Word: moroccos
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Faithful). He relies on his 27 Cabinet ministers primarily for background briefings and good fellowship, makes most government decisions by himself. Revered by his people as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, he keeps up his peasant support by weekly visits to the whitewashed villages that dot Morocco's mountains, desert and coast. "Everything in Morocco depends on the King," says a Cabinet Minister, "except the weather...
Sympathetic though it may be to Hassan, the U.S. is hesitant to grant him its all-out support. Washington readily agreed to send Morocco an extra 500,000 tons of wheat, and promised Hassan $15 million in military aid to protect his borders. But it is not about to supplant French aid to Hassan's development plans, if for no other reason than the realization that the U.S. can never replace France as Morocco's Western mentor...
...Morocco, moreover, presents the U.S. with a difficult diplomatic problem. Aside from Egypt, it is North Africa's oldest nation, and its Moorish kings once ruled most of the western Sahara...
Their rule was broken by the French conquest in the 19th century, but Morocco still claims its former lands, including much of the Algerian Sahara, the northern parts of Senegal and Mali and all of Mauritania. Morocco's territorial claims are plainly unacceptable to its neighbors, who brand them "neo-imperialism," and embarrassing to its friends. For all Washington's interest in protecting Morocco, it cannot afford to give Hassan's army anything more than defensive weapons...
...Within Morocco itself, Hassan's expansive ambitions have a better chance. Shortly after he came to the throne, he called in International Monetary Fund experts to help him stabilize the nation's finances, and the result has been a reform in tax collection, wiser government spending and a mild austerity program that has allowed him to build a modest foreign currency reserve. Realizing the value of the tourist dollar, he has promoted a series of resort hotels from Tangier to Marrakesh, turned Morocco into the haunting ground of such jet-set types as Truman Capote and Princess...