Hassan II of Morocco General Mohamed Oufkir, Morocco's defense minister, was the man behind the coup and was officially declared to have committed suicide after the attack. His body, however, was found with several bullet wounds. In the Cold War era, Hassan II allied Morocco with the West generally, and with the United States in particular. There were close and continuing ties between Hassan II's government and the CIA, who helped to reorganize Morocco's security forces in 1960. Hassan served as a back channel between the Arab world and Israel, facilitating early negotiations between them. This was made possible due to the presence in
Khaled al-Hassan members, Hassan was one of them. In 1968, al-Hassan was elected to the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee (PLO-EC) after Fatah took control of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1968. Early that year, al-Hassan persuaded Saudi King Faisal to enforce the "liberation tax" which required Palestinians in that country to pay a percentage of their income to the PLO. This, in turn, supplied the PLO with 60 million riyal yearly. Also, in that year, he spoke to the Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riyad and Mohammad Hassanein Heykal on behalf of Gamal Abdel Nasser in order to familiarize him with