Word: nasserism
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...look more tense than he really is. An alert aide is always close by to pass him a fresh white handkerchief to dab his face. Perhaps because he has had a minor heart attack, Sadat does not work too hard. He still recalls that his predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was signing letters until 3 o'clock in the morning the day he died of a heart attack. "Sadat doesn't have the stamina to be a dictator like Nasser," says an aide who has worked closely with both...
...sons after Turkish officers. His mother was an illiterate Sudanese. He grew up hating the colonial British. When the upper-class Military Academy was opened up in 1936 to all Egyptians-a decision that changed the future of the country-Sadat was one of 52 boys picked. So were Nasser and six other Egyptians who later banded together to overthrow King Farouk. During World War II, Sadat, still passionately anti-British, collaborated with the Germans. On one occasion he urged his fellow officers to blow up the British embassy; the cooler Nasser restrained...
...Sadat, reinstated in the army and now a lieutenant colonel, joined in the Nasser-led coup that ousted Farouk; Sadat was chosen to announce the dramatic news to the nation. Nasser himself took power from General Mohammed Naguib two years later...
...During Nasser's stormy 16-year reign, Sadat was never taken too seriously. He was judged to be unambitious and even weak, a man who seemed to care more about smart clothes, his home and car, than Cabinet meetings and political responsibility. Colleagues nicknamed him "Nasser's poodle," and even Nasser himself would refer to Sadat as a "black donkey." Characteristically, Sadat the survivalist concealed his feelings and watched and learned. "If you showed ambition with Nasser," he says now, "that was the end." Nearly all of the original Revolutionary Command Council were eventually ousted from office...
That lightning move solidified Sadat's hold on the country and gave him the confidence to turn away from Nasser's sweeping pan-Arabism and to abandon his predecessor's repressive socialist state. Sadat later felt bold enough to tell colleagues that he felt Nasser had been a disaster for Egypt: the wars, the large Russian presence, the seizure of property, the elimination of the private sector, the concentration camps. In a public ceremony, with Sadat in attendance, the Interior Ministry's large collection of taped conversations was burned. The government began returning private property...