The most powerful leader of the new government was the secretary of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, Ali Salih al-Sa'di [Wikidata], who controlled the National Guard militia and organized a massacre of hundreds—if not thousands—of suspected communists and other dissidents in the days following the coup.[45][46] The Kennedy administration viewed the prospect of an Iraqi shift in the Cold War with cautious optimism, ultimately approving a $55 million arms deal for Iraq.[47] It is widely believed that the CIA provided al-Sa'di's National Guard with lists of communists and other leftists, who were then arrested or killed.[48] This claim originated in a September 27, 1963 Al-Ahram interview with King Hussein of Jordan, who—seeking to dispel reports that he was on the CIA's payroll—declared: