IRAQ: Preferred Blonde

As a child ensconced on the throne of Iraq at the age of three, King Feisal liked toy tanks and lollipops. In a 19-year maturing process that included three years at England’s Harrow, his tastes expanded to include a decided predilection for blondes, a commodity not always easily come by in the black-eyed Middle East.

The dark-eyed, black-haired bachelor king’s search for a wife and Queen was further circumscribed by the requirement that she be of noble birth and a devout Moslem. An early attempt to announce his troth—to a five-year-old daughter of Egypt’s King Farouk—was abandoned almost as soon as it was considered; the latest attempt to marry him to a daughter of Morocco’s King Mohammed V was given up last winter. Reasons: her Moroccan Arabic was almost incomprehensible to an Iraqi, and besides, she was no blonde. This summer 22-year-old Feisal found the girl he wanted.

Summer Splash. He had first met Princess Sabiha Fazilet on the French Riviera two years ago, when she was 14. They met again beside the Bosporus this summer. Taking his ease aboard the royal yacht Queen Aliyah, the young King found himself often in the company of buxom Princess Fazilet, whose ancestors were for centuries the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. The tall, athletic girl towered over Feisal, but she soon took to wearing flat-heeled shoes, and she was undeniably handsome.

If the Albanian rulers of Egypt and overlords of the Ottoman Empire did little else to benefit mankind, they were identified with some of the most beautiful women in the world. Princess Fawzia, sister of Egypt’s fat Farouk and onetime Empress of Iran, was one. Dark-eyed Princess Zehra Hanzade, granddaughter of Turkey’s last Sultan and mother of Fazilet, was another. Fazilet’s father, Prince Mohammed Ali, is a cousin of Farouk’s. He fled Egypt when Farouk did, and got most of his vast wealth out to Europe. At first, Papa was not keen on a royal romance. “I reared my daughter to earn her own living,” he was quoted as saying. “A Queen has responsibilities and must give up many of her rights as an individual.”

But at last, with the connivance of both families, the two youngsters were brought together by purposeful accident—the young King on his yacht, the Princess in her family villa—for a summer of waterskiing, swimming, partying and spooning along Istanbul’s fashionable Bosporus shore. Soon Feisal completely forgot the requirements of royal protocol, and popped the question without a by-your-leave from his government ministers or the girl’s own family. “The two of them got engaged first and then asked if we approved,” said Prince Mohammed Ali. “We said we did.”

Winter Wait. It was only after he returned to Baghdad that Feisal remembered protocol long enough to send the Premier of Iraq and the Chief of the Royal Palace hotfooting to Istanbul with a large diamond and emerald engagement ring.

A national holiday was declared last week in Iraq to celebrate the official engagement, but the wedding will not take place until next summer, when Feisal’s new, blue-domed palace is finished. Besides, Fazilet’s mother insisted: “She has to finish her schooling, you know.” Which school? “Oh,” said the bride’s father, already feeling the lessening of his parental responsibilities, “we’ll leave all that to King Feisal.”