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Black Prince. Part of Libya's touchiness grows out of its realization that it could not survive six months if the U.S. and Britain (which has given Libya $64 million) withdrew their support. Libya's meager exports of esparto grass (for paper currency), olive oil, nuts and camels pay for only a fraction of its imports, and U.S. grants total more than half Libya's annual budget. Rumors rife in Libya of local mismanagement of allied funds are small encouragement to pull out U.S. technicians and let the Libyans spend away on their own. Most of the charges of corruption swirl about a fringe-bearded son of a cousin of King Idris' known as the Black Prince, whose SASCO construction company is currently building a $7,000,000 road that starts 200 miles east of Tripoli and meanders 300 miles through the empty desert to the Sebha oasis.
Touchy and resentful of U.S. aid, the Libyans are nevertheless trying to wangle more of it. The U.S. has a lease until 1971 on Wheelus Air Force Base, where under ideal weather conditions shrieking F-IOI and F-102 jet fighters land and take off in flocks of 500 a day. But the U.S. has to listen if the King's ministers want to renegotiate. For the use of Wheelus, the U.S. paid an initial sum of $7,000,000 and 24,000 tons of wheat, agreed to an annual $4,000,000 rental until 1960 and $1,000,000 a year after that for eleven years. Libya has now demanded ten times as much—a whopping $40 million a year—in rent for Wheelus, and more perks besides. The U.S. has countered with an offer of $6,000,000.
Rooftop Antennas. The man who keeps his divided country from getting out of hand is 69-year-old King Idris, who runs Libya from a honey-colored palace in
Tobruk and lives by the tenets of the Senussi sect, which holds Libya's diverse tribesmen together: no alcohol, no tobacco, no coffee, no immodesty. So modest and unassuming is Idris that he ordered his own image removed from Libya's postage stamps and currency and has given two of his palaces to the state.
The King's policy is neutrality in Arab affairs, cautious friendship with the West, hatred of Israelis and Communists. If Americans on the scene often think their motives are misunderstood, they can take some comfort in the fact that no other foreigner fares much better. An active Soviet embassy, with rooftop antennas obviously monitoring Wheelus' frequencies, is allowed to operate, but it shares the frustrations of the U.S. in trying to cope with Libya's fierce pride.
Most surprising of all is Libya's care fu.lly independent course in Arab politics. Nasser's picture smiles from thousands of shopwindows, Libyans listen nightly to Cairo radio, and—as in much of the Middle East—many of Libya's schoolteachers are Egyptian. But Libya refused to take sides with Nasser against Iraq. To all demands for its fealty, Moslem and non-Moslem alike, Libya replies in the proud words of Al Raid: "We do not need imported principles."