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Old English? Not exactly, admitted a Harvard spokesperson with crimson face. In lettering signs for the academic procession that would begin the university's 329th graduation, someone kneweth not how to spell. The result: places in line were saved for "candidates for honerable degrees" and "sherriffs," meaning local officials. No matter. The commencement went off in customary style with Caroline Kennedy among the 1,487 graduates and proud Mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis among the admiring parents, accompanied by Uncle Edward Kennedy. Venerable Telecaster Walter Cronkite, one of the eleven "honerable degree" recipients, was saluted for his "that's the way it is" approach to the news. Sheepskin in hand, Cronkite caught a plane back to New York to anchor the evening news—in which he, Caroline, Jackie, Teddy and Harvard were featured.
The last time Idi Amin Dada visited Saudi Arabia was in 1978, when he made the hadj to Mecca as a Muslim pilgrim. It rained in the desert kingdom on that occasion, and the then President-for-Life of Uganda took the rare occurrence as a sign that Allah was smiling on him. The smile has long since faded. The cruel and diabolical onetime field marshal has not only been kicked out of his own country but he is also unwelcome just about everywhere else. He and Fellow Dictator Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, who took the freshly exiled Amin in last year, had a falling out some months ago, and Big Daddy left. By trading on his Muslim faith, the onetime East African strongman has wangled what amounts to temporary asylum in Saudi Arabia.
Amin's whereabouts have been a closely guarded secret. Fellow guests in a Jidda hotel first learned of his presence when they spied 51 large suitcases and four steamer trunks in the lobby and assumed a tour group had arrived. The luggage belonged to Amin, one of his wives, a score of his children and assorted servants and bodyguards, all housed in a block of 30 rooms at the hotel. Since that time, other guests have seen the now very portly Ugandan when he emerges from his suite in swim trunks to dive into the hotel pool and swim lap after lap in a powerful and graceful crawl—after some of his offspring spend several minutes swabbing him down with suntan oil. Another pastime: listening to Scottish bagpipe music, his favorite, on a tape recorder.
When Amin ventures out of the hotel, he wears the shapeless white thobe gown and ghutra headcloth worn by most Saudi men. With the exception of a taped interview aired last week by the BBC—in which he insisted he is still well loved at home—he has refused to meet the press.
If nothing else, the sartorially sensitive ex-soldier is doing better at going Saudi than he did on his 1978 visit. Back then, he arrived dressed like a Saudi prince, except that his robes did not fit and all the accoutrements were wrong. So aghast were the Saudis that they promptly sent their guest a complete and correct new getup, accompanied by an adviser to show him how to wear it.