[See Cover)
As the last flat light tipped the orange trees and spacious rose gardens, a car swung off the main road from Rabat and up the long drive to the big, Norman-style royal villa. His Majesty Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef, Sultan of Morocco, stepped out just as two cannon shots sounded through the still twilight air, signaling sunset and the end of Ramadan's day-long fast.
For the world's 400 million Moslems, Ramadan is the crudest month. From the moment in the predawn light when a white thread can be distinguished from a black, through each long day until sunset, they must not smoke, drink, eat, or indulge any other carnal appetite. Across the world of Islam from Casablanca to Djakarta, tempers are scratchy and emotions combustible. But Sultan Mohammed V moved with the kind of inner calm that is his special quality. He retired to a small room to pray, then sat down to break his fast.
After the sunset meal (eggs, steak), Mohammed V last week summoned his French chauffeur, his French cook, his French court photographer, and an old friend who is a French garage owner in Rabat, and repaired to the garden for a characteristically French game of boules (lawn bowling), throwing his hands in the air, wailing "Ayayaya" when he missed. For the rest of the long Ramadan night, Mohammed V alternated Moslem prayers with U.S. movies (The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Desert Caravan), retired at dawn to sleep until midafternoon.
Slow-Won Wisdom. This combination of Islam and West, of Moroccan nationalist with French boules companions, is characteristic of this thin-voiced, soft-eyed man who sits hunched on the edge of his throne almost as if overwhelmed by its high-arching brocaded back. In the turbulent world of emergent Moslem nationalism, Mohammed. 47, is an all but unique example of instinctive moderation surrounded by intemperate ambition. His is a skillful balancing act between tradition, which can become stagnation, and progress, which can become confusion.
For him, as for his country, the wisdom has been slowly won. The man the French picked as a puppet has become the unchallenged leader of the forces that liberated his year-old country. An autocratic king, he has become the strongest advocate of democratic rule for his people. A descendant of the Prophet and official champion of the faith, he is the most powerful influence for bringing Western education to his largely illiterate land.
Most important of all, he is an Arab nationalist who understands that young nations can cooperate with the West without jeopardizing either pride or independence. He scorns the xenophobic raving against the Western "imperialists'' that inflames Middle East relationships. Liberal Frenchmen have called him "our final card in North Africa"—though the fact of the matter is that if the French do not make an end to the bloody war in adjoining Algeria, none of their cards will be worth much. The U.S.'s interest is direct: it has a naval air station and four SAC air bases in Morocco from which, in case of war, bombers could command the Mediterranean and reach Russia itself.