Just for a change, a U.S. ambassador abroad was being cheered.
In 1956, anti-Western mobs in Amman menaced the U.S. embassy; other mobs bombed and burned USIS buildings. But last week, as scholarly looking Ambassador William B. Macomber Jr., 40, motored along the Jordan valley, the crowds applauded. Macomber was on his way to opening ceremonies of the new East Ghor Canal, a U.S.-backed project that will bring badly needed irrigation waters from a River Jordan tributary, the Yarmuk, to the parched Jordan valley. Direct beneficiaries will be 3,800 needy farmers and their families.
King Hussein himself helicoptered to the ceremony. He...
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