Today in History… June 23 — Nasser Elected President of Egypt

Jun 23

Edited by Gerald Boerner

Commentary:

Following World War I, the British were given the Mandate from the League of Nations to oversee the lands of the Middle East, including Palestine and Egypt. Following World War II, the United Nations decided that the Jews, so abused by the Third Reich, needed their own homeland. The Zionists and United States backed a plan to establish this homeland in Palestine; the British opposed this solution. In 1947-48 the Jews an Palestinians battled for territory.

In the middle of this conflict was a young Egyptian lawyer, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Upon returning to Egypt, he along with fellow army officers, grew further disenchanted by the ruling family, currently represented by King Farouk. In 1952 he participated in the coup d’etat that overthrew the monarchy. in 1956 he was elected President and he was behind the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the Suez Crisis. He was a strong backer of the pan-Arab movement for Arab unity.

Convinced that he needed a wasta, Nasser managed to secure a meeting with the Secretary-of-State, Ibrahim Kheiry Pasha, who sponsored his second attempt into the military academy. From then on, with little contact with his family, he focused on his military career. It was at the academy that he met Abdel Hakim Amer and Anwar Sadat, both of whom became important aides during his presidency.^[16] After passing his final exam at Abassia, he was posted to the town of Mankabad, near his native Beni Mur, and was commissioned as 2nd lieutenant in the infantry.

So let’s get into todays exploration if Gamal Abdul Nasser… GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 4028 Words ]

Quotations Related to GAMAL ABDEL NASSER:

“Events are not a matter of chance.”
— Gamal Abdel Nasser

“He who can not support himself, can not take his own decision.”
— Gamal Abdel Nasser

“I have been a conspirator for so long that I mistrust all around me.”
— Gamal Abdel Nasser

“People do not want words – they want the sound of battle – the battle of destiny.”
— Gamal Abdel Nasser

“They defended the grains of sand in the desert to the last drop of their blood.”
— Gamal Abdel Nasser

“What was taken by force, can only be restored by force.”
— Gamal Abdel Nasser

“There is no longer a way out of our present situation except by forging a road toward our objective, violently and by force, over a sea of blood and under a horizon blazing with fire.”
— Gamal Abdel Nasser

“The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something.”
— Gamal Abdel Nasser

Arab Leaders: Nasser Elected President of Egypt in 1956…

Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. Along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, he led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of modernization, and socialist reform in Egypt together with a profound advancement of pan-Arab nationalism, including a short-lived union with Syria.

Nasser is seen as one of the most important political figures in both modern Arab history and politics in the 20th-century. Under his leadership, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal and came to play a central role in anti-imperialist efforts in the Arab World and Africa. The imposed ending to the Suez Crisis made him a hero throughout the Arab world. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the international Non-Aligned Movement. He is well-known for his nationalist policies and version of pan-Arabism, also referred to as Nasserism, which won a great following in the Arab World during the 1950s and 1960s. Although his status as "leader of the Arabs" was badly damaged by the Israeli victory over the Arab armies in the Six-Day War and Egypt’s failure to win the subsequent War of Attrition against Israel, many in the general Arab population still view Nasser as a symbol of Arab dignity and freedom.

The Egyptian Revolution of 1952, also known as the July 23 Revolution, began on July 23, 1952, with a military coup d’état by a group of young army officers who named themselves "The Free Officers Movement". The revolution was initially aimed at overthrowing King Farouk I. However, the movement had more political ambitions and soon moved to abolish the constitutional monarchy and establish a republic. The success of the revolution inspired numerous Arab and African countries to remove pro-Western and specifically pro-British Empire and pro-French Empire monarchies and potentates.

Influences on Nasser

According to Palestinian American journalist Said Aburish, the combination of living in so many cities and attending different schools did not distress Nasser but broadened his horizons, allowing him to become aware of the class divisions in Egyptian society. Despite constantly changing schools, Nasser spent most of his spare time reading, particularly in 1933 when his uncle happened to live near the National Library of Egypt. In addition to the Qur’an, the sayings of Muhammad, and the lives of the Sahaba (Muhammad’s companions), he read the works of Napoleon, Gandhi, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and many others. He was greatly influenced by the Egyptian nationalist politician Mustafa Kamel, and poet Ahmed Shawqi.

Military Career

Portrait of Nasser at law school in 1937

In March 1937, Nasser applied for entry to the Royal Military Academy, temporarily abandoning his political activities in favor of studying to become an army officer. However, he did not have a wasta—an influential intermediary to promote his application against many others—and was turned down. Disappointed, he enrolled in law school, but failed and then attempted to enter the police academy where he again was unsuccessful because he lacked a wasta.

Convinced that he needed a wasta, Nasser managed to secure a meeting with the Secretary-of-State, Ibrahim Kheiry Pasha, who sponsored his second attempt into the military academy. From then on, with little contact with his family, he focused on his military career. It was at the academy that he met Abdel Hakim Amer and Anwar Sadat, both of whom became important aides during his presidency. After passing his final exam at Abassia, he was posted to the town of Mankabad, near his native Beni Mur, and was commissioned as 2nd lieutenant in the infantry.

Nasser carrying the unit colors, 1940

In 1939, Nasser and Amer volunteered to serve in Sudan (which was a part of Egypt at the time), where they arrived shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Aburish states, however, that he and Amer were posted to the Sudan in 1941. During the war, Nasser and Sadat established contact with agents of the Axis powers, in particular a group of Italians, and planned a coup to coincide with an Italian offensive that would expel the British forces from Egypt. The plan, however, was never executed. After briefly returning from Sudan, Nasser returned there in September 1942, then secured a job as an instructor in the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in May 1943.

In 1942, the Egyptian Prime Minister, Ali Maher, was suspected of having pro-Axis sympathies at the time when Erwin Rommel was leading the Afrika Korps into Egypt. Lord Lampson, the British Ambassador in Egypt, backed by a battalion of British troops, marched into King Farouk’s palace and ordered him to dismiss Maher and appoint the pro-British Mustafa el-Nahhas in his place. Nasser, like most Egyptians, saw this as a blatant violation of Egyptian sovereignty and wrote "I am ashamed that our army has not reacted against this attack." He said further that he prayed to Allah for "a calamity to overtake the English." Nasser also began forming a group consisting of other young military officers with strong nationalist sentiments and who supported some form of revolution. Mainly through Amer, Nasser stayed in touch with the members of the group. Meanwhile, Amer continued to discover interested officers within the various branches of the Egyptian Armed Forces and presented a full file on each of them to Nasser.

Revolution

Free Officers

Coinciding with Nasser’s return to Egypt was Husni al-Za’im’s coup d’etat in Syria. The success of the coup and the evident support for it by the Syrian people further encouraged Nasser’s revolutionary pursuits. Soon after his return, he was summoned and interrogated by Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdel Hadi for suspicions he was forming a secret group of dissenting officers, an allegation which Nasser convincingly denied according to secondhand reports. Abdel Hadi was also hesitant on taking drastic measures against the army. especially in front of its chief-of-staff who was present during the interrogation, and subsequently released Nasser. The interrogation pushed Nasser to speed up his group’s activities. After 1949, the group adopted the name "Association of Free Officers" and "talked of… freedom and the restoration of their country’s dignity." He organized the founding committee of the Free Officers which eventually comprised fourteen men from different social and political backgrounds, with some being members of Young Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Egyptian Communist Party, as well as the aristocracy. Nasser was unanimously elected chairman of the organization.

The Free Officers in Cairo.
To Nasser’s left is Abdel Latif Boghdadi
and to his right are Salah Salem and Abdel
Hakim Amer, 1952.

In the 1950 parliamentary elections, the Wafd Party of el-Nahhas gained a victory—mostly due to the absence of the Muslim Brotherhood who boycotted the elections—and posed a threat to the Free Officers because they had campaigned for demands similar to theirs. Accusations of corruption against Wafd politicians began to surface, however, breeding an atmosphere of rumors and suspicions that consequently brought the Free Officers to the forefront of Egyptian politics. By then, the organization expanded to around ninety members; according to one member, Khaled Mohieddine, "nobody knew all of them and where they belonged in the hierarchy except Nasser." Nasser felt that the Free Officers were not ready to move against the government and for nearly two years he did little beyond recruit more officers and issue his underground news bulletins.

After the Wafd government abrogated the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty—which had given the British control over the Suez Canal until 1956—on 11 October 1951 the popularity of this move as well as that of the government-sponsored guerrilla attacks against the British, put pressure on Nasser to act. According to Sadat, Nasser decided to wage "a large scale assassination campaign." In January 1952, he and a number of unidentified officers attempted to kill the royalist general Hussein Sirri Pasha by firing their submachine guns at his car while he drove through Cairo’s streets. Instead, an innocent woman passerby was wounded in the incident and apparently began to shriek and wail. Nasser recalled that her wails "haunted" him and dissuaded him against similar action in the future.

Sirri was very close to Farouk and was nominated for the presidency of the Officer’s Club—a normally ceremonial office—with his backing. Nasser was determined to establish the independence of the army from the monarchy and with Amer as an intermediary, decided to field a nominee for the Free Officers; they selected Muhammad Naguib, a popular general who offered his resignation to Farouk in 1942 and was thrice wounded in the Palestine War. Naguib won overwhelmingly and the Free Officers, through their connection with a leading Egyptian daily, al-Misri, publicized his victory and praised the nationalistic spirit of the army.

Revolution of 1952

On 25 January 1952, the British forces posted along the Suez Canal engaged in a major confrontation with the police force of Ismailia, resulting in the deaths of forty Egyptian policemen. The next day, protesting mobs numbering in the thousands marched in the streets of Cairo, attacking foreign and pro-British Egyptian establishments which resulted in the deaths of 76 people, including nine British subjects. Afterward, Nasser and Khaled Mohieddine published a simple six-point program for Egypt, condemning British influence in the country. A short time later, in May 1952, Nasser received word that Farouk knew the names of the Free Officers and intended to arrest them. Thus, he immediately entrusted Zakaria Mohieddine with the task of drawing up plans for the takeover of the government by army units loyal to the association.

The Free Officers did not intend to install themselves in the government, but to reestablish a parliamentary democracy. Nasser did not believe that a low-ranking officer like himself (a lieutenant-colonel) would be accepted by the Egyptian people and so he selected Naguib, a general, to be his "boss" and lead the coup in name. The revolution they had long sought was launched on 22 July and was declared a success the next day. The Free Officers seized control of all government buildings, radio stations, police stations, and the army headquarters in Cairo. Muhammad Naguib assumed public authority as the leader of the new revolutionary government, becoming the first President of Egypt on 18 June 1953, the day on which the Egyptian and Sudanese monarchy was abolished, and the Republic of Egypt was declared. While many of the officers were leading their units, Nasser donned civilian clothing to avoid detection by royalists and moved around Cairo to monitor the situation. In a move to prevent foreign intervention, two days before the revolution, Nasser notified the United States and Britain, both of which agreed not to aid Farouk. Nasser and his fellow revolutionaries also gave in to American pressure by allowing the deposed king and his family to leave Egypt unharmed and with a honorary ceremony .

According to Aburish, after assuming power, Nasser and the Free Officers expected to become the "guardians of the people’s interests" against the monarchy and the pasha-class, while leaving the day-to-day tasks of government to civilians. Thus, they asked Ali Maher, a former prime minister, to accept being reappointed his previous position and form an all-civilian cabinet. The Free Officers then renamed themselves the Egyptian Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), with Naguib as chairman and Nasser as vice-chairman. The relationship between the RCC and Maher grew tense, however, with the latter viewing Nasser’s schemes to be too radical, culminating in Maher’s resignation on 7 September. The reforms Nasser pursued were agrarian reform, the abolition of the monarchy, and the reorganization of political parties. Afterward, Naguib assumed the additional role of prime minister and Nasser that of deputy prime minister and interior minister. In September, the Agrarian Reform Law was put into effect. For Nasser, the law gave the RCC its own identity and transformed the coup into a revolution.

Preceding the reform law, in August 1952, Communist-led riots broke out at textile factories in Kafr el-Dawwar leading to a confrontation with the army that left nine people dead. Most of the RCC, including Naguib, insisted on making an example of the riot’s two ringleaders by executing them, but Nasser firmly opposed this. Nonetheless, the sentences were carried out. The Muslim Brotherhood supported the RCC and after Naguib’s assumption of power, they demanded four ministerial portfolios in the new cabinet, but Nasser turned down their demands. Instead, he used a policy of divide and conquer by accepting two members of the Brotherhood who were willing to serve officially as independents, giving them minor posts.

Road to Presidency

Disputes with Naguib

In January 1953, Nasser overcame opposition from Naguib and banned all political parties, creating a one-party system, the Liberation Rally, whose purpose was to function as a national movement that would replace all parties. The Communists, and the Muslim Brotherhood condemned the move, as both were excluded from participation in the new system. Simultaneously, Nasser began using the more willing among the ulema ("religious scholars") of the al-Azhar University as a counterweight to the Brotherhood’s Islamic influence. Meanwhile, debate rose within the RCC as to the purpose of these measures. According to fellow officer Abdel Latif Boghdadi, Nasser was the only RCC member who, even after ordering the dissolution of political parties, favored to hold parliamentary elections. Outvoted, he still advocated holding elections by 1956.

Nasser was negotiating a British withdrawal from the Suez Canal and personally led the Egyptian negotiation team in March 1953. Upon pressure from him, Naguib proceeded with the abolition of the monarchy. He began showing signs of independence from Nasser, however, by moderately opposing land reform—even though the general population at the time credited Naguib for the law’s implementation. Soon, the two leaders began to openly compete for control of the country. When Naguib moved to garner support from the Brotherhood and gain the backing of old political institutions such as the former leaders of the Wafd party, Nasser was determined to depose Naguib.

In February 1954, army units loyal to Nasser kidnapped Naguib and announced that he had been relieved of all his posts. The RCC then "joyfully… proclaimed Nasser as Prime Minister." Soon after, large numbers of citizens joined protests demanding that Naguib be reinstated. As a result of these demonstrations, a sizable group within the RCC, led by Khaled Mohieddine, demanded that Naguib be released and returned to the Presidency and then hold free elections to select a new president and prime minister. Nasser was forced to agree and Naguib re-assumed the presidency. Nasser still appointed himself prime minister, however, and promoted Amer as Commander of the Armed Forces—a position formerly occupied by Naguib. Consequently, several high-ranking military officers resigned in protest of what they deemed was the politicization of the army by keeping it loyal to Nasser. Mohieddine was then informally exiled to Europe to represent the RCC abroad and a campaign was launched by Nasser’s sympathizers in the press, including Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, publicizing Naguib’s contact with the Wafd.

In July, the feud between the two leaders was rekindled when Nasser and the British Foreign Affairs Minister, Anthony Nutting, signed an agreement, in principle, that would give way for the British withdrawal from the Suez Canal, as well as grant Sudan the right to self-determination. Naguib was half-Sudanese and popular in that country; he thought that most members of the RCC and most Egyptians believed Sudan belonged to Egypt. Nasser was accused by many in Egypt, including the Brotherhood, of distracting the issue of Sudan with the withdrawal from Suez, but the Sudanese voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence. The issue was settled in Nasser’s favor when the new Sudanese government opted for total "brotherly" relations with Egypt. King Saud of Saudi Arabia attempted to mend relations between Nasser and Naguib, but to no avail. In general, Nasser’s position was stronger due to the absence of Mohieddine and the Sudanese officers, the growth of the Liberation Rally, and because most of his original comrades in the RCC supported him and also favored Naguib’s removal.

Assuming the Presidency

On 26 October 1954, a Brotherhood member, Mohammed Abdel Latif, attempted to assassinate Nasser while he was delivering a speech in Alexandria, celebrating the British withdrawal. The speech was broadcast to the Arab world via radio. The gunman was 25 feet (7.6 m) away from him and fired eight shots, but all missed Nasser. Panic broke out in the mass audience, but Nasser maintained his posture and raised his voice to appeal for calm. With great emotion he exclaimed the following:

My countrymen, my blood spills for you and for Egypt. I will live for your sake and die for the sake of your freedom and honor. Let them kill me; it does not concern me so long as I have instilled pride, honor and freedom in you. If Gamal Abdel Nasser should die, each of you shall be Gamal Abdel Nasser … Gamal Abdel Nasser is of you and from you and he is willing to sacrifice his life for the nation.^[54]

The crowd roared in approval and Arab audiences were electrified. The assassination attempt backfired, quickly playing into Nasser’s hands. Upon returning to Cairo, he ordered one of the largest political crackdowns in the history of Egypt, with the arrests of over 20,000 people, mostly members of the Brotherhood, but also Communists, Wafd activists, and sympathizers of these groups within the military leadership. Nasser chose Gamal Salem, a loyal officer, to head the military tribunal. Eight Brotherhood leaders were sentenced to death, although the sentence of its chief ideologue, Sayyed Qutb, was commuted. President Naguib was removed from the presidency and put under house arrest, but was never tried or sentenced, and no one in the army rose to defend him. The crackdown continued well into 1955. The Brotherhood was dissolved and most of its leaders fled to other Arab countries. With his rivals neutralized, Nasser became the undisputed leader of Egypt.

Nasser’s street following was still too small to sustain his plans on reform and secure him in office. To promote himself and the Liberation Rally, he toured the country giving speeches and gained exclusive control of the state media organs. Both Umm Kulthum and Abdel Halim Hafez, the leading Arab singers of the time, made songs praising his nationalism and plays were produced denigrating his political opponents. According to his associates, Nasser orchestrated the campaign himself. Arab nationalist terms, such "Arab homeland" and "Arab nation" frequently began appearing in his speeches in 1954–55, whereas prior he would refer to the Arab "peoples" or the "Arab region." In January 1955, the RCC appointed him as president, pending an election to the office.

On 28 February 1955, Israeli troops attacked the Egyptian-held Gaza Strip. Although Israel declared the raid necessary to suppress Palestinian fedayeen raids, it was unanimously condemned by the UN Security Council. Nasser did not feel that Egypt was ready for a confrontation and did not retaliate. His inability to respond to Israeli military action constituted a blow to his growing popularity, since it demonstrated the weakness of his armed forces. Nasser felt if he was to maintain Egypt’s position as leader of the Arab world, he needed to acquire modern weapons to arm his military with. When it became apparent that Western countries would not supply Egypt under financial and military terms acceptable to it, Nasser turned to the Soviet bloc and concluded a satisfactory armaments agreement with Czechoslovakia in September 1955. Through the "Czech arms deal," he enhanced his position as an Arab leader defying the West. The Israelis also re-militarized the Awja Demilitarized Zone on the Egyptian border in September.

Prior to the arms deal, at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in April 1955, Nasser was treated as the leading representative of the Arab countries and emerged as one of the key figures of the conference and the newly-established Non-Aligned Movement. From then on, Nasser adopted the "positive neutralism" of Josip Broz Tito and Jawaharlal Nehru as his foreign policy regarding alliances with the Soviet Union and the West in relation to the Cold War.

In January 1956, the new Constitution of Egypt was drafted, entailing the establishment of a new single-party system, the National Union, which would select a nominee for the presidential election whose name would be provided for popular approval. Nasser’s nomination for the post was put to the public in referendum in June; it was approved by an overwhelming majority. Simultaneously with his election, the RCC dissolved itself and its members resigned their military commissions.

Please take time to further explore more about Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian
Revolution of 1952, Pan-Arabism, Muhammad Ali Dynasty, 1948 Arab–Israeli War,
Suez Crisis, and Six-Day War by accessing the Wikipedia articles referenced below. In
most cases, the text in the body of this post has been selectively excerpted
from the articles; footnotes and hyperlinks have been removed for readability…

References

Other Events on this Day:

In 1683…
William Penn signs a treaty of friendship with the Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.

In 1845…
The Congress of the Republic of Texas votes for annexation by the United States.

In 1868…
Christopher Latham Sholes of Milwaukee patents and invention he calls the “typewriter”.

In 1931…
Pilot Wiley Post and navigator Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field in New York aboard the single-engine aircraft Winnie Mae. Eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes later they will return, smashing the record for around-the-world flight. Two years later, Post will become the first pilot to fly solo around the world, accomplishing the feat in less than eight days.

In 1956…
Four years after toppling King Farouk in the Egyptian revolution, military leader Gamal Abdel Nasser is elected president of Egypt, an unsurprising result considering he is the only candidate.

In 1964…
Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments patents the the integrated circuit.

In 1996…
Sprinter Michael Johnson tries valiantly to break Pietro Mennea’s long-standing record in the 200 meter dash, besting the 19.72 seconds set by the Italian runner in 1979. Johnson turns in a blistering 19.70 seconds at the Olympic trials in Atlanta, yet because of the 6.04 mph winds at his back, Johnson’s time is not made official. Undeterred, Johnson will win the 200 meter Olympic final in an astounding 19.32 seconds on Aug. 1. The record will stand until 2008.