Darius to Engert

Darius of Persia first came into the valley of Kabul in the 6th Century B.C. After him came Alexander of Macedonia, Antiochus III of Syria, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and Baber. Centuries later came the British; then the Russians; finally the Germans and Japanese. Last week, clutching his brief case in a car that pitched like a camel over the boulder-strewn Khyber Pass, came the American. He was balding, professorial Cornelius van Henert Engert, U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Mohammed Zahir Shah, King of Afghanistan.

Awaiting Envoy Engert in the 6,000-foot high, mud-walled capital city of Kabul (pop. 150,000) were important talks with the young (28) king and his two trusted uncles--shrewd Prime Minister Mohammed Hashin Khan and dark-eyed War Minister Shah Mahmoud Khan. From these westernized leaders of 12,000,000 proud and primitive hillsmen, Engert could expect gracious hospitality. There would be tea and coffee, sweet cakes, pistachio ices and bowls of gigantic white mulberries. But whether there would be any cooperation in cleaning out Kabul's squirming nest of Axis intrigue was another question. An old proverb says: "It is easier to march into Kabul than to march out again."

Direct Wires. All non-diplomatic Axis technicians and tourists were expelled by Zahir Shah's government just before the Japanese attack in the Pacific. But diplomats still have direct wires to Berlin, Rome and Tokyo which hum with valuable information from India. The Italian legation arranged the flight from India of rabble-rousing Subhas Chandra Bose. In Rome the Italians are hopefully sheltering exiled King Amanullah (TIME, Nov. 20, 1939). Under Minister Kobayashi Kikuo, a Japanese fifth column belatedly but industriously began operating in the 1930s.

The most deeply entrenched are the Germans, who began by building hydroelectric power plants, organized a biweekly Lufthansa air service. Until a year ago the Nazis virtually controlled the communications system and the Department of Public Works. Afghans still remember the royal entertainment of the Afghan hockey team at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936.

From the German legation a stream of gold has found its way to rebellious border tribes. From German radio stations comes a daily prod at old battle sores, a yammering about high food prices in Kabul, British bumbles, the shortage of wartime supplies. The Afghan government is promised "the lost provinces of the Indus" in the event of-Axis victory.

Direct Action. As a toughened-up career diplomat (his wife knitted socks with a revolver at her side while he dug air-raid shelters in Addis Ababa), trouble-wise Envoy Engert knows the Axis technique of penetration and disruption. He also knows that Afghanistan's 245,000-square-mile "kingdom of tumult" is the doorway through which all the land armies of history have fought their way to the riches of India.

Moslem tribesmen resented Amanullah's attempts to make them wear bazaar-bought pants, and they refused to tear the veils from their wives. But they learned from him how to play one great nation against another. So far in World War II they have been playing the Axis against the Allies. If Envoy Engert, over tea and mulberries, can persuade Afghan leaders that the hour for such two-way policies is running out, he can march back from Kabul a diplomatic hero.

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