774.00/8–2052: Telegram
No. 1002
The Ambassador in Egypt (Caffery) to the
Department of State1
secret
Cairo, August 20, 1952—2
p.m.
406. At their invitation I dined last night with Naguib and nine of his principal officers.
- 1.
- They again emphasized their desire to be particularly friendly with US; they affirmed again they hope in due course to receive “help” from US. I again assured them of our sympathy, congratulated them on the order they are maintaining and fact there was no violence or bloodshed either at time of their coup or since; also on moderation they are demonstrating all along line. They avowed they firmly intend to continue a policy of maintaining law and order and to pursue their aims of raising standards of living, cleaning out corruption in govt as well as in polit parties, reorganizing army on an efficient basis with no extravagances.
- 2.
- We discussed agrarian reforms. On one hand they say in view of pertinent popular excitement among fellahin all over Egypt they must do something about this and do it immed. On other hand, they now realize that they can spoil the whole Egypt econ picture by going too far. In other words, literally you cannot give 17 or 18 million fellahin plots of land and produce anything worthwhile. They are somewhat embarrassed at having spoken too much on the subject publicly.
- 3.
- They realize that they were too quick in releasing too many Commies and have re-arrested lot of them.
- 4.
- As for Moslem Brotherhood Naguib admitted to me apart from others that there is some danger there because a number of officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers belong to Brotherhood. However, he believes he can keep it under control.
- 5.
- They will pursue their endeavors to weaken Wafd.
- 6.
- They are convinced that recent Kafr El Dawar incidents were inspired from outside, but have not laid hands on real instigators. The man they court-martialed was unquestionably guilty of leading rioters, but was tool of someone else. It has not yet been decided whether to hang him or to commute his sentence to life imprisonment. Naguib asked my opinion as to what he shld do, but I dodged that one.
- 7.
- Aside from Naguib these young men look all to be in their thirties-forties. I believe they are well intentioned, patriotic and filled with desire to do something for Egypt. On other hand, they are woefully ignorant of matters economic, financial, polit, and international. However, they seem anxious to learn and have learned a lot in last few weeks. Their respect for Aly Maher seems to be growing because they do realize they themselves cld not handle Govt and are inclined lean more and more on him. Of course, in a situation like this when so many military involved this happy relationship with Aly Maher cld be upset by some unfortunate accident or incident.
- 8.
- I purposely did not discuss ME defense matters last night as I shall be in position to do that more effectively when I know them better. As my recent reports have shown, some of military approach Evans practically every day and he will of course maintain his contacts.
- 9.
- From my conversation last night, much of which was alone with Naguib, I concluded that stories that Naguib is only a figure-head are untrue. He is not brilliant, but he has good common sense and some qualities of leadership.
Caffery
- Repeated to London as telegram 142 and unnumbered to Paris, Ankara, Rome, Moscow, the Arab capitals, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Tehran, Tripoli, and Tangier.↩