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in touch.” And then I went back to my office. And I said, “oh, how foolish of me. I should have invited him for lunch or dinner.” I called. I never could get through to him in that week, and we did not have lunch or dinner.

The addendum to this little piece. I wrote an article on this and it appeared in the New York Times in the tourist section, which is very widely read. The headline was: “Encounter in a Damascus synagogue.” It was rather brief. It just talked about the encounter. I thought it was well done. In fact, we got a lot of response to it.

The next week there is a letter denouncing me by the Syrian ambassador in this country, Dr. Kabbani. The letter said, “What an outrage that any American Congressman should convey that there is any danger in Syria,” and he made some reference to my having used this description of two American Congressmen found with their passports in their mouths -- I'd worked that into my little article. And the Times, as they always do, gave me an opportunity to respond, so they had a little paragraph from me responding to that. And I thought to myself, “I've got to do something about this. I'll call him up” So I called up Kabbani and I get through to him and I said, “Listen, Doctor, we should not be corresponding through the New York Times.” He said, “I didn't start it.” (laughs) Which I thought was a very good line. I said, “Let's have lunch.” So he said, “Okay.”

I arrange for lunch with him, and then I invited Joe Early,