Syria: Welcome . . .

Though tanks still peered through the shrubbery in downtown Damascus, Syria was calm. After Gamal Abdel Nasser had resigned himself to Syria’s breakaway from the United Arab Republic (“May Allah help beloved Syria”), the world’s nations hastened to welcome the newly independent state. In a blaze of flashbulbs and official smiles, U.S. Consul General Ridgway B. Knight drove up to the rose-walled Foreign Office in Damascus last week and presented a note extending formal recognition. Three days earlier, the new regime, coolly and without publicity, accepted Soviet recognition. Said one longtime Western observer: “This is the most pro-Western government Syria’s ever had.” adding pointedly: “But, let’s not kiss it and hug it to death.”

Nasser, who knows well that this is the surest way to discredit Syria in the Arab world, assiduously painted the new regime as a “reactionary” front for British interests. In Syria itself, the powerful socialist Baath Party charged that the government ”represents vested interests trying to stuff their own pockets.” The government was determined to put Syria’s plundered economy on an even keel and slow Nasser’s precipitate nationalization program. But able, French-trained Economics Minister Awad Barakat said he would press forward with land redistribution, ”with certain modifications,” and retain intact “social benefits instituted by the previous regime,” including compulsory profit sharing in private industry.

To rally outside support, and snipe at Nasser, Premier Mamoun Kuzbari proposed a new federation of Arab states in which, by contrast with the last U.A.R.. member nations would retain full internal and international sovereignty.

From Moscow, Syria’s exiled Communist Boss Khalid Bakdash wired congratulations to the new government, with a request for permission to return home (which he is rumored to have done already). “He is welcome.” replied Syria’s army commander in chief, Major General Abdel Karim Zahreddin. “But he will be hanged on arrival.”