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Quickly, the Egyptian radio shifted its attack to Glubb and the British com manders of the Arab Legion. Whenever Hussein appeared, crowds of refugees yelled for Glubb's head. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, venting its ancient hostility against the Hashemites, fed the flames by bribing Jordanian newspapers to print vitriolic attacks on the West. After running a savage attack on General Glubb, an Amman editor called on Glubb, told him with an apologetic smile: "The text came to my office with £500 in bank notes pinned to it, from a certain embassy. You've got a wife and family yourself. A man has to live, you know."
Under Glubb's counsels of moderation, Hussein himself was increasingly restive. "He was not entirely at ease with me," Glubb admits. "It is difficult for a young man of 20 to be happy and at ease with a middle-aged subordinate." At Hussein's side every day was hot-eyed young Lieut. Colonel Abu Nawar.
Nawar is one of the few ranking Legionnaires of Palestinian family. Once Glubb banished him (to a military attache's post in Paris) as "too extreme." But when the young King visited Paris for a vacation, Nawar was there to show him the gay sights, and Hussein brought him home to serve as his senior aide. Like many another young Arab legionnaire, Nawar resented British officers holding all the top commands. Then Hussein saw an article in a British magazine headed:
GLUBB RULES THE LEGION WITH AN IRON HAND, AND THE LEGION RULES JORDAN.
Hussein was infuriated.
At Hussein's insistence, Glubb produced a plan for more rapid Arabization of the Legion. His date for changeover to Jordanian command: 1961 or 1962. "And there was nothing at all said about the Arabization of the chief of staff," says Hussein. That afternoon Hussein went for a drive along the Jerash road with his closest friend, young Sherif Zeid. The lieavy royal brows were knit in thought. ""That was the moment," says Zeid, "when lie decided that Glubb had to go."
Two Hours' Notice. Back in Amman that evening, Hussein made up a list of officers "that I could be sure of." Colonel Abu Nawar telephoned his brother, a captain at the Legion's Zerka headquarters, read him the names of 35 officers he was to invite to his home forthwith for coffee.
An hour later Abu Nawar himself arrived to tell them "not to take orders from anyone but His Majesty or myself."
Next morning the King sat down and wrote out orders in longhand dismissing Glubb and two other British officers. At 11:45 the King went to the office of old Prime Minister Samir Rifai. He tossed his papers on the table: "These are my orders. I want them executed at once."
According to Glubb's account, the Prime Minister called him to his office at 2 o'clock that afternoon. The Prime Minister, never taking his eyes off the floor, said: "His Majesty the King orders that you take a rest." Glubb asked why. "Is he annoyed about something? I had a long and very cordial audience with him only yesterday. What is wrong?"