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Adding to the gossip was Crown Prince Hassan’s decision not to visit my father in America. His supporters argued that he was just doing his job as regent, providing much-needed stability in the country at an uncertain time. But Field Marshal Kaabneh later told me that while my father was in the hospital Prince Hassan gave orders for some officers to be given early retirement and others to be promoted. Kaabneh refused. Prince Hassan had said, “I am the supreme commander now.”

“No, sir,” was Kaabneh’s reply. “Nobody has told me that. I only take my orders from His Majesty King Hussein. The king is in America, but we can call him at any time.” The crown prince was insistent, but Kaabneh stood his ground. Military affairs were strictly under the control of the king, and it was unprecedented and unconstitutional for the crown prince to issue orders directly to the military. Prince Hassan may well have had good intentions, hoping to provide leadership and continuity in the face of a growing power vacuum and to quell the many rumors flying around Amman. But his attempt to bypass institutional structures only added to the mounting apprehension.

I still hoped for the best, and prayed that my father would win his struggle.

In early October I took time off and went back to the Mayo Clinic to visit my father. He loved Japanese food, so as a treat I had some Kobe beef flown in fresh from Japan. I reached the clinic in the evening and met up with my sisters Aisha and Zein, who had also come to visit. We found him watching Patton, one of his favorite movies (he was a big fan of movies and would watch one every night if he could). The opening scene always brought a gleam to his eye. Patton addresses his men under a huge American flag, saying as he sends them off, “Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

While my father, sisters, and other family members watched the film, I prepared the Kobe beef teppanyaki style, one of his favorites. The conversation turned to the situation back in Jordan, and some family members started repeating a few of the rumors circulating in Amman. At this point I lost my temper and asked to speak with them outside. “Listen,” I said, “we’re here to keep his morale up, not to sit around and peddle nasty gossip.” Going back inside, we enjoyed the meal and watched the rest of the movie before retiring for the evening.

The next morning I came back early to apologize to my father for losing my temper. He told me to sit down, and we had a long personal talk that lasted almost three hours. Although we talked often, we mostly spoke about affairs of state, military matters, the family, cars, and motorbikes—rarely about personal feelings. Educated at boarding schools in Egypt and England, he could be reserved, and he encouraged his children to act the same way. But this conversation was different.

He told me he was really proud of the work I had done in the military, and said he was proud of me as his son. He told me that although I may have felt at times that he was neglecting me, in fact it was the opposite. He had been watching my career very closely. He had wanted me to make my own way in the military. So he had withheld his support many times, hoping that I would overcome challenges on my own. But, he conceded, he might have gone too far. “I feel I’ve let you down as a father,” he said, “because at many times during your military career I knew that you were getting the short end of the stick, and I didn’t step in. You must be angry that you didn’t get your father’s support.”

With a smile I told him that, frankly, there were a couple of times over the previous twenty years when I could have done with some help. But in hindsight, I could not thank him enough, because it was during the hardest times that I had learned the most. Then he went on to say that he was expecting a lot from me, and that when he got back to Jordan