Leadership for the League?

Egypt's Strongman Mohammed Naguib seemed likely last week to follow the example of Kemal Ataturk and outlaw the tarboosh (fez in Turkey) as a symbol of the Old Order. Tarboosh-makers protested: a tarboosh, they argued, nicely covers a bald man's baldness and adds to a short man's stature. Whatever the effect of their plea, Naguib continued knocking a lot of tarbooshes off a lot of prominent heads. Most prominent: Abdul Rahman Azzam, secretary general of the Arab League.

A brainchild of Britain's wartime Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, the loose-jointed league was formed in 1945 to promote the political federation of the Middle East--and to enable the British to deal with a single Arab agency instead of with half a dozen squabbling dynasties. At that moment, Saudi-Arabia's crusty old Ibn Saud grandly proclaimed that the league "enshrines the fondest hopes of the Arab people," yet by the time it was three years old, it went down to dismal defeat and division in the Arab-Israeli war. Since then, the Arab League has been torn by feuds between Egypt and the Hashimites (Jordan, Iraq), precariously held together only by a common desire to be revenged on the Israelis. Egypt's Azzam, a suave intriguer, became a symbol of the league's division and impotence.

Mohammed Naguib hopes to reorganize the league--and thereby the Middle East --under Egyptian leadership. As the Arab League delegates assembled in Cairo last week they were eager for a glimpse of the new strongman. He promptly snowed his hand, told Azzam to resign or be fired. Smiling, tarbooshed Azzam resigned. His successor: British-educated Abdel Khalek Hassouna, 53, onetime Egyptian Foreign Minister.

That settled, the league got down to business in an atmosphere of stern common sense, decided to 1) stop wailing about the Palestine refugees, and get down to drafting concrete proposals for their resettlement; 2) back Lebanon for the seat on the U.N. Security Council soon to be vacated by Turkey.

The league had a long way to go before it could hope to be an effective international force. But it looked better last week than at any time since its beginning. "The Arab countries," observed one delegate, "have vainly looked for Egyptian leadership . . . We have it this time."

At home, too, Naguib continued to prove a determined leader. On his first day as Premier, he presided over an all-night cabinet session (interrupted for prayers and sandwiches). At dawn next day, his government promulgated a code of reform laws designed to make sweeping changes in the ancient land of the Nile. The laws would: P: Expropriate all land holdings over 200 acres within five years, landlords to be compensated by the government. P:Distribute the new land (some 700,000 acres) to peasants owning no land or less than five acres. Maximum to be allowed new peasant landholders: five acres. P:Dissolve political parties, e.g., the Wafd, if they fail to live up to minimum standards of public morality.

Diplomats in London and Washington wondered out loud whether Naguib in his enthusiasm was pushing too far and too fast. Summary expropriation of land, for example, might dislocate the country's agriculture, cause food shortages. Strongman Naguib seemed prepared to take that risk.

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