Introduction 1. RG 469, USOM/Egypt/C Subj Files, 1955–56, Box 6, Brooks Mcclure to W
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Notes Introduction 1. RG 469, USOM/Egypt/C Subj Files, 1955–56, Box 6, Brooks McClure to W. H. Weathersby, “Obliteration of Point Four Insignia by Egypt,” 16 April 1956. 2. RG 469, USOM/Egypt/C Subj Files, Box 9, Charles Jackson to Adm. Harold Stevens, “ICA Emblems on GM Locomotives,” 29 August 1956. 3. For example, see Gail E. Meyer, Egypt and the United States: The Formative Years (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1980); William J. Burns, Economic Aid and American Policy Toward Egypt, 1955–1981 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985); Peter L. Hahn, The United States, Great Britain and Egypt, 1945–1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); Geoffrey Aronson, From Sideshow to Center Stage: U.S. Policy toward Egypt, 1946–56 (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1986); and Muhammad Abd el-Wahab Sayed-Ahmed, Nasser and American Foreign Policy, 1952–56 (London: LAAM, 1989). 4. For example, Ray Takeyh, The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The US, Britain and Nasser’s Egypt, 1953–1957 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). 5. Burns’s work explicitly studies how effective American aid was in shaping Egyptian behavior. 6. The obvious exceptions to this are cases in which the U.S. government was seeking to mislead the government of another country. Since the creation of the CIA, however, such actions have generally fallen to that agency and have thus far remained classified. 7. See Abdel Latif al-Baghdadi, Memoirs, pt. 1 (Cairo: al-Maktab al-Misri al- Hadith, 1977, Ar.), Anwar al-Sadat, My Son, This is Your Uncle Gamal: Memoirs of Anwar Sadat (Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1958, Ar.); Rashed Barawy, Economic Development in the United Arab Republic (Cairo: Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop, 1970); and Abdul Ra’uf Ahmad Amr, The History of Egyptian- American Relations, 1939–1957 (Cairo: al-Haya al-Misriya al-Ama lil-Kitab, 1991, Ar.). 8. See Raymond William Baker, Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979) and Kirk J. Beattie, 136 Egypt and American Foreign Assistance, 1952–1956 Egypt During the Nasser Years: Ideology, Politics and Civil Society (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994). 9. Miles Copeland, Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1969); Miles Copeland, The Game Player: Con- fessions of the CIA’s Original Political Operative (London: Aurum Press, 1989); and Wilbur Crane Eveland, Ropes of Sand: America’s Failure in the Middle East (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980). Chapter 1 1. Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, Egypt’s Liberal Experiment: 1922–1936 (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 206. On the epidemic, see Nancy Gallagher, Egypt’s Other Wars: Epidemics and the Politics of Public Health (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990). 2. Tariq al-Bishri, The Political Movement in Egypt, 1945–1952, 2nd Printing (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1983, Ar.) pp. 182–183. 3. Mohammed Neguib, Egypt’s Destiny (London: Victor Gollancz, 1955), p. 101. P. J. Vatikiotis estimates the destruction of 750 establishments but does not give a source. See P. J. Vatikiotis, History of Egypt from Muhammad Ali to Mubarak, 3d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 307. 4. Neguib, Egypt’s Destiny, p. 102. 5. More than a month after the coup, Newsweek reported that membership in the ruling junta “was variously estimated at nine, twelve and eighteen younger officers.” “Key to Middle East’s Future: What Happens Next in Egypt,” Newsweek, 25 August 1952, p. 32. 6. Mustafa Amin, “The Secret of the Free Officers,” Akhbar al-Yawm (Ar.), 12 October 1952. 7. In fact, Caffery was posted to Egypt because he was not ready to retire. His experience, steady hand, and influence within the State Department (Ache- son personally read his cables regularly) proved to be a great asset in the in- stability that arose after his arrival. Telephone interview with William Lakeland, 13 September 1994. 8. Khaled Mohieddin, who played a leading role in the coup, told an inter- viewer in 1980 that it was his understanding that a coup was checked in gen- eral with U.S. Air Force Attaché David Evans beforehand. Tarek Ismail and Rifa‘at Said, The Communist Movement in Egypt (Syracuse: Syracuse Univer- sity Press, 1993). 9. Telephone interview with William Lakeland, 13 September 1994. 10. Farouk left on his 420-foot, 4,561-ton yacht, the Mahroussa—“The Pro- tected”—that held a 164-man crew. Life, 24 November 1952, p. 94. 11. See, for example, Anwar al-Sadat, My Son, This Is Your Uncle Gamal (Cairo, Dar al-Hilal, 1958, Ar.), p. 109. 12. Neguib, Egypt’s Destiny, p. 118. 13. Lakeland interview. 14. “We have returned your land to you,” al-Tahrir (Ar.), 17 September 1952, p. 7. Notes 137 15. Per capita consumption of foodstuffs declined from 393 kg in 1929 to 345 kg in 1951–52. Abdel Razzaq Sidky, The Agricultural Policy in the New Era (Cairo: Government Press, 1953), p. 6. Consumption of nutritious staples at the time of the revolution were generally below pre-war levels. In partic- ular, consumption of cereals and meat were down almost 10 percent, while consumption of sugar, tea, and tobacco were all sharply up. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Archives, The Economic Devel- opment of Egypt (World Bank Report # A.S. 40-a), 25 August 1955, p. 47. 16. One author suggests that real national income was likely stable in the inter- war period and fell during World War II, combining with population growth to produce a sharp decline in per-capita incomes and standards of living. Another notes that “between 1913 and 1937, the general index of agricultural production increased by 8% only as compared with a 40% in- crease in population.” Charles Issawi, Egypt in Revolution: An Economic Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 32, and A. A. I. El- Gritly, “The Structure of Modern Industry in Egypt” (Cairo: Government Press, 1948), p. 575. 17. Wendell Cleland, The Population Problem in Egypt: A Study of Population Trends and Conditions in Modern Egypt (Lancaster, PA: Science Press Print- ing Co., 1936), pp. 34–35. 18. Economic Development of Egypt, p. 2 and American Embassy, “Agriculture in Egypt,” 19 July 1952, p. 6. 19. Sidky, The Agricultural Policy, p. 1. The Economic Development of Egypt, p. 4, estimated that agricultural goods represented 90 percent of exports. 20. Agriculture in Egypt, p. 6 and Economic Development of Egypt, p. 1. 21. Economic Development of Egypt, p. 18. El-Gritly suggests a similar point when he argues that Egypt should seek to become a regional exporter of sim- ple manufactured goods. El-Gritly, Structure of Modern Industry, p. 578. 22. National Bank of Egypt Economic Bulletin, vol. V (1952), p. 168. In the event, much of the capital freed by land reform went into urban construc- tion rather than into industrial development. 23. Such projects were carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and the extra- ministerial Permanent Council for the Development of National Produc- tion, and are described in chapter 3, below. 24. Ministry of Agriculture, “Estimates for Agricultural Features,” 1955. 25. Agriculture in Egypt, p. 11. It is worth remembering that before land reform, 95 percent of landowners were peasants owning less than 5 feddans of land, and fully 53 percent of landowners owned less than 1/2 feddan of land. At the same time, .08 percent of landowners owned something over 20 percent of the entire cultivated area of the country. Economic Development of Egypt, p. 5. 26. William Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945–1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 743. This is a characterization of the view of Sir John Troutbeck, who headed the British Middle East Office in Cairo. 138 Egypt and American Foreign Assistance, 1952–1956 27. Succinct accounts of the Middle East Command proposal can be found in John C. Campbell, Defense of the Middle East: Problems of American Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations [by] Harper & Brothers, 1960), pp. 40–46, and J. C. Hurewitz, Middle East Dilemmas: The Background of United States Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations [by] Harper & Brothers, 1953), pp. 92–97. 28. See, for example, “Key to Egypt: Farouk and the Pashas,” Newsweek, 31 March 1952, p. 33, which credits the king with “decision and courage... handling some of the wiliest politicians in the world—the pashas, the rich educated class which controls Egypt.” 29. Philip Toynbee, “Behind the Violence in Egypt,” New York Times Magazine, 4 November 1951, pp. 13+. Toynbee contrasted Egyptians with Iranians, writing “The Iranians are a proud and indrawn people with an instinctive mistrust of the West; the Egyptians are a humiliated, violently emotional people who wish to play a grandiose role in the Middle Eastern world.” 30. William H. Attwood, “The Problem King of Egypt: Farouk Is a Bewildered, Moody Monarch Who Vacilates between Self-Indulgence and a Sincere De- sire to Help His People,” Life, 10 April 1950, p. 102. 31. Ibid., p. 111. 32. Ibid., p. 116. 33. Ibid., p. 111. 34. Ibid., p. 116. 35. “Egypt for the Egyptians?” New Republic, 4 February 1952, p. 6. 36. See Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963) for a sub- stantially similar argument. Halpern worked in the State Department’s Bu- reau of Intelligence and Research on Middle Eastern affairs in the early 1950s. 37. See, for example, Alfred Lilienthal, “Revolt Along the Nile,” American Mer- cury, February 1952, p.