(2 of 3)
A roly-poly Dutchman named Adrian Pelt left his job as Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. to become U.N. Commissioner in Libya, took a staff of experts to work with him. A provisional assembly of 60 Libyans—20 from each province—meeting under the U.N.'s wing, decided that the country should be a federal monarchy, drafted its constitution, and planned elections. Without argument, the assembly settled on a King—Sayid Mohammed Idris el Mahdi el Senussi, Emir of Cyrenaica, spiritual and political leader of the devout and powerful Moslem Order of the Senussiya, and in his own right the strongest personality in Libya.
A scholarly, fine-boned Arab of 62, who wears the blue robes of a Bedouin monarch and speaks in a high, thin voice, King Idris I led his Senussi tribesmen in two wars against the Italians, now uses a converted Italian barracks near Benghazi as his palace. He trusts the West, and privately refers to the seven-nation Arab League as "an alliance of weaknesses." But recognizing Libya's kinship with the rest of the Moslem world, he plans to join the Arab League. "If anybody ever succeeds in cementing this country together," says an English veteran of Libya, "it will be the King. The cement is Islam—these people really believe and live Islam." (The first daub of cement: a royal decree establishing two capitals, the main one in Tripoli, and the second in Benghazi to allay Cyrenaican fears of Tripoli.)
Full of Beans. After a year of working with the King and his contagiously optimistic ministers, even some of the pessimistic foreigners in Libya have become more hopeful. "There's a chance for real democracy here," says Pelt. "I think they can make a go of it—the Libyans are full of beans and ready to try." Actually, in independence the Libyans will be getting more outside help and guidance than they got as a colony. The British, who hope to be Libya's big brother, have provided scores of civil servants to staff the government, are putting up some $6,000,000 to get things going (as opposed to $1,000,000 from the U.S.) and to underwrite Libya's annual budget deficit. The French left experts behind in Fezzan, and are giving the province $500,000 a year.
Libya's attraction for the U.S., Britain and France is chiefly strategic. Britain and France will be allowed to keep garrisons in Libya, and the U.S. its big Wheelus Field bomber base near Tripoli. But Libya's new leaders have shown that they do not want to be bottle-fed forever. "So far, they have made encouraging progress because they've asked for advice as well as aid," says a Western diplomat.
As the day of istiqlal approached last week, the government prepared for it with a sort of dazed reverence. The ministers scuttled between the two capitals in a borrowed U.N. plane, to arrange a three-day celebration. Someone got the loan of a U.S. howitzer for a 101-shot salute, then found an old Turk who thought he knew how to fire it. A team of G.I. technicians visited the King in his dagger-hung study, to record his independence proclamation for broadcast. The King patiently reread the speech four times and then, when it was played back on a wire recorder, widened his eyes and giggled.