Shifting Opinion

Aboard President Eisenhower's personal Constellation Columbine, Saudi Arabia's brown-robed King Saud began his journey back to the Middle East. Moslem monarch of the hour, he bore all the prestige of the ruler of Islam's heartland and of the world's richest oil lands, reinforced by a resplendent reception in Washington. After regal stops in Spain and North Africa, he wall head toward Nasser's Cairo. There the two leaders of the Arab world will meet--with their allies President Kuwatly of Syria and King Hussein of Jordan--to hear of Saud's magic-carpet travels.

In the four weeks since Saud and Nasser last met, there has been a perceptible shifting of opinion in the Arab world. Most of it is away from Nasser. The sophisticated among Arab politicians now see that, despite his victory claims, Nasser took a humiliating beating in Sinai. Furthermore, Arab business communities are increasingly upset by Nasser's disruption of the oil industry, are aware that he was imperiling all of their economies by his dealings with Russia, and fear that he may still be at it. Significantly, Arab leaders are trending away from Nasser on their own initiative. In the process, King Saud's trip may well have been a turning point.

Evil Designs. Saud himself had hedged carefully, but Beirut's Nahar concluded categorically: "King Saud has chosen America," and quoted Saud as having told Lebanon's Foreign Minister Charles Malik in Washington: "I am convinced that the future of the Arab world must be founded on its friendship with America."

Lebanon, after experimenting with an ultranationalist regime last year, has installed a solidly pro-U.S. government that shows signs of being the most stable in years, and has accepted a small delivery of U.S. arms. It stayed out of the Baghdad Pact, but has given support to the Eisenhower Doctrine.

In Jordan, that wide space in the desert which has little reason for nationhood, the noisily Nationalist government has been losing steam. Young (21) King Hussein a fortnight ago wrote Premier Suleiman Nabulsi bluntly: "We now detect the danger of Communist infiltration in our Arab homeland, and the threat posed by those who feign loyalty to Arab nationalism, indulge in hullabaloo, prevarications, falsehood and heroics, thereby seeking to conceal their evil designs against Arab nationalism and the fact that they cooperate with our enemies in misleading the masses and exploiting the people."

So well did Hussein's blast suit the capital's changing mood that when Jordanian crowds took to the streets last week to celebrate the agreement ending Jordan's long alliance with Britain, they shouted praise for Hussein rather than for the Nationalist ministers who negotiated it.

Bickering on the Left. With Jordan wavering and Saudi Arabia slipping toward the U.S., the isolation that Nasser has long dreaded is almost a reality. The Arab leaders to the west of him--in Libya and French North Africa--have their fill of his intrigues in their lands. There are even signs of a split between Syria and Egypt: the Syrians, who are now even more under Soviet influence than is Nasser, are needling Nasser for not denouncing the Eisenhower Doctrine as fast and as flatly as they did. There is bad blood between Cairo and Damascus over Syria's claim for compensation for the 20 Syrian-owned MIG jets that were brought to Egypt for the training of their Syrian pilots, then destroyed on the ground when the British and French invaded last fall.

Against these signs of deepening divisions, Nasser still has enormous favor among Arab masses. Leaving Washington, King Saud pointedly praised Nasser as an Arab leader "who defends his country and all other Arab countries against aggression"--and so do other prudent rulers within range of Cairo radio's inflammatory shouts. But with the single exception of Syria, they have no wish to follow him. toward Soviet embroilment and bankruptcy.

In Madrid, King Saud met Morocco's Sultan Mohammed V, the first get-together between the guardian of the Prophet's tomb and the spiritual leader of the Maghreb, as Mohammedans call their North African "West." The Spanish, who like to consider themselves a "bridge" between Christian West and Islamic East, persuaded the Sultan to stop by Madrid while Saud was in town. Even this get-together boded no good for Nasser, because the Sultan is pro-West and anxious to put together a Maghreb federation in North Africa that would include Morocco. Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, but not Egypt.

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