Egypt Exerting Pressure on Hussein to Block Peace Moves, ‘daily Express’ Reports

President Nasser of Egypt is exerting heavy pressure on Jordan’s King Hussein in order to forestall any plans the latter may have to sound out Israel on peace terms, the Daily Express said today. Israelis were said to fear this pressure could cost Hussein his throne and install a far less moderate Government in Jordan. The Express reported that Hussein’s brother, Prince Hassan, rushed here over the weekend to warn the King, who was recovering from minor surgery, of mounting unrest in Amman. The Popular Front there wanted him to drop his pro-Western stand and put the Arab Legion, his army, fully behind the terrorist organizations that are conducting guerrilla warfare against Israel, the Express reported.

Charles Douglas-Home, the London Times’ military correspondent, said in an article today that the Arabs are incapable of conducting an all-out war now to retake the territories occupied by Israel. But recognizing this, they are prepared to wage guerrilla warfare indefinitely and to settle for “limited victories,” he wrote. In the long run, he said, “the sterility of the dreary routine of provocation and retaliation may eventually force both sides to search for more political and less military means of conducting a dialogue.”

King Hussein is reported to have drawn up contingency plans to turn his kingdom into a “guerrilla state” on a total war footing if current Middle East peace efforts fail to produce a settlement acceptable to the Palestinians. The plans were said to spring from Hussein’s “disillusionment” with the United States and its failure to pressure Israel into a settlement acceptable to the Arabs. It is also based on the King’s fear that if he agreed to any compromise plan it would precipitate a direct clash between the Jordan Government and various guerrilla organizations operating on Jordanian territory which could mean the end of the Hashemite monarchy, it was reported.