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Outdated Qat. Against this regime, Sallal and his friends were plotting for 20 years, ever since he qualified for training at a military academy in Iraq. "In Baghdad," he says, "I was dazzled by all the wonderful things that did not exist in Yemen. If I viewed Baghdad as progress, you can understand what Yemen is like." Involvement in plots often landed Sallal in jail. He spent ten years as a prisoner, seven of them in solitary confinement in a dungeon at Hajjah, where he was chained to an iron ball. His stomach still suffers from the diet, and Sallal always keeps a bottle of BiSoDol near by. One of his first acts on getting power was to execute the Imam's director of prisons.
Still unanswered is what kind of government Sallal will give Yemen. San'a was thronged last week with hopeful advisers—sleek Egyptians, close-mouthed Russians, eager Yemenite exiles home for a new start. Electric light and water went on and off irregularly, and the royal palaces and guesthouses were jammed with sheiks squatting on the floor smoking water pipes, barefoot soldiers with tommy guns and kohl-eyed women who had daringly torn off their veils. Sheiks who spat qat on the carpets were reproved: ''Yemen is now a modern republic!."
Says Sallal: "I'm fighting against hunger, sickness and ignorance in Yemen. That is my goal, and you can label it anything you want to. I want a constitution within a year or two, and elections within five years. By then we should have done something worthwhile." He adds with humor: "Western diplomats should help us—for them, Yemen must be the worst post in the world."
* In Saudi Arabia, King Saud was so alarmed by the defection of four of his air force planes and their crews to Egypt that he resigned the office of Premier, turned it over to his brother, Crown Prince Feisal, a popular, able and tough-minded nationalist who believes in austerity and reform.