Jordan: Water & Good Will

Just for a change, a U.S. ambassador abroad was being cheered.

In 1956, anti-Western mobs in Amman menaced the U.S. embassy; other mobs bombed and burned USIS buildings. But last week, as scholarly looking Ambassador William B. Macomber Jr., 40, motored along the Jordan valley, the crowds applauded. Macomber was on his way to opening ceremonies of the new East Ghor Canal, a U.S.-backed project that will bring badly needed irrigation waters from a River Jordan tributary, the Yarmuk, to the parched Jordan valley. Direct beneficiaries will be 3,800 needy farmers and their families.

King Hussein himself helicoptered to the ceremony. He snipped the tape and engineers turned taps to fill the first, 22-mile-long section of the canal (the rest of its 50-mile length is scheduled to open next year). As the waters rushed in, the Royal Jordanian Army’s British-trained pipe band tootled The Campbells are Comin’, swarthy-faced men in Arab headdress surged forward to kiss the King’s hand, and happy crowds swarmed around Ambassador Macomber crying in their best English, “Hello you, hi, hi!” The U.S. contributed a relatively modest $7,500,000 to the project, showing that even limited aid can be successful if given at the right time and the right place.