Psst!

By Kevin Fedarko

Nothing is quite so disarming to potential adversaries as a phone call from the President of the United States. Which explains why two swift calls from Bill Clinton last week brought a quick end to a rancorous strike that had grounded 10% of the country's air traffic and threatened to ruin Thanksgiving for thousands of travelers.

The idea of White House intervention between American Airlines and its 21,000 striking flight attendants did not originate with Clinton. Instead it appeared to come from AA's management. On Monday, hours after rejecting a call by flight attendants for a presidential emergency board, American sent a signal to Washington that the airline was ready to deal. That persuaded Clinton's senior adviser Bruce Lindsey to begin calling AA representatives and Denise Hedges, head of the flight attendants' union. A few hours later, all that remained was to pull Clinton out of an afternoon meeting so he could spend five minutes on the phone with each party. Said an Administration official: "It probably set a record in terms of the speed of White House action."

It also capped one of the longest sustained winning streaks of the Clinton presidency -- about seven days. Coming on the heels of the NAFTA triumph, images of elated flight attendants around the country shouting "Thank you, Bill!" afforded Clinton the novel sensation of basking in public acclaim while simultaneously massaging an important group of constituents -- organized labor -- whose anger he had provoked during the NAFTA brawl.

While Administration officials described the President's role as merely "facilitating," AA's chairman Robert Crandall grumbled that he acquiesced because he was leaned on. If that sounded insincere, the feint let Crandall, whose company hemorrhaged more than $10 million for each day of the strike, set a hardball tone for the upcoming arbitration, where both sides will put their cases before a third party.

In addition to wildly underestimating the leverage of his flight attendants, Crandall also miscalculated the depth of resolve among a group of employees whose sacrifices in terms of low pay and lost leisure time are exceeded only by the irritations they must suffer in the form of dress and weight codes to keep their jobs.

While Clinton's intervention may have forced management back to the bargaining table, it leaves unresolved the cost-cutting issues that gave rise to the dispute. None of that mattered, however, as jubilant flight attendants scrambled back to work. Among those holiday travelers heaving sighs of relief was Lindsey himself; on Wednesday night, the White House adviser boarded a previously booked flight home to Arkansas -- on American Airlines.

With reporting by James Carney/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Houston