The Voices of Revolution

In the high-ceilinged map room of the Defense Ministry in -Baghdad, Premier Abdul Kareem el-Kassim continued to issue, in his own cautious way, the soothing statements he has been making since the day of his lightning coup. "We are pragmatic people trying to do the best for our country," said he. "We cannot be qualified as Socialists or anything else. Our tendencies should be judged by our actions."

So far, the actions have been carefully calculated to form a picture of a government bent solely on reform and wholly without opposition. Last week, after properly waiting until hundreds of notables, led by the Duke of Gloucester, had crowded into Queen's Chapel of the Savoy in London for a memorial service to Iraq's assassinated King Feisal II, Crown Prince Abdul Illah and Premier Nuri asSaid, Her Majesty's British Government officially recognized the new regime that had overthrown and murdered these friends of the West. Next day the U.S. did the same, and promptly sent Troubleshooter Robert Murphy off to Baghdad for talks.

The Oil Flows. From that fabled city, each day brought a new promise of reform. The government drew up a provisional constitution with an article specifically aimed at cutting up vast farmlands now owned by some 60 sheiks, who were the backbone of Nuri's regime. The rebels abolished the anachronistic tribal courts that would, for a fee, give tribesmen a far softer kind of justice than would a regular court. Dramatically, the rebels also announced that work would cease on Feisal's new $20 million "palace," which was actually to be an administration building with only comparatively moderate accommodations for the royal family. Meanwhile, the oil continued to flow to the West.

"You Must Be Patient." Though united on the surface, the new government is full of contradictions--a revolutionary junta of old-fashioned politicos and new young Nasserite soldiers whose direction no one can yet predict. The new Ministers of Finance and "Guidance" (propaganda), among others, once resigned from Parliament over the government's refusal to nationalize the oil industry. But the rebels seem content for the moment to keep old contracts and, in time, to negotiate (as Nuri wanted to do) for a higher share of the royalties.

While Premier el-Kassim insists that he does not want to repeat Nasser's mistake of driving away experienced people, his government has already dismissed or jailed most members of the old Development Board, including the director of oil affairs, who probably knows more about the business than anyone else in the country. The present Development Minister is a 29-year-old engineer with a reputation among rebels based largely on a tract he once wrote denouncing the old board, whose plans made Iraq the most promising land of the Middle East.

Unfortunately, in stressing long-term projects such as dams ("Nuri's Pyramids," they were called) and a few such eventual luxuries as a million-dollar opera house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and letting favored sheiks gain most of the quick benefits of prosperity, the old regime neglected the immediate needs of the fellahin. "If everyone could fall asleep for ten years," Nuri is reported to have said once, "we would all wake up to something beautiful." But the fellahin in their mud slums, working for rapacious landlords, did not want to wait.

Last week the new government began a campaign to tell them that they would still have to wait. Stumping the country by helicopter, Deputy Premier Colonel Abdul el-Sallam Mohammed Aref warned: "You must be patient. Everything cannot be solved in one hour, one day, or one month."

"Know, Brethren . . ." The Deputy Premier's mission was a sign of the split personality of the new government, which seems to speak with two voices. One voice belongs to Premier el-Kassim, a bachelor and simple soldier who has resolutely avoided the usual pastime of denouncing Israel, or even of damning the U.S. Marine Corps landings in Lebanon ("I do not believe the Americans will engage in any hostilities"). The other voice is that of 39-year-old Aref, onetime military student of El-Kassim's and, significantly, the only other man to know the exact hour of the coup.

In his dealings with the Western press, Aref has shown none of the cordiality of the Premier. Nor has he taken the moderate line of the inexperienced and earnest El-Kassim, who just wants to be friends with everybody. It was Aref who, on the day of the coup, incited the mobs to attack Nuri and the Crown Prince. It was Aref who flew to Damascus to meet Egypt's Nasser--whose picture is displayed far more often in Baghdad these days than is that of El-Kassim.

Four weeks after the revolution, it begins to look as if El-Kassim may be fated to play Naguib to Aref's Nasser. In a speech three weeks ago, Aref left little doubt about his own beliefs--or what the West might expect, should the extremists decide that soft-spoken El-Kassim had outlived his usefulness.

"Know, brethren," Aref cried, "that the United Arab Republic has stated through our big brother in struggle, Gamal Abdel Nasser, that it will help you and serve you. There shall be no differences among Arabs after this day. Our brother Gamal told me when we were in Damascus: 'Order, brother Abdul Sallam, for I am a soldier in your revolution.' "

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