Editer's Letter

Jackson's Track

When Gail Sheehy began work on her character portrait of Jesse Jackson, the fifth in our series of presidential hopefuls (page 46), it soon became apparent there would be something in it to offend everyone. Jackson has made headlines with daring initiatives and dismaying antiSemitism; there are rumors about women, rumors about money; as a man bom poor and black he is to many an inspiration and to others a symbol of danger—an "affront waiting to happen."

There are bound to be more tremors on the way to November. The point of Sheehy's approach is to try to give theme to episode. With Jackson this proved particularly problematic, not simply because of the passions he arouses but because his personal charisma is phenomenal. In Jackson's presence Sheehy felt herself dazzled. Only away from it was she able to focus on the more troubling aspects of his character. The central question that emerged was, surprisingly, this: Does Jackson want to be president? Or is he merely a

wounded ego whose only salve is the limelight? Sheehy's shoe leather took her from the trauma of his illegitimacy and rejection by his privileged blood father to the decisive moment, twenty years

ago, when he seized leadership by showing up in a television studio wearing a turtleneck spattered with the blood, he said, of Martin Luther King Jr. She met critics in the black establishment, she talked to the two people who know him best— his wife, Jackie, and his half-brother Noah—and she saw his power to inspire with idealism when white schoolchildren in small towns responded to his anti-drug evangelism by

screaming his name and reaching out to touch him. What emerges is an unforgettable portrait that will enable you to answer the question: Would a color-blind America elect Jesse Jackson president?

Editor in chief