Word: nasser
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There were times, during the eighteen years of our collaboration, when I could not understand [Nasser] or accept his actions; but the love I bore him never diminished. He, on the other hand, had been in the grip of "complexes" since childhood and was often motivated by them; and he, as well as many of his entourage, suffered as a result...
Sometimes we differed over one thing or another, and occasionally we had an estrangement that would go on for a couple of months or more. Sometimes it was caused by a difference of opinion, sometimes by the intrigues of his entourage, who had a remarkable influence on him. Nasser believed in "reports," and was by nature inclined to listen to gossip...
...nature at all to be on the defensive, whether against Nasser or anybody else. However long, our estrangement would end when he rang me up and asked where I had been all those days and why I hadn't got in touch. I usually answered that I thought he had been too busy and so didn't wish to take him away from his engagements, whereupon we would meet and carry on again as though nothing had happened...
...childhood was realized. It was this that made me live with Nasser for eighteen years without ever clashing with him. I was happy to work in any capacity simply because I looked for no personal gain, and never made any demands at all. Whether as a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, as secretary-general for the Islamic Congress, as editor-in-chief of al-Gomhouriya, or as Speaker of the National Assembly, I stood by [Nasser] alike in victory or defeat. And this was, perhaps, what made Nasser look around him seventeen years later to realize that there...
...Nasser died without ever experiencing joie de vivre. Anxiety gnawed continually at his heart, as he regarded everybody with suspicion, whatever a man's real position was. It was only natural, therefore, that Nasser should bequeath a legacy of suspicion and alertness. It wasn't easy for Nasser to have anybody for his friend, in the full sense of the term, because of his tendency to be wary, suspicious, extremely bitter, and highly strung. By this I do not mean, however, that Nasser lacked all sense of loyalty; on the contrary, I mean to point out his sharpness...