Anwar Sadat Remembered

ANWAR SADAT REMEMBERED Lucius D. Battle Lhe crowds, small by Arab funeral standards, have dispersed. The former presidents, the princes of various realms, the minor Arab potentates have all gone back to where they came from. Anwar Sadat is in his grave. But life goes on. The street vendors are back in business. Traffic is as heavy as ever. There are more troops in the streets. No one is sure what the outlook is for Egypt. There are disturbances here and there in the country and a general sense of uncertainty and foreboding pervades. Emotion in the Western world has run at high pitch, reminiscent of the global response to the death of John F. Kennedy. But the fever in Cairo has been lower in a world where tears and wailing by professional mourners can be cheaply bought. There was little evidence anywhere in the Middle East of sorrow , whether bought or not. But for all of us, those in Cairo and in the Middle East and those in the West, it will take a long time to understand the impact of the death of this major figure, this international symbol of peace and its pursuit. For those of us who knew him at various points in his life, it is interesting to consider the totality of the man. When did he become what he was and what motivated him? When was his greatness apparent? These are difficult questions . He was part of the original Free Officers that formed the Revolutionary Council. Revolution was his obsession for years before it became a reality. After Farouk's departure and before President Nasser's position was solidified, Sadat wrote and spoke out on issues and became a kind of front man for the revolution. His book, Revolt on the Nile (with a foreword by Nasser), pubLucius D. Battle is chairman of TheJohns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute. He served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 1964 to 1967. 41 42 SAIS REVIEW lished in 1957, was one of the few documents defining the revolution's goals, but it was soon forgotten and deserved to be. Few people saw Sadat's potential or recognized his own personal strength or courage or ambition. Gamal Abdel Nasser did. He was asked once by a close friend in the 1950s who would succeed him. He replied "Anwar Sadat" — a surprising answer. "Why do you think so?" asked the friend. "Because no one knows he wants it," replied Nasser. This very Middle Eastern remark gives evidence that Nasser, at least, thought Sadat was a good deal more canny and ambitious than many thought. Others appeared to be more likely successors, Zachariah Mohieddin for example, who looked like a choirboy but was, in fact, a ruthless chief policeman committed to little in terms of national goals or policies. Sadat's colleagues during that period tended to regard him as a lightweight. They laughed at the fact that he had been attending a movie with his family at the key moment of the revolution in 1952. Nasser tended to belittle him as he would probably have belittled any rival, acknowledged or not. Increasingly , Anwar Sadat withdrew to the background. There he remained when I went to Cairo in 1964 as United States ambassador. I met Anwar Sadat soon after my arrival, during a round of routine calls required of a "new envoy. It was a most superficial encounter. But as time went on I visited more regularly and we began to see each other socially—small dinners at his elegant house on the road to the Pyramids, and large dinners at the embassy for visiting Americans. Sadat was charming and delightful, a kind of Middle East Dean Acheson, an impressive and suave figure —not a purveyor of power. Nasser was firmly in charge. Sadat was loyal and supportive. If he had offered a challenge, he would have ended up in a very hot Siberia somewhere in the Sahara Desert. Sadat was then speaker of the National Assembly, a window-dressing body made up of representatives reflecting the great diversity of life in Egypt. There remained a few elegant old-regime types who still survived here and there. There were...