Nobody, then, was surprised when, with the announcement that the Department of Industrial Development was to be upgraded and to become a Ministry, came the news that the newly created ministerial portfolio had been offered to and accepted by Dr. Hawa. That he succeeded in retaining it for so long, even through the turmoils and upheavals of the late sixties, was due to a combination of circumstances.
As an appendage of the more potent ministries of Finance and Commerce and with little political or financial muscle of its own, Dr. Hawa’s Ministry could never provide the kind of operational base camp sought after by senior dissidents and would be coup-makers. It controlled no deployable forces, armed or unarmed, and was outside the inner power sector of government. Its function had been defined by Hawa himself as essentially catalytic — a phrase of which he became increasingly fond as time went by — and the image which he projected of himself was that of the super-efficient specialist quietly doing his own job as only he knew how, and with eyes for nobody else’s.
Never once did he attempt to display himself as a potential leader. He must have been tempted at times. Men with his vanity, ambition, and peculiar abilities are rarely able to set limits to their aspirations, but he was one of the exceptions. A threat to no one with the power to destroy him, he had accordingly survived.
Although I would have preferred someone lazier and less alert to deal with, I could have had worse taskmasters than Dr. Hawa. It was clear, from the moment of his promotion, that ministerial office agreed with him. He seemed to smoke fewer cigarettes and was often quite relaxed and amiable. On occasion, over a game of backgammon and with a glass or two of my best brandy inside him, he would even make jokes that were not also gibes. Of course, he could still be unpleasant. When, for the first time, it became evident that the Howell companies abroad were beginning to make worthwhile profits out of the exclusive agencies granted to us under the agreement, I had to listen to bitter sarcasms and veiled threats. Naturally, I had figures to prove that on balance we were still well in the red, but he was invariably difficult about figures. His were always unassailably accurate and complete; everyone else’s were either irrelevant or cooked.
He had other quirks that made him hard to handle. For instance, you had to be careful with ideas for new projects. It was most dangerous to discuss a possible development with him unless you had already made up your mind that it was something you really wanted. If he liked a new idea he would seize upon it, and after that there was no escape. Almost before you were back in your office there would be a Ministry press release going out announcing the new wonder. From then on, whether you liked it or not, you were committed.
That, in fact, was how this whole miserable business over the dry batteries started. Dr. Hawa forced me into it.
It was the same with the electronics project. Under an arrangement made by Dr. Hawa’s Ministry with a trade mission from the GDR, we had to set up a plant to assemble electronic components manufactured in East Germany. We produced telecommunications equipment of various kinds, including highly specialized stuff for the army, as well as small radio and television sets. They gave me an Iraqi manager who had received special training in East Germany to run the plant, but the whole setup was wrong from our point of view. Being labour intensive it was economically unsound anyway, and the military contracts, on which I had thought we might possibly have made money, were dished out to us on a cost-plus basis which was ruinous. With the electronics it was all we could do to break even.
But the dry-battery project was much worse. That cost me more than money; that became a nightmare.
Don’t misunderstand, please. I am not blaming Dr. Hawa for everything that happened; I should have been quicker on my feet. What I am saying is that, far from having cunningly planned the battery operation, as some of those scavengers who call themselves reporters have hinted, I tried hard to stop it going forward, not only before it began but afterwards, too.
The thing started purely by accident. It was the year after the Six-Day War with Israel.
All government ministries everywhere have to send out lots of pieces of paper; it is in the nature of the beasts. One of the pieces regularly sent out by the Ministry of Industrial Development was a list of bulk commodities held in government warehouses and available for purchase. Normally, the list was of no immediate business interest to me, but I used to glance at it sometimes, for old times’ sake, to see what they were asking for tobacco. That was how I came to see this rather unusual item. In one of the Latakia warehouses there were sixty metric tons of manganese dioxide.
It gave me an idea. Although the ceramics factory was doing extremely well, with production and sales both going up nicely, our stocks, particularly of tile, were building up a trifle faster than we could move them. I had been looking for other lines to manufacture so as to diversify a bit. This stuff in the warehouse suggested a possibility. I inquired about it.
Originally, I learned, it had been part of the mixed cargo of a Panamanian freighter out of Iskenderun in Turkey. South of Baniyas she had engine trouble and a southwest gale had blown her aground on a bank near the Arab-el-Meulk light-buoy. Tugs from Latakia had pulled her off eventually, but only after some of the cargo, including the manganese dioxide, had been transshipped to lighten her. Later there had been a dispute over the tug-masters’ salvage claims, and she had sailed, leaving the transshipped cargo impounded. The manganese dioxide wasn’t all that valuable anyway, except possibly to me. I requested samples.
Hawa’s spies were everywhere. Within hours of my making that request, his Chef de Bureau was on to me, wanting to know what my interest in the material was. I said that it was hard to explain on the telephone and that, in any case, there was no point in trying to explain until I had received the samples and run tests. He said that he would await the results of the tests. A week later I was summoned to see the Minister. That didn’t surprise me. I had long ago learned that, once his curiosity was aroused, Dr. Hawa was quite incapable of delegating its satisfaction to an underling. However, the summons came while I was away in Alexandria straightening out some of our Egyptian problems. Teresa told the Chef de Bureau where I was, of course, and then made an appointment for me to see Hawa on the day of my return; but I was quite unprepared for the VIP treatment at the airport that Hawa had laid on.
That was the first time I had had it, and it scared me stiff. Nobody could tell me what was going on, so naturally I assumed that I was under arrest. It wasn’t until I was in the air-conditioned car and on the way to the Ministry that I began to get angry. I thought that this was Hawa’s way of getting back at me for not being on instant call when he wanted to see me, and also of reminding me, in case I had forgotten, that he could control my comings and goings if he wished.
He was very affable when I was shown into his office.
“Ah, Michael, there you are. All quite safe and sound.” He waved me to a chair.
“Thank you, Minister.” I sat down. “I am most grateful to you for the airport reception. It was unexpected but welcome.”
“We try to protect our friends.” He lit a cigarette. “Doubtless you heard in Alexandria of our latest troubles. No? Ah well, it only happened last night. A civil airliner, European, destroyed by bombs at the airport. Israeli saboteurs, of course.”