A black Mercedes-Benz convertible, long and lethal-looking, pulled to a screeching halt before the Lebanese presidential palace in Beirut. A Lebanon honor guard snapped to attention and a military band blared forth the Syrian national anthem. Security men swarmed about the car. Then, from behind the bulletproof glass of the car door stepped a dapper little man with the look of a morose mouse.
The caller was Colonel Adib Shishekly, Syria's publicity-shy strong man, and he had come to ask a favor of his Lebanese neighbor. Iraq wanted to condemn him as a dictator at the next meeting of the Arab League, Shishekly wanted the charge defeated. King Talal of Jordan had already offered Shishekly his support. Egypt and Saudi-Arabia would automatically oppose anything suggested by Iraq's pro-British Premier Nuri es-Said. Lebanon soon made it clear that it would do likewise. Thus assured, Shishekly rode off to Damascus, and went back to slapping one decree after another on his country.
Decreed. A professional soldier with a passion for order, Adib Shishekly as an army colonel has been the power behind a succession of Syrian Prime Ministers since 1949. Last December, alarmed by his country's corruption and by Communism's increasing strength, he emerged from his calculated obscurity and took over the government, announcing, as he suspended Parliament, that he was really not a dictator at heart. Polite and painstakingly softspoken, he once endured an amateur performance of The Importance of Being Earnest to the bitter end although he knew no English. Scrupulously honest, even by his enemies' admission, he recently furnished his modest Damascus home on the installment plan because he had no ready cash. A narrow escape from Tommy-gun slugs a year ago has made Syria's dictator even more shy and retiring. At cocktail parties he is careful not to turn his back on door or window, and surrounds himself with a cordon of watchful guards.
The country he took over in December is but six years old; it finally broke free from France (as did Lebanon) in 1946. Democracy hardly had a chance to get started there; land-grabbing rich and ambitious politicians quickly brought chaos to the promising land. Shishekly's first step in December was to jail all rival top politicians and install his right-hand man, Colonel Fawzi Selo, in all their places. Two months later he issued the first of a blizzardlike series of nearly 200 government decrees which turned Syria virtually inside out.
The decrees covered everything from beggars on the streets to vigorous land reform. He abolished all titles such as pasha and effendi. He told Syria's editors that 70 newspapers were too many, and when they would not merge, he wiped out 19 of them. He rewarded motherhood: medals for mothers of three, free railroad passes for mothers of nine, and the rating of Grade Excellent for anyone with 16 children. He moved in on Syria's oppressive landlords, many of whose land titles are dubious.