The friendship that linked the two men and their spouses subsequently lasted until the end of their respective lives. Bourguiba never forgot his friend Eltaher and invited him as well as his wife to visit Tunisia as soon as the country won its independence in 1956 and told the story of their first encounter during a public speech.
|
|
Mr. and Mrs. Eltaher with
Prime Minister Bourguiba
at his Kasbah office in Tunis 1956 |
Eltaher with President and Mrs. Bourguiba
in a motorcade in Tunis 1963 |
Bourguiba eventually invited Eltaher a number of times to visit Tunisia after he became President. When he paid a state visit to Lebanon in March 1965, Bourguiba, his second wife Wassila (née Ben Ammar), and some of his ministers went in an official motorcade to visit Eltaher in his apartment on Jeanne d’Arc Street in Beirut.
|