The Madness of King Talal

The devastating effect of mental illness on the Jordanian royal family at a crucial moment in Middle Eastern history has emerged in British Foreign Office papers.

Prince Talal (1909-72) acceded to the throne of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in July 1951, on the assassination of his father Abdullah who had ruled the region since 1923, and who many feared was preparing to make a separate peace with Israel. Hussein, Talal’s son and the future king of Jordan, was at his grandfather’s side in Jerusalem when a Palestinian opposed to Israel shot him; the young man grappled with the assailant and was wounded himself.

But in the preceeding months, Talal himself had twice tried to murder his own wife, and had been found torturing his ten-year-old son Muhammad, in the belief that the boy knew of a plot to assassinate him. British diplomats assisted in hustling him out of the country for psychiatric treatment and he was in a mental hospital in Geneva when he became king.