A Yes for Aswan Dam

The mighty Nile, which brings the rains of equatorial Africa to the Mediterranean, has nurtured six millenniums of civilization in its valley and broad delta. But its trapped waters are not sufficient today to sustain the leaping population of modern Egypt. One of the most publicized projects of Premier Gamal Nasser's revolutionary government is the building of a vast water barrier at Aswan (where the Nile courses through the eastern Sahara), which will bring another 2,000,000 acres of Egypt into production, boost Egypt's power resources 10 billion kilowatt-hours. Estimated cost of Nasser's high dam: $1.5 billion.

Even in international financing that is a lot of money. When Nasser put his plan before the World Bank three years ago, President Eugene Black was cool. Nasser's military junta and the unstable condition of Egypt gave shareholders no guarantee that their investment would be protected. Said Black: "The Bank is a bank, not a handout business." While the World Bank hesitated, Nasser talked to the Russians, who are supplying him with arms from the Czech armament factories. The Russians offered to lend Egypt $300 million for 30 years at 2% interest, promised to complete the dam in six years instead of the 15 estimated by Western engineers. Nasser confided to U.S. officials that the prospect of having an army of Communist engineers in Egypt pleased him no more than it pleased the West. Still, the threat served him well. Last week in Cairo, Premier Nasser and World Bank President Black sat down to take another look at the Aswan dam project.

Nasser settled for roughly half the $600 million commitment he had once demanded. Black pressed for open bidding on the contract (to give U.S. firms a chance), to which Nasser agreed after reserving the right to reject any bid he wished, no matter how low. After all, Nasser suggested helpfully, the Russians might choose to underbid everyone else.

British and American diplomats, though glumly mindful of the political blackmail involved, are still convinced that the Aswan dam is a worthy project, and that it had better be built by the West.

The day after the Aswan communique was issued, Moscow Radio announced that the Soviet Union was granting Egypt "scientific and technical assistance for the creation of a nuclear physics laboratory in Cairo."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.