Dukakis Appeals to Jackson Forces : Nominee Tells Delegates: ‘We Need You . . . We Can’t Win Without You’

HOUSTON — In a final display of party unity, Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis told the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s delegates, “We need you, we want you and we can’t win without you,” after winning an emotional pledge of support from Jackson on Friday morning.

In a joint appearance with Dukakis and vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen at a unity breakfast in Atlanta, the civil rights leader urged about 1,000 of his supporters to put aside their differences to work for the Democratic ticket. Jackson called Dukakis “the man I have grown to love” and spoke of his “respect” for Bentsen.

“I’ve begun to establish a relationship with Sen. Bentsen, and access with Gov. Dukakis,” Jackson said as the two new nominees beamed by his side. “ . . . I feel secure.”

‘They’re Jealous’

At the same time, Jackson ridiculed Republicans who charged that he was a hidden part of a Democratic troika with the two nominees. “They’re just having a relapse into Reagan-Bush astrology,” Jackson said. “They’re jealous.”

Dukakis reached out in kind, paying tribute to Jackson and appealing to his delegates for support. As one woman shouted, “Tell it, Duke! Tell it!” Dukakis said: “We have 110 days, and I hope we can enlist every single one of you in this cause.”

Jackson used the meeting to give a stirring appraisal of his historic campaign.

“We’re moving on up, and in our lifetime you and I will be in the White House,” he said to cheers.

“In this convention, just as Gov. Dukakis wished his father could have been here last night, I wished Dr. (Martin Luther) King could have been here,” Jackson said. Then he paused and added with a catch in his voice: “Oh, how I wish Dr. King could have been here!”

The meeting seemed to mark the end of a rift that dominated the convention early in the week, and it has threatened to split the party for months. Given the recent acrimony, Dukakis aides said that they were surprised by Jackson’s warm remarks.

“If you had told me a week ago we’d have come out of the convention with that kind of meeting, I’d have been very skeptical,” said Paul P. Brountas, Dukakis’ campaign chairman and the man who led sometimes tense negotiations with Jackson in the last 10 days.

Cross-Country Swing

After the meeting, Dukakis and Bentsen left Atlanta on a cross-country swing to Texas and California, hoping to gain instant political mileage in two key states from their triumph in Atlanta.

Joe Warren, Dukakis’ general election campaign coordinator and top black adviser, said the breakfast session with the Jackson delegates was critical, given Bentsen’s conservative voting record in the Senate.

“I did a lot of talk radio this week and there was a lot of talk about how he’s a conservative this and a conservative that, and a klansman this and a klansman that, and Jesse set the record straight,” Warren said. “His people obviously listened. When they started saying, ‘Duke! Duke!’ I knew we were gonna win.”

As the campaign entourage--suddenly expanded to two jets, two dozen Secret Service agents and 119 journalists--flew to Texas for blistering outdoor rallies in McAllen and Houston, exhausted Dukakis aides exulted about their candidate’s powerful acceptance speech Thursday night.

Aides said that Dukakis deliberately kept a low profile during the first three days of the convention, hoping for a more dramatic appearance.

Still, Nick Mitropoulos, an adviser who has traveled with Dukakis more than 300,000 miles in the last 16 months, was nervous. “You never know how these things are going to work out,” he said.

But, he said, when Dukakis heard the music swelling in the hall and saw the spotlight on the podium, “we could feel it was very special.”

“Remember all those cafes in Iowa?” Dukakis told him. “We’ve come a long way.”

Then, as Dukakis walked out to the crowd’s roar, Brountas, his friend for three decades, reminded him, “Go slowly. Do it slowly.”

Brountas said Dukakis “fed off the energy” in the cheering, chanting crowd. “He told me later, ‘I walked out there, it exploded,’ ” Brountas said. “I don’t think he quite knew what to expect.”

‘It Was Him Hailing Them’

Brountas said when Dukakis threw his hands up upon mounting the stage, sending the crowd into a frenzy, “it wasn’t a triumphant move. It was him hailing them.”

Brountas said he feared at first that Dukakis would not recover his poise when he choked, fighting back tears, as he praised his late father, Panos, and his Greek immigrant saga.

“People say he’s cold, he’s arrogant, he’s unemotional,” Brountas said. “Then there are these moments.”

More than an hour later, when Dukakis finally walked off the podium as the new nominee, his speech interrupted nearly 100 times by applause, he grabbed Mitropoulos in a strong embrace and kissed him on the cheek.

The Massachusetts governor and his wife, Kitty, attended four parties after the speech and got only four hours’ sleep, Mrs. Dukakis said.

“I just fell asleep in the car,” she remarked as the plane left Atlanta. “I was in the middle of a sentence and fell sound asleep.”

1,000 Wait at Airport

When the campaign planes arrived at the airport in McAllen, near Bentsen’s hometown of Mission in the depressed Rio Grande Valley, about 1,000 people were waiting in 100-degree-plus heat. Fire Department officials said they had treated about 20 people for the heat while waiting for the candidates.

Both Bentsen and Dukakis spoke in Spanish to the heavily Latino crowd. Bentsen, a three-term Texas senator who knows that he must introduce the Massachusetts governor to Southern and Southwestern voters, said Dukakis “speaks a language we understand.”

“Michael Dukakis understands that when the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, there was a thriving culture here in the Southwest,” he added.

At a press conference shortly after, Dukakis denied that Democrats had engaged in “Bush-bashing,” or personal attacks on presumed Republican nominee, George Bush, at the convention. He then blasted the Republicans himself.

“We know who balances budgets and who doesn’t,” he said. “We know which party respects the law and which doesn’t.”

‘They’re Worried’

Later, speaking to several thousand people at a downtown park in Houston, Dukakis said Republicans “don’t know what to make of this ticket, and they’re worried.”

He also took a surprising new tack in his stump speech, blasting “bureaucrats in Washington” for the failure to build a natural gas pipeline from Texas to energy-hungry New England.

“You have the gas, we need it,” Dukakis said. “What’s the problem? It’s the bureaucrats in Washington who won’t approve those pipeline permits. Lloyd Bentsen and Michael Dukakis are going to shake up that bureaucracy!”

Dukakis and Bentsen were to spend the night in Stockton, Calif., and attend a rally this morning in Modesto. They will fly later to a state fair in Minot, N. D., and a rally in St. Louis.