Jack O'Connell, 88, King Hussein's diplomatic adviser and closest American confidant
Hoodoo
By T. Rees Shapiro
Sunday, July 18, 2010; C06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/17/AR2010071702682.html
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2010/07/17/PH2010071702685.html
In the 1970s, Jack O'Connell retired from the CIA and joined a
Washington law firm. He remained King Hussein's personal lawyer and
political adviser in Washington until the Jordanian monarch's death in
1999.
Jack O'Connell, 88, who as a CIA station chief in Amman, Jordan, became
King Hussein's diplomatic adviser and closest American confidant,
strengthening U.S. ties with the crucial Middle East ally, died of
congestive heart failure July 12 at the Virginia Hospital Center in
Arlington County. He was a Rosslyn resident.
Dr. O'Connell, who was trained as a lawyer, joined the CIA in the late
1940s and served in Beirut before becoming station chief in Jordan from
1963 to 1971. Bordered by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq, the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is considered one of America's most
important allies in the Middle East, in part because of its savvy
intelligence service.
Dr. O'Connell, whose time in Jordan coincided with the Arab-Israeli
Six-Day War in June 1967 and the brutal expulsion of the Palestine
Liberation Organization in 1970, fostered a fraternal bond with the king
and was considered an adopted member of the royal family, said Richard
Viets, a former U.S. ambassador to Jordan.
A burly, blue-eyed Midwesterner of Irish descent, Dr. O'Connell had a
quiet, self-effacing demeanor but was, nonetheless, among the best-known
Americans in Jordan.
In 1967, he played a key role in negotiating U.N. Security Council
Resolution 242, which sought to establish peace in the Middle East after
Syria, Egypt and Jordan had combined forces in the six-day conflict with
Israel. Although Resolution 242 was never fully adopted, it remains the
blueprint for Middle East peace agreements today.
Jordan lost control of the West Bank to Israel in the war, and about
300,000 Palestinians from that region fled to Jordan. Many joined
guerrilla groups that aligned themselves with the PLO.
In 1970, Hussein sought to dissolve the growing power of the PLO,
leading to the month-long civil war known as "Black September."
Within two years, Dr. O'Connell had left Jordan, retired from the CIA
and joined a Washington law firm that became O'Connell and Glock. He
remained Hussein's personal lawyer and political adviser in Washington
until the monarch's death in 1999.
"Jack O'Connell had a closer relationship with King Hussein than any
other American official before or after, one that was based on mutual
respect and absolute trust," Avi Shlaim wrote in his 2007 book "Lion of
Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace."
John William O'Connell was born Aug. 18, 1921, in Flandreau, S.D. He
played defensive end at the University of Notre Dame on a football
scholarship but transferred to Georgetown University after a car
accident left him unable to play.
His education was interrupted by Navy service in World War II aboard a
minesweeper patrolling the smoldering remains of Nagasaki's harbor
shortly after the Japanese surrender.
In 1946, he graduated from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown,
where he received a law degree in 1948. He joined the CIA the same year
and was sent to the University of the Punjab in Pakistan on a Fulbright
scholarship, receiving a master's degree in Islamic law in 1952. He
returned to Georgetown and received a doctorate in international law in
1958.
One of the events that catalyzed his friendship with Hussein occurred
that same year. For his first foreign CIA assignment, Dr. O'Connell was
sent to Jordan to help foil a coup attempt on the 22-year-old king's
throne by restive Jordanian military officers. In the course of several
months, Dr. O'Connell helped unravel the plot and assist in the arrest
of the rogue officers.
During his time in Jordan, Dr. O'Connell was responsible for helping to
expand the powers and capabilities of the Jordanian intelligence service
with CIA funding and training. In 1977, news reports revealed that
Hussein had been a paid informant for the CIA.
In the early 1990s, Dr. O'Connell helped facilitate, through the
Jordanian king, negotiations with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the
run-up to the Persian Gulf War. Dr. O'Connell's memoir, currently under
CIA review, is scheduled to be published by W.W. Norton in 2011.
His first wife, Katherine MacDonald O'Connell, died in 1972. He later
married Syble McKenzie O'Connell, who died in 1990. An infant child from
his first marriage, Mary Frances O'Connell, died in 1949.
Survivors include two children from his first marriage, Kelly Ann
O'Connell of Annandale and Sean O'Connell of Fairfax County; and a grandson.
One day in the 1990s, Dr. O'Connell and Viets were walking out of the
Jordanian Foreign Ministry when the former defensive end tripped and
fell down a steep flight of steps and broke his leg.
On the suggestion that he seek medical attention, Dr. O'Connell replied:
"Irishmen don't wear casts."
Instead, he used a cane and walked on the broken leg until it healed.
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