V o L u m e I : a d

COLD WAR

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Soldier, diplomat, and king of Jordan. Born in Mecca on 12 September 1882,

the second son of Hussein ibn Ali, sharif of Mecca, Abdullah studied in

Istanbul, Turkey, and later became an Arab nationalist. During World War I,

with British assistance, he facilitated the Hussein-MacMahon Correspon-

dence that launched the 1916 Arab Revolt.

In the 1930s, King Abdullah conducted secret talks with Zionist leaders

about a Jewish homeland in a Palestinian-Jordanian kingdom. In 1947 he told

Jewish leaders that he would not oppose the creation of a Jewish state but

planned to annex the West Bank area of Palestine. When

other Arab countries learned of the clandestine agreement,

they immediately opposed it, forcing a war with Israel.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Abdullah served as

the commander in chief of Arab forces. As such, he sent his

Arab forces into Palestine, occupying areas that he wished

to annex. He avoided, however, attacking Jewish areas in

the United Nations’ partition plan, but his army did battle

unsuccessfully for control of Jerusalem.

In 1950 Abdullah signed a nonaggression pact with

Israel after secret negotiations, but he was forced to re-

nounce it when threatened with expulsion from the Arab

League. In return, the other Arab states accepted the

annexation of Arab Palestine by Jordan. Abdullah was assas-

sinated in Jerusalem on 21 July 1951.

Andrew J. Waskey

See also

Arab-Israeli Wars; Arab Nationalism; Israel; Jordan

References

Nevo, Joseph. King Abdullah and Palestine: A Territorial Ambition.

New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.

Wilson, Mary C. King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Abdullah, King of Jordan

51

Abdullah,

King of Jordan

(1882–1951)

A

Abdullah, king of Jordan from 1946 until his assassination

in 1951. (Corbis)

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Abrams, Creighton

Williams

(1914–1974)

Pseudonym of Vilyam (Willie) Genrikovich Fisher, the chief Soviet under-

cover agent in the United States from 1947 to 1957. The alias “Rudolf Abel”

was adopted at the time of Fisher’s arrest in the United States in 1957. Born

on 11 July 1903 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Fisher at age sixteen

passed an entry exam to the University of London. Two years later he went

to the Soviet Union, where he served first as a translator for the Comintern

before a stint in the Red Army’s Radio Battalion during 1925–1926.

Fisher then served as a Soviet spy in the German Army before being

assigned to New York City under the code name “Mark” in 1947. There he

posed as a freelance artist known as Emil Robert Goldfus. In 1949, he assumed

control of the Volunteer spy network headed by American communist Mor-

ris Cohen. The network included Theodore Alvin Hall, a nuclear physicist at

Los Alamos and the youngest of the spies who passed information on the

atom bomb to the Soviets. The network had also included atomic spies Julius

Rosenberg and Klaus Fuchs.

In 1957 Fisher’s chief assistant, the alcoholic Reino Hayhanen, betrayed

him to American authorities. Arrested and sentenced to thirty years in prison,

Fisher served only four years at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary before he

was exchanged on 10 February 1962 for downed American U-2 pilot Francis

Gary Powers on the Glienicke Bridge in West Berlin, ever after known as “the

bridge of spies.” The drama of the exchange and the book by Fisher’s lawyer,

Strangers on a Bridge, cemented Fisher’s reputation as a master spy, even

though his American residency had not produced any great intelligence coups.

Fisher spent the remainder of his career working at the KGB Illegals Direc-

torate in Moscow. He died of lung cancer in Moscow on 15 November 1971.

Vernon L. Pedersen

See also

Espionage; Fuchs, Klaus; Powers, Francis Gary; Rosenberg, Julius; U-2 Overflights

of the Soviet Union

References

Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin. The Sword and Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive

and the Secret History of the KGB. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

Donovan, James B. Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel. New York: Atheneum,

1964.

U.S. Army general, celebrated combat leader, and army chief of staff (1972–

1974). Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on 15 September 1914, Creighton

Abrams graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1936 and

was posted to the 7th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Bliss, Texas. When World

War II loomed, he volunteered for the newly formed armored force.

52

Abel, Rudolf

Abel, Rudolf

(1903–1971)

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Abrams first rose to professional prominence as a lieu-

tenant colonel and commander of a tank battalion that

often spearheaded General George Patton’s Third Army

in the drive across Europe. Abrams led the forces that

punched through German lines to relieve the encircled

101st Airborne Division at Bastogne during the Battle of

the Bulge, earned two Distinguished Service Crosses and

many other decorations, and received a battlefield promo-

tion to full colonel.

After World War II, Abrams served as director of tac-

tics at the Armor School, Fort Knox (1946–1948); was a

corps chief of staff late in the Korean War (1953–1954); and

from 1960 to 1962 commanded the 3rd Armored Division

in Germany, a key post during the Cold War. A year later

he took command of its parent V Corps. In mid-1964 he

was recalled from Europe, promoted to four-star general,

and made the army’s vice chief of staff. In that assignment

(1964–1967) he was deeply involved in the army’s troop

buildup for the war in Vietnam.

In May 1967 Abrams was himself assigned to Vietnam

as deputy commander. In that position he concentrated pri-

marily on improvement of South Vietnamese armed forces.

During the 1968 Tet Offensive when the forces involved

performed far better than expected, Abrams received much

of the credit. He formally assumed command of American

forces in Vietnam in July 1968. A consummate tactician who proved to have

a feel for this kind of conflict, he moved quickly to change the conduct of the

war in fundamental ways. His predecessor’s attrition strategy, search and

destroy tactics, and emphasis on body counts as the measure of battlefield

success were all discarded.

Abrams instead stressed population security, the new measure of merit,

as the key to success. He prescribed a “one war” approach in which combat

operations, pacification, and upgrading South Vietnamese forces were of

equal importance and priority. He cut back on multibattalion sweeps, replac-

ing them with thousands of small unit patrols and ambushes that blocked

communist forces’ access to the people and interdicted their movement of

forces and supplies. Clear-and-hold operations became the standard tactical

approach, with expanded and better-armed Vietnamese territorial forces pro-

viding the hold. Population security progressed accordingly. Meanwhile, U.S.

forces were incrementally withdrawn, their missions taken over by the

improving South Vietnamese.

Abrams left Vietnam in June 1972 to become U.S. Army chief of staff.

There he set about dealing with the myriad problems of an army that had

been through a devastating ordeal. He concentrated on readiness and on the

well-being of the soldier, always the touchstones of his professional concern.

Stricken with cancer, Abrams died in office in Washington, D.C., on 4 Sep-

tember 1974. He had set a course of reform and rebuilding that General

Abrams, Creighton Williams

53

U.S. Army General Creighton Williams Abrams com-

manded U.S. forces in Vietnam during 1969–1972.

(Herbert Elmer Abrams/Center for Military History)

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