America's Great Game (20 page)

Of course, none of this necessarily proves Miles’s original claim in
The Game of Nations
that Za‘im was acting as an American agent. In fact, most of the available evidence indicates that it was the Kurd himself who took the initiative in plotting his coup. In the middle of March, for instance, he produced what he claimed to be a list of communist assassination targets featuring the names of eight Syrian officials, the American minister, and the British ambassador. Officials in the US legation suspected that he had fabricated the document in order to stoke Western concerns about Syrian internal security, thereby preparing the ground for a change of government. It is also clear that Meade was not the only Westerner Za‘im took into his confidence. Both Colonel Gordon Fox, a British military adviser employed by the Syrian army, and the UK military attaché met with Za‘im in March and heard his predictions of a military takeover, although in these conversations Za‘im placed less emphasis on the threat of communism and his plans for social reform than on his desire for closer relations with the governments of Transjordan and Iraq—both British-backed regimes. In other words, the Syrian was tailoring his message, telling particular Westerners what he believed they wanted to hear.
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The coup itself, when it came in the early morning hours of Wednesday, March 30, 1949, was a masterpiece of military planning, bloodless apart from the deaths of three bodyguards attached to a government minister. As Miles recalled in
The Game Player
, Za‘im distributed secret orders to four other senior army officers, with instructions that they open them separately at midnight, having taken the precaution of locking the two secretaries who had typed them in a Defense Ministry closet. At two thirty
AM
, infantry units and armored cars stationed outside Damascus rumbled into the city and disarmed police and the normal security forces. What happened next was a scene that would repeat itself numerous times in years to come, described on this occasion by British journalist Patrick Seale: “One detachment of troops arrested the President in hospital where he was receiving treatment for a gastric ulcer and heart complaint; another the Prime Minister; a third secured the radio station; a fourth took over police headquarters; a fifth the headquarters of the gendarmerie; a sixth the central telephone exchange.” As dawn approached, the populace of Damascus “awoke to the sounds of the Syrian national anthem on the radio,” wrote Copeland, “followed by the recorded voice of Husni Za‘im announcing that he had taken over the country.” According to Miles, this clockwork-like operation became a standard reference point in US efforts to effect covert regime change in other Third World countries, “studied in CIA training classes for the next two decades.”
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Whatever the precise extent of covert US collusion with Za‘im prior to his coup, American reservations about him of the sort expressed by Jim Keeley remained after he assumed power, causing a delay in Washington granting the new regime formal recognition. In the absence of regular diplomatic relations, Steve Meade carried on his precoup role as the primary point of American contact with the military leadership. Hence, when the US legation learned that Za‘im was considering “execution, accident, and poisoned food” as possible means of disposing of ex-president Quwatli, Meade was dispatched to entreat the dictator to spare the life of his predecessor. “What do they want me to do with him, let him free to plot against me?” Za‘im angrily asked his American friend. “I could easily prove that he died from natural causes.” Eventually, however, the new Syrian leader was prevailed on to telephone the military hospital where Quwatli was being held. “How is he?” Meade heard him ask. “Give him lots of milk [and] cheese. . . . And let me know how he keeps; I am interested.” Reassured by this dramatic show of
concern for Quwatli’s welfare, Meade departed to report Za‘im’s apparent change of heart to Keeley.
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Strains remained in US relations with Za‘im (the “unscrupulous desperado,” as Keeley called him just after the coup). American officials remained personally wary of the Syrian dictator, the result of a combination of Orientalist stereotyping, the undoubted fact of his universally acknowledged egotism, and a tendency to view him in light of previous US experience of military juntas in Latin America (Steve Meade once referred to him as a “‘Banana Republic’ dictator type.”) On his side, Za‘im resented the delay in formal US recognition of his authority, retaliating by holding up the possibility of his favoring France as Syria’s principal future Western ally. He also had occasion to offer a mild rebuke to Meade when he found out that an indiscreet American official at the Saudi court had bruited their relationship to Ibn Saud. It was probably these incidents, rather than, as Miles Copeland comically implied, Za‘im’s vanity, that explain why the Syrian strongman became more distant in his behavior toward Miles and Meade, brusquely demanding that they stand up when he entered the room, and address him with the formal form of “you” in French (
vous
) rather than the familiar (
tu
).
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By and large, though, US observers were favorably impressed by Za‘im’s performance as Syrian head of state—not surprising, given that his policies might have been designed specifically to please them. Immediately after assuming power, he proclaimed his desire to ratify the much-delayed TAPline concession (delighting ARAMCO’s James Terry Duce and Bill Eddy in Washington). Later in April, Za‘im also announced his plans to improve Syrian relations with both Turkey and Israel, telling Jim Keeley confidentially that he was willing to resettle a quarter of a million Palestinian refugees in Syria and even meet personally with the Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. This was proof, so Keeley reported, of “his earnest desire to liquidate [the] Pal[estine] debacle by pursuing henceforth [a] policy of give and take.” Meanwhile, as promised to Meade, Za‘im embarked on an internal security crackdown, rounding up some four hundred alleged communists and sending a squad of twelve boxers and wrestlers to execute “speedy and clandestine arrests” in Lebanon and Iraq. When this anticommunist drive lost steam, the Syrian army intelligence chief asked Meade to help him identify Soviet agents, promising to deal with them “immediately and harshly.”
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In addition to these welcome efforts to improve internal and regional stability, Za‘im embarked on an ambitious program of domestic reform and modernization. He reinforced and reequipped the demoralized Syrian army, eliminated corruption and nepotism in the civil service, and launched various public works projects. Literate Syrian women acquired the right to vote, the use of such titles as Bey and Pasha was banned, and Sharia laws were replaced by civil, criminal, and commercial codes. “Za‘im shocked Damascus society out of its stuffy puritanism,” observed Patrick Seale. “He let it be known that he disapproved of traditional Arab clothing and headgear, and the streets blossomed with a curious collection of aged European hats.” Even allowing for the comedic elements, it was an impressive record of progressive accomplishment. The uncouth Kurdish colonel was coming on like one of Kim Roosevelt’s Young Effendis.
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By late April, Za‘im’s good behavior had at last brought his government formal US recognition. (Jim Keeley still bitterly regretted the “negation of democratic process” but salved his conscience by telling himself that Americans might “accomplish more on [the] moral plane by exercising our influence for moderation . . . after initial recognition.”) Thereafter, Syrian-American relations improved steadily. During a conversation on June 4, Keeley accepted Za‘im’s assurances that a presidential election due to take place on June 25 would be entirely democratic, remarking afterward that the colonel’s “driving will to serve his country’s best interests” was a “marked contrast to the traditional indolence [of] . . . his predecessors.” The following month, after a predictable victory at the polls (there was, after all, only one candidate), President Za‘im conferred high Syrian decorations on both Keeley and Meade, the latter sniffily described by a British embassy observer as “one of Za‘im’s cronies.” Reporting on the event, the
New York Times
took the opportunity to review the recent achievements of the Za‘im government, among them the TAPline agreement, improved relations with Turkey, and increased watchfulness for communist penetration in the Middle East. Along with the decorations for American officials, these actions all testified, so the
Times
reported, to “Syria’s outspoken attitude of good will toward the United States.”
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Sadly for Husni Za‘im, American approval alone was not enough to save him from his enemies among his fellow countrymen. Various elements in Syrian society already had reason to dislike the dictator
even before he was elected to the presidency: radicals, Muslims, and nationalists who objected to his accommodating attitude toward Israel. There were also indications that Syrian allies of the country’s Hashemite neighbors, in particular Iraq, had begun to scheme against him. The turning point came when Za‘im lost the support of his main power base, the army. His fellow officers had begun muttering darkly among themselves when Za‘im exchanged the title of president for marshal, adorning himself with an elaborate new uniform and a baton the size of a rolling pin, swathed in gold and green velvet. The muttering increased when he appointed as his prime minister a former associate of Quwatli’s, Muhsin al-Barazi, who was perceived in military circles as a Rasputin-like figure, an “evil genius” behind the throne. What really doomed Za‘im, though, was his government’s role in aiding the July 1949 arrest and execution in Lebanon of the influential Syrian nationalist Antun Sa‘adah, a disgraceful act of betrayal in the eyes of many army officers and another stain on the nation’s honor.
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On August 14, 1949, following weeks of rumors about assassination plots, and just three days after Steve Meade had paid a farewell call on Za‘im prior to returning to his post in Beirut, the Syrian army again moved on Damascus in the small hours of the morning. Awake in her villa off the main road, Lorraine Copeland heard what was becoming a familiar noise: “the sound of tank engines, indicating that ‘something was up.’” As the column of armored cars advanced, detachments began fanning out down side streets headed for various government facilities in a maneuver identical to the operation of four and a half months earlier. The main difference between the March and the August 1949 coups was that, in the earlier one, both President Quwatli and Prime Minister Khalid al-‘Azm survived their fall from power. It is unclear whether, as the conspirators claimed, there was a hasty military trial or simply, as seems more likely, a summary execution, but early in the morning of August 14, Marshal Husni Za‘im was shot to death, along with his prime minister, Barazi. The Za‘im regime had lasted just 136 days.
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THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CIA’S
role in bringing Husni Za‘im to power probably lies somewhere in between Miles Copeland’s original claim that the March 1949 coup in Syria was entirely an Agency operation and his later statement that it was all Za‘im’s own doing. On the one hand,
there are sources indicating that the Syrian conceived of the idea himself, staged certain incidents without consulting with American officials, and juggled potential Western supporters. On the other, US government records indicate that Steve Meade did enjoy an exceptional degree of access to Za‘im in the weeks leading up to the coup, and there is other, scattered evidence of direct American involvement in its preparation. Even better documented is Meade’s extensive contact with Za‘im
after
the coup, when official American and British observers concurred in identifying the on-loan CIA operative as the dictator’s principal Western confidant. And while Za‘im was in power, the Syrian government pursued a set of policies that bore an uncanny resemblance to Cold War American aims for Middle Eastern defense and development. Taking all this into account, the most sensible conclusion to draw is that the coup was the product of both internal and external factors, a coming together of Syrian initiative and American encouragement.

While its causes remain hard to pinpoint precisely, the consequences of Za‘im’s power grab for the subsequent course of Syrian history are abundantly and painfully clear: a legacy of instability, authoritarianism, and anti-Americanism. The regime that succeeded Za‘im’s survived until December 1949, when it in turn was overthrown in a third putsch led by another military strongman, Miles’s friend Adib al-Shishakli, ushering in a period of revolving-door civilian governments and growing behind-the-scenes military influence, until Shishakli himself assumed the presidency in 1951. Meanwhile, as rumors of American legation involvement in antigovernment plots became commonplace, the United States saw its image in Syria, a country understandably sensitive to the threat of foreign meddling, start to lose its luster. Previously, Americans had been known in the Levant as missionaries, doctors, and professors. Now they were starting to be seen as spies.

Clearly, the CIA Arabists had underestimated the obstacles in the path of democracy and reform in Syria—the corrosive aftereffects of colonial-era sectarianism and the multiple forces acting on the country from without—and overestimated their own ability to bring about positive political change through external manipulation. According to Miles Copeland’s later reflections on the subject, this was not the lesson that was drawn from the Za‘im episode. Rather, Miles concluded that Middle Eastern societies such as Syria were inherently prone to “chronic political instability” and “self-destructive emotionalism”; therefore, the
next time the United States set about the “business of ‘interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations,’” it would need to find a stronger leader than Za‘im, one capable “of building a durable power base and of surviving.” In other words, “the problem,” Miles declared, “was not one of bringing about a change of government, but of making the change stick.”
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