37. Hitting It Off
King Hussein and Susan Cabot met on April 9th, 1959. There were doubts at the time that the scheme might go awry because of Cabot’s Jewish heritage – she was born Harriet Shapiro. Fears that Cabot’s background might prove problematic for the Muslim monarch were quickly dispelled: Hussein was smitten.
According to a CIA memo, he got along so well with Cabot that when he left LA for the East Coast, the king: “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“.