www.washingtonpost.com/wp...Nov24.html
Declassified Files Profile Afghan King
By Deb Riechmann
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, November 24, 2001; 7:05 AM
WASHINGTON Declassified U.S. documents from his last years as king of Afghanistan portray Mohammad Zaher Shah as an aloof leader reigning over a nation with declining morale and a feeling of hopelessness.
Still, the grandfatherly figure who ruled Afghanistan for four decades now is viewed by many as a symbol of unity for a nation fractured by war and ethnic power struggles.
The 87-year-old former king plans to send a delegation to U.N.-brokered power-sharing talks in Germany next week on Afghanistan's post-Taliban leadership. And the United States and its coalition partners in the war on terrorism hope that Zaher Shah could assume a leadership role, at least as a symbolic figure in a future Afghan government.
Zaher Shah ruled for 40 years before being ousted in a 1973 coup. He now lives in Rome and says he does not want to return to the throne, but hopes to unite the Afghan people and help them establish a representative government.
"He wasn't a very effective leader," said Fiona Hill, an expert on Central Asia at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "But you have to remember that this guy was born into this.
"You have to think of him as a monarch, chosen by birth, not by any special ability. He is a king, not a politician and all we can look to him for is a symbolic role."
In the early 1970s, one American diplomat in Kabul privately suggested to the king that he mimic the Depression-era leadership style of Franklin Roosevelt. Then-Ambassador Robert Neumann urged Zaher to take bolder steps to fix economic woes threatening Afghanistan's new democratic-leaning government of the time.
"I emphasized the need for a new government to take some psychological actions, such as a speech from the throne, designed to jolt the people and make them aware that this government intended to do something," Neumann wrote in a confidential cable to Washington in August 1971.
"I cited FDR's first few months in office as crucial to his program in which he gave people a sense of hope and thus brought about a turning point in the recovery process even before his programs began to take effect."
Neumann said he told the king that in his more than four years in Afghanistan, he had never heard "so many expressions at all levels of society about a feeling of hopelessness that new government could accomplish anything."
Documents about the king were released by the National Archives under the U.S. government's historical declassification program. They were recently compiled by the National Security Archives, an independent research institute at George Washington University.
On March 21, 1972, Neumann sent a cable from Kabul to Washington, saying: "There is an atmosphere here of lassitude, or resignation, as if the elan vital of the government has become exhausted, and there is growing criticism of the king and his alleged inability or unwillingness to make decisions."
A year later, on March 30, 1973, a State Department report stamped "confidential" said political reforms the king was pursuing were being hampered by a "party-less parliament, the powerless prime minister and a king reluctant either to use or delegate his authority."
"Both the executive and legislative branches look to the king for direction, support and authority. ... As the king has endeavored to stay aloof from day-to-day operations, the result has been long periods of government paralysis punctuated by royal action."
The king was ousted a few months later by his cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan, who was overthrown and killed in a 1978 military coup. After the Soviet Union ended its 10-year invasion of Afghanistan in 1989, leaders of the diverse ethnic factions dissolved into bitter infighting that dashed any hope of peace and left an opening for the Taliban to rise to power.
On the Net: National Security Archive: www.gwu.edu
2001 The Associated Press
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Declassified Files Profile Afghan King
By Deb Riechmann
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, November 24, 2001; 7:05 AM
WASHINGTON Declassified U.S. documents from his last years as king of Afghanistan portray Mohammad Zaher Shah as an aloof leader reigning over a nation with declining morale and a feeling of hopelessness.
Still, the grandfatherly figure who ruled Afghanistan for four decades now is viewed by many as a symbol of unity for a nation fractured by war and ethnic power struggles.
The 87-year-old former king plans to send a delegation to U.N.-brokered power-sharing talks in Germany next week on Afghanistan's post-Taliban leadership. And the United States and its coalition partners in the war on terrorism hope that Zaher Shah could assume a leadership role, at least as a symbolic figure in a future Afghan government.
Zaher Shah ruled for 40 years before being ousted in a 1973 coup. He now lives in Rome and says he does not want to return to the throne, but hopes to unite the Afghan people and help them establish a representative government.
"He wasn't a very effective leader," said Fiona Hill, an expert on Central Asia at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "But you have to remember that this guy was born into this.
"You have to think of him as a monarch, chosen by birth, not by any special ability. He is a king, not a politician and all we can look to him for is a symbolic role."
In the early 1970s, one American diplomat in Kabul privately suggested to the king that he mimic the Depression-era leadership style of Franklin Roosevelt. Then-Ambassador Robert Neumann urged Zaher to take bolder steps to fix economic woes threatening Afghanistan's new democratic-leaning government of the time.
"I emphasized the need for a new government to take some psychological actions, such as a speech from the throne, designed to jolt the people and make them aware that this government intended to do something," Neumann wrote in a confidential cable to Washington in August 1971.
"I cited FDR's first few months in office as crucial to his program in which he gave people a sense of hope and thus brought about a turning point in the recovery process even before his programs began to take effect."
Neumann said he told the king that in his more than four years in Afghanistan, he had never heard "so many expressions at all levels of society about a feeling of hopelessness that new government could accomplish anything."
Documents about the king were released by the National Archives under the U.S. government's historical declassification program. They were recently compiled by the National Security Archives, an independent research institute at George Washington University.
On March 21, 1972, Neumann sent a cable from Kabul to Washington, saying: "There is an atmosphere here of lassitude, or resignation, as if the elan vital of the government has become exhausted, and there is growing criticism of the king and his alleged inability or unwillingness to make decisions."
A year later, on March 30, 1973, a State Department report stamped "confidential" said political reforms the king was pursuing were being hampered by a "party-less parliament, the powerless prime minister and a king reluctant either to use or delegate his authority."
"Both the executive and legislative branches look to the king for direction, support and authority. ... As the king has endeavored to stay aloof from day-to-day operations, the result has been long periods of government paralysis punctuated by royal action."
The king was ousted a few months later by his cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan, who was overthrown and killed in a 1978 military coup. After the Soviet Union ended its 10-year invasion of Afghanistan in 1989, leaders of the diverse ethnic factions dissolved into bitter infighting that dashed any hope of peace and left an opening for the Taliban to rise to power.
On the Net: National Security Archive: www.gwu.edu
2001 The Associated Press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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