The Big Parade

Making up for eight weeks spent in the hospital recovering from an assassin's bullets, Iraq's Premier Karim Kassem turned to unfinished business. In his headquarters inside Baghdad's ugly yellow brick Defense Ministry, he put seven committees to work on crash programs, one reorganizing the army (and negotiating with Moscow for arms), a second restudying Iraq's foreign policy, another drafting a new constitution, a fourth drawing up an electoral law to regulate the long-promised return of "normal" political activity on Jan. 6. By that date Kassem himself hopes to reassert his position as "sole leader" dominating the political parties.

The one Iraqi party that supports Kassem's home and foreign policies without giving allegiance either to Cairo or to Moscow is the National Democratic Party. Since last summer the National Democrats have been fighting a fierce battle with the Communists for the loyalties of Iraqi farmers. The Communists won the first skirmish by getting a Redlined onetime hospital orderly elected to the presidency of the National Federation of Peasants' Associations. But the farmers thereupon deserted the Peasants Federation. Last week, in defiance of the Federation, the National Democrats led more than 100,000 Iraqi farmers and peasants past the Defense Ministry in a five-hour parade celebrating Kassem's recovery. Obviously much more wary of assassination than before, Kassem kept well away from the crowds as he appeared briefly on a platform to answer cheers. But if he needed reassurance that non-Communist support for him exists in his dispirited country if he invokes it, the marching farmers provided it.

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