New Frontiersmen

For some time. Jordan's gay, gutty King Hussein, 26. has shown signs of settling down. Once a lavish aviation and sports-car buff, he has not had a new plane or car in three years. Recalling a Washington visit, he often says earnestly: "Our main problem is how to fit President Kennedy's vision and energy to Jordan's problems." Fortnight ago Hussein acted with vision, energy and political daring.

Suddenly disenchanted with the ineffectual, corrupt administration of his Premier, Bahjat Talhouni, Hussein fired his entire government. As his new Premier, Hussein chose a tough ex-army officer, Wasfi Tal, 41, who promptly gathered an entirely new Jordanian team, including six graduates from such institutions as Yale and Princeton. Like the King, he was obviously impressed by Washington. Said Wasfi fal: "We are beginning a New Frontier for Jordan."

Troubled Blueprint. The Middle Eastern Frontiersmen, who are rated by Westerners as extremely able but inexperienced, face huge stacks of trouble. From Cairo, Nasser keeps up a stream of anti-Hussein invective, accusing the King and his new Premier of being imperialist pawns and even of secretly encouraging Israeli ambitions. As a result of the end of the Arab-Israeli fighting in 1949, Jordan increased its population by about two-thirds; all of the new citizens are Palestinian Arabs, many of them refugees who feel no loyalty either to Hussein or to Jordan. Little Jordan (pop. 1,600,000) gets modest Western aid ($45.5 million from the U.S. and $7,000,000 from Britain in 1961), has a yearly budget deficit of $100 million. Most of its development projects, except for the new East Ghor Canal scheme (TIME, Oct. 27) and Jerusalem highway, exist only on paper.

Budgeting for continuing U.S. aid through 1966. Wasfi Tal wants to spend $357 million to make Jordan self-sufficient in food, develop its small potash and phosphate industry, increase its annual tourist earnings from $11 million to $50 million, and provide new jobs for 90,000 unemployed. He pledges that Jordan's notoriously inefficient civil service will be overhauled from top to bottom.

Mixed Omens. The new Premier is a nature lover who claims he would be happiest inspecting Jordan's trees. He is a graduate of Beirut's American University, fought as a British army captain during the war, later served for a spell in the Syrian army, returned to Jordan to become a civil servant. In the tax department. Wasfi Tal is remembered with awe for trying to make rich Jordanians pay their taxes. In the last ten years he has served, intermittently, as a Jordanian diplomat all over the Middle East, and adversaries loudly claim that he fomented anti-government plots in Syria. Lebanon and Iraq.

Obviously trying to reduce resentment all around, the new Premier declared a moratorium on Jordan's anti-Nasser broadcasts, proclaimed a widespread political amnesty. He also ordered a probe of Jordanian officials suspected of corruption, promised to devote more care to the problems of the country's Palestinian population. All this pleased the unruly Palestinians, who saw other good omens: a heavy rainfall will mean good crops for 1962, and Wasfi's appointment coincided with the birth of Hussein's first son, Prince Abdullah, borne him by his 20-year-old British wife Toni. In the rejoicing, most Jordanians were prepared to forget that this was the first Hashemite of mixed descent in 38 generations.

Discreetly observing the new government with crossed fingers, U.S. and British diplomats called it "a tremendous improvement," hoped that Jordan's brave efforts would last more than just a season. But last week also brought a reminder that Jordan's New Frontier is still troubled by old frontiers and old hates. While Wasfi Tal's new government started work, a harmless British eccentric, 56-year-old Ann Lasbury, on a visit to the Holy Land, tried to plant a "Repent" banner on the top of Mount Zion. which straddles the Israel-Jordan border. Fearing a dawn Israeli attack, a Jordanian sentry shot her through the head.

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