Word: kassem
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...long ago, Abdul Karim Kassem, lean and psychotic strongman of Iraq, boasted that he had survived 38 attempts to kill him over the past 4½ years. Last week in Baghdad, death kept the 39th appointment...
...Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Marilyn Monroe (who signed in red ink), J. Paul Getty (who signed in black), and Tibet's Dalai Lama. Some of the signers send more than their autograph: John F. Kennedy enclosed an autographed picture with one of the two covers he signed; Abdul Karim Kassem (whose signature is a collector's item now), sent a copy of a speech he had just made; J. Edgar Hoover added some FBI pamphlets, and Soviet Defense Minister Malinovsky scribbled some propaganda right on his face: "We struggle for peace all over the world...
Because of the worldwide oil glut and Iraq's shortage of skilled technicians, some Western oilmen insist that Kassem's venture is foredoomed to failure. But unlike Iran's Mossadegh. Kassem has prudently allowed the foreign oil company to continue production, thus assuring himself of a continuing income while he dickers for help in getting his own company on its feet. And help may not be hard to find. The Soviet Union might aid Kassem simply for political advantage. And in Rome sits hawk-faced Enrico Mattei, boss of Italy's state petroleum monopoly, who delights...
Ever since he seized power in 1958. Kassem has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the Iraq Petroleum Co., the international consortium that since 1942 has held exclusive oil exploration rights for virtually all of Iraq and has already found there proven reserves of 26.5 billion bbl. of oil. In the last four years alone, I.P.C. has invested nearly $300 million in Iraq, and Kassem's government is largely financed by its 50% cut ($266 million last year) of I.P.C.'s profits. But this was not enough for Kassem, who demanded that I.P.C. surrender...
...nerve-racking negotiating sessions, the I.P.C. steadily gave ground un til at last it offered to surrender 75% of its concession area immediately and give up another 15% within seven years. But the more the I.P.C. offered, the more Kassem asked. Last October, crying ''we shall rid ourselves of wickedness," Kassem finally broke off the talks, revoked all I.P.C. concessions save those covering 740 sq. mi. in which the company was currently producing oil. Then he began laying the groundwork for last week's establishment of a national oil company...