Changes of Command

The national thrill that Jordan got three months ago by expelling Britain's longtime commander of Jordan's crack Arab Legion, Glubb Pasha, had spent itself. But Jordan, a poor desert kingdom crowded with 500,000 Palestinian refugees, had found no peace.

Last week Jordan got itself a new Premier and new army commander. The Premier was Said el Mufti, who resigned last December in protest against British attempts to take Jordan into the Baghdad Pact. Now he cried for a revision of the Anglo-Jordanian treaty, which provides Jordan with a $25 million-a-year British subsidy, more than half the country's total revenue. (The British, realizing that subsidy is an ugly word for a proud young nation, would probably agree to pay the same amount for the right to maintain bases and a tank regiment in strategic Aqaba.)

The new army commander is young King Hussein's young friend AH Abu Nuwar, 34. Able, articulate and British-educated, Lieut. Colonel Abu Nuwar was regarded as an ambitious intriguer by Glubb Pasha; he was packed off to Paris as military attache in 1954. Brought back by the King over Glubb's objections, Abu Nuwar became the leader of the free officers' group that got Glubb fired. Last week the King promoted Abu Nuwar to major general to preside over the 20,000-strong legion.

Like Egypt's Nasser, who also got himself promoted through a free officers' group, Abu Nuwar is an anti-Communist who believes in "using" Moscow both economically and diplomatically. But his first public statement in his new job was a wish to maintain close ties with Britain and to refuse Egypt's offers to join the Arab neutralist bloc. Much as the mili tants among the refugees want to make common cause with Nasser, young King Hussein the Hashemite seems eager to keep his country out of Nasser's embrace.

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