1918 – 1970
Egyptian politician
1. Introduction
Nasser was president of Egypt for 14 years from 1956 after staging a coup in 1952 and initially installing a figurehead leader. He was a dominant figure among Arab nationalists, becoming popular for achieving Egypt’s full independence from Britain, which also led to the independence of Sudan. He nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, the year after Anthony Eden succeeded Churchill as UK prime minister. In the 1960s, he served as Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement and Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity. His funeral procession was attended by five million people after he died of a heart attack, aged 52.
2. Stories
- Churchill’s long association with Egypt began 20 years before Nasser was born.
- The various shortcomings of King Farouk provided the opportunity for Nasser to take power.
- The Free Officers’ coup was encouraged by Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA officer and grandson of US president Theodore Roosevelt.
- As in India, Churchill was highly reluctant to relinquish British influence in Egypt.
- Nasser’s coup led to the loss of another part of the British Empire: Sudan.
- The Suez Crisis led to the resignation of Churchill’s successor Anthony Eden after under two years in office.
- Nasser’s 1969 heart attack was passed off as flu; Churchill’s 1953 stroke was covered up as exhaustion.
Churchill’s long association with Egypt began 20 years before Nasser was born.
Churchill’s first visit to Egypt was in 1898 when he joined the 21st Lancers cavalry unit at Abbasiya barracks in Cairo before proceeding to Sudan to participate with Kitchener’s forces in the Mahdist War. The next year he spent two weeks in Cairo en route from India to Britain, when he met Abbas II, Egypt’s ruler, nominally under Ottoman control although Egypt had been a de facto British protectorate since 1882.
Three years after Nasser’s birth in 1918, Churchill was back in Cairo as minister for the colonies for a major conference on the Middle East (see Al-Gaylani). By this time Egypt had declared independence from the Ottoman Empire and was in revolt against British protectorate status. During his visit, Churchill waved to a group of protestors, thinking that they were cheering him, and his train was stoned on a separate occasion. He visited the Sphinx and the Giza pyramids by camel with Lawrence of Arabia.
Egypt gained pseudo-independence in 1922 while Lloyd George was prime minister and Churchill was still minister for the colonies, but Britain retained extensive powers, including control of defence and foreign policies. The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 required the withdrawal of all but 10,000 British troops to protect the Suez Canal and committed Britain to defend Egypt in case of war.
Egypt remained nominally neutral during World War II but was an important base for British forces and intelligence staff. Nasser was a military instructor at the time. He had developed a nationalist, anti-British mindset at an early age, participating in protests as a teenager. He was also strongly against the Egyptian monarchy, which he and many others viewed as being corrupt and ineffective.
In around 1948, he joined a secret movement of anti-monarchist junior military officers that became known as the ‘Free Officers’. He was made chairman in 1949 and the movement grew quickly. In July 1952, they made their move, deposing King Farouk I and installing General Mohamed Naguib as president.
The various shortcomings of King Farouk provided the opportunity for Nasser to take power.
Farouk’s father, King Fuad I, died in 1936 when Farouk was 16. Farouk was a dashing figure and highly popular at first but soon began to indulge in conspicuous consumption, ignoring the huge disparity between his lifestyle and that of most of his people.
He threw bread balls at others in restaurants and burped to annoy people. He banned the colour red for all vehicles but his own. He is said to have pardoned a jailed thief to teach him pickpocketing skills which he used to remove Churchill’s watch from his waistcoat pocket at a dinner in 1942. He was a kleptomaniac and may have intended to keep Churchill’s watch but handed it over when the alarm was raised. Churchill was not amused. Farouk is also alleged to have stolen a ceremonial sword from the coffin of Reza Shah, the penultimate shah of Iran.*
He showed little interest in ruling and instead indulged in gambling, European shopping sprees, women and food, becoming severely overweight. He divorced his popular first wife after she produced three daughters rather than a male heir, and his lavish three-month honeymoon cruise after his second marriage also lost him much favour.
The humiliating loss of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (see Al-Husseini) was attributed by many army officers to Farouk’s incompetence and corruption. He exercised little authority which exacerbated the country’s instability, having 18 prime ministers in his 16-year reign.
Three days after the 1952 coup, he abdicated, boarded the royal yacht El Mahrousa with 204 hastily packed trunks and left Egypt. The belongings he left behind attracted much attention, including collections of diamonds, coins, Fabergé eggs, suits of armour, pornography, silk ties and many other items.
He spent the rest of his years based in Italy, indulging himself in restaurants and nightclubs. In March 1965, he collapsed in a restaurant in Rome, was rushed to hospital and died, aged 45. There was no autopsy, so suspicions that he was poisoned are unproven. Upon Farouk’s abdication, his six-month old son became King Fuad II. He left Egypt with his father and the monarchy was abolished a year later. The last king of Egypt now lives in Switzerland.
* Reza Shah was the father of Mohammed Reza, the last shah of Iran, who was Farouk’s brother-in-law: Mohammed Reza’s first wife was Farouk’s sister Princess Fawzia Fuad.
The Free Officers’ coup was encouraged by Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA officer and grandson of US president Theodore Roosevelt.
Kermit (‘Kim’) was one of the ‘Oyster Bay’ Roosevelts rather than the ‘Hyde Park’ branch to which Franklin D. Roosevelt belonged. During World War II, Kim served as a ‘cryptodiplomat’: part spy, part unofficial communication channel, liaising with King Farouk. After the war, as a CIA officer, he developed a plan to pressure Farouk into making reforms that could make the country more stable and help prevent it from coming under Soviet influence in the Cold War. The plan became informally known as Operation FF (for ‘Fat F****r’).
The reforms were not forthcoming and Roosevelt changed tack to encourage the Free Officers to overthrow Farouk, an approach approved by President Truman. After the new regime had been established, Roosevelt told Nasser that the USA would provide economic aid on the condition of Egypt being stable and western-oriented. The USA would supersede Britain as Egypt’s banker and military supporter. Nasser agreed, saying that one day there would be a monument to Roosevelt in Cairo.
Roosevelt had access to a CIA slush fund which made payments of a total of around US$12 million (equivalent to around US$115 million today) to secure the Free Officers’ sympathies. Nasser used some of the money to start construction of the Cairo Tower in 1954, the tallest building in Africa at the time; it still dominates the skyline today. It became known as el-wa’ef rusfel, meaning ‘Roosevelt’s erection’.
Another CIA figure providing support to Nasser was Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer in the band The Police, and Miles Copeland III, the band’s manager. His main contribution was to give advice on the establishment of the Mukhabarat (the General Intelligence Directorate), the Egyptian equivalent of the CIA. His sons learned about their father’s activities on publication of his memoir The Game of Nations in 1969, which later became a Waddingtons board game. In a 1986 interview, he said, ‘my complaint has been that the CIA isn’t overthrowing enough anti-American governments or assassinating enough anti-American leaders, but I guess I’m getting old’.1
As in India, Churchill was highly reluctant to relinquish British influence in Egypt.
After the coup, Churchill initially directed his ire at General Naguib, not realising that he was Nasser’s figurehead. Nasser did not believe that his own rank of lieutenant colonel and his age of 34 would command sufficient respect so he made 51-year old Naguib the nominal coup leader and installed 68-year old Aly Maher as prime minister for his fourth term. Within less than two and a half years, Naguib, Maher, the monarchy and opposition parties had all been dispatched, with Nasser in sole control.
Churchill and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden came under pressure from the new nationalist regime and the USA to withdraw British troops from the Suez Canal. Eden was ill for six months in 1953 and Churchill took control of Suez issues. He was concerned about Foreign Office ‘appeasement’ towards Egypt, saying that he did not realise that Munich was on the Nile. When the British ambassador to Egypt also fell ill, Churchill sent a trusted replacement, Robin Hankey, son of a Suez Canal Company director, with instructions to act like a ‘patient sulky pig’.2
Soon after arrival, Hankey began to doubt a confrontational approach. Meanwhile General Brian Robertson, another person whom Churchill trusted, advocated that the troops in Egypt were needed elsewhere.
Churchill also went out of action after his stroke in June 1953. Lord Salisbury assumed responsibility for Suez until Eden returned to work. By the time Churchill had recovered, a withdrawal plan had been established, leading to the Anglo–Egyptian Agreement signed in October 1954 which required the departure of all British troops within 20 months.
Although Churchill protested about the ongoing demise of the British Empire, he became convinced by the enormous cost savings of a Suez withdrawal, having realised that the USA would not support the status quo or an alternative multinational arrangement. He defended the departure against Conservative opposition. The last troops left in July 1956, on schedule, ending over 70 years of British occupation of the Suez Canal Zone.
Nasser’s coup led to the loss of another part of the British Empire: Sudan.
Sudan was conquered in stages by Ottoman Egypt from 1820 to 1874 but was then taken over in the 1880s by rebels known as Mahdists. Meanwhile Britain had acquired a major shareholding in the Suez Canal in 1875 which gave it significant political influence in Egypt. In 1882, Britain invaded Egypt during a period of instability, resulting in control over both Egypt and Sudan.
Egyptian and British forces initially tried to resist the Mahdist takeover in Sudan but Britain soon decided to withdraw. It sent General Gordon to supervise the evacuation but he and many others were killed in the Fall of Khartoum in 1885, with Gordon’s head being delivered to the Mahdist leader, Muhammad Ahmad.
The Mahdists attempted to expand their territory and Britain feared that this might prompt Italy or France to try and take control of Sudan during the colonial ‘scramble for Africa’. Lord Kitchener conducted a three-year military campaign to re-take it from the rebels, culminating in his successful Battle of Omdurman in 1898 in which Churchill took part in a cavalry charge (see Alexander Korda, who made a movie about it).
Although Sudan then became a joint Anglo-Egyptian condominium (shared territory), Britain ran it as a de facto British colony, infuriating Egyptian nationalists. The 1952 Egypt coup brought about the possibility of reasserting Egyptian control over Sudan, but this would have been too much of a financial and political burden for the new regime.
Sudan was riven by two main political factions: for and against unity with Egypt. A sponsor of the latter was Mahdist Muhammad Ahmad’s son, Abd al-Rahman, who met Churchill in Downing Street in 1952. There were also two regional factions: the predominantly Arab/Muslim north and predominantly Nilotic/non-Muslim south.*
Despite Churchill’s imperial inclinations, the complexities and financial costs of governing Sudan were overwhelming. He and Egyptian authorities approved a path towards Sudanese self-determination in February 1953. On 1 January 1956 Sudan became an independent country.
Muhammad Ahmad’s great-grandson, Sadiq el Mahdi, met Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street in 1986, shortly after becoming Sudanese prime minister for the second time. She read a quote from Churchill’s book The River War (1899), describing similarities between Muhammad Ahmad and General Gordon, and commented that ‘both sought the best for Sudan’.3
* The Sudanese regional division had been institutionalised by British policies until the 1947 Juba Conference when north and south were merged.
The Suez Crisis led to the resignation of Churchill’s successor Anthony Eden after under two years in office.
Despite US, UK and French efforts to keep Egypt in the Western fold, Nasser began developing relationships with Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, including an arms deal. In protest, the US and UK cancelled their commitment to finance the building of the Aswan Dam, whereupon Nasser announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company, saying that canal revenues would pay for the dam within five years. He closed the canal to Israeli shipping and blocked the Straits of Tiran, Israel’s alternative southern shipping route.
At the time, the canal was owned 50% by French investors, 44% by the British government and the balance by miscellaneous shareholders. French-Egyptian relations were already tense as Nasser supported the nationalist movement in Algeria. Tensions were even higher with Israel with numerous cross-border raids.
A three-way plan was hatched whereby Israel would attack Egypt after which France and Britain would occupy the Canal Zone under the guise of restoring peace. Israel invaded on 29 October 1956 and France and Britain followed on 5 November after a bombing campaign.
Churchill had a stroke shortly before the invasion but recovered sufficiently to make a public statement on 5 November supporting the government and expressing confidence that ‘our American friends will come to realize that, not for the first time, we have acted independently for the common good’.4
The USA, however, under Eisenhower, objected to military intervention and protested at the United Nations. It also opposed an IMF loan to Britain and threatened to sell British bonds. Within two days of invasion, a ceasefire was declared and Anglo-French troops were soon withdrawn. Operation Musketeer Revise was on the verge of being a military success but turned into a major political failure and Eden resigned in January 1957. Nasser’s popularity in the Middle East soared.
Despite Churchill’s public statement, he had severe doubts about Eden’s course of action. His private secretary Jock Colville asked him later, ‘If you had been Prime Minister would you have done this?’ Churchill replied, ‘I would never have dared, and if I had dared, I would never have dared stop’.5
Nasser’s 1969 heart attack was passed off as flu; Churchill’s 1953 stroke was covered up as exhaustion.
It is not uncommon for the health problems of major leaders to be downplayed but Churchill’s nearly life-ending stroke was kept remarkably under wraps for a year (see Camrose). Nasser’s heart attack was not as debilitating but he was out of the public eye for six weeks and even pretended to his wife that he had flu. He told her the truth after he had recovered, although she had known it soon after the event when equipment arrived for a lift to be installed in their house (fortunately Churchill already had a lift at his home in Kent – a gift from Lord Beaverbrook).
The heart attack was the result of a combination of Nasser’s health issues. He was diagnosed with diabetes in the 1960s and smoked dozens of cigarettes a day. He had arteriosclerosis (narrowing and hardening of the arteries), high blood pressure and heart disease. He worked eighteen hours each day and hardly ever took time off. His only significant hobby was reading history, geopolitics and war books.
His connections with the Soviet Union helped to mitigate some of his health problems, including spending time in the Soviet astronauts’ oxygen room during a three-week visit to Moscow for medical treatment in 1970. Two years earlier he had been hospitalised in Moscow with acute leg pain from his arteriosclerosis.
He had three heart attacks in total, the first being in 1966. The third in 1970 brought about his death, aged 52. His three-hour, six mile (10 km) funeral procession in Cairo was attended by over five million people. Like Churchill, his coffin was draped in the national flag and was transported on a gun carriage. All Arab country leaders attended except King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, whose pan-Islamist views conflicted with Nasser’s pan-Arab ambitions. Britain was represented by Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Depending on particular traditions, some Muslim women do not attend their husband’s funeral; Nasser’s wife Tahia was not directly present but she observed the procession from a distance.
Nasser’s death almost brought about the demise of his successor, interim president Anwar Sadat, who suffered a minor heart attack during the funeral, as did former Prime Minister Ali Sabri. Libya’s Muammar Gaddaffi is said to have fainted twice during proceedings.
3. Biographical summary
| Occupation | Army officer, country leader |
| Nationality | Egyptian |
| Career | Nationalist activist as a student (1935). Second lieutenant in army, rising to lieutenant-colonel (1938-52). Head of Free Officers (1950-52). Instigated coup (1952). Deputy Prime Minister (1953-54). Minister of the Interior (1953-54). Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (1954-56). Prime Minister (1954 for 12 days, 1954-62, 1967-70). President (1956-70). Nationalised the Suez Canal (1956). Wars with Israel (1956, 1967). Co-founded United Arab Republic with Syria (1958; Syria seceded in 1961). Secretary General, Non-Aligned Movement (1964-70). Chairman, Organisation of African Unity (1964-65). |
| Born | 1918 in Alexandria, Egypt (44 years younger than Churchill) |
| Father | Abdel Nasser Hussein (b.1888), post office manager; his first wife was Fahima; his second was Enayat Sakr |
| Mother | Fahima Hamad (d.1926); died in childbirth when Nasser was eight |
| Siblings | Eldest of four sons: 1. Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (1918-1970) 2. Izz al-Arab (‘glory of the Arabs’) 3. Al-Leithi 4. Shawki (b.1926) Six half-siblings from father’s second marriage: Moustafa, Hussein, Rafik, Adel, Tarek, Aida |
| Education | Ras el-Tin secondary school, Alexandria; al-Nahda al-Masria secondary school, Cairo; law college (incomplete); Royal Military Academy, Cairo |
| Spouse | Tahia Kazem (1920-92), m. 1956 until Nasser’s death; Iranian father, Egyptian mother |
| Relationships | |
| Children | Five: two daughters and three sons: 1. Huda (daughter) 2. Mona (daughter) 3. Khaled (1949-2011) (son), activist, engineering professor; his 1988 death sentence for association with Egypt’s Revolution group was not implemented 4. Abdel Hamid (son) 5. Abdel Hakim (son) |
| Died | 1970 (aged 52) in Cairo, Egypt; heart attack |
| Buried | Abdel Nasser Mosque, Cairo, Egypt |
| Nickname | Tiger (bravery); Fox (cunning); Father of the Poor |
| Height | 6’0” (1.83 m) |
| Time magazine | Front cover six times: 1955, 1956, 1958, 1963, 1969, 1970 |
4. See also
Middle East nationalists
- Al-Gaylani, Rashid Ali (Iraq)
- Al-Husseini, Amin (Palestine)
- Mossadegh, Mohammad (Iran)
Other connections
- Camrose, Lord (William Berry) (cover-up of Churchill’s 1953 stroke)
- Eden, Anthony
- Korda, Alexander (director of movie about Battle of Omdurman)
- Shah, Reza (father of King Farouk’s brother-in-law)
Dictators’ hobbies, habits and tastes
- Hitler, Adolf (Germany)
- Mao, Zedong (China)
- Mussolini, Benito (Italy)
- Stalin, Joseph (Soviet Union)
Churchill controversies
- Imperialism
- Lifestyle and health
5. Further reading
Nasser
- Alexander, Anne, Nasser (Haus Publishing, 2005)
- Nasser, Tahir Gamal Abdel, Nasser: My Husband, trans. by Shereen Mosaad (American University in Cairo Press, 2013)
Egypt
- Flower, Raymond, Napoleon to Nasser: The Story of Modern Egypt (Garrett County Press, 2011)
Egypt, Britain and the USA
- McNamara, Robert, Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East, 1952-1977: From the Eygptian Revolution to the Six Day War (Taylor & Francis, 2004)
- Wilford, Hugh, America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East (Basic Books, 2013)
Nasser and the Arab world
- Aburish, Said K., Nasser: The Last Arab (St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2013)
- Dawisha, Adeed, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton University Press, 2003)
- Dockter, Warren, Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East (Bloomsbury, 2015)
- Friedman, Isaiah, British Miscalculations: The Rise of Muslim Nationalism, 1918-1925 (Transaction Publishers, 2012)
- Gerges, Fawaz A., Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2019)
Miscellaneous
- Stadiem, William, Too Rich: The High Life and Tragic Death of King Farouk (Parkway Publishing, 2009)
- Turner, Barry, Suez 1956: The Inside Story of the First Oil War (Hachette UK, 2012)
6. References
1. Robert Eringer, ‘Ex-CIA Officer Miles Copeland: Secret Agent Man’, Rolling Stone, 1986.
2. Robert Blake and Wm Roger Louis, Churchill (Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 479.
3. Margaret Thatcher, ‘Speech at Lunch for Sudanese Prime Minister (Sadiq El Mahdi)’, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, 1986.
4. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 8: Never Despair, 1945–1965 (Random House, 1988), p. 1221.
5. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries: Volume Two: 1941-April 1955 (Sceptre, 1987), p. 392.. Deutsch, 1957), p. 330.