Word: nasser
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Disappointed Troopers. To the south of Israel, Nasser's soldiers were having considerably more trouble sticking to their guns. By Wednesday night, the third day of war, all Israel brimmed with the sense of victory. As Dayan's chief of staff, Major General Yitzhak Rabin, summed it up succinctly: "We have inflicted almost total destruction on the Egyptian army, delivered a crushing blow to the Jordanian army, captured most of the relevant parts of the Sinai Peninsula and the west bank of the Jordan, and we have destroyed almost totally the air forces of four countries." Eager young Israeli paratroopers...
...Cairo, but five others were grounded in Libya because Egypt had not given them clearance to enter Egyptian airspace. More than 100 truckloads of Algerian troops crossed southern Tunisia on the way to the Sinai front, which crumbled long before they arrived. Tunisian troops ready to move for Nasser were never asked for by Cairo...
...cannot hide from ourselves the fact that we have met with a grave setback in the last few days." With that uncharacteristic bit of understatement, Gamal Abdel Nasser began his accounting to Egypt and the Arab world in a radio and television address the day after his cease-fire with Israel. Nasser went on to assert that, of course, Israel alone could never have defeated the united legions of Arabia: the U.S. and Britain must have helped. And then his despairing and disbelieving followers heard Nasser announce his resignation from "every official post and every political role...
...adroit ploy by the most popular leader in the Arab world, an effort to turn ignominy into personal triumph -and it worked. Angry Algerian street mobs who had been shouting "Lynch Nasser!" suddenly changed their tune. Within 30 minutes Iraqi President Abdel Rahman Aref was on the phone to Cairo urging Nasser to reconsider. Lebanese President Charles Helou wept openly when he heard the news. From Baghdad to Beirut, Arab mobs swept into the streets to demonstrate for Nasser. Often the demonstrations took on an ugly anti-Americanism, as in Beirut, where rioters were so unimaginative as to set fire...
Bowing to the People. Cairo itself went half-mad. Sobbing men ran through the streets like children, wailing "Don't leave us, Abdel Nasser." Women flailed about screaming as if in mourning, scooping up dust and throwing it on their heads. By bus and train, camel and foot, peasants poured into Cairo, inveighing against the "U.S. imperialists" and pleading "Nasser, stay with us!" If, as some intelligence sources indicate, an incipient military coup was in the works against Nasser, the plotters got the message. So did everybody else. Mohieddin announced that he would refuse to take over. Nasser...