“Can he do it?”

“If he wins his revolt, he probably can, and, if he does, so will the other nondeveloped countries. The Arab oil cartel was an early example of what can be done in that field. Eventually, it could mean collapse of the economies of the developed nations.”

“I see. Who is this mysterious El Hassan? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of him.”

“You haven’t!” The other was surprised. “Where have you been these past few weeks? He’s come on the scene like a whirling dervish in a revolving door.”

Paul Kosloff took him in. “I’ve been back in the boondocks in South America, trying to track down a present-day Ché Guevara. It turned out that he was a myth and didn’t exist. There weren’t any papers in the area. But even if I’d been in one of the larger cities, I doubt if I would have heard about this El Hassan. Censorship is all but universal and one of the great taboos in running stories telling about revolutionary movements abroad. They don’t want to let the people know that revolutions are possible—anywhere.”

His superior leaned back. “Very well, El Hassan isn’t as mysterious as all that. We have a very complete dossier on him. In actuality, he’s an American.”

“An American!”

“That is correct. His name is Homer Crawford and he took his doctorate in sociology at the University of Michigan. He’s an American black who was given a position with the Sahara Division of the African Development Project of the Reunited Nations. He and his team, also largely American blacks, had the job of speeding up the modernization of North Africa. In their case, largely in the Western Sahara. Their task was to break down bottlenecks. Break down tribal lines. Talk the desert peoples into going to the new schools, taking jobs with the new irrigation projects, building the new dams, drilling the new oil wells, opening up the new mines, getting out from under their traditional religious taboos.”