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A Scheme to Feminize the Fuhrer, and Other Strange Historic Plans

Khalid Elhassan July 16, 2024 30 min

Scheme - A womanly Hitler was thought to be a less effective Hitler — A womanly Hitler was thought to be a less effective Hitler. Open Art

13. The King and the Wasp Woman

Scheme - The CIA brought together King Hussein and actress Susan Cabot — The CIA brought together King Hussein and actress Susan Cabot. Haaretz

There were fears that the scheme might go awry because of Cabot’s Jewish heritage – she was born Harriet Shapiro. Such doubts were quickly dispelled: King Hussein was smitten. Per the CIA memo, when he left LA for the East Coast, Hussein: “wished to meet with her during his stay in New York City from 14 through 18 April“. So the CIA rented Hussein a house in Long Beach, Long Island, and registered Cabot in Manhattan’s Barclay Hotel “under an assumed name“. The scheme evolved into a star-crossed affair between the Muslim monarch and the Jewish actress. From the start, the CIA’s matchmaking was a sensitive matter. As hard as the duo tried to keep the relationship a secret, details leaked out. Per the declassified CIA memo:

“…[Cabot] discussed the publicity in the case at some length with the Security representatives … She speculated about the possible sources of certain personal information that she felt had been leaked to the press“. Hussein continued to meet in secret with Susan Cabot whenever he visited America, until the affair ended in the 1970s. By then, Cabot had given birth to her only child, Timothy. He was long rumored to be Hussein’s illegitimate son. The rumors about Timothy’s true father were buttressed by the fact that Hussein regularly paid Cabot what seems remarkably like child support. As one of Timothy’s lawyers put it in court papers in 1989: “For as long as I can discover, [Cabot] received a regular sum of $1,500 a month from the Keeper of the King’s Purse, Amman, Jordan. … For better or worse, it looks like child support“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.