Gamal Abdel Nasser

Prime minister (1952-1954) and president (1954-1970) of Egypt

• Born: January 15, 1918
• Birthplace: Alexandria, Egypt
• Died: September 28, 1970
• Place of death: Cairo, Egypt

Nasser was a member of the Free Officers Society, which came to power in Egypt in 1952 via a military coup. Subsequently prime minister and president of Egypt, Nasser was a major player in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Early Life

Gamal Abdel Nasser (guh-MAHL AHB-eh NAH-sehr) was the first of four sons born to Abdel Nasser Hussein, a member of a fairly well-to-do family from the village of Beni Murr near Assyut, who had been educated in a Western primary school in Assyut and eventually became district postmaster in Alexandria. Little is known about Nasser’s mother except that she was the daughter of a local contractor and died young. His father remarried, and consequently Nasser was reared for a good part of his life by an uncle in Beni Murr. He attended nine different schools, most in Cairo, spent a term at the University of Cairo (1936) in the law curriculum and then was accepted into the military academy after a first-time rejection. He was graduated at age twenty. During his high school years, he took part in many demonstrations and was wounded by a bullet at age seventeen. He was also known to like American motion pictures. Politically, he was an admirer of Napoleon I and Atatürk and possessed an extreme dislike of the British army, whose presence in Egypt he never accepted. He married a woman who was from a Persian-Egyptian family.

The students at the military academy during the 1930’s found themselves involved in intense discussions about Egypt’s problems and destiny. Grievances about poverty, imperialism, and the power of the landed aristocracy occupied much of their time. In fall, 1938, Nasser began to plan a revolutionary organization that, by 1942, had many cells across Egypt. Because of a heavy-handed British policy over Egypt during World War II, many of the military-revolutionaries favored Germany, although no serious plans for an alliance ever materialized. Close relations were also established with a religious fundamentalist group known as the Muslim Brotherhood. Eventually, the Egyptian and general Arab failures in preventing the partition of Palestine in 1947 and then being defeated by Israel in 1948 led to the formation of a larger Free Officers Society. In 1948, Nasser was a lieutenant colonel of infantry and was wounded during the First Palestine War.

Life’s Work

In 1950, General Muhammad Neguib, who was regarded as a military hero, was chosen by the young officers as their leader, largely to convey a sense of legitimacy to their organization. On July 23, 1952, after a period of restlessness and demonstrations in Cairo, eleven members of the Free Officers Society staged a bloodless coup against King Farouk I. A revolutionary executive committee was formed, later to be called the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). Neguib became prime minister, war minister, commander in chief, and RCC chair in September, 1952, and appeared to be the leading figure. Nasser, however, played a significant role as he represented the views of the younger and less affluent officers. Nasser was the recipient of three million dollars of clandestine support from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency before the July 23 coup, as he was viewed as pro-Western and democratic, yet this was not to be the case.

Nasser believed that democracy had to be established in Egyptian life, which, in particular, focused on social democracy, meaning the uprooting of class distinctions, wealth, and privilege. Nasser’s vision of the state also focused on suppressing “sensational” dissent. As a result, most of the press was censored and eventually nationalized in 1960.

During 1953, Nasser and Neguib found themselves in direct opposition over the future of Egypt. Nasser wanted revolutionary reforms, while Neguib stuck to a more reformist line. In January, 1953, Nasser was instrumental in forming the Liberation Rally, an organization designed to mobilize the masses and a forerunner of the Arab Socialist Union. Egypt was declared a republic on June 19, 1953. In February, 1954, Nasser’s and Neguib’s forces almost forced violence into the streets, but Nasser prevailed and Neguib resigned. Nasser became prime minister and imposed a series of laws restricting opposition to his regime. Political parties were banned and even groups that had supported the Free Officers Society, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, were broken up.

The RCC came more under Nasser’s domination as he began the process of creating an authoritarian-mobilizational regime that would feature frequent popular rallies and referenda to demonstrate popular support. Islam also came under the control of Nasser within Egypt, with religious leaders being reduced to mouthpieces for the government, while Pan-Islamism was preached as part of an anti-imperialist foreign policy.

In January, 1956, Nasser presented a new constitution that proclaimed the abolition of imperialism, feudalism, monopoly, and capitalist influence. Egyptians were given basic human rights, but the ban on political parties continued. Nasser and three RCC officers had the right to nominate members to the 350-seat National Assembly. The assembly had a useful life of only two years, until February, 1958, when it was suspended because of unification with Syria. Power actually centered on Nasser’s National Union, which provided the ideology for Egypt’s future.

In February, 1958, Syria and Egypt agreed to form a single country, called the United Arab Republic (UAR), of which Nasser was president. At first this was desired by the Syrian Baՙthists out of regard for the principles of Arab unity and the desire to see rapid economic development. Real unity, however, never materialized, as the Syrians came to object to the heavy-handed attempt to implement Nasser’s reforms in Syria. The UAR broke apart in September, 1961. Afterward, the power of the National Union was increased to include elements from various social groups, and its name was changed in 1962 to the Arab Socialist Union, representing a form of “one-party democracy,” modeled probably on Turkey before 1945. Nasser, however, was not an Eastern bloc-type socialist, as indicated by the dissolution of the two Communist parties of Egypt in 1965.

One of Nasser’s most significant reforms in theory was found in agriculture. In September, 1952, Nasser sponsored the land reform that confiscated land from estates of more than two hundred acres and distributed it to poor peasants. The shortage of arable land and Egypt’s increasing population since the start of the twentieth century made it difficult to provide land for all who needed it. Only one in five who needed land received it. The Nasser government continually reduced maximum acreages of individual ownership, from two hundred to one hundred acres in 1961 and down to fifty acres in 1969. These reforms, however, did destroy the material base for the two thousand wealthiest landlords in Egypt.

Nasser envisioned many big industrial projects for Egypt, which were to be largely state-directed, as extensive restrictions on private enterprise, even nationalization, was part of his economic policies (Egyptianization). The focal point of these projects was the plan for the Aswān High Dam, which was conceived as a symbol of the 1952 Revolution as well as a source of hydroelectric power for industry and land reclamation in agriculture.

Nasser’s anti-Western attitude foreclosed the possibility of Western aid for the dam’s construction. After nationalization of the Suez Canal in July, 1956, as a means to obtain capital for construction, and an invasion from Great Britain and France during the Suez War of October, 1956, the funding for the dam eventually came from the Soviet Union, which loaned Egypt $300 million for construction costs and supplied a corps of advisers. The artificial lake created by the construction of the dam was named for Nasser.

The anti-imperialist position adopted by Nasser lent itself naturally to support from the Soviet Union. Nasser, after seizing power, moved away from any pro-Western military agreement. On the other hand, he opposed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) policy of trying to contain Soviet expansion in the Middle East. He attended the first meeting of the Afro-Asian excolonial states meeting in Bandung, Indonesia, in April, 1955, which marked the beginning of the “nonaligned movement.” Nasser became acutely interested in Soviet support as he saw Soviet interests in Asia parallel his own: support of anti-imperialism, nonalignment, and developing-world independence.

In September, 1955, the first arms agreement between Egypt and Czechoslovakia was announced, with the latter acting as a surrogate for the Soviet Union. Before 1958, Nasser’s biggest ideological enemy in the Middle East was the Hashemite regime in Iraq, which was supported by the United States and was a member of the Baghdad Pact Organization. In July, 1958, King Faisal II and his government were overthrown in a pro-Nasser coup, and Iraq moved toward a revolutionary position. The Soviet Union became more interested in Egypt after 1960, when the Sino-Soviet split led Albania to close a Soviet naval base there. Major arms agreements were made during 1964, and Nasser visited Moscow in August, 1965.

The Palestine/Israel problem was one of Nasser’s obsessions. He indicated that “when the Palestine crisis loomed on the horizon, I was firmly convinced 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.” He viewed the issue of Palestine through the prism of colonialism. Israel had been successful, Nasser believed, only because it was a neocolonialist state. Through liberation of Palestine, however, Nasser saw the possibilities of uniting the Arab peoples and restoring some of the greatness of the medieval Arab past, when Arab civilization was dominant on a worldwide basis.

Nasser often deceived himself and was subject to hyperbole regarding the basis of the conflict and the results. After blockading the Strait of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping during 1955 in addition to nationalizing the Suez Canal, Egypt was invaded by Great Britain, France, and Israel. Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula, while France and England occupied the Suez Canal zone. Nasser’s interpretation of the defeat in Sinai during October, 1956, was that Egypt withdrew its forces before the actual fighting began. Nasser convinced himself that whatever success Israel achieved in 1956 was the result of air defenses provided by the French. Hence, by May, 1967, Nasser was willing to take new risks to defeat Israel, impelled by the belief that Israel was now alone.

On May 14, 1967, Nasser began moving his forces into the Sinai Peninsula and on May 16 demanded that United Nations Emergency Forces stationed in the Sinai and at Sharm el-Sheik be removed. U.N. secretary-general U Thant complied without debate, thus ushering in the crisis leading to the Six-Day War . Nasser was convinced that Israel was about to attack Syria. Nasser created a military alliance with Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, and prepared for war. A blockade was reintroduced at the Strait of Tiran. In his May, 1967, speeches, Nasser constantly raised the issue of the destruction of Israel: “The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.”

Israeli forces staged a preemptive strike against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan on the morning of June 5, 1967, destroying the combined air forces of the three states and defeating the Arab alliance in six days. Israel emerged occupying all of the Sinai, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, taken from Syria. Nasser, in response to this overwhelming defeat, resigned in a national radio broadcast on June 9. He blamed the Egyptian defeat on collusion between Israel and the United States. A massive outpouring of Egyptian public support, partially engineered by the Arab Socialist Union, made Nasser’s resignation short-lived, indicating that the resignation speech was not serious and merely a tactic for maintaining popular support.

In October, 1962, Nasser had introduced Egyptian troops into Yemen to support the Yemeni Arab Republic, an effort that had a destabilizing effect on the Arabian peninsula as well as inter-Arab politics. The campaign in Yemen was very costly for Egypt, as one-third of the Egyptian army eventually became engaged in the conflict. Nasser used Yemen as a training ground of sorts for his troops. After his defeat in the Six-Day War, Nasser was forced, in September, 1967, to remove all Egyptian forces from Yemen.

The disengagement in Yemen allowed Nasser to step up his confrontation with Israel along the Suez Canal, which began again in the summer of 1968 and eventually matured into the War of Attrition . Nasser’s theory was to wear down Israel by manpower losses and perpetual mobilization. Egyptian losses were significant, however, as Israel staged aerial raids on Egyptian bases and cities, with the result being the virtual abandonment of Egyptian cities along the Suez Canal. During the course of these confrontations, Nasser consistently rejected plans for phased Israeli withdrawals. He insisted on his interpretation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories.

From the mid-1950’s until his death, Nasser was a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, although he held the Palestinian resistance movement in check until after his defeat in 1967. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was created under Egyptian auspices in 1964 but became independent of Egyptian control only after 1967. Late in 1967, Nasser took Yasir Arafat, PLO leader, with him to Moscow. During September, 1970, Nasser negotiated preliminary arrangements for the removal of Palestinian guerrillas from Jordan into Lebanon.

Nasser had sensitive health problems from the fall of 1969 until his death a year later. On September 11, 1969, he suffered a heart attack and was incapacitated thereafter. During his last year of life, he became increasingly cranky and mistrustful and refused to take advice from his staff. He appointed Anwar el-Sadat as vice president on September 20, and Sadat succeeded him as president. Nasser died after suffering a second heart attack, on September 28, 1970. He was survived by his wife and four children.

Significance

Gamal Abdel Nasser had an enigmatic political career. He had many political setbacks yet was durable as the president of Egypt. He seemed to defy the laws of political gravity, especially after defeats in 1956 and 1967 at the hands of Israel. He was known in the West for biting and belligerent rhetoric. Before his unexpected death, however, he was viewed as a likely candidate to make peace with Israel. Nasser was in such a position because of his legacy from the 1950’s, when Egyptians began to regard him as the savior of the Egyptian Revolution by his nationalization of the Suez Canal.

In the realm of foreign policy, Nasser has been criticized for having opened Egypt and the Middle East to the Soviets. The ultimate reason for this allowance may be linked to the failures of the American administration to understand developing world frustrations as embodied in Nasser. The involvement of the Soviet Union in Middle East politics, however, guaranteed Nasser and his successors that Israel could never absolutely “win” a Middle East war because of the threat of Soviet intervention.

Nasser reestablished the long-held Middle Eastern idea of Arab unity, epitomized in the union established between Syria and Egypt in 1958. This union, however, failed after three years. Nasser’s attempt to bring Yemen under his control also failed. He did establish links with Gaafar Nimeiry’s Sudan and Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya, both regarded as left-wing regimes of the late 1960’s.

Nasser left Egypt in poor financial condition, racked by losses connected with the Arab-Israeli wars. He succeeded, however, in several areas, including the building of schools and medical clinics around the country and making fresh water more readily available. His socialism was effectively ended in 1968, when the difficulties of war began to erode the Egyptian economy, and by the Sadat regime, which restored contacts with Western countries.

Bibliography

Baker, Raymond. Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution Under Nasser and Sadat. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. A useful institutional examination of Egypt’s difficulties under two regimes.

Dekmajian, R. Hrair. Egypt Under Nasir. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1971. A study of Nasser that examines issues such as myth in politics, charismatic leadership, and the theory of routinization of charisma within the Egyptian revolution.

Goldschmidt, Arthur, Jr. Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation-State. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1988. An important general work that embodies the latest historiography on the subject.

James, Laura M. Nasser at War: Arab Images of the Enemy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. An analysis of Nasser’s era and legacy, describing how he dominated the Arab nationalist movement from the Suez Canal crisis in 1956 until the Arabs’ defeat in the Six-Day War in 1967.

Jankowski, James. Nasser’s Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and the United Arab Republic. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001. Explains how Egypt became the dominant player in Arab nationalist politics, by focusing on the events from the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 through the dissolution of the United Arab Republic in 1961. Describes how Nasser during this period led Egypt in a nationalist direction.

Laqueur, Walter, and Barry Rubin, eds. The Israel-Arab Reader. New York: Pelican, 1984. This work contains significant speeches by Nasser related to the Arab-Israeli wars.

Mansfield, Peter. Nasser’s Egypt. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965. A straightforward account of Nasser’s policies through 1965.

Rubenstein, Alvin Z. Red Star on the Nile: The Soviet-Egyptian Influence Relationship Since the June War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977. A very useful, detailed study of Soviet-Egyptian relations, with particular emphasis on Nasser’s foreign policy.

Vatikiotis, P. J., ed. Egypt Since the Revolution. New York: Praeger, 1968. This work contains articles that deal with the economy, politics, and culture under Nasser. Although a bit dated, it is still useful as it represents a diversity of views.

Waterbury, John. The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. This is a technical analysis of the performance of the Egyptian economy, with useful evaluations of development projects.