Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1998, Page 137

Bulletin Board

Compiled by Janet McMahon

DEATHS

Syrian-born poet Nizar Qabbani, called by some the most popular Arab poet of the 20th century, died April 30 of a heart attack in his London home at the age of 75. Born in Damascus, he studied law and joined the diplomatic service, serving in China, Europe and the Middle East, before resigning to found his own publishing house in Beirut. A master of the love poem, he became popular in 1954 with the publication of his first volume of poetry, Childhood of a Breast, which broke from the conservative traditions of Arab literature. His later poetry, especially after the 1967 war, dealt increasingly with social and political issues, and “The Wrathful,” about the children of Gaza, was the first and most powerful poem about the intifada. In 1973 he married Balqis al-Rawi, an Iraqi teacher he met at a poetry recital in Baghdad, who was killed in a bomb attack in Beirut in 1981. He is survived by two daughters and a son. Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad offered to send a plane to London, where Qabbani had been undergoing medical treatment, to bring the poet’s body back for burial in his native land.

Nader Batmanghelidj, a retired Iranian lieutenant general and former ambassador and cabinet minister, died April 24 of kidney failure in a Reston, VA care center at the age of 95. A graduate of the Iranian Military Academy, he was commissioned in the Iranian army in the 1920s. As a colonel during World War II, he was imprisoned briefly by the British in 1945, then helped liberate Azerbaijan from Soviet occupation forces. He was named Iran’s athletic program chief by the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, but then was imprisoned for political reasons in 1953. Released following the overthrow of the Mossadegh government, he served as armed forces chief of staff before being appointed as Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan in 1955 and to Iraq in 1957. He subsequently was interior minister, chairman of the Military Group of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), and governor general of Khorasan Province, before retiring in 1967. In 1979 he was arrested by Iran’s new revolutionary government, and served three years of a life sentence before being released to come to the U.S. for medical treatment and to visit relatives. He had lived in the Washington, DC area since 1989.

Robert L. Headley, a retired CIA Middle East specialist and author, died April 18 of cancer at the age of 77 at his home in McLean, VA. A Philadelphia native and Dartmouth College graduate, he joined the American Field Service in 1941 as an ambulance driver and was assigned to the British Eighth Army in North Africa, where he served in the battle of El Alamein. Later in the war, he joined the U.S. Army, serving with the elite 10th Mountain Division in Italy and earning a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. After the war, he studied Middle East affairs at the University of Pennsylvania, Oxford University’s St. John’s College, and as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Cairo. He joined Aramco’s Arabian research department in 1951, working with the Saudi government on oil and territorial disputes. He wrote extensively, contributing articles to the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam , and edited Arabian Oil Ventures by the legendary Arabist St. John Philby. He joined the CIA in 1964, was stationed at the U.S. mission in Oman in the 1970s, and served as a consultant after his retirement in 1981.

Former Tunisian Prime Minister Bahi Ladgham died April 13 of a heart attack in a Paris hospital at the age of 85. A leading figure in Tunisia’s struggle for independence from France, he was secretary-general of Tunisia’s ruling Destour party for two decades, from 1953 to 1973, serving from 1957 to 1969 as secretary of state to the presidency under President Habib Bourguiba, and as prime minister in 1969 and 1970. He headed an Arab committee formed in 1970 to broker a peace agreement between King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat’s PLO to end the fighting in Jordan in which some 3,400 people were killed and which eventually resulted in the PLO’s withdrawal from Amman in April of 1971.

Elias Freij, the Greek Orthodox mayor of Bethlehem for 25 years until his retirement last May, died March 29 in an Amman hospital of heart and kidney ailments and diabetes at the age of 80. A longtime confidant of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, he served as Palestinian Authority tourism minister until poor health forced him to resign.

Abdul-Rahman al-Iryani, president of North Yemen from 1967 to 1974, died March 14 in Damascus, Syria at the age of 89. In 1955 he was sentenced to death by Yemen’s ruling Mutawakilite dynasty for his leadership of the Al-Ahrar opposition group. Minutes before his scheduled execution by sword, he was granted a reprieve by King Imam Ahmed, spending more than 15 years in prison before Mutawakilite rule ended in 1962. He served as North Yemen’s minister of religious endowments under its first national government, and was the country’s only civilian president, following which he lived in exile in Syria. He returned to Yemen in 1980 at the invitation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but chose to go back to Syria. His body was flown back to Yemen, where he received a state funeral.

George Thompson, a retired foreign service officer, journalist and frequent contributor of Washington Report articles, died March 13 of cancer in a Florida hospital at the age of 72. A veteran of World War II, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps at age 16 and was shot down over Germany.

Most of Thompson’s assignments for the U.S. Information Agency were in the Middle East and included posts in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. He also served in the Caribbean, and as USIA’s science adviser, and won USIA’s Leonard Marks award for creativity, recognition given to only one USIA officer annually.

He was editor of USIA’s Arabic magazine Al Majal in Tunis at the time of his retirement from the foreign service. He and his wife, Dolly, spent the next two years living on their 41-foot ketch at various ports in the Mediterranean before he and his son, Jordan (Jory), sailed the boat across the Atlantic and to what became the Thompsons’ retirement home in Melbourne, FL.

In Florida he taught writing courses at Brevard Community College for several years. During this period, in the words of a journalistic colleague, he “set up a cottage industry of sorts in journalism.” It started with a weekly left-right opinion column (he was the liberal) called “180 Degrees” for Florida Today. He and his conservative protagonist then took their debates to a weekly television call-in show, which presented in-depth interviews with local experts. Meanwhile Thompson also became a columnist for USA Today. When his columns on Middle East matters led to radio shows or produced letters to the editor, Thompson would refer callers to this magazine, producing dozens of subscribers over the years.

In addition to all of these activities, Thompson also ran for the Brevard County school board and wrote for sailing publications. He is survived by his wife, Dolly, son Jordan, four grandchildren by Jordan and another son, Glenn, who died nine years ago in Michigan, and one great-granddaughter.