The Passing of the Proconsul

A small Jordanian plane rolled to a stop on the tarmac of Nicosia airfield on Britain's island of Cyprus, and from it wearily stepped a small, stooped, grey man in a rumpled brown pin-stripe suit. The man in mufti, scarcely able to hold back his tears, was Lieut. General John Bagot Glubb, 58, for more than a quarter of a century one of the most potent and famous figures of British imperial power in the Middle East. Last week, suddenly and savagely, the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan sacked and shipped off the desert proconsul who had made its army--the British-equipped Arab Legion--the best fighting force in the Arab world.

The news shocked London. Prime Minister Eden summoned his principal ministers to emergency consultations on this latest blow to Britain's vanishing prestige in the Middle East. The Times labeled Jordan's act "the most sinister event which has occurred in the Middle East since the Egyptian purchase of arms from the Communists." Mourned the Tory Daily Telegraph: "General Glubb represents the last of that group of British individuals including T. E. Lawrence to whom Arab countries of the Middle East owe an incalculable debt."

Desert Welcome. Britain created Jordan in the '20s to provide a throne for its World War I ally the Hashemite Emir Abdullah. Glubb arrived from Iraq to work for Abdullah's dusty, black-tent Bedouin kingdom. How, asked Abdullah's father, had Glubb traveled? "Riding a camel," said the newcomer, in fluent Arabic. "By Allah!" exclaimed the old warrior. "This one is a Bedouin!"

More Arab than the Arabs, Glubb Pasha loved to recite Arab classics, finger Moslem prayer beads (though himself an Anglican), and walk hand in hand in Eastern fashion with Abdullah in the King's garden. During interminable parleys with desert sheiks, he would pick imaginary lice from his burnoose to make his guests feel at home. Called Abu Huneik (Father of the Little Jaw) because of a bullet wound incurred on the Western front in World War I, he molded his loyal tribesmen into a hard-disciplined force of 20,000 men that helped to save Iraq from a pro-Nazi revolt in World War II and alone among Arab armies stood up to the Israelis in the Palestinian war.

But the division of Palestine and the birth of Israel flooded Jordan with hard-mouthed urban refugees who knew nothing of desert chivalry and saw in Glubb Pasha only a treasonous foreigner who had declined to order his troops to charge straight across Israel. By last fall, when Britain tried to rush its ally Jordan into the anti-Communist Baghdad pact, the wildest forces of Arab nationalism, urged on by Egyptian propaganda and Saudi-Arabian gold, flowed through the little land. Glubb's Legion put down the rioters but only after young (20) King Hussein (who was schooled, like Winston Churchill, at Harrow and Sandhurst) had foresworn the Baghdad pact and some of the Arab Legionnaires had refused to fight against the mob.

Goodbye with Tanks. Within the Legion a group of anti-British nationalists formed, similar to the "Free Officers" clique that overthrew Egypt's King Farouk. They found allies against Glubb in Premier Rifai and in Queen Mother Zaine, who has been collecting a $280,000 annual subsidy from Saudi Arabia's King Saud to work against the British position. Last week, with nationalist sentiment running high, the officers forced the young King to choose between General Glubb and his own throne.

The King met with the Cabinet, also with British Ambassador Charles Duke. Reportedly under guard of 16 tanks, Glubb, his wife, son and adopted Arab daughter were packed off to the airport. Minutes later King Hussein went on the radio to deliver a brief eulogy of the Legion. As soon as he finished speaking, an announcer read a royal irada (decree) dismissing Glubb, two British aides and three senior Arab officers, and designating Major General Radi Innab as the Legion's new commander.

For three days Jordanians, many of them Palestinian refugees who rioted so destructively last December, danced in Amman's streets. When the young King drove through the capital after visiting his mother's palace, citizens stopped his Mercedes and crowded to shake his hand. Later, speaking from his balcony, Hussein pledged that his first goal will be to regain Arab rights in Palestine.

After Injury, Insult. By week's end British Foreign Office men were beginning to minimize Glubb's dismissal, and to say that Jordan was still bound to Britain by a 20-year treaty of alliance. Glubb, arriving in London, went along with their line, but acknowledged that he feared for the future of the Legion's remaining 60 British officers. The British said that Hussein had sent word that he still wanted to be friends, just as he had also sent a courier with an autographed photograph of himself to the departing Glubb. But the public expulsion of Glubb, without thanks or praise, after 25 years' service, spoke louder than Hussein's professions.

The King was already basking in Arab praise. Cairo hailed Jordan's act as a victory for Egypt's Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, and boasted that Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia would shortly meet to make good on their pledge to pay the $25 million annual subsidy that Britain has until now furnished Jordan.

Last week's events in Jordan constituted a crushing defeat for the British and a setback for the whole Western position in the area. Israel, which used to denounce Glubb Pasha, now recognized him as a moderating force among the Arabs, and took his dismissal as a sign that the neighbor country may disintegrate and that Egypt may install a puppet regime among the diehard Palestinian refugees west of the Jordan.

The ancient way--subsidy, British advisers, British control--had its disadvantages and was plainly out of date. But it would be hard to raise a cheer for the new way taking its place, urged on by Arab intrigue and bribe, exulting in disorder and governed by the street mobs and those who know how to guide them.

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