The Arabian Nights

THE PRESIDENCY

In the black, silver-sequined tent of a Moroccan chieftain sat a dark-haired beauty. And before her on a dusty plain, a multitude of bearded Berber tribes men played at war for her amusement. Outside the ancient, mud-walled city of Marrakech, the turbaned warriors wheeled and galloped, sending great swirls of dust toward the tent, fired their silver-banded muzzle-loaders into the air in thunderous explosions of good black powder.

She might have been a desert princess --but she was not. She was the First Lady of the U.S.; and the only princess in hailing distance was sister Lee Radziwill, who sat at her side. That didn't matter. Nor did it matter, for the moment at least, that only 300 miles away Moroccans were fighting shoot-to-kill border clashes with Algerian troops (see THE WORLD). Like much of Jacqueline Kennedy's four-day visit to Morocco, it all seemed like a page torn from the Thousand and One Nights.

Hers for the Asking. A guest of King Hassan II on the last leg of her 16-day vacation, Jackie apparently could have taken home most of Morocco just for the asking. At Hassan's invitation, she visited the King's cloistered wife Lalla Latifa, 19--the only foreigner ever to do so. Jackie brought along toys for the two royal children and in return was swamped with gifts--a sterling silver tea set, gold encrusted tea glasses, a whole wardrobe of caftan robes and more. As she swirled through teeming market bazaars, surrounded by a phalanx of Moroccan police and U.S. Secret Service men, merchants were so charmed that they established a Marrakech precedent by giving her their wares--for free.

Home was an apartment in Hassan's Bahia Palace, furnished in white leather and looking out over vast palm groves toward the Atlas Mountains. There a French hair stylist called frequently, did Jackie's hair in a fetching "Parisian nymph" style. Then, reclining on deep-cushioned divans, she would dine with princes of the royal court at low Moroccan tables while Andalusian music trilled a background.

Showman's Way. But even the tales of Scheherazade were finally exhausted, and last week the First Lady landed at Washington's National Airport, where the President and their two children were waiting. There was applause for Jackie when she arrived. But it was a rapidly developing little politician named John F. Kennedy Jr. who stole the show. Even before his mother arrived, John delighted curious airport spectators by mischievously snatching a Secret Service man's hat and pulling it ludicrously down over his own ears. Sister Caroline beat him up the ramp of the family plane to greet her mother, but John Jr. did it the showman's way --scrambling up on all fours. He even got to ride all the way home in his mother's lap.

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