The Boss Takes a Hand

At the tag end of an 18-hour workday, General Mohammed Naguib, Egypt's reluctant strong man, and his eager-beaver officers gathered around a radio in Abbas-sia barracks. They tuned in to hear their hand-picked Premier, Aly Maher, report to the nation. When the Premier had finished, the officers were disappointed and mad. Why hadn't Aly spelled out his proposed social and economic reforms instead of merely saying that reforms were on the way? The Premier had been long on generalities, short on specifics. His only hard & fast promise was a pledge to lift press censorship. To a country tingling for change, this was hardly enough.

The officers set to work. Shortly after 2:30 that morning, Cairo editors got a statement, bearing Naguib's signature, that was as sharp and pointed as Aly's had been rambling and evasive. Naguib, speaking for the army, called for elections in February, measures to encourage industrialization, the breakup of large estates and distribution of land to the peasantry. He even rapped Aly's knuckles for taxing the poor man's tobacco.

The next morning, restless Cairo buzzed. Had the split come between the army and its chosen politician? Had Naguib now decided to abandon his nonpolitical "simple soldier" role and to rule in fact instead of by proxy? Emissaries from Egypt's most powerful party, the corrupt Wafd, rushed to Aly's side offering their support should he decide to stand up to the army. But though annoyed by Naguib's counter-proclamation, Aly snapped no and went into conference with the general who later announced that a special committee would synchronize army and government policies.

Naguib's undiplomatic show of strength accomplished its purpose. . Aly Maher's cabinet announced the details of the army's land-reform law, and proclaimed the law as its own.

The fertile Nile, cradle of a once-great civilization, is today one of the world's great slums. Desert covers 96% of Egypt, leaving less than six million acres of arable land, clinging in a narrow green strip to the winding Nile. There live 12 million hapless people, in the most densely populated rural area in the world. The wealthy one-tenth of one percent of Egypt's landowners hold almost 60% of the land. The army proposes to break up all estates of more than 200 acres, sell the surplus acreage to fellaheens with less than two acres apiece. This would create more than 350,000 new peasant landowners. The government would repay the landlords in 30 years; the newly landed peasants would have even longer to repay the government. Landlords could be jailed for five years for obstructing redistribution.

Naguib's plan was a bold one. He showed his hand elsewhere:

P: The government set up seven purge committees to probe every dark corner of Egyptian public life--from dealings in public lands to cotton-market manipulations and the Palestine arms scandal.

P: Naguib's soldiers put down a riotous strike of 6,000 textile workers near Alexandria, set up a special military court staffed with twelve prosecutors who worked all night taking evidence against 30 instigators and ringleaders. "The sentences,'' said General Naguib, "will be executed immediately and without mercy." Later, emerging from the headquarters mosque at Abbassia, Naguib faced his cheering soldiers and warned them: there are "still in the country elements who are actively working to frustrate our movement. We'll crush them--we'll shoot them if necessary."

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