With King Hussein Ill, His Brother Makes a Trial Run

He is his brother’s protege, top advisor and closest friend.

For 33 years, since King Hussein of Jordan tapped him as official successor, Crown Prince Hassan has played the understudy, learning the part but rarely getting the chance to exercise it.

But Hassan is now--reluctantly--in the midst of a royal trial run, acting as regent while his beloved older brother undergoes treatment for lymphatic cancer in the United States. The brothers consult regularly, but Hassan is formally running the country, as he has since Hussein began chemotherapy at Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic in July.

Now, with the 62-year-old monarch’s gaunt, gutsy appearance last month at the Wye Plantation summit again fueling speculation about succession, the 51-year-old Hassan is finding himself in the unwelcome glare of public and media attention, weary of the unending rumors about Hussein’s health and the inevitable, sometimes unflattering comparisons that follow.

Adding to the pressures, the ailing king’s role at the Mideast peace talks and his eloquent speech afterward at the White House showcased the very qualities--charisma, personal warmth and a sure, natural style of leadership--that the brainy, thoughtful Hassan is said to lack.

And frankly, the prince said in a recent interview, he finds the endless discussion of their differences a bit exasperating, especially given his years of working closely with his brother.

“One needs to look at the track record over three decades,” he said. “We have what some have called a unique partnership. And if certain qualities exist, I believe they have complemented each other.”

Added one longtime associate: “He knows he can never be exactly like Hussein. But so what? He asks what are they supposed to be anyway, a family of clones?”

They are far from it, despite a bedrock of shared political values and an obvious affection and admiration for each other. Hussein is instinctive, patient, often wise, a man who seems equally at home in a Bedouin tent or a summit of world leaders.

Hassan is driven, detail-oriented and impatient, especially with what he sees as incompetence. Despite years of effort to develop something akin to his brother’s easy manner, he is more comfortable expounding his theories on the “arc of instability” or “politics over policy” with intellectual elites than discussing everyday problems with the public.

Intellectual Gifts Said to Suit Prince for Rule

At the same time, several politicians and analysts here, speaking privately, say that while they believe and hope that the king will resume the throne at the end of his treatment, Hassan’s intellectual gifts and interests are well suited to leading Jordan in the future.

“He’s a modern man, well educated and very interested in issues like the economy,” a prominent academic said of the prince. “That’s a major plus for Jordan. He would be likely to focus much more on technology, education, infrastructure and development.”

He also has spent more than three decades getting ready for the job. “He is unusually well prepared, especially when you think about the fact that there is not a tradition in the Middle East of leaders training and preparing their No. 2s,” a Western diplomat said.

Since the middle of July, when the king began his medical treatment, the crown prince has acted as regent, a longer period than ever before. During the interview and an earlier dinner at his home in the royal palace compound in Amman, Hassan spoke of some of the strains involved in filling in for his brother during a period of disappointment among Jordanians over the slow pace of regional peace and a continuing economic recession in the country, along with widespread worry about the king.

“It’s been a difficult few months,” he said. “Every day, I’ve tried not only to reassure Jordanians over his majesty’s health but remind them that we all have to live up to his expectations for a stable Jordan.”

The crown prince described his relationship with the king as one of give and take, in which each respects the other’s views. But they have different roles, he said.

“The king has the stature and standing of a head of state with years of experience,” he said. “Jordan is synonymous all over the world with King Hussein.” His own role, he said, has involved working “closer to the kitchen” of day-to-day business and often acting as a trouble-shooter, a background that has served him well in recent months.

According to accounts from the king’s doctors and his family, Hussein is responding well to treatment and may be able to return to Jordan soon, perhaps this month. The Jordanian government and the State Department recently denied an Israeli newspaper account that quoted U.S. officials as saying the king’s condition was dire.

But, as if to prepare his subjects, Hussein himself has alluded several times to the possibility of his passing, and the prospect is unsettling for many in Jordan, where a majority of the nation’s 4 million people has never known another leader. The king has ruled his nation for 46 years, and Jordanians describe him in affectionate, often deeply personal tones.

“We have been depressed and upset ever since we heard the king was sick,” said Saleh Mohammed Omari, a 60-year-old bus driver. “He is like our family.”

In contrast, Hassan is widely respected but seems to lack the king’s ability to connect with the people. “He’s very smart,” said Khaled Hammad, a 34-year-old switchboard operator in Amman, the capital. “We trust him, but we don’t really feel like we know him.”

The prince is a man of keen, searching intellect who has founded such groups as Jordan’s Royal Scientific Society and the Arab Thought Forum, the latter a place for intellectuals and academics to meet policymakers. But he also can be playful, especially with his family. Hassan, who is married to Pakistani-born Princess Sarvath, with whom he has four children, recently delighted his 2-year-old grandson--and surprised staff members--by putting the boy in the fountain outside his home, then jumping in with him.

Hassan Is a Fan of John Wayne Movies

Like his brother, Hassan hates ostentation. He drives himself around town and was looking forward one recent night to a family dinner of macaroni and cheese, until an unexpected guest necessitated a change of menu. A fan of John Wayne movies, the prince relishes a memory of once meeting the actor. Wayne brought him quickly down to earth, telling the prince that he seemed like “a pretty decent guy--for a royal.”

A man who rises before 6 a.m. and works regularly until midnight, Hassan is famously demanding of those around him. “People tend to be on edge around him,” said one former aide. “You want to be very careful not to display any sign of ignorance, or he’ll never let you forget it.”

And when he invites staffers or relatives to join in his rigorous brands of exercise--polo, taekwondo or skipping rope--”everyone tends to disappear,” the aide said.

Hassan and Hussein share the same basic political views and hopes for their country. Both are moderates who favor a strong relationship with the United States and are firmly committed to peace in their troubled region. In 1994, the kingdom became the second Arab country, after Egypt, to sign a peace treaty with Israel. And Hussein has held fast to the pact, despite opposition from many Jordanians and disappointment here that it has not produced the economic benefits that were expected in Jordan.

Hassan also advocates liberalizing and reforming the struggling economy and continuing his brother’s cautious steps toward democracy.

The distinctions between them are more personal than political, the product partly of Hussein’s determination that Hassan receive the formal education and years of preparation for leadership that the king never had.

Hussein was declared king in 1952, when he was 16, not long after his grandfather, King Abdullah, was shot to death at his side on a visit to Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque. Abdullah’s son, Talal, the father of Hussein and Hassan, initially was crowned king but was dethroned a year later because of schizophrenia. He was sent for medical treatment outside Jordan and died in 1972.

Hassan was only 5 when Hussein assumed the throne. The teenage king quickly took charge of his brother’s upbringing and education, sending him to Harrow in England and then on to Christ Church College at Oxford University, where Hassan received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Oriental studies. Along the way, Hassan added fluency in English and French to his Arabic and studied Hebrew, German and Turkish.

Succession Bypasses Others in Royal Family

In 1965, Hussein amended the constitution to change the rules of succession, and on Hassan’s 18th birthday, he named the prince his heir, bypassing another brother, Mohammed. The king also skipped over his own first two sons, who were considered ineligible for the throne because their mother, the second of Hussein’s four wives, was British.

Hussein later had three more sons, but despite talk of a possible battle over the succession, he has never varied from his designation of Hassan as his heir apparent. In August, during his medical treatment in the United States, he again declared that Hassan would succeed him.

Over the years, particularly after an earlier bout with cancer in 1992, Hussein has turned over more and more responsibility to the prince. Hassan has long been responsible for overseeing the Jordanian economy, rebuilding it after a disastrous loss to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, which cost Hussein the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Hassan was also given the massive task of trying to settle the thousands of Palestinian refugees who flooded across the border into Jordan after that conflict.

It would be hard to imagine a more loyal second in command. In fact, many in Jordan believe that one of the most difficult aspects for Hassan in eventually assuming the throne is that he will have to do it without the kind of strong, selfless support that his brother has received from him.

But some analysts point out that unlike Hussein’s own lonely initial period of leadership, the small, close-knit Jordanian royal family today boasts a number of princes, from the king’s and crown prince’s young sons to older uncles, who could pull together to support Hassan in running the affairs of state, especially at first.

That could prove difficult, whenever it occurs. Some Jordanians worry that the crown prince will not be able to command the loyalty of the nation’s key communities, including major Bedouin tribes, Islamic fundamentalist opposition groups, the army, and Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Monarch, Heir Critical of Slow Pace of Peace

Outside Jordan, Hassan’s relationship with the Palestinians and their leadership is strong. Like his brother, the prince has been sharply critical of the slow pace of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. But inside the country, many Palestinians say they don’t trust him and fear his ascension, apparently remembering that he helped urge his brother to use the army in 1970 to put down what both regarded as a threat to Hashemite rule from the Palestine Liberation Organization. Hassan says he does not understand the continuing distrust.

But others argue that inside and outside this strategically located nation there are powerful interests aimed at keeping Jordan stable.

“The core of the main Jordanian families and tribes who are deeply entrenched in the bureaucracy and the military have a vested interest in the preservation of their political patrimony,” said Asher Susser, a Middle East studies professor at Tel Aviv University and an expert on Jordan. “Their interest is in stability.”

* REMEMBRANCE

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