A King's Ordeal

Crisis, which loves a vacuum, hovered last week over the kingdom of Jordan, a desolate desert nation of 1,500,000 Bedouins and Palestine refugees, broke and adrift now that its imperial British creators have left. Last week, seeing his country beset from within and without, Jordan's young (21) King Hussein bravely grabbed power for himself to save his crumbling country from crackup.

Chaos confronted him. His rabble-rousing Arab Nationalist Premier Suleiman Nabulsi had been openly negotiating federation with Syria--which would mean the end of Jordan's independence. The Saudis in the south and the Syrians in the north had used the Middle East crisis to send in troops; the Iraqis were poised, ready to intervene, in the northeast; the Israelis eyed that part of the kingdom lying west of the River Jordan.

The deal by which three Arab nations --Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia--undertook to replace Jordan's $36 million-a-year British subsidy was proving largely a desert mirage. Syria's first remittance turned out to be not a check but a cheeky receipt--for "services" provided Jordan by Syrian army units stationed in Jordan since last fall's Suez invasion. Desperately convinced that Jordan's only way to survive as a kingdom was to qualify for U.S. Eisenhower plan aid, the young King publicly denounced Communist influence in the country and set out to purge the Nabulsi Cabinet of its three most blatantly pro-Communist members.

Swearing on the Koran. He began by sending off his court minister with letters telling his allies, Nasser, Saud and the Syrian President, what he meant to do. (Saud's generous reply: "You will always find me on your side in person and with my forces.") The Jordanian Cabinet's taunting response was to propose establishing diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia. For the young King, the moment had come. First summoning 50 top army officers to the palace and exacting loyalty pledges, he demanded the Cabinet's resignation. Nabulsi, a left-wing and anti-Western economist (educated at the American University of Beirut), submitted his resignation but confidently expected his leaving to stir up trouble. His coalition controlled the majority of seats in Jordan's Parliament; the explosive street crowds of Jordan were on his side, and his policies were in cahoots with Egypt and the ruling leftists in neighboring Syria. Nabulsi also could apparently count on the decisive support of opportunistic Army Chief Ali Abu Nuwar, 34, even though the soldier had just sworn loyalty to the King on the Koran.

General Abu Nuwar, a shifty-eyed playboy with little command experience, is a crony of Syria's pro-Soviet strongman, Colonel Abdel Hamid Serraj. They had met when they were fellow military attaches in Paris, now talked daily by telephone. Against this impressive lineup, the young King could count only on loyal forces inside the army and the support of Bedouin chiefs.

At first the trial of strength was a standoff: three successive politicians tried to form a new Cabinet, and failed. After three days Nabulsi and his pro-Communist allies called out the mob. In Amman and the crowded cities of Palestinian Jordan, schoolboys started demonstrations in which thousands of refugees quickly joined. Some voices cried: "Down with the Eisenhower Doctrine." But most of the crowds shouted for the return of Nabulsi's Cabinet.

On the day of the demonstrations, a Syrian armored regiment crossed into Jordan. Fighting broke out among Jordanian army units at Zerka, a post northeast of Amman; three pro-Abu Nuwar officers were reported killed, ten wounded, ten captured. At this point, King Hussein moved to take over the government himself. He summoned his onetime friend, Abu Nuwar, to the palace. Then, as tanks and armored cars of the former Arab Legion rattled through the streets and ringed the palace, the young general was arrested and packed off by car for Syrian exile. Nabulsi and other leading leftist politicians were placed under house arrest. The palace announced that a "vile attempt" to take over the army had been frustrated, and Major General Ali el Hayari, 38, one of the top Arab Legion commanders in the days of the British Glubb Pasha, and a strong supporter of the King, had taken over as Jordan's new army chief.

Said el Mufti, an old-line conservative politician, was assigned to form a new Cabinet, and the palace announced hopefully: "Things are again normal." For the moment at least, Hussein had won the army. But in Jerusalem, Nablus, and Ramallah, huge crowds paraded through the streets shouting: "Down with the King." In Ramallah crowds broke into the radio station and halted a broadcast of King Hussein's speech of thanks to the army.

Across the border, Israel announced that it "viewed with concern" the doings in Jordan but would stay free of them so long as they remained internal. Israel, in fact, has a considerable responsibility for Jordan's turmoil: the most tumultuous of Jordan's agitators come from half a million Palestine refugees driven from their own country who now form a restless and disaffected overload on Jordan's desert economy. Another who bears responsibility is Egypt's Nasser, whose hate-filled Radio Cairo outpourings and political intrigue have inflamed the refugee-camp centers. In this chaotic situation, two Arab leaderships that mistrust each other --Iraq and Saudi Arabia--found common cause in trying to save the artificial kingdom of Jordan from falling to one of two enemies: either the Israelis outside or the Communists within.

With their help the young King might yet bring off his brave gamble.

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