(5 of 8)
Sleepless Nights. The testing time had come. Caught up in the sand-blown vortex were all the spiraling, competing ambitions that agitate the Middle East. Jordan's real estate might not be worth much, but denying it to someone else mattered a great deal. Seen simply, the issue was between the nations like Iraq and Saudi Arabia which have chosen Washington, and Egyypt and Syria which are playing with Moscow. But nothing is ever that simple in the Middle East. King Saud likes Ike. but does not defy Nasser. Syria's President Shukri el Kuwatly has himself flown to Moscow—but is disturbed by the way his ambitious young army colonel, Abdel Hamid Serraj, is nuzzling up to the Communists. Nasser himself would not want Jordan to deteriorate so rapidly that either of his enemies, Iraq or Israel, might march in. In such confusion, there was a chance for Jordan's young King to maneuver. So began his busy days and sleepless nights. He flew off to Saudi Arabia to see King Saud, the blood enemy of the Hashemites, whose concern over Communist penetration now runs thicker than blood feuds. Saud promised money to the young King. Within the Jordanian army,
Hussein secretly mustered the Bedouins against Abu Nuwar's Palestinians, and beat them to the punch by signaling for a rising at the army's Zerka headquarters. Then, taking the untrustworthy Abu Nuwar with him, he rushed out to confront the rampaging Bedouins, narrowly saved his quaking general from being shot, and won wild cheers from the tribesmen by leaping atop an armored car and shouting: "If you do not want me as your King, I will go!"
As his Bedouins swarmed over Amman, with faces blackened by charcoal as a sign they meant business, Hussein began warily to consolidate his opening triumph. There were, after all, other armies in Jordan. He invited Abu Nuwar to take a fortnight's leave in Syria, and kept on former Premier Nabulsi (known as "the ten-faced man") as Foreign Minister in a new Cabinet. King Hussein carefully proclaimed that Jordan would stick to its policy of "positive neutrality" and reject "imperialism" and foreign alliances. Then he talked Major General Ali Hayari, who comes from Abu Nuwar's home village of Salt, into taking over the army command, promising him a free hand in the job.
Hayari bustled off to Zerka to find out who had set off the previous week's rioting. He fastened the blame on four Bedouin officers and put them under house arrest. He hustled back to report to Hussein—only to find the four Bedouin officers drinking coffee in a palace reception room. "I didn't send you to arrest my boys," explained the King.
When Hayari reminded him of his pledge not to interfere, the King pounded the table and shouted: "I'm King! I do what I want! This is my country. I will join the Baghdad Pact, if I want. I will invite Richards to come here, if I want. This is my country." Hayari saluted and took off by car for Damascus, leaving his letter of resignation behind him, and proclaiming, when he got to Syria, that the U.S. was spending fabulous sums in Jordan "to buy traitors." After naming a more compliant Bedouin to be chief of staff, Hussein ordered a purge of 60 army officers ("Replace them with sergeants who will fight for the King!" he said).