A King's Plight

THE MIDDLE EAST

The "gallop past" by the King's Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery --in which three score plumed cavalry men rattle past at full gallop, swords raised, hooves beating and gun carriages thundering behind -- is so intricate and dangerous that it is rarely used even for visiting royalty. Last week Queen Elizabeth, who had never seen the ceremony herself, ordered it performed to mark the state visit of Saudi Arabia's King Feisal, the somber and bearded monarch who has emerged as leader of the moderate forces op posing the pan-Arabism of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Feisal came to Britain for more than a bit of royal pomp. He fears that when the British protectorate of Aden gets its independence next year, Nasser's followers will swallow it up once British troops pull out, thus giving his enemy another stronghold on Saudi Arabia's flank. In discussions continuing through this week, he will try to persuade Prime Minister Harold Wilson to postpone Britain's troop withdrawal--perhaps indefinitely.

One hundred persons have already been killed this year by terrorists in Aden. Coinciding with Feisal's trip, Nasserite organizations paralyzed the territory by declaring its eleventh general strike of the year. In Cairo, leaders of a powerful terrorist group named FLOSY (Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen) declared themselves Aden's "government in exile"; they named a temporary capital at Taiz in Yemen, even appointed a President, 13 Cabinet ministers and two ambassadors (to the Sudan and Egypt). On Cairo radio, FLOSY President Abdul Qawee Mackawee promised Aden "a popular resistance uprising in the coming weeks against imperialists and their agents." For good measure, Cairo radio also demanded King Feisal's assassination, calling him "an enemy of God" who is "selling you out to the British in London."

Until now, the British hoped that Feisal could supply the troops to defend the territory once the tommies pull out. But Feisal, who is already supporting anti-Nasser forces in Yemen, is hardly eager for another confrontation with Nasser--whose air force last week bombed the Saudi town of Najran, near the Yemeni frontier, for the third time this year. The British may be getting the point. Last week British Foreign Secretary George Brown appeared in Parliament with a first hint that Britain might at least consider staying on in Aden for a while. It was still the government's intention to leave, he said, but only on condition that it "leave behind a stable and secure government in South Arabia."

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