Breaking with the British

For five days Egypt's cabinet debated a gesture of defiance to Britain. It could recall its ambassador--a relatively mild sort of formal protest; it could withdraw him--a more vigorous step; or it could break off relations, as the street mobs demanded. At this point, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who has the well-schooled diplomat's intuition in such matters, dispatched a conciliatory message to Cairo explaining why General Erskine had to bulldoze some Egyptian huts (TiME, Dec. 17) and offering compensation. U.S. Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, called in by the Egyptian Foreign Office for consultation, urged caution. So did King Farouk. The cabinet took the mildest possible course; it recalled Egypt's ambassador, left a charge d'affaires to carry on in London.

Even this was hard on the ambassador, Abdel Fattah Amr Pasha, a dapper man of 42, who has spent half his life in Britain, holds an Oxford law degree, and once captained a British squash rackets team. His favorite pastime is typically British: bird watching. When he called at the Foreign Office for a formal leavetaking, he and fellow Oxonian Anthony Eden spent an hour in friendly talk.

Amr Pasha's regrets were typical of invisible Anglo-Egyptian ties that have grown up in 70 years and that went unnoticed until strained. In another gesture to the streets, the Egyptian cabinet announced that it would seize and present to the people the exclusive Gezira Sporting Club, set in the heart of fashionable Cairo. Within hours, well-padded Egyptians were pounding desks in government offices. Gezira--a sprawling private park studded with racecourse, swimming pool, gardens, clubhouse--is no longer a British preserve, they pointed out: more than half its 5,000 members are Egyptian. And Egypt's rich are no more anxious than the British to let Egypt's downtrodden take over their playground.

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