Word: beirut
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Even California has produced no more overripe character than Dahish the Amazer, a dynamic hypnotist who set himself up in Lebanon as a second Christ, built up an ardent circle of cultists. At the top of his vogue, in 1944, the souks (bazaars) of Beirut peddled many a rumor of orgies in his modern villa in the Mazraa section of the city. Over their tea at the Patisserie Suisse, over cocktails at the seaside Normandie, Beirutis whispered that Dahish was getting into trouble with the Government. Lebanon's good, round President, Sheikh Bechara El Khoury, frowned on Dahish...
...those were not worries enough, Khoury's sister-in-law, Mrs. Margaret Haddad, had become Dahish's most fanatical disciple. As the stories made the rounds of Beirut, the Government decided to act. Foreign Minister Selim Takla, buzzed the bazaars, was drafting a deportation order for Dahish. Then, on the night of Jan. 11, 1945, Takla entertained U.S. Minister George Wadsworth (now Ambassador to Iraq) at dinner. Wadsworth left the Foreign Minister, apparently fit and smiling, returned home to find a message that Takla had dropped dead...
Unwanted. On Jan. 30, Khoury disappeared. While his Ministers wondered whether his job should be declared vacant, he went quietly to Palestine to consult a Jewish neurologist. Two months later a cured Khoury returned to Beirut...
Last month Beirut gossip mills had new grist. The Amazer, they said, had asked for a U.S. visa. His destination: California, to attend a spiritualist convention...
...Jerusalem staffer: "The story was told in Palestine and Trans-Jordan bars and found its way into print. . . . The Gazelle Boys now number five. . . . One, the wags say, is being trained by oil companies to do a 50 m.p.h. pipeline patrol. Another . . . is being taught English by professors . . . at Beirut, so they can learn what the gazelles talk about besides love...