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NASSER'S BLESSED MOVEMENT STUDIES IN MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY Bernard Lewis, Itamar Rabinovich, and Roger Savory GENERAL EDITORS THE TURBAN FOR THE CROWN The Islamic Revolution in Iran Said Amir Arjomand LANGUAGE AND CHANGE IN THE ARAB MIDDLE EAST The Evolution of Modern Arabic Political Discourse Ami Ayalon IRAN'S FIRST REVOLUTION Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 Mangol Bayat ISLAMIC REFORM Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria David Dean Commins KING HUSSEIN AND THE CHALLENGE OF ARAB RADICALISM Jordan, 1955-1967 Uriel Dann EGYPT, ISLAM, AND THE ARABS The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930 Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski EAST ENCOUNTERS WEST France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century Fatma Miige Gogek NASSER'S BLESSED MOVEMENT Egypt's Free Officers and the July Revolution Joel Gordon THE FERTILE CRESCENT, 1800-1914 A Documentary Economic History Edited by Charles Issawi ESTRANGED BEDFELLOWS Britain and France in the Middle East during the Second World War Aviel 'Roshwald OTHER VOLUMES ARE IN PREPARATION NASSER'S BLESSED MOVEMENT Egypt's Free Officers and the July Revolution JOEL GORDON New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1992 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1992 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gordon, Joel. Nasser's Blessed Movement: Egypt's Free Officers and the July revolution / Joel Gordon, p. cm. — (Studies in Middle Eastern history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-506935-8 1. Egypt—Politics and government—1952 I. Title. II. Series: Studies in Middle Eastern history (New York, N.Y.) DT107.83.G67 1991 962—dc20 91-16836 CIP 246897531 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Acknowledgments I conceptualized this book as a study of the historical revisionism of a foundational revolutionary period in Egypt's national history. Anwar al- Sadat had dominated Arab politics throughout the period of my university education. In 1979 I saw his larger-than-life-sized portraits all over Cairo. When I returned in 1982, eight months after his death, most billboards had come down, some, but not nearly all, replaced by more sedate por- traits of Hosni Mubarak. Egypt seemed changed in many ways. I sensed something larger than one leader seeking to establish his own identity. Egyptians appeared to be looking backward as much as ahead, some to Nasser but many to figures and symbols of the prerevolutionary ancien regime. When I returned to Egypt to commence this study in 1984, I no sooner alighted in central Cairo than a picture of Muhammad Nagib jumped out at me from a curbside book display, with a title proclaiming "I was President of Egypt!" Closer examination revealed scores of books and magazine articles on the origins of the revolution by other participants, winners and losers. On building walls I saw posters of Nahhas Pasha; across from my apartment an old villa was being whitewashed and converted into Wafd headquarters. As I describe in the prologue, not one but a variety of revisions of Egypt's recent revolutionary past were being proffered—and debunked—simultaneously. This book originated as a doctoral dissertation in a not-too-distant past. My understanding of Egypt has been shaped in large part by my graduate mentor, Richard Mitchell. To Dick I brought my initial, confused impres- sions of what I had seen in 1982—1983. Old-regime Cairo enchanted me, and having grown up in Cook County, Illinois, I found the politics of the pashas familiar, so I thought to look at the fall of the parliamentary regime. Dick urged me to explore the early years of the revolution in detail. He had been in Egypt in the early 1950s and insisted the officers' consolidation looked, in retrospect, so crafted that the the possibilities, the hopes and fears, the spontaneity of the revolutionary moment had been forgotten. I set out to explore that spontaneity, and in so doing to analyze both the fall of an old order and rise of the new. Dick died in Cairo a year later; he did not live to read, question, or challenge my perspective on events that had so influenced vi Acknowledgments his own understanding of Egypt. But his formative influence, as on so many fellow students, remains indelible, and I hope he would approve. Many others, in many ways, deserve thanks for their assistance, criti- cism, and inspiration. The final interpretations are mine, as are most transla- tions and transliterations, but the stamp of others is present, and I think my work better for it. Very special thanks are due C. Ernest Dawn, who intro- duced me to Middle Eastern history as an undergraduate and has remained a constant supporter and friendly critic, and whose recognition of me as a colleague has meant the most to me. Wilfrid Rollman, who read this in roughest form and helped me find a few diamonds in it, taught me to "wait until the buckets are at eye level" and convinced me that the pashas were, after a fashion, ward bosses in fezzes. One line borrowed from Mayor Daley is for him. Juan Cole pushed me to ask broader questions, to look beyond specific time and place, beyond the level of politics and politicians. Nathan Brown and Robert Vitalis, my shilla in Dar al-Kutub, read this in its most primitive scratches, filled the margins with commentary and a few well pointed barbs, and rooted for me during early conference presentations. Charles C. Stewart, James Jankowski, Donald Reid, Marvin Weinbaum, Andrew Ehrenkreutz, and Bradford Perkins all asked tought questions, and lent expertise, encouragement, and advice at one step or another. Ralph Coury and Carl Petry made the old regime come alive. Paul Woodward shared in exploring the back alleys of the Gamaliya, the good and bad times of roughly a decade, and ceaselessly corrected myfusha. A Fulbright-Hays fellowship funded my research in Egypt and England. The American Research Center in Egypt helped facilitate that research and offered a base of operations. The Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies and Department of History at the University of Michigan funded preliminary research and writing. Gary Porton and Tadahisa Kuroda each did their utmost to encourage and enhance my writing when I held visiting teaching positions under their direction at the University of Illinois and Skidmore College. Staff members of Dar al-Kutub in Cairo, the Public Rec- ords Office in Kew Gardens, and the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and John Eilts, then Near Eastern librarian at the University of Michi- gan, and Elizabeth Barlow of the Near East Center deserve thanks for count- less instances of assistance. At Oxford University Press, Nancy Lane, Paul Schlotthauer, and David Roll have guided this to print with what seems to me remarkable ease. I am in great debt to the many informants who welcomed me into their homes and offices and who were willing to share with me some of their time, memories, and insights into Egypt's recent past. It is their thoughts and descriptions of events that allowed me to write with greater confidence about a period which they, not I, experienced. Several are no longer living, and I feel fortunate to have met and shared some time with them. No doubt some of my informants will disagree with at least some of my conclusions. I only ask their trust that I tried to listen to each with an open mind and weigh their words with care before writing any of my own. Acknowledgments vii I have also learned much from Egyptian scholars. During my stays in Egypt I attended a weekly seminar on modern Egyptian history at 'Ayn Shams University, and in one session, memorable at least to me, was able to present some of my ideas before Egypt's most eminent professors. I am grateful to them for encouraging a khawaga to study their history. Away from the strict bounds of academia: Thanks to 'Amm Salih for killing the rat, and to 'Amm Ibrahim for that most Egyptian gesture of hospitality: handing me a glass of water to drink on my departure, "'ashan tigi tani." Soon, God willing. I hope I can climb the pyramids at age seventy with the same zest as my cousin, Bernie Sevin. My parents, Aaron and Ellie Gordon, have been constant in their support, and model teachers. I have much to thank them for, not least the love of books and travel, a sense of compassion and humor, and learning to appreciate the muezzin's call at daybreak. I have been most fortunate to share a bit of the Middle East with my sister Becky, and with my brother David under the big top, a part of this country I otherwise would never have seen. JoAnn D'Alisera told me early on she was the best thing that ever hap- pened to me. I'm still not sure how she knew so soon. She has given me more than she'll ever know, or I can ever express. This book is for her.

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