Before These Memoirs - Part 15: Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj's Escape from Mezzeh Prison and the Doomed National Affairs Committee

Saturday the 5th

Ratib al-Husami and I met today with Foreign Minister al-Azhari at the Semiramis Hotel. Mr. al-Azhari, a man of great self-regard, had been one of the ministers of the Egyptian-Syrian-Yemeni union, representing the Syrian region alongside Mr. Ihsan al-Jabiri and Mr. Riyad al-Maidani.

He had returned to his own country after the secession.

But he accepted a government post the secessionists tempted him with, just as Mr. al-Maidani accepted a high post of his own. As for the veteran fighter Ihsan al-Jabiri, he chose instead to remain a "guest" of the Egyptian government, keeping his former rank and salary, though he would visit Syria to look after its interests there, always returning afterward to his own splendid apartment overlooking the Nile, on the Zamalek side. We discussed the question of union with Mr. al-Azhari, though he did not speak of his own trip or its failure.

He did say, however: "Frankly, I have no particular vision for any future union." He told us he had been appointed Foreign Minister without anyone consulting him beforehand, and that the appointment had come as a surprise to him while he was in Egypt, at the head of the Syrian delegation. He seized a reasonable opportunity and met with Mr. Ali Sabri, of the Presidential Affairs office, discussing with him what relations between the two countries might look like, and Ali Sabri told him:

What matters to Egypt now is that a national government be established in Syria, and he never once spoke of any "union" as such.

Al-Azhari added the following:

1. He believes Egypt no longer wants a union like the one before.

2. That the Syrian government would form a national committee of political and legal figures to study a "system of union" that might be acceptable to both Egypt and Syria, and that Ratib and I would be among its members. For some emotional reason we did not quite grasp, the minister added "that he would not accept being anyone's doormat, and that he would resign the moment he found the atmosphere no longer to his liking."

He did indeed do exactly that, and resigned, and al-Qudsi's government began collapsing from within, and from without as well.

Monday the 7th

Nihad al-Qasim visited me, and we discussed the committee the government claimed it was forming, concluding that it was "nothing but a way to buy time and throw dust in people's eyes."

The news reaching us of His Excellency the President was that he had lost his own balance, no longer knowing which way to turn, tossed about by currents from every side. His policy amounted to wanting to remain president at any price, while still wishing to preserve his own reputation as a sincere nationalist devoted to his Arabism, trying all the while to keep pace with every warring faction. What is beyond doubt is that he reckoned most carefully of all with Akram al-Hourani, who roamed the political scene at will, indifferent to president and government alike.

My friend Dr. Abdel Halim Suwaidan told me that he had been offered a place in al-Azma's ministry, and had declined, unwilling to sully his own reputation, because he had been sitting in al-Qudsi's own office, along with the President-designate for forming the ministry, Bashir al-Azma, and Rashad Barmada, "the linchpin of the government," as his fellow deputies used to call him. The President spoke, saying we could give the socialists five or six ministerial seats in the new ministry, but Barmada cut him off and said: my lord, when I went to Akram al-Hourani to discuss the political situation with him, he said he set your own resignation as his condition for taking part in the talks and in forming a new government. When I asked him whether this condition was meant to be conveyed to its subject, he said yes, but that you could delay conveying it until after his own release from detention.

Incidentally, Mr. Barmada assured us that no ministerial post whatsoever had been offered to Issam al-Attar, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (who held only three seats in the council), contrary to what he and his own associates had been putting about, that the post had been offered to him and he had refused it. Rashad added that the truth was the exact opposite, that it was al-Attar himself who had contacted him, saying: don't forget us.

Wednesday the 9th

Our conversation today, at Rashad Barmada's farm, was far more grounded in reality.

The man told us of himself and his own President al-Qudsi, that the two of them were "unionists." As for us, "the Five," we were Nasserists.

We assured him that, unlike others, we saw in Abdel Nasser's own person the outstanding qualifications that made him the natural candidate to lead the way toward any Arab union.

Besides, he was the President of Egypt, and it was not our place, under any circumstances, to demand his resignation as a condition before graciously discussing with his successor whether he would accept union with us.

We therefore consider the slogan "union without Abdel Nasser" both foolish and the expression of a criminally defeatist spirit.

Besides, Abdel Nasser is only a man, and every man will die.

And Abdel Nasser did die, some years later, for eternity belongs to God alone.

He asked our opinion of the current government, and we told him frankly that we did not consider it worthy of any unionist endeavor at all, since it held no real power over its own affairs. We suggested that he himself form the ministry instead. He asked, and which posts do you want? We told him: I would take the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ali Bouzo would take the Ministry of Interior, and Ratib al-Husami would take the Ministry of Propaganda and Information.

We showed him a project we had drawn up with our brothers for "a federal union with Egypt and the liberated Arab countries," and he was greatly pleased by it, asking our leave to show it to President al-Qudsi. We handed him the copy we had with us, noting that it was meant as a project for study, not something we held to as a final program, since it remained open to amendment.

Regrettably, one of Dr. al-Qudsi's own close confidants later told me that Mr. Barmada had never shown him our project at all, and we never understood the wisdom behind that.

In the evening, a messenger came to me from Dr. Bashir al-Azma, the lawyer Muwaffaq al-Mahayni, one of our own brothers in the Front and a cousin of Dr. al-Azma's, telling me that President al-Azma wished to meet with me privately.

I did not feel entirely at ease with this request, knowing what feelings toward union the doctor kept hidden within himself. But Mr. Barmada pressed me hard to keep the appointment, his view being that a politician must always remain a skilled negotiator and go-between, with no right to cling permanently to passivity. We agreed on the requested appointment.

Sunday the 13th

Cairo radio announced that Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj had reached them, having managed to escape from Mezzeh prison, where the secessionists had arrested him after finding him in hiding following the secessionist coup. Many different accounts circulated of his escape.

One held that it was the Syrian government itself that had facilitated his escape, reasoning that once outside the country, without followers or arms, he would become an ordinary individual of no consequence, whereas keeping him in prison would only make him a martyr for the cause.

Al-Sarraj had been Vice President of the Republic in the union's final period.

He resigned from government because the President had "clipped his wings," transferring him to Cairo, so that he was no longer "the ruler of Syria," then ordering his own officers transferred to Egypt as well, uprooting him entirely.

Al-Sarraj had many enemies, but he had known people well, in his days as Minister of Interior, known their leanings and their activities.

He wielded real power and inspired real dread, for the doors of the detention centers opened and closed by his own order.

I served alongside him in government, from the union's very first day until his own resignation, four days before the secession took place. There was neither warmth nor enmity between us, for the man disliked the People's Party, of which I was one of the founders, and he always kept to a certain silence, speaking only sparingly. Even his own rigid features never betrayed whatever feelings lay behind them. In fairness, I always found him polite and reserved, and when he spoke, he never looked directly at whoever he was speaking to.

When the 28 March 1962 coup took place and I was summoned to the General Staff headquarters, Major Hisham Abd Rabbo told me that day "that they" had contacted al-Sarraj and informed him they would release him within the next two days, "for lack of any evidence incriminating him." It seems they had been unable to form a court to try him, since, it appears, no officer was willing to sit on it.

Al-Sarraj broadcast a statement in which he said he could have escaped as early as 17 October, but had preferred to be referred to some court for trial, since he intended to reveal what he knew, which was certainly a great deal. Once he despaired of ever being tried, he decided to escape to Cairo, taking with him Sergeant Mansour al-Rawashdeh, who had been guarding his cell at Mezzeh prison.

I myself was once among the "residents" of Mezzeh prison, and I know that escape from it is close to impossible for any prisoner. Its walls are extremely high, topped with barbed wire, and it is divided into separate sections, separated by iron doors guarded by trusted, formidable guards. It is surrounded by ravines, itself fortified with barbed wire and floodlights, and guarded fiercely from the outside as well.

It is therefore all but certain that many people were involved in smuggling al-Sarraj out.

"The Red Sultan" still lives in Cairo to this day, along with a number of other unionists who were either barred from returning or chose of their own will to remain in Egypt.

I have learned that he has enjoyed real care and honor there, in the days of Abdel Nasser and under both his successors, Sadat and Mubarak. President Abdel Nasser had once offered me the chance to remain with him too, "keeping my own rank and salary," but I preferred to return home, and I believe I made the right choice.

What draws attention is Cairo radio's own focus on attacking Khalil al-Kallas (whom it calls "the Minister of Cigarette Lighters"), accusing him of theft and embezzlement, as well as its attacks on Abdel Ghani Qanout, whom it accuses of moral crimes. Delving into private life was never something we found acceptable by our own standards.

That said, I remain quite skeptical of what is attributed to Khalil al-Kallas regarding financial misconduct. I bear witness that we heard nothing of the kind during our own time serving alongside him, in the union's ministry and in earlier ministries alike.

Thursday, 10 May

Dr. Bashir al-Azma announced the members of the "National Affairs Committee," in a genuinely moving address he delivered on television, on the evening before the blessed Eid al-Adha. His speech included the following:

"On the night of Arafat, when the hearts of millions of Muslims and Arabs turn toward a single qibla, their word united upon the truth, on this blessed night, with the dawn of the feast so near, I call upon every good and enlightened force..."

He then read out the names of the committee's members.

These members were (in alphabetical order):

As'ad al-Kourani, As'ad Harun, Akram al-Hourani, Amin al-Nafouri, Jamal al-Atassi, Jamil Saliba, Khaled al-Azm, Ratib al-Husami, Rushdi al-Kikhya, Saadallah al-Marashli, Said al-Ghazzi, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, Abdel Karim al-Farhan al-Fayyad, AbdulWahab Homad, Issam al-Attar, Farhan al-Jundali, Muhammad al-Mubarak, Mansour al-Atrash, Michel Aflaq, Hani al-Sabai, Wahib al-Ghanem.

It was clear this was a committee doomed to failure from the start. Indeed, once we had read the names closely, we told ourselves: how clever whoever assembled this list must be. He had brought together fire and oil, factions that could never possibly agree on anything.

Among its members were three unionists (Nasserists): Ratib al-Husami, Dr. Jamal al-Atassi, and myself, and five "socialist Baathists" split into two camps impossible to reconcile: Akram al-Hourani alone on one side, and Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Bitar, Mansour al-Atrash, and Wahib al-Ghanem on the other, this leaving aside whether there might be yet another socialist among the committee's members I did not recognize (Abdel Karim al-Fayyad al-Farhan?). These men formed a bloc whose own unionist leanings differed sharply from Akram al-Hourani's, who considered Abdel Nasser an agent, a spy, and a conspirator with Israel and America, while his own "brothers" pressed eagerly toward Abdel Nasser, within the framework of "a carefully studied union."

Among the committee's members was Khaled al-Azm, who had supported the union, and when no post within it was entrusted to him, the sky had come crashing down on him. He later wrote three volumes of memoirs, devoting one of them entirely to the union and the secession, of which he became one of its greatest own figures, saying of President Abdel Nasser in it things not even the most zealous jurist ever said against wine itself.

I mentioned earlier that he once invited us to his house in Dummar, intending at the time to "take the lead" of the Nasserist movement, back when its own star was rising, but he thought better of it and chose instead the path of safety.

He then became one of the secession's own "notables."

The government also formed another committee, of twenty-five members, including our friend the lawyer Dr. Abdel Salam al-Tarmanini, to study "the foundations of party and political organization."

I sent a telegram to the head of the Council of Ministers on the 16th of that month, apologizing for declining to take part in this committee. Our brother Ratib did the same.

Mr. Rashad Barmada tried to dissuade me from declining, telling me he would be traveling to Aleppo for a few days, and that upon his return he would "let us in on some very serious matters." We found no real connection between this committee's work and these "very serious matters," and so we sent in our resignations regardless.

Of this committee, Khaled al-Azm wrote (Vol. 3, p. 405) as follows:

"...I read the names in Beirut, and decided to return to Damascus, where I met with many friends. The President of the Republic invited me to lunch at his residence, and we exchanged views on public affairs without his revealing to me the substance of his own opinion, though I sensed he wished the committee to draw up a union project to put before Egypt.

The President of the Republic also invited me to dinner at his residence, where, this time, Sabri al-Asali, Said al-Ghazzi, Bashir al-Azma, Akram al-Hourani, and Salah al-Bitar were also present. A heated argument broke out between us and Salah al-Bitar, especially between him and Akram al-Hourani and al-Ghazzi. I could not tell for certain whether al-Qudsi genuinely wished to reach a positive outcome, or whether he merely wanted to equivocate and buy time. Some committee members refused to take part in its work, and so the whole matter collapsed the very next day."

It is clear from what Khaled al-Azm himself wrote that the President of the Republic was never serious about forming this committee, a conviction we had already reached ourselves. He had confined his own contacts to a portion of its senior secessionist members, and never once contacted any of us, besides which, forming the committee from such mutually hostile elements was clearly meant to absorb popular anger, placing three "Nasserists" alongside eighteen others, most of whom held well-known positions against any rapprochement with Abdel Nasser's Egypt.

When I was asked why I had not waited a little longer before resigning, I said: what use is any formula or decision we might reach within this committee, even supposing we could reach one at all, so long as the real partner across the Mediterranean remains the one who will accept it, or refuse it? The simplest way to learn what he wants and does not want is to contact him directly. I told the person from the Republican Palace who asked me this: I am not Abdel Nasser's representative in Syria, nor his ambassador. I am a Syrian citizen, and if I am invited to take part in negotiations with Abdel Nasser, my own natural place will be across the table from him, on the Syrian delegation's side. And indeed, the committee died, unmourned by anyone.

With our own resignations, we denied "the procrastinators" the poor maneuver they had planned around us.