Sadat: The Man Behind the War

Six months ago, in a televised statement of aims and aspirations that took nearly three hours to deliver, President Anwar Sadat informed 35 million fellow Egyptians that "the stage of total confrontation" with Israel was soon to begin. To prepare for it, Sadat, 55, reshuffled his government and named himself Premier and Military Governor General in addition to President and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He visited front-line posts in uniform and was photographed peering through field glasses at Israeli fortifications. "We believe in our destiny," said Sadat. "We do not shrink from any sacrifice."

Far from being stirred by Sadat's ringing oratory most Egyptians were unmoved. After all, in the three years since Sadat assumed the presidency following the sudden death of Gamal Abdel Nasser, he had constantly called for war to avenge the crushing defeat that Egypt suffered in the Six-Day War. Sadat said that 1971 would be "the year of decision," but it ended indecisively. Last year the President again warned Egyptians to prepare themselves for "the inevitable battle." It did not come.

Among the sophisticated citizens of Cairo, this succession of calls to valor followed by a void led to a kind of black humor. One joke that circulated through the capital had Sadat ordering an attack and his commanders offering up an excuse for every day of the week. Saturday's excuse, ironically: it was scarcely proper to launch an attack against Israel on the Jewish sabbath.

Sadat himself did little to close this credibility gap. As a result, friends and enemies alike long ago decided that his calls for confrontation were insincere. For one thing, Egypt seemed to be pathetically ill-prepared for any battle, militarily or economically. The troops mobilized along the Suez Canal seemed to be in uniform as much to keep many of them out of civilian unemployment statistics as to harass Israel. Largely because of faulty distribution facilities, there were shortages of everything from cooking oil to the tomatoes that Egyptians love. Corruption was rampant, protests increased, and repression followed. When university students demonstrated in the spring to criticize their lack of job futures, they were hauled off to jail by tough riot police.

Sadat has been forced to shake a fist from time to time or seduce Egyptians with the heady vision of confrontation and victory because he lacks the personal magnetism with which his predecessor, Abdel Nasser, captured the Arab world. Sadat is basically an uncomplicated person who enjoys a sedate family life with wife Gehan and their children. He is a devout Moslem to the point that his forehead bears the mark caused by a lifetime of touching the head to floor to pray.

Recently, Sadat had seemed more interested in burnishing his diplomatic image than in destroying Israel. He managed to stall Libyan demands for merger with Egypt. He proposed the establishment of a Palestinian nation, which seemed to indicate that he was trying to separate Egypt's quarrel with Israel from Palestinian territorial demands that scarcely concerned Egypt. Only last week, in what seemed like the most conciliatory move of all, Cairo announced that the U.S.'s Bechtel Corp. had been chosen to construct a new $345 million pipeline between the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS) even though Cairo and Washington have not had any formal diplomatic relations since 1967.

Sadat backed up such actions with sizable steps toward Arab unity that had recently led to significant Arab diplomatic gains round the world. He arranged the return to grace in Arab circles of Jordan's King Hussein, who had been a pariah since he threw the Palestinian guerrillas out of his country three years ago. Sadat also established a new, more impressive alliance between the "confrontation" countries--Egypt, Syria and Jordan--and the oil sheikdoms, who until the energy crisis had been pretty well removed from the quarrel with Israel except for bankrolling it. The results of Sadat's diplomatic maneuvers were obvious, insofar as improving Egypt's relationships abroad were concerned. All the grace and favor evaporated last week with the first boom of cannon fire. For Anwar Sadat, having finally taken the ultimate step to war, a fateful decision awaits. Nasser had prestige enough to lose the battle and still keep his power. Barring miracles, Sadat does not.

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