MIDDLE EAST PLOT

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28266, 2 May 1957, Page 11

MIDDLE EAST PLOT

Alleged Move By Nasser

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 1. President Nasser of Egypt had plotted the overthrow and death of King Saud of Saudi Arabia—and failed, according to a North American Newspaper Alliance correspondent in Washington. The correspondent, Martin Hayden, said in a dispatch today that at a time when Colonel Nasser “was riding high, with Russian arms support.” he decided to end any danger of Saudi Arabia breaking Arab unity by getting rid of King Saud.

The job was to be started by buying the street mobs in King Saud’s kingdom and to be finished by assassination, Hayden wrote. However, he said, King Saud was informed of the plan and also of a Cairo meeting at which President Nasser said: “To hell with all Arab Kings.” King Saud told King Hussein of Jordan and King Feisal of Iraq of this. Hayden wrote that for months Washington had watched Jordan as the spot where Colonel Nasser “would make his first show of what happens to an Arab ruler who fails to bow to the orders of Cairo’s Arab dictator.”

'“King Hussein was to have been the victim, and internal subversion, plus military intervention by his Syrian lackeys, were to have been Nasser’s weapons.

“The plot went awry two weeks ago when King Hussein awoke to what was happening, struck boldly on his own, and perhaps changed the course of Middle East history. “Now Washington is crediting King Saud with perhaps ringing the alarm bell that stirred King Hussein and certainly with providing the support that gives the Jordan ruler a 50-50 survival chance.”

Friend of Princess to Marry.— Another of Princess Margaret’s friends is off the “eligible” list, the “Daily Express” said today. Mr Douglas Stuart, a 31-year-old cousin of the Duke of Devonshire, is to marry Mrs Cecile Margaret Tonge, who is 39. Her previous marriage was dissolved. Mr Stuart, who has often been included in Princess Margaret’s night club and theatre parties, is an insurance broker.—London, May 1.