Was Saddam Hussein ever in America? Specifically Ft. Leavenworth?

[ubermensch]

My mother swears that she met him there, about 30 years ago, when she was working at the PX there. This would have been mid 60s to maybe 1974. Everything I’ve found online pretty much says he was busy rebelling and what not in the Mid East.

So anyone think they can verify this?

Thanks

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Well, I looked around and I didn’t see anything, either, but I did find this profile of him by the Kansas City Star, and I couldn’t help thinking, “If he had visted Kansas at some point in the past, wouldn’t the Star have mentioned it? ‘Famous Person Visited Kansas Once’?” I know my local paper would have, in a heartbeat.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/5433300.htm

It also mentions:

…in 1959.

Return fire wounded Hussein, but he escaped capture…

Hussein’s brief exile marked one of the few times he has ever traveled outside his native country.

He would have had to take valuable time away from consolidating his political position at home after the 1968 coup, which sounds unlikely to me.

The Baath nationalist wing gained control of Iraq in a bloodless 1968 coup. Hussein sat atop the first tank to the presidential palace.

In the early stages of the new regime, Hussein appeared content to play the quiet No. 2 man, overseeing security for his cousin, President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. A modest office and Volkswagen Beetle would do.

Would this modest, quiet man have taken time off to go visit Fort Leavenworth? And if so, why?

[TGWATY]

I grew up in Leavenworth. In the early 70’s a Saudi Arabian prince was a student at the fort. He made quite an impression on the town by throwing his money around. I seem to recall he gave his paperboy a car, for instance. Built a big ultra-modern (70’s style) house on the outskirts of town.

This is probably who your mother is remembering.

[Equipoise]

*Originally posted by TGWATY *
**I grew up in Leavenworth. In the early 70’s a Saudi Arabian prince was a student at the fort. He made quite an impression on the town by throwing his money around. I seem to recall he gave his paperboy a car, for instance. Built a big ultra-modern (70’s style) house on the outskirts of town.
**

I grew up in (and around) Leavenworth too. Wow, you, me and Melissa Etheridge. I vaguely remember the Saudi Prince, but remember nothing about Hussein. Sorry, I’m no help, I just perked up when I saw the word “Leavenworth.”
(I lived in Leavenworth until I was 7, then we moved to a farm south of Lansing.)

[peepthis]

Any chance this was King Hussein from Jordan that your mom met, and then just has mixed up the names since? I don’t know what he’d have been doing in Leavenworth on a visit to the States, but you never know.

[funneefarmer]

*Originally posted by peepthis *
**Any chance this was King Hussein from Jordan that your mom met, and then just has mixed up the names since? I don’t know what he’d have been doing in Leavenworth on a visit to the States, but you never know. **

Visiting the in-laws perhaps ?

Queen Noor is from the states.

From http://www.noor.gov.jo/personal_profile.htm

“Her Majesty Queen Noor was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby on 23 August 1951, to an Arab-American family distinguished for its public service. She attended schools in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York City, and Concord Academy in Massachusetts, before entering Princeton University in its first co-educational freshman class.”

[Walloon]

funneefarmer, King Hussein of Jordan did not marry the American Lisa Halaby until 1978, so he would not be visiting American in-laws in the period “mid 60s to maybe 1974”, as ubermensch specified in his original post.

King Hussein was married to Englishwoman Antoinette (Toni) Gardiner until she divorced him in 1972 after ten years of marriage. Hussein then married Alia Tuqan, the daughter of a prominent West Bank family, in 1973; she died in a helicopter crash in 1977.