Mr. Carter dryly told CNN. The eavesdropping was a bizarre nightcap on an extraordinary day.
Mr. Clinton was clock-watching when he held his first meeting with advisers around 8:30 a.m. Sunday.
The commander in chief had given his three emissaries -- Mr. Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Colin L. Powell -- a noon deadline to wrap up an agreement or get out of Haiti.
At the outside, they could stay until 3 p.m., giving them a cushion before the vanguard of the invasion arrived.
Fully briefed, Mr. Clinton went to the one place he could be alone with his thoughts: his church.
As he bowed his head, Clinton heard the Rev. J. Philip Wogaman of Foundry United Methodist Church plead, "Oh, God, be with the president of the United States," in his "awesome and sometimes very lonely responsibilities."
From there, it was back to the Oval Office and a steady stream of advisers and phone calls.
Mr. Carter had been reporting "glimmers" of progress, but there was nothing concrete.
At 1 p.m., Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili passed through the Secret Service cordon at the Oval Office to give Mr. Clinton a chance to call off the invasion.
Once the president gave the go-ahead, several thousand paratroopers from the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division would take off aboard 61 aircraft.
The order had to be given by 3 p.m. so Operation Uphold Democracy could begin with the paratroops -- scheduled to go in to Port-au-Prince one minute after midnight.
"Pack 'em!" Mr. Clinton said.
In Port-au-Prince, the most important meeting may have been the one that began shortly after the U.S. delegation left its hotel Sunday morning. Mr. Carter wore a white guayabera shirt, khaki trousers and loafers, in contrast to the dark suits of his colleagues.
Meeting general's wife
At the suggestion of some local businessmen, they went to the home of Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras and met with his wife and family for 90 minutes.
Mr. Carter would later call Yanick Cedras "one of the strongest and most powerful women" he'd met and said she was "adamantly" against any agreement that violated Haiti's sovereignty.
"Her family was military," said Mr. Nunn. "She is very patriotic. And, frankly, I think the family had taken the decision the evening before to die together."
But General Powell, for whom the Haitian military has great respect, spoke eloquently about the real meaning of courage, honor and duty. Mr. Nunn emphasized the duty of generals to protect an army from being completely destroyed.
"It was a very important meeting," said Mr. Nunn. "It had an effect on General Cedras."
Mr. Carter came away thinking they had persuaded Mrs. Cedras, and that she would influence her husband.
Shortly after noon, discussions resumed at the military headquarters, but earlier progress was slowed by details.
The sticking point: The military would not agree to a date certain on which to leave power. Still, Mr. Carter was telling Washington that he sensed a breakthrough.
The first urgent warnings went out to Mr. Carter and his team about 5 p.m. Mr. Clinton wanted the group to leave Haiti so the invasion could commence.
"I frankly had come to the conclusion that we were not going to reach an agreement," Mr. Clinton said later. "I told President Carter, I said, 'This is uncomfortable for me. We've been friends a long time. I'm going to order you out of there in 30 minutes. You have got to get out.' "
Mr. Carter pushed for more time.
U.S. public opinion weighed
Outside, hundreds of Haitians, some hauled in by trucks, demonstrated noisily against exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. On state TV broadcasts, images of the American president were accompanied by a lyrics sung in Creole: "Clinton, Clinton, you are angry, what can a little country like Haiti do to you, why do you want to send Americans soldiers to kill us?"
Closeted in the command post meeting rooms, the leaders kept a television set in the room tuned to CNN. Whenever anything about Haiti came on, the discussions would cease and the generals would pump up the volume.
The Haitian generals were keenly attuned to developments in the United States. When the Carter-led delegation arrived Saturday, their hosts boasted that "Seventy-three percent of Americans oppose an invasion."
The generals seemed to be relying on opposition in Congress to halt the invasion. Mr. Nunn made it clear that this would not happen, that Mr. Clinton would have acted by the time the debate occurred in Congress.
At 5:45 p.m., General Shalikashvili had issued the "execute" order for the invasion. By 6:47, the first aircraft had departed from Fort Bragg.
Crucial call about troops
Around 7 p.m., Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby came into the room holding a cellular phone.
"General Powell," he said, ". . . the Americans have already launched, moved their paratroopers."
A Haitian-American or someone sympathetic to Haiti living in the Fort Bragg, N.C., area is believed by White House officials to have reported the liftoff of the planes.
Mr. Carter said that he was distressed by the news and that it "was a very disturbing thing to us and to them." The president said later that there had never been a plan to have them talking while U.S. planes were flying.
Still, the Haitian generals blinked.
As Mr. Carter would say later, the Haitian knowledge of the invasion order -- the "inexorability" of the entry of U.S. forces -- was critical to reaching a settlement, even though it nearly scuttled the talks.
General Biamby, perhaps the most virulently anti-American of the Haitian ruling troika, was hot over the news.
He seemed on the verge of saying, "This is just a trick to keep us occupied, let's not negotiate anymore."
Mr. Carter assured them that this was no ruse, and that he in fact had not known the precise timing of the invasion.
General Powell stoically detailed the elements of the invasion force.
"Powell gave the best oral description of every piece of equipment and all the soldiers, sailors and airmen that were coming in, and that was the convincing thing to Cedras," said Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
After General Powell spoke, the generals seemed to soften. Finally, someone suggested consulting with provisional President Emile Jonassaint across the street in the presidential palace.
Mr. Carter called Mr. Clinton.
"We're almost there, we've about got this nailed, we're going over to the presidential palace."
"OK, you have 30 more minutes and then I will have to order you to leave," Mr. Clinton replied tersely.
Together the Americans and Haitians, protected by a security cordon, waded through a huge crowd to the palace.
Once there, General Cedras repeated he wasn't going to sign the agreement, saying it would be an offense for which he could be court-martialed.
Faced with a touchy situation, Mr. Carter had to leave the room to call Mr. Clinton to see if the president would accept the signature of Mr. Jonassaint, whom the administration had considered a powerless puppet and didn't recognize.
Mr. Carter came back into the room and said that Mr. Clinton had said, "Do it."
Mr. Jonassaint pointed his finger at each member of the military staff and government and said: "We're going to do this. We will take peace instead of war. I will sign this agreement."
The other members in the room disagreed. The minister of defense declared: "I will resign tomorrow."
But Mr. Jonassaint picked up a pen and signed the documents.
Mr. Powell turned to General Cedras: "Do you honor this agreement that your president has confirmed as binding on all Haitians?"
General Cedras replied, "We are military men, we work under civilian authority, and we pledge on our word of honor that we will carry out whatever our president tells us to do."
In Washington, the once and seeming future president, Father Aristide, nervously spent a good part of Sunday at the White House.
National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and other administration officials sought to reassure him that the agreement would work out and he would be returned to power as promised.
"This was a difficult moment for him," Mr. Lake said later, "because now he has a few more weeks to go."
'Cancel H-Hour'
At 8:20 p.m., Mr. Carter called President Clinton to report that he had a signed agreement.
Moments later General Shalikashvili issued a simple command: "Cancel H-Hour."
The planes were recalled 73 minutes into their flight, about half the way to Haiti.
Off the coast of the island, Navy SEALS were three minutes from launching inflatable boats from the USS Nashville to attack Cap Haitien.
Aboard the aircraft carriers America and Dwight D. Eisenhower,
helicopters were on deck with their rotors turning. Assault craft were primed and ready to go to "Condition 1-Alpha."
Then everything stopped.