Word: feisal
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Acutely aware of anti-Americanism in Iraq, the State Department decided last spring that it had better give 17-year-old King Feisal II a sales pitch; it invited him to visit...
Childhood & Education: A king at three, Feisal had a brief fling at toys and tanks, lollipops, Flash Gordon movie serials and Superman comics before growing into a solemn-faced, rather lonely youngster, stuffed full of English, Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, French and dynastic history. At 14, donned his father's old school tie and went off to Harrow (Winston Churchill's school). Got along with teachers & classmates, showed no signs of the anti-British feelings his father developed there after three Harrowing years...
Family Background: He is the leader of the 41st generation of the Hashemite family, founded by the Prophet Mohammed. For 37 generations the family was a slumbering bush-league dynasty. Then Feisal I (Feisal II's grandfather) fought against the Turks with T. E. (Seven Pillars of Wisdom) Lawrence in World War I, dealt deftly with the British and emerged as founder and first King of modern Iraq. He died in 1933. His brother Abdullah with British subsidies made a state out of arid Jordan. An assassin killed him a year...
Purpose of Visit: To size up the U.S., which by default is becoming the No. 1 power in the Middle East. Washington, for its part, wants to give young Feisal a favorable and unforgettable impression of the U.S. before he ascends the throne next May and is boxed in by anti-U.S. advisers...
...people, Talal fell victim not to a plot but to schizophrenia, which grew steadily worse despite treatment in Switzerland. This week Jordan's Parliament sorrowfully deposed him. He is succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Hussein, a thin, introspective adolescent. Interesting coincidence : Hussein and his cousin, King Feisal of Iraq, studied at Harrow at the same time, will each rule a Hashemite kingdom at the same time, on reaching 18, next...