Word: bitar
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Picked to form a new government last week, replacing the pro-Jadid Premier Youssef Zayyen, was Salah Bitar, 53, Baath co-founder who holds that "to take Marxism as an absolute and comprehensive ideology conflicts with the Arab revolution, which is basically nationalist." Syria would remain socialist, if somewhat less stridently. Abroad this would mean happier relations with its moderating socialist as well as non-socialist Arab neighbors (last week Damascus received an envoy from Kuwait to renew negotiations for a $56 million Kuwaiti loan), and at home a better break for what remains of Syria's long-beleaguered...
...Shadows. In Syria, Premier Salah Bitar, 52, a co-founder of the Baath Party, resigned after being accused in party councils of "self-isolation from the masses." Translation: he must make way for an ambitious, younger rival. The rival: Amin Hafez, 42, Syrian commander in chief and a top party leader, who took over as Premier. As a prelude to his swearing-in, jets whooshed overhead in salute-and to discourage any possible trouble...
Recalling the earlier Egyptian-Syrian merger of 1958 (Nasser's overbearing grab of Syria's military, economic and political plums drove the country to secede in 1961), Premier Bitar cried: The time of the strongman is past! We are opposed to the cult of personality, and this is one of the great differences between ourselves and Nasser. We've suffered much in the past through 'strongmanism,' and we're determined to banish it forever...
...invitation, Nasser urged Iraq's President Abdul Salam Aref to visit Cairo "to see personally how much the Egyptian people like you and their Iraqi brothers." Though known to have pro-Nasser sympathies, Aref played it safe by politely refusing the invitation, and pointedly phoned Syria's Bitar to assure him of Iraq's support...
Perhaps seeking the comfort of friends, Premier Bitar announced an impending conference of Baathist leaders from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and "certain other countries" that he refused to name. The announced purpose: to seek a "new political strategy basis for future activity in the Middle East." Not to be outdone, Nasser called for a giant rally of all Arab nationalist movements, to elect a supreme council...