35. Telegram From the Embassy in Egypt to the Department of State1
1261. Shortly after my arrival I received word that Gamal Abdel Nasser would like to meet with me secretly at an early date and without regard to waiting my presentation of credentials. I met with him last night for a lengthy discussion in a private home. He was accompanied by Zakaria Mohieddin, Ali Sabri, and Major Touhami.
Entire evening devoted to discussion of Turk-Iraq pact and Egyptian line fully reported in messages prior to my arrival. I sensed an intense dislike for Nuri Said as a person that I had not previously taken into account in my attempt to assess present emotional situation.Nasser himself was more restrained than his colleagues and I got impression he was either tired of talking about problem or realized that RCC were out on a limb from which it would be hard to crawl back. He seemed at times to be aware that Egypt had suffered a defeat and made frequent references to “what is done is done and there is no point in assessing blame. Instead we should all think in terms of the future”.
I am unable at this early stage to understand fully the apparent depth of Egyptian feeling. There is no doubt in my mind that Nasser sincerely feels he was cast aside by US in favor of Nuri of Iraq. I believe he feels that he had presented a definite alternative to the West, although in our logic any plan he has spoken of in the past has been entirely nebulous. I believe he had conceived that his task [Page 79] was to bring all the Arab States as a bloc towards the West as quickly as Egyptian and Arab public opinion would permit. He conceived this task as being accomplished without any additional formal agreements, relying instead upon present arrangements of the US and British with the Arab world. This bloc would gain strength with our assistance and we would rely upon our trust in them as individuals to assure ourselves that they would be on our side in event of war. The injection of an actual new treaty arrangement of one Arab State with Turkey (i.e. West) he interprets as a great setback to his own plans of bringing into being a genuine pro-Western sentiment among the people.
I did not feel in this first meeting in the presence of his advisers that I should speak fully about what the United States can and cannot support as a practical matter in this area. In their present mood they probably would have interpreted my remarks as threats from the US. I did attempt to set the record clear as to what the US had and had not done and as to why, in our view, developments beginning with Pakistan in the northern area were beneficial. In the general line of my exposition I made certain they are under no illusions that we can support a unified Arab Army under present circumstances in the Middle East.
The meeting was in a friendly atmosphere and ended by Nassar saying he wished another talk “on the future” in 4 or 5 days. I suppose he chose this timing to allow Salah Salem return from the other Arab States prior to further conversations with me.2
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 123–Byroade,Henry A. Secret. Received at 7:51 p.m. Repeated to London.↩
- Major Salah Salem, Egyptian Minister for National Guidance, arrived in Damascus on February 26 to discuss an Egyptian proposal for a defense pact among those Arab States that opposed alliances with non-Arab powers. On March 2, the Syrian and Egyptian Governments signed a communiqué indicating that they had agreed to refrain from joining the Turkish-Iraqi pact or any other alliances, to establish a joint Arab defense and economic cooperation pact, and to advance these objectives with other Arab States. Salem then visited Jordan and Saudi Arabia seeking support for the accord. On March 6, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia released the communiqué, which subsequently became known as the ESS Pact. For text, see Noble Frankland (ed.),Documents on International Affairs, 1955, pp. 326–327.↩