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Poison Drops. He is lucky to have reached the age of 31. In his 15 years as King, he has lost count of the bullets fired at him, the knives thrust at him and the would-be assassins who were caught before they could act. On one occasion, an assistant palace cook plotted to poison him, but gave himself away by testing the poison on 16 palace cats, all of which died. In 1958, at the controls of his de Havilland Dove on a flight to Europe, he was attacked by Syrian MIGS, escaped only by power-diving toward the desert floor and zigzagging across the border. In 1960, an attack of sinus trouble almost did him in: someone poured acid in his bottle of nose drops. The deed was discovered when a drop spilled on the sink and the King watched in fascination as it burned straight through the chrome fittings.
Hussein takes it all philosophically. "When your time comes to die, you die," he says. "It is God's will." To even up the odds a bit, he wears a .38 pistol tucked in his belt or an armpit holster under his coat. But he obviously enjoys danger. His once cherubic face is now deeply lined, and his hair is flecked with grey, but his sturdy arms and legs are hard with the muscles of a sportsman. He is an inveterate hunter, horseman, scuba diver and deep-sea fisherman. He introduced water-skiing to Jordan, then took up kiting. Above all, he loves speed, and at the wheel of his silver Porsche 911 is usually a winner in Jordanian sports-car events. To the horror of his security men, he is also addicted to motorcycle racing and free-fall parachute jumping. Before the Israelis knocked out his air force, his favorite pastime of all was careening around the sky in a Hawker Hunter jet, practicing aerobatics at nearly 600 m.p.h.
As a boy, even though his grandfather was King, Hussein was far from rich. His family lived in a small, unheated villa in Amman, had to make do on a government stipend of $3,000 a year. The house got so cold one winter, he recalls, that his little sister died of pneumonia. The money once ran so low that his mother had to sell his bicycle in order to pay the bills. His fortunes have since improved. In addition to the three royal residences assigned him, he now has a villa at Aqaba. His real home, however, is a modest converted farmhouse in a suburb of Amman, where he lives with his second wife, Princess Muna (nee Toni Gardiner), a British army officer's daughter whom he married in 1961 after divorcing his first wife. (Toni became a Moslem.) He rises at 7, takes turns with his wife fixing breakfast, plays with their two small sons (Prince Abdullah, 5, and Prince Feisal, 3) until 9, and then helicopters to his office in the Basman Palace atop one of Amman's seven hills.
Royal routine bores him. He receives visitors informally, talks easily and frankly. But he would rather be out of the palace, is constantly showing up to inaugurate schools and factories in towns all over Jordan. He often cruises around Amman alone in his Mercedes, waving at people, feeling the air, occasionally stopping to chat. In his early days, he delighted in disguising himself as a taxi driver, hacking around Amman at night to find out what people really thought of the King. He doesn't have to ask today.