Al-Ahram Weekly | 1952 - 2002 | New phase of the revolution

		18 - 24 July 2002 Issue No. 595 Special	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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New phase of the revolution
Mursi Saad El-Din, secretary of the Egyptian Institute in London at the time of the Revolution in July 1952, remembers the role played by late President Anwar El-Sadat in conversation with his wife, Jehan

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Mrs Sadat at an official reception; The writer, Mursi Saad El-Din, solicits the advise of the late President Anwar El-Sadat at his home in Giza
On 23 July 1952 I was at the International Journalists Club in the Haymarket, London, having lunch with Joss, the cartoonist of the Evening Standard newspaper. Suddenly, a member of the Club rushed in, breathless, holding a copy of the first edition of that evening tabloid. On the front page, in bold letters I read that there had been a military coup d'état in Egypt.
I was working at the time as secretary of the Egyptian Institute in London, a post I had held since 1945. My first reaction to news of the coup was joy mixed with doubt. True, there were many disgruntled young officers in the Egyptian army who felt they had been let down by their government, and I had already heard complaints about the defective arms supplied to the Egyptian army during the war in Palestine in 1948-49 from Egyptian officers wounded in the War who had been sent by to London for treatment.
One of these officers was Gamal Salem, an officer in the Egyptian airforce. As part of my job, I was responsible for Egyptian mission members who came to study in England, but since Egypt did not have a military attaché in London at that time, a post created later by the post-revolutionary government, I was also responsible for the welfare of the wounded officers. Salem, for one, often talked about problems in the army and the need for drastic reform, but he had never intimated the possibility of a military coup d'état.
However, the revolutionary government's first declaration, broadcast by Major Anwar El-Sadat, concentrated on army reform, but Sadat's selection to read this text clearly shows the special position he held among the Free Officers and with their leader, Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Later, Sadat's widow, Mrs Jehan El-Sadat, confirmed this early friendship between Sadat and Abdel-Nasser to me.
"When Anwar El-Sadat was imprisoned because of his nationalist activities," Mrs Sadat said, "Gamal Abdel- Nasser hatched a plan for his escape from the military prison. The plan was discussed, then abandoned, since it would have helped to expose the existence of the Free Officers."
Nasser and Abdel-Hakim Amer used to meet at Sadat's house when Anwar El-Sadat was on leave in Cairo from Rafah, where he was posted, "I took the meetings to be a gathering of comrades-in-arms," Mrs Sadat says. "It never dawned on me that there was a plot being organised. I used to prepare some food for them and leave them alone in our sitting room."
Details of the phases of the coup d'état, later revolution, are given in other articles; here, I am concerned with the role of Anwar El-Sadat. Hence, in my questions I asked Mrs Sadat to explain her side of the story.
At the time of the Revolution, Anwar El-Sadat was in the army Signal Corps, and he thus played an effective role in relaying messages to members of the Free Officers. Sadat was close to Nasser, and as such he was one of the first nine officers who formed the nucleus of the movement. This proves, in Mrs Sadat's words, "the trust Abdel-Nasser had in my husband."
On 22 July, Sadat suddenly arrived from Rafah having received a telegram from Nasser. His wife did not expect him, since he had just returned to his post after a month's holiday in Cairo. When he phoned his wife to ask her to wait for him at Cairo railway station, he told her he was coming to see his mother who had fallen sick. When he arrived, however, he told her that his mother's illness had been an excuse to have an extra holiday and to "take me out and have a nice time together".
They decided to go to the cinema. "It was the Roda Cinema in Manial, an open-air cinema. I don't know where they got that story of the quarrel Anwar had in the cinema. It is not true at all. In fact we did not stay to the end since something went wrong with the projector," Mrs Sadat says, referring to a later story of the couple's having left the cinema early.
"When we arrived home", Mrs Sadat continues, "the porter of our block of flats handed Anwar a card from Gamal Abdel-Nasser with 'the project opens tonight' written on it. I didn't know what that project was. Anwar was wearing trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, but when he had read the card he ran up the stairs and in a jiffy had changed into his military uniform." When Mrs Sadat asked what had happened, Sadat said that a friend of his was seriously sick and that the military uniform would facilitate things.
In spite of the fact that Mrs Sadat had no inkling of the existence of the Free Officer's movement, or of what the Officers were about to embark on, she told Sadat when he was leaving that "if anything happens, I shall not visit you in prison."
"When I said this, he stopped suddenly, frowned, and said, 'Is that so Jehan?' 'I'm only joking,' I said, and off he went and disappeared for three days."
Mrs Sadat thinks that in spite of the mild statements made by the Officers immediately following the coup d'état, Gamal Abdel-Nasser always planned to oust the king and assume power. Eventually, Anwar El-Sadat was appointed first vice-president by Nasser, before that working as editor- in-chief of the Revolution's newspaper, Al-Goumhuriya, where he published a series of articles entitled "Towards a New Dawn". These articles later appeared in a book form, clearly reflecting Sadat's rare vision.
In the articles, Sadat denounces those Muslim rulers who have misconstrued Islam, creating notions far removed from the noble principles of that religion, such as the principles of love, kindness and tolerance, and the value it puts on work.
In December 1957 the first Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference convened in Cairo, a continuation on the level of the people of the Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned Countries. The Conference was the result of the close relationship that had grown up between Gamal Abdel-Nasser and the Indian prime minister Nehru. Both these men found in the Afro-Asian movement a modus vivendi, and both were looking for international support to solve their respective problems. India had just come out of a confrontation with China, and Egypt had just successfully emerged from the Tripartite Aggression of Britain, France and Israel.
Nasser's choice of Anwar El- Sadat to chair the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference was significant, pointing to the role that Nasser had in mind for Sadat and confirming the later role Sadat played in the Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO), to which the Conference gave rise. Delegates from 42 countries and territories participated in the Conference, and it gave Sadat the unique opportunity of meeting leaders of the African liberation movements. More importantly still, it gave him the chance of meeting Soviet and Chinese leaders and getting to know them at close quarters, knowledge that later helped him in negotiations with the Soviet Union.
Nasser's book Philosophy of the Revolution mentioned the "African Circle" of which Egypt is a member, but the Afro- Asian Conference added a new circle: Asia. Sadat swiftly championed this new Afro-Asian power bloc, which was at once a popular movement, being composed of representatives of the peoples of the African and Asian nations, as well as a governmental one, since many African liberation fighters became the presidents of their respective countries after independence, consequently becoming great supporters of Egyptian and Arab causes. The question of Palestine and its freedom also became a permanent item on AAPSO's agenda.
Sadat was able to cultivate a close relationship with the Soviet Union through the AAPSO. At that time Sadat was the Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament, and I remember accompanying one Soviet delegation after another to his office. Later, when he became president of the Republic in the 1970s, I remember accompanying Soviet visitors to his house at the Cairo Barrages, where he used to retreat from time to time, and I would like to mention an interesting story that reflects Sadat's way of thinking at this time.
On a visit to Sadat at his Barrages house accompanied by a Russian writer named Safronov, who was also fluent in English, Sadat started talking in Arabic and asked me to translate for Safronov. I came close to Sadat and said sotto voce, "but Mr President both you and Safronov speak fluent English. Why don't you speak to him in English?"
Sadat gave me a serious look and said, "do as I tell you." When the meeting was over, Sadat took me aside and said, "Ya a'beet [you fool]. Safronov knows English, and yet he deliberately talks in Russian and his translator translates what he says into English. This gives him the chance to think about what he is going to say next. It is a game, and one that we should play too."
Sadat's interest in the Afro-Asian countries bore fruit in the supportive stand they took behind Egypt in the 1973 War and in Sadat's later peace initiatives with Israel. The interest was also reflected in a trip Mrs Sadat undertook in 1976 to six Asian countries: Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. I was the head of the accompanying delegation in my capacity as Chairman of the State Information Service, the delegation also including the Chairman of the Middle East News Agency and representatives of the leading newspapers.
The trip helped greatly to initiate, and in some cases cement, Egypt's relations with those countries. It gave us the opportunity to examine developments in them at close quarters, especially in Malaysia and Singapore, and our report on the trip received great attention from President Sadat.
In the final analysis, in judging the 1952 Revolution it would be futile to try to evaluate separately the roles played by Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Anwar El-Sadat or to compare them. While Nasser planned and carried out the initial coup, transforming Egypt from a kingdom to a republic in the process, Sadat achieved the great victory of October 1973, brought peace to Egypt and, on the domestic front, took the first steps towards political pluralism and democracy. I was with him at the Abdin Palace in Cairo when he met with Khaled Moheiddin, Mustafa Kamel Murad and Ibrahim Shukri, the founders of the Tagammu' (Progressive Unionist Alliance), Al-Ahrar (Liberal) and Al-'Amal (Labour) parties, respectively, which was a turning point in the history of the Revolution.
Sadat was a modern man in every sense of the word. Indeed, his attitudes and opinions were modern in every respect, being the result both of his wide reading, especially in prison, and of his travels. These modern attitudes fully manifested themselves in his accompanying his wife to the first State reception he gave after becoming president.
It was a grand affair at the Abdin Palace, to which many foreign ambassadors and diplomats had been invited. Mrs Sadat remembers what happened. "When the presidential officials saw me walking at the side of the president -- in fact, like a gentleman he allowed me to walk a step ahead of him -- their faces fell. However, the reception was a great success, and my appearance gave a new meaning to the Revolution. It marked out a role for the president's wife in public life and initiated a movement in Egypt to put women at the top of the list of national priorities."
"Naturally many photos were taken, and the following morning these appeared in the newspapers, with the president and an arm, presumably mine, appearing next to him. The photographs had been doctored to exclude me from them. I won't go into the details of how I reacted, but this incident created a tradition that was re-affirmed later. The movement later snowballed, allowing women to realise their dreams. That marked what I call the new phase of the Revolution."

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