AMERICAN IN DANGER
Cabled TIME Correspondent John Mecklin, after coming out of Baghdad last week:
IT IS the consensus among responsible American observers in Baghdad that Iraqi Communists deliberately planned—even if they did not bring off—the mob murder of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Rountree when he arrived last week on his fact-finding tour. It is also clear that the revolutionary government of Brigadier General Abdul Karim Kassem knew this and was unwilling, or unable, to prevent it.
In the days preceding his visit, every Baghdad newspaper attacked Rountree as "the envoy of evil and plots." A party-line newspaper cried that "the Iraqi people will not permit the American envoy to enter their country." The Communist-front Peace Partisans fervidly appealed "to our peace-loving masses to vigorously condemn this emissary of imperialism and Zionism." Since no country outside the Soviet bloc has a tighter press control than Iraq, U.S. Ambassador Waldemar Gallman formally asked the Iraq Foreign Ministry if it still wanted Rountree to visit Baghdad. The answer was yes, and the newspaper attacks were explained away on the grounds of a "free" press.
Chants and Stickers
The morning of Rountree's arrival, high school teachers dismissed classes, told their students to go out to the airport. Communist leaflets urging a "mass protest" fluttered through the city's streets. As U.S. Chargé d'Affaires David Fritzlan drove to the airport in a black embassy Cadillac flying the American flag, he found that last quarter-mile of his route clogged with people chanting in English: "Rountree, go home!" At the air terminal, a milling crowd of several thousand brushed aside the ineffectual police and troops to plaster the car with go-home stickers. Mob leaders were even allowed up on the terminal roof to direct the mob.
As Envoy Rountree stepped from the Iraqi Airways Viscount that had brought him from Cairo, the only government official to meet him was a lowly Foreign Ministry protocol officer. Fritzlan bundled Rountree into his car, and with quick presence of mind ordered the Iraqi driver to leave the airport by a side gate, away from the main crowds. As the Iraqi protocol officer got into his own car to follow, he quipped nervously: "I hope the people understand I am not an American." The Cadillac exited to shouts of "Go Home, Rountree!" from Iraqi Airways mechanics around the plane.
Garbage and Mud
The mob was already redeploying. A paper bag full of garbage smashed against a side window just as Fritzlan rolled it up. Tomatoes, eggs, handfuls of mud scooped up from the gutters splashed over the car. Fritzlan told Rountree there were reports "that the price of tomatoes has gone up 20 fils [about 5¢] in anticipation of your arrival." It was not a very good joke, but white-faced, composed Bill Rountree smiled faintly.