Backfire?

In Cairo, Gamal Nasser's propagandists screeched their loudest at Jordan's embattled King Hussein. HUSSEIN SMUGGLES WEALTH TO SWITZERLAND, cried one headline. "How does King Hussein rule?" asked the newspaper Al Ahram. "Through prisons, guillotines, tanks and U.S. dollars." Radio Cairo's "Voice of the Arabs" called repeatedly for "death to the traitors who rule Jordan," put on a soap opera depicting a Hussein pursued by a fortuneteller croaking that his people will avenge his treasonous friendship with the U.S.

In Damascus, thousands of Palestine Arab refugees snaked through the streets chanting: "Let Hussein die like the dog his grandfather!" (King Abdullah, who was assassinated by a Palestinian Arab in 1951). Radio Moscow gleefully joined Nasser's chorus, described Hussein as "a friend of the bitterest enemies of the Arab world--the U.S., Britain and Turkey." The Cairo attacks were so patently absurd that Amman newspapers began publishing excerpts: "Jordanian Army Refuses Open Fire on Refugees" and "Demonstrations Being Staged Everywhere in Jordan." There were no demonstrations, as every refugee could plainly see.

Calm & Confident. At his palace desk in Amman, young King Hussein was calm and confident. As soon as the''Cairo campaign started, his police visited every school in refugee trouble spots, warned teachers that they faced instant arrest if they permitted any kind of demonstration by their students. Jordan's own radio returned salvo for salvo, refuting Nasser's charges, charging in turn that "Nasser is a Communist puppet" who is holding his people "under whip and chain."

At a hastily called press conference, Hussein dropped all pretense of Arab brotherhood, declared flatly: "There is no doubt Egypt and Syria are just instruments of international Communism." Ten months ago Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia agreed to pay Jordan $35 million a year to replace the subsidy once supplied by Britain, but only Saudi Arabia has fulfilled its promise. "The agreement is not worth the paper it is written on," said Hussein. Next day he took off for the desert to celebrate his 22nd birthday with a picnic and duck shoot.

Nasser's campaign of hate finally seemed to be backfiring. Where a word from Radio Cairo was once enough to start a riot, Nasser's rantings produced not a murmur among Jordan's 500,000 Palestinian Arab refugees, and scores of refugee leaders trooped to the palace to pledge their loyalty. If Nasser's campaign had been designed to frighten Iraq's King Feisal or Saudi Arabia's Saud as a demonstration of what could be done to them, it failed even more miserably. Instead, it brought fresh evidence of the growing isolation of Egypt and Syria in the Arab world. Answering a plea from six Iraqi religious leaders, Feisal and Saud joined in denunciation of Nasser's methods. "These attacks," said King Feisal, "will benefit only the enemies of Arabs and Moslems." Said Saud: "We will make an effort to end them."

Bureaucrats' Delay. Hussein has done far better than anyone ever dared hope, in keeping his turbulent kingdom together and aligned with the West. But he still rules under military law, still enforces a highway curfew from dusk to dawn, still has his police stop every car entering or leaving Amman. As long as his 20,000-man army remains loyal, Hussein can survive. But Jordan, an artificial country with no visible means of self-support (unless it finds oil), faces mounting economic troubles. Hussein desperately needs more aid if he is to keep his throne.

No Arab has risked more to align his country with the U.S. To let him down would deal a crushing blow to the U.S. position in the Arab world. But bureaucrats' delay in Washington has stalled several projects. U.S. officials in Jordan warn that time is shorter than Washington thinks.

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