Nassers Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and the United Arab Republic 9781588269904

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NASSER’S EGYPT, ARAB NATIONALISM, AND THE

UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC

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NASSER’S EGYPT, ARAB NATIONALISM, AND THE

UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC James Jankowski

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

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Published in the United States of America in 2002 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2002 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jankowski, James P., 1937– Nasser’s Egypt, Arab nationalism, and the United Arab Republic / James Jankowski. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58826-034-8 (alk. paper) 1. Arab nationalism—Egypt—History—20th century. 2. United Arab Republic. 3. Egypt—Relations—Arab countries. 4. Arab countries—Relations— Egypt. 5. Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 1918–1970. I. Title. DT107.827.J36 2001 962.05'3—dc21

2001031628

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America

∞

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984. 5 4 3 2 1

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Contents

Acknowledgments

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Introduction 1

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From the Old Regime to the New: The Revolution of 1952

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The Parliamentary Order and Its Discontents, 1922–1952 11 The Free Officers Movement 14 Consolidating Power, 1952–1954 19

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The Nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser

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The Search for a Regional Role, 1952–1954

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Sudanese Self-Determination and British Withdrawal 42 The Chimera of the Revolution: U.S. Aid for Egypt? 48 Toward an Arab Policy for Egypt 54

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Years of Struggle: Egypt in the Arab World, 1955–1957

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The Nasserist Regime Crystallizes 65 The Struggle Against the Baghdad Pact 69 The Impact of the Suez Crisis 83 Egypt and Jordan, 1957 88 The Syrian Crisis of Late 1957 91

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The Creation of the United Arab Republic Egypt and Syria, 1955–1957 101 The Rush to Union, January 1958 104

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Experiment in Unity: The United Arab Republic in Operation

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The UAR Takes Shape: “It’s Going To Be a Big Headache” 115 The Dilemmas of Union: “We Can’t Work with These People” 123

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The United Arab Republic in Inter-Arab Politics

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Arab Reactions to the Formation of the UAR 137 The Crises of Mid-1958 141 Rival Arab Revolutions: The UAR and Iraq 151 Regional Rapprochement, 1959–1960 155

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The Breakup of the United Arab Republic

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Increasing Difficulties, 1961 161 The Syrian Secession, September 1961: “Captain of a Ship Which Has Split in Two in the Middle of the Sea” 166 The “Lessons” of the Syrian Secession 174

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Conclusion

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Notes Bibliography Index About the Book

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Acknowledgments

Many institutions and individuals have assisted me in the production of this book. Generous financial support was provided by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and the Council on Research and Creative Work of the University of Colorado. The staffs of Norlin Library of the University of Colorado, the Egyptian National Library and the Library of the American University at Cairo, the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, the Public Record Office in London, and the United States National Archives and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., offered invaluable assistance in the search for sources and the accumulation of data. The staff of the Department of History at the University of Colorado, Patricia Murphy in particular, have been consistently gracious and efficient in producing successive iterations of the manuscript. The participants in the workshop on “Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East” held at the University of Colorado in September 1994 stimulated my thinking about the subject of Arab nationalism in general and provided valuable feedback on a paper that in preliminary form developed some of the material presented in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. Successive chairs of the Department of History over the decade in which the study has been in preparation—Robert Hohlfelder, Lee Chambers-Schiller, Steven Epstein, Barbara Engel, Susan Kent, and Thomas Zeiler—offered unfailing support. Team-teaching with several of my colleagues, especially Patricia Nelson Limerick and Chidebere Nwaubani on comparative imperialism and Robert Pois on comparative nationalism, expanded and clarified my perspective on these subjects. As in past years, Israel Gershoni offered invaluable advice and commentary. At Lynne Rienner Publishers the comments and suggestions vii

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provided by Lynne Rienner, Steve Barr, and the readers and editors of the press have greatly improved both the argument and the style of the finished text. Needless to say, the views expressed in what follows are my responsibility, not theirs. My greatest debt is to my family. My children, John and Ann, have continued to offer encouragement to their father, even if now from a distance. As always throughout my career, my wife, Mary Ann, has been my indispensible helpmate and supporter. Thank you all.

A Note on Translation For most Arabic proper names cited in the text, I have used a simplified system of transliteration. The Arabic letter alif is indicated by ’ and the ‘ayn by ‘. For a few individuals (e.g., Camille Chamoun, Charles Malik), the conventional Western rendering of their name has been employed. This includes the figure who stands at the center of the study, Gamal Abdel Nasser (Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir). Places in the Arab world are indicated by their commonly used English spelling (e.g., Cairo, Syria, Saudi Arabia) rather than their Arabic forms.

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Introduction

This work addresses three interrelated topics. The overarching subject it examines is Egyptian state policy, policymaking, and policy implementation toward the Arab world from the military coup that overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 until the dissolution of the United Arab Republic in 1961. The role occupied by Egypt in the politics of the eastern Arab world in particular underwent a dramatic shift between 1952 and 1961. Prior to the revolution of 1952, the Egyptian state had not been an integral participant in the Arab nationalist movement centered in the Arab states of western Asia. Although Egyptian involvement in interArab politics had increased considerably between the late 1930s and 1952, it was only in the mid-1950s that the leaders of the Egyptian state adopted a sustained policy of pursuing Egyptian leadership of the Arab nationalist movement. Equally important, it was only after 1952 that, thanks in large part to its successes in the wider international arena, Egypt and its new regime came to be viewed as the logical and indispensable leader of the nationalist cause throughout the Arab world. The relationship took a quantum jump in the late 1950s, when Egypt accepted integral union with Syria in the new political entity known as the United Arab Republic (UAR). The process of how Egypt moved from being an occasional player to the dominant participant in Arab nationalist politics forms the main narrative of the study. More specifically, the work attempts to identify the ideological as well as the practical considerations that produced this evolution in Egyptian attitudes and policy. Beyond being both Arabs and nationalists, the leaders of the new regime that came to power in Egypt in 1952 were not “Arab nationalists” in the conventional sense of being individuals whose primary political goal was the promotion of Arab unity as

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the necessary prerequisite for Arab independence and progress. They became such only over time, under the pressure of the specific conditions prevalent in Middle Eastern international politics in the 1950s. Their growing sense of Arab nationalism also possessed a uniquely Egyptian coloring that made it quite different from the conceptions of Arab nationalism advocated by its enthusiasts outside Egypt. The study undertakes an in-depth analysis of both the motives that led Egypt’s new leaders to adopt an Arab nationalist orientation and the meaning of such an orientation to them. In operational terms, seeking to understand Egypt’s relationship to its Arab neighbors and to Arab nationalism in this period requires addressing the nationalist outlook of the dominant figure in the revolutionary Egyptian regime, Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir (“Gamal Abdel Nasser” in customary Western usage, and henceforth in this study). Both previous scholarship and the evidence of the sources examined in this study indicate that it was Nasser who almost single-handedly tugged a more reluctant regime into intimate involvement in Arab politics in the 1950s. Why? With what aims and aspirations? And under what practical constraints? The following is not a biography of Egypt’s preeminent political figure of the mid-twentieth century. But it is an attempt to analyze a central feature of Nasser’s political career—his adoption of a policy of Arab nationalist leadership for Egypt. Two other dimensions of Egyptian history during the Nasser era are dealt with, but primarily insofar as they relate to Egypt’s involvement in Arab nationalism and politics. One is Egypt’s evolving relationship with the Western powers and Israel. The involved story of the final phase of Egypt’s long struggle against the British occupation culminating in Britain’s military withdrawal and later its abortive attempt at reentry during the Suez crisis of 1956; Egypt’s equally complex connections with the new Western hegemon, the United States, during the 1950s; and the ups and downs of Egyptian-Israeli “relations” before and after the military struggle in Sinai in 1956 have all been academic growth industries. These are discussed only as far as they are relevant to understanding Egypt’s regional position and location within the Arab nationalist movement. Obviously, Egypt’s position and policies in regard to the Arab arena were shaped in part by wider considerations of its relationship to the West, just as appreciable successes in challenging Western dominance of the region and its more ambivalent record of opposition to Israel played an essential role in Egypt’s becoming the dominant player in Arab politics in the 1950s. Insofar as its relationship with the West and Israel influenced Egypt’s Arab policies, these topics will be

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considered; but the detailed analysis of their specifics is left to other works. The internal history of the new revolutionary regime is somewhat more relevant for understanding Egyptian foreign policy in the Arab arena and, as such, receives more attention. Several sections of the following chapters consider the “internal” politics first of the government of Egypt from 1952 through 1957, then of the UAR from 1958 through 1961. But in the case of both Egypt and the UAR, they do so from the perspective of how the political dynamics of each regime affected conceptions of and involvement in Arab nationalism. * * * Why a new study of Egypt, Nasser, and Arab nationalism? Western perspectives on the topic have gone through several phases. Works appearing during the Nasser era in the 1950s and 1960s were inevitably written under the shadow of “Nasserism.” They manifested a definite tendency to polarization—for or against. Constructed in the heyday of Pan-Arabism, they often assumed the centrality and permanence of the particular form of Arab nationalism that came to prominence in the 1950s. Of necessity, the data and conclusions found in most works of the period derived overwhelmingly from the public record available in the press and from official pronouncements. These sources were sufficient to construct the main outlines of Egypt’s evolving relationship with the Arab nationalist movement, but were unable to resolve issues of fact disputed by various parties or to penetrate to the level of the reasons behind the adoption of particular policies that had been determined in confidential discussions. Contemporaneous Western works on Nasser’s Egypt covered a spectrum of opinion about their subject. At one end were sympathetic accounts by journalists such as Wilton Wynn or Jean and Simonne Lacouture, the former with emphasis on “the Arab’s yearning for independence and dignity,”1 the latter with stress on a shared sense of oppression and desire for liberation as the basis of Arab nationalism (“The Arabs as a whole are people who all complain in the same language of the same humiliation, the same hunger”).2 At the other pole were external observers like Joachim Joesten, with his portrait of a voracious Nasser seeking an Arab “empire” in order to control world oil supplies,3 or Eliezer Be’eri’s insistence that “hatred of Zionism and Israel” were a central factor in motivating Nasserist Arabism.4 Most contemporaneous works fell between these poles, voicing some sympathy for the

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aspirations for independence underlying Nasserist foreign policy but also criticizing the anti-Western and regionally hegemonic dimensions of that policy.5 Two works of the 1960s were of particular importance in shaping subsequent understandings of Nasser’s Arab policies. One was Patrick Seale’s The Struggle for Syria (1965), which through interviews with leading participants plotted the gradual trajectory of Egypt’s emerging involvement in Arab politics up to 1958.6 The other was the personal recollections of the former CIA operative and (according to his own testimony) Nasserist confidant Miles Copeland in his The Game of Nations (1969), whose portrayal of Egypt’s new regional orientation under Nasser as a manipulative policy aimed solely at increasing Egyptian leverage in regional affairs has influenced much Western as well as Egyptian historiography on the subject.7 The two works are congruent in their emphasis on the politically driven character of Nasser’s Arabism, although differing considerably in the valuation they place on that policy. A second generation of works on Nasser and “Nasserism” appeared in the 1970s. Written in a decade when earlier hopes and expectations of Arab unity being achieved in the near future were in retreat, and as a process of “de-Nasserization” gathered momentum in Egypt itself, these works were often able to put some distance between themselves and their subject. In many the sharp edges found in earlier portraits of Nasser and his regime were softened; a more nuanced picture of both his successes and his failures replaced the more politically colored accounts of the 1950s and 1960s. Rather than being oriented toward narrative and description, some of the studies of the 1970s attempted to examine Nasser and his regime in the light of new theoretical frameworks. Several more complete biographies of Nasser appeared in the few years after his death in 1970. Usually more sympathetic to their subject than the partial biographical accounts written in the 1950s or 1960s, but based substantially on the same assemblage of public sources supplemented by personal access to some of the participants in the events they describe, Anthony Nutting’s Nasser (1972) and Robert Stephens’s Nasser: A Political Biography (1972) still provide two of the fullest accounts of Nasser’s career and political fortunes. In their broad outlines they generally conform to the narrative of Nasserist Arabism that had been presented in earlier works, largely paralleling the thrust of previous analyses while filling in more specifics of Egypt’s gradual adoption of a policy of Arab leadership.8 Of the biographies of the early 1970s, Jean Lacouture’s Nasser (1973) stands apart in its less detailed character and its somewhat greater emphasis on the dual motivation behind

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Egyptian Arabism, identifying it as “at once an end and a means” rooted in a common aspiration for national independence as well as in Egyptian self-interest.9 A half-decade later, when “de-Nasserization” was in full flower in Egypt, P. J. Vatikiotis’s Nasser and His Generation (1978) similarly identified both a sentimental and a practical dimension underlying Nasser’s Arab orientation (“a means and an end simultaneously”), but also interpreted both the man and his policies in more negative terms.10 Two other works of the 1970s attempted to evaluate Nasser and his policies from more theoretical perspectives. R. Hrair Dekmejian’s Egypt Under Nasir (1971) provided a valuable quantitiative analysis of the growth of Arabist themes in Egyptian radio broadcasts through the 1950s, offering confirmation for earlier impressionistic conclusions about the centrality Arabism had come to assume in the propaganda of the Egyptian regime. It also offered a suggestive analysis of Nasser as a “marginal man” whose political emphases were rooted in his youthful alienation from the Egyptian political order.11 In addition to offering a detailed systemic analysis of the phases, modalities, and methods of Egyptian involvement in inter-Arab politics under Nasser, A. I. Dawisha’s Egypt in the Arab World (1976) propounded a parallel explanatory thesis concerning Nasser’s personal impulse toward an identification with Arab nationalism, situating it in his psychological development and personal “identity crisis” deriving from an unstable childhood and youthful political alienation.12 The 1980s marked something of a hiatus in Western studies of Egypt’s relationship to Arab politics and Arab nationalism under Nasser. Due in part to the availability of new archival materials and a wealth of published personal recollections by Egyptian and Arab political leaders, the 1990s have witnessed a renewed surge of interest in the subject. Drawing on these new sources, several works of the 1990s have expanded our understanding of Egypt’s Arab orientation under Nasser. Joseph P. Lorenz’s Egypt and the Arabs (1990) situates Nasser’s Arab policies in the context of what came before and after.13 Ghada Hashem Talhami’s Palestine and Egyptian National Identity (1992) highlights the importance of Egyptian internal politics, specifically the new regime’s struggle for power with the Muslim Brotherhood, in shaping Egypt’s foreign policy and contributing to the revolutionary regime’s espousal of a primarily secular Arab nationalist ideology.14 Although focused primarily on the conduct of the Cold War in the Middle East, Fawaz Gerges’s The Superpowers and the Middle East (1994) has fresh insights drawn from archival materials and recent memoir literature on

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the broader international context in which Nasser’s Arab policies developed.15 Eberhard Kienle’s article “Arab Unity Schemes Revisited” (1995) is illuminating particularly for its in-depth analysis of Egyptian rhetoric about collective identity and how it differed from the vocabulary of Arabism in Syria.16 Malik Mufti’s Sovereign Creations: PanArabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (1996), a comparative study of Arab unity efforts in the Fertile Crescent, is especially useful for its new information on and insights into the process of Syrian political infighting and outbidding that led to the creation of the United Arab Republic in 1958.17 Elie Podeh’s The Quest for Hegemony in the Arab World (1995) offers a rich political history of the inter-Arab struggle over regional defense issues from 1945 to 1958.18 The same author’s recent The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise and Fall of the United Arab Republic (1999) is an equally valuable account of the political and, particularly, the economic history of the main experiment in Arab unity of the Nasser era, the United Arab Republic of 1958 to 1961.19 After three generations of popular and scholarly writing about Nasser and the Arab world, where do we stand? What is known with relative certainty? What is unclear or contested? The grand narrative of Egypt’s relationship to Arab nationalism under Nasser is reasonably well established. The pragmatic character, gradual evolution, and successive stages of Egypt’s deepening involvement in inter-Arab politics were identified in first-generation writings on the subject. The multiple contexts in which that involvement needs to be viewed—the domestic political struggles that conditioned foreign policymaking as well as the wider regional and international contexts that unquestionably influenced the evolution of Egypt’s Arab policies—have been explored in various works written since Nasser’s passing. A future Copernican revolution in historical understanding on the subject of Egypt and Arab nationalism during the Nasser years is unlikely. Yet, this does not mean that everything relating to the topic is now graven in stone. Several dimensions of the subject have either received relatively little attention or have been areas where inadequate documentation has allowed only provisional conclusions to be drawn. One such area is Nasser’s evolving attitude toward Arab identity, Arab nationalism, and Arab unity. There is some important work available in Arabic on his views of Arab nationalism and unity, but as yet no systematic study of Nasser’s particular brand of Arab nationalism has appeared in Western scholarship.20 Another relatively unexplored issue is the interplay of Egyptian elite opinion about Egyptian involvement in Arab politics and the degree to which Egypt’s Arab policies were a contested issue in the

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counsels of the regime. There is now a great deal of material on this topic available in the copious memoir literature that has appeared since Nasser’s death, but it has yet to be fully exploited.21 A third murky issue is that of Egyptian interference and/or subversion in the affairs of other Arab states as Egypt came to seek Arab leadership and allies in the 1950s. Views on this topic have varied from benign denial of anything untoward in Egyptian policy to seeing the hidden hand of Egypt in any and all disturbances in the Arab world. The new archival material and memoir literature now available allows for considerable clarification.22 Apart from a few preliminary studies of its internal dynamics and several partisan insider accounts of its birth and death, until recently the greatest unexplored area was that of the internal history of the grand experiment in Arab unity undertaken during the Nasser era, the United Arab Republic.23 * * * This study attempts to fill these gaps in the story of Egypt’s relationship to Arab nationalism during the first decade of the Nasser era. Its eight chapters divide themselves into two almost equal halves. Chapters 1 through 4 consider the new revolutionary regime in Egypt that took power in July 1952, the regime’s internal dynamics as far as these are relevant to understanding Egypt’s international posture, and Egypt’s role in inter-Arab politics from 1952 through 1957. Chapter 1 examines the genesis of the military movement that took power in Egypt in 1952, its seizure of power in July of that year, and the gradual consolidation of power by both the new regime and Nasser personally. Chapter 2 considers the nationalist orientation and outlook of Nasser himself as articulated in his own statements between 1952 and 1961. It emphasizes the multivalent and contingent nature of Nasser’s portfolio of national loyalties, the differing and shifting values given by him to Egypt, the Arab nation, and the Muslim community. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the regional policies of the Egyptian government from its assumption of power in mid-1952 to the eve of the creation of the United Arab Republic in 1958. Of necessity, Chapter 3 casts a somewhat wider net. Egyptian regional policy in the early years of the new regime was framed in the context of the (successful) Egyptian effort to terminate the British military occupation of the Nile Valley, and simultaneously in the context of its (unsuccessful) effort to obtain U.S. economic and military assistance. Chapter 3 considers both of these issues as they unfolded in 1952–1954 before turning to its main topic of

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the evolution of Egyptian policy toward the Arab world and the Egyptian effort to forge an Arab alliance system independent of the West. Chapter 4 carries the narrative into the turbulent years of the mid-1950s, examining Egypt’s regional strategy as it had evolved by 1955–1957, the Egyptian struggle against Western efforts to extend the Baghdad Pact from Iraq to other Arab states in 1955, its parallel attempt to create an alternative Arab defense grouping under Egyptian leadership, and the effects of the Egyptian confrontation with the West and with Israel that culminated in the Suez Crisis of 1956 on Egypt’s relationship to Arab nationalism. Chapters 5 through 8 form the second half of the study. They address the short unhappy history of the Egyptian-Syrian union in the United Arab Republic. Chapter 5 deals with the formation of the UAR, both the factors prompting the Syrian appeal for union and the Egyptian response that resulted in the creation of the UAR in 1958. Chapter 6 is an account of the internal history of the UAR, including the Egyptiandominated unionist regime’s uneasy relationship with Syrian political forces, this regime’s incomplete efforts at Syrian-Egyptian political and economic integration, and the increasing disillusionment of Syrians with the unionist regime. The involvement of the UAR in the maelstrom of inter-Arab politics forms the subject of Chapter 7, particularly the UAR’s tense relationship with monarchical Saudi Arabia and Jordan, its ambiguous role in the Lebanese civil war of 1958, and its troubled relationship with the parallel “revolutionary” regime in Iraq from 1958 onward. Chapter 8 returns to the internal history of the UAR, addressing the Syrian grievances that had accumulated by 1961, the military uprising that took Syria out of the UAR in September 1961, and the repercussions of the Syrian secession for Nasser, his government, and his attitude toward Arab nationalism and unity. The Conclusion attempts to place Egypt’s involvement in inter-Arab politics and the Arab nationalist movement from 1952 to 1961 in the broader historical context of the evolution of modern Egyptian nationalism. How does the Nasserist understanding of the meaning and utility of Arab nationalism, as well as the attempt to assert Egyptian leadership of Arab nationalism in the 1950s, compare with earlier as well as later Egyptian involvement in the Arab nationalist movement of the twentieth century? The main findings of this reexamination of the relationship of Nasser’s Egypt to the Arab nationalist movement and inter-Arab politics from 1952 to 1961 may be stated briefly. First, Egyptian involvement in the Arab nationalist movement in the 1950s was driven less by ideology than by instrumental and practical concerns of asserting and maintaining

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what Nasser and his associates perceived as Egypt’s proper place in regional and international affairs. Second, under Nasser Egyptian involvement in specific Arab controversies or crises was often initiated reluctantly, in response to external stimuli rather than as part of a grand design for regional dominance. Third, Egyptian involvement in the affairs of other Arab countries in the period from 1952 to 1961 was often less extensive, as well as more limited in scope and impact, than the many critics of the regime would have it. Overall, what emerges in this study is a portrait of a more prudent Egyptian/Nasserist leadership than that portrayed in much of the previous literature on the subject. This is a minimalist story in many respects, an account of a regime whose initiatives and involvement in Arab nationalism were developed within a primarily Egyptian frame of reference and often pursued with hesitance and caution. * * * Beyond its use of the relevant secondary literature on Egyptian internal politics, Middle Eastern international relations, and inter-Arab politics, the study is based on two main sets of sources. One set is published Egyptian materials. The examination of Nasser’s own nationalist views and perspective is based primarily on his own published speeches and addresses.24 In its analysis of Egyptian policymaking towards the Arab world, the study draws most heavily on the memoirs of Egyptians associated with the Nasser regime. After Nasser’s death in 1970, many of his colleagues published their recollections of the turbulent but nonetheless heroic Nasser era. Like all memoirs, much of what they wrote was self-serving, an effort to exculpate rather than to illuminate. But there is also much valuable information—about political assumptions and goals, the process of policymaking, and internal differences and divisions— mixed in with self-justification. While there are sometimes differing accounts of particular incidents found in these memoirs, there is a richness of intimate detail unavailable elsewhere. There is also a considerable measure of agreement on the general course of events. Used with care—with due attention to internal consistency, to efforts at personal vindication, and with cross-checking with other accounts—these memoirs are essential for understanding the dynamics of Egypt’s role in Arab politics. The other main set of sources is U.S. and British archival materials pertaining to Egypt. Much (but not all) of the voluminous records of U.S. and British dealings with Egypt in the period under consideration

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are now available to scholars. Unlike memoirs penned long after the events they purport to describe, diplomatic archives reflect contemporaneous observations and perceptions. They are fresh, unaffected by the filter of time, and, to a much greater degree than memoirs, by a desire to justify the actions of their authors. Intended to assist policymakers at home to comprehend Egyptian conditions and actions and thereby to formulate effective responses, diplomatic reports focus on accuracy in description of conditions, events, and conversations. To be sure, the conclusions of foreign observers were sometimes wrong, occasionally spectacularly so. But they were often right. A potential problem with diplomatic reports is their external provenance. While foreign diplomatic archives contain considerable Egyptian material (official communiqués, speeches, press clippings, and the like), on the whole their running narrative of Egyptian motives and actions is an interpretation based on what the “original” Egyptian sources were telling their U.S. or British interlocutors. Obviously, what Nasser said to Sir Ralph Stevenson, Raymond Hare, or other foreign diplomats was not presented as a disinterested analytical history of his motives and actions; it was an account tailored to defend, influence, and persuade. Yet, after having examined this diplomatic material in depth and compared its substance to the available material written by Egyptians, I believe that there is a greater measure of reliability in external diplomatic accounts than is sometimes assumed. On the one hand, the foreign diplomats in contact with Nasser and other Egyptian leaders were intelligent and experienced diplomats aware of the game in which they were involved and capable of filtering and evaluating the information they received. On the other, in many instances there is a large measure of consistency between contemporary foreign accounts and the subsequent Egyptian ones presented in the memoir literature. Together, they provide a fuller, more accurate, and more convincing picture of the subject than that afforded in previous studies. Through employing both sets of sources in relation to each other, it is possible to reconstruct much of the process of Nasserist policymaking and policy implementation in regard to Arab nationalism.

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1 From the Old Regime to the New: The Revolution of 1952

The Parliamentary Order and Its Discontents, 1922–1952 As a result of a nationalist uprising that convulsed the country in the aftermath of World War I, Egypt received formal independence from Great Britain in 1922. A new constitutional monarchy headed first by King Fu’ad (1922–1936), later by his son King Faruq (1936–1952), was established in the early 1920s. Substantially the same political structure was to last until the military’s seizure of power in 1952. The three decades from 1922 to 1952 have often been designated as Egypt’s “liberal era.” The characterization is apt in many respects. Formally, the country was a parliamentary monarchy with the king as head of state. Legislative power was shared by an elected Chamber of Deputies and a partly elected, partly appointed Senate. Various political parties emerged and competed for seats in parliament in national elections; ministries enjoying parliamentary support were charged with the direction of the executive agencies of state. In the public arena, politically articulate Egyptians were able to express their opinions on public affairs in a generally free and sometimes raucous press. The dominant values of the political establishment and of the era as a whole were those associated with the liberal worldview: parliamentary government, a freeenterprise economy, and a Westernized social structure oriented toward the promotion of secularism, individualism, and similar features of “modernity” modeled on the European experience.1 Yet Egypt’s liberal order was warped from the start. Genuine Egyptian independence during the era of the constitutional monarchy was severely limited by a substantial British presence in Egypt. Even when 11

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granting Egypt independence in 1922, Great Britain reserved important areas of life (the defense of Egypt; the Suez Canal; the status of foreign minorities; the Sudan) for British supervision, and continued to station British troops on Egyptian territory. The British position was put on a more formal basis in 1936 with the conclusion of an Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance that linked Egypt and Great Britain in a twenty-year alliance, thereby regularizing but also perpetuating the positioning of British military forces in Egypt.2 Throughout the period of the parliamentary monarchy, Britain continued to exercise great influence over Egyptian affairs. Internally, the parliamentary political institutions established in the early 1920s suffered from grave structural flaws. The king was considerably more than a constitutional monarch. Authorized by the constitution to appoint part of the membership of the upper house of parliament, to supervise important religious institutions, and to dismiss parliament, Fu’ad and Faruq repeatedly involved themselves in the manipulation of parties and ministries. The British formally stood outside the political arena but often intervened in domestic Egyptian politics by supporting particular politicians and parties, by proffering advice to ministers, and twice by issuing ultimata determining the composition of Egyptian governments—by forcing the ouster of a Wafdist ministry in 1924, and by installing a Wafdist ministry in office in 1942. (The country’s leading political party throughout the parliamentary era was the Wafd, the nationalist organization that grew out of the postwar anti-British uprising. Yet the Wafd only infrequently held ministerial office between 1922 and 1952.) Egyptian governments were more often directed by non-Wafdist “minority” parties (called such because of their presumed unpopularity vis-à-vis the Wafd) allied with the monarchy and enjoying tacit or open British support. With rigged elections, parliamentary office the preserve of a narrow and self-serving elite, and frequent interference in public affairs by both the monarchy and the British, Egyptian parliamentary politics were a parody of the principles of representative government (and were increasingly seen by Egyptians themselves as such).3 The course of Egypt’s socioeconomic evolution in time added to the country’s difficulties. Throughout the parliamentary era, the growth of Egypt’s population (from 12,750,918 in 1917 to 19,021,840 in 1947)4 increased the strain on Egypt’s limited resource base and generated continual downward pressure on wages. Egypt’s private-enterprise economy did well during the roaring 1920s but ran into severe problems thereafter. The Great Depression from 1929 onward produced a sharp decline in the value of Egyptian agricultural exports and generated

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corresponding pressure on both agricultural profits and wages. In the 1930s, the combined effect of declining wages and increases in the cost of staple goods produced a drop in per capita food consumption.5 It is estimated that Egyptian per capita income, after increasing in the 1920s, probably declined in the two decades from 1930 to 1950.6 Class differentials broadened; where per capita consumption of luxury goods increased, the consumption of staples dropped.7 In time, disillusionment with a flawed parliamentary order and frustration over increasing economic disparities generated accelerating political protest. New nonparliamentary movements aimed at mobilizing discontented segments of the population became an important element of Egyptian public life after 1930. The most visible were the Muslim Brotherhood, an explicitly Islamicist movement that rejected both the corrupt parliamentary order and Egypt’s emulation of Western models and advocated in their place a return to political values and social norms grounded in Islam, and Young Egypt, a nativist youth movement influenced by the fascist ideas then in vogue in Europe.8 Political turbulence increased in the 1930s, first in the form of protests and violence directed against the narrow royal palace–backed regime of Isma‘il Sidqi in power from 1930 to 1933 and later in the form of student and worker demonstrations, as well as physical clashes between the militants of different political movements.9 After a hiatus during World War II, political turmoil resumed with a vengeance. From one side of the political spectrum, the Muslim Brotherhood challenged the legitimacy of the parliamentary order; from the other, new socialist movements committed to the radical overhaul of both political and economic structures added to the ideological mix found in postwar Egypt. Nationalist protest generated repeated and massive popular protest in 1945–1946, when the Egyptian government attempted to renegotiate the Egyptian relationship with Great Britain; in 1947–1948 over the Palestine question; and again in 1951–1952, when a Wafdist government unilaterally abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance. The sybaritic behavior of an increasingly unpopular king; frequent clashes between demonstrators of various stripes and the police; assassinations of leading politicians (including two prime ministers and the charismatic leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna); sustained labor unrest in Egyptian factories; and increasing rural violence (attacks on landlords and attempted seizures of agricultural land) all testified to the bankruptcy of the ancien régime in the years after World War II.10 The prime indicator of the erosion of the legitimacy of the liberal order in place in Egypt since the early 1920s came on Saturday, January

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26, 1952. A British attack on an Egyptian police post in the Suez Canal zone the previous day had resulted in numerous Egyptian deaths. When the news reached Cairo, the city exploded in protest. Apparently organized groups of incendiaries took the lead in torching hotels, businesses, and other physical symbols of the Western presence in Egypt; the destruction was enormous. King Faruq used the events of “Black Saturday” to dismiss a Wafdist government with which he was increasingly at odds and to inaugurate a brief period of rule by palace-backed ministries.11 In the longer run, however, Faruq too was a victim of Black Saturday. Exactly six months later, a military coup overthrew the parliamentary monarchy and forced the king’s abdication and departure from Egypt.

The Free Officers Movement The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance of 1936 gave the Egyptian government greater control over the Egyptian military than it had previously possessed. One policy of the Wafdist ministry in power from 1936 to 1937 was to liberalize the admissions policy for army officer candidates. In place of the previous recruitment of officers from aristocratic families, the officer corps was opened to Egyptian youths regardless of family background. The core of the military group that seized power in July 1952 came from recruits who had entered the Egyptian military academy in the later 1930s.12 Despite subsequent claims for a primarily lower middle-class background for the revolutionary cohort, the social origins of the leaders of the 1952 Revolution were diverse. Some came from prosperous upper middle-class landholding or professional families; more from the Egyptian middle classes composed of the medium peasantry or the families of salaried government functionaries; and very few from either Egypt’s upper class or its rural and urban laboring population. “The officers represented Egypt’s middle class only in the broadest sense, the intermediate stratum between peasant (and worker) and aristocrat.”13 More important than family background in shaping the political trajectory of the post-1936 officer cohort were their experiences of the 1930s and 1940s. Some had been associated with political organizations in their youth, particularly with the newer protest movements of the 1930s, prior to their entry into the military. They maintained and extended such contacts after entering military service. In the decade between 1939 and 1949 links with the Muslim Brotherhood, Young Egypt, and some of the newer socialist movements of the 1940s have been

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documented for many of the young officers who later formed the Free Officers movement.14 The impact and meaning of such contacts should not be exaggerated. Although concerned over the country’s many socioeconomic problems and familiar with the diverse solutions being suggested for their resolution, the career preoccupations of officers and their professional isolation, which led them to perceive the military as the organized force best equipped to solve Egypt’s problems, gave them a degree of autonomy from civilian society and politics. By and large the officers were their own men.15 Events of the turbulent 1940s played perhaps the key role in the politicization of the Egyptian Army and the emergence of the Free Officers movement. Already during World War II, nationalist younger officers had attempted to work toward ending the British presence in Egypt through collaboration with the Axis powers; a few (most notably Anwar al-Sadat) spent time in prison because of their contacts with the Germans. Army officers were involved in some of the violence and acts of assassination of the later 1940s. The post-1952 narrative of the revolutionary regime emphasizes particularly the effect of the Palestine war of 1948 in generating disillusionment and politicization among the officer corps. Poorly led, supplied with defective equipment, and committed to a “political war” with little advance planning or preparation,16 defeat in Palestine is credited with convincing younger Egyptian officers that “the biggest battlefield is in Egypt.”17 The involvement of Egyptian army officers in politics increased immediately after the debacle in Palestine. Late in 1949, several junior officers met to create a clandestine military organization. The founding meeting of the group was held at the home of Gamal Abdel Nasser, then an instructor at the Staff College. As the original nucleus of officers recruited supporters among colleagues, the movement’s structure within the military came to resemble a series of pyramids, each headed by a member of the expanding leadership cohort, in different military units. By 1950 the group was calling itself the “Free Officers” (al-dubbat alahrar).18 Although the key figure in the movement from its inception was Nasser, the Free Officers were a collegial grouping of committed and strong-willed individuals. Policies and initiatives were strenuously debated within the leadership group, Nasser’s opinion counting most often but not always prevailing.19 The main activities of the Free Officers from late 1949 to late 1951 were the recruitment of supporters in the military and the publication of leaflets denouncing the evils of the ancien régime. Estimates of the number of officers affiliated with the organization vary. By the time of

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the coup of July 1952, the active cadre probably approached a hundred officers from all military branches save the navy, with a considerably larger outer circle of less actively committed sympathizers.20 The distribution of clandestinely prepared (sometimes handwritten) pamphlets dates from 1950. No systematic study of these has yet been undertaken. From partial analyses, they seem to reflect no specific ideological outlook. Denunciations of imperialism and an insisting on complete national independence were prominent, as were vehement attacks on regime corruption and a more vaguely articulated demand for social justice for “the hungry, naked, and the wretched people.”21 Perhaps most pronounced was criticism of an ineffective and corrupt military establishment and calls for the strengthening of the Egyptian Army.22 The prior association of part of the movement’s leadership with the Muslim Brotherhood notwithstanding, religious themes were conspicuous by their absence. Even though Khalid Muhi al-Din, the leftist member of the leadership group, played a major role in preparing the movement’s occasional broadsides, the perspective expressed was not consistently socialist in character. Individual Free Officers differed considerably in their ideological approaches. When Muhi al-Din and the socialist activist Ahmad Fu’ad drafted a set of goals for the movement that denounced both British and U.S. imperialism, Nasser in particular expressed reservations about the anti-U.S. and “communist” tone of the draft.23 On the whole, the Free Officers shared the frustrations about national independence and social progress felt by much of the articulate Egyptian public in the post–World War II era; but they were wedded to no particular formula for solving Egypt’s problems. Their movement growing, the Free Officers expanded their activities over time. After the Wafdist ministry abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance in October 1951 and conflict between Egyptian irregulars and British troops in the Suez Canal zone ensued, Free Officers played an indirect role in the “canal struggle” through the provision of training and armament for Egyptian guerrilla forces. 24 The movement’s first overt challenge to the regime came in late 1951 and early 1952, when the Free Officers decided to run their own slate of nominees for the governing board of the officers club. It was in connection with this election that the Free Officers approached an older military figure of stature, Gen. Muhammad Najib, asking him to head their antiestablishment ticket. In a tempestuous meeting (held in defiance of an army high command order for postponement) on January 3, 1952, the Free Officers slate headed by Najib was with one exception

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elected to the board.25 The movement’s influence in the military was now apparent. It was precisely the growth and increasing visibility of the Free Officers movement that led to a showdown with the regime in 1952. Originally, the leaders of the movement appear to have thought in terms of possible military action in the mid-1950s. With the movement’s support in the military growing, and with the destruction of Black Saturday having resulted in the replacement of a Wafdist ministry possessing at least some residual nationalist legitimacy by palace-dominated ministries with little or no popular support, the movement’s members accelerated their plans. By early 1952, the leadership of the movement was thinking in terms a November coup in which it would take control of the armed forces and impose its demands for reform on the government.26 The early months of 1952 were taken up with making contact with various political forces and with operational preparations. Nasser and Zakariya Muhi al-Din led the group of officers preparing for a coup in Cairo; the brothers Jamal and Salah Salim headed those working out the details for assuming control of military units based in Sinai.27 Part of the preparation for a military coup was in making exploratory contact with foreign powers. The major foreign power in Egypt up to 1952 was Great Britain. There seems to have been no substantive contact between the Free Officers and British officials in Egypt prior to July 1952; the coup itself took the British by surprise.28 The precise extent and nature of U.S. contact with the Free Officers before their seizing power is a matter of controversy. After the event, the CIA operative Miles Copeland claimed U.S. coordination with the Free Officers, including several meetings between Kermit Roosevelt of the CIA and leading Free Officers, as well as informal agreement on a series of understandings relating to postcoup relations between Egypt and the United States.29 That there were precoup meetings between members of the Free Officers movement and U.S. officials is certain, but the degree of coordination and agreement is more problematic.30 If there was any agreement on specifics, the available records of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo make no mention of it; the same materials show surprise in the embassy when the coup occurred and indicate initial U.S. uncertainty about the composition of the group involved.31 The subsequent assumption of instigation of the Egyptian revolution of 1952 by the United States seems unwarranted. While some U.S. intelligence operatives knew of discontent in the Egyptian Army and had succeeded in making contact with some of those involved in preparing a coup, the

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Free Officers marched to their own drummer rather than dancing to an American tune. Circumstances did not allow the Free Officers to wait until November 1952 before taking action. By July 1952, information concerning royal plans to appoint a new minister of war with instructions to root out dissidents in the army led the group to designate the night of July 21–22 (subsequently postponed one day to allow time to notify all units involved) for a military coup. The goal was now an outright seizure of power by the Free Officers movement.32 The military coup of July 22–23, 1952 was a quick and almost bloodless event. As infantry units under the command of Free Officers took control of General Staff Headquarters in Cairo, armor and artillery units blocked the roads to the city in case of possible British intervention from bases in the canal zone. Simultaneously, the Salim brothers assumed direction of army units in Sinai on behalf of the Free Officers. Much of the Egyptian high command was apprehended and interned during the night of July 22–23. Total casualties in the entire operation were two soldiers killed in a skirmish at headquarters in Cairo. The coup was not without its opéra bouffe elements. Nasser and the coordinator of the military takeover in Cairo, ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr, were briefly detained by forces loyal to the insurgents as the coup began and had to be identified and set loose by another conspirator; one member of the leadership group, Anwar al-Sadat, sat out part of the evening of July 22 with his family at the cinema. The man who soon became the front-man for the new regime, Gen. Muhammad Najib, was not involved in the operational aspects of the coup and remained at home during the operation.33 The next three days witnessed the consolidation of power. In the early hours of July 23, Muhammad Najib was brought to Headquarters and appointed head of the armed forces. In an effort to forestall British military intervention, immediate approaches were made to the British and U.S. embassies informing both countries of the takeover and expressing the goodwill of the new masters of Egypt. The general public was informed of the coup in a radio broadcast by Sadat; Sadat was also delegated to approach the veteran politician ‘Ali Mahir and to offer him the premiership of a new civilian government vetted by the military. The most contentious issue was what to do with the king, then in residence at one of his summer palaces in Alexandria. A heated debate among members of the Executive Committee of the Free Officers eventually resulted in a decision for Faruq’s immediate abdication and exile rather than arrest, trial, and possible execution. On July 26, 1952, King Faruq signed the act of abdication drafted for him by the Free Officers and sailed into exile.34 A new era had begun in Egypt.

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Consolidating Power, 1952–1954 One day after King Faruq’s abdication and departure from Egypt, the leaders of the coup of July 22–23 constituted themselves as the effective governing authority in Egypt. Later called the “Revolutionary Command Council” (RCC), this new body originally had nine members, all from the military. Other officers who had been involved in the coup were added later in 1952; by early 1953 the membership was stabilized at twelve. Gen. Muhammad Najib, a latecomer to Free Officer activities, was the senior officer among the revolutionary leadership. Nasser was the chair and key figure in the RCC.35 From mid-1952 until the end of 1954, Egyptian political life centered around two processes. One—the more visible and dramatic—was the RCC’s gradual marginalization or elimination of other Egyptian political forces and its consolidation of power in its own hands. The other—a process largely occurring behind the scenes and less apparent to outside observers—was the growing dominance of Nasser in the RCC and his passage from primus inter pares to a position of personal ascendancy over his erstwhile peers. * * * Egypt’s fragmented political universe did not vanish when the Free Officers seized power in July 1952. Numerous political forces, ranging from the established political parties that had governed Egypt for the previous thirty years to the antiestablishment opposition movements of both left and right, which had grown during the 1930s and 1940s, were still in existence. At first, some older politicians anticipated that the military hegemony over politics that began in July 1952 would be a temporary episode that would soon give way to a restored, if “purified,” civilian regime. Activists associated with the protest movements of left and right had another but equally sanguine expectation—that the earlier contacts between individual officers and such movements as the Islamic-oriented Muslim Brotherhood or the socialist Democratic Movement for National Liberation would result in the new military leadership’s falling under their influence. Neither prospect was borne out. Rather than making way for the restoration of parliamentary government or moving in the more radical directions demanded by the ideologues of left and right, the RCC slowly neutralized or eliminated all potential rivals. The first institution to be brought firmly under its control was the military itself. Several hundred senior officers were retired from the armed forces in late 1952,

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replaced by new men presumed loyal to the RCC.36 The Free Officers movement, which had brought the RCC to power, was itself effectively disbanded by the end of 1952.37 Individual officers who either disagreed with the RCC’s policies or who were seen to pose a potential threat were dismissed, moved into sinecures, or in a few cases detained; in January 1953 a potential mutiny in the artillery corps was prevented by the arrest of thirty-five officers; and dismissals or arrests of other officers suspected of disloyalty to the regime continued into 1953.38 The appointment of ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr as commander of the armed forces when Muhammad Najib became president of Egypt in June 1953 marked the effective domination of the Egyptian military by the RCC.39 At the same time that it consolidated its hold over the armed forces, the revolutionary junta moved against Egypt’s established political parties. This was a more involved process. Originally, the Free Officers group had ruled through a civilian cabinet headed by the veteran politician ‘Ali Mahir. By September 1952, Mahir’s resistance to land reform legislation led to his dismissal and the appointment of a new ministry headed by RCC member Gen. Muhammad Najib. The simultaneous arrest of sixty-four prominent politicians signaled the revolutionary junta’s intention to move against the old order. The rest of 1952 witnesssed a campaign of political “purification” in which the leaders of the new regime, particularly the popular Muhammad Najib, badgered the parties to clean their own houses. When by January 1953 this was perceived to be a futile endeavor, the government formally abolished all political parties and decreed a three-year transitional period of military rule. Through 1953 and into 1954, many of the leading politicians of the parliamentary era were hauled before revolutionary tribunals on charges ranging from peculation to high treason. Several received long-term jail sentences, others substantial fines.40 This attempt to discredit Egypt’s political establishment was paralleled by the military group’s assuming a more formal role in the government. Upon the declaration of a republic in June 1953, Muhammad Najib became Egypt’s first president and three other members of the RCC (Nasser, ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, and Salah Salim) took posts in the cabinet. By April 1954, after the crucial contest with other political forces had been fought and won in February–March 1954, eight members of the RCC held posts in a cabinet now headed by Nasser.41 Members of the RCC at first maintained their contacts with spokesmen for the Egyptian left; their first major policy initiative, the land reform program inaugurated in September 1952, was influenced by such

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contacts. But by late 1952 restrictions were being placed on leftist publications and propaganda activities. The abolition of political parties in January 1953 led to the main movement of the Egyptian left, the Democratic Movement for National Liberation, denouncing the new regime as “fascistic.” Throughout 1953, the regime treated its erstwhile allies on the left of the political spectrum in much the same manner as it was treating old-line politicians—with suppression, arrests, and trials for subversive activities.42 Probably the most serious rival with which the revolutionary junta had to contend in 1952–1954 was the Muslim Brotherhood. The ban on political parties enacted in January 1953 did not apply to a formally socioreligious organization like the Muslim Brotherhood, which continued to operate throughout 1953. The regime’s eventual action vis-à-vis the Brotherhood was faciliated by the internal fragmentation the movement had experienced since the assassination of its founder, Hasan al-Banna, in 1949. Disorder and violence among different factions of the Brotherhood in late 1953 provided the occasion for the RCC’s taking action against the movement; in January 1954, the ban on political parties was extended to the Brotherhood.43 By early 1954, the military regime had gone a long way toward neutralizing most potential rivals for power. Yet, by this time a new challenge was developing from within the ranks of the RCC itself. General, later Prime Minister, and eventually President Najib had never been one of the inner group in either the Free Officers or the RCC. Yet his personal visibility as formal leader and main spokesman of the new regime made him the most popular member of the junta in 1952–1953. As his role expanded from commander of the armed forces in July 1952 to president of Egypt in June 1953, Najib attempted to become more assertive within the councils of the new regime. This alienated him from many of the younger officers on the RCC, who viewed him as their figurehead but hardly as their leader. Nasser in particular has been described as having developed a “vitriolic hatred” for Najib.44 The showdown between Nasser, supported by most of the other members of the RCC, and Najib, backed by many of the civilian political groups whose position had been imperiled by the revolutionary junta, came in February–March 1954.45 Upon discovering that the RCC was meeting without him in late February 1954, Najib abruptly resigned as president. His resignation was the catalyst for an outpouring of popular resentment against the military regime that was creating a monopoly position for itself in Egyptian public life. Massive demonstrations calling for the return of both Najib and of representative government

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organized by the various political forces—the Wafd, the Brotherhood, the left—which had had their freedom of action and existence threatened by the military regime, broke out in Cairo. In the military itself, Najib’s resignation prompted a near-mutiny against the RCC by the armored corps. Faced with these civilian as well as military indications of support for Najib, on February 27 the RCC backtracked and acquiesced in the reinstatement of Najib as president. The tumultuous events of late February were prologue to a more extended military-civilian confrontation in March 1954. While publicly bending to the popular demand for liberalization through lifting some press restrictions and releasing a number of political prisoners, the RCC simultaneously worked to solidify its support inside the military. The release of large numbers of Brotherhood members in particular won it the temporary neutrality of its best organized potential opponent. Sure of its military base and with one flank protected by a rapprochement with the Brotherhood, on March 25 the RCC deliberately provoked a new crisis by declaring that it intended to dissolve itself and to return the country to civilian rule. Turmoil erupted as old parties announced their reestablishment, students demonstrated, and professional associations issued manifestos denouncing military rule. But more decisive action came from supporters of the military regime, who for one reason or another feared the termination of the “revolution” portended by the announcement of March 25. Demonstrations in support of the revolution by members of the regime’s new political party, the Liberation Rally, and by major labor unions supported the continuation of RCC rule; mobs attacked individuals identified with the opposition and symbols of the antimilitary movement, such as the building of the oppositionist Al-Misri newspaper; and labor unions threatened strikes that would have paralyzed the major cities of Egypt. Most important, the army now stood solidly behind the RCC; no divisions within the military similar to those of the previous month occurred. Responding to this show of support that it had in large part orchestrated, on March 29 the RCC rescinded its statement of March 25 and announced its intention to remain in power. Exhausted by this extended conflict with his erstwhile associates, on the same day Muhammad Najib collapsed and had to be hospitalized. The crisis of early 1954 was “the pivotal moment” in the military regime’s consolidation of power.46 The political effectiveness of the ramshackle coalition of civilian forces opposed to the RCC had been tested and found wanting; simultaneously, the revolutionary junta had demonstrated its control of the military as well as considerable civilian

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support for its continuation in power. What might be termed moppingup operations occupied the regime for much of the rest of 1954. The armored corps, the one element in the military whose loyalty to the regime was questionable, was purged in mid-1954; the press was sanitized through the closing of opposition newspapers as well as the arrest and trial of leading opposition journalists; and universities were temporarily closed to prevent student demonstrations and to allow restructuring of their administrations to bring the latter more firmly under government control.47 The military junta as a group was still far from popular with many segments of articulate Egyptian opinion after two years in power; a repeated theme of Nasser’s conversations with foreign diplomats in the latter part of 1954 was the fragility of the regime’s position due to opposition encouraged by remnants of the Wafd, the left, and particularly by the still-intact Muslim Brotherhood.48 But the back of organized opposition had been broken. One final confrontation remained. On October 26, 1954, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to assassinate Nasser as he delivered a speech in Alexandria. The attempt failed and was immediately followed by a massive crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters were arrested, many to languish in prison for years; Brotherhood properties were attacked and burned by mobs; and leaders of the movement were placed on trial for complicity in the assassination attempt, convicted, and either imprisoned or executed. By the end of 1954 the last organized rival of the new military regime had been crushed.49 Almost as a footnote to the supression of the Muslim Brotherhood, late 1954 also witnessed the final marginalization of Egypt’s “Kerensky with a Fez;” General Najib was dismissed from the presidency and placed under house arrest on November 15, 1954.50 The Brotherhood was too reflective of, and too deeply embedded in, Egyptian society to be completely eliminated; it would surface again in the future. But for the remainder of the Nasser era, the Muslim Brotherhood was brutally repressed by the regime. Indeed, all the organized political movements that had emerged and competed for power in Egypt’s pre-1952 liberal era were eliminated as effective political forces by the end of 1954. In their place stood an apparently monolithic military regime. * * * Its self-appointed nature notwithstanding, at its inception the RCC was a collegial decisionmaking body. All members were considered equal,

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and decisions were made by majority vote. Discussions on major issues were prolonged, with meetings sometimes tumultuous and marked by sharp differences of opinion. As late as mid-1953, U.S. Ambassador Jefferson Caffery noted that Nasser was able to get RCC agreement for a major proposal in the ongoing negotiations between Great Britain and Egypt over British evacuation “by [a] bare majority only.”51 Nasser’s later description of the RCC as “a small parliament composed of twelve members” was not too far from the mark for the early years of the new regime.52 The character of the RCC and the relationship among its members changed over time. Their formal equality notwithstanding, from the start Nasser was the most important member of the revolutionary junta. As early as November, U.S. diplomatic reports had pegged Nasser as the “strongest member” of the RCC; by March 1953, a U.S. report identified him as “the real locus of power” who “clearly dominates the committee.”53 Nasser’s public persona lagged behind his real influence in the councils of the new regime. It was mid-October 1952 before his name appeared in the Egyptian press; only in November did he deliver his first public address.54 Public recognition increased by mid-1953, with his appointment as deputy prime minister in a government formally headed by President Nagib.55 Yet Nasser does not appear to have been either well known or warmly regarded by Egyptians in 1952 and 1953. In the public arena he stood in the shadow of Najib, the avuncular symbol of the revolution; almost as visible was flamboyant Maj. Salah Salim, minister of national guidance and regime spokesman on international issues. Egyptians in the know sometimes disparagingly referred to Nasser as “Colonel Jimmy” because of his presumed pro-U.S. sentiments.56 The struggle against the civilian rivals of the RCC and later against President Najib served to augment Nasser’s position of hegemony in the revolutionary junta. Nasser personally conducted the secret negotiations with different factions of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1953; his success in dividing the regime’s most dangerous civilian rival may be presumed to have inspired greater confidence in his leadership among his colleagues. He was Najib’s staunchest opponent among the younger members of the RCC, and was the man who in early 1954 initiated the various maneuvers that eventually brought Najib down. While Najib had greater public visibility and popularity than Nasser in 1953 and early 1954, Nasser had the great political advantage of having linked his personal leadership to the collective existence and hegemony of the RCC as an institution.57 In late 1953, Nasser suggested to his colleagues that they meet secretly prior to scheduled RCC meetings to

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agree on a common position vis-à-vis Najib; later he convinced them to let him make policy decisions on the basis of his personal polling of RCC opinion without holding council meetings.58 In the hectic days of February–March 1954, it was Nasser who went to speak to the mutinous officers of the armored corps, who decided to reinstate Najib as president, and who later orchestrated the movement in support of continued military rule. Nasser consolidated his own position of primacy among his colleagues in the process of leading the anti-Najib struggle. Nasser clearly held both a more powerful and a more visible position of leadership in the wake of the crisis of early 1954. He assumed the position of prime minister in April 1954. His leadership of the regime thus formally acknowledged, Nasser unilaterally made major policy decisions. The RCC continued to meet, but less regularly and without necessarily being consulted on national policymaking.59 Nasser now sometimes interfered in the affairs of ministries under the formal supervision of his colleagues; in August 1954 such interference led Salah Salim, as minister of national guidance, to threaten resignation.60 Three developments of late 1954 indicate Nasser’s emergence as the preeminent leader of the new revolutionary regime. The publication in book form of his ghost-written (by the journalist Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal) musings on politics, The Philosophy of the Revolution (Falsafat al-Thawra), in September 1954 symbolically identified Nasser as the prime architect of the ongoing “revolution” that had begun in July 1952. A month later, the fact of the Muslim Brotherhood’s targeting Nasser for assassination and Nasser’s impromptu declaration that “if Gamal Abdel Nasser shall die, each of you shall be Gamal Abdel Nasser” testify both to his opponents’ perceiving Nasser as the key figure in the regime and to Nasser’s own identification of himself with the revolutionary cause.61 In mid-November 1954, when Najib was dismissed as president of Egypt, the office was left vacant; but the RCC simultaneously vested executive authority in the hands of Prime Minister Nasser.62

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2 The Nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser

In Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, Eric Hobsbawm stresses that “the complex and multiple ways in which human beings define and redefine themselves as members of groups” cannot be reduced to “a single option.” His example is an Indian resident in England: It is perfectly possible for a person living in Slough to think of himself, depending on circumstances, as—say—a British citizen, or (faced with other citizens of a different colour) as an Indian, or (faced with other Indians) as a Gujarati, or (faced with Hindus or Muslims) as a Jain, or as a member of a particular caste, or kinship connection, or as one who, at home, speaks Hindi rather than Gujarati, or doubtless in other ways.1

Building off this awareness of the multifaceted character of collective identity, Hobsbawm goes on to note that “national identification and what it is believed to imply, can change and shift in time, even in the course of quite short periods,” and to counsel that “in my judgement this is the area of national studies in which thinking and research are most urgently needed today.”2 Nasser’s nationalist outlook bears out Hobsbawm’s emphasis on the contingent and multivalent nature of national identity. To focus on the two collective identities most salient in his case, Nasser himself repeatedly emphasized the coexistence as well as the compatibility of his Egyptian and Arab nationalist loyalties. “Arab Egypt” was used in his rhetoric from an early date;3 his later addresses declared Egypt to be “a member of the greater Arab entity”4 and maintained that “by our country I mean the whole Arab world.”5 The Egyptian National Charter of 1962, largely shaped by Nasser, provides the most authoritative Nasserist statement of 27

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this folding of Egypt into an Arab loaf, referring in its opening to “the Arab people of Egypt” and later explicitly asserting that “there is no conflict whatsoever between Egyptian patriotism and Arab nationalism.”6 Despite his assertion of both an narrower Egyptian and a broader Arab national allegiance, the two were not of equal weight. Like most Egyptians of his generation, Nasser was first and foremost an Egyptian nationalist. His identification with Egypt nationalism developed earlier than his commitment to the Arab nationalist cause, and remained his most vital political referent thereafter. Egypt lay at the center of Nasser’s emotional universe. Once asked whether his sense of collective identity was more Egyptian or Arab, his response was an unreserved expression of his self-definition as an Egyptian coupled with a more contingent sense of Arab affiliation: “I am Egyptian. And I feel Arab because I am deeply affected by the fortunes and misfortunes of the Arabs, wherever they may occur.”7 It was Egypt that had the deepest emotional resonance for Nasser: even after the creation of the United Arab Republic, he told an interviewer that for him “‘Egypt’ means the Bible, it means the very essence of all religions. . . . I love the word ‘Egypt.’”8 The primary formative influences on Nasser’s emerging political consciousness derived from the Egyptian nationalist context. The specific course of his politicization as a youth—membership in the Young Egypt movement and participation in student demonstrations in the mid-1930s—imbued him with a fierce Egyptian nationalism. The evidence of his extant writings of the 1930s reveals an Egyptian patriot concerned primarily with Egyptian political issues. The impassioned references to lost national honor and dignity found in the youthful Nasser’s letter to a friend in 1935 had the local Egyptian nationalist struggle as their point of reference: Where is the nationalism which burned in 1919? Where are men prepared to sacrifice their lives for the sacred soil of the homeland? Where are men prepared to give their lives for the independence of the country? Where is the one who can rebuild the country so that the weak and humiliated Egyptian can stand up again, living free and independent? Where is dignity? Where is nationalism?9

The writings of Tawfiq al-Hakim, one of the more territorialist and Egyptianist interwar intellectuals, were of particular importance in the development of the political outlook of the young Nasser. He himself attempted a novel modeled on Hakim’s Return of the Spirit (‘Awdat alRuh) when in school, and after the revolution acknowledged the importance of Hakim’s writings to his intellectual formation.10

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Echoes of the exclusively Egyptian territorialist outlook that flourished in Egypt in the 1920s and 1930s are visible in some of Nasser’s later declarations and writings. His Introduction to Husayn Mu’nis’s Egypt and Its Mission (Misr wa Risalatuha) manifested much the same tone of pride in Egypt’s distinctiveness and world-historical role as had characterized the writings of the earlier generation of Egyptian territorial nationalists. Egypt was “the center from which civilization had radiated throughout the world,” the source of human knowledge in areas as diverse as religion and literature, medicine and engineeering; later it had become the leader of Islamic civilization; and it was “the genius nation (al-umma al-‘abqariyya).”11 However, Nasser did not go as far as to assert Egypt’s “Mediterranean” character, the position that marked the extreme edge of Egyptian territorialist nationalism. In his view the Egypt/Mediterranean-Western equation was “a fundamentally mistaken theory”; Egypt’s “spirit” was Arab rather than Western.12 The systematic analysis of several of Nasser’s major addresses undertaken by the Egyptian scholar Marlene Nasr has demonstrated the centrality of Egypt in Nasser’s rhetoric. Nationalist terms referring to Egypt were usually unqualified in his speeches; for example, when used alone, “homeland” (watan) meant the land of Egypt; “nation” (umma) meant the Egyptian nation. Phrases referring to the Arabs were qualified; for example, “the Arab homeland” (al-watan al-‘arabi); “the Arab nation” (al-umma al-‘arabiyya) and appeared later.13 It was events relating to the national liberation of Egypt that prompted the deepest emotions in revolutionary Egypt’s young leader. Some of Nasser’s most heartfelt rhetoric was voiced during the ceremonies celebrating the final withdrawal of British forces from Egypt in June 1956. Nasser’s remarks when he personally raised the Egyptian flag over the Naval Building in Port Said on June 18, 1956, thereby symbolizing the final end of three-quarters of a century of British occupation, indicate the transcendent importance he attached to the liberation of Egypt: “This moment is the moment of a lifetime, indeed the achievement of a lifetime. We have always dreamed and hoped for this moment, dreamed and hoped that the day would come when we would see it. Today we are living a moment worth a whole lifetime.”14 In an address later the same day, Nasser framed the historical significance of the British departure in much the same language Jawaharlal Nehru had used in describing the realization of Indian independence a decade earlier: as the generation of Egyptians that had finally achieved the end of “over two thousand years” of foreign domination, “this generation of Egyptians has a date with destiny.”15 Nasser’s speech on June 19 at a

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huge public assembly celebrating the departure employed a metaphor from Egypt’s nineteenth-century history to emphasize the meaning of British withdrawal: “Today, oh brothers, we begin a new phase in the history of this country. Today, oh brothers, Egypt has arrived at the point of being for all its sons. . . . Today Egypt is for the Egyptians.”16 In moments of crisis it was the Egyptian people and nation that mattered most to Nasser. Whereas his three-hour speech of July 26, 1956, in which he announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal gave considerable attention to Arab nationalism and its benefits in its early passages, its emotional peroration defending the nationalization of the canal had Egypt and its people, rather than the Arabs, as its referents: Now, while I am speaking to you, Egyptian brothers of yours are taking over the administration and management of the Canal Company. At this moment they are taking over the Canal Company, the Egyptian Canal Company not the foreign Canal Company. They are taking over the Canal Company and its facilities and directing navigation in the Canal, the Canal which is situated in the land of Egypt, which cuts through the land of Egypt, which is a part of Egypt and belongs to Egypt. We undertake this task now to compensate for what happened in the past and to build up new edifices for glory and dignity.17

A few months later, Nasser’s addresses at al-Azhar during (November 2) and immediately after (November 9) the Suez hostilities similarly emphasized the Egyptian “homeland” (watan), “the people of Egypt” (sha‘b misr), and the defense of Egyptian sovereignty and independence, mentioning the Arabs only to thank them for their support of Egypt in its current struggle.18 * * * In contrast to the primary place held by Egypt in Nasser’s hierarchy of national loyalties, his identification with the Arab nation and Arab nationalism was a less visceral and more contingent phenomenon. On the one hand, it emerged only later; on the other, it had a more instrumentalist character without the emotional depth of his feelings about Egypt. According to the account in his autobiographical tract, The Philosophy of the Revolution, “the first elements of [Nasser’s] Arab consciousness” began to develop only in the later 1930s through his participation in demonstrations in support of the Palestinian and Syrian nationalist movements.19 At first no more than “the echoes of sentiment,”20 Nasser’s Arabism began to acquire an intellectual rationale in the 1940s through

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his military studies, when his analysis of World War I campaigns in the Middle East made him aware of the strategic importance of Palestine to the defense of Egypt.21 By the time of the war for Palestine in 1948, Nasser had come to realize that “the fighting in Palestine was not fighting on foreign territory. Nor was it inspired by sentiment. It was a duty imposed by self-defense.”22 His participation in the Palestine war in 1948–1949 solidified his conviction of the integral political link between Egypt and Arab Asia: After the siege and battles in Palestine I came home with the whole region in my mind one complete whole. . . . An event may happen in Cairo today; it is repeated in Damascus, Beirut, Amman or any other place tomorrow. This was naturally in conformity with the picture that experience has left within me: One region, the same factors and circumstances, even the same forces opposing them all.23

Ideological and personal influences were secondary in the evolution of Nasser’s gradual identification with Arab nationalism. He is reported to have read the writings of several Arab protonationalist or nationalist writers—‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Shakib Arslan—during the course of his education. But these formed only a minor component of his reading in secondary and military school; the bulk concerned Egyptian, modern European, and military history.24 Nasser appears not to have read the leading contemporary Arab nationalist ideologue, Abu Khaldun Sati ‘al-Husri, until after the revolution of 1952. When he did, he was impressed enough with Husri’s views to arrange a meeting with him.25 According to his confidant Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, despite Nasser’s being a voracious reader on current events, the latter paid little attention to Arab politics in the early years of the revolution. Even from 1955 onward, when Arab issues assumed more importance for his regime, Nasser’s reading on Arab affairs remained sporadic.26 At the time of the formation of the UAR in 1958, Nasser is reported to have known “fewer than half a dozen Syrians.”27 The geopolitical and instrumental imperatives for Arab solidarity that Nasser had identified through his military training and experience were reinforced by his subsequent reading of the history of the region. A frequent theme in his discussions of Arab and Egyptian history was that from the Crusades through the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 (which had had only limited success because its leaders “failed to extend their vision beyond Sinai”) to the first Arab-Israeli war, Arab disunity guaranteed Arab defeat; concomitantly, Arab unity was the path to victory.28 Both history and contemporary experience taught the same lesson: “It is

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not possible to assure their [the Arabs’] security save if united with all of their brothers in Arabism in a strong cohesive unity.”29 Arab cooperation was a necessity for self-defense: “If the Arabs cooperate, it will be possible for them to defend themselves; if they are divided, others will dominate them.”30 Only gradually did such terms as “Arab nation,” “Arab nationalism,” and “Arab unity” become part of Nasser’s public rhetoric. From 1953, his speeches employed the conventional Arab nationalist phraseology of all Arabs as “brothers” and of the various Arab lands as “sisters.”31 Yet his early addresses also spoke of the Arab “peoples” in the plural32 and, rather than referring to the Arab “nation,” used the phrases “the Arab region” or “the Arab sphere.”33 By mid-1954, the phrases “the Arab homeland” (al-watan al-‘arabi) and “the Arab nation” (al-umma al-‘arabiyya) were appearing in his speeches.34 A benchmark in Nasser’s rhetoric was reached in July 1954, when in his address on the second anniversary of the revolution he asserted that “the goal of the government of the revolution is that the Arabs become a united nation [umma muttahida], its sons cooperating for the common good.”35 The term “Arab nationalism” appeared infrequently in his addresses in 1954 and 1955, becoming a staple of the Nasserist lexicon only in 1956.36 In his original use of the term, it was employed to denote the Arab nationalist movement in Western Asia and did not automatically incorporate Egypt.37 This had changed by 1956. In the early passages of his speech of July 26, announcing the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the referent “Arab nationalism” assumed the inclusion of Egypt in the movement. Now it was “our Arab nationalism” and “our Arabism” that were at stake in the imminent confrontation with the West over the Suez Canal, and resistance to the West was couched in the Arab terms of the need to “defend our freedom and our Arabism.”38 Although Nasser occasionally used the phrase “Arab unity” (al-wahda al-‘arabiyya) prior to 1958, its intensive use dates only from the creation of the UAR.39 Nasser gave little attention in his speeches to defining or proving the existence of the Arab nation, assuming more than demonstrating its reality. Its basis was a common language, a shared historical tradition, and common interests: what the National Charter of 1962 later specified as “unity of language,” “unity of history,” and “unity of hope.”40 Of these three elements, it was the latter two factors of a shared history and a common destiny that appear to have meant most to Nasser. When asked by a foreign interviewer in 1957 to compare the Arab sense of nationhood with that found in Europe, Nasser’s response placed the effects of a shared history over the bond of language:

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The Arabs speak one language, which is not the case in Europe. More important than this is that the Arab peoples all respond similarly to events, this is, if an incident occurs in any part of the Arab homeland, Arabs elsewhere from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Gulf feel it. And let us not forget that they were victims of the same imperialism for a century.41

What were the reasons articulated by Nasser for his belief in the Arab nation, Arab nationalism, and Arab unity in the 1950s? When Nasser first declared that “the goal of the government of the revolution is that the Arabs become a united nation” in July 1954, his rationale was a blend of historical and contemporary considerations: [The revolutionary regime] believes that the place occupied by the Arabs between the continents of the world, their great contribution to culture, their valuable economic resources, and their connection with the Islamic East and the East as a whole nominates them for a great place and destines them for influence in the affairs of the world. The revolution also believes that the problems of the Arabs are the problems of Egyptians. If the problem of the [British] occupation has until now absorbed the greatest part of the effort of Egyptians, it has never distracted them from participating in every Arab effort expended for the sake of the liberation of the Arabs.42

It was the common problems of Egyptians and Arabs and the political utility of solidarity that Nasser emphasized as the motive force behind Arab nationalism through the 1950s. Arab nationalism meant Arab effectiveness: “Our strength is in this Arab nationalism, the Arabs sticking together for the benefit of the Arabs.”43 Various phrases were used to illustrate the practical reasons for Arab nationalism and unity: Arab nationalism was “the protective armor” of each Arab state against both imperialism and Israel;44 it was their “weapon,” even their “principal weapon,” in the struggle against foreign domination;45 and it was “strategic necessity” or more fully “a defensive necessity, a strategic necessity, and common interests” that impelled the Arabs toward unity.46 Arab nationalism was thus justified in terms of its utility in the achievement of the parallel nationalist goals of the different Arab lands. The conclusion of Nasser’s speech of July 26, 1957, celebrating the nationalization of the Suez Canal a year earlier made the link between Arab nationalism and Egyptian national interest explicit: Our policy is based on Arab nationalism because Arab nationalism is a weapon for every Arab state. Arab nationalism is a weapon employed against aggression. It is necessary for the aggressor to know

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that, if he aggresses against any Arab country, he will endanger his interests. This is the way, brotherly compatriots, that we must advance for the sake of Egypt, glorious Egypt, independent Egypt.47

In anticipation of the eventual Egyptian-Syrian union developed by late 1957, Nasser reiterated that “the proposed union between Egypt and Syria is not a question of feeling or sentiment, but a question dictated by strategic and economic interests.”48 When union was suddenly realized early in 1958, Nasser’s major address of February 5, 1958, celebrating the creation of the United Arab Republic reflected the theme of unity as strength, which had marked his rhetoric through the 1950s: The struggle for the sake of unity is itself the struggle for the sake of life. The relationship between strength and unity is the most prominent feature of the history of our nation. Whenever unity has been achieved, strength follows it; whenever strength makes its appearance, unity is a natural result of it.49

Another passage in the speech echoed his earlier observations on the common destiny shared by Arabs that he had made in The Philosophy of the Revolution: “Thus we see that the history of Cairo, in its main lines, is also the history of Damascus. The details may differ, but the essential factors are the same: the same characteristics, the same invaders, the same kings, the same heroes, the same martyrs.”50 * * * If Nasser’s nationalism consisted of an original Egyptian patriotism overlaid in time by a more contingent sense of the necessity of Arab solidarity, what was missing from his portfolio of politically meaningful identities? A striking feature of both Nasser and his regime through the 1950s was the marginality of religious affiliation as a political referent. This is particularly noteworthy in view of Nasser’s social conservatism. There is a dichotomy between the otherwise conventionally Egyptian inclinations and tastes of Nasser personally—a stable family life, a relatively simple lifestyle, a preference for local Egyptian cuisine and music—and his secularist denial of the political salience of religion in the modern world.51 In this respect Nasser contrasts sharply with his successor Anwar al-Sadat, cosmopolitan and Westernized in his personal outlook yet willing to employ religion as a political prop of his regime.

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When addressing audiences composed largely of foreign Muslims or speaking at religious institutions such as al-Azhar, Nasser was certainly capable of employing such religiously resonant terminology as “fighting for the sake of God” (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)52 or citing the authority of the Qur’an to legitimize the necessity of righteous struggle.53 But Nasser’s infrequent substantive references to the relationship between religion and politics clearly indicate a personal preference for the separation of the two as distinct spheres of human activity. Although The Philosophy of the Revolution makes the “Islamic circle” the largest of the three arenas in which Egypt had to find its proper role, it also speaks of Muslim “cooperation” in looser and less vital terms than those employed for the Arab and African circles.54 In an interview with Jean Lacouture in 1954, Nasser was careful to disavow religion as the basis for state policy: “After eighteen months in power, I still don’t see how it would be possible to govern according to the Koran. . . . The Koran is a very general text, capable of interpretation, and that is why I don’t think it is suitable as a source of policy or political doctrine.”55 This was not just a placebo meant for foreign consumption. Nasser offered a similar analysis of the desirability of separating religion from politics in a press conference of 1956 when asked whether Muslims had a particular aversion to foreign rule: “All peoples wish to live free, independent, and equal. This is not a religious question but a political question. . . . For the Muslim is a human being before he is a Muslim.”56 The secularist mantra employed by the previous generation of Egyptian territorial nationalists to express their conviction of the necessity of the separation of religion and politics—“religion belongs to God, the watan to each individual living in it”—was also invoked by Nasser for the same purpose.57 Marlene Nasr’s analysis of several of Nasser’s major addresses bears out the marginality of religion as a political referent to Nasser. It was language and history, not religion, that were the primary criteria for membership in the Arab nation; in his view “membership in the Arab nation was independent of any religious affiliation.”58 Nasser’s usage of the phrases “Arab nationalism” (al-qawmiyya al-‘arabiyya) and “Arab unity” (al-wahda al-‘arabiyya) carried no religious connotations. Whereas he spoke of Arab “unity,” his more usual use of the word “cooperation” for the type of Muslim interaction he envisaged implied a weaker bond.59 Nasser’s speeches usually did not speak in terms of constructs such as “Islamic education” or “Islamic society”; at most, they used the vaguer

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phrase “the Islamic spirit.”60 Nasser used the word “nation/umma” first for Egypt, and later for the Arabs, but not in its traditional meaning of the community of believers in Islam; similarly, “unity/wahda” was applied only infrequently to the Muslim community, and then only in combination with “Arab unity” and “Asian-African unity.”61 A similar dismissal of religion as a meaningful political bond is found in Nasser’s foreign policy positions. By the 1950s, the concept of an Islamic caliphate was a dead issue for Egyptian policymakers. Nasser bluntly told the Iraqi Regent ‘Abd Il-lah as much when the latter inquired about the possible revival of the office in 1954: “We believe that the Caliphate is an historical stage whose purposes have come and gone, and any discussion of it in current circumstances is a waste of time.”62 Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal reports Nasser’s telling Nuri alSa‘id of Iraq that “the holy bond of Islam is one thing, unity of interest and security another, particularly if it is based, in addition to religion, on a unity of history, culture, language, and geography.”63 Nasser asserted much the same view in a discussion with the Foreign Relations Committee of the National Assembly of the UAR in 1960. When asked whether the sharing of a common religion could play a role in facilitating a rapprochement between the UAR and pro-Western Muslim countries such as Turkey and Pakistan, his response was to assert that the creation of international power blocs based on religious criteria would be a mischievous trend likely to result in manipulation by the great powers. His overall recommendation to the committee was that “the religious element should enter into our relations with other countries only in cultural affairs.”64 On the level of policy, the revolutionary government intermittently initiated external programs with an Islamic coloring in the 1950s but did not pursue these with any great vigor or perseverance. The Liberation Rally, the new regime’s first mass political organization, held an ArabIslamic assembly in Cairo in August 1953. Attended by some one thousand Arabs and Muslims mostly resident in Egypt, it discussed issues relating to Arab and Muslim liberation from imperialist domination but left no permanent mark on Egyptian policy.65 The major “Islamic” initiative of the Nasserist regime in the 1950s was its sponsorship of the “Islamic Conference” (al-mu’tamar al-islami) in 1954. First discussed with the Saudis by Salah Salim during a trip to Saudi Arabia in June and launched by Nasser when on pilgrimage in August, the initiative for an international Islamic coordinating office centered in Cairo was at least partially inspired by the the regime’s current political struggle with the Muslim Brotherhood.66 Headed by Anwar al-Sadat and advised by a

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board of ‘ulama (religious scholars), the office’s official aims were promoting international Muslim education and interaction, the propagation of the message of Islam, and the establishment of Muslim cultural centers.67 The office appears to have received little attention from the regime after the crushing of the Brotherhood late in 1954. A British evaluation of Egyptian regional policy in mid-1957 estimated that “Egyptian endeavors to obtain hegemony in the Moslem world have been relatively unsuccessful,” and went on to observe that Egypt had now become “relatively inactive” in propaganda efforts in other Muslim countries.68 The Nasserist regime’s rejection of religion as a basis for national identity and state policy of course occurred in a particular context. In the initial years of the revolution, the new regime’s most serious domestic challenge came from the Muslim Brotherhood. Concomitantly, its disavowal of religion as a political referent was in part a reaction to the agenda advocated by the Brotherhood and was to some degree conditioned by the need to distinguish its programs and appeal from that of its main domestic rival.69 Yet, the consistent marginalizing of religion in both the rhetoric and the policies of Nasserist regime even after the challenge of the Brotherhood had been met and overcome indicates that this aversion to the use of religion as a political bond was more than just a tactical maneuver on the part of the regime’s leaders. The disavowal of religion as a political referent had been a prominent feature of Egyptian territorial nationalism under the parliamentary monarchy.70 On the whole, Nasser and his colleagues seem to have absorbed and to have remained faithful to a similar primarily secular interpretation of nationalism after they came to power. The axiom that “religion belongs to God, the watan to each individual living in it,” appears to have been more than just a convenient slogan for Nasser and his associates in command of the Egyptian ship of state after 1952. * * * There are two issues concerning Nasser’s nationalist outlook and affiliations that must be addressed before moving on to consider the policies pursued by his regime in the Arab arena. The first is whether, or to what degree, his adoption of an Arab nationalist position was idiosyncratic. Was he unusual or unique among the leaders of the new regime in seeing Egypt’s destiny as inextricably interwoven with that of the neighboring Arab world? The second issue is the possibility of alternative sources of his Arabist attitudes and policies to the primarily instrumental explanation presented in his own speeches and addresses of the

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1950s. Are there other factors that may have contributed to Nasser’s personal inclination toward an identification with Arab nationalism? The answer to the first question is complicated by the haste with which many of Nasser’s erstwhile colleagues later tried to dissociate themselves from the Arab nationalist initiatives of the Nasser era. Later testimony about earlier nationalist inclinations is problematic, given the “de-Nasserization” of the post-1970 period. Contemporary public statements by spokesmen for the revolutionary government, not surprisingly, followed a common line on such policy issues as the necessity of extending and strengthening Arab political cooperation.71 Even Muhammad Najib, generally regarded as one of the more Nile Valley–focused members of the RCC, sometimes used phraseology as fully Arabist in tone as that employed by Nasser (e.g., when inaugurating the new “Voice of the Arabs” radio broadcasts in July 1953: “We all belong to the same great Arab nation.”).72 But other evidence points to a more complex reality. The former CIA operative Miles Copeland has written that upon his arrival in Egypt in 1953, “I did not come across one of Nasser’s associates—and I met most of them—who had any interest in Egypt’s potential as a leader of an Arab union or of any other kind of union.”73 Even as a new, more Arab-oriented foreign policy was in the process of formation in early 1955, Nasser’s confidant Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal privately lamented to a U.S. diplomat that “the idea of isolationism for Egypt is still very popular.”74 The same report estimated the only advocates of “an Arab ‘One World’ policy” within the RCC were Nasser himself, Salah Salim, and Anwar al-Sadat, “with the other members of the RCC going along with varying degrees of enthusiasm.”75 Nasser’s foreign minister through the mid-1950s, the veteran Egyptian diplomat Husayn Fawzi, was reported to be “not entirely in sympathy” with the new policy of seeking to forge an Egyptian-led independent Arab bloc in opposition to the Baghdad Pact in 1955.76 Even after Nasser’s ascension to a position of unchallenged primacy in the regime, several of his colleagues expressed great reluctance about going along with the most significant Arabist initiative taken by Egypt in the 1950s, the creation of the United Arab Republic in 1958.77 The adoption of an Arab nationalist position by the Egyptian state in the 1950s appears to be particularly Nasser’s initiative, shaped by his individual understanding of the necessity and uses of Arab solidarity as a vital instrument in the joint Arab struggle against imperialism. Several authors have attempted to reach behind Nasser’s verbalization of his emerging Arab allegiance in primarily pragmatic terms to

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seek factors in his background and upbringing that may have contributed to his adoption of an Arab nationalist stance. One suggestion that has been offered is that the Arab tribal origins of his family may have influenced his eventual inclination toward Arabism.78 It is difficult to see how this hypothesis can be established in any precise sense. A more complex interpretation is the marginal-man hypothesis suggested by some authors. In brief, this approach postulates that Nasser’s unhappy childhood (his mother’s early death followed by a strained relationship with his father) and the frequent moving about that he experienced as a youth (nine school transfers between the ages of five and seventeen, and spending part of that time living with relatives because of tensions with his father) may have produced an identity crisis that in turn had several probable consequences for his subsequent attitudes and worldview. His background is sometimes credited with alienating him from his society and producing the sense of political anguish visible in his youthful letters, as well as being part of the cause for his “bruised” sensibility, his sensitivity to perceived slights either to himself or to Egypt, and his concern for due recognition of Egyptian national dignity.79 Beyond this, it has also been suggested that Nasser resolved his personal crisis of identity through his wholehearted identification first with the Egyptian national cause, then with Arab nationalism: “He found his identity which he had been searching for since youth in Egyptian patriotic identity and in Arab nationalism. His [social] isolation was a cause of his indomitable search for unity.”80 The marginal-man hypothesis is plausible as an explanation of how an alienated youth came to sublimate his frustrations in political activity (although it does not explain how Egyptian youths from happy households also became fervent patriots). But it is questionable as an explanation of why Nasser over time adopted a specifically Arab nationalist outlook. The equation of youthful social alienation and isolation with Nasser’s later political positions represents a considerable leap from the personal to the political dimension that demands further analysis to be persuasive. On the whole, Nasser’s own explanations emphasizing the gradual growth of his intellectual awareness of the commonality of interest among Arabs in a region still dominated by imperialism should be given greatest weight as the basis of his identification with Arab nationalism.

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3 The Search for a Regional Role, 1952–1954

The military regime that came to power in Egypt in July 1952 at first gave a low priority to foreign relations. According to its own spokesmen, the initial preoccupations of the new rulers of Egypt were the struggle against domestic “incompetence and corruption” and a push for “comprehensive domestic reform.”1 A U.S. Embassy estimate of September 1952 estimated the new regime to be “concentrating almost exclusively on domestic affairs” in its early weeks in power.2 A year after the military coup, Minister of National Guidance Maj. Salah Salim was still speaking of the new regime’s “preoccupation with domestic affairs.”3 The exception to this focus on internal politics and reform was the issue of the termination of the remnants of the British position in the Nile Valley. The later memoirs of leaders of the military movement are virtually unanimous in specifying British departure and complete liberation from foreign influence as the overriding issues in Egyptian foreign relations in the early years of the revolution.4 The primary foreign policy objectives of the regime’s new political party, the Liberation Rally, upon its establishment in January 1953 were the Egypt-centered issues of the “unconditional evacuation of foreign troops from the Nile Valley” and Sudanese self-determination.5 Nasser’s early public addresses were consistent in their specification of the first and primary aim of the revolution as eliminating the British presence in Egypt and their assertion that “this revolution was staged to liberate Egypt and drive out the occupation forces.”6 Nasser said much the same thing in what was perhaps his first encounter with a foreign statesman visiting Egypt to take the measure of the new military regime. As he put it when meeting John Foster Dulles in May 1953, “British influence must entirely disappear. . . . We can influence the people on any point except this.”7 Domestic 41

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corruption and the foreign presence went hand in hand in the worldview of the army officers now ruling Egypt; together, they formed what an early speech of Nasser termed the “hateful trinity” that comprised “social injustice, political oppression, and British occupation.”8

Sudanese Self-Determination and British Withdrawal The central foreign policy concerns of the military regime in the 1952– 1954 period were the linked questions of British military withdrawal and the status of the Sudan. The latter was the first of the two to be resolved. The claim to Egyptian sovereignty over the Sudan had been a staple of the Egyptian nationalist agenda. The issue of the political future of the Sudan had been an integral element as well as a frequent stumbling block in British-Egyptian negotiations in the past. As recently as 1946, inability to agree on the future of the Sudan had scuttled a draft agreement for the revision of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance of 1936. Given the prominent and contentious place of the Sudanese question in Egyptian politics up to 1952, the most striking feature of the new regime’s position on the Sudan issue was its marginality. The future of the Sudan was a secondary issue for the new military rulers of Egypt. Their abolition of the monarchy may have diminished the salience of the issue of Egyptian sovereignty over the Sudan. Unlike King Fu’ad and King Faruq, whose personal prestige as monarchs had in part been linked to their claim to rule both Egypt and the Sudan, the new regime’s legitimacy was not tied to the Sudan question.9 Other than Muhammad Najib, born in the Sudan of mixed Egyptian-Sudanese parentage and partly raised and educated there, none of the other key figures in the new regime had personal connections with the Sudan that might have inclined them toward insisting on a Sudanese-Egyptian union. Nasser, in particular, is reported to have had little or no concern for the Egyptian claim to sovereignty over the Sudan. His rival Muhammad Najib quotes Nasser as saying that Egypt had nothing to fear from an independent Sudan politically—“I do not fear an independent Sudan; I fear an occupied Sudan”—and that economically the Sudan was “a burden for Egypt which it is better to abandon.”10 The crucial factor determining the new regime’s position on the Sudan in 1952 was the tactical one of the relationship between the Sudan question and the more vital issue of British military withdrawal from Egypt. The RCC approached the Sudan question largely in terms of its relationship to British evacuation. According to ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi,

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the RCC recognized that the Sudan had been a barrier to British-Egyptian agreement on other issues in the past, and therefore decided to separate the two issues in order to facilitate agreement with the British over withdrawal.11 For the pragmatic military men who took control of Egypt in 1952, the question of the unity of the Nile Valley, long a central slogan of Egyptian nationalist rhetoric, had far less resonance than the more narrowly Egyptian imperative of ending the British occupation of Egypt. Two sets of negotiations over the Sudan took place in late 1952 and early 1953. One was between the new Egyptian government and the leading political parties in the Sudan. The RCC delegated initial responsibility for contacts with Sudanese leaders to an officer with experience in the Sudan but who was not a member of the Free Officers inner circle, Husayn Dhu al-Fiqar Sabri. After meetings with Sudanese leaders, Sabri concluded that Egyptian recognition of a Sudanese right to self-determination was the only way to reach Egyptian-Sudanese agreement and the formation of a united front in negotiations with the British. In consultation with Muhammad Najib and Salah Salim of the RCC, Sabri prepared a position paper accepting the principle of self-determination for the Sudan. When in September 1952 he was summoned before the RCC to argue the case, Sabri found most of the RCC unfamiliar with the issue. Ultimately Sabri was able to persuade the RCC that Egyptian recognition of the Sudanese right to self-determination was necessary to move British-Egyptian negotiations forward.12 There was a considerable measure of ignorance of actual conditions in the Sudan among the politically inexperienced cadre of officers now ruling Egypt; whether they realized the probable implications of agreeing to a Sudanese right of self-determination in 1952 is questionable. At the end of September the chair of the Sudan Subcommittee of the RCC, Salah Salim, informed the British of the crucial decision to accept what earlier Egyptian regimes had refused to countenance: the Sudanese right to self-determination.13 In September 1952 Sudanese leaders were invited to Cairo. Muhammad Najib conducted the negotiations on behalf of the RCC.14 Given the principle of Sudanese self-determination conceded by the Egyptians, agreement was not difficult. At the end of October, an agreement in which Egypt for the first time acknowledged the Sudanese right to selfdetermination was concluded. The agreement defined a common Egyptian-Sudanese position concerning the composition of a transitional administration in the Sudan charged with organizing elections in which the Sudanese people would determine their political future.15

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British-Egyptian negotiations over the Sudan followed those with the Sudanese. On November 2, 1952, the Egyptian government presented the British with its proposals for the future of the Sudan. Based on its earlier agreement with Sudanese leaders, the Egyptian note officially acknowledged the Sudanese right to self-determination; it also called for the sudanization of administration in the Sudan and the creation of international commissions to oversee the conduct of elections in the Sudan.16 Despite the opposition of the British establishment in the Sudan and its supporters in the Sudan lobby in London, both suspicious that the Egyptians had not given up their aspirations for Egyptian-Sudanese unity and apprehensive for the fate of non-Arab, non-Muslim southern Sudan, the united front of the Egyptian government and the main Sudanese political parties was too strong to be resisted by the British.17 The Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the Sudan was signed on February 12, 1953. It substantially followed the lines of the Egyptian proposal of November 1952, committing both parties to Sudanese self-determination and specifying the establishment of international commissions to supervise the sudanization of administration and the conduct of elections in which the Sudanese would decide the political destiny of their nation.18 The Egyptian acceptance of the principle of self-determination for the Sudan had been made in haste by a new regime preoccupied with more pressing issues. It did not necessarily mean that the regime’s leaders had reconciled themselves to Sudanese separation from Egypt. As the Sudan entered its transitional period, the government of Egypt attempted to influence the course of events in the Sudan so that the Sudanese would favor choosing union with Egypt. A “Green Book” published by the Egyptian government in July 1953 was a collection of Ottoman and diplomatic documents relating to the status of Egypt in the Sudan; the book’s implicit message was the unity of the Nile Valley.19 Salah Salim in particular has been accused by both Egyptians and Sudanese of repeated interference in Sudanese politics as the complex process of the sudanization of administration took place in 1953 through 1955. In the run-up to the Sudanese parliamentary elections of late 1953, Salim liberally used Egyptian money to bribe Sudanese politicians and to subsidize the initially pro-Egyptian National Unionist Party, which emerged victorious in those elections. This interference in Sudanese politics is generally held to have backfired, encouraging Sudanese resentment against Egyptian duplicity and heavy-handedness.20 As late as August 1955, when southern units of the Sudanese Defence Force mutinied against the transitional government, Salim may have been involved in fomenting the mutiny in an effort to delay

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Sudanese independence.21 This last intervention by Salim occasioned stormy meetings of the RCC that ultimately resulted in Salim’s proffering his resignation from the RCC and the RCC’s relieving him of his official positions.22 The question of “who lost the Sudan” has been an enduring issue in Egyptian historiography on Egyptian-Sudanese relations. Gabriel Warburg’s examination of the Sudanese context, in which the issue must be considered, finds the debate in good part irrelevant. Despite Salah Salim’s presumed “blunders,” despite the dismissal of the Egyptian leader most popular in the Sudan (Muhammad Najib), a step many have viewed as crucial in alienating the Sudanese from Egypt, in Warburg’s judgment Egyptian actions were “of marginal significance” in determining the future of the Sudan.23 Regardless of the maneuvers of the Egyptian government and its Sudanese allies, by the 1950s “what mattered was the overwhelming desire—of most Sudanese—to be free of foreign domination, whether British or Egyptian, and to be masters in their own country.”24 The RCC’s acceptance of principle of Sudanese self-determination in its early months in power was a necessary element in, but not the effective cause of, Sudanese independence from Egypt. * * * The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance of 1936 was still in effect at the time the Egyptian military seized power in July 1952. Based on the treaty’s provisions, Britain controlled and operated major military installations on Egyptian soil; up to 80,000 British military personnel were stationed in the British-run facilities in the Suez Canal zone in the early 1950s. Egyptian opposition to the continuing British military presence in Egypt had been a prominent feature of the tumultuous years before 1952. Clashes between Egyptian irregular forces assisted by the Free Officers and British troops had occurred throughout late 1951 and early 1952, in part paving the way for the military coup of July. The memoirs of the leaders of the Free Officers movement are consistent in emphasizing the issue of British military departure as their “main preoccupation and prime concern” upon taking power.25 The insistence on complete Egyptian independence and a visceral opposition to any foreign presence that could be perceived as infringing Egyptian sovereignty was a given in both the public rhetoric and the private conversations of the leaders of the new regime in 1952 throughout 1954.26 The Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of February 1953 concerning the Sudan cleared the board for direct negotiations between the two parties

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over the evacuation issue. Formal negotiations began in Cairo on April 27, 1953. The composition of the Egyptian working group responsible for the negotiations (President Najib and RCC members Nasser, Salah Salim, ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr, and ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, assisted by Foreign Minister Mahmud Fawzi) is itself an indication of the importance the new regime attached to the issue. It took only six sessions for the parties to reach an impasse and suspend negotiations on May 6. These renewed, in a desultory fashion, in the fall and winter of 1953; again no agreement was reached. Only after the conclusion of Egypt’s political crisis of February–March 1954 did negotiations intensify and achieve success. The basic principles of an agreement on the British military’s evacuating the Suez Canal zone were agreed upon in July 1954; the final agreement was signed by Prime Minister Nasser on behalf of Egypt and Minister of State Sir Anthony Nutting of Great Britain on October 19, 1954. The Egyptians followed a two-pronged strategy during the lengthy British-Egyptian negotiations of 1953–1954. At the same time as conducting on-and-off negotiations concerning the terms of British withdrawal, the Egyptian government exercised physical pressure on the British forces in the canal zone.27 Commando operations directed by Zakariya Muhi al-Din, director of military intelligence and soon minister of the interior, and organized in the field by members of the Free Officers, were initiated upon the initial suspension of negotiations in May 1953; the operations continued, although on a diminishing scale, as the parties moved closer to agreement.28 Carefully calibrated by the Egyptians so as not to provoke massive British retaliation, the effectiveness of these operations is problematic.29 Initially they stiffened British resolve, but in the long run they may have played a role in eroding British confidence in their ability to maintain a long-term military presence in the canal zone in the face of sustained Egyptian opposition.30 In retrospect the differences dividing Egypt and Britain during their negotiations appear minor. At the start of negotiations in 1953, the Egyptians were amenable to much of what Britain was requesting to safeguard the Western position in the Middle East. This included an acceptance of the principles of allowing the British a reasonable time for carrying out the evacuation of their military forces from the Suez Canal zone, keeping the military facilities in the zone in working order, and permitting British technicians to maintain vital installations. Most important, the Egyptians were willing to accede to the main Western security concern—British right of reentry to the Suez Canal base in the case of a military crisis in the region.31

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Two issues held up agreement until mid-1954. The most substantive concerned the circumstances in which the British could reenter and reactivate the Suez Canal base. Whereas Egypt insisted that only external aggression against Egypt or another Arab state should be sufficient reason for British reentry, the British demanded this right in case of attack on other states in the region (e.g., Turkey, Iran). The second major issue of contention was a more symbolic one: whether the British technical personnel remaining at the base could wear military uniforms, as the British demanded, or had to wear civilian garb in order to avoid offending Egyptian national sensibilities. When Nasser in May 1953 told John Foster Dulles that “British influence must entirely disappear,” he meant it visually as well as politically.32 Eventual British-Egyptian agreement on evacuating British military elements involved compromise by both parties. U.S. pressure produced Egyptian concessions on several secondary issues in the fall of 1953.33 By January 1954 Nasser expressed an Egyptian willingness to compromise on the issue of British reentry, accepting aggression against Turkey as a reason for reentry.34 By March he signaled a definite desire for a settlement, again offering to give way on the issue of Turkey in exchange for British concessions on civilian technicians.35 It took longer for the British government, headed by the still-committed imperialist Sir Winston Churchill, to budge. Only in May 1954 did the British match the Egyptian concession on reentry by agreeing to the Egyptian demand concerning civilian dress for technicians.36 The Egyptians were clearly eager to settle by mid-1954. When Sir Anthony Head flew to Cairo to conduct final negotiations in July 1954, it took the Egyptian team only a half an hour to accept the final British proposals for an agreement.37 The British-Egyptian agreement on the British base in the Suez Canal formally signed in October of that year was a watershed in the long history of the two countries’ relations. The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance of 1936 was abrogated. The British were allowed twenty months to remove their military forces from the Suez Canal. During the seven-year period from 1954 to 1961, British civilian technicians would be allowed to maintain vital installations in the canal zone, and Britain had the right of reentry to the facilities in case of military attack by outside powers on Egypt, another Arab state, or Turkey. For its part, Egypt agreed to respect the terms of the 1888 Constantinople Convention concerning freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal.38 When the last British troops withdrew from the Suez Canal in June 1956 in accord with the terms of the agreement, the British military presence on Egyptian soil that had lasted for three-quarters of a century finally came to an end.

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Numerous factors facilitated the 1954 British-Egyptian agreement. On the British side, the continued nationalist opposition to British bases on Egyptian soil had gradually conditioned British policymakers to the prospect of eventual British withdrawal. More immediate considerations included the economic costs of maintaining large forces at the Suez base; the perceived obsolescence of the base itself in the era of nuclear weapons; the prospect of developing alternative facilities in Cyprus, Turkey, or Libya; and the gradual wearing-down by his civilian and military advisors of the most obdurate champion of a continued British military presence in Egypt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill.39 On the Egyptian side, the initial pro-Western inclinations of the military regime and its willingness to accept continuing Western access to Egyptian territory and facilities in case of regional conflict were the basic factors facilitating agreement. An important ancillary consideration was the prospect of British-Egyptian agreement paving the way for significant Western, particularly U.S., financial assistance. Parallel to their negotiations with Britain, the Egyptians were conducting extended discussions with the United States for military and economic aid. One condition repeatedly specified by the United States for the grant of such assistance was a satisfactory resolution of the British-Egyptian negotiations over British withdrawal.40 Circumstances in Egypt itself played a role. The resolution of the internal Egyptian political crisis of early 1954 reinforced Egypt’s ability to make public concessions and agreements with the British. At the same time, it ended British uncertainty over the permanence of the military regime and indicated to them that they had no option but to reach an agreement with the RCC.41 The unideological and pragmatic approach of Nasser, by mid-1954 the key Egyptian decisionmaker, also contributed to a negotiated settlement of the issue. When his leftist RCC colleague Khalid Muhi al-Din argued that a British right of reentry to the Suez Canal base would strengthen worldwide imperialism and thereby increase the prospect of an eventual British reoccupation of Egypt, Nasser countered that achieving British departure, “the dream of every Egyptian,” was worth the long-term risks. “Should the British seek to return, he said, ‘We will prevent them since, hopefully, we would have gained sufficient strength.’”42 Though perhaps not in the fashion he envisaged, by 1956 Nasser proved the better prophet of the two.

The Chimera of the Revolution: U.S. Aid for Egypt? At the same time that it was reaching agreement with Britain on the liquidation of the British military presence in Egypt, the military regime

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was attempting to establish a positive relationship with the new Western hegemon in the Middle East. As noted earlier, secret meetings between the Free Officers and U.S. representatives had taken place before the military seized power in July 1952.43 From 1952 through 1954 there was frequent contact both official and unofficial between RCC members and U.S. diplomats. Ambassador Jefferson Caffery was particularly courted in the early months of the new regime, entertaining RCC members at his home and in turn being consulted on major policy decisions up to the appointment of the prime minister; for his part Caffery sometimes referred to the young officers as “My Boys.”44 Alongside these official contacts through the personnel of the American Embassy, a parallel but less well-documented line of communication and consultation was maintained with agents of the CIA, notably Kermit Roosevelt and Miles Copeland.45 In the 1952–1954 period, the Egyptian-U.S. relationship revolved around the related issues of Egyptian participation in Western regional security arrangements for the Middle East and the U.S. provision of economic and military assistance for Egypt. In the wake of Egyptian refusal to participate in a pro-Western regional defense organization, the Middle East Command, in 1951, the Western powers promoted the concept of a looser regional security planning organization, the Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO). Initial informal signals on the question of Egyptian participation in such a defense arrangement from the new Egyptian government were favorable.46 On November 10, 1952, a memorandum from Prime Minister Muhammad Najib laid out the regime’s official position on participation in regional defense: immediately after British evacuation from the Suez Canal base, “the Egypt[ian] Gov[ernmen]t will be prepared to give assurances that one of the ultimate objectives of its policy is participation with the US, UK, and other freeworld powers in planning for the common defense of the area within the framework of the charter of the UN.”47 But important qualifications were soon being added to this initial inclination toward participation in Western-inspired regional defense projects. In January 1953, Ambassador Caffery was cautioning that the Egyptians would not accept a “package proposal” that formally linked British military evacuation to Egyptian involvement in MEDO; in the Egyptian view, evacuation was a separate issue that would have to be resolved before completing arrangements on regional defense.48 Caffery also reported that the Egyptians were now suggesting the idea of strengthening the Arab League Collective Security Pact as an alternative to the creation of a Western-inspired defense system.49 By the time of U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’s visit to Egypt in May 1953,

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the Egyptian position on regional defense had hardened further. In the view of Foreign Minister Mahmud Fawzi, the MEDO project was “definitely out of focus” and should be replaced by a strengthening of the Arab League Collective Security Pact; Najib warned Dulles that “everybody is afraid of pacts and agreements” and that “the people are now so suspicious that they will not consider any agreement on defense until they ‘find themselves free.’” Nasser was even more blunt, telling Dulles that “the Egyptian people think of MEDO as a ‘perpetuation of occupation’” and reiterating the Egyptian preference for a strengthening of the Arab League Collective Security Pact.50 It was this Egyptian rejection of MEDO that was in large part responsible for Dulles concluding that a Middle East defense system centered on Egypt was impossible under present conditions, and for the consequent U.S. reorientation of regional defense policy toward the Northern Tier of the Middle East in 1953.51 The main objective of Egyptian approaches to the United States in the 1952–1954 period was obtaining U.S. economic and military aid. From their initial contacts with the U.S. Embassy in mid-1952, both civilian and military spokesmen for the new regime emphasized the Egyptian desire for financial assistance and arms, informally offering as the quid pro quo for aid an Egyptian willingness to participate in Western-designed regional defense arrangements.52 A request for U.S. aid was formally made in Prime Minister Najib’s note of November 10, 1952, in which he also indicated Egyptian willingness to participate in regional defense arrangements subsequent to the evacuation of the British military from Egypt.53 Later Egyptian evaluations of the new military regime’s attitude toward U.S. assistance from 1952 through 1954 present their position in quite pragmatic terms. While emphasizing the regime’s central commitment to Egyptian independence, these evaluations also note the regime’s awareness that in Egypt’s then state of development foreign assistance was a necessity for Egypt, and that in the circumstances of the early 1950s the United States was the indispensible source of such assistance.54 There was also a powerful military imperative underlying the Egyptian search for U.S. aid: the need for (in Ambassador Caffery’s words) a “substantial amount [of] new weapons” to satisfy the desires of the military and to maintain the loyalty of the army to the new regime.55 Such domestic pressure included calls for Egypt to play the Soviet card if necessary; when an arms deal with the United States appeared to be hanging in the balance in early 1953, Nasser told Ambassador Caffery that the Egyptian military was urging him to seek arms from the Soviet Union in case U.S. military aid was not forthcoming.56

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The story of Egyptian-U.S. negotiations concerning aid for Egypt is one of unrealistic expectations and crossed signals. Responding to informal Egyptian feelers for U.S. aid, in November 1952 Deputy Secretary of Defense William C. Foster visited Egypt to discuss the possibility of military assistance. Egyptian accounts of Foster’s visit indicate that the Egyptians came away from the discussions expecting considerably more aid (around $100 million is the figure usually cited) than the United States actually had in mind.57 In late 1952, Free Officers ‘Ali Sabri and Hasan al-Faklawi proceeded to Washington to arrange the specifics of an arms deal. Their mission was a failure. Although tentative agreement for an arms deal of some $10 million was reached, by January 1953 a combination of British resentment over the prospect of the United States supplying arms to Egypt that might be used against British forces in the canal zone, and the concern of supporters of Israel in the United States over the effect of U.S. arms on the Egyptian-Israeli military balance, led President Truman to decide against military assistance for Egypt.58 The failure of this initial Egyptian effort at obtaining substantial U.S. aid left a residue of frustration and anger on the Egyptian side. In their own minds, feeling misled about the prospects of aid by Foster and dismayed by the U.S. volte-face on an arms deal, the episode left the leaders of the new regime “disappointed and hurt.”59 The resulting bad taste was a factor in the hardening of the Egyptian position on participation in regional defense schemes, as well as one prod toward the eventual adoption of an Egyptian policy of “neutrality” that took place by the end of 1953.60 The issue of U.S. aid for Egypt did not die with the failure of the Sabri-Faklawi mission of late 1952. Over $10 million in Point Four and other economic assistance was given to Egypt in early 1953.61 On his tour of the Middle East in May, Secretary of State Dulles indicated the prospect of substantial economic and military assistance for Egypt upon the conclusion of British-Egyptian negotiations concerning military evacuation.62 In July 1953, President Najib made a formal request for an agreement on U.S. military assistance to be concluded simultaneously with the conclusion of the British-Egyptian negotiations on withdrawal.63 President Eisenhower immediately responded with a promise to make “firm commitments” regarding assistance to Egypt “as part of an overall solution” to the issues of British military evacuation and the future of the Suez Canal base.64 By late 1953, U.S. planners were projecting an eventual aid package of up to $25 million in military aid and $20 to $25 million in other economic assistance.65

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But as British-Egyptian negotiations remained at an impasse through late 1953 and early 1954 and no substantial U.S. aid materialized, the Egyptians became increasingly frustrated. By November 1953, Nasser was publicly complaining that Egypt had received “nothing” from the United States: “The reason is simple. America is closely allied with Britain, her ally. . . . Do not believe for one moment that America will help us as she and Britain, her ally, have one plan and one set policy.”66 A month later Egypt’s ambassador to the United States, Ahmad Husayn, warned that the deadlock in British-Egyptian negotiations and the consequent failure of U.S. aid to materialize were producing pressure for the adoption of a policy of “neutrality” by Egypt.67 By early 1954, Egyptian spokesmen were publicly criticizing the U.S. refusal to enter into negotiations concerning aid until British-Egyptian negotiations were satisfactorily concluded, in the process raising the possibility of an Egyptian approach to the Soviet Union for arms.68 Formal negotiations toward the conclusion of an agreement for substantial U.S. aid to Egypt recommenced only with the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Heads of Agreement concerning British evacuation of military forces on July 26, 1954. One day after that accord was reached, the U.S. State Department instructed Ambassador Caffery to begin negotiations on economic and military assistance for Egypt.69 It soon became apparent that the Egyptians were anticipating both more aid and better terms than the United States was willing to consider.70 The State Department was projecting up to $20 million in economic and another $20 million in military aid, but Egyptian expectations were for an aid package of $100 million or more.71 Equally disappointing to the Egyptians were the conditions required by the U.S. Congress for the grant of aid, particularly the stipulations of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) requiring a U.S. military mission to supervise the administration of military aid.72 Negotiations for aid to Egypt did not occur in a vacuum. In August the Egyptian government informed the United States that apprehension over the prospect of an “adverse public reaction” to U.S. terms for military assistance compelled the government to suspend negotiations for military aid. Instead, it requested $100 million in economic aid.73 As Ambassador Husayn explained the shift, the Egyptians feared concluding a military aid agreement burdened with terms that might arouse domestic opposition and thereby endanger the finalization of an evacuation agreement with Great Britain.74 Nasser’s language was more colorful; in his view the terms required by the MDAP would be “poison” domestically.75 Only after the signature of the British-Egyptian

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agreement on October 19, 1954 did the Egyptians feel that internal circumstances permitted a resumption of negotiations on military aid.76 On November 6, 1954, the United States and Egypt agreed on the terms of a $40 million package of economic assistance for Egypt.77 The editorial in the regime’s daily Al-Jumhuriyya evaluating the agreement for the Egyptian public emphasized the unrestricted nature of U.S. economic aid: “Free Egypt makes agreements only in an atmosphere of freedom. . . . When she makes an agreement she accepts no restrictions on her sovereignty.”78 It was precisely the restrictions surrounding military aid that prevented the agreement on economic assistance from being followed by an agreement on military aid. Egypt had found the terms imposed by the MDAP objectionable early in the negotiations.79 It was the requirement that Egypt sign a formal agreement linking its receipt of arms to defense supervision by the United States that was the crucial obstacle to an agreement on military aid. In September, Nasser told an embassy offical that agreeing to the terms of the MDAP was “politically impossible . . . under existing circumstances,” and expressed the hope that the United States could find some way to provide Egypt with arms without Egypt having to sign an MDAP agreement.80 A month later Ambassador Husayn had much the same message, requesting that the requirements for U.S. aid be “kept to a minumum” to avoid giving the regime’s domestic opposition ammunition with which to attack the government.81 The final breakdown in Egyptian-U.S. negotiations for an arms deal came in November 1954. In a conversation with Miles Copeland of the CIA and Norman Paul of the Defense Department on November 13, Nasser rejected the suggestion to divert $5 million of economic aid to military use. On the broader issue of U.S. supervision of military aid, he again asserted that it was not possible for Egypt to sign an MDAP agreement with the United States.82 Ten days later, in a meeting with military representatives Col. Harrison Gerhardt and Maj. Wilbur Eveland, Nasser reiterated the Egyptian unwillingness to agree to U.S. military supervision as part of an aid package: The words “mutual,” “Agreement,” “Assistance” are all unacceptable at the moment in view of the internal situation in Egypt. . . . Aside from the psychological difficulties of the words “mutual,” “military” and “assistance,” Nas[se]r kept harping on the fact that his enemies, no matter what kind of an agreement be signed or even if he signed would attack him, in the event that military aid of a grant nature came into the country, with the claim that he had sold out Egypt to the Americans.83

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Based on these conversations, both the military mission sent to Egypt to negotiate an arms deal and the U.S. Embassy in Cairo recommended the termination of negotiations for military assistance to Egypt.84 The State Department concurred. As a memo on “U.S. Grant Military Assistance to Egypt” of December 1954 concluded, the offer and the Egyptian rejection of an MDAP agreement in late 1954 “constitute fulfillment of the President’s commitment of July 15, 1953.”85 Despite appeals from Nasser at the end of 1954 stating that “‘the need for military aid is desperate’ because of the present state of Army morale” and requesting that “some way be found to provide grant military assistance without an MDAP agreement,” the United States decided for an indefinite postponement of negotiations concerning military aid.86 The efforts to furnish U.S. arms to Egypt were substantially over by the close of 1954. The Egyptian government would have to turn elsewhere to satisfy the army’s desire for military assistance. It did so, with momentous consequences, in the following year.

Toward an Arab Policy for Egypt Compared to the emphasis on Nile Valley issues and the effort to obtain U.S. aid, regional issues were a secondary matter for the revolutionary government in the wake of its seizing power in 1952. Yet the new regime was not totally oblivious to regional affairs during the early years of the revolution. An administrative measure carrying a portent of things to come was the regime’s decision of August 1952 to raise Egyptian legations in several neighboring Arab countries to embassy status.87 A month later, it pressured ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Azzam to resign from his position as secretary-general of the League of Arab States, a post he had held since that body’s inception in 1945. The decision to remove ‘Azzam was part of the new regime’s purge of figures associated with the old regime; it may also in part have been motivated by lingering resentment over ‘Azzam’s role in the Palestine debacle of 1948.88 A more significant initiative relating to Egypt’s position in the Middle East came in mid-1953. The new regime was keenly aware of the potential of radio as an instrument of state influence and power. Throughout 1953 the international programming of the Egyptian State Broadcasting Service steadily expanded. New programs in five languages, not including Arabic, were initiated in February; in May new shortwave broadcasts in nine languages, Arabic included, were introduced.89 On July 4, 1953, a new program devoted specifically to Arab issues, “Voice of the Arabs” (Sawt al-‘Arab), was inaugurated.90

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Although “Voice of the Arabs” was not the only arrow in the new regime’s propaganda quiver, it eventually became the most prominent. The original scope and outreach of “Voice of the Arabs” was minimal; a staff of two including its director Ahmad Sa‘id and only one-half hour’s programming a day.91 As the regime involved itself in the defense of Arab causes in 1954, “Voice of the Arabs” got louder. By late 1954, it had come under the direct supervision of minister of national guidance and spokesman of the regime on Arab affairs, Salah Salim; its programming was expanded to four hours a day.92 In the period 1954–1955, its radio propaganda directed against Western imperialism in general and the Baghdad Pact in particular were an integral component in the Egyptian government’s campaign against Western dominance of Middle Eastern international politics.93 By 1957 it had acquired a new transmitter, which greatly increased the range of its broadcasts, was broadcasting seven hours a day, and had diversified its offerings by introducing specific programs devoted to particular Arab regions (Algeria, North Africa as a whole, the Arab Gulf, Palestine).94 According to information reaching the U.S. Embassy, by 1957 President Nasser was taking a “personal, direct interest” in the programming of “Voice of the Arabs.”95 The extent, but also the limits, of Egyptian influence in the Arab world in the early years of the revolution appear from a survey of that influence conducted by the British Foreign Office in 1954. In February, the Middle East Office of the Foreign Office requested an evaluation of the “extent and methods of Egypt’s drive to extend her influence in the Middle East and Africa” from several British diplomatic posts.96 The responses received from Arab countries indicate that such a “drive” had barely begun by 1954. From the British Embassy in Lebanon came the evaluation that “there has been no trace of a deliberate effort by Egypt over the last years to increase her influence here.” Although the Egyptian press was popular, with 5,000 copies of Egyptian papers being sent to Lebanon and Syria daily, the British Embassy reported no evidence of either an increase in the popularity of Radio Cairo in the recent past or of any systematic Egyptian propaganda effort in Lebanon. Overall, “not only is Egypt failing to extend her influence in Lebanon, but she is not really trying to.”97 The story was similar in Jordan. While Egyptian papers and magazines circulated in the country, there were “only a few” Egyptian teachers in Jordan, and few Jordanian students chose to study in Egypt. The Egyptian Embassy in Jordan was not taking an active role in information activities up to early 1954. As was the case in Lebanon, “Egypt does not appear to be making any special effort to extend her influence in Jordan.”98

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Egyptian cultural influence was somewhat more extensive in Iraq. The Egyptian press was “widely read” in Iraq. Some 170 Egyptian teachers, most recruited in recent years, were teaching in Iraqi schools in 1954, and a “steady flow of Iraqi students to Egypt” was reported. Yet this growth of Egyptian influence had occurred without any official effort by the Egyptian government; there had been “no change” in Egyptian information activities in Iraq in recent years.99 Egyptian influence in the Arab east was greatest in the less developed countries of the Arabian Peninsula, where Egypt was the preeminent external influence in the mid-1950s. In Saudi Arabia, the Egyptian press was the dominant foreign source of news; of 15,000 magazines sold weekly in the Hijaz, 12,000 were Egyptian. Egyptian teachers and technicians were in great demand in Saudi Arabia by 1954, and the report from the British Embassy in Jidda implies a significant increase in the number of Saudi students going to study in Egypt.100 In the Gulf states, the countries where Egypt had a significant presence by the early 1950s were Kuwait and Bahrain. The fledging press was reported to be “copying articles directly” from Egyptian counterparts, and “Voice of the Arabs” had already become the most popular radio station.101 Yet this growth of Egyptian influence in the gulf had also occurred largely without any systematic Egyptian effort at outreach to the region. It was only in July 1954 that the Egyptian government approached the British concerning the establishment of an Egyptian consulate-general in Kuwait to handle Egyptian interests in the Arab protectorates of the gulf.102 In Cairo, the British Embassy’s evaluation of efforts by Egypt to extend its influence in the Arab world up to mid-1954 was congruent with reports being sent in from other Arab countries. According to Ambassador Sir Ralph Stevenson, Egypt’s efforts at outreach had been directed primarily at her neighbors on the south and east, the Sudan and Libya; Iraq was a “secondary” target of official Egyptian activity, followed by Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia; and these efforts “have scarcely so far touched the Lebanon.” In a spectacularly erroneous projection, but one not improbable in view of this record of Egypt’s limited interest and influence in other Arab lands, Stevenson went on to predict that it was “unlikely” that Egypt could maintain a position of leadership in the Arab League and the Arab world.103 * * * The new regime’s first effort at developing a new foreign policy orientation with regional implications came in late 1953 and early 1954. The

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initiative was in large part prompted by Egypt’s stalled negotiations with Great Britain and the regime’s failure to reach agreement on the terms of an aid package with the United States. Most recently discouraged by the U.S. failure to alter Britain’s position in the negotiations with Egypt at the Bermuda Conference of 1953, in December of that year key Egyptian ambassadors were summoned home to discuss a reformulation of Egyptian foreign policy.104 As summarized by a source close to Nasser, the thrust of the new approach was an Egyptian policy of “neutrality,” including a formal Egyptian declaration of neutrality in regard to the East-West rivalry in the Cold War and an attempt to strengthen Egyptian ties with Asian and African states.105 This was not the first time the leadership of the new regime had raised the prospect of a policy of neutrality. As early as September 1952, General Najib had informed U.S. Ambassador Caffery that there were voices among the Free Officers that advocated such a policy for Egypt.106 Acting under the auspices of the Arab League, in December 1952 Egypt had hosted a meeting of several Asian and African states, including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Iran, to formulate a policy supporting independence movements in North Africa.107 In mid1953, after a visit by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India to Egypt, regime spokesman Salah Salim was calling for Egypt to examine India’s policy of neutralism as a possible model for Egyptian foreign policy in the future.108 By early 1954, the deliberations among Egyptian policymakers had resulted in the formal adoption of a policy of Egyptian “neutrality.” At a meeting of the Council of the Arab League in January 1954, Egypt was able to obtain Arab concurrence in a resolution calling for closer Arab cooperation with what was defined as the “Asian-African bloc.”109 That “neutrality,” however, was an instrumental shift of emphasis clearly based on its utility for the achievement of Egyptian national goals, particularly the conclusion of a satisfactory agreement with Great Britain over the termination of the British base in the Suez Canal zone, rather than a permanent ideological commitment to the principle of neutrality in international affairs. As the government daily Al-Jumhuriyya explained the policy in January 1954, “Egypt’s new foreign policy position will not be one of ‘neutrality’ in the general sense but will be based on the principle that Egypt will not cooperate with anyone unless her rights and sovereignty are recognized.”110 Salah Salim defined Egyptian neutrality in much the same terms a few days later: “Egypt’s policy is hostility and non-cooperation toward any nation which infringes [on] Egypt’s dignity and freedom, but cooperation with all countries both

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east and west which extend the hand of friendship.”111 Nasser was more ambivalent about a neutralist policy: while asserting his personal conviction that “neutrality [is] of no avail, especially in wartime,” he nonetheless declared that Egypt’s policy henceforth would be one of “non-cooperation with those who encroach on her sovereignty.”112 Foreign observers also noted the instrumentalist thrust of this new policy. Ambassador Stevenson termed Egyptian neutrality a “tactical move . . . to impress the Americans and ourselves.”113 Jefferson Caffery’s evaluation of Egyptian neutrality was similar: “Neutrality” as they see it is a policy of non-cooperation and not a commitment to any theory of foreign affairs. To them neutrality is the position of being able to play the field without commitments. . . . [T]he elite of the RCC conceive of “neutrality” as an entirely controllable instrument of Egyptian foreign policy which can be turned on or off at will.114

* * * Egyptian neutrality blossomed into something meaningful only in 1955, when external stimuli provided new opportunities for Egyptian assertiveness in the international arena. In the interim, a specifically Middle Eastern policy of greater importance took shape. This was the struggle against Western-aligned regional pacts and the concomitant effort to promote greater inter-Arab cooperation as an alternative to alliance with the West. In essence, it was opposition to a Western-linked and dominated system for Middle Eastern defense in 1954 that sparked a policy of promoting Arab solidarity under Egyptian initiative, and which in the process set the revolutionary regime on the path of Egyptian leadership of the Arab nationalist movement. Through the intermittent discussions between Egypt and the Western powers in the 1952–1954 period concerning the creation of a regional defense organization, the Egyptian government’s preference was that regional defense should be the collective perogative of the Arab states themselves. When U.S. Secretary of State Dulles met with Egyptian leaders in May 1953, both Foreign Minister Fawzi and the military officers with whom he spoke not only opposed a Western-linked regional defense system; they also put forward the alternative of strengthening the Arab League Collective Security Pact as a method of regional defense congruent with local aspirations for complete independence from foreign influence.115 As U.S. Ambassador Caffery evaluated the

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tenor of the talks, “Egyptian thinking on defense arrangements for the area centers around building up the Arab States under the Arab League pact.”116 The issue of Western-aligned versus regionally organized defense arrangements acquired new urgency early in 1954, when it appeared that Iraq might join Turkey and Pakistan in a Western-oriented defense grouping. Such a move posed several dangers for Egypt. A pro-Western alliance system pivoting on Iraq would simultaneously consolidate Western hegemony in the area, threaten Egyptian regional influence, and, most immediately, weaken the Egyptian bargaining position in the ongoing negotiations concerning British evacuation of Egypt.117 At meetings of the Arab League Council in January and again in March– April 1954, Egypt opposed the idea of any Arab state allying itself with pro-Western Turkey.118 In their public statements, both government spokesmen and the Egyptian media repeatedly cautioned Iraq against “deserting” the Arabs and joining a Western-designed alliance that would weaken Arab solidarity and the Arab League.119 The operative reason for this opposition to Iraqi entry into a Western-inspired defense arrangement was articulated by Egyptian spokesmen primarily in terms of what such a development would mean for Egypt—its own isolation in regional politics. According to an Egyptian journalist, in the regime’s view the recent alliance between Turkey and Pakistan was “designed for the sole purpose of isolating Egypt;” it was “nothing but another Anglo-American maneuver against Egypt.”120 In April, Nasser warned that “any policy aimed at isolating some Arab states from the others would be strongly opposed” by Egypt; discussion of regional defense needed to wait “until Arab problems, particularly the Egyptian case, were settled.”121 Other Egyptian sources reiterated the belief that recent Western proposals for Middle East defense were designed to “isolate Egypt” in regional politics.122 In place of a Western-aligned defense agreement, the consistent Egyptian preference throughout 1954 was for the strengthening of the Arab Collective Security Pact. As Al-Jumhuriyya explained the Egyptian position in May 1954, “the Arab Collective Security Pact is the only vehicle which Egypt and the Arab countries consider effective for the defense of the Arab world.”123 Opposition to what was perceived as a Western scheme to isolate Egypt and perpetuate Western influence in the Middle East through enticing Iraq into the Turkish-Pakistani alliance seems to have reinforced the incipient Egyptian orientation toward Arab nationalism in general. By the same month, Nasser was speaking of

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himself as “a believer in Arabism” and asserting that “the ties which bind the Arabs together will grow stronger and stronger no matter how hard our enemies attempt to break them.”124 Egyptian resistance to Arab participation in a Western-linked defense system was not limited to verbal denunciations. In June and July 1954, Salah Salim and Mahmud Riyad traveled to several other Arab states to gain support for the Egyptian position of opposition to Arab participation in any Western-designed regional defense project. In the Arabian Peninsula Salim’s visit resulted in Saudi and Yemeni calls for Iraq not to break Arab ranks by joining the Turkish-Pakistani alliance, as well as their pledges of opposition to formal alliance with the West.125 Salim and Riyad were less successful in the Fertile Crescent. The Lebanese response to their appeals was mixed: Premier ‘Abdulla al-Yafi disavowed any Lebanese intention to join a Western-oriented defense system, but President Camille Chamoun was unsympathetic to appeals for Arab solidarity.126 In Syria, the interim nature of the recently installed civilian regime responsible for organizing new parliamentary elections after the fall of the Shishakli dictatorship forestalled any prospect of Syrian-Egyptian agreement in mid-1954.127 Salim’s comments upon his return from the trip demonstrate the Egyptian-centered perspective behind the attempt to rally Arab support in opposition to Western defense schemes: “No Arab country should collaborate with the West until Egyptian aspirations have been realized. . . . When the Suez problem is settled . . . then all the Arab states together should consider such problems as collaboration with the West.”128 July 1954 was a benchmark for the revolutionary regime in Egypt. Two years after the coup that brought it to power, the new regime had succeeded in reaching agreement with Great Britain on British military withdrawal from Egypt. Simultaneously, a new regional policy of Egyptian assertiveness in the Arab world was taking definite shape. Prime Minister Nasser’s public declarations were marked by a new and more Arab content by July 1954. Nasser’s radio address celebrating the first anniversary of “Voice of the Arabs” was unusually Arabist in tone, referring to the Arabs as “one nation” and placing “Arab Egypt” and “Arab and sincere in its Arabism” firmly in the fold of “the one Arab nation.”129 This new Arab orientation was given more systematic exposition in Nasser’s address of July 22, 1954, celebrating the second anniversary of the revolution, when he declared that “the goal of the government of the Revolution is that the Arabs become a united nation, its sons cooperating for the common good.”130 Egyptian propaganda outlets emphasized the necessity of Arab solidarity in the face of imperialism from mid-1954 onward:

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The “Voice of the Arabs” calls on the Arabs to stand in one rank in the face of imperialism, to expel the British, to cleanse the land of Arabdom from this plague, to obtain with their own money and to make for themselves arms which will repulse aggression, and to maintain peace and justice. . . . This, O Arabs, is the policy of Egypt.131

Insistence on an independent Arab defense arrangement based upon the Arab League rather than tied to the West was the official position of the Egyptian government from mid-1954 on. As Nasser articulated Egypt’s stance on regional defense to Western journalists in August, “the most effective way of defending this area is to leave it in the hands of the area’s people.”132 The West could rest assured that the Arabs would defend themselves against aggression: “we would consider an attack on any Arab nation an attack on all of them.”133 An official policy paper of September 1954 explained that this did not mean Egyptian hostility to the West in the Cold War. Rather, leaving regional defense in local hands was indeed the only possible way to organize the defense of the region against communism, since a Western-linked defense arrangement would only engender nationalist resistance and feed the growth of anti-Western, pro-communist sentiment.134 Foreign Minister Fawzi’s elaboration of the regime’s defense thinking in late 1954 listed an Arab joint-defense command, arms standardization, logistical coordination, and possibly joint forces in the future as Egypt’s regional defense goals. Such purely Arab defense arrangements would not necessarily exclude cooperation with the Western powers, but would be created through Arab initiative and run by the Arab states themselves.135 As was usually the case, Salah Salim’s articulation of the Egyptian position was more vehement. By late 1954, Salim was calling alternatively for “the unification of [Arab] military commands” or “a unified Arab army” totally autonomous of both West and East. “We should keep this structure for ourselves and not sell it to either the East or West.”136 * * * Verbal opposition to Arab cooperation with the Western powers in the organization of regional defense was one thing; actually preventing such cooperation was another. The pivotal Arab state known to be considering formal participation in a Western-oriented defense arrangement in 1954 was Egypt’s historic rival for regional leadership, Iraq. On the practical level, achieving the new Egyptian vision of Arab solidarity and coordination of regional defense by the Arabs themselves involved persuading first Iraq, then other Arab states that might be inclined to follow the Iraqi lead, not to align themselves with the West.

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In August 1954 Salah Salim, accompanied by Mahmud Riyad, followed earlier consultations with Arab leaders with a visit to Iraq. The primary purpose of the trip was to coordinate Egyptian and Iraqi policy on the issues of regional defense and Arab relations with the West.137 According to contemporary diplomatic accounts, Salim was outmaneuvered by the Iraqi leader. While both parties agreed on the long-standing Egyptian demand for a restructuring and strengthening of the Arab League Collective Security Pact, the manner in which this was to be done marked a considerable Egyptian acceptance of the Iraqi (and with it the Western) conception of regional defense. By his own account given to a U.S. source, Salim had not fully thought through the complexities and consequences of allowing non-Arab states to participate in the defense arrangements of the Arab League. Perhaps without fully realizing the implications of what he was agreeing to, the Egyptian envoy reportedly accepted the possible expansion of the Arab League Pact to include non-Arab Middle Eastern states such as Turkey, and to have assented to the need for Arab consultation with Great Britain and the United States on the restructuring of regional defense arrangements.138 These were major concessions for an Egyptian representative to make. The former allowed for future Arab alliance with Turkey and through Turkey with the West; the latter opened the door to continued Western involvement in, and thereby influence over, Arab defense arrangements. Salim’s concessions at Sarsank produced a minicrisis within the regime when he returned. Salim was already resentful of Nasser’s rise to prominence and the continuing marginalization of himself and his Ministry of National Guidance in implementing regime policy.139 Upon his return, he attempted to underplay the extent to which he had accepted the Iraqi position on regional defense. When Nasser became aware of the concessions made by Salim at Sarsank, he exploded. A stormy meeting of the RCC ensued, with Salim at one point breaking down and offering to resign his posts.140 At home, the concessions to the Iraqi viewpoint made at Sarsank were not accepted by Salim’s colleagues.141 In mid-September Nuri al-Sa‘id of Iraq came to Cairo for direct talks with Nasser. The two made an interesting contrast—Nuri, a veteran of the World War I Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire and whose fortunes had been linked to Great Britain since then (and who perhaps could not conceive of a Middle East without a significant British presence) and Nasser, a representative of a younger generation committed to the complete elimination of that presence. For Nuri, the communist threat to such Northern Tier countries as Iraq was a real one

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and required external assistance to forestall the menace; for Nasser, the greater threat was continued Western interference in Arab affairs. Iraqi accounts of their meeting maintain that, although Nasser explained that Egyptian domestic constraints in the aftermath of the British-Egyptian agreement of July 1954 made accepting a defense link with the West impossible then, the Egyptian leader acknowledged Iraq’s right to determine its own defense needs and, in effect, gave Nuri a green light to conclude defense arrangements with non-Arab countries.142 Egyptian accounts assert that Nasser was steadfast in rejecting Arab defense cooperation with the West at the time and that Nuri promised not to take any practical steps without further consultation with Egypt.143 The inconclusive results of their conversations led to both leaders later maintaining that the other had violated understandings reached in their faceto-face discussions. With Egyptian and Iraqi views of regional defense at an impasse by late 1954, the conflict between the two expanded to the inter-Arab arena. Egypt vigorously attempted to persuade other Arab states not to follow the Iraqi path of defense alliance with Turkey and through Turkey with the West. Egyptian lobbying at a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo in November–December 1954 resulted in formal agreement that the Arab League Collective Security Pact should be the basis of Arab defense; yet the ambiguous final communiqué issued at the close of the discussions also stated that defense cooperation with the West was possible as long as Arab sovereignty was not infringed upon.144 The depth of Arab divisions over the issue of regional defense became apparent during the prolonged meetings of Arab leaders convened by Egypt in response to Iraq’s announcement on January 13, 1955, of its intention to conclude a military alliance with Turkey. The premiers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan all participated; Nuri al-Sa‘id of Iraq had been invited but demurred on grounds of ill health, sending his foreign minister, Fadil al-Jamali, to join the talks at a later stage. Fifteen sessions were held extending from January 22 to February 6 of the same year. There was no consensus for a common Arab policy on defense issues. Prince Faysal of Saudi Arabia supported the Egyptian position calling for condemnation of the Iraqi initiative and the necessity of purely Arab defense arrangements. Faris al-Khuri of Syria wavered, indicating that while Syria had no intention of joining a Western-designed defense system, he did not wish to condemn Iraq and thereby further damage the Arab solidarity. Both Sami Sulh of Lebanon and Tawfiq ‘Abd al-Huda of Jordan also refused to join in a blanket denunciation of Iraq.145

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Egyptian accounts of the sessions emphasize Nasser’s frustration in this his first direct participation in multilateral Arab negotiations. His language was sometimes undiplomatically blunt, at one point warning his fellow Arabs not to become “slaves of the West and the Turks,” at another telling those assembled that the cleavages at the meeting were leading him to the conclusion that his hopes for Arab solidarity were “no more than dreams.”146 By the end of January the conference was deadlocked. At this point, a delegation was sent to Iraq to seek to modify Iraq’s intention to step outside the Arab security framework. The effort was a futile one, Nuri dismissing his visitors with a curt “I am not a soldier in Nasser’s army. Please tell him that I will never obey his orders.”147 When the conference ended on February 6, no joint statement was issued. The Egyptian effort to forge Arab solidarity in support of Egypt’s position regarding regional defense had failed. On February 24, 1955, Iraq and Turkey formally concluded the defense agreement establishing the Baghdad Pact.148 The Iraqi action marked the beginning of a new phase in inter-Arab relations, one of more open and bitter confrontation between the Iraqi conception of an Arab world affiliated with the West and the opposing Egyptian vision of a common Arab policy oriented toward Arab solidarity and independence from the West. The struggle was no longer one of Egypt and Iraq attempting to persuade the other; their positions were graven in stone by early 1955. Rather, it centered on the other Arab states that were potential candidates for affiliation with the Baghdad Pact. What Patrick Seale has termed “the struggle for Syria” was under way.149

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4 Years of Struggle: Egypt in the Arab World, 1955–1957

The Nasserist Regime Crystallizes By the end of 1954, Nasser had emerged as the central figure in the Egyptian government. In the wake of the decisive clash with the regime’s opponents in February–March 1954 and his subsequent appointment as prime minister in April, Nasser progressively distanced himself from his colleagues in the RCC. In place of his previous reliance on RCC members, as prime minister Nasser made greater use of secondrank Free Officers personally loyal to him.1 Former peers were now called on the carpet by the premier, as was Salah Salim after his maladroit diplomacy at Sarsank in August 1954 and again after an intemperate press conference in December when Salim’s hawkish views on Israel were promptly repudiated by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.2 Nonetheless, Nasser’s personal position at the beginning of 1955 was not yet one of unchallenged personal authority. As a U.S. assessment of RCC disagreements in early 1955 over the restoration of the parliamentary system noted, “probably the most significant conclusion to be made about these events is that Nasser does not rule Egypt singlehandedly.”3 Nasser’s position of dominance was considerably reinforced by his attendance at the nonaligned nations conference in Bandung in April 1955. His stops in Pakistan, India, Burma, and Afghanistan en route to and from Indonesia, and his association with such international leaders as Tito, Nehru, and Chou En-lai at Bandung, are credited by his associates with having both expanded Nasser’s horizons and changed his perception of his own role.4 As Mahmud Fawzi, Egypt’s foreign minister through the 1950s, evaluated the impact of the trip on Nasser, “Bandung opened new vistas for Abdul Nasser, and helped him to discover better, 65

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both the world and himself.”5 Internally, the extensive press coverage given to Nasser’s prominent role at a major international conference and the enthusiastic reception he received as “the champion of Asia and Africa” upon his return to Egypt reinforced his domestic ascendancy. U.S. Ambassador Henry Byroade elaborated on the new position of primacy that Nasser has assumed since returning from Bandung. . . . Nasser shared none of the glory with his colleagues and when delegations and individuals called upon him at the Presidency to extend their congratulations on his success at Bandung, it has been reported that in subtle ways the Prime Minister made it very clear that a new relationship now existed between himself and his callers. According to these reports, the atmosphere prevailing was no longer that of the first of equals greeting his associates, but rather that of subordinates paying their respects to the Nation’s leader.6

The change was apparent to Nasser’s former colleague and rival in the RCC, Khalid Muhi al-Din, when in 1955 he had dinner with Nasser and other RCC members upon returning from a posting abroad. “I immediately sensed that things had changed greatly. In the past we used to address him as ‘Gamal [ya Jamal]’, but now I found everyone addressing him as ‘chief [ya ra’is]’.”7 The nature of Egyptian policymaking changed as Nasser consolidated his personal ascendancy over his colleagues. A U.S. assessment of June 1955 observed that despite differences with several other members of the RCC, “Nasser is in a better position to enforce his personal will on his RCC colleagues than at any time since the beginning of the Revolution.”8 Debate over the future structure of the Egyptian political system was the central domestic issue preoccupying the RCC through mid-1955. Nasser’s tactic in these discussions was to allow extended debate and disagreement among his colleagues in order to discredit their views and, by what amounted to by a process of attrition, eventually draw a majority of the RCC into agreeing with his own position.9 Bit by bit, the members of the RCC first concurred in the need for an authoritarian regime to safeguard the gains of the revolution, then the necessity for the centralization of authority within that regime in the hands of one individual, and finally the establishment of a new single party subservient to the regime that could serve as agency of mass mobilization and control.10 Egypt’s new order was put into place early in 1956. A new constitution was drafted and approved by the RCC in January. It provided for the establishment of a new single party, the National Union, which would nominate candidates for the National Assembly and also select a presidential

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nominee whose name would be presented for popular approval in a referendum. Both the new constitution and Nasser’s nomination for the post of president of Egypt were put to the public in referenda in June 1956; both were approved by overwhelming majorities. Simultaneous with Nasser’s election as president of Egypt in June 1956 the RCC was dissolved.11 Concomitant with Nasser’s formal consolidation of power in the 1955–1956 period came the neutralization of potential rivals within the military cohort. Salah Salim, minister of national guidance and representative of the regime in various diplomatic assignments through 1954, was divested of his control of foreign broadcasting in May 1955 and forced to resign from the RCC in August, primarily because of recent setbacks to the Egyptian position in the Sudan that were blamed on his interference.12 Salah’s impulsive brother Jamal Salim—“a volatile and violent personality,” but also the “most staunch opponent” to Nasser’s centralization of power—was outmaneuvered by Nasser in RCC deliberations during 1955; eventually he was excluded from the new civilian cabinet formed upon Nasser’s ratification as president in June 1956.13 Lesser disagreements with other RCC members—‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, Husayn al-Shafi‘i, and Hasan Ibrahim—were resolved short of their permanent alienation from Nasser.14 On the other side of the ledger, Nasser loyalists in the RCC in 1955 and 1956 included the commander of the armed forces ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr, Minister of the Interior Zakariya Muhi al-Din, and the second-rank Free Officer ‘Ali Sabri, who had become Nasser’s political deputy in 1954.15 Confirmed as president of Egypt by popular referendum in June 1956, Nasser now dominated the making of Egyptian foreign policy. Domestic policy was frequently the subject of meaningful debate in the meetings of the civilian cabinet that replaced the RCC as Egypt’s central executive agency from mid-1956 on, but foreign policy received little discussion unless Nasser chose to raise an issue.16 The later testimony of Nasser’s associates is unanimous in that the most dramatic foreign policy decision of the mid-1950s, the nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956, was Nasser’s decision alone, revealed to the cabinet only to the surprise and, in some cases, consternation of its members.17 According to one observer of the Egyptian political scene, Foreign Minister Mahmud Fawzi was a “respected technician” who had “only a small role as a policy maker.”18 Fawzi’s deputy, Husayn Dhu al-Fiqar Sabri, later confirmed that it was rare for the Foreign Ministry to be involved in the making of major foreign policy decisions.19 There seems little reason to doubt the accuracy of what Nasser told U.S. Ambassador

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Raymond Hare in 1957, when he “asserted that all foreign policy, both basic and tactical, is made by him personally and spoke disdainfully of Fawzi and [the] Foreign Office.”20 The defining moment of the new Nasserist regime came in the Suez crisis of late 1956. Nasser’s announcement of the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company on July 26, 1956, stunned but also electrified the huge crowd present at his address; he received a spontaneous ovation, which in the view of one observer reached “hysteria levels.”21 Diplomatic reports thereafter spoke of a dramatic increase in domestic support for the regime after Nasser’s unexpected riposte to the U.S. and British termination of negotiations concerning Western aid for the construction of the Aswan Dam.22 As Byroade reported on August 1, 1956, “I cannot overemphasize [the] popularity of Canal Company nationalization within Egypt, even among Nasser’s enemies.”23 Egyptian enthusiasm for the nationalization of the Suez Canal notwithstanding, the ensuing military confrontation of late 1956 between Egypt on the one hand and Israel, Great Britain, and France on the other generated severe strains among the Egyptian elite.24 The nerve of some of Nasser’s associates cracked under the strain of Israeli invasion and British-French bombardment. Commander of the Armed Forces ‘Abd alHakim ‘Amr quarreled over military tactics with Nasser, the two old friends arguing at length over the wisdom of ordering the withdrawal of Egyptian military units from Sinai. Later in the crisis ‘Amr, supported by Salah Salim (then editor of Al-Sha‘b newspaper), suggested that Egypt seek a cease-fire, in effect capitulating to the British and the French. Salim went as far as to suggest that Nasser give himself up to the British. According to ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, whose diary contains the fullest account of these hectic days, Nasser’s own resolve buckled in November 1956. One sleepless night in the middle of the crisis, Nasser confessed he had wept over the prospect of impending defeat; the following day, when touring what Nasser himself described as “the remnants of a shattered army,” he appeared “a broken man” to his companion Baghdadi.25 In time the crisis passed; international diplomatic intervention soon snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Nasser’s personal position is generally assumed to have been enormously enhanced by the failure of the British-French attempt to topple his government in 1956. As biographer Sir Anthony Nutting articulated the conventional trope, surviving the Suez crisis and emerging politically victorious over the British, the French, and the Israelis “established [Nasser] finally and completely as the ‘rais,’ the captain of the Egyptian ship of state, whose word henceforth was law for every member of the crew.”26

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Contemporary evaluations of the Egyptian scene present a more nuanced picture of the Egyptian internal scene in the wake of the Suez crisis. An extended survey of Egyptian politics by U.S. Ambassador Hare in May 1957 began with the generalization that “virtually all observers agree that there is today no imminent threat to the stability of the present regime.” While there was “some dissatisfaction among the military,” and although “a large majority” of Egyptian intellectuals, professionals, and ex-politicians were alienated from a regime that had little use for their views or their talents, nonetheless discontent was unfocused and not of a scale to threaten regime stability.27 When the start of the electoral process for a new National Assembly in mid-1957 revealed the existence of “considerable unexpected opposition” to the regime, the government had the resources to dominate and control the electoral process.28 Nasser certainly felt himself to be firmly in control of the internal situation in 1957; his boast to Hare on the eve of assembly elections was that, as a result of the government’s having to plan and manage a countrywide electoral campaign, “he now had information re composition and characteristics of ‘every family in Egypt from Alexandria to Aswan.’”29 The elections themselves bore out Nasser’s confidence; written off by the Egyptian intelligentsia as a “regime-controlled farce” and received by the Egyptian public at large with “calm bordering on disinterest and apathy,” they resulted in the election of a body supportive of the regime’s nonaligned and Arab nationalist orientation.30

The Struggle Against the Baghdad Pact The Arab nationalist policies of the Nasserist regime were forged in the struggle against the Baghdad Pact. That struggle had begun in 1954, in the form of Egyptian opposition to Western and Iraqi projects for a new regional defense organization allied with the West. From early 1955 on, when the Baghdad Pact alliance took tangible form, opposition to both Egyptian and other Arab participation in a regional defense system connected with the Western powers was the centerpiece of Egypt’s Middle Eastern policy. Egyptian spokesmen offered a complex of interrelated reasons for opposition to Egyptian and Arab entry into the Baghdad Pact. The most prominent theme found in the public articulation of Egypt’s position related to the implications of regional defense arrangements for Arab independence and nationalism. Nasser developed the point in detail in his three-hour lecture on Egyptian foreign policy at the Egyptian War College

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in March 1955.31 For Nasser, the primary Arab security concern in the mid-1950s was the threat posed by imperialism rather than communism. While he acknowledged that communism could be considered a longterm danger to the security of the region, a more immediate and pressing menace was that of foreign “imperialism or domination.” Reminding his audience of Egypt’s long history of external domination—several centuries of Ottoman rule, more recently seventy-five years of British occupation—Egypt’s main concern in the present phase of its history had to be to “rid herself completely of every foreign influence so that she can stand on her own feet.” From Nasser’s perspective, the interests of the Western powers locked in confrontation with the Soviet bloc and those of the Arab states with a history of imperial domination were not the same: “They are concerned about defense and we are concerned about our freedom.” Freedom meant avoiding foreign alliances that inevitably carried the risk of perpetuating external dominance in a new guise. Therefore, “Egypt is utterly determined that the defense of this region originate from within. It is firmly convinced that the defense of the Arab region must depend on the Arab states themselves.”32 The demand for locally inspired defense arrangements that would be organized independently of Western influence was a constant of Egyptian rhetoric in the mid-1950s. In abstract terms, “alliance with the great powers means domination.”33 The realities of politics ensured that great-power participation in any pact would result in those powers shaping policy, with local actors being only “the executors of policies dictated by those powers.”34 More specifically, the Baghdad Pact was presented as a British attempt to maintain its existing “sphere of influence” in the Middle East.35 “Tainted with colonialism,” the pact “makes its Middle East members subservient to Western interests.”36 As Nasser summarized the basis for Egyptian resistance to the pact, “we opposed the Baghdad Pact . . . because it represented foreign interests in the region and placed this region under foreign influence.”37 Another, and perhaps more important, motive behind Egyptian opposition to the Baghdad Pact related to the adverse implications of the Baghdad Pact for Egypt’s regional position. The view of the pact’s being a Western scheme designed to isolate Egypt in the Middle East was a central theme of private Egyptian justifications of Egyptian opposition to the arrangement. As Nasser explained the basis for his vehement reaction to the new Turkish-Iraqi alliance of February 1955 in a lengthy conversation with U.S. Ambassador Byroade, he was “not greatly upset by [the] fact that Iraq joined in [the] pact with Turkey.” He was dismissive, indeed almost contemptuous, of the defense implications

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of the Baghdad Pact. In his view the real motives of Nuri al-Sa‘id, its Iraqi sponsor, had “little to do with defense.” Rather, Nasser saw the Baghdad Pact as a ploy to draw Syria into the Iraqi orbit, part of a larger Iraqi strategy to “isolate Egypt” in the Arab world: He saw Egypt eventually isolated and surrounded by a hostile grouping in the north under the leadership of Iraq, by Israel, Libya, and felt efforts were being made in the Sudan for the same purpose. He admitted man in street had no feeling about all this but Egypt under his leadership would not be so isolated.38

It was the implications of such Egyptian regional isolation, through the Baghdad Pact, for Egypt’s position in the Arab-Israeli confrontation that were perhaps most disturbing to the Egyptian leadership in the mid1950s. Four days after the conclusion of the Turkish-Iraqi alliance on February 24, 1955, the Israeli army mounted a devastating attack into the Gaza Strip. The Gaza raid set off an accelerating cycle of violence along the Egyptian-Israeli border through 1955 and 1956, eventually culminating in Israel’s Sinai invasion of late 1956. In the minds of Egypt’s leaders, the Baghdad Pact and the Gaza raid were organically linked, both being components of “a great Western conspiracy to destroy the July 23 Revolution.”39 Egyptian criticism of the Baghdad Pact thereafter presented the alliance as a Western attempt to isolate Egypt in its confrontation with Israel, thus paving the way for an Arab-Israeli settlement on terms favorable to the latter. Egyptian media attacks on the Baghdad Pact in 1955 also portrayed the alliance as intended to tie the Arab states to the West to obstruct their ability to confront the more immediate Israeli threat.40 In his secret negotiations with U.S. envoy Robert Anderson concerning an Arab-Israeli settlement in 1956, Nasser began the discussions with the assertion that “the Baghdad Pact was viewed by him and his Government as a political ideology designed to isolate Egypt. That, one by one, nations of the Arab world would be brought into the Baghdad Pact until finally Egypt would be left alone to confront the Israelis.”41 The subject of the Baghdad Pact was repeatedly raised by Nasser in his talks with Anderson in 1956: as Anderson observed in a later report, “in every meeting which I have had thus far with Nas[se]r he seems as much preoccupied with the Baghdad Pact as with any other single thing.”42 In a press interview in March 1956, Nasser publicly summarized the potential effects of the Baghdad Pact for Egypt’s conflict with Israel thus: “If it had succeeded . . . the whole Arab world would have been turned to face north and Egypt would have been left exposed to the real danger which comes from Israel.”43

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The parallel themes of the meaning of genuine national independence and of the negative implications of the Baghdad Pact for Egypt’s regional leadership were brought together in Nasser’s War College address of March 1955. In his view, Egyptian hegemony over the neighboring Arab states was a manifestation and marker of Egypt’s having achieved genuine national independence. Simply put, the realization of complete Egyptian independence was itself dependent on the achievement of a position of Egyptian regional influence: All we want today is to create for ourselves an independent personality which will be strong and not dependent, which will be free to direct its domestic policy the way it wants and [to] direct its foreign policy in a way which serves its interests. . . . If, God willing, we want to have an independent personality and develop it in the critical period we are in, we must steel ourselves. Our revolution calls for liberation and independence. This means liberation internally and externally, and that we must have an entity and an influence on what goes on around us.44

* * * The conclusion of the Turkish-Iraqi defense agreement in February 1955 set off an Egyptian-Iraqi struggle for Arab leadership that was the most visible aspect of inter-Arab politics throughout 1955. Egypt waged the battle against Iraq and the Baghdad Pact on several fronts, one of which was propaganda. In numerous public statements by regime spokesmen as well as in radio broadcasts by the new “Voice of the Arabs” radio service, Egypt waged a vigorous propaganda assault on the Iraqi call for Arab alliance with the West. Even before the conclusion of the Turkish-Iraqi alliance Arab governments, such as the ministry of Faris al-Khuri in Syria, that were ambivalent in their attitude toward the possibility of Arab alliance with the West were denounced in the Egyptian print and broadcast media.45 Egyptian rhetoric denouncing any Arab alliance with the West increased with the conclusion of the Baghdad Pact. “Voice of the Arabs” described this Turkish-Iraqi agreement of February 1955 in no uncertain terms: Thus Nuri al-Sa‘id, rejecting the unanimous decision of the Arab peoples, concludes an alliance with the Turks, the enemies of Arabism, the friends of Zionism—an alliance which will destroy Iraq’s aspirations to freedom, Palestine’s hopes of independence, and the Arabs’ hopes of unity, integrity, and glory. . . . The people of Iraq are not bound by this alliance; they have not signed it and will not sign it;

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they curse it and they will destroy this filthy piece of paper, the NuriMenderes alliance.46

Much of this Egyptian propaganda was directed at Iraq in an effort to erode Iraqi support for the policies of Nuri al-Sa‘id. Egypt soon established a special Kurdish program on Cairo Radio to stimulate opposition in the Kurdish areas of Iraq.47 By the spring of 1955 Egypt and Iraq had created parallel propaganda services, the “Voice of Free Egypt” and the “Voice of Free Iraq,” each dedicated to denouncing the other party and sometimes encouraging rebellion.48 A more elusive arena of inter-Arab conflict was that of subversion. The available information concerning the nature and extent of Egyptian subversive activities in other Arab countries is mostly furnished by hostile or self-serving sources (rival Arab or Western governments in the first instance; the later memoirs of Egyptians presumably involved in the second). Such information is fragmentary in content as well as frequently problematic in reliability. That Egypt did provide support for its friends and encourage subversion to undermine the position of its enemies is unquestioned; the precise forms and avenues of that support and subversion are often murky. In 1955 Egyptian subversion appears to have been directed primarily at Iraq, its rival for Arab leadership; at Syria, the main object of Iraqi-Egyptian rivalry in the early months of 1955; and later in the year at Jordan, when the Baghdad Pact members attempted to bring Jordan into their alliance system. Former Egyptian security services official Salah Nasr has written of Egypt sending agents to Iraq to make contact with Iraqi dissident elements and to foster antiregime activities, up to and including sabotage, in the wake of the conclusion of Turkish-Iraqi alliance.49 According to Iraqi, British, and Israeli sources, Egyptian operatives in Iraq made contact with opposition forces, provided them with antiregime pamphlets and leaflets smuggled into the country, and even promoted such activities as the planting of bombs at Baghdad Pact–country embassies in Iraq.50 Syria’s chaotic political scene allowed more scope for Egyptian interference, both public and clandestine; much Egyptian political activity in Syria was conducted openly. Various Egyptian diplomats visited Syria during the course of 1955 to meet with Syrian politicians and military men, presenting the case for Syria’s alignment with Egypt rather than Iraq. Particularly important in this respect was Mahmud Riyad, Egyptian Ambassador to Syria from March 1955 until the union of Syria and Egypt in the United Arab Republic in February 1958. Riyad’s

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extensive contacts with Syrian politicians of various stripes, his especially close links with the Arab nationalist Ba‘th Party (to the point where some Syrians quipped that he had joined the party), and the position of influence he held with Syria’s President Shukri al-Quwatli from mid-1995 onward were central to Egypt’s successful struggle against Syrian adherence to the Baghdad Pact.51 Clandestine subversion in Syria in 1955 was undertaken in tandem with that of Egypt’s (temporary) ally Saudi Arabia, at the time anti-Iraqi in orientation and consequently aligned with Egypt in opposition to the extension of the Iraqi-inspired Baghdad Pact to the rest of the Arab world. U.S. diplomatic reports speak of Egyptian, and particularly Saudi, subsidies to Arab nationalist and anti-Baghdad Pact newspapers, as well as of “convincing if not conclusive” evidence of Egyptian and Saudi bribery of Syrian political figures.52 Financially the Saudis appear to have been the main force in anti–Baghdad Pact subversion in Syria; one source estimates a Saudi expenditure of 600,000 Syrian pounds in efforts to bring down the government of Faris al-Khuri in early 1955.53 Egyptian propaganda and Saudi money were also instrumental in the Syrian presidential elections of August 1955, when both governments supported the candidacy of Shukri al-Quwatli, an opponent of the Baghdad Pact who had recently returned from exile in Cairo.54 Egyptian clandestine activity was conducted primarily through the Egyptian security services and the Egyptian military. According to Ahmad Hamrush, who interviewed many of those involved when he was preparing his history of the July Revolution, from 1954 until 1958 coordination with pro-Egyptian groups in the Fertile Crescent was under the direction of the former Free Officer Kamal Rif‘at working in conjunction with the Egyptian state security service (the Mukhabarat) whose agents, serving as Egyptian military attachés, were often the point men who funneled Egyptian advice and support to pro-Egyptian elements. Egyptian operatives succeeded in establishing several proEgyptian secret organizations within the sizable Palestinian Arab refugee population in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan—organizations that engaged in both public protest against the Baghdad Pact and in violence and sabotage inside Israel.55 This sponsorship of pro-Egyptian Palestinian activism had its most important repercussions in Jordan in the latter months of 1955, when Jordan temporarily became the focus of the struggle over the Baghdad Pact.56 The third area of Iraqi-Egyptian rivalry was that of diplomacy. Egypt’s official response to the Turkish-Iraqi alliance was an immediate attempt to create an alternative Arab alliance system under Egyptian

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leadership. In late February 1955, Salah Salim and Mahmud Riyad were dispatched to Syria to prevent Syrian adherence to any Western-oriented defense arrangement and to draw Syria into a defense agreement with Egypt. Their visit, “a three-ring circus” in which the Egyptians met with numerous Syrian politicians and army officers to present the case for an independent Arab defense arrangement, soon bore positive results.57 On March 2 Salah Salim, Prime Minister Sabri al-‘Asali, and Foreign Minister Khalid al-‘Azm signed a declaration of principles asserting that neither party would affiliate itself with the recent Turkish-Iraqi pact and declaring their intention to conclude an agreement for defense and economic cooperation of an exclusively Arab character.58 Several factors combined to bring Syria into the Egyptian orbit in early 1955. The ministry of Faris al-Khuri, which had wavered in the Arab League debates over a potential Western-aligned defense system in early 1955, was brought down by domestic opposition early in February—Egyptian and Saudi interference having played a part in the ministry’s fall.59 The new Syrian ministry, a coalition headed by Sabri al-‘Asali that included the Arabist Ba‘th Party and the leftist foreign minister and acting minister of defense, Khalid al-‘Azm, as its dominant figures, was from its inception hostile to Syria’s participation in any pro-Western alliance system and sympathetic to the idea of Syrian alignment with Egypt.60 Israel’s raid into the Gaza Strip on February 28, 1955, unquestionably played a role, generating fears in the Syrian military of possible armed conflict with Israel, reinforcing Salim’s and Riyad’s argument that the real threat to the Arab world was Israel rather than the Soviet Union, and reportedly raising the specter of a military coup designed to move Syria into alignment with Egypt.61 As Prime Minister ‘Asali rationalized Syria’s decision to U.S. Ambassador Moose, Egypt possessed a greater potential for assisting Syria in case of conflict with Israel; hence, in the struggle between the two, the Syrian government “had decided it must side with Egypt against Iraq.”62 Salim and Riyad, now accompanied by Syrian Foreign Minister ‘Azm, followed their Syrian success with visits to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. The government of Jordan, already linked by treaty to Great Britain and dependent on British subsidies, in effect rejected the Egyptian approach by asking for more time to study the idea of a new Arab defense arrangement.63 The Saudis, already aligned with Egypt in opposition to Iraq, endorsed the Syrian-Egyptian declaration of principles calling for an Arab alliance system.64 Lebanon’s pro-Western President Camille Chamoun rejected participation in an Egyptian-sponsored alliance system projected as an alternative to the Baghdad Pact.65

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Nasser’s own view of the implications of the new defense arrangement reflected the Egypt-centered perspective that had prompted him to oppose Iraqi initiatives over the past year. He had few illusions about the military effectiveness of Arab alliance; as he told U.S. Ambassador Byroade, militarily the new Egyptian-Syrian-Saudi agreement was “a liability as it caused Egypt to take on new commitments.” Its true significance was “entirely political”: “to stop Iraq from grabbing up Syria and then working against Egypt.”66 The primarily political motive behind Egypt’s sponsorship of an Arab alliance was made clear when, even as the details of the Egyptian-Syrian-Saudi pact were being worked out, Nasser hinted that he might abandon the gambit if the Western powers agreed not to pressure Syria into affiliating with the rival Turkish-Iraqi pact.67 The Egyptian-Syrian-Saudi agreements of early 1955 to create a new Arab defense system were never effectuated. Negotiations on the specifics of the military alliance in March–April 1955 showed that Egyptian and Syrian conceptions of an Arab regional defense organization were radically different. Egypt’s much looser proposal envisaged foreign policy coordination and a joint military command, but with each of the participating states retaining freedom of action within the alliance. Syrian Foreign Minister ‘Azm, motivated in part by a desire to obtain Egyptian and Saudi financial assistance for Syria, proposed a more integrated alliance system including measures for greater economic coordination, the creation of a council of foreign ministers to formulate a common foreign policy, and the establishment of a unified Arab army with headquarters in Damascus and financed by a levy on the participating states.68 This was more than Nasser was ready to accept. Neither he nor his colleagues were ready for anything approaching this degree of Arab integration in 1955. As Mahmud Riyad recalls the Egyptian position in the negotiations, “there was absolutely no thought in my mind, nor in Nasser’s, of undertaking constitutional unity between Syria and Egypt at that time in the manner which ‘Azm was proposing.”69 Egyptian, Syrian, and Saudi leaders met in Cairo to finalize their tentative defense agreement at the end of March. But Egyptian and Saudi reservations concerning a common foreign policy and a unified army they would in large part have to support, and the Syrian refusal to sign an agreement that would have prevented later Iraqi affiliation with the new defense system, obstructed agreement on the specifics of a new Arab defense organization.70 Egyptian-Syrian-Saudi negotiations concerning the creation of a defense alliance dragged on through the spring of 1955 with no positive result. External pressure from Iraq and Turkey, as well as internal divisions

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between the pro-Iraqi and pro-Egyptian camps within the fractured Syrian political universe, prevented the Syrian government from agreeing to an alliance structure that would have excluded pro-Western Iraq. For its part, Egypt seconded by Saudi Arabia remained adamant on foreclosing Iraqi participation in Arab defense.71 These futile efforts to achieve a multilateral Arab defense pact in the first half of 1955 gradually convinced Egypt to shift to pursuing bilateral defense arrangements with its Arab neighbors.72 Syria remained the most important partner to entice into alliance with Egypt. The defeat of Khalid al-‘Azm, the man the Egyptians held responsible for obstructing a multilateral Syrian-Egyptian-Saudi defense arrangement earlier in 1955, and the election of the more Egyptian-inclined Shukri al-Quwatli as president of Syria in August 1955, tilted the Syrian political configuration in a more pro-Egyptian direction.73 Egyptian Ambassador Mahmud Riyad’s intensive lobbying among Syrian politicians appears to have been an important element in finally realizing an Egyptian-Syrian alliance.74 Ultimately it was pressure from the Syrian Army on the civilian ministry of Sa‘id al-Ghazzi that produced acquiescence to a defense arrangement drafted by the Egyptians and following the looser Egyptian concept of Arab defense. As in the case of the initial Egyptian-Syrian agreement of March 1955, external events again had an impact; Egypt’s recently concluded arms deal with the Soviet Union made Egypt appear a more appealing ally as well as a potential source of military aid to the weaker Syrian army.75 When Prime Minister Sa‘id al-Ghazzi visited Egypt in mid-October 1995, he came under considerable pressure from Nasser for the immediate conclusion of a bilateral defense agreement with Egypt.76 According to a British source, Nasser’s main positive argument was the prospect of Syria’s acquiring Soviet arms similar to those promised to Egypt in the Soviet arms deal of the previous month.77 Substantially drafted by the Egyptians and agreed to by both governments on October 20, 1955, the Egyptian-Syrian bilateral defense agreement pledged both parties to come to the assistance of the other in case of armed attack, set up several committees to coordinate military cooperation, and created a joint military command headed by the Egyptian ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr to direct the military operations of the armed forces of the two countries in time of war.78 Saudi Arabia, solidly in the Egyptian camp since early 1955 and, like Syria, desirous of obtaining Egyptian military assistance after the arms deal with the Soviet Union, signed a similar bilateral pact with Egypt on October 27, 1955.79 After several months of effort, an Egyptian rather than an Iraqi-oriented Arab defense system became

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official in October 1955. With it Egypt substantially had won the struggle for Syria. * * * After Syria came the battle for Jordan. Jordan had attempted to avoid committing itself to either of the Egyptian or Iraqi camps for most of 1955. On the one hand, the Jordanian regime was linked to Great Britain by treaty and to Iraq by ties of kinship; on the other, the majority of its population comprised Palestinians with little reason to love the West. Furthermore, the government had no desire to alienate Egypt, the strongest Arab state and its main potential regional supporter in case of conflict with Israel. At the same time that it had put Egyptian offers of alliance on hold in early and mid-1955, it evaded giving a positive response to British and Turkish feelers concerning possible Jordanian affiliation with the Baghdad Pact.80 Pressure on Jordan to make a choice between the Egyptian and Iraqi camps was intensified in the fall of 1955. It came initially from Baghdad Pact members Turkey and Iraq, both now convinced of the necessity of acting against Egypt’s recent initiatives with counterstrokes of their own. Turkish President Jalal Bayar and Foreign Minister Fetim Zorlu paid a state visit to Jordan in November 1955, explicitly to expound the benefits of Jordanian affiliation with the Baghdad Pact; for his part Nuri al-Sa‘id worked on the British to get them to use their influence to procure Jordanian entry into the Baghdad Pact.81 Both governments held out the prospect of Turkish and Iraqi military and economic assistance for Jordan in exchange for Jordanian affiliation with their alliance system.82 In time the British government, which for most of 1955 had demurred from pressuring Jordan to affiliate with the Baghdad Pact, at last became convinced of the need to do so. Formal negotiations between Britain and Jordan concerning Jordanian ties to the Baghdad Pact commenced in late 1955, when the British government dispatched the chief of the Imperial General Staff, Gen. Sir Gerald Templar, to Jordan with instructions to negotiate Jordan’s entry into the Baghdad Pact.83 Western and regional pressure for Jordan to join the Baghdad Pact placed the Jordanian government in a difficult position. King Husayn, who earlier in 1955 had viewed the pact with reserve because of its divisive effects in the Arab world, by late 1955 was swinging toward the view that Jordanian entry would bring benefits of aid and potential allies vis-à-vis Israel.84 His ministers split almost equally on the issue:

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those of East Bank origin generally favored Jordanian adherence to the pact, while the Palestinian ministers in the cabinet resisted, insisting on the need for more time to study the matter when General Templar forced the issue during his visit.85 Although public opinion is difficult to gauge with accuracy, in late 1955 most politically aware Jordanians appear to have opposed Jordanian participation in the Western-oriented pact.86 According to a U.S. Embassy evaluation in October 1955, there was “universal popular Jordanian enthusiasm for [the] flame of Arab political liberation” in the wake of the Egyptian-Soviet arms deal; in contrast “the Throne, formerly [a] source of real strength, has become virtually impotent.”87 There were demonstrations against Jordanian membership in the pact during the Bayar-Zorlu visit in November.88 And these resumed, but on a much greater scale, during the Templar mission in December. The inability of Prime Minister Sa‘id al-Mufti to get cabinet agreement to the Templar request for affiliation with the Baghdad Pact because of the differences between East Bank and Palestinian ministers led to his resignation in mid-December 1955. When King Husayn appointed Hazza‘ al-Majali, a known advocate of Jordanian adherence to the Baghdad Pact, as his replacement in mid-December, massive demonstrations against the new ministry and its presumed policy of Jordan’s favoring the pact spread throughout the country. Opposition parties, students, and Palestinians on both the East and West Bank took the lead; local committees emerged to organize and sustain protest; Western consulates and aid offices were attacked; and a general strike was called in the capital.89 The protests were successful; within a week Majali resigned as prime minister and King Husayn informed the British that, given the “critical” situation in the country, Jordanian adherence to the Baghdad Pact was impossible.90 Precisely what part did Egypt play, if any, in the struggle over Jordan’s participation in the Baghdad Pact in late 1955? There is no question that Nasser viewed the possible extension of the pact to Jordan as a continuation of the effort by the West and Egypt’s regional rivals Turkey and Iraq to isolate Egypt in the Middle East,91 that Egyptian propaganda outlets and agencies denounced both the pact and those Jordanian politicians who favored the pact,92 or that Egyptian representatives were in direct contact with Jordanian ministers as the latter debated in December 1955 the pros and cons of Jordanian affiliation.93 British and U.S. diplomatic reports spoke of the Templar visit’s promoting a “vigorous campaign” by Egypt against Jordanian accession,94 and that “the full flood of [Egyptian] invective was loosed against the

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Jordan government” to prevent its entry into the pact.95 Western scholarship has emphasized the continued denunciations of the Baghdad Pact by Egyptian propaganda outlets during November and December 1955, contact by Egyptian agents and military attaches with opposition politicians and Palestinian refugees who were at the center of the massive demonstrations of mid-December 1955, and outright bribery of Jordanian politicians by Egypt’s Saudi partner, as vital to the defeat of the objectives of the Templar mission.96 Relying on British and Jordanian sources, a recent study of the struggle against the Baghdad Pact in Jordan estimates that Egypt spent in the range of 60,000 Egyptian pounds, and Saudi Arabia between 500,000 and 1 million Jordanian dinars, “in financing subversive activities against the pact” in late 1955.97 Yet the Egyptian role in the battle against the Baghdad Pact in Jordan may not have been as crucial as is sometimes assumed. Egypt’s two main operatives in contact with the Jordanian opposition politicians and Palestinian refugees in the mid-1950s, Kamal Rif‘at and Ahmad Lutfi Wahid, subsequently minimized the extent of external Egyptian influence on Jordanian public opinion in 1955. Although both were dispatched to Jordan in 1955 to make contact with pro-Egyptian elements and to encourage opposition to the Baghdad Pact, well after the event both maintained that their efforts did not play a major role in stimulating domestic Jordanian resistance to entry into the pact.98 Nasser himself may have been surprised and possibly disturbed by the depth of anti-Western, pro-Egyptian sentiment shown by the Palestinians in Jordan in 1955; he later told British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd that he had not anticipated the ease with which refugee emotions could be aroused when Egypt commenced operations against Jordanian adherence to the pact, and that he was now “slightly frightened” over the uncontrollable implications of refugee strength in Jordan.99 To see the massive Jordanian popular opposition to the pact primarily as the result of Egyptian propaganda and subversion neglects the indigenous roots of anti-Western sentiment among the opposition and radicalized Palestinian elements. As the Jordanian politician ‘Ali alHindawi later put it, “the street was with Nasser, right or wrong.”100 Given the course of events earlier in 1955—Nasser’s assumption of the leadership of the anti-imperialist struggle in the Arab East through his opposition to the Baghdad Pact; rising Arab-Israeli violence; and Egypt’s recent breakthrough to an alternative source of foreign assistance via the recently concluded arms deal with the Soviet Union—pro-Egyptian sentiment in Jordan was not solely or perhaps even primarily the result of Egyptian encouragement. Egypt certainly worked to reinforce, but did

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not singlehandedly create, the mood in Jordan that ultimately prevented membership in the Baghdad Pact. The events in Jordan of late 1955 were the decisive turning point in the struggle over the possible extension of the Baghdad Pact to the Arab world. Despite sporadic Iraqi approaches in 1956 and 1957, no other Arab state seriously entertained joining the pact after Jordan declined to do so. By the end of 1955 Egypt had won the battle over the Baghdad Pact. * * * Although the pact continued to be an object of Egyptian concern and criticism in 1956 and 1957, the absence of a sustained effort by pact members to bring other Arab states into the alliance after the failure in Jordan gradually reduced the salience of the issue for Egypt. A U.S. assessment of the Egyptian political scene at the start of 1956 noted a more relaxed Egyptian attitude on the issue of alliances; since “the expansion of the Baghdad Pact was no longer an immediate probability,” Egypt could “afford to refrain from attacking the Pact.”101 Egypt did make efforts to arrange a modus vivendi with the Western powers concerning the Baghdad Pact in the early months of 1956. In a meeting with British Ambassador Sir Humphrey Trevelyan in January, Nasser repeated his earlier hints that Egypt might be brought to accept the existence of the pact if the West agreed not to seek the inclusion of Arab states other than Iraq in the alliance.102 Foreign Minister Fawzi made the offer more specific a month later: “Everything depended on whether the Baghdad Pact members would seek to obtain new Arab members. . . . [Egypt] would not attempt to destroy our position in Jordan unless they were again faced with ‘unwelcome surprises,’ by which he clearly meant fresh attempts to persuade Jordan to enter the Baghdad Pact.”103 A similar offer to suspend propaganda attacks on the pact in exchange for a Western commitment not to extend the alliance to any other Arab country than Iraq was made to Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd when the latter visited Egypt in March 1956.104 Pending the British response to this offer, Egyptian propaganda outlets did moderate their tone toward the West in the spring of 1956, offering “a marked absence of comment” on the Baghdad Pact in place of earlier denunciations of the alliance.105 Egyptian efforts at rapprochement in 1956 also included Iraq. In May, Nasser signaled Iraq that Egypt desired an improvement in relations between the two states; the tone of Egyptian propaganda was

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muted as an indicator of Egyptian goodwill.106 A month later Egypt presented a detailed proposal for Egyptian-Iraqi rapprochement to the Iraqi Ambassador in Cairo. In exchange for Iraq’s agreeing to freeze Baghdad Pact membership and consenting to consult with the other Arab states prior to renewing its membership in the pact, Egypt would agree to a mutual cessation of propaganda attacks between the two countries.107 Egyptian attempts to improve relations with the Western powers and Iraq in early 1956 went unreciprocated. Nuri al-Sa‘id angrily rejected Egypt’s proposal for Egyptian-Iraqi rapprochement, indeed removing the Iraqi ambassador who had transmitted the obviously one-sided Egyptian offer to him.108 Rather than being mollified by Egyptian offers of a truce over the Baghdad Pact, in early 1956 both the United States and Great Britain adopted policies of outright opposition to the government of Egypt. For its part, the United States abandoned earlier unsuccessful efforts to conciliate Egypt and to arrange an Egyptian-Israeli settlement by March 1956, developing instead a policy of economic and covert pressure intended to compel Egypt to reorient its foreign policy back toward the West.109 Britain’s response to Egypt’s and Nasser’s assault on the Western position in the Middle East was more vehement; by the spring of 1956, Prime Minister Anthony Eden had settled on the necessity of eliminating both Nasser and the revolutionary regime in Egypt, a policy whose ultimate outcome was the Suez operation of late 1956.110 Parallel to its efforts at reaching a modus vivendi with the Western powers and Iraq over the Baghdad Pact, Egypt attempted to consolidate and extend the alternative Arab alliance system it had begun to forge in 1955. In early 1956 Egypt, along with Syria and Saudi Arabia, formally offered financial aid to Jordan to replace the British subsidy on which the kingdom depended.111 For its part, Egypt pursued the conclusion of a bilateral defense pact with Jordan similar to those it had concluded with Syria and Saudi Arabia in late 1955. When Jordanian Prime Minister Samir al-Rifa‘i visited Cairo in February, he declined any new defense arrangement with Egypt but, as a substitute for Jordanian alliance with Egypt, offered a Jordanian commitment not to enter into any new military pacts.112 Egypt continued its efforts to draw Jordan into the Egyptian orbit, sending envoys to Amman and inviting King Husayn to visit Egypt in the spring of 1956.113 The latter endeavor had success only on the eve of the Suez crisis in October 1956, when Jordan, under the joint impact of the Western pressure directed at Egypt and recent Israeli attacks, entered into formal military alliance with Egypt and Syria.114

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The Impact of the Suez Crisis The Suez crisis provided the decisive boost to Egypt’s position of Arab leadership. Neither the clash with Great Britain and France over Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal nor the brief Egyptian-Israeli war in the Sinai Peninsula in October–November 1956 directly involved any of the other Arab states. Nonetheless Egypt’s diplomatic, and eventually military, confrontation with the former imperial powers operating in collusion with Israel had important repercussions for Egypt’s position in the Arab world. The nationalization of the Suez Canal had produced widespread popular support for Egypt elsewhere in the Arab world. In the days after Nasser’s speech announcing the nationalization of the canal, delegations of Syrians poured into the Damascus office of Egyptian Ambassador Mahmud Riyad to offer their congratulations and to express their support for Egypt. Committees to rally popular support for Egypt were formed throughout the country; in mid-August a crowd estimated at over 100,000 turned out in Damascus at a rally to demonstrate Syrian solidarity with Egypt.115 In Jordan, a report from the British ambassador concluded that “there is no doubt that public opinion in Jordan strongly and wholeheartedly supports Nasser.”116 On August 16, 1956, the date of the opening of the London Conference organized by Great Britain to produce an international response to the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal, much of the Arab world observed a general strike. Shops were closed; public transport was halted; and at 10 A.M. Greenwich Summer Time, the hour scheduled for the opening of the London Conference, five minutes of silence were observed.117 When Nasser and Syrian President Quwatli visited Saudi Arabia in September to consult with King Sa‘ud, they were met with an enthusiastic popular reception, which according to Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal was “embarrassing for Nasser, because everyone knew that the people were there to cheer him, not their King.”118 The official position of Arab regimes as the Suez crisis unfolded was one of public support for Egypt. Many Arab leaders, including Egypt’s main rival for Arab leadership, Iraq, sent public messages of congratulation and support in the wake of the nationalization of the canal.119 In August, the Council of the League of Arab States unanimously endorsed the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal and declared the solidarity of the Arab governments with Egypt.120 In actuality, Arab governments differed considerably in their response to the Egyptian nationalization of the canal. Egypt’s Syrian ally

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consulted with Egypt on plans for a coordinated Syrian-Egyptian military response and anti-Western sabotage in Syria should the conflict over the canal lead to military confrontation.121 The canal crisis had perhaps the greatest policy effect in Jordan; after more than a year of temporizing about entering into an alliance with its neighbors, on October 24, 1956, Jordan formally adhered to the Egyptian-Syrian defense agreement concluded in 1955 and began joint military planning with its new allies.122 The pro-Western monarchy in Libya, where Britain had a military base, informed the British that it would not allow Libyan soil to be used as a staging area for military action against Egypt.123 Iraq stood at the opposite end of the spectrum. Despite publicly endorsing the nationalization of the canal in Arab League meetings, Iraqi leaders privately denounced the action and urged their British ally to use the occasion to overthrow Nasser. Nuri al-Sa‘id had been in London in July 1956 when Nasser announced the nationalization of the canal; Nuri immediately counseled Prime Minister Eden that “you have only one course of action open and that is to hit, hit now, and hit hard.”124 A month later Nuri again called for strong British action, defining the Suez issue as “a matter of life or death for the West as well as for Nasser.”125 Other Iraqi leaders echoed Nuri’s bellicose views, one urging the British to give Nasser “a bloody nose,”126 another stating that “the crux was whether Her Majesty’s Government were determined and able to bring Nasser down within a comparatively short time.”127 Of the Arab states, Saudi Arabia played the most active role in the convoluted diplomatic dance that followed the canal’s nationalization. The United States attempted to employ the Saudis as mediators between Egypt and the West in the early stages of the crisis. In August 1956 President Eisenhower’s favorite Middle Eastern special envoy, Robert Anderson, was sent to Saudi Arabia. Emphasizing the threat to the export and consequently the value of Saudi oil, Anderson urged the Saudis to seek to persuade Egypt to negotiate on the basis of the proposals developed at the London Conference. Although Anderson was unable to get the Saudis to change their official position of support for the nationalization of the canal, they did agree to dispatch Deputy Foreign Minister Yusuf Yasin to Cairo to promote negotiations between Egypt and the Western powers over a compromise solution that would avert the threat of military action. No such compromise was reached. Constricted by his instructions to reiterating the official Saudi position supporting the nationalization of the canal, Yasin had no lever with which to move the Egyptians in the direction of a negotiated compromise. Saudi mediation was without result.128

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When the Suez crisis erupted into military conflict in late October 1956, most Arab governments reiterated their public support for Egypt. Libya again attempted, not totally successfully, to prevent the use of the British base in Libya as a staging area for operations against Egypt.129 Anti-Western demonstrations occasioned by the outbreak of hostilities occurred in Libya, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain, and even in pro-Western Iraq, where the government felt compelled to impose martial law to control the situation.130 Syria and Saudi Arabia broke off diplomatic relations with Great Britain and France in early November 1956.131 Jordan and Iraq, both linked to Great Britain by treaty, severed relations with France but not with their British ally; Iraq did announce that it would exclude Britain from Baghdad Pact meetings in view of its aggression against Egypt.132 In an effort to mediate the crisis, the government of Lebanon was organizing a summit meeting of Arab kings and presidents in Beirut when war exploded in late October; delayed by this event until mid-November 1956, the conclave eventually took a position in support of Egypt, unanimously endorsing UN resolutions calling for British, French, and Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory.133 Offers of military support for Egypt came from Syria and Jordan. The Syrian military was eager to put plans for an Arab military offensive into operation when hostilities erupted. In Jordan, although the young king was “furious if not hysterical” for military action against Israel upon hearing of the Israeli invasion of Sinai, Arab nationalist Prime Minister Sulayman al-Nablusi was reluctant to see Jordan become involved in a military conflict that could bring Israeli retaliation against the vulnerable kingdom.134 Nasser had ordered his own forces to withdraw from Sinai to avoid encirclement, and possibly fearing the prospect of a British-French attack on Syria and an Israeli one on Jordan, he eventually restrained his Arab allies from military intervention in the fighting during the Suez crisis.135 Although none intervened militarily, concrete anti-Western action in support of Egypt was taken by Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. For its part, Saudi Arabia suspended oil shipments to Britain and France.136 In Syria members of the security services, acting according to a plan developed earlier in conjunction with Egypt, but against subsequent Egyptian advice and contrary to the wishes of the civilian Syrian authorities, destroyed three of the pumping stations on the oil pipeline from Iraq that crossed Syrian territory.137 In mid-November the pipeline crossing Jordan from Iraq to Haifa in Isreal was also damaged.138 Along with Egypt’s sinking of ships in the Suez Canal to render the waterway inoperable, these Arab acts of economic retaliation and sabotage in

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support of Egypt produced precisely the effect the Suez operation was ostensibly designed to forestall—the disruption of the supply of Middle Eastern oil to the West. Despite its political victory over the Suez Canal, the Egyptian government did not immediately envisage translating its increased position of prestige in the Arab world into new Arab initiatives. Two detailed reports on Nasser’s outlook after the Suez crisis show the Egyptian leader thinking primarily in terms of a domestic agenda for his regime. In December 1956, Nasser held a three-hour meeting with U.S. Ambassador Raymond Hare.139 According to Hare’s record of their conversation, in which Nasser had been “just about as frank as we could expect,” Nasser told the ambassador that his first priority in the wake of Suez was to “build up [the] domestic economy” of Egypt. In Nasser’s view, “preoccupation with foreign affairs” only detracted from the demands of “essential domestic reform.” Nasser maintained that Egyptian involvement in the politics of other Arab regimes was reactive in character, a response to popular demands from different Arab publics. “Re other Arab countries, [Egypt] does not give orders or exert pressure. Actually, action normally is initiated in other Arab countries as [a] result of disagreement of people with their own political leadership and agreement with [the] policies of Egypt.” The primary aim of Egypt’s Arab policy was the “avoidance [of] outside domination” of the Arab world, rather than Egyptian aggrandizement.140 In later meetings with Hare, Nasser reiterated the position that his “interest is primarily in Egypt, secondarily in other Arab countries”141 and insisted that stories of Egyptian interference in the politics of other Arab countries were “often exaggerated.”142 The position Nasser articulated to Hare in late 1956 and early 1957 receives considerable corroboration in a memorandum of April 1957 by Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal summarizing his conversations with Nasser.143 Like Hare, Haykal recalls Nasser according the internal struggle for economic progress the highest priority in his plans in 1957. In regard to his policy in the Arab world Nasser expressed caution; while he did wish to solidify Egyptian contact with “progressive Arab forces,” he was nonetheless leery of undertaking foreign initiatives that might involve Egypt in unwanted crises. Although Nasser anticipated that the crucial arena for Egypt in the immediate future was the regional one (“as for the battle which will soon impose itself on us, it is the battle for the heart of the Arab world”), he expected regional conflict to emerge as a result of U.S. efforts to counter Egyptian influence rather than because of Egyptian initiatives in the Arab world.144

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However cautious Nasser’s agenda in the Arab world may have been, the impact of the Suez crisis on inter-Arab politics was to draw Egypt more deeply into Arab affairs. The most immediate change in Egyptian-Arab relations occasioned by the Suez crisis related to Jordan. The boost in Nasser’s personal prestige in the wake of Suez produced a brief Egyptian-Jordanian rapprochement in late 1956 and early 1957. Immediately after the Suez crisis, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia renewed their offer of a financial subsidy to Jordan to replace that provided by Great Britain.145 On January 19, 1957, the governments of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan signed a new Arab Solidarity Pact. Beyond reaffirming the commitments for military collaboration among the parties entered into in 1955 or 1956, the pact provided for a ten-year annual subsidy of 12.5 million Egyptian pounds from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria combined (5 million each from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and 2.5 million from Syria) to Jordan to replace the British payments upon which Jordan depended for economic survival.146 A month later the leaders of the same four states met in Cairo and, in an official response to the Eisenhower Doctrine issued by the United States in the previous month, declared their agreement on a “policy of positive neutrality” in the Cold War. Clearly reflecting the viewpoint that the government of Egypt had maintained in regard to regional defense arrangements since 1954, the text went on to assert that “the defense of the Arab world should emanate from within the Arab nation, in the light of its real security and outside foreign pacts.”147 Although both King Sa‘ud and King Husayn had agreed to the declaration only reluctantly, and as a device for evading a stronger Arab denunciation of the Eisenhower Doctrine without alienating Egypt and Syria,148 its issuance meant that at least formally the Egyptian position on regional defense had been endorsed by the key players in Arab politics, save Iraq, by early 1957. This honeymoon in inter-Arab relations was short-lived. Within a few months, crises in two Arab states shattered the formal harmony that had been reached between Egypt and most other Arab regimes in the wake of the Suez conflict. One crisis was the clash between nationalist elements and the monarchy in Jordan. It resulted in opening a breach between Jordan and Egypt that was to prevail, with but a few brief interruptions, throughout the remainder of the Nasser era. The second crisis involved foreign pressure directed against an increasingly factionalized Syria. As far as Egypt was concerned, the 1957 Syrian crisis had an effect opposite from that produced by confrontation in Jordan. Rather

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than alienating Egypt from Syria, it produced Egyptian support for Syria when the latter appeared menaced by foreign powers. In this process, the way was paved for the subsequent union of Egypt and Syria in the United Arab Republic in 1958.

Egypt and Jordan, 1957 After the failure of the Western and Turkish-Iraqi attempts to bring Jordan into the Baghdad Pact in late 1955, Jordan gradually moved away from its previous dependence on Britain. The first major move in that direction was taken by the king himself, when in March 1956 he dismissed Gen. John Bagot Glubb and other British officers from positions of command in the Jordanian Army and ordered their expulsion from the country.149 In October 1956, parliamentary elections resulted in an opposition majority in the Chamber of Deputies. On October 27, 1956, King Husayn invited the leader of the National Socialist Party, Sulayman al-Nablusi, to form a new government. It was the Nablusi government that finally terminated Jordan’s formal relationship with Britain and consolidated ties with the Arab bloc led by Egypt. In November 1956, it announced its intention to negotiate the abrogation of the treaty of alliance of 1948 with Britian. In January 1957 it concluded the Arab Solidarity Pact in which Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia committed themselves to providing an annual subsidy of 12.5 million Egyptian pounds. In March of the same year the treaty of alliance of 1948 was officially terminated. Shortly thereafter, Nablusi announced his government’s intention to recognize Communist China and to establish full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.150 Nablusi’s own view on the destiny of the country he led was that “Jordan cannot live forever as Jordan,” but would need to enter into some sort of association with one or more Arab states in the future.151 The Arab nationalist and neutralist stance of the Nablusi ministry soon produced a confrontation with the Jordanian monarchy. Two parallel clashes erupted in Jordan in April 1957. One was political. On April 10, 1957, King Husayn abruptly dismissed the Nablusi ministry and for the next two weeks attempted to find a combination of civilian ministers acceptable both to himself and to public opinion. Overlapping this civilian confrontation was a more ominous military one. Although the evidence is inconclusive, officers of an Arab nationalist orientation led by Chief of Staff ‘Ali Abu Nuwar may have been plotting to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic by early 1957. Certainly

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the ministerial crisis of April set off turmoil within the Jordanian Army: unauthorized military movements, clashes between units led by officers of a more royalist versus a more Arab nationalist orientation, and rumors of an impending coup. King Husayn eventually weathered the storm. Personally meeting with and rallying royalist units in the army, he succeeded in holding the allegiance of the bulk of the Jordanian military. Some officers suspected of disloyalty were arrested; others (including ‘Ali Abu Nuwar) were expelled from the country or fled. The ministerial impasse of April 1957 was resolved on April 25 by the imposition of martial law and the installation of a loyalist ministry headed by Ibrahim Hashim. Royal control of the country was consolidated in the weeks that followed: political parties were dissolved, newspapers were closed, and hundreds were arrested and brought before military courts.152 Egypt played a considerable, though not a decisive, role in Jordan’s turbulent politics in 1956 and 1957. Egypt was not privy to or involved in King Husayn’s decision to dismiss Glubb and other British officers from the Jordanian Army in early 1956. Nasser himself appears to have been surprised by the move, initially perceiving it as a British initiative intended to appease Arab nationalist sensibilities.153 Egyptian noninvolvement notwithstanding, Glubb’s dismissal and the erroneous British perception that it had been engineered by Egypt was the last straw for Prime Minister Eden, consolidating his determination to crush Egypt and Nasser.154 In 1956 and 1957, Egyptian operatives were unquestionably in contact with the civilian political opposition, with Arab nationalist officers in the Jordanian military, and with Palestinian groups in Jordan. Former Free Officers Hasan al-Tuhaymi, Kamal Rif‘at, and Ahmad Lutfi Wahid traveled incognito to Jordan to advise the civilian opposition and assist their campaign in the run-up to the elections of October 1956. Egyptian financial support was also provided to Arab nationalist parties in Jordan. Egyptian contacts with officers of the Jordanian Army and with Palestinian groups was simultaneously established by these agents and by Egyptian military attachés posted to Jordan (first Salah Mustafa until his assassination by Israeli military intelligence in mid-1956, then Fu’ad Hilal until his expulsion for antiregime activity in mid-1957).155 Egyptian propaganda organs definitely supported what they termed “progressive forces” in Jordan during the crisis of early 1957, although without vilifying King Husayn or directly calling for his ouster.156 Contemporary British diplomatic reports asserted that Egyptian agents were implicated in Jordanian military plots against the monarchy.157 U.S.

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dispatches were equally alarmist, reporting “large amounts [of] outside money being passed through Syrian and Egyptian hands to finance opposition [to the] King,” claiming to have “irrefutable evidence [that the] Syrians and Egyptians are carrying out widespread covert operations against Hussein and [the] Jordanian regime,” and at one point claiming knowledge of an “Egyptian sponsored plot to assassinate Hussein.”158 Later accounts of the clash between the regime and elements in the army often assume Egyptian involvement in and support for an intended military coup in Jordan in early 1957.159 As was the case with Egyptian interference in Jordan during the crisis over the Baghdad Pact in late 1955, claims of Egyptian intent to destroy the Egyptian monarchy in early 1957 appear to be overstated. The later testimony of those involved in Egyptian contact with the Jordanian military deny any Egyptian intention to mount a coup against the monarchy in 1957. They emphasize, rather, Egyptian apprehension that a coup might provoke British or Israeli military intervention and insist that the Egyptian goal was merely one of pressuring Jordan into a more neutralist and Arab nationalist position closer to that advocated by Egypt.160 One of the more judicious students of Jordanian politics, Uriel Dann, takes a minimalist position on the question of Egyptian sponsorship of conspiratorial elements in Jordan in 1957: while noting that Egyptian representatives were unquestionably in contact with opposition elements, he concludes that “there is no conclusive evidence” of Egyptian sponsorship of antiregime plots prior to April 1957.161 The crucial element terminating the brief Egyptian-Jordanian rapprochement of late 1956 and early 1957 was not so much the conflict between the king and the Jordanian opposition. Rather, it was the Jordanian government’s simultaneous acceptance of U.S. aid in place of the earlier British subsidy, its endorsement of the Eisenhower Doctrine, and its vehement attacks on the nefarious influence of communism and Communists in Jordan and the Middle East that produced the break. Partly as a result of the king’s personal leanings toward the West and partly as a result of his perception of Egyptian (and Syrian) encouragement of his enemies in the most serious challenge to his rule to date, the king broke with Egypt and the Egyptian approach to regional politics in 1957. Egypt responded in kind. Through much of the rest of 1957, the two governments were locked in a bitter war of invective. Egyptian propaganda sources now denounced Husayn in no uncertain terms, accusing him of being in cahoots with the Israelis as well as with the Americans and going so far as to distribute counterfeit pictures of the king meeting with David Ben-Gurion.162 Some

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of this may have run counter to the larger aims of Egyptian policy in regard to Jordan; Salah Nasr speaks of a lack of coordination between different Egyptian propaganda agencies producing “informational chaos” in Egyptian propaganda directed at Jordan in 1957.163 Both the Egyptian military attaché in Amman, Fu’ad Hilal, and the Egyptian consul in Jerusalem, Muhammad ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, were expelled from Jordan on grounds of antiregime subversion in June 1957. Hilal’s expulsion was based on the charge that he had attempted to suborn a Jordanian soldier and to bribe him to assassinate the king and other Jordanian officials. Egypt immediately denied the allegation, maintaining that the soldier was an agent provocateur and that Hilal was the victim of a Jordanian plot intended to provide a pretext for his expulsion.164 Both governments are reported to have engaged in acts of sabotage and assassination directed at one another.165 The rupture between the two countries became definite by the close of 1957, when Egypt announced it was suspending payment of its portion of the Egyptian-Syrian-Saudi subsidy to Jordan because of the anti-Egyptian stance of the Jordanian regime.166

The Syrian Crisis of Late 1957 The “Syrian crisis” was primarily the result of U.S. apprehension over the nationalist, neutralist, and apparently pro-Soviet direction in which Syria had moved during the mid-1950s. Internally, both the Arab Socialist Renaissance Party (the Ba‘th) and the Communist Party had become increasingly important in Syrian politics between 1954 and 1957. In addition, individuals and groups in the Syrian military had also demonstrated disturbing neutralist and leftist inclinations. Externally, Syria had definitively rejected alliance with the West through the Baghdad Pact, aligning itself solidly with Egypt’s anti-imperialist policies and developing its own bilateral relationship with the Soviet Union. The effects of all this on the United States at the height of the Cold War are apparent in the dyspeptic tone of Ambassador James Moose’s evaluation of the Syrian political scene after by-elections in May 1957 resulted in augmenting the representation of the Ba‘th Party in the Syrian parliament. Two weeks after by-elections Syria reflects further entrenchment leftist control [of] government, strong criticism of government policy by disorganized but vocal opposition, continuing leftist ascendancy in army, stagnant business conditions partially relieved by prospects [of] excellent harvest, increasing isolation from all neighbors and increased

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economic, military, and political intercourse with Soviet bloc. . . . ProWestern and moderate elements continue to lose ground to increasingly entrenched ASRP-Communist-fellow traveller-opportunist vanguard of proletariat which [is] using self-induced isolation to snuggle up close to Soviet protector in economic, military, political affairs.167

Three developments in August 1957 provided the spark for an international crisis over Syria. One was an agreement for economic assistance from the Soviet Union signed by Syria’s minister of defense, Khalid al-‘Azm, at the conclusion of a visit to Moscow.168 The second was the Syrian announcement of the discovery of a U.S. plot to overthrow the regime. This was not the first time a Western power had undertaken covert action in Syria: U.S. encouragement of coups by the Syrian military went back to 1949,169 and a joint British-U.S. coup attempt may have been on the verge of being put into effect in late 1956 only to be aborted by the Suez crisis.170 The 1957 operation was a poorly organized one directed by Howard Stone of the CIA. Penetrated by the Syrian security services, it was publicly revealed on August 12, with Stone and the other U.S. operatives involved being immediately expelled from Syria.171 The third, and perhaps most worrisome, development of the same month was a purge of right-wing officers in the military and the appointment of a presumed leftist (described as the “leader of the pro-Soviet officer group” in a State Department memorandum), ‘Afif al-Bizri, as chief of staff of the Syrian Army in mid-August.172 The United States, its NATO ally (and Syria’s neighbor) Turkey, and the pro-Western Arab governments in the region were all concerned about developments in Syria. At least in the U.S. and Turkish view, Syria was on the verge of becoming a Soviet satellite.173 The United States made the question of Syria’s political direction into a major international crisis late in August, when it dispatched Deputy Undersecretary of State Loy Henderson to the Middle East to discuss the situation in Syria with pro-Western Middle Eastern regimes. Henderson’s report to Secretary of State Dulles upon his return in early September, which was immediately made public, voiced the United States’ “deep concern” that Syria was in danger of becoming “a victim of international communism.”174 The Henderson mission promptly brought the Soviet Union into the situation, producing Soviet condemnations of aggressive U.S. Middle Eastern policy and calls for external powers to renounce interference in Middle Eastern affairs.175 Soviet-U.S. mutual invective over the nefarious designs of the other formed much of the rhetorical content of the Syrian crisis through September and October 1957.

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The United States attempted to prod its regional allies to take action to deflect Syria from its apparent leftward drift. The preferred U.S. surrogate was Saudi Arabia, whose king the United States called upon “as Keeper of the Holy Places of Islam” to “exert your great influence to the end that the atheistic creed of Communism will not become entrenched at a key position in the Moslem world.”176 By early September, the United States came close to giving pro-Western regimes in the Middle East the green light to take military action against Syria. In parallel messages to the governments of Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan on September 10, the United States informed them that it had concluded that “Syria has become, or is about to become, [a] base for military and subversive activities in the Near East designed to destroy [the] independence of those countries and to subject them to Soviet Communist domination.” The messages went on to state that any “actual aggressive deeds” of Syrian-sponsored subversion would justify its neighbors’ taking military action under the self-defense provisions of the UN Charter, and assured them of U.S. support should they do so.177 Beyond the annoying detail that no “actual aggressive deeds” that might have justified military intervention were initiated by the Syrians, there were two other problems with the U.S. effort to mobilize a regional coalition to take action against Syria in 1957. One was that the two Middle Eastern states that might have been capable of and interested in military intervention in Syria at the time, Turkey and Israel, for diplomatic reasons had to be discouraged from initiating military action. A U.S. communiqué to Turkey on September 10 requested that it take military action against Syria only in support of “defensive action” by one or more Arab states against Syria. The communiqué to Israel on the same date stated that any military action against Syria was “essentially one for Moslem nations in area to take,” strongly urging no Israeli military initiative that might exacerbate anti-Israeli and anti-Western sentiment.178 In the end, Turkey was the only Middle Eastern state that did attempt to pressure Syria physically during the crisis, mounting wellpublicized military maneuvers along the Syrian-Turkish border. The other problem was that no Arab state was willing to undertake anti-Syrian action in late 1957. The ministry of ‘Ali Jawdat in Iraq, the Arab country that previously had been the neighbor most prone to interfere in Syrian politics, was currently engaged in an effort to improve relations with Syria and Egypt. Rather than participating in a Westerninspired campaign to intimidate Syria, it undertook measures to increase Syrian-Iraqi exchanges in mid-1957.179 Despite U.S. prodding, neither Lebanon or Jordan felt themselves in a position to undertake action

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against their more powerful Syrian neighbor. Both deferred to Saudi Arabia to initiate Arab action.180 While Saudi Arabia did become involved in the Syrian crisis, its position was quite different from that hoped for by the United States. The earlier Saudi alliance with Egypt and Syria of the 1955–1956 period had been a marriage of convenience prompted primarily by the long-standing anti-Hashimite inclinations of the Saudi royal family rather than any ideological compatibility with the neutralist and anti-imperialist outlook of Egypt and Syria. As the latter became more pronounced, the Saudis edged away from their erstwhile allies.181 Saudi assertiveness was also encouraged by the United States, which since early 1956 had viewed King Sa‘ud as a potential regional rival to Nasser, and which had been encouraging the Saudis to assume leadership of the pro-Western camp in the Arab world.182 The growing tension over Syria in the late summer of 1957 presented the Saudis with an opportunity to make a bid for Arab leadership. They did so, however, on their own terms. Rather than participating in a U.S.-inspired campaign against Syria, the Saudis attempted to act as mediator and regional peacemaker as the Syrian crisis unfolded. King Sa‘ud visited Lebanon to consult with Lebanese officials; Saudi spokesmen declared that Saudi Arabia would support Syria should it become the object of outside aggression; and in late September the king flew to Damascus to show Saudi solidarity with Syria and to meet with Syrian leaders and the Iraqi premier.183 This unusually vigorous Saudi diplomacy in support of Syria indicated the fundamental flaw of the U.S. approach to the presumed growth of communist influence in Syria. Whatever their privately expressed apprehensions about the situation in Syria, pro-Western Arab regimes were compelled by the conventions of Arab nationalist discourse to publicly support sisterly Syria in the face of external pressure. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Rountree captured the paradox of inter-Arab politics when he lamented that “what the Arabs [a]re saying publicly b[ears] little or no relation to what they are saying privately.”184 Syria became a major topic of discussion at the annual meeting of the United Nations in the autumn of 1957, with the United States dourly warning of the dangers of Soviet expansion in the Middle East and the Soviets responding with jeremiads about aggressive U.S. intentions toward Syria.185 The crisis reached its diplomatic apex in mid-October, when the Syrian government formally brought a complaint about threatening Turkish troop concentrations along the Turkish-Syrian border to the UN General Assembly and requested the creation of a UN commission to investigate the situation.186 The Arab world was solidly in support

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of Syria as the crisis reached its climax, an Arab League Council resolution of late October unanimously reaffirming Syrian “national sovereignty” and proclaiming the “complete solidarity” of the Arab world with Syria.187 Ultimately the inability of the United States to prod any of its Arab friends into action against the leftist current in Syria resulted in the crisis evaporating. After another round of mutual Soviet-U.S. denunciation at the United Nations, on November 1 the General Assembly closed debate on the Syrian question without taking any action. Turkish troop redeployments away from the Turkish-Syrian border during November brought the crisis to an uneventful end.188 * * * Egypt played no role in initiating the Syrian crisis of late 1957. According to information passed to Western diplomats, Nasser had not been informed in advance of the Syrian-Soviet agreement of August 1957 and was somewhat disturbed at not having been consulted by his Syrian ally.189 Egypt was also concerned by the instability in the armed forces of Syria that had been demonstrated most recently in the military transfers of mid-August. The initial Egyptian response to Syria’s internal turmoil was to attempt to use Egyptian influence to stabilize the situation. A U.S. assessment of the Syrian situation in late August credited Egypt with attempting to “exert a calming influence” on the Syrian Army.190 In a conversation with U.S. Ambassador Hare in early September, Foreign Minister Mahmud Fawzi made a point of stressing the effort Egypt was making to stabilize the internal political situation in Syria: “Our arms are almost numb from trying to keep them [the Syrians] from falling down.”191 As the crisis developed into a Cold War confrontation involving the superpowers in September 1957, Egypt was compelled to take a public position. In a press interview with Al-Ahram on September 9, Nasser criticized recent U.S. alarms about Syria going communist as an effort to “divert attention from the Israeli threat,” which was “the real threat to the Arab nation,” asserted that Syria was not in danger of falling into the communist camp, and ended by declaring that “Egypt stands on Syria’s side unconditionally.”192 Foreign Minister Fawzi reiterated Egyptian support for Syria during the UN General Assembly debates on the Syrian question.193 Egypt’s posture in the Syrian crisis was dictated in part by its rivalry with Saudi Arabia. At the same time that it was supporting Syria against U.S. and Turkish pressure, Egypt distanced itself from the Saudi

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effort to assume the lead in mediating a peaceful resolution to the crisis. At the time of King Sa‘ud’s visit to Damascus in late September, Nasser declared his own belief that direct Syrian-U.S. negotiations rather than third-party mediation were required to defuse the situation.194 In early October, when the Saudis suggested an Arab summit on Syria, Egypt refused to participate in such a meeting with Arab states it viewed as having acceded to the Eisenhower Doctrine.195 The international posturing over Syria in late 1957 was a crisis because it posed a threat of military confrontation between Syria and Turkey. As Syria’s ally and leader of the progressive camp in the Arab world, Egypt’s reaction to the threat of regional conflict eventually took on a military dimension. In mid-September Syrian Chief of Staff Bizri and the intelligence director, ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj, visited Egypt to meet with their Egyptian counterparts.196 The day after his meetings with the Syrians, Nasser instructed the Egyptian military to begin planning for the dispatch of forces to Syria.197 Egypt’s most visible military intervention in the Syrian crisis occurred in mid-October, when the Egyptian government announced the dispatch of a contingent of troops to the Syrian port city of Latakia.198 Like earlier Egyptian diplomatic maneuvers in the Syrian crisis, the provision of Egyptian military assistance for Syria appears to have had several motives. Neither the Syrian nor the Egyptian general staffs anticipated an actual Turkish military move against Syria in 1957.199 The small size of the force sent—fewer than 2,000 troops—also indicates that Egypt’s physical intervention in October had political rather than military motives. In the international arena, it was an Egyptian riposte to Saudi efforts to take the lead in mediating the crisis and a demonstration that Egypt was still the unrivaled champion of the Arab nationalist cause.200 Bolstering the morale of the Syrian Army and thereby diminishing the prospect of its continued fragmentation into rival camps is also reported to have been part of Nasser’s calculus in deciding to offer military assistance to Syria.201 On the political level, the dispatch of troops to Syria may also have been an attempt to bolster Arab nationalist and pro-Egyptian elements in Syria, specifically the Ba‘th Party, through a tangible action indicating that their policy of alliance with and reliance upon Egypt was Syria’s best option in the face of external threats.202 The most interesting question concerning Egypt’s position during the Syrian crisis is the Egyptian assessment of the internal Syrian scene. Did Nasser share the contemporary perception of many that Syria faced serious internal turmoil or that it was inexorably drifting toward communism?

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The question is important in part because it shaped how Egypt responded in the crisis, but even more so because it provides the immediate context for the subsequent union of Egypt with Syria. In the early stages of the crisis, Nasser himself does not seem to have believed that Syria was threatened by communist domination. In a lengthy conversation with Raymond Hare at the end of August, he assured the American ambassador that U.S. fears of Syria’s leftist drift were exaggerated and that there was no danger of Syria’s falling under Soviet domination.203 Foreign Minister Fawzi gave similar assurances to the Americans a few days later.204 When Bizri and Sarraj visited Egypt in mid-September, Nasser sought and received Bizri’s assurance that the latter was not a Communist but rather a nationalist whose apparent sympathy for the Soviet Union was motivated only by its support for the anti-imperialist cause.205 Bizri’s disclaimer appears to have been accepted by the Egyptians: at the end of the month an Egyptian Embassy source in Syria assured the United States that Egypt was “confident Bizri [was] working for Arabism and neutralism, not for Soviets, ‘especially after meeting with Nasser.’”206 Rather than communist domination of Syria, Nasser’s original concern in the autumn of 1957 was the prospect of Syrian internal divisions leading to civil strife among the many Syrian factions embittered by years of coup and countercoup. According to Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, Nasser concentrated primarily in his mid-September meeting with Bizri and Sarraj on warning the Syrians against the dangers of the Syrian military’s dividing into armed camps and the consequent risk of civil war in Syria. Their discussions on military issues also convinced Nasser that the political entanglements of the Syrian officer corps had seriously sapped the military capabilities of the Syrian Army.207 Haykal himself later identified the fear of possible civil war in Syria as one of the main factors leading Nasser to accept the unification of Syria and Egypt in 1958.208 Egyptian fears of possible communist domination in Syria appear to have increased as autumn faded into winter. In a conversation with Canadian Ambassador R. M. MacDonnell on December 10, 1957, Nasser now opined that “there was a real danger of the Communist Party in Syria achieving a dominant position”; they were better disciplined than their Ba‘thi rivals on the left of the Syrian political spectrum and, as a result, more likely to come out on top in the current jockeying for power among progressive Syrian factions.209 On December 11 Nasser sent Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal to deliver a “very urgent and serious message” to the United States. Haykal informed Ambassador Hare that,

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on the basis of further evaluation of the Syrian scene, Nasser was “now convinced Bizri [is] a communist and that something must be done about it.”210 Asserting that it was Egypt’s responsibility to tackle the Syrian situation, Haykal went on to “ask of us only that we keep hands off Syria for a maximum period of three months and particularly that we do nothing which could have [the] unintentional effect of making heroes out of Bizri, Bakdash, and Khalid Al Azm.”211 Secretary of State Dulles immediately instructed Hare to respond affirmatively to the Egyptian approach, telling him to inform Nasser that the United States would “welcome action designed [to] impede Communist penetration [of] Syria.”212 Nasser elaborated upon his motives for this approach to the United States in the account of the sequence of events leading to Egyptian-Syrian unity that he gave to Ambassador Hare subsequent to the creation of the UAR.213 “Nasser said [he] wanted to make clear that at the time he approached us through Haikal he had no thought of Egyptian-Syrian union except as something which might be worked out in five years or so.” What changed Nasser’s mind was receiving information concerning an army-backed project to compel the formation of a “supercouncil” of Syrian political leaders that would in all likelihood be dominated by the left-leaning Chief of Staff Bizri, Minster of Defense Khalid al-‘Azm, and Syrian Communist Party leader Khalid Bakdash. This would be to the detriment of both Syrian conservatives and the Ba‘th Party, which by now was the most pro-Egyptian force on the Syrian political scene. It was this perception that prompted Nasser to consider an Egyptian initiative in Syria. Nasser’s first intervention was with the Syrian Army, which he told Hare he was able to convince to drop its demands for a coalition of progressive forces. “Nasser however was not reassured because he felt trouble was still brewing and it was at this point that he asked Haikal to approach us since he felt our attacks on Azm were merely serving to strengthen his (Azm’s), and possibly [the] Soviet, position.” Nasser’s approach to the United States in December, combined with his later explanations to Hare, indicate that the issue of Syrian internal disintegration and the possibility of communist ascendancy had become serious concerns by the end of 1957. Nasser’s apprehension about the possibility of civil strife in Syria that would destabilize the entire Middle East and his pursuit of U.S. approval of an Egyptian initiative to forestall the strife had significant repercussions in both the international sphere and in inter-Arab politics. In the former, the approach of December 1957 in which Nasser requested the United States to “keep hands off Syria” in order to allow Egypt to avert the prospect of leftist domination in that country formed

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a vital link in a partial Egyptian-U.S. rapprochement, which narrowed the gap that had opened between the two countries since 1955.214 Egyptian concerns and initiatives regarding Syria had even more momentous consequences for Egypt’s position in the Arab world. Nasser’s intervention intended to prevent the consolidation of leftist ascendancy was one catalyst for the totally unexpected Syrian demand for an EgyptianSyrian union. Nasser’s subsequent narrative of the process leading to the creation of the UAR given to Ambassador Hare summarized the sudden turn of events, “as matters turned out he had been right in expecting [that the Syrian] officers could come up with some other idea; it was unity.”215

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5 The Creation of the United Arab Republic

Egypt and Syria, 1955–1957 Although established with dramatic suddenness in January 1958, the United Arab Republic did not emerge in a vacuum. Its formation was preceded by several Syrian-initiated attempts to forge a formal political relationship between Egypt and Syria. The Egyptian position in regard to such efforts was reserved at best, indicating little if any Egyptian desire for institutional Arab unification before the creation of the UAR in 1958. The first efforts at increasing Syrian-Egyptian cooperation during the Nasser era occurred at the instigation of Egypt, as part of its campaign to counter the Baghdad Pact. Despite its being an Egyptian initiative, it was the Syrians who pushed for greater economic as well as military integration between the two parties in their extended 1955 discussions establishing an Arab military alliance. The Egyptian position on both economic and military collaboration was considerably more cautious than that of Syria, demonstrating a clear unwillingness to agree to any arrangement that might compromise Egyptian sovereignty.1 Subsequent efforts at Egyptian-Syrian political integration occurred at Syrian initiative. In June 1956, Sabri al-‘Asali formed a new Syrian coalition government. His government included the Ba‘th Party, which had made the pursuit of Syrian-Egyptian union a condition for entering the coalition and had obtained the foreign affairs portfolio.2 A panArabist policy was also pushed by Arab nationalist factions in the Syrian Army.3 Faced with Ba‘thist and military pressure, in early July 1956 the ‘Asali government announced its intention to establish a ministerial committee to explore the issue of establishing an open-ended “federal 101

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union” between Syria and Egypt.4 After extended debate in which deputies competed in declaring their support for unity, the Syrian Chamber of Deputies on July 5 endorsed the ministry’s initiative.5 Egypt’s response to the Syrian call for unity was publicly supportive but privately noncommittal. In a press release on July 6 Nasser welcomed news of the Syrian parliament’s resolution calling for negotiations for federal union, noting that the new Egyptian constitution had declared Egypt an Arab state and asserting that “the realization of this union [ittihad] is the aspiration of every Arab who believes in and works for Arab nationalism.”6 The Syrian attempt to prompt negotiations toward an Egyptian-Syrian federal union in mid-1956 provides the indispensible context for the strongly Arab nationalist tone of the opening passages of Nasser’s canal nationalization speech of July 26 1956, with its assertion that Syria and Egypt were “one country.”7 The nationalization of the Suez Canal and the international crisis it sparked aborted the Syrian initiative to begin unification negotiations. Following the Syrian parliament’s endorsement of the concept, Prime Minister ‘Asali appointed a negotiating team consisting of himself, Foreign Minister Bitar, and Interior Minister Ahmad Qanbar to explore the matter.8 When in early August 1956 the Syrian delegation asked for Egyptian agreement to begin negotiations on federal union, the Egyptians begged off. According to a Syrian source, the “reason given by Nasser for delay was that Egypt had too many other pressing problems now.”9 It was not until Egypt had emerged from its military confrontation with Israel, Britain, and France that further initiatives toward Egyptian-Syrian union took place. There were several Syrian approaches to the Egyptian regime in 1957 concerning political integration. In January 1957, a Syrian ministerial committee headed by Minister of Defense Khalid al-‘Azm was set up to explore the possibility of Syrian federation with Egypt.10 The ‘Azm committee never went to Egypt, being discouraged from exploring the matter by Egyptian Ambassador Riyad in view of the probable opposition to the idea from other Arab states.11 Prime Minister ‘Asali received a similar cold shoulder from Egypt when in Cairo to negotiate the Arab Solidarity Pact in the same month. Approached about the subject of federal union by ‘Asali at the Cairo summit in January 1957, Nasser advised him that “the Egyptian people were still far from accepting union or unity” and that the most that was then possible was the conclusion of interstate collaborative agreements on specific issues. In Nasser’s view, it would take at least five years of incremental expansion of Arab cooperation before the subject of institutional unification could

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be meaningfully addressed.12 A subsequent inquiry concerning the prospects for federal union between the two states made by Foreign Minister Bitar to Ambassador Riyad in July 1957 was similarly discouraged as premature by Riyad.13 In his public statements on the subject, well into 1957 Nasser was stating that “I am not thinking in terms of federation or confederation for the present”14 and predicting that “Arab unity will take a long time to accomplish.”15 Even in January 1958, only days before the beginning of the negotiations that were to lead to the creation of the UAR at the end of the month, Nasser told a Lebanese newspaper that Arab unity was unlikely to be realized before the end of 1958.16 The only positive Egyptian response to the idea of Egyptian-Syrian union came at the end of 1957, after Egypt had supported Syria during the Turkish-Syrian confrontation in the summer and fall of that year.17 In mid-November, a delegation from the Arab Affairs Committee of the Egyptian National Assembly led by Anwar al-Sadat paid an official visit to Syria. In a meeting with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Syrian Chamber of Deputies on November 17, the two parliamentary groups unanimously adopted a resolution declaring “the desire of the Arab people in Egypt and Syria for the establishment of a federal union between the two regions” and calling on their respective governments to enter into immediate negotiations for the realization of such a union.18 The parliamentary summons to federal union is an oddity in the pre1958 sequence of Egyptian-Syrian contacts concerning unity. According to a contemporary Egyptian diplomatic source, the dispatch of the delegation to Syria was not intended as a meaningful step toward federation but rather as a symbolic demonstration of Egyptian solidarity with Syria in the wake of the recent crisis with the West and Turkey.19 Nor was it followed by positive Egyptian action on unification. When a similar Syrian parliamentary delegation visited Egypt in December 1957, Nasser’s response to its inquiries about prospects for federal union was that Syria’s troubled internal politics, particularly the fractured state of the Syrian Army, made union undesirable in the near future.20 Nasser relayed much the same message to the Syrian military at the close of 1957 when he dispatched Hafiz Isma‘il, deputy to ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr, to Syria to meet with Syrian officers and to expound on the practical obstacles standing in the way of Egyptian-Syrian union.21 Thus, with the exception of the parliamentary resolution of November 1957—which is probably best understood as a largely symbolic expression of Egyptian support for Syria in the face of recent Western pressure22—prior to 1958, Egypt consistently deflected or discouraged

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Syrian approaches to move in the direction of political integration between the two countries. The sudden creation of the UAR in January 1958 was an abrupt departure from earlier patterns rather than the culmination of a gradual process of evolution in the direction of Arab institutional unity.23

The Rush to Union, January 1958 In August 1957, a twenty-four member Military Command Council representing the nationalist and “progressive” factions in the Syrian military was established to act as a self-appointed guardian of Syrian independence and neutralism.24 Although it was this body that made the decision in January 1958 to send a delegation of officers to Egypt to seek immediate and complete union with Egypt, it was pushed to do so by civilians. The Syrian pursuit of integral union with Egypt in early 1958 has been described as a case of rival political factions’ using the issue of Arab unity, which by the late 1950s was becoming a central slogan in Syrian political discourse, to outbid each other for popular support.25 The final round of bidding was begun by the Ba‘th Party. The Ba‘th had long been the primary Syrian advocate of Arab nationalism and had been the main proponent of the several Syrian intiatives for federal union of 1956 and 1957. By late 1957, several short-term considerations reinforced the Ba‘th’s pursuit of such union. One factor in this was the party’s electoral weakness. Fear of a poor showing had led the party to force the cancellation of municipal elections scheduled for November 1957. Its critics maintain that by late 1957 Ba‘th leaders had effectively abandoned hope of coming to power through the electoral process, opting instead for a strategy of climbing on the Nasserist bandwagon as a vehicle for achieving what they could not achieve through the ballot box.26 The Ba‘th was also becoming apprehensive about the growing strength of the Syrian Communist Party, whose prestige had been augmented by the Soviet Union’s strong public support of Syria during the crisis of late 1957.27 The rumored threat of an internal revolt against the party’s historic leaders, Michel ‘Aflaq, Salah al-Din Bitar, and Akram al-Hawrani because of their personal rivalries, may also have played a part in prompting the party’s leaders to seek union as a way of preempting a challenge to their leadership.28 Whatever the precise blend of reasons, the Ba‘th became even more assertive in its pursuit of Arab unity in late 1957 and early 1958. Following up on the parliamentary call for federal union issued by committees

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of the Egyptian and Syrian parliaments in November, in December the Ba‘th brought a proposal for federal union with Egypt before the Syrian parliament.29 In the heady atmosphere of the late 1950s, the effect of the Ba‘th’s championing the cause of federal union set off a chain reaction among other forces in Syrian political life. The party’s promotion of Egyptian-Syrian federal union in turn prompted the Communists to attempt to outbid the Ba‘th through an unexpected call for the complete unity of Syria and Egypt. Whether the Syrian Communist Party either geniunely wanted or expected integral Egyptian-Syrian unity at the time is doubtful. The party’s sudden endorsement of the idea is usually explained as part of an effort to outbid the Ba‘th, and done in the expectation that Nasser—true to his public posture up to early 1958—would reject the idea as premature.30 The key point is that by early 1958 both of the major movements on the left of the Syrian political spectrum, the Ba‘th and the Communists, were publicly calling for immediate Syrian union or unity with Egypt. The Military Command Council itself had previously approached Nasser about the possibility of Syrian-Egyptian union. It was in response to this approach that Nasser dispatched Hafiz Isma‘il to present Egypt’s reservations about the feasibility of immediate unity with Syria. Despite Isma‘il’s review of the political and economic obstacles to rapid unification, the majority of the Military Command Council held to unity as the answer to Syria’s problems.31 It was finally pushed to act on its convictions by Ba‘th Foreign Minister Salah al-Din Bitar. Both Syrian and Egyptian sources credit Bitar with the idea of the military’s undertaking a dramatic initiative toward union. After receiving a cool response to his approaches concerning unity from both Nasser and Egyptian Ambassador Riyad in early 1958, Bitar insisted to his contacts on the council that only an initiative by the military could compel Egypt to accept some form of unity with Syria.32 The crucial meeting of the Military Command Council was on January 11. The meeting was convened at the request of the Ba‘th members of the council, now eager to promote the cause of unity and to prod Chief of Staff ‘Afif al-Bizri in the same direction. Apparently taken by surprise, Bizri at first attempted to resist the Ba‘th-inspired demand for immediate and complete Egyptian-Syrian unity. In the end, however, he concurred with the majority and indeed outbid them, suggesting that a delegation from the council should fly to Egypt as soon as possible to seek union.33 Whether Bizri expected Egyptian-Syrian unity to actually be achieved is questionable. His later justification of his position in January 1958, though self-serving, does capture something of both the

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reservations about “unity” among Syrian politicians and yet the popular enthusiasm to which they were responding: No one wanted unity. Even ‘Abd al-Nasser didn’t want it. . . . So I . . . waited until the appropriate moment and said: now we will offer unity to ‘Abd al-Nasser. Since they’re all saying unity, unity, unity. Nobody would dare to say no, we don’t want it. The masses would rise against them. I mean we followed the masses. The crowds were drunk. . . . Who at that hour could dare say we do not want unity? The people would tear their heads off.34

The meeting resulted in a resolution by the council that demanded the immediate realization of “complete unity with Egypt” in a new state to be called the United Arab Republic.35 Only after their meeting did the council inform the civilian authorities, theoretically their superiors, of their deliberations and resolution. Although both Minister of Defense Khalid al-‘Azm and President Shukri al-Quwatli characterized the military group’s initiative as the equivalent of yet another military coup in Syria, the two were powerless to prevent the military from acting.36 Egyptian Ambassador Riyad was also unable to dissuade the military group from dispatching a delegation to Egypt.37 Late on the evening of January 11, 1958, a Syrian military delegation flew to Egypt to attempt to persuade Nasser to accept immediate Egyptian-Syrian union. * * * There are several largely but not totally congruent accounts of the unity negotiations of January 1958.38 When the delegation of officers representing the Military Command Council arrived in Cairo, Nasser was in Aswan entertaining Indonesian President Sukarno. The delegation’s initial meeting with Marshal ‘Amr did not address substantive issues. Meaningful negotiations occurred only on January 15, after Nasser’s return from Aswan. According to Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal’s detailed reconstruction of the discussions, Nasser and the Syrian officers initially espoused radically different positions on unity. Where the Syrians expounded at length on Syria’s internal political divisions and the external threats that in their view made unity with Egypt imperative, Nasser was skeptical about the sudden Syrian proposal for complete unity. In his view, the Syrian arguments for unity were negative rather than positive ones, which were outweighed by the structural differences between the two countries and the domestic Egyptian and international constraints that made unity unwise at the present time. Rather than rushing

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headlong into the dubious venture of unity, Nasser’s first priority was the strengthening of Egypt as a bulwark and model for the rest of the Arab world. Nasser also challenged the self-appointed nature of the Syrian military delegation, informing its members that he would conduct official negotiations toward unity only with representatives of the duly constituted Syrian civilian government.39 Other accounts suggest that Nasser was already veering toward an acceptance of union in these meetings of mid-January, but insisting on the withdrawal of the Syrian military from politics and the abolition of Syrian political parties as the indispensible prerequisites of a successful merger of the two countries.40 On January 16, the Syrian military delegation flew to Damascus carrying Nasser’s demand for the designation of an official Syrian representative to conduct negotiations on unity. Part of the group returned to Egypt the same evening with Foreign Minister Bitar in tow. The negotiations of the next few days between Nasser and a Syrian team composed of Foreign Minister Bitar and the rump of the officer’s delegation led by Chief of Staff Bizri were decisive in defining the nature of Egyptian-Syrian unity. By this point in the negotiations the positions of the Syrian and Egyptian negotiators were in part reversed. Bitar had come to Egypt authorized by his civilian colleagues to explore some sort of federal union between the two states.41 By the second round of meetings on January 17–20, however, Nasser had come to the decision to accept nothing less than the integral unity of the two countries and was specifying three important preconditions as his price for agreeing to integral unity: the Syrian military’s withdrawal from politics; the dissolution of existing Syrian political parties; and the holding of popular referenda in Egypt and Syria to ratify the unification of the two countries.42 His Syrian interlocutors were divided over Nasser’s terms. While Bitar was more hesitant about integral unity if it would mean the dissolution of Syria’s political parties, the military negotiators were willing to accept Nasser’s conditions as the price of unity.43 Provisional agreement on integral Egyptian-Syrian unity was reportedly reached at a meeting among Nasser, Bitar, and Bizri on January 20. As he boarded a plane to return to Syria, Bitar announced that “full agreement has now been reached on the shape and content of the organic union between Egypt and Syria.”44 * * * The central question about the formation of the UAR is why Egypt abruptly accepted integral union with Syria in January 1958. It is clear

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that Egypt did not initiate the drive for such unity. Despite his stature in the Arab world in the wake of the Suez crisis, through 1957 Nasser and his representatives had consistently disavowed any intention to initiate practical steps toward Arab unification in the immediate future. It was Ambassador Mahmud Riyad’s rejection of Salah al-Din Bitar’s inquiry about unity early in January 1958, and his blunt remark that in most respects “Egypt and Syria do not speak the same language,” that prompted Bitar to prod the Syrian military to take the initiative in seeking unity in January 1958.45 The Military Command Council’s initiative was neither anticipated nor desired by Egypt. As a U.S. report on the early negotiations noted, Egypt was “in somewhat of quandry [sic] at having pace forced so fast.”46 The decision to unify with Syria was Nasser’s alone. All accounts of the negotiations with the Syrians agree that they were conducted by Nasser directly. Neither the Egyptian Foreign Ministry nor the Egyptian military are mentioned as having played a significant role in the discussions. U.S. Ambassador Hare’s summary of Nasser’s observations on the nature of his recently concluded meetings with the Syrians indicates the personalized nature of the negotiations of January 1958: An interesting aspect of talk was [the] obvious difficulty Nasser had in keeping chronology of events straight. In fact, at one stage he remarked that he wished he had kept [a] diary, particularly since he had handled these matters personally without advising Egyptian Foreign Office with result no record kept.47

Part of the variation in subsequent Egyptian accounts of the unity talks may result from the fact that no one save the president knew the full details of his involved discussions with the Syrians. Even if the ultimate decision was Nasser’s, he did not act without imput from his Egyptian colleagues and subordinates. A striking feature of later recollections of the unity negotiations by the former members of the Revolutionary Command Council who were still closely connected to Nasser is their virtual unanimity in asserting that virtually all of them save ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr (conveniently “suicided” in 1967 and thus unable to speak for himself) either had serious reservations about, or actively counseled against, immediate Egyptian-Syrian unity.48 Similar disclaimers are made for official agencies reporting to Nasser. A Foreign Ministry study group that had been established earlier to examine the question of unity is reported to have recommended gradual, step-by-step measures toward Arab unification rather than immediate unity.49 The Egyptian security service’s evaluation of the prospects for Egyptian-Syrian unity is similarly

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recalled as having emphasized the differences between the two countries that would only make unity a risky proposition.50 Fathi Radwan’s comment to Nasser on the eve of union captures the obvious problem that integral unity with Syria posed for Nasser and Egypt: “Tomorrow you will become president of the Syrian state. Yet you have never set foot in it [Syria], and you don’t know much about it.”51 There may be an element of “de-Nasserization” in these retrospective disclaimers of responsibility for a union that ultimately failed. Nonetheless, their consensus on the trepidition with which the sudden leap into unity was viewed probably is an accurate reflection of the views of the men around Nasser in 1958. There are also indications that Nasser himself shared his associates’ reservations about the unification of Egypt and Syria. The arguments against immediate unity expressed in his initial meetings with the Syrian military delegation, as well as the stringent requirements for the withdrawal of the Syrian army from politics and the dissolution of Syrian political parties that he eventually imposed as his conditions for accepting unity, testify to an awareness of the many problems posed by unity.52 Nasser voiced much the same concerns outside the negotiations with the Syrians, telling Sayyid Mar‘i while unity discussions were under way that unity with Syria would be both a financial burden for Egypt and a complication likely to create additional problems for Egypt in the international arena.53 His mood subsequent to accepting union was more resigned than ebullient; he told Fathi Radwan that Syrian pressure had forced him to accede to immediate union even though he shared Radwan’s own skepticism about the prospects for the new state,54 and he justified the agreement on union to his civilian cabinet as something forced on him by circumstances.55 Nasser was equally dour in his postunion conversations with Ambassador Hare, who reported Nasser’s telling him that he “realizes it’s going to be very difficult because of [the] degree to which Syrian Army has become enmeshed in political developments. He believes he can handle [it] but it will be rough going.”56 In view of these reservations about the wisdom of immediate and complete Egyptian-Syrian unity, why did Nasser accede to it in 1958? The available materials suggest two overlapping sets of reasons. The factors given greatest weight in contemporary explanations of the union related to the internal situation in Syria, specifically the political turmoil and drift to the left the country was undergoing and the concomitant threat of the possibility of civil strife and/or communist domination. Already in late 1957, Nasser was voicing a fear of the possibility of leftist

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ascendancy in Syria in his discussions with Western diplomats.57 The same theme of Egypt’s acting “to save Syria from Communism” was reiterated by foreign diplomats to Western officials while the negotiations over union were under way.58 This was also the interpretation favored by King Husayn of Jordan, who attributed the union to Ba‘thist appeals to Nasser that union was the only way to avert communist ascendancy in Syria.59 Immediately after the union, the explanations of his decision that Nasser offered to foreign audiences stressed the same themes. According to one account given to a foreign visitor, “the reason for the union between Syria and Egypt was that President Kuwatly’s orders were not being obeyed, Hourani was losing control of the Baath and the Syrian Army was getting out of hand.”60 Nasser gave a more elaborate version of the same set of causes to Ambassador Hare in February 1958: By this time [mid-January 1958] there was no real government in Syria. Kuwatly [had] resigned five times. Azm had made alliance with Communists and was planning organized new party which would probably have been [some] sort of Communist front. Collapse was imminent. Syrian conservatives and businessmen also came to say union [was] necessary to save Syria from Communists. “Only the name of Nasser could save the situation” (this stated factually rather than arrogantly).61

There are difficulties in accepting the explanation given by Nasser and other Egyptian spokesmen to Western diplomats as the whole story behind the union. In particular, the theme of imminent communist domination of Syria was an obvious reason to offer the Western powers in the late 1950s, at the height of Western obsession with the menace of communism. That Egypt was concerned with political disarray in Syria and the growth of communist influence cannot be totally disregarded; such concern is also mentioned in Egyptian and other Arab accounts of the sequence of events leading to union.62 Internal Syrian conditions may not have constituted the most important operative factor prompting Egypt to take the drastic step of agreeing to full union in 1958. The main emphasis in later Egyptian accounts of the union is that the position of Arab leadership Nasser assumed after 1955, combined with the unparalleled influence Egypt had built up in Syria over the same period, left Egypt with little option but to accept some form of unity with Syria when the Syrians themselves pressed the issue in 1958. ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi’s memoirs indicate the unenviable situation in which Nasser found himself once the Syrians had made their dramatic plea for immediate unity. Despite his awareness

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of the difficulties that union portended, to have the Syrian officers return home and announce that Nasser had rejected unity was a position in which Nasser, as preeminent Arab leader, simply could not afford to be placed.63 As Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal put it, given his claims to Arab leadership Nasser “understood from the first moment [the Syrians approached him] that circumstances compelled him to accept some sort of unity.”64 ‘Ali Sabri’s pithy comment to Fathi Radwan during the unity negotiations captured the dilemma in which Egypt now found itself: “They’ve placed us in a bind.”65 Nasser later justified his decision to Ambassador Hare in almost fatalistic terms: “he had taken [the] plunge because there was no alternative.”66 The UAR was not created in a vacuum; Egyptian hesitance about integral unity notwithstanding, the pan-Arabist atmosphere of the later 1950s created a powerful stimulus that Nasser in particular found impossible to ignore. Once the decision for unity was made, both the disturbed internal situation in Syria and Nasser’s own inclinations for control dictated that he would demand a tight, centralized union rather than a federal agreement. Federalism would not solve the Syrian problem, but would only allow Syria’s fractious political parties to continue the feuding that had generated the need for union. This was a prospect which Nasser’s autocratic nature could not entertain. As Baghdadi explained Nasser’s reasoning, “unity [wahda] would give him the power to dominate affairs there in a way that would not be realized by a mere federal union [ittihad].”67 While Nasser acceeded to Syrian pleas for complete union, he did so on his own terms, insisting upon a form of unification in which “he could gather all the threads of the new state in his own hands and under his leadership.”68 * * * The substantive requirements that Nasser specified as his prerequisites for agreeing to unification (the withdrawal of the Syrian military from politics and the dissolution of existing Syrian political parties) swung the focus of the discussions about union back to the Syrians. It was by no means a foregone conclusion that the various political forces on the Syrian political scene would agree to Nasser’s conditions. The representatives of the key force in the military, the Military Command Council, did so immediately.69 There was more hesitation among Syria’s civilian politicians. Both President Quwatli and Prime Minister ‘Asali had been dismayed by the council’s unilateral decision to go to Cairo to seek unity with Egypt. Quwatli had wished to declare the move

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unconstitutional, but was dissuaded by ‘Asali’s argument that the state of Syrian public opinion gave the government no option but to go along with the officers’ initiative.70 Even as the negotiations between Nasser and the Syrian representatives were in progress, the political forces whose competition had set off the pell-mell rush to union were having second thoughts. A Communist Party pamphlet of mid-January backed away from complete union, advocating a federal tie that would take account of the “peculiar conditions prevailing in each of the two countries.”71 A few days later, an editorial in the Ba‘th Party newpaper entitled “Let Us Start with Union [ittihad] First” argued for a unity of policy between Egypt and Syria but only a gradual implementation of measures leading to institutional unification.72 Foreign Minister Bitar’s return from Cairo on January 21, 1958, with a draft agreement proposing the integral union of Egypt and Syria under a centralized government, which would clearly be dominated by Nasser, set off several days of intense debate among Syria’s political and military leadership.73 Opposition to the draft proposal for the complete merger of the governments of the two countries was led by Minister of Defense Khalid al-‘Azm, who argued against agreeing to the abolition of Syrian political parties and warned that Syria was consenting to dictatorship in place of representative government.74 The debate resulted in the drafting of a Syrian counterproposal that would have allowed for the retention of separate political institutions in the two halves of the new country. Bitar is reported to have returned to Cairo on January 25 with the Syrian alternative, only to find Nasser adamant about complete unity and his own control over the institutions of state.75 By late January Syria’s politicians found themselves in a trap of their own making. The Military Command Council, by now the arbiter of Syrian political life, supported Nasser’s demand for complete unity and was willing to accept the conditions he was imposing.76 In the interim the Egyptian Embassy had used its considerable resources to muster popular support for unity.77 Impelled by their fear of the chaos into which Syria appeared to be sliding and their desire to see the left and the military brought under control, even conservative parties were reported to be supporting integral unity by late January.78 In the face of these pressures, the Syrian government had little choice but to accept Nasser’s terms. It finally did so on January 29.79 Whether one characterizes the formation of the UAR in 1958 as “the unintended product of a series of blunders by Syria’s top political leadership” and as “simply a mistake” (as Malik Mufti sees it), or views it as the reluctant but conscious acceptance of an option that, while not the preferred choice of

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federal union, was nonetheless better than the intolerable Syrian status quo (as does Elie Podeh), it is clear that the involved negotiations of January 1958 resulted in the creation of a new political entity quite different from what Syrians had envisaged when they initiated the process of negotiation with Egypt.80 * * * On January 31 a Syrian delegation composed of President Shukri alQuwatli, most of the cabinet, and Chief of Staff Bizri flew to Cairo to finalize the union. At a meeting with high Egyptian officials at Qubba Palace the following day, the leaders of the two countries officially signed the declaration announcing “their unanimous agreement on the adoption of a presidential democratic system of government for the United Arab Republic.”81 The proclamation also specified that their decision for unity would be placed before the Syrian and Egyptian parliaments for ratification and that parallel plebicites would be held to seek popular approval of union and select the president of the new state. On February 5, Quwatli and Nasser went before their respective national legislatures to seek parliamentary approval for the merger of Syria and Egypt. As might be expected, both legislative bodies immediately endorsed the decision for unity.82 On February 21, popular plebicites were held in both Syria and Egypt to vote on the union and to select a president. There was little surprise in either result: over 99.9 percent of the vote in both countries was reported to have approved the union and the designation of Nasser as president of the new United Arab Republic.83 Fully aware of the historic nature of the occasion, Nasser used his address of February 5 before the Egyptian National Assembly as an opportunity to review the impulses that had led to the unity of Egypt with Syria. The emphasis of much of his historical overview was the unifying force of external threats: the Crusaders, “Ottoman invasion,” and Western imperialism in the past, and more recently “the struggle against military pacts” and the battle against aggression at Suez.84 The substantive portion of the address outlined the unitary and centralized nature of the state that was about to come into existence: executive authority to be vested in the president of the state; a single national assembly, initially to be appointed by the president and with half of its members initially coming from each of the existing Syrian and Egyptian assemblies; and an appointed executive council to manage the day-to-day affairs of each region of the republic.85 Nasser’s peroration began on a sober note,

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warning his audience that “the road ahead of us is long and difficult.”86 He ended more optimistically, characterizing the state the National Assembly was about to agree to create as “a new hope looming on the horizon of this East” and pledging that it would be a nonagggressive, peaceloving, just, and positive addition to the international community.87 Perhaps Nasser should have been more cautious about the prospects for the UAR when he went before the National Assembly. Well aware of the pitfalls of institutional unity, he had accepted the same in 1958 largely because his position as Arab leader left him little alternative but to act to save Syria from itself once he was importuned by the Syrians to do so. Privately he was far from sanguine about the future. To U.S. Ambassador Hare he characterized the task ahead of him as “a big headache, because we’re not set for it. We have to do it but it’ll be a big headache.”88 As they met to formalize the details of unity, Syria’s President Shukri al-Quwatli is reported to have cautioned Nasser about the magnitude of the task he had undertaken: You don’t know what you’re getting into, Mr. President. You have taken a people all of whom consider themselves politicians, fifty percent of whom think that they are leaders, twenty-five percent of whom think that they are prophets, and at least ten percent of whom consider that they are divine.

Nasser’s response indicated an awareness of the difficult road ahead: “Why didn’t you tell me this before I signed the agreement?”89

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6 Experiment in Unity: The United Arab Republic in Operation

The UAR Takes Shape: “It’s Going to Be a Big Headache”1 The agreement announcing the birth of the United Arab Republic of January 1958 had defined the new entity’s political character as “a presidential democratic system of government.”2 The UAR’s provisional constitution of March 5, 1958, spelled out the details of the presidential model.3 The constitution gave Nasser effective control of decisionmaking and administration. Among his powers were the perogative of appointing his vice-presidents and ministers of state, the power to issue laws when the national assembly was not in session, and command of the armed forces. The constitution also provided for a national assembly, but it left the manner of selecting its members to the discretion of the president. Since it was more than two years before an assembly was created, Nasser’s leadership of the union was not significantly constrained by a legislative branch. The constitution also specified Cairo as the seat of government. How to govern a state composed of two distinct geographical regions was a problem never fully resolved in the three-and-a-half-year history of the UAR. The initial governmental structure announced on March 6, 1958, combined a central cabinet consisting of several ministries with jurisdiction over both regions (e.g., foreign affairs, defense, education, national guidance) with two regional cabinets composed of a larger number of ministries with jurisdiction over specific areas of life within Egypt and Syria respectively (e.g., interior, finance, justice, agriculture). Four vice-presidents—‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr and ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi from Egypt, Sabri al-‘Asali and Akram al-Hawrani from 115

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Syria—were appointed to assist the president. Of the thirty-four ministers in the central and two regional cabinets appointed in March 1958, twenty were Egyptians and fourteen were Syrians.4 The considerable formal role given to Syrians in the government of the UAR was deceptive. In forming the UAR’s first government, Nasser rejected the requests of Ba‘th Party leaders for the formation of a joint leadership council in which Syrians would participate or, alternatively, for entrusting Syrians with key ministries such as foreign affairs and defense.5 While the government announced in March included two Syrian vice-presidents and one Syrian in the central cabinet (the Ba‘thist Salah al-Din Bitar as minister of state for Arab affairs), it was clear that the main levers of power in the government of the UAR were retained by the president and his trusted Egyptian subordinates. A major shakeup in the leadership and cabinet system occurred in October 1958. One Syrian vice-president, Sabri al-‘Asali, was compelled to resign when embarrassed by Iraqi revelations concerning his prior involvement in negotiations for a Iraqi-Syrian union.6 A restructuring of the cabinet system was announced on October 7, 1958. The central cabinet established in March had contained only eight ministries, but was now enlarged to twenty-one ministries, with most areas of life in both regions of the UAR coming under the overall jurisdiction of a member of the central cabinet. Fourteen ministers in the enlarged central cabinet were Egyptians, and seven were Syrians. Beneath the central cabinet two regional cabinets managing day-to-day affairs in Egypt and Syria were also created; their ministers operated under the supervision of the relevant minister in the central cabinet.7 The aim of the reorganization was twofold: on the one hand, to foster a greater sense of Syrian participation in the regime by placing Syrians in charge of ministries responsible for the affairs of both regions of the state; on the other, to centralize the decisionmaking process by bringing most areas of activity under the direct control of the central government rather than having parallel regional authorities administering different policies in each of the two regions of the UAR.8 The first goal appears to have been necessitated in part by increasing discontent prompted by recent economic difficulties in the Syrian region, as well as by the rivalry developing between the UAR and revolutionary Iraq and the concomitant need to counter possible Syrian susceptibility to Iraqi anti-Nasserist propaganda that could subvert the union.9 This system of a central cabinet responsible for overall policymaking and regional cabinets handling day-by-day administration remained in place until August 1961.

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* * * Parallel to the evolution of an executive structure for the UAR was the process of bringing Syria’s fractious political culture under the control of the new regime. Nasser’s primary conditions for assenting to union in January 1958 had been the dissolution of Syrian political parties and the withdrawal of the Syrian army from political life. Both conditions were substantially fulfilled over the course of 1958. In the flush of enthusiasm over union most of Syria’s existing political parties announced their voluntary dissolution. Political parties were officially abolished by state decree at the time of the formation of the UAR’s first government in mid-March 1958.10 Yet the formal abolition of parties could not totally stifle Syrian political life. Both Arab and Western sources report that the organizational structure of some parties remained in being even after the formal suspension of activity and that activist members continued to meet.11 The Syrian Communist Party and those assumed sympathetic to it were effectively marginalized or repressed over the course of 1958. The left-leaning Khalid al-‘Azm, the main cabinet opponent of the union in January 1958, retired from politics upon the formation of the UAR.12 Despite his leading role in bringing about the union, former Chief of Staff ‘Afif al-Bizri, briefly appointed commander of the First (Syrian) Army, was forced to resign in March 1958 after a clash with Nasser over Bizri’s attempt to appoint his supporters to key posts in the military.13 The Syrian Communist Party’s leader, Khalid Bakdash, had spoken against accepting Nasser’s conditions for union, particularly the demand for the abolition of political parties, during the Chamber of Deputies’ consideration of union in January; he left Syria to go abroad upon the approval of the February referendum for uniting.14 The Communist Party remained relatively inactive for the first several months after the formation of the union, but when tension developed between the UAR and the communist-influenced new regime in Iraq in the fall of 1958, it became more vocal. Bakdash returned to Syria in October, and the party’s journal Al-Nur began to express cautious criticism of Syria’s treatment in the UAR.15 By December, when UAR-Iraqi rivalry accelerated and when Bakdash publicly called for the restoration of a separate Syrian government in federation with Egypt, Nasser moved decisively against the Syrian Communists. His Victory Day speech of December 23 denounced local Communists as foreign-inspired opponents of Arab nationalism, Al-Nur was closed down, and hundreds of

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Communists in both Syria and Egypt were arrested.16 The regime’s assault on the Syrian left extended to the military, where several officers suspected of communist ties were purged from the army.17 As a result of these actions, the Syrian Communist Party was not a major factor in the politics of the UAR after 1958. The relationship between Nasser and the Ba‘th Party was more ambivalent. Unlike the Communists, Ba‘th members were enthusiastic public supporters of the UAR. The Syrian branch of the party had rushed to dissolve itself immediately after the February plebicites that approved union.18 Ideologically, Ba‘thists saw the union as progress toward the realization of their pan-Arabist vision; politically, Ba‘th leaders anticipated a prominent place for themselves in the new regime. Michel ‘Aflaq later summarized the Ba‘th expectations of early 1958: We hoped that the party would have a basic and responsible share in the governing of the new nation which we helped to create. We hoped our role would be both practical and theoretical since it was we who began preaching Socialist ideas at least fifteen years before Nasser assumed power.19

They were soon disabused of these assumptions. As noted earlier, Ba‘th approaches to Nasser that Syrians, with themselves at the fore, be involved in determining state policy at the highest level were rejected. Save for Vice-President Akram al-Hawrani, whom Nasser viewed as the most effective Ba‘th leader and whom he initially entrusted with supervisory power over administration, the Ba‘thist appointees to the initial UAR government set up in March had little or only regional authority.20 By July, even Hawrani was reported to be dissatisfied with his role and to have complained to Nasser about his marginalization.21 Two months later, an Egyptian source claimed that Hawrani was attempting to arrange a rapprochement between the Ba‘th and the Syrian Communists.22 Ba‘thist discontent was somewhat assuaged by the government reorganization of October, which gave Hawrani and Bitar ministerial positions in the expanded central cabinet, and in which Nasser relied on Hawrani’s advice in appointments to the Syrian regional cabinet.23 But this was still not what the Ba‘th leaders had expected of union. * * * The creation of the UAR out of two different states with separate and significantly different political histories, government traditions, and economic structures presented the new regime with formidable problems of

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integration. In the administrative sphere, the Syrian ministries of defense and foreign affairs were rapidly merged with their Egyptian counterparts. A limited number of Egyptian advisors were assigned to the remaining civilian ministries in Syria, which remained largely autonomous until October 1958. The government reorganization of that month, which reduced the status of the regional cabinets to administrative rather than policymaking bodies, centralized authority in Cairo and increased the central government’s responsibility for policymaking in both regions of the UAR.24 For a regime whose leaders came from a military background the crucial levers of power were the military and the security services. The Syrian military was only partly integrated with Egypt’s armed forces. All UAR armed forces under the union came under the overall direction of an Egyptian, Marshal ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr. Existing Syrian commands now reported directly to armed forces headquarters in Cairo. Former Chief of Staff ‘Afif al-Bizri, though initially appointed commander of the First (Syrian) Army of the UAR, was soon forced out and replaced by Jamal Faysal, an officer who had previously served as Syrian military attaché in Egypt. Further repostings and retirements in early 1958 restricted the influence of other Syrian officers suspected of leftist sympathies.25 Another technique of control was promotion and reassignment outside Syria; in the government reorganization of October 1958 the leaders of one faction in the army, Amin al-Nafuri and Ahmad ‘Abd al-Karim, were relieved of their military responsibilities and posted to Cairo as ministers in the central cabinet.26 Egyptian officers assumed key positions in the newly redesignated First Army of the UAR, with Brig. Gen. ‘Abd al-Muhsin Abu al-Nur as deputy commander under Maj. Gen. Faysal and Brig. Gen. Anwar alQadi as chief of staff. The four bureaus of the First Army (G-1 through G-4) were placed under the direct control of Abu al-Nur, with an Egyptian officer directing the operations division (G-1).27 In September, 1958, an Egyptian source reported that approximately 200 Egyptian officers had been assigned to positions in the First Army; his optimistic assessment was that “the situation in the army was thoroughly under control.”28 A U.S. intelligence estimate concluded that the process of placing Egyptian officers in crucial posts in the former Syrian Army was substantially completed by the end of 1958.29 The Syrian security services were more thoroughly integrated with their Egyptian counterparts. Syrian military intelligence (Deuxième Bureau) was subordinated to the Egyptian Directorate of General Intelligence and had its previously extensive jurisdiction restricted to military

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affairs. The civilian Department of General Security (the Mukhabarat) became a branch of the Egyptian security agency and was placed under the control of the Ministry of the Interior of the Syrian region. A new bureau, the Special Office (al-Maktab al-Khass), was established within the Interior Ministry to focus on domestic counterintelligence and foreign operations.30 The key security figure in the Syrian region was the former head of the Deuxième Bureau, Col. ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj, a Nasser partisan whom the Egyptian leader in mid-1958 termed “the only man [in Syria] he could trust.”31 Appointed to the key post of minister of the interior in the Syrian regional cabinet in March and kept in the same post upon the reorganization of October, Sarraj was Nasser’s policeman (“with a policeman’s mentality,” according to an Egyptian source) in Syria for almost the whole duration of the union.32 His heavy-handed security measures eventually earned him the sobriquet “Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid,” a reference to the Ottoman despot of the late nineteenth century.33 * * * The economic integration of Syria and Egypt presented an equally imposing challenge to the new regime. Upon union in 1958 the economic structures of the two regions of the UAR were quite different. Even though both were still primarily agricultural countries, Syria’s extensive rain-fed agriculture was spread over much of the country, while Egypt’s irrigation-dependent intensive cultivation was packed into the small agricultural area created by the Nile. Since 1952, Egypt had undergone a significant agrarian reform that had broken the economic as well as the political power of its large landlords; in Syria the landed elite remained economically dominant and, until challenged but not yet eliminated by the recent rise of the Syrian left, politically powerful. In the wake of the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Egyptian government had nationalized much of the previously foreign-dominated commercial sector of the Egyptian economy, setting in motion a process of state domination of the urban economy that as yet had no parallel in Syria’s privately owned and directed economy. The financial and monetary regimes of the two regions were distinct; where commerce, foreign trade, and currency exchange in Egypt were gradually coming under government control and restriction, Syria’s was still a largely unregulated economic system open to the outside through its Lebanese window on the world. Trade between the two countries was limited, both being largely agricultural countries in which

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cotton was the main export. With its smaller population and more diversified portfolio of resources, Syria’s economic prospects in 1958 were considerably brighter than those of overpopulated and resourcepoor Egypt. Many of the disparities between the two parts of the UAR were initially left untouched. At first the Egyptian and Syrian regions of the UAR retained separate currencies and state budgets, the central banks of the two areas also remaining independent of each other. Whereas existing customs barriers between Egypt and Syria were largely eliminated, the enactment of higher tariff duties on luxury imports in line with current Egyptian practice meant higher prices for consumer goods in Syria.34 At first, the commercial sector of the Syrian economy was left with considerably more freedom from regulation than its Egyptian counterpart. Although a central Ministry of Industry was in place from March 1958, only in the government reorganization of October were most of the ministries concerned with economic affairs (finance, economy, communications, supply, public works, rural affairs, and agriculture and land reform) united and placed under the authority of central ministers based in Cairo.35 The new regime’s first significant attempt to alter the nature of Syria’s economy and society came in September 1958, when an agrarian reform law was announced. As the details of possible agrarian reform in Syria were being mooted earlier in the year, Syrian landlords cautioned against the application in Syria, where the land-population ratio was more favorable, of an agrarian reform model designed for land-poor Egypt.36 Apparently acting on the conviction that the two regions of the UAR could not be treated differently in a sphere as central as land distribution, Nasser went ahead with an agrarian reform law similar in principle to that previously introduced in Egypt.37 While more liberal in terms of the allowable size of private estates than the law in place in Egypt (the Syrian size limits on estates were 300 hectares of unirrigated land or 80 hectares of irrigated land), the law nonetheless would have affected approximately 60 percent of the currently cultivated land in Syria. Its application was placed in the hands of Syrian Executive Council’s minister of agriculture and land reform, the Ba‘thist Mustafa Hamdun, who proceeded to move to implement its provisions “with vigor.”38 Two additional reform measures of late 1958— the promulgation of an agricultural labor law providing a minimum share of the crop for tenants and limiting their working hours, and the abolition of a separate legal regime for tribal areas that had served to perpetuate the position of tribal leaders—signaled the regime’s radical-reformist inclinations in the agricultural sphere.

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All together, the new initiatives undertaken by the fall of 1958—the more centralized governmental structure introduced in October; tighter controls on foreign trade, land reform, and a new labor law—as well as statements by regime spokesmen that further such measures of economic integration as currency unification were projected for the future, contributed to a growing apprehension among the Syrian middle and upper classes.39 Delegations of Syrian landowners and businessmen traveled to Cairo in October and December 1958 in attempts to meet with Nasser and persuade him that the recent economic initiatives undertaken by the regime were unsuitable for the Syrian region of the UAR. Their arguments failed to produce any significant change in policy.40 Disillusionment with the union by late 1958 appears to have been greatest in the Aleppo region, a heavily agricultural area with extensive commercial connections with neighboring Iraq. U.S. consular reports from the city indicate, as 1958 progressed, the steady growth of uneasiness among conservative and propertied interests over the ill effects of the union. A dispatch of September commented on the Aleppo establishment’s displeasure with the new agricultural labor law and its provisions for the protection of peasant cultivators.41 The subsequent promulgation of the agrarian reform law, with its limits on landholding, was reported to have further “deepened the gloom among members of Aleppo’s large and once influential conservative class, which had already been badly shaken by the current economic crisis and previous government measures in the economic and social field.”42 By November, the U.S. Consulate in Aleppo was reporting that “criticism of the regime amongst conservative elements in Aleppo continues to grow in intensity and bitterness,”43 and offered the overall assessment that “deep discontent certainly exists in this area of Syria.”44 Resentment over the radical policies of the unionist regime appears not to have been as deep in other parts of Syria. As a November 1958 dispatch from the U.S. Consulate in Damascus noted, “the population of Aleppo is generally less sympathetic to the present regime than is the population of Damascus.”45 Nor is there any indication that apprehension over the direction of regime policies was as yet a threat to the UAR. The same reports indicating middle- and upper-class discontent by late 1958 also went on to note that “there is no evidence to support the view that a change of regime might begin from within in the near future,”46 or that there was “little prospect at this point of any positive action amounting to ‘blow up’ in this area.”47 The union’s appeal may have faded for some Syrians by the end of 1958; but frustration with policy had not yet developed into any movement of organized opposition to the UAR.

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The Dilemmas of Union: “We Can’t Work with These People”48 It was well into 1959 before the regime undertook the task of establishing a new organization for popular mobilization in the UAR. The Egyptian government had begun to create a new single-party movement, the National Union, in Egypt in 1957. Efforts to institutionalize the National Union in the Egyptian region of the UAR occurred fitfully during 1958 and the task was far from complete at year’s end.49 Only in May 1959, did Nasser promulgate a decree calling for the election of representatives to the National Union in both regions of the UAR. Several stages of election and levels of organization were envisaged: first elections to select the members of local National Union committees, and then the election of provincial National Union councils in all provinces of the UAR, eventually the convening of a policymaking General Congress for the union from the members of its provincial councils.50 The decision to forge ahead with the formation of the National Union in mid-1959 may have been influenced in part by the growing tension between Iraq and the UAR and the parallel need to respond to Syrian desires for some form of political participation as a way of countering the lure of an Iraqi orientation among some Syrians.51 The local and provincial elections for the National Union occurred in July and November 1959. The local committee elections of July in the Syrian region were evaluated as “reasonably honest” by one foreign observer.52 Individuals previously associated with Syria’s conservative parties and independents with a power base in local communities did best.53 The same trend continued in the November elections for the union’s provincial councils; a mixture of independents, people previously associated with the National Party and People’s Party, and Muslim Brotherhood members won in Damascus, while conservative notables dominated in Aleppo.54 The National Union elections of 1959 marked a de facto rapprochement between the regime and the more conservative elements in Syrian political life, paralleling Nasser’s external rapprochement with conservative Arab regimes in the face of the Iraqi challenge to Egyptian leadership of Arab nationalism in 1959.55 Slow to emerge, the National Union never assumed a significant place in the political structure of the UAR. Parallel regional congresses of the union met in Cairo and Damascus in June 1960. Only in July 1960, nearly two and a half years after the formation of the UAR, did the organization’s General Congress convene in Cairo. Of its over 2,000 delegates, two-thirds were from Egypt and the remainder from Syria. After a week of committee deliberations, some 500 resolutions largely endorsing the

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government’s policies were adopted. As one diplomat observed, most of these “could easily have been drafted before the Congress began.”56 The National Union’s General Congress did not meet again before the dissolution of the UAR in September 1961. Although the formal government structure created in October 1958— a central cabinet in Cairo and two subordinate regional cabinets to handle day-to-day administration in Egypt and Syria respectively—remained unchanged, the regime did tinker with its administrative arrangements for the Syrian region in the 1959–1960 period. Apparently responding to recent Syrian expressions of dissatisfaction with the regime’s political and economic initiatives undertaken in the fall of 1958, in December 1958 Nasser announced the establishment of a “Higher Ministerial Committee” composed of Akram al-Hawrani, ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, and Zakariya Muhi al-Din to consider the inauguration of economic development projects and measures aimed at integrating the Egyptian and Syrian regions. After two weeks of examining the state of the Syrian economy in January 1959, the committee recommended several proposals for economic development initiatives in the Northern Region of the UAR. Bereft of executive authority, the committee’s role substantially ended with these recommendations of early 1959.57 A more sustained attempt to cut through administrative roadblocks occurred in October 1959, when Nasser placed overall authority for the supervision of the Syrian region of the UAR in the hands of Marshal ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr. ‘Amr’s appointment was prompted by both political and administrative considerations. Politically, rumors of unrest in the First Army prompted by personnel shifts, as well as the anticipation of external efforts to subvert the union by Iraq, necessitated the designation of a high-level official who could act quickly and with undisputed authority to address Syrian grievances.58 Administratively, the appointment was credited to the desire to provide effective leadership for the implementation of the National Union scheme and proposed development projects in the Syrian region, both of which were hindered by the lack of on-the-spot direction and by the need to refer major decisions to Cairo.59 Nasser’s own explanation of the appointment presented it as an effort “chiefly to get things moving with regard to the economic development plans, which had remained too much on paper.”60 ‘Amr’s powers included the overall execution of central government policies in the Syrian region, responsibility for further efforts to institutionalize the National Union in Syria, and the supervision of the Syrian regional cabinet, whose members henceforth reported to him rather than to the relevant central cabinet minister in Cairo.61 As one

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commentator put it, ‘Amr in effect had become “Viceroy of Syria.”62 In an effort to sweeten the pill of the appointment of an Egyptian to exercise executive power in Syria, a simultaneous decree augmented the formal authority of ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj by transferring the Ministry of National Guidance in Syria to Sarraj’s jurisdiction.63 ‘Amr initially turned his attention to moderating some of the economic policies that by generating Syrian discontent had necessitated his appointment in the first place. As a sop to consumers, tariffs on some luxury imports were lightened.64 More substantial were his actions in the area of agrarian reform. ‘Amr immediately moderated the punitive character of agrarian reform through an order providing government assistance in debt payment by landlords. He also assumed direct control of the implementation of the process of agrarian reform in the Syrian region, in effect bypassing the authority of the Ba‘thist minister of agrarian reform, Mustafa Hamdun, whose zealous pursuit of land redistribution had generated numerous Syrian complaints.65 At least initially, these measures appear to have had the desired effect. A report of January 1960 credited them with producing “an accretion of popularity and prestige to the Egyptians” in Syria.66 A subsequent assessment in May concluded that ‘Amr had “created a good impression” in Syria both by his economic measures and by his attention to Syrian grievances against heavy-handed administrative practices.67 Marshal ‘Amr’s impact on the political dynamics of the UAR was more ambiguous. His appointment exacerbated two parallel political contests within the power structure of the UAR. The first to be resolved was that between the regime and the Ba‘th. The high hopes of Ba‘th leaders for an effective leadership role in the UAR had not materialized in 1958. Already disaffected because “they had not been given the degree of real influence in the UAR regime to which they considered themselves entitled,”68 the frustration of Ba‘th leaders increased through 1959. In the run-up to the first-stage National Union elections in July, the Ba‘thist press complained bitterly about anti-Ba‘th collusion on the part of “reactionaries” and a lack of support for Ba‘th candidates from the Ministry of the Interior.69 Numerous Ba‘th candidates withdrew their names in protest against regime favoritism for their opponents, a maneuver that backfired. In the elections themselves the Ba‘th did miserably, less than 2 percent of those elected to the local National Union committees being Ba‘th supporters.70 Later in the summer, the withdrawal of its government subsidy compelled the Ba‘thist journal AlJamahir (The Masses) to cease publication, and control of the Syrian Broadcasting Station was taken away from the Ba‘thist minister of culture

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and national guidance for the Syrian region, Riyad al-Malki.71 A month later, Malki was summarily dismissed from his post by Nasser.72 By the autumn of 1959 the highest Ba‘th official in the regime, Akram alHawrani, was rumored to be boycotting official government functions and to be considering resigning his post as vice-president of the UAR.73 Ba‘th disillusionment with its limited influence in the regime came to a head at the end of 1959. In addition to long-standing frustration with its lack of real power or weight in the government, the Ba‘th’s final break with the regime was prompted by several specific policy differences with Nasser that had developed in the course of 1959. ‘Amr’s appointment clearly increased the Ba‘th’s marginalization in the UAR; one knowledgeable source reports that Ba‘thist ministers considered resignation immediately after announcement of the appointment, only to draw back at the last moment.74 Several of ‘Amr’s initial actions, particularly his assumption of direct control over agrarian reform in response to landlord complaints against the stern implementation of the process by Mustafa Hamdun, alienated the more ideological Ba‘thists and was taken as a personal affront by Hamdun.75 Serious policy differences between the Ba‘th and Nasser had also emerged in the realm of foreign policy. In a stormy cabinet debate in December, Nasser had rejected Ba‘th demands for a vigorous military response by the UAR to recently announced Israeli plans to divert Jordan River waters for Israeli use.76 The ideologically Arabist Ba‘th leaders were frustrated with Nasser’s recent rapprochement with conservative Arab regimes and his concomitant rejection of Ba‘th suggestions for a more vigorous Arab nationalist foreign policy.77 The last straw for the Ba‘th Party may have been a speech by Nasser of December 1959 criticizing the party’s positions in foreign and domestic affairs.78 On December 23–24, 1959, Vice-President and central cabinet Minister of Justice Akram al-Hawrani, central cabinet Minister of National Guidance Salah al-Din Bitar, and Syrian regional cabinet members Mustafa Hamdun (Agriculture and Agrarian Reform) and ‘Abd al-Ghani Qannut (Social Affairs and Labor), all former members of the Syrian branch of the Ba‘th Party, offered their resignations to Nasser. The resignations were publicly accepted at the end of December.79 A fifth former Ba‘thist then serving on the Syrian Executive Council, Minister of Economy Khalil al-Kallas, resigned his position in January 1960.80 Further resignations from the central cabinet of the UAR later in 1960 by Syrian ministers sympathetic to the Ba‘th reduced the Syrian presence in the official decisionmaking body of the union to three, all “political nonentities,” by August 1960.81 This lack of Syrian participation in the

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central cabinet was formally corrected a month later, when five Syrians were appointed to ministerial posts.82 The ratio of roughly two Egyptian members of the central cabinet to each Syrian one was maintained until the summer of 1961, when a radical restructuring of the central government of the UAR took place. With the resignations of December 1959 through January 1960 the Ba‘th passed into opposition to the unionist regime. Although the Syrian branch of the party was not reconstituted prior to the breakup of the UAR, from the safe haven of Beirut the Ba‘thist press criticized the UAR’s lack of democracy and called for genuine mass participation in politics. Internal party publications were more forthright, attacking the regime as “a personal one” reliant on cronyism and its security and propaganda services.83 According to Egyptian intelligence reports, some Ba‘thists debated the merits of Syrian secession from the UAR during the party’s isolation from the regime after 1959.84 Yet Ba‘th criticism of the shortcomings of the ostensibly Pan-Arabist regime in which the party had originally placed so much hope was of little moment in the 1960–1961 period. Formally dissolved in Syria and its leaders excluded from any role in the governing of the UAR, the Ba‘th Party was a voice in the wilderness. The other political contest produced by Marshal ‘Amr’s appointment was between ‘Amr and Nasser’s enforcer in the Syrian region, Minister of the Interior ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj. The leading role Sarraj had assumed in the governing of the Syrian region of the UAR was in large part dependent on Nasser’s trust in him. His prominence in governing the Syrian region was viewed with distaste by both Egyptian and Syrian rivals.85 A U.S. assessment of mid-1959 attributed his dominance in Syria to “one and only one source, namely the personal support of President Nasser.”86 Despite the fact that simultaneously placing the Ministry of National Guidance under his authority formally increased the scope of Sarraj’s power, ‘Amr’s appointment as “viceroy” in October 1959 was bound to be seen as a threat to Sarraj’s control over Syrian affairs.87 The first area of conflict between the two men was the jurisdiction over organization of the National Union, which prior to October 1959 had been assigned to the Ministry of the Interior but was now placed under ‘Amr’s control. Within a few months rumors of a clash between the two were circulating; an abrupt visit to Cairo by ‘Amr in mid-December was interpreted as an effort to consult with Nasser about how to deal with Sarraj.88 Conflict over the National Union was papered over by the end of the year through the appointment of a high-level committee that included Sarraj and one of his supporters

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to supervise further steps in the development of the National Union in Syria.89 As ‘Amr and his Egyptian staff encroached on administrative turf previously controlled by Sarraj, reports of rivalry between Nasser’s two primary agents in governing the Syrian region of the UAR continued until well into 1960.90 Disagreement between the two in May of that year is reported to have necessitated another trip by ‘Amr to Cairo to seek Nasser’s help in resolving their differences.91 In August a Sarraj visit to Cairo led to rumors that he might be detained in Egypt; these proved to be wrong.92 Despite the reports of festering ‘Amr-Sarraj tension, the latter appears to have been too valuable an agent of Nasserist control over the Syrian region to be discarded. Due to his more intimate knowledge of local affairs, effective control of National Union cadre appointments in Syria in 1960 remained in Sarraj’s hands.93 A U.S. intelligence assessment of March 1960 concluded that ‘Amr’s appointment had “not noticeably affected Sarraj’s shadowy empire.”94 When the membership of the National Assembly of the UAR was at last selected in the summer of 1960, it was again Sarraj who played the predominant role in the selection of its Syrian component.95 After several months of rivalry between himself and Sarraj, ‘Amr in effect conceded the field. The marshal returned to Egypt in June 1960; save for short visits to the region where he officially held executive authority, he remained in Egypt until a new government reorganization in August 1961.96 A ministerial reshuffle in September 1960 implicitly confirmed Sarraj’s continued primacy in the governance of the Syrian region. In addition to retaining the posts of minister of the interior and national guidance, as well as the chairmanship of the Syrian branch of the National Union, he was awarded the title of minister of state and made chair of the Syrian regional cabinet.97 Only on the eve of the breakup of the UAR in the summer of 1961, when Nasser attempted a reorganization of the UAR government, was Sarraj’s position again challenged. As will be seen, the results only confirmed the importance to the continued existence of the UAR of Sarraj and the security services he supervised. * * * The broad outlines of the Egyptian effort to integrate the political and economic institutions of both parts of the UAR had been laid down in 1958. They did not change substantially during the middle years of the union. In the military sphere, the retirement or reassignment of politically inclined officers in the First Army continued. The widening rift

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between the regime and the Ba‘th Party led to a partial purge of officers of Ba‘thist inclinations in 1959. Several ranking Ba‘thists were purged from the military at the time of the National Union elections in mid1959; others were reassigned to less sensitive spots, including postings to Egypt where there was little opportunity for them to engage in subversive activity.98 One such officer was the young air force pilot and Ba‘th sympathizer Hafiz al-Asad, who was transferred to Egypt in late 1959. With a small group of like-minded Syrian officers, he soon formed a secret “military committee,” which was to be of considerable import in Syrian politics after the breakup of the UAR.99 A Syrian source estimated that “more than 800 ‘politicians’ of all stripes” had been purged from the army by mid-1959; after the Syrian secession from the UAR, a spokesman for the secessionist regime claimed that more than 1,000 commissioned officers and 3,000 noncommissioned officers had been dismissed from the First Army, and another 500 officers had been transferred to Egypt under the union.100 Parallel to the reassignment and retirement of Syrians came the stationing of Egyptian officers in Syria. The total number does not appear to have been great. In early 1960, a U.S. evaluation speculated that the number of Egyptian officers serving in Syria after two years of union was “more likely to be in the hundreds than in the thousands.”101 A later U.S. assessment to the effect that approximately 600 Egyptian officers were serving in Syria by the end of 1960, or Ahmad Hamrush’s estimate of about 850 Egyptian officers assigned to the First Army over the duration of the union, are likely closer to the mark than the subsequent Syrian claim of over 2,000 Egyptian officers posted to the Syrian region.102 Beyond their prominence in headquarters and general staff positions, Egyptians were increasingly assigned as deputy commanders of operational units, where their duties often included intelligence surveillance and where they were viewed as Egyptian spies by their Syrian colleagues.103 Two limitations to Egyptian penetration of the Syrian Army need to be emphasized. One is that only token Egyptian military forces—air force and army units totaling about a thousand men, according to a U.S. assessment of mid-1961—were stationed in Syria under the union.104 The other is that Egyptian domination did not at first extend to the unit level, the operational units of the First Army remaining largely under the command of Syrian officers with Egyptians serving only as deputy commanders.105 This only-partial-amalgamation of the armed forces of the UAR was to have decisive consequences in September 1961. In time, numerous points of friction developed between officers from the two regions of the UAR. The takeover of most of the top posts

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in the First Army by Egyptians, and the gradual assignment of Egyptians to operational units where they were assumed to be keeping tabs on their Syrian colleagues, was naturally resented.106 There were differences in such things as salaries, higher supplemental allowances for Egyptian officers serving in Syria (justified in terms of the higher cost of living in Syria) than for Syrian officers stationed in Egypt, and perquisites (like distinctive license plates to facilitate mobility given to Egyptian officers in Syria), which added to Syrian dissatisfaction.107 On the personal level, the conclusion of foreign military observers was that “Egyptians and Syrians in the First Army do not enjoy working together.”108 Allegations of corruption on the part of Egyptian staff officers serving in Syria, particularly those associated with the notoriously lenient (if not corrupt) Marshal ‘Amr, began to circulate and to reinforce Syrian military disillusionment with the union.109 All this eventually produced a serious morale problem in the First Army of the UAR. In August 1959, an otherwise unsubstantiated report from Jordan claimed that UAR authorities had recently stopped an attempt to sever the union by a group of discontented brigade commanders in the First Army.110 One of the reasons for ‘Amr’s appointment as viceroy of Syria in late 1959 was increased unrest in military units in the Syrian region.111 Whether his appointment succeeded in assuaging military discontent is doubtful. ‘Amr himself soon became the object of rumors of corruption and largely disengaged himself from direct supervision of Syrian affairs after mid-1960. Nonetheless, until late 1961, both Egyptian and foreign assessments were optimistic about the success of the regime’s measures aimed at ensuring the loyalty of the First Army. A U.S. evaluation of the situation in the First Army as of December 1960, while noting “considerable evidence of Syrian military dissatisfaction with Egyptian domination and usurpation of key positions in the First Army, and also resentment of Egyptian ‘spying’ on Syrian officers,” also reported that “there is no evidence to suggest that this dissatisfaction has crystallized into any organized plan to overthrow or modify the existing regime.”112 Another U.S. report on the UAR military in April similarly declared that successive purges “have largely sterilized the Syrian military machine of oldparty contamination” and asserted that “the conditions which facilitated the successful military coup against Shishakli—the proliferation of political factions in the army—no longer exists.”113 In July 1961, the British consul in Damascus was equally certain that the First Army had been “totally neutralized as an element in Syrian internal politics.”114

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The dramatic turn of events that occurred in September 1961 was totally unanticipated by foreign observers. * * * The administrative integration of Egypt and Syria did not progress much beyond the 1958 centralization of decisionmaking at the top. As was the case with military postings, civilian Egyptian civil service assignments to the Syrian region were complicated by Syria’s higher cost of living. Two methods were employed in posting Egyptian civilian officials to the Syrian region. Some of those sent to Syria were new hires assigned directly to Syrian bureaus and were paid Syrian wages. Bureaucrats already in the Egyptian civil service who were assigned to Syria kept their Egyptian civil service positions and salaries, but were awarded a special living allowance to compensate for Syria’s higher cost of living.115 The number of Egyptian civil servants working in administrative posts in Syria was not large. A U.S. intelligence assessment of early 1960 estimated that after two years into the union approximately thirty Egyptian bureaucrats held upper level positions in the civilian administration of the Syrian region, and put the total number of Egyptian civilian officials then in Syria at only a few hundred.116 The same report put the corresponding number of high-level Syrian officials in Egypt in early 1960 at “no more than ten.”117 Canadian estimates of the total number of Egyptians in the civilian administration in Syria two years into the union ran to several hundred.118 The number of Egyptian bureaucrats increased later in 1960; about a hundred Egyptian professionals (engineers, doctors, and judges) were assigned to Syria between March and August, with over three hundred teachers (some with previous work experience in Syria) scheduled to arrive for the opening of the 1960–1961 academic year.119 These contemporary estimates are far lower than later claims of up to 20,000 Egyptians taking up government positions in the Syrian region under the union.120 Bureaucrats from either region were not particularly pleased with having to serve in the other half of the UAR; “Egyptians dislike assignment to Syria as much as Syrians dislike assignment to Egypt.”121 Large areas of the Syrian civil service remained effectively free of Egyptian administrative control. By early 1960, of all civilian ministries only the UAR’s diplomatic service was fully integrated. The Syrian region Ministry of the Interior under Sarraj remained in Syrian hands; the

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administration and staffing of local government in Syria had not been altered by the union.122 The complex issue of legal integration was being addressed by joint Egyptian-Syrian committees in 1959 and 1960, but was postponed indefinitely in mid-1960.123 The same, inevitable points of friction and sources of resentment between Egyptians and Syrians developed in the civilian as in the military sphere. There were the obvious primacy of Egyptians in the union and Egyptian and Syrian differences of pay and perogatives—and the frequently noted difference in the work habits of Egyptian bureaucrats, used to taking orders, and those of the more independent Syrians. These were but some of the elements that worked to alienate the bureaucratic representatives of the two peoples, now uneasily united in the same regime, from each other.124 The disdain reflected in the comment of a recently resigned Syrian official about his Egyptian colleagues in the Ministry of Health may reflect a wider Syrian attitude: “We can’t work with these people.”125 * * * The middle years of the union witnessed further measures aimed at increasing the economic integration of the two regions of the UAR. This was not an easy task. A basic barrier to economic integration was the difference in the historical relationship of each region with the outside world. Connected to the world economy mostly by sea routes, Egypt’s foreign trade was relatively controllable by the state and had indeed begun to come under rigid state regulation. In contrast, in its external connections Syria remained an open economy, with few controls over foreign trade and its lengthy land borders with Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan “alive with smugglers.”126 An incremental tightening of foreign trade controls over Syrian commerce was attempted in the 1959– 1960 period but did not succeed in fully eliminating the differences in external access between the two regions of the UAR.127 As Egyptian officials posted in Syria took advantage of this difference in foreign trade regulation to acquire luxury goods for their personal use or for shipment to Egypt, allegations of Egyptian profiteering and corruption contributed to Syrian resentment toward the UAR regime.128 Structural differences notwithstanding, the government gradually attempted to force the hitherto freewheeling Syrian economy into an Egyptian mold. In March 1960, Nasser announced the creation of a Economic Development Organization for the Northern Region of the UAR. Modeled on the Egyptian Economic Organization established in 1957, the new body was envisaged as the regime’s economic development arm,

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which would cooperate with the private sector to establish new statesponsored business and industrial enterprises in Syria.129 Significantly increased public spending on development projects in the UAR state budget for 1960–1961 was a clear signal that it would be the government rather than the private sector that would be the engine of economic growth in both parts of the union.130 Over a longer term the UAR’s first five-year plans for its two regions, promulgated in July 1960, were predicated on the state’s taking the lead in sponsoring and directing economic expansion.131 Two detailed economic assessments of 1960 provide a useful summary of the extent as well as the limits of economic integration after two years of union. A U.S. report evaluated the extent of economic integration in the UAR as “modest” as of March 1960. Even though trade barriers between the two regions of the state had been eliminated, resulting in an appreciable increase in Egyptian-Syrian trade, the foreign trade regimes of the two regions remained distinct. Each continued to have its own currency and central bank; wages and prices in Syria and Egypt were different; a significant movement of labor between the two regions had yet to develop; and their geographical separation, which restricted intra-UAR trade to sea and air transport, “seriously hinder[ed] the establishment of an interdependent marketing system.”132 A British evaluation of “the state of the union” of June 1960 came to similar conclusions about the obstacles to economic integration. Even though trade between the two regions of the UAR had more than doubled in 1959 as a result of the elimination of tariff and customs barriers, nonetheless interregional trade was “still marginal to the economies of both Egypt and Syria.”133 The ramifications of the unification of the monetary regimes of the two regions was still being studied in mid-1960, and Marshal ‘Amr had recently promised that monetary unification would not be attempted until the government was sure it would not adversely affect either region.134 A commentary on the latter report, after noting that “full union is still below the horizon,” expounded on how the combination of different geographies and historical relationships with the external world affected the prospects for economic integration: The ultimate obstacle is the existence of two different currencies, monetary areas and exchange policies in the two regions, and at present no one sees how this is going to be overcome. The root of it is the independent existence of the Lebanon. . . . So long as there is a free currency market in the Lebanon and traffic between the two is free it seems impossible for the sort of rigid exchange control system that operates here [Egypt] to be applied to Syria, and hence for the two

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separate currencies to be unified. One solution to the problem would, of course, be the annexation of the Lebanon by the U.A.R. But as the paper rightly says the digestion of Syria is quite a difficult enough task in itself.135

Two economic issues were of special importance for the political fortunes of the UAR. One was agrarian reform. The resentment by propertied Syrians against the sweeping agrarian reform law introduced in the fall of 1958 has already been noted. Syrian complaints against both the law and its vigorous and sometimes punitive implementation (e.g., the arrest of protesting landowners) by the Ministry of Agrarian Reform and Ministry of Interior continued into 1959.136 After his appointment as viceroy of Syria in late 1959, Marshal ‘Amr quickly made ameliorating both the provisions of agrarian reform and its stringent application across the Syrian countryside one of his first concerns. His efforts in this appear to have been at least partially successful; reports on the Syrian reaction to ‘Amr’s measures regarding agrarian reform credit him with having produced a temporary improvement in the popularity of the new UAR regime among Syrians.137 The other economic issue with political repercussions was the doing of nature rather than of man. The specter of drought loomed large over the economy of the UAR. Beginning in 1958, Syria suffered the first of three successive years of drought. Poor harvests in Syria were obviously a source of economic difficulty. A postunion economic survey of the state of the Syrian economy between 1957 and 1960 maintained that Syrian per capita income had declined by more than one-fifth between 1957 and 1960.138 Economic constriction had political consequences. Already in the summer of 1959 a U.S. diplomatic despatch on the situation in Syria observed that economic difficulties were generating both a disaffection with the overly centralized union regime and a desire for greater Syrian economic autonomy.139 A U.S. consular report of mid1960, after glumly reporting that “it can be stated without reservation that the economic situation in Syria is bad, is bound to become worse and may become disastrous,” went on to note that the “rising discontent” generated by economic distress was now directed “both against the local government and against the fact of union.”140 A quip circulating in Syria in late 1960 captures the connection—illogical but politically potent—that some Syrians were making between economic distress and the UAR: “There’s been no rain since the Egyptians came and there’ll be none till they go!”141

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* * * The long-term trend in the overall viability of the UAR regime among Syrians was in a gradually descending spiral. Communist rejection of the terms of union, the disillusionment of the Ba‘th, and the discontent of conservative elements in Syria resulting particularly, but not exclusively, from the economic reform measures introduced by the regime in 1958 have already been discussed. For much of 1959, the resentment by leftist forces over Egyptian domination in the UAR appears to have been at least in part balanced by a temporary abatement in conservative suspicions about the regime. The UAR’s tense relations with the Qasim regime in Iraq (itself more and more reliant on Iraqi Communists as time passed), Nasser’s public denunciations of communism and the divisive machinations of Arab communist parties, and the government’s crackdown on Communists in Syria in late 1958, all served to make the regime more palatable to conservative Syrians. Thus in concluding that there had been “no fundamental weakening” of Nasser’s position in Syria by March 1959, a State Department evaluation of the UAR credited part of the reason to Nasser’s “recent anti-Communist campaign [which] has brought him a measure of support from otherwise dissatisfied conservatives who prefer Ba‘thist reforms to the revolutionary Communist trend in Iraq.”142 Reports from Syria itself commented on how Nasser’s attacks on communism had resulted in a diminution of criticism of the regime by pro-Western Syrian conservatives and businessmen.143 In mid-1959, an adherent of the dissolved Nationalist Party asserted that “he and most of the other conservatives were fully in sympathy with Syrian-Egyptian union which they firmly believe saved Syria from going communist.”144 The rapprochement between the regime and more conservative Syrians took tangible form in the second half of 1959, when the government facilitated conservative and independent success in the National Union elections of July and November and when Egypt’s new viceroy in Syria responded to conservative complaints by moderating some of the more radical features of earlier government reforms. This partial Nasserist-conservative honeymoon did not last. In time the obvious differences in power between Egyptians and Syrians in the state, as well as the economic difficulties both man-made and natural experienced by the Syrian region under the union, took their toll on Syrian loyalty. An ominous new tone is apparent in contemporary evaluations of the Syrian attitude toward the regime by mid-1960. The personal

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popularity and prestige of Nasser had always been vital to the political fortunes of the UAR in its Syrian region. Whereas evaluations of the regime’s solidity in 1959 and 1960 pointed to various sources of Syrian discontent with Egyptian officialdom and unionist policies, Nasser himself appears to have remained above much of this criticism. His annual visits to Syria in February and March of both 1959 and 1960, where he toured much of the country and delivered numerous speeches, did not kindle the near-delirious enthusiasm of his first trip to Syria upon the completion of union in February 1958.145 Yet, even when noting this, contemporary reports on his travels across Syria were still careful to emphasize that “Nasser’s name which brought Syria and Egypt together is still valid currency here,”146 and that his personal appearance in any locale still had the power to draw large crowds and produce significant public displays of pro-UAR sentiment.147 Nasser’s immunity to harsh criticism among Syrians was eroding by 1960, the primary reason being Syria’s economic problems, particularly three successive years of drought and the regime’s inability to soften the blow nature was dealing to Syria’s primary source of national wealth.148 A U.S. assessment of July reported that “for the first time it is now possible to hear open criticism of Nasser himself. This would have been inconceivable six months ago.”149 Syrian discontent with the UAR, “growing at an increasing rate” by the fall of 1960, was also now assessed as “more than mere grumbling” on the part of Syrians; it was producing “a very general feeling that the union with Egypt had been a failure and should be terminated.”150 The reports commenting on Nasser’s declining prestige and the parallel erosion of faith in the UAR among Syrians did not yet report any evidence of organized opposition to or impending action against the regime by Syrians,151 and were careful to state that “we do not believe that the union is in imminent danger of collapse” in 1960.152 It would take new measures of economic reform and political centralization introduced in 1961 to produce Syrian opposition capable of severing the Egyptian-Syrian connection of 1958.

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7 The United Arab Republic in Inter-Arab Politics

Arab Reactions to the Formation of the UAR The union of Egypt and Syria in early 1958 had an immediate impact upon Egypt’s Arab neighbors. Depending on each regime’s current state of relations with Egypt, reactions varied from enthusiastic to apopleptic. The creation of the UAR set off a chain-reaction of paper efforts at Arab integration, sparking the creation of a shortlived Iraqi-Jordanian “Arab Federation” as well as the formal affiliation of Yemen with the UAR in a new “Union of Arab States.” It also generated a botched Saudi attempt to instigate a Syrian military coup aimed at preventing the implementation of the union. The creation of the UAR had its most intense popular repercussions in neighboring Lebanon. The British ambassador’s reading of Lebanese public opinion upon the announcement of the formation of the UAR was that “all Lebanese Moslems support it, and [that] many of the Lebanese Christians who are dissatisfied, for a variety of reasons, with the way things are going in Lebanon or with President Chamoun personally are also prepared to support it.”1 Despite a government ban, popular demonstrations in support of the union occurred in several Lebanese cities. A stream of Lebanese delegations traveled to Syria in late February and early March, when Nasser paid his first visit to the Northern Region of the UAR. Taxi fares from Beirut to Damascus quintupled as scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of Lebanese enthusiastically responded to the slogan “to Damascus to Jamal.”2 Yet neither Lebanon’s Christian or Muslim political leadership advocated jeopardizing Lebanon’s prosperity—and their own political positions—by suggesting that Lebanon join the UAR. While Lebanon’s pro-Western leaders 137

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President Camille Chamoun and Foreign Minister Charles Malik sent formal messages of congratulation upon the achievement of union and, voicing a desire for close Lebanese ties with the UAR,3 they paralleled these with public declarations of Lebanon’s unique character and the necessity of its remaining an independent political entity.4 Although some Lebanese Muslim leaders spoke vaguely of eventual Lebanese affiliation with the UAR, even among the largely Muslim opposition to President Chamoun there was no cry for immediate Lebanese entry into the union in early 1958.5 Reaction to the formation of the UAR in the Arab monarchies of Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, all long-standing or recent antagonists of Egypt in the inter-Arab political arena, was more negative. Even before the negotiations toward Egyptian-Syrian union had been completed in January 1958, the leaders of the three monarchies had expressed their concern over the potentially adverse implications of an Egyptian-Syrian union. Both King Husayn of Jordan and Nuri al-Sa‘id of Iraq perceived the need for immediate monarchial cooperation in developing initiatives that could dilute the impact of the union on Arab public opinion.6 The first proposal for joint action came from King Husayn of Jordan, who as early as January 1958 had his government develop a proposal for linking Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in a strengthened alliance system that would be announced at a joint meeting of the rulers of the three monarchies.7 Divisions within the Saudi regime, however, thwarted the Jordanian project for the creation of a triple alliance to counter the UAR.8 With this project for broader cooperation scuttled, the Hashimite regimes in Iraq and Jordan soon went ahead with a narrower joint initiative. On February 14, 1958, the governments of Iraq and Jordan announced agreement on the formation of an “Arab Federation.” A confederal arrangement in which “each of the two states reserves its integral State entity, its sovereignty, and its existing government,” the federation was open to any other Arab state wishing to affiliate. The substantive proposals of the agreement envisaged the elimination of customs barriers as well as the unification of diplomatic representation, armed forces, and educational curricula of member states. King Faysal II of Iraq was made titular head of the federation.9 A hastily drafted constitution provided for a legislative assembly selected from the members of each state’s chamber of deputies and for a federal council of ministers that would supervise federal affairs but not replace the governments of member states.10 Nuri al-Sa‘id was the prime minister of the federation government established in the spring of 1958.11 The Arab Federation was a paper entity. The foreign and domestic policies of the two member states continued to be determined by their

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separate national regimes. Even its founders placed little faith in its viability, Nuri al-Sa‘id at one point telling the British that it would probably fail.12 It did so in July 1958; within a few days of the Iraqi Revolution of July 14, 1958, the new Iraqi regime denounced the federation as nothing more than a device to “consolidate the corrupt monarchical system as well as to disrupt the unity of the emancipated Arab (people)” and announced Iraqi withdrawal from the federation.13 The most vehement reaction to the creation of the UAR came from Saudi Arabia. Egyptian-Saudi relations had worsened over the course of 1957. Nasser’s preeminent position in the Arab world in the wake of the Suez crisis soon came to be perceived as a threat to the stability of the Saudi monarchy.14 Mutual accusations of subversion further poisoned the atmosphere in 1957: the Saudis at one point suspected Egypt of complicity in a plot to assassinate King Sa‘ud: the Egyptians asserted that the Saudis had provided financial assistance to ancien régime figures implicated in an abortive coup attempt in Egypt.15 The formation of the UAR precipitated an open crisis between Saudi Arabia and the new union. There are differing versions of what has come to be known as the Saudi “plot” of 1958. In the Egyptian-Syrian narrative, King Sa‘ud personally took the initiative in establishing contact with ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj in Syria in an effort to subvert the new UAR. Checks totaling nearly 2,000,000 British pounds drawn on Saudi accounts in the Arab Bank in Riyadh were passed to Sarraj, with the promise of more to come after the Syrian military had installed an anti-UAR regime in Damascus. At one point, the Saudi king is reported to have made an additional offer of 200,000 British pounds for Sarraj to arrange for a Syrian pilot to shoot down the plane carrying Nasser when he left Syria. Sarraj immediately revealed the affair to Nasser, and later contacts between the Syrian and the Saudi king were coordinated with Cairo.16 In a speech in Damascus on March 5, 1958, Nasser publicly revealed the outlines of the “plot”; the Beirut press filled in the details for a captivated Arab audience.17 Saudi accounts of the affair do not deny contact with and payment of money to Sarraj, but maintain that the initiative came from Sarraj before the creation of the UAR, assert that the purpose of Saudi encouragement of Syrian military action was to save Syria from leftist domination rather than to subvert the UAR, and deny any Saudi intention to assassinate Nasser.18 The publicizing of Saudi schemes within Syria had important repercussions both internationally and in Saudi Arabia. The UAR responded by immediately withdrawing the Egyptian military mission that had been sent to Saudi Arabia to assist in modernizing Saudi armed forces. The UAR also considered a formal break in diplomatic relations.19

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Ultimately, however, Nasser decided not to burn his bridges with the Saudis. By leaving the direct implication of King Sa‘ud in the alleged plot to subordinates and not terminating formal diplomatic relations, Nasser left the door open for later UAR-Saudi rapprochement.20 The irresponsibility demonstrated by King Sa‘ud’s maladroit encouragement of subversion in Syria resulted in a serious loss of prestige for the Saudi monarch both at home and abroad.21 Domestically, the negative publicity Saudi Arabia received as a result of the plot led a coalition of dissatisfied princes in the Saudi royal family to compel the king to surrender much of his authority to his more competent brother, Crown Prince Faysal.22 If (as Saudi accounts suggest) Nasser used the Saudi king’s effort at subversion in Syria to tilt the internal balance of power in Saudi Arabia away from the more anti-Nasser Sa‘ud to his brother Faysal, who was known to be more sympathetic to Nasser and Arab nationalism, the gambit worked.23 Regionally, the Saudi attempt to subvert the formation of the UAR and its humiliating failure was yet another “victory for Nasserism” in the battle for Arab public opinion.24 While the monarchies in Iraq and Jordan attempted to counter the threat posed by the UAR with an alternative federation and the Saudi king worked to prevent its realization through subversion, the monarchy in Yemen met the challenge of the UAR by moving in the opposite direction. On March 8, 1958, the governments of Yemen and the UAR announced the creation of the “Union of Arab States.” A purely collaborative arrangement similar to that established by Iraq and Jordan in the previous month, each of this union’s members retained “its international personality and its system of government.”25 Executive authority was formally vested in a two-man Supreme Council composed of President Nasser of the UAR and Imam Ahmad of Yemen. Subsequent decrees created an appointed Union Council to advise the Supreme Council, a joint military command headed by Marshal ‘Amr of the UAR, and separate cultural and economic councils to coordinate policy in each area.26 The two states’ respective shares of the union budget indicated their relative weight in the new entity; the UAR was to contribute 97 percent of the budget, Yemen’s share was 3 percent.27 Although it lasted longer, this Union of Arab States linking the revolutionary regime of the UAR with the monarchy of Yemen had as little substance as the Arab Federation created by Jordan and Iraq. The internal affairs of each member remained under the control of its respective regimes; each conducted its own foreign policy.28 This union was officially dissolved in late 1961, shortly after the collapse of Egyptian-Syrian union to which it was so obviously a defensive reaction on the part of Yemen.

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The Crises of Mid-1958 The UAR was but a few months old when it was faced with multiple regional crises. In the long run, the most significant was that sparked by a military coup in Iraq that overthrew the pro-British monarchy and instituted a vehemently nationalist regime in Baghdad. The Iraqi revolution of July 14, 1958, dovetailed with a confrontation in Lebanon between the pro-Western administration of President Chamoun and a broad coalition of opposition forces, a confrontation that by mid-1958 had escalated into civil war. Revolution in Iraq also had significant consequences for the monarchy in Jordan, for which the event meant the loss of a kindred regime on its eastern border and the collapse of the recently established Arab Federation. Developments in all three countries fused into a multidimensional international crisis in the summer of 1958, one that posed difficult options for the regimes involved, for the Western powers, and not least for Nasser and the UAR. The UAR was not behind the military coup that overthrew the Hashimite monarchy in Iraq. Through both diplomatic channels and Syrian intermediaries, the military conspirators in Iraq had attempted to make contact first with the Egyptian government, and later with the new union regime of the UAR, before their seizure of power in July 1958. Accounts of these precoup contacts indicate that while Nasser expressed a sympathetic attitude toward the establishment of a progressive Arab nationalist regime in Iraq, he rejected Iraqi requests for clandestine assistance and counseled the Iraqis to “keep their secrets to themselves.”29 There is no indication of Egyptian or later UAR material assistance to the military conspirators in Iraq prior to their seizure of power in mid-July. Nasser learned of the Iraqi coup while visiting Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia. His immediate response was one of apprehension over its probable international repercussions. Correctly perceiving that “revolution in Iraq will turn the region upside down,” he nonetheless immediately issued a statement extending recognition to the new Iraqi republican regime and assuring it support by the UAR in case of attempted intervention from outside.30 Nasser’s first communications to Iraq’s new rulers were cautious admonitions advising them to honor existing Iraqi financial obligations and to avoid taking any measures that might provoke the Western powers to take action against the new regime.31 Revolution in Iraq and its potential for setting off a clash with the West led Nasser to arrange an unscheduled visit to the Soviet Union in order to seek backing from that power. In sometimes-tense meetings between

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Nasser and Khrushchev, the Soviet leader refused to commit military support to the UAR and Iraq in case of military confrontation with the West.32 Nasser’s preeminent stature in the Arab world in mid-1958, as well as Iraqi popular enthusiasm for him as leader, with crowds demonstrating in support of the July 14 coup shouting pro-Nasser slogans and displaying his portrait,33 immediately produced expectations of a move to bring Iraq into the UAR. Any intention to work for this end was denied by Nasser in mid-1958. During their meetings in Moscow, Nasser was careful to inform Khrushchev that he had no intention of seeking integral unity between the UAR and the new Arab nationalist regime in Iraq. Nasser did wish to cooperate with the new regime and to coordinate a joint position on international questions, but this would be “without unity, for we are still trying to resolve the problems of unity between Egypt and Syria.”34 This was also the position Nasser took when Colonel ‘Arif and other representatives of the new Iraqi regime came to consult with him in Damascus immediately upon his return from the Soviet Union. When ‘Arif expressed his personal wish for Iraq to join the UAR, Nasser declined to discuss the question of unity in the summer of 1958. His position was that the first priority of the UAR was to consolidate itself in power before exploring the possible expansion of the unionist regime.35 Although agreement on mutual cooperation in various areas and on UAR assistance to the new Iraqi regime were reached during ‘Arif’s visit, no measures pointing in the direction of integral unity were announced.36 Nasser’s caution about rushing into unity with Iraq in the wake of its revolution had consequences for his relationship with his Arab nationalist supporters in Syria. In a meeting with Nasser shortly after the Iraqi revolution, the Ba‘th Party ideologue Michel ‘Aflaq expressed his regret that Nasser had not stopped in Iraq en route from Moscow to Damascus in mid-July; had he done so, ‘Aflaq believed, the momentum toward unity created by such a public display of support for the Iraqi revolution would have been irresistable. Nasser responded to the Ba‘th leader much as he had to ‘Arif, arguing that the union between Egypt and Syria still faced many obstacles and that had the problems facing Iraq been added to them, “we would find ourselves in complications which have no solutions.”37 * * * Relations between the Hashimite monarchy in Jordan and Egypt had deteriorated over the course of 1957. They did not improve with the

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formation of the UAR and the Iraqi-Jordanian Arab Federation in early 1958. Nasser’s reaction to the formation of the federation in February 1958 was frosty at best. An official message of congratulations on the implementation of another step in the direction of Arab unity was sent to the federation’s head, King Faysal II of Iraq; no such message went to King Husayn of Jordan. Neither the United Arab Republic nor the Arab Federation accorded formal diplomatic recognition to the other.38 Personally, the young king of Jordan harbored no illusions about prospects for coexistence between the two rival entities created in early 1958; in March, Husayn told the British ambassador that “the only possible outcome would be for one to swallow the other.”39 Numerous points of friction continued to sour UAR-Jordanian relations during the early months of 1958. The war of invective between pro-Nasser and pro-Husayn propaganda sources continued unabated in early 1958. While the Egyptian and Syrian press criticized the nonpopulist, dynastic character of the Arab Federation and expressed skepticism about its long-term prospects for success, Jordan (resorting to a tactic it was to employ a decade later with more significant consequences) attempted to tar the UAR with the charge of softness toward Israel.40 UAR diplomats were expelled from Jordan in March and June 1958 because of their contacts with opposition groups.41 Another antiregime plot in the Jordanian military was uncovered in June 1958. Although the extent of Nasser’s knowledge of the conspiracy is uncertain,42 both Jordanian and U.S. officials believed that the UAR intelligence services directed by ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj in the Syrian region had provided encouragement and support to the plotters.43 Push came to shove in Jordan with the Iraqi revolution of July 14. The expectation both in Jordan and abroad was that the overthrow of the richer and stronger of the two Hashimite kingdoms heralded the demise of its weaker Jordanian cousin. The prognostications were wrong. King Husayn’s immediate reaction was to consider a march on Baghdad to save the Iraqi monarchy. When this proved unworkable, on July 16 the young king swallowed his pride and asked for Western military assistance to protect Jordan from anticipated external threats.44 British paratroop units arrived in Jordan on July 17. They were withdrawn only after the crisis dissipated in the fall of 1958. Parallel to British military support the United States committed $50,000,000 to prop up the Jordanian monarchy.45 On the same day as British forces began to arrive in the kingdom, Jordan’s UN representative filed a complaint about UAR interference in Jordanian internal affairs before the UN Security Council. On July 20

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Jordan broke off diplomatic relations with the UAR.46 Jordanian claims of UAR subversion were justified. “Jordanian People’s Radio,” a mobile radio transmitter operating from the Syrian region of the UAR, openly called for the overthrow of King Husayn and his “traitorous gang” in July 1958.47 Nasser came close to doing the same in a more oblique fashion when he publicly equated the young king with his grandfather ‘Abdallah, the victim of assassination in 1951.48 Even Egyptian sources admit that the UAR provided assistance to Jordanian “popular” forces in mid-1958.49 Such assistance to opposition elements in Jordan reportedly included the provision of antimonarchy pamphlets and the smuggling of weapons across the Syrian-Jordanian border.50 It is not clear whether Nasser was in full control of the UAR agents and agencies supporting antiregime activities in Jordan. Sarraj and the Syrian security services under his direction had long-standing clandestine links and agendas inside Jordan, ones that may have possessed a momentum of their own in the early months of the UAR. Despite their differences of political orientation, Nasser appears to have had some affection for the young king of Jordan. His characterization of Husayn in August 1958—“a nice young man in an impossible situation”51—was patronizing but nonetheless sympathetic. UAR support for antimonarchy elements in Jordan was based on those elements’ mustering the power to bring about a change of regime. This never happened. Potentially disloyal groups in the Jordanian military had been uncovered and eliminated before the Iraqi revolution. Thanks in good part to draconian security measures, including sweeping arrests and the closing of West Bank towns and refugee camps, the Palestinian “march on Amman” anticipated by some observers did not materialize. From abroad, neither the UAR nor the newly installed revolutionary regime in Baghdad went beyond providing rhetorical support and clandestine assistance for Jordanian opposition elements in July 1958.52 For Nasser and the UAR the crisis in Jordan was a sideshow to larger issues. The focus of UAR attention was on the regional implications of the recent revolution in Iraq, the UAR’s relations with the Western powers as the latter scurried to preserve the remnants of their regional position, and especially the more serious turmoil in Lebanon, where Nasser was pursuing a cautious policy aimed not at the advance of Arab “revolution” but at arranging a modus vivendi with the United States. In particular, the crisis in Lebanon in large part determined the regional position of the UAR in mid-1958.

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* * * Confrontation between the pro-Western Lebanese government of President Camille Chamoun and an assortment of largely, but not exclusively, Muslim opposition leaders and forces had been developing since 1956. The Lebanese government’s refusal to join most other Arab states in severing diplomatic relations with Great Britain and France in the wake of the Suez crisis produced resignations by leading Muslim politicians from their ministries. Chamoun’s public acceptance of the Eisenhower Doctrine early in 1957 similarly generated parliamentary resignations in protest against the government’s pro-Western posture. In April 1957, a broadly based United National Front was formed by opposition politicians to coordinate the struggle against the president’s domestic and foreign policies. Chamoun succeeded in arranging the defeat of several of the front’s leaders in the Lebanese parliamentary elections of June 1957, a step that further exacerbated domestic polarization. By early 1958, opposition apprehension about Chamoun’s rumored intention to amend the constitution to allow himself a second term as president was the final straw for the president’s many opponents, who vowed physical resistance to any attempt to extend Chamoun’s term. The assassination of a prominent Lebanese journalist who had been critical of Chamoun in May 1958 was the trigger for the outbreak of violence between armed groups supporting Chamoun and those opposed to his continuation in office. Through the spring and summer of 1958 frequent clashes between partisans of the two camps erupted across much of the countryside, with the Lebanese army commanded by Gen. Fu’ad Shihab remaining formally neutral in what was in effect a Lebanese civil war.53 Given Nasser’s preeminence in Arab politics in 1958, his personal popularity in Lebanon (as evidenced by the parade of Lebanese delegations that traveled to Damascus in early 1958 to pay their respects to the leader upon the formation of the UAR), and the long-standing personal and political connections between Syrians and Lebanese, it was inevitable that the UAR would become involved in the Lebanese civil war of 1958. The Chamoun administration had been alleging UAR interference in the accelerating violence in Lebanon from the formation of the union regime in early 1958. In May, the Lebanese government formally submitted complaints of massive UAR interference in Lebanese internal affairs to both the Arab League and the UN Security Council, accusing the UAR of inciting rebellion against the legitimate government of Lebanon through propaganda and the infiltration of arms and agents

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from Syria to assist an antigovernment insurrection.54 Stormy Arab League sessions in Libya in late May and early June, at which the Lebanese repeated their charges of Egyptian subversion and the UAR denied the charges, failed to produce agreement. A compromise draft resolution that would have dispatched an Arab League investigative team to Lebanon, but that would also have required Lebanon to refrain from taking the issue to the United Nations, was rejected by Lebanon because it did not contain an explicit condemnation of UAR interference in Lebanese internal affairs.55 The diplomatic struggle next moved to the UN Security Council, where Lebanon again accused the UAR of interference in its internal affairs and the UAR repeated its denials. In mid-June the Security Council authorized the creation of an emergency observer force, the United Nations Observation Group in Lebanon (UNOGIL), which was to proceed to Lebanon “to ensure that there is no illegal infiltration of personnel or supply of arms or other matérial across the Lebanese borders.”56 In its first report to the Security Council submitted in early July, UNOGIL reported the obvious—that there were “substantial movements of armed men within the country”—but found itself unable to confirm the Lebanese complaint of “mass infiltration” from the UAR into Lebanon.57 Subsequent reports similarly discounted Lebanese government claims of large-scale UAR involvement in the Lebanese civil war.58 UNOGIL’s conclusions cannot be accepted as the final word on UAR involvement in the Lebanese civil war of 1958. Operating out of Beirut and denied access to much of the border by rebel forces, UN observers were physically unable to monitor border crossings with any degree of accuracy. Former CIA operative Wilbur Eveland has gone so far as to claim that UNOGIL’s inconclusive reports were tailored to fit the compromise resolution of the crisis being pursued by UN officials.59 There is no question that the press and broadcast agencies of the UAR were the source of inflammatory anti-Chamoun propaganda both in the run-up to civil war and during the fighting of mid-1958. The conclusion of a detailed study of the subject was that “from early 1957 until the end of the crisis in late 1958, not a single Egyptian newspaper of any considerable circulation had anything good to say about the Lebanese government.”60 The Lebanese government’s acceptance of the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957 produced denunciations of this Lebanese “alliance with the aggressors against Egypt and the Arabs” by Egypt’s “Voice of the Arabs.”61 During the parliamentary election campaign of 1957, the Egyptian press attacked such pro-Western politicians as Foreign Minister Charles Malik as “tools in the hands of imperialism carrying out

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its will and obeying its orders.”62 Criticism of the Chamoun administration on the part of the UAR propaganda services increased greatly in 1958. Al-Ahram’s position concerning the rival armed camps in Lebanon was hardly a neutral one in May 1958: “Shamun and his government stand on one side and the people of the Lebanon on the other.”63 The newspaper’s desired outcome for the Lebanese crisis was equally unambiguous: “The ruler will go, no matter what extent he relies on foreign support, because the people do not want him. . . . Shamun and his government will fall because this is the wish of the people and because this is the era of the people and not the age of rulers and governments.”64 “Shamun must go” became a trope in the Egyptian and Syrian press in mid-1958, and the people of Lebanon advised that “there was no other way before you than the revolution to achieve your hopes.”65 Although specific Lebanese government claims regarding the scope of UAR infiltration were often regarded as exaggerated or unproven by foreign diplomats,66 there is substantial evidence that personnel and material support for the anti-Chamoun coalition in Lebanon came from the UAR. Regime officials and operatives subsequently confirmed that the UAR did provide money and arms to opposition forces in 1958.67 Most of the material assistance that crossed the border to aid the opposition coalition came from the Syrian region of the UAR and was coordinated by Syrian region Minister of the Interior ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj.68 The 500 Syrian Druze who entered the fray in support of their Lebanese coreligionists were organized by the leader of the Syrian Druze community, Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, and were led by Druze officers from the Syrian Army.69 The commander of the “neutral” Lebanese army, Gen. Fu’ad Shihab, in mid-June estimated that in addition to the Syrian Druze contingent participating in the conflict there were about 300 Syrians, some of whom were members of the Syrian military, in Lebanon assisting opposition forces.70 UAR financial support for the purchase of arms, as well as recruitment and maintenance of antiregime forces, appears to have been more crucial to the opposition than physical assistance in the form of volunteers.71 A subsequent inquiry by a Lebanese journalist estimated the value of Syrian material assistance at over a million Egyptian pounds, with a much larger sum possibly reaching into the tens of millions being provided to the anti-Chamoun coalition through the conduit of the UAR Embassy in Beirut.72 An assessment made by U.S. Ambassador Robert McClintock—no friend of the Chamoun regime—in June captures both the extent and the limitations of UAR involvement in the Lebanese civil war of mid-1958:

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There has been undoubted subversion and infiltration from UAR particularly Syria, but this has been going on over past two years. There have been a number of political enemies of Chamoun living in voluntary exile in Syria; and it is fairly clear Sarraj and Company have been only too willing to supply Lebanon partisans with clandestine arms, funds and other support. Evidence of actual involvement of Syrian agents and particularly of military cadres is much more difficult to substantiate. Certainly Lebanon Army has not thus far secured any impressive number of prisoners whose presence on Lebanese soil in fragrante delicto would have provided major proof for GOL [government of Lebanon] allegations against UAR. . . . Most palpable evidence of UAR intervention against GOL lies in incontrovertible proof of press and radio incitement to civil war both from Damascus and Cairo.73

Vitriolic denunciations of the Chamoun regime and the provision of arms and materiel to the anti-Chamoun coalition notwithstanding, the political stance of Nasser and the UAR during the Lebanese civil war was more nuanced than the above alone might seem to indicate. In his conversations with Western diplomats, Nasser repeatedly asserted that the UAR had not instigated the crisis in Lebanon, that it was reacting to a situation not of its making, and that its overriding goal in the prolonged Lebanese crisis was hegemony rather than unity—to eliminate a regime perceived as hostile to the UAR and to ensure that future Lebanese governments did not adopt similarly antagonistic regional policies.74 Nasser’s claims that the UAR was not involved in antigovernment activity in Lebanon were dismissed by these diplomats, but his disavowal of expansionist aims in Lebanon were generally accepted.75 The position of the UAR in the Lebanese crisis also unfolded within a broader international context. Nasser repeatedly attempted to use the crisis in Lebanon to pursue a larger diplomatic goal, that of fostering a rapprochement with the United States. As Lebanese political polarization developed into physical confrontation in mid-May 1958, Nasser approached the United States with a proposal for joint U.S.-UAR mediation in the crisis. His initial suggestion for a compromise solution to be brokered jointly by the United States and the UAR had three components: President Chamoun’s disavowal of any intention to change the Lebanese constitution in order to perpetuate his incumbency; the appointment of Lebanese Army commander Gen. Fu’ad Shihab as prime minister; and a guaranteed amnesty for the Lebanese opposition. Should the United States accept the above as the basis for a mediated resolution of the crisis, Nasser offered to use his influence to persuade Lebanese opposition leaders to accept its terms.76 Parallel to his approach to the

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United States, Nasser also entered into communication with the Maronite Church patriarch, urging him to use his influence against further bloodshed, and held meetings with prominent Lebanese businessmen who traveled to Cairo to meet with Nasser in an effort to arrange a brokered settlement between Chamoun and his opponents.77 In another conversation with U.S. Ambassador Hare at the end of May, Nasser reiterated his suggestion of a joint U.S.-UAR approach to resolving the crisis. In Nasser’s view, the political risks in urging a compromise solution to the inflamed atmosphere precluded the UAR from publicly proposing a solution on its own; his government would intervene only in collaboration with the United States.78 Nasser’s compromise formula for resolving the Lebanese civil war was succinctly described by Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal as “peace without victory or defeat.”79 Nasser renewed the offer for U.S.-UAR coordination in regard to the Lebanese civil war yet again in early June. Since the United States was leery of a joint approach, he now offered to let the United States take the lead in suggesting a brokered solution along the lines of his earlier proposal; the UAR would exert its influence behind the scenes to persuade the Lebanese opposition to accept the substance of a U.S. initiative.80 These UAR approaches for joint mediation in the crisis may have been accompanied by a diminution of physical assistance to the Lebanese opposition; by late June the U.S. State Department was reporting that the UAR appeared to have stopped its supply of materiel to the rebel forces.81 Although it eventually transmitted the substance of Nasser’s proposals for a compromise settlement to the Lebanese government (which promptly rejected the package), the United States declined to cooperate with the UAR in a joint approach to mediating the Lebanese civil war.82 U.S. coolness to Nasser’s repeated approaches eventually generated considerable bitterness. As Haykal summarized the UAR attitude by mid-June 1958, as a result of the “negative and dilatory” U.S. response to Nasser’s several approaches, the “conviction now prevails in Cairo governing circles that we have merely been playing Nasser for [a] sucker in order to neutralize him” while the United States and Britain refined their plans for military intervention in Lebanon.83 Although the perception of a definite Western intent to militarily intervene in Lebanon was premature in June 1958, it turned out to be what happened a month later in response to the new stimulus of revolution in Iraq. The outcome of the Lebanese civil war had in large part been determined prior to the dispatch of U.S. military forces to Lebanon in July 1958. Even before this intervention, President Chamoun had bowed to the

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inevitable and disavowed any intention of extending his term in office. The issue to be resolved upon U.S. entry into Lebanon was the nature of the regime that would succeed Chamoun’s. After extensive discussions with leaders of both camps through late July, U.S. envoy Robert Murphy succeeded in arranging new Lebanese presidential elections. On July 31, the Lebanese parliament elected Gen. Fu’ad Shihab, Nasser’s earlier choice as a compromise prime minister, as Lebanon’s next president.84 UAR material support for the Lebanese opposition came to an end with Shihab’s accession to the presidency.85 Since Chamoun insisted on serving out his full term, Shihab did not assume office until September 23. Intra-Lebanese violence gradually abated in August and September 1958, briefly erupting again in late September and early October as different factions wrangled over the composition of the cabinet that would govern the country. By mid-October agreement on the precise composition of the new regime had been reached among the main parties; violence thereupon subsided. The first Lebanese civil war ground to a close in October 1958.86 There is considerable irony in the fact that the eventual compromise solution for the Lebanese civil war of 1958 closely paralleled the suggestions for a mediated compromise that Nasser had suggested to the United States before the latter’s military intervention. In Miles Copeland’s sardonic summary of the denouement, “it was as though the Marines had been brought in to achieve Nasser’s objective for him.”87 Concomitant to the winding-down of the civil war in Lebanon, the international dimensions of the Middle East crisis of mid-1958 also abated. Western intervention in Lebanon and Jordan in mid-July generated fiery Soviet denunciations in the UN Security Council of resurgent Western imperialism. After prolonged debate and the lack of support for several resolutions condemning the U.S. and British military interventions in Lebanon and Jordan, the Security Council could agree on nothing more than calling for an emergency session of the General Assembly. By the time the latter convened in August, the perceived crisis in Jordan and the physical confrontation in Lebanon were evaporating. Eventually, a bland Arab resolution calling for the “early withdrawal of the foreign troops” from both countries, its text composed in close consultation with the United States, was adopted by the General Assembly.88 U.S. forces were withdrawn from Lebanon by late October, and British units from Jordan by early November.89 The UNOGIL observer group was disbanded shortly after the Lebanese government, in

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mid-November, officially withdrew its complaint of UAR interference in Lebanese affairs.90

Rival Arab Revolutions: The UAR and Iraq In the wake of the multiple regional crises of mid-1958, the inter-Arab concerns of the UAR largely revolved around the union’s relationship with the new revolutionary regime in Iraq. Initially the two regimes were close. Although Nasser was opposed to the idea of Iraqi entry into the UAR when the prospect was broached by ‘Abd al-Salam ‘Arif during the latter’s visit to Damascus in July 1958, he did not hesitate to offer both moral support and material assistance to the new Iraqi regime. A mutual assistance agreement was concluded during ‘Arif’s visit. Limited supplies of arms soon began to arrive from the UAR. In October a UAR Air Force detachment arrived in Iraq to assist in familiarizing Iraqis with the use of Soviet aircraft. UAR security officials were sent to Iraq to assist in the reorganization of the security and intelligence services; Egyptian economists advised their Iraqi counterparts on economic planning and development projects; and the Egyptian educational assistance, which had been terminated by the monarchy because of its rivalry with Nasser’s Egypt, was resumed.91 The Iraqi-UAR honeymoon lasted but a few months. The two main figures in the new Iraqi regime, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and Prime Minister ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim, and his deputy in both posts, ‘Abd al-Salam ‘Arif, had radically divergent views concerning Arab nationalism and revolutionary Iraq’s relationship with the UAR. ‘Arif was an ardent Arab nationalist and enthusiast for integral Arab unity; Qasim was first and foremost an Iraqi nationalist devoted to promoting the interests of the “eternal Iraqi republic” established by the July 14 revolution.92 Within a month of the military coup that brought them to power, the two primary figures of the new regime were publicly voicing their opposing views about union with the UAR before pro- and antiunity rallies organized by their supporters.93 While on one level their growing rivalry reflected genuinely different views about the substance of Arab nationalism, on another and more operative level their conflict concerned power, particularly Qasim’s fear that ‘Arif and other Nasserist enthusiasts might be tempted to push for a union with the UAR that would sideline Qasim. The Iraqi strongman had no desire to play the role of Muhammad Najib to ‘Arif’s Nasser.94

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It was not long before the Qasim-‘Arif rivalry came to a head. At the end of September, ‘Arif was relieved of his ministerial posts and appointed ambassador to West Germany. Upon his unauthorized return to Iraq in November he was arrested on charges of sedition. Convicted on a trumped-up charge of intending to assassinate Qasim and sentenced to death, but granted clemency and imprisoned, ‘Arif was effectively neutralized by late 1958.95 From this point on, Nasser and the UAR had to deal with the more prickly “Sole Leader” ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim. Relations between the two revolutionary regimes steadily worsened after fall of 1958. By October, Nasser was telling a foreign visitor that he was worried about the “chaotic” situation in Iraq and the growing influence of the well-organized Iraqi Communist Party.96 For his part, Qasim became increasingly apprehensive about the presence of numerous UAR security and intelligence personnel sent to Iraq in the wake of the revolution and their possible connections with his actual or potential rivals.97 Beyond its domestic Iraqi context, the arrest of the Arab nationalist and Nasser admirer ‘Arif in November amounted to “a public slap at Nasser.”98 Approaches by Nasser suggesting a personal meeting between Qasim and him to resolve their differences were deflected by the suspicious Iraqi leader.99 Qasim’s fears of subversion by the UAR may have been justified. Beyond the public Egyptian contacts with ‘Arif before his neutralization, evidence subsequently presented in lurid detail in Iraqi revolutionary courts implicated the UAR in an abortive anti-Qasim coup attempt organized by the veteran Iraqi nationalist leader Rashid ‘Ali al-Kilani in late 1958.100 Nasser’s crackdown on Communists in the Syrian region in late 1958, and his public denunciation of the same as enemies of Arab nationalism in his Victory Day speech of December 23, carried an implicit criticism of the trend developing in neighboring Iraq, where the Communist Party was emerging as a powerful prop of the Qasim regime. Although the motive for this anticommunist campaign was largely domestic (the Syrian Communist Party being the most assertive opponent of the Egyptian-Syrian union in 1958 and 1959), Nasser undoubtedly viewed the rising influence of the Communist Party in neighboring Iraq as a threat to the continued existence of the union.101 The UAR’s apparent lurch to the right in December 1958 drew immediate criticism from the leftist press in Iraq. The public trials of ‘Arif and Rashid ‘Ali commencing in the same month added fuel to the fire with their accusations of UAR support for both figures in their antirevolutionary activities. By early 1959, both countries were openly critical of each other. Egyptian newspapers denounced “communist rule” in Baghdad, their Iraqi counterparts decried

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the lack of “democracy” in the UAR, and both parties accused the other of insufficient zeal in the struggle against imperialism and Israel.102 As a result of this increasing polarization between the two regimes, plans for defense and economic cooperation tentatively reached in 1958 remained unrealized.103 UAR-Iraqi tension reached its peak in March 1959, when the UAR was indisputably implicated in a failed revolt against the Qasim regime in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. This uprising resulted in hundreds of deaths first in the attempt to seize power by anti-Qasim military and tribal forces, then in the suppression of the uprising by military units and communist militias loyal to the regime.104 The Mosul uprising was coordinated in advance with ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj, minister of the interior of the Northern Region of the UAR. Material support from the UAR included the provision of light arms to paramilitary units and tribal groups involved in the revolt, as well as the dispatch of a radio transmitter to the rebels.105 When the transmitter proved to be of limited range and effectiveness, an alternative station broadcasting in the name of the uprising was hastily improvised in Syria.106 Some Iraqi sources claim that the UAR promised ground as well as air support for the uprising.107 Baghdadi’s account maintains that Nasser drew the line at overt military intervention by UAR armed forces.108 At one point in the fighting UAR aircraft were reported flying over Mosul in a gesture of UAR support,109 but the confused nature of the situation on the ground and the eventual turn of events in favor of the Qasim regime precluded the possibility of effective UAR intervention in support of the Mosul uprising.110 The pursuit of rebel remnants fleeing into Syria after the failure of the revolt led to skirmishes between Iraqi and UAR forces along the Syrian-Iraqi border.111 Mutual Iraqi-UAR invective reached its height after the failure of the Mosul uprising. The UAR ambassador and other diplomats were immediately expelled from Iraq, and Nasser was hung in effigy in Baghdad. Iraqi government spokesmen went further, calling on Syrians to rise against the unionist regime and to liberate their country “from the despotic clique which is now swindling them in the name of Arab nationalism.”112 For his part Nasser, although privately disturbed by how incautious subordinates had overcommitted his regime in support of a risky enterprise, saw no option but to go on the offensive against Qasim.113 Nasser was on his annual tour of the Northern Region of the UAR when the uprising erupted and fizzled. His speeches thereafter routinely included vehement denunciations of the “divider” Qasim (a play on the literal meaning of qasim) and on the communist “agents of

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imperialism” now in the ascendancy in Iraq.114 In mid-March, Nasser is reported to have ordered the preparation of a plan for the clandestine arming of anti-Qasim tribes with the aim of promoting instability within Iraq and thereby generating an anti-Qasim coup.115 Regime-sponsored demonstrations in the UAR commemorating the fallen martyrs of Arab nationalism in Mosul and railing against the evil deeds of the Iraqi regime and its communist backers were orchestrated throughout the spring of 1959.116 The UAR gave refuge to political exiles from Iraq, eventually sponsoring a “Free Iraqis Organization” that issued denunciations of the “reign of terror” prevailing in Iraq.117 Yet, behind all this smoke, there was little the UAR could effectively do to erode the position of the Qasim regime after the failure of the Mosul revolt. As a U.S. diplomatic assessment of April 1958 pointed out, Nasser simply lacked the means to change the regime currently in power in Iraq.118 Given Nasser’s perception that the primary danger in Iraq in 1959 was the threat a powerful communist movement posed to the EgyptianSyrian union, the UAR eventually moved toward the alternative strategy of attempting to detach Qasim from his communist supporters. By the end of April, his intermediaries with the U.S. Embassy were reporting that Nasser had decided to moderate the UAR’s propaganda offensive against the Qasim regime, partly because he was not sure it held any prospect for success, and partly in the hope of encouraging a split between Qasim and the Iraqi Communists.119 In May and June Nasser attempted to reestablish personal contact with Qasim, although with little substantive result.120 Part of the reason for this shift may also have been domestic criticism in the UAR of what some perceived as a personal vendetta that had needlessly eroded Arab solidarity.121 The campaign against the Qasim regime gradually abated. By September 1959 Nasser was maintaining that the UAR had ceased active subversion in Iraq. This was largely because he feared pushing Qasim, whom he then judged to be engaged in a delicate balancing act between nationalist and communist influences, further left.122 A U.S. intelligence assessment at the end of the year concluded that although Nasser still hoped to see Qasim replaced by a more accomodating leader, the UAR did not anticipate controlling the course of events in Iraq and was reducing its efforts to do so.123 For the remainder of the brief history of the Egyptian-Syrian union, mutual suspicion and aloofness obtained between “revolutionary” regimes of the UAR and Iraq. Full diplomatic relations were not resumed after the public rupture of March 1959. For most of 1959 and 1960, Iraq boycotted Arab League meetings in protest against alleged

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Egyptian dominance of the organization.124 Only in January 1961, when Iraq hosted a meeting of the Council of the Arab League, were UAR representatives again welcome in Baghdad.125 In the inter-Arab crisis that erupted in mid-1961 over the issue of Kuwait’s application for membership in the Arab League and Iraq’s immediate reassertion of a claim to sovereignty over the principality, the UAR supported Kuwait’s application for membership in the face of Iraqi opposition and took the lead in arranging for the dispatch of a multilateral Arab League military force to Kuwait to deter Iraqi occupation.126 At the time of the collapse of the Egyptian-Syrian union in September 1961, a token detachment from the UAR was stationed along the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border to defend Kuwait from incorporation into Iraq.

Regional Rapprochement, 1959–1960 The polarization between the two revolutionary regimes ruling Iraq and the UAR had important consequences for inter-Arab politics. Now facing a hostile rival on the left, and fearing the possible implications of communist ascendancy in Iraq for the stability and ultimately for the continued existence of the Egyptian-Syrian union, through much of 1959 and 1960 the government of the UAR mounted a sustained effort to improve its previously strained relations with the more conservative Arab states. The UAR was able to reach partial détente with some of those regimes by 1959. An appreciable warming of relations between Saudi Arabia and the UAR had commenced in the preceding year, after Crown Prince Faysal’s assumption of effective policymaking power in the kingdom in March 1958. Less hostile than his brother King Sa‘ud to the Arab nationalist current and to Nasser, Faysal quickly distanced Saudi Arabia from other pro-Western monarchies such as Jordan and Iraq and sought a propaganda truce with the UAR.127 A joint Saudi-UAR communiqué issued at the end of a visit by Faysal to Cairo in August 1958 implied suspension of Saudi Arabia’s earlier acceptance of the Eisenhower Doctrine; a policy statement in October declared Arab nationalism and neutralism the bases of Saudi foreign policy.128 The process of partial rapprochement extended to other states in 1959. The UAR had gradually reduced its interference in Lebanese politics since the end of the Lebanese civil war in the fall of 1958.129 A personal meeting between Presidents Nasser and Shihab in mid-1959 brought the two heads of state together to resolve outstanding cross-border issues between Lebanon and the Northern Region of the UAR.130 A change of ministries

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in Jordan that replaced an outspoken critic of the UAR with a new prime minister allowed for the restoration of diplomatic relations between Jordan and the UAR in mid-1959 and an abatement in UARJordanian tension.131 This effort at rapprochement by the UAR was more than coincidental. In a conversation with the Canadian ambassador in September 1959, Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal presented it as (in Haykal’s words) “much more than a mere tactical change of pace. It is the end of an era.”132 Given the great diversity of regimes in the Arab world at the end of the 1950s, Haykal now viewed full Arab unity as an impossibility in the forseeable future. “The real task of our generation is to develop our own country,” he informed the ambassador; “some psychological basis may be laid for Arab unity, but its realization will be for two or three generations from now.”133 A contemporary evaluation of the UAR’s efforts at improving its relations with the more conservative Arab regimes interpreted it as a systemic shift away from the pursuit of Arab unity and toward the promotion of regional stability.134 That a policy of regional détente was part of a coherent strategy is also attested by its internal repercussions: when the Ba‘thist ministers resigned from the union government at the end of 1959, one reason cited by informed observers was the regime’s current reluctance to follow a more activist policy in the Arab arena.135 Haykal’s new skepticism about the prospects for Arab unity at the end of the 1950s may in part have been a response to the negative effect the UAR’s inconclusive confrontations with other regimes was having upon Arab public opinion. A series of foreign reports on Nasser’s current popularity in other Arab countries in 1960 indicated a definite erosion in the position of unrivaled personal prestige Nasser had achieved as a result of the Suez crisis and the creation of the UAR. In March 1960 ‘Adnan Nahhas, an associate of the Lebanese Muslim and proNasserist politician Sa’ib Salam, maintained that “Nasser’s prestige has greatly decreased in the area” as a result of UAR “vacillations” in foreign policy. According to Nahhas, Nasser had come under strong criticism at a meeting of Lebanese Muslim activists for his “erratic behavior and his manner of alternating between bitter attacks, for no apparent reason, on a country (e.g., the United States, the USSR, or Jordan) and efforts to establish good relations with that country.” In ‘Adnan’s view, Nasser’s leadership of the Arab nationalist cause was proving to be counterproductive. “As a result of Nasser’s behavior (or rather misbehavior), the Arab world is farther from the dream of ‘unity’ than it was before Nasser’s appearance on the scene.”136

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In mid-1960, the British Foreign Office requested assessments of Nasser’s current popularity from its representatives in several Gulf states. The picture they present confirms Nahhas’s claim of the onset of a measure of disillusionment with Nasser in a region where the presence and influence of the UAR was otherwise pervasive. Nasser’s prestige was apparently undiminished in Bahrain, where Egyptian influence was strong in the schools, where “Voice of the Arabs” was the most popular radio station, and where “President Nasser’s portrait can be seen in many shops and cafes, frequently larger and more conspicuously displayed than the Ruler’s.”137 The report from Qatar, while noting the influence of Egyptian publications and radio as well as the presence of a sizable number of Egyptian and Syrian teachers who promoted Arab nationalist views in their classrooms, also observed that “Nasser’s prestige here has fallen somewhat from the high pinnacle which it reached two or three years ago.”138 In the Trucial States, Nasser’s prestige was similarly estimated to have declined since reaching its apogee in 1958, “although there is no doubt that he is still generally regarded here as the most outstanding Arab leader.”139 In Kuwait, where there were nearly 800 Egyptians and Syrians teaching in the schools by 1960 and where Egyptian publications were widely read, nonetheless “there has been a marked decline in U.A.R. stock in Kuwait during the last 18 months,” a development that the report attributed primarily to “the continued impotence of U.A.R. policy vis-a-vis Iraq.”140 A U.S. intelligence report of March 1960 offers a convenient summary of the regional standing of the UAR at the start of the 1960s. Although judging that in general terms “Nasir seeks to maintain his preeminent role as leader of the forces of Arab unity and Arab nationalism,” as well as to “direct the Arab response to moves by outside powers,” the substance of the report elaborated on the current “mood of detente between Nasir and the other states in the region.”141 The main exception to this mood of détente was Iraq, where Qasim’s government remained hostile to the UAR and no improvement in relations had occurred. In regard to Jordan, the UAR “has clearly shown a willingness to reduce tensions between the two countries,” the result being that it had been “successful in avoiding serious trouble with King Husayn.” Rapprochement with Saudi Arabia was being facilitated by Crown Prince Faysal’s relative acceptance of Nasser’s primacy among Arab leaders, in contrast to his brother King Sa‘ud’s contesting the same. The implicit quid pro quo was that for his part Nasser was following a policy of neutrality in the current internal struggle between the king and the crown prince. The federal union between the UAR and Yemen was

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“a very limited alliance and will probably continue as such.” “UAR relations with Lebanon have returned to a more even keel” since the tension of 1958, in part because of greater control being exercised over Syrian cross-border interference in Lebanon. The situation was similar in Arab Africa. “Relations between the UAR and the Sudan have been relatively stable since the November 1958 Sudanese military coup,” with the UAR not interfering in Sudanese internal affairs. The Western presence in monarchical Libya remained a problem for the UAR, with the report anticipating that the UAR would attempt to use “covert means” to erode the country’s proWestern orientation. In the Arab countries west of Egypt “UAR activities are focused on broad objectives” such as encouraging sympathy for the neutralist stance championed by the UAR. All in all, the report presents a picture of a gradual but significant process of rapprochement between the UAR and most of its fellow Arab states in the year since the regime’s abortive attempt to bring about a change of regime in Iraq. The UAR was successful in maintaining this relative improvement in relations with many of its erstwhile opponents through 1960. According to a Foreign Office memorandum, as Haykal defined the regime’s regional policy in mid-1960 the UAR “wanted to keep the Arab world quiet; there was so much going on elsewhere that they could not afford to have the Arab world in turmoil.”142 Haykal also maintained that Nasser was trying to remain “entirely neutral” as the Sa‘ud-Faysal contest for power accelerated in Saudi Arabia, telling emissaries sent by each of the rival brothers that “he refused to take sides between them.”143 The same document commented on a marked diminution of interest in Arab politics in the Egyptian press by mid-1960.144 This mood of détente between the UAR and most of the more conservative Arab regimes substantially obtained through 1960 and much of 1961, until the Syrian secession from the UAR transformed the regional scene. The one place where rapprochement broke down in 1960 was Jordan. The proximate cause for resumed tension between the UAR and the Hashimite monarchy was covert antiregime operations supported by UAR intelligence operatives based in the Northern Region of the UAR. Jordanian officials claim to have frustrated attempts to assassinate prominent regime figures in March and July 1960. They were not successful in doing so in August, when a bomb planted in his office killed Prime Minister Hazza‘ al-Majali and ten other Jordanians. Although carried out by Palestinians living in Jordan, Jordanian exiles resident in Syria and Syrian security service agents subordinate to ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj were reportedly involved in the planning of these operations. The

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extent of Cairo’s and Nasser’s complicity in these antiregime operations is not clear; Sarraj and his subordinates had been loose cannons in the past, and may again have been operating on their own.145 Beyond setting off a new round of mutual invective in which Jordanian propaganda organs denounced Nasser as “a dictator thirsting for blood” and the UAR responded with attacks on King Husayn as an imperialist puppet,146 the Majali assassination brought Jordan and the UAR to the brink of war. Infuriated by the murder of his prime minister and reportedly coming under pressure to take retaliatory action by the dead man’s kin, King Husayn may have considered mounting a military attack into the Syrian region of the UAR in the fall of 1960. Sizable Jordanian troop concentrations along the Jordanian-Syrian border were observed in early September.147 The idea appears to have been dropped under pressure from the king’s military advisers and the Western powers.148 Rather than an overt operation across the border, the Jordanians responded in kind with their own covert operations, including a bomb in the UAR Embassy in Beirut, a series of sabotage operations in Syria in late 1960 and early 1961, and possibly plans to assassinate Sarraj and other UAR security operatives because of their complicity in the Majali assassination.149 The seesaw relationship between Jordan and the UAR tilted once again in 1961. The impetus for change came from King Husayn, who in early 1961 initiated a direct exchange of letters with Nasser, four being exchanged between February and May 1961. Although the tone was courteous, the substance confirmed the deep gulf in outlook between the two leaders. Where Husayn called for Arab “solidarity,” Nasser asserted the need for “full Arab unity”; where the king saw communism as the main external threat to the Arabs, the president defined the same as the imperialism of the West. The expressed desire of both leaders for a personal meeting where they could discuss their differences face to face was not realized.150 After this personal exchange, which at least lowered the diplomatic temperature between the two regimes, in June the UAR briefly floated a suggestion for the formation of a unified Arab military command.151 The opposition of other Arab regimes save for Saudi Arabia (where the besieged King Sa‘ud’s “one desire was not to annoy Nasser and to be left in peace”) doomed the proposal to failure.152 Nonetheless, a relative truce in the perennial antagonism between the UAR and Jordan obtained through the spring and summer of 1961, until it was shattered by the sudden secession of Syria from the UAR.

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Increasing Difficulties, 1961 By early 1961, various indicators pointed to the progressive deterioration of the regime’s legitimacy in the Northern Region of the UAR. Rumors to the effect that Syria’s two former vice-presidents in the UAR, Sabri al-‘Asali and Akram al-Hawrani, had privately petitioned Nasser for the restoration of political parties and a return to a parliamentary system of government for the Syrian region circulated in the Beirut press in early 1961.1 Nasser’s reception in Damascus during his annual trip to Syria in February–March 1961 was evaluated as having been the least enthusiastic the president had yet received.2 His speeches on the trip themselves took cognizance of rumors of growing Syrian discontent, denying that he had received petitions for the restoration of parliamentary life in Syria and crediting press reports of Syrian alienation from the union to imperialist machinations.3 In April, a student assembly in Aleppo turned into an antiregime demonstration in which the speakers denounced Nasser personally as the “black pharaoh” and over a score of students were arrested.4 These storm signals did not result in a loosening of centralized control to meet Syrian desires for greater freedom and autonomy within the union. Rather than seeing a need for concessions to mollify Syrian opinion, in 1961 the UAR government undertook major new initiatives to tighten its control over the Northern Region. The partial rapprochement the regime had been able to accomplish in 1959 with more conservative Syrian elements came to an end by 1961. The UAR’s gradual movement in a more statist direction was the chief factor alienating the Syrian business community from the regime. 161

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The progressive tightening of controls over foreign exchange, the licencing of imports, and external financial transactions in early 1961 constricted commercial opportunities in what had previously been an open Syrian economy, and only produced resentment against a regime that seemed increasingly intent on homogenizing economic activity within the union.5 New regulations concerning the arabization of banks in both regions of the UAR had a similarly adverse impact.6 Some of the regime’s development projects for the Syrian region had negative political repercussions; preliminary surveys for the construction of a new dam on the Euphrates set off alarmist rumors that the regime intended to resettle large numbers of Egyptian fallahin (peasants) in Syria.7 Perhaps as a preemptive strike against unrest in the Syrian military resulting from Syrian frustration over this increasing regulation of the economy, the UAR government reassigned or retired a number of Syrian officers of rightist inclinations early in 1961.8 The incremental expansion of government regulation over economic life undertaken during 1960 and early 1961 was but a prologue to the sweeping changes in the urban economy attempted by the regime in July 1961. In a series of decrees collectively known as the “July laws,” the government went a long way toward transforming the UAR into a formally socialist state. One group of laws attempted a partial restructuring of the distribution of wealth through higher taxes on individual income, limits on salaries, and mandating corporate profit-sharing with employees. A second set of laws extended workers’ rights by limiting the workweek to 42 hours and giving employees representation on boards of directors. The third set of decrees provided for the complete or partial nationalization of banks, insurance companies, and many of the larger industrial, commercial, and financial enterprises in both regions of the union. Had Syria not seceded from the UAR two months after the promulgation of the July laws, there would have been the complete nationalization of fifty-one companies and partial government ownership of another eleven in the Northern Region of the UAR.9 Both before and after their promulgation the July laws generated extensive Syrian opposition. When the subject of moving in a socialist direction was discussed in the central cabinet early in 1961, the Syrian Minister of Economy Husni al-Sawwaf attempted to argue that Syria’s economic circumstances differed from those of Egypt and justified a separate economic regime; he was subsequently transferred from the ministry to the Central Bank.10 Nasser’s policeman in Syria, ‘Abd alHamid Sarraj, is likewise reported to have recommended against the nationalization decrees on the political grounds that they would generate

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opposition to the regime in Syria.11 Resentment and grumbling over the regime’s latest and most sweeping attempt to alter the character of the Syrian economy appear to have been widespread.12 Even Syrians who might have been expected to support the move toward socialism in the UAR found reason to criticize the July laws; in a party circular the Ba‘th, itself an advocate of a socialist course of development for the Arab nation, criticized the July laws as representing a transfer of power to the state and its bureaucrats rather than a move toward a genuinely socialist society.13 The new economic measures of July 1961 were followed by a major restructuring of the government of the UAR. On August 16, a presidential decree announced that the administrative system in place since October 1958—a central cabinet assisted by two regional cabinets for the Egyptian and Syrian regions—was to be replaced by one central cabinet that would be responsible for both policymaking and the supervision of administration throughout the UAR. Several vice-presidents were simultaneously appointed and placed in charge of specific areas of administration. Of the thirty-five ministers in the new central cabinet, fourteen were Syrians; two of the seven new vice-presidents (‘Abd alHamid Sarraj and Nur al-Din Kahhala) came from the Syrian region.14 Shortly thereafter, press reports indicated that Nasser had also decided that while Cairo would continue to be the seat of government for the bulk of the calendar year, in the future the president and cabinet would officially reside in Damascus from February to May.15 A further decree of late August announced the government’s intention to extend the Egyptian system of local administration to the Syrian region and make provincial officials there accountable to Cairo.16 The economic measures of July and the revamped political structure of August were related developments, the latter being introduced in part to handle the increased administrative responsibilities in the economic sphere that the July laws had placed on the government.17 Politically, the previous system of one central and two regional cabinets had by 1961 proved itself a cumbersome structure in which the central ministers were often superfluous in both policymaking and administration. So, by making several vice-presidents in effect “overlords” of different spheres of administration in both regions of the union, it was assumed that greater administrative control could be achieved.18 The government restructuring in August would have significantly altered the position of Syria in the UAR. The selection of two Syrians as vice-presidents, the inclusion of several Syrian ministers in the new cabinet, and the decision to have the government reside in Damascus

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for part of the year were all designed to foster a sense of participation in the governance of the union. However, the overall aim of the reorganization was to achieve a greater measure of centralized direction and administrative uniformity in place of the considerable degree of Egyptian and Syrian local variations that had characterized the system of separate regional cabinets. Nasser himself was reported to have thus articulated the goal of the reorganization when he first met with his new cabinet members in late August, telling them that “‘regionalism’ had come to an end: in future there would be no Egyptian ministers, no Syrian ministers, but only UAR ministers working for a single nation and a common future.”19 Despite the intention to have the government reside in Damascus for part of the year, the new government structure was viewed by Syrians as in effect symbolically reducing Syria’s historic capital to the status of a provincial town.20 * * * The most significant political effect of the reorganization of August 1961 was upon the position and power of the individual who previously had been the key figure in the government of the Northern Region, ‘Abd al-Hamid Sarraj. By mid-1961, Sarraj had accumulated an impressive portfolio of positions in Syria; minister of the interior and of national guidance, chair of the regional cabinet, and secretary-general of the National Union.21 Central to his position of power were the security services that came under his direction. Syria under Sarraj was a police state; both Arab and Western observers referred to his “iron grip” on the region or his “record of bloodshed, extensive brutality, and repression.”22 In time the operations of Sarraj’s security services produced considerable Syrian resentment. When Marshal ‘Amr attempted to challenge Sarraj’s position of primacy in Syria in the 1959–1960 period, his office was flooded with complaints against the arbitrary and repressive methods of the security services under Sarraj.23 Despite his personal unpopularity with many Syrians, Sarraj’s ambitions appear to have grown over time. Becoming more visible in the state-controlled media, by early 1961 he was publicly promoting himself as “a national leader” inside Syria.24 One of the results of the government restructuring in August 1961 was a formal enhancement but a practical diminution of Sarraj’s position within the regime. Deprived of his previous posts when the Syrian regional cabinet was dissolved, he was in effect kicked upstairs by being designated one of several vice-presidents of the UAR. Provincial

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governors in the Syrian region had in the past been appointed by and were responsible to Sarraj as regional minister of the interior; henceforth they were to be appointed directly by the president and to report to the vice-president in charge of local administration, the Egyptian Kamal al-Din Husayn.25 Most meaningful was the impact of the restructuring on the security services: obligated to move to Cairo, Sarraj lost effective control of the elaborate security structure that he had developed in the Syrian region over the previous three years. He was reported as wishing to at first resist his transfer to Cairo, but in the end decided that the time was not ripe for challenging an order from the president.26 Sarraj’s new position in Cairo was a nothing job bereft of executive authority.27 At the same time ‘Amr undertook the job of gradually dismantling Sarraj’s personal empire in Syria. Interior Ministry officials loyal to Sarraj were transferred to duty in Egypt and replaced by new appointees. It was announced that some of the largely autonomous security bureaus in Syria were to be amalgamated with their Egyptian counterparts. A decree forbidding arbitrary arrest without a warrant from the public prosecutor’s office attempted to moderate the previously arbitrary procedures that had generated Syrian resentment.28 New procedures for the selection of National Union governing bodies in the Syrian region were announced by ‘Amr, with his having the final word on appointments.29 Within a month of Sarraj’s transfer to Cairo, the U.S. Consulate in Damascus had concluded that “Amir has displaced Sarraj as [the] dominant public figure in this region.”30 Sarraj and his supporters did not surrender their predominance in Syria without a fight. Stormy meetings of the National Union Executive Committee in Damascus protested Sarraj’s transfer to Egypt and came out against ‘Amr’s new regulations; eventually a presidential decree dissolved both the Egyptian and Syrian regional Executive Committees of the National Union. Some of the security officers ordered to move to Cairo resisted their transfer. Eventually Sarraj himself joined the fray. Leaving Cairo on September 15 without receiving prior authorization, he returned to Damascus where he was reported to have met with his supporters and encouraged them to think that with sufficient protest on their part he could persuade Cairo to rescind many of ‘Amr’s measures aimed against the Sarraj machine.31 Sarraj’s hopes of putting together a diverse coalition of religious shaykhs, whom he had been subsidizing through ministry funds, his appointees to the National Union, and his supporters in the intelligence services, were forestalled by ‘Amr’s warnings of the consequences of sedition to the shaykhs, his closing National Union offices in Damascus,

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his dismissal of Sarraj’s man Marwan al-Siba‘i from the post of director of the security services, and his arrests of disaffected security personnel.32 On September 19 both ‘Amr and Sarraj returned to Cairo, the latter reportedly going against his will and under the threat of force.33 After extensive consultations with ‘Amr, Sarraj, and other advisers, Sarraj’s appeals to rescind ‘Amr’s personnel shifts and administrative diktats and restore the status quo ante were rejected by Nasser.34 Realizing he had lost the struggle for power, on September 26 Sarraj offered (and Nasser accepted) his resignation as vice-president of the UAR.35 Both Sarraj and ‘Amr returned to Syria, the former as a private citizen, the latter as undisputed master of the Syrian region—for two more days. The marshal returned to a severely weakened Syrian administration. ‘Amr’s personnel shifts and new procedures had produced discord in the security services as well as the resistance of many of Sarraj’s adherents. According to the Egyptian security official Salah Nasr, who in mid-September had been dispatched by Nasser to assess the situation in Syria, the regime’s security apparatus in the Syrian region virtually disintegrated in the course of the power struggle between ‘Amr and Sarraj. The main agencies of civilian control, the Mukhabarat and the Mabahith, had become “completely inactive” as a result of purges and factional rivalry. Military intelligence, whose main internal task was watching for possible sedition within the army, was fully occupied with surveillance of disruptive activities by Sarraj’s civilian supporters. And more generally state agencies in Syria were effectively “without governance or control.”36 The erosion of authority in Damascus soon had tangible effects; for the first time in years, demonstrations by communist and Ba‘thist activists were reported,37 and such vital communications centers as the post office and radio station had to be placed under military guard.38

The Syrian Secession, September 1961: “Captain of a Ship Which Has Split in Two in the Middle of the Sea”39 Early in the morning of September 28, 1961, military units from the Qatana base of the First Army outside Damascus entered the city. The airport and communications centers were quickly secured. The military high command in the Syrian region—Marshal ‘Amr, First Army commander Gen. Jamal Faysal, and their staffs—were confined to army headquarters in Damascus. By midday on September 28, the city was reported quiet and solidly under the control of the dissident forces.40

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The situation elsewhere in Syria was not as quickly resolved. Not all units of the First Army immediately backed their colleagues in Damascus. Radio Aleppo continued to broadcast messages condemning the military action in Damascus and proclaiming the city’s loyalty to the union regime throughout September 28. Only during the night of September 28–29 did the military garrisons in Aleppo and the port city of Latakia come out in support of the action in Damascus. Egyptian sources reported clashes between units loyal to the regime and others that had declared for the coup. Sporadic fighting continued to be reported in Aleppo for the next few days. It was October 3 before consular reports indicated that Aleppo was fully under the control of the new authorities.41 The military operation of September 28 was undertaken by a limited number of units based near Damascus. The organizing body was a self-styled Supreme Arab Revolutionary Command of the Armed Forces (SARC). Its key figures were Col. ‘Abd al-Karim al-Nahlawi, Col. Haydar al-Kuzbari, and Brig. ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Dahman, the latter the commander of the units based at Qatana that had entered Damascus on September 28. Contemporary speculation about the uprising credited it to a small group of more conservative Syrian officers. These were reputed to be linked to and financed by the business community of Damascus in the latter’s effort to block the July laws regarding the nationalization that would destroy the economic position of the Syrian bourgeoisie. But the precise involvement of civilian elements has never been clarified.42 When Nasser in his later accounts of the secession propounded an analysis claiming that “reaction” was the evil genius behind the operation, the “reactionary” genesis of the Syrian secession became the standard explanation of the event.43 Whether economic considerations were the primary cause of the Syrian secession, and indeed whether secession itself was the overriding goal of the military operation of September 28, are still open questions. The first several communiqués issued by the SARC over Damascus radio, beyond asserting its control of the country and appealing for public order, made no mention of the possible secession of Syria from the UAR. The SARC’s motive was announced as the “purification” of the evils wrought by the “criminal clique” in control of Syrian affairs; the communiqués also repeatedly asserted their fidelity to the cause of Arab nationalism.44 There may have been a possibility of resolving the situation short of Syrian secession on September 28. After securing the city, the leaders of the SARC had entered into extended negotiations with Marshal ‘Amr, still sequestered in staff headquarters in Damascus.45 Communiqué

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number 9, broadcast on Damascus radio in the early afternoon of September 28, claimed that a provisional agreement between ‘Amr and the coup leaders had been reached: ‘Amr had agreed that the government would address the grievances of the Syrian military, and the SARC in turn agreed to return Syrian troops to their barracks and to the preservation of Syrian-Egyptian union.46 A subsequent SARC declaration focused on issues of military preparedness and personnel—the inadequate equipment and logistical support provided to the First Army and the “egyptianization” of the armed forces in the Northern Region of the UAR—as the key grievances underlying the operation of September 28.47 It was Nasser’s refusal to ratify ‘Amr’s tentative arrangement with the SARC that tipped the scales in favor of Syrian secession.48 By the afternoon of September 28 the die had been cast; communiqué number 10 of the SARC announced that ‘Amr had backed out of his promise that the regime would resolve army grievances, and it went on to declare that the SARC was now taking full control of affairs in the Syrian region.49 Late in the afternoon of September 28, Marshal ‘Amr and the other Egyptian officers of the high command were bundled onto a plane and sent back to Egypt.50 On the following day, a new civilian government headed by the conservative Damascus politician Ma’mun alKuzbari, cousin of Col. Haydar Kuzbari, was announced by the SARC. The term “Syria” was now used in its communiqués to refer to the former Northern Region of the UAR.51 * * * The Egyptian response to the military uprising that led to the the secession of Syria from the UAR was both indecisive and ineffective. Egyptian sources later reported that the regime had received several warnings of a possible military uprising by disaffected units of the First Army prior to the operation of September 28, but that no preventive measures were taken.52 Part of the reason for Egyptian inaction may have been Nasser’s confidence that his personal popularity among the Syrians would be sufficient to preserve the union.53 More direct criticism is leveled at Marshal ‘Amr, who is frequently blamed for disregarding the warning signals of possible rebellion. “Suicided” in 1967, ‘Amr often emerges as the scapegoat in subsequent Egyptian narratives of the Syrian secession. The fact that one of the coup leaders, Col. ‘Abd al-Karim alNahlawi, had been the director of ‘Amr’s office in Damascus, lends some weight to the accusations of negligence on the part of the marshal.54

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In Cairo, Nasser received news of the military operation in Damascus on the morning of September 28. Although skeptical about ‘Amr’s initial reassurances that the situation in Damascus could be handled satisfactorily, reports from elsewhere in the Syrian region led Nasser to believe that only a few military units were involved in the uprising.55 His first public response was a morning radio address in which he denounced the “small force” from the Qatana base that had undertaken the operation and, defiantly declaring that it was not in his power to dissolve a union based on the will of the Arab people, announced that he had called on loyal units to move on Damascus and crush the rebel units threatening the existence of the union.56 He simultaneously issued orders for Egyptian paratroopers and naval units to prepare for departure to Syria to suppress the dissidents.57 The crucial time of decision was the afternoon of September 28. Nasser remained in radio contact with ‘Amr, then in effect a prisoner in Damascus. When the insurgents’ communiqué number 9 claimed that an agreement between ‘Amr and the SARC would have the rebels return to their barracks in exchange for the government’s addressing their grievances, Nasser refused to enter into negotiations with the rebels and ordered ‘Amr not to confirm the terms of the agreement.58 In a second radio address on September 28, Nasser denied that an agreement between the regime and the rebels had been reached and rejected any potential negotiation with the dissident forces. His refusal to negotiate was cast in terms of the principle that “the United Arab Republic cannot be based on bargaining. . . . It is not possible for us to bargain over our Arabism.”59 Later Egyptian accounts of the September 28 events report that Nasser had concluded that the demands of the insurgents involved an unacceptable weakening of his authority and that the entire offer to negotiate amounted to little more than a ploy by the insurgents to gain time while consolidating their hold on Syria.60 If indeed there had been the prospect of a negotiated settlement between the regime and the insurgents, Nasser’s rejection of the demands they put before Marshal ‘Amr ended any hope of compromise. Subsequent radio communiqués by the SARC indicated a hardening of their position, including for the first time direct criticism of Nasser.61 In the field more units of the First Army rallied to the rebel cause as the day progressed. The rebels’ abrupt dispatch of Marshal ‘Amr and the other Egyptian officers in the high command to Egypt signaled their definitive break with the regime in Cairo; it also was a further blow to the position of the government, depriving it of a potential rallying point for those units still loyal to the union.62

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By the evening of September 28, the only option for preserving the union left to the regime was military action against the insurgents. After the collapse of the indirect negotiations with the SARC Nasser ordered a contingent of paratroopers to Latakia, a city whose military garrison had remained loyal to the regime through September 28; other units were ordered to proceed to Syria by sea.63 It was, however, the eventual decision by the bulk of the First Army forces to join the rebellion that short-circuited the Egyptian effort to maintain the union by force. Concluding that the majority of the First Army had now joined the insurrection, and that preserving the union would involve a significant military operation that might possibly grow into an international confrontation, Nasser made the bitter decision not to use Egyptian troops to prevent Syria’s secession.64 At a public rally on the afternoon of September 29, he in effect announced his acquiescence in the secession of Syria from the UAR. The military units earlier dispatched to Syria were recalled; the paratrooper force that had already arrived at Latakia was ordered to cease operations so that “Arab blood would not be shed by Arab hands.” Deriving as it did from the will of the people, Arab unity could not be maintained by a military operation.65 * * * The Syrian secession was a devastating blow to Nasser himself. For almost a decade he had moved from triumph to triumph, in the process becoming the preeminent figure in the Arab political universe. Now his most visible achievement, and a uniquely personal achievement at that, lay in ruins. Both he and his confidants later characterized September 28 as one of the most difficult days of his political life.66 He described his own feelings in the wake of the Syrian secession as analogous to those of “the captain of a ship which has split in two in the middle of the sea.”67 Nasser is reported to have considered stepping down from the presidency of the UAR after Syria’s secession, but ultimately to have concluded that to do so would be an evasion of responsibility.68 After witnessing Nasser’s televised speech of October 2, 1961, four days after the secession, U.S. Ambassador John Badeau concluded that Nasser was an “extremely weary man.”69 A radio address three days later was delivered in a “measured and somber voice,” which his American listeners interpreted as an unmistakable sign of fatigue after several days of struggle with the regime’s most serious crisis since 1956.70 These signs of distress from a normally self-assured figure contributed to the rumors that Nasser had suffered a nervous breakdown that circulated after the secession, but that had no basis in fact.71

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Badeau’s initial assessment was that the secession had not seriously weakened Nasser’s domestic position within Egypt itself.72 A later evaluation by the U.S. ambassador concluded that although the secession had shattered the “aura of invincibility” that previously surrounded the president, his restrained handling of the episode and his rejection of the use of military force to preserve the union had to a considerable degree salvaged his position with the Egyptian public.73 The withdrawal of Syria from the UAR produced no popular outpouring of grief in Egypt. Despite an organized campaign by the Egyptian media to arouse public anger against the new secessionist regime through exaggerated and sometimes fabricated accounts of its brutal suppression of pro-UAR sentiment in Syria, the atmosphere in Cairo remained normal in the wake of the secession. Nasser’s public addresses in the days following the breakup of the union drew but moderate crowds, and only a few organized and well-controlled demonstrations against the secessionist regime and its alleged foreign supporters were reported. The overall impression of knowledgeable observers was that the Egyptian public received the news of the breakup of the UAR with relative equaminity, a dispassionate mixture of regret over what was undoubtedly a blow to Egyptian prestige but also a measure of relief that the perceived burdens of unity had been lifted from the shoulders of Egypt.74 Such sentiments were voiced even by some of the leaders in the regime. Two years before the secession, Anwar al-Sadat had privately referred to Syria as “a drag on us, and a weight upon our necks.”75 This appears to have been more than an isolated opinion among Nasser’s associates. Sayyid Mar‘i recalls divided opinions among the members of the Egyptian cabinet after the secession: some cabinet members emphasized the potentially adverse consequences of the loss of Syria for Nasser’s leadership and Egypt’s international position, others viewed the lifting of the “heavy load” Egypt had carried within the UAR as “perhaps in the interest of Egypt.”76 Nasser himself at one point expressed a similar sentiment; in a conversation with U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey in late October, he commented that the secession of Syria from the UAR would permit him to do what he “should have been doing all along,” concentrating on Egyptian affairs.77 Directing the affairs of both Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961 had been a considerable burden for Nasser; however bitter a political pill, Syria’s secession may have brought the president a measure of personal relief. The secession had its most severe domestic consequences in the regime’s power base in the military. Although initial diplomatic assessments found no evidence that the Syrian secession had adversely affected the loyalty of the Egyptian armed forces,78 it was not long before

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indications of unrest in the army kindled by the loss of Syria surfaced. Marshal ‘Amr himself is reported to have asked to be relieved of his post as commander of the armed forces of the UAR immediately after the secession, a request Nasser declined to honor.79 ‘Amr remained “under a cloud for his handling of the Syrian situation” well after the event.80 A subsequent effort to restrict ‘Amr’s authority over military appointments, and thereby limit the independent center of power he was creating within the military, failed when the marshal’s threat to resign prompted protests from his supporters demanding that he remain in command of the armed forces.81 The Syrian secession also opened the door for fissures in the military among the lower ranks. In October, the British Embassy in Cairo received an anonymous broadside complaining of the miserable conditions experienced by enlisted men and denouncing the perogatives enjoyed by the officer class.82 When the regime acted against domestic “reactionaries” tarred by the purported sponsorship of the secession by their Syrian counterparts, a number of army officers were arrested.83 Reports of arrests in the army and among former officers who now criticized the government’s repressive apparatus as a cause of the breakup of the UAR continued into early 1962.84 * * * The root cause of the collapse of the UAR is that although the new state that joined Syria and Egypt together in 1958 was Arab in spirit and institutionally a republic, it was never genuinely united. Neither the institutions established by the regime nor the policies it pursued were successful in integrating Egyptians and Syrians into a new entity in which the elites of both regions believed they played an equal part and had an equal stake. Economic policies appear to have played the main role in alienating Syria’s landlord class and its urban commercial and business community, the former by the measures of agrarian reform inaugurated in 1958, the latter by the state’s increasing control over commerce throughout the union and by its turn toward state socialism. While moving against entrenched privilege and wealth with its economic policies, the political policies of the regime simultaneously alienated the Syrian left that was in many respects its natural constituency. The Syrian Communists had never endorsed the union and were soon repressed; the group that had done most to promote the idea of Arab unity before 1958, the Ba‘th Party, was formally incorporated into the regime but progressively marginalized; the nationalist military officers who had prompted union in 1958 were either co-opted or purged. Most important

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in the end was the disaffection of the Syrian component of the UAR’s military forces. It was specific military grievances that led units of the First Army to take action on September 28. Parallel to the gradual alienation of Syria’s existing elites, the regime’s efforts to build new unionist institutions was hesitant and only partly realized. Like its Egyptian counterpart, the National Union created to replace the old political parties remained the pliant tool of the regime rather than becoming a vehicle for genuine Syrian participation in government. The regime’s reliance on the security services in controlling Syria, as well as the resentment their arbitrary methods produced among more and more Syrians over time, is properly emphasized in most analyses as a central cause of the erosion of the legitimacy of the UAR regime in its Syrian region.85 Nasser himself later acknowledged the failure to develop meaningful Syrian participation in the politics of the UAR when he ruefully confessed that he had made “the fatal mistake of treating the Syrians as if they were Egyptians.”86 Administratively, neither the civilian nor the military structures of the UAR were successfully integrated during the brief history of the union. The characterization of the UAR as “a sort of dual monarchy— two noncontiguous territories differing in standard of living, economic system, and personality; joined by a common enemy, up to a point by a common language, and, most important of all, by a common ruler” rendered by a U.S. diplomat in 1959 remained substantially true for the rest of the brief history of the union.87 Especially important in this respect was the incomplete integration of the military forces of the UAR. The fact that most units of the First Army had remained under the command of Syrian officers was the indispensible condition facilitating the military uprising in Damascus on September 28, as well as the subsequent endorsement of the coup by most units of the First Army. Weighed against the essentially political considerations of the alienation of Syrian elites from the regime and the parallel failure of the regime to develop integrative institutions, the economic factors that became the centerpiece of some subsequent analyses seem to have played a more diffuse role in generating the Syrian secession. It was elements within the Syrian military that undertook the operation of September 28. It was specific military rather than economic grievances that were the subject of their public communiques and of their abortive negotiations with Marshal ‘Amr. As discussed above, there is also the possibility that had the regime responded with more flexibility to those elements’ demands in the negotiations, the situation might have been saved on September 28.88

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External factors were of little importance in the 1961 breakup of the UAR. Despite their earlier efforts to destabilize the union, there is no indication that either conservative Saudi Arabia or revolutionary Iraq were involved in the military uprising that led to the Syrian secession. Of the several Arab regimes with which Nasser had jousted in preceding years, apparently only Jordan had some degree of contact with the military conspiracy that produced the secession. Given their tempestuous relationship in the recent past, it is not unlikely that the Jordanian intelligence services had been in contact with members of the Syrian military prior to the secession. Later accounts of the event maintained that Col. Haydar al-Kuzbari in particular had received encouragement and support from the Jordanian security services.89 Yet contemporary British dispatches from Amman concluded that the September 28 uprising was unanticipated by the Jordanians: “Events in Damascus seem to have taken [the] Jordanians completely by surprise.”90 The underlying causes of the action of September 28, as well as the particular Syrian circumstances that permitted it to succeed, were rooted in the internal evolution of the UAR rather than external manipulation. The Syrian secession had permanent and momentous results equally for Syria, for Egypt, and for the cause of Arab nationalism. Syria has remained a separate state since its secession from the UAR. Egypt eventually returned to being “Egypt,” albeit the “Arab Republic of.” No other integral union between what committed Arab nationalists regarded as artificial Arab states has been achieved since the breakup of the UAR. There is a tendency to search for profound structural causes behind what turned out to be an epoch-making event. While the judgment that “Arab nationalism met its waterloo in 1961 rather than in 1967” is a reasonable assessment of the implications of the collapse of the UAR for Arab nationalism,91 it was a Waterloo in its implications rather than in its genesis. In retrospect, the collapse of the United Arab Republic in September 1961 appears to have been another historical example of a big event with small causes.

The “Lessons” of the Syrian Secession Whatever the degree of shock he experienced over the breakup of the UAR in September 1961, it was not long before Nasser rebounded. In the weeks following the secession, the resilient president formulated an explanation of the event that served to exonerate him and his regime from much of the responsibility for the breakup, and simultaneously to provide guidelines for the course the UAR would take in the future.

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In his speech of September 29, in which he acknowledged that he could not preserve the union by force,92 Nasser had already identified the villains of the “reactionary secessionist movement” that was taking Syria out of the UAR. The coup had been backed from abroad, by imperialists, by their ally Israel, and by such reactionary regional friends of imperialism as King Husayn of Jordan and the government of Iran. Most of Nasser’s anger was directed at the internal foes of the regime whom he maintained had inspired the secession—Syria’s capitalist class opposed to such measures of populist reform as land reform and improvement of the condition of workers that had destroyed the “dictatorship of capitalism” in Syria.93 Interwoven with his denunciations of domestic reaction and foreign imperialism were more optimistic notes. The reactionary rebels had succeeded only by treachery and deceit; the Syrian people, like the Arab people as a whole, still believed in Arab unity. In the long run, neither the Syrian people nor the Syrian army would accept this reactionary and imperialist plot against their Arabism. The speech ended with Nasser’s proclaiming that he would not waver from his commitment to Arab nationalism. Despite this temporary setback for Arabism, the UAR would continue to be “a fortress for Arab liberty and a fortress for the Arab struggle.”94 A similar view of the genesis and impact of the secession was developed in a speech of October 2.95 Repeatedly denouncing the secession as a treasonous plot backed by imperialism, the allies of imperialism, and Arab reactionaries both in Syria and elsewhere in the Arab world, much of the speech was an emotional defense of the UAR against the campaign of slander mounted against it by the “reactionary secessionist movement” now in power in Damascus. Denying that the regime had been a police state or that Egyptians had exploited their positions within the unionist regime, Nasser expounded at length on the economic benefits the union had brought to the bulk of the Syrian people through its measures of economic and social reform directed against entrenched privilege in the Syrian region. At the end of the address, he acknowledged that the regime had made mistakes that contributed to the secession, the first of which was that “we trusted reaction and were deceived by reaction, believing that reaction might yield.”96 Nasser concluded by pointing to the “lesson” that Arab nationalists needed to learn from the Syrian secession—that of “always taking the initiative, with all our might, against reaction, against exploitation, and against imperialism, in order to establish social justice, to protect socialism, and to protect Arab nationalism.”97 In a radio address to the Arab nation on October 5,98 Nasser officially defined the position the government of the UAR would take

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toward the secessionist Syrian regime. While the UAR would not formally recognize the new Syrian government until it had received the freely expressed approval of the Syrian people, to avoid inter-Arab strife the UAR would also not attempt to prevent the reemergence of Syria as an independent state by blocking its readmission to the United Nations and the League of Arab States. The core of the address was a detailed enumeration of the many accomplishments of the unionist regime that in his view were unparalleled in Syrian history. Internally, investment in infrastructure and industry, agrarian reform, the socialist laws ending “the dominance of capitalism and monopoly,” and measures to benefit workers were cited as the main achievements of the union; externally, the prominent role that Syria as part of the UAR had played in regional and international affairs was noted.99 Assuring his audience across the Arab world that “I have tried my best to do my duty as a soldier in the service of this Arab nation,” his conclusion was a heartfelt affirmation of his continuing faith in the ultimate triumph of Arab nationalism: “I am confident in the inevitability of unity between the peoples of the Arab nation just as I am confident that, however long the night, dawn follows.”100 The “lessons” of the Syrian secession were most fully explicated in a lengthy address of October 16, in which Nasser reviewed the past achievements of the 1952 revolution and outlined the path the revolution would follow at this crucial moment in its history.101 As he had in earlier speeches, Nasser admitted that he had made mistakes in the governance of the UAR. His first and most important error had been a strategic one. Whereas in the past he had always refused to compromise with imperialism abroad, internally he had been “the victim of a grave delusion”: that it was possible to “compromise with reaction” because even reactionaries were fellow citizens sharing in the same destiny.102 Having learned the bitter truth—that “reaction was one of the pillars of imperialism”—henceforth domestic reaction would be treated the same as imperialism: “We must fight imperialism in the palaces of reaction, and fight reaction in the arms of imperialism.”103 His other mistakes were tactical: weakening the effectiveness of the National Union by allowing reactionaries to participate in it; not expending enough effort in awakening revolutionary consciousness among all sectors of society; and pursuing the goal of revolution through the flawed instrument of an insufficiently revolutionary bureaucracy.104 The overall conclusion he drew from these mistakes was the need to intensify “the socialist revolution” and “revolutionary effort” in the UAR.105 Nasser made his choice clear in his opening remarks pointing to the two

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possible courses of action—abandonment of the Arab struggle due to adverse circumstances, or renewed commitment to the struggle—between which the Arab nation had to choose in the wake of the Syrian secession: “The road of revolution is our road.”106 Two main themes emerge from Nasser’s speeches elaborating on the reasons and the lessons of the Syrian secession from the UAR. One is that the collapse of the union was not due to the failure of the substantive policies implemented by the union regime between 1958 and 1961. On the contrary, in the Nasserist narrative secession was the result of the regime’s success in its efforts to change Syria for the benefit of the mass of Syrians and the resultant resentment of “reactionaries” against the populist measures that were depriving the latter of their priviliged position. The lesson to be learned from this was not that reform measures should be tempered or abandoned, but that it was essential to press forward vigorously with the assault on reactionary elements within the body of the Arab nation. As Malcolm Kerr elegantly phrased it, Nasser’s conclusion was that he had been too tolerant of the forces of reaction, which by their very nature were the enemy of Arab progress: “I confess that I was foolish enough to trust you.”107 The second theme concerns the validity of the drive for Arab unity. There is no sign of the caution and reserve with which Nasser had responded to Syrian appeals for integral unity in the 1950s in his addresses of late 1961 that elaborated on the lessons of the Syrian secession. Public expressions of doubt about the cause that the UAR embodied were of course unlikely; they would have amounted to a politically unacceptable admission that the course he and his regime had chosen in January 1958 had been a blunder. Certainly Nasser’s public position, and reportedly his private view in the wake of the secession,108 was that the pursuit of the goal of Arab unity must continue and that, along with the intensified attack on “reaction,” the goal must be pursued with greater determination and vigor if it was to succeed. This refusal to turn away from the pursuit of unity was symbolically expressed in the regime’s decision that neither the name, the flag, nor the national anthem of the UAR would be changed because of Syria’s secession.109 Syria might be temporarily lost; but the United Arab Republic, the embodiment of the dream of Arab unity, lived on. The combination of Nasser’s intensified commitment to the cause of Arab unity and the identification of reactionary forces both internally and externally as the implacable opponents of unity resulted in the Egyptian revolution’s entering a new and more radical phase in the wake of Syria’s secession from the UAR. Internally, the assault on suspect

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elements in what remained of the UAR became harsher and more punitive. The July laws that had deprived the Egyptian upper classes of much of their wealth were now followed by arrests, the removal of political rights, and the loss of much of what property was left to many members of Egypt’s capitalist class.110 Externally, “reactionary” regimes both in Syria and elsewhere in the Arab world (i.e., Jordan, which had rushed to recognize the new Syrian regime; Saudi Arabia, since 1958 a confirmed lackey of imperialism; even Yemen, which had terminated its loose affiliation with the UAR after the Syrian secession) came under intensified attack.111 “Revolution” across the Arab world now became the leitmotif of Nasser and the United Arab Republic.

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9 Conclusion

Egypt’s adoption of the Arab nationalist cause and its active pursuit of Arab nationalist leadership during the first decade of the Nasserist era demonstrate both continuities and discontinuities with Egypt’s prior relationship with the surrounding Arab world. Egypt had been uninvolved in the inception of the Arab nationalist movement before and during World War I, when the main concern of politically articulate Egyptians was the British occupation of Egypt rather than the process of Ottoman centralization that served as the primary impetus for autonomy and separatism in the Ottoman Arab provinces of Western Asia. Egypt remained detached from Arab nationalism upon attaining formal independence after World War I. Politically, Egypt’s stance toward its Arab neighbors in the early years of the parliamentary monarchy was aloof. Intellectually, the establishment of a technically independent Egypt after the nationalist uprising of 1919 was one factor encouraging a sense of Egyptian distinctiveness and the flourishing of a specifically Egyptian territorial nationalism in the interwar era.1 Economic depression and political stagnation in the 1930s and 1940s gradually eroded the legitimacy of the Egyptian parliamentary order. Simultaneously, there were new developments in Middle Eastern regional politics: the prospect of a state populated largely by European Jews emerging in neighboring Palestine from the late 1930s on; the Axis challenge to British and French domination of the region during World War II; and, overlapping with both, the revival of efforts at Arab political cooperation undertaken by elites in the Fertile Crescent. All these presented Egyptians with new opportunities as well as new challenges. In response to perceived internal failures and altered external circumstances, a partial reorientation of Egyptian nationalist attitudes 179

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and policies occurred from the 1930s on. Intellectually, new voices questioned the premises of an exclusivist Egyptian territorial nationalism and maintained that Egypt was part and parcel of a larger Arab community with which its destiny was intertwined. Politically, Egyptian leaders were drawn into a more active involvement in inter-Arab politics, first in relation to the gnawing Palestine issue in the later 1930s, then in response to calls for Arab political integration in the early 1940s that resulted in the formation of the League of Arab States in 1945. In the years before its revolution of 1952, Egypt played an important role in both the affairs of the Arab League and in the unsuccessful collective Arab effort to preserve an Arab Palestine.2 After 1952, Egypt’s Arab policies under Nasser initially demonstrated much the same substantive character that had marked previous Egyptian involvement in Arab nationalism and inter-Arab politics. Like their predecessors, the leaders of Egypt’s new revolutionary regime at first viewed Egyptian participation in Arab nationalist politics through an Egyptian prism. The perceived needs of Egypt—particularly attaining genuine national independence and freedom from Western domination—were the primary reasons offered in the mid-1950s as the basis for the effort to assert Egyptian leadership of Arab nationalism. Certainly until 1958 and the formation of the UAR, the Arab nationalism of the Nasser regime retained a sharp sense of Egyptian distinctiveness within the body of the Arab nation and viewed its involvement in Arab politics largely in terms of the furtherance of Egyptian purposes. The character of the initial Nasserist foray into the Arab nationalist arena bears out the significance of the political field created by the modern territorial state in shaping interstate political behavior. Sami Zubaida has emphasized the centrality of the modern political field, that “complex of political models, vocabularies, organizations and techniques which have established and animated what I call a political field of organization, mobilization, agitation, and struggle,” for understanding Middle Eastern politics.3 It is the political field that defines the parameters within which political behavior takes place. Given the growing coercive power and expanding social functions of the state apparatus in the modern Middle East, the nation-state has become the main determinant of the political field: “the conception of the nation becomes the field and the model in terms of which to think of . . . other commitments and loyalties.”4 Roger Owen has stressed the importance of the colonial state in establishing new territorial units that, whatever their original historical reality or artificiality, once created provide the framework for subsequent political activity: “Methods of political organization and

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styles of political rhetoric are largely defined by the context. . . . [F]rom the colonial period on, this context was created by the territorial state.”5 It was the constraints and imperatives imposed by the political field of the Egyptian territorial state—maintaining both domestic control against internal challengers and relative position against external rivals for regional influence—that bulked largest in shaping the initial policies of Arab solidarity adopted by the Nasserist regime. Considerations of state power, both domestic and international, were the primary factors generating the Arab nationalist policies pursued by the Egyptian regime in the 1950s. The assertion that “Pan-Arabism is little more than an ideology of interstate manouevre”6 may be too strong for the Fertile Crescent, where Arab nationalism antedates the modern state system and where the foundations of individual states were shallow. But it comes closer to the mark for Egypt, where the option of involvement in Arab nationalism developed well after the formation of a separate Egyptian polity and where the existing territorial state defined the political field. But Nasserist departures from past precedents are also visible. Three of these are most prominent. First, Nasser and his associates operated in a different set of circumstances than their predecessors at the helm of the Egyptian ship of state had faced. The Middle Eastern political environment of the 1950s—the recession of imperial control over regional politics after World War II; the Cold War and the leverage it offered to smaller states; the emergence of Israel and the persisting Palestinian problem—afforded Egypt greater freedom of operation in the international arena at the same time that it presented Egyptian leaders with new problems that demanded more assertive policies. Egypt had more options in regional politics in the Nasser era than it had had before 1952, when the looming British presence in the Nile Valley constrained Egyptian initiative and when British-French hegemony afforded fewer opportunities for Egypt to play a significant regional role. Egypt also had more pressing reasons for regional involvement in the postwar era, when several newly independent Arab states shared the common concerns of how to deal with the lingering problem of European imperialism, as well as with the new issues of the Cold War and Israel. Much of the difference between the Nasserist regime and its predecessors lay in circumstance. The regime’s pursuit of leadership of the Arab states as the best possible sphere for Egyptian national assertion and the enhancement of Egypt’s international stature—what Nasser in 1955 phrased as the need for “an independent personality” and “an influence on what goes on around us”7—was conditioned by the particular circumstances prevailing in the Middle East in the 1950s.

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The second departure in part flowed from the first. There was an urgency to the revolutionary regime’s view of the importance of Arab solidarity for Egyptian independence that had been lacking in previous regimes. With men of a new generation, committed to ending rather than to maneuvering within an externally dominated order of things, Arab solidarity in the struggle against Western domination assumed an importance and centrality in Egyptian policymaking it had not previously possessed. Nasser’s repeated emphasis on Arab nationalism as a “weapon,” an indispensible strategic prerequisite in the struggle against imperialism, reflected this heightened importance.8 Defining, therefore, Egyptian national interests within a broader regional context, the revolutionary regime pursued a policy of Egyptian leadership of Arab nationalism with greater vigor and persistence than its predecessors. Egyptian leadership of Arab nationalism was a necessity, not a luxury, if Egypt was to achieve its goals of independence and progress. Third, the Nasserist regime had greater success in its pursuit of Arab leadership than its predecessors. Due primarily to his visibility in the anti-imperialist struggle in the mid-1950s, Nasser became the central figure of Arab nationalist politics. No Egyptian before or after stirred popular enthusiasm throughout the Arab world to the degree Nasser did after the 1955–1956 period; it is questionable if any Arab leader of the twentieth century was ever seen as embodying the hopes and aspirations of politically articulate Arabs as did the Egyptian president after Suez. It was Nasser’s unprecedented prestige and the hopes placed in him by Arabs outside Egypt that in 1958 led Syrians to importune the Egyptian president to save Syria from itself by merging the two states in the United Arab Republic. Nasser’s regional adulation as a pan-Arab leader in turn had a feedback effect on the man himself. At least for Nasser (but more dubiously for his associates), Arabism acquired a political weight and salience beyond the instrumentalist considerations that had prompted the regime’s initial promotion of Arab nationalism. Nasser’s championing of the necessity of Arab solidarity wedded his personal prestige to the Arab cause, eventually forcing him to accept options his more prudent character knew to be problematic. The United Arab Republic itself is the prime example. In the years of Syrian-Egyptian union from 1958 to 1961, Nasser’s personal investment in the success of the experiment in this union further reinforced and deepened his public commitment to Arab nationalism. By 1961, his political persona was indelibly linked to the Arab nationalist cause. Thus the collapse of the union with Syria did not lead Nasser publicly to question the premises upon which the UAR

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had been based. Rather, Syrian secession led to a deepened official commitment to Arab nationalism: “I am confident in the inevitability of unity between the peoples of the Arab nation just as I am confident that, however long the night, dawn follows.”9 Nasser’s rhetorical commitment to the cause of Arab unity in the wake of Syria’s secession from the UAR notwithstanding, the experiment in unity represented by the UAR seems to have had somewhat different consequences for Egyptians and other Arabs. Even shorn of its Syrian component, Egypt remained “the United Arab Republic” until after Nasser’s death in 1970. Its regional policies through much of the 1960s continued the pursuit of Arab leadership, first by the promotion of Arab “revolution” in the immediate wake of the Syrian secession, later by a reversion to a more restrained advocacy of the solidarity of Arab regimes in the face of the challenges represented by imperialism and Israel.10 The abrupt shattering of the mystique of Nasserist leadership in June 1967 effectively spelled the end of Nasserist domination of inter-Arab politics and paved the way for a return to a more Egyptianist emphasis in Nasser’s last years in power, as well as under his successors Anwar al-Sadat and Husni Mubarak. To be sure, postNasserist Egyptian regional policy never returned to the isolation from Arab affairs that had marked the early years of the parliamentary monarchy. At the same time, neither Sadat nor Mubarak identified Egypt’s destiny as completely with the Arabs as had Nasser.11 Considered in light of the Egyptian experience since 1970, Nasser’s pursuit of Arab nationalist leadership and the experience of the UAR did not result in a permanent transformation of the political field created earlier by the existence of the Egyptian territorial state. The legacy of “Nasserism” and the UAR may have been deeper and more durable for Arabs outside Egypt. The equation of “state” and “nation” had always been more problematic in many of the new political entities established by imperial fiat or dynastic conquest in Arab Asia. Even before Nasser and the UAR, voices asserting that “the Arabs form one nation” possessing “the natural right to live in a single state” had emerged and established a considerable popular base among a younger generation disillusioned with the political failures of its elders.12 The UAR itself was in part a result of that conviction. Its creation served to reinforce the pan-Arabist impulse for many Arabs, providing a tangible referent for the aspiration of Arab unity in subsequent years. Although gradually diminishing in meaningfulness with the passage of time, the Arab nationalist leadership of Nasser and the existence of the UAR represented positive, indeed heroic, dimensions of their modern history for

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many Arabs in the years that followed. Intermittent efforts at Arab unity on the part of Arab “revolutionary” regimes occurred throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. Surveys of Arab public opinion through the 1970s show a widespread, though variable, popular sense of identification with the Arab nation and a continuing belief in the positive benefits of Arab solidarity; and the maintenance of Arab solidarity in the pursuit of common goals remained a powerful impulse for most parties in inter-Arab politics, at least until the Persian Gulf crisis and war of the early 1990s.13 The Nasserist assumption of Arab nationalist leadership and the experiment in Arab unity represented by the United Arab Republic changed the contours of Arab nationalist discourse and politics for many years to come.

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Notes

Introduction 1. Wilton Wynn, Nasser of Egypt: The Search for Dignity (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 205. 2. Jean and Simonne Lacouture, Egypt in Transition, trans. Francis Scarfe (New York, 1958), 513. 3. Joachim Joesten, Nasser: The Rise to Power (London, 1960), 179–180; see also 114–117. 4. Eliezer Be’eri, Army Officers in Arab Politics and Society (New York, 1970), 380–381. 5. For examples see Charles Cremeans, The Arabs and the World: Nasser’s Arab Nationalist Policy (New York, 1963), 24–65; Peter Mansfield, Nasser’s Egypt, 2d ed. (Baltimore, 1969), 53–88; P. J. Vatikiotis, The Egyptian Army in Politics (Bloomington, Ind., 1961), 199–210; Keith Wheelock, Nasser’s New Egypt (New York, 1960), 218–227, 258–272. 6. Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study in Post-War Arab Politics, 1945–1958 (London, 1965), 192–237, 252–255, 289–326. 7. Miles Copeland, The Game of Nations (London, 1969), 68–69, 179–181, 190–201. 8. Anthony Nutting, Nasser (New York, 1972); Robert Stephens, Nasser: A Political Biography (New York, 1972). 9. Jean Lacouture, Nasser: A Biography, trans. Daniel Hofstadter (New York, 1973), quotation from 187. 10. P. J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and His Generation (New York, 1978), quotation from 233. 11. R. Hrair Dekmejian, Egypt Under Nasir: A Study in Political Dynamics (Albany, 1971), 93–96, 99–101. 12. A. I. Dawisha, Egypt in the Arab World: The Elements of Foreign Policy (New York, 1976), 107–109. 13. Joseph P. Lorenz, Egypt and the Arabs: Foreign Policy and the Search for National Identity (Boulder, Colo., 1990), 21–35. 14. Ghada Hashem Talhami, Palestine and Egyptian National Identity (New York, 1992), especially 68–77, 104–105, 161.

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15. Fawaz A. Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics, 1955–1967 (Boulder, Colo., 1994), ch. 2–5. 16. Eberhard Kienle, “Arab Unity Schemes Revisited: Interest, Identity and Policy in Syria and Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 27 (1995): 53–71. 17. Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca, N.Y., 1996), especially 63–98. 18. Elie Podeh, The Quest for Hegemony in the Arab World: The Struggle over the Baghdad Pact (Leiden, 1995), passim. 19. Elie Podeh, The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise and Fall of the United Arab Republic (Brighton, 1999). 20. Valuable collections containing analyses of Nasser’s views on Arab nationalism appeared under the auspices of the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut in the 1980s: see the essays in Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-‘Arabiyya, Dirasat fi alQawmiyya al-‘Arabiyya wa al-Wahda (Beirut, 1984); idem, Misr wa al-‘Uruba wa Thawrat Yulyu (Beirut, 1982); idem, Tatawwur al-Fikr al-Qawmi al-‘Arabi (Beirut, 1986). The center also published two individually written works of importance on the subject: Marlene Nasr, al-Tasawwur al-Qawmi al-‘Arabi fi Fikr Jamal ‘Abd alNasir (Beirut, 1982), and Muhammad al-Sayyid Salim, al-Tahlil al-Siyasi al-Nasiri: Dirasa fi al-‘Aqa’id wa al-Siyasa al-Kharijiyya (Beirut, 1983). Additional analyses of the subject are Imami ‘Abd al-Rahman Salih, “Judhur al-Fikra al-Qawmiyya liThawrat Yulyu,” in Sa‘ al-Din Ibrahim, ed., al-Mashru‘ al-Qawmi li-Thawrat Yulyu,” 43–99, and Hasan Nafi‘a, “al-Wataniyya al-Misriyya wa al-Qawmiyya al-‘Arabiyya fi Mashru‘ al-Qawmi al-‘Arabi li-‘Abd al-Nasir,” in ibid., 101–166. 21. Among the numerous memoirs of the Nasser era by Egyptians, the following are the most important for the study of Egypt’s involvement in Arab nationalism and inter-Arab politics: ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat ‘Abd al-Latif alBaghdadi, two vols. (Cairo, 1977); the interviews in volume four of Ahmad Hamrush, Qissat Thawrat 23 Yulyu (Cairo, 1983); ‘Assam Hassuna, 23 Yulyu wa ‘Abd al-Nasir: Shahadati (Cairo, 1990); Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, Milaffat al-Suwis (Cairo, 1986); idem, Sanawat al-Ghalayan (Cairo, 1988); idem, al-Infijar (Cairo, 1990); Salah Nasr, Mudhakkirat Salah Nasr, two vols. (Cairo, 1986); Fathi Radwan, 72 Shahran ma‘a ‘Abd al-Nasir (Cairo, 1985); and Mahmud Riyad, Mudhakkirat Mahmud Riyad 1948–1978, three vols. (Cairo, 1985–1986). 22. The memoirs cited in note 21 shed considerable light on this topic. Some recent studies with valuable data from Western archives are Uriel Dann, King Hussein and the Challenge of Arab Radicalism, 1955–1967 (New York, 1989); Irene Gendzier, Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945–1958 (New York, 1997); Andrew Rathmell, Secret War in the Middle East: The Covert Struggle for Syria, 1949–1961 (London, 1995). 23. Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958–1970, 3d ed. (Oxford, 1971), 1–25, and Tabitha Petran, Syria (New York, 1972), 106–148, offer provisional accounts. In addition to the memoirs cited in note 21, the following are of value on the birth and death of the UAR: Khalid al-‘Azm, Mudhakkirat Khalid al-‘Azm, three vols. (Beirut, 1972); Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, Ma al-ladhi Jara fi Suriya (Cairo, n.d.); Rashid Kilani, Mudhakkirat Rashid Kilani (Damascus, 1990); Salah Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir wa Tajribat al-Wahda (Cairo, 1976). Podeh, Decline, is the first archivally based study of the UAR. 24. As collected in United Arab Republic, Ministry of National Guidance, Majmu‘at Khutub wa Tasrihat wa Bayanat al-Ra’is Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir, five vols. (Cairo, n. d.).

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Chapter 1 1. For accounts of Egypt under the parliamentary monarchy, see P. J. Vatikiotis, The Modern History of Egypt (New York, 1969), 239–373; Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, Egypt’s Liberal Experiment, 1922–1936 (Berkeley, 1977), passim; Marius Deeb, Party Politics in Egypt: The Wafd and Its Rivals, 1919–39 (London, 1979), passim.; Selma Botman, Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919–1952 (Syracuse, 1991), passim. 2. Text in al-Sayyid Marsot, Liberal Experiment, 253–267. 3. For a discussion on the development of this attitude in the 1930s, see Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930–1945 (Cambridge, 1995), ch. 1. 4. Egypt, Ministry of Finance and Economy, Statistical and Census Department, Population Census of Egypt, 1947 (Cairo, 1954), 46–49. 5. Alan Richards, Egypt’s Agricultural Development, 1800–1980 (Boulder, Colo., 1982), 160–161. 6. Charles Issawi, Egypt in Revolution (London, 1963), 34. 7. For the 1930s see Bent Hansen, “Income and Consumption in Egypt, 1886/ 1887 to 1937,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 10 (1979), 43–44; for the period in general Charles Issawi, Egypt at Mid-Century: An Economic Analysis (London, 1954), 85–86. 8. See Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (London, 1969); James Jankowski, Egypt’s Young Rebels: “Young Egypt,” 1933–1952 (Stanford, 1975). 9. See Vatikiotis, Egypt, 280–291; Deeb, Party Politics, 240–258, 332–344; Jacques Berque, Egypt: Imperialism and Revolution, trans. Jean Stewart (London, 1972), 435–465, 519–536, 559–564. 10. Politics and protest during and after World War II are discussed in Vatikiotis, Egypt, 343–373; Berque, Egypt, 564–582, 652–674; Joel Beinin and Zachary Lockman, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954 (Princeton, N.J., 1987), 310–417; Mitchell, Muslim Brothers, 35–104; Raoul Makarius, La Jeunesse intellectuelle d’Egypte au lendemain de la deuxième guerre mondiale (The Hague, 1960), passim. 11. For a graphic account see Jean and Simonne Lacouture, Egypt in Transition, trans. Francis Scarfe (New York, 1958), 105–122. 12. P. J. Vatikiotis, The Egyptian Army in Politics (Bloomington, Ind., 1961), 45; Joel Gordon, Nasser’s Blessed Movement: Egypt’s Free Officers and the July Revolution (New York, 1992), 41–42. 13. Ibid., 42. For further details see Vatikiotis, Army, 45–46; Eliezer Be’eri, Army Officers in Arab Politics and Society (New York, 1970), 316–322, 483–496; Ahmad Hamrush, Qissat Thawrat 23 Yulyu, five vols., 2d ed. (Cairo, 1983), I, 209–217. 14. See especially ibid., 89–125; Khalid Muhi al-Din, Wal-an Atakallim (Cairo, 1992), 41–100; Be’eri, Army Officers, 77–91; Gordon, Movement, 44–55. 15. Hamrush, Qissat, I, 216–217. 16. Gamal Abdul Nasser, “Memoirs of the First Palestine War,” Journal of Palestine Studies 2, 2 (Winter 1973): 10; for specifics see ibid., 3–27; Lacouture, Transition, 136–139; Georges Vaucher, Gamal Abdel Nasser et son Equipe (Paris, 1959), 169–213; Hamrush, Qissat, I, 127–142. 17. Attributed to Ahmad ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and quoted in Be’eri, Army Officers, 81.

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18. Hamrush, Qissat, I, 144–145; Gordon, Movement, 47; Vatikiotis, Army, 60–62; P. J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and His Generation (New York, 1978), 105, 118–119. 19. See the discussion in Gordon, Movement, 55. 20. Be’eri, Army Officers, 92–93; Gordon, Movement, 48; Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt During the Nasser Years: Ideology, Politics, and Civil Society (Boulder, Colo., 1994), 67; Peter Woodward, Nasser (London, 1991), 21. 21. Quoted in Be’eri, Army Officers, 95. 22. Ibid., 93–95; Gordon, Movement, 48–49. 23. Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 93–96. 24. See Hamrush, Qissat, I, 161–167; Lacouture, Transition, 142–143; Vaucher, Nasser, 246–250; Be’eri, Army Officers, 87–88. 25. Caffery (Cairo) to State, January 12, 1952, United States National Archives, General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59 (hereafter US/State), 774.00/1-1252; Weekly summary of events, January 8–14, 1952, US/State, 774.00/ 1-1452; Vatikiotis, Army, 62–64; Vaucher, Nasser, 271–275; Be’eri, Army Officers, 88–89. 26. Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 125–126; Lacouture, Transition, 143; Be’eri, Army Officers, 90. 27. Gordon, Movement, 51. 28. Anthony Eden (Lord Avon), The Memoirs of Anthony Eden: Full Circle (Boston, 1960) 265–267; Gordon, Movement, 160. 29. First put forth in Miles Copeland, The Game of Nations (London, 1969), 63–67, and augmented in idem, The Game Player (London, 1989), 152–156. 30. For accounts see Gordon, Movement, 162–164; Barry Rubin, The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict (Syracuse, N.Y., 1981), 217–218; Muhammad A. Wahab Sayed-Ahmed, Nasser and American Foreign Policy, 1952–1956 (London, 1989), 40–45; Matthew F. Holland, America and Egypt: From Roosevelt to Eisenhower (Westport, Conn., 1996), 22–27. 31. See Caffery to State, July 24, 1952, US/State, 774.00/7-2452; Caffery to State, July 25, 1952, US/State, 774.00/7-2552; Weekly summary of events, July 22–28, 1952, US/State, 774.00/7-2852. 32. See Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 132–133; Lacouture, Transition, 146–148; Be’eri, Army Officers, 95–96; Gordon, Movement, 51–52. 33. Detailed accounts in Hamrush, Qissat, I, 193–208; Lacouture, Transition, 148–150; Anwar El Sadat, Revolt on the Nile (New York, 1957), 138–145. 34. See Hamrush, Qissat, I, 219–231; Sadat, Revolt, 142–156; Lacouture, Transition, 150–159. 35. Be’eri, Army Officers, 109; Beattie, Egypt, 69–71. 36. Be’eri, Army Officers, 106; Gordon, Movement, 110–111. 37. Ibid., 111–112. 38. See ibid., 113–118; Be’eri, Army Officers, 110–112; Beattie, Egypt, 88–89. 39. Ibid., 90; Vatikiotis, Army, 84. 40. Details in Gordon, Movement, 63–91. 41. Be’eri, Army Officers, 108–109. 42. Gordon, Movement, 93–97. 43. Mitchell, Muslim Brothers, 125–128; Gordon, Movement, 98–106. 44. Ibid., 124. 45. For detailed accounts see Be’eri, Army Officers, 112–119; Gordon, Movement, 122–137; Beattie, Egypt, 91–98. 46. Gordon, Movement, 127.

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47. Ibid., 138–142. 48. For contemporary testimony to this effect, see Military Weekly Report, July 31, 1952, US/State, 774.00(W)/7-3054; dispatch from Caffery, September 4, 1952, US/State, 774.5/9-2754; Caffery to State, September 16, 1952, US/State, 674.87/ 9-1654; Stevenson to FO, August 23, 1954, Great Britain, Public Record Office, London, Archive of the Foreign Office (hereafter FO371), FO371/108458, JE1198/29; Stevenson to FO, August 30, 1954, FO371/110791, 114656. 49. Vatikiotis, Army, 93–94; Gordon, Movement, 183–184; Beattie, Egypt, 100. 50. Gordon, Movement, 184–186; Be’eri, Army Officers, 119. 51. Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Ann Whitman File, International Series, Egypt folder (3), Box 8. 52. Quoted in Gordon, Movement, 120. 53. Memo of conversation between Nasser and William C. Lakeland, November 18, 1952, US/State, 774.00/11-1852; dispatch from Caffery, March 26, 1953, US/State, 774.00/3-2653. 54. United Arab Republic, Ministry of National Guidance, Majmu‘at Khutub wa Tasrihat wa Bayanat al-Ra’is Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir, multivolume (Cairo, n. d.), I, 1; Gordon, Movement, 119. 55. Dispatch from Caffery, May 18, 1953, US/State, 774.00/5-1853. 56. Lacouture, Transition, 458. 57. Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 238. 58. Gordon, Movement, 124. 59. Ibid., 187–188. 60. ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, two vols. (Cairo, 1977), I, 219–220. 61. Quote from United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at I, 238. A contemporary U.S. report on the assassination attempt termed it a “great political boon to Nasser’s popularity.” Military Weekly Report, October 29, 1954, US/State, 774.00(W)/10-2954. 62. Gordon, Movement, 186.

Chapter 2 1. Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, 1990), 8. 2. Ibid., 11. 3. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 155. 4. Ibid., 140. 5. Speech of July 22, 1955 as quoted in Keith Wheelock, Nasser’s New Egypt (New York, 1960), 225. 6. United Arab Republic, State Information Service, The Charter (Cairo, n. d.), 9–10, 22. 7. Quoted in Jean Lacouture, Nasser: A Biography, trans. Daniel Hofstadter (New York, 1973), 190. 8. Quoted in ibid., 386. 9. Available in Vaucher, Nasser, 69–73, and Sabri Ghunaym, ‘Abd al-Nasir: Dhalika al-Insan (Cairo, 1970), 53–57. 10. See Vaucher, Nasser, 56–67; Lacouture, Transition, 460; Vatikiotis, Nasser, 28–29; Israel Gershoni, “An Intellectual Source For the Revolution: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s

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Influence on Nasser and His Generation,” in Shimon Shamir, ed., Egypt from Monarchy to Republic (Boulder, 1995), 213–249. 11. Husayn Mu’nis, Misr wa Risalatuha (Cairo, 1956 or 1957), 3–6. 12. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 277–278. 13. Marlene Nasr, al-Tasawwur al-Qawmi al-‘Arabi fi Fikr Jamal ‘Abd alNasir, 1952–1970 (Beirut, 1982), 104–113. 14. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 508. 15. Ibid., 511–512. 16. Ibid., 513. 17. Ibid., 561. 18. Ibid., 605–618. 19. Gamal Abdel Nasser, The Philosophy of the Revolution (Buffalo, N.Y., 1959), 62. For a similar account of the origins of Nasser’s concern for Arab affairs, see his interview with Desmond Stewart, April 1, 1957, in United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 650–654. 20. Nasser, Philosophy, 63. 21. Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, Milaffat al-Suwis (Cairo, 1986), 196–197. 22. Nasser, Philosophy, 63. 23. Ibid., 65. 24. See Vaucher, Nasser, 50–67, 96–104; Nasr, al-Tasawwur al-Qawmi, 93–98. 25. Haykal, Milaffat, 284–285. 26. As cited in Fu’ad Matar, Bi-Saraha ‘an ‘Abd al-Nasir: Hiwar ma‘a Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal (Beirut, 1975), 137. 27. Nejla Abu Izzedin, Nasser of the Arabs (London, 1981), 327. 28. For examples, see United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 55–59, 140, 444– 445, 641–645, 650–654; quotation from United Arab Republic, The Charter, 22. 29. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 654. 30. Ibid., 666. 31. Ibid., 53–54, 140. 32. Ibid., 53–54. 33. Nasr, al-Tasawwur al-Qawmi, 109. 34. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 140, 155–156. 35. Ibid., 177. 36. For frequency of use see Nasr, al-Tasawwur al-Qawmi, 214. 37. Ibid., 209–212. 38. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 548. 39. See Nasr, al-Tasawwur al-Qawmi, 277–280. 40. United Arab Republic, The Charter, 91. 41. Interview with Desmond Stewart, April 1, 1957, in United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 650–654. 42. Ibid., 177. 43. Ibid., 501; also 548. 44. Ibid., 641–643, 643–645, 645–646. 45. Ibid., 645–646, 699–700. 46. Ibid., 654, 742. 47. Ibid., 718. 48. Ibid., 759. 49. Ibid., II, 3. 50. Ibid., 4.

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51. See Mohamed Hassanein Heikal (Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal), The Cairo Documents (New York, 1973), 20–21; Vatikiotis, Nasser, 267. 52. Speech delivered to the Arab-Islamic Conference in Cairo, August 26, 1953; United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 57. 53. See Nasser’s speech at al-Azhar, November 9, 1956, in ibid., 609. 54. Nasser, Philosophy, 59–60, 76–78. 55. Lacouture, Transition, 458–459. 56. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 579 (italics mine). 57. Speech in Aleppo, October 15, 1960; ibid., III, 266. 58. Nasr, al-Tasawwur al-Qawmi, 344–348. 59. Ibid., 349–350. 60. Marlene Nasr, “Tatawwur al-Qawmi al-‘Arabi,” in Sa‘d al-Din Ibrahim, ed., Misr wa al-Qawmiyya wa Thawrat Yulyu, 2d ed. (Cairo, 1983), 53–81, especially 77–79. 61. Marlene Nasr, “al-Qawmiyya wa al-Din fi Fikr ‘Abd al-Nasir,” in Sa‘d al-Din Ibrahim, ed., Misr wa al-Qawmiyya wa Thawrat Yulyu, 2d ed. (Cairo, 1983) 93–101. 62. Haykal, Milaffat, 314–315. 63. Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, Li-Misr La Li-‘Abd al-Nasir (Cairo, 1987), 104–106. For similar phraseology in a different context, see Heikal, Cairo Documents, 278. 64. From Egyptian press accounts as quoted in FO371/150913, VG1023/24. 65. Abd El-Moneim Attia Attia, Egypt’s Policy in Africa with Particular Reference to Decolonization and Apartheid Within the United Nations, 1952–1970 (Ph.D. diss., St. Johns University, 1973), 261; for Nasser’s speech to the conference, see United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 55–59. 66. Dispatch of June 12, 1954, US/State, 674.86A/6-1254; Military Weekly Report, August 20, 1954, US/State, 774.00(W)/8-2054; Foreign Office report on “Inter-Arab Relations, October 1953–August 1954,” in Anita L. P. Burdett, ed., The Arab League: British Documentary Sources, 1943–1963, 10 vols. (Archive Editions, 1995), VIII, 19–20. 67. Discussed in Vatikiotis, Army, 191–193. 68. “A General Survey of Nasser’s Foreign Policy,” African Department, August 30, 1957, FO371/125427, JE1023/24. 69. See Ghada Hashem Talhami, Palestine and Egyptian National Identity (New York, 1992), 70, 77, 161. 70. See Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900–1930 (New York, 1986). 71. For examples from 1953 and 1954 see US/State, 774.00/12-2954; US/ State, 774.5/5-1954; US/State, 774.5MSP/10-2254; US/State, 674.00/2-2354; US/ State, 674.83A/7-854; US/State, 674.86A/6-1654. 72. Speech of July 4, 1953, as cited in US/State, 674.86/6-1654. 73. Copeland, Game of Nations (New York, 1969), 194. 74. In a conversation with G. Lewis Jones, February 25, 1955, US/State, 774.00/2-2655. 75. Ibid. 76. Byroade (Cairo) to State, March 10, 1955, US/State, 774.00/3-1055. 77. See below, Chapter 5. 78. Joseph P. Lorenz, Egypt and the Arabs: Foreign Policy and the Search for National Identity (Boulder, Colo., 1990), 23–24.

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79. See A. I. Dawisha, Egypt in the Arab World: The Elements of Foreign Policy (New York, 1976), 108–109, 136–137; R. Hrair Dekmejian, Egypt Under Nasir: A Study in Political Dynamics (Albany, 1971), 99–101. “Bruised” is Raymond Hare’s word; Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Raymond Hare Oral History. 80. Nasr, al-Tasawwur al-Qawmi, 84–88.

Chapter 3 1. From statements by Free Officers spokesmen to U.S. diplomats in July– August 1952: Caffery to State, July 25, 1952, US/State, 774.00/7-2552; dispatch from Caffery, September 2, 1952, US/State, 774.00/9-252. 2. Dispatch from Caffery, September 5, 1952, US/State, 774.00/9-552. 3. Press conference by Nasser, ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amr, and Salah Salim, July 22, 1953, as cited in US/State, 774.00/7-2453. 4. See Hamrush, Qissat, II, 26; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 195–196; Muhi alDin, Atakallim, 192; Mahmud Riyad, Mudhakkirat Mahmud Riyad, 1948–1978, three vols. (Cairo, 1985–1986), II, 41–42. 5. Al-Ahram, January 16, 1953, as quoted in US/State, 774.00/1-1753. 6. Speech of June 14, 1953, United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 30. 7. United States, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS) multiseries, multivolume (Washington, D.C., 1983–1995, 1952– 1954), IX, 21. 8. Speech of April 9, 1953, United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 13. 9. Gabriel Warburg, Historical Discord in the Nile Valley (Evanston, Ill., 1992), 65; W. Travis Hanes III, Imperial Diplomacy in the Era of Decolonization: The Sudan and Anglo-Egyptian Relations, 1945–1956 (Westport, Conn., 1995), 142. 10. Muhammad Najib, Mudhakkirat Muhammad Najib: Kuntu Ra’is li-Misr (Cairo, 1984), 278, 289; for a parallel evaluation of Nasser’s position see Muhi alDin, Atakallim, 195. 11. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 73–74. 12. Sabri’s account is summarized in Warburg, Nile Valley, 69–72. 13. Hanes, The Sudan, 143. 14. Najib, Mudhakkirat, 281–282; Hanes, The Sudan, 144–145. 15. Text in US/State, 774.00/10-3152, and Rashed El-Barawy, The Military Coup in Egypt: An Analytic Study (Cairo, 1952), 258–263. 16. Text in Muhammad Khalil, The Arab States and the Arab League: A Documentary Record, two vols. (Beirut, 1962), I, 284–287. 17. Hanes, The Sudan, 148, 154–155. 18. Text in Khalil, Arab League, I, 289–296; see also Najib, Mudhakkirat, 283–287; Hanes, The Sudan, 158–159. 19. Discussed in Warburg, Nile Valley, 72–73. 20. See ibid., 73–74; also Lacouture, Transition, 201–202. 21. Hanes, The Sudan, 166; Warburg, Nile Valley, 76. 22. Detailed in Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 271–303, and summarized in Warburg, Nile Valley, 74–76. 23. Ibid., 123. 24. Ibid., 122. 25. Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 194; see also Hamrush, Qissat, II, 26; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 195–196.

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26. See above, Chapter 3, notes 5–8. 27. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 74–75. 28. See Hamrush, Qissat, II, 28–30, and IV, 320–321. 29. Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 193. 30. Anthony Nutting, Nasser (New York, 1972), 69; William Roger Louis, “The Tragedy of the Anglo-Egyptian Settlement of 1954,” in William Roger Louis and Roger Owen, eds., Suez 1956: The Crisis and Its Consequences (Oxford, 1989), 53–54, 60–62. 31. Gordon, Movement, 168–169. 32. FRUS, 1952–1954, IX, 21. 33. Gordon, Movement, 169. 34. Nutting, Nasser, 51. 35. Louis, “Tragedy,” 66. 36. Nutting, Nasser, 69. 37. Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951–56 (London, 1986), 231–232; text of agreement in Khalil, Arab League, II, 729–731. 38. Text in Khalil, Arab League, 731–736. 39. See Louis, “Tragedy,” 60–71. 40. Discussed in Peter L. Hahn, The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945–1956 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1991), 171–178. 41. Discussed in Gordon, Movement, 170–171. 42. Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 194. 43. See Chapter 1. 44. For examples see Caffery to State, September 7, 1952, US/State, 774.00/ 9-752; Caffery to State, November 13, 1952, US/State, 611.74/11-1352; Muhi alDin, Atakallim, 187–190; Copeland, Game of Nations, 74–75; Gordon, Movement, 165–167. 45. Detailed, with embellishment, in Copeland, Game of Nations, passim; idem, Player, 158–205; Muhammad al-Tawil, La‘bat al-Umam wa ‘Abd al-Nasir (Cairo, 1986), passim. 46. Caffery to State, July 29, 1952, US/State, 774.00/7-2952. 47. Caffery to State, November 10, 1952, US/State, 611.74/11-1052. 48. Caffery to State, January 1, 1953, US/State, 774.5/1-153. 49. Caffery to State, January 8, 1953, US/State, 774.5/1-853. 50. Quotations from the memoranda of conversations between Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Egyptian leaders, May 11–13, 1953, in FRUS, 1952– 1954, IX, 3–6, 10, 21. 51. See the National Security Council deliberations of June 1, 1953 in ibid., 379–385. 52. See Caffery to State, July 25, 1952, US/State, 774.00/7-2552; Caffery to State, September 18, 1952, US/State, 774.00/9-1852. 53. Caffery to State, November 10, 1952, US/State, 611.74/11-1052. 54. Haykal, Milaffat, 185–187; Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 190–192. 55. Caffery to State, November 21, 1952, US/State, 774.00/11-2152; see also Caffery to State, Dec. 16, 1952, US/State, 774.5/12-1652; Heikal, Cairo Documents, 36–37. 56. Caffery to State, January 7, 1953, US/State, 774.5/1-753. 57. Haykal, Milaffat, 180; Heikal, Cairo Documents, 37; Hamrush, Qissat, II, 62; Geoffrey Aronson, From Side Show to Center Stage: U.S. Policy Toward Egypt, 1946–1952 (Boulder, Colo., 1986), 52–53; Paul Jabber, Not by War Alone: Security and Arms Control in the Middle East (Berkeley, 1981), 133–134.

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58. Caffery to State, December 16, 1952, US/State, 774.5MSP/12-1652; see also Hamrush, Qissat, II, 63; Heikal, Cairo Documents, 37–39; Hahn, United States, 147–154; Jabber, Security, 134–136. 59. Dispatch from Caffery, February 3, 1953 US/State, 774.5MSP/2-1453. 60. Ibid.; see also Holland, America and Egypt, 42–43. 61. Hahn, United States, 166; Sayed-Ahmed, Nasser, 69. 62. Memoranda of the conversations between Dulles and Egyptian leaders, May 11–13, 1953, in FRUS, 1952–1954, IX, 14, 20. 63. Caffery to State, July 11, 1953, ibid., 2115–2116. 64. State to Cairo Embassy, July 15, 1953, ibid., 2121–2122. 65. State to Cairo Embassy, October 17, 1953, US/State, 774.5MSP/10-1753. 66. Caffery to State, November 22, 1953, US/State, 774.00/11-2253. 67. Memo of conversation between Ambassador Husayn and Secretary of State Dulles, December 1, 1953, US/State, 774.00/12-153. 68. Memo of conversation between Nasser and Parker T. Hart, March 21, 1954, US/State, 774.00/3-2354; Aronson, Side Show, 90. 69. State to Cairo Embassy, July 28, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/7-2854. 70. Caffery to State, July 31, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/7-3154. 71. Caffery to State, September 10, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/9-1054. 72. Caffery to State, August 24, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/8-2454. 73. Caffery to State, August 29, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/8-2954. 74. Memo of conversation between Ambassador Husayn and Secretary of State Dulles, August 30, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/8-3054. 75. Dispatch from Caffery, September 4, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/9-2754. 76. Memo of conversation between Ambassador Husayn and Assistant Secretary of State Henry Byroade, October 22, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/10-2254. 77. Caffery to State, November 6, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/11-654. 78. Editorial of November 7, 1954 as cited in US/State, 774.5MSP/11-854. 79. Caffery to State, August 24, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/8-2454. 80. Caffery to State, September 27, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/9-2754. 81. Memo of converation between Husayn and Byroade, October 8, 1954, US/ State, 774.5MSP/10-854. 82. Memo of conversation between Nasser, Copeland, and Norman Paul, November 13, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/11-1354; see also FRUS, 1952–1954, IX, 2314–2315. 83. Ibid., 2319–2322; more dramatically narrated in Wilbur Crane Eveland, Ropes of Sand: America’s Failure in the Middle East (New York, 1980), 99–102. 84. Ibid; unsigned memo for Roosevelt, November 27, 1954, US/State, 774.5MSP/11-2754. 85. Memo, “U.S. Grant Military Assistance to Egypt,” December 21, 1954; US/State, 774.5MSP/12-2154. 86. See FRUS, 1952–1954, IX, 2322–2323; William J. Burns, Economic Aid and American Policy toward Egypt, 1955–1981 (Albany, 1985), 22. 87. Caffery to State, August 13, 1952, US/State. 774.00/8-1352. 88. Dispatch from Caffery, September 12, 1952, US/State, 774.00(W)/9-1252; Haykal, Milaffat, 197; Robert W. MacDonald, The League of Arab States (Princeton, N.J., 1965), 150. 89. Dispatch of February 2, 1953, US/State, 974.40/2-253; dispatch of April 29, 1953, US/State, 974.40/4-2953. 90. For Najib’s speech inaugurating “Voice of the Arabs,” see dispatch of July 6, 1953, US/State, 974.40/7-653.

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91. Dispatch of September 17, 1954, US/State, 974.40/10-254. 92. Ibid.; Ahmad Sa‘id interviewed in Hamrush, Qissat, IV, 48–50. 93. See US/State, 974.40/10–254; Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics (London, 1965), 196–199, 220–223. 94. Dispatch of October 8, 1956, US/State, 974.40/10-856; dispatch of July 5, 1957, US/State, 974.40/7-557; dispatch of August 23, 1957, US/State, 974.40/82357. For its growth, see M. Abdel-Kader Hatem, Information and the Arab Cause (New York, 1974), 166–167; Gehan Ahmad Aly Rachty, “Mass Media and the Process of Modernization in Egypt after the 1952 Revolution” (Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1974). Its propaganda techniques are analyzed in Dawisha, Arab World, 164–172. 95. Dispatch of August 23, 1957, US/State, 974.40/8-2357. 96. “Extent and Methods of Egypt’s Drive to Extend Her Influence in the Middle East and Africa,” February 1954, FO371/108563, JE1681/1. 97. Beirut Embassy to FO, May 5, 1954, FO371/108563, JE1681/3. 98. Amman Embassy to FO, June 22, 1954, FO371/108563, JE1681/10. 99. Baghdad Embassy to FO, May 26, 1954, FO371/108563, JE1681/7. 100. Jidda Embassy to FO, May 25, 1954, FO371/108563, JE1681/8. 101. Bahrain Residency to FO, July 26, 1954, FO371/108563, JE1681/12. 102. Ibid. 103. Stevenson to FO, July 2, 1954, FO371/108563, JE1681/11. 104. For the international context see Sayed-Ahmed, Nasser, 89–90. 105. Military Weekly Report, December 17, 1953, US/State 774.00(W)/121853. 106. Caffery to State, September 11, 1952, US/State, 774.00/9-1152. 107. MacDonald, League of Arab States, 97. 108. Caffery to State, January 7, 1953, US/State, 674.00/7-153. 109. Burdett, Arab League, VIII, 36–39. 110. Dispatch of January 27, 1954, US/State, 674.00/1-2754. 111. Military Weekly Report, February 12, 1954, US/State, 774.00(W)/2-1254. 112. Military Weekly Report, April 23, 1954, US/State, 774.00(W)/4-2354. 113. Dispatch from Stevenson, January 12, 1954; FO371/108349, JE1022/3. 114. Caffery to State, January 9, 1954, US/State, 674.0021/1-954; see also Holland, America and Egypt, 55. 115. Memoranda of conversations between Secretary Dulles and Egyptian leaders, May 11–13, 1953, FRUS, 1952–1954, IX, 6, 25. 116. Ibid., 28. 117. Military Weekly Report, January 8, 1954, US/State, 774.5(W)/8-154. 118. See reports in Burdett, Arab League, VIII, 4–7, 46–58. 119. For examples see US/State, 674.00/2–2054; US/State, 674.00/5-2454; US/State, 674.83A/7-854; US/State, 774.00(W)/2-1954; US/State, 774.00(W)/9354; Also discussed in Elie Podeh, The Quest for Hegemony in the Arab World: The Struggle over the Baghdad Pact (Leiden, 1995), 65–70. 120. Caffery to State, February 20, 1954, US/State, 674.00/2-2054. 121. Dispatch of April 20, 1954, US/State, 674.00/4-2054. 122. Official Egyptian sources as cited in US/State, 774.5/5-2854. 123. Al-Jumhuriyya, May 23, 1954, quoted in US/State, 774.00/5-2454; see also Stevenson to FO, January 28, 1954, FO371/108349, JE1022/4. 124. Press interview of May 1954 cited in US/State, 674.83/5-2454. 125. Caffery to State, June 11, 1954, US/State, 674.86A/6-1154; Salah Salim press conference of June 11, 1954 as cited in US/State, 674.86A/6-1254; Caffery to

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State, July 13, 1954, US/State, 674.86H/7-1354; Salah Salim press conference of July 13, 1954 as cited in US/State, 674.86H/7-1454. 126. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 52–54; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 73–74. 127. Burdett, Arab League, VIII, 46. 128. Press conference of July 8, 1954 as cited in US/State, 674.83A/7-854. 129. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 155–156. 130. Ibid., 177. 131. Quoted in Seale, Syria, 197. 132. Interview with John Law, August 5, 1954, in dispatch of August 13, 1954, US/State, 774.00/8-1354. 133. Interview with the Associated Press as cited in US/State, 674.00/8–454. 134. Government of Egypt, “Background Paper Number 1,” as cited in US/ State, 674.00/9-354. 135. Mallory (Amman) to State, September 7, 1954, US/State, 774.00/9-754. 136. From his press conferences of December 15 and 28, 1954, as cited in US/ State, 774.00/12-1754 and US/State, 774.00/12-2954. 137. Stevenson to FO, August 10, 1954, FO371/110996, 114514. 138. For Iraqi and Egyptian accounts of Sarsank, see Khalil, Arab League, II, 260–262, 280–282; Seale, Syria, 201–205; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 54–56. Contemporary accounts in Ireland (Baghdad) to State, August 21, 1954, US/State, 674.87/8-2154; Ireland to State, August 22, 1954, US/State, 674.87/8–2254; Ireland to State, August 26, 1954, US/State, 674.87/8-2654; the reports collected in FO371/110791, 114656; Burdett, Arab League, VIII, 222–223, 224–225. Also discussed in Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 82–85. 139. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 219–220. 140. Accounts in Caffery to State, August 27, 1954, US/State, 674.87/8-2754; reports collected in FO371/110791, 114656. 141. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 56; Hamrush, Qissat, II, 45; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 86. 142. Caffery to State, September 16, 1954, US/State, 674.87/9-1654; reports collected in FO371/110791, 114656; Burdett, Arab League, VIII, 235; Khalil, Arab League, II, 263–264. A British source reported that Nasser later confirmed the substance of the Iraqi version in an off-the-record conversation (Murray to FO, December 17, 1954, FO371/110788, 1194). 143. Khalil, Arab League, II, 283–284; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 200. 144. See Burdett, Arab League, VIII, 83–88; Seale, Syria, 211; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 88–89. 145. Documents in Khalil, Arab League, II, 229–238. Egyptian versions contained in Haykal, Milaffat, 327–329; Mohamed H. Heikal (Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal), Cutting the Lion’s Tail: Suez Through Egyptian Eyes (New York, 1987), 55–59; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 65–74. See also Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 107–112. 146. First quotation from Heikal, Cutting, 56; second from Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 71. 147. Interview with Salah Salim as quoted in Seale, Syria, 217. 148. Details in Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 123–125. 149. Seale, Syria.

Chapter 4 1. See Gordon, Movement, 187–188. 2. Caffery to State, December 28, 1954, US/State, 774.5/12-2854; Caffery to State, December 31, 1954, US/State, 774.5/12-3154.

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3. Dispatch from Jones, January 21, 1955, US/State, 774.00/1-2155. 4. See Hamrush, Qissat, II, 51–54, and III, 463; Haykal, Milaffat, 342–346; Tareq Y. Ismael, The U.A.R. in Africa: Egypt’s Policy Under Nasser (Evanston, Ill., 1971), 28–32; Beattie, Egypt, 120. 5. Mahmoud Fawzi, Suez 1956: An Egyptian Perspective (London, 1987), 13–14. 6. Dispatch from Byroade, June 1, 1955, US/State, 774.00/6-155. 7. Muhi al-Din, Atakallim, 331. 8. Dispatch from Byroade, June 1, 1955, US/State, 774.00/6-1655. 9. Nasser’s tactics are analyzed in a dispatch from Political Counselor Alexander Schnee, May 31, 1956, US/State, 774.00/5-3156. 10. Beattie, Egypt, 122–123. 11. Ibid., 123–124. 12. See Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 271–303; Hamrush, Qissat, II, 23–24, and III, 319–320, 380–383; dispatch from Schnee, September 21, 1955, US/State, 774.13/ 9-2155. 13. Quotes from dispatch from Schnee, September 6, 1955, US/State, 774.13/9655. See also dispatch from Schnee, May 31, 1956, US/State, 774.00/5-3156; Hamrush, Qissat, II, 53, 86; Gordon, Movement, 188–189. 14. Dispatch from Byroade, June 16, 1955, US/State, 774.00/6-1655; dispatch from Schnee, May 31, 1956, US/State, 774.00/5-3156. 15. Ibid. 16. Sayyid Mar‘i, Awraq Siyasiyya, three vols. (Cairo, 1979), II, 347. 17. Ibid., 348–350; Heikal, Cairo Documents, 90; idem, Cutting, 123–125; Haykal, Milaffat, 464–466; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 318–323; Fathi Radwan, 72 Shahran ma‘a ‘Abd al-Nasir (Cairo, 1985), 76–78. 18. Charles Cremeans, The Arabs and the World: Nasser’s Arab Nationalist Policy (New York, 1963), 34. 19. Muhammad al-Sayyid Salim, “Al-Tahlil al-Nasiri lil-Siyasa al-Kharijiyya,” in Sa‘d al-Din Ibrahim, ed., Misr wa al-‘Uruba wa Thawrat Yulyu (Cairo, 1983), 178–179. 20. Hare to State, July 2, 1957; US/State, 774.11/7-257. 21. Dispatch from Acting Consul-General Lakes, July 28, 1956, US/State, 774.11/7-2856. 22. Byroade to State, August 3, 1956, US/State, 774.00/8-356. 23. Byroade to State, August 1, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, XVI, 105–107. 24. Egyptian accounts in Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 327–361; Hamrush, Qissat, II, 104–114; Salah Nasr, Mudhakkirat Salah Nasr, two vols. (Cairo, 1986), I, 274–278; ‘Abd Allah Imam, Nasir wa ‘Amr (Cairo, 1985), 36–43; Radwan, 72 Shahran, 91–96; Haykal, Milaffat, 530–536; Heikal, Cutting, 180–181. Moshe Shemesh and Ilan Troen, The Suez-Sinai Campaign 1956: Retrospective and Reappraisal (New York, 1990), 333–356, contains translated excerpts from Baghdadi’s diary. 25. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 352–354. 26. Nutting, Nasser, 175. 27. Hare to State, May 2, 1957, US/State, 774.00/5-2957. 28. Hare to State, June 18, 1957, US/State, 774.00/6-1857. 29. Hare to State, July 2, 1957, US/State, 774.11/7-257. 30. Hare to State, July 3, 1957, US/State, 774.00/7-357; Hare to State, July 12, 1957, US/State, 774.00/7-1257. 31. Translation based on the Al-Ahram text in US/State, 674.00/4-455; see also United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 284–287.

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32. Ibid., 287. 33. Speech of July 9, 1955, as quoted in Hasan Abu Talib, “Thawrat Yulyu fi Muwajahat Mashru‘at al-Haymaniyya al-Ajnabiyya,” in Sa‘d al-Din Ibrahim, ed., al-Mashru‘ Al-Qawmi li-Thawrat Yulyu (Cairo, 1984), 178–179. 34. Speech of August 22, 1955 as quoted in ibid., 180. 35. Byroade to State, June 2, 1956, US/State, 774.00/6-256. 36. “Egypt 1957—Annual Review,” February 3, 1958, FO371/131328, JE1022/3. 37. Speech of February 26, 1958 as quoted in Abu Talib, “Thawrat Yulyu,” 183. 38. Byroade to State, March 11, 1955, US/State, 774.00/3-1155; see also dispatch from Byroade, April 14, 1955, US/State, 674.00/4-1455; Selwyn Lloyd, Suez 1956: A Personal Account (London, 1978), 45–48; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 192; idem, “The Drift Towards Neutrality: Egyptian Foreign Policy during the Early Nasserist Era, 1952–1955,” Middle Eastern Studies 32 (1996): 170–171. 39. Nasr, Mudhakkirat, I, 241–242. See also Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, I, 197– 198; Hamrush, Qissat, V, 22–23; Haykal, Milaffat, 340; Anwar al-Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (New York, 1978), 135. 40. See Seale, Syria, 220–223. 41. Anderson to State, January 19, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, XV, 29. 42. Anderson to State, March 5, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, XV, 297. 43. Text in US/State, 674.00/3-2756. 44. Dispatch from Byroade, April 4, 1955, US/State, 674.00/4-455. 45. Seale, Syria, 220–221; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 113–114; Nasr, Mudhakkirat, I, 238–239. 46. Quoted in Seale, Syria, 222–223. 47. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 22. 48. See Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 149–150. 49. Nasr, Mudhakkirat, I, 238–239. 50. Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 112–113; Matthew Elliott, “Independent Iraq”: The Monarchy and British Influence, 1941–1958 (London, 1996), 116; Yaacov Caroz, The Arab Secret Services (London, 1978), 80. 51. See Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 89, 93–95, 116, 119–120, 128–129; Khalid al‘Azm, Mudhakkirat Khalid al-‘Azm, three vols. (Beirut, 1972), III, 94–97; Seale, Syria, 220–221, 254; Tabitha Petran, Syria (New York, 1972), 120. 52. Moose to State, May 7, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 525–528; see also Moose to State, October 14, 1955, ibid., 553–557. 53. Andrew Rathmell, Secret War in the Middle East: The Covert Struggle for Syria, 1949–1961 (London, 1995), 96–97. 54. Ibid., 106; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 159–162; Gordon H. Torrey, Syrian Politics and the Military, 1945–1958 (Columbus, Ohio, 1964), 289–291. 55. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 21–22, 45–46. 56. Discussed later in this chapter. 57. Dispatch from Moose (Damascus), March 10, 1955, US/State, 674.83/31055. 58. Text in Khalil, Arab League, II, 239. See also Moose to State, March 7, 1955, US/State, 674.83/3-755. 59. Torrey, Syrian Politics, 273–274; Rathmell, Secret War, 96–97. 60. Moose to State, March 8, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 519–520; Moose to State, May 7, 1955, ibid., 525–528; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, II, 387–390; Rashid Kilani, Mudhakkirat Rashid Kilani (Damascus, 1990), 150–152; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 64; Seale, Syria, 218–220; Torrey, Syrian Politics, 278.

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61. Rathmell, Secret War, 97; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 128; Seale, Syria, 220– 221; Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca, N.Y., 1996), 72. 62. Moose to State, March 8, 1955, US/State, 674.83/3-855. See also ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, II, 387–390; Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 150–152. 63. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 103–104; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, II, 390–391; see also FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 1–2, 4. 64. Communiqué in Khalil, Arab League, II, 240. See also Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 104–105; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, II, 391–392. 65. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 105; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, II, 392–394; see also Irene Gendzier, Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945–1958 (New York, 1997), 206–207. 66. Byroade to State, March 11, 1955, US/State, 774.00/3-1155; see also Byroade to State, March 8, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, XII, 29–32. 67. Byroade to State, March 20, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, XII, 41–43. 68. ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, II, 402–404; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 136–138; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 73–74. 69. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 108. 70. See ibid.; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 106–109; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, II, 405– 408; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 136–138. 71. Moose to State, May 14, 1955, US/State, 674.83/5-1455; see also Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 155–158. 72. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 115. 73. Ibid., 116; Salah Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir wa Tajribat al-Wahda (Cairo, 1976), 63–65; Moose to State, October 14, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 553–557; Petran, Syria, 113; Rathmell, Secret War, 106; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 159–162. 74. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 119–122; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 94–97; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 164. 75. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 119–120; Nasr, Mudhakkirat, 230; Seale, Syria, 253; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 166. 76. Moose to State, October 19, 1955, US/State, 674.83/10-1955. 77. Telegram from London Embassy citing a British source in Syria, October 26, 1955, US/State, 674.83/10-2655. 78. Text in Khalil, Arab League, II, 242–244. See also Moose to State, October 20, 1955, US/State, 674.83/10-2055; Moose to State, October 23, 1955, US/State, 674.83/10-2355; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 165–167; Torrey, Syrian Politics, 299–300. 79. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 123; Nasr, Mudhakkirat, 230. 80. See reports from the U.S. Embassy in Amman, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 1–2, 4; Uriel Dann, King Hussein and the Challenge of Arab Radicalism, 1955– 1967 (New York, 1989), 25–26; Robert B. Satloff, From Abdullah to Husayn: Jordan in Transition (New York, 1994), 105; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 172–175. 81. Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 177–180; Satloff, Jordan, 106, 113. 82. Telegram from Baghdad Embassy, November 24, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 203–204. 83. Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 180–183. 84. Eden, Full Circle, 381; Dann, King Hussein, 26–27. 85. Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 184. 86. Satloff, Jordan, 115, 122, 124. 87. Telegram from Amman Embassy, October 22, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 6–7. 88. Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 181.

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89. Telegram from Amman Embassy, December 18, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 10; Dann, King Hussein, 28; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 187–188. 90. Dann, King Hussein, 28–29; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 188–189. 91. Heikal, Cairo Documents, 79; idem, Cutting, 88–89; Nutting, Nasser, 120. 92. Nasr, Mudhakkirat, I, 250–251; Hamrush, Qissat, IV, 49–50. 93. Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 185–186. 94. Moose to State, January 2, 1956, US/State, 674.00/1-256. 95. Research Department, FO, “Development of Egyptian Influence in the Middle East,” April 30, 1956, FO371/118858, JE1041/1. 96. Kennett Love, Suez: The Twice-Fought War (New York, 1969), 204; Dann, King Hussein, 27–30; Sarah Yizraeli, The Remaking of Saudi Arabia: The Struggle Between King Sa‘ud and Crown Prince Faysal, 1953–1962 (Tel Aviv, 1997), 172–173; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 180–189. 97. Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 191. 98. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 430; IV, 74–75. 99. See the minutes of the meeting of the Council of the Baghdad Pact, March 9, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, XII, 252–258. 100. Quoted in Satloff, Jordan, 124. 101. Dispatch from Hart, January 2, 1956, US/State, 674.00/1-256. 102. Humphrey Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution (Boston, 1970), 58–59, 61–62; see also Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 196. 103. Trevelyan to Shuckburgh, February 9, 1956, FO371/118842, JE1022/8. 104. Lloyd, Suez, 45–48; FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 252–258. 105. FO to Cairo Embassy, April 16, 1956, FO371/119298, JE16710/1; see also Love, Suez, 217. 106. Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 200–201; Elliott, Iraq, 120. 107. Gallman (Baghdad) to State, June 16, 1956, US/State, 674.87/6-1656. 108. Aldrich (London) to State, June 19, 1956, US/State, 674.87/6-1956; Byroade to State, June 25, 1956, US/State, 674.87/6-2556. 109. For Dulles’s memo defining the new policy, see FRUS, 1955–1957, XV, 419–421. 110. For specifics see W. Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand: Britain, the US and the Suez Crisis, 2d ed. (London, 1996), 94–95, 101–103. 111. Documents in Khalil, Arab League, II, 245–249. 112. Satloff, Jordan, 128–134. 113. See Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 131; “Staff Study of U.S.-Egyptian Relations,” May 23, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, XV, 663–667. 114. Satloff, Jordan,151; Keith Kyle, Suez (New York, 1991), 399. 115. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 143–144; Seale, Syria, 261. 116. Quoted in Satloff, Jordan, 151. 117. See Love, Suez, 403. 118. Heikal, Cutting, 157. 119. Ibid., 134, 159; Seale, Syria, 261; Love, Suez, 304, 403; Fawzi Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics, 1955– 1967 (Boulder, Colo., 1994), 63. 120. Khalil, Arab League, II, 151–152. 121. Seale, Syria, 261–262; Kyle, Suez, 399. 122. Kyle, Suez, 399. 123. Lucas, Divided We Stand, 183. 124. Quoted in ibid., 142. 125. Wright (Baghdad) to FO, August 20, 1956, FO371/118857, JE10393/2.

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126. Wright to FO, August 29, 1956, FO371/118857, JE10393/5. 127. Wright to FO, August 31, 1956, FO371/118857, JE10393/3. 128. On Saudi diplomatic intervention, see FRUS, 1955–1957, XVI, 273–311; Lucas, Divided We Stand, 178–179; Holland, America and Egypt, 113–114; Haykal, Milaffat, 507–510; Heikal, Cutting, 155–157. 129. Kyle, Suez, 401; for Nasser’s public acknowledgement of the Libyan effort, see United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 765. 130. Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton, N.J., 1978), 751–754; Elliott, Iraq, 122–123; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 212; Love, Suez, 568. 131. See FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 593–595; Gerges, Superpowers, 64. 132. Dann, King Hussein, 41; Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 214. 133. Gendzier, Lebanon, 214–215; declaration in Khalil, Arab League, II, 818– 820. 134. Satloff, Jordan, 156 (presumably quoting a British report). 135. For Arab offers of military assistance, inter-Arab military planning, and Nasser’s discouragement of Arab military involvement, see United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 614–615; Haykal, Milaffat, 547, 564; Heikal, Cutting, 187; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 154–155; Seale, Syria, 262; Dann, King Hussein, 41; Satloff, Jordan, 156; Kyle, Suez, 399–400. 136. Gerges, Superpowers, 64. 137. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 156–157; Haykal, Milaffat, 548–549; Heikal, Cutting, 188–191; Moose to State, November 3, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 594–595. 138. Dann, King Hussein, 41. 139. Dispatch from Hare, December 16, 1956; US/State, 674.00/12-1656; also in FRUS, 1955–1957, XVI, 1314–1321. 140. Ibid. 141. Hare to State, January 10, 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, XVII, 16–19. 142. Ibid., 19–20; see also Hare to State, July 2, 1957, ibid., 677–679. 143. Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, Sanawat al-Ghalayan (Cairo, 1988), 199–204. 144. Ibid. 145. Dann, King Hussein, 43; Torrey, Syrian Politics, 333–334. 146. Text in Khalil, Arab League, II, 287–289; see also FO371/131320, JE1011/1. 147. Text in Khalil, Arab League, II, 921–922; see also FO371/131320, JE1011/1. 148. See Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 226. 149. Dann, King Hussein, 31–34. 150. Ibid., 38–52. 151. Quoted in ibid., 45. 152. Ibid., 55–67. 153. Telegram from Amman Embassy, March 16, 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 32–34; Heikal, Cutting, 96–87. 154. Lucas, Divided We Stand, 94–95. 155. Specifics in Hamrush, Qissat, III, 432–434; Tawil, La‘bat al-Umam, 195–205; Dann, King Hussein, 38; Rathmell, Secret War, 131. 156. Dann, King Hussein, 63. 157. See Rathmell, Secret War, 133. 158. See reports in FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 100–102, 111–112, 112–113, 122– 125, 145–146. 159. Such as Caroz, Secret Services, 83–85. 160. See Hamrush, Qissat, III, 435, 442; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 105.

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161. Dann, King Hussein, 74; see also 168–169. 162. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 441–442; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 101–105. 163. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 105. 164. See Hamrush, Qissat, III, 441–442; Dann, King Hussein, 74–75. 165. For specifics see Rathmell, Secret War, 134–135. 166. Radio Cairo as cited in F0371/131341, JE10380/1. 167. Moose to State, May 17, 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 618. 168. Torrey, Syrian Politics, 368; David W. Lesch, Syria and the United States: Eisenhower’s Cold War in the Middle East (Boulder, Colo., 1992), 118. 169. See Douglas Little, “Cold War and Covert Action: The United States and Syria, 1945–1958,” Middle East Journal 44 (1990): 55–58; Rathmell, Secret War, 37–41. 170. See Rathmell, Secret War, 112–123; Little, “Covert Action,” 64–69; Lucas, Divided We Stand, 116–117, 130–131, 276–277. 171. Eveland, Ropes of Sand, 253–255; Rathmell, Secret War, 138–140; Little, “Covert Action,” 71. 172. “Soviet Exploitation of the Situation in Syria in 1957”; US/State, HM 1994, Box 1. See also Torrey, Syrian Politics, 360–361. 173. See Lesch, Syria, 139–142; Rathmell, Secret War, 141; Little, “Covert Action,” 71–73. 174. Quoted in Seale, Syria, 296. 175. See Lesch, Syria, 158–160. 176. Quoted in ibid., 141. 177. State Department telegrams in FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 691–699. For debate over whether this amounted to a “green light” to take military action, see Lesch, Syria, 156; Holland, America and Egypt, 141. 178. State Department telegrams of September 10, 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 690–693. 179. Lesch, Syria, 132–134. 180. Ibid., 140. 181. The Saudi stance toward Egypt was also in part influenced by the differing views and internal rivalry of King Sa‘ud and Crown Prince Faysal; see Yizraeli, Saudi Arabia, 159, 168, 174–175. 182. See Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 206–211; David W. Lesch, “Gamal Abd alNasser and an Example of Diplomatic Acumen,” Middle Eastern Studies 31 (1995): 363–364. 183. Lesch, “Gamal Abd al-Nasser,” 365; Seale, Syria, 302–304. 184. Quoted in Rathmell, Secret War, 142. 185. See Lesch, Syria, 190–201. 186. Text in Khalil, Arab League, II, 342–343. 187. Burdett, Arab League, VIII, 574. 188. Lesch, Syria, 201. 189. Ibid., 144. 190. “Important Developments in Syrian Situation in Past Twenty-four Hours,” August 24, 1957; US/State, HM 1994, Box 1; see also “Egyptian Reaction to Events in Syria,” August 24, 1957, FO371/125438, JE10387/1. 191. Hare to State, September 3, 1957, US/State, 674.83/9-357. 192. Quoted in Haykal, Sanawat, 266–269. 193. Lesch, Syria, 194. 194. Ibid., 180. 195. Ibid., 178.

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196. Hare to State, September 12, 1957, US/State, 674.83/9-1257. See also Torrey, Syrian Politics, 363. 197. See Haykal, Sanawat, 266–269; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 33; Seale, Syria, 306. 198. Hare to State, October 14, 1957, US/State, 674.83/10-1457. 199. See Haykal, Sanawat, 269. 200. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 188. 201. Haykal, Sanawat, 269. 202. See Lesch, Syria, 181–183; idem, “Gamal Abd al-Nasser,” 367–370; Elie Podeh, The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise and Fall of the United Arab Republic (Brighton, 1999), 35. 203. Hare to State, September 1, 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 664–669; see also Paul J. Hare, Diplomatic Chronicles of the Middle East: A Biography of Ambassador Raymond A. Hare (Lanham, Md., 1993), 114–115. 204. Hare to State, September 3, 1957, US/State, 674.83/9-357. 205. Haykal, Sanawat, 266. 206. Moose to State, September 27, 1957, US/State, 674.83/9-2757. 207. Haykal, Sanawat, 267–268. 208. See Matar, Bi-Saraha, 138–139. 209. Dispatch from Canadian Ambassador MacDonnell, December 20, 1957, FO371/131328, JE1022/3. 210. Hare to State, December 11, 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 744–746. 211. Ibid. 212. State to Cairo Embassy, December 12, 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, XIII, 746– 747; see also Podeh, Decline, 39–41. 213. Hare to State, February 18, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XIII, 427–429. 214. See Holland, America and Egypt, 139–150; Nigel John Ashton, Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser: Anglo-American Relations and Arab Nationalism, 1955–59 (New York, 1996), 132–133. 215. Hare to State, February 18, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XIII, 427.

Chapter 5 1. ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, II, 402–404; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 108; see also Podeh, Baghdad Pact, 136–138. 2. Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 155. 3. See Rathmell, Secret War, 117. 4. Damascus Embassy to State, July 7, 1956, US/State, 674.83/7-756; see also Podeh, Decline, 31–32. 5. Minutes of the session in Yusuf Khuri, ed., Mashari‘ al-Wahda al-‘Arabiyya, 1913–1987: Watha’iq (Beirut, 1988), 336–349. 6. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 541–542. 7. Ibid., 547. 8. Damascus Embassy to State, July 7, 1956 US/State, 674.83/7-756; see also dispatch from Moose, July 18, 1956, US/State, 674.83/7-1856. 9. Moose to State, August 9, 1956, US/State, 674.83/8-956. 10. Moose to State, January 12, 1957, US/State, 674.83/1-1257. 11. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 202; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 104–106, 122; Moose to State, January 24, 1957, US/State, 674.83/1-2457; see also Podeh, Decline, 33.

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12. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 202; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 107. 13. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 202–203. 14. Speech of March 1957 as cited in Robert Stephens, Nasser: A Political Biography (New York, 1972), 272. 15. Speech of July 1957 as cited in US/State, 674.00/7-2757. 16. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, I, 771. 17. See Chapter 4. 18. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 203–204; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 46–47; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 34. 19. Strong to State, November 18, 1957, US/State, 674.83/11-1857. 20. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 47; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 111. 21. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 117–119; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 47; Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 164. 22. The explanatory prologue to the joint resolution placed greatest emphasis on the anti-imperialist imperatives for unification and the need for Arab unity in the face of imperialist and Zionist pressure; Khuri, Watha’iq, 350. See also Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 111. 23. For a different interpretation see Ahmad Yusuf Ahmad, “Tajribat alJumhuriyya al-‘Arabiyya al-Muttahida: Musahama fi Qira’at Jadida li-ha,” in alWahda al-‘Arabiyya: Tajaribuha wa Tawaqqu‘atuha (Beirut, 1989), 205–236, especially 206–210. 24. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 209; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 115–116; Podeh, Decline, 39. 25. The classic Western-language account is Seale, Syria, 307–326; for a more recent account see Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 87–96. 26. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 111–112; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 166–170; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 88 (citing an interview with Bizri). 27. Yost to State, January 15, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-1558; Nasr, ‘Abd alNasir, 111–112; Torrey, Syrian Politics, 376–377; Petran, Syria, 122, 124–125; Steven Heydemann, Authoritarianism in Syria: Institutions and Social Conflict, 1946–1970 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1999), 80–82. 28. Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 89. 29. Ibid.; Seale, Syria, 318; Torrey, Syrian Politics, 377. 30. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 111–112; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 209–210. 31. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 117–119; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 47; Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 164. 32. Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 164; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 121–122; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 210. 33. Congruent accounts in Yost to State, January 14, 1958, US/State, 674.83/ 1-1458 (citing a Turkish source); Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 90–91 (Bizri); Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 123–124; Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 165–166. For an alternative version see Batatu, Old Social Classes, 825. 34. Interview cited in Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 91. 35. Text in Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 211–213, and ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 123–125. 36. ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 127; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 123–124. 37. Yost to State, January 13, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-1358. 38. The most detailed “insider” accounts are those of Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal in his Ma al-ladhi Jara fi Suriya (Cairo, n.d.), 33–39, and Sanawat, 273– 281. A less detailed sequence of events and decision-making is presented in Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 35–38; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 214–217; and Nasr, ‘Abd

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al-Nasir, 124–128. Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 91–96, has information from Syrian sources. 39. Haykal, Suriya, 33–35; idem, Sanawat, 274–276. 40. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 214–215; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 124–125; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 93. 41. Yost to State, January 16, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-1658; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 215; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 93. 42. Haykal, Suriya, 38–39; idem, Sanawat, 277–280. 43. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 126–128; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 37–38; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 93–94. 44. Quoted in Seale, Syria, 322. See also Yost to State, January 22, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-2258. 45. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 121–122. 46. Hare to State, January 17, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-1758. 47. Hare to State, February 18, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XIII, 427–429. 48. See Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 37–38; Mahmud Fawzi, Thuwwar Yulyu Yatahaddathun (Cairo, 1988), 38 (Husayn al-Shafi‘i) and 55–56 (Kamal al-Din Husayn); Sami Jawhar, al-Samitun Yatakallimu (Cairo, 1975), 50 (Kamal al-Din Husayn and Baghdadi); Sadat, Search, 151–152. 49. Husayn Zulfakar Sabry, Sovereignty for Sudan (London, 1982), 55. 50. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 49, and IV, 97–90 (interview with Amin al-Huwaydi). 51. Radwan, 72 Shahran, 104. 52. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 214–215; Haykal, Sanawat, 274–279. 53. Mar‘i, Awraq Siyasiyya, II, 396–399. 54. Radwan, 72 Shahran, 103. 55. Mar‘i, Awraq Siyasiyya, II, 399. 56. Hare to State, February 18, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XIII, 428. 57. See above, Chapter 4. 58. Caccia (Washington) to FO, January 24, 1958, FO371/134386, VY10316/5 (citing a Syrian source). 59. Amman Embassy to FO, February 6, 1958, FO371/134387, VY10316/42. 60. Benest (Washington) to Breachley, March 11, 1958, FO371/131328, JE1022/ 10, citing a conversation between Nasser and an American visitor. 61. Hare to State, February 18, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XIII, 428. 62. See Radwan, 72 Shahran, 99; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 49; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 108–112. 63. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 38. 64. Haykal, Sanawat, 277. 65. Radwan, 72 Shahran, 99. 66. Hare to State, February 18, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XIII, 428. 67. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 38. 68. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 49; similar interpretation in Podeh, Decline, 46. 69. Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 169; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 126–128; Haykal, Suriya, 38. 70. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 214; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 92. 71. Quoted in Seale, Syria, 320. See also Torrey, Syrian Politics, 379. 72. Yost to State, January 20, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-2058; Majdi Riyad, Hiwar Shamil ma‘a al-Duktur Jamal al-Attasi: ‘an al-Nasiriyya wa al-Nasirun (Cairo, 1992), 69. 73. Text of draft agreement in Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 216. 74. ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 127–141, 197–198. See also Yost to State, January 24, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-2458.

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75. Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 169–170; Seale, Syria, 323; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 94–95; Podeh, Decline, 44–45. 76. Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 170. 77. See Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 95. 78. Yost to State, January 28, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-2858. 79. Yost to State, January 30, 1958, US/State, 674.83/1-3058. 80. Contrast Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 96; Podeh, Decline, 177. 81. Text in Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 218–220 (also in Khalil, Arab League, I, 601–602). 82. Resolutions in Khuri, Watha’iq, 362, 362–363. 83. Middle Eastern Affairs 9, 4 (April 1958): 159. 84. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, II, 3–5. 85. Ibid., 7–8. 86. Ibid., 9. 87. Ibid., 10. 88. Eisenhower Library, Raymond Hare Oral History. 89. Haykal, Suriya, 40.

Chapter 6 1. Nasser to Raymond Hare, Eisenhower Library, Raymond Hare Oral History. 2. Text in Khalil, Arab League, I, 601–602. 3.Text in ibid., 610–617, and Khuri, Watha’iq, 364–367. 4. See Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 47; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 59; Middle Eastern Affairs, 9:4 (April 1958), 139; Podeh, Decline, 51–52. 5. Foreign Office Minute by R. M. Hadow, February 19, 1958, FO371/ 134388, VY10316/102; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 123–124; Nutting, Nasser, 247–248. 6. Hare to State, October 7, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/10-758. 7. Hare to State, October 8, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/10-858; Middle Eastern Affairs, 9:11 (November 1958), 367–368. 8. See Hare’s evaluation (US/State, 786B.00/10-858) and ‘Ali Sabri’s comments to Hare (US/State, 768B.00/10-1458). 9. “Nasser’s Problems in Syria,” February 9, 1959, FO371/141896, VG1011/1. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid.; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 227; Podeh, Decline, 52–43. 12. Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals 1958–1970 (third ed.; London, 1971), 11. 13. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 229; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 122. 14. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 55–58. 15. “Nasser’s Problems in Syria,” February 9, 1959, FO371/141896, VG1011/1. 16. Ibid.; United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, II, 243–255; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 56; Petran, Syria, 132; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 123; Podeh, Decline, 66. 17. “Aspects of Syro-Egyptian Unification: the Military,” April 19, 1961, US/ State, 786B.00/4-1961. 18. John F. Devlin, The Ba‘th Party: A History from Its Origins to 1966 (Stanford, 1976), 116. 19. Interview of 1964 as quoted in Kamel S. Abu Jaber, The Arab Ba‘th Socialist Party: History, Ideology and Organization (Syracuse, 1966), 48.

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20. Devlin, Ba‘th Party, 116; Nutting, Nasser, 248. 21. Hare to State, July 2, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/7-258. 22. Dispatch from Cairo Embassy, September 15, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/ 9-1558. 23. Hare to State, October 14, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/10-1458. 24. “Nasser’s Problems in Syria,” February 9, 1959, FO371/141896, VG1011/1. 25. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 229; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 60–61; Petran, Syria, 146. 26. Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 122. 27. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460; see also Hamrush, Qissat, III, 70. 28. Dispatch from Cairo Embassy, Sept, 15, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/9-1558. 29. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 30. Caroz, Secret Services, 87–89; Rathmell, Secret War, 145–146. 31. In an interview with Kermit Roosevelt as cited in FO371/131323, JE1015/25; see also Matar, Bi-Saraha, 142–144, for the Nasserist view of Sarraj. 32. Quote from Ahmad Fathi Radwan, assistant to Mahmud Riyad, as cited in US/State, 786B.00/9-1558. 33. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 57. 34. Podeh, Decline, 72–74. 35. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 36. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 228–229. 37. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 57–58; Nutting, Nasser, 248. 38. Devlin, Ba‘th Party, 136. 39. “Nasser’s Problems in Syria,” February 9, 1959, FO371/141896, VG1011/1. 40. Podeh, Decline, 78–79. 41. Dispatch from U.S. Consul, Aleppo, September 20, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/ 9-2058. 42. Dispatch from U.S. Consul, Aleppo, September 26, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/ 10-358. 43. Dispatch from U.S. Consul, Aleppo, November 5, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/ 11-558. 44. Ireland (Aleppo) to State, November 30, 1958, US/State, 796B.00/11-2958. 45. Dispatch from U.S. Consul, Damascus, November 18, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/11-1858. 46. Dispatch from U.S. Consul, Aleppo, November 5, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/ 11-558. 47. Ireland to State, November 30, 1958, US/State, 786B.00/11-2958. 48. A former official of the UAR’s Syrian region as quoted in “Progress Report on Syro-Egyptian Unification,” August 30, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/8-3060. 49. “Reformation of the National Union,” June 22, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/62259. 50. Dispatch from US Consul Damascus, May 21, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/52159; dispatch from Cairo Embassy, June 22, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/6-2259. 51. See Vatikiotis, Army, 116–117. 52. Reams (Damascus) to State, July 14, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/7-1359. 53. Ibid.; Wheelock (Aleppo) to State, July 18, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/71659. 54. Wheelock to State, November 21, 1959, US/State 786b.00/11-2159; Reams to State, November 23, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/11-2359.

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55. Petran, Syria, 134. 56. Cairo to FO, August 8, 1960, FO371/150902, VG1016/20. On the National Union generally see Podeh, Decline, 114–119. 57. See ibid., 82–84; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 57; Nutting, Nasser, 249–250. 58. Memorandum, “Recent Changes in Syrian Region,” October 22, 1959, US/State, HM 1994, Box 2. See also Reams to State, October 14, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-1459; telegram from British Property Commission (Cairo) to FO, October 26, 1959, FO371/141900, VG1017/14. 59. Reams to State, October 27, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-2659; Memorandum, “Significance of Amer’s Appointment to Power in Syria,” October 27, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-2759. 60. In a conversation with Canadian Ambasador Arnold Smith as reported in FO371/141903, VG1010/36. 61. Hare to State, October 22, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-2259. 62. Reams to State, October 22, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-2259. 63. Hare to State, October 22, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-2259. 64. Haring (Damascus) to State, December 30, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/123059. 65. Ibid.; Crosthwaite (Beirut) to FO, December 31, 1959, FO371/150900, VG1015/1; report from Canadian Ambassador Arnold Smith, January 22, 1960, FO371/150900, VG1015/5. See also Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 57–59; Podeh, Decline, 99–101. 66. “Review of Developments in 1959,” British Diplomatic Mission (Cairo), January 31, 1960, FO371/150896, VG1011/1. 67. Research Department Memorandum, “The State of the Union,” May 4, 1960, FO371/150902, VG1016/8. 68. Report from Canadian Ambassador Arnold Smith, April 3, 1959, FO371/ 141900, VG1017/6. 69. See Devlin, Ba‘th Party, 139–141; Petran, Syria, 134. 70. Reams to State, July 14, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/7-1359. 71. See Abu Jaber, Arab Ba‘th, 62; Devlin, Ba‘th Party, 144; Podeh, Decline, 91–98. 72. Reams to State, September 16, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/9-1559. 73. Report from Canadian Ambassador Arnold Smith, September 12, 1959, FO371/141900, VG1017/11. 74. Nutting, Nasser, 250. 75. Haring to State, December 30, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/12-3059; Crosthwaite to FO, December 31, 1959, FO371/150900, VG1015/1; “Review of Developments in 1959,” January 31, 1960, FO371/150896, VG1011/1; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 65–67; Podeh, Decline, 102–103. 76. See Hamrush, Qissat, III, 64–66; Haykal, Sanawat, 558–661. 77. Anschuetz (Cairo) to State, December 31, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/ 12-3059; report from Canadian Ambassador Arnold Smith, October 20, 1959, FO371/141903, VG1010/36; “Review of Developments in 1959,” January 31, 1960, FO371/150900, VG1015/5. 78. Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 124. 79. Haring to State, December 30, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/12-3059; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 65–67. 80. Ibid., 69; letter from Arthur (Cairo), January 5, 1960, FO371/150900, VG1015/3. 81. Cairo to FO, August 18, 1960, FO371/150903, VG1016/22.

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82. Reams to State, September 21, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/9-2160; Cairo to FO, September 21, 1960, FO371/150903, VG1016/27, and VG1016/27(A). 83. Devlin, Ba‘th Party, 162–164. 84. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 237. 85. For Baghdadi’s negative view of Sarraj see Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 64–65; for Sarraj-Hawrani rivalry see dispatch from Cairo Embassy, June 4, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/6-459. 86. Ibid. 87. Reams to State, October 27, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-2659; “Significance of Amer’s Appointment to Power in Syria,” October 27, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-2759. 88. Reams to State, December 15, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/12-1559. 89. Haring to State, December 30, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/12-3059. 90. “Progress Report on Syro-Egyptian Unification,” August 30, 1960, US/ State, 786B.00/8-3060. 91. Wheelock to State, May 16, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/5-1660. 92. Reams to State, August 3, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/8-360; Reams to State, Aug, 5, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/8-560. 93. Reams to State, February 12, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/2-1260. 94. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 95. “Paraphrase of a telegram from U.S. Consulate-General Damascus,” September 6, 1960, transmitted in FO371/150901, VG1015/20. 96. Knight (Damascus) to State, August 15, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/8-1561. 97. Reams to State, September 21, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/9-1260. 98. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 99. See Patrick Seale, Asad of Syria (Berkeley, 1988), 59–64. 100. Dispatch from Cairo Embassy, June 4, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/6-459; Be’eri, Army Officers, 139; Petran, Syria, 146. 101. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 102. “Study of Political Situation in the First (Syrian) Army of the United Arab Republic,” December 22, 1960, US/State, HM 1994, Box 2; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 82; Podeh, Decline, 113. See Petran, Syria, 146, for the Syrian claim. 103. “Study of Political Situation in the First (Syrian) Army of the United Arab Republic,” December 22, 1960, US/State, HM 1994, Box 2. 104. “Aspects of Syro-Egyptian Unification: the Military,” April 19, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/4-1961. 105. “Study of Political Situation in the First (Syrian) Army of the United Arab Republic,” December 22, 1960, US/State, HM 1994, Box 2. 106. Ibid. 107. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 71; Kerr, Arab Cold War, 21. 108. “Progress Report on Syro-Egyptian Unification,” August 30, 1960, US/ State, 786B.00/8-3060. 109. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 80; Nutting, Nasser, 262–263. 110. Amman Embassy to FO, August 5, 1959, FO371/141900, VG1017/9. 111. Reams to State, October 14, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-1459; Reams to State, October 27, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-2659. 112. “Study of Political Situation in the Syrian (First) Army of the United Arab Republic,” December 22, 1960, US/State, HM 1994, Box 2.

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113. “Aspects of Syro-Egyptian Unification: The Military,” April 19, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/4-1961. 114. Clarke (Damascus) to FO, July 31, 1961, FO371/158797, VG1018/10. 115. “Syrian Pressure for Autonomy within the UAR,” US/State, 786B.00/8-959. 116. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 117. Ibid. 118. Cited in Podeh, Decline, 112. 119. “Progress Report on Syro-Egyptian Unification,” August 30, 1960, US/ State, 786B.00/8-3060. 120. Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 181; Harry Hopkins, Egypt the Crucible: The Unfinished Revolution in the Arab World (Boston, 1969), 213. 121. “Syrian Pressure for Autonomy within the UAR,” US/State, 786B.00/8959. 122. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 123. “Progress Report on Syro-Egyptian Unification,” August 30, 1960, US/ State, 786B.00/8-3060. 124. See comments in Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 125. “Progress Report on Syro-Egyptian Unification,” August 30, 1960, US/ State, 786B.00/8-3060. 126. “Syrian Pressure for Autonomy within the UAR,” US/State, 786B.00/8959. 127. “Weekly Letter on Syria,” Beirut Embassy, May 10, 1960, FO371/150904, VG1017/18. 128. See Hamrush, Qissat, III, 71–72. 129. Podeh, Decline, 132. 130. Ibid., 133. 131. Ibid., 133–134. 132. Intelligence Report no. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460. 133. Research Department Memorandum, “The State of the Union,” May 4, 1960, FO371/150902, VG1016/8. 134. Ibid. 135. Crowe (Cairo) to FO, January 21, 1960, FO371/150902, VG1016/9. 136. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 57–58, 64. 137. “Review of Developments in 1959,” January 31, 1960, FO371/150896, VG1011/1; Research Department Memorandum, “The State of the Union,” May 4, 1960, FO371/150902, VG1016/8. 138. Cited in Petran, Syria, 144. 139. “Syrian Pressure for Autonomy within the UAR,” US/State, 786B.00/8-959. 140. Reams to State, July 16, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/7-1660. 141. Edden (Beirut) to FO, September 13, 1960, FO371/150901, VG1015/18. 142. “UAR Developments,” March 1959, Eisenhower Library, White House Central Files, Box 78. 143. Ireland to State, March 27, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/3-2759. 144. Dispatch from Cairo Embassy, June 4, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/6-459. 145. For his 1958 visit, see ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 164–165; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 46–47; Mohamed Hassanein Heikal [Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal], The Sphinx and the Commissar (New York, 1978), 88.

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146. Reams to State, February 26, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/2-2459; see also dispatch from Cairo Embassy, March 6, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/3-659; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 240–241. 147. Reams to State, February 23, 1960, US/State, 786B.11/2-2360. See also Reams to State, March 19, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-1960. 148. “Weekly Letter on Syria,” Beirut Embassy, July 11, 1960, FO371/150904, VG1017/23. 149. Reams to State, July 16, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/7-1660; see also “Report on the Syrian National Union Congress,” July 1, 1960, FO371/150904, VG1015/15. 150. Edden to FO, September 13, 1960, FO371/150901, VG1015/18. 151. Ibid.; Beirut Embassy to FO, September 12, 1960, FO371/150901, VG1015/17. 152. Reams to State, July 16, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/7-1660; similar judgment in “Weekly Letter on Syria,” July 11, 1960, FO371/150904, VG1017/23.

Chapter 7 1. Middleton to FO, February 6, 1958, FO371/134387, VY10316/52. 2. Middleton to FO, March 1, 1958, FO371/134390, VY10316/141; Fahim I. Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon (Washington, 1961), 61–63. The latter cites a contemporary estimate of between 300,000 and 350,000 Lebanese visitors to Syria in February–March 1958 (ibid., 63). 3. Texts in Burdett, Arab League, IX, 43–46. 4. Middleton to FO, February 6, 1958, FO371/134387, VY10316/52. 5. Middleton to FO, February 12, 1958, FO371/134388, VY10316/88; see also Qubain, Lebanon, 61–62. 6. For Nuri al-Sa‘id’s reaction see Dulles to State, January 29, 1958, Eisenhower Library, Ann Whitman Files, January 1958 (2); for that of King Husayn, see Wright (Amman) to State, 27 January 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 268–269. 7. FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 268–269; Burdett, Arab League, IX, 81. 8. Wright to State, February 3, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 270–272; Burdett, Arab League, IX, 83. 9. Text in Khalil, Arab League, I, 79–80. 10. Text in ibid., 80–91. 11. Elliott, Iraq, 134–135. 12. Ibid., 135. 13. Text in Khalil, Arab League, I, 91–92. 14. Yizraeli, Saudi Arabia, 159. 15. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 184; Haykal, Sanawat, 292–294. 16. Account in Haykal, Sanawat, 298–305; truncated version in Heikal, Cairo Documents, 127–128; see also Caroz, Secret Services, 243–253. 17. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, II, 49–50; Beirut Embassy to FO, March 6, 1958, FO371/134390, VY10316/157; Beirut Embassy to FO, March 7, 1958, FO371/134390, VY10316/160. 18. See Yizraeli, Saudi Arabia, 68–69. 19. FRUS, 1958–1960, XII, 715. 20. Memo from Canadian Ambassador R. M. MacDonnell (Cairo), April 11, 1958, FO371/131335, JE10325/2. 21. “Assessment of Current Situation in the Near East,” March 24, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XII, 49.

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22. See Yizraeli, Saudi Arabia, 69–71. 23. Ibid., 68–69. 24. “Special National Intelligence Estimate: Implications of Recent Governmental Changes in Saudi Arabia,” FRUS, 1958–1960, XII, 726–729. 25. Khalil, Arab League, I, 643–645. 26. Ibid., 646–651. 27. Ibid., 647. 28. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 201–204. 29. See Hamrush, Qissat, IV, 55; Haykal, Sanawat, 336; Heikal, Cairo Documents, 133; Heikal, Sphinx, 93; Batatu, Old Social Classes, 795; Podeh, Decline, 60. 30. Haykal, Sanawat, 342; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 52; Uriel Dann, Iraq Under Qassem: A Political History, 1958–1963 (New York, 1969), 73. 31. Haykal, Sanawat, 343. 32. Accounts in ibid., 366–372; Heikal, Cairo Documents, 131–135. 33. FRUS, 1958–1960, XII, 314–315; Dann, Iraq, 70. 34. Haykal, Sanawat, 370. 35. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 77–78; Batatu, Old Social Classes, 817; Dann, Iraq, 73. 36. Text in Khalil, Arab League, II, 289–290. 37. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 54; Haykal, Sanawat, 376–377; Podeh, Decline, 61–63. 38. Haykal, Sanawat, 296–297; Dann, King Hussein, 81. 39. Burdett, Arab League, IX, 87. 40. See Dann, Iraq, 81–82, on the propaganda war. 41. Rathmell, Secret War, 149. 42. In June 1958, Nasser insisted to Kermit Roosevelt that all he was doing in Jordan was “propaganda and a little money”; conversation reported in minute by Watson, June 24, 1958, FO371/131323, JE1015/25. 43. See the assessments from the U.S. Embassy in Jordan contained in FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 294–299; Dann, King Hussein, 86–87. 44. Dann, King Hussein, 88–91; Ashton, Anglo-American Relations, 171–175. 45. See Anglo-American Relations, 176–178; Ritchie Ovendale, Britain, the United States, and the Transfer of Power in the Middle East, 1945–1962 (London, 1996), 204–211. 46. Dann, King Hussein, 89–90. 47. Rathmell, Secret War, 150. 48. Dann, King Hussein, 92. 49. Hamrush, Qissat, IV, 88. 50. Rathmell, Secret War, 150. 51. Conversation between Nasser and Robert Murphy, August 8, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 442. 52. See Dann, King Hussein, 90–92. 53. For overviews of the civil war see Qubain, Lebanon, 28–88; Charles Winslow, Lebanon: War and Politics in a Fragmented Society (London, 1996), 107–119. 54. Tawfig Y. Hasou, The Struggle for the Arab World: Egypt’s Nasser and the Arab League (London, 1985), 92–93. 55. Burdett, Arab League, IX, 35–39, 50–51; Hasou, Struggle, 93–96; Hussein A. Hassouna, The League of Arab States and Regional Disputes (Leiden, 1976), 62–65. 56. Hasou, Struggle, 96–99; Gendzier, Lebanon, 265–267. 57. Hasou, Struggle, 99; Gendzier, Lebanon, 267.

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58. Qubain, Lebanon, 144–145. 59. Eveland, Ropes of Sand, 279; see also Qubain, Lebanon, 145–150; Ashton, Anglo-American Relations, 163; Erika G. Alin, The United States and the 1958 Lebanon Crisis (Lanham, Md., 1994), 113. 60. Qubain, Lebanon, 137–138. 61. Quoted in ibid., 52. 62. Quoted in ibid., 52–53. 63. Quoted in ibid., 221. 64. Quoted in ibid. 65. Ahmad Sa‘id on “Voice of the Arabs” as quoted in ibid., 222; see also ibid., 222–224. 66. For examples see FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 175–180; Gendzier, Lebanon, 238, 270, 284. 67. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 51; Hamrush, Qissat, IV, 88. 68. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 454; Copeland, Game of Nations, 233; Alin, Lebanon Crisis, 73–74. 69. Qubain, Lebanon, 142–143; Gendzier, Lebanon, 268. 70. To U.S. Ambassador McClintock as cited in Gendzier, Lebanon, 267. 71. Copeland, Game of Nations, 232. 72. Cited in Gendzier, Lebanon, 268; see Copeland, Game of Nations, 248, for another estimate. 73. McClintock to State, June 2, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 86–89. 74. See Nasser’s conversations with Hare reported in FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 67–70, 84–86, 101–103. 75. Hare to State, June 7, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 103; FO371/131323, JE1015/25; Copeland, Game of Nations, 236–237; Cremeans, Arabs and the World, 164; Hare, Diplomatic Chronicles, 118–119. 76. Hare to State, May 20, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 67–70; see also Haykal, Sanawat, 326–327. 77. Haykal, Sanawat, 325; Copeland, Game of Nations, 235–237; Gendzier, Lebanon, 258, 261–262. 78. Hare to State, May 31, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 84–86. 79. Ibid. 80. Hare to State, June 7, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 101–103. 81. Alin, Lebanon Crisis, 96–97. 82. For the US response see FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 76–77, 92–93; Gendzier, Lebanon, 259–263; Holland, America and Egypt, 156–158; Gerges, Superpowers, 110–111; Ashton, Anglo-American Relations, 159. 83. Hare to State, June 16, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XIII, 452–453. 84. See Qubain, Lebanon, 154–156. 85. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 55. 86. See Qubain, Lebanon, 154–161; Winslow, Lebanon, 126–130. 87. Copeland, Game of Nations, 242; Gendzier, Lebanon, 254. 88. See the reports from the United Nations in FRUS, 1958–1960, XI, 488– 511; Holland, America and Egypt, 168. 89. Qubain, Lebanon, 108–109. 90. Gendzier, Lebanon, 359–360. 91. Dann, Iraq, 74–76; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 114. 92. For ‘Arif see above; for Qasim’s position see Dann, Iraq, 67. 93. Memo from director of intelligence and research, August 22, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XII, 337–338; Dann, Iraq, 79; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, 115.

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94. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 78–79; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 161; Rashid Khalidi, “The Impact of the Iraqi Revolution on the Arab World,” in Robert Fernea and William Roger Louis, eds., The Iraqi Revolution of 1958: The Old Social Classes Revisited (London, 1991), 111–113. 95. Details in Dann, Iraq, 81–89. 96. Conversations between Kermit Roosevelt and British officials summarized in FO371/133962, VG1022/24. 97. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 78; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 161. 98. Memo from director of intelligence and research, November 5, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, XII, 351–352. 99. Haykal, Sanawat, 420–421. 100. See Dann, Iraq, 128–135; Caroz, Secret Services, 96–98; Podeh, Decline, 85. For denials of UAR involvement see Haykal, Sanawat, 416–422. 101. Batatu, Old Social Classes, 861–864. 102. Dann, Iraq, 161–162. 103. Ibid., 160–161. 104. Details in Batatu, Old Social Classes, 866–889. 105. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 80, 85–86; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 162–163; Batatu, Old Social Classes, 872–873; Dann, Iraq, 166–170. 106. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 82; see also Podeh, Decline, 114. 107. Batatu, Old Social Classes, 872–873, 882; Rathmell, Secret War, 155. 108. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 80. 109. Rathmell, Secret War, 155 (citing British sources). 110. Baghdadi, II, Mudhakkirat, 82–84; Dann, Iraq, 176. 111. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 85, 88. 112. Quoted in Rathmell, Secret War, 156. 113. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 87; Nutting, Nasser, 259–260. 114. Reams to State, March 16, 1959, US/State, 686B.87/3-1659; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 164–165; Podeh, Decline, 87. 115. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 95–99. 116. “The Anti-Qasim Campaign in the Syrian Region,” dispatch from U.S. Consul, Damascus, April 29, 1959, US/State, 686B.87/4-2959; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 88–89. 117. Rathmell, Secret War, 157. 118. Jernegan (Baghdad) to State, April 3, 1959, FRUS, 1958–1960, XII, 406–409. 119. Hare to State, April 22, 1959, US/State, 686B.87/4-2259; Hare to State, April 28, 1959, US/State, 686B.87/4-2859. 120. Hare to State, May 20, 1959, US/State, 686B.87/5-2059; Anschuetz to State, June 9, 1959, US/State, 686B.87/6-859. 121. Telegram from Canadian Ambassador Arnold Smith, May 2, 1959, FO371/141907, VG1023/4. 122. Hare to State, September 20, 1959, US/State, 686B.00/9-1959. 123. “Special National Intelligence Estimate: Short-Term Prospects for Iraq,” December 15, 1959, FRUS, 1958–1960, XII, 496–499. 124. Burdett, Arab League, IX, 274–280, 337–343, 439–440, 524–527; MacDonald, League of Arab States, 363–365. 125. Burdett, Arab League, X, 51–56. 126. For details on the crisis see Dann, Iraq, 349–353; Ovendale, Transfer of Power, 220–237; Burdett, Arab League, X, 249–331, 377–404. 127. Yizraeli, Saudi Arabia, 178–179. 128. Ibid., 180.

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129. Hare to State, October 14, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/10-1458; Anschuetz to State, June 9, 1959, US/State, 686B.87/6-859. 130. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 100. 131. Dann, King Hussein, 107. See also Kerr, Arab Cold War, 19; “Review of Developments in 1959,” January 31, 1960, FO371/150896, VG1011/1. 132. Telegram from Canadian Ambassador Arnold Smith, September 12, 1959, FO371/141907, VG1023/10. 133. Ibid. The ambassador’s gloss on Haykal’s remarks was that “I consider all these statements sincere.” 134. Crowe to FO, October 5, 1959, FO371/141907, VG1023/11. 135. Anschuetz to State, December 31, 1959, US/State, 786B.00/12-3059. 136. Dispatch from Beirut Embassy, March 15, 1960, US/State, 786B.11/31560. 137. Wiltshire (Bahrain) to FO, June 15, 1960, FO371/150913, VG1023/16. 138. Moberly (Doha) to FO, June 22, 1960, FO371/150913, VG1023/17. 139. Harley (Trucial States) to FO, July 10, 1960, FO371/150913, VG1023/25. 140. Trew (Kuwait) to FO, July 10, 1960, FO371/150913, VG1023/26. 141. Intelligence Report No. 8235, “Outlook for the United Arab Republic,” March 11, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/3-2460, 29. Following material in Chapter 7 text is from the same source, 29–32. 142. Research Department Memorandum, “The State of the Union,” May 4, 1960, FO371/150913, VG1023/8. 143. Ibid. 144. Ibid. 145. See Caroz, Secret Services, 102–103; Dann, King Hussein, 110–111, 115. Nasser himself was evasive when the subject of Majali’s assassination came up in his meeting with President Eisenhower at the United Nations in September, belittling the Jordanian accusation but not directly denying it; see Eisenhower Library, White House File, International Series, Box 49; memorandum of conversation, September 26, 1960. 146. Memo from Armin H. Meyer to Mr. Jones, October 18, 1960, US/State, 786B.00/10-1860; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 445–446. 147. Moshe Shemesh, The Palestinian Entity, 1959–1974: The PLO and Politics (London, 1988), 20; Podeh, Decline, 127. 148. Podeh, Decline, 127; Dann, King Hussein, 111–112. 149. Haykal, Sanawat, 506; Caroz, Secret Services, 103–104; Podeh, Decline, 127–128. 150. Haykal, Sanawat, 550–551; Dann, King Hussein, 114–115. 151. Burdett, Arab League, X, 94–99. 152. Ibid., 103–104.

Chapter 8 1. Quote from “The Situation in Syria—January 1961,” January 28, 1961, FO371/158797, VG1018/3; see also Beaman (Port Said) to State, February 5, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/2-561. 2. Knight (Damascus) to State, February 23, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/2-2361. 3. Chancery (Cairo) to FO, March 4, 1961, FO371/158797, VG1018/5; Haykal, Sanawat, 509–510.

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4. Dispatch from U.S. Consulate, Aleppo, May 1, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/5161; dispatch from U.S. Consulate, Aleppo, May 11, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/5-1161. 5. “Weekly Letter on Syria,” Beirut Embassy, May 10, 1960, FO371/150904, VG1017/18; Knight to State, February 23, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/2-2361. 6. Clarke (Damascus) to FO, March 10, 1961, FO371/158797, VG1018/6. See also Podeh, Decline, 137–139. 7. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 238–239. 8. “Aspects of Syro-Egyptian Unification: The Military,” April 19, 1961, US/ State, 786B.00/4-1961. 9. Details in Issawi, Egypt in Revolution, 56–60; Anouar Abdel-Malek, Egypt: Military Society (New York, 1968), 151–157. 10. Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 243. 11. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 75–76. 12. For general impressions see Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 73–74; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 77; Nutting, Nasser, 264; Stephens, Nasser, 331. 13. Abu Jaber, Arab Ba‘th, 58–60. 14. Chancery (Cairo) to FO, August 17, 1961, FO371/158786, VG1016/27; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 82; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 244–245; Podeh, Decline, 145. 15. Chancery (Cairo) to FO, August 26, 1961, FO371/158787, VG1016/36. 16. Knight to State, September 18, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-1861. 17. Military Weekly Report, August 24, 1961, US/State, 786B.00(W)/8-2461. 18. Chancery (Cairo) to FO, August 17, 1961, FO371/158786, VG1016/28. 19. Chancery (Cairo) to FO, August 29, 1961, FO371/158787, VG1016/36. 20. Knight to State, August 26, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/8-2661; Chancery (Cairo) to FO, August 22, 1961, FO371/158787, VG1016/31. 21. Clarke to FO, July 31, 1961, FO371/158797, VG1018/10. 22. Quotes from Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 71, and Knight to State, September 27, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2761. 23. Clarke to FO, April 4, 1961, FO371/158797, VG1018/7; see also Hamrush, Qissat, III, 83. 24. Clarke to FO, April 4, 1961, FO371/158797, VG1018/7; see also Podeh, Decline, 129. 25. Knight to State, September 18, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-1861. 26. Knight to State, August 26, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/8-2661. 27. Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 175–176. 28. Knight to State, September 18, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-1861; Nasr, ‘Abd al- Nasir, 229–232; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 83–84. 29. Knight to State, September 18, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-1861; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 108. 30. Knight to State, September 18, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-1861. 31. See Knight to State, September 20, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2061; Clarke to FO, September 22, 1961, FO371/158787, VG1016/50; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 229– 232; Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 175–176; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 85; Podeh, Decline, 146–147. 32. Knight to State, September 27, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2761. 33. Clarke to FO, September 22, 1961, FO371/158787, VG1016/50, and VG1016/ 45(A). 34. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 110; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 231–232; Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 175–176. 35. Knight to State, September 27, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2761; see also Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 110; Podeh, Decline, 147.

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36. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 231–232, 265–266. 37. Wilson (Beirut) to State, September 22, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2261. 38. Knight to State, September 27, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2761. 39. Nasser as cited in Haykal, Sanawat, 591. 40. Damascus Consulate to State, September 28, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/92861; Military Weekly Report, October 5, 1961, US/State, 786B.00(W)/10-561; Beirut Embassy to FO, September 28, 1961, FO371/158787, VG1016/53; Tel Aviv Embassy to FO, September 29, 1961, FO371/158789, VG1016/120. 41. Knight to State, September 28, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2861; Knight to State, September 30, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-3061; Badeau (Cairo) to State, October 1, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-161; Allen (Aleppo) to State, October 3, 1961, US/ State, 786B.00/10-361; Chancery (Cairo) to FO, September 28, 1961, FO371/158788, VG1016/67; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 118, 123–124; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 92–93. 42. For contemporary speculation see Beirut Embassy to FO, September 29, 1961, FO371/158789, VG1016/91. See also Podeh, Decline, 149–150; Heydemann, Authoritarianism in Syria, 130. 43. Discussed later in this chapter. 44. Text of communiques in Wilson (Beirut) to State, September 28, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2861; Khuri, Watha’iq, 371–372. 45. Ibid.; Knight to State, September 28, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2861. 46. Wilson to State, September 28, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2861; Khuri, Watha’iq, 372. 47. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 257–260; Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 179–180; Podeh, Decline, 154. 48. An Israeli military intelligence summary as reported in Tel Aviv Embassy to FO, September 29, 1961, FO371/158789, VG1016/120. 49. Khuri, Watha’iq, 372–373. 50. Military Weekly Report, October 5, 1961, US/State, 786B.00(W)/10-561; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 260. 51. “Tentative Analysis of the Situation in Syria as of September 30, 1961”; FRUS, 1961–1963, XVII, 268–271. 52. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 80–81 and IV, 450–451; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 265– 266; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 184–188; Nutting, Nasser, 264–265. 53. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 72, 111; Nutting, Nasser, 265. 54. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 80–81, 86–88; Haykal, Sanawat, 267–270; Imam, Nasir wa ‘Amr, 54–55; Jawhar, al-Samitun Yatakallimu, 53–55. 55. Haykal, Sanawat, 567–568; Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 112; Riyad, Mudhakkirat, II, 251; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 267–268. 56. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, III, 521–526; see also Badeau to State, September 28, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2861. 57. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 112. 58. Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 267–268; Kilani, Mudhakkirat, 179–180. 59. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, III, 527–531 (quotation from 529); see also Chancery (Cairo) to FO, September 28, 1961, FO371/158788, VG1016/61; Podeh, Decline, 150–151. 60. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 114–116; Haykal, Sanawat, 269–270. 61. Khuri, Watha’iq, 372–373. 62. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 117. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid., 118–119; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 91–92; Nasr, ‘Abd al-Nasir, 269–270; Podeh, Decline, 151. Continuing reports of strife in Aleppo led Nasser to reconsider

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the dispatch of troops on October 1, but ultimately to draw back again from committing Egyptian troops to a military operation in Syria; see Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 123–124. 65. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, III, 531–541 (quotation from 534); see also Beirut Embassy to FO, September 29, 1961, FO371/158789, VG1016/94; Badeau to State, September 29, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2961. 66. See United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, III, 546; Matar, Bi-Saraha, 149. 67. Haykal, Sanawat, 591. 68. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 124. 69. Badeau to State, October 2, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-261. 70. Badeau to State, October 6, 1961, US/State, 786B.11/10-661. 71. Badaeu to State, October 13, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-1361. 72. Badeau to State, October 2, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-261. 73. Badeau to State, October 13, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-1361. 74. Badeau to State, September 29, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/9-2961; Badeau to State, October 1, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-161; Badeau to State, October 2, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-261; Badeau to State, October 4, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-461. See also Cremeans, Arabs and the World, 177–178; Nutting, Nasser, 268. 75. Report from Canadian Ambassador Arnold Smith, September 12, 1959, FO371/141900, VG1017/11. 76. Mar‘i, Awraq Siyasiyya, II, 424–427. 77. Quoted in Podeh, Decline, 158. 78. Badeau to State, October 2, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-261; Badeau to State, October 13, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-1361. 79. Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 124–127; Beeley (Cairo) to FO, October 31, 1961, FO371/158793, VG1016/215. 80. Chancery (Cairo) to FO, October 17, 1961, FO371/158792, VG1016/197. 81. Hamrush, Qissat, III, 99–100; Jawhar, al-Samitun Yatakallimu, 53–55; Beattie, Egypt, 159–160. 82. Chancery (Cairo) to FO, October 17, 1961, FO371/158792, VG1016/197. 83. Brant (Cairo) to FO, October 28, 1961, FO371/158793, VG1016/211. 84. Wright (Paris) to FO, December 15, 1961, FO371/158795, VG1016/279; Hamrush, Qissat, III, 98–99; Beattie, Egypt, 160. 85. For examples, see Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat, II, 120–122; ‘Azm, Mudhakkirat, III, 184–188; Kerr, Arab Cold War, 22–25. 86. Nutting, Nasser, 269. 87. “Syrian Pressure for Autonomy within the UAR,” August 9, 1959, US/ State, 786B.00/8-959. 88. For contemporary speculation to this effect see Chancery (Cairo) to FO, October 1, 1961, FO371/158789, VG1016/105. 89. See Hamrush, Qissat, III, 95–96; Dann, King Hussein, 118, 193. 90. Amman Embassy to FO, September 29, 1961, FO371/158788, VG1016/73; see also Amman Embassy to FO, September 29, 1961, FO371/158788, VG1016/63; Podeh, Decline, 155. 91. Gerges, Superpowers, 133. 92. United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, III, 531–541. 93. Ibid., 539–540. 94. Ibid., 541. 95. Ibid., 541–550. 96. Ibid., 549.

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97. Ibid., 550. 98. Ibid., 550–556. 99. Ibid., 552–554. 100. Ibid., 556. 101. Ibid., 557–560. 102. Ibid., 566. 103. Ibid., 566–567. 104. Ibid., 567–569. 105. Ibid., 569. 106. Ibid., 558. 107. Kerr, Arab Cold War, 27. 108. See Haykal, Sanawat, 583–584, for a statement by Nasser to the effect that “my faith in unity has not wavered, indeed it has increased” in the wake of the Syrian secession. 109. Announced on October 1; Badeau to State, October 1, 1961, US/State, 786B.00/10-161. 110. Brant (Cairo) to FO, October 28, 1961, FO371/158793, VG1016/211; Issawi, Egypt in Revolution, 61–62. 111. Developed particularly in his Victory Day speech of December 23 1961. See United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, III, 643–660; Chancery (Cairo) to FO, December 24, 1961, FO371/158796, VG1016/322.

Chapter 9 1. Both the political and the intellectual dimensions of Egyptian territorial nationalism are discussed in Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt. 2. For Egypt’s partial reorientation toward Arab nationalism from the 1930s to 1952, see Gershoni and Jankowski, Egyptian Nation; Thomas Mayer, “Egypt’s 1948 Invasion of Palestine,” Middle Eastern Studies 22 (1986): 20–36; Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallization of the Arab State System: Inter-Arab Politics, 1949–1954 (Syracuse, N.Y., 1993); Michael Doran, Pan-Arabism Before Nasser: Egyptian Power Politics and the Palestine Question (New York, 1999). 3. Sami Zubaida, Islam: The People and the State (London, 1987), 145–146. 4. Ibid., 149. 5. Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East (London, 1992), 20. 6. Simon Bromley, Rethinking Middle East Politics (Austin, 1994), 177. 7. Speech of March 1955 as cited in Byroade to State, April 14, 1955, US/State, 674.00, 4-1455. 8. See Chapter 2. 9. Speech of October 5, 1961, as cited in United Arab Republic, Majmu‘at, III, 556. 10. For discussions of Egypt’s Arab policies from 1961 through 1967, see Kerr, Arab Cold War, chs. 2–6; Dawisha, Arab World, 33–49; Gerges, Superpowers, ch. 6. 11. On post-1970 Egyptian involvement in inter-Arab politics, see Lorenz, Egypt and the Arabs, chs. 4–10; Talhami, Palestine, chs. 5–6; Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, “The Primacy of Economics: The Foreign Policy of Egypt,” in Bahgat Korany and Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, eds., The Foreign Policies of Arab States: The Challenge of Change, 2d ed. (Boulder, Colo., 1991), 156–185.

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12. From the Ba‘th Party constitution of 1947 as cited in Sylvia G. Haim, Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley, 1961), 233. 13. Post-1961 efforts at Arab unification are discussed in Kerr, Arab Cold War, ch. 3; Devlin, Ba‘th Party, ch. 14; Peter K. Bechtold, “New Attempts at Arab Cooperation: The Federation of Arab Republics, 1971–?,” Middle East Journal, 27 (1973), 152–172; Eberhard Kienle, “Arab Unity Schemes Revisited: Interest, Identity and Policy in Syria and Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27 (1995): 53–71; Paul C. Noble, “The Arab System: Pressures, Constraints, and Opportunities,” in Bahgat Korany and Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, eds. The Foreign Policies of Arab States: The Challenge of Change, 2d ed. (Boulder, Colo., 1991), 49–102. For public opinion polls on Arab identity, see Saad Eddin Ibrahim, The New Arab Social Order (Boulder, Colo., 1982), 123–132; Tawfic E. Farah, ed., Political Behavior in the Arab States (Boulder, Colo., 1983), chs. 1–5; idem, PanArabism and Arab Nationalism: The Continuing Debate (Boulder, Colo., 1987), chs. 3–4; Tawfic E. Farah and Yasumasa Kuroda, eds., Political Socialization in the Arab States (Boulder, Colo., 1987), chs. 2–4. Contrasting views of the durability of Arab nationalism are offered in Fouad Ajami, “The End of Pan-Arabism,” Foreign Affairs 57, 2 (Winter 1978–79): 355–373; Asad Abukhalil, “A New Arab Ideology? The Rejuvenation of Arab Nationalism,” Middle East Journal, 46 (1992): 22–36; Martin Kramer, “Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity,” Daedalus, 122 (Summer 1993): 171–206.

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‘Abd al-‘Aziz, Muhammad, 91 ‘Abd al-Hamid II (Ottoman Sultan), 120 ‘Abd al-Huda, Tawfiq, 63 ‘Abd Il-lah, Regent (Iraq), 36 ‘Abd al-Karim, Ahmad, 119 ‘Abd al-Nasir, Jamal: See Nasser, Gamal Abdel ‘Abdallah, King (Jordan), 144 Abu al-Nur, ‘Abd al-Muhsin, 119 Abu Nuwar, ‘Ali, 88–89 al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 31 Afghanistan, 65 ‘Aflaq, Michel, 104, 118, 142 Africa, 55, 158 al-Ahram, 95, 147 Aleppo, 122, 161, 167, 217 Alexandria, 18, 23 Algeria, 55 Amman, 31, 91, 144, 174 ‘Amr, ‘Abd al-Hakim, 18, 20, 46, 67–68, 77, 103, 106, 108, 115, 119, 140; as “viceroy” of Syrian region, 124–128, 130, 133–134, 164–166; and Syrian secession, 166–169, 172–173 Anderson, Robert, 71, 84 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the Sudan (1953), 44–45 Anglo-Egyptian Heads of Agreement (1954), 47, 52 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance (1936), 12, 13, 14, 16, 42, 45, 47

Arab alliance, 58–64, 69–82, 87 Arab Federation (1958), 137–139, 141, 143 Arab Gulf, 33, 56, 157 Arab League, 49, 56, 58–64, 83–85, 95, 146–150, 153–154, 176, 180 Arab League Collectve Security Pact, 49–50, 58–59, 62–63 Arab nationalism, 1, 111, 156, 179–184; historiography, 3–7; Nasser’s concept of, 27–34, 113–114, 175–177 Arab Solidarity Pact (1957), 87–88, 102 ‘Arif, ‘Abd al-Salam, 142, 151–152 Arslan, Shakib, 31 al-Asad, Hafiz, 129 al-‘Asali, Sabri, 75, 101, 102, 111–112, 115–116, 161 Aswan, 69, 106 al-Atrash, Sultan Pasha, 147 ‘Awdat al-Ruh, 28 al-Azhar, 30, 35 al-‘Azm, Khalid, 75–77, 92, 98, 102, 106, 110, 112, 117 ‘Azzam, ‘Abd al-Rahman, 54 Badeau, John, 170–171 Baghdad, 144, 153 Baghdad Pact, 8, 38, 55, 64, 69–82, 101 al-Baghdadi, ‘Abd al-Latif, 20, 42–43, 46, 67, 110–111, 115, 124, 153

229

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Bahrain, 56, 85, 157 Bakdash, Khalid, 98, 117 Bandung Conference (1955), 65–66 al-Banna, Hasan, 13, 21 Ba‘th Party, 74–75, 91–92, 96, 98, 101, 104–105, 110, 112, 116, 118, 121, 125–127, 129, 135, 142, 156, 163, 166 Bayar, Jalal, 78–79 Be’eri, Eliezer, 3 Beirut, 31, 85, 127, 139, 146, 159 Ben-Gurion, David, 90 Bermuda Conference (1953), 57 Bitar, Salah al-Din, 102–105, 107–108, 112, 116, 118, 126 al-Bizri, ‘Afif, 92, 96–98, 105–107, 113, 117, 119 Burma, 65 Byroade, Henry, 66, 68, 70, 76 Caffery, Jefferson, 24, 49–50, 57–58 Cairo, 14, 17, 22, 36, 46–47, 62, 76, 106, 115, 121–123, 127–128, 137, 139, 163–166, 169, 171 Caliphate, 36 Canada, 97, 131, 156 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 17, 38, 49, 92 Chamber of Deputies (Syria), 102–103, 105, 117 Chamoun, Camille, 60, 75, 137–138, 145–148, 150 China, 88 Churchill, Sir Winston, 47–48 Cold War, 61, 87, 91, 95, 181 Communism, 70, 90–93, 96–99, 109–110, 135 Communist Party (Iraq), 135, 152–154 Communist Party (Syria), 91–92, 97–98, 104–105, 112, 117–118, 152 Congress (United States), 52 Constantinople Convention (1888), 47 Copeland, Miles, 4, 17, 38, 53, 150 Crusades, 31, 113 Cyprus, 48 al-Dahman, ‘Abd al-Ghani, 167 Damascus, 31, 34, 76, 83, 94, 96, 107, 122–123, 130, 137, 139, 142, 145, 161–169, 175 Dann, Uriel, 90

Dawisha, A. I., 5 Dekmejian, R. Hrair, 5 Democratic Movement for National Liberation (Egypt), 19–20 Druze, 147 Dulles, John Foster, 41, 47, 49, 51, 58, 92, 98 Eden, Sir Anthony, 82, 84, 89 Economic Development Organization (UAR), 132–133 Egypt, See also United Arab Republic; army, 14–22, 54, 119–120, 128–130, 171–172; British evacuation from, 41–42, 45–48; economy, 12–13, 120–121, 177–178; historiography, 3–7, 179–183; internal politics, 3, 7, 11–25, 65–69, 171–172, 177–178; monarchy, 11–14; nationalism, 28– 30, 179–180; parliamentary era, 11– 14, 179–180; political parties, 11–12, 19–20, 22; U.S. aid for, 48–54 Egyptian War College, 69, 72 Egyptian State Broadcasting Service, 54 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 51, 215 Eisenhower Doctrine (1957), 87, 90, 96, 145–146, 155 En-lai, Chou, 65 Ethiopia, 57 Eveland, Wilbur, 53, 146 al-Faklawi, Hasan, 51 Faruq, King (Egypt), 11–14, 18–19, 42 Fawzi, Husayn, 38, 46, 50, 61, 65, 67, 81, 95, 97 Faysal, Jamal, 119, 166 Faysal, Prince (Saudi Arabia), 63, 140, 155, 157–158, 202 Faysal II, King (Iraq), 138, 143 Foreign Ministry (Egyptian), 68, 108 Foster, William C., 51 France, 68, 83–85, 102 Free Officers, 14–18, 20, 45–46, 49, 58, 65, 67 Fu’ad, Ahmad, 16 Fu’ad, King (Egypt), 11, 42 Gaza Raid (1955), 71, 75 General Assembly (United Nations), 94–95, 150

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Index Gerges, Fawaz, 5 Gerhardt, Harrison, 53 al-Ghazzi, Sa‘id, 77 Glubb, John Bagot, 88–89 Great Britain, 2, 7, 9, 24, 29, 44, 61, 70, 78, 82, 143; evacuation from Egypt, 41, 45–48, 51–52, 57; occupation of Egypt up to 1952, 11–14, 181; Suez Canal crisis, 68, 83–85, 102 Haifa, 85 al-Hakim, Tawfiq , 28 Hamdun, Mustafa, 121, 125–126 Hamrush, Ahmad, 74, 129 Hare, Raymond, 10, 68–69, 86, 95, 97–99, 108–111, 149 Hashim, Ibrahim, 89 al-Hawrani, Akram, 104, 110, 115, 118, 124, 126, 161 Haykal, Muhammad Hasanayn, 25, 31, 36, 38, 83, 86, 97–98, 106, 111, 149, 156, 158 Head, Sir Anthony, 47 Henderson, Loy, 92 Higher Ministerial Committee (UAR), 124 Hilal, Fu’ad, 89, 91 al-Hindawi, ‘Ali, 80 Hobsbawm, Eric, 27 Humphrey, Hubert, 171 Husayn, Ahmad, 52, 53 Husayn, Kamal al-Din, 165 Husayn, King (Jordan), 78–80, 85, 88–91, 110, 138, 143–144, 157, 159, 175 al-Husri, Abu Khaldun Sati‘, 31 Ibrahim, Hasan, 67 Imam Ahmad (Yemen), 140 Imperialism, 29–30, 33–34, 70–72, 113, 175–177 India, 57, 65 Indonesia, 57, 106 Iran, 47, 57, 175 Iraq, 56, 93, 116–117, 123–124, 132, 135, 144, 174; and Arab alliance, 59–63; and Baghdad Pact, 64, 70–82; and Suez crisis, 83–85; reaction to formation of UAR, 137–140; revolution of 1958, 139,

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141–142, 151–151; rivalry with UAR, 1958–1961, 151–155 Islam, 34–37 Islamic Conference, 36–37 Isma‘il, Hafiz, 103, 105 Israel, 2, 8, 31, 51, 68, 71, 74–75, 83, 93, 95, 102, 126, 175, 181, 183 al-Jamahir, 125 al-Jamali, Fadil, 63 Jawdat, ‘Ali, 93 Jerusalem, 91 Jidda, 56 Joesten, Joachim, 3 Jordan, 55–56, 63, 87, 93–94, 130, 132, 174, 178; and Baghdad Pact, 73–75, 78–82; and Suez crisis - 83–85; crisis of 1957, 88–91; crisis of 1958, 141–144, 150; reaction to formation of UAR, 137–140; relations with UAR, 156–159 al-Jumhuriyya, 53, 57, 59; al-Kahhala, Nur al-Din, 163 al-Kallas, Khalil, 126 al-Kawakibi, ‘Abd al-Rahman, 31 Kerr, Malcolm, 177 Khrushchev, Nikita, 142 al-Khuri, Faris, 63, 72, 74–75 Kienle, Eberhard, 6 al-Kilani, Rashid ‘Ali, 152 Kurds, 73 Kuwait, 56, 155, 157 al-Kuzbari, Haydar, 167–168, 174 al-Kuzbari, Ma’mun, 168 Lacouture, Jean, 3, 4, 35 Lacouture, Simonne, 3 Latakia, 96, 167, 170 Lebanon, 55–56, 60, 63, 74–75, 85, 93–94, 132–134, 155; reaction to formation of UAR, 137–138; civil war of 1958, 141, 144–151 Liberation Rally (Egypt), 22, 41 Libya, 48, 56, 71, 84–85, 158 Lloyd, Selwyn, 80, 81 London Conference (1956), 83 Lorenz, Joseph P., 5 MacDonnell, R. M., 97 Mahir, ‘Ali, 18, 20

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al-Majali, Hazza‘, 79, 158–159, 215 al-Maktab al-Khass (Special Section), 120 Malik, Charles, 138, 146 al-Malki, Riyad, 126 Mar‘i, Sayyid, 109, 171 Maronite Church, 149 McClintock, Robert, 147–148 Menderes, Adnan, 73 Middle East Command, 49 Middle East defense, 46–47, 49–50, 58–63, 69–72. See also Baghdad Pact Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO), 49–50 Military Command Council (Syria), 104–106, 108, 111–112 al-Misri, 22 Moose, James, 75, 91 Moscow, 142 Mosul, 153–154 Mubarak, Husni, 183 Mufti, Malik, 6, 112 al-Mufti, Sa‘id, 79 Muhi al-Din, Khalid, 16, 48, 66 Muhi al-Din, Zakariya, 17, 46, 67, 124 al-Mukhabarat (Department of General Security), 74, 120, 166 Mu’nis, Husayn, 29 Murphy, Robert, 150 Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt), 5, 13–14, 16, 19, 21–23, 24, 36–37 Muslim Brotherhood (Syria), 123 Mustafa, Salih, 89 Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP), 52–53 NATO, 92 al-Nablusi, Sulayman, 85, 88 al-Nafuri, Amin, 119 Nahhas, ‘Adnan, 156 al-Nahlawi, ‘Abd al-Karim, 167–168 Najib, Muhammad, 16, 18, 20–25, 38, 42–43, 45–46, 49–51, 58, 151 Nasr, Marlene, 29, 35 Nasr, Salah, 73, 91, 166 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 2, 42, 55, 102–103, 117–118, 122–124, 126, 135–137, 139–140, 156–159; Arab alliance, 58–64; Arab nationalism, view of , 30–35, 38–39, 175–177,

180–183; Baghdad Pact, opposition to, 70–82; British evacuation, 41, 46–48; consolidation of power, 19–25, 65–69; Egyptian nationalism, view of , 27–30; formation of UAR, 105–114; Free Officers, 15–18; historiography, 3–7; Iraqi revolution, 141–142, 151–154; Islam, view of, 34–36; Jordanian crisis of 1957, 89–90; Lebanese civil war of 1958, 148–150; neutralism, 58, 65; president of Egypt, 67; president of UAR, 115, 170; socialism, view of, 176–178; Suez Crisis, 68, 83–86; Syrian crisis of 1957, 95–99; Syrian secession from UAR, 164, 168–172, 174–177; US aid for Egypt, 58–64 National Assembly (Egypt), 67, 69, 103, 113–114 National Assembly (UAR), 36, 128 National Charter (UAR), 27–28, 32 National Party (Syria), 123, 135 National Socialist Party (Jordan), 88 National Union (Egypt), 66, 123 National Union (UAR), 123–125, 127–129, 135, 164–166, 173, 176 National Unionist Party (Sudan), 44 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 29, 57, 65 Neutrality, 51, 57–58, 65, 87 al-Nur, 117 Nutting, Sir Anthony, 4, 46, 68 Oil, 84–85 Ottoman Empire, 44, 62, 70, 113, 179 Owen, Roger, 180 Pakistan, 36, 57, 59, 65 Palestine, 13, 15, 30–31, 55, 72, 179–181 Palestinian Arabs, 74, 78–80, 89–90, 144 Paul, Norman, 53 People’s Party (Syria), 123 The Philosophy of the Revolution, 25, 30–31, 34–35 Podeh, Elie, 6, 113 Qanbar, Ahmad, 102 Qannut, ‘Abd al-Ghani, 126 Qasim, ‘Abd al-Karim, 135, 151–154, 157

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Index Qatana, 166, 167, 169 Qatar, 157 al-Quwatli, Shukri, 74, 77, 83, 106, 110–114 Radwan, Fathi, 109, 111 Revolution of 1919, 11, 28, 31 Revolution of 1952, 14–18, 41–42 Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), 19–25, 38, 43, 45–46, 48, 65–67, 108 al-Rifa‘i, Samir, 82 Rif‘at, Kamal, 74, 80, 89 Riyad, Mahmud, 60, 62, 73–77, 83, 102–103, 105–106, 108 Riyadh, 139 Roosevelt, Kermit, 17, 49, 212 Rountree, William, 94 Sabri, ‘Ali, 51, 67, 111 Sabri, Husayn Dhu al-Fiqar, 43, 67 al-Sadat, Anwar, 15, 18, 34, 36, 38, 67, 103, 171, 183 Sa‘id, Ahmad, 55 al-Sa‘id, Nuri, 36, 62–64, 71–73, 78, 82, 84, 138–139 Salam, Sa’ib, 156 Salim, Jamal, 17, 18, 67 Salim, Salah, 17–18, 20, 24–25, 36, 38, 41, 43–45, 46, 55, 57, 60–62, 65, 67–68, 75 Sarraj, ‘Abd al-Hamid, 96–97, 120, 125–128, 139, 143–144, 147–148, 153, 158–159, 162–166 Sarsank, 62, 65 Sa‘ud, King (Saudi Arabia), 83, 87, 94, 96, 139–140, 155, 157–158, 202 Saudi Arabia, 36, 56, 60, 63, 91, 174, 178; alliance with Egypt, 74–77, 80, 82, 87; and Suez crisis, 84–85; and Syrian crisis, 1957, 92–98; reaction to formation of UAR, 137–140; relations with UAR, 155–157 al-Sawwaf, Husni, 162 Seale, Patrick, 4, 64 Security Council (United Nations), 143–144, 145–146, 150 al-Sha‘b, 68 al-Shafi‘i, Husayn, 67 Shihab, Fu’ad, 145, 147–150, 155 Shishakli, Adib, 60, 130

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al-Siba‘i, Marwan, 166 Sidqi, Isma‘il, 13 Sinai Campaign (1956), 2, 68, 85 Soviet Union, 50, 52, 70, 77, 80, 88, 91–92, 97–98, 104, 141–142 Stephens, Robert, 4 Stevenson, Sir Ralph, 10, 56, 58 Stone, Howard, 92 Sudan, 12, 41–45, 56, 71, 158 Sudanese Defence Force, 44 Suez Canal, 12, 14, 16, 30, 32–33, 45–49, 67–68, 83–85 Suez crisis (1956), 2, 8, 30, 67–68, 82–86, 102, 113, 120, 145 Sukarno, Ahmed, 106 Sulh, Sami, 63 Supreme Arab Revolutionary Command (SARC), 167–170 Syria, 1, 6, 8, 30, 33–34, 55, 60, 63, 71, 82, 87–88, 91, 101–104; alliance with Egypt, 1955, 73–78; and Suez crisis, 83–85; army, 91–92, 97–98, 104–106; crisis of 1957, 91–99; economy, 120–121; formation of UAR, 104–114; political parties, 104–105, 107, 112, 117–118; secession from UAR, 166–178. See also United Arab Republic Talhami, Ghada Hashem, 5 Templar, General Sir Gerald, 78–80 Tito, Marshal, 65, 141 Trevelyan, Sir Humphrey, 81 Trucial States, 157 al-Tuhaymi, Hasan, 89 Turkey, 36, 47, 59, 62–64, 70, 76, 78, 92–96, 103, 132 Union of Arab States, 137, 140 United Arab Republic (UAR), 1, 6, 7, 8, 31, 33–34, 38, 88, 98–99, 183–184; agrarian reform in, 121–122, 125, 134; army, 117, 119–120, 124, 128–130, 147, 166–170, 172–173; constitution, 115; economy, 120–122, 124–125, 132–134, 136, 161–163, 172–173, 178; formation of, 104–114; government and administration, 115–116, 119–120, 123–128, 131–132, 163–166, 173; relations

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with Iraq, 141–142, 151–155, 157; relations with Jordan, 138, 142–144, 156–159; relations with Lebanon, 137–138, 145–150, 155, 158; relations with Saudi Arabia, 139–140, 155, 157–159; relations with Yemen, 140, 178; secession of Syria from, 166–178; security services, 119–120, 164–166 United National Front (Lebanon), 145 United Nations, 85, 94–95, 143–146, 150, 176 United Nations Observer Group in Lebanon (UNOGIL), 146, 150 United States, 2, 16–18, 41, 47, 57, 82, 86, 143; aid negotiations with Egypt, 48–54; crisis in Syria, 1957, 91–99; Lebanon civil war, 1958, 144– 150

Vatikiotis, P. J., 5 “Voice of Free Egypt,” 73 “Voice of Free Iraq,” 73 “Voice of the Arabs,” 38, 54–56, 61, 72, 146, 157 Wafd Party, 12, 14, 16, 22–23 Wahid, Ahmad Lutfi, 80, 89 Warburg, Gabriel, 45 World War I, 11, 31, 62, 179 World War II, 13, 15, 179, 181 Wynn, Wilton, 3 al-Yafi, ‘Abdalla, 60 Yasin, Yusuf, 84 Yemen, 60, 137, 140, 157–158, 178 Young Egypt, 13–14, 28 Zionism, 72 Zorlu, Fetim, 78–79 Zubaida, Sami, 180

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About the Book

During the crucial decade of the 1950s in Egypt, both Gamal Abdel Nasser and the idea of Arab nationalism were assuming more and more influence in Egypt and the greater Arab world. Exploring this phenomenon, James Jankowski also offers important insights into the political context in which Nasser maneuvered. Jankowski focuses on the period from the 1952 Revolution in Egypt to the dissolution of the short-lived union of Egypt and Syria in 1961— and on the outlook and actions of Nasser, the dominant figure in Egypt’s new revolutionary regime. Concisely and convincingly, he identifies the unique blend of ideological and practical considerations that led Egypt to a progressively deeper involvement in Arab nationalism. He draws on newly available materials from the U.S. and British archives and on the memoir literature now available in Arabic to present a detailed reconstruction of this formative period in Egyptian political history. James Jankowski is professor of history at the University of Colorado. His many publications include Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East (with Israel Gershoni) and Egypt: A Short History.

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