BEN BARKA CASE: WHY THE ABDUCTION?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100360062-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 62
• Publication Date: January 23, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

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NEW IT YO' K lil t
Approved For Release 2001J1R/2.6r C RDPAQW RO
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
Peking approach found little;
but verbal sympathy.
1 Mr. Ben Barka on election
from Rabat to Morocco's short !
VV h v f h e A hcl i it f n n ,lived National Assembly in,
63. , is
Soon afterward, in July, the;
wing "plot" against the King,
He was sentenced to death)
wire in. ahsentia once fort
Family Installed in ('ait?o
For Mr. Ben Barka, it was!
iad married in 1949, and four
hildren in Cairo at the Nasser
.+
egime's expense, he roamed the
II
'revolutionary" world again.
of little attention from the Al_I
organs despite his sympathyll
Last year, he was put!
om political gossip.
Meanwhile, shttt::'.ing back find
rth from Paris to Geneva to;'
lssing compromises, "new op-1,
ons," even a possible modus(
The royal palace was
lent:
IIS for "social justice" a.nd
he installation of a concrete!
L all but forgotten him. . Only !
handful of Moroccan students;
By PETER BRAESTRUP
Special to The New York Times
night for news of the centra
He was, taken by a car fron
jAnierican-style "drug store" o
]de--Pr6s on the Left Bank. In-
lvolved in the plot against him
I allegedly, three Moroccan offi-
cials headed by the Interior
1iKing : Or was General Ourxtr,
as Abdelkader. Ben Barka
charges, trying to' cut short a
reconciliation between the King
the cruel intricacies of Moroccan
politics, a special Arab blend
of personal-feuds and shifting
alliances, of sudden "fraternity"
and sudden denunciation,.
A Grocer's Son
~ Mehdi Ben Barka, the son of
a grocer, had been an articulate
itempetuous fighter in this By-
zantine climate much - of his
He infuriated his French
Not long afterward, at the
'Univers!ity of Algiers, he be-
came first a member, then pres-
ident of the Association of North
African Students, . grouping
Approved For Rel
" r i
the. Princes was reporter
man,
to have told the radical';
.friends. "He wants to do toy
much, and so he won't . accom
plish anything in the end."
In the fight for independence
Mr. Ben Barka, spent more than
three years between 1951 ant
'1954 under house arrest in the
Moroccan Sahara, helped rear
ga.nize the Tstiqlal party ant
participated in the negotiation
in 1955 that led to end of thi
French protectorate.
After independence in 1956 he
was elected president o:
the National Consultative As
sembly, A,hich became his per
sonal forum if little more.
Although Mr. Ben Barke
pledged fidelity to ' Moha.mmcc
V, the King tired of the Assem?
bly's polemics and dissolved it
Meanwhile Mr. Den Barka hat
broken with the conservative
wing of Istiglal, made off with
the left wing and founded the
National Union of Popular
Fdrees in 1959
Mehdi Ben Barka ? With strong Socialist leanings;
Darin; this period, he{,asvauel.y echoing the slogans of
the French left, the new party
.rres`ed several times by the had, the support of big-city la-
'rench police and was releasedbor leaders and Morocco's po-
iuickly each time, litically active students.
He was a promising naatlie-;
natician, His French friends on Police Abuses Denounced
he Algiers faculty intervened 1W7hile his fellow leftists gainer
vith the, authorities when his'anini:,tcrial posts in periodic
political activities brought Po-'Cabinet shuffles, Mr. Ben Barka
icemen to his door. Ifiercel,y attacked police abuses
When Mr, Ben Barka returned;in fiery Arabic, called, for the
Rabat in 1943, his fellow Mn-seizu.re of French-owned fa.rm-
occan intellectuals were seeth-;land and "the mobilization of
ug, with nationalist fervor,! Morocco's human resources."
imulated by allied promises ofi it was Mr. Ben Barka's hey-
f-detennmatlon and France s,day. He was hailed by left-wing
artimd defeats, Paris intellectuals and by Mo-
Moslem high school students: roccan street crowds.
fused to attend classes in pro- Of the Istiqlal old guard, his
st against French rule. Mr.;~ormer companions and politi-
an Barka, bimse`.` took part ilr,cal elders,'he would say:
reet clashes with French riot), 'They talk of a revolution in
licemen in Fez and Casa-'...Moro-,,co. But they only talk. In
anca. ' fact, all they, have done is take
At the age of 24, ostensibly'over power from the French."
ly a high school teacher of' Mr. Ben:' .Parka drew the
athematics at Rabat, he be-.nmity. of Ralaft conservatives,
me one of the most active the army, the, Moslem landown-
aders? of the natic. alistIsti-,0rs and jealous left-wingers as
al (Independence) party. well,
The, Sultan of Morocco, who, From 1960 to 1962, he lived
ter became independent Mo-;in Paris as a kind of semi-exile,
cco's first King as Moham-!studying "econometrics," trav-
ed V, chose Mr. Ben Barka as,'eling to Peking, Havana, Cairo
e of the tutors for his youngia.nd other "revolutionary" cap-
n. Prince Hassan. The PrincelitaIa, He was deeply impressed
as to succeed to the throne by the austere Chinese Commu-
1961. 1nist approach.
No lasting bond was Created' "That's the only wal+ an un-
tween the bright but fun-lov-derdeveloped country like ours
g-'Prince and his austere tutorcon grow,". he told a friend
ho was later to attack bitterly later
e luxurious living habits of But in Morocco, where even
dependent, Morocco's rulingl6aders of the officially banned
asses..,, .Communist party build ' back
:yard swimming pools, then
ase 2001/07/26 : CIA-RDP75-00149R0001003600