A Quiet, Legal Coup

In Syria coups d'etat are about as routine as city council elections, but last week's upheaval was one for the books. The eighth coup in 13 years--and the third since September 1961--it was engineered by a Parliament that had been dissolved by the army last March, and it brought to power as Premier a politician who had been tossed into jail at the same time. After announcing their return, the civilian upstarts told the army to go back to soldiering, and the army obeyed. With no violence at all, constitutional rule was restored.

Ever since Syria annulled its ill-starred union with Egypt last year, it has been groping for the right groove. First it leaned too far to the right, reversing reforms in the rush to erase Nasser's traces.A ground swell of pro-Nasser sentiment surged up as a result, and the army, anxious to restore stability, staged the March coup and dissolved Parliament.

It was only a matter of time before the unemployed Deputies were clamoring to get back in. Fortnight ago, President Nazem El-Koudsi and veteran politician Khaled El-Azm, a nimble opportunist who has served as Premier four times since 1941, boldly called the dissolved Parliament back into session.

Barred from their regular chamber by the army, the Deputies assembled on rows of wicker chairs in El-Azm's rambling Damascus mansion, voted to restore the liberal 1950 constitution with a few amendments. Their 156-10-1 choice for Premier was big (6 ft.), bespectacled El-Azm. Convinced that Parliament would steer an even course, the army quietly assented to the changes.

El-Azm, a wealthy, quadrilingual (Arabic, French, English, Turkish), landowner and industrialist, is one of Syria's most bizarre figures. He was Premier under the despised Vichy government, later became known as "the Red millionaire" for negotiating a $300 million Soviet-Czech arms deal as Defense Minister in 1957, yet managed to retain wide popularity.

El-Azm promised to hold free elections soon, and said that he would form a "Cabinet of National Unity" that would include all factions but the Nasserites and the Communists. Predictably, Beirut's pro-Nasser Al-anwar scorned the new government as A FARCE THAT CANNOT CONTINUE.

Other voices in the Middle East were more hopeful. "There will perhaps be more clashes." judged Beirut's moderate L 'Orient, "but one can now have faith in Syria's future. The Syrians have rediscovered the institutions best adapted to their country: a liberal, representative, parliamentary regime."

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